{"id":6569,"date":"2007-05-21T22:23:43","date_gmt":"2007-05-22T02:23:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/?p=6569"},"modified":"2023-03-01T15:13:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T20:13:29","slug":"to-a-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/archives\/6569","title":{"rendered":"“To a Girl”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poem used to describe Dorothy Thompson’s assistant, Beatrice Sorchan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Thou art so very sweet and fair…”<\/em><\/p>\n

     
\nI<\/span>n Dorothy Thompson & Rose Wilder Lane: Forty Years of Friendship<\/em> (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), William Holtz includes a letter from Dorothy to Rose, dated August 13, 1921. In it, Dorothy writes that she is “off to meet Beatrice Sorchan” for a walking trip in the Bavarian Alps (page 15). Sorchan had been Thompson\u2019s assistant and was later the translator of many books into English, and she is described with the following lines: “Thou art so very sweet and fair \/ With such a heaven in thine eyes, \/ It almost seems an overcare \/ To ask thee to be good or wise…” Her photo is at right.<\/p>\n

William Holtz even sent a letter to American Notes & Queries<\/em> magazine, asking for help identifying the above lines. He must have received no responses, since he included an endnote in Forty Years of Friendship<\/em> that he was unable to identify them.<\/p>\n

The verse is part of a poem usually credited to “Anonymous” but written by two friends, Elizabeth Anna Hart and Menella Bute Smedley in the 1860s. The first part is “Lovers.” The second part is “To a Girl,” copied below. I wonder if Thompson ever used the second verse to describe Rose?<\/p>\n

Thou art so very sweet and fair,
\nWith such a heaven in thine eyes,
\nIt almost seems an overcare
\nTo ask thee to be good or wise:<\/em><\/p>\n

As if a little bird were blam\u2019d
\nBecause its song unthinking flows;
\nAs if a rose should be asham\u2019d
\nOf being nothing but a rose.<\/em><\/p>\n

Alas! why have we souls at all?
\nWhy has each life a higher goal?
\nMay not a thing as pure and small
\nAs thou art \u2014 be excused a soul?<\/p>\n

If there were only birds and flowers,
\nHow beautiful the world would be!
\nOr could we spend our happy hours,
\nAnd live like them, how blest were we!<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/em>Alas! but life is but a breath,
\nAnd every breath with danger rife,
\nAnd every breath leads on to death,
\nAnd after death \u2014 the real life!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

     
\n
\n“To a Girl”<\/strong>
\n     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poem used to describe Beatrice Sorchan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[627],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6569"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15204,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6569\/revisions\/15204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pioneergirl.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}