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MARY E. HEWITT.(1)
Mrs. Hewitt has become known entirely through her contributions to our periodical literature. I am not aware that she has written any prose, but her poems have been numerous and often excellent. A collection of them was published not long ago in an exquisitely tasteful form, by Ticknor & Co., of Boston. The leading piece, entitled “Songs of Our Land,” was by no means the most meritorious, although the largest in the volume. In general, these compositions evince the author's poetic fervor, classicism of taste and keen appreciation of the beautiful, in the moral as well as in the physical world. No one of them, perhaps, can be judiciously commended as a whole, but no one of them is without merit, and there are several which would do credit to any poet in the land — still even these latter are rather particularly than generally commendable. They lack unity, totality, ultimate effect, but abound in forcible passages. For example —
“Shall I portray thee in thy glorious seeming,
Thou that the Pharos of my darkness art?”
* * * * * * *
“Like the blue lotos on its own clear river
Lie thy soft eyes, beloved, upon my soul.”
* * * * * * *
“Here, 'mid your wild and dark defile,
O’crawed and wonder-whelmed I stand,
And ask, ‘Is this the fearful vale
That opens on the shadowy land?’ ”
* * * * * * *
“And there the slave — a slave no more —
Hung reverent up the chain he wore.”
* * * * * * *
“Oh, friends, we would be treasured still!
Though Time's cold hand should cast
His misty veil, in after years,
Over the idol Past,
Yet send to us some offering thought
O’er Memory's ocean wide —
Pure as the Hindoo's votive lamp
On Ganga's sacred tide.”
The conclusion of “The Ocean Tide to the Rivulet” puts me in mind of the rich spirit of Harne's [[Horne's]] noble epic “Orion.”
“Sadly the flowers their faded petals close
Where on thy banks they languidly repose,
Waiting in vain to hear thee onward press;
And pale Narcissus by thy margin side
Hath lingered for thy coming, drooped and died,
Pining for thee amid the loneliness.
“Hasten, beloved! — here, ‘neath th’ o’erhanging rock!
Hark! from the deep, my anxious hope to mock,
They call me backward to my parent main.
Brighter than Thetis thou, and, ah, more fleet!
I hear the rushing of thy fair white feet!
Joy, joy! — my breast receives its own again!”
The personifications here are well managed, and the idea of the ebb-tide, conveyed in the first line italicized, is one of the happiest imaginable; neither can anything be more fanciful or more appropriately expressed than the “rushing of the fair white feet.”
Among the most classical in spirit and altogether the best of Mrs. Hewitt's poems, I consider her three admirable sonnets entitled “Cameos.” The one called “Hercules and Omphale” is noticeable for the vigor of its rhythm. Another instance of fine versification occurs in “Forgotten Heroes.”
“And the peasant mother at her door,
To the babe that climbed her knee,
Sang aloud the land's heroic songs —
Sang of Thermopylæ.
“Sang of Mycale — of Marathon —
Of proud Platæa's day,
Till the wakened hills, from peak to peak,
Echoed the glorious lay.
Oh, god-like name! — Oh, god-like deed!
Song-borne afar on every breeze,
Ye are sounds to thrill like a battle shout —
Leonidas! Miltiades!”
I italicize what I think the effective points. In the line,
“Sang of Thermopylæ,”
a trochee and two iambuses are employed, in very happy variation of the three preceding lines, which are formed each of an anapæst followed by three iambuses. The effect of this variation is to convey the idea of lyric or martial song. The first line of the next quatrain even more forcibly carries out this idea. Here the verse begins with an anapæst (although a faulty one, “sang” being necessarily long) and is continued in three iambuses. The variation in the last quatrain consists in an additional foot in the alternating lines, a fuller volume being thus given to the close. I must not be understood as citing these passages or giving their analysis in illustration of the rhythmical skill of Mrs. Hewitt, but of an occasional happiness to which she is led by a musical ear. Upon the whole, she has a keen sense of poetic excellences, and gives indication, if not direct evidence, of great ability. With more earnest endeavor she might accomplish much.
In character she is sincere, fervent, benevolent, with a heart full of the truest charity — sensitive to praise and to blame; in temperament, melancholy (although this is not precisely the term); in manner, subdued, gentle, yet with grace and dignity; converses impressively, earnestly, yet quietly and in a low tone. In person she is tall and slender, with black hair and large gray eyes; complexion also dark; the general expression of the countenance singularly interesting and agreeable.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - TOM4L, 2026] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (T. O. Mabbott) (Mary E. Hewitt)