LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
O modern poet among American women stands higher in the estimation of her literary peers, or in the social scale than does the author of “Bedtime Stories,” “Some Women’s Hearts,” and “In the Garden of Dreams.” Mrs. Moulton enjoys the triple distinction of being a writer of the most popular stories for children, of popular novels for grown people, and of some of the best poetry which any woman has contributed to our literature. In herself she presents the conscientious poet who writes for the purpose of instructing and benefiting, and, at the same time, one whose wares are marketable and popular. Not a few critics have placed her sonnets at the head of their kind in America. Her poetry has for its main characteristic a constant but not a rebellious sorrow expressed with such consistent ease and melody that the reader is led on with a most pleasurable sensation from stanza to stanza and arises from the reading of her verses with a mellower and softer sympathy for his fellow-beings.
Louise Chandler was born at Pomfret, Connecticut, April 5, 1835, and her education was received in that vicinity. Her first book entitled “This, That and Other Poems” appeared when she was nineteen years of age. It was a girlish miscellany and sold remarkably well. After its publication, she passed one year in Miss Willard’s Seminary at Troy, New York, and it was during her first vacation from this school that she met and married the well-known Boston journalist, William Moulton. The next year was published “Juno Clifford,” a novel, without her name attached. Her next publication, issued in 1859, was a collection of stories under the title of “My Third Book.” Neither of these made a great success, and she published nothing more until 1873, when her now famous “Bedtime Stories for Children” was issued and attracted much attention. She has written five volumes of bright tales for children. In 1874 appeared “Some Women’s Hearts”and “Miss Eyre from Boston.” After this Mrs. Moulton visited Europe, and out of the memories of her foreign travel, she issued in 1881 a book entitled “Random Rambles,” and six years later came “Ours and Our Neighbors,” a book of essays on social subjects, and the same year she issued two volumes of poems. In 1889 she published simultaneously, in England and America, her most popular work, entitled “In the Garden of Dreams,” which has passed through many editions with increased popularity. Mrs. Moulton has also edited three volumes of the poems of Philip Burke Marseton.
Mrs. Moulton’s residence has been in Boston since 1855, with the exception of sixteen consecutive summers and autumns which she passed in Europe. In London she is especially at home, where she lives surrounded by friends and friendly critics, who value both her winning personality and her literary art. She has been throughout her life a systematic worker, devoting a part of each day to literary labor. Aside from her books, she has done much writing for newspapers and periodicals. From 1870 to 1876 she was the Boston literary correspondent for the New York “Tribune,” and for nearly five years she wrote a weekly letter reviewing new books and literary people for the Boston “Sunday Herald,” the series of these letters closing in December, 1891.
Mrs. Moulton, while not admitting herself to be a hero worshipper, is full of appreciation of the great bygone names of honor, and enjoys with a keen relish the memory of the personal friendship she had with such immortals as Whittier, Longfellow and Lowell, on this side of the Atlantic, and with Swinburne, Tennyson and others, in Europe.
“IF THERE WERE DREAMS TO SELL.”[¹]
“If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?”—Beddoes.
[¹] Copyright, Roberts Bros.
F there were dreams to sell,
Do I not know full well
What I would buy?
Hope’s dear delusive spell,
Its happy tale to tell—
Joy’s fleeting sigh.
I would be young again—
Youth’s madding bliss and bane
I would recapture—
Though it were keen with pain,
All else seems void and vain
To that fine rapture.
I would be glad once more—
Slip through an open door
Into Life’s glory—
Keep what I spent of yore,
Find what I lost before—
Hear an old story.
As it of old befell,
Breaking Death’s frozen spell,
Love should draw nigh:—
If there were dreams to sell,
Do I not know too well
What I would buy?
WIFE TO HUSBAND.[¹]
[¹] Copyright, Roberts Bros.
HEN I am dust, and thou art quick and glad.
Bethink thee, sometimes, what good days we had,
What happy days, beside the shining seas,
Or by the twilight fire, in careless ease,
Reading the rhymes of some old poet lover,
Or whispering our own love-story over.
When thou hast mourned for me a seemly space,
And set another in my vacant place,
Charmed with her brightness, trusting in her truth,
Warmed to new life by her beguiling youth,
Be happy, dearest one, and surely know
I would not have thee thy life’s joys forego.
Yet think of me sometimes, where, cold and still,
I lie, who once was swift to do thy will,
Whose lips so often answered to thy kiss,
Who, dying, blessed thee for that bygone bliss:
I pray thee do not bar my presence quite
From thy new life, so full of new delight.
I would not vex thee, waiting by thy side;
My presence should not chill thy fair young bride;
Only bethink thee how alone I lie:
To die and be forgotten were to die
A double death; and I deserve of thee
Some grace of memory, fair howe’er she be.
THE LAST GOOD-BYE.[¹]
[¹] Copyright, Roberts Bros.
OW shall we know it is the last good-bye?
The skies will not be darkened in that hour,
No sudden light will fall on leaf or flower,
No single bird will hush its careless cry,
And you will hold my hands, and smile or sigh
Just as before. Perchance the sudden tears
In your dear eyes will answer to my fears;
But there will come no voice of prophecy:
No voice to whisper, “Now, and not again,
Space for last words, last kisses, and last prayer,
For all the wild, unmitigated pain
Of those who, parting clasp hands with despair.”
“Who knows?” we say, but doubt and fear remain,
Would any choose to part thus unaware?
NEXT YEAR.
HE lark is singing gaily in the meadow, the sun is rising o’er the dark blue hills;
But she is gone, the music of whose talking was sweeter than the voice of summer rills.
Sometimes I see the bluebells of the forest, and think of her blue eyes;
Sometimes I seem to hear the rustle of her garments: ’tis but the wind’s low sighs.
I see the sunbeams trail along the orchard, and fall in thought to tangling up her hair;
And sometimes round the sinless lips of childhood breaks forth a smile, such as she used to wear;
But never any pleasant thing, around, above us, seems to me like her love—
More lofty than the skies that bend and brighten o’er us, more constant than the dove.
She walks no more beside me in the morning; she meets me not on any summer eve;
But once at night I heard a low voice calling—“Oh, faithful friend, thou hast not long to grieve!”
Next year, when larks are singing gaily in the meadow, I shall not hear their tone;
But she in the dim, far-off country of the stranger, will walk no more alone.
MY MOTHER’S PICTURE.
(FROM “IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS.”)
OW shall I here her placid picture paint
With touch that shall be delicate, yet sure?
Soft hair above a brow so high and pure
Years have not soiled it with an earthly taint,
Needing no aureole to prove her saint;
Firm mind that no temptation could allure;
Soul strong to do, heart stronger to endure;
And calm, sweet lips that uttered no complaint.
So have I seen her, in my darkest days
And when her own most sacred ties were riven,
Walk tranquilly in self-denying ways,
Asking for strength, and sure it would be given;
Filling her life with lowly prayer, high praise—
So shall I see her, if we meet in heaven.