POETRY OF LUCY HOOPER * . We know of no place more appropriate for a notice of this late gifted young poetess than the columns of a lady's magazine. One who has written so much and sweetly, whose heart was so full of all sensibility and refinement, and who was, in every relation of life, so truly a woman, deserves to receive, at the hands of her sex, remembrance and regret.
Lucy Hooper was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on the fourth of February, 1816. During her early years few opportunities were presented for the development of her poetical talents ; and indeed, for a long time, she seemed unconscious of her powers. She was, however, from a child, devoted to study. Like the Davidsons' her health was always precarious. There is no doubt that the seeds of the malady which finally carried her to her grave were early implanted in her, and nourished by her application to study, and the wear and tear of her excitable mind acting on a feeble constitution. In her fifteenth year her family removed to Brooklyn, L. I. and now, for the first time, she evinced her poetical abilities. Hitherto the vague yearnings of a sensitive soul, the deep emotions of her sex , and the bewildering reveries of an imaginative mind had been nursed in secret ; but now the wild dreams of the poet found voice, and she breathed forth her plaint in sweet and mournful numbers. Unlike either Hemans or Norton, no early sorrow shadowed her lyre with melancholy- no illrequited affection, no abused confidence, no desolated hearth wrung from her the bitter words of anguish. Hers was, from the first, a mournful harp. Young as she was, when she first began to write, her earliest efforts were distinguished by the nervousness of their language and the melody of their versification. As she became more practised in her art, as her knowledge grew more comprehensive, and as her feelings attained a deeper tone, and ber faculties a wider range, the merit of her poems increased, she became more impassioned, nervous, and refined, she displayed greater strength of feeling and expression, until, in her later effusions, she attained an elevation to which few of her countrywomen have soared. The poems written just before her death, especially those entitled " The Daughter of Herodias," and " The Queen's Petition," will amply sustain us in this assertion. At every period of her career she composed hastily, and her poems throughout display a want of elaboration, which, while it often gives them an air of easy frankness, as often renders them
stored with imagery, and glowing with the true afflatus, seemed to shrink from the dull labor of correcting and improving what had gushed from it in the moments of inspiration . We cannot but regret this failing. The greatest poets have always found it to their advantage to elaborate their works, and indeed no finished composition can be produced without this care. Art and genius go hand in hand, and though the former can effect nothing unaided , yet the latter can execute but half its mission without the support of its ally. We almost wonder, therefore , at the melody of versification , and comparative strength combined which Miss Hooper attained , considering her desultory habits of composition . There was, however, an earnestness of purpose about her which went far to suppy this deficiency . She never trifled with her theme. We are assured that she feels every word she says, and we surrender ourselves to her enthusiasm if not to her art. Then too she evinces a gentleness and refinement which charm us irresistibly . Her purity of feeling is remarkable . Even in her earlier poems she avoided the usual fault of her age, a turgid and bombastic expression , and was then only less simple and easy than at a later period . Habituated as she was to the applause of the public she never lost her sensitive modesty , perhaps the highest charm a female can possess. In becoming an author she did not cease to be a woman. Nor did she ever allow herself to regard with envy those who, with her, were engaged in the struggle for the laurel crown. From first to last she remained a gentle, confiding, sensitive, home-loving woman— a being
who won on the sympathies even more than she commanded our admiration . Such should be every true woman, however exalted her intellect. Her hearth is her home, her sceptre is her tenderness, but her empire is the world ! The melancholy tone which pervaded much of the poetry of Miss Hooper may be traced to the circumstances of affliction which surrounded her later life. Her mother was no more, other and dear relatives preceded her to the grave, and there is no doubt that she felt within her the presentiment of an early death . There was much in life to love, from which she knew she must soon be called away. Thus the music of the streams, and the beauty of the stars tended to deepen her tone of despondency. Yet no unworthy complainings ever left her lips ; but, in the calm confidence of the Christian, she awaited her dissolution. It came more suddenly than either her friends or herself, perhaps, surmised ; and after a rapid decay she died of pulmonary consumption on the 1st of August, 1841 , exactly a year from to-day. The virtues of her life and her resignation comparatively tame and attenuated . Her mind, richly in death, forcibly bring to our minds the lofty language of the Apocalypse, " Blessed are the dead that die in the
- Poetical Remains of the late Lucy Hooper, collected Lord, for they rest from their labors and their works do
and arranged ; with a memoir, by John Reese- 1 vol. New follow them." York, Samuel Colman, 1842.
