A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Carey, Alice and Phœbe
CAREY, ALICE and PHŒBE,
Have, within the last few years, written poetry that justly places them among the gifted daughters of America. The lyre seems to obey their hearts as the Æolian harp does the wind, every impulse gushing out in song. The father of these ladies was a native of Vermont, who removed to Ohio whilst it was a territory. The wild place where he settled has become a pleasant village, not far from Cincinnati; there they were born, and have always resided. The father has been greatly blessed in his children; surely with such treasures he must be rich indeed. The excellent mother of these sweet singers is no longer living; the daughters are thus invested with the matronly duties of house-keeping, and, to their praise be it recorded, they never neglect domestic matters even for the wooings of the Muse.
Griswold, in his "Female Poets of America," has thus described the characteristics of these sisters. "Alice Carey evinces in many of her poems a genuine imagination and a creative energy that challenges peculiar praise. We have perhaps no other author, so young, in whom the poetical faculty is so largely developed. Her sister writes with vigour, and a hopeful and genial spirit, and there are many felicities of expression, particularly in her later pieces. She refers more than Alice to the common experience, and has, perhaps, a deeper sympathy with that philosophy and those movements of the day, which look for a nearer approach to equality, in culture, fortune, and social relations."
A volume of "Poems, by Alice and Phoebe Carey," was published in 1850. "Hualco, a Romance of the Golden Age of Tezcuco," by Alice Carey, appeared in 1851. The poem is founded upon adventures of a Mexican Prince, before the conquest, as related by Clavigero, Torquemada, and other historians.