[In
The Female Poets of America
(New York, NY, US: J. Miller, 1873), pp. 69-70:
]
(Born 1785 - Died 1845)
It may be doubted whether, in the long catalogue of those whose works illustrate
and vindicate the intellectual character and position of women, there are many
names that will shine with a clearer, steadier, and more enduring lustre, than
that of MARIA DEL OCCIDENTE.
MARIA GOWEN, afterward Mrs. Brooks, upon whom this title was conferred
originally, I believe, by the poet Southey, was descended form a Welsh family
that settled in Charlestown, near Boston, sometime before the Revolution. A
considerable portion of the liberal fortune of her grandfather was lost by the
burning of that city in 1775, and he soon afterward removed to Medford, across
the Mystic river, where Maria Gowen was born in 1795. Her father was a man of
education, and among his intimate friends were several of the professors of
Harvard college, whose occasional visits varied the pleasures of rural life.
From this society she derived, at an early period, a taste for letters and
learning. Before the completion of her ninth year, she had committed to memory
many passages form the best poets; and her conversation excited special wonder
by its elegance, variety, and wisdom. She grew in beauty, too, as she grew in
years, and when her father died, a bankrupt, before she had attained the age of
fourteen, she was betrothed to a merchant of Boston, who undertook the
completion of her education, and as soon as she quitted the school was married
to her. Her early womanhood was passed in commercial affluence; but the loss of
several vessels at sea in which her husband was interested was followed by other
losses on land, and years were spent in comparative indigence. In that
remarkable book, Idomen, or The Vale of Yumuri, she says, referring to this
period: "Our table had been hospitable, our doors open to many; but to
part with our well-garnished dwelling had now become inevitable. We retired,
with one servant, to a remote house of meaner dimensions, and were sought no
longer by those who had come in our wealth. I looked earnestly around me, the
present was cheerless, the future dark and fearful. My parents were dead, my few
relatives in distant countries, where they thought perhaps little of my
happiness. Burleigh I never loved other than as a father and protector; but he
had been the benefactor to my fallen family, and to him I owed comfort,
education, and every ray of pleasure that had glanced before me in this world.
But the sun of his energies was setting, and the faults which had balanced his
virtues increased as his fortune declined. He might have lived through many
years of misery, and to be devoted to him was my duty while a spark of his life
remained. I strove to nerve my heart for the worst. Still there were moments
when fortitude became faint with endurance, and visions of happiness that might
have been mine came smiling to my imagination. I wept and prayed in
agony."
In this period, poetry was resorted to for amusement and consolation. At nineteen
she wrote a metrical romance, in seven cantos, but it was never published. It
was followed by many shorter lyrical pieces, which were printed anonymously: and
in 1820, after favorable judgments of it had been expressed by some literary
friends,1
she gave to the public a small volume entitled Judith, Esther,
and other Poems, by a Lover of the Fine Arts. It contained many fine passages,
and gave promise of the powers of which the maturity is illustrated
by Zophiël. The volume was dedicated to a friend
| Who cheered her first faint lays |
| 10 With the hope-kindling breath of timely praise, |
In the following verses:
| Lady, I’ve woven for thee a wreath -- |
| Though pale the buds that gem it, |
| Think of the gloom they grew beneath, |
| Nor utterly contemn it. |
| 15 Scarce in my cradle was I laid, |
| Ere Fate relentless bound me, |
| Deep in a narrow vale of shade, |
| Where prisoning rocks surround me. |
| Lady, I've called a wreath for you, |
| 20 From the few flowers that grow there, |
| Because it was all that I could do |
| To lull the sense of wo there. |
| Yet, lady, I have known delight |
| The heart with bliss overflowing, |
| 25 Endearing forms have blest my sight |
| With soul and beauty glowing. |
| For hope came all arrayed in light, |
| And pitying stood before me, |
| Smiled on each flinty barrier’s height, |
| 30 And to its summit bore me. |
| She showed many a scene divine -- |
| She told me -- and descended -- |
| Of joys that never must be mine -- |
| And then -- her power ended. |
| 35 Oh, pleasures dead as soon as born, |
| To be forgotten never! -- |
| Oh, moments, fleeting, few, and gone, |
| To be regretted ever! |
| A few sweet waves of glowing light |
| 40 Upon time's dreary ocean, |
| Light gales that wake the dead, calm night |
| To momentary motion; |
| Bright beams that in their beauty bless |
| A dark and desert plain, |
| 45 To show its fearful loneliness, |
| And disappear again. |
| Yet oft she hovers o'er me now, |
| Each soothing effort making: |
| So mothers kiss the infant's brow, |
| 50 But can not cure its aching. |
| Then, lady, oh, accept my wreath, |
| Though all besides condemn it; |
| Think of the gloom it grew beneath, |
| Nor utterly contemn it. |
In the two principal poems are presented characters entirely different in minds
and person, but equally entitled to admiration. In Judith are exhibited
prudence, fortitude, and decision, softened by a feminine sensibility; in
Esther, a soul painfully alive to every tender emotion, and a noble elevation of
mind struggling with constitutional softness and timidity. Many passages remind
us of her maturest style, as this description of the slayer of the Assyrian:
| 55 With even step, in mourning garb arrayed. |
| Fair Judith walked, and grandeur marked her air |
| Though humble dust, in pious sprinklings laid,v |
| Soiled the dark tresses of her copious hair. |
And this picture of a boy:
| Softly supine his royal limbs reposed, |
| 60 His locks curled high, leaving the forehead bare |
| And o'er his eyes the light lids gently closed. |
| As they had feared to hide the brilliance there. |
And this description of the preparations of Esther to appear before Abasuerus:
| "Take ye, my maids, this mournful garb away; |
| Bring all my glowing gems and garments fair; |
| 65 A nation's fate impending hangs today |
| But on my beauty and your duteous care." |
| Prompt to obey, her ivory form they lave; |
| Some comb and braid her hair of wavy gold; |
| Some softly wipe away the limpid wave [rolled] |
| 70 That o’er her dimply limbs in drops of fragrance |
| Refreshed and faultless from their hands she came |
| Like form celestial clad in raiment bright; |
| O'er all her garb rich India’s treasures flame. |
| In mingling beams of rainbow-colored light. |
| 75 Graceful she entered the forbidden court |
| Her bosom throbbing with her purpose high; |
| Slow were her steps, and unassured her port, |
| While hope just trembled in her azure eye. |
| Light on the marble fell her ermine tread, |
| 80 And when the king, reclined in musing mood, |
| Lifts, at the gentle sound, his stately head, |
| Low at his feet the sweet intruder stood. |
Among the shorter poems are several that are marked by fancy and feeling, and a
graceful versification, of one of which, an elegy, these are the opening verses:
| Lone in the desert, drear and deep, |
| Beneath the forest's whispering shade, |
| 85 Where brambles twine and mosses creep, |
| The lovely Charlotte's grave is made. |
| But though no breathing marble there |
| Shall gleam in beauty through the gloom, |
| The turf that hides her golden hair |
| 90 With sweetest desert-flowers shall bloom. |
| And while the moon her tender light |
| Upon the hallowed scene shall fling, |
| The mocking-bird shall sit at night |
| Among the dewy leaves, and sing. |
The following clever translation of the Greek of Moschus, from this volume, was
made in the author's seventeenth year:
Maria Brooks
| 95 Listen, listen, softly, clear -- |
| Venus' accents woo the ear! |
| "Gentle stranger, hast thou seen," |
| thus begins the beauteous queen: |
| "Hast thou seen my Cupid stray, |
| 100 lurking near the public way?" |
|
