Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/198

194 irksome in this employment, she strengthened with an invincible patience, and was surprised at the degree of happiness that it imparted; while the consciousness of being useful to others, gave at times an almost celestial expression to her lovely countenance.

At this period of her life she evinced how eminently her nature was formed for friendship. The troubles of her friends she made her own; their praises seemed more than her own, for she took them into heart with warm gratulation, while those addressed to herself she scrutinized with a severe humility, which half rejected them as unjust. Constitutional diffidence protected her from forming promiscuous intimicies, while her exquisite sensibility, high integrity, and disinterested spirit, gave to the attachments she eventually formed an inviolable constancy.

It was during this happy season of her life, that she wrote the following, probably her most finished poem.

Stranger! beneath this stone, in silence sleeps What once had animation, reason, life; And while in vain the eye of friendship weeps, The bosom rests, unvexed by mortal strife.

No more the smiles of joy illume the face, Nor health's fair roses on the cheek shall bloom, Forever fled the gaiety and grace Of uprightly youth; they gleam not o'er the tomb.