Bring the sickle, speed the plough,
Turn the ready soil;
Freedom is the noblest pay
For a true man’s toil.
“Ho, brothers! come, brothers!
Hasten all with me;
We’ll sing upon the Kansas plains
A song of liberty.”
Her next little book, “Lottie’s Thought-book,” was published by the American Sunday School Union, Philadelphia, in 1858. Not unlike the Similitudes in its method of teaching by parables, it gave the thoughts of a clever child, as they would be suggested by such scenes as a beautiful spring morning in the country, “when glad thoughts praise God;” the first snow, typifying the purity of the earth; or the thought of the joy of living, in the chapter “Glad to be alive” that recalls an exclamation she uses in one of her letters, “Oh! how happy I am, that I did not die in childhood!” These little books are like the inner biography of her youth, a pure crystal stream of love, reflecting the sunlight in every ripple and eddy.
She also wrote for various magazines, notably “The Crayon,” in which appeared some criticisms of poetry, especially Miss Muloch’s, and some of her poems, like “Chriemhild,” a legend of Norse romance. The only payment she received was the subscription to the magazine. Her famous poem, “Hannah Binding Shoes,” was first printed in the “Knickerbocker,” without her knowledge,—then a few months later, in “The Crayon.” This fact gave rise to the accusation of plagiarism which, though it greatly annoyed her, brought her poem into general notice. Having sent the poem to the “Knickerbocker,” but not receiving any answer about its acceptance, she concluded that it had been rejected. She then sent it to “The Crayon,” where it appeared, but in the mean time it had been printed in the “Knickerbocker.” The editor of the last-named paper wrote a letter to the “New York Tribune,” in which he accused Lucy Larcom of being “a literary thiefess,” and claimed the “stolen goods.” In answer to this, Miss Larcom wrote immediately a reply to the “Tribune.”