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Lucy Larcom

Lucy Larcom Biography

Poet

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“Sometimes it seems to me that God 's way of dealing with me is not to let me see much of my friends, those who are most to me in the spiritual life, lest I should forget that the invisible bond is the only reality. That is the only way I can reconcile myself to the inevitable separations of life and death.”

WayShouldI CanSometimesRealitySeemsSpiritualForgetMy FriendsLet MeSeparationInvisibleInevitableLife And DeathSpiritual LifeReconcile
Author:Lucy Larcom
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“Because its myriad glimmering plumes Like a great army's stir and wave; Because its golden billows blooms, The poor man's barren walks to lave: Because its sun-shaped blossoms show How souls receive the light of God, And unto earth give back that glow I thank him for the Goldenrod.”

MenGivingSoulShowsLightEarthWalksPoorSunArmyWaveGoldenGiving BackBarrenPoor ManGreat ArmyGoldenrod
Book:Wild Roses of Cape Ann: And Other Poems
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“I learned what education really is: the penetrating deeper and rising higher into life, as well as making continually wider explorations; the rounding of the whole human being out of its nebulous elements into form, as planets and suns are rounded, until they give out safe and steady light. This makes the process a infinite one, not possible to be completed at any school.”

GivingHumansWellsWholeLightSchoolFormProcessHuman BeingsEducationSunPlanetsHigherSafeElementsInfiniteDeeperRisingExplorationSteady
Book:A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory
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“The religion of our fathers overhung us children like the shadow of a mighty tree against the trunk of which we rested, while we looked up in wonder through the great boughs that half hid and half revealed the sky. Some of the boughs were already decaying, so that perhaps we began to see a little more of the sky than our elders; but the tree was sound at its heart.”

HeartChildrenLittlesReligionFatherSoundHalfWonderTreeSkyShadowEldersOur FatherTrunks
Author:Lucy Larcom
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“A tattered copy of Johnson's large Dictionary was a great delight to me, on account of the specimens of English versifications which I found in the Introduction. I learned them as if they were so many poems. I used to keep this old volume close to my pillow; and I amused myself when I awoke in the morning by reciting its jingling contrasts of iambic and trochaic and dactylic metre, and thinking what a charming occupation it must be to "make up" verses.”

IfsThinkingUsedPoetryFoundMorningPoetAccountsDelightCopiesOccupationContrastVersesVolumeCharmingIntroductionDictionaryJohnsonPillowAmusedReciting
Book:A New England girlhood
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“It is a conquest when we can lift ourselves above the annoyances of circumstances over which we have no control; but it is a greater victory when we can make those circumstances our helpers,--when we can appreciate the good there is in them. It has often seemed to me as if Life stood beside me, looking me in the face, and saying, "Child, you must learn to like me in the form in which you see me, before I can offer myself to you in any other aspect.”

IfsLifeChildrenI CanFacesFormGreaterVictoryCircumstancesOffersAspectAppreciateLike MeLiftsHardshipConquestAnnoyanceHelpers
Book:A New England girlhood
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“The New Hampshire girls who came to Lowell were descendants of the sturdy backwoodsmen who settled that State scarcely a hundred years before.... They were earnest and capable; ready to undertake anything that was worth doing. My dreamy, indolent nature was shamed into activity among them. They gave me a larger, firmer ideal of womanhood.”

YearsStatesGirlWorkReadyActivityCapableHundredIdealsWomanhoodEarnestDescendantsDreamySturdyHampshireNew Hampshire
Author:Lucy Larcom
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“In the older times it was seldom said to little girls, as it always has been said to boys, that they ought to have some definite plan, while they were children, what to be and do when they were grown up. There was usually but one path open before them, to become good wives and housekeepers. And the ambition of most girls was to follow their mothers' footsteps in this direction; a natural and laudable ambition. But girls, as well as boys, must often have been conscious of their own peculiar capabilities,--must have desired to cultivate and make use of their individual powers.”

WellsChildrenLittlesHas BeensSaidUseMotherGirlIndividualNaturalBoysPathWifePlansOughtAmbitionConsciousPeculiarCapabilityDefiniteFootstepsGood WifeHousekeepersIndividual Power
Book:A New England girlhood
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“Tailor's work--the finishing of men's outside garments--was the "trade" learned most frequently by women in [the 1820s and 1830s],and one or more of my older sisters worked at it; I think it must have been at home, for I somehow or somewhere got the idea, while I was a small child, that the chief end of woman was to make clothing for mankind.”

ThinkingMenChildrenHas BeensIdeasEndsHomeMankindTradeChiefsClothingsGarmentsFinishingSmall ChildTailorsOlder SisterNeedlework
Author:Lucy Larcom
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“What is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about?”

ThinkingSelfCareSufferingInterestLosesForgetToo MuchHabitAnd LoveCuriosityNeighborGossipIdleWhat Is The Meaning
Author:Lucy Larcom
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“If an apple blossom or a ripe apple could tell its own story, it would be, still more than its own, the story of the sunshine that smiled upon it, of the winds that whispered to it, of the birds that sang around it, of the storms that visited it, and of the motherly tree that held it and fed it until its petals were unfolded and its form developed.”

IfsStillsStoriesWould BeFormTreeWindBirdStormApplesSunshineFedsRipePetalsMotherly
Book:A New England girlhood
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“I regard a love for poetry as one of the most needful and helpful elements in the life-outfit of a human being. It was the greatest of blessings to me, in the long days of toil to which I was shut in much earlier than most young girls are, that the poetry I held in my memory breathed its enchanted atmosphere through me and around me, and touched even dull drudgery with its sunshine.”

WritingHumansLongYoungPoetryGirlMemoriesHuman BeingsBlessingElementsRegardAtmosphereDullTouchedSunshineHelpfulToilEnchantedDrudgeryLong Day
Book:A New England girlhood
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