She enjoyed in her day a vogue as a poet which the present generation finds it hard to account for

In doing some genealogical research, I came across 9th great-uncle Caleb Kimball who died in 1675 in the first year of the King Philip's War at the Battle of Blood Creek. Settlers were transporting supplies from one location to another, were careless in their march arrangements, were ambushed by an overwhelming force of 700 and nearly wiped out, some 57 of the 84 dying.

A description of the battle by Edward Monroe Bacon is here. Bacon mentions in passing:

It was at the laying of the corner-stone, on the 30th of September, 1835, that Edward Everett delivered his oration on the Battle of Bloody Brook, passages from which school-boys of past generations have eloquently declaimed. To the same occasion, Mrs. Sigourney, the " bard of Hartford," contributed a poem.

This is the oration to which Bacon refers.

But who is this Mrs. Sigourney? For that answer, we have to go to The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut, 1633-1884, Volume 1 by James Hammond Trumbull. I enjoyed his politeness.

In Mrs. Sigourney, ale Lydia Huntley (born at Norwich, Sept. 1, 1791; died at Hartford, June 10, 1865), Hartford had a poetess of higher pretensions, who enjoyed in her day a vogue which the present generation finds it hard to account for. Educated in part at Hartford schools, she came there for life in 1814, and opened a select seminary for young ladies. In 1815 she published at Hartford her first book, "Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse," which was followed by nearly sixty volumes in as many years, ending with " Letters of Life," printed posthumously in 1866. Mrs. Sigourney was sometimes called the Hemans of America." She belonged to the era of the annuals, — that period of our literary history when a poet was styled a "bard" and his poem an "effusion." Her "Moral Pieces" were addressed to her pupils, and the atmosphere of the young ladies seminary always continued to hang about her writing, which has a kind of prim elegance in style and sentiment.

An extraordinarily large proportion of her pieces were of the occasional order. "Death of an Infant," "Consecration of a Church," "Exhibition of a School of Young Ladies," "Baptism of an Infant at its Mother's Funeral," and similar titles occur with almost ludicrous frequency. Indian subjects attracted her strongly, and her most ambitious poems were "Pocahontas," 1841, and "traits of the Aborigines," a poem in 4000 lines of very blank verse, published at Cambridge, 1822. "Past Meridian," a prose volume inspired by a reading of Cicero's "De Senectute," is Mrs. Sigourney's strongest work, and will form perhaps her best title to remembrance. She had the honor of republication in England, where a volume of selections from her poetry was printed in 1848 under the name of "The Coronal."

There is a footnote to the last line.

Thackeray seems to have been acquainted with Mrs. Thackeray's poetry, to judge from this bit of parody:

"As Mrs. Sigourney sweetly sings: -

'Oh, the soul is a soft and delicate thing: -
The soul is a lute with a thrilling string,
A spirit that floats on a gossamer's wing.'"

And what was the poem she contributed to the ceremony in 1835? I haven't been able to track that down. Perhaps this might be a candidate, seeming to strike notes appropriate to the occasion.

What are thy deeds, thou fearful thing
By the lordly warrior's side?
And the Sword answer'd, stern and slow,
"The hearth-stone lone and the orphan know,
And the pale and widow'd bride.

"The shriek and the shroud of the battle-cloud,
And the field that doth reek below,
The wolf that laps where the gash is red,
And the vulture that tears ere the life hath fled,
And the prowling robber that strips the dead,
And the foul hyena know.

"The rusted plough, and the seed unsown,
And the grass that doth rankly grow
O'er the rotting limb, and the blood-pool dark,
Gaunt Famine that quenches life's lingering spark,
And the black-wing'd Pestilence know.

"Death with the rush of his harpy-brood,
Sad Earth in her pang and throe,
Demons that riot in slaughter and crime,
And the throng of the souls sent, before their time,
To the bar of the judgment—know."

Then the terrible Sword to its sheath return'd,
While the Needle sped on in peace,
But the Pen traced out from a Book sublime
The promise and pledge of that better time
When the warfare of earth shall cease.

One final note. On page 670 of Orations by Edward Everett, there is a listing of the names of those killed in the Battle of Bloody Brook. It also mentions three other settlers killed nearby including Uzacaboy Shackspeer. It is fascinating to speculate that perhaps some distant cousin, nephew or other progeny of William Shakespeare might have perished out on the far frontier of the New World a couple of generations after his own passing.