Ah, little did Mrs. Livingstone think what she was doing when she bade young Malcolm Everett make her warm-hearted, impulsive daughter think he liked her!
[ROSA V. JEFFREY]
Mrs. Rosa Vertner Jeffrey, one of the most beautiful of Kentucky women, whose personal loveliness has caused some critics to forget she was a gifted poet, was born at Natchez, Mississippi, in 1828, the daughter of John Y. Griffith, a writer of considerable reputation in his day. Her mother died when she was but nine months old, and she was reared by her aunt. When Rosa was ten years of age her adopted parents removed to Lexington, Kentucky, where she was educated at the Episcopal Seminary. In 1845 Miss Vertner—she had taken the name of her foster parents—was married to Claude M. Johnson, a wealthy citizen of Lexington, and she at once took her place as a great social and literary leader. One of her sons, Mr. Claude M. Johnson, was mayor of Lexington for several years, and he was afterwards in the service of the United States government. In 1861 Mrs. Johnson's husband died, and she removed to Rochester, New York, where she resided for two years, when she was married to Alexander Jeffrey, of Edinburgh, Scotland, and they returned to Lexington, her home for the remainder of her life. Mrs. Jeffrey died at Lexington, Kentucky, October 6, 1894, and no woman has yet arisen in Kentucky to take her position as society's favorite beauty and poet. She began her literary career as a contributor of verse to Prentice's Louisville Journal. Her pen-name was "Rosa," and under this name her first volume of poems was published, entitled Poems, by Rosa (Boston, 1857). This was followed by Florence Vale; Woodburn, a novel; Daisy Dare and Baby Power (Philadelphia, 1871), a book of poems; The Crimson Hand and Other Poems (Philadelphia, 1881), her best known work; and Marah (Philadelphia, 1884), a novel. Mrs. Jeffrey was also the author of a five-act comedy, called Love and Literature. As a novelist or playwright she did nothing especially strong, but as a writer of pleasing poems her place in the literature of Kentucky seems secure.
Bibliography. History of Kentucky, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); The Register (Frankfort, January, 1911).
A GLOVE
[From The Crimson Hand and Other Poems (Philadelphia, 1881)]
In a box of airy trifles—fans, flowers, and ribbons gay—
I chanced to find a tasselled glove, worn once on the first of May.
How long ago? Ah me, ah me! twelve years, twelve years today!
Alas! for that beautiful, fragrant time, so far in the past away,
And crowned with sweeter memories than any other May,
Standing alone, in a checkered life—it was my wedding day!
The passing hours were shod with light, and their glowing sandals made
Such sunny tracks that they guide me yet through a retrospect of shade.
Through changes and shadows of twelve long years, down that love-lit path I stray;
The winters come and the winters go, yet it leads to an endless May.
No leaves of the autumn have fallen there, and never a flake of snow
Has chilled the path of those May-day hours that gleam through the long ago!
The flowering cherry's wild perfume came stealing, bitter sweet,
From fragrant breezes drifting heaps of blossoms to my feet;
The flowers are dust, but the bees that bore their subtle sweets away
Dropped golden honey on the path of that beautiful first of May.
And the sweetness clings, for I gather it in wandering back today.