Turning the Book Wheel

More Poetry for National Poetry month! This manuscript contains poetry, some riddles and puzzles, and short prose passages selected “by Mary Jane Wynkoop at Miss Gorham’s School, Elizabeth Town, February 28th 1824.”

“Variety is pleasing” she so rightly points out on the elaborately illustrated title page.

The poems are not credited, but here’s one that’s a bit sad. Because poetry should be a little sad when it’s not about tobacco, don’t you think?

To ——-

Dost thou think because I smile,
When wit and mirth surround me
There is no torturing thought the while
That with its secret power can wound me?

Ah! I know then, I have schooled my heart,
To stifle every wayward feeling, 
And dearly have I bought the art,
Not that of conquering, but concealing.

Yet, when I see the joyous smile
In other’s eyes so brightly beaming,
I feel a transient joy the while,
‘Tis real then, it is not seeming.

But memory, with her thousand things,
Tur[n]s every present joy to sorrow;
And sad anticipation brings’
Thoughts which from hope no solace borrow.