Thee may I meet beneath some kindlier sky, In seraph beauty decked, yet sad—more bright To me, than when upon my mortal eye Thy fair form glanced, and filled me with delight, When thee I placed within my spirit’s shrine And turned on thee each thought, and loved thee as divine. * * * * * MALINA GRAY. BY ANN S. STEPHENS. “How is the warm and loving heart requited In this harsh world, where it awhile must dwell; Its best affections wronged, betrayed and slighted— Such is the doom of those who love too well. Better the weary dove should close its pinion, Fold up its golden wings, and be at peace, And early enter that serene dominion Where earthly cares and earthly sorrows cease” —L. E. L. Now if I did but possess the magic pencil of my friend Doughty—his glorious power of dashing off a landscape, with all the truthfulness of nature in the outline—fresh and verdant, with shadows rendered almost transparent from the light with which they are so beautifully blended—mellow with that soft hazy atmosphere which hangs forever about his waterfalls, and slumbers along the green slopes where they lie in the sunshine till the gazer becomes almost drowsy as he admires.—If I had but his pencil and his power, instead of this golden pen and the one drop of ink which stains its point, never was there a more lovely picture than I would paint for your especial gratification. I would throw upon the canvass my own birth-place, a quiet old-fashioned village of Connecticut, one of the greenest and most picturesque spots that human eye ever dwelt upon, or that human ingenuity ever contrived to destroy. But alas! Doughty’s genius can alone inspire his pencil, and a rude _pen sketch_ from memory is all the idea that I can give you of “our village.” Imagine for a moment that we are standing on a picturesque old bridge down in a valley, through which a river of some considerable magnitude is wending its way to a juncture with the Housatonic.