Hazel Bloom by Julia Carter Aldrich is a collection of lyric and devotional poems written in the late 19th century. The volume dwells on motherhood, home, nature’s cycles, Christian faith, and the moral texture of everyday joys and griefs, voiced by a contemplative, sympathetic speaker. Readers can expect meditations that move from flowers and landscapes to friendship, love, betrayal, death, and hope, seeking solace and purpose rather than spectacle. It will appeal
to those who enjoy earnest, nature-rich, spiritually inflected verse. The opening of the collection frames its aim with a dedication to mothers and a “Weaver” who chooses humble threads to comfort real lives. It then shifts between meditations on mystery and calamity’s humanizing power, the restorative language of flowers and evening quiet, and love lyrics that weigh constancy, estrangement, and regret alongside lessons of hope (witch‑hazel), labor, and rest. Domestic and spiritual pieces recall a mother’s touch, prize home over wealth, honor unseen bonds of friendship, confront betrayal, challenge fatalism with will, and face death through Christian consolation; the poet also praises a freer muse over rigid forms and celebrates childhood Junes, field blossoms, and Yosemite’s grandeur. Hymnal affirmations of Resurrection, compassionate portraits of Christ, and calls to “feed my lambs” lead into personal supplication and gentle pastoral reveries, culminating in affectionate memories of a country home and its riverside landscape. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Jamie Brydone-Jack and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Reading Level
Reading ease score: 67.2 (8th & 9th grade). Neither easy nor difficult to read.
