Adah Isaacs Menken

Order Description

-Write a short Biography on Menken but the later years of her life also include (politics on her race and love affairs)
– Talk about the event of bold act of appearing naked, strapped to a running horse.
-What experience was she going through when writing poem,
– Explain and interpret her poem “A Memory” also add what was going on during that era.

A Memory
I see her yet, that dark-eyed one,
Whose bounding heart God folded up
In His, as shuts when day is done,
Upon the elf the blossom’s cup.
On many an hour like this we met,
And as my lips did fondly greet her,
I blessed her as love’s amulet:
Earth hath no treasure, dearer, sweeter.

The stars that look upon the hill,
And beckon from their homes at night,
Are soft and beautiful, yet still
Not equal to her eyes of light.
They have the liquid glow of earth,
The sweetness of a summer even,
As if some Angel at their birth
Had dipped them in the hues of Heaven.

They may not seem to others sweet,
Nor radiant with the beams above,
When first their soft, sad glances meet
The eyes of those not born for love;
Yet when on me their tender beams
Are turned, beneath love’s wide control,
Each soft, sad orb of beauty seems
To look through mine into my soul.

I see her now that dark-eyed one,
Whose bounding heart God folded up
In His, as shuts when day is done,
Upon the elf the blossom’s cup.
Too late we met, the burning brain,
The aching heart alone can tell,
How filled our souls of death and pain
When came the last, sad word, Farewell!