PUBLICATIONS
In Quietness
An Affirmative Word for More Confident Living
MABEL BURLINGHAM (1882 - 1961)
A collection of twenty-one poems and prayers, first self-published by Mabel Burlingham in 1952. This special edition has been updated with photographs and biographical material from the life of the author, an American intellectual and leading citizen of Syracuse, New York, between 1914 and 1960.
ABOUT THE BOOK
A Collection of Timeless Faith and Hope
The book includes twenty-one poems and prayers first self-published by the author in 1952. This special edition has been updated with photographs and biographical material from the life of the author, who was an American intellectual and leading citizen of Syracuse, New York, between 1914 and 1960.
The inspirational poetry of In Quietness expresses Mabel Burlingham's abiding religious faith and her optimistic humanitarian spirit. When it was first published in 1952, her poems were praised by Rev. Norman Vincent Peale and other religious leaders. Mabel Burlingham's poems express timeless faith and hope for humankind:
So close, and yet beyond my sight,
I sense another world
Of Beauty and Light.
It seems to permeate the earth
And fill the sky,
It floats upon the clouds
As they pass by,
It ripples on the stream
And murmurs in the breeze,
It sings its sweet refrain
From topmost boughs of trees.
It gleams upon the earth,
And hovers in the air,
It glows within my heart—
God's Love is everywhere!
— Awareness, by Mabel Burlingham
This special edition of In Quietness is published in honor of the 2007 dedication of the Burlingham Memorial Park in Syracuse, New York.
ABOUT MARBEL BURLINGHAM
Poet, Intellectual, Inventor
MARBEL BURLINGHAM 1882-1961
A dedicated author portrait is not available in the current archive; this page uses a text-led biography until one can be added.
Mabel Burlingham (1882–1961) was a poet, intellectual, inventor, gardener, and artist. Like most American women of her generation coming of age at the turn of the century, she struggled with finding the path to her true, most expressive self. Regardless of conditions that limited the role of women, she had faith in the creative life process and the possibilities that are latent in every human heart.
Mabel Burlingham had wide-ranging intellectual interests with a particular passion for religion, mysticism, and poetry. Her religious faith and positive philosophy of living was articulated in guest columns in the Syracuse Post-Standard and in her essays and poetry. Mrs. Burlingham's friends were intellectual leaders of the time: educator Madame Maria Montessori, Bahá'í thinkers Howard and Mable Ives, author Dhan Gopal Mukerji, and editor and peace activist Norman Cousins. Mabel Burlingham traveled across the United States with Maria Montessori, and started the first Montessori school in Syracuse when she returned.
After her husband Dr. Burlingham's death in 1939, jelly and jewelry gave Mabel a career. She founded the Cinnama-Tang Products Company and invented a formula for cinnamon syrup and jellies, sold all over the United States. She also created distinctive beaded earrings that retailed in the finest shops in New York, Chicago, and California.
In 1949, the Syracuse Post-Standard cited Mabel Burlingham as one of the city's ten “Women of Achievement.” Articles and columns about her appeared in the New York Herald Tribune, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Ladies Home Journal, and other magazines.
EXCERPT
A Passage from In Quietness
Realization
If I could peer into the dim Unknown
For one brief moment, see with clearer sight,
I know I would discern loved faces of the past,
Still living, still turning to the Light.
If I could sit in quietness alone,
My mind attuned to silence and repose,
I know the stillness would become articulate,
Revealing what my heart already knows.
If I could hold all life as sacred,
Believing in the dignity and worth of every soul,
United in a vast, eternal Brotherhood,
Then I would know, with certainty, The Goal.
By Mabel Burlingham
WHY THIS BOOK MATTERS
Preserving a Life of Faith and Ideas
In Quietness preserves more than a set of poems — it preserves the voice of a woman whose intellectual curiosity connected her to some of the leading thinkers of her era, and whose optimism and faith shaped her writing and her life's work.
Zeitgeist West republished this special edition in honor of the 2007 dedication of the Burlingham Memorial Park in Syracuse, New York — keeping her words, and the story behind them, part of the ongoing conversation.