DEAR HANDS.
Of the gems reprinted in The Scrap Book, our readers have received none more gladly than Mrs. Susan Marr Spalding’s “Fate,” which appeared in our first issue. Her name was then given as “Spaulding,” an error which we take this occasion to correct.
Few who read the poem in the March Scrap Book were aware that Mrs. Spalding was still living. It is many years since “Fate” first appeared. The author’s fame, while amply justified by many other poems, has been permitted to rest upon that single earlier product, and the author herself has been lost sight of. Since “Fate” appeared, however, she has written much that is worthy of long remembrance.
Mrs. Spalding has been living with a friend, Mrs. Louise P. Sargent, of West Medford, Massachusetts, who writes of her, saying: “She is a helpless invalid, but so sweet and helpful that her influence radiates through a large circle.” Many friends sent her the March Scrap Book, and she said:
“I am growing tired of ‘Fate.’ Why don’t they copy some of the sonnets, which are surely as deserving?”
Mrs. Spalding’s later poems, while perhaps no one of them strikes so vital a tone as “Fate,” are of high merit. We reprint from “The Wings of Icarus,” published by Roberts Brothers in 1892, the following fine sonnet:
By SUSAN MARR SPALDING.
Roughened and worn with ceaseless toil and care,
No perfumed grace, no dainty skill had these;
They earned for whiter hands a jeweled ease,
And kept the scars unlovely for their share.
Patient and slow, they had the will to bear
The whole world’s burdens, but no power to seize
The flying joys of life, the gifts that please,
The gold and gems that others find so fair.
Dear hands, where bridal jewel never shone,
Whereon no lover’s kiss was ever pressed,
Crossed in unwonted quiet on the breast—
I see, through tears, your glory newly won;
The golden circlet of life’s work well done,
Set with the shining pearl of perfect rest.