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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
190
One
day,
towards
the
last
of
my
stay
at
Lowell
(I
never
changed
my
work-room
again),
this
same
friendly
fellow-toiler
handed
me
a
poem
to
read,
which
some
one
had
sent
in
to
us
from
the
counting-room,
with
the
penciled
comment,
"Singularly
beautiful."
It
was
Poe's
"Raven,"
which
had
just
made
its
first
appearance
in
some
magazine.
It
seemed
like
an
apparition
in
literature,
indeed;
the
sensation
it
created
among
the
staid,
measured
lyrics
of
that
day,
with
its
flit
of
spectral
wings,
and
its
ghostly
refrain
of
"Nevermore!"
was
very
noticeable.
Poe
came
to
Lowell
to
live
awhile,
but
it
was
after
I
had
gone
away.
Our
national
poetry
was
at
this
time
just
beginning
to
be
well
known
and
appreciated.
Bryant
had
published
two
volumes,
and
every
school
child
was
familiar
with
his
"Death
of
the
Flowers"
and
"God's
First
Temples."
Some
one
lent
me
the
"Voices
of
the
Night,"
the
only
collection
of
Longfellow's
verse
then
issued,
I
think.
The
"Footsteps
of
Angels"
glided
at
once
into
my
memory,
and
took
possession
of
a
permanent
place
there,
with
its
tender
melody.
"The
Last
Leaf"
and
"Old
Ironsides"
were
favorites
with
everybody
who
read
poetry
at
all,
but
I
do
not
think
we
Lowell
girls
had
a
volume
of
Dr.
Holmes's
poems
at
that
time.
"The
Lady's
Book"
and
"Graham's
Magazine"
were
then
the
popular
periodicals,
and
the
mill-girls
took
them.
I
remember
that
the
"nuggets"
I
used
to
pick
out
of
one
or
the
other
of
them
when
I
was
quite
a
child
were
labeled
with
the
signature
of
Harriet
E.
Beecher.
"Father
Morris,"
and
"Uncle
Tim,"
and
others
of
the
delightful
"May-Flower"
snatches
first
appeared
in
this
way.
Irving's
"Sketch-Book"
all
reading
people
were
supposed
to
have
read,
and
I
recall
the
pleasure
it
was
to
me
when
one
of
my
sisters
came
into
possession
of
"Knickerbocker's
History
of
New
York."
It
was
the
first
humorous
book,
as
well
as
the
first
history,
that
I
ever
cared
about.
And
I
was
pleased
enough--for
I
was
a
little
girl
when
my
fondness
for
it
began--to
hear
our
minister
say
that
he
always
read
Diedrich
Knickerbocker
for
his
tired
Monday's
recreation.
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