Poetry & Analysis
Selected Lucy Larcom Poems
Featured PoemsA Christmas Thought
Oh, Christmas is coming again, you say,
And you long for the things he is bringing:
But the costliest gift may not gladden the day,
Nor help on the merry bells ringing.
Some getting is losing, you understand,
Some hoarding is far from saving;
What you hold in your hand may slip from your hand;
There is something better than having:
We are richer for what we give;
And only by giving we live.
Your last year’s presents are scattered and gone;
You have almost forgotten who gave them;
But the loving thoughts you bestow live on
As long as you choose to have them.
Love, love is your riches, though ever so poor;
No money can buy that treasure;
Yours always, from robber and rust secure,
Your own, without stint or measure:
It is only love that can give;
It is only by loving we live.
For who is it smiles through the Christmas morn,
The Light of the wide creation?
A dear little Child in a stable born,
Whose love is the world’s salvation.
He was poor on earth, but He gives us all
That can make our life worth the living;
And happy the Christmas Day we call
That is spent, for His sake, in giving:
He shows us the way to live;
Like Him, let us love and give!
Plain Explanation A Christmas Thought: Meaning and Summary
The poem questions a Christmas centered on receiving expensive things. Gifts can disappear, be forgotten or fail to create joy. Loving thought and generous action last longer because they change both giver and receiver.
The final stanza grounds this ethic in the birth of Christ, a poor child whose love becomes salvation. Christmas is happiest when celebrated through giving that imitates this pattern.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Giving over having: Possession does not guarantee joy.
- Love as wealth: Affection cannot be bought, stolen or exhausted.
- Memory: Objects disappear faster than loving intention.
- Christian generosity: Christ’s poverty and giving provide the model.
- Life through relationship: The repeated conclusion says giving and loving are ways of truly living.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is conversational, corrective and warm. The speaker addresses a reader excited about Christmas without rejecting celebration itself.
The mood is festive but reflective. Bells and Christmas morning remain joyful while commercial expectation is redirected toward love.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
The speaker challenges the assumption that costly gifts make Christmas happy. Having and hoarding may actually become forms of loss.
Stanza 2
Last year’s objects are mostly forgotten, but loving thoughts can remain. Love becomes a secure, immeasurable treasure.
Stanza 3
The Christ child embodies giving without material wealth. The final imperative asks readers to imitate that love.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
Bells, hands, scattered presents, treasure, robber, rust, stable and Christmas morning create a movement from seasonal objects to spiritual meaning.
Christmas is personified as someone “coming again” and bringing things, while love acts like wealth that can remain secure.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- Costly gift: Material value without guaranteed emotional meaning.
- Open hand: Possession that can be lost and generosity that can release.
- Treasure: Love protected from physical decay.
- Stable: Humility and divine value outside wealth.
- Light: Christ’s love illuminating creation.
Poetic Form A Christmas Thought Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem has three ten-line stanzas. The first eight lines generally alternate rhymes, while the final couplet acts as a refrain-like conclusion.
The repeated endings—“giving we live,” “loving we live” and “love and give”—create a progressive ethical summary.
Craft Literary Devices in A Christmas Thought
- Paradox: Getting may be losing, and hoarding may fail to save.
- Refrain: Repeated lines connect giving, loving and living.
- Contrast: Purchased gifts are opposed to lasting love.
- Symbolism: Treasure, rust, stable and light carry spiritual meanings.
- Direct address: “You” makes the poem a personal seasonal conversation.
- Biblical allusion: The stable-born child refers to the Nativity.
Getting Along
We trudge on together, my good man and I,
Our steps growing slow as the years hasten by;
Our children are healthy, our neighbors are kind,
And with the world round us we’ve no fault to find.
‘T is true that he sometimes will choose the worst way
For sore feet to walk in, a weary hot day;
But then my wise husband can scarcely go wrong,
And, somehow or other, we’re getting along.
There are soft summer shadows beneath our home-trees:
How handsome he looks, sitting there at his ease!
We watch the flocks coming while sunset grows dim,
His thoughts on the cattle, and mine upon him.
The blackbirds and thrushes come chattering near;
I love the thieves’ music, but listen with fear:
He shoots the gay rogues I would pay for their song;—
We’re different, sure; still, we’re getting along.
He seems not to know what I eat, drink, or wear;
He’s trim and he’s hearty, so why should I care?
No harsh word from him my poor heart ever shocks:
I wouldn’t mind scolding,—so seldom he talks.
Ah, well! ‘t is too much that we women expect:
He only has promised to love and protect.
See, I lean on my husband, so silent and strong;
I’m sure there’s no trouble;—we’re getting along.
Life isn’t so bright as it was long ago,
When he visited me amid tempest and snow,
And would bring me a ribbon or jewel to wear,
And sometimes a rosebud to twist in my hair:
But when we are girls, we can all laugh and sing;
Of course, growing old, life’s a different thing!
My good man and I have forgot our May song,
But still we are quietly getting along.
It is true I was rich; I had treasures and land;
But all that he asked was my heart and my hand:
Though people do say it, ‘t is what they can’t prove,
“He married for money; she,—poor thing!—for love.”
My fortune is his, and he saves me its care;
To make his home cheerful’s enough for my share.
He seems always happy our broad fields among;
And so I’m contented:—we’re getting along.
With stocks to look after, investments to find,
It’s not very strange that I’m seldom in mind:
He can’t stop to see how my time’s dragging on,—
And oh! would he miss me, if I should be gone?
Should he be called first, I must follow him fast,
For all that’s worth living for then will be past.
But I’ll not think of losing him; fretting is wrong,
While we are so pleasantly getting along.
Plain Explanation Getting Along: Meaning and Summary
An older wife describes a marriage that appears stable but emotionally unequal. She repeatedly excuses her husband’s indifference: he chooses difficult paths, ignores her daily needs, rarely speaks, shoots birds she loves, controls her fortune and spends his attention on cattle, fields and investments.
The refrain “we’re getting along” can be heard sincerely, defensively and ironically. The wife insists there is no trouble, yet her questions and qualifications reveal loneliness. The poem examines how social expectations can teach a woman to rename neglect as contentment.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Marriage and emotional neglect: Material stability does not guarantee companionship.
- Gender expectations: The wife lowers her needs because women are told they expect too much.
- Economic power: Her fortune becomes his responsibility and control.
- Aging: Courtship’s May song gives way to quiet routine.
- Self-persuasion: Repetition helps the speaker avoid confronting dissatisfaction.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The surface tone is humorous, domestic and accepting. Underneath it lies irony, disappointment and restrained criticism.
The mood grows increasingly uneasy. Pleasant shadows and healthy children cannot fully conceal the speaker’s fear that her husband would not miss her.
Close Reading Stanza-by-Stanza Explanation
Stanza 1
The couple ages together within a kind community. The wife immediately begins excusing her husband’s poor choices.
Stanza 2
The pastoral setting looks peaceful, but their attention differs: she watches him while he watches cattle. Even birds reveal incompatible values.
Stanza 3
The husband does not notice her needs and rarely speaks. She converts absence of harshness into evidence of a satisfactory marriage.
Stanza 4
Past courtship contained effort, gifts and song. The wife treats their disappearance as an inevitable result of age.
Stanza 5
Rumor suggests he married for money. The wife repeats the accusation while claiming it cannot be proved, revealing unresolved doubt.
Stanza 6
Financial business explains her husband’s inattention, but her question about being missed exposes deep loneliness. She closes by refusing to think further.
Literary Technique Imagery and Personification
Larcom uses home-trees, sunset, flocks, birds, fields, ribbons, jewels and a rosebud to create a recognizable rural marriage. These attractive images make the emotional distance more subtle.
Years “hasten,” time “drags,” and the forgotten “May song” personifies the movement from courtship to old age.
Interpretation Symbols and Their Meaning
- Slow steps: Aging and the long duration of marriage.
- Birdsong: Beauty and emotional sensitivity valued by the wife but dismissed by the husband.
- Rosebud, ribbon and jewel: Courtship attention that has disappeared.
- May song: Youthful love and mutual delight.
- Fields and investments: The husband’s material priorities.
- The refrain: A public claim of success masking private doubt.
Poetic Form Getting Along Rhyme Scheme and Structure
The poem consists of six eight-line stanzas composed largely of rhyming couplets. Each stanza closes with a variation of “we’re getting along.”
The accumulating structure is important. Each stanza adds evidence that complicates the refrain, so the repeated assurance becomes less convincing as the poem continues.
Craft Literary Devices in Getting Along
- Dramatic monologue: The wife reveals more than she consciously intends.
- Irony: Claims of contentment are undermined by details of neglect.
- Refrain: “Getting along” changes meaning through repetition.
- Understatement: Serious emotional problems are described as ordinary differences.
- Symbolism: May song, birds and investments represent competing values.
- Rhetorical question: “Would he miss me?” exposes the poem’s emotional center.
Critical Reading AP Lit-Style Central Argument
Larcom uses the wife’s cheerful refrain as a form of dramatic irony. Because every repetition follows another sign of emotional or economic imbalance, “getting along” becomes less a description of mutual happiness than a survival phrase shaped by gendered expectations.
Reader Questions
Frequently Asked Questions About Lucy Larcom Poems
Who was Lucy Larcom?
Lucy Larcom was an American poet, teacher, editor and former Lowell textile-mill worker. She was born in Beverly, Massachusetts, in 1824 and died in 1893. Her writing frequently explores work, nature, faith, childhood, women’s experience and social responsibility.
What are Lucy Larcom’s most famous poems?
Her best-known poems include “Hannah Binding Shoes,” “The Rose Enthroned,” “A Loyal Woman’s No,” “If I Were a Sunbeam,” “The Brown Thrush,” “Plant a Tree” and “A Strip of Blue.”
What is Hannah Binding Shoes about?
The poem tells the story of Hannah, a woman who continues binding shoes while waiting for Ben, a fisherman lost at sea. It explores women’s labor, grief, aging, loyalty and a life suspended by uncertain loss.
What does binding shoes symbolize in Hannah Binding Shoes?
Binding shoes symbolizes repetitive women’s work and the routine that continues despite personal tragedy. It also suggests how Hannah’s life has become tied to one place and one unresolved hope.
What is the message of If I Were a Sunbeam?
The poem teaches that happiness should be shared where it is most needed. A joyful child can act like a sunbeam by bringing kindness and hope into lives darkened by poverty or sorrow.
What is the moral of The Brown Thrush?
The poem’s moral is that human goodness helps preserve the joy of nature. Children should observe the bird and its nest without touching or disturbing the eggs.
What does he who plants a tree plants a hope mean?
The line means that planting a tree begins a future the planter cannot fully see. The tree may provide beauty, habitat, peace and shade for people and creatures many years later.
What is the main symbol in A Strip of Blue?
The narrow strip of sea symbolizes a limited view that opens into unlimited imagination and spiritual wonder. The speaker’s small physical window becomes an entrance to ships, stars, eternity and God.
What do the city lights symbolize in Lucy Larcom’s poem?
The city lights symbolize individual homes and human lives. Their flickering also represents incomplete earthly hope, which the poem imagines eventually joining the fuller light of Heaven.
What is The Rose Enthroned about?
The poem imagines creation developing from chaos, fire, flood and primitive life toward beauty, love and the rose. It also suggests that the rose may only be one stage in an unfinished process.
Why does the speaker say no in A Loyal Woman’s No?
She refuses a man who wants comfort, wealth and possession but lacks courage during the struggle against slavery. She also rejects a marriage that would require her to descend from her moral and intellectual height.
What does never walking heavenward can we walk alone mean?
In “Hand in Hand with Angels,” the line means that spiritual growth depends on relationship and mutual help. Human beings encounter divine assistance through one another.
What are the three old saws in Lucy Larcom’s poem?
The poem responds to three familiar descriptions of the world: cold, wilderness and vale of tears. Its answers are to kindle warmth, build shelter and create hope through love.
What is the message of A Christmas Thought?
The poem argues that love and generosity are more lasting than expensive presents. Christ’s birth provides the example of a life made valuable through giving.
Is Getting Along a humorous poem?
It uses humor, but the humor is strongly ironic. The wife repeatedly claims that the marriage is going well while describing neglect, silence, financial imbalance and loneliness.
What literary devices does Lucy Larcom commonly use?
Larcom frequently uses refrain, personification, symbolism, dramatic monologue, extended metaphor, rhetorical questions, natural imagery and contrasts between light and darkness, height and valley, or freedom and confinement.
Are Lucy Larcom’s poems in the public domain?
Yes, the nineteenth-century poems cited in this article are in the public domain in the United States. Lucy Larcom died in 1893. Copyright rules can differ by country, so publishers outside the United States should check local law.
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