Down the Bayou

Description

The conifer marsh within while it coats its beguilement, and there was peaceful melody in flowerless plants, same as multitudes whispering their prayers. Meanwhile Solitude, alike in many silent chime, filled with enigma that it never speaks. Verdant supplications on the sodden wind sing themselves, and on the branches, lay the red morass pens her prescripts heartily.

Mary Ashley Townsend was a US poet and author. She was born in Lyons, New York. Her given name was Van Voorhis. She was taught in her hometown and got married to Gideon Townsend, of New Orleans, Louisiana.

She started writing around 1856 and, under the pseudonym Xariffa, gained a notoriety as the writer of Quillotypes, a sequel of amusing dissertations that were shown in the New Orleans Delta and were largely reproduced by the southern and western publishing companies. Her other books are The Brother Clerks, Poems, The Captain’s Story, and Down the Bayou, and other Poems. Some of her short verses are Creed, which was replicated in dailies in England and America, A Woman’s Wish, The Bather and The Wind.

She was assigned to address the official verse in the inauguration of the New Orleans exposition in 1884, and at the revealing of the memorial of General Albert Sidney Johnston in 1887.

She was the first American called to adhere to the Liceo Hidalgo, a reputable Mexican literary circle.

Her publication earned “high critical acclaim in the 1870s and 1880s”. 15 years following her loss, an essay in A History of American Literature stated, “Her humorous sketches in prose are forgotten, but her mildly sentimental poems hold for her a place in the anthologies.” She is quoted in The History of Southern Women’s Literature in 2002 for her pieces having originality and viridity in concerning conventional storylines.
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