The Poems of Mrs. Spofford, Owen Innsly, and Miss Hutchinson

IF the present century is especially favorable to the development of women poets, the United States in turn seems to be the country where they occur in greatest number. The abundance of their production results, of course, in a large proportion of mediocrity, as is likewise the case with men ; but, besides this, the natural tendency of women to select certain classes of theme, and to voice moods that are very much the same with them all, gives to their verse when viewed in the large a suspicion of monotony. As a rule, their poetry is more subjective than that of men ; they do not treat eagerly and with convincing reality stories and subjects in which they find no relation personal to themselves, so often as men do.

Hence it is all the more a pleasure to find presented to our notice within a short space of time three books of verse by women, which are above the average and unusually individual. Mrs. Spofford’s work ¹ is much of it known to the readers of magazines, and of The Atlantic in particular. But it is the outcome of a mind so engaging in its traits and of an artistic mould so finely formed that it will bear repeated scrutiny. Take, for instance, the Flower Songs in her volume, where the spirit of the violet, the hyacinth, the rose and lily, is so delicately embodied; or a picture touched in as lightly as a skillful water-color, in these opening lines of O Soft Spring Airs : —

Without effort, freshly and with a grace springing from perfect sympathy, her words ensnare some of the most charming effects of nature. Birds and flowers are imprisoned in her verse, yet do not lose their freedom.

She has, moreover, a captivating fancy, which now and then embodies itself in strains like those of Evanescence: —

Here are brevity, point, a sudden contrast of ideas, a reservation of the full meaning until the last line, all achieved ; but no particle of affectation in the result. In that final verse lurks a seeming contradiction of ideas, which is allied to wit; at the same instant, because it states an undoubted truth of mortality while half denying it, the line glances off into quiet pathos. The pathetic emotion and the smile at the wit mingle. The whole may well recall, by taking its place in the same rank with them, the epigrammatic songs of Herrick, Carew, or, still more, Ben Jonson. Mrs. Spofford has doubtless studied those elder poets. But what of that ? These things may be written in one generation as well as another ; they are always in season and always original. No mere imitator can produce them. We must here cite in full a ballad from the group entitled In Summer Nights, which runs : —

This is as good as a strain from the old dramatists ; yet who shall say it is not just as valuable as if the old dramatists had never been ? It teaches no lesson ; it merely suggests a simple story and presents a vivid effect. It contains feeling, picture, and music, and is perfectly genuine. Only one other piece shall we quote, which exemplifies the authoress’s tender reserve in treating episodes of more intimately personal experience, which she brings home to every one who has loved or suffered: —

UNDER THE BREATH.

Akin to this is the frank, sweet, simple confidence imparted in Mother Mine, where the writer tells how, when in childhood, she read

but how, in the long years since, watching the unfolding of her mother’s gentle life, she has found it sweeter far than even those old ballads. The poem last mentioned is brighter in tone than the other; and, indeed, it is one of the remarkable things about this book that its author has retained, amid all the vicissitudes of the poetic heart, so deep a well-spring of buoyancy and of delight in the gladder phases of existence. This may be seen in the rhapsody, My Own Song, beginning,—

Mrs. Spofford is more a colorist than a master of outline and form. All the scenes she paints are dreamy; shapes and emotions, sounds and tints, run into and blend with one another, composing a total delicious, hut somewhat vague and tinged with romance. Witness her description of the Capitol and the streets of Washington, in the elegy on Sarah Hildreth Butler. This may not be the highest intellectual quality of art; but without it there could be no poetry, and everything would seem mean and dull. It should be said, too, that her idealization is always truthful, and never in the least bombastic, exaggerative, or conventional. As for her execution, it is at once finished and free ; though there is, perhaps, too great a partiality shown for line-rhymes, and an occasional verse stumbles or falls short when there is nothing to be gained by letting it do so. Neither is it advisable to make a dissyllable of the word “ tired,” as is done in the third line of Ali. But how vigorous are some single measures, like this, " The swollen blast comes keening up the valley ”!

It may not be great poetry which these pages disclose. Its range certainly is not wide: the wind, the roses, the storm, common joys and griefs, play their part over and over in the various compositions. But if it is not great, it is good. Further than that, it is pure, exhilarating, often infinitely touching; and these are attributes which seldom fail to secure a welcome.

We should be sorry to have it thought that, in giving Owen Innsly ² credit for a certain individuality, we have any intention of placing it on the same plane with that of Mrs. Spofford. The lady who shelters her identity under this synonym secures an appearance of being individual by somewhat factitious means. The Love Poems and Sonnets do not impress us as being the offspring of a mind with any remarkable natural qualifications for poetic utterance, and they constantly suggest that all their grace, condensation, and quietude, adding to the effect of repressed feeling, have been attained by carefully following the best models. No doubt the emotional history contained in these effusions is itself genuine ; but the record of it seems to show that to the writer a choice and cultivated expression has been of even higher importance than the pangs themselves which prompted her to write. From this a slightly artificial tone results. The soft pedal has been too persistently applied. By concentrating herself upon one order of experience, and describing a somewhat mysterious love, with its several phases of disappointment, compensation, and endurance, Owen Innsly virtually asks us to select her from the mass of lovers, and to recognize that this especial experience of hers rises somewhat above the average. People are generally ready to do this, when the poet speaks with either unusual force or unusual softness and meek refinement. Moreover, it is not at first plain whether the adoration embodied in these poems is addressed to a woman or a man ; and where there is an enigma, there is something more than commonplace. Some of the sonnets and songs are directly offered to another woman named Helen; and as the author’s pseudonym is masculine, the whole strain of amalory chords may be supposed to sound in Helen’s honor. But since it is generally known that Owen Innsly is not a man, this supposition that one woman has addressed a quantity of love poems to another seems to us improbable ; and we incline to think that the real object of some of the verses has been purposely disguised. Others, again, are obviously imaginative statements of what a man might feel. Banishing the mystery, and looking at the book apart from that, we find a few poems which, taken singly, are simple and pleasing so far as they go ; polished without being very fervent. There are others which are feeble, or (like The Sleeping Beauty) worthless. The Blossoms of Love is, both in title and matter, weakly sentimental. Perhaps the prettiest of all is this : —

THE GREEK YOUTH.

Here, too, in Tes Joyaux, is a striking and well-turned stanza : —

In addition to French verses, the volume presents several compositions in German and Italian, which are hardly worth while. Diversions of this kind in foreign languages have the sanction of example set by Longfellow, Swinburne, and Rossetti, to say nothing of Milton’s Latin and Italian poems ; but if a poet can be eminent in one language, whether his mother-tongue or — as with Chamisso — an adoptive one, it is tempting the gods for him to seek the same laurels through another speech ; and the gods have thus far failed to succumb. To the love poems of Owen Innsly are appended some miscellaneous verses, of little interest or value ; showing how largely the attention she has attracted is due to her attitude as a person professing peculiar insight into the master passion. And why, in the lines to Emerson, should mystery be affected by heading them To R. W. E. ? The sonnets in the book are of various construction, often nicely wrought, but never rising to the highest plane. Such a confusion of images as that in Submission should not have been allowed to appear: —

One may do justice to the conscientious labor of the writer, and to her conception of a faithful, tender love rising above calamity ; or may with less satisfaction contemplate her singular ecstasy over another woman ; but there will hardly be found in her poetry anything to gladden the soul or move the heart deeply. Nor is it altogether healthy, or strong in imagination.

In another collection of Songs and Lyrics,³ another woman, Miss Hutchinson, sings in a light, delicate strain the love-moods of both man and maid, but without making a " specialty ” of them ; and treats some other themes as well, in much the same key. Out of these fifty little pieces, a few may be selected which will be apt to linger in the memory.

The Moth Song, to begin with, indicates a fine, uncommon fancy, and arouses expectation: —

This is certainly effective. The fancy is quaint, and the dim, groping nature of the moth is infused into the fragile fabric with curious subtlety. But not all of the succeeding poems will bear comparison with this. They are sometimes so very light that it is difficult to discern any substance in them. In Snow and the Shadow Song, however, are tangible, and at the same time very dainty. In The Lilac, Miss Hutchinson has been so successful as to associate her delicately suggestive lines with the flower in such wise that the two things will hardly be separable afterwards, to those who read the song. By song, in this case, we do not mean the genuine lyric; for, despite the title of the book, there is scarcely anything of the “ lyric cry ” in it. Meditative, fanciful, gayly affectionate little poems they are, but not precisely songs. A deeper note is struck in A Cry from the Shore, which, besides being resonant and flowing, has something ghostly about it, and rings in the ears afterward almost like one of the Commendatore’s coldly echoing chords, in Don Giovanni. Tryst, though less strong, is of this more serious kind ; and the thought and accent of that brief story, The Date in the Ring, will, we think, be received by the discerning as genuine. When Miss Hutchinson sings of flowers, she appears to be thrown off her guard, and becomes extravagant to no very good purpose ; calling violets “darlings ” and “ as sweet as sweet can be.” It is assuredly neither wise nor in any way profitable to say, as she does in Love’s Imagination, —

But in her Harvest she gives with a truer hand this sketch : —

Buchanan Read has anticipated her, by speaking of

but he forgot the dandelion, and we are inclined to think that Miss Hutchinson’s statement is the better. The Quest is symbolic, dreamily picturesque, and well proportioned: indeed, so precisely sufficing are its lines to the idea that the plaintive strain hums itself over in the mind long after it has been read. The young poetess who in her first collection shows the proportion of merit which is discoverable in this may be forgiven some weakness. Of these productions, the best show a felicitous touch, a good sense of rhythmical contrasts, a fancy often fortunate ; and within their limits they are distinctive.