Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and DiaryAddison, Daniel Dulany
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Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary
Addison, Daniel Dulany
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Larcom, Lucy, 1824-1893
The “Transcript” compares it with Clough’s. I delight in Clough, but I
do not like comparisons of this kind. You strike different chords, and
I believe that you have greater possibilities than he. What touches me
especially is the high purity of emotion which is yet as human as it
is holy. This is rare, even in great poetry. As I read some lines, it
seemed as if my soul were weeping for joy at their beauty.
“Agathon” I wanted to read over again as soon as I had finished it.
Indeed, I shall want to turn to it often, for a breath of the pure
poetic ether. I do not know a greater poem of its kind since “Comus.”
Page 42, and from 59 onward, Milton might have been proud to write.
They appeal to all that nobler part of us that lives beneath the
shows of things; and I am glad that so young a poet as you begins his
song so nobly. I am proud, too, that you are a Beverly boy, as I am
a Beverly woman. But for that, I might not have ventured to write so
freely. I have not room to write all I want to say, but I must mention
the “Christ Scourged,” which seems to me wonderful in its strength of
sympathetic expression. It would give me great pleasure to meet you. If
you are staying in town, I wish you would call here some evening.
Truly yours,
LUCY LARCOM.
In preparing a new edition of “Songs of Three Centuries,” she included
among the additions, a poem by Dr. Solis-Cohen, “I Know that My
Redeemer Liveth,” and also, “The Crowing of the Red Cock,” by Emma
Lazarus. In the course of the correspondence, Dr. Solis-Cohen wrote so
frankly, giving his feelings about Christ from an intelligent Jewish
standpoint, that she answered in a similar vein, stating clearly her
idea of the relations that should exist between the Jew and Christian.
Dr. Solis-Cohen had written: “No professed Christian can exceed many
Jews in love for the pure and lofty character of Jesus, and we can
readily accept that character, as a manifestation of God in man, while
we decline to accept the superstructure of the Church.”
TO DR. SOLOMON SOLIS-COHEN.
BEVERLY, MASS., October 18, 1890.
DR. S. SOLIS-COHEN:--
_Dear Sir_,--The proof of your poem is just received,--and I have put
your corrections away so carefully that I cannot at this moment lay my
hand upon them; so I will ask you to correct the copy and send it to
the printers as soon as convenient. I will tell them to wait for it.
The magazine with the poem in it is received--beautiful and graceful
I find the latter. I wish the additions to the “Songs” were not
limited--but the publishers do not wish to enlarge the volume too much.
We shall have two poems by Emma Lazarus; one of them Mr. Whittier tells
me he considers her best--“The Crowing of the Red Cock.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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