Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/582

Rh to the Pacific, in 1869, Miss Proctor went with friends to California, and her letters, "From the Narrows to the Golden Gate," in the New York Independent, were pronounced by many the best account of the continental journey. A second collection of her poems was published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. in 1890, and two years later the same house issued her "Song of the Ancient People," which was inspired by the "Hemenway Southwestern Expedition." In the Columbian year of 1892 she wrote the poem, "Columbia's Banner," which was read and recited throughout the schools of the country on Columbus Day; and in September of that year her song, "Columbia's Emblem," celebrating the maize as our national floral emblem, appeared in the Century Magazine. This song has been widely read and sung. As a reviewer said of it, "It has gone straight to the heart of the American people, ... a song which will be more potent than law to give the Indian corn its representative place in the republic." Most of the year 1897 she spent in Mexico and South America. In 1899 she wrote the poem, "The Hills are Home," for the first Old Home Week in New Hampshire, and in 1900 published her New Hampshire verse in a volume entitled "The Mountain Maid."

Miss Proctor's poetry is characterized by strength and fervor, by lofty thought and melodious numbers. Though so patriotic an American, her sympathies enable her to understand the heart of other races. No truer expression of the feeling of a devout, orthodox Russian has been given than her poem "Holy Russia," which Longfellow regretted was not written early enough to be included in his "Russia" ("Poems of Places"), saying, "It would have been a splendid prelude to the volume." Of her "El Mahdi to the Tribes of the Soudan" the late Professor Frederick W. H. Myers, of Cambridge, England, said, "It is so Oriental I can hartUy believe it was written by any one in the AVestern worUl"; and the late James Darmesteter, professor in the College of France, wrote her from Constantinople, asking to include it in a new edition of his brochure of 1885, " The Mahdi." Her "Song of the Ancient People"—the Pueblos of our Southwest—has the dignity and pathos of a race that beholds all it revered and cherished slipping away. The late John Fiske, in his preface to the "Song," says of it: " As a rendering of Moqui-Zuni thought, it is a contribution of great and permanent value to American literature." Yet her sympathies are not alone for matters of race and nation, but are warm and loyal in home and social life, and all express the power and charm of her personality. Appended are two of her poems.



Uprose Monadnock in the northern blue, A glorious minster builded to the Lord! The setting sun his crimson radiance threw On crest, and steep, and wood, and valley sward, Blending their myriad hues in rich accord, Till, like the wall of heaven, it towered to view. Along its slope, where russet ferns were strewn And purple heaths, the scarlet maples flamed, And reddening oaks and golden birches shone— Resplendent oriels in the black pines framed, The pines that climb to woo the winds alone. And down its cloisters blew the evening breeze, Through courts and aisles ablaze with autumn bloom, Till shrine and portal thrilled to harmonies Now soaring, dying now in glade and gloom. And with the wind was heard the voice of streams— Constant their Aves and Te Deums be— Lone Ashuelot murmuring down the lea, And brooks that haste where shy Contoocook gleams Through groves and meadows, broadening to the sea. Then holy twilight fell on earth and air; Above the dome the stars hung faint and fair. And the vast minster hushed its shrines in prayer; While all the lesser heights kept watch and ward About Monadnock, builded to the Lord!





She called me a moment before, And smiled, as I entered the door, In her gentle way; A sigh, a droop of the head, And something forever had fled. And she was but clay! Her hand was yet clasped in mine, And bright, in the golden shine. Her brown hair fell; But the marble Psyche there As soon would have heard my prayer, My wild farewell. 'Twas the hush of an autumn noon, So clear that the waning moon Was a ghost in the sky;