196

L. A. MARTIN.

BORN: FAYETTE CO., OHIO, JAN. 14, 1865. AFTER receiving a good education, Mr. Martin entered the profession of a school teacher. In 1889 he was school commissioner of Livingston county, and also editor of the Teachers' Re

L. A. MARTIN.

view, an educational journal published at Chillicothe, Mo. The poems of Mr. Martin have appeared from time to time in the periodical press.

THE WITHERED FLOWER. I saw a withered flower, On a low disheveled bower, Fading fast;

For the north wind then did blow,
And the skies with clouds of snow
Were o'ercast.

But its leaves were folded quiet
On its tiny stem so light,
So resigned;

To await the Reaper's call,
As fate has for us all

So designed.

Oh, I almost shed a tear, As I gazed upon the bier

Of that flower;

Though its leaves were sere and brown, "Twas as sweet as when spring's down Decked its bower.

And its humble dying smile
Seemed so calm and free from guile,
That its death

Showed signs of brightest hope,
Fulfilled when spring shall ope
Its sweet breath;

Oh, a lesson it me taught,
That with use is deeply fraught.
Oh, may I,

As that humble dying flower,
On its low, disheveled bower,
Live and die.

Let me e'er, as it, when spring
Verdant beauties o'er all fling,
Sweetly bloom.

And contented dwell alone
In my humble cottage home
With no gloom.

And when life's end is near,
And the frosts of death appear,
Let me hope

That bright again once more,
When the winter death is o'er
Spring will ope.

AMOUR PRIMUS.

O, evening long ago,

When first we love did know,

When first we told love's tale,

As over the dewy dale,

We passed along:

Sweet zephyr ceased to blow,
The blushing stars did glow,
And shone with crimson pale,
While hushed the nightingale
His gladdening song.

O, love that young hearts speak,
When first the crimsoned cheek
Bears plain the tell-tale hue
It is immortal true:

It never dies;
Though vain may be its flame,
Fond memories it reclaim;
And where fond treasured lie
The thoughts that cannot die,
It there doth rise.

MEMORIAL.

We stand upon death's threshold,
With the olive wreath of peace,
As o'er the dear dead fallen,

Fond tributes of love increase;
And we lay the hero's laurel

Above each unmarbled grave, While we sing love's burning anthems In memorials of the brave. The brave and the bold we honor, We love the true and the tried, And glory's green garlands blossom, Where the heroes fought and died.

PROCRASTINATION.

A startled gaze, and burning glance,

Flashed from the deep-brimmed hat,
His bloodless fingers, soft and fat,

Were tightly clasped. The deathly trance

Of agony chilled the warm blood, while the semblance

Of a rigid statue, grimly sat

Upon the moveless form that

Bended o'er the dial's sunlit utterance.

The shadow swept the pillar'd mark,
Where Time had called the turn,
While Pleasure, in her gilded bark,
Had frittered Life's sojourn,
To kiss the specter of a dark

Unwelcome guest, whose gift, a marble urn.

THE SONG OF DEATH.

I ride on the wings of the storm,

I float in the soft summer air,

I breathe, while I move without form,

I smite and the reaper is there.

In the midst of the battle so fell,

In the leaden balls' shower of death,

With the hissing of shot, and the bursting

of shell,

I sweep them away with a breath.

In the crash of the swift-coming train,' That sinks thro' the bridge o'er the [vain,

stream,
The shrieks of the dying, each praying in
And I count them by thousands again.
Old ocean with turbulent waves,
Its billows of death sweeping o'er,
Countless and drear are the graves,
The dirge of my song ever more.
I kiss with a poisonous breath,
High fever, dull stupor, and pain,
The fair cheek of slumbering health,
As I gloat o'er my victims again.
I lurk in the wine cup and smile,
As each sip quickly steals to the brain,
Young innocence thus I beguile,
While they falter, but turn not again.
I darken the earth with a storm,
I flash in the cloud-ladened air,
To strike from my pathway each form,
As I bound from my desolate lair.
I rush in the roar of the river,
While it sweeps from the craig to the sea,
To strangle the wretch with a shiver,
As he pays his last tribute to me.
All life is a harvest to claim,
From the gnat to the sweet-scented flower,
E'en the mammoth that sports in the main,
Succumbs to my death-dealing power.

I live in the hope of despair,
To crush, to slay and to kill,

To madden, till death seems so fair,

To die, is to shorten the ill.

A stranger to mercy and love,
Compassion, tenderness, tears,

My arrows of death from above,

Mark the flight of the numberless years.

ART THOU A FRIEND.

Art thou a friend to me?

Oh! no, it cannot be,

Or did the heart grow cold

With time's neglect. The mold
Of years has in the buried past
Grown greenly to break at last
The ties that bound us then.
Art thou a friend in need?
'Tis not the summer shine we heed,
Whose brightness shimmers all;
And golden May day showers fall
Upon the heart where fortune smiled,
While fleet-wing'd pleasure time be-

guiled,

The hours that then belonged to thee.

Art thou a friend indeed,

To nourish warm and feed

The hungry heart whose wintry tears
Are rusted leaflets of the years,
That have so quickly flown?

Can you be true in woe, as weal,

To bind our hearts with hooks of steel? GREAT THOUGHTS CAN NEVER DIE. Great thoughts are monuments upon the shores of time, [blime,

To cast long shadows from their heights su-
Their fadeless luster is the deathless cycle's
roll,
[fading scroll,---
To light with vivid splendor the world's un-
They live beyond the deeds with knightly val-
or crowned,
[nowned,
The marbled bust by sculptor's hand re-
The crumbling walls, the king's embattled
tower,
[ruthless power.
The conquering squadrons and the tyrant's
They live beyond the mitred churches' creed,
Beyond the truth, from papal error freed,
The earth does move, and grand Galileo dead,
His thought is master though his soul has
fled.

They live beyond the martyr's torturing death,
The sacred ashes, and the fleeting breath,
A crowned king, upon the globes empyrean
throne,

To gather untold harvests from the seed that thought has sown.

They live beyond the patriot's glorious grave, The rich libations, the willing blood he gave, That future years should halo living thought, And dim the stars with deeds such valor

wrought.

A HEART'S SONG.

Oh! autumn rain, so gently falling,
Alike some spirit softly calling,

In measured tones of scenes that were,
My heart in unison, is now besting,
My thoughts the days now gone repeating,
Those happier days with love so fair.
Oh! life, why must ye change so grimly?
Or, will the future showing dimly,

Some sweeter recompense bestow?
Some solace for the heart-ache borne, love,
Some joys known in this life we live, love,
Ere to the seraph's land we go?

Soft falls the rain on dying leaves, dear,
Like a knell my aching heart must hear,
Of hopes that rest as dying leaves -
But as those leaves fair blooms may cover,
So may I through life's gloom discover
The joy for which my spirit grieves.

So may thine arms some day entwine me,
Thy very soul as mine, mine with thee

WITHIN MY FATHER'S CARE.

Within my Father's care
Have I bestowed one flower;
From off my loving breast

"Twas plucked one dreadful hour.
Rebellion thrilled my being then
And grief, untold by voice, or pen.
At first I would not have it so;
Proud was my neck beneath its woe,
While flinching 'neath the rod.

She was my all; the first-
Sweet gift from heaven sent,

I murmured; .. Why, dear Lord,
Was this sweet bud lent,

Until mine arms had twined around
Her baby form; and love profound-
Sweet mother-love my heart had filled?
Why was it, dearest Lord, thus willed,
And I must give her up?"

But time with soft'ning touch
Hath soothed, not healed, the wound;
In faith, a solace sweet,

My saddened heart hath found.
And, Oh! how sweet by trust to feel
She's safe with Christ, through woe or
weal,

"Tis thus I make no half-way gift,
Nor have within the lute one rift,
To mar its perfect tone.

So sweetly faith has taught
This boundless trust in God.

I cannot murmur now,
But bow beneath the rod;
Nor could a doubt of Him imply
To ask her spirit from on high.
So in my heart I hold her there,
Through days and years, a memory fair,—
A presence, sweet and dear.

200

A TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN. Under ocean evening bells are swinging, Muffled by the waters, faint and slow Telling by their wild, unearthly ringing Of a strange old city down below. Looking downward, mid the currents darkling, Spires and towers and walls are dimly seen; Radiance from their roofs of silver sparkling Glitters upward through the waters green. He, whose bark above that sunken city Through the evening twilight once has gone, Drawn henceforth by secret love and pity, Steers forever to that mystery lone.

So within my heart the bells are swinging, Faint and slow they sound on memory's shore.

Ah! I hear their strange, unearthly ringing,
Telling of the Love which comes no more.
Dearest hopes therein are sunk forever,
Through the tide of time their memory
gleams;

Faith and Truth, whose glory faileth never,
Glitter through the current of my dreams.
And those dear illusive echoes falling
From an unseen world, so far apart,
Sound like angel-voices, ever calling
From that sunken city, in my heart.

WILLIAM WETMORE STORY.

BORN: SALEM, MASS., FEB, 12, 1819. GRADUATING at Harvard in 1838, and also at its law department two years later, he was admitted to the bar, and at once devoted himself in compiling and publishing law works. At the same time he contributed both prose and verse to the Boston Miscellany and other periodicals. His first volume of Poems was published in 1847. In 1848 his fondness for art led to his going to Italy, where he has since resided, devoting his attention chiefly to sculpture.

Its peace no sorrow shall destroy;
Its beauty age shall spare
The bitterness of vanished joy,
The wearing waste of care.
"And there upon that silent face
Shall unborn ages see
Perennial youth, perennial grace,
And sealed serenity.

And strangers, when we sleep in peace,
Shall say, not quite unmoved,

So smiled upon Praxiteles

The Phryne whom he loved."