Margaret Fuller (1810-1850)

    Margaret Fuller was an unbelievably dynamic and forceful person.  Her greatest impact to American Literature (but not to America itself) was an editor of the Dial, the major publication of American Transcendentalism.  She promoted Transcendental authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau (who fell in love with her and asked for her hand in marriage; she refused), and many others.  Fuller, like contemporary Edgar Allen Poe, was a literary force as an editor.  Editors, from time to time, do have impact on the literary field. 

We can only guess what her influence as editor, poet, political and social commentary, feminist had she lived longer.  Who knows, maybe she would been a Congresswoman.    Her poetry publications was spotty compared to her contemporaries.  Most of her writings involved social issues including women's rights to property--to vote social and political equality, politics, and promoting Transcendentalism.
 
    For a remarkably good biography, see Wikipedia's entry.  Click below for her biography.
                                           SUMMER ON THE LAKES

Summer days of busy leisure,
Long summer days of dear-bought pleasure,
You have done your teaching well;
Had the scholar means to tell
How grew the vine of bitter-sweet,
What made the path for truant feet,
Winter nights would quickly pass,
Gazing on the magic glass
O'er which the new-world shadows pass;
But, in fault of wizard spell,
Moderns their tale can only tell
In dull words, with a poor reed
Breaking at each time of need.
But those to whom a hint suffices
Mottoes find for all devices,
See the knights behind their shields,
Through dried grasses, blooming fields.

1843
                                                  TO A FRIEND

Some dried grass-tufts from the wide flowery plain,
A muscle shell from the lone fairy shore,
Some antlers from tall woods which never more
To the wild deer a safe retreat can yield,
An eagle's feather which adorned a Brave,
Well-nigh the last of his despairing band,
For such slight gifts wilt thou extend thy hand
When weary hours a brief refreshment crave?
I give you what I can, not what I would,
If my small drinking-cup would hold a flood,
As Scandinavia sung those must contain
With which the giants gods may entertain;
In our dwarf day we drain few drops, and soon must thirst again.


1843