Felecia Hemans - Woman and Fame

Hemans was a gifted writer and was first published at 14, so no doubt one of her later poems would be about woman and fame, being as though she had been a famous poet for more than 20 years when this poem was published (1836).

Happy - happier far than thou,
With the laurel on thy brow;
She that makes the humblest hearth,
Lovely but to one on earth.

This is the epigraph of the poem and is actually a self quotation from another poem, maybe to help readers recognize who she is or see another one of her poems, like advertising in the 1800s. But I think really, she liked this line and it inspired her following poem.

Thou has a charmed cup, O Fame!
A draught that mantles high,
and seems to life this earthly frame
above mortality,
Away! to me - a woman- bring
sweet waters from affection's spring.

This second stanza of the poem describes how Hemans feels about fame, it is a "charmed cup" that drinks from a high mantle. I think she means, in common day language, that everyone puts fame on a pedistal and she, having had fame for 20 years, sees it as all smoke and mirrors, the fame she has, especially as a woman brings a lot of affection and adoration, but it has its own downfalls, no matter how charmed a life.

speaking of her fame, in line 19-23

A hollow sound is in thy song,
A mockery in thine eye,
To the sick heart that doth but long
For aid, for sympathy;
for kindly looks to cheer it on,
for tender accents that are gone

Fame has a "hollow sound" in its song, and seems to mock her even though she thinks that she has treated it well. Maybe the fame was blissful at first, but as she matured the "tender accents that are gone"; all the sparkle of fame has diminished. And on her last stanza, "Where must the lone one turn or flee? - not unto thee, oh! not to thee!", here she is saying that all she wants is some privacy, or maybe she likes the fame, but to anyone that would like privacy and a lonely hermits life, would not like fame in theirs.

I do not have any experience with a famed life or recognition, I was in the Macon Telegraph for winning a city tournament for wrestling, and even then I was bashful when people would bring me clippings from the paper. But I do watch a lot of E! news channel and see the famous people as they hide their faces from the demanding paparazzi. Some famous people, like Paris Hilton or Megan Fox, seem to like the fame and addoration, but they are young and will, as time goes on, see the fame is just another life that has its ups and downs. Others, like the late Kirk Cobain and Johnny Depp did not/do not like the fame. Kirk was a troubled artist with a lot of talent but saw his record label and peers try and turn him into something he was not, and that "charmed cup" was just that, a charm, not real, but an illusion. Johnny Depp dealt with the fame a little more securely, he went off to France where he would not be recognized or at the very least bothered as much, a lone person would not like fame at all.