.r;: /:;■
v?
.^ f \ oy—■ v ' 1
riSyigB
POEMS
BY
GEORGE MARION M'CLELLM.
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR.
NASHVILLE, TENN.:
iPcblishing House A. M. E. Church Sunday School Union.
1895.
CONTENTS.
Page.
Race Literature 7
POEMS.
The June 11
An Octaroon's Farewell 15
The March's Promise 16
Dogwood Blossoms, 17
A Serenade 18
Eternity 19
Sustaining Hope 20
A Summer Afternoon 21
A September Night ; 23
As Sifted Wheat 24
A Belated Oriole 25
A Psyche of the Spring 26
Heart Yearnings 27
My Madonna 28
A Meadow-Land 29
A Butterfly in Church 31
The Harvest Moon 32
In the Heart of a Rose 33
An Autumn Day 34
(3)
4
Contents.
I'age.
The Feet of Judas 36
A Faithless Love 37
A Song of Nashville 38
To Kitty Wysong 41
The April of Alabama 42
Lines to Mount Glen 43
That Better Day 47
May Along the Cumberland 48
Service 49
A Decoration Day 51
By the Cumberland 52
In Summer 53
Youthful Delusions 55
Love is a Flame 56
To Lochiel 57
Prayer 58
A January Dandelion 60
Sunday Morning 61
Estranged 62
A Little News Vender 63
The Color Bane 65
Lines to a Whippoorwill 66
The Bridal Wreath's Lament 68
March Winds 70
Lines to Night 72
May 74
Lines to a Mocking Bird 77
Lines to the Memory of Dr. Powell of the A. M. A. 79
Contents.
5
Page.
Resentment 80
In Memory of Katie Reynolds—Dying 81
Thanksgiving Day in New England 82
After Commencement at Fisk University 85
The Woods of October 86
The Message of a Dead Rose 88
The Sun Went Down in Beauty 89
Over the Bay 92
The Secret 93
The New Jerusalem 94
PROSE.
The Goddess of the Penitentials 97
A Christmas Carol 110
Annette 128
A Christmas Night 140
A Farewell 142
RACE LITERATURE.
The author of these poems, if such they
may be called, is fully conscious that there
is no special merit in them. They do not
represent any very continued effort and
study, a thing necessary for meritorious
composition, even where there is genius, and
much more so, where there is only a passing
ability. I have never had a chance to do
what I might be able to do by hard work,
if leisure and freedom from the constant
struggle for daily bread were given. The
poems in this collection have been written
at odd times. Some of them at the noon-
hour in the swamps of Mississippi, when a
student teacher in vacation, during college
days; gome of them later in wayside depots
in Connecticut and Massachusetts, while I
waited for trains, during my travels as
financial agent for Fisk University; others
wThile about Nashville, and my native hills
of the Highland Rim of Middle Tennessee.
(7)
8
Race Literature.
This accounts for the local color so wide¬
spread, where such local color appears. I
have been too full of things and obliga¬
tions in other lines than that of poetry-
writing to do much in that direction. The
only apology, then, I have to offer for seek¬
ing to call attention to what I have writ¬
ten, is the criticism that the Negro has con¬
tributed essentially nothing to literature.
The criticism itself is true enough and
must remain so for a long time to come,
but the spirit of it has often been unkind.
Indeed in some cases where it has been
urged as a proof of the Negro's incapability
of ultimate high development, the criticism
has become a demand as glaringly absurd
as it is lacking in a generous and compre¬
hensive judgment.
Thirty years ago from this day of writ¬
ing, 1894, the Negroes of the United States-
were slaves in the grossest ignorance and
degradation. Is thirty years enough time
for children to be born of such parents, to
get an education and produce a race litera¬
ture? It only takes a moment's reflection
to see the absurdity of such an arraignment
of the race on this score, as that which ap¬
peared in the April number of the North
Race Literature.
9
American Review, 1892, by a Southern gen¬
tleman of some merit in letters.
It is time that there should begin to ap¬
pear some literary attempts of passing merit
from representatives of the Negro race. But
superior excellence in literary instinct and
capacity is a plant of slow growth, the culti¬
vated gift of many generations. There are no
environments that can keep true genius in
the background, let it be under a black or
white skin. But Negro writers of that
great common class who, with ordinary
ability, must achieve success by hard labor^
will be at a great disadvantage necessarily
in having to compete with the great writers
of the white.race who are already centuries
ahead. They must suffer in such a com¬
parison. Our situation as a race is without
parallel in history. A race's literature is
the expression of its national and social
life. Its subjects are drawn from its heroes
and their historic achievements. As a race
we have never had a national life. We
have no heroes to form worthy subjects of
epics and dramas. We have no great and
inspiring history.
The Israelitish race offers the nearest
parallel to that of ours. But that race
10
Race Literature.
has no inspiring history at the time of the
Exodus, except that event itself and the
covenant with Abraham. All that is
especially noteworthy in the history of that
race followed the crossing of the Jordan in
the outcome of its national life.
Aside from the story of our emancipation
and the hardships of our enslavement, of
what subjects have we to sing to make a
literature peculiarly native to us? To pro¬
duce a Negro literature, we must have time
to produce song-material, as well as sing¬
ers. In this little attempt of mine I have
not tried to sing Negro songs purely, but
songs of beautiful landscapes, wherever I
have seen them, and felt song-inspired by
them, or of touches of human loves and
feelings, as I have felt them. For what
these songs are worth I can but hope they
will be kindly received. In a few more
years I hope to give expression of better
and worthier things.
George Marion McClellan,
Nashville, Tenn.
PASSING SONGS.
THE JUNE.
The June has come with all its brilliant dyes,
Its honeyed breath, its balmy gusts and sighs,
In fields and stretching up-lands, glade and glen,
And by the high and lowly haunts of men,
With all-surpassing glory bloom the flowers,
And come are sun-lit skies and dreamy hours.
The morning earth is all begemmed with dew,
The toiling bee the blissful hours through
Hums softly on his self-beguiling tune,
While gathers he the sweetest sweets of June.
Low murmuring the crystal brooklet leads
Its way through fields and lane and emerald meads.
The clover fields are red and sweetly scent
The pasture lands, where browse the kine content.
The corn is swayed with breezes passing by,
And everywhere the bloom is on the rye.
Already on the bearded wheat is seen
The gold which tempts the farmer's sickle keen,
And I can almost see the gleaming blade
By which the golden grain is lowly laid ;
And hear the singing scythe and tramp of feet,
And see the cone-shaped shocks of wheat.
All shimmering the landscapes far and wide
Bespeak fair promise for the harvest tide.
12
The June.
The June has come with summer skies and glow,
Reflecting bliss and Junes of long ago—
Bare feet, and careless roving bands of boys
That haunted lake and stream in halcyon joys,
The bow and arrow, hunting ground and snares,
The sudden flight of quails and skulking hares,
The wild and joyous shouts along the glen
Come back in all the month of June again.
Then other days and solitary dreams
Are come again with flash of flaming gleams,
Where red birds shot across the opening glades,
In quest of deeper thickets, deeper shades.
Again far inland, on and on I tread,
Where cooling shades and carpets green are spread
And modestly the violet blooms and sups
The dew; and glow the golden butter-cups ;
And sweet the odor of the woods I scent
Where perfume of a thousand kinds is spent.
And stretched full length upon the ground
I lie and watch the leaves and hear their sound
And wonder what their whisperings include
To tell of life spent in such solitude.
Here dreaming on forgetting time and men
The June a million visions brings again,
In imagery so rare of that and this,
A self-forgetting turmoil, nameless bliss.
Unseen but felt, the spirit of the wood
Without a dogma teaches of the good
In God sublime. An all-pervading sense
Is everywhere of his resource immense,
His love ineffable—infinite power,
In storm resisting oaks, and purple flower
The June.
13
Scarce lifting up its head an inch above the ground
Is seen alike, and with the joyous sound
Which Robin-Redbreast from a tree top trills
Full orthodox confession comes and fills
The heart. The lip is mute but deep a sigh
The spirit sendeth upward to the sky
Baptized in faith, its adoration, love,
A credo of the soul, to God above.
The June has come with all its brilliant dyes,
Its honeyed breath, its balmy gusts and sighs.
The soft sunshine comes down aslant the hills,
With perfume sweet the honeysuckle fills
The summer atmosphere for miles around,
And all the groves and fields are sweet with sound,
While hills, and woods and vale and grassy slope
Are teeming everywhere with life and hope.
Come out, ye sons of men from street and ward,
Come forth again upon the welcome sward,
At least for one brief day leave toilsome care
In offices and stifling banks and wear
The boyish spirit over field and glen,
Drink deep once more of all his joys again.
The way is not so long—the brook in size
Has lost to longer legs and manhood eyes,
But its low murmuring the morning through
Is still a lullaby ; and love is true
In brook and field, and sky, and dale and glen
For all the changing, faithless sons of men.
In these no hot contentions, endless strife,
Nor aching hearts, consuming greed of life,
No soul-corrupting lusts, debasing sin,
Nor blighted lives where innocence has been
14
The June.
Are ever brought by June. But to assuage
The sorrows of mankind from age to age
A subtle charm, a bliss, a merry tune
Abideth in the country lap of June.
Come out where kindly nature deftly weaves
Her cooling bowers with the tender leaves
Ye tired wives and husbands vexed with care.
And find life's true elixir in the air.
Let tinkling bells of flocks and browsing herd,
The song of brooks and twitter of the bird
Unite with children voices in their shout
Of mirth and joy on all the sward about,
And let the maidens come with rosy cheeks
And merry boys with gallantry that speaks
Of dawning love, and sentiment the best
That ever came to swell the human breast;
Let all come forth in holiday array
From care, and feel the bliss of one June day.
An Octaroon's Farewell. 15
AN OCTAEOON'S FABEWELL.
O love, farewell, a long farewell,
Ten thousand times good-night,
God's benediction with thee dwell,
And guide thy steps aright.
We part to-night; it must be so,
'Tis best for thee and me,
But my true heart can never know
Love lessening for thee.
Love's promises were but a myth,
A mockery and sham ;
I've lived to learn I'm tainted with
The cursed blood of Ham.
Dear love, how could I know when I
Gave to thee all my heart,
That far as earth is from the sky,
Our lives must lie apart?
Yet I can never rue the day,
Though all the world I miss,
For death itself can not outweigh,
My momentary bliss-
16
The March's Promise.
THE MARCH'S PROMISE.
When gray clouds break on Southern skies
And winds of March begin to blow,
Our fancies run to summer sighs,
That whisper and delight us so.
For in this stormy month of winds,
The first new pulse of life is felt,
When spring with all her sweets begins,
Where winter's ice and snow have dwelt.
The bluebird carols out his note,
A prelude to the country round,
Of chimes a few more days remote,
To which the forest will resound—
The plowman's song, the forest chime,
The ujiturned sod, the country scene,
Bespeak a resurrection time
In air and sky and sprouting green.
O, blessed hope of life anew
That comes from death when spring begins ;
Life after death a promise true
Is brought in March's stormy winds.
Dogwood Blossoms.
17
DOGWOOD BLOSSOMS.
To dreamy languors and the violet mist
Of early spring, the deep sequestered vale
Gives first her paling-blue Miamimist,
"Where blithely pours the cuckoo's annual tale
Of summer promises and tender green,
Of a new life and beauty yet unseen.
The forest trees have yet a sighing mouth,
Where dying winds of March their branches swing,
While upward from the dreamy sunny South,
A hand invisible leads on the spring.
His rounds from bloom to bloom the bee begins
With flying song, and cowslip wine he sups,
Where to the warm and passing southern winds,
Azaleas gently swing their yellow cups.
Soon everywhere with glory through and through,
The fields will spread with every brilliant hue.
But high o'er all the early floral train,
Where softness all the arching sky resumes,
The dogwood dancing to the wind's refrain,
In stainless glory spreads its snowy blooms.
18
A Serenade.
A SERENADE.
Dear heart, I would that thou couldst know
How like the burning glow of Mars,
My love here keeps a watch below
Thy window and the midnight stars.
How sweet the breath of night is now,
Of sweets the rose and jessamine keep ;
Go, winds, with these and kiss her brow,
And bear my love to her in sleep.
Oh ! such a love, that loves her so,
With such a little space apart,
Should through yon open casement go,
And gently stir her dreaming heart.
Dear heart, sleep on without a fear,
If all unconsciously to thee,
My love must watch, to watch so near,
Makes even that a bliss to me.
Eternity.
19
ETERNITY.
Hock me to sleep, ye waves, and drift my boat
With undulations soft far out to sea;
Perchance where sky and wave wear one blue coat,
My heart shall find some hidden rest remote.
My spirit swoons, and all my senses cry
-Tor Ocean's breast and covering of the sky.
Rock me to sleep, ye waves, and outward bound,
■Just let me drift far out from toil and care,
Where lapping of the waves shall be the sound,
Which mingled with the winds that gently bear
Me on between a peaceful sea and sky,
To make my soothing slumberous lullaby.
Thus drifting on and on upon thy breast,
JMy heart shall go to sleep and rest and rest.
20
Sustaining Hope.
SUSTAINING HOPE.
Farewell, Dearest and Best,
What matters it whether the name be Dove,
Dear-heart, and all sweet words at love's behest,
Since none can voice my love ?
To stay is past my power ;
Oh, love, my own Dear-heart, farewell, good-bve!
For thee I'll breathe through every passing hour,
A fond and secret sigh.
But, Dear, though it be long,
This hope 'mid distant scenes and fellow-men
Will lead me on, in solitude, or throng,
That we shall meet again.
A Summer Afternoon.
21
A SUMMER AFTERNOON.
Sing on, sweet bird, and soothe my soul,
With thy melodious tune,
Chant me tliy rhapsodies this whole
Delightful afternoon.
And hiding in thy secret bower,
In modesty's retreat,
Thy music, melting by the hour,
Is ravisliingly sweet.
Comes perfume from the climbing rose
That interlacing meets
Above my head, where comes and goes
The bee in search of sweets.
The cooling Zephyrs stealing by,
Faint-scented odors bear,
Which make with every gusty sigh,
Exquisite all the air.
Wide as the naked eye can reach,
Are landscapes stretching far,
Too beautiful for human speech
To paint them as they are.
And here beneath this climbing rose
A dreamy blissful state
Comes on, as when one for repose,
Has drunk some opiate.
If thou couldst charm my lover here
To lean upon my breast,
Thy music, bird, would be more dear,
And I would be more blest.
22 A Summer Afternoon.
And singing on in thy retreat,
Thy melting, sensuous tune,
My dreamy bliss would be complete,
This lovely afternoon.
A September Night.
23
A SEPTEMBER NIGHT.
The full September moon sheds floods of light,
And all the bayou's face is gemmed with stars
Save where are dropped fantastic shadows down
From sycamores and moss-hung cypress trees.
With slumberous sound the waters half asleep
Creep on and on their way, twixt rankish reeds,
Through marsh and lowlands stretching to the gulf.
Begirt with cotton fields Anguilla sits
Half bird-Jike dreaming on her summer nest
Amid her spreading figs, and roses still
In bloom with all their spring and summer hues.
Pomegranates hang with dapple cheeks full ripe,
And over all the town a dreamy haze
Drops down. The great plantations stretching far
Away are plains of cotton downy white.
O, glorious is this night of joyous sounds
Too full for sleep. Aromas wild and sweet,
From muscadine, late blooming jessamine,
And roses, all the heavy air suffuse.
Faint bellows from the alligators come
From swamps afar, where sluggish lagoons give
To them a peaceful home. The katydids
Make ceaseless cries. Ten thousand insects' wings
Stir in the moonlight haze and joyous shouts
Of Negro song and mirth awake hard by
The cabin dance. O, glorious is this night.
The summer sweetness fills my heart with songs
I cannot sing, with loves I cannot speak.
Anguilla, Miss., September, 1892.
24
As Sifted Wheat.
AS SIFTED WHEAT.
0 sift me, Lord, and make me
Clean as sifted wheat:
My soul, an empty vessel, bring
To my Redeemer's feet.
However sinful I have been or be,
Thou knowest, Lord, that I love thee.
1 am so closely hedged about,
Oh Christ, as thou hast been,
My soul hemmed in with flesh
Is so in love with sin.
Sin-stained am I, but sift me, Lord, complete
And make me clean as sifted wheat.
A Belated Oriole.
25
A BELATED OEIOLE.
s
Gay little songster of the spring,
This is an evil hour
For one so light of heart and wing
To face the storms that lower.
December winds blow on the lea
A chill that threatens harm,
With not a leaf on bush or tree
To shield thee from the storm.
Why hast thou lingered here so late
To face the storms that rise,
When all thy kind, and yellow mate
Have sought for southern skies ?
Hast thou like me some fortune ill
To bind thee to this spot,
Made to endure against thy will,
A melancholy lot ?
Chill is the air with windy sighs,
A prophecy that blows,
Of cold and inhospitable skies,
Of bitter frost and snows.
But there is One whose power it is
To'temper blast and storm,
And love to love a bird is his,
And keep it safe from harm.
To Him thy helplessness will plead,
To Him I lift a prayer,
For we alike have common need
Of His great love and care.
26
A Psyche of Spring.
A PSYCHE OF SPRING.
Thou gaily painted butterfly, exquisite thing,
A child of light and blending rainbow hues,
In loveliness a psyche of the spring,
Companion for the rose and diamond dews.
'Tis thine in sportive joy from hour to hour,
To ride the breeze from flower to flower.
But thou wast once a worm, as now am I,
And seeing thee, gay thing, afloat in bliss,
I take new hope in thoughts of by and by,
When I, as thou, have shed my chrysalis.
Then through a gay eternal spring of light,
Shall my immortal soul pursue its flight.
Heart Yearnings.
27
HEART YEARNINGS.
Oh ! for the welcome breath of country air,
With summer skies and flowers,
To shout and feel once more the halcyon
Of gayer boyhood hours.
I think the sight of fields and shady lanes
Would ease my heart of pains.
To cool once more my thirst where bubbled up
The waters of a spring,
Where I have seen the golden daffodils
And lilies flourishing,
My fevered heart would more than half forget
Its sighs, and vain regret.
Far, far away from early scenes am I;
And, too, my youth has fled ;
For me a stranger's land, a stranger's sky,
That arches over-head.
For scenes and joys that now have passed me by,
I can but give a sigh.
But Oh ! for hearts that yearn and hearts that sigh,
For wayward feet that roam,
Hope whispers for the by and by,
A never-changing home.
And there no more in a strange land will break
The home-sick heart, and ache.
28
My Madonna.
MY MADONNA.
It is a sacrilege in form I fear,
To make this photograph of him and thee,
From my own sunny south sent north to rue,
In all my heart my own Madonna, dear;
Yet Raphael could paint no face or brow
To make me worship it with glory lit,
Although the Holy Virgin sat for it,
As I do this, our baby's face and thou.
Though priests my worship may condemn to scorn,
I think the virgin with her mother love,
The Babe of Bethlehem, of woman born,
And later all my sins and sorrows bore,
If my great love for thee they watch above,
For it they both are pleased and love me more.
Hartford, Conn., December, 1893.
A Meadow-Land.
29
A MEADOW-LAND.
Delight of keen delights in summer hours,
Is this long meadowy scene,
All rioting in festival of flowers,
And pageantry of green,
With smiling skies above and summer blue,
With ancient fields below, yet ever new.
Thou mindest me of other scenes and days,
In sunnier climes than thine,
Of mocking-birds and ever piping lays,
Of figs and muscadine,
Of dreamy afternoons and dreamy love
In silent bliss with southern skies above.
Dear meadow-lands, it makes me sigh to know
That this fair scene must die,
And sleep long months beneath the frost and snow,
And inhospitable sky;
And yet why should I sigh and yield to pain,
Since all thy loveliness will bloom again?
For long before the red men trod thy soil3
Or white men came to till
Thy blo.oming waste, and crown with patient toil,
Surrounding vale and hill,
All rioting with gleeful vagrant flowers
Wert thou in bloom, through long and sunny hours.
30
A Meadow-Land.
'Tis mine to lie beneath a changeless snow,
Sad, sad, to me the truth,
But thine to sleep awhile and wake to know
A gay immortal youth;
Weep thou for me, for when to dust I'm gone,
Thy festive face will still be smiling on.
Long Meadow, Mass., August, 1893.
To a Butterfly in Church.
31
TO A BUTTERFLY IN CHUKCH.
What dost thou here, thou shining sinless thing,
With many colored hues and shapely wing?
Why quit the open field and summer air
To flutter here? Thou hast no need of prayer.
' Tis mete that we who this stone structure built
Should come to be redeemed and washed from guilt,
For we this guilded edifice within
Are come with every kind of human sin.
But thou art free from guilt, as God on high;
Go seek the blooming waste and open sky,
And leave us here our secret woes to bear,
Confessionals, and agonies of prayer:
32 The Harvest Moon.
THE HARVEST MOON.
The dark magnolia leaves and spreading fig,
With green luxuriant beauty all their own,
Stirless, hang heavy-coated with the dew,
Which swift and iridescent gleams shoot through
As if a thousand brilliant diamonds shone.
Afloat the lagoon, water-lilies white
In sweets with muscadines perfume the night.
A song bird restless chants a fleeting lay;
Asleep on all the swamp and bayou lies
A peaceful, blissful, moonlight, mystic haze,
A dreaminess o'er all the landscape plays,
While lake and lagoon mirror all the skies.
There is a glory doomed to pass too soon,
That lies subdued beneath the harvest moon.
Columbus, Miss., September, 1892.
In the Heart of a Rose.
38
IN THE HEART OF A EOSE.
I will hide my soul and itsjmighty love
In the bosom of this rose,
And its dispensing breath will take
My love where'er it goes.
And perhaps she'll pluck this very rose,
And quick as blushes start,
Will breathe my hidden secret in
Her unsuspecting heart.
And there I will live in her embrace
And the realm of sweetness there,
Enamored with an ecstasy
Of bliss beyond compare.
34 An Autumn Day.
AN AUTUMN DAY.
The golden-rod was flaming bright,
The autumn day was fine,
The air was soft and scented with
The purple muscadine.
We travelled far a wooded path,
The sky was bright above
And all things seemed to smile and breathe
A blessing on our love.
0 ! sweet and dreamy was that face,
Such tenderness expressed
In every line, and born to be,
Love burdened and caressed.
So happy in my happiness
1 could not think it then,
That after parting on that day
"We should not meet again.
For hope is ever found with love,
And there were visions fair
For us of boundless happiness
In that sweet autumn air.
But many years of shifting scenes,
Have come and gone since then,
And those dear, tender, dreamy eyes
I have not seen again.
And once I thought with bitterness—
My God, forgive the sin—
My barren life and hapless love
Would better not have been.
An Autumn Day.
35
But looking back through all my years
Of weariness and pain,
I know that tender, dreamy face
I did not love in vain.
The lengthening days and months and years
Have brightened on my way
By living on in memory
One long past autumn day.
And late a faith has come to me,
I think it God has willed,
That all those autumn promises
Are yet to be fulfilled.
ZFor I believe with all my heart,
The time I know not when,
With hearts still true, my loye and I
•Shall somewhere meet again.
36
The Feet of Judas.
THE FEET OF JUDAS.
Christ washed the feet of Judas!
The dark and evil passions of his soul,
His secret plot, and sordidness complete,
His hate, liis purposing, Christ knew the whole,
And still in love he stooped and washed his feet.
Christ washed the feet of Judas!
Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him,
His bargain with the priest and more than this,
In Olivet beneath the moonlight dim,
Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.
Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And so ineffable his love 'twas meet,
That pity fill his great forgiving heart,
And tenderly to wash the traitor's feet,
Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.
Christ washed the feet of Judas !
And thus a girded servant, self-abased,
Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven
Was e'er too great to wholly be effaced,
And though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.
And so if we have ever felt the wrong
Of trampled rights, of caste, it matters not,
Whate'er the soul has felt or suffered long,
Oh heart! this one thing should not be forgot,
Christ washed the feet of Judas !
A Faithless Love.
37
A FAITHLESS LOVE.
The lovely May has come at last,
With songs and gleaming dews,
And apple blossoms bursting out
With evanescent hues.
A newer life, a newer charm
Is bursting every hour,
With pledge and faithful promises,
From leaf and bud and flower.
And hope is growing on the hill,
And blooming in the vale,
And comes new vigor and new life
On every passing gale.
But O my heart! my heart of hearts,
What hope is there for me,
For what was hope and what was joy,
For me have ceased to be.
The woodlark's tender warbling lay,
Which flows with melting art,
Is but a trembling song of love,
That serves to break my heart.
■Gay flowers burst on every side,
The fairest of the fair,
But what are these to any heart
That's breaking with despair?
O May ! my heart had found a rose
As lovely as the morn,
Which charmed awhile, then faithless went,
But left with me its thorn.
38
A Song of Nashville.
A SONG OF NASHVILLE.
Oh ! Nashville, Athens of the South,
Thy valleys beauty fills ;
How can I tell with human mouth
How well I love thy hills ?
Thy hills with beauty far renowned
Where rugged glory rules,
Are from a dozen places crowned
With colleges and schools.
A modern Attica in truth,
The South may call thee well,
Thy benefits unto her youth
Will coming ages tell.
For to thy founts of learning here
Fair Attica's chosen seat,
Ambition turneth year by year
Full many a thousand feet.
To minds with aspirations led,
And ardor of the heart,
Are ever endless fields outspread
In sciences and art.
And year by year dispensing truth,
Thy guiding hand is great,
In that thou givest through thy youth
The destinies of state.
Oh Nashville, could I sing of thee,
Praise worthy of thy name,
Approximate what is to be
The future of thy fame.
A Song of Nashville.
39
Thy institutions, hillsides bright,
Beneath a Southern sky,
Make scenes of beauty and delight
To every traveler's eye.
O'er all thy byways round about,
Once on thy grassy slopes,
I was a wanderer in and out,
With all a student's hopes.
To-day I walked those same old rounds,
I walked in days gone by,
And heard from fields the same sweet sounds,
Beneath the same blue sky.
The mocking bird in bush and tree,
"With melody and voice,
In ecstacy did welcome me,
And bade my heart rejoice.
The hills and dales were in the smile
Of spring as they had been ;
And seemed to welcome without guile,
Their lover back again.
The lazy herds were feeding still,
On slope and grassy plain,
And strangely in my heart would fill
A pleasure kin to pain.
Old friends were gone and former ties,
Were broken and estranged;
But my old haunts and smiling skies,
Were constant and unchanged.
40 A Song of Nashville.
But not more constant, nor more true,
My fields, my skies above,
Than came your wanderer back to you,
Unchanged in heart and love.
To Kitty Wysong. 41
TO KITTY WYSONG.
And hast thou indeed such disdaining,
To hold thy head so high ?
In pride from one swift glance abstaining,
You pass me by.
I recall the days—it were choices
To us sweeter than rhymes,
To freely mingle our lips and voices,
In happier times.
You have gone up higher, but I lower,
And it is much, Kitty,
Queen-like to give scorn, but more,
To give pity.
And wearers, (for such is human strife)
Of poverty or crowns,
Pride is not best, so full is this life,
Of ups and downs.
And thy lot, proud heart, may be fair,
Which chance has left thee in ;
But pass not disdainingly where
Thy love has been.
42 The April of Alabama.
THE APRIL OF ALABAMA.
Fair Alabama, " Here we rest," thy name—
And in this stretch of oak and spotted ash,
Well said that long past swarthy tribe who came
Here, " Alabama," in these glamour wilds.
To-day thy April woods have had for me
A thousand charms, elusive loveliness,
That melt in shimmering views which flash
From leaves and buds in half grown daintiness.
From every tree and living thing there smiles
A touch of summer's glory yet to be.
Already overhead the sky resumes
Its summer softness, and a hand of light
All through the woods has beckoned with its blooms
Of honeysuckle wild and dogwood white
As bridal robes—
With bashful azure eyes
All full of dew-born laughing falling tears
The violets more blue than summer skies
Are rioting in vagrancy around
Beneath old oaks, old pines and sending out
Like prodigals their sweets to spicy airs.
And as to-day this loveliness for years
Unknown has come and gone. To-day it wears
Its pageantry of youth with sylvan sound
Of many forest tribes which fairly shout
Their ecstacies. But soon with summer smiles
Will such a gorgeousness of flaming hues
Bedeck those Alabama glamour wilds
As ever burst to life by rain and dews.
Lines to Mount Glen.
43
LINES TO MOUNT GLEN.
In this soft air perfumed with blooming May,
Stretched at thy feet on the green grass, Old Glen,
It is a joy unspeakable to me
To see again thy face and friendly crags.
My childhood friend, then height of heights to me,
I am come home to worship thee once more,
And feel that bliss in indolent repose
Of those long past delightful afternoons,
When first you smiled on me and gave to my
Imaginings such imagery, when I
Would lie down at thy base as I
Do now. My feet have wandered far since then,
And over heights with prouder heads than thine,
Such as would name thy majesty with hills.
But I, Old Glen, my early mountain friend,
Am come with loyalty and heart still true
As thy bald crags are to their kindred skies.
My own Olympus yet and pride thou art,
With thy Thessalian gates of clouds
Which hide the great Olympian Hall,
Where Hebe still sweet nectar pours
Out to the gods. And murmurs sweet and low
Of melting cadences Apollo from
His magic lyre sends gently wandering
In soft succeeding measures yet in air
Familiarly to me.
And yet, Old Glen,
A stranger at thy base I lie to-day
To all but thee, save this soft yielding grass,
And blooming waste, thy pageantry of flowers.
All these with yond bald eagle circling in
44
Lines to Mount Glen.
The upper air with keen descrying for
Some timorous skulking hare, are but old friends
Who laughed and played with me in childhood hours
Full many a summer day and told me tales
Of fairy lore. With such immortal friends
To welcome me again, what care I then
For yon rude plowman's stare and taking me
For some trespassing rake. This broad domain
Of circling hills and intervening vales
Is thine by ancient rights to shelter me,
And take me in thy lap when I have come
With love to worship thee. Before Koine was,
Or Greece had sprung with poetry and art,
Thy majesty with impartiality
Was here. The first soft tread of moccasin
On Indian feet, in ages none can tell,
That bent this yielding grass was thine to hear.
And all the sons of men who since have brought
Their pulsing hearts to thee with loves, with aches,
With tragedies, with childhood innocence,
Have had thy welcoming. To thee no race
May come with arrogance and claim first right
To thy magnificence, and mighty heart,
And thy ennobling grace that touches every
Soul who may conimune with thee.
And so
It was Old Glen we came at first to love
In this soft scented air now long ago,
When first I brought my youthful heart to thee,
All pure with pulsing blood still hot
In its descent of years in tropic suns
And sands of Africa, to be caressed
By thee. And to your lofty heights you bore
Lines to Mount Glen. 45
Me up to see the boundless world beyond,
Which nothing then to my young innocence
Had aught of evil or deceptive paths.
With maddening haste I quit thy friendly side
To mix with men. And then as some young bison
Of the plain, which breathes the morning air
And restless snorts with mad excess of life,
And rushes heedless on in hot pursuit
Of what it does not know : So I, Old Glen,
As heedlessly went out from thee to meet
With buffeting, with hates and selfishness
And scorn. At first I stood abashed, disarmed
Of faith. Too soon I learned the ways of men,
Forgetting much I wish I had retained
Of once a better life. And in the fret
And fever of the endless strife for gain
I often sigh for thee, my native peaks,
And for that early life for me now past
Forever more.
But for one day, my early friend,
I am come back to thee again, to feel
Thy gentle grace so indefinable,
So subtile is thy touch, yet to the heart
A never-failing gift to all who come
To thee. And so it is, Old Glen, that I am come,
But not with all-believing innocence
As in those unsuspecting days of yore.
And O Mount Glen ! sin-stained my burning heart
With shame lifts up its face to thine, but with
A love as changeless as thy ancient crags
Does it still beat for thee. And I rejoice
To feel thy mighty heart here solace mine.
For when the day leads in the early dawn
46
Lines to Mount Glen.
With blushing rosy light and caroling
Of larks; and sleepy flowers half unclosed,
All wet with dew, unfold their buds and leaves,
There is enchantment in this lovely spot
Beyond, by far, all mortal utterances.
To come here then and lie down on thy side,
As I do now, and see the butterflies
Bobbing from flower to flower, and hear
The restless songs of birds as they in joy
Flit carelessly from bush and tree, is all
The bliss my heart could ask. Here I could lie
In such repose and let a lifetime pass.
And here, Old Glen, could I forget the fret
Of life and selfishness of men, and see
The face of him who is all beautiful.
And here in this perfume of May, and bloom
Luxuriant, and friendly rioting
Of green in all this blooming waste, is seen
A glimpse of that, which He, the Lord of all,
Intended there should be with things and men
In all this earth, a thing which yet will be,
A universal brotherhood.
That Better Day.
47
THAT BETTER DAY.
Still courage, brother, courage still,
Repress the rising sigh,
Oppression now the race must bear,
But freedom by and by.
And art thou sore at heart from Southern wrongs?
Well, then I pray
Be comforted ; all wrongs shall pass away.
God's freedom he will give to all,
Now mercy is disguised,
But he will smile and crown at last,
Our race so long despised.
And art thou stumbled over Southern bate?
Well, then I pray
Be comforted; all that shall pass away.
The time will come when man to man
Will clasp each other's hand,
And color-bane shall cease to be,
In all our goodly land.
Dost thou despair the death of prejudice?
Well, then I pray
Be comforted ; that too shall pass away.
It takes a faith, a mighty faith,
To look for such a day—
But look, for sure as God is God,
All wrongs shall pass away.
48
May Along the Cumberland.
MAY ALONG THE CUMBERLAND.
Embodiment of all the beautiful
That crowns the year, O May! is come with thee.
For miles and miles along the rugged hills,
Where in and out the Cumberland must wind,
And spring her first response of green doth find,
A rapt'rous beauty all the valley fills.
The yellow sun with summer at his heels,
Betokeneth the time about to be,
Siestas, days and nights alive with wings,
The stirring of a million living things.
The month is full of roses, perfumed air,
And crooning bees upon the clover's breast,
The morning woodlands ring with music sweet,
The Zephyrs whisper to the corn,
And echo back the hills the dinner horn,
But all in tune and harmony complete.
In blissful self-abandonment awhile,
Here on thy lap, sweet May, O ! let me rest,
And dream and dream, till lulled by sight and sound
In unison to all the earth around.
May, 1891, Nashville, Tenn.
Sere ire.
49
SERVICE.
Lord, let me live to serve and make a loan
Of life and soul in love to my heart's own.
And what if they should never know
How weary are the ways,
How pitiless the snow,
How desolate the days
Sometimes in reserve.
And what if some esteem above
Me others far less true,
And barter off my wealth of love
For passing comrades new ?
I still would serve.
To be permitted once in life
To kiss a little child
And call it mine is worth the strife
In a million battles wild.
To have a woman's holy love,
One friend to half divine
The heart, is heaven from above
Come to this soul of mine.
And O, dear Lord, I thank Thee for the cup
Of hydromel thou givest me to sup ;
Though rue soon pass my lips and fill
My heart with deadly pain,
My soul will rise to thank Thee still
For guerdon and its gain.
And though insentient clay the sward
My form will hold ; for life,
50
Service.
For love, sunshine and rain,
My heart above all earthly strife
Soars up through joy andlpain
In thanks to Thee, dear Lord.
A Decoration Day. 51
A DECORATION DAY.
The reign of death was there,
"Where swept the winter winds with pipes and moans,
And stretched in silence bare,
A colonade of gray sepulchral stones.
But then it was in May,
And all the fields were bright and gay with tune
That Decoration Day,
And blossoms wore their hues and breath'of June.
A motley crowd that came—
But who more fit than they that once were slaves,
Despised, unknown to fame,
With love should decorate the soldiers' graves.
Black feet trod cheerily
From out the town in crowds or straggling bands,
And flowers waved and flaunted merrily,
From little Negro hands.
And far, far away
From home and love, deep in a silent bed,
Beneath the sky of May,
Was sleeping there in solitude, the dead.
But for the hearts that day,
Who in the distant North wept sore andjsighed,
Black hands with sweets of May,
Made green the graves of those who for them died.
52 By the Cumberland.
BY THE CUMBERLAND.
See through this lovely valley, dear,
This river ever goes,
And so on through a thousand years,
Just as to-day it flows.
I sigh to see it stretching on
Through time and to the sea,
When by its banks the moments are
So brief for you and me.
Of the long line of human hearts,
'Tis marvelous to think,
Which have so throbbed with hope and love
Along this sandy brink ;
While one by one they slipped away
In all the ages gone,
With ceaseless glide and slipping flood
The river traveled on.
I know our time is brief and we
So soon must go, as they,
But, dear, my thoughts have been far more
Upon our bliss to-day.
For one short hour to hold your hand
And kiss away your tears,
In happiness is more than all
This river's thousand years.
In Summer.
53
IN SUMMER.
The summer shimmering to-day-
Puts on the earth a rune,
Which blends in magic waves of light,
Beneath the sky of June.
Along the pavements of the street,
And in the crowded mart,
There is a joy of summer-time,
A comforting of heart.
To-day one hardly can believe,
Along these pavements old,
That March held such an icy sway
Of bitterness and cold.
The little gamin of the street,
Full keeping with the boy,
Forgetting all his winter woes,
Is hallooing for joy.
And I go back to youth again,
And get myself away,
To where the country fields are in
The green and blue of May.
And on I sweetly glide with them,
With changing song and tune.
With bursting buds and brilliant dyes,
That line the lap of June.
The morning trembles with its throbs
Of ever-gushing notes,
Which pour with shuddering sweetness from
A thousand feathered throats.
54
In Summer.
'Tis true the shadows of four walls
Are ever on me cast,
But they have a transparency,
To me of a sweet past.
Youthful Delusions.
55
YOUTHFUL DELUSIONS.
And where now restless, wilt thou roam
Thou young uneaseful heart?
' Tis better far to stay at home
So young a stripling as thou art.
And thinkest thou to go
Abroad to taste the sweets of life
And miss its lurking woe ?
Yea, doubtless thou wouldst find a bliss
Of honey sweet awhile,
And many a love-born, smothered kiss,
Unknown to thee erstwhile.
And of a thousand hues
Would blossoms give thee morning sweets
With honey-dabbled dews.
And all-believing heart and young,
Thou wouldst unfold thy^best,
To faith, and laugh till thou wert stung
With poison in thy breast.
Then who would be thee nigh
So far from home, to heal thy pain
And soothe thy bitter cry ?
7 Tis best, by far, to stay at home,
Dear over-trusting heart,
None but a prodigal may roam
So far from love apart.
Doubt not—abide thy day,
And what is best for thee to have
In time will come thy way.
56
Love is a Flame.
LbVE IS A FLAME.
Love is a flame that burns with sacred fire,.
And fills the being up with sweet desire ;
Yet, once the altar feels love's fiery breathy
The heart must be a crucible till death.
Say love is life; and say it not amiss,
That love is but a synonym for bliss.
Say what you will of love—in what refrain,
But knows the heart, ' tis but a word for pain-
To Loch id.
57
TO LOCHIEL.
Dear little babe, of all born things alive
Most helpless thou—of life a slender thread.
Can such as thee so rough a sea survive,
And come at last the way all feet must tread?
Yea, by the God whom I adore above,
If I could fix thy destiny by choice
Thou wouldst be safe, my little love.
' Tis love ineffable I wrap thee in.
To pitiless pain, and ache, and storm and blast
I'd bare my soul to save thy feet from sin,
And bring thee safely home, Lochiel, at last.
But in thy chancing boon of birth, thy whole
And everlasting destiny of life
Lies in thy self-directing soul.
58
Prayer.
PRAYER.
Wherever man on earth is found
Let him his tribute pay,
For he is in all nature bound
To bend to God and pray.
And every man on earth who dwells
In darkness or in light
Has in his breast a voice that tells
Him that to pray is right.
Though but all shadowy and dim
Of God the savage reads,
No savagery can take from him
The knowledge of his needs.
So let him pray if but to stone
And senseless stock of wood,
For in his mercy God will own
All motives that are good.
But he who knows the heavenly power
And feels the heavenly care,
Is doubly bound in every hour
To breathe some form of prayer.
The darkest doubts the soul may fill;
Still pray, though doubts be there,
For he is safest from all ill
Whose lips are moved with prayer.
' Tis best for every one who can
To pray with faith devout,
But God is gracious in his plan
For him beset with doubt.
Prayer.
59
Still pray, for long as any heart,
Can feel its deep despair,
Not from it can there once depart
Efficiency of prayer.
And all who strive, and strive and fall
In sore besetting sins,
Still pray—God's love is over all
' Tis prayer on prayer that wins.
60 A January Dandelion.
A JANUARY DANDELION.
All Nashville is a chill. And everywhere
Like desert sand, when the winds blow,
There is each moment sifted through the air,
A powdered blast of January snow.
O ! thoughtless Dandelion, to be misled
By a few warm days to leave thy natural bed,
Was folly growth and blooming over soon.
And yet, thou blasted yellow-coated gem,
Full many a heart has but a common boon
With thee, now freezing on thy slender stem.
When the heart has bloomed by the touch of love's
warm breath
Then left and chilling snow is sifted in,
It still may beat but there is blast and death
To all that blooming life that might have been.
Sunday Morning.
61
SUNDAY MORNING.
Softly the cool breath of the early morn,
Swamp-scented air, fragrant with deep lagoons
And water-lilies, stole on through the fields
Of cotton, whispering a sighing song.
'Twas Sunday morning then, and everywhere
The May dew rolled away in diadems.
Another day was born with floods of light;
The grass with newer green all wet with dew
Gave welcoming. And rose hues spent with yesterday
Found blushes still and sent out night-born sweets
To mingle with a thousand other spicy
Airs and perfumes of the jessamine,
And wild aromas of the summer air.
And murmured low the sycamores o'erhead
With whisperings of passing summer winds.
The dapple sunshine kissed and kissed their leaves,
And golden gleams were on the fields. Rich were
The blackbird's notes and joyous sounds from all
The feathered tribes. In lazy lengths the bayou went
With stretches on, and murmuring low songs
Like those of love. There floated far and wide
The queenly water-lilies white, perfuming
All the Sunday air.
And like a dove
Of peace, fair Nitta Yuma sat amid
Her spreading figs and rich magnolia blooms
In rest; for there was come the hallowed day,
The Sabbath of the Lord.
Nitta Yum:i, Miss., May, 1SS4.
Extranyed.
ESTRANGED.
An autumn sky, a pleasant weather,
The asters blossom by the way ;
We two between them walk together,
And watch the ships pass on the bay.
His summer song yet to the clover,
The hovered bee still murmurs there,
But there's that tells that summer's over
In this sweet dreamy autumn air.
"When it was May and lovely weather,
And ships went sailing to the west,
We walked this path, we two together,
With happy throbs of heart and breast.
The spring was young and hope was growing,
And love went idling on the sand,
And there was blissful overflowing
Of heart in touch of lip and hand.
And yet the bee hums to the clover
Soft, all the dreamy hours long,
But there's that tells that summer's over
In all his drowsy, flying song.
An autumn sky, a pleasant weather,
But all the summer glow is changed,
Here where in love we walked together,
Before we two were so estranged.
A Little News Vender.
63
A LITTLE NEWS VENDER.
Scarce ' bove a whisper—half a sound
Heard, causing me to hark,
To turn and see a baby face
Peering at me in the dark.
I bent my head with ready grace
With open ear and eye,
To learn what such a baby had
To say to passers by.
Above the clatter of the street
I caught the faint accent,
A little maiden vender's cry—
" The Post! The Times ! a cent "—
And swift to strike a trade with me
As promptness could command,
Out from her tangled skirts came up,
A paper in her hand.
The wind was blowing merc'lessly,
And pitiless the snow,
In downy flakes was falling on
This little mite of woe.
" The Post! The Times ! ' tis but a cent,"
She looked with eager eye
For sympathy and ready sale,
How could I fail to buy?
O! God, I thought must such be seen,
As this on such a night,
In this so rich a commonwealth,
So pitiful a sight?
64
A Little News Vender.
Is bread so dear and life so cheap,
So circumstanced the strife
For food, that babes must barter off,
All that is worth in life ?
For who can hope these peddling maids
Could once escape the price,
Backed up and forced by all street laws
Legitimate to vice.
No Communist to blame the rich,
Am I, though sad the sight,
But O ! I know somewhere is wrong
And somewhere is the right.
God pity all the pitiful,
And send from door to door,
Him whom thou wouldst to minister
To the deserving poor.
Hartlord, Conn., February, 1893.
The Color Bane.
65
THE COLOR BINE.
There was profusion in tlie gift
Of beanty in her face,
And in her very form and air
An inexpressible grace.
Her rustling silk, moire-antique,
The daintless taste would please ;
Her life in all appearances
Was opulence and ease.
It could be seen from head to foot,
And in her piercing eye,
That she had had advantage of
All that hard cash could buy.
But Oh ! it was so sad to see,
That in her heart was pain,
That caste should force this Negro queen
To cold and proud disdain.
That one so beautiful as she,
Could any sphere adorn,
Should so be made to hate a heart
And give back scorn for scorn.
For all her wealth and gifts of grace,
Could not appease the sham
Of justice that discriminates
Against the blood of Ham.
66 Lines to a Whippoorwill.
LINES TO A WHIPPOORWILL.
Poor Whippoorwill, what ancient secret woe,
Has been the burden of thy feathered tribe?
Is it misfortune of some long ago
Thy quaint and ever wailing notes describe?
Or is it for some faithless truant mate
Thy love bemoans in solitude remote,
And pining in thy solitary state,
Comes forth this woeful ditty from thy throat?
Poor Whippoorwill: I truly pity thee,
Whatever sorrow fills thy aching breast,
Taught sympathy by Plim who pities me,
I glad would grant thy mourning tribe a rest.
And O! sad bird, there lingers with me still
A memory which makes me half rejoice,
As I recall the echo from the hill,
When first I heard thy strange mysterious voice.
With it the thought of many a summer night
Comes back, when planets and stars were out,
And on the green where floods the moon writh light,
I hear again a wild and joyous shout.
Again romps there full many a village lad
In play upon the early evening tide,
And thinking thus my heart grows strangely sad,
For my companions scattered far and wide.
And I recall emotions, O ! sad bird,
When Venus early sheds her distant light,
Which vaguely in my childish bosom stirred,
When rang thy awesome cry upon the night.
Lines to a Wli ippoorvill. 67
Too young to know the common lot of pain
To which the flesh of man and bird is heir,
My heart was only moved by thy refrain
To sympathy and vagueness of despair.
But time has taught me, bird, too well since then
The minor which thy wailing failed to do :
To-night, with thousands of my fellow men,
I am with thee, sad one, a mourner too.
And listening to thy voice down in the glen
To-night pour forth its ancient sorrowing strain,
I well could fancy childhood back again
But for my own benumbing ache of pain. ■
But, bird, I bid thfee come and learn with me,
That which is worth far more than gems most rare,
However great thy sorrow here may be
It need not lead to darkness and despair.
Though dim the light, if we but trust His will
In time the Master maketli all to find,
That underneath the deepest pain are still
His purposes most wonderfully kind.
Cease, bird, thy long complaint and cry of woe,
And teach thy young a far more tuneful strain ;
Learn that which men are strangely slow to know :
Life's guerdon comes to all through ache and pain.
68 The Bridal Wreath's Lament.
THE BRIDAL WREATH'S LAMENT.
O woe! ah bitter woe for us,
AVho did the foolish thing,
To trust our folded leaves and buds,
To the first warm sun of spring.
Up from the lagoons of the South,
From lake and flowers about,
Came soft deceitful sighing winds
And gently called us out.
They whispered strange Floridian tales,.
Of bayous and the brake,
Of spring's aroma and the rose,
And bade us to awake.
The sun so old for many springs,
Looked down on us and smiled,
And all our foolish swelling buds,
To leaf and flower beguiled.
We rivalled the Japonicas
Which budded half in doubt,
But reassured by southern winds,
Fast sought to beat us out.
But O ! we spread our leaves and buds
Up to the open sky,
And looked with condescension on
Our lagging neighbors by.
Bedecked in all our finery
And blind with silly pride,
We laughed unconscious of our doom,.
And of our woe betide.
The Bridal Wreath's Lament.
But swift and stealthily as comes
A lurking foe at night,
Without a warning note swept down
A storm with bitter blight.
Now all the highway and the plain
Lie covered up with snow,
The sun is hid and leaden clouds,
Look down on all below.
Deceitful Zephyrs of th<j South,
Where are your kisses now?
The snowtlakes make our winding sheet,
And death is on our brow.
But soon the true warm spring will come,
And violets in their beds
Will bloom : and flauntingly will
Lift the tulips up their heads.
The gladsome summer time will come,
The summer winds will sigh,
A thousand brilliant flowers will bloom
Beneath a summer sky.
But we, O ! vain and foolish buds,
Who did the foolish thing,
To trust our folded leaves and flowers
To the first warm sun of spring,
So premature must pass away
To nothingness for time and aye.
70
March Winds.
MARCH WINDS.
Welcome, here, cold March winds blowing,
Welcome are the songs you sing,
Each discordant, shrill vibration,
Is a messenger of spring.
Blow, now, March winds, blow at pleasure
Rush o'er moorland, field and plain,
Far and wide bear ye the tidings,
That the spring returns again.
Spring, when all new life is given,
Thou art ever welcome here,
For thy voice is sweet with singing,
And thy face is ever dear.
In thy time sweet hope returning
Steals into despairing hearts,
And with subtile feeling touching,
Vigor and new life imparts.
'Tis a time when birds are mating,
And is heard the burnished dove,
Pouring out his heart in cooing,
Of his constancy and love.
' Tis a time when sounds are pleasing,
And when whispers fill the air,
Sounds whose sources have no telling,
For they come from everywhere.
' Tis a time when meadows glisten,
With the dew drops of the morn,
When the lilacs and the lilies,
And the modest rose are born.
71
Then it is sweet smelling flora
Maketli fragrant all the air,
Then it is that life feels lighter,
And a lessening of care.
Then it is that youth is happy,
And the fancies are as light,
As uncertain and as lofty,
As the careless school boy's kite.
Welcome, then, cold March winds blowing,
Soon thy howl away shall die,
Die in summer breezes sighing,
Soft as any lover's sigh.
Welcome, here, cold March winds blowing,
Welcome are the songs you sing,
Each discordant, shrill vibration
Is a messenger of spring.
72
LINES TO NIGHT.
In twilight lingers yet a hue
Of light that fades along the distant west,
The blushing rose sips up the evening dew,
And homeward flies the birdling to its nest.
The shepherd leads his flock unto the fold,
And sounding bells are heard along the hills,
And fainter grows the cloudlet tinged with gold,
A deeper twilight all the valley fills.
With clanking chains and drivers urging on,
The teams at longer intervals go by,
And soon the sounds that mark the day are gone,
In myriads the stars shine in the sky.
The heavens yield their faintest tints of blue,
And softer grows the murmur of the sea,
The west is robbed of every golden hue,
And silent, peaceful night begins to be.
The tired workmen to their huts return,
Where childish greetings wait them at the door,
And sweet a simple bliss which they well earn
Makes rich the humble cabin of the poor.
The cloth is spread, and o'er the frugal fare,
The grace is said and, yea, the feast is blest,
For at that festival unseen is there
To grace the board, a silent heavenly guest.
Around the family altar blest with love
They come with reverence and God adore ;
There faith in phrases set, to God above,
Takes up the meek petitions of the poor.
Lines to NigJvt.
73
O'er all who haunt the sea or land about,
In love alike for those who weep or sing
The silent darkness kindly stretches out
And folds the earth beneath her brooding wing.
Of all the gifts to man in heavenly grace,
O! soothing night, of blessing thou art blest,
The sinless child, and wretch in thy embrace,
Are cradled in forgetfulness and rest.
For humble slave and swain with labor spent,
For hearts bowed down with pain and aching woes,
In love and kindest mercy thou art sent
To give them all in sleep a sweet repose.
74
May.
MAY.
The sweetest time of the year to me
Comes in the month of May,
The sky has then its brightest blue,
And earth its mildest day.
Not then is felt cold winter's chill,
Nor felt its summer's heat,
But all the earth is blithe and gay
And all the month is sweet.
When May is come, sweet, placid May,
The hills and vales are seen
With lofty peaks and mountain sides
To smile in living green.
The meadow streams, the rippling streams,
Through all the glad day long
Glide by their mossy banks and join
The earth in one sweet song.
' Tis then I love to wander forth,
Into some quiet vale,
And dream through all the livelong day,
And watch the cloudlets sail.
' Tis then those dreamy days gone by
When I was but a child,
Return and bring to me again
Old visions sweet and wild.
Those days when I would lie and watch
Beneath some shady tree,
The clouds float lazily along
la human forms to me.
May.
75
Sometimes those forms a Bible name
Which I had heard or seen,
My childish fancy gave to each
One suited to his mien.
For sure I thought those holy men—
Those patriarchs of old
Were sailing round the skies in clouds,
For such to me was told.
But in those visions of them all
The sweetest one is this,
I hear again a voice, a call,
A call to hear is bliss.
A mother calls her careless boy,
One loth to leave his fun
To answer for some wickedness
Or on some errand run.
0 ! smiling May, how dear thou art,
Thou bringest back to me
A dreamy time, a time which now
In dreams can only be.
'Tis true ten thousand common joys
My restless soul make glad,
But all my joys unless in dreams
Are mingled with the sad.
So, May, when thou art come to me
1 can but steal away
And live again in childhood dreams
At least for one brief day.
76
May.
And O ! that thou couldst stay with me,
Throughout the lagging year,
And let me work and love and dream
Out my existence here.
Lines to a Mocking Bird.
77
LINES TO A MOCKING BIRD.
Sing, sweet bird,
Thy melody is sweet,
Chant now thy summer song,
For summer days are fleet.
But while the earth holds gladsome summer yet,
From early morn to peaceful twilight dim,
Till God doth bid the burning snn to set,
Heard thou art chanting praises unto him.
Sing, sweet bird,
Sing all the summer long,
There is a gladsome joy,
A soothing in thy song.
O! for a life like thine—one free from care,
In dewy fields or clover wet with rain
Or in some blissful spot as there
I'd dwell unknown to human ache and pain.
Sing, sweet bird,
Mid clover, grasses green ;
Soon pansies and the rose
Can nowhere here be seen.
And then away unto the far off south
Thou wilt wing thy self in flight
And leave me but to hear from human mouth
A ceaseless groan and fret from morn till night.
Sing, sweet bird,
With mirth and gladness vie,
While flowers blush and bloom
And summer breezes sigh.
78
Lines to a Mocking Bird.
O ! could I sing for man in bowers green
Sweet songs as thou, and soothe his aching breast,
I'd gladly sing and pass away unseen
To some Elysian fields of peace and rest.
Lines to the Memory of Dr. Powell. 79
LINES TO THE MEMORY OF DR. POWELL
OF THE A. M. A.
One night, entranced, I sat spellbound,
And listened in my place,
And made a solemn vow to be
A hero for my race.
He plead as but a few can plead
With eloquence and might,
He plead for a humanity,
The Freedmen and the right.
His soul and true nobility
Went out in every word,
And strongly moved for better things
Was every one that heard.
Too soon has death made good liis claim
On him who moved us so,
Too great and white the harvest yet,
To spare him here below.
Oh ! why this waste?—forgive me, Lord,
I would not Judas be,
Yet who will plead as he has pled,
For Freedmen and for me ?
And yet in death, I think he will—
This sleeping prince of thine,
In many a multitude be heard
Still plead for right and mine.
80
Resentment.
RESENTMENT.
You ask for summer instead of cold weather,
But that can never be,
The passion that once so bound us together,
Forever is dead in me.
O yes ! I loved and sought to discover
To you my heart's distress,
But the love you cheaply gave to another,
Turned mine to bitterness.
It is now too late; and past forever
The time to gather in
The ties of love and bind together,
The life that might have been.
In Memory of Katie Reynolds—Dying, 81
IN MEMORY OF KATIE REYNOLDS—DYING.
O ! death,
If thou has aught of tenderness
Re kindly in thy touch
Of her whose fragile slenderness
Was overburdened much
With life. And let her seem to go to sleep,
As often does a tired child, when it has grown
Too tired to longer weep.
A rose but half in bloom—
She is too young and beautiful to die,
But yet if she must go,
Let her go out as goes a sigh
From tired life and woe.
And let her keep in death's brief space
This side the grave, the dusky beauty still
Belonging to her face.
She must have been
Of those upon the trembling lyre
Of whom the poets sung ;
" Whom the gods love " and desire
Fade and " die young."
Her life so loved on earth was brief,
But yet withal so beautiful there is no cause,
But in our loss, for grief.
Nashville, Tenn., December, 1893.
82 Thanksgiving Day in New England.
A THANKSGIVING DAY IN NEW ENGLAND.
O, bliss ! where hearts are all aflame
With love far deeper than a name,
Where speech from hearts so sweetly slips,
In loving words and touch of lips,
Where rise and find a transient rest,
The noblest passion of the breast,
I fain would dwell if not for aye,
At least on each Thanksgiving day.
O, love! wherever love is found
In all this toilsome world around
In ache and woe and endless strife
Thou art the balm in human life,
That maketh possible to bear
Our mingled load of joy and care.
No lot can wholly cheerless be,
Dear love, when it is blessed by thee.
To-day I've watched glad hurrying feet,
Trip gaily homeward love to meet.
The father's hand, the mother's kiss,
Thanksgiving day, New England's bliss
Calls to the old paternal chair
The single youth, the married pair,
And blithe they go with winsome grace
To see again the old home-place.
The snow comes down in feathered flakes,
On noisy street and silent lakes,
Through window panes the fire lights glow
Upon the fallen spotless snow,
And snug within from cold and storm
Love's own are gathered safe and warm,
And from the scene is banished care,
And all is joy beyond compare.
Thanksgiving Day in New England. 83
The youngsters romp with boisterous stride,
The mothers with ill-concealed pride
Half scold in their indulgent way,
For more decorum in their play ;
For this the youngsters feel no need
And scarcely pay their parents heed.
They make the old home ring without,
With gayety and childish shout.
And when they to the loaded board
Come with their patriarchal lord,
The grace is said and all the guests,
A second time and more are pressed.
To more of all the good things nice
With sauce and aromatic spice.
And gathered thus on this glad day
The time speeds happily away.
The old forget their years of pain,
Feel in their children young again,
Perchance some tears a smile displace
For some beloved absent face,
But all are met with one accord
To happy be and thank the Lord.
And joy from other things apart
Is uppermost in every heart.
But Oh ! all homes are not so blest
With love and gathered family guest;
And, ye whom God doth favor give,
Think kindly of the poor who live
In tenements and never see
The comforts God hath given thee.
Ah ! lonely hours pass away
For many on Thanksgiving day.
My homesick heart gives useless sighs
84 Thanksgiving Day in New England.
For love beneath my southern skies,
And feels that longing which must come,
To aliens far away from home.
But still I know while fades the light,
And daylight deepens into night,
Love travels fast and cometh nigh,
In answer to my own heart's sigh,
And so ' tis sweet though far apart—
When love doth answer heart to heart.
After Conimenremriit at Fi*k University. 85
AFTER COMMENCEMENT AT FISK UNIVER¬
SITY.
The halls are all deserted now,
And silence reigns complete,
Where one could hear but yesterday
A thousand tramping feet.
The flowers, wreaths and evergreens,
Lie withered up and dead,
And with the hands that handled them,
Their beauty now has fled.
No sound of boisterous laugh and life,
Nor student jesting word
Breaks silence of the hall, save where
A nibbling mouse is heard.
The life that here but yesterday
With hope and college pride,
Rang out in song and careless mirth
Is scattered far and wide.
The long vacation time has come,
A timely season blest,
When tired brains may revel in
Forgetfulness and rest.
Thus Jubilee and Livingstone
In solitude complete
Are left with none to tread their halls,
But ghosts of absent feet.
86
The Woods of October.
THE WOODS OF OCTOBER.
The last sweet blush of summer in her glory
Still lingers in October woods and skies,
But changed in forests, hills and mountains hoary,.
From green unto a thousand brilliant dyes.
The cloudless skies a restful peace betoken,
The Indian summer broodeth over all,
In earth and everywhere is plainly spoken
A placidness which only comes with fall.
In fields where to the breeze was lately swaying,.
The wheat in all its golden beauty seen,
Are flocks and herds of lazy cattle straying,
And feeding on a second growth of green.
A bee is seen still out in hope of finding,
A blossom in the second growth of clover,
But nature's law too on the bee is binding,
His harvesting will also soon be over.
'A few more days of autumn's hazy gleaming,
And all October woods to-day so fair,
The very imagery of death in seeming
Will stand dismantled, naked, bare.
O, who would think that all this beauty painted,.
Upon these leaves in colors clear,
In every brilliant hue with death is tainted,
But for the dying lesson year by year.
That lesson let me learn to-day in earnest,
Wrhich thou dost teach in every hue and dye,
Who knows but when thy glory here returnest,.
Within the silent grave my head shall lie.
The Woods of October. 87
Farewell, October woods—soon bleak December
"Will all the forest wrap in spotless snow,
But I, forgetting not, shall still remember,
Thy glory which to-day delights me so.
The Message of a Dead Rose.
THE MESSAGE OF A DEAD EOSE.
The rose you gave me, dear, is dead,
The hope which it begot
Is gone. An aching heart and head,
Is my unhappy lot.
Perhaps you could not fully know,
The danger of your smiles,
How often hearts are poisoned so,
By thoughtless maiden wiles.
I would not think so hard of heart
You thoughtfully could be ;
To gratify a flirting art,
Such passion stirred in me.
Yet many a trusting heart has been
From honor made to rove,
In darksome ways and paths of sin,
By lightly feeding love.
This rose cut from its mother stem,
With thy unfeeling knife,
Has lost, though such a lovely gem,
All that could feed its life.
And faded its untimely death
Tells silently to me,
As is its fate and scentless breath,
So my heart's love must be.
The Sun Went Down in Beaut]/. 89
THE SUN WENT DOWN IN BEAUTY.
The sun went down in beautv,
Beyond Mississippi's tide,
As I stood on the banks of the river,
And watched its waters glide ;
Its swelling currents resembling
The longing restless soul,
Surging, swelling, and pursuing
Its ever-receding goal.
The sun went down in beauty,
But the restless tide flowed on,
And the phantoms of absent loved ones
Danced o'er the waves and were gone ;
Nautical phantoms of loved ones,
Their faces jubilant with glee
In the spray, seemed to rise and beckon,
And then rush on to the sea.
The sun went down in beauty,
While I stood musing alone,
Stood watching the rushing river,
And heard its restless moan ;
And longings, vague, intenable,
So far from speech apart,
Like the endless rush of the river,
Went surging through my heart.
The sun went down in beauty,
Peacefully sank to rest,
Leaving its golden reflection
On the great Mississippi's breast;
90 The Sun Went Down in Beauty.
Gleaming on the turbulent river,
In the coming gray twilight,
Soothing its restless surging,
And kissing its waters good-night.
The sun went down in beauty,
The stars came one by one,
Speaking from the vault of heaven,
Of the mighty Father and Son ;
Speaking to earthly mortals,
Whose souls like the river's tide,
Forever and ever are flowing,
But never are satisfied.
The sun went down in beauty,
But still in the calm starlight,
My feet were wont to linger
To the coming of gray midnight;
My heart was filled with musings,
Of past and coming years,
And the thoughts of friends departed,
Filled my eyes with tears.
The sun went down in beauty,
But still in visions fair,
My soul to the gate of heaven,
Was wafted through the air;
The gate of life eternal,
Where cease tumult and strife,
Where men borne down with sorrow,
Lay down the burden of life.
The sun went down in beauty,
Tinging the west with gold,
The Sun Went Down in Beauty. 91
Gleaming as a symbol in heaven,
Of light in the Father's fold ;
And. soul, why fret with emotions,
Of sorrow, joy or renown ?
Soon life with all that is earthly,
Forever will be laid down.
The sun will go down in beauty,
'Mid summer and mid winter snow,
When we in the grave are sleeping,
Beyond its radiant glow ;
Speak to our souls, my Father,
Their void with comfort fill,
And ease our anxious longings,
And bid them, " Peace, be still."
Tiptonville, Tenn., on the banks of the Mississippi, Au¬
gust, 1892.
92
Over the Bay.
OVER THE BAY.
The daylight dies and sinking in the west,
The sun is red and tinges all the bay,
And soft a sigh escapes a woman's breast,
And dreamingly her eyes are far away.
Then love alert and swifter than a sigh
Rocks tenderly a babe. "With cooings low
He sleeps again to her sweet lullaby.
And night creeps on in livery of gray,
But still she lingers, gazing on the west,
While all the world is putting toil away,
And coming slowly on to home and rest.
But love with nimble feet eternally
All tirelessly skims on and on
O'er night, and league, and wave, to Jack at
The Secret.
93
THE SECRET.
Go whisper to her gentle winds,
While you are passing by,
The mighty secret of my heart,
The burden of my sigh.
Take to her from this blushing rose,
Such sweets of scented air,
As are befitting for a queen,
And one divinely fair.
And from this lily of the vale,
Take her who is to me.
The emblem of all that is good,
And sweetest purity.
The violets of azure eyes,
Which ever sweets impart,
Take her their gentle modesty,
So like her guileless heart.
Take all the sweets which you can find
Along your airy way,
To her whose face and daily life
Are like the month of May.
Blow softly on her lovely brow,
And give her lips a kiss,
The thing were I to do, O winds,
Would count a wondrous bliss.
She does not know my secret flame,
But what is that to you ?
Oh winds, but take her from my heart,
Its mighty love and true.
94 The New Jerusalem.
THE NEW JERUSALEM.
O New Jerusalem ! abode unseen,
Yet now as in all ages past,
Thou art the bourne to which in deep despair
Or hope, men turn their face at last.
It matters not what race, or clime or creed
In life has swayed the powers given,
' Tis always true that men about to die
Will turn a longing heart to heaven.
In youth ambition leads the mind along
The way of hope and sweet delights,
Fulfilling just enough its promises
To point out more desired heights.
And so for more of gold, or fame or power,
Or for the bare necessities of life,
Succeeding generations go the rounds
Of failure or successive strife.
But O, when age creeps on and life begins
The gliding downward to its west,
There comes a deep solicitude alike
To fill the rich or beggar's breast.
Far out beyond the stretch of space and time,
Beyond experience or ken,
The soul immortal thoughtfully must face
The common destiny of men.
The always poor and long despised of earth,
To whom so many woes of life are given
By faith or blind instinct are comforted,
And hope for better things in heaven,
The New Jerusalem, 95
And lives all hopelessly ensnared with sin
Too much to ever here undo,
"When every other hope is gone will hope
To live in heaven their lives anew.
O, many are the weary souls and tired feet
From every rank and walk of life,
At last come gladly to that borderland,
Where men lay down all pain and strife.
Oft timorously with sore and fainting hearts
They wait the dipping boatman's oar,
But oh! the pilot there is kind who guides
The boat to that Celestial shore.
And there a king and kingdom without end
Shall be to all as thine and mine,
And never once a discord in His rule,
But always harmony divine.
The palace gates shall not be shut by night,
There hearts shall never beat with fears,
Nor ever ache, for O, the King is kind,
And wipes away all bitter tears.
O New Jerusalem ! abode unseen,
Yet now as in all ages past,
Thou art the bourne to which we ail must turn,
For all there is to life at last.
There deep and lasting is^ the law of love,
As all eternity is wide,
And all inhabitants for time and aye
With God himself abide.
THE GODDESS OF PENITENTIALS.
I saw and heard her often in my dreams—
in my dreams at night, but oftener in my
dreams by day. I saw her in my earliest
childhood. She spoke to me then and told
me things which my childish understand¬
ing could not comprehend. Sometimes her
dark sayings stirred within me a feeling of
uneasiness and vague apprehension of com¬
ing pain. When I looked at her wistfully
for explanation, she would say, " Never
mind. You will remember my sayings
and understand them by and by."
In the summers of my childhood I re¬
member times when I stood by a great bed
of hollyhocks in bloom, charmed with
their brilliant colors of many hues. I
wondered why they should die, why such
glory as theirs might not last forever. But
I was too young for emotions of any kind
to be very lasting, and my sadness on such
occasions was but momentary. For at such
7 (97)
98 The Goddess of Penitentials.
times, seeing a humming bird flashing like
a ray of light among the flowers, sucking
the honey-dew from the heart of the blos¬
soms, I forgot all and chased it with breath¬
less eagerness, hoping that I might clasp
the shining, irridescent thing in my hands.
Oh! faithful prophecy of other pursuits as
vain in after years. Disappointed in this I
stole upon a bee, and closed the bell-shaped
mouth of the flower and imprisoned the
little honey gatherer within. I took savage
delight in its rage and terrified humming,
unless it stung me in spite of my precaution.
At other times I would lie for hours
watching a summer cloud float lazily along
or remain at rest. Sometimes I watched a
great procession of clouds pass by and saw
in them human forms, human restlessness,
human passions, and human sorrows. And
now I know that some features of her face
were in all my visions. All about me were
straggling hills, quiet vales between and
sheltered nooks, through which went the
singing brooks on their .way to fill the
many mouths of the mighty and ever
thirsty sea. There were mornings when I
saw the earth sparkle with May dew and
the glittering grass full of all the prom-
The Goddess of Penitentials. 99
ise of summer. With my heart full of
unutterable happiness I have gone forth
then breathing the breath of the morning,
sweeter than the burnt, incense of many
altars. And yet at times the very raptures
of such hours wrought in me a kind of mo¬
mentary pain. They were almost happy
pains, but pains nevertheless full of sugges¬
tions of rue to come. It was the uncon¬
scious influence of her face, reflections of
which I saw everywhere and in every thing.
When the first morning hours in my life
were past, my thoughts began to go beyond
the horizon of my native vale. The coun¬
tries, the people, the heroes of whom I read
stirred my heart with unutterable longings,
and my indomitable imagination led into
realms where there were only the great, the
glorious, and all desirable things. The hap¬
piness of those visionary hours is indescrib¬
able. It is only a thing which the highly
imaginative soul can feel, and this felicity is
all the more blissful because it is beyond
•description; because it is not hemmed in
by time and space, and is not trammeled
by necessary results that should follow a
concourse of incidents, but is an unhindered
•creation of the mind itself.
100
The Goddess of Penitentials.
Work of all kind involving excessive
bodily exhaustion was to me irksome in
the extreme, and unbearable. I was called
lazy, and so I was; but certainly not of the
lazy belonging to that vicious kind whose
body and mind are alike averse to all activ¬
ity. The taunt of my fellows among whom
my lot was cast in no sense disturbed my
peace of mind. If to them I was a worthless
idler, to me they were so many singing and
dancing animals, the consummation of
whose enjoyments was in sleep and feasting.
In the dappled dawn of a summer morning
they saw nothing but the coming of a hot
day. In the profusion of roses and the
luxuriant bloom of hollyhocks, they saw
nothing but some flowers for the hands of
girls and women to make bouquets for the
mantlepiece on Sundays. In the strag¬
gling hills and mountain crags, they saw
nothing but landscapes unfit for the culti¬
vation of corn. While in all "these things
I saw not a world but a universe of beauty
beyond compare, subjects for dreams with¬
out end and without limitation.
In the conceit of my youthful soul I
thought myself better than my clod-headed
fellows, and dedicated to a higher life than
The Goddess of Penitentials. 101
they. I resolved to go out from among them
and seek for companions of kindred spirits
and an abode suited to my ambitions. Medi¬
tating upon this plan, one morning I
walked out full of a sense of coming happi¬
ness and the transporting delights of Ely-
sian fields through which my fancied
pathway lay. I sought a sheltered nook
and seated myself on the mossy bank of a
babbling stream. It was the month of
June and there was glory everywhere be¬
yond all naming. I gave myself up wholly
to the pleasant sensations coming from the
cool shade, the lulling whispers of the pass¬
ing breeze, the inimitable sweetness of the
bird songs, the gurgling of the brook at my
feet, the perfumed air, and the deep quiet
of the woods beyond. How long I sat in
this seducing state of happy indolence I do
not know. But rousing from my revery I
looked up and she stood before me, she,
the Goddess of Penitentials. I knew her
at once. I had never seen her gathered to¬
gether before; but all the beauty of her face,
all the exquisite mouldings and grace of
her body, all the majesty of her mien, all
the gentle sweetness of her mouth, all the
melancholy of her eyes, and all the sorrow-
102
The Goddess of Penitentials.
ful shadows of her soul, I had seen before.
These gathered up from the summer clouds,,
from the blushes of the morning, from the
mountain sides, from the quiet vales, from
the hollyhocks, from the roses, from the
diamond dews, and come together in the
person of the Goddess, had lost nothing of
their individualities and their familiarity
to me. Neither was I surprised at her
coming, but felt at that moment as if I
had been waiting for her all my life. Of
this I was the more convinced when she
said, " Thou hast kept the appointment.
All the days of thy life have I waited for
this hour of meeting with thee." Then for
a moment she was silent. There was an
indescribable cadence of sadness in her
voice. I fancied that she looked upon me
with compassionate pity—with a feeling
akin to that which a relentless heads¬
man might bestoAV upon some doomed vic¬
tim whom he pities but cannot spare.
Her look inspired me with no fear, but all
the passions of my soul were stirred to-
their deepest depths. I knew by some pre¬
science that with her coming had come also
the turning point of my life. I knew that
all my past was passed forever. I knew
The Goddess of Penitentials.
108
that there was before me a new life and one
not of my dreams. Therefore I waited with
breathless anxiety for her message, for a
message I knew she had come to bring.
She began once more :
" Thou hast kept the appointment. I am
the Goddess of Penitentials and from the
hour of thy birth I have watched over thee.
At the moment thou earnest into the world
and breathed the breath of life, I was there
and laid my hand upon thee and dedicated
thee to my service—the service of human
sorrows. That thou mightest the better
serve in the kingdom for which thou art
chosen, I endowed thee with fine and ex¬
quisite sensibilities. Thou wast given a
keen perception of all beautiful things and
in thy heart was formed a mighty capacity
for love. Thou shalt have learning and the
cultivation of £esthetic tastes. Thou shalt-
see and mix with the great and the wealthy,
but in none of these things shall it be unto
thee according to thy dreams. The ache
of all human sorrows that ever throbbed
in the heart of man must go through thy
soul till by them it is pierced through and
through and thus purified. Thou shalt
have the tastes and cultivated capacity of
104 The Goddess of Penitentials.
the refined and the wealthy • but in thy re¬
sources thou shalt be all thy life long
the brother of the Pariah. Thou shalt have
attainments that will recommend thee in
many places that thy soul will desire.
But on thy face to the day of thy death
will be a sign which readeth thus: ' He is
one from the tents of Ham'—an unjust
version of which is : 'A child of hereditary
disgrace.' Because of that sign thy excel¬
lencies, whatever they may be or wherever
thou wouldest show them forth, even if
secretly or openly acknowledged, must be
denied their full rights, except, perhaps,
by the compassionate few, whose very
tender compassion will give thee a certain
pain as well as pleasure. Of all the dis¬
grace and degradation of thy race thou
must be a part. Thou shalt see thy breth¬
ren often unjustly treated, denied the full
rights and protection of the law.
" In some instances with no power to
save, thou shalt be made to stand and see
them racked with barbarous cruelty, even
unto death, by the powerful wicked, whom
God will judge and whose wickedness He
will punish in hell. It shall be thy lot
to feel thy brotherhood with the oppressed,
The Goddess of Penitentiala,
105
the despised and outcast vagrants of every
clime.
In quieter ways, but with no less oppres¬
sion to the soul, thou shalt see and feel all
the sorrows common to the lot of man.
Thou shalt look into the faces of men and
women of high as well as low degree, and
see the relentless touches of woe. There
may be only professions of mirth and hap¬
piness, but by the secret signs which thou
shalt see, the counterpart of which is en¬
graved upon thine own heart, thou shalt
know them to be thy brothers and sisters.
"Butin all this, thy sorrowful lot, there
is 'this compensation for thee. By thy
knowledge, by thy keen sensibilities and
quickened sympathies thou mayest become
a great comforter and great healer. But
even in this compensation thou wilt find
pain. Thou shalt give love with a lavish
hand and w7ith such thou shalt heal many
wounds, but such healing will beget in thee
a great hunger which shall never be satisfied.
Passing sentiments and impulses of grate¬
ful feeling will be given thee, but of the
mighty love for which thou shalt long, thou
shalt never taste. Thy ten lepers thou
shalt heal, but only one will come back to
106 The Goddess of Penitentials.
thank thee. But in the forgetfulness of the
nine thou shalt be blest, inasmuch as thou
shalt then be shown the selfishness lurking
in all thy acts where thou though test were
only goodness and self-sacrifice. Then thou
wilt see that thou gavest love for the hope
of love in return, and in the futility of such
giving thou mayest learn to give as He did,
who gave, knowing beforehand that the
nine would forget him. So shalt thou
through all the days of thy life go desolate
of soul and learn wisdom through lessons
of bitterness and the feeling of sorrow in all
phases of life that touch thee. But by thy
knowledge and capacities enlarged through
suffering, thou shalt understand the woes of
thy fellow-men and become to them a serv¬
ant of servants in all things, who, at last,
shall have exceeding great reward. These
are the penitentials written in my book
over against thy name. Go now into the
world and perform them faithfully, and in
the end thou shalt have a purified soul, a
life everlasting."
As the sighing of the wind dieth away,
so died her voice. I looked up, and she,
the Goddess of Penitentials, was gone. I
arose and walked forth into the shining
The Goddess of Penitentials. 107
sun, which was still the sunshine of sum¬
mer, but its warmth I felt not, for there had
fallen on my senses and on my heart
the chill of death. Condemnation was
written on my face and I dared not meet
my fellows whose taunts I had borne be¬
fore with disdain and silent contempt. N ow
I was fallen in my own estimation below
them, and to leave my native vale without
a moment's delay I was fully resolved.
At the foot of the hill which led up from
the valley, was old Silas, the swine herder.
He greeted me as I passed him with his
kind old voice. To me he had always been
kind, but in my blind conceit I had never
thought him worth notice. My heart was
kindly-disposed towards all, and old Silas
was indebted to me for many a good deed.
The favors I had done him were such as I
would have done for any bod}7; but in the
simplicity of his heart they were special
favors to him, and had greatly warmed his
old heart towards me. And now as I bade
him farewell, knowing that it was forever,
though he did not notice that I bade him
farewell, a great wave of regret swept over my
heart and my eyes filled with tears. From
this ignorant old man so low in the scale
108 The Goddess of Penitentials.
of life, I learned my first great lesson—that
the proudest heart may come to need the
sympathy of the humblest creature on
earth. At that moment my heart was
almost breaking for love and sympathy,
and knowing how abundantly old Silas
would have given all, had I told him my
intentions, I could scarcely keep back the
truth. But he would have made my
departure known and I dared not tell him,
for in truth, I was running away from
home.
Reaching the top of the hill, I turned
and looked back on the vale below. There
were the home, and all the scenes of my
childhood, the low lying fields, the orchard,
the meadow, and the quiet nooks of my
happy dreams. Between me and all this I
knew that to my spirit was a great gulf
which could never be passed. A force
which I could not resist led me on. Behold
now the foolishness and insecurity of the
human heart. Scarcely more than an hour
before I was full of eagerness and impa¬
tience to leave my native vale, and now my
heart was rent in twain because the hour of
departure had come. I turned my face to¬
wards the blue-rimmed hills beyond where
The Goddess of Penitentials.
109
lay the world into which I was to go.
Remembering the prophecy of pain await¬
ing me there my heart fainted and I fell
upon the earth to pray—not with the lips,
but with the bitter cry of the soul whose
agony too great for lips to utter God can
understand. Somewhere it was spoken
audibly to me, as if out of the air: " Faint¬
hearted one arise, go forth into the world
and do thy duties, and in the end thou
shalt have a purified soul and a life ever¬
lasting." I arose, and from the height of
my vain imaginations went down into my
valley of humiliation.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
The city was wrapt in snow. Every¬
where it wore white robes—robes resplen¬
dent with whiteness, like those which they
say are worn by those who stand about the
throne of God. So was the city white and
spotless. It was the eve of the Holy
Christmas. More than ten thousand feet
hourly trod the streets, staining the im¬
maculate sheet let down from the four cor¬
ners of the heaven. But a billion flakes a
second silently fluttered down to cover up
the stains and to keep the city white for
the coming of the Holy Babe of Bethlehem,
for it is said, that he is born again on every
Christmas eve. And there are some who
burn candles at Catholic altars so that the
little Christ-child may not be in the dark
and the Holy Virgin will be pleased. I
would that the saying of his yearly coming
was true.
Perhaps in the widespread usage at the
(110)
A Christmas Carol.
Ill
Christmas-tide in the presentation of gifts,
the gladdening of little hearts, the partial re¬
membrance of the poor by the rich, and in
the general good feeling that prevails, it is
true that the little Prince of Peace is born
again in the hearts of men. Surely in the
happy homes on the Christmas morning,
from the merry patter of little feet, the
laughing voices, and the overflowing happi¬
ness from the hearts of little children, in
them at least, it can not be doubted that
the Babe of Bethlehem is born again.
On this Christmas-tide there was the usual
selling and buying, the usual throngs in
the streets, till late at night. The show
windows were'marvelous to see. The rich
and the poor, the happy and the sorrowr-
ful, the good and the bad, passed by and
admired the beautiful sights. Perhaps, be¬
hind all this Christmas show was mainly
the greedy love of gold and sordidness of
heart. And yet in this display and cele¬
bration the hearts of the multitude passing
by were more or less softened, and in un¬
conscious ways re-echoed the angelic song
of the midnight, heard by the Bethlehem
shepherds so long ago—"Peace on earth,
good will towards men."
112 A Christmas Carol.
In the passing crowds there were Simon
Johns and his daughter Bess. Christmas
had come and gone forty-five times for him
and thirteen for her. They were among
the poor and outcast who looked at the
beautiful windows. He looked with in¬
difference, and she with childish delight,
until at times she almost forgot the unap-
peased hunger which gnawed at the very
vitals of her life. That Christmas night
they were homeless and out in the snow.
At the windows of a baker's shop, Bess
stopped to gaze at the brown loaves of
bread with a hunger no words can ever ex¬
press. But in the father there was a thirst
for drink greater than Bess' hunger. His
craving was a madness for which there is
no name which can bear an adequate
meaning to the mind of man who never
felt the raging of the whiskey demon. At
times he would have given his very soul
for a drink of whiskey, if such a bargain he
could have made. And such was his thirst
on that Christmas night. But there was
one thing which he would not have
given—the one thing which still kept him
a human being from whom the image of
God was not wholly effaced. In the mo-
A Christmas Carol.
113
ments of his greatest craving, when his
■own soul would have been as a feather in
the scale over against a drink of whiskey,
he would not have given Bess for a drink.
All through his downward course, even
into the bottom of the gutter, she had been
-at his side. Nothing could destroy his love
for her.
Cold and hungry, on and on they wrent
through the snow-muffled streets, until
they came to the Chattanooga depot.
There in the "Colored Waiting Room"
they hid in the crowrds waiting for the
trains and for awhile they were sheltered
and warm. But by and by the trains had
carried away the very last passenger to his
home, and the night watchman came round
to lock the waiting-room doors. His wrath
arose when he saw Simon Johns and Bess,
for he had driven them out before and for¬
bidden them the use of the passenger's
room. When he began to drive them out
again, and raised his foot to kick the half
dazed and drink-wrecked man, Bess
stepped between them to shield her father.
There was something in her look, some¬
thing in her pinched and pleading little
black face that caused the watchman's foot
8
114
A Christmas Carol.
to drop. Oat into the cold again they
went. "Let us go to the Louisville depot,
father; may be we can slip in there." Down
to Cedar street they went and past the
corner of "Hell's Half Acre," and along
Vine and Gay streets, by the great white
Capitol. Like some old Greek temple with
its Corinthian pillars, Tennessee's pride
and glory, towered upward in the night.
A huge pile it was with its dim outlines in
the snow which fell over it, and around it,
whiter than its own marble pillars and
porticoes.
Down through Capitol avenue and to
College street these two homeless vagrants
tramped on. At College and Line there
was a by-way of Hell in full blaze as they
were about to pass. The clinking of glasses
and the fumes issuing through the half-
screened doors aroused in Simon Johns a
legion of devils beyond all control. In he
went with Bess clinging to him. "A drink,"
he cried. But the bar-tender knew him too
well and refused him. "This is Christmas
eve, man; give him a drink,"cried a voice, as
a piece of silver was thrown on the counter.
Oh the magic in a drink of whiskey!
Simon Johns was no longer dazed and
A Christmas Carol. 115
stupid, but trembling with excitement and
the working of every devil of the legion, as
the wolf with one taste of blood, he
clamored and plead for one more, drink.
One thing only silenced that clamor for
the moment. Some one in that wild com¬
pany made a brutal address to Bess, but he
was quickly hustled back by a few who
knew Simon Johns too well, not to know
that the forward reveler who abused the
child was inviting death to come in their
midst.
"Give us a song," shouted one who knew
Bess, and who had seen her in a saloon
many times before, but always there an in¬
nocent child trying to save her father.
"Yes, give us a song, a Christmas song,"
they shouted and a table was produced for
her to stand upon. A rough but not un¬
kind hand lifted her upon it. It was not
the first time she had been in a saloon and
she had sung there many times for pennies,
for she had the voice of a meadow lark. But
that night the wild excitement half fright¬
ened her and she stood upon the table un¬
certain for a moment.
"Sing, Bess, sing a Christmas song," said
her father. Bess had been a faithful
116 A Christmas Carol.
member of a mission Sunday school in old
Howard Chapel once. But that was before
she grew to be so big and so ragged. But
the songs she learned there were still fresh
in her memory. There were other things
fresh, too. More things than those often
discouraged teachers over the little rag¬
amuffins that used to assemble wTith Bess
ever suspected. But that is God's way
often.
May be only one out of a large crowd of
street Arabs will be saved where much
effort has been put forth to save so many.
But the one is always worth the effort put
forth. That one may become God's mes¬
senger in some time of great need to carry
His gospel wThere those who taught could
never go. And so was Bess his messenger
on that night. On that wooden table amid
the wildest confusion, her voice untrained,
but with a native sweetness so common to
many Negroes, she lifted up and sang as
one inspired of God. And who can safely
say that she was not inspired at that mo¬
ment? Over the fumes of whiskey and
tobacco, and oaths more vile than either,
rose her voice like a lark's:
A Christmas Carol.
117
"Jesus my Saviour to Bethlehem came,
Born in a manger to sorrow and shame,
Oh, it was wonderful, how could it be,
Seeking for me, for me.
Jesus my Saviour on Calvary's tree
Paid the great debt and set my soul free,
Oh, it was wonderful, how could it be,
Dying for me, for me."
On and on she went through all the verses
of that beautiful song, swelling in the
chorus, "Oh it was wonderful, how could it
be, Dying for me;" letting her voice die
away on those last words with a sweetness
and pathos which a stage artist could not
have surpassed. Every oath was dead on
the lips of those profaning men while Bess
sang to them. The little innocent Babe of
Bethlehem had suddenly come into their
presence and then later they saw him dy-
on the Cross for them.
When the first song was ended, without
change of pitch the little black singer broke
into another song more joyous. "In the
sweet by and by," she went on trilling to
them. Gathering greater and greater inspi¬
ration from her theme as she went on, in
the sweetness of the voice of a nightingale,
she sang to them of that land which is
fairer than day. Out of the hard ex-
118 A Christmas Carol.
periences of her pitiful life and the im¬
pulses of her mystical nature she had con¬
structed her own eschatology of the
heaven. And in this moment of ecstacy she
poured out a melody full of imaginary
heaven, a heaven of green fields full of all
the sweetness of summer, where the biting
snows never come and wrhere there are no
hunger and the pinchings of poverty.
Indeed there were no evils of any kind in
that sweet by and by of which she sang.
In those sin-stained men, feelings and im¬
pulses long since dead were awakened to
life by this unexpected Christmas carol, and
in some of them at least a sense of their
lost condition suddenly forced itself before
their minds with all its dark suggestions.
What sweet by and by was there for them ?
They were all hardened men, full of oaths,
full of drink, full of strife and unbridled
passions, and some of them had hands
stained with blood. And }7et while that
little black singer stood in their midst
pouring out the raptures of her song, there
were lips vile with drink and oaths, that
trembled, and there were tears that trickled
doAvn faces long seared with vice.
In that den of iniquity there were sons of
A Christmas Carol.
119
Ireland, Italy, American-born whites, and
Negroes, come to all stages of manhood in
sin and vice. But all of them had once
been little innocent boys. In the soft sun¬
shine of far away Itaty some of them had
played in green fields and with childish
delight listened to the nightingale sing her
sweet and sad measures. And there in the
old church-yard were little green mounds
under which were peacefully sleeping little
brothers and sisters who never grew up,
who never crossed the wide sea, and who
were never stained with drink, oaths, and
sinful vices. There were others who in the
"Old Country," St. Patrick's blessed Isle,
who had been faithful little boys at the
Cathedral, and with innocent young hearts
and voices had joined in the priest's chant¬
ing at the solemn mass before sin had led
them so far from home and so far from
God. There were American white boys
who had been happy and good 011 the
farms, but yielding to their restlessness
had come up to the city for better fortunes,
but had found only a downward road to all
shame. There were those who had been
happy and sunny little Negro boys amid
the plantations, who had wandered far
120
A Christmas Carol.
away from their old mothers who were still
praying and agonizing for their salvation
in some little church cabin where Negro
fervor and faith meet to wrestle with God
and to tell Him the tales of their sorrowful
life.
For a moment years of vice and sin
rolled away from the memory of those sin¬
ful men, and all of them felt, for the mo¬
ment at least, a touch of the sweetness of
childhood's innocence again, and with it a
yearning for that better life which they
had thrown away. It was God's call to
them—perhaps his very last call to some of
them to become better men, and the judg¬
ment day may show that little black singer-
wearing a crown shining with stars, given
to her for having led some of those lost and
benighted men out of darkness into light by
singing her Christmas carol that night.
And Simon Johns—all the legion of
devils in him were cast out and he stood
clothed in his right mind. Without a word
he went to Bess and folded her in his arms
and went out into the night. The keen
north wind struck them with a savage howl
and Bess shivered and clung to her father.
But the heart of Simon Johns was warm.
A Christmas Carol.
121
As he went down College street half
blinded with the snow he felt that he was
carrying Bess up the aisle of the Church to
the altar again to be baptized. The snow-
flakes made him think of Amanda's new
white dress which she wore to the baby's
baptizing, and Bess again was a little bun¬
dle of a cooing baby which he held half
ashamed, but with a heart full of fatherly
pride and love. He was young and full of
hope then, and work was plenty. That was
in the little home on Grannywhite street,
before he knew drink and hard times.
On he went in that momentary happy
dream till he reached the Louisville depot
and found the door of the " colored-wait¬
ing-room1' closed and locked. This
brought him back to their real situation.
Bitter]y he recalled his first great sorrow
over Amanda's death, the loss of his job of
work soon after, and the hard times which
followed. Then the discouragement which
he sought to soften in drink and all his
downward course flashed over his mind.
He recalled his efforts to reform and how
he had fallen again and again until he had
lost all hope. Then, down and down he
had gone, till the moment of that bitter
122
A Christmas Carol.
hour out in the snow. Keen remorse
pierced his heart when he thought what he
had brought Bess to—wThat he had done to
the little baby God had given him.
" Oh ! God pity me for Bess' sake. Try
me once more," he moaned at heart.
" It is no use," whispered one of the cast
out demons, " you will end this night's
repentance in a drunken spree to-morrow.
To-morrow is the holy Christmas and there
will be plenty of free whisky all over the
city and you will be drunk again."
" It shall never be, I swear it, by God."
" Why, father, what do you say that for ? "
" Nothing, Bess."
A wild thought suddenly entered his
mind and formed itself into a resolution as
quickly. With Bess still in his arms he
crossed the railway track. There was the
little tower of the keeper of the crossing.
He was snug and warm within and sat
dozing over his stove. Simon Johns turned
suddenly and walked down the track past
the red light over the door of Linck's hotel
towards the river.
" One step off of the bridge will do it,"
he said to himself.
His heart shuddered at the thought of the
A Christmas Carol.
123
terrified cry that would come from Bess in
the fall. But then he would hold her tight
in his arms, and the midnight waters of
the cold Cumberland would soon hush her
cry and shut out of his ears the whispers
of the legions of devils. Then there would
be that land fairer than day. But sudden¬
ly he began to wonder if he could go along
with Bess into that fair country, if the
keepers of it would let a sin-stained man
like him pass. What if the icy waves of
the Cumberland should separate him from
Bess forever? The thought was too terrible
for him, and like some frightened and
hard-pressed animal the poor drink-wrecked
man turned up Market street towards Mar¬
ket square. He was exhausted with the
excitement and carrying Bess. He crossed
over to the courthouse yard, watching nar¬
rowly for the policemen. But there was
no need of that for that blue-coated gentry
hired to watch the city by night were too
safely housed away from the cold to molest
Simon Johns, had he been meditating a
much greater crime than hiding from the
storm in the old courthouse. All the doors
to the hallways of that grim old building
were locked. Her justice and her protec-
124
A Christmas Carol.
tion were shut within. It Avas not a build¬
ing in which Negroes generally found
comfort at any time, and to-night for these
two vagrants of that race there was no wel¬
come. Indeed the old building might have
been as fittingly called a temple of sorrows
as a court of justice. In the days of slavery
many broken-hearted Negroes had stood on
her stone-steps and had been auctioned off
to the far plantations of the South as so
many cattle. Over her stone threshold
many a poor sinful criminal had crossed to
hear his doom and afterwards to be marched
out to the penitentiary for life or to the gal¬
lows, leaving behind all hopes of life and a'
name to be blotted out of the book of re¬
membrance. But that night that grim old
building, the stage of so many life tragedies
was as silent and peaceful as a tomb.
As Simon Johns and Bess crouched away
in the angle of the wall and the stone steps,
there were none to molest them but the wind
and the driving snow which searched out
every nook and corner, and penetrated
every crack and crevice.
" 0 father, I am so cold,"' moaned Bess.
But by and by she fell into a fitful sleep.
Once when she gave a convulsive shiver
A Christmas Carol.
125
Simon Johns took off his old coat and
wrapped it around her. A blast of wind as
if enraged at his daring, with a shriek
swept down on him, chilling his very bones.
But his heart grew warmer as he thought
Bess was sleeping and was warm. By and
by the warmth of his heart began to steal
all over his body and a sense of the sweet¬
est sleep began to creep upon him. Some¬
how his heart began to be very glad and he
wanted to shout and laugh, but he was too
sleepy to do so. Such a peaceful rest kept
stealing over him, till at last he was lost
in that most lasting and the sweetest of all
sleeps that ever comes to rest the weary.
And the same sweet sleep was upon Bess
and brought to her a beautiful dream.
The Madonna so full of all sweetness and
that ineffable tenderness of maternity came
and brought the little Bethlehem babe, who
smiled and stretched out his hands for Bess
to take him. Then the mother of the little
Christ said,
"You sang a beautiful carol to him to¬
night and now I am come to take you with
me to sing sweet carols to him for ever and
ever." She and her father were so glad,
and when they stood up they were clad in
126
A Christmas Carol.
beautiful garments—garments more beauti¬
ful than all the Christmas show windows.
For the first time since Bess could remem¬
ber all hunger was gone. Her father looked
so young and happy. They crossed the
square and went over the suspension
bridge and on through East Nashville to¬
wards the rising sun. They had never seen
the city look so beautiful before. Soon
they came to the border of a new country
and into a land of summer. They saw
strange and beautiful trees, full of golden
fruit. Birds of wonderful and brilliant
plumage shot through the air and sang the
sweetest songs. Bess began to warble after
them to the delight of the little Christ
child, and an inexpressible delight took
possession of her soul. On and on they
went with the beauty of the country ever
increasing. At last they came to a park
beautiful beyond all description. Here be¬
neath a great tree full of white blossoms
that filled the air with delightful perfume
they sat down to rest. The Madonna gave
them luscious fruit to eat.
" This," she said, " is that land fairer
than day, and you are to live here for al¬
ways and always."
A Christmas Carol.
127
And in this first hour of transporting de¬
light, to the musical ripples of fountains
and the sweet songs of birds, Bess and her
father fell into a sweet sleep.
It was the morning of the Holy Christmas
and the sun rose over all Nashville wrapt
in snow. Early the saloons were thronged
for a Christmas drink. And those who
had money were generous in treats to those
who lacked the amount necessary to buy a
drink. A low class of Negroes and white
people fought in the streets. Heeling
here and there were men and women drunk
with whisky. The patrol wagons were
busy running in the Christmas revelers.
Guns of all descriptions roared in the air
and pandemonium wras abroad. It was a
common celebration. It is the way in
which the South keeps the commemoration
of the Holy Christmas. While a police¬
man was crossing the courthouse yard to
stop a fight on the opposite side, he noticed
a strange looking mound of pnow in the
angle of the courthouse wall and the stone
steps. He went to it and gave it a kick.
Simon Johns, who sat leaning against the
wall with Bess in his arms, fell over on his
side.
ANNETTE.
" Annison is conjured." That was the
story which went from cabin to cabin, all
through the valley. For three days he had
lain in a strange stupor, speechless and
knowing no one. Annison was a hand¬
some mulatto, and so was Annette, his be¬
trothed. On the third day at sunset a bird
flew into the room where Annison lay, and
fluttered about in terror until it found its
way out. A few moments later old Bull,
Annison's dog, came in front of the door
and howled three times. Then Annette
knew Annison was doomed. These were
two sure signs of death.
Out in the darkness and down the lone¬
some path of Lunny's Hollow, Annette
with unspeakable anguish sped on and on
to old Martha's cabin. Martha knew she
would come that night. She was the arch
princess of conjurers among the Negroes of
the Hollow. Martha was ignorant, but a
(128)
Annette.
129
keen reader of human nature and a shrewd
old woman. That mysterious power, given
a few, by which they can sway the faith,
spirit and souls of others, was old Martha's
in a marked degree. Through all the ages
from her ancestral Africa, and indeed
further back from the families of Asia, this
gift, false in all its claims, but nevertheless
powerful and believed in by the ignorant
of all nations, had come down to old Mar¬
tha all the way to Lunny's Hollow. She
went with Annette so see Annison on the
second day of his sickness, and she saw what
Annette's eyes blinded with love and hope
did not see. Old Martha lived by her art,
and never risked her reputation incautious¬
ly. Her only pledge was that she would
cod suit her " kards and colfee-grounds " the
next day to see who had tricked Annison,
and to find out the nature of the spell he
was under.
The next night when Annette with a
face of woe burst in upon her, old Martha
was ready for her.
" 0 Aunt Martha! a bird flew in the
house at sunset, and old Bull howled three
times before the door. Save Annison,
Aunt Martha."
9
130
Annette.
" I knowed all dat befo' you corned, An¬
nette."
Old Martha's adopted daughter, Matilda
Ann, was in the room, but she paid no at¬
tention to Annette. She had not spoken
to her for months. She said Annette was
" stuck up, kase she wuz yaller; " and once
Annette had said that "Eph Divens is as
ugly as ho-made sin." Eph was Matilda
Ann's adored.
" Annette," said old Martha, " how much
does you love Annison, and what would
you do to save him ?" There was some¬
thing so playful in her tone, Annette's
heart gave a mighty bound of hope.
" How much does I love him ? How
much would the world weigh if it was all
gold ? How much is the love which all
the women of these valleys and mountains
has for their husbands and lovers ? That
is how much I loves Annison. What
would I do to save him ? I would crawl
to the end of the world on my knees-, and
die after I got there, if that much more was
needed to save him."
" Would you, Annette ? " in a tone bor¬
dering on derision.
There was a gleam of contempt in her
Annette.
131
eves, and of a sort of malicious pleasure
which she would take in seeing Annette
quail before the ordeal which she had in
store for her. Old Martha had had the
homage of fear and veneration for her
power, but love never. Such avowals as
that of Annette's aroused in her a feeling
akin to resentment. She was not mean at
heart, but she was human and had missed
that something in life which softens all
hearts. For the lack of it there had come
into her heart a bitterness which she hardly
knew existed, and the exact nature of which
she could not have explained beyond that
feeling of contempt and resentment which
Annette had aroused.
" Well, I will tell you what will take An-
nison from under his spell and save him.
Here is four bags. If you takes 'em to Sun¬
set Rock on Shagg's Point and throws em,
one at de east, one to de no'th, one to de
west, and one to de south, 'zackly at mid¬
night, and saj^s what I tells you—'zackly at
midnight, mind you—you and Annison
will live together."
Annette gave a stifled scream of horror.
Shagg's Point to the Negroes of Lunny's
Hollow was the abode of all the evil spirits
132
Annette.
in the hobgoblin world. For his life's sake
no Negro would venture there alone at
night. Martha knew this all too well, and
then it was five miles from her cabin to
Sunset Rock—and it was then half past
nine. She would have been glad to have
given Annette an easier task, but her repu¬
tation was at stake, and the task must be an
impossible one. A bold and strong moun¬
taineer would have found nothing impossi¬
ble in this task with two and a half hours
of time, but old Martha knew that Annette
weak and terrified could not make the trip
in time if she dared—that is, Martha
thought she knew that, and ran no risk by
imposing the task.
But there was something in Annette's
heart that old Martha had never known : a
something that had made man}- a maiden
weaker than Annette perform greater feats
than this one old Martha imposed. She
underrated the powers of Annette's love.
At first she did falter, and said, "0, Aunt
Martha! ain't there some other way?" " No,
dere ain't, and dat's a heap easier en crawl¬
ing to the end of the world on your knees."
Matilda Ann had looked on in silence,
but there is one sorrow that will move the
Annette.
133
hearts of all women into sympathy with
one another. Matilda Ann had been bit¬
ter towards Annette, but then there was a
secret sadness in her own heart that plead
for Annette. Annette had a little educa¬
tion and a gift of speech which poor Matil¬
da Ann did not have. She was greatly
moved by Annette's avowal of her love for
Annison, and at that moment somewhere
away down the Mississippi was her own
Eph, who might be sick unto death, and she
as Annette some day. She could not have
expressed her love with Annette's elo¬
quence, but she knew that in her heart that
love was all there—that love which her slow
tongue and thick lips could never truly ut¬
ter. How much she was moved was
summed up in her brief statement: "I
will go along with Annette, mammy."
Only those who can understand her deep
superstitions and full belief in all the re¬
puted terrors of Shagg's Point could appre¬
ciate Matilda Ann's offer.
" No, Annette must go by herself, or An¬
nison dies dis night."
" Give me the bags, then, Aunt Martha,"
said Annette with sudden force born of
love and despair.
134
Annette.
At the door she turned with the anguish
of a lost soul and said, " Aunt Martha, if I
don't get back, tell Annison I went there
to save him."
For a moment old Martha's heart sof¬
tened and she was tempted to call Annette
back and tell her the truth. Then she mut¬
tered, " I se got to live ; it won't do. Den
dere ain't nothin' up dar to hurt her. Let
her go long."
So Annette went out into the night and
on and on in the dark. It was June. A
shower of rain had fallen early in the even¬
ing and still there were shifting clouds in
the sky. There was a sweet smell from the
damp earth and the green wToods. The
wild flowers were hidden in the darkness,
but they sent out a sweet and silent greet¬
ing to Annette. One b}r one the clouds at
last were withdrawn and the sheets of mist
about Shagg's Point glided away. The
moon was peeping up over the head of the
mountain, and Sunset Rock clearly defined
against the molten sky jutted out as a per¬
sonification of majestic solitude.
Suddenly Annette felt a cold chill of
death pass over her. As she looked at
Shagg's Point, for a moment she saw stand
Annette,
135
out against the background of yellow sky,
something—a mere speck it was, yet in
shape like that of a man which passed from
Sunset Rock to a shadow beyond. She
thought it was a spirit and she knew she
was going to her doom ; but she murmured
the one name, " Annison," and went on.
Still on and on she sped, climbing, stum¬
bling, and falling, butalwayson, murmuring
the name that was love and life. At last a
few minutes before midnight, sore and worn,
she reached the crown of Shagg's Point.
There before her Sunset Rock, with the
moonbeams sweetly asleep upon it, lay
stretched out, a mighty cliff over a fright¬
ful abyss. The scene was so peaceful An¬
nette approached half in hope that the spir¬
its were all absent.
How far away sometimes are the evils
for which we look, and how near are those
which we do not suspect. Out from the
copse near Sunset Rock, two keen, glitter¬
ing, cruel and merciless eyes were watching
Annette as she approached. At first in
them there was amazement, a moment of
fear; but soon there was a gleam of gloat¬
ing triumph. Bill Hoard, the notorious
murderer and outlaw of the mountains,
136
Annette.
knew Annette of the valley. He knew old
Martha and Annison. He knew the super¬
stitions of the Negroes, and all their terrors
of Shagg's Point. He did not know of An-
nison's sickness; but he knew that some
terrible and desperate measure forced An¬
nette to Shagg's Point at midnight.
" Ah, ha! my fine lady. When I asked
you to come and live with me, you called
me a low-down thief, and the scrapings of
poor-white-trash. When I told you any
sort of a white man was good enough for a
nigger, 3<ou spit in my face, for which I
knocked you down. And now you have
come all the way to Shagg's Point at mid¬
night to hunt Billy up. The giant's cave
is not as good as the cabin I invited you to,
but you won't mind that, my fine lady."
Poor Annette! Was there no pity in
heaven—no hand to save? But who can
truly say that unseen in the soft moonlight,
the most compassionate pity was not walk¬
ing by Annette's side ? What is pity and
what is salvation ? Eternity alone can give
full answer. Out on Sunset Rock she
walked. Her fear was almost gone. On
the east, the north, the west, there was a
ledge of rock over which one might step to
Annette.
137
an abyss of three thousand feet below. To
the south only was there a retreat from Sun¬
set Rock. Annette turned first to the east
where the sky was golden with gleams, and
murmured her gharm and then threw her
first bag. With the throw to the north
went a mighty wave of love, for there far
down in the dark shadows of the valley was
Annison whom she was saving. Then to
the west she repeated her charm. Now half-
gleeful she turned to the south to complete
her work of magic. The incantation died
on her lips. Horror palsied her uplifted
hand. There in the dreamy moonlight,
with a tiger's tread, sure of his victim, steal¬
ing upon her, was a man, who to her dilated
vision was the father of giants. There
was one swift moment of silent agony, and
then with a scream that went up to the
stars Annette was over Sunset Rock.
How lovely was the June morning with
its soft blue sky and meadows of green
grass in the valleys. On Shagg's Point the
hemlock boughs gracefully nodded to the
cool breezes which swept down the sides
of the mountain to the valleys below, car¬
rying such a sweet breath of new life. Ra¬
cing up and down an old chestnut, two gray
138
Annette.
squirrels were chattering and playing like a
newly married pair. The trees were full
of birds which filled the air with chirping
and singing, where the leaves were trem¬
bling and shaking out silvery glitters and
dancing shadows to the ground.
Under Sunset Rock more than a thou¬
sand feet below on a shelf of the mountain
side, there was a little patch of broken
stones and earth, which, doubtless, had fall¬
en in some little avalanche from the brow
of the mountain long ago. Growing out
from among the stones and earth were some
mountain laurels. And there was a little
stream of water that trickled from a cleft
in the rock wall. Here in a niche was the
home of a family of wrens which had
dwelt there undisturbed for ages in all the
bliss of bird life. By the edge of that short
stream, down to the very edge where it
leaped to the depths below, the wild lobe¬
lia flamed in crimson glory. Everywhere
there was earth enough for their tiny roots,
the violets were rioting in gay profusion..
And what was that lying half hidden
among their green leaves and purple eyes ?
What was it in this peaceful abode which
was causing such a chattering and wild con-
Annette.
139
fusion among the wrens ? It was only a
little mangled body of a beautiful quadroon
girl. That body, now mangled beyond all
recognition, at midnight had stood on Sun¬
set Rock, the temple of a mighty love.
The reputation of old Martha, the arch
princess of the conjurers, was maintained,
for her word had come true. " Mind you,"
she had said, " If you is dar 'zackly at mid¬
night, you and Annison will live together."
Almost an hour after Annette had stood
on Sunset Rock, just as a hand of the clock
pointed ten minutes to one, Annison sud¬
denly seemed conscious. He raised himself
upon his elbow in bed, and with a smile,
said, " Annette, how beautiful you looks."
He laid down, turned over on his side and
sweetly went off to sleep. Next morning
word was sent ten miles down the valley to
Nelie Fraction for Elder Dangerfield to
come up to Lunny's Hollow to preach An-
nison's funeral.
A CHRISTMAS NIGHT.
Once more on the tall cliffs of Mount
Paradise rest the melting rays of a setting
sun. The bald tops of Gedor, Gibeah, and
Mais Elias, as a thousand times before, flame
in the distance with burnished gold. Gedor
and Gibeah, from their bald tops, without
emotion look down on centuries that have
rolled away before them, like the mist of
the morning. What shifting scenes, what
tragedies of life have been played out on
their sides and in the vales below. What
mighty forces have gone out from before
them to subdue the world, and to bring to
it, peace and good will towards men. And
still old Gedor and Gibeah stand on and
on in grim silence, waiting for the perfection
of that peace to come. As if to bless their
patient waiting, on their bald tops the sun
pauses with a good night smile, and to
give once more a parting benediction. In
the ancient stillness one can almost hear a
hospitable greeting of Abraham to all the
(140)
A Christmas Night.
141
world—Shalom Leka. Far over the val¬
leys, stretching away to the depressions of
Cedron, where once were the vineyards and
grain fields of Boaz and Ruth, and the
sheep pastures of the boy David, the twi¬
light falls again, deepening more and more
until all objects are lost in the indistinct¬
ness ; and once more a solemn and mys¬
terious awe drops down over Bethlehem,
and the Christmas night begins to be.
A FAREWELL.
The hills of the Highland Rim of Mid¬
dle Tennessee—straggling spurs from the
Unaka range, were lifting their lofty heads
sky-ward, as they had been doing ever since
the creation of the world. On their sides
the green corn rustled and swayed to the
passing breezes and the golden wheat waved
in beautiful billowy undulations. The
bright sun smiled down upon it with no
cloud to dim his radiance. Slowly along
the steep, winding path my friend and I
walked in silence. He carried his gun—
a little pretext for hunting— but, truly, he
was out to take a last walk with me. Many
a time before in a loving friendship of many
years had we walked on this same path¬
way. Many a time before we both had
gazed upon the inexpressible beauty of this
same landscape, talking and dreaming of
the future, with all of youth's hope and
ambition. But this walk was a silent one.
(142)
A Farewell.
143
Soon my friend tired and we sat down un¬
der the shade of a great chestnut. Long
we sat there.
The sun moved upwards in the heavens
and ever and anon his rays, like that of a
great diamond, shot through some opening
in the foliage. The branches of the trees
above our heads, touched by an unseen
hand of the winds, sang a low forest song.
The hum of the insects and the twitter of
the birds that belong to a summer's day in
June, was all around^us. Far below us in
the Liberty Valley all the grain fields were
in a glimmer. My friend and I sat beside
each other in a dreamy silence. Once he
started suddenly and cocked his gun at a
grey squirrel which frisked out before as
upon a mulberry tree. It scampered off
and my friend£sat down with a look on
his face as if a'second thought of compas¬
sion had come to him. He was an unerring
shot, but 0! in those hours life seemed so
sweet to him. The slow and relentless
hand of consumption was teaching him how
to pity the living. He let the little squirrel
pass which came frisking back again to bark
at us. By and|by a faint echo of distant
thunder, suggesting a summer shower,
144
A Farewell.
warned my friend to return to the house and
me to pursue my journey. We arose to say
good-by. Then there was a beating round
the bush for some parting words. We both
wanted to appear cheerful. I talked of my
trip, soon to be made to Connecticut, and
the long year of study there ; He, of his sum¬
mer's rest and recuperation to return to Fisk
University. Thus we talked as we had
talked before. But our souls—0 our souls!
They were looking at each other face to
face, and understood well enough the
quibbling, lying words of our lips. When
we started out for that good-bye walk
we both knew that it was the last time
we should ever walk together in our
mortal bodies. When our hands clasped
in the good-bye, with a promise to soon
meet again, we knew that we would be in
our robes of white when we did meet.
And that last touch of hands was too much
for us. Our souls gave a mutual cry for
little more truth. And I said, "Be brave to
the end, Little Wood. Sail your boat worthy
of the Captain. When you are flagged to
come in the port, go in with your colors
still up." " I will," he said, " and don't
you forget that your vessel is a light one,
A Farewell.
145
too." Again the thunder echoed along the
hills and louder. We parted, my friend
and I. At a bend in the path I turned to
look again. Slowly homeward he walked.
Yea, it was homeward that he walked. I
stood and gazed till the gun and familiar
form of "Little Wood'' passed from my
view.
Another June sun has smiled on the
Highland Rim of Middle Tennessee, and on
all the beautiful, rich Liberty Valley—as it
has done a thousand times before. But it
has made green for the first time the grave
of my friend.