Philip Pendleton Cooke

Philip Pendleton Cooke Poems

Philip Pendleton Cooke Biography

Philip Pendleton Cooke (October 26, 1816 – January 20, 1850) was an American lawyer and minor poet from Virginia. He was the brother of John Esten Cooke. Cooke was born on October 26, 1816, in Martinsburg when it was then part of Virginia and spent the majority of his life in the northern part of the Shenandoah Valley. He attended Princeton University, where he wrote the poems "Song of the Sioux Lovers", Autumn", and "Historical Ballads, No. 6 Persian: Dhu Nowas", as well as a short story, "The Consumptive" before his graduation in 1834. After graduation, he followed in his father's profession as a lawyer. His two main hobbies, however, were hunting and writing, though he never made a profession out of his writing. He once wrote: "I detest the law. On the other hand, I love the fever-fits of composition." He died January 20, 1850. Cooke believed his literary sustenance came from his library rather than from writing, despite several important literary figures — including John P. Kennedy and Rufus Wilmot Griswold — who encouraged him to write more. Edgar Allan Poe praised his work and wrote to him that he would "give your contributions a hearty welcome, and the choicest position in the magazine". By 1835, he resolved to give up on poetry entirely. He believed that poetry was as barren "as a worn-out tobacco field" and that even William Cullen Bryant, who he considered "the master of them all", had "sheltered himself from starvation behind the columns of a political newspaper" rather than making money from poetry. By 1847, the Southern Literary Messenger reported that Cooke had turned into a prose writer. Cooke was well-read and his poetry was inspired by Edmund Spenser, Geoffrey Chaucer and Dante Aligheri. He also admired the prose work of Poe, which he told in a letter: I have always found some remarkable thing in your stories to haunt me long after reading them. The teeth in Berenice—the changing eyes of Morella—that red & glaring crack in the House of Usher—the pores of the deck in the MS. Found in a Bottle—the visible drops falling into the goblet in Ligeia.)

The Best Poem Of Philip Pendleton Cooke

Florence Vane

I loved thee long and dearly,
Florence Vane;
My life’s bright dream and early
Hath come again;
I renew in my fond vision
My heart’s dear pain,
My hope, and thy derision,
Florence Vane.

The ruin lone and hoary,
The ruin old,
Where thou didst mark my story,
At even told,—
That spot—the hues Elysian
Of sky and plain—
I treasure in my vision,

Thou wast lovelier than the roses
In their prime;
Thy voice excelled the closes
Of sweetest rhyme;
Thy heart was as a river
Without a main.
Would I had loved thee never,
Florence Vane!

But, fairest, coldest wonder!
Thy glorious clay
Lieth the green sod under,—
Alas the day!
And it boots not to remember
Thy disdain,—
To quicken love’s pale ember,
Florence Vane.

The lilies of the valley
By young graves weep,
The pansies love to dally
Where maidens sleep;
May their bloom, in beauty vying,
Never wane
Where thine earthly part is lying,
Florence Vane!

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