Mrs. Osgood was, perhaps, as deserving as any one of whom we read in literary history, of the title of improvisatrice. Her beautiful songs, displaying so truly the most delicate lights and shadows of woman's heart, and surprising by their unity, completeness, and rhythmical perfection, were written with almost the fluency of conversation. The secret of this was in the wonderful sympathy between her emotions and faculties, both of exquisite sensibility, and subject to the influences of whatever has power upon the subtler and diviner qualities of human nature. Her facility in invention, in the use of poetical language, and in giving form to every airy dream or breath of passion, was astonishing. It is most true of men, that no one has ever attained to the highest reach of his capacities in any art—and least of all in poetry—without labor—without the application of the "second thought," after the frenzy of the divine afflatus is passed—in giving polish and shapely grace. The imagination is the servant of the reason; the creative faculties present their triumphs to the constructive—and the seal to the attainable is set, by every one, in repose and meditation. But this is scarcely a law of the feminine intelligence, which, when really endowed with genius, is apt to move spontaneously, and at once, with its greatest perfection. Certainly, Mrs. Osgood disclaimed the wrestling of thought with expression. For the most part her poems cost her as little effort or reflection, as the epigram or touching sentiment that summoned laughter or tears to the group about her in the drawing-room.
She was indifferent to fame; she sung simply in conformity to a law of her existence; and perhaps this want of interest was the cause not only of the most striking faults in her compositions, but likewise of the common ignorance of their variety and extent. Accustomed from childhood to the use of the pen—resorting to it through a life continually exposed to the excitements of gaiety and change, or the depressions of affliction and care, she strewed along her way with a prodigality almost unexampled the choicest flowers of feeling: left them unconsidered and unclaimed in the repositories of friendship, or under fanciful names, which she herself had forgotten, in newspapers and magazines,—in which they were sure to be recognised by some one, and so the purpose of their creation fulfilled. It was therefore very difficult to make any such collection of her works as justly to display her powers and their activity; and the more so, that those effusions of hers which were likely to be most characteristic, and of the rarest excellence, were least liable to exposure in printed forms, by the friends, widely scattered in Europe and America, for whom they were written. But notwithstanding these disadvantages, the works of Mrs. Osgood with which we are acquainted, are more voluminous than those of Mrs. Hemans or Mrs. Norton.[8] Besides the "Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England," which appeared during her residence in London, a collection of her poems in one volume was published in New York in 1846; and in 1849, Mr. Hart, of Philadelphia, gave to the public, in a large octavo illustrated by our best artists and equalling or surpassing in its tasteful and costly style any work before issued from the press of this country, the most complete and judiciously edited collection of them that has appeared. This edition, however, contains less than half of her printed pieces which she acknowledged; and among those which are omitted are a tragedy, a comedy, a great number of piquant and ingenious vers de societe, and several sacred pieces, which strike us as among the best writings of their kind in our literature, which in this department, we may admit, is more distinguishable for the profusion than for the quality of its fruits.
[8] Besides the books by her which have been referred to, she published The Language of Gems, (London); The Snow Drop, (Providence); Puss in Boots, (New York); Cries of New York, (New York); The Flower Alphabet, (Boston); The Rose: Sketches in Verse, (Providence); A Letter About the Lions, addressed to Mabel in the Country, (New York). The following list of her prose tales, sketches, and essays, is probably very incomplete: A Day in New England; A Crumpled Rose Leaf; Florence Howard; Ida Gray; Florence Errington; A Match for the Matchmaker; Mary Evelyn; Once More; Athenais; The Wife; The Little Lost Shoe; The Magic Lute; Feeling vs. Beauty; The Doom; The Flower and Gem; The Coquette; The Soul Awakened; Glimpses of a Soul, (in three parts); Lizzie Lincoln; Dora's Reward; Waste Paper; Newport Tableaux; Daguerreotype Pictures; Carry Carlisle; Valentine's Day; The Lady's Shadow; Truth; Virginia; The Waltz and the Wager; The Poet's Metamorphosis; Pride and Penitence; Mabel; Pictures from a Painter's Life; Georgiana Hazleton; A Sketch; Kate Melbourne; Life in New York; Leonora L'Estrange; The Magic Mirror; The Blue Belle; and Letters of Kate Carol, (a series of sketches of men, women and books;) contributed for the most part to Mr. Labree's Illustrated Magazine.
Mrs. Osgood's definition of poetry, that it is the rhythmical creation of beauty, is as old as Sydney; and though on some grounds objectionable, it is, perhaps, on the whole, as just as any that the critics have given us. An intelligent examination, in the light of this principle, of what she accomplished, will, it is believed, show that she was, in the general, of the first rank of female poets; while in her special domain, of the Poetry of the Affections, she had scarcely a rival among women or men. As Pinckney said,
Affections were as thoughts to her, the measure of her hours—
Her feelings had the fragrancy and freshness of young flowers.
Of love, she sung with tenderness and delicacy, a wonderful richness of fancy, and rhythms that echo all the cadences of feeling. From the arch mockery of the triumphant and careless conqueror, to the most passionate prayer of the despairing, every variety and height and depth of hope and fear and bliss and pain is sounded, in words that move us to a solitary lute or a full orchestra of a thousand voices; and with an abandon, as suggestive of genuineness as that which sometimes made the elder Kean seem "every inch a king." It is not to be supposed that all these caprices are illustrations of the experiences of the artist, in the case of the poet any more than in that of the actor: by an effort of the will, they pass with the liberties of genius into their selected realms, assume their guises, and discourse their language. If ever there were
—Depths of tenderness which showed when woke,
That woman there as well as angel spoke,
they are not to be looked for in the printed specimens of woman's genius. Mrs. Osgood guarded herself against such criticism, by a statement in her preface, that many of her songs and other verses were written to appear in prose sketches and stories, and were expressions of feeling suitable to the persons and incidents with which they were at first connected.
In this last edition, to which only reference will be made in these paragraphs, her works are arranged under the divisions of Miscellaneous Poems—embracing, with such as do not readily admit another classification, her most ambitious and sustained compositions; Sacred Poems—among which, "The Daughter of Herodias," the longest, is remarkable for melodious versification and distinct painting: Tales and Ballads—all distinguished for a happy play of fancy, and two or three for the fruits of such creative energy as belongs to the first order of poetical intelligences; Floral Fancies—which display a gaiety and grace, an ingenuity of allegory, and elegant refinement of language, that illustrate her fairy-like delicacy of mind and purity of feeling; and Songs—of which we shall offer some particular observations in their appropriate order. Scattered through the book we have a few poems for children, so perfect in their way as to induce regret that she gave so little attention to a kind of writing in which few are really successful, and in which she is scarcely equalled.
The volume opens with a brief voluntary, which is followed by a beautiful and touching address to The Spirit of Poetry, displaying the perfection of her powers, and her consciousness that they had been too much neglected while ministering more than all things else to her happiness. If ever from her heart she poured a passionate song, it was this, and these concluding lines of it admit us to the sacredest experiences of her life: