Kentucky In American Letters: Vol. I, by John Wilson Townsend--A Project Gutenberg eBook.

And yet, be it said that, while there was a good deal of drinking that night, there was no drunkenness, rowdyism, unseemly behavior, or ungentlemanly conversation; for woe to the young man who at such a time and place, when ladies were present, had violated the recognized rules of decorum!

It is certain, however, that several young persons came very near that night being "fiddled out of the church." There was one gay, good-humored, hearty country girl who, when "churched" for dancing that night, admitted that she was "on the floor with the so-called dancers"; that she had a "partner," and took part in the movements; but, she contended, that inasmuch as she had not crossed her feet, she had violated no rule of the church. "What," she asked, "if I walk forward and backward and turn and bow without music, is that dancing? And if I do the same when there is music, does that make it dancing?" And the good old brethren, who were sitting in judgment, after mature deliberation, came to the conclusion that they were not "cl'ar on the p'int 'bout crossin' the feet." "And," said one, "if we err, let it be on the side o' marcy." "Yes," replied another, "but let the young sister understand that she must n't do it ag'in." And so the matter was settled.

J. PROCTOR KNOTT

James Proctor Knott, he who made Duluth famous, was born at Lebanon, Kentucky, August 29, 1830. In 1851 he became a Missouri lawyer, and later a member of the Missouri legislature. For a time he was attorney-general of the state but, refusing to take certain test oaths prescribed for officials, his office was declared vacant and he returned to Lebanon, his birthplace. In 1866 Knott was sent to the lower house of Congress, and he was re-elected two years later. On January 27, 1871, he delivered his celebrated Duluth speech upon the St. Croix and Superior land grant, which effort brought him a national reputation as an orator and humorist, but which injured him as a constructive statesman—if he ever was or could be such a statesman! Knott was in Congress again from 1875 until 1883, when he was elected governor of Kentucky. Governor Knott was not an overly forceful executive, but the people enjoyed his witty stories and speeches, and thus his term wore on and out. It was an era of good feeling, Kentuckians smiling and taking their governor good naturedly at all times. His brief eulogy to remember James Francis Leonard, the Kentucky telegrapher, was the finest literary thing he did while governor of Kentucky. The governor was dean of the law faculty of Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, from 1894 to 1901, when, old age coming on, he returned to his home at Lebanon, where the final years of his life were passed, and where he died on June 18, 1911.

[From Oddities in Southern Life and Character, edited by Henry Watterson (Boston, 1883)]

Hence, as I have said, sir, I was utterly at a loss to determine where the terminus of this great and indispensable road should be, until I accidentally overheard some gentleman the other day mention the name of "Duluth." [Great laughter.] Duluth! The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an angel's whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence. Duluth! 'Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart panteth for the water-brooks. [Renewed laughter.] But where was Duluth? Never, in all my limited reading, had my vision been gladdened by seeing the celestial word in print. [Laughter.] And I felt a profounder humiliation in my ignorance that its dulcet syllables had never before ravished my delighted ear. [Roars of laughter.] I was certain the draughtsman of this bill had never heard of it, or it would have been designated as one of the termini of this road. I asked my friends about it, but they knew nothing of it. I rushed to the library and examined all the maps I could find. [Laughter.] I discovered in one of them a delicate, hair-like line, diverging from the Mississippi near a place marked Prescott, which I supposed was intended to represent the river St. Croix, but I could nowhere find Duluth.

Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and that its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times. [Laughter.] I knew it was bound to exist in the very nature of things; that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it [renewed laughter]; that the elements of material nature would long since have resolved themselves back into original chaos if there had been such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from leaving out Duluth. [Roars of laughter.] In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the conviction that Duluth not only existed somewhere, but that wherever it was it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of the ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of Duluth; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save by the hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for Duluth; that the golden orchard of the Hesperides was but a poetical synonym for the beer gardens in the vicinity of Duluth. [Great laughter.] I was certain that Herodotus had died a miserable death because in all his travels and with all his geographical research he had never heard of Duluth. [Laughter.] I knew that if the immortal spirit of Homer could look down from another heaven than that created by his own celestial genius upon the long lines of pilgrims from every nation of the earth to the gushing fountain of poesy opened by the touch of his magic wand; if he could be permitted to behold the vast assemblage of grand and glorious productions of the lyric art called into being by his own inspired strains, he would weep tears of bitter anguish that, instead of lavishing all the stores of his mighty genius upon the fall of Ilion, it had not been his more blessed lot to crystalize in deathless song the rising glories of Duluth. [Great and continued laughter.] Yet, sir, had it not been for this map, kindly furnished me by the legislature of Minnesota, I might have gone down to my obscure and humble grave in an agony of despair, because I could nowhere find Duluth. [Renewed laughter.] Had such been my melancholy fate, I have no doubt that, with the last feeble pulsation of my breaking heart, with the last faint exhalation of my fleeting breath, I should have whispered, "Where is Duluth?" [Roars of laughter.]

GEORGE G. VEST

George Graham Vest, exquisite eulogist of man's good friend, the dog, was born at Frankfort, Kentucky, December 6, 1830. At the age of eighteen years Vest was graduated from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky; and five years later Transylvania University granted him his degree in law. The year of his graduation from Transylvania, 1853, Vest went to Missouri, settling at Georgetown. He rapidly attained a State-wide reputation as a lawyer and orator. In 1860 he was a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket, and a member of the Missouri House of Representatives. Vest's sympathy lay with the South and he resigned his seat in the legislature in order to become a member of the Confederate Congress. He served two years in the Confederate House and one year in the Senate. After the war he resumed the practice of his profession at Sedalia, but he later removed to Kansas City. In 1878 Vest was elected United States Senator from Missouri and this position he held until 1903. In the Senate his powers as an orator and debater were generally recognized, and he became a national figure. Of the many speeches that Senator Vest made, his tribute to the dog, made in a jury trial, is the one thing that will keep his memory green for many years. It appears that Senator Vest was called into a case in which one party was endeavoring to recover damages for the death of a favorite dog, and when it came time for him to speak he arose and delivered his tribute to the dog, and then resumed his seat without having mentioned the case before the jury in any way whatsoever. The jury understood however, and the Senator won his case. Senator Vest died at Sweet Springs, Missouri, August 9, 1904.

Upon the canvas of the past, Washington and Jefferson stand forth the central figures in our struggle for independence. The character of the former was so rounded and justly proportioned, that, so long as our country lives, or a single community of Americans can be found, Washington will be "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

To Washington we are more indebted than to any one man for national existence; but what availed the heroism of Bunker Hill, the sufferings of Valley Forge, or the triumph of Yorktown, if the government they established had been but an imitation of the monarchy from which we had separated?

To Jefferson we owe eternal gratitude for his sublime confidence in popular government, and his unfaltering courage in defending at all times and in all places, the great truth, that "All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."

The love of liberty is found not in palaces, but with the poor and oppressed. It flutters in the heart of the caged bird, and sighs with the worn and wasted prisoner in his dungeon. It has gone with martyrs to the stake, and kissed their burning lips as the tortured spirit winged its flight to God!

For myself, I worship no mortal man living or dead; but if I could kneel at such a shrine, it would be with uncovered head and loving heart at the grave of Thomas Jefferson.

The best human friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps, when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deceives him, the one that never proves ungrateful and treacherous is his dog.

A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground where the wintry wind blows and the snow drifts fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journeys through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying, to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when, the last scene of all comes and when death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside may the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.

WILLIAM P. JOHNSTON

William Preston Johnston, biographer and poet, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, January 5, 1831, the son of the famous Confederate general, Albert Sidney Johnston. He was graduated from Yale in 1852. During the Civil War young Johnston was on the staff of Jefferson Davis. After the war he was professor of history and literature in Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, for ten years. In 1880 he accepted the presidency of Louisiana State University, at Baton Rouge. Paul Tulane's magnificent gift in 1883 made Tulane University possible, and Johnston became its first president. This position he held until his death, which occurred at New Orleans, July 16, 1899. President Johnston's Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston (New York, 1878), is one of the most admirable biographies ever written by a Kentuckian. His graphic description of the battle of Shiloh, in which his famous father met death and the South defeat, is now accepted, even in the North, as the best account of that desperate conflict. Had General Johnston lived a day longer no one can even guess what it would have meant to the South and to the North. President Johnston was also the author of The Prototype of Hamlet (1890), in which his power as a Shakesperian scholar is well proved; and he published The Johnstons of Salisbury. He was a maker of charming verse, which may be read in his three collections, My Garden Walk (1894), Pictures of the Patriarchs (1896), and Seekers After God (Louisville, 1898), a book of sonnets. As a man, Johnston was a true type of the courtly Southern soldier and scholar.

Saturday afternoon, April 5th, the sun, breaking through the mists which drifted away, set in a cloudless sky. The night was clear, calm, and beautiful. General Johnston, tired out with the vigils of the night before, slept quietly in an ambulance-wagon, his staff bivouacking by the camp-fires around him. Some of Hardee's troops having wasted their rations, he and Bragg spent a large part of the night getting up provisions for them. Before the faintest glimmer of dawn, the wide forest was alive with preparations for the mighty contest of the coming day. No bugle-note sounded, and no drum beat the reveillé; but men took their hasty morning meal, and looked with sharp attention to the arms that were to decide the fortunes of the fight. The cool, gray dawn found them in motion. Morning opened with all the delicate fragrance and beauty of the season, enhanced by the contrast of the day before. The sky was serene, the air was bracing, the dew lay heavy on the tender green of leaf and herb, and the freshness of early spring was on all around. When the sun rose it was with unclouded brilliancy; and, as it shed its glories over the coverts of the oak-woods, the advancing host, stirred by the splendor of the scene and the enthusiasm of the hour, passed the omen from lip to lip, and welcomed its rising as another "sun of Austerlitz."

The native buoyance of General Johnston's self-repressed temper broke its barriers at the prospect of that struggle which should settle for all time by the arbitrament of arms the dispute as to his own military ability and skill and the fate of the Confederate cause in the West. He knew the hazard; but he knew, too, that he had done all that foresight, fortitude, energy, and strategy, could accomplish to secure a victory, and he welcomed with exultant joy the day that was about to decide not only these great questions, but for him all questions, solving the mysteries of life and death. Men who came within his influence on the battle-field felt and confessed the inspiration of his presence, his manner, and his words. As he gave his orders in terse sentences, every word seemed to ring with a presage of victory.

Turning to his staff, as he mounted, he exclaimed, "Tonight we will water our horses in the Tennessee River." It was thus that he formulated his plan of battle. It must not stop short of entire victory.

As he rode forward he encountered Colonel Randal L. Gibson, who was the intimate friend of his son. When Gibson ordered his brigade to salute, General Johnston took him warmly by the hand and said: "Randal, I never see you but I think of William. I hope you may get through safely to-day, but we must win a victory." Gibson says he felt greatly stirred by his words.

Sharp skirmishing had begun before he reached the front. Here he met Colonel John S. Marmaduke, commanding the Third Arkansas Regiment. This officer, in reply to General Johnston's questions, explained, with some pride, that he held the centre of the front line, the other regiments forming on him. Marmaduke had been with General Johnston in Utah, at Bowling Green, and in the retreat to Corinth, and regarded him with the entire affection and veneration of a young soldier for his master in the art of war. General Johnston put his hand on Marmaduke's shoulder, and said to him with an earnestness that went to his heart, "My son, we must this day conquer or perish!" Marmaduke felt himself moved to a tenfold resolution.

General Johnston said to the ambitious Hindman, who had been in the vanguard from the beginning: "You have earned your spurs as major-general. Let this day's work win them."

"Men of Arkansas!" he exclaimed to a regiment from that State, "they say you boast of your prowess with the bowie-knife. To-day you wield a nobler weapon—the bayonet. Employ it well." It was with such words, as he rode from point to point, that he raised a spirit in that host which swept away the serried lines of the conquerors of Donelson.

WILL WALLACE HARNEY

Will Wallace Harney, poet, was born at Bloomington, Indiana, June 20, 1832, the son of John H. Harney, professor of mathematics in the University of Indiana, and author of the first Algebra edited by an American. When the future poet was seven years of age his father removed to Louisville, Kentucky, to accept the presidency of Louisville College. In 1844 President Harney became editor of the Louisville Daily Democrat, which he conducted for nearly twenty-five years. Will Wallace Harney was educated by the old grammarian, Noble Butler, and at Louisville College. He became a teacher in the public schools of the city, in which he taught for five years; and he was the first principal of the high school there, holding the position for two years. Know-Nothingism then swept the city and elected a new board of trustees, which requested Harney's resignation. He was appointed to a professorship in the State Normal School at Lexington, which he held for two years. He then returned to Louisville to practice law, but he was shortly afterwards asked to become assistant editor of the Daily Democrat; and after his father's death, in 1867, he became editor of that paper. Harney's masterpiece, The Stab, that John J. Piatt called "a tragic little night-piece which Heine could not have surpassed in its simple, graphic narration and vivid suggestiveness," was written in Kentucky before 1860. In 1869 Harney removed to Florida, where he planted an orange grove and wrote for the high-class magazines and newspapers of the East and South. From 1883 to 1885 he was editor of The Bitter Sweet, a newspaper of Kissimmee. Harney spent the final years of his life with his only son, William R. Harney, a business man of Jacksonville, to whom he inscribed his one book, The Spirit of the South (Boston, 1909). This volume brought together his poems and short stories which he cared to preserve from newspapers and periodicals. The poet died at Jacksonville, Florida, March 28, 1912.

On the road, the lonely road,
Under the cold white moon,
Under the ragged trees, he strode;
He whistled, and shifted his heavy load;
Whistled a foolish tune.

There was a step timed with his own;
A figure that stooped and bowed;
A cold white blade that flashed and shone,
Like a splinter of daylight downward thrown—
And the moon went behind a cloud.

But the moon came out, so broad and good,
The barn cock woke and crowed;
Then roughed his feathers in drowsy mood,
And the brown owl called to his mate in the wood,
That a dead man lay on the road.

J. STODDARD JOHNSTON

Josiah Stoddard Johnston, journalist and historian, was born at New Orleans, February 10, 1833. He is the nephew of the celebrated Confederate cavalry leader, General Albert Sidney Johnston. Left an orphan when but five years old, he was reared by relatives in Kentucky. He was graduated from Yale in 1853; and the following year he was married to Miss Elizabeth W. Johnson, daughter of George W. Johnson, Confederate governor of Kentucky. Johnston was a cotton planter in Arkansas from 1855 to 1859, and a Kentucky farmer until the Civil War began. He served throughout the war upon the staffs of Generals Bragg, Buckner, and Breckinridge. Colonel Johnston was editor of the old Frankfort Yeoman for more than twenty years; and from 1903 to 1908 he was associate editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. In 1871 Colonel Johnston was Adjutant-General of Kentucky; and Secretary of State from 1875 to 1879. He has been vice-president of the Filson Club of Louisville since 1893; and he is now consulting geologist of the Kentucky Geological Survey. Colonel Johnston's knowledge of plants and mammals is very extensive and most surprising in a man of literary tastes. His tube-roses and flower gardens is one of the traditions of the old town of Frankfort. Colonel Johnston has published The Memorial History of Louisville, Kentucky (Chicago, 1896, two vols.); The First Explorations of Kentucky (Louisville, 1898); and The Confederate History of Kentucky. Colonel Johnston is one of the finest men in Kentucky to-day, dignified, cultured, and deeply learned in the history of Kentucky and the West.

The Revolutionary War was drawing to a close, involving Virginia in its last throes in the devastation of an invading army. The whole eastern portion was overrun by the British forces under Arnold and Tarleton, the capital taken, and much public and private property destroyed everywhere. Charlottesville, to which the legislature had adjourned, Monticello, and Castle Hill were raided by Tarleton's dragoons, and the legislature, Mr. Jefferson, and Doctor Walker barely escaped capture. An interesting incident of the raid is recorded well illustrating the spirit which actuated the American women of that period. Not far distant from Charlottesville, on an estate known as "The Farm," resided Nicholas Lewis, the uncle and guardian of Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. His wife was Mary Walker, the eldest daughter of Doctor Walker. Her husband was absent in the army when Tarleton with his raiders swooped down on her home and proceeded to appropriate forage and every thing eatable and portable. She received the British cavalryman with spirit and dignity, and upbraided him sharply for his war on defenseless women, telling him to go to the armies of Virginia and meet her men. Tarleton parried her thrusts with politeness as well as he could, and after his men were rested, resumed his march.

After his departure Mrs. Lewis discovered that his men had carried off all her ducks except a single old drake. This she caused to be caught and sent it to Tarleton by a messenger, who overtook him, with her compliments, saying that the drake was lonesome without his companions, and as he had evidently overlooked it, she wished to reunite them. From that time she was known as "Captain Moll," and bears that sobriquet in the family records. She was a woman of strong character, was still living at "The Farm" in 1817, and left many descendants in Virginia and in and near Louisville, Kentucky. On the 19th of October, 1781, Tarleton's career closed, and Virginia was relieved from similar devastation for a period of eighty years by the surrender at Yorktown.

JULIA S. DINSMORE

Miss Julia Stockton Dinsmore ("F.V."), poet, was born in Louisiana about 1833, but most of her long life of nearly eighty years has been spent in Kentucky. For many years Miss Dinsmore published an occasional poem in the newspapers of her home town, Petersburg, Kentucky, but, in 1910, when she was seventy-seven years of age, the New York firm of Doubleday, Page and Company discovered Miss Dinsmore to be a poet of much grace and charm, and they at once issued the first collection of her work, entitled "Verses and Sonnets." This little volume contains more than eighty exquisite lyrics, which have been favorably reviewed by the literary journals of the country. Love Among the Roses, Noon in a Blue Grass Pasture, Far 'Mid the Snows, That's for Remembrance, and several of the sonnets are very fine. Miss Dinsmore is a great lover of Nature, as her poems reveal, and she is often in the saddle. A most remarkable woman she surely is, having won the plaudits of her people when most women of her years have their eyes turned toward the far country. Another volume of her verse may be published shortly.

"What, dear—what dear?"
How sweet and clear
The redbird's eager voice I hear;
Perched on the honeysuckle trellis near
He sits elate,
Red as the cardinal whose name he bears,
And tossing high the gay cockade he wears
Calls to his mate,
"What, dear—what, dear?"

She stirs upon her nest,
And through her ruddy breast
The tremor of her happy thoughts repressed
Seems rising like a sigh of bliss untold,
There where the searching sunbeams' stealthy gold
Slips past the thorns and her retreat discloses,
Hid in the shadow of June's sweetest roses.
Her russet, rustic home,
Round as inverted dome
Built by themselves and planned,
Within whose tiny scope,
As though to them the hollow of God's hand,
They gladly trust their all with faith and hope.

"What, dear—what, dear?"
Are all the words I hear,
The rest is said, or sung
In some sweet, unknown tongue.
Whose music, only, charms my alien ear;
But bird, my heart can guess
All that its tones express
Of love and cheer, and fear and tenderness.

It says, "Does the day seem long—
The scented and sunny day
Because you must sit apart?
Are you lonesome, my own sweetheart?
You know you can hear my song
And you know I'm alert and strong
And a match for the wickedest jay
That ever could do us wrong.
As I sit on the snowball spray
Or this trellis not far away,
And look at you on the nest,
And think of those beautiful speckled shells
In whose orbs the birds of the future rest,
My heart with such pride and pleasure swells
As never could be expressed.

"But, dear—but, dear!"—
Now I seem to hear
A change in the notes so proud and clear—
"But, dear—but, dear!
Do you feel no fear
When day is gone and the night is here?
When the cold, white moon looks down on you,
And your feathers are damp with the chilly dew,
And I am silent, and all is still,
Save the sleepless insects, sad and shrill,
And the screeching owl, and the prowling cat,
And the howling dog—when the gruesome bat
Flits past the nest in his circling flight
Do you feel afraid in the lonely night?"

"Courage! my own, when daylight dawns
You shall hear again in the cheerful morns
My madrigal among the thorns,
Whose rugged guardianship incloses
Our link of love among the roses."

HENRY T. STANTON

Henry Thompson Stanton, one of the most popular poets Kentucky has produced, was born at Alexandria, Virginia, June 30, 1834. He was brought by his father, Judge Richard Henry Stanton, to Maysville, Kentucky, when he was only two years old. Stanton was educated at the Maysville Academy and at West Point, but he was not graduated. He entered the Confederate army as captain of a company in the Fifth Kentucky regiment, and through various promotions he surrendered as a major. Major Stanton saw much service on the battlefields of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. After the war he practised law for a time and was editor of the Maysville Bulletin until 1870, when he removed to Frankfort, Kentucky, to become chief assistant to the State Commissioner of Insurance. Major Stanton's first volume of verse was The Moneyless Man and Other Poems (Baltimore, 1871). This title poem, written for a wandering elocutionist who "struck" the town of Maysville one day, and asked the major to write him "a poem that would draw tears from any audience," made him famous and miserable for the rest of his life. For the nomad he "dashed off this special lyric and it brought all Kentucky to the mourners' bench. It was more deadly as a tear-provoker than 'Stay, Jailer, Stay,' and though the author wrote other things which were far better, the public would never admit it, and many people innocently courted death by rushing up to Stanton and exclaiming: 'Oh, and is this Major Stanton who wrote 'The Moneyless Man?' So glad to meet you.'" One Kentucky poet took the philosophy of The Moneyless Man too seriously, and A Reply to the Moneyless Man was the pathetic result. The rhythm of the poem is very pleasing, but it is, in a word, melodramatic. Major Stanton's second and final collection of his verse was Jacob Brown and Other Poems (Cincinnati, 1875). It contains several poems that are superior to The Moneyless Man, but the general reader refuses to read them. From 1875 till 1886 he edited the Frankfort Yeoman; and during President Cleveland's first administration he served as Land Commissioner. Besides his poems, Major Stanton wrote a group of paper-backed novels, entitled The Kents; Social Fetters (Washington, 1889); and A Graduate of Paris (Washington, 1890). Major Stanton died at Frankfort, Kentucky, May 8, 1898. Two years later Poems of the Confederacy (Louisville, 1900), containing the war lyrics of the major, was artistically printed as a memorial to his memory. The introduction to the little book was written by Major Stanton's friend and fellow man of letters, Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, and it is an altogether fitting remembrance for the author of The Moneyless Man.

Is there no secret place on the face of the earth,
Where charity dwelleth, where virtue has birth?
Where bosoms in mercy and kindness will heave,
When the poor and the wretched shall ask and receive?
Is there no place at all, where a knock from the poor,
Will bring a kind angel to open the door?
Ah, search the wide world wherever you can
There is no open door for a Moneyless Man!

Go, look in yon hall where the chandelier's light
Drives off with its splendor the darkness of night,
Where the rich-hanging velvet in shadowy fold
Sweeps gracefully down with its trimmings of gold,
And the mirrors of silver take up, and renew,
In long lighted vistas the 'wildering view:
Go there! at the banquet, and find, if you can,
A welcoming smile for a Moneyless Man!

Go, look in yon church of the cloud-reaching spire,
Which gives to the sun his same look of red fire,
Where the arches and columns are gorgeous within,
And the walls seem as pure as a soul without sin;
Walk down the long aisles, see the rich and the great
In the pomp and the pride of their worldly estate;
Walk down in your patches, and find, if you can,
Who opens a pew to a Moneyless Man.

Go, look in the Banks, where Mammon has told
His hundreds and thousands of silver and gold;
Where, safe from the hands of the starving and poor,
Lies pile upon pile of the glittering ore!
Walk up to their counters—ah, there you may stay
'Til your limbs grow old, 'til your hairs grow gray,
And you'll find at the Banks not one of the clan
With money to lend to a Moneyless Man!

Go, look to yon Judge, in his dark-flowing gown,
With the scales wherein law weighteth equity down;
Where he frowns on the weak and smiles on the strong,
And punishes right whilst he justifies wrong;
Where juries their lips to the Bible have laid,
To render a verdict—they've already made:
Go there, in the court-room, and find, if you can,
Any law for the cause of a Moneyless Man!

Then go to your hovel—no raven has fed
The wife who has suffered too long for her bread;
Kneel down by her pallet, and kiss the death-frost
From the lips of the angel your poverty lost:
Then turn in your agony upward to God,
And bless, while it smites you, the chastening rod,
And you'll find, at the end of your life's little span,
There's a welcome above for a Moneyless Man!

Both of us guilty and both of us sad—
And this is the end of passion!
And people are silly—people are mad,
Who follow the lights of Fashion;
For she was a belle, and I was a beau,
And both of us giddy-headed—
A priest and a rite—a glitter and show,
And this is the way we wedded.

There were wants we never had known before,
And matters we could not smother;
And poverty came in an open door,
And love went out at another:
For she had been humored—I had been spoiled,
And neither was sturdy-hearted—
Both in the ditches and both of us soiled,
And this is the way we parted.

Prue and I together sat
Beside a running brook;
The little maid put on my hat,
And I the forfeit took.

"Desist," she cried; "It is not right,
I'm neither wife nor sister;"
But in her eye there shone such light,
That twenty times I kiss'd her.

Sweetheart—I call you sweetheart still,
As in your window's laced recess,
When both our eyes were wont to fill,
One year ago, with tenderness.
I call you sweetheart by the law
Which gives me higher right to feel,
Though I be here in Malaga,
And you in far Mobile.

I mind me when, along the bay
The moonbeams slanted all the night;
When on my breast your dark locks lay,
And in my hand, your hand so white;
This scene the summer night-time saw,
And my soul took its warm anneal
And bore it here to Malaga
From beautiful Mobile.

The still and white magnolia grove
Brought winged odors to your cheek,
Where my lips seared the burning love
They could not frame the words to speak;
Sweetheart, you were not ice to thaw,
Your bosom neither stone nor steel;
I count to-night, at Malaga,
Its throbbings at Mobile.

What matter if you bid me now
To go my way for others' sake?
Was not my love-seal on your brow
For death, and not for days to break?
Sweetheart, our trothing holds no flaw;
There was no crime and no conceal,
I clasp you here in Malaga,
As erst in sweet Mobile.

I see the bay-road, white with shells,
I hear the beach make low refrain,
The stars lie flecked like asphodels
Upon the green, wide water-plain—
These silent things as magnets draw,
They bear me hence with rushing keel,
A thousand miles from Malaga,
To matchless, fair Mobile.

Sweetheart, there is no sea so wide,
No time in life, nor tide to flow,
Can rob my breast of that one bride
It held so close a year ago.
I see again the bay we saw;
I hear again your sigh's reveal,
I keep the faith at Malaga
I plighted at Mobile.

SARAH M. B. PIATT

Mrs. Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt, one of Kentucky's most distinguished poets, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, August 11, 1836. Her grandfather was Morgan Bryan, brother-in-law of Daniel Boone, and one of the proprietors of Bryan's Station, near Lexington, famous in the old Indian wars. When only three years old she left Lexington to make her home near Versailles, Kentucky, where her beautiful mother died in 1844. After her mother's death she was sent to her aunt's home at New Castle, Kentucky. Miss Bryan was graduated from Henry Female College, New Castle; and on June 18, 1861, she was married to John James Piatt, the Ohio poet. George D. Prentice, of course, was the first to praise and print Mrs. Piatt's poems and start her upon a literary career. Her husband, too, has been her chief critic, and responsible for the publication of her work in book form. From the first Mrs. Piatt's poems have been deeply introspective, voicing the heart of a woman in every line. Her work has been cordially commended by Bayard Taylor, William Dean Howells, John Burroughs, Hamilton Wright Mabie, and many other well-known and capable critics in America and Europe. Several of Mrs. Piatt's poems were published in The Nests at Washington and Other Poems (Cincinnati, 1861), but her first independent volume, issued anonymously, was A Woman's Poems (Boston, 1871). This is her best known work, made famous by Bayard Taylor in his delightful little book, The Echo Club. This was followed by A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles and Other Poems (1874); That New World and Other Poems (1876); Poems in Company with Children (1877); Dramatic Persons and Moods (1880); The Children Out of Doors and Other Poems (with her husband, 1885); An Irish Garland (1885); Selected Poems (1885); In Primrose Time (1886); Child's-World Ballads (1887); The Witch in the Glass (1889); An Irish Wild-Flower (1891); An Enchanted Castle (1893); Complete Poems (1894, two vols.); Child's-World Ballads (1896, second series); and The Gift of Tears (Cincinnati, 1906). These volumes prove Mrs. Piatt to be one of the most prolific and finest female poets America has produced. English reviewers have often linked her name with Mrs. Browning's and Miss Rossetti's, and if she has not actually reached their rank, she has surely shown work worthy of a high place in the literature of her native country. Mrs. Piatt is at the present time residing at North Bend, Ohio, near Cincinnati.