—in the girl, in "lips grown aged," and "over the coffin lid"; and only neglect to read the verses could explain the critic's mistake. Mrs. Moore contributed for several years occasional short stories and verses to various magazines and newspapers, and on one occasion entered the lists in competition for the prize offered by the Youth's Companion for the best story for girls. There were seven thousand com- petitors that year, and Mrs. Moore received the first prize of five hundred dollars.
In 1880 Lothrop & Co., Boston, published her volume of verses entitled "Songs of Sun- shine and Shadow," which has passed through two editions.
She must be classed among the poets of nature. A list of her themes would reveal this, for she sings of trees and flowers, brooks and rills, of night-fall, summer and winter, and the voice of spring. The much quoted words of Wordsworth, speaking of himself, would truly apply to the author of "Songs of Sunshine and Shadow": —
The "meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light.
The glory and the freshness of a dream."
How clearly this is revealed in the poem, "To a Flower Painter," one of the best of the collection, through which breathes a desire to render immortal the varied beautiful forms of field and forest! —
"If I had all an artist's wondrous cunning,
The magic of the painter's glowing art,
All the wild flowers of limpid brooklets running,
All blossoms of the field and wood a part —
The buttercup with disc of sunny yellow,
The l)los.s()m of the wind-flower frail and fair,
The honeyed clover that the brown bees fellow.
The columbine that sways the summer air —
Pd paint them all on tablet, panel, portal,
And render them immortal.
"I'd whisper to the lily, standing stately
In fair, unconscious grace.
Or to the sweet wild rose ablu.shing greatly,
'Bend down, O queen, bend down a little space,
That I may read the beauty of thy face ! '
"And I would wander far in forest reaches,
Where wild-wood vines entangle woodland ways,
To find the pulpit whence the brown lack preaches
His silent sermons through the summer days.
"And I would seek the crimson cup-moss, growing
In shadow'd nook.s, and by the brooklet's brink
The fronded fern, the scarlet lily glownig
In sunny places, and the wild clove-pink;
And I would gather sprays of woodbine climbing
And bearded grasses from the fields and fells,
List'uing the while, if I might catch the chiming
' Of wild bluebells.
"From sunlit heights, from billowy .seas of meadow.
From ferny hollows and from giassy braes.
The blossoms of the sunshine and the shadow.
With all the grace of nature's wild sweet ways,
I'd glean and paint on tablet, panel, portal,
To render them immortal.
"And they who never see the summer's glory.
The treasures of the woodland and the stream,
Should learn from me to read the wondrous story.
Sweeter by far than poet's sweetest dream
(And, reading, cease to count the weary hours) —
God's gift of flowers!"
"Rock of Ages" and "Dandelions" have been most widely quoted, and appeal most strongly to the popular ear, yet they are by no means her best.
The poems are chiefly of the lyrical order, interspersed with ballads, metrical translations of odes of Horace, and some exquisite sonnets. Occasionally she tries her hand at .some historical incident, throwing it, as a study, into poetic measures. An illustration of this is "The Death of Charles the Ninth." This was written for her brother, then a student at Bowdoin College, to be used as a recitation in a competition for a prize.
If dramatic poetry be that in which the objects contemplated, animate or inanimate, are presented as speaking for them.selves, then several of her ]X)ems are of this class, .such as "Immortality," "Useless," "The' Poplar," and others. In fact, her compass is wide, for she has produced some humorous poetry as well, of a high order, that has never found its way into print.
But to those who know her best her published works fail to adequately represent her. They seem but a fragment of what, had her health been uniform, she would probably have produced. For years she suffered from a
