Amélie Louise Rives

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Born in Richmond, Virginia, Amelie Louise Rives, also known as Princess Amelie Troubetzkoy (1863-1945) was the granddaughter of a senator and Goddaughter of Robert E. Lee and the daughter of a successful engineer, but she rose to even greater social heights through marriage. After a privately tutored education, she married John Armstrong Chandler (an heir to the Astor fortune) of New York. Later she married Prince Pierre Troubetskoy of Russia, thus attaining the title of Princess Troubetskoy. The couple resided at Castle Hill, near Cobham, Virginia. She wrote at least four volumes of fiction, numerous uncollected poems, and Herod and Marianne (1889), a verse drama.

The following is an example poem named A Mood (1887):

It is good to strive against wind and rain

In the keen, sweet weather that autumn brings.

The wild horse shakes not the drops from his mane,

The wild bird flicks not the wet from her wings,

In gladder fashion that I toss free

The mist-dulled gold of my bright hair's flag,

What time the winds on their heel-wings lag,

And all the tempest is friends with me.

None can reach me to wound or cheer;

Sound of weeping and sound of song--

Neither may trouble me: I can hear

But the wind's loud laugh, and the sibilant, strong,

Lulled rush of the rain through the sapless weeds.

O rare, dear days, ye are here again!

I will woo ye as maidens are wooed of men,--

With oaths forgotten and broken creeds!

Ye shall not lack for the sun's fierce shining--

With the gold of my hair will I make ye glad;

For your blown, red forests give no repining--

Here are my lips: will ye still be sad?

Comfort ye, comfort ye, days of cloud,

Days of shadow, of wrath, of blast--

I who love ye am come at last.

Laugh to welcome me! cry aloud!

For wild am I as the winds and rains--

Free to come and to go as they;

Love's moon sways not the tides of my veins;

There is no voice that can bid me stay.

Out and away on the drenched, brown lea!

Out to the great, glad heart of the year!

Nothing to grieve for, nothing to fear,--

Fetterless, lawless, a maiden free!