Bath’s Susan Marr Spalding Renowned sonnet writer

by James Nalley

In the field of poetry, writing lines in iambic pentameter is one of the most difficult parts of writing a sonnet. This means that each line in the sonnet must have 10 syllables, and the syllables alternate in emphasis. However, in the late 1800s, a Bath-born woman had mastered this peculiar and difficult form of composition. According to Charles Moulton in The Magazine of Poetry (1890), “Artistically considered, they are very nearly beyond criticism, perfect in execution, and of exquisite finish.” Not surprisingly, one of her nearly perfect compositions became so popular that it was widely copied and claimed by others under a different title.

Susan Marr was born in Bath on July 4, 1841. Her parents died while she was still young, after which she moved to

New York City to live with her uncle’s family. There, as stated by Moulton, “she had the advantages of refined and cultured surroundings.” At the age of 18, she married 32-year-old Rodolphus Spalding, “a gentleman of intelligence and literary taste.” After residing in New York for several years and then moving to Philadelphia, her husband died. As a widow, Spalding spent her time with friends and family in both Philadelphia and Bath, while balancing the ongoing demands of being a nurse and a counselor. However, it was her talent as a poet, particularly as a sonnet writer, that would make her renowned in the writing circles. The following is a prominent example from the poem Fate: Two shall be born the whole wide world apart, and speak in differ-

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ent tongues, and have no thought each of the other’s being, and no heed; And these o’er unknown seas to unknown lands shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death; and, all unconsciously, shape every act and bend each wandering step to this one end: That one day, out of darkness they shall meet.

The following is another example of her writing, from the poem A Winter Rose: O Winter Rose, by what enchanting power was wrought thy shining miracle of bloom? Who hid from thee the golden, glowing hour That turns to summer this December gloom? What thrilling impulse, like a hidden fire, melted the snows wherein thy heart doth hide? What tender memory, what dear desire for the fond sun, they lover long denied?

Her poems were immediately and positively received in the writing circles. According to Moulton, “A careful study of its artistic requirements and a conscientious and painstaking habit of composition have resulted so successfully that she is considered by many competent critics as one of the best sonnet writers of the day.” Despite such high praise, her poem Fate was widely copied and claimed by many to be their work. For example, when Edwin Milton Royle (the renowned American playwright) used it in his play Friends, he was inundated with letters from individuals claiming to be its author. Consequently, he placed Spalding’s name on all of his programs. In another instance, in 1876, Spalding wrote the following in the New York Graphic, “I happen to have still in my possession the note from William Augustus Croffut (one of the editors of the Graphic) accepting the poem, speaking of it in the highest terms and expressing his regret that he could not pay for the poetry, since it has more than once quenched a too-insistent claimant.” It was not until 1893 that her right of authorship was officially settled in court.

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In her remaining years, she regularly spent her winters in Wilmington, Delaware. However, in 1894, she permanently moved to Boston and then traveled abroad. Spalding died at her home in West Medford, Massachusetts, on March 12, 1908. She was 66 years of age.

Today, her name has basically disappeared in the literary circles and Spalding, according to the Montreal Witness, is “best known or least known by her poem, Fate. However, perhaps closing with the following verse from Fate will be a reminder of her true skill as a sonnet writer: And two shall walk some narrow way of life so nearly side by side that, should one turn ever so little space to right or left, they needs must stand acknowledged face to face, and yet, with wistful eyes that never meet, with groping hands that never clasp, and lips calling in vain to ears that never hear, they seek each other all their weary days and die unsatisfied – and that is Fate!