WILLIAM T. RICHARDS
But besides all her housewifely duties, she was busy with her well-furnished mind, and those who have had the fortune to possess the volume of her sonnets, called "Letter and Spirit," must acknowledge the existence of an original talent for poetry and an independence of thought and belief above the level of her day. Sonnet XVIII marks the poetic type, and her deeply religious, but quietly individual, point of view.
Alone in this dim summer light,—the air
Of ocean in the long sea-grass, and flight
Of shining mist above me, what delight
To seem a part of nature's self, and dare
For these brief moments to forget my share
In life's great tragedy of Wrong and Right
Before the listening heavens. On what clear height
Far from the inward voices, from despair,
Above the irretrievable years, thou reignst,
O Nature, fair as in the dawn of Earth!
Nor storms nor sunbeams ever reach thy soul;
And I, forever conquered, fight against
The inexorable limits of my birth,
And learn no wisdom from thy self-control.
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