Rambling New England Nature

Lucy Larcom (1824-1893)

Born in Beverly, MA, Lucy’s father died when she was eight years old and her mother moved her family to Lowell, where she ran a boarding house. The ninth of ten children, Lucy went to work in the local textile mills to earn money for her family. Ten years in Lowell dramatically affected her perception of how women were treated in society. The poetry that came from her experiences in the mills and her distaste for slavery caught the attention of John Greenleaf Whittier, who became a lifelong friend and collaborator on several projects. She also received praise later in life from Longfellow. Her poetry brought popular attention to life in the mills. 

Larcom became a teacher at what is now Wheaton College in Massachusetts and continued to write poetry. In 1889, she wrote A New England Girlhood, which described her life in Beverly and Lowell and remains her best-known work.  

Larcom Mountain in New Hampshire was named for her. There are also several parks named for her to honor her poetry and work to promote women’s rights.

As important as her works on women’s rights are, they overshadow her love of Nature. A lesser known book, but my favorite of her works, is Landscape in American Poetry. Written in 1879, this beautiful book describes how landscape is reflected in the works of some of our best loved poets, including Lowell and Bryant and Longfellow. “And the magic of poetry transfigures any landscape,” she wrote, “making it beautiful beyond itself as immeasurably as the ideal transcends the real.”

A wonderful biological sketch can be found in The Poetical Works of Lucy Larcom (first published in 1868).

In her lovely poem, “Calling the Violet,” the poet coaxes the violet to bloom. It risks being overly-sentimental, but Larcom pulls it off, and creates a sincere, sweet poem that shows her love of Nature and that accurately portrays the violet’s surroundings in May.

"Calling the Violet"

Dear little Violet,
   don't be afraid!
Lift your blue eyes
   From the rock's mossy shade!
All the birds call for you
   Out of the sky;
May is here, waiting,
   And, here, too, am I.

Why do you shiver so,
   Violet sweet?
Soft is the meadow-grass
   Under my feet.
Wrapped in your hood of green,
   Violet, why
Peep from your earth-door
   So silent and shy?

Trickle the little brooks
   Close to your bed;
Softly of fleecy clouds
   Float overhead;
"Ready and waiting!"
   The slender reeds sigh:
"Ready and waiting!"
   We sing, - May and I.

Come pretty Violet,
   Winter's away:
Come, for without you
   May isn't May.
Down through the sunshine
   Wings flutter and fly; - 
Quick, little Violet,
   Open your eye!

Here the rain whisper,
   "Dear Violet, come!"
How can you stay
   In your underground home?
Up in the pine-boughs
   For you the winds sigh:
Homesick to see you,
   Are we, - May and I.

Ha! though you care not
   For call or for shout,
Yon troop of sunbeams
   Are winning you out.
Now all is beautiful
   Under the sky:
May's here - and violets!
   Winter, good-by!