Phoebe Cary was a gentle but powerful voice in 19th-century American poetry, best known for her emotionally sincere, morally reflective, and quietly feminist poems.
Her poetry often centers on home, memory, faith, womanhood, and inner strength. Cary had a rare ability to turn ordinary domestic life into something lyrical and meaningful. Simple scenes—childhood, family bonds, loss, or spiritual doubt—become deeply touching through her plain language and honest emotion.
One of her most famous poems, “One Sweetly Solemn Thought,” reflects her signature style: calm, reflective, and deeply spiritual. Rather than dramatic imagery, Cary relied on emotional clarity, making her poems accessible to everyday readers at a time when poetry was often highly ornate.
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| Phoebe cary |
- Phoebe Cary, along with her sister Alice Cary, was also an important early voice for women in American literature. Living independently and supporting themselves through writing was itself a quiet act of rebellion in the 1800s. Their New York literary salon became a meeting place for reformers, writers, and thinkers.
Though her work may seem modest compared to later experimental poets, Phoebe Cary’s poems endure because of their warmth, sincerity, and moral grace—reminding readers that poetry doesn’t need grandeur to be profound.
When Lovely Woman
When lovely woman wants a favor,
And finds, too late, that man won't bend,
What earthly circumstance can save her
From disappointment in the end?
The only way to bring him over,
The last experiment to try,
Whether a husband or a lover,
If he have feeling, is, to cry!
Suppose
Suppose, my little lady,
Your doll should break her head,
Could you make it whole by crying
Till your eyes and nose are red?
And would n't it be pleasanter
To treat is as a joke;
And say you're glad "'Twas Dolly's
And not your head that broke?"
Suppose you're dressed for walking,
And the rain comes pouring down,
Will it clear off any sooner
Because you scold and frown?
And wouldn't it be nicer
For you to smile than pout,
And so make sunshine in the house
When there is none without?
Suppose your task, my little man,
Is very hard to get,
Will it make it easier
For you to sit and fret?
And wouldn't it be wiser
Than waiting like a dunce,
To go to work in earnest,
And learn the thing at once?
Suppose that some boys had a horse,
And some a coach and pair,
Will it tire you less by walking
To say, "It is n't fair?"
And would n't it be nobler
To keep your temper sweet,
And in your heart be thankful
You can walk upon your feet?
And suppose the world don't please you,
Nor the way some people do,
Do you think the whole creation
Will be altered just for you?
And is n't it, my boy or girl,
The wisest, bravest plan,
Whatever comes, or does n't come,
To do the best you can?
The Lovers
Sally Salter, she was a young teacher who taught,
And her friend, Charley Church, was a preacher who praught,
Though his enemies called him a screecher who scraught.
His heart, when he saw her, kept sinking and sunk,
And his eye, meeting hers, began winking, and wunk;
While she, in her turn, kept thinking, and thunk.
He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed,
For his love grew until to a mountain it grewed,
And what he was longing to do then he doed.
In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke,
To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke;
So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke.
He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode;
They so sweetly did glide that they both thought they glode,
And they came to the place to be tied, and were toed.
Then homeward, he said, let us drive, and they drove,
And as soon as they wished to arrive, they arrove,
For whatever he couldn't contrive, she controved.
The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole;
At the feet where he wanted to kneel then he knole;
And he said, "I feel better than ever I fole."
So they to each other kept clinging, and clung,
While Time his swift circuit was winging, and wung;
And this was the thing he was bringing, and brung:
The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught;
That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught;
Was the one that she now liked to scratch, and she scraught.
And Charley's warm love began freezing, and froze,
While he took to teazing, and cruelly toze
The girl he had wished to be squeezing, and squoze.
"Wretch!" he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and left,
"How could you deceive me, as you have deceft?"
And she answered, "I promised to cleave, and I've cleft."
Ready
Loaded with gallant soldiers,
A boat shot in to the land,
And lay at the right of Rodman's Point
With her keel upon the sand.
Lightly, gayly, they came to shore,
And never a man afraid;
When sudden the enemy opened fire
From his deadly ambuscade.
Each man fell flat on the bottom
Of the boat; and the captain said:
"If we lie here, we all are captured,
And the first who moves is dead!"
Then out spoke a negro sailor,
No slavish soul had he;
"Somebody's got to die, boys,
And it might as well be me!"
Firmly he rose, and fearlessly
Stepped out into the tide;
He pushed the vessel safely off,
Then fell across her side:
Fell, pierced by a dozen bullets,
As the boat swung clear and free;—
But there wasn't a man of them that day
Who was fitter to die than he!
Jacob
HE dwelt among "apartments let,"
About five stories high;
A man I thought that none would get,
And very few would try.
A boulder, by a larger stone
Half hidden in the mud,
Fair as a man when only one
Is in the neighborhood.
He lived unknown, and few could tell
When Jacob was not free;
But he has got a wife,—and O!
The difference to me!
The Christmas Sheaf
“Now, good-wife, bring your precious hoard,”
The Norland farmer cried,
“And heap the hearth, and heap the board,
For the blessed Christmas-tide.
“And bid the children fetch,” he said,
“The last ripe sheaf of wheat,
And set it on the roof o’erhead
That the birds may come and eat
“And this we do for His dear sake,
The Master kind and good,
Who of the loaves He blest and brake
Fed all the multitude.”
Then Fredrica, and Franz, and Paul,
When they heard their father’s words,
Put up the sheaf, and one and all
Seemed merry as the birds.
Till suddenly the maiden sighed,
The boys were hushed in fear,
As, covering all her face, she cried,
“If Hansel were but here!”
Sugar-Making
The crocus rose from her snowy bed
As she felt the spring’s caresses,
And the willow from her graceful head
Shook out her yellow tresses.
Through the crumbling walls of his icy cell
Stole the brook, a happy rover;
And he made a noise like a silver bell
In running under and over.
The earth was pushing the old dead grass
With lily hand from her bosom,
And the sweet brown buds of the sassafras
Could scarcely hide the blossom.
And breaking nature’s solitude
Came the axe strokes clearly ringing,
For the chopper was busy in the wood
Ere the early birds were singing.
All day the hardy settler, now
At his tasks, was toiling steady;
His fields were cleared, and his shining plow
Was set by the furrow ready.
And down in the woods, where the sun appeared
Through the naked branches breaking,
His rustic cabin had been reared
For the time of sugar-making.
And now, as about it he came and went,
Cheerfully planning and toiling,
His good child sat there, with eyes intent
On the fire and the kettles boiling.
With the beauty Nature gave as her dower,
And the artless grace she taught her,
The woods could boast no fairer flower
Than Rose, the settler’s daughter.
She watched the pleasant fire a-near,
And her father coming and going,
And her thoughts were all as sweet and clear
As the drops from his pail o’erflowing.
For she scarce had dreamed of earthly ills,
And love had never found her;
She lived shut in by the pleasant hills
That stood as a guard around her.
And she might have lived the self-same way
Through all the springs to follow,
But for a youth, who came one day
Across her in the hollow.
He did not look like a wicked man,
And yet, when he saw that blossom,
He said, “I will steal this Rose if I can,
And hide it in my bosom.”
That he could be tired you had not guessed
Had you seen him lightly walking;
But he must have been, for he stopped to rest
So long that they fell to talking.
Alas! he was athirst, he said,
Yet he feared there was no slaking
The deep and quenchless thirst he had
For a draught beyond his taking.
Then she filled the cup and gave to him,
The settler’s blushing daughter;
And he looked at her across the brim
As he slowly drank the water.
And he sighed as he put the cup away,
For lips and soul were drinking:
But what he drew from her eyes, that day
Was the sweetest, to his thinking.
I do not know if her love awoke
Before his words awoke it;
If she guessed at his before he spoke,
Or not till he had spoke it.
But howsoe’er she made it known,
And howsoe’er he told her,
Each unto each the heart had shown
When the year was little older.
For oft he came her voice to hear,
And to taste of the sugar-water;
And she was a settler’s wife next year
Who had been the settler’s daughter.
And now their days are fair and fleet
As the days of sugar weather,
While they drink the water, clear and sweet,
Of the cup of life together.
