Alice Cary (26 Apr 1820 – 12 Feb 1871 | Mount Healthy OH – New York NY) poet, author, novelist, suffragist, first president of Sorosis.

Her voice was sweet and low; her face no words can make appear. Time makes us

eagle-eyed. Fame guards the wreath we call a crown, with other wreaths of fire. A

cunning and curious splendor glorifies the commonest things. A marvel of wise

madness passes our skill to define. While shines the sun, the storm even then has

struck its bargain with the sea – Oh, lives of women, lives of men, how pressed, how

poor, how pinched ye be! True worth is in being, not seeming, – in doing each day

that goes by some little good – not in the dreaming of great things to do by and by.

We get back our mete as we measure: justice avenges each slight. We cannot make

bargains for blisses, nor catch them like fishes in nets. Friendship’s watch is weary

grown; I lie alone. When night, fruitionless, descends, may we find our harvests white

on heavenly hills. Oh, life is so dreary & desolate, so sad & separate, so poor & pitiful,

so wayward & purposeless.

The Last Poems of Alice and Phoebe Cary. Mary Clemmer Ames, Ed. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1873.  https://archive.org/details/lastpoemsalicea00clemgoog/page/n5/mode/1up