Viewing page 59 of 309

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

ANNA MARIA WELLS.

MISS FOSTER, now Mrs. Wells, was born about the year 1794, in Gloucester, Massachusetts; but was educated in Boston, and has lived there ever since. She is a highly accomplished woman; possesses a well-furnished mind, and as admirable a talent for drawing and music as for poetry. She was also, when young, no less distinguished for her exquisite beauty, than for her genius and accomplishments. Her poems were published in a volume in 1831, but are not so generally known as they deserve to be. The specimens we subjoin are delightful for their touching simplicity, purity of thought, and fervour of feeling. Mrs. Wells is a sister of Mrs. Frances S. Osgood; who, when a child, was her loved and loving pupil, as we gather from a verse in the folowing [following] sweet strain of pleasant but half-mournful memory.

MY CLOSET.

WITHIN my chamber's bounds it lay;
For years it was my haunt by day;
There half the summer night I'd stay,
With lingering pleasure.
I loved it chiefly that 't was mine;
There first my fancy learn'd to twine
Poetic flowers,— not quite divine,—
A hidden treasure.

It was the quietest of nooks;—
How well I can recall its looks!
One side just held my hoard of books,
A dear deposit;

(100)

ANNA MARIA WELLS. 101

One window, veil'd by curtains fair,
Gave entrance to the summer air;
Beside it stood my desk and chair:
My pretty closet.

When memory's harp had ceased to ring,
And vainly I essay'd the string,
There thought could oft its music bring,
With sweet revealing.
And there at lonely hour of night,
I used to watch the moonbeams bright,
Throwing their wreaths of silver light
Along the ceiling.

In summer, when the fields were green,
And bending boughs my window-screen,
Ah me! how happy I have been,
Free from intrusion;
While oft of flattery's pleasing snare,
And oft of hope's delusions fair,
Reflection taught me to beware,
In that seclusion.

There, with one friend, delightful flew
Hours of sweet converse not a few;
The snug retreat, 't would hold but two,
So narrow was it;
And yet a cozy place to sit,
And forward scarce avoided it;
My little closet.

It was the homestead of my mind;
For there its thoughts were first combined,
And elsewhere I shall never find
Just such another!

9*