19th Century Women's Poetry

Nora Perry (1831-1896)

Although born in Dudley, MA, Perry spent her youth in Providence, RI. After she moved to Boston, she came a Boston correspondent for the Chicago Tribune as well as the Providence Journal. She also published After the Ball, and Other Poems (1875) and Her Lover's Friend, and Other Poems (1879), as well as a novel (For a Woman, 1885), at least two other collections of poetry in 1880s and 1890s, and a number of short stories for girls.

Some Day of Days
Some day, some day of days, threading the street
With idle, heedless pace,
Unlooking for such grace
I shall behold your face!
Some day, some day of days, thus may we meet.
Perchance the sun may shine from skies of May,
Or winter's icy chill
Touch whitely vale and hill.
What matter? I shall thrill
Through every vein with summer on that day.

Once more life's perfect youth will all come back,
And for a moment there
I shall stand fresh and fair,
And drop the garment care;
Once more my perfect youth will nothing lack.

I shut my eyes now, thinking how 't will be--
How face to face each soul
Will slip its long control,
Forget the dismal dole
Of dreary Fate's dark, separating sea;

And glance to glance, and hand to hand in greeting,
The past with all its fears,
Its silences and tears,
Its lonely, yearning years,
Shall vanish in the moment of that meeting.

[LB]