Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

THOMAS THACKERAY SWINBURNE.

367

And a flood of light came with him,
Bringing peace and sweet content
Unto all whose hearts were open
To the being God had sent.

Where he makes his habitation, There he dwelleth evermore; Faith, the bar upon the gateway,

Hope, the seal upon the door, Keeping him a willing captive

From his erstwhile home above. Mighty child of mighty parents, Everlasting, perfect Love.

EVOLUTION.

STAND ye there, alike God's creatures;
Tree and woman, side by side!
Differing but in outward features,
All the secrets that ye hide
Of the laws of life and being,

True of one are true of both;
We would find by deeper seeing,
Souls but vary in their growth.

Are you thinking, soul of woman,
Of the age that used to be,

When you made some green world gladder
By your presence there, a tree?

Are you longing, forest monarch,
For the coming ages, when,
By some grand metempsychosis,
You may be a king of men?

Who can tell how long the journey

Since ye left the dim unknown!

Through what depths ye must have struggled!
What foes met and overthrown!
Who shall say, oh! souls immortal,

Reaching ever toward the light,
How much less than utter God-hood
Is the limit of your height!

THOMAS THACKERAY SWINBURNE.

HOMAS THACKERAY SWINBURNE is the

THOMAS

youngest (posthumous) child of John Thackeray and Jane Emily Swinburne. He attended the public schools until the death of his mother, which occurred in his twelfth year, when he was obliged to seek a means of livelihood. After engaging in several occupations he finally entered his brother's printing office and learned that trade. Afterwards he became part proprietor of a job printing office, but not fancying the business, sold out and prepared for college with the intention of following a profession. He entered the University of Rochester with the class of '92. Was poet of the class, and was editor of the department of verse on the Campus, to which the most of his pieces were contributed. He wrote the Rochester college song "Our Alma Mater", which has been set to music and is sung by the Glee Club and at the annual commencement of the University of Rochester. L. A. B.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD.

WHEN Jesus calmly slept,

On wind-tossed Galilee, His timid followers kept A watch of agony.

Those weary worldlings slept,

In dark Gethsemane, When Jesus sadly kept His watch of agony.

They watched while Jesus slept.

They slept while Jesus watched. While tears of blood He wept,

They calmly slept untouched.

Thus earthly things we deem To be of greatest worth, While heavenly things oft seem To be the things of earth.

SUNRISE.

As silent Night drew back her sombre skirts,
She said unto her child, pale Eastern Sky,
"Behold! thy bridegroom cometh from his rest!
Stretch forth thine arms to him for he is nigh!"

A lovely light illuminéd the pale face

As onward came her lord upon his way; And when he gently kissed her pallid brow

The happy maiden blushed-and it was day!

PARTING SONG.

SAY not adieu, but au revoir

We owe the past a farewell sigh:

A tear to mutual pleasures o'er;

To hallowed scenes a fond good-bye; But even these, in other days

Shall memory oft again renew, And may we, ere we go our ways, Say au revoir, but not adieu.

Say not adieu, but au revoir,

And let each overflowing heart,

In silence, a libation pour,

To pledge our friendship ere we part; No vow with sacred oil or wine

Than such an offering is more trueAn earnest hand-clasp, mine and thine, Then, au revoir, but not adieu.

CLIO.

SHE stands on time's exalted pinnacle,

The eternal present, pointing to the land Of the departed, and holding in her hand An open scroll, wherein her pluméd quill Of centuries agone keeps chronicle

For future ages. She summons back again
The vanished years, a long and phantom train,
Whose deathless deeds her living pages fill.
Her mournful pipe awakes a thousand strains

Of love and war, and tales of land and sea;
She tells of human progress, and she shows
Its scattered monuments in her domains,
The mighty works of ancient majesty,
O'er which the ivy creeps and Lethe flows.

HERVEY SMITH TOMER.

ERVEY S. TOMER was born in Lapeer,

HERVEY, November 12th, 1893. He began

newspaper work on leaving school at the age of nineteen, and has continued at it most of the time since, including about six years of editorial service in Rochester. Mr. Tomer has always been an occasional contributor to various periodicals, and is at present devoting all of his time to such work, chiefly short stories and sketches. W. W.

ON THE DEATH OF A MOSQUITO.

Thy song hath ceased; the thread is snapped asunder

Whereby suspended

Thy little life; oblivion gulfs thee under,

And all is ended.

Once, in my youth, I scoffed at thy creation,
So useless seemed it;

Yet thou didst trace the red blood's circulation,
Ere Harvey dreamed it,

Vein was thy search, e'en though a "find" rewarded

Thy sanguine yearnings, When some fresh field thy victim left unguarded In slumb'rous turnings.

[blocks in formation]

That was thirteen years ago, sir,
In the spring, and we grew closer
Through the dandelion season and the daisy-
scented weeks,

And we two were found together, sunny skies or stormy weather,

Wandering through the hoary woodlands and beside the crystal creeks.

We were young; had we been older
Our devotion had been colder;

Hand in hand we had not wandered then with feet all brown and bare;

We were ten; had we been twenty
Surely I should now have plenty

Of dead dandelion blossoms plucked from Janet's tangled hair.

But ere I had learned to whisper,
Passion moved, or she to lisp her
Soft replies of doubt or confidence,
The summer-time had fled.

And when came the winter cover
On the hills, another lover

Drew my false, false-hearted Janet on a crimson colored sled.

THE THUNDERBOLT.

THE heavy cloud-mountains were riven asunder, The valley was bathed with a glare from the sky;

WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.

Ah, how the earth quaked at the boom of the thunder!

Then women thanked God with their eyes turned on high

Thanked their God with a sigh of relief, and drew nigher

The treasures for whom their full hearts overflowed;

But the moon, glancing down through a rift, hastened higher

To veil a dead face that looked up from the road!

I HEARD THEE CALLING.

I HEAR thine accents rend the air,
I hear thee calling;

I hear thee when the night is fair,
When cloudless floats the radiant moon,
When pipes the frog in his lagoon

I hear thy caterwauling!

I hear thee, Thomas! There's a slow
And plaintive pathos in thy tone
That comes to me, a poet lone
And thoughtful, and the flow

Of rhymes is stopped the while I list

To thy "Maria" quavered low

From some near housetop.

Ah, from thee, perchance, was sweet torn;

And likewise, haply, in the spree

An eye, a bunch of hair, were missed. "Maria" will not come. Thy cry

Is heard by me and I can catch

Thy outlines on the neighboring thatch;

Thy back bent upward to the sky

With heaviness of inward woe,

Thy slitted ears, thy hair awry,
Thy tail that moveth to and fro,
Thy furrowed brow-however, that
Was furrowed by some rival cat.
I hear thee, Thomas, but thy mate
Will see thee, hear thee, nevermore;
So go thy way and mend thy pate,
Nor curse thy luck nor rail at Fate,
Remembring there be cats galore.

FREEDOM.

[ocr errors][merged small]

And far through clouds that made the present dark The future spread fair as a sunlit sea,

And Peace dwelt there, and all the land was free.

WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON.

REV

369

EV. WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON was born in Westford, Vt., October 19th, 1833. He was graduated from Rochester University in 1857, and at the theological seminary there in 1859. In the same year he became pastor of the Wooster Place Baptist Church, New Haven, Conn., and he remained there until 1861, when he resigned, and made an extensive tour in Europe. After spending a year as tutor in modern languages in Rochester University, he accepted a call to the pastorate of the Mount Auburn Baptist Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1872, he was elected to the professorship of homiletics and pastoral theology in the Rochester Theological Seminary, but in 1881 he retired from this office and for ten years or so devoted himself to literary work. He is counsellor of the Chautauqua literary and scientific circle. He has also lectured at Wellesley College on English literature. Rochester gave him the degree of D. D. in 1873. Dr. Wilkinson has contributed extensively to periodicals, and he is the author of some twelve printed books, which in the aggregate have reached a circulation of about half a million copies. In 1892 he became professor in the University of Chicago. His chair is that of Poetry and Criticism.

DEDICATED.

Book of page inviolate,
Thee I seal and consecrate;

Sacred thou henceforward art
Unto scriptures of the heart.

Fair and innocent thy look, Leaves unwritten, little book; Written all thy leaves, be thou Innocently fair as now!

Innocently fair, but then
Stored and storied from the pen,
Vow of friendship, counsel sage,
Subtle spell on every page.

J. G. W.

Each white leaf upturn its face With a meek, imploring grace, Pray who writes bestow good care Not to fleck what now is fair.

Little book, I charge thee be Cheer to her that choose out thee; Comfort her with hand and token, Signature of faith unbroken.

Hearken, book, a secret hear, Low, bend low, thy hoarding ear, "Close, keep close, what thee I tell, "Or ensure thou use it well!

Whose thou art, her breast within, Hides a book to thee a twin; Many a page is virgin still,

She may write there what she will.

Tell no other, but tell her,
Haste to tell, and not defer;
Tell her, bid her, beg, conjure,
Make those living scriptures pure!

Thou wilt perish by and by,
Little book, with things that die;
That, with things that live forever,
Will abide, to perish never,—

Aye, with all its scriptures clear, Rescued from the burning sphere, Will, with her that owns it, go Endless ways in weal or woe.

Faithful monitor be thou;
Sometimes, when she bends her brow
Over thee to con the signs,
Show her this between the lines.

COURAGE.

SOLDIERS twain stood facing danger,
Side by side, alone and still;
Bold was one, to fear a stranger,
Light of thought as stout of will.

But the other, grave and serious, Deeply pondered, where he stood, Felt the spell of the mysterious Overshadowing neighborhood

Of the mortal menace hidden

In that moment's sudden chance; Till the throng of thoughts unbidden Trampled white his countenance.

Then his comrade marked his pallor And a rallying charge he made, Out of his light-hearted valor

Lightly spoken, "You're afraid!"

"True, my friend," with blanched lips said he; "I have fear as you have none;

But I stand here, staunch and steady,
You, with half my fear, would run!"

VANITAS VANITATUM.

THERE is no profit in the earth-the gems which

seem

Deceive us, with a mocking, borrowed beam.
We are somnambulists; this mortal state
In a sleep-walking only—we await
The voice of God to rouse up; like a fool,
Who sees the mirrored sky within a pool,
And claps his hands, deeming the splendid scene
Indeed beneath the wave, indeed terrene,
Nor lifts one upward glance to where true heaven
Is bright with sunny noon or starry even-
Like him, we dive in a deceiving sea,
And grasp at pearls with idiotic glee,
Which are but imitations of the true,
Deluded with a fashion and a hue!

THE POET'S MINE.

THERE is a power or passion of the spirit,
Oh! wrought not, laid not, by the spirit's will,
But coming, going, as the fit may wear it,
Or he, the viewless conjurer, compel,
That feigns, translates, transmutes, whatever fill
Earth, ocean, air, the substance of the mind, .
Into bright forms and essences, that still

Flit with its shifting phase, return refined
To more pure modes of grace more gloriously
combined.

These pass into the spirit; there they grow
Into a clearer beauty; thus they blend
With her own being; an empyreal glow,

And they are one, yet not the same; these lend
Their life, and the blithe spirit hastes to spend
An effluence of her quality divine
Which makes them co-immortal: without end
This passes with the poet, till a mine
Of jewels purest-wrought doth in his spirit shine!

ASSOCIATION.

Thou,

Consenting thus to parley with the fool
According to his folly, like becomest.

-The Epic of Saul.

WISDOM.

We make ourselves a laughter-unless we
Warp toward our end with wisdom; who is weak
Well needs be wise, to win-wisdom is power,
The slave,

If wise, may make a foolish master serve.

-Ibid.

JENEVEHAH MARIA WINTON

371

MAN.

[blocks in formation]

THE truant child o'ertaken by the dark,

In sad bewilderment, where two ways meet; White robes of morning draggled, and her feet Beclogged with mire; and many a bleeding mark Of awkward reach through briers bristling stark, For flowers or berries which she dare not eat, But clutches still, scared at her own heart's beat, And crying to the lonesome sky. When, hark! A voice! And from that frightened heart a voice Responsive, thrilling up through cloud and night! "My child!" "O father, take me to the light!" Her apron emptied now from blesséd choice!

Such, Lord, was I, when through the dark, Thy call

Made empty all my heart for Thee, my All.

M

JENEVEHAH MARIA WINTON.

Her

RS. JENEVEHAH MARIA WINTON, poet and author, was born in Orrville, N. Y., May 11th, 1837. Her maiden name was Pray, and she belongs to a family with many branches throughout the Union. Three brothers of her father's ancestry came over from France with Lafayette and joined the American forces. One of these gave his means and ships, another became an officer in the Continental army, and the third gave his life for the American cause. Her father, a native of Rhode Island, was educated in Oxford University, England, and became an eloquent preacher. mother, the daughter of an English earl and otherwise related to some of England's most exemplary and noted nobility, was very highly educated and wrote considerable prose and poetry, some of which was published in book form, under a pen-name. Mrs. Winton early began to write, and while attending Lima Seminary, Lima, N. Y., wrote much poetry. Many of her poems were printed and copied extensively, under some pen-name or unsigned, in magazines and other periodicals. In her younger years she wrote much and earned considerable means. Being then in affluent circumstances, it was her custom to give what she earned to the poor and unfortunate. In after years when the wife of William H. Winton, after living in Indianapolis, Ind., and other cities of the West, her productions were identified and copied far and near. her original poems were set to music by Thomas P. Westendorf and others. For several years her residence has been in Rochester and Kingston, N. Y., where, up to the time of the death of her daughter, her manuscripts were given to the press. Since that event, which nearly took the mother's life, but few productions have been sent out. For nearly two years, to escape the rigors of a northern climate, she resided in southern New Jersey, among the rustic surroundings of her farm on Landis avenue, East Vineland. More recently she has resided in New Haven, Conn. She is a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. H. A. V.

MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD. THE memories of childhood, How pleasantly they come With the sound of ringing waters, And the wild bee's dreary hum; With the breath of scented clover, And the incense like perfume That floated from the orchard trees Througout their days of bloom.

Many of

« ZurückWeiter »