This poem was written when Ms. Howe was 84-86 years old (1903-1905). It was published in her daughters’ biography, Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910), which earned Laura E. Richards and Maud Howe Elliott the Pulitzer Prize in 1917. I think her poetry got better as she aged. Is this poem’s title a pun that she’s ready to “face the music”?
An illustration for the story In Music Hall by the author Julia Ward Howe
J.E. Purdy, Julia Ward Howe at 83 in 1902
Looking down upon the white heads of my contemporaries
Beneath what mound of snow
Are hid my springtime roses?
How shall Remembrance know
Where buried Hope reposes?
In what forgetful heart
As in a cañon darkling,
Slumbers the blissful art
That set my heaven sparkling?
What sense shall never know,
Soul shall remember;
Roses beneath the snow,
June in November.
