Hattie Howard

Hattie Howard is recognized for her significant contributions to 19th-century American poetry. Her work, characterized by its wit and lyrical quality, often explored themes of nature, love, and social issues. She had a unique voice that resonated with many of her contemporaries and continues to be appreciated for its depth and artistry.

English

Hattie Howard

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A Bit of Gladness.

As I near my lonely cottage,
    At the close of weary day,
There's a little bit of gladness
    Comes to meet me on the way:
Dimpled, tanned, and petticoated,
    Innocent as angels are,
Like a smiling, straying sunbeam
    Is my Stella - like a star.

Soon a hand of tissue-softness
    Slips confidingly in mine,
And with tender look appealing
    Eyes of beauty sweetly shine;
Like a gentle shepherd guiding
    Some lost lamb unto the fold,
So she leads me homeward, prattling
    Till her stories are all told.

"Papa, I'm so glad to see you -
    Cousin Mabel came today -
And the gas-man brought a letter
    That he said you'd better pay -
Yes, and awful things is happened:
    My poor kitty's drowned to death -
...

Hattie Howard

A Fowl Affair.

I hope I'm not too orthodox
    To give a joke away,
That took me like the chicken-pox
    And left a debt to pay.

Let argument ignore the cost,
    If it be dear or cheap,
And only claim that naught be lost
    When it's too good to keep.

The proverb says "All flesh is grass,"
    But this I do deny,
Because of that which came to pass,
    But not to pass me by.

A body weighing by the pound
    Inside of half a score,
In case and cordage safely bound,
    Was landed at my door.

What could it be? for friends are slack,
    And give, I rather trow,
When they are sure of getting back
    As much as they bestow.

My hair, at thought of dark design,
    Or dynamitish fate,
Stood up like quills of porcupine...

Hattie Howard

A Friend Indeed.

If every friend who meditates
    In soft, unspoken thought
With winning courtesy and tact
The doing of a kindly act
    To cheer some lonely lot,
Were like the friend of whom I dream,
Then hardship but a myth would seem.

If sympathy were always thus
    Oblivious of space,
And, like the tendrils of the vine,
Could just as lovingly incline
    To one in distant place,
'Twould draw the world together so
Might none the name of stranger know.

If every throb responsive that
    My ardent spirit thrills
Could, like the skylark's ecstasy,
Be vocal in sweet melody,
    Beyond dividing hills
In octaves of the atmosphere
Were music wafted to his ear.

If every friendship were like one,
    So helpful and so true,
To o...

Hattie Howard

A Leap Year Episode.

Such oranges! so fresh and sweet,
    So large and lovely - and so cheap!
    They lay in one delicious heap,
    And added to the sumptuous feast
For each and all in taste expert
The acme of all fine dessert;
    So, singling out the very least
As in itself an ample treat,
    While sparkling repartee and jest
    Exhilarated host and guest,
    Of rarity so delicate
    In dreamy reverie I ate,
By magic pinions as it were
    Transported from this realm of snows
To be a happy sojourner
    Away down where the orange grows;
Amid the bloom, the verdure, and
The beauty of that tropic land,
    While redolence seemed wafted in
    From orchard-groves of Mandarin.

In dinner costume a la mode,
    Expressing from the spongy sk...

Hattie Howard

A New Suit.

The artist and the loom unseen,
In textures soft as crepe de chine
Spring weaves her royal robe of green,
    With grasses fringed and daisies dotted,
With furzy tufts like mosses fine
And showy clumps of eglantine,
With dainty shrub and creeping vine
    Upon the verdant fabric knotted.

Oh, winter takes our love away
For ashen hues of sober gray!
So when the blooming, blushing May
    Comes out in bodice, cap, and kirtle,
With arbutus her corsage laced,
And roses clinging to her waist,
We crown her charming queen of taste,
    Her chaplet-wreath of modest myrtle.

For eighteen centuries and more
Her fairy hands have modeled o'er
The same habiliments she wore
    At her primeval coronation;
And still the pattern exquisite,...

Hattie Howard

A Prisoner.

Where I can see him all day long
And hear his wild, spontaneous song,
    Before my window in his cage,
    A blithe canary sits and swings,
    And circles round on golden wings;
    And startles all the vicinage
    When from his china tankard
    He takes a dainty drink
    To clear his throat
    For as sweet a note
    As ever yet was caroled
    By lark or bobolink.

Sometimes he drops his pretty head
And seems to be dispirited,
    And then his little mistress says:
    "Poor Dickie misses his chickweed,
    Or else I've fed him musty seed
    As stale as last year's oranges!"
    But all the time I wonder
    If we half comprehend
    In sweet song-words
    The thought of birds,
    Or why so oft their raptures
...

Hattie Howard

A Rainy Day.

Oh, what a blessed interval
    A rainy day may be!
No lightning flash nor tempest roar,
But one incessant, steady pour
    Of dripping melody;
When from their sheltering retreat
Go not with voluntary feet
The storm-beleaguered family,
    Nor bird nor animal.

When business takes a little lull,
    And gives the merchantman
A chance to seek domestic scenes,
To interview the magazines,
    Convoke his growing clan,
The boys and girls almost unknown,
And get acquainted with his own;
As well the household budget scan,
    Or write a canticle.

When farmer John ransacks the barn,
    Hunts up the harness old -
Nigh twenty years since it was new -
Puts in an extra thong or two,
    And hopes the thing will hold
Without ...

Hattie Howard

A Reformer.

When I was young, my heart elate
    With ardent notions warm,
I thirsted to inaugurate
    A spirit of reform;
The universe was all awry,
    Philosophy despite,
And mundane things disjointed I
    Was bound to set aright.

My mind conceived a million plans,
    For Hope was brave and strong,
But dared not with unaided hands
    Combat a giant wrong;
So with caress I sought to coax
    Those who had humored me
In infancy - the dear old folks -
    And gain their sympathy.

But quarreling with extant laws
    They would have deemed a shame
Who clung to error, just because
    Their fathers did the same.
I sought in Pleasure's gilded halls,
    Where grace and beauty stirred
At revelry's impetuous calls,
    To make ...

Hattie Howard

A Song.

Oh, sing me a merry song!
    My heart is sad tonight;
The day has been so drear and long,
The world has gone awry and wrong,
Discouragements around me throng,
    And gloom surpassing night.

Oh, sing again the song for me
    My mother used to sing
When I, a child beside her knee,
Looked up for her sweet sympathy,
Nor ever thought how I might be
    Her little hindering thing.

Oh, sing, as eventide draws near,
    The old-time lullabys
Grandmother sang - forever dear,
Though in her grave this many a year
She lies who "read her title clear
    To mansions in the skies."

Oh, sing till all perplexing care
    Has vanished with the day!
And angels ever bright and fair
Come down the melody to share,
And on their pini...

Hattie Howard

All the Rage.

A common wayside flower it grew,
Unhandsome and unnoticed too,
    Except in deprecation
That such an herb unreared by toil,
Prolific cumberer of the soil,
    Defied extermination.

Its gorgeous blooms were never stirred
By honey-bee nor humming-bird
    In their corollas dipping;
But they from clover white and red
Delicious nectar drew instead
    In dainty rounds of sipping.

No place its own euphonious name
Within the catalogue might claim
    Of any flora-lover;
For, in the scores of passers-by,
As yet no true artistic eye
    Its beauty could discover.

The reaper with his sickle keen
Aimed at its crest of gold and green
    With spiteful stroke relentless,
And would have rooted from the ground
The "Solidago" ...

Hattie Howard

Apple Blossoms.

    Of all the lovely blossoms
    That decorate the trees,
    And shower down their petals
    With every breath of breeze,
There is nothing so sweet or fair to me
As the delicate blooms of the apple tree.

    A thousand shrubs and flow'rets
    Delicious pleasure bring,
    But beautiful Pomona
    Must be the queen of spring;
And out of her flagon the peach and pear
Their chalices fill with essence rare.

    Oh, is it any wonder,
    Devoid of blight or flaw,
    The peerless blooms of Eden
    Our primal mother saw
In redolent beauty before her placed
So tempted fair Eve the fruit to taste?

    But woman's love of apples,
    Involving fearful price,
    And Adam's love for woman
    That cost him Paradise,
...

Hattie Howard

At General Grant's Tomb.

Afar my loyal spirit stirred
    At mention of his name;
Afar in ringing notes I heard
    The clarion voice of fame;
So to his tomb, hope long deferred,
    With reverent step I came.

The pilgrim muse revivified
    A half-forgotten day:
A slow procession, tearful-eyed,
    In funeral array,
And from MacGregor's lonely side
    A hero borne away.

Here sleeps he now, where long ago
    Hath nature raised his mound:
A mighty channel far below,
    Divided hills around,
Where countless thousands come and go
    As to a shrine renowned.

With awe do strangers' eyes discern
    A casket mid the green
Luxuriance of flower and fern;
    Airy and cool and clean,
Unchanged from spring to spring's return,
    This cha...

Hattie Howard

Autumn-Time.

Like music heard in mellow chime,
The charm of her transforming time
    Upon my senses steals
As softly as from sunny walls,
In day's decline, their shadow falls
    Across the sleeping fields.

A fair, illumined book
Is nature's page whereon I look
    While "autumn turns the leaves;"
And many a thought of her designs
Between those rare, resplendent lines
    My fancy interweaves.

I dream of aborigines,
Who must have copied from the trees
    The fashions of the day:
Those gorgeous topknots for the head,
Of yellow tufts and feathers red,
    With beads and sinews gay.

I wonder if the saints behold
Such pageantry of colors bold
    Beyond the radiant sky;
And if the tints of Paradise
Are heightened by the strange...

Hattie Howard

Be Courteous.

    Ah, yes; why not? Is one more adventitious born
Than others - shekels richer, honors fuller, and all that -
    That he can pass his fellows by with lofty scorn,
Nor even show this slight regard - the lifting of the hat?

    Why prate of social status, class, or rank when earth
Is common tenting-ground, the heritage of all mankind?
    Except in purity is there no royal birth,
No true nobility but nobleness of heart and mind.

    Life is so short - one journey long, a pilgrimage
That we cannot retrace, nor ever pass this way again;
    Then why not turn for some poor soul a brighter page,
And line the way with courtesies unto our fellow-men?

    To give a graceful word or smile, or lend a hand
To one downcast and trembling on the borders of despair,

Hattie Howard

Be not Anxious.

"Be careful for nothing," Phil. iv. 6. Revised version, "Be not anxious."


    Of all the precepts in the Book
    By word of inspiration given,
    That bear the import, tone, and look
    Of messages direct from heaven,
From Revelation back to Genesis
Is nothing needed half so much as this.

    Ah, well the great apostle spake
    In admonition wise and kind,
    Who bade humanity forsake
    The petty weaknesses that bind
The spirit like a bird with pinioned wings,
That to a broken bough despairing clings.

    Were all undue anxiety
    Eliminated from desire,
    Could feverish fears and fancies be
    Consumèd on some funeral pyre,
Like holy hecatomb or sacrifice,
'Twould be accepted up in Paradise.

    Could th...

Hattie Howard

Bermuda.

O charming blossom of the sea
    Atlantic waters bosomed in!
Abiding-place of gayety,
    Elysian bower of "Cora Linn,"
The sprightly, lively débiteuse
Recounting all she sees and does.

Oh, how it makes the northern heart,
    With sluggish current half-congealed,
In ecstasy and vigor start
    To read about this tropic field;
The garden of luxuriousness,
In winter wearing summer's dress.

With gelid sap and frozen gum
    In maple trees and hackmatack,
While waiting for the spring to come
    Of life's necessities we lack;
And sip the nectar that we find
In luscious fruit with golden rind.

But down the street we dread to walk,
    For all the teachings of our youth
Receive an agonizing shock;
    Do tem...

Hattie Howard

Blossom-time.

    Yes, it is drawing nigh -
    The time of blossoming;
The waiting heart beats stronger
    With every breath of Spring,
The days are growing longer;
    While happy hours go by
    As if on zephyr wing.

    A wealth of mellow light
    Reflected from the skies
The hill and vale is flooding;
    Still in their leafless guise
The Jacqueminots are budding,
    Creating new delight
    By promise of surprise.

    The air is redolent
    As ocean breezes are
From spicy islands blowing,
    Or groves of Malabar
Where sandal-wood is growing;
    Or sweet, diffusive scent,
    From fragrant attar-jar.

    Just so is loveliness
    Renewed from year to year;
And thus emotions tender,
    Born of the atmosphe...

Hattie Howard

Bushnell Park.

Sweet resting place! that long hath been
A boon Elysian 'mid the din
    Of city life, 'mid city smoke;
Where weary ones who toil and spin
Have turned aside as to an inn
    Whose swinging sign a welcome spoke;
Where misanthropes find medicine
In peals of laughter that begin
    With ancient, resurrected joke,
Or ready wit of harlequin;
Where children, free from discipline,
    Take on Diversion's easy yoke.

Fair oasis! to view aright
Its charming paths, its sloping height,
    Its beautiful and broad expanse,
Must one approach in witching night
When, like abodes of airy sprite
    Revealed unto the wondering glance,
O'erflooded with electric light
Than Luna's beams more dazzling bright,
    Illumined nooks the scene enhance;
Whi...

Hattie Howard

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