[9] "The Lament of the Last Peach" had been written by her a year before when in Brooklyn, and her friend's brother had sent it to "The Knickerbocker," the popular Magazine of that day. Here it is:
LAMENT OF THE LAST PEACH.
In solemn silence here I live,
A lone, deserted peach;
So high that none but birds and winds
My quiet bough can reach.
And mournfully, and hopelessly,
I think upon the past;
Upon my dear departed friends,
And I, the last—the last.
My friends! oh, daily one by one
I've seen them drop away;
Unheeding all the tears and prayers
That vainly bade them stay.
And here I hang alone, alone—
While life is fleeing fast;
And sadly sigh that I am left
The last, the last, the last.
Farewell, then, thou my little world
My home upon the tree,
A sweet retreat, a quiet home
Thou mayst no longer be;
The willow trees stand weeping nigh,
The sky is overcast,
The autumn winds moan sadly by,
And say, the last—the last!
[10] "Dear Lizzy is in her little school. Her pupils love her dearly. She will have about thirty in the summer."—Letter of Mrs. Payson, March 28, 1839.
[11] Three years later Elizabeth thus referred to this period in the life of her friend:—"During the time in which she was seeking the Saviour with all her heart, I was much with her and had an opportunity to see every variety of feeling as she daily set the whole before me. The affection thus acquired is, I believe, never lost. If I live forever, I shall not lose the impressions which I then received—the deep anxiety I felt lest she should finally come short of salvation, and then the happiness of having her lost in contemplation of the character of Him whom she had so often declared it impossible to love."
[12] Old friends of her father also became much interested in her. Among them was Simon Greenleaf, the eminent writer on the law of evidence, and Judge Story's successor at Harvard. On removing to Cambridge, in 1833, he gave her with his autograph a little volume entitled, "Hours for Heaven; a small but choice selection of prayers, from eminent Divines of the Church of England," which long continued to be one of her books of devotion.
[13] See the touching memorial of her, "Light on the Dark River," prepared by her early friend, Mrs. Lawrence.