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THE

POETS AND POETRY

OF

CECIL COUNTY, MARYLAND

COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
GEORGE JOHNSTON,
AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF CECIL COUNTY.

    A verse may finde him whom a sermon flies,
    And turn delight into a sacrifice.

    --Herbert.

ELKTON, MD:
PUBLISHED BY THE EDITOR.

1887

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by

GEORGE JOHNSTON,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.C.

PREFACE.

This volume owes its existence to the desire of some of the teachers and
pupils of the public schools in the northeastern part of Cecil county,
to do honor to the memory of the late School Commissioner David Scott.
Shortly after Mr. Scott's death, some of the parties referred to,
proposed to collect enough money by voluntary contributions to erect a
monument over his grave, in order to perpetuate his memory, and also to
show the high regard in which he was held by them. This project being
brought to the knowledge of the editor, he ventured to express the
opinion that the best monument Mr. Scott could have, would be the
collection and publication of his poems in book form. This suggestion
met the approbation of the originators of the project, who asked the
writer to undertake the work of collecting the poems and editing the
book. Subsequent investigation showed that Mr. Scott had not left enough
poems to justify their publication in a volume by themselves; and the
original plan of the work was changed, so as to include, so far as it
has been practicable to do so, the writings of all the native poets of
the county, and those who though not natives, have resided and written
in it.

Owing to causes not necessary to state it was impracticable, in some
cases, to make as creditable a selection as could have been made had it
been possible to have had access to all the poetry of the different
writers. In a few instances the book contains all the poetry of the
different writers that it has been practicable to obtain. Herein, it is
hoped, will be found sufficient apology, if any apology is needed, for
the character of some of the matter in the book.

If any apology is needed for the prominence given to the poems of David
Scott (of John.) it may be found in the foregoing statement concerning
the origin of the book; and in the fact, that, for more than a quarter
of a century, the editor was probably his most intimate friend. So
intimate indeed were the relations between Mr. Scott and the writer,
that the latter had the pleasure of reading many of his friend's poems
before they were published. The same may be said in a more extended
sense, of the poems of David Scott (of James) to whose example and
teaching, as well as to that of the other Mr. Scott--for he was a pupil
of each of them--the writer owes much of whatever literary ability he
may possess.

The editor is also on terms of intimacy with many of the other
contemporary writers whose poetry appears in the book, and has striven
to do justice to their literary ability, by the selection of such of
their poems as are best calculated, in his opinion, to do credit to
them, without offending the taste of the most fastidious readers of the
book.

From the foregoing statement it will be apparent that the object of the
editor was not to produce a book of poetical jems, but only to select
the poems best adapted to the exemplification of the diversified talents
of their authors. The work has been a labor of love; and though
conscious that it has been imperfectly performed, the compiler ventures
to express the hope that it will be received by a generous and
discriminating public, in the same spirit in which it was done.

EDITORIAL NOTES

It is a remarkable fact that all the native poets of Cecil county except
one or two were born in the northern part of it, and within about eight
miles of the boundary line between Maryland and Pennsylvania. What
effect, if any, the pure atmosphere and picturesque scenery of the
country along the banks and romantic hills of the Susquehanna and
Octoraro may have had to do with producing or developing poetical
genius, cannot be told; but nevertheless it is a fact, that William P.,
and Edwin E. Ewing, Emma Alice Browne, Alice Coale Simpers, John M.
Cooley and Rachel E. Patterson were born and wrote much of their poetry,
as did also Mrs. Caroline Hall, in that beautifully diversified and
lovely section of the county.

It is also worthy of note that Tobias and Zebulon Rudulph were brothers,
as are also William P. and Edwin E. Ewing; and that Mrs. Caroline Hall
was of the same family; and that Folger McKinsey and William J. Jones
are cousins, as are also Mrs. James McCormick and Mrs. Frank J.
Darlington, and Emma Alice Browne and George Johnston.

Owing to the fact that the size of the book was necessarily limited by
the price of it; and to the fact that the poems of three of the writers
were not obtained until after a large part of the book had been printed,
it was impossible to give some of the writers, whose proper places were
in the latter part of the book, as much space as was desirable. For the
reason just stated, the editor was compelled to omit a large number of
excellent poems, written by David Scott (of James,) and others.

CONTENTS.

DAVID SCOTT (of John.)

Biography
Lines Suggested by the Singing of a Bird
An Eastern Tale
The Market-Man's License
Lines on the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Scott
My Schoolboy Days
The Donation Visit
Lines on the death of Miss Mary Hayes
Lines on the death of Miss Eleanora Henderson
Lines on the death of Mrs. Burnite
Stanzas read at the Seventy-second Anniversary of the birthday of Joseph
    Steele
To Mary
Impromptu to Mrs. Anna C. Baker
Lament for the year 1877
Verses presented to my Daughter
Lines on the death of a young lady of Wilmington
Youthful Reminiscences
Stanzas to a little girl on her birthday
To Miss Mary Bain
Stanzas addressed to Mr. and Mrs. T. Jefferson Scott
Birthday Verses written for a little girl on her ninth birthday
Roll Call
In Memoriam Rensellaer Biddle
Stanzas written on the fly leaf of a child's Bible
Christmas Greeting, 1877
Anniversary Poem read at the anniversary of the Seventieth birthday of
    Mrs. Ann Peterson
Lines on the death of Jane Flounders
What is Matter?
Anniversary Hymn
The Intellectual Telegraph
Lines on an Indian Arrow-Head
Acrostic to Miss Annie Eliza McNamee
Minutes of the Jackson Hall Debating Society, Dec. 5, 1877
Retrospection
Acrostic to Miss Florence Wilson McNamee
The Book of Books
The Lesson of the Seasons
John A. Calhoun, My Joe John

EMMA ALICE BROWNE.

Biography
My Brother
My Father. In Memoriam, 1857
At the Nightfall
The Midnight Chime
May-Thalia
Memories
The Old Homestead
Gurtha
In Memoriam. John B. Abrahams
Missive to ----
Chick-A-Dee's Song
To My Sister
Measuring the Baby
The Light of Dreams
Ben Hafed's Meed
Winter Bound
Misled
At Milking time
The Singer's Song
Aunt Betty's Thanksgiving
In Hoc Signo Vinces
How Katie Saved the Train
Off the Skidloe
Life's Crosses

NATHAN COVINGTON BROOKS.

Biography
The Mother to her dead boy
To a Dove
Fall of Superstition
The Infant St. John the Baptist
Shelley's Obsequies
The Fountain Revisited
Death of Samson
An Infant's prayer

JOHN MARCHBORN COOLEY.

Biography
A Story with a Moral
Forty Years After
The Past
Loved and Lost
Death of Henry Clay, Jr.
A Valentine
Lines suggested on visiting the grave of a dear Friend

GEORGE WASHINGTON CRUIKSHANK.

Biography
Stonewall Jackson
In Memoriam
New Year Ode
My Birthday

MRS. ANNIE McCARER DARLINGTON.

Biography
A Birthday Greeting
Murmurings
The Old Oak Tree
Sweet Florida
Evening

REV. WILLIAM DUKE.

Biography
Hymn
Hymn
Rejoicing in Hope
Hymn
Remorse
Morning

EDWIN EVANS EWING.

Biography
The Cherubim
Death and Beauty
Take the Harp
Death of the Beautiful
Asphodel

WILLIAM PINKNEY EWING.

Biography
The Angel Voice
Then and Now
The Neglected Harp
Alone
Gone Astray
Lay of the Last Indian

CHARLES H. EVANS.

Biography
Influences
Musings
Lines

MRS. SARAH HALL.

Biography
Sketch of a Landscape
With a Rose in January
Life

MRS. SALLIE W. HARDCASTLE.

Biography
On Receipt of a Bouquet
October
Old Letters
June Roses
Music
Lines on the death of a Friend

MRS. MARY E. IRELAND.

Biography
At the Party
Mother and Son
The Missionary's Story
Transition
Dorothy Moore
Homeward Bound

GEORGE JOHNSTON.

Biography
Here and Hereafter
The Turtle's Sermon
Skye
If You don't believe it, try it
Bye and Bye

WILLIAM JAMES JONES.

Biography
Autumn
Mary's Grave
To Anselmo
Flowers
Life

JOHN HENRY KIMBLE.

Biography
His Last Tune
Advice to an Ambitious Youth
Too Late
After the Shower
Tribute to the Memory of David Scott (of John)
Spring

JAMES McCAULEY.

Biography
Henry Clay
Virtuous Age
Acrostic
Work To-day
On the death of a Child
Spring
Hope
Autumn

MRS. IDA McCORMICK.

Biography
My Fancy Land
With the Tide
The Old Fashion
My Baby and the Rose

FOLGER McKINSKY.

Biography
Waiting their Crowns
Sea Echoes
Where Fancy Dwells
At Key's Grave
The Eternal Life

MRS. ROSALIENE R. MURPHY.

Biography
Woman's Rights
Only A Baby
To Helen

RACHEL E. PATTERSON.

Biography
Judge Not
The Wish
The Christian's Anchor

CALLANDER PATTERSON.

Biography
God Is Great

TOBIAS RUDULPH.

Biography
Selection from Tancred

ZEBULON RUDULPH.

Biography
The Surprise
Thoughts on the death of my grandchild Fanny
The Decree
A view from Mount Carmel

MRS. ALICE COALE SIMPERS.

Biography
The Miller's Romance
The Last Time
Only a Simple Maid
The Mystic Clock
Rube and Will
The Legend of St. Bavon

DAVID SCOTT (of James.)

Biography
The Forced Alliance
My Cottage Home
The Mighty One
The Surviving Thought
The Working-Man's Song
Ode to Death

HENRY VANDERFORD.

Biography
On the Mountains
Progress
Winter
Lines Written in St. Ann's Cemetery
Merry May

DAVID SCOTT (of John.)

David Scott (of John,) so-called to distinguish him from his first
cousin David Scott (of James,) was the grandson of David Scott, who
emigrated from Ireland in the latter part of the eighteenth century and
settled not far from Cowantown in the Fourth district. His son John, the
father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Ireland, but was quite
young when his father came to this country.

David, the subject of this sketch, was born quite near to what was
formerly known as Dysart's Tavern, now Appleton, on the 2nd of
September, 1817, and died near Cowantown, on the 14th of November, 1885.

All his life was spent within about two miles of the place of his birth,
and most of it on the Big Elk creek at what was known while he owned
them, as "Scott's Mills." His early life was devoted to farming, but
upon reaching the proper age he learned the trade of augermaking, which
at that time was one of the leading industries of this county, and at
which he soon became an expert workman, as well as a skilful worker in
iron and steel. The editor of this book has heard him remark that when
he could find no one else capable of making odd pieces of ironwork for
the machinery in his mills he would take the hammer and make them
himself, and has also seen him make and temper the knives for a spoke
machine which he used for a time in his bending mill.

He and the late Palmer C. Ricketts were intimate friends in boyhood and
remained such during the lifetime of Mr. Ricketts. Mr. Ricketts being of
a literary turn of mind, their friendship probably had much to do with
forming the literary tastes and shaping the political opinions of Mr.
Scott.

Mr. Scott was originally a Democrat, and when only about 23 years of age
is said to have aspired to a seat in the General Assembly of his native
State. But the leaders of the party failed to recognize his claims, and
he shortly afterwards was instrumental in the formation of the first
politico temperance organization in this county, and ran for the House
of Delegates on the first temperance ticket placed before the people in
1845. For a few years afterwards he took no part in politics, his whole
time and talents being engrossed in business, but in 1853 at the
solicitation of his friend Ricketts, he consented to be a candidate for
County Commissioner, and succeeded in carrying the Fourth district in
which he lived, which was then known as the Gibraltar of Democracy, by a
small majority, and securing his election by a majority of one vote over
Griffith M. Eldredge, his highest competitor on the Democratic ticket.

In 1855 he ran on the American ticket, with the late Samuel Miller and
Dr. Slater B. Stubbs, for the House of Delegates, and was elected by a
handsome majority.

In 1859 Mr. Scott consented to run on the American ticket for the State
Senate. His competitor was the late Joseph J. Heckart, who was elected.
This was a memorable campaign on account of the effect produced by the
John Brown raid upon the State of Virginia and the capture of Harper's
Ferry, which had a disastrous effect upon Mr. Scott's prospects, owing
probably to which he was defeated.

At the outbreaking of the war of the rebellion he espoused the Union
cause and gave it his hearty support during the continuance of the
struggle, and remained a consistent Republican until his death.

In 1864 he was a delegate to represent Cecil county in the
Constitutional Convention, his colleagues being Thomas P. Jones, George
Earle and the late Joseph B. Pugh. He was assigned to a place upon the
Committee on the Elective Franchise and had more to do with originating
that section of the Constitution which provided for the passage of a
registration law than any other person on the committee--probably more
than any other member of the Convention. He was an intimate friend of
Henry H. Goldsborough, whom he had previously nominated in the
Republican State Convention for the office of Comptroller of the State
Treasury, which office he still held, and whom Mr. Scott also nominated
for President of the Constitutional Convention in the Republican caucus,
and, as was very natural, was often called upon by Mr. Goldsborough to
preside over the Convention in his absence, which he did with that
_suaviter in modo_ and _fortiter in re_ for which he was remarkable and
with great acceptability to the members of both political parties.

During the invasion of the State in July, 1864, he was one of the most
active members in urging upon the loyalists of Annapolis and the
military authorities in that city and at Camp Parole the necessity of
defending the Capital of the State. He held the handles of the plow with
which the first furrow that marked the line of the fortifications around
the city was made. It may not be out of place to say that the editor of
this book, in company with Mr. Scott, walked along the line of the ditch
the morning before, and that the former walked ahead of the team
attached to the plow so that the person who led the team might know
where to go.

Mr. Scott was also one of about a dozen members who remained in
Annapolis for about two weeks, during much of which time the arrival of
the rebel raiders was hourly expected, and kept the Convention alive by
adjourning from day to day, without which, by the rules adopted for the
government of the Convention, it could not have maintained a legal
existence.

He was appointed School Commissioner in 1882, which office he filled
with great acceptability to the public until incapacitated by the
disease which terminated his life.

Mr. Scott, though one of the most amiable of men, was fond of argument
when properly conducted, and from the time he was twenty years of age
until nearly the close of his life was always ready to participate in a
debate if he could find any person to oppose him; and thought it no
hardship to walk any where within a radius of four or five miles, in the
coldest weather, in order to attend a debating society. He was possessed
of a large and varied stock of information and a very retentive memory,
which enabled him to quote correctly nearly everything of importance
with which he had ever been familiar. His ability in this direction,
coupled with a keen sense of the ridiculous and satirical, rendered him
an opponent with whom few debaters were able to successfully contend.
But it was as a companion, a friend and a poet that he was best known
among the people of his neighborhood, to which his genial character and
kind and amiable disposition greatly endeared him.

Mr. Scott began to write poetry when about twenty-one years of age, and
continued to do so, though sometimes at long intervals, until a short
time before his death. His early poems were printed in "The Cecil Whig,"
but being published anonymously cannot be identified. Like many others,
he did not preserve his writings, and a few of his best poems have been
lost. Of his poetic ability and religious belief, we do not care to
speak, but prefer that the reader should form his own judgment of them
from the data derived from a perusal of his poems.

In 1844, Mr. Scott married Miss Agatha R. Fulton, a most estimable lady,
who, with their son Howard Scott and daughter Miss Annie Mary Scott,
survive him.

In conclusion, the editor thinks it not improper to say that he enjoyed
the pleasure of Mr. Scott's intimate friendship for nearly thirty years,
and esteemed him as his best and most intimate friend. And that while
his friend was only mortal, and subject to mortal frailities, he had a
kind and generous heart; a soul which shrank from even the semblance of
meanness, and was the embodiment of every trait which ennobles and
elevates humanity.

LINES

SUGGESTED BY THE SINGING OF A BIRD EARLY IN MARCH, 1868.

Sing on, sweet feathered warbler, sing!
Mount higher on thy joyous wing,
And let thy morning anthem ring
      Full on my ear;
Thou art the only sign of spring
      I see or hear.

The earth is buried deep in snow;
The muffled streams refuse to flow,
The rattling mill can scarcely go,
      For ice and frost:
The beauty of the vale below
      In death is lost.

Save thine, no note of joy is heard--
Thy kindred songsters of the wood
Have long since gone, and thou, sweet bird,
      Art left behind--
A faithful friend, whose every word
      Is sweet and kind.

But Spring will come, as thou wilt see,
With blooming flower and budding tree,
And song of bird and hum of bee
      Their charms to lend;
But I will cherish none like thee,
      My constant friend.

Like the dear friends who ne'er forsake me--
Whatever sorrows overtake me--
In spite of all my faults which make me
      Myself detest,
They still cling to and kindly take me
      Unto their breast.

AN EASTERN TALE

ADDRESSED TO MRS. S.C. CHOATE.

A Persian lady we're informed--
  This happened long, long years before
The Christian era ever dawned,
  A thousand years, it may be more,
The date and narrative are so obscure,
I have to guess some things that should be sure.

I'm puzzled with this history,
  And rue that I began the tale;
It seems a kind of mystery--
  I'm very much afraid I'll fail,
For want of facts of the sensation kind:
I therefore dwell upon the few I find.

I like voluminous writing best,
  That gives the facts dress'd up in style.
A handsome woman when she's dressed
  Looks better than (repress that smile)
When she in plainer costume does appear;
The more it costs we know she is more _dear_.

The story is a Grecian one,
  The author's name I cannot tell;
Perhaps it was old Xenophon
  Or Aristotle, I can't dwell
On trifles; perhaps Plutarch wrote the story:
At any rate its years have made it hoary.

The Greeks were famous in those days
  In arts, in letters and in arms;
Quite plain and simple in their ways;
  With their own hands they tilled their farms;
Some dressed the vine, some plow'd the ocean's wave;
Some wrote, were orators, or teachers grave.

They were Republicans, in fact;
  The Persians might have called them "black
Republicans;" they never lacked
  The power to beat a foeman back.
Thermopylæ, so famed in Grecian story
Is but another name for martial glory.

A busy hive to work or fight,
  Like our New England bold and strong;
A little frantic for the right,
  As sternly set against the wrong;
And when for right they drew the sword, we know,
Stopped not to count the number of the foe.

To me it is a painful sight
  To see a nation great and good
Reduced to such a sorry plight,
  And courtiers crawl where freemen stood,
And king and priests combine to seize the spoil,
While widows weep and beggar'd yeomen toil.

The philosophic mind might dwell
  Upon this subject for an age:
The philanthropic heart might swell
  Till tears as ink would wet the page;
The mystery, a myst'ry will remain--
The learning of the learned cannot explain.

The Persians were a gaudy race,
  Much giv'n to dress and grand display;
I'm grieved to note this is the case
  With other people at this day;
And folks are judged of from outside attractions,
Instead of from good sense and genteel actions.

The dame in question was a type
  Of all her class; handsome and rich
And proud, of course, and flashing like
  A starry constellation, which
She was, in fact a moving mass of light
From jewels which outshone the stars at night.

The tale is somewhat out of joint--
  I'm not much given to complain;
'Tis in a most essential point
  A blank; I've read it oft in vain
To find one syllable about her size,
The color of her hair, or of her eyes.

Or whether she was short or tall,
  Or if she sung or play'd with grace,
If she wore hoops or waterfall
  I cannot find a single trace
Of proof; and as I like to be precise,
My disappointment equals my surprise.

This Persian belle; (confound the belle)
  Excuse me, please; I won't be rude;
She's in my way, so I can't tell
  My tale, so much does she intrude;
I wish I knew her age, and whether she
Was single, married, or engaged to be.

These are important facts to know,
  I wonder how they slipped the pen
Of him who wrote the story, so
  I wonder at the taste of men
Who wrote for future ages thus to spoil
A tale to save time, paper, ink or oil.

Our Persian lady, as I said,
  Decked out in costly jewels rare,
A visit to a Grecian made--
  A lady of great worth, and fair
To look upon, of great domestic merit
Which from a noble race she did inherit.

Puffed up with vanity and pride,
  The Persian flashing like a gem,
Displayed her brilliants, glittering wide;
  The Grecian coldly looked at them:
"Have you no jewelry at all, to wear?
Your dress and person look so poor and bare."

She called her children to her side,
  Seven stalwart sons of martial mien;
"These are my jewels," she replied,
  "I'm richer far than you, I ween:
These are the glory and the strength of Greece,
Which all the gems on earth would not increase,"

Let others shine in diamonds bright,
  Or hoard their greenbacks, bonds or gold,
You have your jewels in your sight,
  And hearing, like the matron old;
And should they still continue to increase,
You'll beat the model mother of old Greece.

Then hail Columbia, happy land!
  While California yields her ore,
May you increase your jewel band,
  By adding every year one more;
And when you're asked your jewels to display.
Point to your score of sons saying "these are they."

THE MARKET-MAN'S LICENSE,

OR THE FARMER'S APPEAL FROM A JACKASS TO THE MAYOR.

    The following poem grew out of a misunderstanding between Mr. Scott
    and the clerk of the Wilmington market. In the winter of 1868, Mr.
    Scott was in the habit of selling hominy in the market, and the
    clerk treated him rudely and caused him to leave his usual stand and
    remove to another one. From this arbitrary exercise of power Mr.
    Scott appealed to the Mayor, who reinstated him in his old place.
    Mr. Scott soon afterwards had several hundred of the poems printed
    and scattered them throughout the market. In an introductory note he
    says, "the lines referring to Mayor Valentine are intended as a
    compliment to that officer, as well as a play on his official title
    of Mayor."

I've horses seen of noble blood,
  And stopped to gaze and stare:
But ne'er before to-day I stood
  In presence of a Mayor.

I've talked with rulers, in and ex,
  With working man and boss;
Mayor Valentine! they you unsex--
  You surely are a horse.

For every blooded horse one meets,
  Or clever mare he passes,
He finds in all the city streets
  A score of brainless asses.

A Jackass, in the days of old,
  Dress'd in a lion's skin,
Went forth to ape the lion bold,
  And raised a mighty din:

His ass-ship's ears he could not hide;
  His roaring would not pass;
The startled beasts his ears descried,
  And recognized the ass.

The moral of this tale you'll meet
  Each market day in town,
With scales in hand, in Market street,
  Dress'd in the lion's gown:

He roars, 'tis true, but scan him well
  Whene'er you see him pass;
Look at his ears and you can tell
  He's but a braying ass.

LINES

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ELIZABETH SCOTT.

Ransom'd spirit, spread thy wings,
  Leave thy broken house of clay;
Soar from earth and earthly things,
  To the realms of endless day.

Weary pilgrim, take thy rest,
  Thine has been a tiresome road;
Aching head and tortur'd breast,
  Added to thy galling load.

Patient sufferer, dry thy tears,
  All thy sorrows now are o'er;
Foes without, or inward fears,
  Never can afflict thee more.

Faithful soldier of the cross,
  All thy conflicts now are done;
Earthly triumphs are but loss,
  Thine is an immortal one.

Palms of vict'ry thou shall bear,
  And a crown of fadeless light
Will be given thee to wear,
  And a robe of spotless white.

Thou shalt join the countless throng,
  Which, through tribulation, came:
And repeat the angels' song--
  "Worthy! worthy is His name

Who hath conquered death and hell;
  Captive led captivity;
Always doing, all things well;
  Giving us the victory!"

MY SCHOOLBOY DAYS.

    The following poem was read at the forty-fifth anniversary of the
    marriage of Mr. and Mrs. James Swaney, on January 11th, 1883. Mr.
    and Mrs. Swaney's residence is not far from the site of the school
    house where Mr. Scott first went to school.

Dear friends and neighbors, one and all,
  I'm pleased to meet you here;
'Tis fit that we should make this call
  Thus early in the year.

That time flies rapidly along,
  And hurries us away,
Has been the theme of many a song,
  And it is mine to-day.

I stand where in my childhood's days,
  I often stood before,
But nothing meets my altered gaze
  As in the days of yore.

The trees I climbed in youthful glee,
  Or slept beneath their shade.
Have disappeared--no trace I see
  Of them upon the glade.

The school house, too, which stood near by,
  Has long since ceased to be;
To find its site I often try,
  No trace of it I see.

The road I traveled to and fro,
  With nimble feet and spry,
I cannot find, but well I know
  It must have been hard by.

The pond where skating once I fell
  Upon the ice so hard--
I lost my senses for a spell,
  And hence became a bard--

Is dry land now where grain or grass
  Is growing year by year;
I see the spot, as oft I pass,
  No ice nor pond is there.

A barn is standing on the spot
  Where once the school house stood;
A dwelling on the playground lot,
  A cornfield in the wood.

I mourn not for these altered scenes,
  Although it seems so strange
That all are changed; I know it means
  That everything must change.

I mourn the loss of early friends,
  My schoolboy friends so dear;
I count upon my fingers' ends
  The few remaining here.

In early youth some found their graves,
  With friends and kindred by;
While some beneath the ocean's waves
  In dreamless slumbers lie;

While many more, in distant lands,
  No friends nor kindred near,
Are laid to rest by strangers' hands,
  Without one friendly tear.

A few survive, both far and near,
  But O! how changed are they!
Like the small band assembled here,
  Enfeebled, old, and gray.

Strange feelings rise within my soul,
  My eyes o'erflow with tears,
As backward I attempt to roll
  The flood of by-gone years.

This honored pair we come to greet,
  For five-and-forty years
Through winter's cold and summer's heat,
  Have worn the nuptial gears.

The heat and burden of the day
  They honestly have borne,
Until their heads are growing gray,
  Their limbs with toil are worn.

In all the ups and downs of life--
  Of which they've had their share--
They never knew domestic strife,
  Or, if at all, 'twas rare.

They now seem standing on the verge
  Of that unfathomed sea,
Just waiting for the final surge
  That opes eternity.

When comes that surge, or soon or late,
  May they in peace depart;
And meet within the shining gate,
  No more to grieve or part.

THE DONATION VISIT.

    The following poem was read upon the occasion of a donation visit by
    the Head of Christiana congregation to their pastor, Rev. James I.
    Vallandigham.

Fair ladies dear, and gentlemen.
  I thought not to be here to-day:
But I'm a slave, and therefore, when
  My muse commands, I must obey.

I've struggled hard against her power,
  And dashed her yoke in scorn away,
And then returned, within an hour,
  And meekly bowed and owned her sway.

I know the ground on which I stand
  And tremble like an aspen when
I see around, on every hand,
  Such learned and such gifted men,

Who really have been to college,
  And know the Latin and the Greek;
And are so charged with general knowledge
  That it requires no little cheek

In an obscure and modest bard
  To meet a galaxy so bright,--
Indeed, I find it rather hard
  To face the music here to-night.

Dear friends, we've met, as it is meet
  That we should meet at such a time,
Each other and our host to greet,--
  Or guest, 'tis all the same in rhyme.

No king nor queen do I revere;
  The majesty of God I own.
An honest man, though poor, is peer
  To him that sits upon a throne.

I long to see the coming day
  When wicked wars and strifes shall cease,
And ignorance and crime give way
  Before the march of truth and peace.

That welcome day is drawing near;
  I sometimes think I see its dawn;
The trampling of the hosts I hear,
  By science, truth and love led on.

I see the murderous cannon fused,
  With its death-dealing shot and shell,
For making railway carwheels used,
  Or civil railway tracks as well.

And small arms, too, will then be wrought
  Into machines for cutting wheat;
While those who used them will be taught
  To labor for their bread and meat.

God speed the day,--'tis bound to come,
  But not as comes the lightning's stroke;
But slowly, as the acorn dumb
  Expands into the giant oak.

Now, reverend sir, I turn to you,
  To say what all your flock well know;
You, as a pastor kind and true,
  Have led the way we ought to go.

You have rejoiced in all our joys,
  And sympathised with us in trouble;
You have baptized our girls and boys--
  And often you have made them double.

With all your gifts and talents rare,
  You meekly take the servants place,
And guard the sheep with jealous care
  And hold the lambs in your embrace.

In all the ups and downs of life
  We've found in you a constant friend;
You've counselled peace, discouraged strife,
  And taught us all our ways to mend.

For eight-and-twenty years you've stood
  A watchman on the outer wall;
Repressing evil, aiding good,
  And kindly watching over all.

Though age may enervate your frame
  And dim the lustre of your eye,
No lapse of time can soil your name,
  For names like yours can never die.

LINES

ON THE DEATH OF MISS MARY HAYES.

Another star has left the sky,
  Another flower has ceased to bloom;
The fairest are the first to die,
  The best go earliest to the tomb.

That radiant star, whose cheering ray,
  Adorn'd her quiet, rural home,
Went down, in darkness, at mid-day.
  And left that quiet home in gloom.

That lovely flower, admired so much,
  In all its loveliness, was lost,
It withered at the fatal touch
  Of death's untimely, killing frost.

The mourners go about the street,
  While children tell their tale of woe
To every passer-by they meet,
  In faltering accents, faint and low.

"Dear Mary Hayes is dead," they say,
  While tears roll down their cheeks like rain,
"Her eyes are closed, she's cold as clay,"
  And then their tears gush out again.

And stalwart men are dumb with grief,
  And sorrow pales the sternest cheek,
While gentler women find relief,
  In tears--more eloquent than speech.

Surely there is some fairer land,
  Where friends who love each other here
Can dwell, united heart and hand,
  Nor death nor separation fear.

Dear sister, dry thy flowing tears;
  Fond father, raise thy drooping head;
Kind brothers, banish all your fears;
  Your Mary sleeps--she is not dead,

The care-worn casket rests in dust,
  The fadeless jewel wings its flight
To that fair land, we humbly trust,
  To shine with ever glowing light.

For, on that ever-vernal shore,
  When death's appalling stream is cross'd,
Your star will shine forevermore,
  Your flower will bloom, untouch'd by frost.

LINES

ON THE DEATH OF MISS ELEANORA HENDERSON.

    She is not dead, but sleepeth.

    --Luke 8:52.

She is not dead, she's sleeping
  The dreamless sleep and drear;
Her friends are gathered weeping
  Round her untimely bier.

She is not dead, her spirit,
  Too pure to dwell with clay,
Has gone up to inherit
  The realms of endless day.

She is not dead, she's singing
  With angel bands on high;
On golden harp she's singing
  God's praises in the sky.

She is not dead, O mother,
  Your loss you will deplore;
Kind sisters and fond brother,
  Your Nora is no more!

No more, as we have seen her,
  The light and life of home,
Of christian-like demeanor,
  Which ever brightly shone:

Of youth the guide and teacher,
  Of age the stay and hope--
To all a faithful preacher,
  To whom we all looked up.

She is not dead, she's sleeping,
  Her loving Saviour said;
Then friends repress your weeping,
  God's will must be obeyed.

She is not dead, she's shining
  In robes of spotless white;
Why then are we repining?
  God's ways are always right.

She is not dead--O never
  Will sorrow cross her track;
She's passed Death's darksome river,
  And who would have her back?

Back from the joys of heaven!
  Back from that world of bliss!
Call back the pure, forgiven,
  To such a world as this?

A world of grief and anguish--
  A world of sin and strife--
In which the righteous languish,
  And wickedness is rife,

She is not dead, she's shouting,
  Borne on triumphant wing,
"O grave, where is thy vict'ry,
  O Death, where is thy sting?"

LINES

ON THE DEATH OF MRS. BURNITE WHO DIED FEBRUARY 2, 1878.

Thou, my friend, in dust art sleeping,
  Closed thine eyes to all below;
Round thy grave kind friends are weeping,
  Ling'ring, loath to let thee go.

Husband fond and children dear,
  Crushed and stricken by the blow,
Banish ev'ry anxious fear,
  While we lay the lov'd one low.

For the angel's trump shall sound,
  And the bands of death will break;
Then the pris'ner in this mound
  Shall to endless life awake.

Then the spirit which is gone
  Will return and claim this dust,
And this "mortal will put on
  Immortality," we trust.

When that glorious day shall dawn,
  And the bridegroom shall descend
With a gorgeous angel throng,
  The glad nuptials to attend,

Oh, the rapture of that meeting!
  We of earth can never know
Till we mingle in the greeting,
  Of our lov'd, lost long ago.

Let me like the righteous die,
  Let my last end be like his;
When I close, on earth, my eye,
  Let me wake in realms of bliss.

STANZAS

    Read at the celebration of the seventy-second anniversary of the
    birthday of Joseph Steele, Dec. 13, 1884.

Dear friends and neighbors, one and all,
  I'm pleased to meet you here to-day;
'Tis nice for neighbors thus to call,
  In such a social way.

We meet to celebrate a day,
  Which people seldom see;
Time flies so rapidly away
  'Tis like a dream to me;

Since I, a lad with flaxen hair
  First met our friend, so gray;
We both were free from thought and care,
  But full of hope and play.

Well Joseph Steele, we may be glad
  That we are here to-day,
Although it makes me somewhat sad
  To think of friends away.

Of all our schoolboy friends but few
  Alas! can now be found,
Not many but myself and you
  Are still above the ground.

I count upon my fingers' ends
  About the half, I know.
Of all acquaintances and friends
  With whom we used to go;

To _Humphreys_ and _Montgomery_
  To _Cochran_ and to _Dance_,
And some, who slip my memory,
  That used to make us prance,

Whene'er we missed a lesson
  Or placed a crooked pin
Just where some one would press on
  Enough to drive it in.

O, it was fun alive, I vow,
  To see that fellow bounce
And hear him howl and make a row
  And threaten he would trounce

The boy that did the mischief,
  But that boy was seldom found,
And so, he had to bear his grief
  And nurse the unseen wound;

But time and rhyme can never tell
  The half our funny pranks,
And that we ever learned to spell,
  We ought to render thanks.

Poor Dance! I always pitied him
  For he was just from college,
And never having learned to swim,
  Was drowned with all his knowledge.

Of Cochran, I but little knew,
  He was a stranger here,
'Twas always said he would get blue,
  And acted very queer.

Montgomery I knew right well,
  He was rather kind than cross,
He taught the willing how to spell,
  And always would be boss.

He wrote a very pretty hand
  And could command a school:
His appetite got the command,
  And that he could not rule.

One day he took a heavy slug
  Of something rather hot;
He took that something from a jug,
  And shortly he was not.

Who "took" him, though, I never can
  Nor need I ever say;
But when the Lord doth take a man,
  'Tis seldom done that way.

Poor Humphreys was a sort of crank
  (Folks said his learning made him mad,)
But this I know, he always drank,
  And that will make the best man, bad.

Excuse this rather long digression,
  My pen has carried me astray;
These schoolboy days make an impression
  From which 'tis hard to get away.

Then let me turn, and return too,
  For I have wandered from my text,--
Well, Mr. Steele, how do you do?
  I hope you are not vexed.

'Tis pleasant in our riper years
  To have our children come
And bring their children--little dears,
  They make it seem like home.

An old man's children are his crown,
  And you may well be proud
When from your throne you just look down
  Upon this hopeful crowd.

But now my neighbors dear, adieu;
  "The best of friends must part;"
I'll often kindly think of you,
  And treasure each one in my heart;

And if we never meet again
  On this poor frozen clod,
O! may we meet to part no more
  Around the throne of God.

TO MARY.

    The following lines suggested by the beautiful story of the sisters,
    Martha and Mary of Bethany, (Luke, 10:38-42,) were addressed to Miss
    Mary M., of Wilmington, Del.

In Bethany there dwelt a maid,
  And she was young and very fair;
'Twas at her house that Jesus stayed,
  And loved to stay, when he was there.

For Mary seated at his feet,
  In rapture hung upon His word:
His language flow'd in accent sweet,
  Such language mortal never heard.

Her sister, cross in looks and word,
  (The cares of life have this effect,)
Came and accused her, to her Lord,
  Of idleness and of neglect.

"Martha, Martha," He kindly said,
  Forego thy troubles and thy care--
One needful thing, a crust of bread,
  Is all I ask with thee to share.

"Mary hath chosen that good part,
  To hear my word and do my will,
Which shall not from her trusting heart
  Be taken." It shall flourish still.

Dear Mary, in this picture see
  Thy own, drawn by a master hand;
Name, face and character agree
  Drawn by Saint Luke, an artist grand.

IMPROMPTU

TO MRS. ANNA C. BAKER.

    Composed in the top of a cherry tree when the wind was blowing a
    gale.

In fishing for men, I should judge from your looks
You've always had biters enough at your hooks.
And whenever you dipp'd your net in the tide
You had little need to spread it out wide.
To encircle so many you wish'd for no more
And like the old fishers sat down on the shore,
Casting all the worthless and bad ones away--
Preserving the good and the true to this day.
May the promising youth, I saw by your side
All blooming and beaming, your hope and your pride,
Be a pillar of state, so strong and so tall
As to make you rejoice, that you made such a haul.

LAMENT FOR THE YEAR 1887.

    Read before the Jackson Hall Debating Society.

My tale to-night is full of woe,
  I would that it were one of gladness;
I would not thrill your hearts, you know,
  With notes of grief or sadness.

My friend and yours is near his end,
  His pulse is beating faint and low,
'Tis sad to lose so good a friend,
  His time has come and he must go.

His life is ebbing fast away,
  His mortal race is almost run,
He cannot live another day,
  Nor see another rising sun.

While watching round his dying bed,
  The tears we shed are tears of sorrow,
We'll close his eyes for he'll be dead,
  And carried hence before to-morrow.

His frame, so fragile now and weak,
  Was late the seat of vital power,
But now, alas! he cannot speak,
  He's growing weaker every hour.

Old seventy-seven, your friend and mine,
  Has done his part by you and me,
Then friends, let us unite and twine,
  A bright wreath to his memory.

His reign has been a checker'd reign,
  While some have suffered loss and wrong,
We have no reason to complain,
  So come and join me in my song.

He found me in the lowly vale,
  In poverty with robust health,
And sweet contentment in the scale,
  Outweighing fame and pomp and wealth.

Destroying war beneath his reign,
  Has drench'd the earth with blood and tears,
Which ever flow, but flow in vain,
  As they have done through countless years.

When will the reign of peace begin?
  When will the flood of human woe,
That flows from folly, pride, and sin,
  Subside, and ever cease to flow?

God speed the time when war's alarms,
  Will never more convulse the earth,
And love and peace restore the charms
  Which dwelt in Eden at its birth.

Old seventy-seven, again adieu,
  We'll ne'er again each other see.
I've been a constant friend to you,
  As you have always been to me.

"Step down and out" you've had your day,
  Your young successor's at the gate,
Let him be crowned without delay,
  The royal stranger seventy-eight.

VERSES

    Presented to my daughter with a watch and a locket with a picture of
    myself.

Receive, my child, this gift of love,
  And wear it ever near thy heart,
A pledge of union may it prove,
  Which time nor distance ne'er can part.

I've watched thy infant sleep, and prest
  My eager lips against thy brow,
And lingered near thy couch, and blest,
  Thy tender form with many a vow.

But O! the rapture of that hour,
  None but a parent's heart can know
When first thy intellectual power
  Began the germ of life to show.

I've marked the progress of thy mind,
  And felt a thrill of joy and pride,
To see thy youthful steps inclined
  To wisdom's ways and virtue's side.

And when this fiery restless soul,
  Has chafed the thread of life away
And reached, or high or low, the goal,
  And fought and won or lost the day,--

Then cherish this bright gift, my dear,
  And on those features kindly gaze,
And bathe them with a filial tear,
  When I'm beyond all blame or praise.

LINES

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY OF WILMINGTON.

Chill frost will nip the fairest flower;
  The sweetest dream is soonest pass'd;
The brightest morning in an hour,
  May be with storm clouds overcast.

So Josephine in early bloom,
  Was blighted by death's cruel blast,
While weeping round her early tomb,
  We joy to know, she is not lost.

Fond mother, dry that tearful tide,
  Your child will not return, you know:
She's waiting on the other side
  And where she is, you too may go.

YOUTHFUL REMINISCENCES.

Their schoolboy days have form'd a theme,
  For nearly all the bards I know,
But mine are like a fading dream
  Which happen'd three score years ago.

My memory is not the best,
  While some things I would fain forget
Come like an uninvited guest,
  And often cause me much regret.

I see the ghosts of murdered hours,
  As they flit past in countless throngs,
They taunt me with their meager powers,
  And ridicule my senseless songs.

'Tis useless now to speculate,
  Or grieve o'er that which might have been,
My failures though they have been great,
  Are not the greatest I have seen.

In school I was a quiet child,
  And gave my teachers little fash,
But as I grew I grew more wild,
  And hasty as the lightning's flash.

Of study I was never fond,
  My school books gave me no delight,
I patronized the nearest pond,
  To fish or swim by day or night.

And when the frosts of winter came,
  And bound the streams in fetters tight,
It gave me pleasure all the same
  To skate upon their bosom bright.

I was athletic in my way
  And on my muscle went it strong,
And stood to fight or ran to play,
  Regardless of the right or wrong.

In wrestling I did much excel
  And lov'd to douse a boasting fop,
Nor cared I how or where we fell
  Provided I fell on the top.

I loved my friends with all my might,
  My foes I hated just as strong,
My friends were always in the right,
  My foes forever in the wrong.

A sportsman early I became,
  A sort of second Daniel Boone,
And bagg'd my share of ev'ry game
  From cony, up or down, to coon.

No tawny chieftain's swarthy son,
  Was ever fonder of the chase,
Than I was of my trusty gun,
  Although I had a paler face.

I shot the squirrel near his den.
  The silly rabbit near her lair;
And captured ev'ry now and then,
  A pheasant in my cunning snare.

And many things I think of here,
  Which time forbids me now to say,
That happen'd in my wild career,
  To me, since that eventful day

When my fond mother wash'd my face,
  And combed my flaxen hair,
And started me in learning's race,
  And breath'd to heav'n a silent prayer,

That I might grow to man's estate,
  And cultivate my opening mind;
And not be rich or wise or great,
  But gentle, true and good and kind.

My mother's face, I see it yet,
  That thoughtful face, with eyes of blue,
I trust I never shall forget
  Her words of counsel, sage and true.

She left me, when she pass'd away,
  More than a royal legacy,
I would not for a monarch's sway,
  Exchange the things she gave to me.

She gave me naught of sordid wealth,
  But that which wealth can never be,
Her iron frame and robust health,
  Are more than diadems to me.

She left to me the azure sky,
  With all its countless orbs of light,
Which wonder-strike the thoughtful eye,
  And beautify the dome of night.

The deep blue sea from shore to shore,
  The boundless rays of solar light,
The lightnings flash, the thunders roar--
  I hold them all in my own right.

And lastly that there be no lack,
  Of any good thing by her given,
She left to me the shining track,
  Which led her footsteps up to heaven.

STANZAS

TO A LITTLE GIRL ON HER BIRTHDAY.

My dear, the bard his greeting sends,
And wishes you and all your friends,
      A happy birthday meeting.
Let social pleasures crown the day,
But while you chase dull care away,
      Remember time is fleeting.

Then learn the lesson of this day,
Another year has pass'd away,
      Beyond our reach forever.
And as the fleeting moments glide,
They bear us on their noiseless tide,
      Like straws upon the river,

Into that vast, unfathomed sea,
Marked on the map "eternity,"
      With neither bound nor shore.
There may we find some blissful isle
Where basking in our Saviour's smile,
      We'll meet to part no more.

TO MISS MARY BAIN.

My cousin fair, dear Mary B,
  Excuse my long neglect I pray,
And pardon too, the homely strain,
  In which I sing this rustic lay.

My muse and I are sorted ill,
  I'm in my yellow leaf and sere;
While she is young and ardent still
  And urges me to persevere.

She reads to me the roll of fame,
  And presses me to join the throng,
That surge and struggle for a name,
  Among the gifted sons of song.

Of that vain stuff the world calls fame
  I've had I think my ample share.
At best 'tis but a sounding name
  An idle puff of empty air.

For more than once I've been the choice
  Of freemen to enact their laws,
And patriots cheered me when my voice,
  I raised to vindicate their cause.

And more than this I've brought to pass,
  For I have made a lot of ground
Produce the second blade of grass,
  Where formerly but one was found.

But now I love the calm retreat,
  Away from tumult, noise and strife,
And in the works of nature sweet
  I learn her laws, the laws of life.

The monuments which I erect
  Will hand my name for ages down,
While tombs of kings will meet neglect,
  Or worse, be greeted with a frown.

My trees will bloom and bear their fruit,
  My carp-pond glitter in the sun;
My cherished grape-vines too, though mute,
  Will tell the world what I have done.

Now lest you think that I am vain,
  And that my trumpeter is dead,
I'll drop this graceless, boasting strain,
  And sing of you, dear Coz, instead.

Of all my Cousins, old or new,
  I love the prairie chicken best,
I see the rising sun in you,--
  Although you're rising in the west.

The picture you are working on,
  I'd almost give my eyes to see,
I know it is a striking one,
  For it is of the "deep blue sea."

But how you ever took the notion
  To paint a picture of the sea
Before you ever saw the ocean,
  Is something that surprises me.

I'm glad you have the skill to paint,
  And pluck to labor and to wait;
And too much sense to pine and faint,
  Because the world don't call you great.

True greatness is achieved by toil,
  And labor for the public good,
'Tis labor breaks the barren soil,
  And makes it yield our daily food.

Then cultivate your talents rare,
  And study nature's lovely face,
And copy every tint with care;
  Your work will then have life and grace.

When fame and fortune you attain,
  And more than royal sway is sure,
'Twill be the majesty of brain,
  A majesty that must endure,

Till thrones of kings and queens shall tumble,
  And monuments of stone and brass,
Shall into shapeless ruin crumble,
  And blow away like withered grass.

The world moves on with quickening pace,
  And those who falter fall behind,
Then enter for the mental race,
  Where mind is pitted against mind.

While we are cousins in the flesh,
  In mind I think we're nearer still,
Your genius leads you to the brush,
  But mine inclines me to the quill.

And now, my cousin fair, adieu,
  My promise I have somehow kept,
That I would write a line for you,
  I hope you will these lines accept.

STANZAS

    Addressed to Mr. and Mrs. T. Jefferson Scott, upon the occasion of
    the 24th anniversary of their wedding, March 2nd, 1882.

Kind gentlemen and ladies fair,
  I have a word or two to say,
If you have got the time to spare,
  Sit down, and hear my humble lay.

No tiresome homily, I bring,
  To chill your joys and make you sad,
I'd rather hear you laugh or sing,
  Than see you solemn, dull or mad,

A bow that's always bent, they say,
  Will lose its force and wonted spring,
And Jack's all work and never play,
  Makes him a dull and stupid thing.

Man's greatest lesson is mankind,
  A problem difficult to solve,
I've turned it over in my mind,
  And reached, at last, this sage resolve:

That when I know myself right well,
  I have a key to all the race,
Thoughts, purposes and aims that tell
  On me, are but a common case.

There is a time to laugh and sing,
  A time to mourn and grieve as well;
Then let your song and laughter ring,
  This is no time on griefs to dwell.

We've met to greet our friend, T.J.,
  And tender our congratulations,
Without forgetting Phebe A.,
  In our most heartfelt salutations.

For four-and-twenty changeful years
  They've worn the bright hymenial bands,
And shared each other's hopes and fears,
  And each held up the other's hands.

He, like a stately, giant oak,
  Has spread his branches wide and high,
Unscathed by lightning's fatal stroke,
  Or tempest raving through the sky.

She, like a tender, trusting vine,
  Twines round and through and o'er the tree;
Her modesty and worth combine,
  To hide what roughness there might be,

Beneath this cool, refreshing shade,
  The wretched quite forget their woes,
The hungry find the needed bread,
  The weary wanderer, his repose.

Long live this honored, worthy pair!
  May fortune come at their command!
And may their sons and daughter fair,
  Grow up to grace their native land!

And when their earthly toils are o'er,
  And they repose beneath the sod,
Theirs be a home on that bright shore,
  Illumined by the smile of God.

BIRTHDAY VERSES.

    Written for a little girl on her ninth birthday.

In the morning of life's day,
All before is bright and gay,
All behind is like a dream,
Or the morn's uncertain beam,
Falling on a misty stream.

In the morning of thy youth,
Learn this sober, solemn truth;
Life is passing like a stream,
Or a meteor's sudden gleam;
Like the bright aurora's blaze,
Disappearing while we gaze;
Soon the child becomes a maid,
In the pride of youth arrayed,
And her mind and form expand
To proportions great and grand;
Then she changes to a wife,
Battling with the ills of life;
Thus we come and thus we go,
And our cups with joy and woe,
Oft are made to overflow.
Each returning bright birthday,
Like the mile-stones by the way,
Will remind you as you go--
Though at first they pass so slow
That behind there is one more
And, of course, one less before;
Watch the moments as they fly,
With a never tiring eye--
Since you cannot stop their flow,
O! improve them as they go.

ROLL CALL.

    Written on the death of William Sutton, a member of the order of
    Good Templars.

Call the roll! Call the roll of our band,
  Let each to his name answer clear,
There's danger abroad, there's death in the land,
  Call the roll, see if each one is here.

The roll call is through, one answers not,
  Brother Sutton, so prompt heretofore,
Has answered another roll call; the spot
  Which knew him shall know him no more.

He's at rest by the beautiful river,
  Which flows by the evergreen shore,
Where the verdure of spring lasts forever,
  And sickness and death are no more.

O alas! that the righteous should die,
  While sinners so greatly abound,
In the world that's to come we'll know why,
  The latter incumber the ground.

This mystery we'll then comprehend,
  And all will be plain to our sight,
Then dry up the tears which flow for our friend,
  In full faith that God doeth right.

IN MEMORIAM

RENSELLAER BIDDLE.

A noble heart is sleeping here,
  Beneath this lowly mound;
With reverence let us draw near,
  For this is holy ground.

The mortal frame that rests below
  This consecrated sward,
Was late with heavenly hope aglow,
  A temple of the Lord.

His charity was like a flood,
  It seemed to have no bound,
But reached the evil and the good,
  Wherever want was found.

The poor and needy sought his door,
  The wretched and distressed,
He blessed them from his ample store,
  With shelter, food and rest.

Giving his substance to the poor,
  He lent it to the Lord;
While each returning harvest brought
  Him back a rich reward.

Thus passed his useful life away,
  Dispensing good to all,
Till on the evening of his day,
  He heard his Master call.

"Brave soldier of the cross, well done,
  You've fought a noble fight;
Come up, and claim the victor's crown,
  And wear it as your right."

"For all your works of christian love
  And heaven-born charity,
Are registered in Heaven above
  As so much done to Me."

STANZAS

WRITTEN ON THE FLY LEAF OF A CHILD'S BIBLE.

Dear Mollie, in thy early days,
While treading childhood's dreamy maze,
      Peruse this book with care:
Peruse it by the rising sun;
Peruse it when the day is done,
      Peruse it oft with prayer.

Search it for counsel in thy youth,
For every page is bright with truth
      And wisdom from on high.
Consult it in thy riper years,
When foes without and inward fears
      Thy utmost powers defy.

And when life's sands are well nigh run
And all thy work on earth is done,
      In patience wait and trust,
That He whose promises are sure
Will number you among the pure,
      The righteous and the just.

CHRISTMAS GREETING, 1877.

    Read before the Jackson Hall Debating Society.

The rolling seasons come and go,
As ebbs the tide again to flow,
And Christmas which seemed far away
A year ago, is near to-day.
And day and night in quick succession,
Are passing by like a procession.
While we like straws upon a stream,
Are drifting faster than we deem,
To that unknown, that untried shore,
Where days and nights will be no more,
And where time's surging tide will be,
Absorbed in vast eternity.
Where then shall we poor mortals go?
No man can tell, we only know
We are but strangers in the land.
Our fathers all have gone before,
And shortly we shall be no more.
This hall where we so often meet
Will soon be trod by other's feet,
And where our voices now resound,
Will other speakers soon be found.
And thus like wave pursuing wave,
Between the cradle and the grave
The human tide is prone to run,
The sire succeeded by the son.
May we so spend life's fleeting day,
That when it shall have passed away,
We all may meet on that blessed shore,
Where friends shall meet to part no more.

ANNIVERSARY POEM.

    Read at the anniversary of the seventieth birthday of Mrs. Ann
    Peterson.

No costly gifts have I to bring,
  To grace your festive board,
This humble song, I've brought to sing,
  Is all I can afford.

Then let my humble rhyme be heard
  In silence, if you please,
You'll find it true in ev'ry word,
  It flows along with ease.

We've met in honor of our friend
  Who seventy years ago,
Came to this earth some years to spend,
  How many none can know.

The world is using her so well,
  I hope she'll tarry long,
And ten years hence I hope to tell,
  "I have another song."

THE PETERSON GENEALOGICAL TREE.

I'll sing you a song of a wonderful tree,
Whose beauty and strength are a marvel to me;
Its cloud piercing branches ascend to the sky,
While its deep rooted trunk may the tempest defy,
Like the tree which the great king of Babylon saw,
Which fill'd him with wonder, amazement and awe.
This vision the wise men all failed to expound,
Till Daniel the Hebrew, its true meaning found.
What the king saw in vision, we lit'rally see,
In the Peterson genealogical tree;
It was feeble at first, and slowly it grew;
Its roots being small and its branches but few.
The whirlwinds and tempests in fury raved round it,
And the rains fell in floods, as if they would drown it.
Though slow in its growth it was steady and sure,
And like plants of slow growth 'tis bound to endure.
While the seasons roll round in their wanted succession,
And the ages move on in an endless procession,
While the sun in its glory reigns over the day,
And the moon rules the night with her gentler sway,
While the planets their courses pursue in the sky,
And far distant stars light their torches on high,
May this family tree grow taller and stronger
And its branches increase growing longer and longer.
May every branch of this vigorous tree,
Increase and spread wider from mountain to sea,
And under its shade may the poor and distressed
Find shelter and comfort and kindness and rest,
And when the great harvest we read of shall come
When the angels shall gather and carry it home
May this tree root and branch, trunk and fruit all be found,
Transplanted from earth into holier ground,
Where storms never rise and where frosts never blight,
Where day ever shines unsucceeded by night,
Where sickness and sorrow and death are no more,
And friends never part. On that beautiful shore,
May we hope that the friends who have met round this board,
And greeted each other in social accord,
May each meet the others to part never more.

LINES

    Written on the death of Jane Flounders, a pupil of Cherry Hill
    public school, and read at her funeral.

The mysteries of life and death,
  Lie hidden from all human ken,
We know it is the vital breath
  Of God, that makes us living men.

We also know, _that_ breath withdrawn,
  And man becomes a lifeless clod,
The soul immortal having gone
  Into the presence of its God.

Here knowledge fails and faith appears,
  And bids us dry the scalding tear,
And banish all our anxious fears,
  Which cluster round the loved ones here.

The deep, dark, cold, remorseless grave
  Has closed o'er lovely Jennie's face,
No art, nor skill, nor prayers could save
  Her from its terrible embrace.

Home now is dark and desolate,
  And friends and schoolmates are in tears,
While strangers wonder at the fate,
  Which crushed her in her tender years.

Death never won a brighter prize,
  Nor friends a richer treasure lost,
Another star has left our skies,
  But heaven is richer at our cost.

We mourn but not in hopeless grief,
  In tears we kiss the chast'ning rod,
This sweet reflection brings relief,
  That all is good that comes from God.

Through and beyond this scene of gloom,
  Faith points the mourner's downcast eyes,
While from the portals of the tomb,
  They see their lost loved one arise,

In blooming immortality;
  As she comes forth they hear her sing
O! grave, where is thy victory!
  O! monster death where is thy sting!

WHAT IS MATTER?

DEDICATED TO HIS FRIEND GEORGE JOHNSTON.

How are you, George, my rhyming brother?
We should be kinder to each other,
For we are kindred souls at least;
I don't mean kindred, like the beast,--
Mere blood and bones and flesh and matter,--
But what this last is makes no matter.
Philosophers have tried to teach it,
But all their learning cannot reach it;
'Tis matter still, "that's what's the matter"
With all their philosophic chatter,
And Latin, Greek, and Hebrew clatter,
Crucibles, retorts, and receivers,
Wedges, inclined planes, and levers,
Screws, blow pipes, electricity and light,
And fifty other notions, quite
Too much to either read or write.
Just ask the wisest, What is matter?
And notice how he will bespatter
The subject, in his vain endeavor,
With deep philosophy so clever,
To prove you what you knew before,
That matter's matter, and no more.
Well, this much then, we know at least,
That matter's substance, and the beast
And bird and fish and creeping thing
That moves on foot, with fin or wing,
Is matter, just like you and me.
Are they our kindred? Must it be
That all the fools in all creation,
And knaves and thieves of every station
In life, can call me their relation?
But that's not all--the horse I ride,
The ox I yoke, the dog I chide,
The flesh and fish and fowl we feed on
Are kindred, too; is that agreed on?
Then kindred blood I quite disown,
Though it descended from a throne,
For it connects us down, also,
With everything that's mean and low--
Insects and reptiles, foul and clean,
And men a thousand times more mean.
Let's hear no more of noble blood,
For noble brains, or actions good,
Are only marks of true nobility.

The kindred which I claim with you,
Connects us with the just and true,
And great in purpose, heart and soul,
And makes us parts of that great whole
Whose bonds of all embracing love
A golden chain will ever prove
To bind us to the good above.
Then strive to elevate mankind
By operating on the mind;
The empire of good will extend,
A helping hand in trouble lend,
Go to thy brother in distress,
One kindly word may make it less,
A single word, when fitly spoken,
May heal a heart with sorrow broken,
A smile may overcome your foe,
And make his heart with friendship glow,
A frown might turn his heart to steel.
And all its tendencies congeal,
Be it our constant aim to cure
The woes our fellow men endure,
Teach them to act toward each other
As they would act toward a brother.
Thus may our circle wider grow,
The golden chain still brighter glow;
And may our kindred souls, in love
United live, here and above,
With all the good and wise and pure,
While endless ages shall endure.

ANNIVERSARY HYMN.

    Written for the anniversary of the Jackson Sabbath School, Aug.
    23rd, 1870.

The ever rolling flood of years,
Is bearing us, our hopes and fears,
    With all we are or crave,
Into that fathomless abyss--
A world of endless woe or bliss,
    Beyond the darksome grave.

One year of priceless time has passed,
Since we in Sabbath school were class'd,
    To read and sing and pray;
To hear the counsels of the good;
Have we improved them as we should?
    How stands the case to-day?

How have we used this fleeting year?
Have we grown wiser? O, I fear,
    And tremble to reflect,
How sadly it has gone to loss,
How I have shunn'd my daily cross,
    Some idol to erect.

To gain some trifling, selfish end,
It may be I have wronged a friend,
    And turned his love to hate;
How many idle words I've said;
How many broken vows I've made;
    How shunn'd the narrow gate!

O Lord! forgive our wanderings wide,
Our oft departures from thy side,
    And keep us in thy fold;
Be thou our Shepherd and our all;
Protect these lambs, lest any fall,
    And perish in the cold.

On this our Anniversary,
Help us to put our trust in Thee,
    And lean upon Thy arm;
Direct us through the coming year;
Protect us, for the wolf is near,
    And shield us from all harm.

Our Superintendent superintend;
On him Thy special blessings send,
    And guide him in the way;
Enrich our Treasurer with Thy grace,
So that he may adorn the place,
    He fills so well to-day.

Write on our Secretary's heart
Thy perfect law; and O, impart,
    To our Librarian dear,
The volume of thy perfect love
Which cometh only from above,
    And casteth out all fear.

In pastures green, O lead us still!
And help us all to do thy will,
    And all our wants supply;
Help us in every grace to grow,
And when we quit thy fold below,
    Receive us all on high.

Then, by life's river broad and bright,
Our blissful day will have no night;
    On that immortal plain
May all the Jackson scholars meet,
And all their loving teachers greet,
    And never part again.

THE INTELLECTUAL TELEGRAPH.

ADDRESSED TO MISS C. CASHO.

Dear friend! O, how my blood warms at that word,
  And thrills and courses through my every vein;
My inmost soul, with deep emotion stirr'd--
  Friend! Friend! repeats it o'er and o'er again.

I'll make a song of that sweet word, and sing
  It oft, to cheer me in my lonely hours,
Till list'ning hills, and dells, and woodlands ring,
  And echo answers, Friend! with all her powers.

'Tis truly strange, and strangely true; I doubt
  If any can explain, though all have seen,
How kindred spirits find each other out,
  Though deserts vast or oceans lie between.

Some golden sympathetic cords unseen,
  Unite their souls as if with bands of steel,
So finely strung, so sensitively keen,
  The slightest touch all in the circle feel.

Their pulses distance electricity,
  And leave the struggling solar rays behind,
The slightest throb pervades immensity,
  And instant reaches the remotest mind.

'Tis an inspiring, glorious thought to me,
  Which raises me above this earthly clod,
To think the cords which bind our souls may be
  Connected some way with the throne of God.

I sometimes think my wild and strange desires,
  And longings after something yet unknown,
Are currents passing on those hidden wires
  To lead me on and upward to that throne.

These visions often do I entertain,
  And, if they are but visions, and the birth
Of fancy, still they are not all in vain;
  They lift the soul above the things of earth.

They teach her how to use her wings though weak,
  And all unequal to the upward flight--
The eaglet flaps upon the mountain peak,
  Then cleaves the heavens beyond our utmost sight.

LINES ON AN INDIAN ARROW-HEAD.

Rude relic of a lost and savage race!
  Memento of a people proud and cold!
Sole lasting monument to mark the place
  Where the red tide of Indian valor rolled.

Cold is the hand that fashion'd thee, rude dart!
  Cold the strong arm that drew the elastic bow!
And cold the dust of the heroic heart,
  Whence, cleft by thee, the crimson tide did flow.

Unnumbered years have o'er their ashes flown;
  Their unrecovered names and deeds are gone;
All that remains is this rude pointed stone,
  To tell of nations mighty as our own.

Such is earth's pregnant lesson: through all time
  Kingdom succeeds to kingdom--empires fall;
From out their ashes, others rise and climb,
  Then flash through radiant greatness, to their fall.

ACROSTIC

TO MISS ANNIE ELIZA M'NAMEE.

My much respected, fair young friend
In youth's bright sunshine glowing:
Some friendly token I would send,
Some trifle, worth your knowing.

A lovely bird; the garden's pride;
Nurs'd with the utmost care,
No flow'r, in all the gardens wide;
Incited hopes so rare:
Each passing day develops more
Each beauty, than the day before.

Lovely in form, in features mild;
In thy deportment pure:
Zealous for right, e'en from a child,
A friend, both true and sure.

May thy maturer years be bright,
Cloudless and fair thy skies;
No storms to fright, nor frosts to blight,
And cause thy fears to rise.
May thy last days, in peace go past,
Each being better than the last;
Eternally thy joys grow brighter--
So prays D. Scott the humble writer.

MINUTES

OF THE JACKSON HALL DEBATING SOCIETY, DEC. 5, 1877.

My muse inspire me, while I tell
The weighty matters that befell
On Monday night at Jackson Hall
December fifth. I'll tell it all,
Day and year I'll tell you even,
'Twas eighteen hundred seventy-seven.
The Jacksonites were out in force,
No common thing was up of course,
But something rare and rich and great,
'Twas nothing short of a debate;
What was the question? Let me see,
Yes; "Can Christians consistently
Engage in war against a brother
And at the same time love each other?"
But first and foremost let me say,
My muse has taken me astray,
So I'll return to the beginning
Digression is my common sinning
For which your pardon I implore,
If granted, I will sin no more,
That is no more till the next time,
For when I'm forging out a rhyme,
The narrative which I would fix up,
I somehow rather oddly mix up.

A president must first be got,
So they elected James M. Scott,
He said he'd serve; (and that was clever,)
A little while, but not forever.
A paper called a "constitution,"
Was read and on some person's motion,
Was all adopted, at a word,
A thing that seemed to me absurd.
Then instantly to work they went,
And filled the chair of president,
And William Henderson they took,
They knew their man just like a book.
A scribe was wanted next to keep,
A record of their doings deep.
On looking round they cast the lot,
And so it fell on David Scott.
A treasurer was next in order
When looking up and down the border,
For one to hoard the gold and silver,
The mantle fell on Joseph Miller.
The executive committee
Was now to fill and here we see
A piece of work I apprehend,
May lead to trouble in the end,
For while they only wanted five,
Yet six they got, as I'm alive,
First they installed Peter Jaquett,
Then John Creswell, two men well met,
James Law, but they were not enough,
And so they added William Tuft.
One more was wanted that was plain,
That one was found in John McKane,
But when the five were call'd to meet
There were but four came to the seat;
There are but four, said one so racy,
So they elected William Gracy.
Now you perceive this grave committee
Which numbers five both wise and witty,
Has got into a pretty fix
With but five seats and numbers six.
The question for the next debate
Was then selected, which I'll state
If I have only got the gumption
To make some word rhyme with resumption,
"Should Congress now repeal the act
To pay all debts in gold in fact."

The speakers now were trotted out
Their sides to choose and take a bout
Upon the question, which I stated
As having been so well debated,
Namely, "Can christians go to war,"
The very devil might abhor
To contemplate this proposition
Offspring of pride and superstition
That brothers by a second birth,
Should make a very hell of earth.
The war of words waxed loud and long,
Each side was right, the other wrong;
The speakers eager for the fray,
Wished their ten minutes half a day;
But time and tide will wait for none,
So glibly did the gabble run,
That nine o'clock soon spoiled the fun,
And all that rising tide of words,
Was smothered never to be heard.
The fight is o'er, the race is run,
And soon we'll know which side has won,
But this is not so easy done;
Indeed I have a world of pity
For the executive committee
Who hear in silence all this clatter
And then decide upon the matter;
To give each speaker justice due,
And sift the error from the true,
Is not an easy thing to do.
To decide what facts have any bearing
Upon the question they are hearing,
And generally keep in hand
The arguments, so strong and grand,
And draw from them a just conclusion
Without a mixture of confusion;
The negative got the decision
Unanimous, without division.
The speakers then took their position,
Upon the doubtful proposition
Of the repeal of gold resumption,
Upon the plausible presumption,
That those who pay must have the money,
That laws of Congress, (that seems funny,)
Are not above the laws of trade,
And therefore cannot be obeyed.
Here now my muse, poor worthless jade,
Deserted, as I was afraid
From the beginning she would do;
So I must say good-night to you,
And these long rambling minutes close,
In just the dullest kind of prose.

RETROSPECTION.

The phantoms have flown which I cherished;
  The dreams which delighted have passed;
My castles in air have all perished--
  I grieved o'er the fall of the last.

'Twas bright, but as frail as a shadow;
  It passed like a vapor away--
As the mist which hangs over the meadow
  Dissolves in the sun's burning ray.

The joys of my youth are all shattered;
  My hopes lie in wrecks on the shore;
The friends of my childhood are scattered;
  Their faces I'll see never more.

Some are estranged, some have gone under;
  The battle of life is severe.
When I stand by their graves, the wonder,
  The mystery, seems to be clear:

They were vet'rans more noble than I;
  And placed in the van of the fight,
They fell where the hero would die,
  When he bleeds for truth and the right.

The battle of life is proceeding--
  The rear will advance to the van;
I'll follow where duty is leading,
  And fall at my post like a man.

ACROSTIC

TO MISS FLORENCE WILSON M'NAMEE.

Maiden, lovely, young and gay,
In the bloom of life's young May!
Sweet perfumes are in the air;
Songs of gladness ev'rywhere!

Flowers are springing round thy way,
Lovely flowers, bright and gay:
Over head and all about
Rings one constant joyous shout!
Earth is carpeted with green,
Nature greets you as her queen.
Call the trees and flow'rs your own,
Each will bow before your throne.
While in youth's enchanting maze,
Incline thy steps to wisdom's ways!
Lead a quiet peaceful life;
Swiftly fly from noise and strife;
Own thy Lord before mankind;
'Neath his banner you will find
More than all this world can give;
Contentment while on earth you live,
Nearer to your journey's end,
All your aspirations tend:
May you end your days in peace;
Earthly ties in joy release;
Eternally thy joys increase;
    That this may be thy joyous lot
    Ever prays thy friend D. Scott.

THE BOOK OF BOOKS.

    Written on a blank leaf of a Bible presented to Martha Cowan, June
    1st, 1868.

        Esteemed young friend
        This book I send,
I know full well thou wilt receive;
        For thou canst read
        Its shining creed,
And understand it and believe.

        Oh could I say
        As much to-day,
What joys would thrill this heart of grief,--
        I do believe.
        Oh Lord, receive
My prayer--help THOU mine unbelief!

        This book though small,
        Is more than all
The wealth of India to thee;
        Oh priceless treasure!
        Rich beyond measure
Are all who build their hopes on thee.

THE LESSON OF THE SEASONS.

    Written for a little girl on her eleventh birthday.

Fleeting time is on the wing--
Surely Winter, joyous Spring,
Glowing Summer, Autumn sere,
Mark the changes of the year.

Late the earth was green and fair,
Flowers were blooming everywhere;
Birds were singing in the trees,
While the balmy healthful breeze,
Laden with perfume and song,
Health and beauty flowed along.

But a change comes o'er the scene;
Still the fields and trees are green,
And the birds keep singing on,
Though the early flowers are gone;
And the melting noon-day heat,
Strips the shoes from little feet,
And the coats from little backs;
While the paddling bare-foot tracks,
In the brooklet which I see,
Tell of youthful sports and glee.
Hay is rip'ning on the plain,
Fields are rich in golden grain,
Mowers rattle sharp and shrill,
Reapers echo from the hill,
Farmer, dark and brown with heat,
Push your labor--it is sweet,
For the hope, in which you plow,
And sow, you are reaping now.
Corn, which late, was scarcely seen,
Struggling slowly into green,
'Neath the Summer's torrid glow--
How like magic it does grow;
Rising to majestic height,
Drinks the sunbeams with delight,
Sends its rootlets through the soil,
Foraging for hidden spoil;
Riches more than golden ore,
Silent workers they explore:
With their apparatus small,
Noiselessly they gather all.
When their work is done, behold
Treasures, richer far than gold,
Fill the farmers store-house wide--
And his grateful soul beside.

But the scene must change again,
Hill and dell and spreading plain,
Speak so all can comprehend
Summer's reign is at an end.
Forests, gorgeously arrayed,
(Queens such dresses ne'er displayed)
Grace the coronation scene
Of the lovely Autumn queen.
Birds, with multifarious notes,
Ringing from ten thousand throats,
Shout aloud that Summer's dead,
And Autumn reigns in her stead.
Now another change behold--
All the varied tints of gold,
Purple, crimson, orange, green--
Every hue and shade between,
That bedecked the forest trees,
Now lie scattered by the breeze.
The birds have flown. Faithless friends
Love the most when they're best fed;
And when they have gained their ends,
Shamefully have turned and fled.
Winter claims his wide domain,
And begins his frigid reign.
Thus the seasons come and go:
Spring gives place to Summer's glow;
Then comes mellow Autumn's sway,
Rip'ning fruits and short'ning day;
Gorgeous woods in crimson dress,
Surpassing queens in loveliness.
Then the Frost King mounts the throne,
Claims the empire for his own;
Hail and rain and sleet and snow
Are his ministers that go
On the swift wings of the blast,
At his bidding, fierce and fast.

Like the seasons of the year,
Your young life will change, my dear.
Now you're in your early Spring,
Hope and joy are on the wing;
Flow'rets blooming fresh and gay,
Shed their fragrance round your way.
Summer's heat is coming fast,
And your Spring will soon be past;
For, where you are, I have been;
All that you see, I have seen.
Hopes that beamed around my way,
Cast their light on yours to-day.
All that you do, I have done;
All your childish ways I've run,
All your joys and pangs I've had--
All that make you gay or sad;
I have sported in the brook,
Truant from my work or book;
Chased the butterfly and bee,
Robb'd the bird's nest on the tree;
Damm'd the brook and built my mill;
Flew my kite from hill to hill;
Sported with my top and ball--
Childish joys, I know them all.
Childish sorrows, too I've felt--
Anguish that my heart would melt;
Tears have wet my burning cheek,
Caused by thoughts I could not speak.
Mysteries then confused my brain,
Which have since become more plain;
Much that then seemed plain and clear
Has grown darker year by year;
When my artless prayers I said,
Skies were near--just over head;
And the angels seemed so near,
I could whisper in their ear.
All that I have learned since then,
I would give, if once again,
Those bright visions would return.
For I find, the more I learn,
Further off the skies appear,
And the angels come not near.
Though in better words I pray,
Heaven seems so far away,
That I wish, but wish in vain,
That the skies were near again;
That no other words I knew,
But those simple ones and few,
That the angels used to hear,
When I whispered in their ear.
I would barter all the fame,
Wealth and learning that I claim,
Which a life of toil have cost,
For those priceless seasons lost.

JOHN A. CALHOUN, MY JOE JOHN.

A PARODY.

    This poem was the outgrowth of a newspaper controversy between John
    A. Calhoun, a school teacher of this county, and one of the trustees
    of Jackson Hall, who wrote above the signature of "Turkey," in which
    Mr. Calhoun said some rather hard things about the school trustees
    of the county. The poem was written at the request of the trustee,
    who was the other party engaged in the controversy.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, "I wonder what you mean?"
You're always getting in some scrape and getting off your spleen;
Keep cooler, John, and do not fret, however things may go;
You'll longer last and have more friends, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, don't pout about your name;
It never will disgrace you, John, but you may it defame
By doing silly things, John, and things, you ought to know,
Will but recoil upon yourself, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, the "Turkey" let alone;
My name is very humble, John, but then it is my own.
"There's nothing in a name," John, and this you ought to know,
That actions are the cards that win, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John; your temper must be sour;
Your scholars pester you, John; you flog them every hour.
But leave the rod behind you, John, when from the school you go,
Or else you may get flogged yourself, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, the terror of your name
Does not extend beyond the walls which for your own you claim;
So drop your haughty airs, John, and lay your wattle low,
And people will esteem you more, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, just take a friend's advice;
And drop your pedagogic ways (you know they are not nice;)
And treat grown people with respect, and they the same will show,
And use those "open eyes" of yours, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, the trustees of our schools
Are not so smart as you, John, but then they're not all fools;
And you have made yourself, John, appear a little low,
By your abuse of these poor men, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, now let us part in peace,
And may your honest name, John, so mightily increase,
That half a score of sons, John, may like their father grow--
But just a little modester, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

EMMA ALICE BROWNE.

Emma Alice Browne was born about forty-five years ago, in an
unpretentious cottage, which is still standing near the northeast corner
of the cross-roads, on the top of Mount Pleasant, or Vinegar Hill, as it
was then called, about a mile west of Colora. She is the oldest child of
William A. Browne and Hester A. Touchstone, sister of the late James
Touchstone. Her father was the youngest son of William Brown, who
married Ann Spear, of Chester county, and settled a few yards north of
the State Line, in what is now Lewisville, Chester county, Pennsylvania,
where his son William was born, early in the present century. He was a
stonemason by trade, and though comparatively uneducated, was possessed
of a brilliant imagination, and so highly endowed by nature with poetic
ability that he frequently amused and delighted his fellow-workmen by
singing songs which he extemporized while at his work. There is no doubt
that his granddaughter, the subject of this sketch, inherited much of
her poetic talent from him; though her family is connected with that of
Mrs. Felicia Hemans, the English poetess, whom though in some respects
she resembles, we hesitate not to say she greatly surpasses in grandeur
of conception and beauty of expression.

William Brown was a half-brother of the mother of the editor of this
book; consequently Emma and he are cousins. If, therefore, this sketch
should seem to exceed or fall short of the truth, the reader must
attribute its imperfections to the inability of the writer to do justice
to the subject, or to the great, but he hopes pardonable, admiration
which he has long entertained for his relative's literary productions.

The Brown family are of Scotch-Irish extraction, and trace their lineage
away back through a long line of ancestors to the time when the name was
spelled Brawn, because of the great muscular development of the rugged
old Scotch Highlander who founded it.

William Brown's early education was obtained at the common schools of
the neighborhood where he was born. He was endowed by nature with a
logical mind, a vivid imagination and great practical common sense; and
a memory so tenacious as to enable him to repeat a sermon almost, if not
quite, verbatim, a year after he had heard it delivered. Early in life
he became an exemplary member of the Methodist Church, and was ordained
as a Local Preacher in the Methodist Protestant persuasion, by the Rev.
John G. Wilson, very early in the history of that denomination, in the
old Harmony Church, not far south of Rowlandville. Subsequently he was
admitted to the Conference as a traveling minister and sent to
southeastern Pennsylvania, where he continued to preach the gospel with
much success until his death, which occurred when his daughter Emma was
a child about eight years of age.

Emma's education began on her father's knee, when she was little if any
more than three years old. Before she was four years old she could
repeat Anacreon's Ode to a Grasshopper, which her father had learned
from a quaint old volume of heathen mythology, and taught his little
daughter to repeat, by reciting it aloud to her, as she sat upon his
knee. Subsequently, and before she had learned to read, he taught her in
the same manner "Byron's Apostrophe to the Ocean," Campbell's "Battle of
Hohenlinden," and Byron's "Destruction of Sennacherib," all of which
seem to have made a deep impression upon her infantile mind,
particularly the latter, in speaking of which she characterizes it as "a
poem whose barbaric glitter and splendor captivated my imagination even
at that early period, and fired my fancy with wild visions of Oriental
magnificence and sublimity, so that I believe all my after life caught
color and warmth and form from those early impressions of the gorgeous
word-painting of the East." Emma's subsequent education was limited to a
few weeks' attendance at a young ladies' seminary at West Chester,
Pennsylvania, and a like experience of a few weeks in Wilmington,
Delaware, when she was about sixteen years old. But her mind was so full
of poesy that there was no room in it for ordinary matters and things,
and the duties of a student soon became so irksome that she left both
the institutions in disgust. Of her it may be truly said, "she lisp'd in
numbers, for the numbers came," for she composed verses at four years of
age, and published poems at ten. Her first effusions appeared in a local
paper at Reading, Pa. Being a born poetess, her success as a writer was
assured from the first, and her warmth of expression and richness of
imagery, combined with a curious quaintness, the outgrowth of the deep
vein of mysticism that pervades her nature, soon attracted the attention
of the _literati_ of this country, one of the most distinguished of
whom, the late George D. Prentice, did not hesitate to pronounce her the
most extraordinary woman of America; "for," said he, "if she can't find
a word to suit her purpose, she makes one." While some of her earlier
poems may have lacked the artistic finish and depth of meaning of those
of mature years, they had a beauty and freshness peculiar to themselves,
which captivated the minds and rarely failed to make a deep impression
upon the hearts of those who read them.

In 1855, the family came to Port Deposit, where they remained about two
years, and then went West, Emma having secured a good paying position on
the _Missouri Republican_, for which she wrote her only continued story,
"Not Wanted." For the last twenty years she has been a regular
contributor to the _New York Ledger_.

In 1864, Emma came East and was married to Captain J. Lewis Beaver, of
Carroll county, Maryland, whose acquaintance she made while he was a
wounded invalid in the Naval School Hospital at Annapolis. After her
marriage, she continued to write under her maiden name, and has always
been known in the literary world as Emma Alice Browne, though all the
rest of the family spell the name without the final vowel. Her marriage
was not a fortunate one, and the writer in deference to the wishes of
his relative, will only say she is now a widow, with three sons, the
youngest of whom seems to have inherited much of his mother's poetic
talent, and who, though only about ten years of age, has written some
very creditable verses, which have been published.

Within a year or two, Emma has developed a talent for painting, which
seems to have been overshadowed and dwarfed by her poetic faculty, but
which now bids fair to make her as famous as an artist as she has long
been as a poetess. She resides in Danville, Illinois, and is about
publishing a volume of poems, which will be the first book from her pen.

The following selections have been made with the view of showing the
versatility, rather than the poetic beauty and power of their author.
Most, if not all, of those designated as earlier poems were written more
than thirty years ago.

EARLIER POEMS.

MY BROTHER.

    Oh, brier rose clamber;
    And cover the chamber--
The chamber, so dreary and lone--
    Where with meekly-closed lips,
    And eyes in eclipse,
My brother lies under the stone.

    Oh, violets, cover,
    The narrow roof over,
Oh, cover the window and door!
    For never the lights,
    Through the long days and nights,
Make shadows across the floor!

    The lilies are blooming,
    The lilies are white,
Where his play haunts used to be;
    And the sweet cherry blossoms
    Blow over the bosoms
Of birds in the old roof tree.

    When I hear on the hills
    The shout of the storm,
In the valley the roar of the river;
    I shiver and shake,
    On the hearth stone warm,
As I think of his cold "forever."

    His white hands are folded,
    And never again,
With the song of the robin or plover,
    When the Summer has come,
    With her bees and her grain,
Will he play in the meadow clover.

    Oh, dear little brother,
    My sweet little brother,
In the palace above the sun,
    Oh, pray the good angels,
    The glorious evangels,
To take me--when life is done.

MY FATHER.

IN MEMORIAM, 1857.

    The late George D. Prentice in speaking of this poem used the
    following language: "To our minds there is nothing in all the In
    Memoriam of Tennyson more beautiful than the following holy tribute
    to a dead father from our young correspondent at Pleasant Grove."
    The poem was first published in the "Louisville Journal" of which
    Mr. Prentice was the editor.

    [Transcriber's note: The original text referred to the "Louirville
    Journal" (clearly an erratum).]

My Father! Orphan lips unknown
  To love's sweet uses sob the word
  My father! dim with anguish, heard
In Heaven between a storm of moan
And the white calm that faith hath fixed
  For solace, far beyond the world,
  Where, all our starry dreams unfurled,
We drink the wine of peace unmixed.

Mine! folded in the awful trust
  That draws the world's face down in awe,
  Holding her breath, as if she saw
God's secret written in the dust--
My father! oh, the dreary years
  The dreary winds have wailed across
  Since his path, from the hills of loss,
Wound, shining, o'er the golden spheres.

What time the Angel at our door
  Said soft, between our orphan-moan--
  Arise! oh, soul! the night is done
And day hath bloomed forevermore!
I locked my icy hand across
  My sobbing heart and sadly cried--
  I lose thee in the glorified--
The world is darkened with my loss!

Oh, Angel! cried I--wrath complete!
  With awful brows and eyes intense!
  (For faith's white robe of reverence
Slid noiseless to my sorrow's feet)
Oh, Angel, help me out of strife!
  I could have borne all mortal pain--
  I could have lived my life in vain--
But this hath touched my inner life!

And eighteen hundred fifty-seven
  Hath filled a decade of slow years
  Since first my orphan cries and tears
Broke wild across the walls of Heaven.
This eve his grave is winter-white!
  And 'twixt the snow-wind's stormy thrills
  I hear across the Northern hills
The solemn footsteps of the night!

Blow wind! Oh, wind, blow wild and high!
  Blow o'er the dismal space of woods--
  Blow down the roaring Northern floods
And let the dreary day go by!
Blow, wind, from out the shining West,
  And wrap the hazy world in glow--
  Blow wind and drift about my snow
The summer of his endless rest!

For he has fallen fast asleep
  And cannot give me moan for moan--
  My heart is heavy as a stone
And there is no one left to weep!
My _soul_ is heavy and doth lie
  Reaching up from my wretchedness--
  Reaching up blindly for redress
The stern gray walls of entity!

Once in the golden spring-time hours,
  In the sweet garden of my youth,
  There fell a seed of bitter truth
That sprang and shadowed all the flowers--
Alone! The roses died apace
  And pale the mournful violet blew--
  Only the royal lily grew
And glorified the lonesome place!

In me the growth of human ills
  Than human love had reached no higher,
  But Seraphim with lips of fire
Have won me to the shining hills--
I cannot hide my soul in art--
  I cannot mend my life's defect--
  This thunderous space of intellect
God gave me for a peaceful heart!

Hush! oh, my mournful heart, be still,
  The heavy night is coming on,
  But heavier lie the shadows drawn
About his grave so low and chill--
From out the awful sphere of God,
  Oh, deathly wind, blow soft and low!
  My soul is weary and would go
Where never foot of mortal trod!

AT THE NIGHTFALL.

I muse alone in the fading light,
  Where the mournful winds forever
Sweep down from the dim old hills of night,
  Like the wail of a haunted river.

Alone! by the grave of a buried love,
  The ghostly mist is parted,
Where the stars shine faint in the blue above,
  Like the smile of the broken-hearted.

The living turn from my fond embrace,
  As if no love were needed;
The tears I wept on thy young dead face
  Were never more unheeded

Than my wild prayer for peace unwon--
  One pure affection only,
One faithful heart to lean upon,
  When life is sad and lonely.

The low grassy roof, my glorious dead,
  Is bright with the buttercup's blossom,
And the night-blooming roses burn dimly and red
  On the green sod that covers thy bosom.

Thy pale hands are folded, oh beautiful saint,
  Like lily-buds chilly and dew-wet,
And the smile on thy lip is as solemn and faint
  As the beams of a norland sunset.

The angel that won thee a long time ago
  To the shore of the glorious immortals,
In the sphere of the starland shall wed us, I know,
  When I pass through the beautiful portals.

THE MIDNIGHT CHIME.

    Suggested by the tolling of the bell on the sash factory in Port
    Deposit on a stormy night in January, 1856.

The rain is the loudest and wildest
  Of rains that ever fell;
And the winds like an army of chanters
  Through the desolate pine-woods swell,
And hark! through the shout of the tempest,
  The sound of the midnight bell.

Now close on the storm it rises,
  Now sadly it sinks with a moan--
Like a human heart in its anguish,
  Crushing a fruitless groan--
Like a soul that goes wailing and pining,
  Thro' the motherless world, alone.

Is it hung in an ancient turret?
  Is it swung by a mortal hand?
Is it chiming in woe or gladness,
  Its symphonies sweet and grand?
Is it rung for a shadowy sorrow,
  In the shadowy phantom land?

Alas for the beautiful guesses
  That live in a poet's rhyme--
'Tis only the bell of the factory
  Tolling its woe sublime;
And the wind is the ghostly ringer,
  Ringing the midnight chime.

Toll, mournful bell of the tempest,
  Through my dreams by sleep unblest;
My bosom is throbbing as madly
  To surges of wild unrest--
E'en as thy heart of iron
  Is beating thy brazen breast!

MAY-THALIA.

TO THOMAS HEMPSTEAD.

Thy lay--a sweet sung bridal hymn,
  Wedding the Old year to the New,
  'Mid starry buds, and silver dew,
And brooks, and birds in woodlands dim--

That touched the hidden veins of thought
  With the electric force of strife,
  Thrilled the dumb marble of my life
Unto a perfect beauty wrought.

And straight, unclasping from my brow
  The thorny crown of lost delight,
  The solemn grandeur of the night
Flashed on me from old years, as now.

The budding of my days is past!
  And May sits weeping in the shade
  The weeds on April's grave have made,
Blown slantwise in the sobbing blast.

Ah me! but in the Poet's heart
  Some pools of troubled water lie!
  The hidden founts of agony,
That keep the better springs apart.

What comfort is there in the Earth!
  What height, or depth, where we may hide
  Our life long anguish, and abide
The ripening unto newer birth!

But Poet, in thy song is power
  To lift the flood gates of my woe,
  And bid its solemn surging flow
Far from the triumph of this hour.

Yea, rising from life's evil things,
  My soul, long blinded from the light,
  Starlit across the purple night
Sweeps the red lightning of her wings!

I will be free! there is a strength
  In the full blowing of our youth
  To climb the rosied hills of truth
From the dry desert's burning length.

From far a voice shouts to my fate
  As shout the choiring Angels, when
  The fiery cross of suffering men
Falls broken at the narrow gate!

Be brave! be noble, and sublime
  Thyself unto a higher aim--
  Keeping thy nature white of blame
In all the dreary walks of time!

Oh musty creeds in mouldy books!
  Blind teachers of the blind are ye--
  A plainer wisdom talks with me
In God's full psalmody of brooks.

The rustling of a leaf hath force
  To wake the currents of my blood,
  That sweep, a wild Niagara-flood,
Hurled headlong in its fiery course.

The moaning of the wind hath power
  To stir the anthem of my soul,
  Unto a mightier thunder roll
Than ever shook a triumph hour.

Betwixt the gorgeous twilight bars
  Rare truths flow from melodious lips--
  God's all-sublime Apocalypse--
His awful poem writ in stars!

Each ray that spends its burning might
  In the alembic of the morn,
  Is, in the Triune splendors, born
Of the great uncreated light!

To me the meanest creeping thing
  Speaks with a loud Evangel tongue,
  Of the far climes forever young
In His all-glorious blossoming.

And thus, oh Poet! hath thy lay--
  Woven of brightest buds and flowers
  Blowing, in breezy South-land bowers,
Against the blushing face of May--

A passion, and a power, that thrills
  My hidden nature unto strife,
  To battle bravely, for the life
Across the dim Eternal hills!

MEMORIES.

While the wild north hills are reddening
  In the sunset's fiery glow,
And along the dreary moorlands,
  Shine the stormy drifts of snow,
Sit I in my voiceless chamber
  From the household ones apart,
And again is Memory lighting
  The pale ruins of my heart.

And again are white hands sweeping,
  Wildly, its invisible chords,
With the burden of a sorrow
  That I may not wed to words.
Vainly I this day have striven,
  List'ning to the snow-wind's roll,
To forget the haunting music
  That is throbbing in my soul.

Not my pleasant household duties,
  Nor the rosied light of Morn,
Nor the banners of the sunset
  On the wintry hills forlorn,
Could unclasp the starry yearning
  From my mortal, weary breast,
Nor interpret the weird meaning
  Of the phantom's wild unrest.

All last night I heard the crickets
  Chirping on the lonely hearth,
And I thought of him that lieth
  In the embraces of the earth;
Till the lights died in the village,
  And the armies of the snow,
In the bitter woods of midnight
  Tracked the wild winds to and fro.

Oh my lover, safely folded
  In the shadow of the grave,
While about my low-roofed dwelling
  Moaning gusts of winter rave.
Well I know thy pale hands, folded
  In the silence of long years,
Cannot give me back caresses
  For my sacrifice of tears.

Oh ye dark and vexing phantoms--
  Ghostly memories that arise,
Keeping ever 'twixt my spirit
  And the beauty of the skies--
Memories of a faded splendor,
  And a lost hope, long ago,
Ere my April grew to blushing
  And my heavy heart to woe.

Saw ye in your solemn marches
  From the citadel of death,
In our bridal halls of beauty
  Burning still the lamp of faith?
Doth a watcher, pale and patient,
  Folded from the tempest's wrath,
Wait the coming of my footsteps
  Down the grave's long, lonesome path?

No reply!--the dreary shadows
  Lengthen from the silent hills,
And a heavy boding sorrow
  Still my aching bosom fills.
Now the moon is up in beauty,
  Walking on a starry hight,
While her trailing vesture brightens
  The gray hollows of the night.

Things of evil go out from me,
  Leave this silence-haunted room,
Full enough of darkness keepeth
  In the chamber of his tomb.
Full enough of shadow lieth
  In that dim futurity--
In that wedding night, where, meekly,
  My beloved waits for me!

THE OLD HOMESTEAD.

I remember the dear little cabin
  That stood by the weather-brown mill,
And the beautiful wavelets of sunshine
  That flowed down the slope of the hill,
And way down the winding green valley,
  And over the meadow--smooth shorn,--
How the dew-drops lay flashing and gleaming
  On the pale rosy robes of the morn.

How the blush-blossoms shook on the upland,
  Like a red-cloud of sunset afar,
And the lilies gleamed up from the marsh pond
  Like the pale silver rim of a star;
How the brook chimed a beautiful chorus,
  With the birds that sang high in the trees;
And how the bright shadows of sunset
  Trailed goldenly down on the breeze.

I remember the mossy-rimmed springlet,
  That gushed in the shade of the oaks,
And how the white buds of the mistletoe,
  Fell down at the woodman's strokes,
On the morning when cruel Sir Spencer
  Came down with his haughty train,
To uproot the old kings of the greenwood
  That shadowed his golden grain.

For he dwelt in a lordly castle
  That towered half-way up the hill,
And we in a poor little cabin
  In the shade of the weather-brown mill,
Therefore the haughty Earl Spencer
  Came down with his knightly train,
And uprooted our beautiful roof-trees
  That shadowed his golden grain.

Ah! wearily sighed our mother,
  When the mistletoe boughs lay shed;
But never the curse of the orphan
  Was breathed on the rich man's head;
And when again the gentle summer
  Had gladdened the earth once more,
No branches of gnarled oaks olden
  Made shadows across the floor.

GURTHA.

The lone winds creep with a snakish hiss
  Among the dwarfish bushes,
And with deep sighing sadly kiss
  The wild brook's border rushes;
The woods are dark, save here and there
  The glow-worm shineth faintly,
And o'er the hills one lonely star
  That trembles white and saintly.

Ah! well I know this mournful eve
  So like an evening olden;
With many a goodly harvest sheaf
  The upland fields were golden;
The lily moon in bridal white
  Leaned o'er the sea, her lover,
And stars with beauty filled the Night--
  The wind sang in the clover.

The halls were bright with revelry,
  The beakers red with wassail;
And music's grandest symphony
  Rung thro' the ancient castle;
And she, the brightest of the throng,
  With wedding-veil and roses,
Seemed like the beauty of a song
  Between the organ's pauses.

My memory paints her sweetly meek,
  With her long sunny tresses,
And how the blushes on her cheek
  Kissed back their warm caresses;
But like an angry cloud that cleaves
  Down thro' the mists of glory,
I see the flowers a pale hand weaves
  Around a forehead gory.

The road was lone that lay between
  His, and her father's castle,
And many a stirrup-cup, I ween,
  Quaffed he of generous wassail.
My soul drank in a larger draught
  From the burning well of hate,
The hand that sped the murderous shaft
  Was guided by my fate.

Red shadows lay upon the sward
  That night, instead of golden--
And long the bride's maids wait the lord
  In the bridal-chamber olden;
Ah, well! pale hands unwove the flowers
  That bound the milk-white forehead--
The star has sunk, the red moon glowers
  Down slopes of blackness horrid.

IN MEMORIAM.

JOHN B. ABRAHAMS, OF PORT DEPOSIT, AGED 22 YEARS.

    He giveth His beloved sleep.

    --Psalms 127:2

From heaven's blue walls the splendid light
Of signal-stars gleams far and bright
Down the abyssmal deeps of night.

Against the dim, dilating skies
Orion's radiant mysteries
Of belt, and plume, and helmet rise--

I see--with flashing sword in hand,
With eyes sublime, and forehead grand--
The conquering constellation stand!

And on one purple tower the moon
Hangs her white lamp--the night wind's rune
Floats faint o'er holt and black lagoon.

Far down the dimly shining bay
The drifting sea-fog, cold and gray,
Wraps all the golden ships away--

The fair-sailed ships, that in the glow
Of ghostly moon and vapor go,
Like wandering phantoms, to and fro!

With mournful thought I sit alone--
My heart is heavy as a stone,
And hath no utterance but a moan.

I think of him, who, being blest,
With pale hands crossed on silent breast,
Taketh his long unending rest;

While lone winds chant a funeral stave,
And pallid church-yard daisies wave
About his new unsodded grave.

The skies are solemn with their throng
Of choiring stars--and deep and strong
The river moans an undersong.

Oh mournful wind! Oh moaning river,
Oh golden planets, pausing never!
His lips have lost your song forever!

His lips, that done with pleadings vain--
And human sighing, born of pain--
Are hymning heav'ns triumphal strain.

The ages tragic Rhythm of change
Clashing on projects new and strange--
The tireless nations forward range--

Can ne'er disturb the perfect rest
Wherein he lieth--being blest,
With chill hands cross'd on silent breast.

Oh mourning heart! whose heavy plaint
Drifts down the deathly shadows faint,
Why weep ye for this risen saint?

His life's pale ashes, under foot
That cling about the daisies' root
Will bear at last most glorious fruit!

'Tis but the casket hid away
Neath roof of stone and burial clay;
The jewel shines in endless day!

And thus I gather for my tears
Sweet hope from faith in after years;
And far across the glimmering spheres

Height over height the heavens expand--
I see him in God's Eden land,
With palms of vict'ry in his hand;

O'er brows of solemn breadth profound,
With fadeless wreaths of glory wound,
He stands a seraph, robed and crowned.

Aye! in a vision, see I now;
Christ's symbol written on his brow--
Found worthy unto death art thou!

And ever in this heart of mine,
So won to glorious peace, divine
This vision of our lost shall shine;

Not with pale forehead in eclipse
With close-sealed lids and silent lips,
But grand in Life's Apocalypse!

For very truly hath been said--
For the pale living--not the dead--
Should mourning's bitterest tears be shed!

MISSIVE TO ----.

Purple shafts of sunset fire
  Glory-crown the passionate sea,
Throbbing with a fierce desire
  For the blue immensity.

Floods of pale and scarlet flame
  Sweep the bases of the hills,
With a blushing unto shame
  Thro' their rosy bridal-thrills.

Slowly to the gorgeous West
  Twilight paces from the East,
Like a dark, unbidden guest
  Going to a marriage feast.

Dian--palaced in the blue--
  O'er the eve-star, newly born,
Shakes a sweet baptismal dew
  From her pearly drinking-horn.

Not the Ocean's fiery soul
  Throbbing up thro' all his deeps--
Not the sunset tides that roll
  Gloriously against the steeps

Of the hills, that to the stars
  Lift their regal wedded brows,
Glittering, through the golden bars
  Clasping close their nuptial snows.

Not the palace lights of Hesper
  In the Queendom of the Moon,
Win me from that lovely vesper--
  The last one of our last June.

Oh the golden-tressed minutes!
  Oh the silver-footed hours!
Oh the thoughts that sang like linnets,
  In a woodland full of flowers!

When my wild heart beat so lightly
  It forgot its mortal shroud;
And an Angel trembled brightly
  In the fold of every cloud.

Wo! That storms of sorrow-strife
  Hold the pitying light apart,
And the golden waves of life
  Beat against a breaking heart.

Saddest fate that e'er has been
  Woven in the loom of years,
Our sworn faith has come between,
  Heavy with the wine of tears.

Broken vow and slighted trust--
  Hope's white garments soiled and torn--
Passion trampled in the dust
  By the iron heel of scorn.

Thou art dead, to me, as those
  Folded safe from mortal strife;
Dead! as tho' the grave-mould froze
  The red rivers of thy life!

Oh! My Sweet! My Light! My Love!
  With my grief co-heir sublime!
Storms and sorrows ever prove
  True inheritors of Time.

Hush! An Angel holds my heart
  From its breaking--tho' I stand,
From the happy world apart,
  On a broad and barren sand.

I will love thee tho' I die!
  Love thee, with my ancient faith!
For immortal voices cry:
  Love is mightier than Death!

CHICK-A-DEE'S SONG.

Sweet, sweet, sweet!
  High up in the budding vine
I've woven and hidden a dainty retreat
  For this little brown darling of mine!
Along the garden borders,
  Out of the rich dark mold,
The daffodils and jonquils
  Are pushing their heads of gold;
And high in her bower-chamber
  The little brown mother sits,
While to and fro, as the west winds blow,
  Her pretty shadow flits.

Weet, weet, weet!
  Safe in the branching vine,
Pillowed on woven grasses sweet,
  Our pearly treasures shine;
And all day long in the sunlight,
  By vernal breezes fanned,
The daffodil and the jonquil
  Their jeweled discs expand;
And two and fro, as the west winds blow,
  In the airy house a-swing,
The feeble life in the pearly eggs
  She warms with brooding wing!

Sweet, sweet, sweet!
  Under a flowery spray
Downy heads and little pink feet
  Are cunningly tucked away!
Along the shining furrows,
  The rows of sprouting corn
Flash in the sun, and the orchards
  Are blushing red as morn;
And the time o' the year for toil is here,
  And idle song and play
With the jonquils, and the daffodils,
  Must wait for another May.

LATER POEMS.

TO MY SISTER.

M.A. KENNON.

    "God's dear love is over all."

Dear, the random words you said
  Once, as we two walked apart,
Still keep ringing in my head,
  Still keep singing in my heart:
Like the lone pipe of a bird,
  Like a tuneful waterfall
Far in desert places heard--
  "God's dear love is over all!"

Thro' the ceaseless toil and strife
  They have taught me to be strong!
Fashioned all my narrow life
  To the measure of a song!
They have kept me brave and true--
  Saved my feet from many a fall,
Since, what ever fate may do,
  God's dear love is over all!

Lying in your chamber low,
  Neath the daisies and the dew,
Can you hear me? Can you know
  All the good I owe to you?
You, whose spirit dwells alway
  Free from earthly taint and thrall!
You who taught me that sweet day
  God's dear love is over all!

From your holy, far off Heaven,
  When the beams of twilight wane,
Thro' the jasper gates of even
  Breathe those trustful words again;
They shall aid and cheer me still,
  What-so-ever fate befall,
Since thro' every good and ill
  God's dear love is over all!

MEASURING THE BABY.

We measured the riotous baby
  Against the cottage wall:
A lily grew at the threshold,
  And the boy was just so tall;
A royal tiger lily,
  With spots of purple and gold,
And a heart like a jeweled chalice,
  The fragrant dews to hold.

Without the blue birds whistled,
  High up in the old roof trees;
And to and fro at the window
  The red rose rocked her bees;
And the wee pink fists of the baby
  Were never a moment still,
Snatching at shine and shadow,
  That danced on the lattice sill!

His eyes were wide as blue-bells,
  His mouth like a flower unblown,
Two little barefeet, like funny white mice,
  Peept out from his snowy gown;
And we thought, with a thrill of rapture.
  That yet had a touch of pain--
When June rolls around with her roses
  We'll measure the boy again!

Ah me! In a darkened chamber,
  With the sunshine shut away,
Thro' tears that fell like a bitter rain
  We measured the Boy to-day!
And the little bare feet, that were dimpled,
  And sweet as a budding rose,
Lay side by side together,
  In the hush of a long repose!

Up from the dainty pillow,
  White as the rising dawn,
The fair little face lay smiling
  With the light of Heaven thereon!
And the dear little hands, like rose leaves
  Dropt from a rose, lay still,
Never to snatch at the sunshine,
  That crept to the shrouded sill!

We measured the sleeping baby
  With ribbons white as snow,
For the shining rose-wood casket
  That waited him below;
And out of the darkened chamber
  We crept with a childless moan:
To the height of the sinless Angels
  Our little one had grown!

THE LIGHT OF DREAMS.

Last night I walked in happy dreams,
  The paths I used to know;
I heard a sound of running streams,
  And saw the violets blow;
I breathed a scent of daffodils;
  And faint and far withdrawn,
A light upon the distant hills,
  Like morning, led me on.

And childish hands clung fast to mine,
  And little pattering feet
Trod with me thro' the still sunshine
  Of by-ways green and sweet;
The flax-flower eyes of tender blue,
  The locks of palest gold,
Were just the eyes and locks I knew
  And loved, and lost--of old!

By many a green familiar lane
  Our pathway seemed to run
Between long fields of waving grain,
  And slopes of dew and sun;
And still we seemed to breathe alway
  A scent of daffodils,
And that soft light of breaking day
  Shone on the distant hills.

And out of slumber suddenly
  I seemed to wake, and know
The little feet, that followed me,
  Were ashes long ago!
And in a burst of rapturous tears
  I clung to her and said:
"Dear Pitty-pat! The lonesome years
  They told me you were dead!

"O, when the mother drew, of old,
  About her loving knee
The little heads of dusk and gold,
  I know that we were three!
And then there was an empty chair--
  A stillness, strange and new:
We could not find you anywhere--
  And we were only two!"

She pointed where serenely bright
  The hills yet glowed afar:
"Sweet sister, yon ineffable light
  Is but the gates ajar!
And evermore, by night and day,
  We children still are three,
Tho' I have gone a little way
  To open the gates," said she.

Then all in colors faint and fine
  The morning round me shone,
The little hands slipt out of mine,
  And I was left alone;
But still I smelled the daffodils,
  I heard the running streams;
And that far glory on the hills--
  Was it the light of dreams?

BEN HAFED'S MEED.

Ben Hafed, when the vernal rain
Warmed the chill heart of earth again,
Tilled the dull plot of sterile ground,
Within the dank and narrow round
That compassed his obscure domain;
With earnest zeal, thro' heat and cold,
He wrought and turned the sluggish mold,
And all in furrows straight and fair
He sowed the yellow seed with care,
Trusting the harvest--as of old.

Soft fell the rains, the suns shone bright,
The long days melted into night,
And beautiful, on either hand,
Outspread the shining summer land,
And all his neighbor's fields were white.
Long drawn, beneath the genial skies,
He saw deep-fruited vineyards rise;
On every hill the bladed corn
Flashed like the falchions of the morn
Before Ben Hafed's wistful eyes.

But in the garden, dull and bare,
Where he had wrought with patient care,
No cluster purpled on the vine,
No blossom made the furrows shine
With hints of harvest anywhere!
Ben Hafed, scorning to complain,
Bent to his thankless toil again:
"I slight no task I find to do,
Dear Lord, and if my sheaves be few,
Thou wilt not count my labor vain?"

His neighbors, rich in flocks and lands,
Stood by and mocked his empty hands:
"Why wage with ceaseless fret and toil
The grim warfare that yields no spoil?
Why spend thy zest on barren sands?
The circling seasons come and go,
And others garner as they sow;
But year by year, in sun and rain,
Thou till'st these fields with toil and pain,
Where only tares and thistles grow!"

With quiet mien Ben Hafed heard,
And answered not by sign or word,
Tho' some divine, all-trustful sense
Of loss made sweet thro' recompense,
In God's good time, within him stirred.
With no vain protest or lament,
Low to the stubborn glebe he bent:
"I till the fields Thou gavest me,
And leave the harvest, Lord, to thee,"
He said--and plodded on, content.

And ever, with the golden seeds,
He sowed an hundred gracious deeds--
Some act of helpful charity,
A saving word of cheer, may be,
To some poor soul in bitter need!
And life wore on from gold to gray;
The world went by, another way:
"Tho' long and wearisome my task,
Dear Lord, 'tis but a tithe I ask,
And Thou will grant me that, some day!"

One morn upon his humble bed,
They found Ben Hafed lying dead,
God's light upon his worn old face,
And God's ineffable peace and grace
Folding him round from feet to head.
And lo! in cloudless sunshine rolled
The glebe but late so bare and cold,
Between fair rows of tree and vine
Rich clustered, sweating oil and wine,
Shone all in glorious harvest gold!

And One whose face was strangely bright
With loving ruth--whose garments white
Were spotless as the lilies sweet
That sprang beneath His shining feet--
Moved slowly thro' those fields of light;
"Blest be Ben Hafed's work--thrice blest!"
He said, and gathered to His breast
The harvest sown in toil and tears:
"Henceforth, thro' Mine eternal years,
Thou, faithful servant, cease and rest!"

WINTER BOUND.

If I could live to see beyond the night,
  The first spring morning break with fiery thrills,
And tremble into rose and violet light
  Along the distant hills!

If I could hear the first wild note that swells
  The blue bird's silvery throat when spring is here,
And all the sweet, wind ruffled lily bells
  Ring out the joyous matins of the year!

Only to smell the budding lilac blooms
  The balmy airs from sprouting brake and wold,
Rich with the strange ineffable perfumes
  Of growing grass and newly furrowed mold!

If I could hear the rushing waters call
  In the wild exultation of release,
Dear, I might turn my face unto the wall
  And fall asleep in peace!

MISLED.

Thro' moss, and bracken, and purple bloom,
  With a glitter of gorses here and there,
Shoulder deep in the dewy bloom,
  My love, I follow you everywhere!
By faint sweet signs my soul divines,
  Dear heart, at dawning you came this way,
By the jangled bells of the columbines,
  And the ruffled gold of the gorses gay.

By hill and hollow, by mead and lawn,
  Thro' shine and shade of dingle and glade,
Fast and far as I hurry on
  My eager seeking you still evade.
But, were you shod with the errant breeze,
  Spirit of shadow and fire and dew,
O'er trackless deserts of lands and seas
  Still would I follow and find out you.

Like a dazzle of sparks from a glowing brand,
  'Mid the tender green of the feathery fern
And nodding sedge, by the light gale fanned,
  The Indian pinks in the sunlight burn;
And the wide, cool cups of the corn flower brim
  With the sapphire's splendor of heaven's own blue,
In sylvan hollows and dingles dim,
  Still sweet with a hint of the morn--and you!

For here is the print of your slender foot,
  And the rose that fell from your braided hair,
In the lush deep moss at the bilberry's root--
  And the scent of lilacs is in the air!
Do lilacs bloom in the wild green wood?
  Do roses drop from the bilberry bough?
Answer me, little Red Riding Hood!
  You are hiding there in the bracken, now!

Come out of your covert, my Bonny Belle--
  I see the glint of your eyes sweet blue--
Your yellow locks--ah, you know full well
  Your scarlet mantle has told on you;
Come out this minute, you laughing minx!
  --By all the dryads of wood and wold!
'Tis only a cluster of Indian pinks
  And corn flowers, under the gorses' gold.

AT MILKING-TIME.

"Coe, Berry-brown! Hie, Thistledown!
  Make haste; the milking-time is come!
The bells are ringing in the town,
  Tho' all the green hillside is dumb,
And Morn's white curtain, half withdrawn,
Just shows a rosy glimpse of dawn."
    Tinkle, tinkle in the pail:
    "Ah! my heart, if Tom should fail!
    See the vapors, white as curd,
    By the waking winds are stirred,
    And the east is brightening slow
    Tom is long a-field, I know!

"Coe, Bell! Come Bright! Miss Lilywhite,
  I see you hiding in the croft!
By yon steep stair of ruddy light
  The sun is climbing fast aloft;
What makes the stealthy, creeping chill
That hangs about the morning still?"
    Tinkle, tinkle in the pail:
    "Some one saunters up the vale,
    Pauses at the brook awhile,
    Dawdles at the meadow stile--
    Well! if loitering be a crime,
    Some one takes his own sweet time!

"So! Berry, so! Now, cherry-blow,
  Keep your pink nose out of the pail!
How dull the morning is--how low
  The churning vapors coil and trail!
How dim the sky, and far away!
What ails the sunshine and the day?"
    Tinkle, tinkle in the pail:
    "But for that preposterous tale
    Nancy Mixer brought from town,
    'Tom is courting Kitty Brown,'
    I'd not walked with Willie Snow,
    Just to tease my Tom, you know!

"So! stand still, my thistledown!
  Tom is coming thro' the gate,
But his forehead wears a frown,
  And he never was so late!
Till that vexing demon, Doubt,
Angered us, and we fell out!"
    Tinkle, tinkle in the pail:
    "Tom roosts on the topmost rail,
    Chewing straws, and looking grim
    When I choose to peep at him;
    Wonder if he's sulking still,
    All about my walk with Will?

"Cherry, Berry, Lilywhite,
  Hasten fieldward, every one;
All the heavens are growing bright,
  And the milking time is done;
I will speak to him, and see
If his lordship answers me:
    'Tom!' He tumbles off the rail,
    Stoops to lift the brimming pail;
    With a mutual pleading glance
    Lip meets lip--mayhap by chance--
    And--but need I whisper why?--
    Tom is happy--and so am I!"

THE SINGER'S SONG

O weary heart of mine,
  Keep still, and make no sign!
The world hath learned a newer joy--
  A sweeter song than thine!
Tho' all the brooks of June
  Should lilt and pipe in tune.
The music by and by would cloy--
  The world forgets so soon!

So thou mayest put away
  Thy little broken lay;
Perhaps some wistful, loving soul
  May take it up some day--
Take up the broken thread,
  Dear heart, when thou art dead,
And weave into diviner song
  The things thou wouldst have said!

Rest thou, and make no sign,
  The world, O, heart of mine,
Is listening for the hand that smites
  A grander chord than thine!
The loftier strains that teach
  Great truths beyond thy reach;
Whose far faint echo they have heard
  In thy poor stammering speech.

Thy little broken bars,
  That wailing discord mars,
To vast triumphal harmonies
  Shall swell beyond the stars.
So rest thee, heart, and cease;
  Awhile, in glad release,
Keep silence here, with God, amid
  The lilies of His peace.

AUNT PATTY'S THANKSGIVING.

    [Transcriber's note: The original text titled this poem here as
    "Aunt Patty's Thanksgiving" and in the table of contents as "Aunt
    Betty's Thanksgiving." This discrepancy is intentionally preserved.]

Now Cleo, fly round! Father's going to town
With a load o' red russets, to meet Captain Brown;
The mortgage is due, and it's got to be paid,
And father is troubled to raise it, I'm 'fraid!
We've had a bad year, with the drouth and the blight
The harvest was short, and the apple crop light;
The early hay cutting scarce balanced the cost,
And the heft o' the after-math's ruined with frost;
A gloomy Thanksgiving to-morrow will be--
But the ways o' the Lord are not our ways, ah me!

But His dear will be done! If we jest do our best,
And trust Him, I guess He'll take care o' the rest;
I'd not mind the worry, nor stop to repine,
Could I take father's share o' the burden with mine!
He is grieving, I know, tho' he says not a word,
But, last night, 'twixt the waking and dreaming, I heard
The long, sobbing sighs of a strong man in pain,
And I knew he was fretting for Robert again!
Our Robert, our first-born: the comfort and stay
Of our age, when we two should grow feeble and gray;
What a baby he was! with his bright locks, and eyes
Just as blue as a bit o' the midsummer skies!
And in youth--why, it made one's heart lightsome and glad
Like a glimpse o' the sun, just to look at the lad!

But the curse came upon him--the spell of unrest--
Like a voice calling out of the infinite West--
And Archibald Grace, he was going--and so
We gave Rob our blessing, and jest let him go!

There, Cleo, your father is out at the gate:
Be spry as a cricket; he don't like to wait!
Here's the firkin o' butter, as yellow as gold--
And the eggs, in this basket--ten dozen all told.
Tell father be sure and remember the tea--
And the spice and the yard o' green gingham for me;
And the sugar for baking:--and ask him to go
To the office--there might be a letter, you know!

May Providence go with your father to town,
And soften the heart o' this rich Captain Brown.
He's the stranger that's buying the Sunnyside place,
We all thought was willed to poor Archibald Grace,
Along with the mortgage that's jest falling due,
And that father allowed Archie Grace would renew;
And, Cleo, I reckon that father will sell
The Croft, and the little real Alderney, Bel.
You raised her, I know; and it's hard she must go;
But father will pay every dollar we owe;
It's his way, to be honest and fair as the day;
And he always was dreadfully set in his way.

I try to find comfort in thinking, my dear,
That things would be different if Robert was here;
I guess he'd a stayed but for Archibald Grace.
And helped with the chores and looked after the place;
But Archie, he heard from that Eben Carew,
And went wild to go off to the gold-diggings, too;
And so they must up and meander out West,
And now they are murdered--or missing, at best--
Surprised by that bloody, marauding "Red Wing,"
'Way out in the Yellowstone country, last spring.

No wonder, Cleora, I'm getting so gray!
I grieve for my lost darling day after day;
And, Cleo, my daughter, don't mind if it's true,
But I reckon I've guessed about Archie and you!
And the Lord knows our burdens are grievous to bear,
But there's still a bright edge to my cloud of despair,
And somehow I hear, like a tune in my head:
"The boys are coming! The boys aren't dead!"

So to-morrow, for dear father's sake, we will try
To make the day seem like Thanksgivings gone by;
And tho' we mayn't see where Thanksgiving comes in,
Things were never so bad yet as things might a-been.
But it's nigh time the kettle was hung on the crane,
And somebody's driving full tilt up the lane--

For the land's sake! Cleora, you're dropping that tray
O' blue willow tea-cups! What startled you? Hey?
You're white as a ghost--Why, here's father from town!
And who are those men, daughter, helping him down?
Run! open the door! There's a whirr in my head,
And the tune's getting louder--"The boys aren't dead!"
Cleora! That voice--it is Robert!--O, Lord!
I have leaned on Thy promise, and trusted Thy word,
And out of the midst of great darkness and night
Thy mercy has led me again to the light!

IN HOC SIGNO VINCES!

(UNDER THIS SIGN THOU SHALT CONQUER.)

Beneath the solemn stars that light
The dread infinitudes of night,
Mid wintry solitudes that lie