Page 77 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

It was Maria who inspired most of his verse at this time. One of his best
poems even to this day was written directly for her. It is called "Irene'." It

may be taken as the best possible description of his lady herself:

Hers is a spirit deep, and crystal-clear; Calm beneath her earnest face it lies,
Free without boldness, meek without a fear, Quicker to look than speak its
sympathies; Far down into her large and patient eyes I gaze, deep-drinking

of the infinite, As, in the mid-watch of a clear, still night, I look into the
fathomless blue skies.

As the struggle between money and law on the one side and literature on
the other still went on, he expressed his feelings on the subject to his friend

Loring in the following stanza, which puts the whole argument into a
nutshell:

They tell me I must study law. They say that I have dreamed and dreamed
too long, That I must rouse and seek for fame and gold; That I must scorn

this idle gift of song,

And mingle with the vain and proud and cold. Is, then, this petty strife The
end and aim of life, All that is worth the living for below? _O God! then
call me hence, for I would gladly go_!

Thus he had finally come to the conclusion that he would rather die than

give up literature.

"Irene" won the good opinion of many. The young poet, though but

twenty-one, felt that he was beginning to be a lion. His next definite step
was to publish a volume of verses. Says he, "I shall print my volume. Maria

wishes me to do it, and that is enough."

So his first volume, "A Year's Life," was published, with the motto in

German, "I have lived and loved."

The young poet's friends were very much opposed to this publication, for
the reason that a rising young lawyer is not helped on in his profession at