WRITINGS AND LETTERS.
1868-1880.

Though Miss Larcom’s formal connection with school life ended when she left Norton, she continued to deliver occasional, and sometimes weekly, lectures at different schools, on topics illustrating English literature. In 1867, and at intervals for years after, at the Ipswich Academy, at Wheaton, at Dr. Gannett’s school, and at Bradford Academy, the students never forgot her addresses on “Criticism,” “Elizabethan Poetry,” “The Drama,” and “Sidney’s ‘Arcadia.’”

In spite of the fact that she received a fair salary from “Our Young Folks,” and added to her resources by teaching and by printing poems in the magazines, it was necessary for her to practice economy. With the intention of being careful in her expenditures, she took rooms in Boston, purchasing and cooking her own food. She alluded to the plan thus: “In my housekeeping plan, I am going to carry out a pet notion. People generally prefer indigestible food, I find; at least, I cannot often get what I can digest. So I am going to teach myself to make unleavened bread, and all sorts of coarse-grained eatables, and these, with figs and dates, and baked apples, and a little meat now and then, will keep me in clover.” Her friends, hearing of the way in which she “caricatured housekeeping,” sent her boxes full of good things. It was with the pleasure of a school girl receiving a Thanksgiving box, that she acknowledged the receipt of eggs, cranberries, apples, and “such exquisitely sweet butter.” She proved that with very little expense one can be happy, if the spirit is cheerful. This incident is an illustration of a lifetime of economical living.

The year 1868 was an important one to her, for in it her first volume of verse was printed. Influenced by the wishes of her friends for a keepsake, and feeling that, if she published, it would be a record of work done, and from it, as a mile-stone, she would be encouraged to do better verse-making in the future, she launched upon the literary market her book, entitled simply “Poems.” It contained many of the lyrics upon which her fame as a poet will always be based. “Hannah,” and “Skipper Ben,” and “Hilary” have a place in it. “Hand in Hand with Angels” keeps before one the thought of unseen spiritual presences. “A Year in Heaven” reminds one of the life beyond, while “At the Beautiful Gate” expresses the longing of the soul for greater truth:—

The sweet quietude of “The Chamber called Peace” surrounds the reader, for it merited Mr. Whittier’s remark that “it is really one of the sweetest poems of Christian consolation I have read.” The rich, full notes of “A Thanksgiving” are heard, as a human soul pours forth its earnest gratitude:—

About this poem, Rev. J. W. Chadwick said to her, “Your ‘Thanksgiving’ has become ritual in my church. If the people did not hear it every year, they would think the times were out of joint.”

Miss Ingelow wrote her that she liked best “A White Sunday,” with its hopeful lines, expressing “the earnest expectation of the creature:”—

The “Poems” were well received everywhere, and the reviewers were generally most complimentary. It was seen at once that a real poet, of true inspiration, had taken a permanent place in American literature. The musical modulations of the verse, with its tender lyrical quality, its local New England coloring, and its strong moral sentiment, soon gained her the affections of the people.

The name “Lucy Larcom” was now well known; but, curiously enough, it was not associated with her personality, for it was thought to be a fictitious name, with “Apt alliteration’s artful aid.” A habit common among certain authors of the day was to have such euphonious noms de plume as “Minnie Myrtle,” “Fanny Forrester,” “Grace Greenwood;” and it was natural that “Lucy Larcom” should be classed with them. She often had amusing encounters with strangers about her identity. On the cars one day, a woman changed her seat for one in front of Miss Larcom, and, turning round, put the question, “Are you really Lucy Larcom, the poet? Some one said you were.”

“Yes, that is my name.”

“Then it is not a made-up name? Well, we never thought it was real when we read your pieces; and we thought you were younger.”

“I am sorry to disappoint you.”

“Oh! You don’t disappoint me! I like the looks of you; only, people will have their ideas about poets.”

A gentleman who had just been introduced to her was discussing the subject of names. He asked the derivation of her name; she told him that it was originally “Lark-Holme,” the home of the larks; then he said, “Is there not some one who takes your name, and writes poetry, calling herself ‘Lucy Larcom’? I never read any of the stuff.”

In 1872, she did her first work of collaboration with Mr. Whittier. Conceiving the plan of printing a volume of poems dealing with the life of children, he secured her aid, and “Child-Life” was the first book which they produced in this way. He deferred to her judgment in the selection of the material, and, when doubtful, he always accepted her opinion. In sending her some poems for the collection, he wrote, “I leave thee to thy judgment; I think they will do, but I defer to thy wisdom.” Her name is thus associated with the happy hours of many children, who were, and are, brought up on the wholesome verses of this nursery book. “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Spider and the Fly,” and “Philip, my King,” with appropriate pictures, first became known to thousands of children, from this green-covered daily companion.

“Child-Life in Prose” came as a natural sequel to child-life in poetry; and Hawthorne’s “Little Annie’s Ramble,” Lamb’s “Dream Children,” “The Ugly Duckling” of Hans Andersen, and “The Story without End,” were made familiar through the medium of its pages.

Doubtless influenced by these publications, Miss Larcom decided to print, in a volume of her own, the children’s poems she had written, especially those for “Our Young Folks;” so in 1873 her “Childhood Songs” appeared.

Amesbury, November 25, 1874.

Dear Friend,—I have just been looking over the beautiful book of “Childhood Songs,” and my judgment is, that it is the best book of the kind I have ever seen. It has many poems, which, beside their adaptation to children, have a merit as lyrics, which I do not know where to look for in other collections of this sort. The heart is generally right in such books, but here head and heart are both satisfactory.

We did not get up so good a book as this in our “Child-Life.”

Thy friend,

J. G. Whittier.

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TO MRS. MARY MAPES DODGE.

Beverly Farms, December 3, 1874.

Dear Mrs. Dodge,—The publishers assure me that they sent you a copy of “Childhood’s Songs,” as I requested. I hope you received it, at last. I care to have you like it, as a lover of children, quite as much as to have it spoken of in the magazine.

Your own little book must be nice; I hope to see it when I go to Boston.

Doubtless you are right about the verses. I always accept an editor’s decision, without objecting, as I know the difficulties of the position. I will write when I can. For a month or two, I shall be specially busy, and possibly may not have time for “St. Nicholas,” for which it is a pleasure to write.

Yours most truly,Lucy Larcom.

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TO THE SAME.

Beverly Farms, December 30, 1874.

My dear Mrs. Dodge,—Your charming “Rhymes and Jingles” followed your pleasant note, and I thank you for both. The book is just what children most enjoy, as a real mother’s book will be sure to be; and you have some sweet little poems which seem to hide themselves too modestly among the merry rhymes.

I think I have the mother-feeling,—ideally, at least; a woman is not a woman quite, who lacks it, be she married or single. The children—God bless them!—belong to the mother-heart that beats in all true women. They seem even dearer, sometimes, because I have none of my own to love and be loved by, for there is a great emptiness that only child-love can fill. So God made us, and I thank Him for it. The world’s unmothered ones would be worse off if it were not so.

Thank you for writing of yourself, and your boys. I wish I knew you, face to face. I am sure we should find ourselves in sympathy in many ways.

I send a verse or two, for by and by, when the March winds blow.

When I get to a little clearing of leisure, I will write more for “St. Nicholas.”

Truly your friend,

Lucy Larcom.

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TO MRS. J. T. FIELDS.

Beverly Farms, December 5, 1875.

Dear Annie,—I had a pleasant little visit at Mrs. Pitman’s after I left you. We went to Professor Thayer’s, in Cambridge, that evening, and heard Emerson’s noble paper on “Immortality,” which is soon to be published. There is great satisfaction in hearing such words from such a man’s own lips, for we know that Emerson has as little as mortal can have of the haze of vanity between himself and the truth; and it is this surely, oftener than anything else, that blinds men’s minds to the open secret of eternal life.

Mr. Longfellow was there, and I had a pleasant talk with him. He spoke of the book he is preparing and told me he wanted to put into it “Hannah Binding Shoes.”

Mr. Garrison and Henry Vincent, the lecturer, were at Mrs. P.’s the next day.

I have been in Newburyport since I left Somerville, at my friend Mrs. Spalding’s. Mr. Whittier came there on his way from Boston, and I did not see that he was the worse for the woman-avalanche that descended upon him at your door....

In 1875, “An Idyl of Work,” dedicated to working women, was issued by Osgood & Co. It is a long poem in blank verse, written chiefly in pentameters, and describes most beautifully the life of the Lowell factory girls, in “The Forties.” There is a song of delight in work, running through it all. The incidents of prosaic labor are invested with a charm; and the toiler’s lot is shown to have its bright side in the community of womanly interests that develop strong traits of character, and lead to lifelong attachments. It is an epic of labor, giving a history of an episode in American manufacture, that proved how mental and moral culture can be aided by hand-work, when the laborer looks upon his occupation as his privilege.

In the following year, “Roadside Poems,” a well-edited compilation of mountain poetry, added a new interest to the country and the mountains, for the summer traveler. Shelley, Wordsworth, Longfellow, Browning, and Lowell, were made to act as interpreters of the wonders of the lane, and the beauty of the sunrise over mountain sanctuaries, and to explain the meaning of the storm reverberating among the hills. It is a little book filled with glimpses of the sky, the fragrance of flowers, the earth-smell of ferns, and the coloring of autumn leaves.

TO J. G. WHITTIER.

83 Waltham Street, Boston,
January 1, 1878.

... Of course you must have grown very tired of the poetry written to you, and about you. I sent my verses to the “Transcript,” because I thought you seemed too much pleased to think I had spared you the infliction! Discipline can never come too late in life, I am confident!

Still, I didn’t say a word more than the truth, and I think I spoke sincerely for many others. It is a great thing to have won a nation’s affection,—much greater than the greatest amount of mere fame.

Judging from our own inside view, none of us deserve to be as well thought of by our friends as we are; but the beauty of it is, that real friendship knows us best after all, because it sees in us our best aim, endeavor, and possibilities, and lets our failures and imperfections pass by and be forgotten. Why not, when the judge is always so imperfect, too?

The sum of which is, that we all think you a pretty good sort of man, as men go.

Always thy friend,

Lucy Larcom.

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TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING.

83 Waltham Street, January 17, 1878.

I have been reading the Book of Romans through, trying to forget that I had ever read it before, and I find that “justification by faith” seems to me a very different doctrine from the one I was brought up on. I don’t know that I should understand it as Luther did. But it seems to me grander than I have dreamed of before. It is freedom to stand with our faces to the light, whatever our past may have been; freedom to do right from the love of it, and not as burdensome duty; and the love of doing right as the proof of deliverance. Is not this the “grace wherein ye stand,” which Paul preached as free grace in Christ?

I find very little in the Book of Romans which points to some future salvation. It is the life redeemed from love of sin, which he seems to be talking to the Romans about. I do wish religion were made more practical in theology, after this Pauline fashion. I do not care for any commentator’s judgment. I think that common sense and a sincere desire for truth will be shown the right interpretation....

During part of the winter of 1878, Miss Larcom made her only foreign trip—a visit to Europe never being possible, on account of the expense—to Bermuda, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She wrote letters to the Boston “Daily Advertiser,” describing the “Still vexed Bermoothes,” with enthusiastic appreciation. The recollection of Miranda and Prospero, with “hag-born” Caliban, interested her as much as the houses with walls of coral, or the transparency of the beryl sea, through which one could see the sponges, and large purple amenones, and fish of brilliant hues. “A banana plantation is rather a shabby-looking affair; the leaves are beaten to tatters by the island tempests; but for a contrast there is the royal palm, to see which for the first time is an era in one’s life, lifting its stately column above the cocoanut and India rubber trees. And we are satisfied that roses smell no less sweet for growing on the border of an onion patch. After all this wonder of foreign growths it is pleasant to see a dandelion in flower, and to find little mats of pimpernel on the hillside before our hotel. These little home-blossoms deepen the home feeling, and we are no more foreigners, even here.”A poem full of semi-tropical scenery, written on this trip, appeared in “Harper’s Magazine:”—

For “pot-boilers,” Miss Larcom undertook various inferior kinds of literary work, such as compilations of poetical calendars, and short biographical notices of famous people. One of her books of this class, “Landscape in American Poetry,” with beautiful illustrations by Mr. J. Appleton Brown, was published in 1879. There was some original writing in it, but in the main, it was a collection from many sources, of poems dealing with interesting places in America.

TO MRS. E. B. WHEATON.

627 Tremont Street, Boston,
January 21, 1879.

My dear Mrs. Wheaton,—I have been intending to write, ever since I was at Norton, and tell you how much I enjoyed being there, and returning to the spirit of my old days at the Seminary.

I was so ill the last years of my stay there, I hardly knew how much of a home it was to me. To go back in restored health was a revelation of the old joy in my work. I think there must be something of the same feeling in looking back from the better world we hope for, when we have passed from this. We shall never know how good and beautiful a world we have lived in until we get away from it, and can get a glimpse of it with all our weariness and cares laid aside.

I think a great deal of the beautiful atmosphere which pervades the Norton life is due to the generous idea in which the school was founded. It gives the place a home feeling rarely found in such schools.

Ever truly yours,

Lucy Larcom.

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TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING.

Boston, December 6, 1879.

When I came home from the reception and breakfast given to Dr. Holmes on Wednesday, I thought I would sit down and write you about it at once.... The breakfast was a splendid success; you have probably read about it, but there was a certain exhilaration in being in the presence of so many bright people, and feeling perfectly at home, which was indescribable. I never expected to enjoy anything of the kind at all, but I was really taken off my feet, in a figurative sense. Dr. Holmes filled the place of honor in a delightful manner. It was really like sitting down at his own breakfast table. Mrs. Whitney and I went at twelve as invited. I left at a little past six and they were not through with their letters and speeches then. I was introduced to ever so many people I never saw before.... I don’t know but the pleasantest thing to me was the opportunity of speaking to Rev. Phillips Brooks, or rather of hearing him speak face to face. To look up into his honest, clear eyes, was like seeing the steady lights in a watch-tower; and a tower of strength he is among us. The outward largeness of the man is a type of his moral strength and mental breadth and spiritual height, I am more than ever convinced. I never spoke to a man who seemed so thoroughly grand to me.

Mr. Whittier came, but remained a very short time. I saw him only a moment, just before we went in. My escort—they were all coupled off by a printed plan—was Mr. William Winter, a New York poet and journalist. He was very entertaining, and I think his poem was the best and most effective of the occasion.

... I am fast getting to be a dissipated woman, but I must and will put myself to work steadily for a week or two.

This was the first meeting between Miss Larcom and Mr. Brooks. She had heard him preach at Trinity Church and was greatly helped by his sermons, for which she had often thanked him by letter, and, in return, had received some few characteristic lines, like the following:—

Boston, April 14, 1879.

My dear Miss Larcom,—The preaching of Christ as a personal friend and Saviour of all our souls becomes to me more and more the one interesting work of life, and the readiness of the people to hear that one simple message, which, in its endlessly various forms, is always the same, gives me ever new satisfaction and delight.

I have known you by your verses for years. I hope some day we may meet.

Yours very truly,

Phillips Brooks.

The friendship between them deepened, as the years went on. They had many serious conversations on spiritual subjects, and he became to her the great religious guide of her life. His personality, with its earnest, and even fierce, love for the simplicity of truth, and the power with which he presented it, made the deepest impression upon her in her last decade, and brought to the fruition of spiritual loveliness the remaining years of her career.

Boston, March 20, 1880.

My dear Miss Larcom,—You will allow me to thank you for your note and to say how truly glad I am if anything I said on Wednesday evening helped you in your thought of the Lord’s Supper. To me the Personalness of the great Sacrament seems to be the key to all its meaning, and its simplicity is its grandeur and its charm.

Ever yours sincerely,

Phillips Brooks.

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TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING.

627 Tremont Street,
February 12, 1880.

... You must be disheartened often, in having to listen to the vagaries of the many who have ordained themselves prime ministers of divine affairs. I really cannot feel it right to put myself in the way of hearing such talk.

What can the end be, since there is common sense among the people, but a disgust for preaching altogether?

But I believe in a movement towards a service in which worship shall be the chief element; and I don’t think I am a step nearer Episcopacy, either. I am trying to like that, because I have always been unjustly prejudiced against it, but I am a born Independent at heart....

The years of Miss Larcom’s greatest poetical production were brought to a close by the printing, in 1880, of “The Wild Roses of Cape Ann.” Her works were bound together in a Household Edition, in 1884. After this, she wrote continually for the magazines, and on anniversary occasions of various kinds. Some of these verses were included, with a few new ones, in the booklet “Easter Gleams,” and in the selection of religious poems, called “At the Beautiful Gate,” but no noted additions were made to her poems after this, though there are many of her lines of great beauty, scattered through the pages of current ephemeral literature, up to the time of her death.

TO S. T. PICKARD.

Bethel, Me., September 30, 1880.

My dear Mr. Pickard—I go to-morrow to Berlin Falls, New Hampshire, to stay at the Cascade House until I have finished reading my proof.[7] I wish to thank you for your interest in the book about to be. It will have more character and more local color than the other; but I do not write for critics, but for my friends, as the dedication will show, and I do not care much whether critics like it or not, provided my friends do.

I can conceive of no greater damper upon one’s poetic attempts than the cold water of criticism. It is from heart to heart, from friend to friend, that I write; and I find in that the highest inspiration to do my best. Of course I am glad to enlarge the circle of my friends in this way; and poetry has amply repaid me in the coin of friendship. One gives out life in writing; and nothing but life in return—life enlarged and filled—gives any true satisfaction. Of course I shall send you a copy, not editorially, but personally.

The “Wild Roses” were fragrant, and delighted some of the critics, even, for in addition to those that grew along Cape Ann, there were many cultivated ones, that blossomed beside the still waters of thought, and in the quiet retreats of meditation:—

“Phebe” has a prominent place in the book—the poem that drew from Mr. Howells, when he was editor of the “Atlantic,” a most graceful note of acceptance:—

My dear Miss Larcom,—You take rejections so sweetly, that I have scarcely the heart to accept anything of yours. But I do like “Phebe,” and I am going to keep her.

“Shared” excited admiration; and was pronounced by one competent critic to be the best religious lyric of the decade:—

The theological poem, “The Heart of God,” was the cause of controversy. A stranger wrote, asking her to change it, for he thought it expressed too clearly “the old doctrine of the Divinity of Christ.” She answered politely, but with a strong statement of her faith, that what he called “the old Doctrine” was the inspiration of the verses: “To me, Christ is the Infinite Person, at once human and divine. God exists as impersonal Spirit, but I know Him only as a person through Christ. The historical Christ is entirely true to me, as the only way in which God could humanly be known to us. It is no more impossible for me to believe that the ‘Eternal Christ of God,’ the personal manifestation of Deity, should veil Himself for a time with the human form, than that we, in our humble personality, as sharers of the Divine Nature, should wear it as we do.” The same truth she put strongly in “Our Christ,” when she wrote:—

“In Christ I feel the Heart of God.”

Concerning this poem, the Rev. W. Garrett Horder, the English hymnologist, writes that it has been accorded a place in “Hymns Supplemental” for Congregational churches, and was sung for the first time in England, February 14, 1894, in Colby Chapel, Bradford.

In making an analytical study of Miss Larcom’s poetry, the range of her verse becomes apparent. She finds expression for her muse in almost all forms of versification: the epic, as in “An Idyl of Work;” the ballad, with its merry lines, relating some story of early New England days, or some delightful old legend; the lyric in its numerous forms,—pastoral songs that breathe of the fields and pretty farms, lyrics of nature in her peaceful moods when the wayside flower dwells securely, or in her grander moods when the mountains hide themselves in storm-clouds, or the sea moans in the deepening tempest; lyrics of grief, when, in solemn and plaintive strains, she chants the dirge of Elizabeth Whittier, or tolls the passing bell of Lincoln, or sheds a tear over the grave of Garfield; and sacred lyrics, in which she deals with the deepest emotions of the human heart, expressing its longing after immortality, and its adoration for God. The range of her verse is further enlarged by the addition of the sonnet’s “narrow plot of ground,” and the stately movement of the ode.

Her lines always have a musical flow born of intense emotion. They have a smoothness and ripple, like the flow of the summer brook, or the even modulations of the tides. At times, they possess a cadence not unlike what Mr. Arnold, speaking of Spenser, calls “fluidity,”—an effect produced by combinations of melodious sounds, as in these lines from “On the Beach:”—

Again, in “Golden-Rod:”—

And in “My Mountain:”—

Together with the music, there is strength in her verses, when she attempts to deal with subjects that call for vigorous treatment. In the “Rose Enthroned,” there is a strong grasping at the origin of things, and powerful descriptions of the primeval birth-throes that, from the war of elements, issued forth in the fairness of creation.

In her mountain descriptions there is the same power. The wind-beaten and thunder-scarred summit of Whiteface presents itself to her as the visage of a monarch, who seems to rule the race of giant hills. The effect of a mountain whose slopes plunge into the sea is graphically given in the phrase, “Plunged knee-deep in yon glistening sea.” Her appreciation for beautiful details of nature, that seemed to escape the common observer, is seen in her similes and epithets; the little streams winding through the marshes are called “sea-fed creeks;” the mists that rise in the evening, reflecting the light of the descending sun, are “violet mists;” the quiet of the fields of clover, when one is out of sound of the waves, are fitly called “sweet inland silences;” the heart of the woods, where are the shadows, has its “forest crypts;” and there are “mosaics of tinted moss.”

Dr. Holmes very well describes her when he says: “She was as true a product of our Essex County soil as the bayberry; and her nature had the chaste and sweet fragrance of its fair and wholesome leaves. She was a true poetess, and a noble woman.” Her writings have the genuine flavor of the soil, like the perfume of the woods, or the salt spray that bathes one’s face along the seashore. Mr. Whittier thus analyzed her powers as a poet: “She holds in rare combination the healthfulness of simple truth and common sense, with the fine and delicate fancy, and an artist’s perception of all beauty.” Mr. Stedman, in his “Poets of America,” speaks of her as a sweet-voiced singer of “orchard notes.” This is a good partial description of certain of her songs, but as an estimate of her poetical ability it is very limited. She was not disturbed by the criticism, but wrote thus to a friend.

TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING.

4 Hotel Byron, Berkeley Street,
Boston, March 8, 1886.

... Don’t be troubled about “orchard-notes.” I consider it the highest compliment.

Think of goldfinches and linnets, song-sparrows and orioles! I know and love their separate songs, and should feel proud if I thought my singing deserved comparison with theirs. Why, three fourths of the cheer of the spring and summer-time is in those same orchard-notes! I shall have to try hard to live up to my reputation. But if you do think I get up a little higher into the air, a little farther off into the wilderness sometimes, for a more meditative flight of song, just remember that very high critics do not always comprehend the music in the air about them. Does not Milton write of Shakespeare as “Fancy’s child,” and of his poetry as “wood-notes wild”?

Such an estimate must be imperfect, because it leaves out of consideration the moral power of her religious writings, which, more than her nature-songs, have won for her a place in the regard of the people. A gentleman thanking her for the gift of one of her books, expressed for many readers a recognition of this deeper hold: “A soul once fed and inspired as was mine, at a critical and sad juncture of its life, by your poetry, is likely to open, as I did, the beautiful book your kindness sent me, with strange delight.” One who could write “A Thanksgiving,” with its noble lines,—

and the words,—

should certainly be called a religious poet of a high order; and her poems are filled with such passages as that which follows, presenting religious thought simply and convincingly:—

Poetry, to her, was vastly more than word-shaping, or combinations of accented and unaccented syllables; it was an attitude of mind and soul towards all existence, a view-point of her being, from which she saw such visions, and heard such sounds, that the impulse was irresistible to record in recognized poetic form her ideas and feelings. She found poetry in everything around her; it was the atmosphere she breathed, the medium, like imponderable ether, through which she saw life. Nature had a more profound meaning to her than the charm of color, or the changing pleasures of the land or the sea. It was the visible evidence of the unseen, the prophecy of a greater fulfillment, the proclamation of the spiritual element within, which the senses of themselves could not perceive. She once said, “Nature is one vast metaphor through which spiritual truth may be read:”—

The delicate and spiritual nature of womanhood, too, with its heroism, breathed through all she wrote. Everything she touched glowed with the light of purity. Her aim was to uplift and sweeten life, by a revelation of its true meaning. Her measures are choice; her passion is genuine; her verses sincere; and the morale of them is always elevating.

Our literature is not rich in women poets of the highest genius, but there are many who have sung true songs. Maria Lowell was permitted to give us a few notes only of her chaste singing. The Cary sisters, Mrs. Cook, Mrs. Greenough, and Helen Hunt Jackson, and many who now enliven our magazines, have done genuine work; but one often looks in vain for the power that distinguished Miss Larcom. Considering the range of the versification, the music of the lines, the strength of phrase and beauty of metaphor, and lofty moral intensity of her poetry, it is not claiming too much to say that it exhibits a genius as versatile and as rich in its utterance as that of any of her female contemporaries, and considering the impression that she has made upon the people, at their firesides and in their worship, she holds a place, equal to any, in their hearts.

Her poems have been recognized in many collections in our land and in England. Mr. Longfellow in his “Poems of Places” has remembered her. She is honored in Emerson’s “Parnassus;” one of her hymns is included in Dr. Martineau’s “Hymns of the Spirit;” she has been given a place, by Mr. Garrett Horder, in “A Treasury of Sacred Song from American Sources;” by Mr. Higginson, in “American Sonnets;” by Mr. Richard Grant White, in “The Poetry of the Rebellion;” and by Mr. W. M. Rossetti, in his “English Selections from Popular Poets.”

The following letter to Dr. John Hunter of Glasgow shows that she enjoyed this recognition of her work:—

Beverly, Mass., July 10, 1890.

Dear Sir,—A friend gave me your “Hymns of Faith and Life,” in the winter, telling me she had found one or two of mine in it. On looking it over, I find five, not all of which are credited to me, though all are included in the Household Edition of my poems, published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. I thought you would like to know the authorship, and therefore write.

Of course I am gratified to know that my hymns were taken on their own merit apparently, and I am glad if anything I have written is a natural expression of sincere worship for other hearts and voices than my own.

Truly yours,

Lucy Larcom.

The two following letters illustrate how Dr. Holmes and Mr. Longfellow appreciated Miss Larcom’s work.

296 Beacon Street, November 17, 1880.

My dear Miss Larcom,—I have been reading your poems at all the spare moments I could find this evening. Many of them I read carefully—every page I tasted. My wife and daughter were sitting opposite to me, and I had to shade my eyes with my hand that they should not see the tears shining in them—this over and over again. The poems are eminently wholesome, sweet, natural. Their perfume is as characteristic of the soil they spring from as that of the sweet fern or the bayberry.

It is pleasant to me to find my name in such good company as it is in your pages, and if anything I have written has ever given you pleasure this volume has amply repaid me.

Very sincerely yours,

O. W. Holmes.

P.S. (Worth all the rest). I got a letter from Mr. Whittier which reads as follows:—

“Has thee seen Miss Larcom’s ‘Cape Ann’? I like it, and in reading it I thought thee would also. Get it and see if she has not a right to stand with the rest of us. Wishing thee a pleasant Thanksgiving after the manner of the enclosed card, I am faithfully thy friend,

J. G. Whittier.”

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Cambridge, December 24, 1880.

Dear Miss Larcom,—I thank you very much for your beautiful volume of beautiful poems. I have been reading it this morning with great enjoyment.

I always liked your poetry, and now like it more than ever. It is not merely verse, but possesses the true poetic instinct and insight.

One little song among the many particularly charms me. It is “At her Bedside.” It ought to be set to music. Thanks, and all good wishes.

Sincerely yours,

Henry W. Longfellow.