“As he said vanity, so vain say I,
Oh vanity, O vain all under sky;
Where is man can say, lo! I have found
On brittle earth a consolation sound?”
The next specimen of her poetry is an “Elegy on a Grandchild”:—
“Farewell, sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye;
Farewell, fair flower, that for a space was lent,
Then ta’en away into eternity.
Blest Babe, why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh the days so soon were terminate,
Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state?”
“By nature trees do rot when they are grown,
And plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall;
But plants new set to be eradicate,
And buds new-bloom to have so short a date,
’Tis by His hand alone that nature guides, and fate.”
The lines which follow were written in the prospect of death, and addressed to her husband:—
“How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon ’t may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant. Yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That, when that knot’s untied that made us one
I may seem thine, who in effect am none.
“And, if I see not half my days that’s due,
What Nature would God grant to yours and you.
The many faults that well you know I have,
Let be interred in my oblivious grave;
If any virtue is in me,
Let that live freshly in my memory;
And when thou feel’st no griefs, as I no harms,
Yet live thy dead, who long lay in thine arms;
And, when thy loss shall be repaid with gains,
Look to my little babes, my dear remains,
And, if thou lov’st thyself or lovest me,
These, oh protect from step-dame’s injury!
And, if chance to thine eyes doth bring this verse,
With some sighs honour my absent hearse,
And kiss this paper, for thy love’s dear sake,
Who with salt tears this last farewell doth take.”
In the year 1666, her house at Andover was consumed by fire, and her letters and papers destroyed, which put an end to one of her literary projects. Six years later she died, at the age of sixty years. It is said of her by an American author: “Her numbers are seldom correct, and her ear had little of Milton’s tenderness or Shakespeare’s grace; yet she was the contemporary of England’s greatest poets, the offspring of that age of melody which had begun with Spenser and Sidney, an echo, from the distant wilderness of the period of universal song.” Several of her descendants are amongst the most gifted of American poets; they include Channing, Dana, Holmes, and others. Her husband nearly reached the age of a hundred years, and was termed “the Nestor of New England.”
A Playful Poet:
Miss Catherine Fanshawe.
Several lasting contributions were made to poetical literature by Miss Catherine Maria Fanshawe. In the literary and artistic circles of London in the closing years of the last century, and for more than three decades of the present century she was popular.