And light lay soft on the deserted room
From alabaster vases, and a scent
Of orange leaves and sweet verbena came
From the unshuttered window on the air,
And the rich pictures, with their dark old tints,
Hung like a twilight landscape, and all things
Seemed hushed into a slumber. Isabelle,
The dark eyed, spiritual Isabelle,
Was leaning on her harp.”
“The Token,” begun in 1828 and continued to 1842, was edited by Goodrich every year except 1829, when Willis had charge of it. Like other Annuals it contained, in spots, some good art and good writing. There were delicately designed and engraved vignette titles or presentation plates by Cheney, the Hartford artist. There was an occasional contribution, in prose, from Longfellow or Mrs. Child—then Miss Francis, and likewise a contributor to “The Legendary.” Many of Hawthorne’s “Twice-Told Tales” came out in “The Token.” Mrs. Sigourney’s “Connecticut River” divided with Willis’s “The Soldier’s Widow” the $100 prize offered by the publisher for 1828. Among the contributors to Willis’s volume (1829) were John Neal, Colonel William L. Stone, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Hale, the Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, Willis’s Albany friend, J. B. Van Schaick, and Goodrich himself. The Rev. G. W. Doane—afterward Bishop Doane—gave his well known verses, “What is that, Mother?” Willis gave five poems of his own, the only noteworthy one among which was “Saturday Afternoon,” written to accompany the frontispiece, engraved by Ellis from a painting by Fisher, and representing children swinging in a barn. This had more the character of a simple, popular ballad than anything else which he had written, and was liked by many readers who cared little about his more elaborate verse. Another poem in “The Token,” “Psyche before the Tribunal of Venus,” he wrote for the engraving by Cheney from a drawing of Fragonard. A college tale, “The Ruse,” was a slight advance on the experiments in “The Legendary;” the dialogue was handled more freely, but the story was weak as a whole, hardly worth mentioning, certainly not worth preserving. Willis continued to contribute verses to “The Token” after he had resigned its editorship. “To a City Pigeon,” “On a Picture of a Girl leading her Blind Mother through the Woods,” and doubtless other pieces were printed in subsequent numbers. He wrote for other Annuals, at various times: “The Power of an Injured Look,” for “The Gift,” a Christmas book, 1845; an article “On Dress,” for “The Opal,” 1848, and edited “The Thought Blossom,” a memorial volume, as late as 1854. “The Torn Hat” was contributed to “The Youth’s Keepsake” for 1829, and “Contemplation” was written in 1828 to accompany an engraving in “Remember Me,” a religious Annual published in Philadelphia. But he had no very high opinion of the class of literature that they cultivated, and spoke of them as “yearly flotillas of trash.”