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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Near Nature's Heart; A Volume of
-Verse, by Crawford Jackson
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Near Nature's Heart; A Volume of Verse
-
-Author: Crawford Jackson
-
-Release Date: June 8, 2021 [eBook #65571]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading
- Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
- images generously made available by The Internet
- Archive/American Libraries.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEAR NATURE'S HEART; A VOLUME
-OF VERSE ***
-
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes:
-
- Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
- in the original text.
- Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
- Illustrations have been moved so they do not break up paragraphs.
- Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.
- Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN HIS RETREAT.
-
-Note the string connecting with the camera outside, which captures the
-birds and little animals on their well-filled table.
-
-(See pages 22 and 23.)]
-
-
-
-
- NEAR NATURE’S HEART
-
- A VOLUME OF VERSE
-
- BY
- CRAWFORD JACKSON
-
- ATLANTA, GA.
- and
- GUILFORD, N. C.
-
-
- FOOTE & DAVIES COMPANY, PRINTERS, ATLANTA
- GULBENK ENGRAVING COMPANY, ENGRAVERS, ATLANTA
-
- COPYRIGHT 1923
- BY
- CRAWFORD JACKSON
- (ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)
-
- DEDICATED
- TO
- EVERY CHILD
-
- “Philosophy, to an attentive ear,
- Clearly points out, not in one part alone,
- How Imitative Nature takes her course
- From the celestial mind, and from its art;
- And when her laws the Stagirite[1] unfolds,
- Not many leaves scann’d o’er, observing well
- Thou shalt discover, that thy art on her
- Obsequious follows, as the learner treads
- In his instructor’s steps; so that your art
- Deserves the name of second in descent
- From God.”
- DANTE ALIGHIERI.
-
-[1] _Aristotle’s Physics._
-
-
-
-
-FOREWORD
-
-
-The great artist is one whose whole body becomes a living soul;
-whose eye gets glimpses into the heart of Nature, with visions of
-the Supernatural; whose ear hears their inner music, and whose hand
-produces ecstatic expression of their central force in some revelation
-of Beauty. And to make his art more real, more nearly perfect, Beauty
-more beautiful, such artist by contrast often depicts or suggests the
-deadly but doomed discords of life.
-
-Any inspiring touch I have with Nature makes me less than half content
-with the best I can say of her. Beyond my increasing love for the rich,
-old Mother—yet eternally young and myriad formed—I am deeply indebted
-to F. Schuyler Mathews and his charming “Field Book of Wild Birds and
-Their Music,” especially in suggestions and some illustrations for the
-“Birds’ Orchestra.” Other acknowledgements are made elsewhere in this
-little volume of verse, which chances to be my first, and therefore
-subject to the severer criticism.
-
- C. J.
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
- PAGE
- The Birds’ Orchestra 7
- My Prayer To Truth 14
- A Scene in Washington, N. C. 16
- Little Naples by the Sea 17
- The Family of My Friend Jones 17
- The King’s Marriage 19
- The Hermit Thrush 19
- My Retreat 23
- The Mocking-Bird 24
- The Jay and I—A Dialogue 26
- Nature’s Heart 27
- A Nigger and a Mule 28
- Virginia’s Natural Bridge 30
- The Might of Matutinal Music 30
- A Perpetual King 31
- The Cotton Gin 32
- The Cotton Mill 32
- My Own Little Girl 32
- My Butterfly 33
- Was That Somebody I? 34
- My Sabbath Sermon 35
- Pilot Mountain 36
- Her Prison Life 37
- Aurelius Augustinus 38
- O, That Income Tax! 40
- In Florida 41
- Two Little Orphans 42
- Trouble and Play 43
- Some Small Surprises 43
- The Rhythm Universal 44
- The Stone Crosses and the Fairies 45
- The Sun Flower 46
- Colonel Diamond and Grand-daughter 47
- The Wild Wood 48
- The Beginning of Things 49
- The End of Things 49
- When the Junco Comes 50
- James Bradley Jackson 51
- A Story of Colonial Times 53
- “Come on wid yer Money fur Me” 55
- Good Out of Evil 56
- Christmas 57
- Mrs. Josephine F. Hamill 58
- A Chick’s Cry 59
- The Kid and the Cop 59
- The Over Favored and The Chanceless Child 61
- The Slanderer 61
- The World’s Greatest Egotist 62
- Little River Royal 63
- Give Me Both 64
- Manifold Beauty and the Man 64
- Chimney Rock 66
- The Elephant Dance 67
- Least Yet Greatest 67
- Old Ship Church 67
- A Little Toast to the Men of the Press 68
- Mother Indeed 68
- Nathan O’Berry 68
- The Bishop’s Garden 69
- My Triolet 70
- Ye Bonny Boys 71
- A Ballade to the Girls 71
- A Mountain Top View 72
- One Aged John Smith and His Youthful Confessions 73
- Ode on Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations 74
- Another Birthday 77
- Oh, Baby Mine 77
- The Snake That’s King 78
- The Heart of France 79
- The Red Maple 81
- A Sonnet to Mrs. O. C. Bullock 81
- The Strikers 81
- November Gloom 82
- James Mitchell Rogers 83
- Erwin Holt 83
- Just an Introduction 83
- Judge Franklin Chase Hoyt 84
- A Little Index of the Coming Day 85
- Winged Tourists 86
- How My Easter Dawned 86
- Helen Keller 88
- The Dancing Tassel 89
- Walter Malone 91
- The Dutiful Flower 92
- My Holiday 92
- The Aeolian Harp 92
- The God-Man and Myself 93
- Death’s Doom 94
- The Dying Year 96
-
-
-
-
-ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-
- PAGE
- The Author in his Retreat _Frontispiece_
- Bob-White in Colors 6
- Cat Bird 7
- Young Screech Owl 8
- Humming Bird 8
- White Throated Sparrows 9
- Blue-Bird and Family 10
- Young Male Cardinal 11
- Thrasher’s Admiration 12
- Cardinal in Colors 12
- A Scene in Washington, N. C. 16
- Baby Ambitious to Rise 18
- Veery Celebrating the King’s Marriage 19
- Hermit Thrush in Colors 21
- Dove and Bluebirds, Swan, Zebra and Colt, Macaw,
- Chipmunk, Young Pet Thrasher 22
- The Author’s Retreat in the Wild Wood 23
- Young Green Heron 23
- The Mocking-Bird in Colors 25
- The Jay Bird and I 26
- A Nigger and a Mule 29
- Virginia’s Natural Bridge 30
- A Perpetual King, Cotton Gin, A Cotton Mill 31
- My Own Little Girl 33
- My Butterfly 33
- A Babe, Later an Imprisoned Boy 34
- Feeding Young Mocking-Bird 35
- Big Pinnacle on Pilot Mountain 36
- Aurelius Augustinus 38
- Two Little Orphans 42
- Trouble and Play 43
- Nature’s Fairy Crosses 46
- Col. Diamond and Grand-daughter 47
- The Wild Wood 48
- A Pre-Revolutionary Stone Mansion,
- 7 Years Being Built 53
- “Rock Ribbed Pen” in which Miss Martin
- was placed by the Tories 54
- Blind Negro 56
- Mistletoe 57
- The Kid and the Cop 59-60
- New River, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 63
- Water Fall Near Tories’ Den, and Beach Scene 64
- Chimney Rock in North Carolina 66
- The Elephant Dance and Old Ship Church 67
- The Bishop’s Garden 69
- My Triolet 70
- Lookout Mountain 72
- Woodrow Wilson 75
- O Baby Mine 77
- The Snake That’s King 78
- Notre Dame 79
- Miss Cameron and Billy 83
- Judge Franklin Chase Hoyt 84
- Ann Gray and Pet Macaw 85
- The Tots That Turned the Tide 87
- Walter Malone 90
-
-[Illustration: BOB-WHITE.
-
-By F. Schuyler Matthews.]
-
-
-
-
-_The Birds’ Orchestra_
-
-
-THE DAWN
-
- “Start-right, you-hob-bright!” ’Twas fluted so clear,
- It wakened the songsters and startled my ear,
-
- As the King of the morning repelled the dark night,
- And the reveille sounded, “All-right! Bob-Bob-White!”
-
- The Mocking-bird earliest answered the call,
- And gladly his echoes were welcomed by all,
-
- As each took his place in the Nature-trained choir,
- And bird after bird began tuning his lyre.
-
- The songsters had started a sweet roundelay,
- When suddenly up bounced a meddlesome Jay.
-
- He wanted to sing,
- This feathered thing;
- Or brilliant colors to impress,
- With spontaneous wantonness;
- With spirit too to over-rule,
- Like the self-important fashion fool.
-
- In soft monotone crooned the Black-billed Cuckoo,
- “Tho not much at singing, I’ll surely beat you.”
-
-[Illustration: Cat Bird. Photo by the Author.]
-
- And Flicker to Jay proclaimed,
- “_No-cheer_ from me, _no-cheer_!”
- While the Hooded Warbler, “You-have-no-business-here”!
-
- “I’m a blooming Jay,
- I’ll have my way,
- Dj-a-y! dj-a-y! dj-a-y!”
-
- Then spoke that brave bird, the yellow-breast Chat:
- “Cop! Cop! Shut-him-in-prison-and-send-for-the-cat.”
-
- And King bird commanded with spirit irate,
- “Away with you, Blue Jay—or I’ll pounce on your pate.”
-
- And the Jay slipped away,
- With a sure word of peace,
- For such glad release:
- “Ge-rul-lup!
- Jig’s-all-up!”
-
-[Illustration: YOUNG SCREECH OWL. Photo by Rev. Wallace Rogers.]
-
- Then Wisdom’s proud bird, that old mystical fake,
- While breakfasting late on a daring young snake,
-
- Cried “Boo to y-o-u, hoot for y-o-u! Who-whoo—are-y-o-u?”
- Till down in my heart I felt humbled anew.
-
- But hope was revived by an echo of Night—
- For Night has her echoes and pledges of Light—
-
- “You can, if you will, a high mission fulfill.”
- Insistently whistled the lone Whip-poor-will.
-
- Then all grew still
- O’er vale and hill
- And the echo came back:
- “You can, if you will.”
-
- The sun poured forth his flood of pure gold
- On Nature’s great chorister birdlings of old,
-
- When wide circling throngs made the welkin resound
- With the liveliest chatter, “Let joy go round.”
-
- Then flashed through the air a ruby tinged light,
- Like an arrow of glory soon lost to my sight.
-
- When lo! it returned—a bird that ne’er sings,
- Though his music is borne in the hum of his wings:
-
- “I fly, yet rest,
- In swiftest quest,
- Of flowers best,
- With their sweetest, nectared off’rings.”
-
-[Illustration: HUMMING BIRD. By F. Schuyler Matthews.]
-
- And my heart sang out with a jubilant cry,
- “O for poise and feasting in tension so high.”
-
- While the Humming bird sipped his choicest wine,
- The musicians came to a sudden pause;
- Each singer’s eye was a-gaze like mine—
- And the wonder of bird-land received their applause.
-
- The fun-makers followed, the gay Bobolinks,
- With comical solo and musical kinks!
-
- “You’d better think,
- Flippant Chewink,
- ’Tis the finest of sport,”
- Sang Bobolink.
-
- And said Bob, “Be true to me, be true to me;
- Kick your slipper, kick your slipper;[2]
- Be true to me—old Nick’s the whipper!”
-
- And over the pond, on bending cat-tails,
- The red-shouldered Black-birds were piping their gales,
-
- As they swung to and fro with a blithe “Con-quer-ee,”
- And their mates made reply—“O’er-the-lea, come-to-me!”
-
- From the Meadow-lark’s throat came a livelier strain,
- “All hail to the bridegroom and those in his train;
-
- “And greet the fair bride in her gay-feathered veil,
- She’ll build a snug nest for the babies—all hail!”
-
- From Oriole there, like a glad whistling boy,
- Came fragments of melody thrilling with joy:
-
- “I sing as I work—
- This vantage men shirk—
- And music I blend
- With care of the children and house that I tend.”
-
- Then on came the Finches in rollicking glee,
- With Grosbeak and Chippy and plaintive Pewee;
-
- And every one’s note rang as clear as a bell,
- With the swing of love’s passion and deep growing spell.
-
- “Per-chick-o-ree!
- Now, don’t you see
- The song in me
- Is ecstasy?”
-
- Thus jingled the Goldfinch in musical run,
- As he dipped up and down in the waves of the sun;
-
- Like golden-robed, sable winged fairy he flew
- Across his wide world of cerulean blue.
-
-[Illustration: WHITE THROATED SPARROWS. Photo by the Author.]
-
-[2] As heard by John Burroughs.
-
- The White throated Sparrow, a provident bird,
- Revealed deepest wisdom in simplest word;
-
- “Sow wheat and sow plenty—oh yes, sow a plenty,
- Though Peverly’s small he has hunger of twenty.”
-
- “When the granary’s full, and reapers go feastin’,
- I’ll cheer you ag’in, with my fiddle-in’, fiddle-in’,
- The long hours through, a-fiddle-in’, fiddle-in’.”[3]
-
- A versatile singer, an artist o’er shy,
- Now uplifted his voice to his Maker on high.
-
- No pause in the rhythm of the Song Sparrow’s lay;
- And I pondered and wondered as on flew the day:
- “Is this high Art’s way?”
-
- While still rolled his “swee-e-t, swee-e-t, bitter”—[4]
- The philosophy of life, from a plain, little flitter.
-
- Pond’ring I lingered and forgot me to eat,
- A captive held fast in fair Nature’s retreat.
-
-[Illustration: BLUEBIRD AND FAMILY. Photo by the Author.]
-
-[3] This repeated paraphrase is from F. Schuyler Mathews, ornithologist
-and musician.
-
-[4] The words suggested to John Burroughs by the variations of the Song
-Sparrow.
-
- The Oven-bird graceful, misnamed “the preacher,”
- Proudly sang out, “I’m-a-teacher, a TEACHER;”
-
- And Maryland Yellow-throat piped, “What a pity,
- You can’t sing a sweet, old-fashioned ditty!
- What a pity!”
-
- From the wayside just then came a mocking “meow;”
- “If the rest of you follow, I’ll join in the row;
-
- “And why not now?
- A fuss somehow—
- Meow, meow!”
-
- But lo! the voice softened and turned to a tune,
- Repeating the bird’s notes that glad day in June.
-
- With soft-flowing accent the good Chickadee
- Said “dear me,” and added a sweet “amity.”
-
-[Illustration: YOUNG MALE CARDINAL TRYING TO LIGHT ON BOUQUET OF
-FLOWERS. Snapped by the Author.]
-
- And Blue-Bird’s grave “purity,” Robin’s gay “cheer”
- Were songs as delightful as lovers may hear;
-
- While Red-headed Woodpecker, ever after his rum,
- Kept beating and beating his sweet tree drum.
-
- The Cardinal came with his bright crimson crest,
- And sang for his bride as she fashioned her nest;
-
- But Toxaway’s[5] rival gave forth the echo,
- “Kid-dów, Kid-dów, Kid-dów!”
-
- Now list to the out-flow from the topmost tree,
- Coming down from the Thrasher in perfect frenzy;
-
- The birds and I marvelled as he swept on alone,
- Now high, and now low, now a thrilled overtone.
-
-[Illustration: THRASHER’S ADMIRATION. Photo by Author.]
-
- And lo! just then,
- A voice—a Wren,
- From a fern-lit glen,
-
- Burst forth like a rippling fountain of life,
- Rebuking old Mars with his death-dealing strife;
-
- And it seemed that I caught for the sons of men,
- The lost chord of an angel in the song of the Wren.
-
- Discord now from birds as black as night:
- “Caw! Caw! Caw!”
- Screamed a full score,
- Or even more,
-
- Till stones by me hurled put them all to flight.
-
- Again was felt a pause, a silence deep,
- When four of the feathered friends who copy song,
- Were planning fain their secret, potent word,
- Worthy of the wisest of mankind;
- The proud quartette then took the airy stage:
-
-[5] Toxaway, the Indian’s name for the Cardinal.
-
-[Illustration: CARDINAL
-
-By courtesy of G. P. Putnam Sons, Publishers, and P. Schuyler Matthews,
-Author of “Book of Birds For Young People.”]
-
- “They call us imitators evermore,
- And this forever be our life and joy,
- For master angels whispered unto us,
- ‘Follow song and God, and rise to life,
- Aye, ever, ever more.’”
-
-
-HIGH NOON
-
- The sun had climbed high and as birdlings should feast,
- My morsel I finished and fell fast asleep;
- And dreamed a sweet dream, so rich and so deep,
- Till arches of gold reached the rose-portaled east,
- Aye! West wedded East and their glories increased—
-
- A dream so sweet,
- And marvelous meet;
- My soul took wings,
- Though captive my feet,
- And uplifted high midst eternal springs,
- My heart again heard an old, new word:
- “Prophetic and incomplete
- All earthly things.”
-
- In bright, celestial realm they sweeter sang,
- The happy birds that blessed my spell-bound soul,
- Upraised to that high world, without a pang.
- I saw a shining One with mystic scroll,
- The which He, smiling, waved, in full control
- Of birds and beings, translated from the earth,
- From every land to a great, inviting Goal.
- Enthralled by the mighty throng in sacred mirth—
- Ah now, me-thought, has come with joy my highest birth!
-
- Angels were rising, many and swift and sheen;
- While others, likewise moving with rhythmic grace,
- Descending in sweetest song, were heard and seen—
- All clothed in the beauteous light of the Father’s face.
- Those downward-going bore, in charming case,
- The melodies which men and birds might make.
- The rising throng made perfect the chords apace
- Produced below, ecstatic in their wide wake;
- I longed to tarry ever there, without a break.
-
-
-TWILIGHT
-
- But ho! Presto-“Bob-White! Bob, Bob-White!”
- “I announced the morn and now the night.”
-
- Bestirred in the gloaming by Bob-White’s last call,
- I awakened to music the sweetest of all.
-
- The flutelike peals of the Thrush of the wood
- Still bound me to the world of angelhood.
-
- But the depths of my soul had the holiest hush,
- As the organ note rose of the Hermit Thrush.
-
- He climbed to the heights where I too would arise,
- But no one may soar with that pride of the skies.
-
- I then asked my heart, “Pray, what is all this?
- Why experience birds such wonderful bliss?”
-
- My soul was on fire,
- From Nature’s great choir,
- As the glad mounting symphony
- Climbed higher and higher.
-
- “Is it all of this world, or is it of Heaven?
- To birds and to me is this paradise given?”
-
- I longed to understand,
- If ’twas place or state,
- For all so harmonious and elate;
- When responded a three-fold, wondrous band:
-
- The birds replied,
- “Life, Life be our earth-celestial theme;”
- The angels cried,
- “Love and Beauty make any place a-gleam;”
- The great who’d died,
- “In every state, our song and service to redeem.”
-
- Lo, the shining One waved high his mystic scroll,
- And many joined in a sweet but thunderous whole:
- “Music flows from a vaster, purer Stream—
- Know now, O longing soul,
- The vital, eternal scheme
- Of Heaven and earth,
- From their far off birth,
- Is to reach on after the deeper, perfect Goal.”
-
- And, like the voice of ten thousand trumpeters,
- “Alleluia to Him Supreme,
- The all-embracing, all-out giving Soul!”
- To this from creatures numberless rang out a great “Amen”
- And again from every heart that sings
- In creation’s vast domain:
- “On, forever on, in Heaven’s aureole,
- Let praise and power roll—
- Alleluia, Amen!”
-
-
-MY PRAYER TO TRUTH
-
- Take thou my soul, O Truth, and make me whole,
- And gently lead me on eternally.
- My eager fancy flies from pole to pole,
- To singing star and the ever surging sea—
- O stay thou me!
-
- Thru ages past the search has been for thee;
- The sage and prophet, vacillating King
- And statesmen call aloud for liberty
- And light and all beneath thy gracious wing;
- To thee the poets sing.
-
- Yet of inquirers many, whoso finds?
- Where hidest thou? Point me thy high abode.
- Art thou in books? Ah, no! In these there winds
- The dusty road of men. Sing me thy ode,
- Thy perfect code.
-
- Thou art I know; and sweet and pure thy balm,
- Which solaced oft my sorrow-burdened soul;
- But leavest not the biding, crowning palm,
- Nor faultless portion, pointing to thy goal;
- While troubles roll.
-
- Why, when a-thirst and hungry, should I wander,
- Some while in want; anon, a feast most fine?
- Yet never full; some pressing, ravenous pander
- Prepared to steal from me earth’s passing wine;
- Pray give me thine.
-
- Some secrets sweet are mine, but oh how few,
- Compared to richest bounty which must be
- In thy pure heart and home—why not my due?
- Will I some day find hid thy mystic key?
- Lead on thou me.
-
- My youthful joys and heights of yester-year,
- Were bright and buoyant, satisfying then;
- But they have gone for aye. More calls I hear;
- They charm me onward to some larger ken;
- But, O Truth, when?
-
- If all I may not know, then serve will I,
- Submissive to each load and yoke thou givest,
- Like the plaintless, faithful ox, without a sigh;
- But soon I plead: “I poorly live; thou richly livest,
- And oft receivest
-
- “Me for some higher service still—but where?
- For whom? Why serve and not be satisfied?
- Why toil on land and sea, and burdens bear,
- Without thy joy? O be my willing bride!”
- My poor heart cried.
-
- And lo, I saw encaged a joy-filled bird,
- And one a-wing in song, as blithe as free;
- A cooing babe I caught, in love preferred—
- Knowledge, service, song, O Truth, found me;
- And I found Thee.
-
-
-A SCENE IN WASHINGTON, N. C.
-
-[Illustration]
-
- A modern coach and four,
- A kitchen and a store,
- With wieners evermore,
- In Washington.
-
- The billies have no speed,
- But much of grit and greed,
- And goats show grace indeed,
- In Washington.
-
- They pull and butt for Jim,
- And else they do for him,
- From heart to outer rim,
- Of Washington.
-
- The goats have feet and horns,
- And Jim no painful corns;
- ’Tis peace and no forlorns,
- In Washington.
-
- No man can get Jim’s “goat,”
- For bonds he’ll buy and float—
- A scheme not far remote,
- In Washington.
-
-
-LITTLE NAPLES BY THE SEA
-
- In little Naples by the sea
- The birds join in their jubilee,
- Where long-leaved pine and royal palm
- Exhale the breath of their fragrant balm,
- In little Naples by the sea.
-
- The sea responds by day and night,
- With a stately choral of life and might;
- And when his storms arise and rage,
- He spares the hamlet of winsome age,
- The modest Naples by the sea.
-
- And many an eve the sun will make
- His matchless glories till men awake
- To find the sea, the land, the sky
- Reset with gems for the artist’s eye;
- In lovely Naples by the sea.
-
- And so there come to this favored spot
- The young and old to cast their lot,
- Near Nature’s healing heart, and rest,
- Like a child on his loving mother’s breast—
- In quiet Naples by the sea.
-
- Here roamed the happy Seminole,
- And peacefully here possessed his soul,
- Till thrust away by men of skill,
- The conquering whites, with greedy will—
- In unborn Naples by the sea.
-
- E’er Indian came, the troglodyte
- Reigned in his cave by a primal right;
- And ages and ages remoter still,
- Flew monsters of hideous claw and bill
- O’er charming Naples yet to be.
-
- A long ascent from warring snakes,
- From reptilian waters and slimy lakes,
- To singing birds and mirthful men,
- To smiling mothers and sportive children,
- In balmy Naples by the sea.
-
- But higher still to the coming man,
- To great sons of Art in her perfect plan;
- To the glorious day when hulking clods,
- Transmuted to men, are ranked with gods,
- In little Naples by the sea!
-
-
-THE FAMILY OF MY FRIEND JONES
-
- The seven[6] children of my friend Jones,
- Have each of them a lot of bones,
- To grow and strengthen, or else to break
- Beneath life’s burdens or sudden quake,
- Mid the wide and varied warring zones,
- Of the seven children of my friend Jones.
-
- But seven, you know, is the perfect plan;
- It stands for all that’s the best in man—
- In his youthful days and ripest years,
- In his joys and sorrows, high hopes and fears;
- ’Tis God’s own number—away with groans!
- For seven times blessed is my friend Jones.
-
- In logical order the eighth arrived,
- And, take it from me, they all revived;
- With one accord and high hearted aim,
- They gave to the eighth the greatest name;
- They all prepared with love’s sweet loans,
- To make him the most famous of my friend Jones.
-
- But youth is still his, and his good wife’s too,
- His only sweetheart forever true;
- And the Father’ll be pleased their quiver to fill,
- For a heritage large is his manifest will,
- If here and hereafter no dullards and drones,
- But all active and cheerful like my friend Jones.
-
-[Illustration: ONE OF THE NINE AMBITIONS TO RISE.]
-
- On the fifteenth month, and one August morn
- The ninth leaps to life, another boy is born.
- What the Lord commanded, my friend hath willed,
- “Increase” is the law, and the law’s fulfilled;
- Yet not ceaseless order, with nine vying tones
- In the growing family of my friend Jones.
-
- Such a happy man, for to all a friend;
- Not a Hottentot would Jones offend;
- And chiming in church or turning the sod,
- My friend is ever the friend of God.
- May the buoyant family all mount thrones—
- Then eternally blessed, my friend Jones.
-
- My mind sweeps on to a Kingdom vast,
- To numberless children who’ll come at last,
- As sons of the Highest on a shining shore,
- There to play and sing forever more—
- In the temple of God great living stones,
- And some from the family of my friend Jones.
-
-[6] There were only seven children in this family when the first two
-stanzas were written three years ago.—C. J.
-
-[Illustration: Veery celebrating the King’s Marriage.
-
-The original, with male and female Veery, furnished by courtesy
-National Association Audubon Societies, with changes by the Author’s
-Artist.]
-
-
-THE KING’S MARRIAGE
-
- Look, look, look!
- My soul,
- At that high favored Sun;
- With smiling face,
- And matchless grace,
- The King hath Beauty won.
-
- Look, look, look!
- My longing soul,
- My hungry, ravished heart—
- Most gorgeous role
- In Nature’s whole,
- Surpassing man’s high art!
-
- Look, look, look!
- Every open eye and mind,
- Every yearning soul of mortal—
- The Master’s acme for mankind;
- Ye stars, look down and glory find.
- Look!
- Beauty glides toward the portal.
-
- With parting day,
- I watch the twain as they go;
- I watched and sighed,
- As heaven and sorrowing earth below,
- And hosts of both were heard to say,
- “O why may Beauty not abide?
- The King and Queen made one at eventide,
- And then in secret chambers hide!”
-
- “Stay, stay, stay!”
- My soul out-cries,
- “For Beauty fleeth fast,
- Nor nuptials last,
- And darkening skies”—
- And lo, the royal pair had passed;
- But left their image in my eyes,
- And in my living soul.
-
-
-THE HERMIT THRUSH[7]
-
-(Published in the Methodist Review, July, 1919).
-
- O little artist, of rarest modesty,
- Why hide thyself and sing?
- Thy music fills my soul with ecstasy,
- And makes the woodland ring.
-
- Draw near, draw near, thou shy, yet happy one;
- I plead with thee—draw near;
- I’d share thy rapture; ’twould be heaven begun;
- O Hermit sweet, appear.
-
- Still thou wilt not, and while I long and dream
- Of all that’s best for us—
- The King, His primal ministers—what gleam
- Of highest genius?
-
- Sing on, elusive bird, in thy retreat,
- Songs to my waiting soul;
- Some day inviting rounds will be complete,
- Some day, the promised goal.
-
- And then some disappearing portion high,
- Some joy just out of reach;
- The more immortals yield to devotion’s tie,
- The more must they beseech.
-
- Sing on, blest bird, beyond my poor purview,
- But near my home and heart:
- “I love, I _love_, I LOVE; yes I love YOU!”[8]
- This, thy crescendo art.
-
- I find myself quite charmed, yet almost lost,
- At the modern opera grand;
- What stirs my soul so deep, what I love most,
- Thy song—and I understand.
-
- But O that I could see thy beaming eye—
- Mine eye on thee, all song!
- Why so secretive, yet seductive—why?
- My suit, renewed, so strong.
-
- That tree, those leaves around thee—if they knew
- Their day and honored hour,
- Each leaf and branch would homage pay, thy due,
- Aflame with joy that bower.
-
- Such rich and rounded notes proceed from thee,
- Enchanting naiveté:
- From sleep thou wakest me with highborn glee,
- When comes the King of day.
-
- At eventide thou callest me to prayer,
- More clear than churchly chime,
- In wood and sky, in pure, perfumed air—
- His temple, thine and mine.
-
- No passing wonder, sing Nightingales
- In Russ or Tuscan clime;
- No hope have they in these Columbic vales
- To match thy tones and time.
-
-[7] If anyone thinks the author has overdrawn the artistic merits of
-the bird, he is referred to the expert opinion of F. Schuyler Mathews
-in his “Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music,” pages 234-246,
-wherein this musician and lover of birds convincingly compares and
-contrasts, by musical scales and other data, the powers of the Hermit
-and Nightingale in favor of the former.—C. J.
-
-[8] With slight change the interpretation by Mathews of the song of the
-Olive Back Thrush.
-
-[Illustration: THE HERMIT THRUSH.]
-
- Like cooling streams in a parched, desert land,
- To thirsting souls and worn;
- Like evening’s changing charms, no artist’s hand
- Can set in painted bourn;
-
- Like sweetest dreams to troubled hearts in slumbers,
- Uplift to heaven’s heights—
- Just so thy symphonies, heard in rolling numbers,
- Thy high and holy flights.
-
- O anchoret, near Nature’s heart, again
- I pray, come forth and sing.
- Ah, there—O joy! I glimpsed thee, Hermit fain—
- Now gone on gentle wing.
-
- My eye too piercing, and my quest too keen,
- Unfathomable bird.
- Once more contented I—remain unseen,
- And yet thy harmony heard.
-
- This I have found, as fast thou holdeth me:
- Thou startest full, and risest;
- And all doth thrill—sweet, moving melody,
- Climbing to the highest.
-
- No pipe, no flute, organ or organist,
- Can reach thine allegro,
- And thy cadenza, thou transcendentalist—
- ’Tis music with naught of woe.
-
- Whence come from singers proud their hard-won notes?
- In truth from the music master,
- By repetition oft and untrained throats—
- To hearers, near disaster.
-
- The master’s whence, the singing pioneer,
- Great Haydn or Beethoven?
- Sing on, my thrilling thrush, but wilt thou hear?
- From thee, and thou from Heaven!
-
- Long hours I’ve listened lone, in deep delight,
- To thy glad musicals;
- And when I breathe my last, O anchorite,
- Sing soft angelicals.
-
-[Illustration: Turtle Dove and Bluebirds.]
-
-[Illustration: Chipmunk—Note his pockets well-filled with grain to be
-carried to his granary.]
-
-[Illustration: “Brownie,” a young pet Thrasher, raised by Artena.]
-
-[Illustration: At Lunch—Snapped at the Memphis Zoo.]
-
-[Illustration: Pet Macaw. See p. 84.]
-
-[Illustration: His Majesty, The Swan.]
-
-Photos by the Author.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-MY RETREAT
-
-[Illustration: Young Green Heron.
-
-Photos by the author.]
-
- To my retreat now come with me,
- And love the place that’s wild and free,
- Where Chipmunks play and Wood Thrush sings;
- Where a lucid lake invites and brings
- The proud offspring of Liberty.
-
- The Wren is there, the Chickadee,
- And many more that come in glee,
- On nimble feet or shining wings,
- To my retreat—
-
- The birds of sky and fish of the sea,
- The cunning things that charming be;
- And there the Cardinal often rings
- His notes of joy to songster-lings—
- All these and I have bidden thee
- To my retreat.
-
-
-THE MOCKING-BIRD
-
- Hilarious bird, hast thou a soul,
- Now here, now there
- In tree and air,
- So free and fair?
- Thy tones rush forth a rounded whole,
- Inviting the heart to some sweet goal,
- Like poet rare,
- Beyond compare.
-
- Hast thou a mind, a musical mind?
- Who answers “nay”?
- Or night or day,
- Thy tuneful lay
- Brings joy and grief; myself I find
- In my inmost soul left far behind;
- Yet I essay
- The wondrous way.
-
- “Borrowed notes” they dub thy variation;
- Nor is that all
- In thy charmed call;
- I rise, though small,
- To laud thy rhythmic re-creation,
- Thy prompt and hearty liberation
- Of life notes new which me enthrall,
- Without man’s pride, and fall.
-
- I hear thee sing as Lark and Nightingale,[9]
- Thy kindred sweet;
- Palm Warbler meet
- Thou dost repeat,
- And modest, tawny Veery of the vale;
- Thy music upward leads, and I inhale
- Incense replete,
- In thy retreat.
-
- As in a dream I hear all tones combine
- In Love’s embrace;
- And there I see thy topmost place,
- O Psyche of thy race!
-
-[9] After the author had written this line he was glad to learn that
-the late John Burroughs in his “Birds and Poets,” page 17, spoke of the
-Mocking-bird as “both Lark and Nightingale in one.”
-
-[Illustration: MOCKING-BIRD
-
-By courtesy of G. P. Putnam Sons, Publishers, and F. Schuyler Matthews,
-Author of “Book of Birds For Young People.” Sketched originally for
-this volume.]
-
- Ah, let me turn to life all notes so fine;
- For this my soul must alway pine,
- With upturned face,
- For lyric grace.
-
- Quintessence of event is thine and life;
- What soul hath more
- On sea or shore,
- Now or afore?
- Thy keen eye beams; thy self art rife
- With music, as no magic flute or fife—
- Tis varied lore,
- Forever more.
-
- Thou toilest not to sing like plodding man,
- Brave bird and bright;
- Harmonic flight
- Is thy delight.
- Whenever was it thou did’st plan
- Sonatas sweet? Who may so sing or can?
- Without foresight
- Thy runic rite.
-
- Could I exchange with thee one blissful hour,
- Produce thy chart,
- Feel thrills of heart
- Of thine, nor part
- With ecstasy, a-wing from tree to bower,
- Returning quick, possessing all thy power,
- With no life mart
- But music art;
-
- Ah then, would I thy lithesome measures ken,
- And glad bestow
- Rich magic flow
- On all below.
- Vain wish! What hope for a poor earth denizen?
- But daring flight, until the poet pen
- With thee shall glow
- Like a sun-lit bow.
-
- More sweetly still: thy soul, all song divine,
- As thou dost give,
- As I love and live,
- Is mine; thy nature is forever thine,
- But by mutation mystic, yet benign,
- As I with joy receive
- Thy varied amative,
- Is also mine,
- In God’s own shrine.
-
-
-THE JAY AND I—A DIALOGUE
-
- “What’s that you say, you funny Jay?
- I like your beauty, but not your way,
- Though fond of all the winged tribe.
- Is it hoo-ray,
- Or some hey-day?”
- Then Jay began his varied gibe:
-
- “I’m a Blue Jay;
- That’s what I say;
- Dja-ay! dja-ay! dja-ay!”
- (How will he myself describe,
- With naught from me that he’ll imbibe?)
-
- “I’ve more display,
- More in my yea,
- More in my nay,
- Than you convey;
- Dja-ay! dja-ay!”
- “’Tis true, Blue Jay, but too much pride;
- You shout and rouse the country side;
-
- Nor can I see
- The fun or glee,
- For birds or me
- In your vanity.
- Whoever is it such can bide?
- You dashing Jay, you want my hide?”
-
- “Never a day;
- I’m a Blue-ming Jay
- With top-knot gay,
- And mine to stay—
- Dja-ay! dja-ay!”
-
-[Illustration]
-
- “More pomp you have than all your fellows;
- All who see you,
- All who hear you—
- ‘I’m _the_ Jay Blue
- With a top-knot too—’
- All wonder why you strain your bellows.”
-
- “Hoo-ray! hoo-ray!—back to the wall!
- When I’m stirred up, I always squall,
- Retreat, I say,
- You bunch of clay,
- Away; away!
- I’m King Blue Jay,
- A monarch here and lord of all;
- Dja-ay! dja-ay! dja-ay!”
-
- “But listen, Jay, just stop a spell—
- On Friday, luckless day, they tell,
- That you will dare to visit hell;
- ’Tis only Friday,
- But always Friday—
- If there you stray.
- Then why I pray?”
-
- “It’s not your business, know you well,
- Why I on Friday go to hell.[10]
- Dja-ay! dja-ay!”
-
- “My final word you may forestall;
- But I tell you plainly pride must fall;
- Old Pride is evil, born of the devil.”
-
- While flouncing so free
- In a white oak tree,
- Quite noisily,
- He answered me,
- With piercing eye, and look of evil:
-
- “Hoo-ray! hoo-ray!
- I’m a blooming Jay—
- The devil, you say?
- It’s all my way—
- Dja-ay! dja-ay! dja-ay!”
-
-[10] A tradition with some says that the Jay goes to the lower regions
-every Friday, and carries a grain of sand.
-
-
-NATURE’S HEART
-
- I search for Nature’s heart beneath her dome,
- All free from jarring sounds;
- Out there my hungry spirit seeks a home,
- Out there, my feasting grounds.
-
- I love the giant oak, the poplar and the pine,
- Aye, balmful to my soul;
- I greet my feathered friends, and they combine
- To make me captive whole.
-
- I find no ghoul-like demon of the wood,
- Nor siren from the sea;
- A spirit high begets my ardent mood,
- But yields not me the key.
-
- And dreaming in the vale, or on a mountain height,
- Awed by the great abyss,
- My soul doth plead an everlasting right,
- “_The secret of all this?_”
-
- Both wild and winning are Mother Nature’s ways,
- Many, varied, one;
- In all she sings my soul her mystic lays,
- From flower to rolling sun.
-
- But oh to understand the purpose of her heart,
- Her princely, hidden life;
- Just what or who unfolds the vital part,
- Despite dark death and strife.
-
- O Faunus tell—return to earth and speak
- The word that satisfies;
- Or haughty mountain give, or valley meek,
- The answer to my cries.
-
- The gods are silent all! But drink may I
- Of Nature’s founts o’er flowing;
- I feel her throbs of heart in earth and sky,
- And loving leads to knowing.
-
- Henceforth, of all the wines of gods and men,
- To me give Nature’s nectar;
- Of all the feeble songs of tongue and pen
- From every dull director—
-
- Oh give me Nature’s rich and ripest lore,
- Her palaces and poses;
- Her peaceful ways and rest, her fullest store
- Of pure Pierian roses.
-
- Ah, this I know—’tis all I need to know—
- The great Mother has her plan;
- With God she labors long, at last to show
- Her perfect child and man.
-
-
-A NIGGER AND A MULE
-
- I’ve lived in the city, I’ve sailed the wide sea;
- I’ve studied in many and many a school;
- I’ve sat at the feet of the bond and free,
- And a lot has come to a fellow like me,
- Since a new ground I plowed with a balky mule,
- But I’ve lived to see balky and a nigger fool.
-
- No deep-seated scorn of the African fool—
- There’s plenty like him from the hills to the sea;
- ’Tis the union of nigger and a stubborn mule,
- That surpasses the sport of an all-round school,
- If not for professor for fun-loving me,
- And as long as I’m playful, my play shall be free.
-
- Aye friend, ’tis a wonderful thing to be free,
- Though many a free man I’d call a fool,
- And no doubt some of them would thus entitle me,
- Though tutored in the city, the college and the sea
- Yet the nigger and hybrid, I’d take for a school;
- For ’tis hard to beat a pure nigger and a mule.
-
- But a “coon” in new ground, with a kicking mule!
- Just so I am far from his heels and am free
- To look, and to listen like a pupil in school;
- Though frankly I admit, I at times played the fool,
- Till the lessons of life had widened my sea,
- And harder experience had deepened me.
-
- Ye fates, do not bring the worst unto me,
- That of trying to handle a nondescript mule,
- In a rooty new ground—O the depths of the sea
- I’d choose, in the hope with the fish to be free;
- However, such choosing would prove me a fool—
- No applicant I for a sea-bottom school.
-
- Since I’ve come to think, ’twas a German-tried school;
- And a submarine ship was never for me;
- And the proudest old Hun thus out-reached the fool.
- But behold, you elect, a nigger and a mule,
- In new ground in August—thank God I am free!
- I’m only a witness on a smoother sea.
-
- God bless his wide sea, and the nigger in school;
- And all men make free—’twould be heaven for me—
- And God bless the poor mule, and the mule-headed fool.
-
-[Illustration: By L. Gregg]
-
-
-VIRGINIA’S NATURAL BRIDGE
-
-[Illustration: Photo by The Author.]
-
- How pleasing the wonders of Nature—how varied and how vast,
- And the mystery of all the unknown doth hold me firm and fast;
- For so the Creator ordained that men should seek and know;
- That the heart of man may ever rise and forever flow,
- From pebble small in singing brook to yonder neighboring star;
- From star to a wider system and on to worlds afar.
-
- ’Tis only infinite mind can bridge the space between,
- Our planet and greater sun and constellations seen,
- Beyond which are stars yet farther, the living and the dead,
- And they tell us there are millions larger in the boundless spread.
- Imagination wearies of so vast an evolution,
- But glories in the love of Him who planned such contribution.
-
- The spider doth weave and swing his tiny, fragile bridge,
- And man in his nobler work doth span from ridge to ridge;
- But when men become as gods, and angels as such men,
- With dominion of Jehovah and his transcendent ken,
- Ah many a mansion shall we visit in our Father’s home,
- As we fly beneath his banner, with ages and ages to roam.
-
- ’Tis a fathomless universe, but the plan eternal is one,
- On which good men and angels may forever run,
- O’er many a threatening torrent here, chasm, wide and great;
- And ever man and gods shall their new links create—
- Some for service and for song, and some for wonder and delight;
- And some time, somewhere the Bridge—to everlasting light.
-
-
-THE MIGHT OF MATUTINAL MUSIC
-
- When awaking from dreams completely refresht,
- My body reclining still;
- With a soul alive and a heart at rest,
- And master too of my will—
-
- When the sun doth cast ambitious rays,
- Foretelling afar his race;
- And my heart is clothed with the garment of praise
- By an all pervading grace—
-
- When I hear the psalm of the gifted Thrush,
- With a song of a mountain stream,
- And a child’s sweet laugh, while the morn’s a-flush,
- When Nature is all a-gleam—
-
- Ah, then my soul is thrilled with delight
- And my mind sweeps every sea,
- ’Tis then I possess my musical might,
- And the angels visit me.
-
-[Illustration: Photos by the Author.]
-
-
-A PERPETUAL KING
-
- In a King on a throne and a King there to stay,
- You’ve a friendly old monarch who’s ever upright.
- There are blessings for you and the men far away,
- In a King on a throne and a King there to stay.
- His robe is pure white, but the proud make it gay;
- Ah, what mercy, what power and amazing foresight
- In a King on a throne and a King there to stay—
- You’ve a friendly old monarch who’s ever upright!
-
-
-THE COTTON GIN
-
- At a cotton gin the King’s made thin,
- Yet never shows the least chagrin,
- In his sunny home in Dixie’s land,
- That rich and poor may live and win.
-
- He’s trifled with, but will not sin
- Amongst his subjects, nor his kin,
- Although he feels the iron band
- At a cotton gin.
-
- More just the King than a mandarin,
- And I often think the cherubin
- Would like themselves to understand
- His long, rich round, and then command
- At a cotton gin.
-
-
-THE COTTON MILL
-
- In Southern climes and the monarch’s mill
- Weave many a spindle and loom;
- And lake and lawn, with art’s own skill,
- In Southern climes and the monarch’s mill;
- Yes, church and school and much to fill
- The mind with hope and buoyant bloom—
- In Southern climes and the monarch’s mill,
- Weave many a spindle and loom.
-
-
-MY OWN LITTLE GIRL
-
- I’ve covered many and many a mile;
- I’ve seen the setting of many a sun;
- I have oft been charmed by the infant’s smile,
- Pondering gladly life’s journey begun.
-
- I’ve met with the great and small not a few;
- I’ve sat at the feet of the learned knight,
- I’ve stood on the stage with Gentile and Jew,
- Addressing the throng by day and by night.
-
- I’ve witnessed the way of the meek and wise,
- Ah, the vanishing joy of the greedy;
- And more has come under my eager eyes,
- Seeing the re-filled cup of the needy.
-
- But never a joy I’ve felt was my own—
- Which bachelor old and maiden know not—
- Is equal to that when I return home,
- My humble home, yet delectable spot,
-
- And take to my heart my own little girl,
- All laughter and love—the joy of my life.
- Right here let me rest, far away the mad whirl,
- And feast on pure love, free from all strife.
-
-[Illustration]
-
- My own little girl,
- My priceless pearl,
- With dance of delight,
- A musical sprite—
- My Artena.
-
- With hair of pure gold,
- With heart never cold,
- Who learns with a zest,
- And strives for the best—
- My Artena.
-
- Ten years old today—
- And never to decay—
- May she aye be sweet,
- And at length complete,
- My Artena.
-
-
-MY BUTTERFLY[11]
-
-[Illustration]
-
- My Butterfly, my wondrous Butterfly,
- Forsaking temple great, thou choosest me,
- When form and burnished wings arrive—I see
- With joy, as ne’er before, thy glory nigh.
- We journey through the city, thou and I,
- In store and street with joined hearts and free,
- While men admire thy trust and amity,
- But wonder not in thee, nor question why.
-
- At length thy wings bedecked with Heaven’s art,
- Begin to wave, as Nature planned, and east
- Thou farest forth with grace, but to my heart
- Thou ever clingest still. Fly on and feast
- On nectar such as men have never wrought;
- In thee is trust and love and, why not, thought?
-
-[11] This particular butterfly was first seen clinging, about three
-feet above the pavement, to the large masonic temple in Charlotte, N.
-C., and was gently enticed by the author into his hand, later crawling
-up his arm and remaining with his new companion for over an hour.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-Was That Somebody I?
-
- O child of hope, why left to go astray,
- And rend this heart of mine?
- Some one knew not, nor cared what ruthless way
- You wend—once babe benign—
- Was that somebody I?
-
- If God, with perfect heart, loved you, my child,
- And to Jesus likened thee—
- Why so favored first, now sad and wild?
- Who failed to love? Ah me!
- Was that somebody I?
-
- One said he loved the Christ and all of his;
- He read the Word and prayed;
- Believed that one the cruel creed, “What is,
- Is best?” And so you strayed—
- Was that somebody I?
-
- At home neglected, nowhere a faithful friend,
- You listless wandered on;
- Till fool or knave declared: “You’re bad, your end
- Looms dark—a criminal born!”
- Was that somebody I?
-
- Despised yet more—the Christ and thee—then crime!
- You bore with shame the chains!
- Your training and your arts, in Hell’s own clime,
- Went on with damning drains—
- Great Heaven! was it I?
-
- Did I neglect you, child, my Father’s child,
- I judge, and send you down?
- Myself at ease, while you were curst, reviled—
- No aid gave I, no crown?
- Then Christ must pass me by!
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-MY SABBATH SERMON
-
- A growing mocker in a maple tree,
- Poured forth first notes with youthful glee;
- Like an untried poet born to sing,
- He’s proving gifts which fame will bring.
-
- And musing on that Sabbath morn,
- With body weary, heart forlorn,
- The music of the blithesome bird
- Inspired my mind itself to gird
-
-[Illustration]
-
- With faith and courage, hope and love,
- Beguiling my heart to leap above.
- ’Tis ever thus, some primal song
- Doth make us gentle, brave and strong;
-
- And trustful too, till we can see
- With eyes of Him of Galilee—
- Sweet Sabbath notes from the amateur,
- Which filled my soul with a speedy cure.
-
- The bird will better sing, and I
- Shall carol sweetly by and by;
- After earth’s songs on vernal sod,
- Then high above in the choir of God.
-
- What wondrous choir—how vast, how bright,
- With suns and stars, and yet greater Light.
- They also sing, as ever they shine,
- With a strength of love that is divine.
-
- Yon rolling plain and mountain peak,
- Or surging sea and bounding creek;
- Or budding rose and lustrous star—
- All bid us rise to an avatar,
-
- Above rich valley, and hill’s proud crest,
- Above things seen to heaven’s best—
- To perfect ones, with the angel throng,
- O’er topless hills in endless song!
-
-
-PILOT MOUNTAIN
-
- O Jomeokee, thou everlasting guide,
- Lifting high thyself, a tower strong
- For passing men, and deathless hills around;
- For Yadkin and on-flowing Ararat,
- Bathing thy feet in humblest gratitude;
- Thy lofty head, embraced by cooling clouds,
- Gives something forth that’s rich, and unto all—
- O Pilot old, thy secret bare to me.
-
- Tell me when thy origin and where;
- What hidden womb ambitious gave thee birth;
- Bear witness thou to all both seen and heard
- By thee from first to last; from primal man,
- To Renfro Indian tribe, who spake thy praise
- In by-gone years, and poet last who sang
- Thy glory—O eternal Pilot speak!
-
- As mute thou art as mighty and sublime,
- Like unto all that’s great and strong and good—
- Forever still midst Surrey’s joyful hills;
- Yet to men thou bringest a message deep;
- To Indian, symbol of the Spirit Great;
- To me, the varied, potent word of God.
-
-[Illustration: A View of “Big Pinnacle” on Pilot Mountain, in Surrey
-County, N. C. Picture by the Author.]
-
- Majestic lord of all, to thee on high,
- The struggling towns appear as vying dwarfs;
- The rivers like to circling, creeping snakes;
- Valleys, rich and broad, thy gardens are
- Imperial—and all thine honors sing.
-
- Sons of chiefs long vanquished played and danced
- Before thy face; again the fathers prayed,
- Their plea ascending, swift as thought, to Him
- Who guided Abram ’mongst Judean hills.
-
- What heart-breaks knowest thou of sire and son?
- Of lover and beloved, of hate and hope?
- Deepest depths and uplift to the heights?
- I hear the music of thy hidden heart,
- Sorrow’s song, in-wrought with joy that’s pure,
- The process endless of the urging Cross—
- A lofty peak of virtue and of peace
- Art thou, O Jomeokee!
-
-
-HER PRISON LIFE[12]
-
- Her prison life was long and lone
- Her kindred buried or unknown;
- Of naught had she kept any score,
- In truth her mind deprived of lore,
- But knew her grief to be her own.
-
- Another heart had better grown,
- Confessing murder had he sown;
- “I did the deed, and I deplore
- Her prison life.”
-
- But hope and heart and health had flown;
- Why cares she now what winds are blown?
- “I guess I’ll stay here as before,
- My all is gone and evermore”—
- Her living death, one long-drawn moan,
- Her prison life.
-
-[12] Based on a newspaper story of “Aunt” Sarah Wycoff in the North
-Carolina Penitentiary.
-
-[Illustration: Photograph of a rare old painting by the Spanish artist,
-Herrera, and owned by Dr. Andrew Anderson of St. Augustine, Fla.]
-
-
-AURELIUS AUGUSTINUS
-
- O thou, immortal father,
- Permit my spirit poor to rise with thine.
- Thou didst ascend, high Heaven’s hero,
- From thy soft bed of prayer at Hippo,
- Centuries agone,
- Very Vandals storming thy gates the while.
-
- Victor art thou still, and higher,
- More mighty, honored more.
- Amongst men thou didst eat
- Of the tree of knowledge, good and evil—
- How human as boy and man!
- Yet thou didst name thy first born,
- In youth begotten of thine unlawful union,
- Adeodatus, “a gift from God.”
- Again and again thou didst strike
- For freedom from thy fetters and thy foes,
- Till thou hadst conquered,
- Later painting thy life of lust
- In color like unto darkest night.
-
- With hungry heart and spirit high,
- Thou oft didst delve into Cicero’s Hortentius,
- And give thy faith to Manichaeus,
- Seeking to know evil and its source—
- The ever pressing problem, eternally inscrutable.
-
- After God all things good had made,
- Yea very good,
- A fearless fool hath said,
- “He turned Himself into the tempting serpent—”
- Shocking diabolism!
-
- Creators two?
- Incredible, impossible.
- Then it follows,
- One evil became.
- But when and where; by whom and why?
- With all this thou didst wrestle,
- And more bitterly with thyself.
-
- Yet thou didst give to God
- And all the ages
- Thy “Confession,” thine and mine;
- Thy “De Natura et Gratia”—
- The everlasting conflict;
- Books fifteen on a single theme,
- At once the highest and holiest,
- The redeeming Trinity.
- Many a tractate and treatise
- Thou didst leave to men.
- We bless thee for all this,
- Thy holy heritage, O Augustine,
- More brilliant than Ambrose,
- Of truth more jealous than Jerome,
- More profound than Gregory the Great;
- The super-man of thy day and many,
- Thou enthroned son of the Highest.
-
- Beholding now thy form and face—
- Master work of Herera’s hands,
- Done a millennium after thy ascent,
- A worshipful face toward the Holy Father’s,
- With quill in thy skillful hand,
- “The City of God”[13] before thee,
- My soul astir doth soar
- Toward thine and His.
- Oft have I gazed and gloried,
- Imaging thy topless, hallowed heights,
- From deepest, darkest depths—
- I too may rise; I will, O God, I will!
-
-[13] The title of one of his works.
-
-
-O THAT INCOME TAX!
-
- I struggled with mine till the midnight hour;
- My head was that of a fool;
- My losses and gains, they’re beyond my power,
- And never the like was, in school.
-
- That minus sign was ever my foe
- From earliest years until now;
- My modest income, and varied out-go—
- O they must be figured somehow!
-
- I’ll tell you the truth, in the fear of the Lord,
- I worried and went “sick abed;”
- Six pages of puzzles and all a sworn word—
- “O where,” I sighed, “is my head?”
-
- “If married,” or “single”—I failed to know:
- Nor dependent children could tell;
- For never my mind received such a blow,
- From such unexpected hell.
-
- I always have cherished my Uncle Sam,
- And thought he was oftenest right;
- But flooded I was, nor a single dam
- To check my downward flight.
-
- Exhausted I slept, nor just or unjust,
- Resolving the next day to seek aid;
- For when I awoke ’twas still, “you must
- Or penalty dire be paid.”
-
- To the revenue clerk I took me straight,
- And behold, as I looked, I heard
- A lot of fond fools at Uncle Sam’s gate,
- Despairing like a caged bird.
-
- The officer smiled, and I smiled out loud,
- For misery loves company;
- And the smiles were like beams that broke the cloud
- Of impending, rank perjury.
-
- The blanks I filled in from A to O,
- But omitted the “profits from sale”—
- I once grew rich with a plow and hoe,
- When a whistling boy and hale.
-
- In those olden days no kind of a tax
- For City or State revenue
- Was imposed on boys except a few whacks,
- But now they forever are due.
-
- I swore and I signed and in full I paid
- That puzzling tax return;
- Once more I laughed, and again I said,
- “’Tis always do, and you learn.”
-
- And now it is done, and thoroughly done,
- Halleluia, I’ll get there yet;
- But by all that’s good and true ’neath the sun,
- I swear that folly to forget.
-
-
-IN FLORIDA
-
- They come from everywhere,
- By land, by sea and air,
- The old, the young and fair—
- And all without a care,
- In Florida.
-
- Just pause, my friend, and see
- The multitudes that be
- O’er lovely shore and lea;
- They reach from sea to sea,
- In Florida.
-
- Look at the aged one,
- Who shines like a little sun,
- And feels himself undone,
- If he played not golf and won,
- In Florida.
-
- His gouty feet must dance,
- His eye will look askance,
- And his mind make glad advance,
- To reach five score, perchance,
- In Florida.
-
- Yes, let him have his wish
- To feel the line’s quick swish,
- And catch his finest fish
- For his epicurean dish,
- In Florida.
-
- ’Tis here he makes the stride;
- There’s nothing he can’t ride,
- With a maiden by his side—
- Yet a few things must he hide,
- In Florida.
-
- The birds and trees here sing;
- The prigs and plants upspring,
- And each gets in the swing,
- With Nature all a-wing,
- In Florida.
-
- Behold, my friend, the youth,
- The forward, the uncouth;
- The gentle and their ruth,
- The beauty and the truth,
- In Florida.
-
- It’s like a moving stage,
- The folk of every age;
- No place nor cause for rage—
- Even workless have their wage—
- In Florida.
-
- Then see the females all;
- Alack! you rise or fall,
- Or else your heart forestall,
- In this moving, magic ball,
- In Florida.
-
- One great kaleidoscope,
- From silk to dirt and dope,
- From puppet to a pope,
- This passing throng of hope,
- In Florida.
-
-
-TWO LITTLE ORPHANS
-
- Two orphans in the world are left,
- A brother and sister sighing;
- Two Vireos aggrieved, bereft,
- Two little orphans crying.
-
-[Illustration: By the Author.]
-
- Close clinging to their cheerless nest,
- Two little birds are trying
- To call back joys of mother’s breast,
- A mother, lifeless lying.
-
- God’s two-fold plan for making song—
- Some fiend the while defying—
- And man’s two friends their whole life long;
- Two little orphans crying.
-
- No answer comes, save from the King,
- A King who’s aye supplying
- The needs of the great and smallest thing—
- His little orphans crying.
-
-[Illustration: By Courtesy of Briscoe and Arnold.]
-
-
-TROUBLE AND PLAY
-
- It’s trouble and gladness from first to the last,
- Ere joy is quite vanquished some sorrow comes fast;
- Yet while old Calamity’s having his way,
- For one that’s in trouble, there are others at play.
-
- What is play to the pup is grief to the child;
- What is fun for the boy makes mother go wild;
- Some deeds of the mother cause angels to weep;
- While God smiles over all, and all He doth keep.
-
-
-SOME SMALL SURPRISES
-
- We never foreknow, but our hearts were a-glow,
- The hearts of Artena and I,
- As we walked to and fro by the waters a-flow,
- The waters in “the land of the sky.”
-
- The children see true—they generally do—
- The charming things all around;
- I followed her view, and I presently knew
- A Tanager’s nest was found.
-
- The boys advanced, as soon as they glanced,
- And down came the limb of a tree;
- Thus fortune chanced, while little hearts danced,
- With four wee fledglings to see.
-
- With noisy protest, and tumult and zest,
- The camera captured all four.
- ’Twas the parents’ sure test—they forsook the nest,
- Though birdlings a-weeping sore!
-
- I began to weep, in my heart quite deep,
- When the babes kept up their cry;
- I ran up the steep like a deer in a leap,
- For the best bird food supply.
-
- They reached and they tried; they ate and they cried,
- Till the four had eaten their fill;
- The mother aside still motherhood belied,
- And the heart in me struggled still.
-
- I learned in my youth, an old, new truth;
- ’Mongst men and beasts and birds,
- Some grow uncouth, nor ever show ruth;
- And for fools waste not your words.
-
- Filled oft to the beak, as the days made a week,
- The fledglings and I were friends,
- And over the creek the folk came to speak
- Of their beauty, their cuteness and ends.
-
- And all the hearts right grew more tender and bright,
- As the Tanagers grew apace;
- And those of insight, said, “The birds have a right
- To partake of our friendly grace.”
-
-
-THE RHYTHM UNIVERSAL
-
- Give me thy music, O most musical One,
- The rhythm that rolls from yonder cycling sun;
- Yea more, as heart and soul of all that’s good,
- Thy nature gave in vaster plenitude;
- Nor time will ever be when thy glad stars
- Will cease to sing as one in rhythmic bars;
- Nor conscious sons of God go shouting joy;
- Nor woodland birds of song their loved employ.
-
- It’s in the very heart of things;
- It’s in our bounds and sweeps and swings;
- It’s in the tree and rose that springs—
- All Nature sings—— and—— sings.
-
- The heart of man, his coursing blood through veins;
- The very breath of life, his thoughts and reins;
- His dreams, devotions, deeds, his all, O soul,
- Or great or small beneath divine control.
-
- The gracious seasons roll in mighty numbers;
- The snow, the sleet but falls, that He who slumbers
- Not may again awake the earth to life
- And stay, for man and all, the winter’s strife.
-
- The raging storm, the great earthquake and war
- Are music bound, if we but see afar;
- From heart of heav’n to heart of hell—ah yes;
- The prince of darkness is beset, not less—
- ’Tis bars and feet, far-reaching leaps and falls,
- Through light not seen in His momentous calls.
-
- Consider Job—upright but proud—at last,
- By grinding fate, by every woe held fast,
- He turned to highest hills and King of all;
- And never more asked he, “_why such a fall?_”
- It was the rhythm of God through stops of sin;
- ’Twas His own anthems deep, without, within.
-
- Our Pilgrim fathers, banished by the fates,
- Brought out of many ills the United States;
- And through each crisis great of all known time,
- ’Tis God in love; ’tis music full sublime.
-
- At last the Lamb and Lion in song shall join;
- The Child and Wolf eternal riches coin;
- The Night shall sing to Day, and Day to Him,
- Who receives the plaudits of the seraphim.
-
-
-THE STONE CROSSES AND THE FAIRIES
-
- (In Patrick County, Virginia, little stone crosses
- have been found and are yet obtainable. Jewelers
- of Roanoke and Martinsville, Va., assure inquirers
- that the Virginia “Fairy” or “Lucky” stones,
- discovered nowhere else in the world, have been a
- puzzle to scientists, and are being worn by some of
- the crowned heads of Europe. A bulletin of the
- U. S. Geological Survey speaks of them as “the most
- curious mineral found in the United States,” and
- calls them Staurolite or Fairy Stones.)
-
- In Virginia’s historic hills around a hallowed spot,
- There was born a mystic legend which ne’er shall be forgot;
- A story true to Nature and to One without a blot—
- The divinest story of old!
-
- For glory bright is round it, which has softened many a heart,
- A tale of wise and saintly ones, in universal art;
- A story mightiest with men now and ever mighty part
- It played in the races of old.
-
- We yet believe that angels must have wept and good men sighed,
- When Gallilee’s great Son with hateful spite was crucified;
- But who would ever dream the fairy spirits were allied
- In Heaven’s great scheme of old?
-
- Yet when these blithesome fays were dancing by a mountain spring,
- Ere the days of Pocahontas and Powhattan, the fearless King,
- In union with the naiads, an elfin, swift of wing,
- Came weeping from the East, of old.
-
- The story sad he told of Christ, the Saviour, and His Cross;
- Then joy and laughter sudden ceased, and grieving for their loss,
- They shed their tears upon the pebbles and on the velvet moss—
- A heaven moved grief of old.
-
- And lo, when they had flown from the enchanted spring and ground,
- Just where the tears had fallen on the pebbles lying round,
- The Fairy stony crosses by the thousand there were found,
- Sweet Nature’s crosses of old.
-
-[Illustration: Note the crosses in this clod of earth.
-
-Photographed in Patrick County, Va.]
-
-
-THE SUN FLOWER
-
- ’Tis the flower that looms and turns to pure gold,
- Yes, the flower that loves, and is loved the best;
- For it plans from the first—this is love’s true test—
- To give forth its riches to young and to old.
-
- It o’er reaches men high with its shining crest,
- Yet never in climbing unduly bold—
- ’Tis the flower that looms and turns to pure gold,
- Yes, the flower that loves, and is loved, the best.
-
- The Gold Finches arrive as its petals unfold,
- And the Cardinal’s joy is manifest,
- As groom gives to bride the jolly behest
- To feast on its wealth and in her heart to hold
- The flower that looms and turns to pure gold,
- Yes, the flower that loves, and is loved, the best.
-
-
-COLONEL DIAMOND AND GRAND-DAUGHTER
-
- I would like to attain to my four score and two,
- With a joy in my heart and with naught to efface,
- Could I dance, or could sing with an energy true,
- Could I lighten the load of the populace.
- I’d run out in the open for Nature’s embrace,
- With a mind ever high, yet my feet on the sod;
- While my soul would be set to the music of grace,
- With the heart of a child and the gifts of a god.
-
-[Illustration: Photograph taken when he was 82 years of age.]
-
- My pursuit would be learning the old and the new;
- And whenever I could I would Psyche’s wings chase!
- I would speak of high art with my privileged few,
- And persuade men below to the nobler race;
- In the faith I’d rejoice that the world grows apace.
- I would skip on the mountain, or valley’s dull clod,
- Having plenty and power, or only an ace,
- With the heart of a child and the gifts of a god.
-
- I would rather, like Diamond, all the way through,
- Either poor, or unknown, or with glorious mace,
- Make somebody happy—ah, many and you!
- And the love of a child with my love interlace;
- Yes, content with my lot, and the righteous ukase.
- I would work and I’d play, but never more plod;
- A glad song in my heart, and a smile on my face,
- With the heart of a child and the gifts of a god.
-
- Envoy
-
- Here’s to Diamond’s health, to the grand-daughter’s grace;
- They are under love’s sway, which surpasses the rod;
- So united and happy in every place,
- With the heart of a child and the gifts of a god.
-
-
-THE WILD WOOD
-
- How wonderful the wild wood,
- The fresh sweet wood with its hush.
- Silent, my soul! Take thou the mood
- Of Veery and of Thrush,
- ’Way out in the wild wood.
-
- Give ear to hymn of oak and pine;
- Drink, my soul, drink deep;
- The master Muse would make it thine,
- But who can fully know the sweep
- Of music of the wild wood?
-
- Each tree sings low an old, new song,
- Softest lay of life and love;
- Unmarred by the daring, prattling throng
- Of rushing men—like a dove
- My soul in the wild wood.
-
- The honeysuckle and wild rose—
- Purity and balm a-bloom—
- Refresh my heart and they transpose
- My hungry mind to richer room
- And food in the wild wood.
-
- The violets with their upward look,
- The stones beneath my feet,
- Make one and all an open book;
- Ah, the meditations meet,
- With God in the wild wood.
-
- At length the sun puts on pure gold;
- The birds and breezes softer sing,
- List! all, within this shrine of old,
- Chime symphonies to the King—
- High mass in the wild wood!
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-THE BEGINNING OF THINGS
-
- The beginning of things, the first of all men—
- It fascinates me, and I’ve wondered when
- And what and how the beginning of things.
-
- Jehovah the first, and Jehovah the last,
- But the wisest must think very deep and fast,
- To fix in his mind the first of all things.
-
- All creatures began in the heavens and earth;
- The sun and the moon and star had a birth;
- But when and where the beginning of things?
-
- Not yet is the answer, but I hope somewhere,
- With Christ and his saints and seraphim fair,
- To know more about the advent of things;
-
- To get better acquainted with Adam the first,
- To learn the true source of his deepest thirst,
- The wonderful truth of the beginning of things—
-
- The beginning of thought, and the primals of love;
- How a reptile became the soft cooing dove,
- And whence the beginning of all present things;
-
- The ape-grunt to a word, and that word a vast tongue,
- And whence the sweet music of mankind has sprung;
- Who struck the first note in the beginning of things?
-
- ’Tis an evolution great, and a marvel to me,
- But never have I prayed to our father up a tree;
- Aye, no man yet since the origin of things.
-
- The Alpha, Omega, the First, Last and Whole,
- Who, from the small first, had foreseen the vast goal,
- He only knows now the beginning of things.
-
- But will He not somewhere permit me to know,
- If I go on with Him in the eternal flow,
- The satisfying truth of the first of all things?
-
-
-THE END OF THINGS
-
- The aim of the heavens, the end of the earth—
- What a measureless sweep, what a mighty girth,
- From the far off first to the end of all things!
-
- The end of the rose, which fades in a day,
- The purpose of the plant an age on the way—
- I dream of Beauty in the end of things.
-
- The end of all men, and the end of myself,
- From the artist great to the smallest elf,
- Our thoughts and our deeds in the end of things.
-
- The fate of the infants who die without ken,
- Of their growth and knowledge, God’s super-men—
- What developments vast in the end of things!
-
- The issue of thousands and millions of slain,
- The end of all wars, and the victor’s sure gain—
- There’s a league worth while, toward the end of things;
-
- A league of the nations, the long coming star
- The prophets of old fore-glimpsed from afar,
- A brotherhood true toward the close of things.
-
- The last of the martyr, who passed with a prayer,
- The last for the felon, who died in despair—
- All good and all ill in the end of things?
-
- We know but in part, yet co-workers are we
- In a scheme as complete as eternity—
- In the far off final, and fulfillment of things.
-
- It delights one to think, we’re only in school,
- That our joys and our woes do not mean mis-rule,
- In God’s plan for the race to the end of things.
-
- In this purpose of His the rose will uncover;
- In its family great we’ll at length discover
- The sweet Rose of Sharon, the completion of things;
-
- In the plants by the waters, that quicken and die,
- But give out their riches unstinted, nor sigh,
- The Lily of the Valley, the Goal of all things.
-
- The song of the Thrush and of plaintive Nightingale
- Will merge with the Master’s glorious “all hail,”
- In harmony perfect in the end of things.
-
- St. John, the inspired, saw horses in heaven,
- And I love to believe even they will be given
- Some happier part in the end of all things.
-
- The best of our words and our ways here forgot
- Will be gathered and treasured in a hallowed lot,
- Exalted in place at the end of things—
-
- God’s men as the angels and angels as men,
- Ah, the little child too shall be received then,
- In love of the Highest, in the end of all things.
-
-
-WHEN THE JUNCO COMES
-
- The Junco comes when warblers go,
- When leaves lay dead by a dauntless foe;
- Ay, winter plans with all his might
- To put in a grave the heart’s delight,
- And cover all with a shroud of snow.
-
- But seasons have a rhythmic flow,
- With good in each, and this I know,
- Through storm and sleet, in cheerful flight,
- The Junco comes.
-
- This bonny bird has faith to show
- To faithless mortals, fearing woe,
- How the changeless One, with a changing light
- Fore-plans for bird and man aright;
- With autumn gone and winter here—lo,
- The Junco comes!
-
-
-JAMES BRADLEY JACKSON
-
- (Written beside his grave in Lake City, Fla., where he
- was buried after a tragic death, February 8, 1868,
- by railroad accident.
-
- Dr. Lovick Pierce, when in his prime, once facetiously
- remarked to several opposing preachers: “My
- brethren, you had better let brother Jackson alone.
- He has the most metaphysical mind of any man in
- Georgia, myself only excepted.”
-
- Rev. W. J. Scott, D. D., in “Biographic Etchings” says
- of contemporary ministers: “Not one of them was his
- equal as a theologian or logician.”
-
- The late Dr. W. J. Cotter, of Newnan, Ga., wrote: “Your
- father was a great and good man.”)
-
- Father, O my father!
- Attend unto the cry
- Of this, thy son,
- And, though long silent and invisible,
- Speak thou to me.
-
- I stand with uncovered head,
- ’Neath giant water oaks,
- Thy sleepless body-guard,
- Supporting emblems of eternal mourning,
- The clinging mosses at half mast,
- Nature’s weepers;
- Now still, now softly chanting, now waving,
- While sympathetic zephyrs flow,
- And give them kiss of comfort as they pass—
- Calling all, like my hungry heart,
- For thee!
-
- Victimized thy body,
- Thy very bones were mangled,
- Long since done to dust,
- Exalted dust, once indwelt by Deity,
- Assuring foretaste of higher life.
-
- In towering oak a mocking-bird doth sing,
- Not doleful dirge,
- Nor requiem for the hopeless dead,
- But sonatas pure sings he of life and love,
- This receiving and out-giving Psyche of every wandering note,
- The Sidney Lanier ’mongst birds of the sunny South,
- His own “trim Shakespeare on a tree”—
- The oak, the moss, the bird and I,
- Above all Jehovah, the life of all,
- Proclaim thee ever-living,
- And glorified.
-
- I cry unto thee, ascended sire;
- Hearest thou me?
- Conscious of thy child’s communion?
- Meetest thou me as son or spirit?
- Yea; closer now than as tender offspring of thy loins,
- I sat upon thy knee, inquirer and receiver,
- In the long ago.
-
- Yet fettered I by frailties of the flesh,
- With poor and halting language of mortal men,
- Miserable makeshift, the spirit’s aphasia,
- This spoken or written word—
- I will fight through fetters all and fly!
- Mine is the inarticulate cry of love,
- Plea of a son’s aspiring heart.
- Made more and more apt and musical
- By what thou wast and art,
- During all thy crowning years.
-
- Again I see thy imaged face, O master man;
- Thy penetrating eye, that reads from soul to soul—
- Stern, inflexible;
- Yet merciful thou, and gentle with men.
- I wonder what thou hast become;
- What thoughts, what plans, achievements now?
- But three short months in a fourth-rate school,
- At twenty spelling and struggling on
- Through the Book Divine,
- Making marvelous mistakes and ludicrous—[14]
- What man or angel climbed from less to more?
- What god?
-
- Once teacher, tender, patient, firm;
- A preacher powerful of the Gospel everlasting;
- College president; thinker, deep and rare,
- Holding and molding many from thy conquered heights!
-
- Whose soul ever sang oratorios
- Sweeter, richer in the hierarchy of
- Being and becoming?
- Who ever possessed more wondrous will,
- Power uppermost in God and man?
-
- Thou didst express God-begotten longing
- To return and be guide to some lone, weary one—
- It is I—prayer proven.
- Oft and again thy fond fatherhood,
- One with the eternal Father,
- Who sends forth His spirits as ministers,
- Has converted my weakness into strength,
- My loneliness to fellowship free,
- My doubt and darkness to lovely light,
- My cup of bitterness to blessing—
- What father still, and guardian angel thou!
-
- Thy spirit ineluctable
- Lives, and reigns, and rises ever;
- Delving deeper, more divinely
- Into glories of love and service;
- High above the maddening marts of men,
- Of dire machines, for murder built,
- That sow and reap the woes of war.
-
- O immortal man, high grown saint and prophet,
- Beloved father, I come—ere long, I come!
- Even now and here, earth-bound as I am, I rise
- To meet and greet thee,
- In God’s pure heights,
- And thine!
-
-[14] Struggling with that simple passage—“This is the heir; come, let
-us kill him”—he rendered it, “This is the hair-comb, let us kill him;”
-and hence reached his logical interpretation, which is left to the
-imagination of the reader.
-
-[Illustration: This old mansion in Stokes County, N. C., was seven
-years in being built by its owner, Col. John Martin, who was the
-great-grandfather of Judge W. P. Bynum of Greensboro, N. C. Photo by
-the Author.]
-
-
-A STORY OF COLONIAL TIMES
-
-(With a historical basis never before published.)
-
- Ride back, my children, in the chariot of Time,
- A hundred and sixty-five years;
- And we’ll join a fond father, a hero sublime—
- A maiden is pleading in tears!
-
- She was seized by the Tories at a bold mountain spring,
- Soon after refusing her heart,
- To one who belonged to the enemy’s ring,
- A foreign and haughty up-start.
-
- Away thru the mountains they carried the maid
- To their secret and darksome den;
- And there the pure daughter of Martin was laid,
- The captive of merciless men.
-
-[Illustration: The “rock ribbed pen” in which Miss Martin was placed by
-the Tories. Photograph by author.]
-
- She’s pleading with them, but her cries are in vain;
- They’ve bound her secure and fast;
- And vowed she should never see Martin again—
- And the lover, “You’re mine at last.”
-
- Her sleep has departed, her food is refused,
- But unto the Father she prayed;
- While the body of thieves are greatly amused,
- Near a glowing fire they’ve made.
-
- A brave of the friendly Saura tribe
- Soon heard of the stolen girl;
- To Martin he went without thought of a bribe,
- With plans that proved him no churl.
-
- To the top of his mansion the father flew,
- A mansion of solid gray stone;
- It’s standing yet—and ’twas years that it grew—
- A tower defiant, though lone.
-
- The two anxious men looked near and afar,
- And at length a glimmer was seen,
- A gleam far away, like a dim fallen star,
- A token of promising sheen.
-
- A compass was set, that infallible guide;
- At sunrise it pointed the way,
- When the father and friend, alert by his side,
- Made a silent, complete survey.
-
- While they searched through the wood some fragments were found,
- Torn threads of a girl’s scarlet shawl,
- Lying hither and yon on the virgin ground—
- Faint hope of success was all.
-
- Now at length a full score of Tories is spied,
- At the mouth of their cave with guns—
- “Down, still!” said Martin, “a moment we’ll hide,
- Then away for our friends and our sons.”
-
- Two score are secured and each man is well armed;
- They approach the Tories’ dark cave;
- But the thieves are alert as well as alarmed,
- Before men so mighty and brave.
-
- Quick shots are exchanged—the maiden still prays;
- All the Tories but three take flight,
- And these are bound fast, and in Heaven’s own ways,
- There’s rapture and holy delight.
-
- Ah, ne’er such a kiss and ne’er such embrace,
- ’Twixt Martin and only daughter;
- For the gold of the hills, and the wealth of the race,
- Could not, for all, have bought her.
-
- The Tories still flee, the seven and ten,
- Pursued thru the Sauratown hills,
- ’Till the last is destroyed or safe in a pen,
- And the lovers had a feast that fills.
-
-
-CUM ON WID YER MONEY FUR ME
-
- I’m pore an’ bline, but I shore kin sing;
- And I lubs to hear dat silver ring,
- So cum on wid yer money fur me.
-
- Yer knows, white folks, a nigger’s pore chance;
- An’ de best I kin do is ter sing an’ dance;
- Now cum on wid yer money fur me.
-
- Fill up dat cup an’ run hit ober,
- An’ I’ll be full like a sheep in de clober;
- So cum on wid yer money fur me.
-
- Dar neber wuz er pull like de money pull,
- An’ meny’s bin de day since mer cup wuz full—
- O cum on wid yer money fur me!
-
- While mer song do er about like ole Jim Crow,
- Yer hearts will be happy an’ oberflow,
- Ef yer cum on wid yer money fur me.
-
- So cum er-long, cum er long an stan’ er round;
- Let smiles on ebery face be found,
- An’ cum on wid yer money fur me.
-
- While I’se jes a nigger, pore an’ bline,
- Dis shore am de song of yore race an’ mine;
- _O cum on wid yer money fur me!_
-
-[Illustration: Snapped by the Author in Tampa, Fla.]
-
-
-GOOD OUT OF EVIL
-
- O God of power great and endless love,
- While dwelling in immensity above.
- On highest throne of all, of life and light;
- Yet comest down thou gently in thy might,
- To succor of the low and heavy laden,
- And on thou leadest to a peaceful haven.
-
- ’Tis ever thine to bring forth love from hate,
- O Christ, eternal Wisdom, incarnate;
- All good from evil, health from all our pain;
- From darkness light—so be it always plain
- To men and devils: _Thou alone art king_;
- And highest in all worlds thy praises ring!
-
- Afar Thou dost foresee the certain end.
- And cause the strife of nations mad to bend
- Their worst, their artful plan and utmost deed,
- To bless thine own and be thy servant’s meed;
- Rich peace from war; high Heaven from utter hell;
- O what a God is ours—let angels tell!
-
-
-CHRISTMAS
-
- Ho, children, ho!
- Ring loud the bells,
- In town and dells;
- And gladly go,
- Thru ice and snow,
- For mistletoe,
- With merry bells!
-
- Come, welcome Santy,
- In his reindeer sleigh,
- On the King’s highway—
- He’s never scanty—
- So children, ho!
- For mistletoe,
- With jingling bells!
-
- Of Christ we’ll sing,
- With glad acclaim,
- And steadfast aim,
- His praises ring—
- O children, go,
- For mistletoe,
- With joyful bells!
-
- Come young, come old!
- Those only live
- Who love to give,
- With hearts of gold,
- All people, ho!
- For mistletoe,
- With dancing bells!
-
-[Illustration: MISTLETOE. Photo by the Author.]
-
-
-MRS. JOSEPHINE F. HAMILL[15]
-
- When I see her face to face,
- At home a-front the rolling sea,
- A buoyant tide of life flows over me,
- With quickened, joyful pace.
-
- A breath from perfumed hills I inbreathe
- That is purer than the breeze
- From sun-lit seas;
- And I perceive a beauty incarnate,
- Not far below the gifted gods,
- Who for others mediate,
- And to men bequeathe
- The best from Him immaculate.
-
- She is a symphony,
- A living, moving harmony,
- Where doomed discord would rampant be;
- Face to be studied like Art’s masterpiece, and more,
- For somehow it charms one beyond self and toil and the beaten shore.
-
- If I cannot tell,
- Nor explain the spell,
- In my own heart’s depths
- I know why
- She has eyes that image, please and edify.
-
- In smiles which come and go and quick return,
- I feel the ebb and flow of a fuller Fount and vaster,
- The symbols visible of unseen verities,
- For which I yearn,
- And those high born, universal sympathies,
- Pouring ever forth from the highest Master.
-
- Her altruistic thoughts and every word,
- Like the spontaneous out-burst of a joy-filled bird,
- Looking near and far to lighten human needs—
- More fruitful than Pomona are her deeds—
- All these point to heights where one’s transferred,
- Softly, safely, faster.
-
- Her life is one of many links and spans,
- Unbroken and unbreakable—
- For joyless mortals joy unspeakable—
- Forged links, not made with human hands,
- In mystery joining together heaven and earth,
- Till the day of fullness and our greatest birth,
- Day of fulfillment,
- And at-one-ment.
- And then?
- _Ah Then!_
-
-[15] This beautiful character and other proven friends described in
-these pages measure up to the standard now, as the author sees it and
-them—yet the coveted ideal rises ever higher as we press on toward the
-Highest. C. J.
-
-
-A CHICK’S CRY
-
- At lone midnight, with only the light
- Of stars across my bed,
- And on my wakeful head,
- I prayed for sight, or note though slight,
- Of moving melody.
-
- ’Twas then I heard the call of a bird,
- A soft, pathetic cry;
- It seemed to ask: “Oh, why,
- My pleading word is not yet heard,
- And I forsaken be?”
-
- A motherless chick, and my heart grew quick;
- My youngest, sleeping, dreaming girl,
- With tender heart and eye like pearl,
- Had played love’s trick, when hale or sick,
- A devoted mother she.
-
- With night’s last wane, I heard life’s strain—
- A woodland warbler’s song.
- The child arose ere long
- With love so fain; I caught again
- Rich rhythm of amity.
-
- The chick’s cry ceased—’twas now a feast,
- And note of joy it spoke
- To the motherly master-stroke—
- Glory in the east for the very least,
- And smiled the Deity.
-
- On man’s wide sea there come to me
- Still deeper wails; oh, hark!
- The children cry—’tis dark!
- Ah, when shall we on earth decree
- Divinest ecstasy?
-
-
-THE KID AND THE COP[16]
-
-[Illustration: The illustrations courtesy of Kodakery.]
-
- He came to a stop, from the hailing cop,
- The Kid ’neath the apple tree;
- And then the cop went “over the top,”
- Pronouncing his decree.
-
- “Oh yes, ha, ha, a thief you are!
- Come tell me quick your name;
- Your fun I’ll mar without a scar,
- And scribble it down—for fame.”
-
-[Illustration]
-
-[Illustration]
-
- The Kiddie smiled, like a guileless child;
- “Have one, it’s awfully nice.”
- Thus reconciled, the cop grew mild,
- Beholding the Kid’s device.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-[Illustration]
-
- He seized with joy the fruit and boy,
- With both of them enraptured;
- “You human toy, you’re some decoy,
- For now you have me captured.”
-
-[16] The illustrations by courtesy of Kodakery.
-
-
-THE OVER-FAVORED AND THE CHANCELESS CHILD
-
- The favored child was loved indeed
- By father, mother, city and state—
- All glad to give the highest meed,
- The child they’ve blest both soon and late.
- Another child did men berate,
- And now and then they brought to shame;
- They saw and caused a cruel Fate
- To damn this child with a felon’s name.
-
- The happy child of Fortune’s breed
- For mind and body had fullest plate;
- Of noble flesh, an elect seed,
- The child they’ve blest both soon and late.
- The chanceless child they chose to hate,
- To hinder hands that would reclaim—
- Ah, even moved some magistrate
- To damn this child with a felon’s name.
-
- The well-led boy should take the lead,
- Have free and ever a high estate—
- ’Twas rank injustice to impede
- The child they’ve blest both soon and late.
- The wayward child could ne’er be great,
- And so ’twas meet his mind to flame,
- And just his doom to accelerate,
- To damn this child with a felon’s name.
-
- Envoy
-
- They all sped him to Heaven’s gate,
- The child they’ve blest both soon and late.
- And the godless waif? ’Twas Hell’s deep aim,
- To damn this child with a felon’s name.
-
-
-THE SLANDERER
-
- Of all things vile beneath the sky,
- By night or day that creep or fly;
- The spider, bedbug, hated louse;
- Or close-coiled rattler, gnawing mouse;
-
- The buzzard, skunk, or murderous mink,
- Hyena mean, whose eye doth blink—
- Wherever one may rest or wander,
- The vilest he who breedeth slander.
-
- The rattler warns you—jump or run,
- Or give him battle with stick or gun!
- The skunk offends you—let him go;
- He takes his choice ’twixt friend and foe.
-
- The blackest buzzards often use
- Some others’ victim or refuse.
- Bedbugs—Bah! Such creeping things
- Do basely vex; still we are kings.
-
- Hyenas are caged or far away;
- The mice entrapped by night and day.
- But Slanderer’s base and slimy word
- Is fouler far than beast or bird.
-
- Infectious doubt injects he first,
- And defamation’s not his worst;
- His victim says: “I’m stript of fame;
- If felon then, I’ll play the game.”
-
- Thus some decide; and who may tell
- The dirty depths of this fiend of hell?
- And there he’ll go, upwept, unsung—
- The vilest monster yet unhung!
-
-
-THE WORLD’S GREATEST EGOTIST
-
- He made his earth, and scaled his lofty sky;
- He spread abroad his universal sea;
- He climbed his visioned mountains, towering high,
- The cause and course of Wisdom he’d decree.
-
- ’Gainst man’s accurst and weary, ill-formed world,
- All rent apart by fools and their divisions,
- His burning anathemas he ever hurled,
- His direst doom, and his divine decisions.
-
- No other man, through years and cycles run,
- Was bold enough to say: “God is dead”;
- Of all great men, philosopher but one,
- Thyself, alone, and madness seized thy head!
-
- O thou, most blatant babbler, Friedrich Nietzsche,
- How thou didst snuffle—how thou didst sneeze thee!
-
-
-LITTLE RIVER ROYAL
-
-[Illustration: NEW RIVER, FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA.
-
-Snap Shot by the Author.]
-
- Close nestling on thy bosom, all dreamy and serene,
- Thy charms I feel in all their flood, and never ending scheme;
- Thy gifts so manifold are of fullest life and love;
- Contented guests within three live as in the air above.
-
- I hear thy praises chorused in the king-fisher’s rattle,
- In giant alligator sigh, who prefers his peace to battle;
- He sinks beneath thy bosom in perfect ease and calm,
- And there within thy shielding heart he sings his grateful psalm
-
- The mullet and the tarpon, the swift and tremulous trout,
- Dash eagerly to mount thy wave, and lithely splash about,
- To manifest their joy in thee and their abounding life,
- So glad bestowed on them by thee, so free from doubtful strife.
-
- The mocking-bird and robin both join their sweetest song
- With the lowly rune of river flow, alluring, deep and long;
- The eagle-hawk doth watch thee with close, unblinking eye,
- And for his profit plunges swift, then soars up toward the sky.
-
- The trim blue heron in thy waves doth lave his weary feet;
- From thy cooling water takes his food and feels himself complete
- And thou art ever ready to let the mallard ride,
- And comfort, too, the mourning dove, who slumbers by thy side.
-
- That charming bird, the cardinal, in his imperial red,
- Himself in thee doth contemplate, and unto thee is wed.
- And legion are thy lovers—a noble stream thou art!
- And all the more thou givest free the richer is thy part.
-
- The palm and the palmetto, the lily, dainty sweet,
- Their homage humbly before thee bring, and lay it at thy feet;
- The water oak that thirsteth, towering long-leaf pine
- Drink gratefully thy water pure and sing a praise that’s thine.
-
- Ah, way-worn mortals turn to thee to worship and abide;
- The white winged boats are drawn to thee on every swelling tide;
- For thru thy whole long journey it’s always give and give—
- What a multitude of creatures thou dost make to live!
-
- At last thyself thou givest wholly to out-spreading bay;
- It beareth thee to shining sea—how wonderful thy way!
- With parting kiss to earth, thou risest to thirsty sun,
- Who praiseth thee and hasteth thee—another race to run.
-
-
-GIVE ME BOTH
-
-[Illustration: The nearest water supply to the Tories’ Den.
-
-(See pages 53-55). Photo by Author.]
-
- The glad wild hills,
- With rushing rills,
- Are clothed with glory—
- The old, old story,
- Yet new,
- In the everlasting hills.
-
- In mountain majesties,
- And highborn ecstasies,
- Fresh strength may be,
- And balm for me
- And you,
- In the glad, wild hills.
-
- Then in surf and sea,
- With youthful glee—
- While waves are dashing,
- And swimmers splashing
- Around
- In the ever-changing sea;
-
- With wavelets dancing,
- The tide advancing;
- Breezes kissing—
- Ah, no one missing
- Life’s bound,
- In the wild waves of the sea.
-
-
-MANIFOLD BEAUTY AND THE MAN
-
-[Illustration]
-
- It is beautiful to be young,
- When youth grows wise at length;
- It is beautiful to be strong,
- With gentleness in strength.
-
- It is beautiful to grow old,
- When the heart remaineth young;
- It is beautiful to be brave,
- When mercy’s note is sung.
-
- It is beautiful to be good,
- If filled with knowledge true;
- And service is beautiful,
- When service maketh new.
-
- There is beauty in men’s laugh,
- When laugh the pure in heart;
- It is beautiful to be bright,
- With wit for noblest art.
-
- ’Tis beautiful to see the sun,
- And Nature in her courses run;
- The wild and healing mountains,
- And overflowing fountains;
- Her blue unbounded sky,
- Which oceans glorify—
-
- Her silver spray of waterfall;
- Eternal rocks, both large and small;
- The heavenly hue
- Of diamond dew,
- On sun-kissed flower,
- In morn’s high hour.
-
- Beauteous to see the sunset’s glory;
- God’s secret read in the deep-laid story;
- The sleep of butterfly,
- From death to life and why;
- Jehovah’s predilection,
- In every resurrection.
-
- How beauteous in music of the stars to lave,
- With song of the sea from ever rolling wave,
- And note of woodland thrush,
- Which gives the heart its hush;
- Pipe of oriole—
- O Beauty of the whole!
-
- In sweet, divine content,
- May mortals ever sing,
- The anthems of the soul,
- The beauties of the King.
-
- Ah, Beauty is for all,
- If Truth but disenthrall—,
- O, yes, ’tis Heaven’s plan,
- For Beauty in the man.
-
-
-CHIMNEY ROCK[17]
-
- Mysterious offspring, rugged son of Fire,
- Born from the depths before the birth of years,
- When burdened mothers would not grieve nor tire,
- And fathers all forbade the cringing fears;
- But listened there some one with painful ears,
- And the mighty throes foredoomed some heart to pine.
- But seen, thy solid form and brow so fine—
- Ah, then, who dares to feebly pine or mock?
- Men drink, for forthwith flows a mystic wine,
- When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock.
-
-[Illustration: Photo by the Author.]
-
- Of mountains round about thee some rise higher,
- Yet none of them, both near and far, thy peers;
- And none of them are led to hate and ire;
- I rather think they greet thee with good cheers;
- Thy plaudits ring from a multitude of seers,
- For thou dost serve for all as Nature’s shrine.
- What cynic looks, and yields his pent-up whine?
- At once he joins the throng which round thee flock;
- No mountain, man or god could thee decline,
- When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock.
-
- I trust I know and love thy primal Sire,
- But purer love and lore when twilight clears,
- When men and I shall climb a nobler spire,
- And all of hate and horror disappears,
- With wail and woe of war and cruel spears;
- When wolf and lamb shall side by side recline—
- O, be it mine to stand secure, yes mine,
- Without the thought of harm or deadly shock,
- In that glad day and time, as ever thine,
- When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock.
-
- Envoy
-
- How humble the stream-fed valleys round thee twine;
- How praiseful, too, as deep they interline
- Thy mates so high, more constant than a clock—
- On thee the very gods come down to dine,
- When they thy glory see, eternal Chimney Rock!
-
-[17] In the mountains of North Carolina.
-
-
-THE ELEPHANT DANCE
-
-[Illustration]
-
- While reaching for sixty I played a child’s game,
- But I leaped to the front in the elephant dance.
- From earliest years overlooked by Fame,
- While reaching for sixty I played a child’s game.
- Old dignified friends, who are more or less lame,
- Think me monstrous and strange, in search of mischance—
- While reaching for sixty I played a child’s game,
- But I leaped to the front in the elephant dance.
-
-
-LEAST YET GREATEST
-
- We long for thy kingdom, O little child,
- Thy kingdom of trust with a reign so mild;
- No soaring eagle e’er mounted such crest,
- As thou, high enthroned on thy fond mother’s breast;
- And, like the sweet song of some innocent bird
- Thy cooing is Love reaching after a word.
-
-
-OLD SHIP CHURCH
-
-[Illustration: Old Ship Church, (First Parish), Hingham, Mass., built
-in 1681, said to be the oldest church in the United States, where
-continuous services have been held.]
-
- Be mine thy throb of pulsing heart, Old Ship,
- When sermon, song and prayer were wont to hold
- And guide the fathers, pioneers of old;
- The men who held the truth with steadfast grip—
-
- Thine own appeal to God from heart and lip,
- Inspired by earnest men, who ne’er cajoled,
- Who sang their hymns within that saintly fold,
- With all their worship free from vulgar slip.
-
- Old Ship, the Church, that made the ship of State,
- Who trained aright thy maidens and thy lads,
- And lived thy simple life, all free from fads,
- Thou madest America beloved and great.
- Sail on, Old Ship, and sweep the farthest sea,
- And save the souls of men eternally.
-
-
-TO THE MEN OF THE PRESS
-
- Here’s to the fellows who scribble with pen,
- A busy and buoyant bunch of expert men;
- They tell what’s what, and what the thing is for,
- From a woman’s hair pin to a world-wide war.
-
-
-MOTHER INDEED
-
- What word among the sons of men
- So uppermost as mother?
- What soothing carol ever sung
- So musical as mother?
- What poem ever came from pen,
- So comforting as mother?
- What acme of our human tongue
- So eloquent as mother?
-
- Answer, deed of fondest lover,
- Answer, men of boasted creed;
- Who or what may rise above her—
- If she be a mother indeed?
-
-
-NATHAN O’BERRY
-
- Give me the man that’s trustful and bright,
- The man with a soul and a heart that’s right,
- Who laughs at trouble and is always cheery;
- And one such man is Nathan O’Berry.
-
- When friends come around, or gloomy or sad,
- And another along both worried and mad,
- Just watch those fellows, as all grow merry,
- In company with brave Nathan O’Berry.
-
- When the stream gets high and a man must cross,
- Yet he knows not how, without serious loss,
- There’s one to be found with his good old ferry
- To carry him over, ’tis Nathan O’Berry.
-
- He’s a man who gives for the love of giving;
- ’Tis Heaven’s sweet way—high loving and living—
- The man whose wife in her heart calls “deary”—
- Ah, bless the Lord for Nathan O’Berry!
-
-[Illustration: Photo by T. P. Robinson, Orlando, Fla.]
-
-
-THE BISHOP’S GARDEN
-
-(Based on what was seen around the home of Bishop Cameron Mann,
-Orlando, Fla.)
-
- “Come into my garden,” said the Bishop unto me;
- ’Tis the greatest little garden that ever you may see.
- Behold a sturdy phalanx of the giant bamboo,
- Which defends the garden’s side in valiant line and true,
- And yonder bunch of bamboo is the prouder Japanese,
- The equal in beauty of the trimmest of the trees.
-
- “My delight is in the palm, the pride of sunny tropics,
- The tree in all Nature for the poet’s varied topics;
- I here have them all but the gorgeous royal palm—
- King Frost is oft unfriendly to his majesty’s balm.
-
- “And consider, if you please, that rare Australian Oak,
- Standing there so lonely, like the greatest of the folk;
- And the other generous fellow, the noble camphor tree,
- Gives peace and health and hope to many a bird and me.
-
- “I am sure you must admire my good Banhania plant,
- With all the grace and beauty which she doth ever grant;
- She’s not unlike a mother who must protect her own;
- Her buds she close infolds when dangers are fore-known.
-
- “My lovely Jacaranda changes Nature’s plan,
- As the unlike woman, or like the wilful man,
- The blossoms coming first, its verdant foliage last,
- But its loveliness in May time will hold you firm and fast.
-
- “And see the running roses, hugging close my home;
- They clasp my heart so sweetly that it never more may roam.
- Burbank has none that’s better than my purest Cherokee,
- With its dainty white so spotless, and his naive simplicity.
-
- “And here is the Phevitia, and there the Bottle Brush,
- The Myrtle bloom so solemn, and now I can but blush—
- The Holy Spirit’s plant, my very humblest flower,
- That worships the gracious Father from his lowly bower.
-
- “Now take your fill of orange, of grape-fruit and of lime;
- Your choice, sir, of the kumquat, or the loquart in its prime.”
- “Oh, my good sir,” cried I, with gladdest heart and head,
- “’Tis Heaven’s own ante-chamber, this brightest Bishop-stead.”
-
-
-MY TRIOLET
-
- Because you like a triolet,
- And joy of youth and love and life,
- Ah sure, the child you’ll not forget
- Because you like a triolet.
- Then soon, ah soon, your wits you’ll whet,
- And do your best to get a wife,
- Because you like a triolet,
- And joy of youth and love and life.
-
-[Illustration: Photo by the Author.]
-
-
-YE BONNY BOYS
-
- Ye bonny boys, and fellows brave,
- Who ever shun grim Death’s decoys,
- And all the habits that enslave
- Ye bonny boys.
-
- So play with duties as with toys,
- The higher heights sincerely crave,
- Conscious of being the King’s envoys.
-
- Yes, rise on care as cork on wave,
- And climb and climb to nobler joys;
- Yet richest heritage, what ye gave,
- Ye bonny boys.
-
-
-A BALLADE TO THE GIRLS
-
- Away with frowns—away with groans!
- And give me the girls who are glad and free;
- For the wails of woman, they weaken my bones,
- And make of a man a quick refugee;
- Or else he retorts with a sharp repartee.
- And give me the smiles of joy and beauty,
- The fellowship joined in a long jubilee—
- Yes, the girls who live for love and duty.
-
- It costs but a little to make such loans,
- And dunce is the man who dares disagree.
- They’re better than riches and glittering thrones;
- They’re better for all and better for thee.
- Then scatter the smiles from sea to sea,
- Less fleeting than fame and more than booty.
- O give me the ones in perpetual glee,
- Yes, the girls who live for love and duty.
-
- The wise man his frowns ever gladly postpones,
- And gives of his strength to you and to me;
- His sorrow and woe he forever disowns—
- The mortal like him treads a Heaven-lit lea,
- And the out-lying goal is pleasant to see.
- The fellow that frowns is ugly and sooty;
- Ah, save me from him, for the good guarantee,
- Yes, the girls who live for love and duty.
-
- Envoy
-
- All praise to the girls who are busy as a bee,
- But fie to the man who’s stoney and rooty;
- And the fellow as well who’s too fond of his fee—
- Yes, the girls who live for love and duty.
-
-
-A MOUNTAIN TOP VIEW
-
- Escaping the town with its dust and din,
- A wayfarer was asked to come within
- A lovely home on a mountain height,
- To rest awhile and be sated with sight
- Of the beauties within and glories without,
- That ever encircle far-famed Lookout.
-
- From city to summit the walk was far,
- But gliding along in the trolley car,
- Forsaking the valley and climbing the side,
- The city was distanced in a two-fold stride;
- Its smoke rolled beneath, its din died away,
- With toilers’ tramp at the closing day.
-
-[Illustration: Part of Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain.]
-
- This home was “La Brisa;” for pure mountain air
- Played around its sides and its frontage fair,
- Uplifting yet higher the travel-worn guest,
- As he feasted to the full, and enjoyed sweet rest;
- While music came forth and fellowship flowed—
- With lofty delights the company glowed.
-
- The low-lying city became all ablaze
- With myriad lights and their countless rays,
- The moon and the stars were reigning above,
- While far-twinkling lights threw kisses of love
- To wayfarer and friends, caught up between
- The city of light and the heavens serene.
-
- Ah, ’tis mountain top views that enrich the dull earth,
- Where high hopes and deeds have divinest birth;
- Where Abram and Moses and prophets of old
- The evil and good, yea the best foretold.
- And men even now must mount the high hills
- To inspire them beneath with conquering wills.
-
- Here the church up-rose and “the old ship of State,”
- Here angels meet men that listen and wait;
- The King from his throne will deign to come down
- To acclaim his own, and with glory crown
- The soul sincere, who cries from his heart
- For some new song—some high born art.
-
- At last the dust and the din of earth’s way
- Will shine in rapture of our toiling day;
- The narrow path trod, the rugged way too,
- Will glow with a beauty we never knew,
- In the coming new Morn on the Mountain fair,
- Translated with Christ in his glorified air.
-
-
-ONE AGED JOHN SMITH AND HIS YOUTHFUL CONFESSIONS
-
- Your smiles and love you freely lend—
- How old are you, my jolly friend?
- “Just seventy-three; but pray don’t tell;
- A widower I, out for a spell.
- The pretty girls, I love them all;
- They bounce my heart like a rubber ball;
- One moment I rise and the next I fall—
- I cannot help it.”
-
- “I loved my wife who’s dead and gone,
- In the distant days my paragon—
- She used to say, ‘O quit your looking,’
- But in spite of her, my neck kept crooking
- Around to feast upon the lovely face,
- The perfect figure full of grace—
- It never seemed to me so base—
- I told my wife, sir;
- I couldn’t help it.”
-
- “If God himself told me to quit it,
- I’d say, O slay me! or else permit it.
- The smiling face, the enchanting eye,
- The rosy cheek of the maiden shy—
- They grip me, sir, with hooks of steel;
- My eyes run fast; my brain will reel,
- And my heart will feel—
- Frankly, sir, I cannot help it.”
-
- “’Tis true, my teeth went long ago;
- Now painless ones I have, you know.
- Yet I visit oft in my tar-heel town
- A store and a girl in a showy gown,
- To buy her gum and soothing smile;
- You scarce believe me, it’s many a mile
- I thus have trod with loving guile—
- And one day laughing my teeth fell down,
- In her presence, sir,
- I could not help it.”
-
- “That winsome girl who serves our table—
- I vow that I am quite unable
- To keep my eyes from following her,
- As tail doth horse, ’neath whip and spur;
- I’m honest sir;
- I cannot help it.
-
- “My little dog—he’s just a fice—
- Returns my love, his paradise.
- I brought him down to Florida;
- But the finest dog in all America
- Can’t take the place of a girl so sweet—
- From crown to sole of her dainty feet,
- My love’s complete—
- And, it’s all the truth, sir,
- I cannot help it.”
-
- “Just seventy-three—
- ’Tis plenty for me,
- I wish it were less,
- But nevertheless this girl of eighteen
- Could rule me as queen;
- And have all I possess,
- For her sweetest caress—
- Sir, by the Lord and His goodness,
- I cannot help it!”
-
-
-AN ODE ON WOODROW WILSON AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
-
-I.
-
- In all the cycles past the good and wise
- Have dreamed of Wisdom’s way;
- The prophets’ eyes
- Could see, and they foretold the day,
- The glory of the coming paradise;
- And higher far than lofty prophets bold,
- In every stage
- Of human rage,
- The God of hosts hath willed his vast, united fold.
-
-[Illustration:
-
- Congressman Upshaw, after a personal appeal to Mr.
- Wilson on February 17, 1923, wired the author:
- “Hard to overcome fixed rule of former President,”
- in refusing his photograph and autograph for
- publication; but we have the pleasure of presenting
- both to his friends.
-]
-
-II.
-
- And poets great have felt the need,
- As plain they saw the greed
- Of men and nations waging war,
- They knew not why, yet brothers all.
- Their voice is heard from heights afar;
- They tell us why the peoples rise and fall;
- They sang and on the hill tops wrought,
- While dupe and knave went down;
- They knew the last of Folly’s battles would be fought.
-
-III.
-
- Obstructionists abide, alas in State,
- The demagogue and fool,
- The dullard in his school,
- Who far behind the generation plods,
- Yet at God’s leader casts rough stones and clods—
- Wise men foresee their fate.
- Without insight they still refuse to follow
- The men inspired, high Heaven’s men;
- Preferring far their narrow ken,
- To vaunt themselves, though cause of fearful sorrow.
- The while the great move on
- In God’s high road,
- With heavy load;
- Becoming weary and living lone,
- Oft forced to suffer and to moan—
- At last to die!
- But Heaven clears away the cloud from the martyr’s sky.
-
-IV.
-
- The race of men is a long and wondrous evolution;
- The patient soul who kens, and God’s great goal,
- Is benefactor best, the man of resolution
- To mark and void each shoal,
- Like pilots good of worthy ships,
- Whose eyes are used far more than lips.
- He counter vessels must prevent,
- And every vexing accident,
- By night and day upon the deep.
- Men’s revolutions, small or great, and why,
- The leader must discern and know,
- And records old, aye currents vital passing by,
- To make them rightly flow.
- And never was the pregnant day, nor hour,
- When one of such transcendent power
- Was needed by the race,
- With more than human grace.
- Let men in church and state be confident,
- He was the man of men pre-eminent.
-
-V.
-
- The future holds for him the fullest meed,
- For best of deeds before he fell a prey,
- The patient man, still prophet of the perfect day,
- When none shall be a slave;
- And none in need.
- American,
- And cosmopolitan,
- He made and mounted the on-sweeping wave.
- No ruler with so good and vast a scheme;
- In labors so engrossed for noblest creed—
- A wide and warring world to win and save,
- Fulfillment of the greatest dream,
- To give the nations peace and prosperity supreme.
-
-
-ANOTHER BIRTHDAY
-
- One birthday more has rolled around,
- But still my heart is in its youth;
- Though sixty fleeting years I’ve found,
- One birthday more has rolled around;
- Yet not my body underground.
- The song is best when sung in truth:
- One birthday more has rolled around,
- But still my heart is in its youth.
-
-
-OH BABY MINE
-
- My baby, Oh my laughing, baby child,
- What God-like joy you give!
- Since I received you, how He has smil’d
- And made me love and live,
- Oh baby mine!
-
-[Illustration: Snap shot by the Author.]
-
- Some sorrow I have had, some deep delight,
- And much the even way;
- Some views attract of vale and mountain height,
- But naught like you, each day,
- Oh baby mine!
-
- Oh baby mine, O sweetest baby mine,
- What angel makes you laugh?
- What silent tempter makes you cry and whine?
- But more of wheat than chaff,
- Oh baby mine!
-
- Your coming days are all unknown to me,
- Your pitfall, or your pest;
- But God is good; I trust and pray that He
- May hold you to His breast,
- Oh baby mine!
-
-
-THE SNAKE THAT’S KING
-
- The snake that’s king deserves his crown,
- Above his kind in wood and town;
- For man was ne’er bit by the king,
- Though snake-fond ones to him will cling;
- But I prefer no such renown.
-
- With boys I frolic up and down,
- The playful kids who never frown;
- And small respect at times I fling
- The snake—that’s king.
-
- O Muse, tell me the oldest clown;
- Why fickle Eve preferred no gown;
- And why she ceased at once to sing,
- And deigned within her heart to bring
- _The Snake that’s king_?
-
-[Illustration: Picture of a King Snake nearly five feet long,
-swallowing a somewhat shorter Rattler, after a struggle which lasted
-for two hours.
-
-Photograph by Mr. Alfred Austell near Atlanta, Ga.]
-
-
-THE HEART OF FRANCE
-
- O France, beloved; fickle, fearless France!
- What heights are thine and what unfathomed depths,
- From Roman old and Jupiter the great,
- To Notre Dame and her eternal day.
- Thy famous little “Ile de la cité,”
- Birth place of Paris and a state renowned,
- And buoyant bosom of thy ceaseless Seine
- Were wronged by Vandal and the vicious Gaul,
- Coveted long by kings, and last by cunning Kaiser.
- Within, around thy growing heart, now gay,
- Now sad, now brave and true, now sick and vile,
- Epitome of man and race of men,
- Foretaste of Heaven and prelude to Hell—
- Thy lovers, far and near, have felt and fought,
- O France, for thee, and for thy perfect day.
-
-[Illustration: NOTRE DAME.]
-
- Thy Notre Dame of yore and now—behold
- What records writ, and deeds unwritten more!
- Begun as shrine to gods unknown, but feared,
- Again the seat of power of the saints;
- Both natal place and tomb of King and priest;
- Dream attained of artist pioneer;
- And pomp and rites as varied as striking grand,
- Which brought the fathers from Jerusalem,
- The Romish pope to altars, solemn, high;
- When prayer, and priestly pride through chapels rang
- With song of marching choir, from narthex bold,
- And transept, double bay and nave and vault,
- To over-topping spire, ambitious, firm—
- What wondrous song from such exalted throng!
-
- And laughing devils, perched on airy stage;
- Stryge, with arms on parapet for ease;
- Grim face upheld by hands of demon long,
- Tongue out, and worn with everlasting sneer;
- And leering ape, and nameless creatures; beasts
- Obscene; and unclean birds of prey around,
- Above thy true yet hybrid art; a cow,
- Half woman, arms of her in comfort crossed,
- With evil eye beholds the temples ’neath
- St. Etienne, St. Jacque, and St. Denis,
- The “Hotel Dieu,” Justice Palace, Law!
- See hungry ghouls, and vampires, never sated,
- Fiends eyeing Paris, gibing, mocking all;
- And cat alive and wild, like devil dead
- Revived, hath climbed on precipice of stone,
- Creeping, howling, groaning, pained much;
- Then plunging far, as if pursued by ghost.
- And stories of the garden, curdling blood,
- Of lunatic and felon’s leap to death—
- The whole a hell around fair Notre Dame,
- Her place and portion, part of thine, O France!
-
- Alas, our boys—let angels weep—our sons
- Who went to aid of thee, pure as the Virgin
- Mary some, our soldier sons in air,
- On earth, and underneath were tempted, caught
- By countess cunning, rich but fallen far;
- Entrapped, diseased by women, living hells,
- That move and search and laugh and win and damn!
- Indecencies of men—God save the race,
- That human virtue may not die at last!
-
- O France, all this is not thy nobler heart,
- What love and honor thou hast ever shown;
- What triumph for thyself, for us and all!
- Thy virtue dieth not, nor truth, nor those
- Inspired of Heaven through the ages past,
- The now and evermore; these lofty hosts
- And we, who love aright, will see thy soul,
- All torn by vice and mocking devils, whole;
- Triumphant over foes without, within.
-
- Thy Notre Dame, thy little hells, O France;
- The good and evil, working both—but God!
-
-
-THE RED MAPLE
-
- A master artist in the sun-kissed leaves
- Of a scarlet maple loved by me for years,
- First paints a verdant robe until appears
- The autumn time, then marvel great conceives.
- Through darkest night, high noon, and splendent eves
- His wondrous work goes on, unknown to fears,
- Although my maple has her unshed tears,
- Until her greatest glory he achieves.
-
- Then yields she all her riches quite content;
- For man and bird and beast her life is spent;
- In turn to every tree hath prophesied,
- To mortal man hath plainly said, “The best
- Waits him who gives his all, then goes to rest;
- Thus life and even death are glorified.”
-
-
-A SONNET TO MRS. O. C. BULLOCK
-
- Again rare riches thou hast gently shown,
- And I drink sweetness from thy royal heart.
- Again I rise and claim the nobler part,
- And bless the friendship in thee made known.
- Full forty years, in public or alone,
- I’ve studied men, high heaven’s sovereign art
- And thee—thy virtue’s smiles, and whence they start,
- Adoring Truth’s sweet balm, which is thine own.
-
- Let turmoils come and go; let fools foment
- Disaster dire, till many shall lament
- Their natal hour, their present lot and all.
- Thy friendship true, which grows from bud to bloom
- And fruit eternal, dissipates all gloom—
- Again I’ve entered love’s pure banquet hall.
-
-
-THE STRIKERS
-
- The strikers call for more and more;
- For they sail a sea without a shore;
- Ah, yes, they’ll strike forever more!
-
- Let merit go, it were a sin
- For any plan but a strike to win;
- And hence they strike forever more!
-
- No brother they to the monied man;
- The law of love—“Oh damn the plan!
- We’ll vote to strike forever more!”
- The public is pleased; ’tis a joy each day
- To the folks at home, without a way;
- So why not strike forever more?
-
- For coal and food, let a nation suffer;
- Let good and bad be made a buffer—
- Yes, plan to strike forever more.
-
- Our hard-fought war with the hot-headed-Hun
- Was children’s play compared to the fun
- That strikes produce forever more.
-
- Their wives and children mustn’t whine
- Without their part, ’tis ever so fine,
- The strikers’ way forever more.
-
- Alas, the blind, who makes the broom
- Has threatened quits till crack of doom—
- Unless he gets a plenty and more.
-
- And teacher too who trains the child
- Is asked to join the force that’s wild,
- And close the school forever more!
-
- Let wisdom go—’tis a by-gone game;
- The striker’s god must win his fame—
- Ah, strike and strike forever more.
-
- * * * * *
-
- “Come now,” says God, “and let us reason,
- In every way, in every season,
- _Bar strikes of force forever more_.”
-
-
-NOVEMBER’S GLOOM
-
- With chill November mist in darkened air,
- With hearts of men imbued with doubt and gloom;
- And in the wide, wide world no couch, no room;
- No rest for weary feet; with friends unfair,
- Or cannot understand, nor yet can bear
- To bring one bud of friendship’s failing bloom;
- Affection gone that once hailed bride and groom—
- Ah then, ’tis triumph true, or death’s despair.
-
- And yet November’s night of gloom and grief
- Hath unseen power to bring sweet trust,
- If men but turn their minds of unbelief
- To One whose name is Love, whose ways are just;
- Then be the battle sharp and long, or brief,
- The soul is safe, that sings, “_I can and must_.”
-
-
-JAMES MITCHEL ROGERS
-
- While face to face with him I plainly feel
- A something in my heart and open mind
- That prompts an eager search, perchance to find
- The unknown source of such a strong appeal.
- A rip’ning fruit, I ask, of earth’s ideal?
- Or full blown rose, to all its beauty blind?
- Or tree of life within the mad mart’s grind—
- Oh what o’er me in power doth sweetly steal?
-
- In truth his inmost soul is full of light,
- A shining constant from afar, yet bright,
- An humble, potent life not his nor man’s,
- Increasing gently through his crowning years,
- And freeing him from all the sinner’s fears—
- Ah yes, he’s one of God’s unthwarted plans.
-
-
-ERWIN HOLT
-
- In life’s highway I meet all sorts of men,
- The loud-mouthed man or human thunderbolt;
- Then smiles on me a man of head and heart,
- A gentle, noble soul like Erwin Holt.
-
- Another man is ever in a rut,
- To self and all a weary, lifeless dolt;
- Like showers then to thirsty famished earth
- Are spirit life and deeds of Erwin Holt.
-
- Still other men are working hard for pelf,
- And passing give your peaceful heart a jolt;
- What joy to turn away from men like these,
- And feel the healing balm of Erwin Holt.
-
- Oh for more men who’re full of highest life,
- Who ’gainst all vileness join in strong revolt,
- With mind to think and hand to ever bless
- Their fellowmen like happy Erwin Holt.
-
-
-JUST AN INTRODUCTION
-
- Allow me please, to present to you
- A queenly girl and a cockatoo—
- Sweet Agnes she, and her name means “chase,”
- And the bird, in truth, has native grace.
-
- When captured by their mystic spell,
- Which charms me most I cannot tell;
- For beauty and goodness at heart are one—
- All hail to “Billy” and Miss Cameron!
-
-[Illustration: Photo by the Author.]
-
-[Illustration: JUDGE FRANKLIN CHASE HOYT, Presiding Over the Children’s
-Court, New York City.]
-
-
-JUDGE FRANKLIN CHASE HOYT
-
- In cause and city great, a jurist great,
- For every mother’s child a kindly heart;
- Stern Justice he would join to Mercy’s art,
- For sire and son, a vision high create;
- For all the hopeless ones the path elate.
- Ah, future generations will he start,
- Through children now, to choose the better part,
- And trustful follow Him immaculate.
-
- Hark ye, to Christ’s own playful lambs astray,
- Who reach the desert place and jungle deep;
- From city slum, and far off mountain steep,
- They call and plead for everlasting day—
- Not bitter night, but some untrodden way,
- No matter how they play, nor wide their sweep.
-
-
-A LITTLE INDEX OF THE COMING DAY
-
- The loveliest sight on the coast I saw,
- Was little Ann Gray with her pet macaw,
- A trustful bird in the hands of Ann,
- But woe to the stranger, or hostile man.
-
- Though upside down, ’twas the very thing,
- When under the rule of his lover’s wing;
- Some stunts to do, that he’d never tried,
- But that’s all right, when his friend is guide.
-
-[Illustration: Snapped by the Author at the Home of Paul R. Gray on
-Belle Isle, Miami, Fla., March 17, 1920.]
-
- So every creature, bird and beast,
- From animal great to the very least,
- Will some day see with different eyes,
- When men grow kind and good and wise.
-
- The lion fierce shall fondle the lamb,
- When men shall follow the great I Am,
- And wolf shall play with the sportive kid,
- When earth of hate and murder is rid—
- When the great and small shall learn to be mild,
- In the kingdom of Christ and a little child.
-
-
-THE WINGED TOURISTS
-
- It is time to be revived,
- And the tourists have arrived,
- The Robins from the land of snow and ice,
- By the score and by the hundred;
- So many that I’ve wondered
- Where plenteous food could be, and paradise.
-
- But listen to their cheering,
- For there’s no profiteering,
- In mulberry and stately cabbage palm;
- Instead the trees would say:
- “We’re ready for this day,
- And welcome birds and people to our balm.
-
- “We’ve endured the blazing sun,
- Through the summer for the fun
- Of freest song and abundant feasting fine;
- While you yourselves employ,
- In song and sumptuous joy,
- Remember we are drinking Heaven’s wine.
-
- “’Tis better far to live,
- That we may freely give—
- Far better and more God-like in us all.
- See Black-birds fly around,
- Alighting on the ground,
- While the Mocking-birds’ hosannahs loudly call.
-
- “And yonder in the waters free,
- Blue Herons and white Egrets see;
- Thus far have they escaped the tyrant, Pride.
- The Ducks are diving for their food,
- And, hit or miss, they still are good—
- In all no groom unfriendly to his bride!
-
- “The Cardinal and Wren,
- From farthest hill and glen,
- Have joined the busy Downy in a tree;
- While other birds delight
- In song from morn till night—
- Come, sing aloud and join our jubilee!”
-
-
-HOW MY EASTER DAWNED
-
- In a pullman smoker the tourists sat,
- All reading the news of the day,
- When suddenly started a lively chat
- On the League and the Wilson way.
-
- The travellers argued with their _pro_ and _con_;
- And loudly and fiercely they swore;
- While some of them tired, and others looked wan,
- And I was silent and sore.
-
- For the Easter season was drawing nigh,
- And I was perusing “Life;”
- My soul was nursing an inward cry;
- And I hated the oaths and strife—
-
- The war of words on the blessing of peace,
- And taking God’s name in vain;
- From the turmoil I craved a quick release,
- From the hellish noise on the train;
-
- When suddenly came two lovely tots,
- With the father a-near their side;
- Then lo, there ceased the fiery shots;
- The children had turned the tide.
-
- Like a sun-burst bright on a stormy morn,
- Like flowers in the valley of death,
- The children advanced, and joy was born,
- With the sweetness of Heaven’s breath.
-
- They turned and climbed to the lower berth,
- Just over the passage from mine;
- And there my ears caught the wisdom of earth,
- And the faith from Jehovah’s shrine:
-
- “_Now I lay me down to sleep;_
- _I pray the Lord my soul to keep._”
-
-[Illustration: The Tots that Turned the Tide. Photo by the Author.]
-
- My mind went back to my earliest days,
- At the side of my mother’s knee;
- My hungry soul sang a fervent praise,
- And my heart was happy and free.
-
- I dreamed of the damnable wars of men,
- Of the havoc that Death has made;
- Of a Prince who died and arose again,
- With power each grave to invade.
-
- And dreaming I caught a holier note,
- No melody born of the sod;
- And I blest the old saint who heard and wrote,
- “Of such is the kingdom of God.”
-
- And children I heard, around the throne,
- Formed a vast and caroling throng,
- With the glorious Prince still leading his own,
- All singing their Easter song.
-
-
-HELEN KELLER
-
- In darkness deep by day and night,
- A fettered child without a ray—
- No word of speech, no sound, no sight
- To lift a soul to Heaven’s day.
- But Patience came in Love’s sweet way,
- And smiled and wept and wept and smiled,
- With failure oft, yet would essay
- To lighten the mind of a captive child.
-
- What mortal e’er in such a plight?
- What twain beset with such dismay,
- As guide and child in the long drawn fight
- To lift a soul to Heaven’s day?
- No victor great, no ruler’s sway,
- Reveals such triumph, pure and mild;
- No leader nobler zeal portray,
- To lighten the mind of a captive child.
-
- And darkness gross and many a blight
- Leave other children far astray;
- And they call loud for some brave knight
- To lift a soul to Heaven’s day.
- Then who the priceless pearl will pay,
- To lift a soul so dark and wild,
- From the deepest pit, as a piece of clay—
- To lighten the mind of a captive child?
-
- Envoy
-
- ’Tis faith and work, with hope’s delay,
- To lift a soul to Heaven’s day,
- From Night’s dim depths, by love beguiled,
- To lighten the mind of a captive child.
-
-
-MARY GRAY
-
- Here’s to each Mary from first to last;
- To Virgin holy, heaven’s primal queen,
- And deepest penitent, the Magdalene;
- Hail Marys many through the long, long past,
- From proudest princess down to poor outcast.
- A myriad of them I’ve heard and seen,
- Some strong, some weak and few of sober mien;
- How varied they, and fervent hopes how vast!
-
- At length the Mary comes, delighting me best;
- Her head’s safe-guarded by the purest heart,
- Enriching childhood’s state with princely zest;
- To work devoted, and would ever display
- Rule over Mammon for the noblest art—
- All honor and long life to Mary Gray!
-
-
-THE DANCING TASSEL
-
- The female preacher both smiled and exhorted,
- While around her fair cheek and back to her ear,
- Her long, gay tassel danced and cavorted,
- And the more men looked the less they could hear,
- For lo, the dancing tassel.
-
- And the wonderful thing, ’twas a Quaker tassel,
- On a Quaker hat, on a _Friend’s_ high head,
- Who in pulpit reigned like a queen in a castle,
- While the souls of men just longed to be fed—
- But there, that dancing tassel.
-
- As her nose went up the tassel went down;
- While ever it flirted, and ever it played
- Its prominent part as one with a crown—
- In the audience many who might have prayed;
- But ho! that dancing tassel.
-
- Her kid-gloved-hand was constant in motion,
- And busy my mind to follow all three,
- The tassel, the glove, and the word of devotion;
- But most active of all in this trinity,
- That ever-dancing tassel.
-
- I suppose I should be so pious and good,
- As to shut my eyes fast to any dancing thing,
- And be anywhere in a heavenly mood,
- But somehow my soul kept up the swing
- Of that flouncing, dancing tassel.
-
-
-WALTER MALONE
-
-[Illustration: WALTER MALONE. Poet, Jurist and Philosopher.]
-
- The dreaming lad saw life as intricate,
- And learned to solve and sing in buoyant youth;
- For fallen ones, was filled with tender ruth,
- For all he pondered deeply, soon and late;
- A gentle friend and wise, fraternal mate,
- Who darkness saw where light should be and truth,
- Despite the ways of thief, and heartless sleuth—
- A prophet bold to plan and then create.
-
- Immortal bard, far seeing, earnest man,
- Who knew the height and depth of Heaven’s plan,
- To turn our feeble wail to sweetest tone—
- Thy “Opportunity”[18] thou didst employ
- To animate and lead with rhythmic joy,
- Thy friends and fellows up to Heaven’s throne.
-
-[18] The title of his most famous poem.
-
-
-THE DUTIFUL FLOWER
-
- Bright morning glory,
- In brief you tell,
- With magic spell,
- A wondrous, mystic story
- Of life and beauty.
- May I please God so well,
- Inspiring in the sons of men delight and duty.
-
-
-MY HOLIDAY
-
- (Inscribed to C. L. Anderson, H. C. Bagley, S. R. Belk,
- J. N. McEachern and A. R. Holderby.)
-
- The month of May for a holiday—
- Now what do you think of that?
- With Nature to stay for her matinee—
- Up high I’ll throw my hat.
-
- “Quite sick,” they say, in the month of May;
- And the doctors all stood pat;
- Yes, truly astray, unfit for the fray;
- Indeed I had fallen flat,
-
- Till the month of May, my holiday,
- Near Nature’s heart whereat
- I’ll doff decay, with all dismay,
- And with her grow strong and fat.
-
- The month of May for peace and play,
- When the birds so fondly chat;
- When the old and gray must Life obey,
- Like a full fledged bouncing brat.
-
- All hail to May and to friends for aye!
- The friends who in council sat,
- And said, “We pray, take the month of May,
- And live in a beautiful plat.”
-
- Hooray, hooray, for my holiday!
- I’ll be a master at the bat;
- Without delay I’ll mount my way,
- As high as Ararat.
-
-
-THE AEOLIAN HARP
-
- What mysterious music is that?
- Whence these softest melodies, soothing my inmost soul?
- What symphony orchestra over the hills
- Sends me its sweetest strains,
- These chords of subdued sorrow mingled with joy of gentleness?
- Or what angel deigns to float down to me
- Such mild, musical waves,
- Which captivate yet elude?
- What or who and where?
- The richest radio this, and the first, of the ascending years?
- I ask myself, being alone, and I seek to answer.
- I listen still.
- My awakened soul is rising;
- I look around, all around.
- I continue to think, and very gently Truth appears.
- What?
- Yes, the winds, the winged winds, have joyfully yielded
- To the goddess Harmony,
- And together they are producing this matchless marvel.
- My soul is at peace, yet longs for more,
- More of such wooing of the eternally tender goddess,
- Brought to me, with approval of Aeolius.
-
-
-THE GOD-MAN AND MYSELF
-
- I answered truly with both heart and head,
- “Not guilty” of the things _they_ said,
- My plotting foes, with envy’s cruel rod;
- Yet frailties mine oppressively controlled,
- And perilous waves o’er me were rolled,
- When lo! a symbol of the meek but mighty God.
- Again I saw and loved the sinner’s Friend,
- From first missteps to abysmal depths of his darkest end—
- A friend to even me, a crushed clod.
-
- But how, O Jesus, how
- Can a stainless one, the such as thou,
- Again receive a sinner like myself?
- With weakened faith in thee, with pride and pelf
- I went my way,
- And leaned for stay
- On feigned things that fell;
- And down I dropped to hell,
- A bitter burning hell,
- A hell of fire, consuming fire within,
- In a mind and heart of sin—
- A fire which broke out all around,
- Because the flame in me was found—
- For in the human heart doth heaven and hell begin.
-
- But I willed, not in such a state to dwell,
- If, O Christ, I may return,
- And once more learn
- The power of thy love and grace.
- While I may not behold the glory of thy face,
- I only ask to see and to adore,
- As many a penitent and I afore,
- The prints of spear and nail which with utmost woe were driven,
- Till thy life and all thy matchless wealth were given
- For captive and vexed sinners like to me,
- To set them free,
- In hope of peace and heaven.
-
- Since that awful day the changing seasons have faster flown,
- And what must I to men make known?
- After the passing of two thousand years
- Of man’s bravest fights, greatest victories and fears,
- With ofttimes self-imposed torment and tears,
- Thy transcendent heights for me are more increased—
- Thou savest me, the very least.
-
- Thou ancient and invisible I Am
- Art one with Heaven’s youthful, adorable Lamb,
- For looking by faith behind the veil I see
- The cross still piercing through thy very heart,
- Thy great salvation to impart;
- And herein I’ll glory eternally.
- Accept my life and this my final, whole-hearted word,
- O ever living, ever loving, most glorious Lord.
-
-
-DEATH’S DOOM
-
- Thou hast no sting,
- Terror none,
- O doomed Death;
- My whole duty done,
- I shall welcome thee.
-
- To the vigilant and victorious,
- Thou bringest the better,
- Quite unwittingly,
- The higher, and yet
- The highest.
-
- Thou art the open gate
- To Life,
- Thou rapacious mocker,
- Thy dark, grim visage
- Is transformed into a beacon of light,
- Balmy, buoyant, beautiful.
-
- A new glory has the sun
- At his setting,
- Giving yet greater beauty to his resplendent light,
- For myriads of admiring men,
- For sated beasts and singing birds at eventide.
- Life-kisses are cast upward
- To receiving and ever grateful stars and starlets,
- Beneficiaries afar,
- In their cosmic course.
- All these and more perpetually pass on,
- In holy and soft-toned harmonies,
- The life-filled fruitage of conquered Death.
-
- Angels, beyond thy touch,
- Sing and dance,
- On their winged way,
- As ministers of Jehovah,
- Bringing to the so-called dead
- A chalice of new life.
-
- And perfected souls and saints,
- Giving forth with joy their divinest ministrations,
- Are co-workers with the Highest,
- For the varied glory and ever increasing fullness
- Of eternal life.
-
- Thou art a misnomer,
- O arch Deceiver!
- The last lie thou art,
- To be bravely faced, denied, disproved.
- The serene,
- The trustful,
- The Christ ones,
- Planting their feet
- Upon thy bosom,
- All shadowy and unreal,
- Will proclaim
- The paeans of life,
- Their holiest halleluiahs.
- Hence—my duty done—
- O darkest Death,
- Come thou for me.
-
- Oft have I banished thee,
- Having come unawares;
- Thou didst flee,
- Thou cunning coward,
- To come again,
- Noiselessly by night;
- For somber Night is thy craven consort,
- As unreal as thyself,
- As non-existent—
- Driven easily away,
- By thy King’s coming.
-
- The foulest negation thou,
- Of all the ages,
- Yet universal.
- Life’s cessation?
- Life’s full possession!
-
- Both false and elusive,
- Thou art unknown,
- To shallow souls,
- And unknowable;
- Dreadful, powerful
- Till met and vanquished whole;
- When lo!
- Life, the Prince of Life,
- Holds me fast for aye,
- And Death is no more—
- For me, no more.
-
-
-
-
-THE DYING YEAR
-
- (Written the last of 1922, a dark day with continuous
- rain, and published in the Atlanta Constitution,
- January 1st, a day of sunshine and life.)
-
- “My time is up,” bemoaned the dying year,
- And Nature wept and freely spread her gloom;
- “My record past, and I must now make room
- For buoyant youth, another still more dear.
- Some comfort mine that weep my friends sincere,
- Thus easier I may pass into my tomb;
- But joyful more to speak a nobler boon
- For those who hope and trust and persevere.”
-
- And all shall heed the inevitable call,
- From fragrant rose to chieftain strong shall fall;
- The greater they the more widespread the grief
- Of living men, the people great and small,
- But list, ye weeping ones—O sweet relief—
- It’s Heaven’s plan, through death to Life for all!
-
-[Illustration]
-
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