Earth’s beauty and glory delude as the shrine
    Or fount of real joy and of visions divine;
    But hope, as the eaglet that spurneth the sod,
    May soar above matter, to fasten on God,
    And freely adore all His spirit hath made,
    Where rapture and radiance and glory ne’er fade.

    Oh, give me the spot where affection may dwell
    In sacred communion with home’s magic spell! 
    Where flowers of feeling are fragrant and fair,
    And those we most love find a happiness rare;
    But clouds are a presage,—­they darken my lay: 
    This life is a shadow, and hastens away.

MARRIAGE AND PARENTAGE

In 1843 I was united to my first husband, Colonel George Washington Glover of Charleston, South Carolina, the ceremony taking place under the paternal roof in Tilton.

After parting with the dear home circle I went with him to the South; but he was spared to me for only one brief year.  He was in Wilmington, North Carolina, on business, when the yellow-fever raged in that city, and was suddenly attacked by this insidious disease, which in his case proved fatal.

My husband was a freemason, being a member in Saint Andrew’s Lodge, Number 10, and of Union Chapter, Number 3, of Royal Arch masons.  He was highly esteemed and sincerely lamented by a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose kindness and sympathy helped to support me in this terrible bereavement.  A month later I returned to New Hampshire, where, at the end of four months, my babe was born.

Colonel Glover’s tender devotion to his young bride was remarked by all observers.  With his parting breath he gave pathetic directions to his brother masons about accompanying her on her sad journey to the North.  Here it is but justice to record, they performed their obligations most faithfully.

After returning to the paternal roof I lost all my husband’s property, except what money I had brought with me; and remained with my parents until after my mother’s decease.

A few months before my father’s second marriage, to Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan, sister of Lieutenant-Governor George W. Patterson of New York, my little son, about four years of age, was sent away from me, and put under the care of our family nurse, who had married, and resided in the northern part of New Hampshire.  I had no training for self-support, and my home I regarded as very precious.  The night before my child was taken from me, I knelt by his side throughout the dark hours, hoping for a vision of relief from this trial.  The following lines are taken from my poem, “Mother’s Darling,” written after this separation:—­

    Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o’er the sea,
      Awoke new beauty in the surge’s roll! 
    Oh, life is dead, bereft of all, with thee,—­
      Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul.