Miss Sproat is known almost exclusively as a poet. All the prose that she has published, amounting at most to not more than three or four contributions to annuals and magazines, is so essentially poetical, that it seemed a matter of doubt, whether to include her name at all in the present volume. Whether prose or poetry, however, her writings are among the most original and the most beautiful that our current literature affords. The article “Love versus Cupid,” which appeared in the June number of Sartain, for 1849, is alone sufficient to stamp the author as a woman of high genius.
Miss Sproat is still very young. She is a native, and has always been a resident, of Philadelphia. The extract which follows, is from the Christian Keepsake for 1847. It is the first piece she ever published.
THE ENCHANTED LUTE.
Once, in the old days of the fairy dominion, two sisters sat beneath an ancient vine-entangled tree, which overhung an old stone fountain.
They were beautiful; but why should they hide their beauty in this lonely solitude?—yet not lonely, for Mira bore in her hand a marvellous talisman—an enchanted lute, whose lightest touch had power to waken the voices of a thousand unseen spirits, and reveal to mortal eye and ear the wonderful sealed mysteries of Nature. As yet, its power had never been challenged; but the sisters had been told, that if, at the dim solemn hour between the night and morning, they would venture to sit alone by the haunted fountain,
