Selected Poetry of Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1836-1919)
from Representative Poetry On-line
Prepared by members of the Department of English at the University of Toronto
from 1912 to the present and published by the University of Toronto Press from 1912 to 1967.
RPO Edited by Ian Lancashire
A UTEL (University of Toronto English Library) Edition
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services,
University of Toronto Libraries
© 2011, Ian Lancashire for the Department
of English, University of Toronto
Index to poems
- An After-Poem
- The Black Princess
- The Christening
- The Coming of Eve
- Engaged Too Long
- The House below the Hill
- A New Thanksgiving
- Out of Tune
- The Palace-Burner
- The Sorrows of Charlotte
- Transfigured
- We Two
- "We Women"
- Why Should We Care?
- The Witch in the Glass
- A Woman's Last Word
Notes on Life and Works
On August 11, 1836, Sarah Morgan Bryan was born in Lexington, Kentucky, the daughter of Southern gentry. After her mother's death in 1844, she lived with different family members before entering Henry Female College in a four-year general degree program in 1855. She married a young poet, John James Piatt, on June 18, 1861, and followed him to Washington and eventually over to Ireland in his lifelong career in the US civil service. They had seven children. Sarah began publishing poems in 1854. They appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Scribner's, and many other journals, and she brought out more than sixteen volumes of verse. Sarah knew most contemporary American and Irish poets, including Longfellow, Whitman, and W. B. Yeats. She died in Caldwell, New Jersey, in 1919, two years after the death of her husband.
- Piatt, Sarah Morgan Bryan. The Nests at Washington and Other Poems. New York and London: Samson Low and Son, 1864.
- --. A Woman's Poems. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1871.
- --. A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1874.
- --. That New World and Other Poems. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1877.
- --. Poems in Company with Children. Boston: D.Lothrop, 1877.
- --. Dramatic Persons and Moods, with other new poems. Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1879.
- --. A Book About Baby. Boston: D, Lothrop, 1882.
- --. An Irish Garland. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1885.
- --. In Primrose Time: a new Irish garland. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1886.
- --. Select Poems. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1886.
- --. The Children Out-of-Doors by Two in One House. Cincinatti: Robert Clarke, 1887.
- --. Child's-World Ballads. Cincinatti: Robert Clarke, 1887.
- --. The Witch in the Glass. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1889.
- --. An Irish Wild-flower. New York: Frederick Stokes, 1891.
- --. An Enchanted Castle and Other Poems: Pictures, Portraits, and People in Ireland. London: Longman's Green, 1893.
- --. Poems. New York: Longman's Green, 1894.
- --. Cmplete Poems. 2 vols. London: Longman's Green, 1894.
- --. A Gift of Tears. Cincinatti: Western Literary, 1906.
Biographical information
Given name: Sarah Morgan Bryan
Family name: Piatt
Birth date: 11 August 1836
Death date: 22 December 1919
Nationality: American
Family relations
husband: John James Piatt (from 18 June 1861)
Education: Henry Female College, New Castle, Kentucky
Literary period: Realistic
Residences
Caldwell, New Jersey to 1919
New Castle, Kentucky
North Bend, Ohio
Lexington, Kentucky: 1836
Washington, D.C.: 1861 to 1867
Ireland: 1882 to 1894
First RPO edition: 2004