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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
145
I
had
that
beside
me,
too,
and
I
copy
part
of
it
here,
for
her
sake,
and
because
it
will
be
good
for
my
girl
readers
to
keep
in
mind
one
of
the
noblest
utterances
of
an
almost
forgotten
American
poet:--
"Rouse
to
some
work
of
high
and
holy
love,
And
thou
an
angel's
happiness
shalt
know;
Shalt
bless
the
earth
while
in
the
world
above.
The
good
begun
by
thee
shall
onward
flow.
The
pure,
sweet
stream
shall
deeper,
wider
grow.
The
seed
that
in
these
few
and
fleeting
hours
Thy
hands,
unsparing
and
unwearied
sow,
Shall
deck
thy
grave
with
amaranthine
flowers,
And
yield
thee
fruits
divine
in
heaven's
immortal
bowers."
One
great
advantage
which
came
to
these
many
stranger
girls
through
being
brought
together,
away
from
their
own
homes,
was
that
it
taught
them
to
go
out
of
themselves,
and
enter
into
the
lives
of
others.
Home-life,
when
one
always
stays
at
home,
is
necessarily
narrowing.
That
is
one
reason
why
so
many
women
are
petty
and
unthoughtful
of
any
except
their
own
family's
interests.
We
have
hardly
begun
to
live
until
we
can
take
in
the
idea
of
the
whole
human
family
as
the
one
to
which
we
truly
belong.
To
me,
it
was
an
incalculable
help
to
find
myself
among
so
many
working-girls,
all
of
us
thrown
upon
our
own
resources,
but
thrown
much
more
upon
each
others'
sympathies.
And
the
stream
beside
which
we
toiled
added
to
its
own
inspirations
human
suggestions
drawn
from
our
acquaintance
with
each
other.
It
blended
itself
with
the
flow
of
our
lives.
Almost
the
first
of
my
poemlets
in
the
"Lowell
Offering"
was
entitled
"The
River."
These
are
some
lines
of
it:--
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
