96 LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. IN MEMORIAM: Death's blighting blast But this soul of truth Tilumes this name Now numbered with the dead; And clouds of woe, Fair Mexico, o'erhang thy chieftain's head. Reflect! Look back, Proud Anahuac, To the deed by Diaz done! For the nation's life When fear was rife, Devoutly Knelt in prayer; Each battle fought, With anguish fraught, Delfina's thoughts were there, In the land above Where peace and love Abide with all the blest, Zealous and true, 'Mid the chosen few, God called her home to rest. MEXICO'S NATIONAL ANTHEM. Bind, oh my country! thy brow with the olive Of peace, for Archangels thy future foretold; And heav'n decreed it when time was an infant The hand of Jehovah thy life would unfold. Should daring monarchs attempt to invade thee, Profaning thy soil with unhallowed tread, Make ready the charger and steel, In war's fiercest combats thou often hast seen Their hearts nerved with courage and love for Who seek, as their guerdon, the death-bed of No more shall the blood of thy children Nor the steel by their hands be uplifted – Let the blood of thy sons steep the meadows Be given to ashes and flame! And their ruins alone bear this record: Here Anahuac's heroes were slain! If the war trump should call you to battle, When thy soldiers return to the hearthstone, While their fond wives and daughters rejoicing He who in battle for country If Bellona's shrill trump should invoke them, For thee are the garlands of olive! LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. BORN: CAMBRIDGE, MASS., FEB. 22, 1819. THIS poet, essayist and critic graduated at Harvard, and for more than twenty years was professor of belles-lettres in that college. In 1877 he was appointed minister of Spain, and JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. three years later he was transferred to the English court. Mr. Lowell's best poems are: The Present Crisis, Sir Launfal, A Glance Behind the Curtain, Under the Willows, A Fable of Critics, Commemoration Ode, Longing and The Changeling. His chief prose works are: Among My Books, and My Study Windows. ALADDIN. When I was a beggarly boy, But I had Aladdin's lamp; My beautiful castles in Spain! I have money and power good store, But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright, For the one that is mine no more; Take. Fortune, whatever you choose. I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose, LONGING. 97 Of all the myriad moods of mind So beautiful, as Longing? Still through our paltry stir and strife To let the new life in, we know, Desire must ope the portal; Perhaps the Longing to be so Helps make the soul immortal. EXTRACTS. Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected. Be noble! and the nobleness that lies New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of truth. But better far it is to speak One simple word which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men. The busy world shoves angrily aside And he who waits to have his task marked out No man is born into the world whose work Get but the truth once uttered, and 'tis like A star new-born that drops into its place, And which, once circling in its placid round Not all the tumult of the earth can shake. And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak, Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store, Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower. 98 LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. Life is a leaf of paper white His word or two, and then comes night; THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. NOTE. The following extract is the prelude to Part First of The Vision of Sir Launfal, one of the best of Lowell's efforts as a poet. The poem appeared in 1848, and it has done much to establish the reputation of its author as one of the most scholarly of American poets. Over his keys the musing organist, Beginning doubtfully and far away, First lets his fingers wander as they list, And builds a bridge from Dreamland for his lay. Then, as the touch of his loved instrument Gives hope and fervor, nearer draws his theme, First guessed by faint auroral flushed sent Not only around our infancy With our faint hearts the mountain strives; And to our age's drowsy blood Still shouts the inspiring sea. Earth gets its price for what earth gives us: The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in, The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us, We bargain for the graves we lie in; At the devil's booth are all things sold, Each ounce of dross cost its ounce of gold: For a cap and bells our lives we pay: Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking; 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, "Tis only God may be had for the asking. No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer. And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look or whether we listen, We hear life murmur or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice; And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace. The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? Now is the high tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, "Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green. We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell, We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing. The breeze comes whispering in our ear That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing; Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how; Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue"Tis the natural way of living. Who knows whither the clouds have fled? In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake; And the eyes forget the tears they have shed, The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth, And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burned-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal now Remembered the keeping of his vow? LOCAL AND NATIONAL POETS OF AMERICA. MRS. MARIA B. LINDESAY. BORN IN ENGLAND, JAN. 1, 1862. MRS. LINDESAY is known more as a Christian poet, and her poems have appeared in the MRS. MARIA B. LINDESAY. Chicago Living Church and other prominent periodicals. She now resides with her husband in Asheville, N. C. THE SCULPTOR'S TEST. Within his studio, one bright day, A massive block of marble lay, So wondrous pure, so spotless white It seemed to fill the room with light, And woo his genius to dare And try to form a Being there. Spurr'd by the one inspiring thought, From day to day he patient wrought, From week to week, from year to year Till fourteen of them pictured there, And he all doubt if 'twas his best, And trembling much, applied the test. He called a child, a little child All innocent and undefiled, And pointing to the figure there, In its pure beauty grand and fair, He bade her mark it long and well, And who she thought it was to tell. He watched her with a beating heart, Nor could he check a fearsome start, When the bright eyes had wandered o'er His work, and viewed it yet once more, 99 She spoke, as though of holy things, CHRIST'S HUMANITY. O! Babe upon thy mother's breast, In our weak garb of suffering drest, So lowly, yet so wondrous high That angels might not pass thee by, And wise men came from distant lands, With kingly offerings in their hands; What dreams prophetic, strange and old Thy heritage and work foretold! O! Child within the temple's court, Where priest and prophet wisdom sought, And thy young lips first ope' to tell, The message that they knew so well; O! Man upon the upward way Beneath the heat and toil of day, With weary feet and tender frame, Yet ever, always, just the same: Mighty to heal, lowly and mild, Yet grand in justice, undefiled, And blending with a god-like love Thy life work with Thy place above! O! Savior at the awful close, Forsook by friends, beset by foesBefore the vengeful bar arraign'd With brow and garments crimson-stained, Amidst the mob, whose only cry, In thirsty voice was, Crucify!' LIFE. How beautiful is Life! When the first streak [of dawning And all the glint and glow of early morning The wide east fills. Touches the sunrise hills, How beautiful is life! At noontide's hour How beautiful is life! When eventide And sunset's gates are flining open wide How beautiful is life! When mystic night Gleaming with other world's far distant light, And man must rest. WILLIAM PEBERDY. BORN: ENGLAND, JULY 13, 1860. MR. PEBERDY is now a resident of Middletown Conn., where he follows the occupation of an WILLIAM PEBERDY. engineer. His poems have appeared in the press since his youth. He was married in 1884 to Miss Belle M. Patrick, of Gorham, Me. AN AGED MAN, Old man, of hoary years and age, Late falling of its bloom, Thy history marks the warrior's page [life Shall bear thee off, thy duties done, Designs of anxious care, Which left impression there. Thy tottering steps old age proclaims She's master of her will, And toward the tomb she guides her reins, That churchyard's quiet bed, Where leaves will drop and daises bloom Every motion as before, Because thou art not with us more. Prepare, or yet the breeze of June, Or one bright ray from that great zone May mark the mantle of our tomb, Or glance upon a new laid stone That bears thy name or scores our years. The nightly shades which o'er us waves, Unnerves the stranger, breeds his fears; Such lonely sentinels of our graves. |