1826

[Hemans, Felicia] F. H. "The American Forest-Girl." New Monthly Magazine 16 (April 1826): 407-8. (Records of Woman: With Other Poems. Boston, 1828. 131-35.) (Poetical Works. Boston, 1857. 157-60.) Author of probably twenty volumes and 400 poems, Hemans is one of the most noted English poets of the early 19th century. Records of Woman, called her most personal and profitable book, chronicles the lives of both famous and unknown women, women of strong but humble spiritual strength and faith. This poem, perhaps like no other, humanizes Smith at the moment of death, taking us inside his head to his thoughts of happy home, of mother's love, of dying with his father's courage, of God. Pocahontas knows death -- she's "mourn'd a playmate brother" -- and thus she pities Smith. At her "He shall not die," the Indians' "dark souls bow'd before the maid," overpowered by "Something of heaven."
[poetry; gender]
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