Helen Hunt Jackson

Father, I scarcely dare to pray,
So clear I see, now it is done,
How I have wasted half my day,
And left my work but just begun.

Helen Maria (Fiske) Hunt Jackson (October 18, 1830 – August 12, 1885) was an American writer best known as the author of Ramona, a novel about the ill treatment of Native Americans in southern California.

Quotes

Verses (1874)

Verses. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1874

• Like a blind spinner in the sun,
  I tread my days;
  I know that all the threads will run
  Appointed ways;
  I know each day will bring its task,
  And, being blind, no more I ask.
  • "Spinning", Stanza 1, p. 14.

• [A]ll lost things are in the angels' keeping, Love;
  No past is dead for us, but only sleeping, Love.
  • "At last", Stanza 6, p. 58.

• On the king’s gate the moss grew gray;
  The king came not. They called him dead;
  And made his eldest son one day
  Slave in his father’s stead.
  • "Coronation", Stanza 10, p. 110.

• And every bird I ever knew
  Back and forth in the summer flew;
  And breezes wafted over me
  The scent of every flower and tree;
  Till I forgot the pain and gloom
  And silence of my darkened room.
  • "Shadow of Birds", Stanza 2, p. 130

• The voice of one who goes before to make
  The paths of June more beautiful, is thine
  Sweet May!
  • "May", line 1, p. 151.

Ramona (1884)

Ramona: A Story. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1884

• There is nothing so skilful in its own defence as imperious pride. […] Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven from one field unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor in the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the second; and so on till death.
  • Ch. XIII, p. 206.

• We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of comparison in matter of blindness,—"blind as a bat," for instance. It would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families.
  • Ch. XIII, pp. 213–214.

• Then, gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky, looking down upon the world,—it seemed the whole world, so limitless it stretched away at her feet,—feeling that infinite unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight, and cried: "At last! At last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is freedom! This is Joy!"
  • Ch. XXIII, p. 418.

Poems (1892)

Poems. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1892

• The goldenrod is yellow;
  The corn is turning brown:
  The trees in apple orchards
  With fruit are bending down.
  • "September", Stanza 1, p. 206.

• Bee to the blossom, moth to the flame;
  Each to his passion; what's in a name?
  • "Vanity of Vanities", line 1, p. 214.

• When Time is spent, Eternity begins.
  • "The Victory of Patience", line 13, p. 237.

• When on the ground red apples lie
  In piles like jewels shining,
  And redder still on old stone walls
  Are leaves of woodbines twining.
  • "October's Bright Blue Weather", Stanza 4, p. 255.

• Father, I scarcely dare to pray,
  So clear I see, now it is done,
  That I have wasted half my day,
  And left my work but just begun.
  • "A last Prayer", Stanza 1, p. 264.

External links

• Helen Hunt Jackson page at Colorado College Special Collections
• "September" by Helen Hunt Jackson