Ten years of her girlhood, and then what a sin!
The bars were torn down, the world was let in
Or she was let out; like a wild mountain-rose
Transplanted and torn from the soil where it grows
To a stifling hot-bed. She was sent off to school,
To breathe, think, and act exactly by rule;
She had the credentials, six towels, a spoon,
A fork of pure metal dug from the moon,
And so could be numbered among the elect,
The few all so fortunate, “very select.”

The first year was spent in training her feet
A step for the parlor, a step for the street,
A step keeping time to waltz, dance, and march,
A step à religeuse, in coming from church.
No step toward the right, no stepping-stone laid
For the temple of truth, in grandeur arrayed.

First her heels, then her head: the bow for a friend,
The nod for acquaintanceship destined to end,
The bow of empressement, when favor would win,
The bow going out, the bow coming in.
No bowing to God, no kneeling in prayer

To Him who had made her young life his fond care.

The heels, and the head- and then the poor heart,
With its pure aspirations, was fashioned by art.
The gushing affections were thoroughly pruned -
Those wonderful harp-strings with new music tuned;
All pictures of memory hid from the light,
Love impulses murdered and buried from sight;
And so one by one they wore all away,

And carved out a statue from warm, breathing clay.

Six long, moulding years, and one finishing term,
That crushed from her heart the last child-like germ,
And then she went home: a triumph of art,
Accomplished, and dazzling, but minus a heart.

She could sing cavatinas with opera trill,
Make music to C, and screech higher still,
Burlesquing the skylark who warbles so high,
And turns silvery somersaults up in the sky.
She could dance the Cachuca and waltz the Sylphide,
Italian, French, Spanish could speak, write, and read,

Could paint and embroider, powder and crochet,
Review the last romance, rehearse the last play,
Match colors and ribbons with exquisite taste,
Tell false lace from real, and diamonds from paste.
She knew the full value of charms when well set,
The key-note of fashion and folly, and yet
Of all the rich teachings that fit us for life,
(To the favored, at best, with weariness rife,)

To that outward-bound heart no word had been given.
That flower of mortality, blooming for heaven,
Had not learned one lesson meet for the sky
Not taught how to live, nor taught how to die.

And thus she returned to her proud peerless home,
Where many a heart breathed a hearty welcome;
Established herself, in her beauty and pride,
With servants, and horses, and carriage to ride,
With sculpture and painting, and regal-piled rooms,
With jewels and velvets, and snow-waving plumes.
She passed in and out, courted and caressed;

She ne'er thought of blessing, just lived to be blessed;
She seemed like a butterfly gayly to roam;

To all of life's crosses and cares "Not at home."

"Not at home" to the sorrow that needed her aid;

Not at home" to the stricken, with blood-crosses weighed; "Not at home" to the poor, whose blessings would braid

Fresh stars for her crown in heaven inlaid,

Fresh notes for the harp that each god-child sweeps

In time to the music that leaps from his lips.

"Not at home" to her friends, save she thought it worth while

To curve a fresh dimple, or light a fresh smile;

"Not at home," "not at home," there's no flush on her cheek, No scar on her red lip at telling a lie;

For habit makes conscience both careless and weak,

And custom has sanctioned this unblushingly.

And many another than Belle Melanie

Is at home or not, as the case well may be,

To one that she may, or may not wish to see,
If well robed or ill robed, or en dishabille,
In close-curtained rooms whose walls cannot tell.

O maiden to whom all things pure are given,
Thou angelic earth-type of seraphs in heaven,

Why barter thy birthright, life's lease of bright hours,
In frittering and marring those godlike soul-powers?
Why turn from the truth, in its sunshine, away,

To worship an idol with feet made of clay

When, though thorns and roses are pressing our feet,
Each heart-beat is weaving its own winding-sheet?

Who would not far rather, in careless undress,
Perhaps all awry, and dishevelled tress,

Come forth to the light -- ay, brave the whole world —
Than to hear, when in ruins earth's fragments are hurled,
When red flame has wrapped the round earth like a scroll,
And lake, sea, and mountain together are rolled,

The accusing angel read sorrowingly:

"She has bartered her soul for a fashionable lie: Depart, nevermore with the blessed to roam;

I called, but no answer; ye were not at home."

30

A

CARRIE BELL SINCLAIR.

CHARLESTON journal calls Miss Sinclair "one of the sweetest muses that ever warbled the simple history of a nation's dead.” By her many patriotic poems she is best known, although she possesses the qualities requisite for a superior novel-writer.

Miss Sinclair has passed nearly all of her life in Georgia, which is her native State, having been born in Milledgeville, the capital of the State. Her father, the Rev. Elijah Sinclair, a Methodist minister, was a native of South Carolina, as was her mother, and had just entered upon his ministerial labors as a member of the Georgia Conference when Carrie was born. The Rev. Mr. Sinclair was of Scotch descent, his mother being a sister of Robert Fulton, the inventor of the first steamboat. He labored faithfully as a minister of the gospel until within a few years of his death, when failing health compelled him to leave the pulpit. At the time of his death, the Rev. Mr. Sinclair was teaching a school for young ladies in Georgetown, S. C. He left his widow and eight daughters- the eldest only married. Carrie Bell was a child at this time, and felt this great sorrow as only one who is possessed of a poetic temperament can feel. Some three years after the death of her father, a younger sister died, and his grave was opened that the child's dust might mingle with his. It was upon this occasion that Carrie Bell penned her first rhymes, telling her childish sorrow in song. Soon after, her mother removed to Augusta, and then she commenced her literary career, writing because she could not resist the spell that lingered around her, and not that she had any desire to venture upon the road to fame. Her first appearance in print was in a weekly literary paper published in Augusta, "The Georgia Gazette," under signature of "Clara."

In 1860, she published a volume of poems in Augusta, of which says a reviewer: "Here and there the poetical element glitters through like the sunlight between fresh green leaves, and shows that she possesses some of the elements necessary for success.

"If the mind with clear conceptions glow,

The willing words in just expression flow.'

If the débutante has not given us a tree capable of sheltering us beneath its branches, she has at least presented us with some modest flowers, which we may gracefully wear on our breasts."

Shortly after the publication of this volume, she went to Savannah to reside, and, although not entirely abandoning the field of letters, yet she felt that new duties claimed her attention, and she could not be content to tread only the flowery fields of poetry and romance while war waged its wild desolation around her; and she turned her attention to the wants of the soldiers, and, when she wielded the pen, it was that she might in some way aid in the cause of her bleeding country, or record the deeds of her brave heroes in song and story. Of one of Miss Sinclair's poems, "The Southern Girl's Homespun Dress," the following remarks were made in "Frank Moore's Anecdotes and Incidents of the War, North and South":

"The accompanying song was taken from a letter of a Southern girl to her lover in Lee's army, which letter was obtained from a mail captured in Sherman's march through Northern Alabama. The materials of which the dress alluded to is made are cotton and wool, and woven on the hand-loom, so commonly seen in the houses at the South. The scrap of a dress, enclosed in the letter as a sample, was of a gray color, with a stripe of crimson and green, quite pretty, and creditable to the lady who made it."

pen,

Since the close of the war, Miss Sinclair has been busy with the and has contributed to most of the leading journals of the South and many in the North and West. For over two years she has been a regular contributor to the "Boston Pilot," from which widely circulated journal many of her poems have been copied into English and Irish papers.

The kind welcome extended to Miss Sinclair's first volume of poems served not only to lay the foundation of a literary life, but it has been the stepping-stone to the success that has crowned her later efforts, for had the harsh sentence of the critic fallen upon her earlier productions, a naturally timid and sensitive nature would have shrunk from the ordeal of again facing the public.

A second volume from Miss Sinclair will shortly appear, entitled, "Heart Whispers; or, Echoes of Song." A journal, noticing the advent of this volume, thus alludes to the poems and the poet :

"Miss Sinclair's poems abound with vigor, pathos, and the current of genuine poetic sentiment, united with almost faultless versification, breathing