Poems

Front matter

POEMS OF SOPHIE JEWETT

Published December, 1910.

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

Biographical Introduction

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

THE poetry of Sophie Jewett is too wide in its appeal to need interpretation through biography; and one would turn in vain to the poems for a story of her life. Yet those who have felt the sway of her art may well wish for a knowledge of her life in its personal relations and surroundings; and much of her own experience lies half-hidden in the poems. The "little fountain in the park" sings its "summer song" before her girlhood home; in her "coign of vantage" whence "wheatfield and pasture stretch in sight" she spent many August hours; White Head rises sheer from the waters of Casco Bay on which she used to sail; and she heard "the least of carols" among the "undrifted snows" of the Wellesley meadows.

Miss Jewett was born June 3, 1861, in Moravia, a little town in the hilly lake country of central New York. Among the founders of this village in early pioneer days were her grandfather, Deacon Josiah Jewett, and her great-grandfather, Cotton Skinner, whose daughter Sophia became the wife of Deacon Jewett. The family are of old New England stock, descendants of Joseph Jewett who, with two uncles, came to this country in 1638 and settled in Rowley, Massachusetts. Her father, Dr. Charles Carroll Jewett, married Ellen Ransom Burroughs, daughter of John S. Ransom of Salem, Connecticut, and adopted daughter of an uncle, Daniel Burroughs of Buffalo, New York.

The family homestead, then known as "Grey Cottage," lies in a spot of unusual beauty, between orchard and garden, at the foot of "West Hill." Miss Jewett's earliest years were spent in this paradise for children, and the vivid pleasure in earth and sky, in woods and water, in bird notes and in growing things, which permeates her poetry, had its root in the outdoor delights of her childhood. Her father's practice as a country physician extended over roads which climb and dip among the hills, and on any long drive one of the children usually bore him company, often this little daughter. The children had a wide playground, although its limits were clearly defined by the tall old walnut tree at the end of the lane, the great chestnut on the hillside, and the hedge about the garden. In this old-fashioned garden they made dolls of daffodils, poppies, or pine-tassels; and, indeed, they here found nearly all their playthings from the time of crocuses until the bright leaves fell. The world as they knew it was bounded by the circling line of hills against the sky, a great world and old, where things had happened long ago, "when" as the wondering child used to say, "I was a little thread of dust." When the oldest of the three sisters began to study geography the two younger ones laid out the entire universe according to her instructions with perfect satisfaction to themselves. One of their plays was to journey to "the very outside edge of the world," and to climb the hedge which shut it in; on the world side were green grass and flowers and sunshine, on the outside darkness and tan bark—an image of desolation suggested by a tan yard near the village, the only spot in that fertile valley where nothing could grow. The little poet, the youngest of the three, more than half believed in this and could see the picture clearly in after years. Bedtime was marked by the fireflies in the garden or the crows wheeling about the top of the giant elm in the meadow, "that hour when birds leave song and children pray."

Sorrow came early to this home, and Dr. Jewett, feeling life slipping from him while his children were very young, took every care to impress upon them not only high ideals of conduct for their future guidance, but also the value and the beauty of intellectual pur- suits, holding up as a model to his little daughters, after she was gone, their lovely and gifted young mother.

Miss Jewett's parents remained always real presences in her life and in the lives of those nearest to her; and the culture, the courtesy, the courage, and the devoutness of the parents bore fruit in the life of the daughter. After the death of Dr. Jewett, Buffalo became the home of his children, three daughters and a son. Miss Jewett's later childhood and girlhood were spent there, and there, in the home of her brother, she died, October 11, 1909, after a few weeks of illness.

In early girlhood she already showed an alert mind and an eager desire for knowledge, 'a desire which in no way interfered with her enjoyment of lively diversions. Chief among her teachers in school days was Mrs. Elizabeth A. Forbes, for many years preceptress of the Buffalo Seminary. Much inspiration and counsel came to her from her minister, Dr. Wolcott Calkins, whose home in Buffalo, and later in Newton, Massachusetts, she called her "second home." She was the constant comrade of his daughter from the time they met as little girls; and their companioning became a lifelong friendship. In the minister's study the two children discussed grave mysteries or bent together over books in strange tongues, though ever ready to be lured from the deep window seat to range the house or to climb the church belfry. At home she found delight in the poets, and essayists, and historians of her father's library, old books that stood on her shelves to the end. During several years, in which she was not allowed to use her eyes, the oldest sister made a practice of reading aloud to her. The education thus begun was throughout life gained for the most part directly from books; in later years, from the great libraries of London and Oxford, Florence and Rome and Boston. Like a general she planned her own campaigns of the mind, and brought into her scholarship an individuality that does not belong to the wholly school-made product.

The friends of her girlhood she steadfastly cherished when time brought the separations constraining them "to go diverging ways." She was little more than twenty when first she journeyed to England and Italy, an experience which gave new incentive to study and filled her beauty-loving soul with new visions. Many summers and two whole years she spent in study and travel, the companion almost always of her artist sister. Her intimate knowledge of Italian art, history, and literature was nurtured by these sojourns in Italy, and many poems as well as all the prose writings of the last ten years enshrine the country which she loved. Chief of these prose writings is "God's Troubadour," published in book form in 1910, the story of Saint Francis, told for children, in which the Little Poor Man lives his life before us from his boyhood when he sings "gay songs of love and war" to the day when he dies, "worn and weak" yet "happy and high-hearted." Notable among the shorter papers are "The Lover of Trees in Italy," published in 1903, in Scribner's Magazine, and a sketch, "The Land of Lady Poverty," which appeared in The Qutlook in 1905.

In 1889, already a poet of distinct promise, Miss Jewett came to Wellesley College as instructor in English Literature, and in 1897 she was appointed associate professor. Besides a course, carried for many years, in the general history of English Literature, she taught courses in Spenser, in the history and structure of the ballad, and in the poetry of the fourteenth and of the nineteenth centuries. She concentrated her attention, in the later years, on the three lines of work last named; for, lover of modern poetry as she was, she still firmly maintained the necessity of a close knowledge of our early language and literature. Her teaching was that of the critic who is also the creator, of the scholar who is also the artist. Her knowledge was both wide and detailed, and her passion for truth made her insistent in her search for fact and inexorable in her demand for accuracy. Thus, she would spend many hours of many days over one line of a ballad in a forgotten dialect, and would move heaven and earth to discover the force of an obscure word-ending. In the study of the poets of reflection, particularly those of the nineteenth century, she discussed with her students the great problems of thought and of life, with an understanding and an insight bred of her philosophical reading and of her own thinking. And always her teaching was a revelation of beauty and a training in the art of opening eye and ear. A true and vivid impression of her is given in the words of one of her students, now herself an instructor in literature: "In the teaching of poetry Miss Jewett was consummate. Her profound and eager scholarship was unimpeachable. It was because her facts were so sure a foundation … that she was able to build for us a superstructure at once so fair and so enduring. Yet we were never permitted to mistake … the history for the poetry. I shall never forget the gem-like radiance of 'The Pearl' as that precious poem revealed shapes and hues of beauty through her reading Miss Jewett taught poetry more poetically than any one else I ever knew."

She threw herself with enthusiasm into the give-and-take of class discussion, and had an ardent pleasure in the work of her students, spending herself with lavish generosity on individuals. Yet she felt keenly the discouragements of teaching. "It is quite impossible" she said, "to fulfil one's human and professional obligations even in a little world like mine." She was vitally interested in her courses, and devotedly loyal to department and to college; and she drew courage, inspiration, and happiness from the companionship of her fellow-workers who were also her close friends. Of her radiant hospitality, in these years of her Wellesley life, many might bear witness: the nuthatches and squirrels for whom she kept open house at her window, the students to whom, by her wood fire, she read Celtic lyrics or Sicilian ballads or the prose of Pater, and the guests who were stirred and quickened by the conversation, grave and gay, of her dinner-table.

The literary fruits of Miss Jewett's teaching, in addition to two detailed bibliographical and topical Outlines for the use, primarily, of her classes, are three: first, a critical edition, published in 1901, of Tennyson's "The Holy Grail," with an Introduction that makes careful comparison of the modern poem with the Perceval Romances and with the mediæval stories of the early history and quest of the Grail; second, a translation, "such as only a poets' poet could have made," in the complicated original stanza, of the Middle English poem, "The Pearl"; and, third, a collection, yet to be published, of ballads transcribed and translated from many Romance languages and dialects.

Her poems came first as swift visions, fragmentary or complete. Sometimes, alas, the vision vanished beyond recovery; sometimes she caught it in its fulness and translated it into winged words; more often, words or lines or stanzas would be lacking, and she would search for them through patient days or months, never content with anything less than the right phrase, word, or metre. Most of her poems were written and re-written in many versions, differing often very little except to her delicate ear and her keen sense. A life so rich in interest, in feeling, and in friendship was of necessity creative, though her academic occupations and responsibilities sometimes checked the outflow of her poetry. Indeed, she often referred laughingly to Lowell's complaint of the distractions which teaching brings to the poet, as if a brooding hen "should have to mind the door bell." Yet the years of teaching bore a golden harvest of poetry. In 1896, she published the first collection of her lyrics, "The Pilgrim and Other Poems," a volume dedicated to the beloved memory of her brother-in-law, Dr. Henry Hastings Hunt. She had before this published her poetry under her mother's name, Ellen Burroughs, but "The Pilgrim" appeared with her own name. Nine years later, in 1905, a second collection was made in the volume "Persephone and Other Poems," issued by the Wellesley College Department of English Literature for the college library fund.

Miss Jewett remained always singularly shy about her poetry and very self-critical. The business of offering her verse to an editor was always particularly distasteful, and she would keep her poems in her desk for years before sending them forth. "If you honestly would not mind being post-office for me," she wrote to the friend whom she later called her "oldest and faithfulest critic," "I will copy the poem and send it to you." Even so mature and perfect a poem as "The Pilgrim" reached the publisher through this happy intermediary. Nevertheless, she had always a sense of belonging to the great fellowship. Long ago she sent to Richard Watson Gilder her poem inspired by his "New Day," and among her papers was found his letter of acknowledgment: "Tell Ellen Burroughs that one by her called a poet declares that she is a true poet and must not let her golden gift be lost."

Miss Jewett's prose as well as her poetry shows the strength of her imagination. "The sunset glory of the Arno valley" (of which she writes in "The Lover of Trees in Italy") fairly smites our eyes, and we see "the fields of rose-colored vetch and wine-dark clover, of bright poppies and pale iris," past which she drove "into a world where acacias in full flower stood white among the cypresses." This picture, intense in colour, is followed by another of delicate and clear-cut form—a picture of the "characteristic trees in Italy—detached, sharply outlined, impressive from loneliness and contrast." Her imagination was at once "the bliss" and the torment of her "solitude." With vivid fidelity she recalled faces, figures, and voices; beauty once seen was her inalienable possession. But in equally unsparing detail of colour and form, of human expression and impersonal ugliness, she saw again squalor and sickness and suffering; and with unpitying accuracy her imagination made her the witness of the crimes and catastrophes of which she read. She remembered words as accurately as scenes. As she talked, half-turning from her desk, or pausing on a walk through the hilly wood-ways of Wellesley to mark the tender spring tints of the oak branches against the blue of the lake, a rapturous line from Dante's "Paradiso" or the refrain of a Chaucerian ballade would come to her lips, adding beauty to the world without and within. And to vision and memory she added thought. Swiftly, sometimes, but more often slowly and with careful consideration of every step, she reached her intellectual convictions by the force of her thinking. Of these results of her reasoning she often had a characteristic distrust due to the peculiar wideness of her intellectual sympathy, her understanding of opinions which she did not share, her ability to face problems from divergent points of view.

All her critics have spoken of the manysidedness of her verse. But no mere reader of the poems could guess at the richness of her nature or divine the refreshing alternations of mood and interest which all her friends so well knew. Never poet could be on occasion more prosaic; never idealist was so realistic; never visionary was so prompt and business-like, and utterly to be depended on in the ordering of academic, social, and household detail. Most of the prose sketches suggest the rich and pathetic quality of her humour, but no record could ever be preserved of her flashing wit and her inimitable repartee. It is even harder to convey by words the sense of her bodily presence. There was something in her aspect that drew the eyes and hearts of those who looked on her, something more than beauty of feature, stately presence, or gracious ways. One of her colleagues writes of "the refreshment of that life-communicating beauty, of that swift smile, that buoyant step," and those who saw her daily would be the first to say to the unknown friend "who never save in fancy saw her face" that sight and intimate acquaintance would have brought no disillusion, and that the reality like the dream would "set the heart aglow."

Sophie Jewett was, in truth, friend and comrade even more surely than poet and teacher. Though delicately scrupulous never to disregard "the quivering barrier line" of any soul, she was divinely quick to respond to an appeal, spoken or unspoken, for inspiration, counsel, or help. People turned to her in practical perplexity, in moral struggle, and in personal need; and her discernment, her wholesome strength, her comprehension, and her faith did not fail them. Her life centred in the tenderness and passion of her sympathy which was as wide as deep. She was touched not only by the griefs and joys of those closest to her, and not only by the needs of those with whom she came into personal contact of helpfulness,—her mission boys in the old Buffalo days, and, later, her Italian friends in the North End of Boston,—but by poverty and oppression, by sin and sor- row, everywhere. She bore in her heart the sufferings of Russian prisoners in the fortress of Peter and Paul, of refugees from the earthquake in Messina. For this outpouring of sympathy she gladly paid the heavy price of suffering which lost no pang for its vicariousness. "I wish," she wrote, "that instead of being so good to me God would be good to some of the people who need."

Yet notwithstanding her sympathy with suffering, in the face of physical pain gallantly borne, and despite the constant dissatisfaction with her work due to her unattainable ideal of perfection, she knew the joy of living: the outdoor world remained an ever-present source of pleasure; her swift and keen humour was the compensation for many ills, an alchemy which transformed the trials and mischances of everyday life; her happiness in friendship was inexhaustible, not only her eager delight in the gladness, in the achievement, of her friends, but her pure joy in the loving intercourse of spirit with spirit. Her hope was deeply disciplined, and she distrusted all complacent and unheeding optimism: "It is," she says, "as if I felt the pain of all the coming years." But she was not, as she truly protested, "a pessimist. I begin to believe," she added, "that sorrow is the one thing that does not make people pessimistic."" Her courage and her faith were indeed deeply rooted. Sine dolore mon vivitur in amore, she quoted from Thomas à Kempis, "and it is better, in spite of the pain, so to live." None of the poems more truly express her deepest self than the poems of faith and of vision. For deeper than her feeling of the beauty, the love, and the misery of this world, underlying her experience of its separations, was her abiding consciousness of unbroken communion and of the endlessness of the life of the spirit. "I am almost surprised" she wrote a long time ago, "to find the distinctness in my mind of the picture of the view from your windows. I see the objects that you see, I almost feel the air that you breathe. May it not be the same in the spiritual things of our friendship? And … if the distances of earth are powerless to separate heart from heart, why should that little space between this 'seen' and that 'unseen' be impassable?" Twenty years later she spoke the same thought in words that are the possession of all who know and love her:—

ppoem|{sm} "Yet, since I need nor touch nor sight

Nor spoken word, however dear,

To read your thought and will aright,

To know your spirit, now and here,

What has our fellowship to fear?"

The Pilgrim

THE PILGRIM

tpp|THE PILGRIM| {cblock sm} "Such a palmer ne'er was seene, Lesse Love himselfe had palmer beene." {sc}>>Never Too Late.

PILGRIM feet, pray whither bound? Pilgrim eyes, pray whither bent? Sandal-shod and travel-gowned, Lo, I seek the way they went Late who passed toward Holy Land.

Pilgrim, it was long ago; None remains who saw that band; Grass and forest overgrow Every path their footing wore. Men are wise; they seek no more Roads that lead to Holy Land.

Proud his look, as who should say: I shall find where lies the way.

Pilgrim, thou art fair of face, Staff and scrip are not for thee; |end=follow

Gentle pilgrim, of thy grace, Leave thy quest, and bide with me. Love shall serve thee, joy shall bless; Thou wert made for tenderness: God's green world is fair and sweet; Not o'er sea and Eastern strand, But where friend and lover meet Lies the way to Holy Land.

Low his voice, his lashes wet: One day if God will—not yet,

Pilgrim, pardon me and heed. Men of old who took that way Went for fame of goodly deed, Or, if sooth the stories say, Sandalled priest, or knight in selle, Flying each in pain and hate, Harassed by stout fiends of hell, Sought his crime to expiate. Prithee, Pilgrim, go not hence; Clear thy brow, and white thy hand, What shouldst thou with penitence? Wherefore seek to Holy Land?

Stern the whisper on his lip: Sin and shame are in my scrip.

ppoem| start=stanza| Pilgrim, pass, since it must be; Take thy staff, and have thy will; Prayer and love shall follow thee; I will watch thee o'er the hill. What thy fortune God doth know; By what paths thy feet must go. Far and dim the distance lies, Yet my spirit prophesies: Not in vigil lone and late, Bowed upon the tropic sand, But within the city gate, In the struggle of the street, Suddenly thine eyes shall meet His whose look is Holy Land.

Smiled the pilgrim, sad and sage: Long must be my pilgrimage.

{sm}1891

The Soldier

SONNETS

tpp|THE SOLDIER| {cblock sm} "Non vi si pensa quanto sangue costa." >>Paradiso xxix. 91.

THE soldier fought his battle silently.

Not his the strife that stays for set of sun;

It seemed this warfare never might be done;

Through glaring day and blinding night fought he.

There came no hand to help, no eye to see;

No herald's voice proclaimed the fight begun;

No trumpet, when the bitter field was won,

Sounded abroad the soldier's victory.

As if the struggle had been light, he went,

Gladly, life's common road a little space;

Nor any knew how his heart's blood was spent;

Yet there were some who after testified

They saw a glory grow upon his face;

And all men praised the soldier when he died.

{sm}1894

A Friendship

tpp|A FRIENDSHIP| SMALL fellowship of daily commonplace

We hold together, dear, constrained to go

Diverging ways. Yet day by day I know

My life is sweeter for thy life's sweet grace;

And if we meet but for a moment's space,

Thy touch, thy word, sets all the world aglow.

Faith soars serener, haunting doubts shrink low,

Abashed before the sunshine of thy face.

Nor press of crowd, nor waste of distance serves

To part us. Every hush of evening brings

Some hint of thee, true-hearted friend of mine;

And as the farther planet thrills and swerves

When towards it through the darkness Saturn swings,

Even so my spirit feels the spell of thine.

{sm}1888

Separation

tpp|SEPARATION| ALONG the Eastern shore the low waves creep,

Making a ceaseless music on the sand,

A song that gulls and curlews understand,

The lullaby that sings the day to sleep.

A thousand miles afar, the grim pines keep

Unending watch upon a shoreless land,

Yet through their tops, swept by some wizard hand,

The sound of surf comes singing up the steep.

Sweet, thou canst hear the tidal litany;

I, mid the pines land-wearied, may but dream

Of the far shore; but though the distance seem

Between us fixed, impassable, to me

Cometh thy soul's voice, chanting love's old theme,

And mine doth answer, as the pines the sea.

{sm}1885

Absent

tpp|ABSENT| MY friend, I need thee in good days or ill,

I need the counsel of thy larger thought;

And I would question all the year has brought—

What spoil of books, what victories of will;

But most I long for the old wordless thrill,

When on the shore, like children picture-taught,

We watched each miracle the sweet day wrought,

While the tide ebbed, and every wind was still.

Dear, let it be again as if we mused,

We two, with never need of spoken word

(While the sea's fingers twined among the dulse,

And gulls dipped near), our spirits seeming fused

In the great Life that quickens wave and bird,

Our hearts in happy rhythm with the world-pulse.

{sm}March 30, 1889

Thus Far

tpp|THUS FAR| BECAUSE my life has lain so close to thine,

Because our hearts have kept a common beat,

Because thine eyes turned towards me frank and sweet

Reveal sometimes thine untold thoughts to mine,

Think not that I, by curious design,

Or over-step of too impetuous feet,

Could desecrate thy soul's supreme retreat,

Could disregard its quivering barrier-line.

Only a simple Levite, I, who stand

On-the world's side of the most holy place,

Till, as the new day glorifies the east,

One come to lift the veil with reverent hand

And enter with thy soul's soul face to face,—

He whom thy God shall call to be high priest.

{sm}1883

Sidney Lanier (The Southwind brought a voice; was it of bird)

tpp|SIDNEY LANIER| {sm sc}<>Died September 7, 1881

THE Southwind brought a voice; was it of bird?

Or faint-blown reed? or string that quivered long?

A haunting voice that woke into a song

Sweet as a child's low laugh, or lover's word.

We listened idly till it grew and stirred

With throbbing chords of joy, of love, of wrong;

A mighty music, resonant and strong;

Our hearts beat higher for that voice far-heard.

The Southwind brought a shadow, purple-dim,

It swept across the warm smile of the sun;

A sudden shiver passed on field and wave;

The grasses grieved along the river's brim.

We knew the voice was silent, the song done;

We knew the shadow smote across a grave.

Thamyris

tpp|THAMYRIS

And they took from him his high gift of song, so that he forgo his harping.—Iliad II.

| OF strong hands, as at first that hew and build;

Of evil hearts and brave that fight and slay;

Of feast and dance, birthday and marriage day;

Of passion, loss, and joy of love fulfilled

God's singers make sweet verse, and hearts song-thrilled

Are keener set to suffer, strive, and play.

This poet, only, gives no heed alway,

Though earth with life be loud, with death be stilled.

He strays, a shadow, wistful, through the land,

His eyes unseeing and his head uncrowned;

No song he makes of love, nor war, nor wine;

No hymn, no prayer; there comes no mastering sound

From that sweet harp forgotten of his hand

Left to the vagrant fingering of the vine.

{sm}1899

A Petition

tpp|A PETITION| WE looked to Joy as furrows to the sun

In sowing time. Of that relentless heat

That spares the blade to blast the ripened wheat

How should we know, with summer but begun?

We followed Joy, nor knew how swiftly run

The untraceable and unreturning feet.

That quest I have no courage to repeat;

I am content; I ask no grace save one:

Lord, I will bear my own heart's utmost pain;

I will go softly, with bent, humbled head;

I will not strive, nor cry, nor pray again,

If Thou wilt hear in this my need extreme,

Wilt give me once, give me though in a dream,

To see the eyes I love be comforted.

{sm}1896

To Pain

tpp|TO PAIN| NOT by the minutes of thin torture spun,

Not by the nights whose hours halt and slip back,

Not by the days when golden noon turns black

Hast thou dismayed me; but that, one by one,

Pale shadows pass me of my tasks undone,

While, like a victim loosed from wheel and rack,

With will unnerved, breath scant and sinew slack,

I droop, where glad folk labour in the sun.

And yet, O winged Inquisitor, return,

Stay, though I cringe and cry and plead for grace,

If thou hast more to teach, still would I learn;

I choose, even with faint heart and quivering lip,

Some place in the great, patient fellowship

Of those that know the light upon thy face.

{sm}1904

To Catherine Breshkovsky

tpp|TO CATHERINE BRESHKOVSKY

IN THE FORTRESS OF PETER AND PAUL| THE liberal summer wind and sky and sea,

For thy sake, narrow like a prison cell

About the wistful hearts that love thee well

And have no power to comfort nor set free.

They dare not ask what these hours mean to thee:

Delays and silences intolerable?

The joy that seemed so near, that soared, and fell,

Become a patient, tragic memory?

From prison, exile, age, thy gray eyes won

Their gladness, Mother, as of youth, and sun,

And love; and though thy hero heart, at length

Tortured past thought, break for thy children's tears,

Thy mortal weariness shall be their strength,

Thy martyred hope their vision through far years.

{sm}August, 1909

If Spirits Walk

RONDEAUS

tpp|"IF SPIRITS WALK?"| {cblock sm} I have heard (but not believed) the spirits of the dead May walk again." {sc}>>Winter's Tale.

IF spirits walk, Love, when the night climbs slow

The slant footpath where we were wont to go,

Be sure that I shall take the self-same way

To the hill-crest, and shoreward, down the gray,

Sheer, gravelled slope, where vetches straggling grow.

Look for me not when gusts of winter blow, When at thy pane beat hands of sleet and snow;

I would not come thy dear eyes to affray,

If spirits walk.

But when, in June, the pines are whispering low, And when their breath plays with thy bright hair so