ALICE AND PHOEBE CARY.
“THE SISTER SPIRITS OF POESY.”
T would be difficult to treat the two poetic Cary sisters separately. Their work began, progressed through life and practically ended together. Few persons have written under the circumstances which at first appeared so disadvantageous. They had neither education nor literary friends, nor was their early lot cast in a region of literary culture—for they were reared in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the formative period of that Western country. But surely in the wild hills and valleys of their native West, they found
“Tongues in trees, books in running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Alice Cary was born in Mount Healthy, near Cincinnati, April 20, 1820, and her sister Phoebe at the same place four years later. The two sisters studied at home together and, when eighteen years old, Alice began to write poems and sketches of rural life under the nom de plume of Patty Lee, which attracted considerable attention and displayed an ability which elicited encouragement from the editors of the periodicals to which she contributed. In the mean time, Phoebe Cary, following her sister’s example, began to contribute, and, in 1850, the two sisters published their first volume of poems in Philadelphia. A volume of prose sketches entitled “Clover Nook, or Recollections of our Neighborhood in the West,” by Alice Cary followed in 1851. In 1852, the Cary sisters removed to New York city where they chiefly resided during the remainder of their lives, returning occasionally to their early farm home. For some years they held weekly receptions in New York, which were attended by leading artistic and literary people. They earned by their pens—pure and womanly pens—sufficient to provide a competence for all their wants. They gathered a library, rich in standard works, to gratify their refined tastes and did much to relieve the needy with their charity. In 1853, Alice Cary issued a second series of her “Clover Nook Papers” and a third gleaning from the same field appeared in 1855, entitled “Clover Nook Children,” for the benefit of her more youthful readers. During the prolific years, from 1852 to 1855, she also published “Lyra and other Poems,” followed by “Hagar, a Story of To-day,” “Married, Not Mated,” and “Hollywood,” a collection of poems. In 1854, Phoebe Cary, also, published “Poems and Parodies.” In 1859 appeared her “Pictures of Country Life,” a series of tales, and “The Bishop’s Son,” a novel. In 1867, appeared her “Snowberries,” a book for young folks. In 1866, Alice also published a volume entitled “Ballads, Lyrics and Hymns,” which is a standard selection of her poetry and contains some of the sweetest minor poems in the language. Alice’s “The Lover’s Diary” appeared in 1868. It begins with the poem “Dreamland” and ranges with a series of exquisite lyrics of love through all the phases of courtship to married life. This was the last of her works published during her lifetime. During the same year (1868), Phoebe published the “Poems of Faith, Hope and Love,” a worthy companion volume to her sister’s works, and in 1869 she aided her pastor, Chas. F. Deems, in editing “Hymns for All Christians.”
In comparing the two sisters, it is noticeable that the poems of Alice are more thoughtful and more melodiously expressed. They are also marked with a stronger originality and a more vivid imagination. In disposition, Alice was pensive and tender, while Phoebe was witty and gay. Alice was strong in energy and patience and bore the chief responsibility of their household, allowing her sister, who was less passive and feminine in temperament, to consult her moods in writing. The disparity in the actual intellectual productions of the two sisters in the same number of years is the result, not so much of the mental equality as of the superior energy, industry, and patience of the elder.
The considerate love and delicacy with which Alice and Phoebe Cary treated each other plainly indicated that they were one in spirit through life, and in death they were not long separated. Alice died at her home in New York City, February 12, 1871, in her fifty-first year. Phoebe, in sorrow over this bereavement, wrote the touching verses entitled “Light,” and in confidence said to a friend: “Alice, when she was here, always absorbed me, and she absorbs me still. I feel her constantly drawing me.” And so it seemed in reality, for, on the thirty-first day of July, six months after Alice Cary was laid to rest in Greenwood Cemetery, New York, Phoebe died at Newport, Rhode Island, whence her remains were removed and laid by her sister’s side.
The two kindred sisters, so long associated on earth, were re-united. The influence they have left behind them, embalmed in their hymns of praiseful worship, their songs of love and of noblest sentiment, and their stories of happy childhood and innocent manhood and womanhood, will long remain to bless the earth and constitute a continual incense to their memory.
Besides the published works named above, both Alice and Phoebe left at their death uncollected poems enough to give each name two added volumes. Alice also left the manuscript of a completed novel.
PICTURES OF MEMORY.
(ALICE CARY.)
MONG the beautiful pictures
That hang on Memory’s wall,
Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all:
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,
Dark with the mistletoe;
Not for the violets golden
That sprinkle the vale below;
Not for the milk-white lilies,
That lead from the fragrant hedge,
Coqueting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland
Where the bright red berries rest,
Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip,
It seemed to me the best.
I once had a little brother,
With eyes that were dark and deep—
In the lap of that old dim forest
He lieth in peace asleep:
Light as the down of the thistle,
Free as the winds that blow,
We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;
But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,
I made for my little brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.
Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face:
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures
That hang on Memory’s wall,
The one of the dim old forest
Seemeth the best of all.
NOBILITY.
(ALICE CARY.)
ILDA is a lofty lady,
Very proud is she—
I am but a simple herdsman
Dwelling by the sea.
Hilda hath a spacious palace,
Broad, and white, and high;
Twenty good dogs guard the portal—
Never house had I.
Hilda hath a thousand meadows—
Boundless forest lands:
She hath men and maids for service—
I have but my hands.
The sweet summer’s ripest roses
Hilda’s cheeks outvie—
Queens have paled to see her beauty—
But my beard have I.
Hilda from her palace windows
Looketh down on me,
Keeping with my dove-brown oxen
By the silver sea.
When her dulcet harp she playeth,
Wild birds singing nigh,
Cluster, listening, by her white hands—
But my reed have I.
I am but a simple herdsman,
With nor house nor lands;
She hath men and maids for service—
I have but my hands.
And yet what are all her crimsons
To my sunset sky—
With my free hands and my manhood
Hilda’s peer am I.
THE GRAY SWAN.
(ALICE CARY.)
(From the Poetical Works of Alice and Phœbe Cary, 1876.)
H tell me, sailor, tell me true,
Is my little lad, my Elihu,
A-sailing with your ship?”
The sailor’s eyes were dim with dew,—
“Your little lad, your Elihu?”
He said with trembling lip,—
“What little lad? what ship?”
“What little lad! as if there could be
Another such an one as he!
What little lad, do you say?
Why, Elihu, that took to the sea
The moment I put him off my knee!
It was just the other day
The Gray Swan sailed away.”
“The other day?” the sailor’s eyes
Stood open with a great surprise,—
“The other day? the Swan?”
His heart began in his throat to rise.
“Aye, aye, sir, here in the cupboard lies
The jacket he had on.”
“And so your lad is gone?”
“Gone with the Swan.” “And did she stand
With her anchor clutching hold of the sand,
For a month, and never stir?”
“Why, to be sure! I’ve seen from the land,
Like a lover kissing his lady’s hand,
The wild sea kissing her,—
A sight to remember, sir.”
“But, my good mother, do you know
All this was twenty years ago?
I stood on the Gray Swan’s deck,
And to that lad I saw you throw,
Taking it off, as it might be, so!
The kerchief from your neck.”
“Aye, and he’ll bring it back!”
“And did the little lawless lad,
That has made you sick and made you sad,
Sail with the Gray Swan’s crew?”
“Lawless! the man is going mad!
The best boy mother ever had,—
Be sure he sailed with the crew!
What would you have him do?”
“And he has never written a line,
Nor sent you word, nor made you sign
To say he was alive!”
“Hold! if ’twas wrong, the wrong is mine;
Besides, he may be in the brine,
And could he write from the grave?
Tut, man, what would you have?”
Gone twenty years—a long, long cruise,—
’Twas wicked thus your love to abuse;
But if the lad still live,
And come back home, think you can
Forgive him?” “Miserable man,
You’re mad as the sea,—you rave,—
What have I to forgive?”
The sailor twitched his shirt so blue,
And from within his bosom drew
The kerchief. She was wild.
“My God! my Father! is it true?
My little lad, my Elihu!
My blessed boy, my child!
My dead, my living child!”
TO THE EVENING ZEPHYR.[¹]
ALICE CARY.
[¹] Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
SIT where the wild-bee is humming,
And listen in vain for thy song;
I’ve waited before for thy coming,
But never, oh, never so long!
How oft with the blue sky above us,
And waves breaking light on the shore,
Thou, knowing they would not reprove us,
Hast kissed me a thousand times o’er!
Alone in the gathering shadows,
Still waiting, sweet Zephyr, for thee,
I look for the waves of the meadows,
And dimples to dot the blue sea.
The blossoms that waited to greet thee
With heat of the noontide oppressed,
Now flutter so light to meet thee,
Thou’rt coming, I know, from the west.
Alas! if thou findest me pouting,
’Tis only my love that alarms;
Forgive, then, I pray thee, my doubting,
And take me once more to thine arms!
DEATH SCENE.[¹]
(PHOEBE CARY.)
[¹] Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
YING, still slowly dying,
As the hours of night rode by,
She had lain since the light of sunset
Was red on the evening sky;
Till after the middle watches,
As we softly near her trod,
When her soul from its prison fetters
Was loosed by the hand of God.
One moment her pale lips trembled
With the triumph she might not tell,
As the sight of the life immortal
On her spirit’s vision fell;
Then the look of rapture faded,
And the beautiful smile was faint,
As that in some convent picture,
On the face of a dying saint.
And we felt in the lonesome midnight,
As we sat by the silent dead,
What a light on the path going downward
The feet of the righteous shed;
When we thought how with faith unshrinking
She came to the Jordan’s tide,
And taking the hand of the Saviour,
Went up on the heavenly side.
MEMORIES.[¹]
(PHOEBE CARY.)
“She loved me, but she left me.”
[¹] Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
EMORIES on memories! to my soul again
There come such dreams of vanished love and bliss
That my wrung heart, though long inured to pain,
Sinks with the fulness of its wretchedness:
Thou, dearer far than all the world beside!
Thou, who didst listen to my love’s first vow—
Once I had fondly hoped to call thee bride:
Is the dream over? comes that awakening now?
And is this hour of wretchedness and tears
The only guerdon for my wasted years?
And I did love thee—when by stealth we met
In the sweet evenings of that summer time,
Whose pleasant memory lingers with me yet,
As the remembrance of a better clime
Might haunt a fallen angel. And oh, thou—
Thou who didst turn away and seek to bind
Thy heart from breaking—thou hast felt ere now
A heart like thine o’ermastereth the mind:
Affection’s power is stronger than thy will—
Ah, thou didst love me, and thou lovest me still.
My heart could never yet be taught to move
With the calm even pulses that it should:
Turning away from those that it should love,
And loving whom it should not, it hath wooed
Beauty forbidden—I may not forget;
And thou, oh thou canst never cease to feel;
But time, which hath not changed affection yet,
Hath taught at least one lesson—to conceal;
So none but thou, who see my smiles, shall know
The silent bleeding of the heart below.
“EQUAL TO EITHER FORTUNE.”[¹]
(PHOEBE CARY.)
[¹] Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
QUAL to either fortune!” This should be
The motto of the perfect man and true—
Striving to stem the billow fearlessly,
And keeping steadily the right in view,
Whether it be his lot in life to sail
Before an adverse or a prosperous gale.
Man fearlessly his voice for truth should raise,
When truth would force its way in deed or word;
Whether for him the popular voice of praise,
Or the cold sneer of unbelief is heard:
Like the First Martyr, when his voice arose
Distinct above the hisses of his foes.
“Equal to either fortune,” Heaven designs,
Whether his destiny be repose or toil—
Whether the sun upon his palace shines,
Or calls him forth to plant the furrowed soil:
So shall he find life’s blessings freely strewn
Around the peasant’s cottage as the throne.
Man should dare all things which he knows are right,
And fear to do no act save what is wrong;
But, guided safely by his inward light,
And with a permanent belief, and strong,
In Him who is our Father and our friend,
He should walk steadfastly unto the end.
Ready to live or die, even in that day
Which man from childhood has been taught to fear,
When, putting off its cumbrous weight of clay,
The spirit enters on a nobler sphere:
And he will be, whose life was rightly passed,
“Equal to either fortune” at the last.
LIGHT.[¹]
(PHOEBE CARY.)
This is one of the last poems. It was written after the death of her sister Alice, in 1871.
[¹] Copyright, Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
HILE I hid mine eyes, I feared;
The heavens in wrath seemed bowed;
I look, and the sun with a smile breaks forth,
And a rainbow spans the cloud.
I thought the winter was here,
That the earth was cold and bare,
But I feel the coming of birds and flowers,
And the spring-time in the air.
I said that all the lips
I ever had kissed were dumb;
That my dearest ones were dead and gone,
And never a friend would come.
But I hear a voice as sweet
As the fall of summer showers;
And the grave that yawned at my very feet
Is filled to the top with flowers!
As if ’t were the midnight hour,
I sat with gloom opprest;
When a light was breaking out of the east
And shining unto the west.
I heard the angels call
Across from the beautiful shore;
And I saw a look in my darling’s eyes,
That never was there before.
Transfigured, lost to me,
She had slipped from my embrace;
Now, lo! I hold her fast once more,
With the light of God on her face!
