CARRIE S. HIBBARD.
There is a beautiful tenderness in all the poems that I have seen from the pen of "Mabel St. Clair," which must already have endeared her to many hearts that have "loved and lost." For me, there is overmuch odor of graves and coffon-varnish in her verse ; she seems to have gathered nearly all her flowers from a place of tombs. But she has a genuine poetic feeling, and a rare felicity of expression, that counterbalance her funereal tendency, and her occasional want of art. The excellencies and faults of her poetry are too obvious for comment. She always seems to " look into her heart and write."
Miss Hibbard was born at Millefield, Athens county, Ohio, in 1833, and now resides at Spring Hill, Fulton county. Under the nom de plume, "Mabel St. Clair," she has contributed to the Ohio State Journal, Toledo Blade, and Athens Messenger.
Gaily sang out cousin Millie, one day,
As wildly we danced 'neath the broken-limbed russet tree,
Long years ago, one mid-summer, at play.
Down came the curls o'er her shoulders of snow.
Trip went her feet to her lip keeping music,
Now joyous and gushing, now plaintive and low.
I pushed back the curls from her sunny white brow;
And up from my heart came the words that I uttered,
"Why, Millie, you're almost a butterfly now."
Years that have burdened those shoulders with care;
Years that have hushed the glad song of that morning.
And wrung from those lips the deep wail of despair.
And look on the shadows that cloud her sweet brow.
My heart faintly echoes the song of that morning—
Ah! Millie, you'd be a sad butterfly now!
When from her brow the damp locks put away,
The beauty He'll give her in mansions of glory,
Shall not—like the butterfly's—be for a day.
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