Read Great Poems by American Women Online
Authors: Susan L. Rattiner
Rose Hartwick Thorpe was born in Indiana and grew up in Kansas and Michigan, where she attended public school. Her most famous ballad, “Curfew Must Not Ring To-Night,” was written when Thorpe was a teenager, and was first published in the
Commercial Advertiser
in Detroit in 1870. Based on a short story from
Peterson's Magazine
, the narrative poem was immensely popular, and an illustrated edition appeared in 1882. Thorpe married in 1871, and continued submitting poetry to periodicals while raising her two daughters. After her husband's death, she worked for women's suffrage and was a member of the Women's Club of San Diego. In addition to her verse, published in
Temperance Poems
(1887),
Ringing Ballads
(1887), and
The Poetical Works of Rose Hartwick Thorpe
(1912), Thorpe also wrote a number of books for children.
England's sun was slowly setting o'er the hill-tops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day;
And its last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,â
He with steps so slow and weary, she with sunny, floating hair:
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful; she with lips so cold and white,
Struggled to keep back the murmur, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”
“Sexton,” Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,
With its walls so tall and gloomy,âmoss-grown walls dark, damp, and cold,â
“I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die
At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh.
Cromwell will not come till sunset”; and her lips grew strangely white
As she spoke in husky whispers, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”
“Bessie,” calmly spoke the sexton (every word pierced her young heart
Like a gleaming death-winged arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart),
“Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;
Every evening, just at sunset, it has tolled the twilight hour.
I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right;
Now I'm old I will not miss it: Curfew bell must ring to-night!”
Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,
And within her heart's deep centre Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh,
“At the ringing of the curfew Basil Underwood
must die
.”
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright;
One low murmur, faintly spoken, “Curfew
must not
ring to-night!”
She with quick step bounded forward, sprang within the old church door,
Left the old man coming, slowly, paths he'd trod so oft before.
Not one moment paused the maiden, but, with cheek and brow aglow,
Staggered up the gloomy tower where the bell swung to and fro;
As she climbed the slimy ladder, on which fell no ray of light,
Upward still, her pale lips saying, “Curfew
shall not
ring to-night!”
She has reached the topmost ladder; o'er her hangs the great, dark bell;
Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell.
See, the ponderous tongue is swinging! 't is the hour of curfew now!
And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring? No, never! Her eyes flash with sudden light,
As she springs and grasps it firmly: “Curfew
shall not
ring to-night!”
Out she swung, far out; the city seemed a speck of light below,
There 'twixt heaven and earth suspended, as the bell swung to and fro.
And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell;
Sadly thought that twilight curfew rang young Basil's funeral knell.
Still the maiden, clinging firmly, quivering lip and fair face white,
Stilled her frightened heart's wild beating: “
Curfew shall not ring tonight!”
It was o'er!âthe bell ceased swaying, and the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the damp old ladder, where, for hundred years before,
Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done
Should be told long ages after. As the rays of setting sun
Light the sky with golden beauty, aged sires, with heads of white,
Tell the children why the curfew did not ring that one sad night.
O'er the distant hills comes Cromwell. Bessie sees him, and her brow,
Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands, all bruised and torn;
And her sweet young face, still haggard with the anguish it had worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light.
“Go! your lover lives,” cried Cromwell. “Curfew shall not ring tonight!”
Wide they flung the massive portals, led the prisoner forth to die,
All his bright young life before him, 'neath the darkening English sky.
Bessie came, with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with lovelight sweet,
Kneeling on the turf beside him, laid his pardon at his feet.
In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white,
Whispered, “Darling, you have saved me! curfew will not ring tonight.”
The youngest child of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was born in Lenox, Massachusetts, and lived in England, Portugal, and Italy before marrying in 1871. Between 1875 and 1892, Lathrop published fiction for children as well as poetry on the themes of relationships, death, and grief. After converting to Roman Catholicism, she began writing about issues of social justice. In 1896, Lathrop founded an order of nuns to help care for indigents dying of cancer. From then on, Lathrop was known as Mother Mary Alphonsa.
Sorrow, my friend,
When shall you come again?
The wind is slow, and the bent willows send
Their silvery motions wearily down the plain.
The bird is dead
That sang this morning through the summer rain!
Â
Sorrow, my friend,
I owe my soul to you.
And if my life with any glory end
Of tenderness for others, and the words are true,
Said, honoring, when I'm dead,â
Sorrow, to you, the mellow praise, the funeral wreath, are due.
Â
And yet, my friend,
When love and joy are strong,
Your terrible visage from my sight I rend
With glances to blue heaven. Hovering along,
By mine your shadow led,
“Away!” I shriek, “nor dare to work my new-sprung mercies wrong!”
Â
Still, you are near:
Who can your care withstand?
When deep eternity shall look most clear,
Sending bright waves to kiss the trembling land,
My joy shall disappear,â
A flaming torch thrown to the golden sea by your pale hand.
Kate Nichols Trask, born in Brooklyn, New York, to a wealthy family, was educated in private schools and married a banker in 1874. After her children died, Trask turned to writing, and published three long love poems anonymously in 1892. All of her subsequent books, including
Sonnets and Lyrics
(1894),
White Satin and Homespun
(1896),
Free
,
Not Bound
(1903), and
In the Vanguard
(1914), an antiwar play, were signed with the name “Katrina Trask.” She was also very active in various philanthropies. As early as 1899, Trask and her husband hoped to open their large Saratoga Springs estate, Yaddo, as an artists' colony. After Trask's death in 1922, Yaddo served as a summer retreat for artists.
O thorn-crowned Sorrow, pitiless and stern,
I sit alone with broken heart, my head
Low bowed, keeping long vigil with my dead.
My soul, unutterably sad, doth yearn
Beyond relief in tearsâthey only burn
My aching eyelids to fall back unshed
Upon the throbbing brain like molten lead,
Making it frenzied. Shall I ever learn
To face you fearlessly, as by my door
You stand with haunting eyes and death-damp hair,
Through the night-watches, whispering solemnly,
“Behold, I am thy guest forevermore.”
It chills my soul to know that you are there.
Great God, have mercy on my misery!
Heaven is mirrored, Love, deep in thine eyes,
Soft falls its shimmering light upon thy face;
Tell me, Beloved, is this Paradise,
Or but Love's bower in some deep-sheltered place?
Â
Is that God's burning bush that now appears,
Or but the sunlight slanting through the trees?
Is that sweet song the music of the spheres,
Or but the deep andante of the breeze?
Â
Are we blest spirits of some glad new birth
Floating at last in God's eternity?
Or art thou, Love, still but a man on earth,
And I a woman clinging close to thee?
Edith M. Thomas, born in Chatham, Ohio, wrote poems at an early age, greatly inspired by the poetry of John Keats and her appreciation of Greek literature. She taught school for two years and worked as a typesetter before visiting New York City in 1881. While there, Thomas met Helen Hunt Jackson, who encouraged her to contribute her poems to
Century
magazine and the
Atlantic Monthly
. Her first collection, A
New Year's Masque
, was published in 1885, and was followed by many more successful books, such as
Lyrics and Sonnets
(1887),
The Inverted Torch
(1890), and several books for children.
She was so littleâtittle in her grave,
The wide earth all around so hard and coldâ
She was so little! therefore did I crave
My arms might still her tender form enfold.
She was so little, and her cry so weak
When she among the heavenly children cameâ
She was so littleâalone might speak
For her who knew no word nor her own name.
I know it must be winter (though I sleep)â
I know it must be winter, for I dream
I dip my bare feet in the running stream,
And flowers are many, and the grass grows deep.
Â
I know I must be old (how age deceives!)â
I know I must be old, for, all unseen,
My heart grows young, as autumn fields grow green,
When late rains patter on the falling sheaves.
Â
I know I must be tired (and tired souls err)â
I know I must be tired, for all my soul
To deeds of daring beats a glad, faint roll,
As storms the riven pine to music stir.
Â
I know I must be dying (Death draws near)â
I know I must be dying, for I crave
Lifeâlife, strong life, and think not of the grave,
And turf-bound silence, in the frosty year.
Maryland-born Lizette Woodworth Reese attended St. John's Parish School and the public schools of Baltimore. She was a teacher for forty-five years, and her leisure time was devoted to writing poetry. “The Deserted House” was her first published poem, appearing in the
Southern Magazine
in 1874. Her first book of poems, A
Branch of May
, was published thirteen years later, in 1887. Among Reese's fourteen books are: A
Handful of Lavender
(1891), A
Quiet Road
(1896), and
Spicewood
(1920). “Tears” is her most famous sonnet, first appearing in
Scribner's Magazine
in 1899. Reese also published two books of her memoirs entitled A
Victorian Village
(1929) and
The York Road
(1931). In 1931, Reese received the Mary L. Keats Memorial Prize and was named poet laureate of Maryland.
One lily scented all the dark. It grew
Down the drenched walk a spike of ghostly white.
Fine, sweet, sad noises thrilled the tender night,
From insects couched on blades that dripped with dew.
The road beyond, cleaving the great fields through,
Echoed no footstep; like a streak of light,
The gaunt and blossoming elder gleamed in sight.
The boughs began to quake, and warm winds blew,
And whirled a myriad petals down the air.
An instant, peaked and black the old house stood;
The next, its gables showed a tremulous gray,
Then deepening gold; the next, the world lay bare!
The moon slipped out the leash of the tall wood,
And through the heavenly meadows fled away.
When I consider Life and its few yearsâ
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;
A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;
The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat;
The burst of music down an unlistening streetâ
I wonder at the idleness of tears.
Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,
Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep,
By every cup of sorrow that you had,
Loose me from tears, and make me see aright
How each hath back what once he stayed to weep;
Homer his sight, David his little lad!
The spicewood burns along the gray, spent sky,
In moist unchimneyed places, in a wind,
That whips it all before, and all behind,
Into one thick, rude flame, now low, now high.
It is the first, the homeliest thing of allâ
At sight of it, that lad that by it fares,
Whistles afresh his foolish, town-caught airsâ
A thing so honey-colored and so tall!
Â
It is as though the young Year, ere he pass,
To the white riot of the cherry tree,
Would fain accustom us, or here, or there,
To his new sudden ways with bough and grass,
So starts with what is humble, plain to see,
And all familiar as a cup, a chair.