FROM
THE POETS OF TRANSCENDENTALISM: AN ANTHOLOGY
EDITED BY GEORGE WILLIS COOKE
BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 1903
AND FROM
THE DIAL: A MAGAZINE FOR LITERATURE, PHILOSOPHY, AND RELIGION
Biographical Note By George Willis Cooke
Born in Boston, February 17, 1812, and died there, November 3, 1848. She married Robert William Hooper, a Boston physician, her maiden name having been Sturgis. She was a frequent contributor to “ The Dial,” and an intimate friend of Margaret Fuller, Emerson, and other transcendentalists. No collection of her poems has been published, but they have been printed on sheets, inclosed in a portfolio, and given to her friends. Most of the poems selected appeared in “ The Dial,” and the others were printed in “The Disciples’ Hymn Book,” compiled by Rev. James Freeman Clarke for his church, and in Miss E. P. Peabody’s “Æsthetic Papers.” Emerson encouraged Mrs. Hooper to write, and had large expectations of her genius. Colonel T. W. Higginson described her as “a woman of genius,” and Margaret Fuller wrote of her from Rome: “I have seen in Europe no woman more gifted by nature than she.”
BEAUTY AND DUTY
I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty;
I woke, and found that life was duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee.
THE STRAIGHT ROAD
Beauty may be the path to highest good,
And some successfully have it pursued.
Thou, who wouldst follow, be well warned to see
That way prove not a curved road to thee.
The straightest path perhaps which may be sought,
Lies through the great highway men call “I ought.”
THE HEART’S CURE
“Heart, heart, lie still!
Life is fleeting fast,
Strife will soon be past.”
“I cannot lie still,
Beat strong I will.”
“Heart, heart, lie still!
Joy ‘s but joy, and pain‘s but pain,
Either, little loss or gain.”
“I cannot lie still,
Beat strong I will.”
“Heart, heart, lie still!
Heaven is over all,
Rules this earthly ball.”
“I cannot lie still,
Beat strong I will.”
“Heart, heart, lie still!
Heaven’s sweet grace alone
Can keep in peace its own.”
“Let that me fill,
And I am still.”
THE POET
He touched the earth, a soul of flame,
His bearing proud, his spirit high,
Filled with the heavens from whence he came,
He smiled upon man’s destiny.
Yet smiled as one who knew no fear,
And felt a secret strength within,
Who wondered at the pitying tear
Shed over human loss and sin.
Lit by an inward brighter light,
Than aught that round about him shone,
He walked erect through shades of night,
Clear was his pathway, but how lone!
Men gaze in wonder and in awe
Upon a form so like to theirs,
Worship the presence, yet withdraw,
And carry elsewhere warmer prayers.
Yet when the glorious pilgrim guest,
Forgetting once his strange estate,
Unloosed the lyre from off his breast
And strung its chords to human fate;
And gaily snatching some rude air,
Carolled by idle passing tongue,
Gave back the notes that lingered there,
And in heaven’s tones earth’s low lay sung;
Then warmly grasped the hand that sought
To thank him with a brother’s soul,
And when the generous wine was brought,
Shared in the feast and quaffed the bowl;
Men kid their hearts low at his feet,
And sunned their being in his light,
Pressed on his way his steps to greet,
And in his love forgot his might.
And when, a wanderer long on earth,
On him its shadow also fell,
And dimmed the lustre of a birth,
Whose day-spring was from heaven’s own well,
They cherished even the tears he shed,
Their woes were hallowed by his woe,
Humanity, half cold and dead,
Had been revived in genius’ glow.
