Mrs. Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, one of Kentucky's most distinguished
poets, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, August 11, 1836. Her
grandfather was Morgan Bryan, brother-in-law of Daniel Boone, and one of
the proprietors of Bryan's Station, near Lexington, famous in the old
Indian wars. When only three years old she left Lexington to make her
home near Versailles, Kentucky, where her beautiful mother died in 1844.
After her mother's death she was sent to her aunt's home at New Castle,
Kentucky. Miss Bryan was graduated from Henry Female College, New
Castle; and on June 18, 1861, she was married to John James Piatt, the
Ohio poet. George D. Prentice, of course, was the first to praise and
print Mrs. Piatt's poems and start her upon a literary career. Her
husband, too, has been her chief critic, and responsible for the
publication of her work in book form. From the first Mrs. Piatt's poems
have been deeply introspective, voicing the heart of a woman in every
line. Her work has been cordially commended by Bayard Taylor, William
Dean Howells, John Burroughs, Hamilton Wright Mabie, and many other
well-known and capable critics in America and Europe. Several of Mrs.
Piatt's poems were published in _The Nests at Washington and Other
Poems_ (Cincinnati, 1861), but her first independent volume, issued
anonymously, was _A Woman's Poems_ (Boston, 1871). This is her best
known work, made famous by Bayard Taylor in his delightful little book,
_The Echo Club_. This was followed by _A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles
and Other Poems_ (1874); _That New World and Other Poems_ (1876); _Poems
in Company with Children_ (1877); _Dramatic Persons and Moods_ (1880);
_The Children Out of Doors and Other Poems_ (with her husband, 1885);
_An Irish Garland_ (1885); _Selected Poems_ (1885); _In Primrose Time_
(1886); _Child's-World Ballads_ (1887); _The Witch in the Glass_ (1889);
_An Irish Wild-Flower_ (1891); _An Enchanted Castle_ (1893); _Complete
Poems_ (1894, two vols.); _Child's-World Ballads_ (1896, second series);
and _The Gift of Tears_ (Cincinnati, 1906). These volumes prove Mrs.
Piatt to be one of the most prolific and finest female poets America has
produced. English reviewers have often linked her name with Mrs.
Browning's and Miss Rossetti's, and if she has not actually reached
their rank, she has surely shown work worthy of a high place in the
literature of her native country. Mrs. Piatt is at the present time
residing at North Bend, Ohio, near Cincinnati.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Echo Club_, by Bayard Taylor (Boston, 1876);
_The Poets of Ohio_, by Emerson Venable (Cincinnati, 1909).