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Never again on
earth canst thou be loved
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Never again on
earth canst thou be loved
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Acknowledgments
Notes
"Never again on earth canst thou be loved", was copied from the June 1851 issue of Graham's Magazine, a popular literary journal of the time. It is actually the last of four "Sonnets to Adhemar", by Estelle Anna Lewis. This poem appears alone at the end of the first math folio. Susan must have treasured her manuscript and math notes to still have them handy after almost four years. Perhaps she put it there because she had run out of paper at the end of the third folio where all the other poems are written (even with the added sheaf of pages). This is the only poem in this collection that she herself acknowledged as being from an-other source. Although this poem is separate from all the others it continues the melancholy tone of its predecessors and extends the mourning for her lost love by another year and a half. Apparently it sums up Susan's lingering feel-ings on the matter for she has underlined nearly every direct reference to her lost lover.
Graham's American Monthly Magazine of Literature and Art was a popular and scholarly literary periodical during the several decades preceding the Civil War. It originated in Philadelphia as Atkinson's Casket and was purchased in 1839 by George Rex Graham, who renamed it for himself. During the 1840's Edgar Allen Poe was an editor and frequent contributor; several of his Marginalia were originally printed in Graham's. By 1843 it claimed a circulation of 40,000, but after 1850 its popularity waned until it finally ceased publication in 1858. The collection of four Sonnets. - To Adhemar, by Estelle Anna Lewis was published on page 422 of Volume XXXVIII, No. 6, (June 1851). Susan chose the fourth of these to include in her manuscript. Estelle Anna Blanche (Robinson) Lewis (1824-1880) was born in Baltimore, the daughter of John N. Robinson. She was the wife of Mr. S.D. Lewis, member of the Bar, and after their marriage, became a resident of Brooklyn, New York. Mrs. Lewis was an accomplished linguist, having translated portions of the works of Virgil, and was a frequent contributor to many of the literary magazines of the day. Her books include Records of the Heart: Lyrical and Narrative Poems (1844); Child of the Sea, and Other Poems (1848); Loves of the Minstrel (1852); and Poetical Works, illustrated (1857). Except for her underlining , Susan's copy of the fourth sonnet is accurate with the version published in Graham's. The first three sonnets are as follows:
I.
Years have been tombed, Adhemar, since we met,
Sorrow and change have brooded o'er my way -
Thine image floated o'er me night and day,
Like some lone wandering star that could not set.
I've sought in other climes for other friends
To quench the fire that in Love's altar burns
Forever: But to thee my spirit tends
Constant as magnet to Alru'bah* turns.
Beneath the stars I've wrapped me up in dreams,
And talked with phantoms till the morning light;
I have ran races with the laughing streams,
And sang with birds from early dawn till night,
To wean my heart and win my thoughts from thee-
But thou wert still my star, my sun, my deity. * The North Polar Star
II.
I see again thy tall, majestic form,
E'en with the vividness of the first sight;
I see thine eyes, like stars, amid the night
Of my deep wo. I feel thy heart beat warm
Against my heart. I feel thy tremulous arm
Inclasp my waist. And lip to lip impressed,
I feel the sweet flame kindling in my breast,
And stealing o'er my soul the fatal charm -
O memory! thou art, alas! too true!
Too faithful to this desolate heart of mine,
Whose innermost recess is Love's pure shrine!
I would forget the past - and seek anew
Some other votary - some alluring scene -
But ever thy dear form, Adhemar, floats between.
III.
Thy presence dwells around, above, below,
In all things lovely and most beautiful.
I hear thy voice in every fountain's flow -
Behold thy smile on every flower I cull
Along the hills, and vales, and gliding streams; -
I see thine eye's soft hues in the blue heaven -
Thy brow's bright radiance in the Iris' beams -
Thy mind in the calm pensiveness of even -
The tuneful birds, the rills, the rustling trees -
The beings of the air - the stars - the moon -
All sounds, and tones, and stirring melodies -
And ought with which my spirit, or thought, to me
Held eloquent discourse, adored one, of thee.
References