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Document 16367 DOLLEY MADISON Poem penned by the First Lady. Rare Original Autograph Poem, 1p, 4½x6¾. No place, no date. Not signed. In full: "I tremble for thee! Ah! Be wise/Nor gaze too long on Nysa's eyes/Fond youth, beware! Her siren art/Too sure will steal thy heedless heart!/Nysa is lovely, yes, too well/I know her oft resistless spell/I know that o'er her beauteous face/There beams a charm, a nameless grace/That none can paint, though all must own/The charm of Nysa's self alone!!/Yet, ah! Beware! For shouldst thou love/No future joy thou o'er shall prove/Condemn'd to drag an endless chain/And thy lost freedom mourn in vain/If constant thou her charms adore,/Thy bosom's peace returns no more;/If wise too late, thou draw'st the dart/What then remains? A bleeding heart". NYSA in Greek mythology was the nurse or stepmother to Bacchus, God of Wine. Dolley Madison, the former Dolley Payne Todd, was the 26-year-old widow of attorney John Todd when she married 43-year-old James Madison on September 15, 1794. She was the mother of two sons, one of whom died in infancy, but the Madisons had no children of their own. Dolley and the President were avid readers of poetry. She was known to write poetry, but little has found its way into private hands. Her poems, like this one penned in her unmistakable script, were well rhymed and metered on simple pleasant subjects. Dolley's surviving son, John Payne Todd (1792-1852), was a spendthrift who went through his fortune and his mother's, and she was forced to pay off his debts. A year after her husband died, she was compelled to sell President Madison's papers and books to the U.S. Department of State for $30,000. Dolley even sold her Washington home at 16th and H Street to fur merchant John Jacob Astor; he allowed her to live there nearly rent-free. Mrs. Madison was frequently observed in the visitor's gallery of the House of Representatives. On January 9, 1844 in an unprecedented action, the House unanimously passed a resolution granting her a seat on its floor. She thanked the House in a letter read on the floor the following day, referring to her husband. In part: "I shall be ever proud to recollect it, as a token of their remembrance, collectively and individually, of one who had gone before us." Mrs. Madison died in 1849 at the age of 81. Uniformly tanned. Fine condition. SEE IF DOCUMENT 16367 IS FOR SALE RIGHT NOW!!
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