VOL. IV.

No. 3.

HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.

IT HAS been said that poets are "born," not "made." That may or may not be true, as we find those to-day writing acceptable verse to whom ten years ago the thought of their own capabilities in rhyming had never occurred to them, and who were not a little surprised when at last they found themselves dropping into metrical form of expression. Others, again, evince an early talent or desire for poetical phrasing, and seem to have been" to the manner born." Still, in determining as to whether or not the true poet was not so created at his birth, the questions will always arise: Did not the one whose muse came to him late in life possess the poetic instinct in his youth without the knowledge of its existence, or is it a plant of forced growth, born of a desire to compete with his fellow writers? The thought is too abstruse to be dealt with at this time, but if there is a distinction to be made between a "born" and a "made" poet, certainly Harriet Prescott Spofford has all the advantage due to birth. Her early environments were characterized by charming landscape, romantic and picturesque scenery on the one hand, and sturdy New England ancestry and teachings on the other. Nature has wisely preserved her equilibrium here. Many famous people are allied to the Prescott family, notably Sir William Pepperell, Sir John Brydges, and the historian, Prescott, while more recently, Secretary of State Evarts and the famous Hoar brothers. Believers in heredity will here find abundant evidence with which to substantiate their theory. Harriet Elizabeth Prescott was born in Calais, Maine, April 3rd, 1835. At fourteen years of age she entered the Putnam High School, in Newburyport, Mass. Her graduation from that school followed in due time, and she later closed her school-life in the Pinkerton Academy in Derry, N. H. At the age of seventeen years she gained the Putnam school prize for the best essay on 'Hamlet." Soon after, her first published story appeared, and, being asked for others, she supplied one-hun

dred during the next three years. The pay being so small, having been reduced from five dollars to two-and-a-half dollars, she declined to send more, and "In a Cellar" was sent to the Atlantic Monthly, which James Russell Lowell, at that time its editor, at first declined to publish, believing it to be a translation, and upon being assured of its genuineness, not only printed the story, but sent its author a check for $100 with a letter of commendation. That established her literary reputation, and her contributions, both prose and poetry, found their way into the leading periodicals of the country. In 1865, in Newburyport, Harriet Prescott was united in marriage to Richard S. Spofford, a Boston Jawyer. Some years after Deer Island in the Merrimack river, near Newburyport, Maine, was purchased, and has since been Mrs. Spofford's home, although inclination has led her to sojourn in various other places in the meantime. In 1888 Mr. Spofford died, and Mrs. Spofford has since passed her winters mostly in Boston or Washington. There is little to add concerning Mrs. Spofford's personality that has not already been said; beside, one has but to read her writings to know her to be of a religious nature and a hard worker and close student. Not satisfied with the endowments nature has lavished upon her, she has labored to perfect herself and to realize more fully her own ideals. She has published "Sir Rohan's Ghost" (Boston, 1859); "The Amber Gods, and Other Stories" (Boston, 1863); “Azarian" (1864); "New England Legends (Boston, 1871); "The Thief in the Night" (Boston, 1872); "Art Decoration Applied to Furniture" (New York, 1877); "The Servant-Girl Question" (Boston, 1881); “Poems" (Boston, 1881); "Hester Stanley at St. Mark's" (Boston, 1882); "The Marquis of Carabas" Boston, 1882), and Ballads About Authors" (Boston, 1887). In style, Mrs. Spofford is chaste and classical. She does not aim at sensationalism, and throughout her writings an air of peace and purity reigns, an insignia of the royal soul within the woman. N. L. M.

250

THE PINE TREE.

BEFORE your atoms came together,

I was full-grown, a tower of strength,

Seen by the sailors out at sea,

With great storms measuring all my length,
Making my mighty minstrelsy,
Companion of the ancient weather.

Yours! Just as much the stars that shiver
When the frost sparkles overhead!
Call yours as soon those viewless airs

That sing in the clear vault and tread
The clouds! Less yours than theirs—
The fish-hawks swooping round the river!

In the primeval depths, embowering

My broad boughs with my branching peers,
My gums I spilled in precious drops-
Ay, even in those elder years
The eagle building in my tops,
Along my boughs the panther cowering.

Beneath my shade the red man slipping,
Himself a shadow, stole away;

A paler shadow follows him!

Races may go, or races stay, The cone upon my loftiest limb

The winds will many a year be stripping;

And there the hidden day be throwing
His fires, though dark the dead prime be
Before the bird shake off the dew.

Ah! what songs have been sung to me; What songs will yet be sung, when you Are dust upon the four winds blowing!

A FOUR-O'CLOCK.

Ан, happy day, refuse to go!
Hang in the heavens forever so!
Forever in mid-afternoon,
Ah, happy day of happy June!
Pour out thy sunshine on the hill,
The piny wood with perfume fill,
And breathe across the singing sea
Land-scented breezes, that shall be
Sweet as the gardens that they pass,
Where children tumble in the grass!

Ah, happy day, refuse to go!
Hang in the heavens forever so!
And long not for thy blushing rest
In the soft bosom of the west,
But bid gray evening get her back
With all the stars upon her track!

Forget the dark, forget the dew,
The mystery of the midnight blue,
And only spread thy wide warm wings
While summer her enchantment flings!

Ah, happy day, refuse to go!
Hang in the heavens forever so!
Forever let thy tender mist

Lie like dissolving amethyst
Deep in the distant dales, and shed
Thy mellow glory overhead!

Yet wilt thou wander,-call the thrush,
And have the wilds and waters hush
To hear his passion-broken tune,
Ah, happy day of happy June!

AN APRIL MADRIGAL.

In those charmed ages, dark and rich
With mystery, when, sailing first,
The mariner on unknown seas

And summer shores bewildered burst,-
He planted there some royal sign
And claimed the place by right divine:

So I, who came when April skies
Lighten the land and get me glee,
And flushed with sleep the fair earth turns
Her rosy side to welcome me,
Claim the glad month my fief and fere,
And take possession of the year.

I take possession of the year;

Yet as a viceroy I do hold,

The bloom from off the sea I strip,

The freshness from the budding mold,

All fragrances, all balms that be,

My Sovereign, I hoard for thee!

THE TRODDEN VIOLET.

A VIOLET in the morning dew,
With sunshine melting in its spheres,
Whose honey all the wild bees knew,
And birds and breezes, happy crew-
A violet in the morning dew

Was like her in the early years.

A violet trodden under foot,

Its breath with piercing perfume rife, The birds and bees and breezes mute, And only tears about the rootA violet troden under foot

Was like her in her later life.

Sweetness past telling did she shed,

When day by day brought darker dole, And sorrows with a heavy tread Crushed her and bruised the lovely headSweetness past telling did she shed,

As the bruised violet sheds its soul.

So was the spikenard bruised and crushed,
And so the precious ointment filled
With odor that about it gushed
As if, within, whole gardens blushed—
So was the spikenard bruised and crushed
That over the Lord's feet was spilled.

O HAD I KNOWN!

IF I had thought so soon she would have died,
He said, I had been tenderer in my speech,
I had a moment lingered at her side,

And held her, e'er she passed beyond my reach, If I had thought so soon she would have died.

That day she looked up with her startled eyes, Like some hurt creature where the woods are deep,

With kisses I had stilled those breaking sighs,

With kisses closed those eyelids into sleep,
That day she looked up with her startled eyes.

O, had I known she would have died so soon,
Love had not wasted on a barren land,
Love, like those rivers under torrid noon,

Lost on the desert, poured out on the sand—
O, had I known she would have died so soon!

SOONER OR LATER.

SOONER or later the storms shall beat
Over my slumbers from head to feet;
Sooner or later the winds will rave
In the long grass above my grave.

I shall not heed them where I lie, Nothing their sound shall signify; Nothing the headstone's fret of rain; Nothing to me the dark day's pain.

Sooner or later the sun shall shine
With tender warmth on that mound of mine;
Sooner or later, in summer air,
Clover and violet blossom there.

I shall not feel, in that deep laid rest,
The slanting light fall over my breast,
Nor even note in those hidden hours

The wind-blown breath of the tossing flowers.

Sooner or later the stainless snows
Shall add their hush to my mute repose,
Sooner or later shall slant and shift,
And heap my bed with the dazzling drift.

Chill though that frozen pall shall seem,
Its touch no colder can make the dream
That recks not the sweet and sacred dread,
Shrouding the city of the dead.

Sooner or later the bee shall come And fill the noon with its golden hum; Sooner or later on half-poised wing The bluebird's warble about me ring,

Ring and chirrup, and whistle with glee,
Nothing his music means to me;
None of these beautiful things shall know
How soundly their love sleeps below.

Sooner or later, far out in the night,
The stars shall over me wing their flight;
Sooner or later the darkling dews
Catch their white sparks in their silent noose.

Never a ray shall part the gloom

That wraps me round in the kindly tomb; Peace shall be perfect for lip and brow, Sooner or latter-Oh, why not now?

WHAT ONE BOY THINKS.

251

A STITCH is always drooping in the everlasting knitting,

And the needles that I threaded, no, you couldn't

count to-day;

And I've hunted for the glasses till I thought my

head was splitting,

When there upon her forehead as calm as clocks they lay.

I've read to her till I was hoarse, the Psalms and the Epistles,

When the other boys were burning tar-barrels down the street;

And I've stayed and learned my verses when I heard their willow whistles,

And I've stayed and said my chapter with fire in both my feet.

And I've had to walk beside her when she went to evening meeting,

When I wanted to be racing, to be kicking, to be

off;