Together with the music, there is strength in her verses, when she attempts to deal with subjects that call for vigorous treatment. In the “Rose Enthroned,” there is a strong grasping at the origin of things, and powerful descriptions of the primeval birth-throes that, from the war of elements, issued forth in the fairness of creation.
“Built by the warring elements they rise,
The massive earth-foundations, tier on tier,
Where slimy monsters with unhuman eyes
Their hideous heads uprear.”
In her mountain descriptions there is the same power. The wind-beaten and thunder-scarred summit of Whiteface presents itself to her as the visage of a monarch, who seems to rule the race of giant hills. The effect of a mountain whose slopes plunge into the sea is graphically given in the phrase, “Plunged knee-deep in yon glistening sea.” Her appreciation for beautiful details of nature, that seemed to escape the common observer, is seen in her similes and epithets; the little streams winding through the marshes are called “sea-fed creeks;” the mists that rise in the evening, reflecting the light of the descending sun, are “violet mists;” the quiet of the fields of clover, when one is out of sound of the waves, are fitly called “sweet inland silences;” the heart of the woods, where are the shadows, has its “forest crypts;” and there are “mosaics of tinted moss.”
Dr. Holmes very well describes her when he says: “She was as true a product of our Essex County soil as the bayberry; and her nature had the chaste and sweet fragrance of its fair and wholesome leaves. She was a true poetess, and a noble woman.” Her writings have the genuine flavor of the soil, like the perfume of the woods, or the salt spray that bathes one’s face along the seashore. Mr. Whittier thus analyzed her powers as a poet: “She holds in rare combination the healthfulness of simple truth and common sense, with the fine and delicate fancy, and an artist’s perception of all beauty.” Mr. Stedman, in his “Poets of America,” speaks of her as a sweet-voiced singer of “orchard notes.” This is a good partial description of certain of her songs, but as an estimate of her poetical ability it is very limited. She was not disturbed by the criticism, but wrote thus to a friend.
TO MRS. S. I. SPALDING.
4 Hotel Byron, Berkeley Street,
Boston, March 8, 1886.... Don’t be troubled about “orchard-notes.” I consider it the highest compliment.
Think of goldfinches and linnets, song-sparrows and orioles! I know and love their separate songs, and should feel proud if I thought my singing deserved comparison with theirs. Why, three fourths of the cheer of the spring and summer-time is in those same orchard-notes! I shall have to try hard to live up to my reputation. But if you do think I get up a little higher into the air, a little farther off into the wilderness sometimes, for a more meditative flight of song, just remember that very high critics do not always comprehend the music in the air about them. Does not Milton write of Shakespeare as “Fancy’s child,” and of his poetry as “wood-notes wild”?
Such an estimate must be imperfect, because it leaves out of consideration the moral power of her religious writings, which, more than her nature-songs, have won for her a place in the regard of the people. A gentleman thanking her for the gift of one of her books, expressed for many readers a recognition of this deeper hold: “A soul once fed and inspired as was mine, at a critical and sad juncture of its life, by your poetry, is likely to open, as I did, the beautiful book your kindness sent me, with strange delight.” One who could write “A Thanksgiving,” with its noble lines,—
“For thine own great gift of Being,