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538         MARY L. LAWSON.

At morn you are a huntress fleet;
And cloistered from the heats of noon,
You seem at night a sister pale,
Low chanting to the halved moon.
By morn, and noon, and saintly night,
I imagine what I cannot see,
And give your elfin tones a soul,
             Wild Eolie!

         ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

          MARY L. LAWSON.

MISS MARY LOCKHART LAWSON is the author of many thoughtful and pleasing poems; and has been a frequent contributor to the Knick-erbocker and Graham's Magazine, for the last five or six years. Her father, Mr. Alexander Lawson, was a native of Scotland, a gentleman of expansive intellect, a warm lover of nature and of art, and most remarkable for his skill as an engraver in natural history. He lived many years in Philadelphia, the birth-place of his daughter, whose affectionate veneration for his memory is expressed with much sweet simplicity in the following verses.

            A DAUGHTER'S MEMORY
My father, by the simple stone
That marks thy grave I stand alone;
The birds with joyous love-notes sing
A welcome to the early springs;
The cloudless skies, the balmy air,
And soft young flowers, proclaim it fair,
But now their gladness can impart
No sense of beauty to thy heart.

MARY L. LAWSON.        539

Yet first I learnt from thee to trace
Each varying hue on nature's face,
Its teachings bade thy spirit move
My heart to deeper truth and love;
For varied lore, arranged, defined,
Was graven in thine active mind,
And every path thy footstep trod
Seem'd written with the name of God.

And well remembrance wakes for me
My ne'er-forgotten walks with thee;
How oft we paused with thoughtful eye,
To mark the changes of the sky;
Or idly linger'd, to inhale
The breathings of the summer gale,
On bird and tree and flower to look,
As pages in Creation's book.

Then questions of thy boyhood's day
Would lean thy musing soul away;
And, borne along by memory's tide,
Came visions of thy native Clyde,
The ripple of mountain rills,
The heather-scent from breezy hills,
Until thy glance would brightly beam
With interest in thy chosen theme.

I listen'd then with eager ear
The tales of other days to hear,
For oft thy voice would lead me back
From life's insipid daily track,
To wild romance and warfare rude,
That mingle in old Scotland's mood,
For thou didst know and paint them well,
And wandering fancy warm'd the spell.