Osgood: Can this be May?

For hundreds of years, many have celebrated the first of May as "May Day," an opportunity to celebrate the coming of summer. Massachusetts poet Fanny Osgood celebrated it in her poetry collection A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England (published in London in 1838) in a poem titled "May Day in New England":

Can this be May? Can this be May?
We have not found a flower to-day!
We roamed the wood—we climbed the hill—
We rested by the rushing rill—
And lest they had forgot the day,
We told them it was May, dear May!
We called the sweet, wild blooms by name—
We shouted, and no answer came!
From smiling field, or solemn hill—
From rugged rock, or rushing rill—
We only bade the pretty pets
Just breathe from out their hiding-places;
We told the little, light coquettes
They need'nt show their bashful faces,—
"One sigh," we said, "one fragrant sigh,
We'll soon discover where you lie!"
The roguish things were still as death—
They would'nt even breathe a breath.
Alas! there's none so deaf, I fear,
As those who do not choose to hear!

We wandered to an open place,
And sought the sunny buttercup,
That, so delighted, in your face
Just like a pleasant smile looks up.
We peeped into a shady spot,
To find the blue " Forget-me-not!"
At last a far-off voice we heard,
A voice as of a fountain-fall,
That softer than a singing-bird,
Did answer to our merry call!
So wildly sweet the breezes brought
That tone in every pause of ours,
That we, delighted, fondly thought
It must be talking of the flowers!
We knew the violets loved to hide
The cool and lulling wave beside:—
With song, and laugh, and bounding feet,
And wild hair wandering on the wind,
We swift pursued the murmurs sweet;
But not a blossom could we find;—
The cowslip, crocus, columbine,
The violet, and the snow-drop fine,
The orchis 'neath the hawthorn tree,
The blue-bell and anemone,
The wild-rose, eglantine, and daisy,
Where are they all ?—they must be lazy!
Perhaps they're playing "Hide and seek"—
Oh, naughty flowers! why dont you speak?
We have not found a flower to-day,—
They surely cannot know 'tis May!

You have not found a flower to-day!—
What's that upon your cheek, I pray?
A blossom pure, and sweet, and wild,
And worth all Nature's blooming wealth;
Not all in vain your search, my child!—
You've found at least the rose of health!
The golden buttercup, you say,
That like a smile illumes the way,
Is nowhere to be seen to-day.
Fair child! upon that beaming face
A softer, lovelier smile I trace;
A treasure, as the sunshine bright,—
A glow of love and wild delight!
Then pine no more for Nature's toy—
You've found at least the flower of joy.
Yes! in a heart so young, and gay,
And kind as yours, 'tis always May!

For gentle feelings, love, are flowers
That bloom thro' life's most clouded hours!
Ah! cherish them, my happy child,
And check the weeds that wander wild;
And while their stainless wealth is given,
In incense sweet, to earth and heaven,
No longer will you need to say—
"Can this be May? Can this be May?"

Osgood: a pearl lies smiling and snowy

Frances Sargent Locke Osgood gave birth to her first daughter, Ellen Frances Osgood, on July 15, 1836. Ellen was born in England, where her mother and father (the painter Samuel Stillman Osgood) had moved shortly after their marriage. It was in that country that Fanny Osgood, as she was known, published her first book of poems, A Wreath of Flowers from New England. Included in that collection was a poem on "Ellen's First Tooth":

Your mouth is a rose-bud,
And in it a pearl
Lies smiling and snowy,
My own little girl!
Oh! pure pearl of promise!
It is thy first tooth—
How closely thou shuttest
The rose-bud, forsooth!

But let me peep in it.
The fair thing to view—
Nay! only a minute—
Dear Ellen! now do!
You wont? little miser,
To hide the gem so!
Some day you'll be wiser,
And show them, I know!
How dear is the pleasure—
My fears for thee past—
To know the white treasure
Has budded at last!
Fair child! may each hour
A rose-blossom be,
And hide in its flower
Some jewel for thee!

Also in the book was a  couplet, "Little Ellen's Pun":

She raised a box—(a baby of two years!)
And smiling, cried—"Shall Ellen box her ears?"

Many of Osgood's poems delve into the day to day life of mothers and wives. Perhaps because of this, she became one of the most popular women poets of the 1840s (of course, that she was first popular in England is always helpful for an American writer). Osgood, who was born in Boston 200 years ago this year, died of tuberculosis in 1850; she was 38 years old. Her two daughters, including Ellen, died within a year after their mother. A third, Fanny Fay, had died not long after her birth.

Birth of Fanny Osgood

Frances Sargent Locke was born on June 18, 1811 in Boston, Massachusetts, though most of her early life was spent in nearby Hingham. Years later, she submitted her first poems to Juvenile Miscellany, a publication edited by Lydia Maria Child. She met Samuel Stillman Osgood at the Boston Athenaeum; they married in 1835 and soon had three daughters. She often directed her poetry to her family.

In the late 1830s, living in London while her husband pursued his career as a painter there, "Fanny Osgood" (as she came to be known), published her first two collections of poems. After returning to the United States, she published about a half-dozen more. One of her biggest advocates was the influential editor/anthologist Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who called her work "forcible and original" as well as "picturesque." He believed she was constantly improving as well: "Every month her powers have seemed to expand and her sympathies to deepen." Griswold doted on her enough that it was rumored he was falling in love with her. Either way, Osgood's popularity among American women poets was truly unparalleled up to her early death in 1850.

Modern critics are on the fence with Osgood. Some dismiss the occasionally-flirtatious Osgood and some rate her work with the kind of sentimental, domestic poetry which deserves to be forgotten. One poem which would have feminist critics up in arms is "A Song," which asks a lover to "Call me a bird" before the narrator is locked in a cage, "ne'er dreaming of flight," but only existing to sing to entertain her lover. But the tenderness in some of her domestic works, particularly those addressed to her children, reveal a sincere motherly affection. Literary historian Emily Stipes Watts notes that these poems "are honest attempts to express thoughts and emotions never so fully expressed before by women in poetry" and depict a sincere concern for her daughters' development and well-being. Of course, making any generalization for such a prolific writer is impossible. Even choosing a sample is never fully representative, but I'll go with this one:

  Ah! woman still
  Must veil the shrine,
Where feeling feeds the fire divine,
  Nor sing at will,
  Untaught by art,
The music prison'd in her heart!
  Still gay the note,
  And light the lay,
The woodbird warbles on the spray,
  Afar to float;
  But homeward flown,
Within his next, how changed the tone!

  Oh! none can know,
  Who have not heard
The music-soul that thrills the bird,
  The carol low
  As coo of dove
He warbles to his woodland-love!
  The world would say
  'Twas vain and wild,
The impassion'd lay of Nature's child;
And Feeling so
Should veil the shrine
Where softly glow her fires divine!

Death of Fanny Osgood

Frances Sargent Osgood died of tuberculosis on May 12, 1850 at her home in New York. She suffered from the disease for years, possibly as far back as the mid-1840s when she had a friendship (or possibly a romantic relationship) with Edgar A. Poe.

By the end of her life, Fanny (as she was called) had lost her ability to speak. Her last word, "angel", was written with the intention of being mailed to her husband, the painter Samuel Stillman Osgood (who painted her portrait, right). She was buried in her parents' lot at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A year later, a collection of her writings was published by her friends in order to raise money for Osgood's memorial headstone. It was reissued as Laurel Leaves in 1854 with a biographical introduction by the anthologist Rufus Wilmot Griswold, who had served as a booster during her early career (Griswold may have had romantic feelings for her). Samuel Osgood took a long time installing her monument, but it was one which he designed himself. The current family marker was inspired by her poem "The Hand That Swept the Sounding Lyre":

The hand that swept the sounding lyre
  With more than mortal skill,
The lightning eye, the heart of fire,
  The fervent lip are still!
No more, in rapture or in woe,
  With melody to thrill,
     Ah, nevermore!

But angel hands shall bring him balm
  For every grief he knew,
And Heaven’s soft harps his soul shall calm
  With music sweet and true,
And teach to him the holy charm
  Of Israfel anew,
     Forevermore!

Love’s silver lyre he played so well
  Lies shattered on his tomb,
But still in air its music-spell
  Floats on through light and gloom;
And in the hearts where soft they fell,
  His words of beauty bloom
     Forevermore!

The metal lyre that topped the family monument at Mount Auburn had five strings representing the family. Four were cut by 1851: Osgood's two surviving daughters died the year after their mother, joining another daughter who died in infancy. Samuel Osgood, the last string on the lyre, died in 1885; his was the last wire cut.