[5] Her father, cautious of the young teacher's financial prospects, denied permission for the marriage until Horsford had attained the Rumford Chair of Physics, and the couple were married on August 4, 1847.

Godey's Lady's Book promoted the collection as a "volume of pearls from the heart-fountain of one of our sweetest American poetesses.

"[9] The North American Review praised the "grace and style and flowing versification" of the poems, as well as the "earnestness of tone and the purity of Christian sentiment which are their leading characteristics.

"[10] The poems have retroactively attracted criticism for repeating "familiar stereotypes, both horrific and romantic" in their tacit approval of manifest destiny.

[1] In the autumn of 1855, months after the birth of her youngest daughter, Mary Gardiner Horsford developed a cold which soon became tetanus or lockjaw.