A poet and his songs: being a memoir of Nixon Poindexter Clingman, and a selection of this best essays and poems

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BEING A MEMOIR OF

Nixon Poindexter Clingman

< I

AND A SELECTION OF

HIS BEST ESSAYS AND POEMS, PREFACED BY A FEW^

POEMS OF HIS MOTHER,

EMILY MAGEE CLINGMAN.

EDITED BY

Orrin Chalfant Painter.

BAI.TIMORE :

The AHTJiTDEr, Fsess,

JOHN" S. BRIDGES «fc CO.
1900.

_55882

jLibr**iy of Ck>nt^r«««a
j*'Vi\. ( Cf'Ui, fitCUVEO

OCT 3 1900

sta Nn cofv.

OiiiA^ DIVISION,
OGf 13 li^Uu

FSI35I

COPyKIGHT, 1900.

By ORRiisr Chai-fant Painter.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

Portrait Facing Title-page

In Memoriam. Nixon P. Cling-
man M 9

Editor's Preface . ... . Orrin Chalfant Painter. 11

Lines to Cousin Nixon .■•. . Orrin Chalfant Painter. 17

Memoir of Nixon Poindexter

Clingman Joseph E. Robinson . 21

On the Death of Nixon P. Cling-
man Lida Whitfield ... 29

A Tribute to the Genius of

Nixon P. Clingman . . . Lida Whitfield ... 33

POEMS.

EMILY MAGEE CI.INGMAN.

An Invocation 39

Dreamland 41

" For Whom Do You Pray ? " 43

Lines (On Cousin Jenny Kerr) 45

ESSAYS.

NIXON POINDEXTER CLINGMAN.

A Brief View of the Gradations of Life 49

Memorial Address 52

Address at Temperance Celebration 55

NIXON POINDEXTER CLINGMAN.

Prayer 63

Growing Old 65

My Mother 67

Do Angels Weep ? 68

The Soldier's Burial 70

Inscribed to a Lady 72

The Drowned Mariner 73

Colonel Ashby 75

Temperance Song 77

A Song of May 79

A Winter Song 81

Hope and the Dew-drop 83

On the Death of an Infant 84

The Maniac 86

To a River 88

The Shadowy Ship 89

Ravenswood 90

Eva White— A Ballad 92

Lines Suggested on Leaving White River, Arkansas . . 94

The Pale Brigade, or the Ku-Klux Klan 95

Lines on the Death of Little Pearl 97

The Simile 99

Song loi

The Story of a Goat — a Tragedy 102

Solitude 104

Lines on the Death of Diana Simms, Infant Daughter of

Dr. G. L. and Mollie G. Kirby 105

There is Nothing Real 107

The Long Ago io8

The Lost Ship 109

To a Wave no

The River of Years 112

The Granite Stone 114

Departed 116

Reflections Beside a River 118

Six Similes 119

Commemorating the Opening of the Messenger Opera

House, at Goldsboro, Dec. 21, 18S1 121

The Drummer Boy of Bowling Green 123

Sea-side Musings 125

The White Rose Bud 126

Christmas Greeting, Goldsboro News, 1867 127

Christmas Greeting, Carolina Messenger, 1872 . . . 129
Christmas Greeting, Goldsboro Messenger, 1883 . . . 133
Christmas Greeting, Goldsboro Messenger, 1884 . . .136

Tokens 138

Sunset 139

Retrospection 140

In Memoriam. Lo ! Our Southern Cross is Broken . . 142

A Requiem 144

The Dead Maiden 145

In Memoriam. Land of the South ! ........ 150

IN MEMORIAM.

Nixon P. Clingman.

So soon ! so soon ! alas, too soon !

We mourn thy broken lyre ;
Tho' a wondrous love in the realms above

Can restore its wonted fire.

Ah, the broken harp ! tho' listless now,

It breathes a note of pain,
For the vanished star in the clouded sky,

To shine somewhere again.

Ah, the broken harp ! tho' silent now.

Its chords are lingering still,
Touching the depths of the human soul,

With its pathos and good will.

Touching us all for the silent form

That Hes 'neath the silent sod ;
Tho' his soul's in the keeping of Him who gave —
And redeemed by a merciful God.

M.
Wilmington, N. C, August, iSSj.

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

The publication of these, the greater number of Mr.
Clingman's poems, many of which were written while
yet in his teens, is in response to the oft expressed and
earnest solicitations of his friends, and, in presenting
them, the compiler but touches a chord of tender and
affectionate remembrance which still vibrates in their
hearts, at the name of Nixon P. Clingman.

Among the most appreciative of Mr. Clingman's
genius were three sisters, Misses Lida and Sue Whit-
field, of La Grange, N. C, and Miss Lavinia Whitfield,
of New York City. The two former visited and corre-
sponded with the poet's mother, in Goldsboro, after his
death, until the time of her own. The most beautiful
sentiments were exchanged upon these occasions, the
ladies named being gifted in no ordinary degree.
Misses Lida and Sue were devoted to literary pursuits
and were well known for their poetic productions, while
Miss Lavinia acquired distinction by her works of art.

12 Nixon Poindexter Clingman.

The portrait of our poet, which appears in this book,
is from an enlarged drawing by Miss Lavinia Whitfield,
made in 1886, from a photograph taken when he was
about twenty-five years of age. This drawing was pre-
sented by Miss Lavinia Whitfield to the poet's mother,
who prized it highly.

In a letter to Misses Lida and Sue Whitfield, Mrs.
Clingman says : "In reference to the remarks of your
artist sister, enclosed in your recent letters, her impres-
sions of my son's picture struck me forcibly. At the
time the original little picture was taken, there was
almost always on the face the expression of which she
speaks, but of later years the countenance wore much
of a melancholy, serious cast ; only at times, when
interested in discussions of interest, would his eyes give
forth that brilliant and varied expression which the
artist discerned. In repose they were mild and sweet,
not black, but dark brown. His nose was slightly large
and somewhat aquiline ; his raven black hair, slightly
waving, was never worn very short, yet revealed a
head of finest mould ; his moustache was full and
black. His height was six feet, two inches, and his
physical development was perfect. His weight was
about one hundred and seventy pounds. * * >k j^-
does not seem that my boy is dead, but just about

Nixon Poindexter Clingman. i^

entering my room, or at my elbow. But the grave
now covers his precious form, over which the loving
sunshine is bringing forth bud and bloom."

Following is an extract from a letter signed W. C. G.,
written in Snow Hill, Greene County, N. C., dated
March 7, 1882, and addressed to the editor of the
Goldsboro Messenger :

" In your own town, Mr. Editor, there lives a poet
of whose literary attainments we know but little, our
acquaintance with him being very limited, who is richly
endowed by nature with the gift of poesy. Let us give
you a slight pen-picture of him as we saw him about
thirteen years ago, when we were boys, as he stood
on the platform erected in the oak grove (now passed
away) in front of Mr. E. B. Borden's residence, deliver-
ing a temperance speech. He was just arrived at his
majority, and was tall, well proportioned, graceful and
handsome. His raven locks played in the gentle
summer breeze ; his dark eyes flashed with the fire of
his subject ; his cheeks glowed with the radiance of
health ; his forehead was high and broad, the percep-
tion and reasoning faculties being well developed ; his
mouth was tolerably large, but well shapen, his teeth
white and regular, and his nose aquiline. There he
stood, a perfect picture of vigorous health and comeli-

14 Nixon Poindcxtcr Clingman.

ness ; and his nice black suit, snow-white shirt and jet
cravat (which nearly ran us mad with envy) added to
his handsome appearance. Possibly every citizen of
Goldsboro knows already to whom I allude, but others
may not recognize him ; his name is Nixon P. Clingman,
the Robert Burns of North Carolina. What melody,
pathos and elegance there are in his little poem begin-
ning :

" Twice thirty years their shadows weave,
My mother, round thy brow — "

and his " In Memoriam," something I have never read,
though I would like to very much, as it is said to be
one of the finest things in the language."

The eminent critics, Hugh F. Murray, of Wilson,
N. C, and Ed. Williams Pugh, M. D., of Windsor,
N. C, have complimented highly the genius of Mr.
Clingman, and it is a matter of regret that space does
not permit of the publication of their communications.

My personal recollections of Cousin Nixon are indis-
tinct, as twenty-five years have passed since I saw him.
I remember, however, his dark eyes and hair and his
large stature. During my last visit to Goldsboro, in
May, 1900, I visited the spot where Mother Earth has
reclaimed his dust. His memory has not been
"Unwept, imhonoiir'd, and unsung,"

Nixon Poindexter Clingman. 75-

nor shall it be while love tokens of the warm-hearted
South are expressed in flower, eulogy and song.

" Call it not vain : they do not err
Who say that when the poet dies
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies."

Orrin Chalfant Painter.

Baltimore, Md.. July g, igoo.

Nixon Poindexter Clingman. ij

LINES TO COUSIN NIXON.

Child of the sunny Southern dime,
Who didst pour thy soul in rhyme

And thrill thy kinsmen tried and true :
Still thy praises do they sing,
And still affection's tendrils cling

Around the heart they loved and knew.

Few there were who had the fire
So to sweep the magic lyre,

And cast on others such a spell ;
Few there were among the throng
To feel the spirit of thy song,

Who could its wondrous beauty tell.

In a brighter world art thou,
And the laurel round thy brow

Fairer hands perchance may twine ;
In that blissful Land of Leal
Mayst thou no sorrow feel.

Such as here on Earth was thine.

i8 Nixon Poindexter Clingviaji.

" Do angels weep ? " Oh, do they weep,
And over mortals vigils keep

While they must sin and suffer long ?
Ah ! then that pure celestial band,
Descending from the Spirit Land,

Must weave a minor in its song.

We shall meet and know some day,
Out upon the shining way

Stretching through the starry spheres ;
We shall there commune with God,
Not forgetting when we trod

Once within this Vale of Tears.

Orrin Chalfant Painter.
Baltimore, Md., Jjme i6, igoo.

iEemoir

memoir of
Nixon Poini>exter Clingman.

Nixon Poindexter Clingman was born at Huntsville,
N. C, on the first day of November, 1847, being de-
scended from a long line of distinguished ancestors —
both paternal and maternal — noted for intrepidity of
character and force of intellect, whose genius Mr.
Clingman inherited in blended power of mental en-
dowments, physical structure, grace of person and
elegance of manner

His father, Henry Patilla Clingman, M. D., who still
survives him, at the age of eighty-seven, is the great-
grand-son of Henry Patilla, D. D. and M, D., who was
born in Scotland in 1726, and after completing his
ecclesiastical and medical courses in the best institu-
tions of the mother country, came to America and
located, first in the province of Virginia, but subse-
quently established himself in Granville County, N. C,
and was, in 1775, sent as a delegate to the first Pro-
vincial Congress, where his ability as a statesman and

22 Nixon Poindexter Clingman,

his intrepidity as a patriot were so spontaneously rec-
ognized among that aggregation of heroic men, that he
was unanimously chosen Chairman of that memorable
body.*

Mr. Clingman's mother, Emily Magee, was of old
English ancestry, her grandfather, Dr. John Meer, hav-
ing come to this country, in 1793 and settled in Phila-
delphia, where he pursued the practice of medicine, to
a ripe old age, with distinguished ability and financial
success. A typical English gentleman in dress and
manner, he is still remembered by his only surviving
grand-child, Mrs. Louisa Magee Deacon, of Wilming-
ton, Del., a sister of Mrs. Clingman, the poet's mother.
From his mother, who had a sweet intellectuality of
mind, the young poet inherited his " gift of the muses."

Nixon P. Clingman was a double second cousin of
the late Gen. Thomas L. Clingman, among our bravest
" civil war " officers, long a U. S. S., and conspicuous
in the annals of Southern ante-bellum history, and of
varied acquisition of knowledge, having left literary
productions, both scientific and otherwise, in the pos-
session of his family.

The particular period at which the subject of this
sketch arrived at years of discretion, and thence on

*See Foote's History of North Carolina, chap. xvi.

Nixon Poindexter Cling7nan. 2j

through his teens, was contemporary with that turbu-
lency of public life that culminated in the war between
the States, in which bloody struggle he lost an only
brother, four years his senior, Lieut. Edward P. Cling-
man, who enlisted at the age of seventeen, and fell on
the field of valor while leading a brilliant Cavalry
charge in July, 1864. Edward and Nixon were devoted
to each other ; they were constant companions at school
and in all their boyish exploits, of buoyant spirits and
effervescent merriment, and the untimely death of the
former brought abiding sadness to the soul of Nixon,
across whose boyish countenance, with the coming of
the crushing news, there crept " the hush of feeling and
the calm of thought," which lingered there through all
the afterwhile of his own too brief career.

It is hard to depict — and almost impossible to imag-
ine— the breaking-up of homes, the wrecking of lives,
the destruction of earthly happiness, effected in the
South by the terrible war of '61 -'65 between the States,
and the home of our boy poet was no exception to this
crucible of blood, hence, on the marriage of his only sis-
ter, Ida Clingman, to the late Col. Lotte W. Humphrey,
an officer in the Confederate service, he went to live
with them at the Colonel's elegant plantation home in
Onslow County, and be a protection to his sister while

24 Nixon Poin dexter Clingman.

the Colonel was absent from his home, but the en-
croachment of Federal troops upon that section of the
State became so menacing that Col. Humphrey moved
his family to a safer distance in the interior of the
State. Young Nixon, too young for the ranks of war,
preferred, however, to remain behind, in the midst of
the danger, on the Onslow plantation, where, during
several months, he had a number of exciting encounters
with Federal scouts. On one occasion a Federal soldier
had leveled his pistol at him to kill him, when young
Chngman, with the agility of a tiger, sprang upon his
would-be assassin, himself unarmed, and grappled with
him in a deadly struggle, which was only ended by a
number of other Federal soldiers coming to the rescue
of their comrade and taking our poet prisoner. On
the way to the enemy's camp, marching between two
of his captors, coming to a dense wood and heavy un-
dergrowth on the road side, he knocked one of them
down with a desperate blow and leaping over his pros-
trate form " into the brush," he made good his escape,
and by a circuitous route, during which he many times
had to elude the enemy's outposts, suffering for food,
and foot-sore, he finally joined his anxious family
whom he found safely domiciled in Goldsboro, N. C,
which has ever since been their home ; the Colonel,

Nixon Poindexter Cliyigman. 2^

having immediately after the war, purchased extensive
real estate here, and entered upon the practice of his
profession, being a lawyer of distinguished ability. In
his office, young Clingman took up the study of the
Law, and with such application and success, that by
the time he had reached the age of nineteen, he had
creditably passed the required examination before the
Supreme Court of the State and been granted license
to practice Law. But the Law seemed not to meet the
aspirations of the poet's soul, and by degrees he drifted
away from it into literary work on the leading news-
papers of the town — the Goldsboro Messenger, espec-
ially, whose columns his writings adorned, and whose
circulation they increased a hundred fold, bringing it
up to be the most widely read and influential news-
paper in the State in its day, and he remained with it
continuously till his death. It was chiefly in its col-
umns that the poems of Mr. Clingman, herein published,
first appeared, and which were written, not as labored
or studied productions, to meet the requirements of
the editor, but were simply the spontaneous effusions
of the poet's soul, when occasion presented, or senti-
ment prompted, and they always met with such avidity
of appreciation and widespread demand that, invariably,
each one, as it appeared, had to be republished in sub-

26 Nixon Poindextcr Clingman.

sequent issues of the paper, and often through several
editions. (The author of this memoir was a co-worker
on the Messenger with the poet for several years, and
knows whereof he writes in this regard.)

It is, indeed, to be deeply regretted that Mr. Cling-
man did not oftener give voice in verse to his poetic
genius, which was fathomless in resources of imagina-
tion and majestic in the sweep of its fancy and in grace
of diction. His soul was in touch with Nature in all
her changing moods, and he recognized the ambrosia
which nourished his poetic fancy "in the air and
everywhere " ; but it was only on rare occasions that
he would touch the lyre — just to show us, as it were,
that,

•'Thus do I live,
A dweller on the earth, yet by the hand
Of thought, that mighty and mysterious Prince
Of the fair House of Life, led up above
It and its woes to dream my dreams and sing
My songs in pensive solitude."

On the night of the 12th of July, 1885, at the home
of his brother-in-law, Col. Humphrey, where he resided,
the soul of Nixon P. Clingman took its flight to God
who gave it, in the thirty-seventh year of his age, and
when the sad news became public, the press of the

Nixon Poindexter Clingman. 2y

entire State were generous in their editorial tributes to
his memory and his worth, both as a writer of prose,
whose style was inimitable, and as a poet of rarest
genius and abounding promise. His revered mother,
to whom one of his most beautiful poems is inscribed,
followed him in just two years, to his long home, and a
few years later Col. Humphrey passed away, and to-
gether their mortal remains repose in the family plot in
beautiful Willow Dale Cemetery, in Goldsboro.

Joseph E. Robinson.

Goldsboro, N. C,

June 20, i(^oo.

Nixon Poiiidexter Clingmmi. 2g

ON THE DEATH OF NIXON P. CLINGMAN.

The future years may countless roll

Henceforward from the Present,
Lit by suns of dazzling gold,

By evening's silvery crescent ;
Through brilliant nights the stars bright

Will glow until to-morrow,
But ne'er to sight will ages light

The Star we lost in sorrow.

With stranger eyes we gazed afar.

Yet, not like to a stranger,
For through the clouds that dimmed its bar

We saw its golden grandeur,
And oh, we prayed that bright arrayed

'Twould burst its cloudy garment.
In shine and shade like a jeweled blade

Aloft by an armament.

JO Nixo7i Poindexter Clingman.

Across the Heavens where it shone

The clouds He now unbroken —
But, ah, each heart doth keep its own,

Too sacred to be spoken.
For Hke the calm of a low-breathed psalm,

The trust as penitent
As its rays will rest, evermore in our breast,

It is somewhere Radiant.

Lida Whitfield.
La Grange, N. C, July 20, 188^.

Crtljute

A TRIBUTE TO THE GENIUS OF

NIXON P. CLINGMAN.

There is no affliction so bitter, in this vale of sorrow,
as that of the perishing of a hope, which, a little farther
along, might have been realized. A few steps might
have brought the pure God-given gleam through the
blackness. No despair so great as to behold the be-
loved object of our heart's solicitude utterly, hope-
lessly sink into the darkness which engulfs all that
might have come, all the shining-winged angels of
hope, which stand at the threshold of each incoming
year, weaving a mist of consolation for the future,
bejeweling it with the tears of the past, crystallized
into gems of divine trust.

And so it was with this beautiful mind. He was a
man who, under any circumstances, never lost his man-
hood. His Hfe was so full of light and shadow ; his
heart so tender with emotions softened unto tearful
love, wrought by stimulus unto madness ; his soul sub-
limated by rich gifts, endowed with high and lofty
poetic faculties, such as few possess. His was pleasing

j^ Nixo7i Poindexter Clingman.

and versatile humor, yet ever, as it seemed, uncon-
sciously, to the deeper mind, the sensitive heart, por-
traying a depth of feeling rarely blended with the
sparkling foam of our modern humorist. A hopeless,
in-laid regret seemed ever dripping its tears into the
delicate wit, which were shattered like rose-petals from
his pen. An emotional melancholy, which none of us
could realize, if within our power to fathom.

His was no common composition, no general clay ; as
his virtues were concentrated, the powers of his mind
lofty, so were his passions of a deeper kind than those
of most men. There was naught " forced " in his great
genius, in his passions ; they were cognate. All the
qualities of his mind were called upon to resist, not to
strengthen.

We admired, we pitied, yet we lost him, while hope
breathed in our hearts, and lit the forehead of time, as
he weighted the balances of the future.

The world lost Byron at the early age of thirty-seven.
Afar, in a strange land, this great, but wearied spirit,
loosed the galling chain of clay from its broken wings
and drifted away, leaving behind a line of unbroken
future, of golden fruits, an harvest that might have shed
a lustre of purity over all the years of his unhappy but
glorious past.

Nixon Poindexter Clingman. ^^

And, like the strange, invincible necessities of fate,
there are the deaths of Robbie Burns and our own
immortal Poe, following closely the critical, unfortunate
date. Burns, dying in poverty and destitution, bowed
with the weight of his own misdeeds, only asking to be
left to the judgment of a higher Power than man.
Poe, our own mis-judged, mis-guided, yet most original
poet, understood, appreciated, beloved but by few in
life, dying suddenly in a strange hospital. All of these
passed ere the sun of their lives had kissed away the
dew of youth.

And so, sorrowfully, solemnly and fatally, the desire
of life faded from the eyes of Nixon P. Clingman, and
the heart, in sympathy, slept — sank into that rest which
but once steals unto the hearts of all men. Death, like
a shadow through the day, drifted beyond us stead-
fastly away, bearing in its obscure breath ail the life,
light and earthly hope, leaving but a troop of future
years, lying like a waste before our tear-blinded eyes.

Yet, oh, if our hearts, in their sorrowful blindness,
narrowness and sin, can throb and ache in pity and
regret — oh, can we not trust to the Heart of Jesus, that
Fountain Head of Love, which could hold a thousand
worlds within its Pity ?

^6 Nixon Pohidexter Clmgman.

Through all the land, through perfect harmony

Of Summer's tones,
A sound of discord fell, touched mournfully

By Hands unknown,
And the voice that sang afar was gone.

A life that seemed to us so far removed

From Death's lone tomb —
A tree, lifting itself, dearly beloved,

Casting a shade — a bloom
That fell, all sudden, beneath unlooked-for doom !

And yet, the loosing, nor the staying,

We may not choose.
How swift the skies, in all their rare portraying,

Fade from our view,
As that, which we would miss most, we must lose !

But, ah, a sweet hope fills the silence,

Cold on our hearts behind.
That the voice we heard hath gained a sweeter cadence,

Which Death unbinds
Unto a Gracious Pardon, singing, itself Divine.

LiDA Whitfield.

La Grange, N. C, 1885.

^oettts

EMILY MAGEE CL.INGMAN.

AN INVOCATION.

She left us in the bloom of youth, her girlhood days

scarce o'er,
And the melody of her dear voice falls on our ear no

more ;
She left us ere a bud of hope was stricken from her

brow,
Ere her path had lost one sunny flower — we wear the

cypress now.

Oh, what is death ?

Thou knowest — thou hast stemmed the bounded tide —

Were the waters calm and peaceful, or turbulent and
wild ?

Did Angels wait thy coming upon that other shore ?

Did they greet thee to the gladness that lives forever-
more?

What made thy lips so pale and mute, when thou
gavest up thy breath ?

And why that look upon thy face, so wondrous in death ?

Did no fears assail thee ? Was thy trust so strong in
God?

40 A7i Invocation.

Did the Living Light uphold thee and light the way

you trod ?
Didst think of those who wept thy loss, when the shoals

were safely passed ?
Did the Father take thee in His arms and give thee

rest at last ?
Whose Guardian Angel art thou — if such there be —

and when
Shall my waiting spirit know those things now hid from

human ken ?
And the spirit world — what is it ? Is all ethereal bliss ?
How does it differ, absent one, in light and form, from

this?

No answer from the distant shore, no answer from the

dead.
'Twas given in her speaking eye when on her dying bed.
And in the Book of Holy Writ the answer too is given :
God is a spirit, and like Him are those who live in

Heaven.
Oh, great beyond all other thoughts ! invincible and

wise
Is He whose presence fills all space, the wide earth and

the skies !
All glory to the Great I Am, who called her from above.
Beyond earth's portals, to the light of His supernal love !

DREAMLAND.

Methought I heard — but no — it was illusion,
The passing echo of my fitful dreams,

The shadowy forms of past and buried treasures,
Unreal all — and yet like truth it seems.

I stand alone — near by the vail of shadows —

I seem to linger — but I cannot pass ;
Whilst from those aisles apart from human sorrow,

Sweet accents fall upon my ear at last.

Oh, sacred lyre ! Oh, harps that never waver !

Touched by dear fingers — harmonizing — clear,
Adown the aisles — up through the arches ringing,

Shading my dreams with memory's pensive tear.

Dear loving lips ! I catch their pleasing cadence,
They weave a spell I fain would closer bind ;

And now it seems that from pure hands descending
Dew-drops are sprinkled on this heart of mine.

42 Dreamland.

They come around me — look once more upon me —

They clasp my hand as in the days of yore ;
Eyes look in mine whose loving light enthralls me,
I wake — the shadows flee — unreal as before.

Weird music mingles with the gliding phantoms,
Dear forms that flit in mystic light away ;

The blended tints — the light — the airy splendor,
Vivid in Dreamland, fade as visions pass away.

Oh, Land of Dreams ! in the bewildering maze
Of fairy feet that scarcely bend the flowers,

Where rich exotics scent the laden air

With sweet aroma, through my dreaming hours ;

Oh ! gentle hearts, whose love made bright my being-
Oh ! gifted ones, I've heard your last refrain —

Oh ! baby eyes, your light is veiled forever,
Quenched in this life, to be renewed again.

FOR WHOM DO YOU PRAY?"
(^Sister's Letter,')

For whom do I pray ? I pray, love, for thee.

That thy path through the sunshine of summer may be.

May thy heart bound with pleasure ; be thy step ever

light ;
May no grief e'er corrode, and no sorrow e'er blight
The hopes of thy bosom ; but gladsome and gay
Be each thought of thy heart, until life pass away.

For whom do I pray ? 'Tis for thee, dearest, thee,

And the friends of my childhood, my parents, away.

I pray for my brothers, my sisters ; they share

My heart in its holiest hour of prayer.

And, oh, that the hour may speed

When I may revisit my dear native home ?

44 ''For WJiom Do You Pray f "

I'll pray for thee, dearest ; I'll never forget !

Tho' my heart has grown lonely, tho' hope's sun is set,

Tho' the bloom on my cheek is fading away,

And my heart feels its earliest throe of decay,

Still, I'll never forget thee ; no, never; my heart

Will dwell on sweet memories ere fate bade us part.

I'll pray, be thou ever as happy as now ;
Tho' time may bring changes to sadden thy brow.
And thy loveliness fade 'neath the touch of decay.
Yet think of me, dearest, whilst I am away.
Oh ! think of me ever, and let me, too, share
Thy heart in its holiest hour of prayer ;
Enriched with affection, and fond ones at home,
Forget not thy sister, the absent and lone.

LINES.
{071 Cousin Jenny Kerr?)

At the dawning of the morning,
In a chamber lorn and lonely,

A young wife and dying husband
Lay together side by side ;
A young wife a year a bride,
And he dying by her side.

Oh ! it was a sight of sorrow,

With her arm around him thrown.
And her white lips making moan,

" In thy better days I loved thee,
Love thee still in thy decay,
Must I see thee pass away ? "

Soon her eyes in sleep were set ;

Wearied one !
Her watches and disquiet over

For awhile, and she shall wake
To behold him by her side,
She a young and grieving bride,
And he dying by her side.

^6 Lines on Cousin Jenny Kerr.

Sunlit ray of beaming day

Through the casement Ughted

Up two faces, pale and wan —
Hers from loss of rest, benighted
With her grief, her young heart blighted

With a dreary, sad unrest.

And she whispered in her slumber
Words that had no place or number,

Words for him alone :
Sunlight in her chamber streaming
Seemed as though it might beguile
From her breast its grief awhile.

Then her eyes unsealed from slumber,
And her lips in tender cadence

Murmured words of fond endearment —
Heeding not the bitter token
Though her heart was riven, broken,

Still she whispered : " Dearest, wake.

Look up, husband, for my sake."

No look — no word — but dews of death
Fell faster with his fleeting breath.

So the sun withdrew its ray,
Clouded grew the beaming day —
Ever thus, hope fades away.

Cssajfi

XIXON POINDEXTER CLINGMAN.

A BRIEF VIEW OF THE GRADATIONS
OF LIFE.

Passing over the days of infancy, we come to those
of youth, that morning of Hfe in which the years are
clothed with a freshness and a splendor which the
heart of boyhood dreams are invulnerable to the
assaults of change. There is a subtler melody in the
glad chorus of Nature — in the lisping of the leaves, the
whisper of the brook and the language of the rain —
than any we hear in after days. The meadows expand
before us with a deeper green, and are studded with
flowers more richly dyed than those through which we
journey when the poetry of life is dissolved in prose.
Truth is an idyl to whose rhythmic measure we keep
happy step, unmindful of the discord the future may
conceal. All the world is one grand painting, whose
figures and landscapes are brought out by a Sovereign
Artist, and we fail, for a time, to discover that these
figures may become distorted and these landscapes

^o The Gradations of Life.

blurred by the wickedness of the human heart — by
guilt and sin.

Oh ! Youth, why art thou not perennial ? Why, at
least, in thy devoted lexicon, does the fiat of Nature
write " Decay " f Why do ye vanish, oh ! ideal days ;
and why do the roses die that star your way, and
leave but naked thorns ? The years wheel by on
ceaseless wings, but it is difficult for youth to realize
that it is marching with the great army of humanity —
lord and vassal, patrician and plebeian, side by side —
to one common goal, down to death. And thus the
days go by, and youth is merged in manhood.

The duties that confront us now are of graver import,
for we are called upon to encounter the responsibilities
and requirements incident to our maturer state, and they
are many. Though life is at its zenith, victories and
reverses, lights and shadows, are strangely blended,
and alternately brighten and darken our way. We
look back across our youth, and the romance that
gilded it is gone. The castles that we reared from
airy fabrics have faded from our view, and we pause
and grieve amid their ruins. Mead and wold and
mountain are robed in garments of more sober hue,
and the music of brook and breeze sounds just a little
harsher.

The Gradations of Life. 5/

In whatever sphere of life he moves, every man
wields a certain influence for good or for evil, which
will exert itself over those who look up to him, and are
to follow in his footsteps ; and hence, if the example of
sire or leader be not in the line of wisdom and propriety,
he commits a grievous fault. As we pass the mile-
stones of life, year by year melts more rapidly away,
and the handwriting of time grows more legible on
cheek and brow, until, like the quick river that leaps
into the sea and is lost in the depths of its bosom,
manhood has glided into age. It is well now if early
excesses have been avoided, for, if not, the legacy they
reserve for age is a legacy of sorrow. Youth and
manhood, how quickly do they vanish ! Supplanted
with old age, its infirm step and failing powers, our
earlier days shine like jewels through the mists of
years, and their memories fall like benedictions about us.

Old age is to be always respected, and when com-
bined with goodness it is doubly lovable. Then the
white hair binds the withered brow like a crown of
light, and the words that come from the trembling lips
sink into the heart even as a psalm. In a little while
the pilgrim lays aside his staff, and the curtain falls
on the drama of life.

MEMORIAL ADDRESS.

Among some unfinished manuscripts of Nixon P. ClinRman was found
the following " Memorial Address," intended for the Confederate soldiers
whose remains repose in the Goldsboro cemetery. It was written about
1883, but was not spoken.

IN MEMORIAM.

When gallant souls take their departure we love to
pay a tribute to their worth ; when the honored pass
away 'tis wisdom to revere their memory. And
although the present occasion is one that must drape
our hearts in gloom because of the unhappy reflection
it brings, yet it is a sad pleasure to assemble where
glory keeps its glowing vigil, to strew with wreaths of
immortelles the resting-place of our silent veterans who
yielded up their fearless lives for a cause they nobly
tried to save. To-day each pure daughter of our
melancholy land is scattering with pitying hand tear-
bathed flowers upon their stainless graves, as peerless

Memorial Address. ^j

tokens of affectionate remembrance. Though bHght-
ing grief, with paUid brow, sits brooding o'er the van-
quished South, and though her idols are all gone, she
still is proudly grand in her wide desolation, for her
pyramids of whitened bones are monuments reared to
fame, and her willow-decked sepulchres teach, in mute
eloquence, of deeds that shall awake to admiration cen-
turies yet to come.

Though victory has deserted the sword her daring
leader drew, mirrored on its shattered blade are right
and heroism. Though the red cross is borne no longer,
and the flag of the bars is lowered, eager hands from
the future reach to grasp the broken staff. Wanderers
from each varied clime shall come, with mournful brow,
to look upon her ruin and to muse on her decline, and
the Bard in touching verse shall shape her living song.

At her cypress-trellised altar themes of war, love and
devotion, inspiration shall secure, and by her wreck the
sage will Hnger to weep upon her bier, while the dirges
of the South wind, trembling on her crimson plains,
will calm with their soft sweetness the martyr's sleep
beneath, and the starlit streams, that in their silver
windings are sobbing through her vales, will whisper
up to Heaven a pean to their praise. Though their
last shout for liberty is reverberating along the shores

^4 Memorial Address.

of Eternity, history will not permit their names to be
forgotten, but, true to its impartial mission, will record
them on its brightest page. Then, place upon their
moss-crowned biers your perfume-laden garlands, for
springtime's rosy offerings are eager to twine their calm-
ing incense at a shrine so pure, and when the blossoms
all have faded and their aromas gone, the withered
stems will serve to point where our warriors lie. * *

ADDRESS OF NIXON P. CLINGMAN,

Delivered at the Temperance Celebratioii held in
Goldsboro, N. C, May ist, 1868.

Companimis in the Holy Cause :

Before progressing with any remarks pertaining to
intemperance, permit me to acknowledge my apprecia-
tion of the honor conferred on me, by being chosen
with other brothers, to extend my views of inebriety, its
evils and its inevitable consequences, to this large and
talented assembly. I have attentively listened to the
fluent allusions of the eloquent speakers who have just
entertained you, and am fully assured that my com-
ments must be eclipsed by the forcibleness of theirs ;
though as the present occasion is not one of competi-
tion, but for the advancement of moral culture, and the
admonition of the undecided, I most willingly proceed,
soliciting your attention for but a few moments, regard-
less of obtaining oratorical notoriety.

5<5 Address at Temperance Celebration.

In the misty and superstitious age of above a thous-
and years ago, we are told that rigid and unwavering
alHes of sobriety, dauntlessly arrayed themselves against
the intrigues of intoxication ; at this dark period, the
revered Pittacus was the first to grasp the penon of
Temperance, and unfurl its folds of purity to an illiterate
world. If at that remote time such impulses existed, is
it not incumbent upon the tenants of the fleeting nine-
teenth century, at the highest state of refined attain-
ments, in possession of the catalogue of crimes which
have been enacted at the instigation of wine, to adopt
the lofty aspirations of the great man just alluded to,
and strive to emulate his most worthy example ?
Robert E. Lee, the Murat of America, and the com-
peer of exalted sentiments, is an advocate of temper-
ance ; the martyred Stonewall Jackson, whose sacred
ashes repose in a hero's grave, and whose memory will
live in the heart of every Southern man till the star of
fame shall fade from the sky of immortality, also es-
poused the same great cause.

Countless numbers of souls pass yearly from the un-
certain stage of life, to the mysterious realms of Eternity,
by the fatal pestilences, which sweep on wings of death
across the earth's expanse ; by the gory hand of the
midnight assassin, and by the glistening steel of vin-

Address at Temperance Celebration. 57

dictive warriors ; but it has been surmised, and I fear
with too much accuracy, that the victims of these are
far behind those of intemperance. We must beware of
the coral drink ! for death is slumbering there and re-
morse lingers around the bowl. The influence which it
exercises over humanity is analogous to that which the
beautiful, though deadly rattlesnake exerts over the un-
suspecting forest warbler — charms but to destroy. How-
many firesides that were once bright emblems of happi-
ness are now deserted and cheerless from intemperance!
How many an orphan with an intemperate father
snatched from him, is now wandering forth in adversity,
a child in poverty, and a stranger to morality ! How
many ghastly corpses of intemperate beings impart a
spectral look to the various abodes of vice ! How many
a widow kneels, with gloomy brow, beside the crumb-
ling grave of an intemperate husband, with tears of
agony faUing amid the rank weeds above it, sadly mur-
muring her sorrows to the night wind ! A shuddering
voice from the tomb of woe, waiHngly responds — mil-
lions ! As the insinuating blast toys with the blushing
flower whose modest petals blow before it, and then
scatters them rudely away, leaving what was before
lovely, nothing save an arena of bleakness, so it is too
often with man, when in his original purity he bows to

^8 Address at Temperance Celebration.

the shrine of the flashing goblet and receives its fawn-
ing caress, only to have his barque of life launched on
the dreaded waters of Eternity. This is not a drawing
from the gorgeous tints of imagination's fanciful pencil ;
but it is a sad truth and a stern reality. Intemperance
is as formidable to the personage of world-renown, as
to the obscure plebeian ; and to establish the correctness
of this assertion, I present, one of the many instances
of like character, the case of Alexander the Great ; he,
the mighty leader of the Macedonians, who crossed the
Hellespont and penetrated to the heart of Asia Minor,
who stained the soil with the blood of a hundred and
ten thousand Persian braves at one invincible onset ; to
whose crimson plume, waving triumphant amid the
smoke of battle, the fearless bands of Greece suc-
cumbed ; the beams of whose torchlight painted a
sickening glare on the tranquil sky above the lofty
spires of Persepolis ; who wrought desolation where'er
the war trump sounded, himself met the inebriate's
doom and passed away, leaving attached to his illus-
trious name the stigma of a drunkard.

This is a subject susceptible of elaborate discussion,
and language is inadequate to depict the miseries con-
tained in the one word, intemperance. How unaccount-
able an occurrence it is, that man, being unmistakably

Address at Temperance Celebration. 59

apprised of the sentence which God has passed upon
the BacchanaHan, will so debase himself on earth and
take the responsibility of being lost in the great here-
after, as to seek the intoxicating cup ! When we gaze
on the wide stretching waste of Heaven, with dazzling
gems of unexplored worlds resting in sublimity upon
its boundless bosom, or watch the gilded queen of
night, borne by an invisible power in grandeur across
the silent space of the upper sphere, the tender emotions
and startling reflections with which they at all times
inspire us, should prove sufficient to deter us from the
nectar glass, exclusive of the solemn injunction, " Look
not upon the wine.''

'Tis a glorious epoch that throughout the confines of
our much loved and venerable " Old North State,"
Temperance Councils are springing up to impede the
curse of drunkenness; ours of Goldsboro has arisen,
as if from the genial touch of a magician's wand, within
the last three months ; and each week that rolls noise-
lessly along on the wheels of time and settles in the
deep sea of by-gone years, gathers new members
around our cherished standard. They merit encour-
agement for their commendable design. As the faith-
ful lighthouse, steadily fixed in the death brooding
storm, tells the plunging vessel, lashed by the angry

!

6o Address at Temperance Celebration.

billows of a convulsed ocean, how to avert the scowling
breakers ahead, and where a haven of safety lies, so
the noble institution of Temperance, looming grandly
above the maddened tide of inebriety, firmly stands, and
calmly points with the scroll of Truth to the path that
leads from shame and destruction, to honor and pros-
perity. May our Councils ever remain without a blem-
ish on their existence ! Let the dark records of the
faded Past be forever sealed in the vault of forgetful-
ness ! Let the pall-bearers of dead events bear upon
their litter to chaotic shores the last act and the last
remembrance of our transgressions ! And lastly, let the
untarnished notes of Temperance be wafted from the
chaste bugle of Abstemiousness, till every ravine, dell
and valley shall re-echo with the sacred pathos of their
holiness !

^oems

NIXON POINDEXTER CLINGMAN.

I

PRAYER.

When the brow of morn is blushing
With the kiss of early day,

And shafts of braided sunlight,
Half hidden, glance the spray ;

As the sleeping flowers awaken.
Bow thyself and pray.

When the mellow waves of twilight,
From seas of shadow fall

On ancient roof, and stdfeple weird,
And grey Cathedral wall ;

As the wizard lifts his evening glass.
Bow to the spirits' call.

When the tearless hours, exulting,
The midnight moments bring.

And the stars, with silver braces,
From beams of ether swing,

Pray ! for Winter comes, remember,
As well as Fairy Spring.

64 Prayer.

Pray ! For a holy benediction
Comes over him who kneels,

And a sweet and strange influence
The prostrate seeker feels !

While music pure from Angel lips
Across the stillness steals.

GROWING OLD.

Twice thirty years their shadows weave,

My mother, round thy brow,
And in the gloaming of life's eve

Thy footsteps bear thee now :
And thus the waning cycles wheel

Their meteor flights away,
Till age doth on the pilgrim steal,

As night-time doth the day.

And yet the rosy seasons seem

But brief, whose sands are told,
Since at thy knee I knelt to dream

That thou couldst not grow old ;
But, ah ! like iris tints that braid

Their streaks on Summer's sky,
Our wreaths of hope are only laid

On shrines we love, to die.

^^ Growing Old.

Tho' still thy tones from those dead days,

Like hymns that blend with prayer,
Are whispered in my heart always,

And strike their peans there ;
And oft again I wander back,

Far in the realms of yore,
To gaze thro' tears upon that track

Thy feet shall press no more.

MY MOTHER.

When with gloom my soul's oppressed,
There's only one whom I wish near,

For with her I'm wholly blessed —
It is my gentle mother dear.

Guides there are, sin to unmask,
And point to glory's sphere.

Though the only guide I ask
Is my gentle mother dear.

When fettered with death's icy chain

I'm sleeping on my bier,
Let the first in the funeral train,

Be my gentle mother dear.

And should grace to me be given,
While I dwell in sadness here,

Let me when I rest in Heaven
Meet my gentle mother dear.

DO ANGELS WEEP?

On midnight clouds do Angels drift,

Where their pure faces show,
And do they softly, sadly lift,

The veil from earth below ?
Ah ! if they do, the Angel band.

As waves of sorrow leap
In darkness o'er a fallen land,

Must bow their heads and weep.

On falling mists at twilight's eve,

With snowy wings outspread.
Do Angels their far portals leave,

With us unseen to tread ?
Ah ! if they do, does not the chain,

That souls through time will keep.
Fettered, bound to deathless pain,

The Angels cause to weep ?

Do Angels Weep ? 6g

On evening winds do Angels ride.

When wearied stars are pale,
To mourn upon the sin and pride,

That dwell with mortals frail ?
Ah ! if they do, with pitying sighs,

Do they not sorrowing sweep,
With harps unstrung back to the skies

And there for mortals weep ?

THE SOLDIER'S BURIAL.

Let him down, Oh, comrades, gently.

Wind the flag about his breast ;
Gaze the last time on his features,

Then consign him to his rest.
See his pallid face defiant.

E'en though cold by rigid death.
The same look he wore in battle,

Ere he gave the parting breath.

Drop the earth upon him softly,

Lest you should his slumbers wake ;
And to keep a profound silence,

Lest the stillness you should break.
Remember as you now forever

Hide his form beneath the clay,
What fond hearts for him are beating,

Beating for him far away.

T7ie Soldier's Burial. 7/

Now, as a vigil o'er him watching,

Through the lone and cheerless night,
Place the tombstone — we must leave him,

Resting from the sanguine fight.
Pause beside him, holy woman,

Spare him but a pitying tear,
He met for you the fell invader,

Now he dreams within his bier.

INSCRIBED TO A LADY.

Thy name to me, loved one, is dear,
And sweet it is to have thee near,

When lonely ;
Tho' should we part by fate's decree,
I still shall ever faithful be,

To thee only.

If death should claim thy faultless charms,
And snatch thee with unpitying arms,

To the tomb,
Thy grave with tears I'd oft bedew,
And seek a resting place near you,

In my gloom.

May nothing e'er thy pure faith blast,
But in peace thy Hfe be passed.

In constant love ;
And then when in thy lonely mound.
Thy soul with joy shall be crowned,

With Him above.

THE DROWNED MARINER.

The snow-capped billow above him sweeps,
As far down in the depth he sleeps,

'Mid the coral reefs alone ;
Sea gulls scream their mournful wail
Above the ghastly face so pale,

Of him whose spirit's flown.

His lasting rest shall be unbroken ;
His parting words on earth are spoken ;

His couch is lone and dreary.
The waves alone chant his sad dirge,
While they roll with sullen surge,

In rage, and never weary.

Around his bier sea monsters roam,
And mermaids their long tresses comb.

As they gaze with sadness
On that cold and death-like form
That once contained a heart so warm,

And eyes that beamed with gladness.

74

The Droivned Mariner.

His briny locks by the sea are tossed,
While the bleak winds sigh : '' Lost ! Lost ! "

As they murmur on ;
And the loved ones far away
For their missing one still pray,

But he's forever gone.

COLONEL ASHBY.

Sleep on, sleep on, lamented one,
Thy compeers mourn for thee :

Thy warring with the foe is done,
Thy gallant spirit's free.

Sleep on, sleep on, thy solemn rest,

Repose as time rolls on.
The Northmen tread above thy breast.

The cause you loved is gone.

Sleep on, sleep on, we miss thy tread.
The South winds for thee sigh :

Low in the ground among the dead,
You with your vet'rans lie.

Sleep on, sleep on, amid the brave,

Who fell thy form beside ;
Your noble flag has ceased to wave,

Tho' for its folds you died.

y6 Colonel Ashby.

Sleep on, sleep on, for thee we weep.
Through hours of saddened gloom ;

Within our hearts we'll ever keep
The cause that sealed your doom.

Sleep on, thy name shall e'er be sung,
And loved in coming ages ;

Thy immortal deeds be found among
Undying fame's bright pages.

TEMPERANCE SONG.

Haste to the crystal fountain,

Where sparkHng waters dwell,
That roll beside the mountain,

And wander through the dell.
Come, seek it as it's wending,

Amid the silent wood ;
List to its murmurs blending,

With spirits of the good.

'Tis free to meek and lowly,

And cools the burning brow ;
Its limpid waves are holy,

To its sacred temple bow.
An adder's ever fawning

When brilliant nectar's near ;
Erring man, have warning —

Drink naught but water clear.

y8 Temperance Song.

The crimson draught alluring,

That flashes in the bowl,
Thy barque to death is mooring,

And sinking deep the soul.
Whene'er the red decanter

Would lure thee on to sin,
Avoid the wild enchanter,

For pain is hid within.

Our efforts we've united

Against the ruby drink,
For many hopes are blighted

Upon its fatal brink.
Our Temperance banner's flying ;

*Tis hallowed and divine ;
Its folds are now defying

The snares of rosy wine.

Truth shall e'er be guiding

The ship on which we sail ;
On waves of Faith we're riding,

And fanned by Honor's gale.
For the drink we are contending,

That the Holy Father gave ;
Come, join us, thou offending,

And shun the drunkard's grave.

A SONG OF MAY.

With sunlit brow and eager feet,

All passion-eyed, the rosy May
Sweeps from the South, full fair and sweet,

And strews her largess on the way ;
For from her gracious hands there fall

Rare sheaves of scented buds and blooms,
While mottled thrush and ring-dove call

Their greetings from the forest glooms.

In belts of gold the armored bees,

From flushing dawn till evening's gloam.
Drunk with the sweets of flowering leas,

Reel with their honeyed conquests home ;
And clouds of bright-winged butterflies

Are flashing through the dreamful air,
As fair on every landscape lies

A poem. May has penciled there.

8o A Song of May.

The vocal streams whose depths reveal

Glad visions of those perfect days,
Like silver songs thro' woodlands steal

In one triumphal psalm of praise ;
And floral stars like glories burn

In meads of green, where lovers stroll,
Within whose symbols we may learn

The legend of the human soul.

A symphony 'mid graves where rest

The shrouded dead, who sleep for aye,
She hymns, and lo ! on earth are pressed

The garlands of the fresh young May.
Of all the year, the sceptered Queen,

To thee we loyal tribute pay ;
We love thy moods — thy shade, thy sheen —

And grieve for thee, when gone, sweet May !

A sense of worship fills the soul.

Our hearts with higher yearnings beat,
When Nature wins her farthest goal,

And we behold her thus complete.
Be thou a type. Oh ! perfect May,

Of peace beyond, and bid us feel
That when life's winter drifts away,

Spring waits us in the Land of Leal.

A WINTER SONG.

Like notes of sorrow, low intoned,

Through souls that are bereft —
Through souls whose idols are dethroned,

When but their wrecks are left —
The low wind wakes its solemn choirs

Through aisles of wood unplumed
Of leaves, that in pale funeral pyres

Lie in the frost entombed.

And in the dim, strange solitudes.

The song-bird sweeps no more
His passion-harp, in love-lorn moods,

He knew so well of yore ;
And thus within the heart sometimes,

When all its dreams are fled,
No music wakes its happy chimes ;

Its minstrel, Hope, is dead.

82 A Winter Song.

But in the Spring again the leaves

Through April days will glow,
And where the ghost of Beauty grieves

The flowers again will blow ;
And where the mute bird in the gloom

No longer trills his call,
Amid the Summer's tender bloom

His sweetest notes shall fall.

Then from this simple lay take heart,

And from its moral learn
That though our fairest hopes depart,

Those brighter may return ;
And if the skies sometimes grow dark

Before the day is done.
Somewhere, beyond, a friendly spark

Still whispers of the sun.

HOPE AND THE DEW-DROP.

Dew-drops linger on the flower
Till upon them sunbeams steal ;

Then they vanish, and no longer
Roses their embraces feel :

So the buds of Hope that blossom
In the garden of the heart,

Like the dew-drops from the roses,
'Neath misfortune's touch depart.

ON THE DEATH OF AN INFANT.

Thy pure young form is rigid now,
Icy is thy polished brow,

Beneath the sod ;
Thy cooing notes are hushed in death,
Forever stilled is thy young breath,

By God.

The wintry winds in sadness sigh.
As at evening they pass by,

Wandering on ;
Sad parents nightly weep for thee.
For thy smiles no more they see.

Since thou art gone.

Tho' Christ who died upon the cross.
Assures thy mother in her loss,

That it is gain ;
That thy gentle soul has passed
From this vale of sin at last,

To the Angel train.

On the Death of an Infant. 85

Mingling with pure throngs on high,
Beyond the diamond studded sky,

Where Love reigns supreme,
Sorrow thou canst never know,
But anthems from thy Hps shall flow,

To Him who can redeem.

THE MANIAC.

Night her shades had thrown around,
The dew of Heaven damped the ground,
While, by a new-made, lonely mound,
Sank a mother's knee.

To the hallowed grave she clung,
In neglect her grey locks hung;
In accents wild she madly sung

To the passing breeze :

" It is not so ! it ne'er can be,
That I never more shall see,
Or in my lonely arms clasp thee.

My lost sleeping boy !

"Your couch is damp ; arise, my dear !
Why remain in thy silent bier ?
To my throbbing heart draw near.

And give your mother joy.

The Maniac. 8y

" He does not come ; it must be true,

That he's bid me a last adieu,

And gone to the starry world of blue ;

Then I'll cease to rave."

When all was hushed in the gloomy night,
Her weary spirit winged its flight ;
The sun arose next morning bright,

To find her on his grave.

TO A RIVER.

Placidly I watch thee winding
Onward to the mighty deep,

Scenes of old my soul reminding,
As I on thy borders weep.

As I watch thy wavelets flowing,
Gently by thy rugged shore,

It reminds me that I'm going,
As they, to return no more.

Oft thy polished bosom's broken
By the rude, relentless blast ;

So some words when rudely spoken,
O'er our hearts a pall will cast.

Roll on by, the ocean nearing.
For each ripple on thy stream.

Souls to God will be appearing,
Crushed in Life's delusive dream !

THE SHADOWY SHIP,

They tell of a mystic river,

That is fanned by spirit's breath,

And upon it there sails forever,

A barque whose name is " Death."

And its pilot is ghastly standing.
As he points in the silent gloom,

Across to the dusky landing.
That arises beyond the tomb.

It sails and is never weary.

Like a wandering, restless ghost,

To the river's margin dreary.
With its grim, unearthly host.

" Farewell ! " by the loved is spoken,
As embark the parting crew,

And back from the billows broken,
For the last time comes : ''Adieu ! "

RAVENSWOOD.

The crested trees in Ravenswood

Like muffled friars stand,
Where she and I, long summers since,

Would wander hand in hand,
To cull the starry blooms that grew

In our sweet Lotus land.

'Twas there she sang at evening-time

To me so soft and low,
The sinless songs of peace and love

She knew so long ago,
But which the fateful years, alas !

Have silenced in their flow.

For 'mid the glooms of Ravenswood
The winds of Summer moan.

And sigh to me from unseen lips :
" Thou art at last alone ! "

Until my soul goes pleading up,
"Ah ! give me back mine own ! "

Ravenswood. gi

Oh ! lifeless eyes with marble lids,

Oh ! bosom stilled for aye,
'Tis ever thus that beauty dies,

And love yields to decay,
But in the restful Land of Leal

They are renewed some day.

EVA WHITE.

A BALLAD.

Now the mystic days of Spring,

A languor earth sheds o'er ;
And the coral roses cHng

Around the latticed door.
As the pensive moon's pale face,

Looks down upon the night,
I mourn for her in death's embrace,

I weep for my Eva White.

Shrouded 'neath the winding dell.

Where dancing sunlight beams,
A spotless cross will ever tell.

Where my gentle maiden dreams.
Oft, oft I go when none are near.

With floral garlands bright,
And strew them on the sacred bier,

Of my lonely Eva White.

Eva White. gg

Above the skies in Heaven now,

Pure angels fondly twine
A wreath of love about her brow,

Before their Savior's shrine.
Nothing from my saddened soul,

Can her dear image blight,
Nor erase from mem'ry's scroll,

The name of my Eva White.

LINES SUGGESTED ON LEAVING
WHITE RIVER, ARKANSAS.

As I glide down thy waters, Oh ! noble White River,
And gaze sadly down on thy deep rolling tide,

I remember the scenes that have parted forever.
Enjoyed in youth on thy green blooming side.

Thy flowery banks long ago I have cherished.

As in boyish glee I wandered along,
And flattered the hopes that years back have perished,

And heard with rapture thy murmuring song.

Adieu ! now, fair River, I'll think of thy stream.
To my sad heart you shall ever be dear :

My wandering footsteps have blasted the dream
Of dwelHng beside thy deep water so clear.

THE PALE BRIGADE, OR THE
KU-KLUX KLAN.

See the ghastly daggers flashing,

Of the midnight, spectral band.
Pale the Centaur, foremost dashing,

Grimly leads his wild command !
Listen to their hurried breathing,

As each one his thirsty dirk,
Is with crimson hand unsheathing,

To commence his deadly work !

See the gory ensign flying,

From the scarlet staff they bear ;
Hear their mystic orders dying,

Faintly on the startled air !
From above the moon looks sadly,

On the solemn ranks arrayed.
And the glens and forests madly.

Sternly shout : " The Pale Brigade !

g6 The Pale Brigade, or the Kii-Klux Klan.

Onward they are marching slowly,

In the silent, ghost-like gloom,
And they whisper, guarded, lowly.

Some oppressor's fearful doom.
See you not the Centaur kneeling,

As a signal to them now.
And the wrathful look that's stealing

Swiftly o'er his sunken brow ?

Each his wand is fiercely waving,

And they murmur loud the cry :
" They who Southrons are enslaving,

Shall themselves be made to die ! "
And there stands a Brutus, tearless.

In each shroud the band contains.
Who will strike the Despot, fearless,

Who would bind his land in chains.

Perched within each valley sweeping

O'er the South's invaded shrine,
Mercy's Angel there is weeping

At a Nation's sad decline.
And the Pale Brigade is wending,

'Mid a people now oppressed.
And their oaths are ever blending,

That their wrongs shall be redressed.

LINES ON THE DEATH OF LITTLE PEARL.

The Savior upon a sorrowing land
With pitying eye looked down,

And raising the Pearl with glowing hand,
He placed it upon his Crown.

For the dimpled arms are folded now,
And the flowers of Summer kiss

The palely cold and colorless brow
Of the Angel babe we miss.

But down thro' the silent realms of night,
By the side of her tear-bathed bed,

Seraphs will come in the still starlight
To watch o'er the early dead.

Like the bubble upon the treacherous tide,
Flashing in beautiful tint, then gone,

She vanished from earth, she meekly died.
As in Heaven they beckoned her on.

And radiant now as the burning gem

Asleep on the fairy wave.
She's wearing the glittering diadem

That lighted her over the grave.

g8 Lines on the Death of Little Pearl.

Tho' the fairest bud is the first to fade
In the wreaths of the perfumed Spring,

And our brightest hopes are the soonest laid,
In the shadow of Sorrow's wing.

We should not mourn, for she is at rest,

Far away on a happier shore.
And pillowed upon her Redeemer's breast.

She's whispering the loved ones o'er.

Departed young Pearl, the passion flower.

The violet modest, and rose,
With their incense soft in evening's hour,

Will guard thy hushed repose.

And when the Autumn in purple leaps
On the lingering Summer's bier.

And Winter over the dead year weeps.
As the endless night draws near.

The snow's white arms will purely fold

In tenderness o'er thy tomb.
As an emblem pure of thy peace untold

In the home where comes not gloom.

For the winds of the South that murmur along,

Sob ever in tremulous tone;
Joy is borne in the accents of song

She sings by her Maker's Throne.

THE SIMILE.

Down beside a crystal stream,
Which reflected each sunbeam,

That upon it fell,
I, at quiet evening strolled,
Gazing on it while it rolled.

Through the dell.

Lilies near its margin grew,
And flowers of each varied hue.

Sprung around ;
Songsters in the cypress trees,
Sang their sweetest melodies,

In pensive sound.

While I wandered thus alone.
My image in its mirror shone,

I paused to look :
Though as I peered upon its bed.
Breezes thro' the woodland fled,

And marred the brook.

L.«fC.

loo The Simile, i

1

Thus it is with Life, thought I,
With a long and wearied sigh

I sadly gave :
For the fondest hopes we cherish,
Like that image quickly perish.

On Time's wave.

I

I

SONG.

Come to me, Clara, while the pale moon is beaming.

From the exalted dominion she holds ;
Come to me now, while the dew-drops are gleaming

From the Maid flowers' luxuriant folds.

Let thy silvery voice cheer my spirits so weary,
For I pine for thy presence to cheer me again :

As sunbeams illumine the earth when it's dreary.
Thy coming can turn to pleasures my pain.

The' Egyptian darkness the world should o'erpower,
And sit grandly forth from its throne of deep black,

The flash of thine eyes, like a meteoric shower,

Would dispel its impression and drive its shades back.

Haste, peerless maid, for the soft breeze is sighing
To cast its caresses on thine image so dear ;

And to their murmurs my heart is replying :
" Soon she will come and be with us here ! "

'Mid the glades of the meadow I see her appearing ;

Her step, so elastic, starts the near sleeping fawn :
I'll hasten to meet her ; her words shall be cheering

The heart that beats for her till day's coming dawn.

THE STORY OF A GOAT.

A TRAGEDY.

A William Goat, well up in war,

There was, with a fierce goatee,
That travelled on his muscle, for

A robust goat was he ;
No other goat in his bailiwick

Had won such wide renown.
For he could hump himself and lick

Just any goat in town.

Oh ! this galoot of a goat, you bet,

Fought at his own sweet will.
For he butted everything he met,

And he butted it to kill ;
He butted right and he butted left.

As the zig-zag lightning springs.
And many a goat he had bereft

Of horns and eyes and things.

I

The Story of a Goat. lo^

He used to lunch on old scrap tin,

He slept in the open air,
And William's Hfe was a round of sin,

And his home was anywhere ;
An awful life was the life he led.

And he never cared to mend
His ways, while those who knew him said

He'd come to some bad end.

One jocund morn some bock-beer kegs

Met William's steadfast gaze.
And he straightened up on his hind legs,

And viewed them in amaze ;
He looked askance at his photograph

On the end of the festive bock,
And then he charged, with a mocking laugh.

And there was a dreadful shock.

He struck that photo like a shot —

And here our story halts —
And the air grew very thick, I wot,

With numerous somersaults ;
That W. Goat lay there a wreck.

The last of all his line,
The shock had telescoped his neck

Away back in his spine.

SOLITUDE.

Thro' mountains wild 'tis sweet to roam,
Where erring man ne'er trod,

To dwell in Nature's tranquil home,
And note the works of God ;

To watch the sun's departing rays,

As at eve it sinks to rest.
And to give our Maker praise,

Who rules the sacred Blest.

And when twilight's gently stealing
Thro' the dark and sombre wood,

Then there comes the mystic feeling
That reminds us to do good.

Yes ! dear, tho' pensive Solitude,

I court your magic spell,
And love to wander 'mid the haunts

Where you are wont to dwell.

LINES ON THE DEATH OF DIANA SIMMS.
(^Infant Daughter of Dr. G. L. and Mollie G. Kir by.')

Backward on their jasper hinges,

Were the Gates of Glory pressed,
When her baby hands were folded,

Like twin lilies, on her breast ;
For adown the amber evening,

In the twilight of the day,
Softly came the Angel-beings,

And she went with them away.

Though she lifted up Life's chalice,

Ere she could its sweetness sip,
The devoted cup was shattered

While it trembled at her lip ;
Thus her infant days were ended,

Like some bud that dieth ere
It hath bursted into blossom.

In the Spring-time of the year.

io6 Lines on the Death of Diana Simms.

Forward on their jasper hinges,

Swung the Gates of Glory to,
When the baby-pilgrim's spirit

Plumed itself and vanished thro';
And upon her brow the Father

Placed His signet as Pie smiled,
Drew her to His glowing bosom,

And embraced the Angel-child.

THERE IS NOTHING REAL.

The blushing- rose that meekly bends

Its leaflets o'er the lawn,
Its early beauty only lends

But to conceal a thorn.

The dreaded asp, its colors bright,

Is given but to shield
The venom that denotes its bite,

The poison it can wield.

The '* Dead Sea fruit " grows to allure.

Beside the ocean's spray.
And only seems inviting, pure,

On the lip to fade away.

The jeweled cup, with nectar fair,
But tempts the thoughtless eye,

To have inscribed, secreted there,
"Come, drink of me and die ! "

THE LONG AGO.

A voice is borne from the buried Years,

And it whispers strangely low
A requiem in our wearied ears,

Of things in the Long Ago.

It comes in the early morning's gray,

At the sunset's dying glow,
And it tells of things that are passed away,

That went with the Long Ago.

It lingering, tells of the marble face
That sleeps where the flowers blow.

And on it again the beauty we trace
That it wore in the Long Ago.

With every gale it trembles along.
From spring to the winter's snow.

And the burden lone of its weeping song
Is things of the Long Ago.

It startles us with its chiding tone.
When memories backward flow,

To dwell on the hours forever gone,
Misspent in the Long Ago.

THE LOST SHIP.

The madden'd sea in waves rode high,
Black as ink was the threatening sky,
And sad as death the piercing cry,

Of those who perished.

Above them far, the thunder rolled.
And their death-knell plainly toll'd.
While shook the ship from mast to hold —
The ship they cherished.

A deaf'ning crash, then a glaring light,
Lit up the sea on that dark night.
And none can paint a sadder sight,

For the ship was burning !

None escaped ; each found a grave
Beneath a pitiless foaming wave.
And those at home still madly rave
For their returning.

TO A WAVE.

Tell me, restless Wave, thy mission,

Rippling- o'er the starlit sea ;
Dost thou, in thy wearied murmur,

Breathe a song of grief to me ?
Or dost thou some mournful token

Bring us of a land unknown,
Where fair Science never lingered,

But where Error dwells alone ?

Hast thou never-falling tresses

Braided 'round the mermaid's brow.
And in thy deceptive wooing,

Left her watching for thee now ? —
Left her on her couch of coral.

Sighing for thee day by day ;
And, unmindful of her sorrow,

Keepest thou thy careless way ?

To a Wave. in

But, alas ! the Wave has vanished,
Like a spectre, drifting on ;

Faded ere I knew 'twas dying-
Faded ere my words were gone.

Though 'tis only a sad emblem
Of each hope the heart contains,

For of that which now we cherish,
On to-morrow naught remains.

THE RIVER OF YEARS.

Through the ruins of time the River of Years

Flows on with a murmur of pain ;
For its vanishing ripples are human tears
That beating the margin the mariner hears,
As down its current his vessel he steers,

To stem it not back again.

We look to its verge as we drift along.

At our images fallen there ;
While Memory spirits around us throng,
And pointing to them, with desolate song,
From viewless lips they whisper of wrong.

And sin, and neglected prayer.

There's a shadow that hangs on the turbulent tide.

Where the voyagers pass and part ;
And in it we glimpse the blossoms that died,
The blossoms of Hope that we were denied.
When the destiny demon dashed them aside,
And smiled at the wounded heart.

The River of Years. iij

But thus we are borne to the evening of rest,

As we greet the unsounded sea ;
Where pitying ones on the Isle of the Blest
Are waiting to welcome the stranger guest,
The pilgrim spirit by sorrow oppressed,

While debarred of eternity.

THE GRANITE STONE.

By the quaint old church there's a granite stone

With a name that I love thereon,
But *' In Memoriam " is scarcely traced
Thro' the clinging vines, that are interlaced
Around the guardian stone defaced,

By the track of the seasons gone.

By the quaint old church there's a granite stone,

And it hideth a sainted brow —
Two sinless hands that are whitely pressed
Together above a pulseless breast,
And a quiet form, that is palely dressed

In a snow-white garment now,

By the quaint old church there's a granite stone,

And it telleth a tale of grief ;
For under its shadow my heart remains,
And only a sorrowful song contains.
Whose music, sad, forever complains

That her life should be so brief.

The Granite Stone. u^

By the quaint old church there's a granite stone,

And gloomier now is the chime
Of the belfry bell on the Sabbath air,
Than it was when she, of the sunlit hair,
And a voice more sweet than a seraph's prayer,

Knelt there in the olden time.

DEPARTED.

A voice as soft as the brooklet's song,
That whispers to the shore,

And one that we have loved so long,
Shall gladden us no more ;

For when the frost of Autumn fell
Upon the saddened flowers,

It chilled her, and we bade farewell
Unto this bud of ours.

And now the sculptured marble keeps

A sentry at her side,
Pointing where she palely sleeps,

And telling how she died.

Tho' when the golden stars we trace

'Mid dimly falling dew,
We still behold her radiant face,

With Angels peering through ;

Departed. ny

And when the twilight shadows kiss,

At eve, the silver streams,
The gentle tones of her we miss

Come on the air, it seems.

'Tis then her hand again we clasp,

And stay our anguished tears,
While in return we feel the grasp

She gave in other years.

Though dead, within an early tomb,

The faded flower is lain.
We know that it will brightly bloom

Above with God again.

REFLECTIONS BESIDE A RIVER.

Alone beside the stream I'm sitting,
Looking on its rippling tide,

In its lonely course fast flitting.
Closer to the ocean wide.

Ebbing slowly down the river,
Mingling with each parting wave.

Bubbles one could watch forever.
Ask your gaze — then find a grave.

It is thus our hopes all leave us,
Like the bubbles quit the stream ;

Enchant us only to deceive us.
Yield us to Delusion's dream.

SIX SIMILES.

Life is like the flashing streamlet's
Swiftly hurrying, thoughtless wave,

That goes laughing to the river —
That goes singing to its grave.

Hope is like the transient flower's
Sweetly perfumed, gentle breath,

That makes glad the balmy spring-time,
And at autumn yields to death.

Love is like the wind-harp's music,
Trembling from the moonlit lawn.

Sighing at your lattice briefly,
Then on wanton wing is gone.

Beauty's like the fading dew-drop.
Coming on when dies the day.

And at morning's burnished footstep.
Weeps its pure young self away.

120 Six Similes.

Fame is like the virgin snowflake,
That to earth's cold bosom's won,

To remain a fickle moment,-
Then depart before the sun.

Wealth is like the ruby spirit,
That keeps vigil o'er the wine.

Leading man, with its deception.
To destruction at its shrine.

COMMEMORATING THE OPENING OF THE
MESSENGER OPERA HOUSE,

At Goldsboro, N. C, December 21, 1881.

Our City's queen, complete and fair,
With glad acclaim we bow

Before thy shrine, and happy there
We consecrate thee now.

Upon thy boards the godlike shades
Of Garrick, Booth and Keen,

Shall linger through the long decades
To guard them well I ween.

And Avon's Bard from shadowland

Shall wake his spirit pen.
When he beholds his heroes stand

Upon thy stage again.

Here Tragedy shall ask the tear,

Here Comedy the smile,
Here, scenes as sad as those of Lear,

To those of mirth beguile.

122 Messenger Opera House Opening.

Here is a theme of human art,

And here a theme for human pen —

The noblest thoughts that stir our heart,
Shall here revisioned be again.

And let these lines commemorate

A pile that we revere.
An obelisk that time nor fate

Shall never make less dear.

A thing of beauty, trim and grand,

To-night ye proudly rise,
A monument that long shall stand

To Worth and Enterprise.

THE DRUMMER BOY OF BOWLING GREEN.

The battle's fearful din had hushed,

Wearied soldiers sought for rest ;
The crimson tide in torrents gushed

From a wound in Carlton's breast.
The foe had given up the fight,

Southern arms had vict'ry seen,
And bleeding lay thro'out the night

The Drummer Boy of Bowling Green.

His comrades stood by his young form,

And sadly watched his parting breath,
For well they knew his heart so warm

Would soon lie motionless in death.
** I fear not death," he calmly said ;

" Upon my Maker's staff I lean ; "
Then heard the Angels' holy tread,

The Drummer Boy of Bowling Green.

124 '^^^^ Drummer Boy of Bowling Green.

"Ah ! fellow-soldiers," Carlton spake,

" Draw nearer to my rude bedside ;
A blessing to my mother take,

Then tell her how her Carlton died."
His weary spirit soared its flight

Above the shining star-decked screen ;
They buried there, at soft twilight,

The Drummer Boy of Bowling Green.

SEA-SIDE MUSINGS.

Out in the arms of the slumbering hours,

The Sea Hes languidly dim,
And sentinel stars in tremulous showers

Trace images bright on its brim ;
But, like the enchantments, deceptive when born,

These phantoms of gold will pale at the morn.

Out in the silence the ocean weed stoops

Till its tresses are trailing the tide,
And it seemeth a mourner that sorrowing droops

O'er the tombs of the loved that have died ;
But, as death to the watcher awaiting the grave,

The tempest will come ; it must sink in the wave.

Faint o'er the water the soft falling notes

Of the fairy Gondola low blend.
With cadence so pure that we dream Angel throats

The soul-stealing music attend ;
But, like the sequel to pleasures of man,

'Tis o'er and we're sadder than ere it began.

THE WHITE ROSE BUD.

As a lone pearl nestled upon the snow,
A white Rose Bud fell gracefully low

Beside her innocent brow ;
And still I can trace the Rose Bud white,
And the beautiful brow that it press'd that night,

For they are remembered now :

Though many a month that will come no more
Has gone since the white Rose Bud she wore,

Clasped in her golden hair ;
For the flowers since then have kissed the plain,
And withered and chilled, they too have lain.

Faded and dying there.

Of her sinless soul a pure emblem alone,
A symbol of, when the years have flown

And we seek the other shore.
The stainless robe that she shall wear —
The beautiful one with the golden hair.

In Heaven for evermore.

CHRISTMAS GREETING,

1867.

( Written for Carriers of the Goldsboro News,')

The Year of Sixty-seven's dying,

Sinking backward in the past,
And the wind of Winter's sighing.

Thus to give it up at last.
Snowflakes that are now descending,

And each one its beauty shows,
With the woods and rivers blending.

Warn us sadly of its close.

When this year you sat at leisure,

And for science would peruse.
Looking o'er with eye of pleasure

Literature that graced the " News ",
Remember that the Carrier Boy,

With sure, tho' wearied tread,
Would bring to you with eager joy,

The items which you read.

128 Christmas Greeting, i86y.

Thro' the bleak days of December — ,

In the sun of sultry May,
Each of you can well remember,

How he brought them on each day
News of almost every Nation,

That's beyond the ocean's foam,
And of every speculation

That was going on at home.

Tales of love, and tales of romance,

To repel the hours of care,
When you'd down its columns glance,

Could be seen embodied there.
Then donate to him some token

For the good which he has done ;
Assure him that his toil unbroken,

Many friends for him has won.

When in peaceful visions sleeping.

You were dreaming in your rest.
He, his vigil then was keeping,

O'er the roller and the press.
Can you now forget his hardship ?

'* No ! " it seems I hear you say,
Then give to him a current scrip — ,

And he'll rejoice upon his way.

CHRISTMAS GREETING,

1872.

( Written for the Carriers of the Carolina Messenger?)

Like mourners on the wintry sky

The black clouds come and go,
And pale the frozen blossoms lie

Wrapped in the tufted snow,
As the old Year staggers by

Beneath his weight of woe :
Then let us hope his happier heir

Will crown our hearts with peace,
And scatter far each blighting care

Till we weep his decease.

Once again the " Messeyiger Carrier,"
With his words of kindly cheer,

Bears his papers to its patrons

As he hath throughout the year —

As he hath in the bright Spring-season
When the lawn was starred with buds,

1^0 Christmas Greeting, i8y2.

And the air was glad with the music

That swept down from the pulseful woods
As he hath in the lurid Summer,

When the sun grew fierce and red,
Like a coal aglow in the Heavens

When the winds of the North were dead ;
As he hath in the painted Autumn,

When the song-bird's vanished trill
Came no longer adown the forest.

Ceased its melody on the hill ;
As he hath when the ghastly Winter

Threw his white shield from his breast,
Tore the light plumes from his helmet

In his wrath and wild unrest.

'Tis a journal read by thousands,

Young and old, and grave and gay,
And swerves not upon the mission

It fulfills from day to day :
Plainly have its themes been handled,

Solely for the people's good.
And unswerving still the platform

On which it so long hath stood.

Christmas Greeting, i8y2, iji

Whether crimes were in high places

Or 'mid humbler walks of men,
It hath torn the mass from mischief,

While truth perched upon its pen ;
It hath frowned on the usurper,

Who would public rights o'erthrow,
And the meed of praise awarded

Those who struggled 'gainst the blow.

It hath plead alone for Justice,

Battling in the ranks of Right,
Careless of the foe's displeasure

At a time when wrong was might ;
And from out its ample columns

Voices have gone forth that bore
Tidings of our worthy merchants

And our grocers o'er and o'er.

It hath counseled with the Farmer,

Who doth till our fruitful land,
And the steel-nerved, stout Mechanic

Armed with art and iron hand :
Told of each trade and profession

In the varied scope of man.
Of pursuits that have been followed

Ever since the years began.

1^2 Christmas Greeting, i8y2.

And now, Adieu ! the Carrier Boy
Hath sung his Christmas lay,

And wishes all unfettered joy
This glad December day,

And happiness without alloy
Till time hath passed away.

CHRISTMAS GREETING,
1883.

( Writte7i for fas. F. Collins, Carrier of the
Goldsboro Messenger, Established 1867.')

Like pilgrims, near two thousand years

Have passed, all hoar and gray,
Since Bethlehem's Christ child was born,

On this our Christmas day :
From thus far back, and up the drift

Of all those years there thrill.
Like Sabbath chimes, divinely sweet,

" To man, Peace and Good-will ! "

Gray-bearded Time, with sickle keen,

And glass in solemn hand,
Doth smite the dying Year amain,

In every clime and land —
Gray-bearded Time who cuts his sheaf

From out his ample field —
The sheaf which is the fading year,

The fading year the yield.

7j^ Christmas Greeting, i88j.

Yet, as we gather round the board,

There are no tears in wait,
For 'tis the day we weave in song

And come to celebrate ;
Then let dissensions be forgot,

And feuds and discord cease,
In this, the era of Good-will,

That shines through smiles of Peace.

At every hearth may sweet Content

To-day sit as a guest.
And may the Christmas sun go down

And leave no soul unblest ;
May Providence guard every home,

And shield it from mishap.
And Plenty pour her largess down

In Poverty's wan lap !

And now, before we say Adieu,

Or close our Christmas lay.
Do not forget the Carrier Boy

Who greets his friends to-day —
The Carrier Boy who all the year,

Thro' sun, thro' midnight dews,
Bore patiently your paper round.

That you might have the news.

Christmas Greeting, r88j. /j»5

You've seen our paper, upward still,

Climb to its present height,
Till seven thousand gladdened homes

Are blessing it to-night ;
The Messenger' s best wishes too,

Its patrons all attend —
May Peace walk with them down the years,

And bless them to the end !

CHRISTMAS GREETING,

1884.
( Written for Carriers of the Goldsboro Messenger?)

On the passing Year there is a blight,

And his brow is traced with care,
For the snows of age are resting white

On his flowing beard and hair ;
But a short twelvemonth agone, and he

Came forth in his happy prime,
And now with sorrowing heart, we see

Him wrecked in the storm of Time.

But let us away with vain regret.

For the years, like mortals, die,
And the human heart is gladdest yet,

Mayhap, that gives no sigh ;
Tho' the fond old Year scarce Hngers, still,

The Christmas bells ring clear.
And everywhere " Peace and Good-will ! "

On the crystal air we hear.

Christmas Greeting, 1884. i^y

To-day calls up the star-born psalm

That swept the Eastern plain,
When the infant Jesus came with balm

For a world enthralled in pain ;
Then hallowed be this Christmas-tide,

And let each voice proclaim
Him Sovereign who was crucified,

And bless His sainted name !

In all our borders no alarms

Of strife nor carnage tell,
But Peace holds out her snow-white arms

And whispers " All is well " ;
Our Country free, her altars blest,

All plenty-strewn her ways.
We have full cause for such bequest

To bow our heads in praise.

And now a word to our patrons all :

In a flaming tempest tossed
But yesterday, again we call,

And smile at the holocaust ;
We bear a greeting to each friend,

For m.alice we have none,
And the hand of fellowship extend

To our readers, every one.

TOKENS.

Ah ! these are the blossoms
You wove in her hair ;

These blooms of the orange,
In her maidenhood rare,

When her life was a poem
And her song was a prayer.

And these are the slippers

Her fairy feet trod,
These sHppers of satin

Untouched by the sod,
Since the ladder of stars

Lead her up to her God.

Well, lay them by softly ;

Tho' stained with a tear.
They are none the less sacred,

Nor none the less dear.
To a heart that is hidden

In the Urn at the bier.

SUNSET.

The golden hues of Sunset —
How they gild the western sky.

And the flying clouds in Heaven,
As they float in beauty by !

Watch the phantom shadows chasing
One the other, woodlands o'er,

Gliding onward, ne'er retracing,
But progressing as before.

Hear the low wind's moaning rustle,
As it wails across the lake.

And then know the sad emotion,
That it can in hearts awake.

See the hallowed tints of twilight.
As they dimly hide the plain,

Then sink slowly into darkness,
Leaving man in night again.

RETROSPECTION.

Where the cypress tree is waving,

Close beside the river's shore,
And the swan at eve is laving,

List'ning to its drowsy roar,
In the starlight I'm recalling

Happy moments vanished here ;
While the withered leaves are falling

'Round me from the branches near.

On this hallowed spot reclining,

In the silent night alone,
Mem'ry bright is fondly twining,

With my dreams forever flown :
For 'twas here in pleasure's morning,

That my boyish footsteps trod.
And a mother's gentle warning,

Bade me give my heart to God.

Retrospection. 141

Though the home is fast decaying^,

That I loved years since with pride,
And the night air's wildly playing,

Through the moss upon its side ;
Pale the rays are faintly streaming,

From the distant lamps of night,
On the tombstones where are dreaming

Loved ones robed in changeless white.

IN MEMORIAM.

Lo ! Our Southern Cross is broken,
And to-day with grief unspoken,

We do honor to our dead,
Who fell at the war-drum's throbbing
When the great South-heart was sobbing

That her children vainly bled.

Youth and age, and star-eyed maiden.
Come with braided blossoms laden,

Sorrowing in their holy trust ;
And above each casket bending.
With their anthem prayers ascending.

Strew them o'er the warrior-dust.

Works of grandeur perish never —
Theirs shall flash for aye and ever

Through the ages of all time ;
And are linked to deathless glory,
While both song and wondrous story

They shall ever make sublime.

In Memoriam. 14^

From each grave a legend's glowing,
Whispered in sad music flowing

To us from the buried years,
With an eloquence that's undying
Of that folded banner lying

Underneath a people's tears.

For us white-plumed Murats dashing
Where the fires of death were flashing

Brightest in the crimson fray,
Went they with their colors streaming,
With each star defiant gleaming, —

These dead Heroes of the Grey !

A REQUIEM.

When I am gone, no lettered cross

Rear o'er my coffined head,
With chiseled verse of shallow praise,
Nor gloomy Urn where Sorrow pays
Her tribute to the dead.

When I am gone, no cypress dark

Place at my leveled tomb,
To hang its funeral banners there,
And dirges hymn in Autumn's air

When flowerets cease to bloom.

When I am gone, no mournful lyre

Awake with farewell song ;
For darkly from each shattered string
Remorseful memories would spring
To chide a life of wrong.

When I am gone, no senseless wreath

Of wild buds braid for me ;
For they will die, as Hope does now.
As Summer dies on Autumn's brow.
Or star-ghosts on the sea.

THE DEAD MAIDEN.

A LEGEND OF THE WOOD.

Tradition tells that once a Maid
Deep within a forest strayed.
Where the flowers bloom and fade

In the twilight golden :
Its pensive wooings had beguiled
Her footsteps to its bosom wild,
For the Sylvan God then smiled

In this glen of olden.

Diana, with her silver bow.
Reflected in the brooklet's flow.
As it murmured music low,

The Maid alluring only :
And the light wind's mournful surge
Breathed a low and solemn dirge,
As its sighings would emerge

Thro' the forest lonelv.

1^6 The Dead Maiden.

Purple grapes in clusters hung
Branches of the trees among,
Where the tendrils closely clung,

Of the wildwood flowers :
There the sad and plaintive note
From the plumaged minstrel's throat,
Would across the forest float,

To enchant the hours.

Until the King of Day far west,
Robed in crimson sank to rest,
And the linnet sought its nest,

Nothing warned the Maiden
That her lonely roamings then,
Amid the wood and tangled fen,
Were within a haunted glen

With legends overladen.

Quick aroused by sudden thought.
Quick as by Magician brought,
To retrace her steps she sought.

As the night fell o'er her ;
.Securely, tho', the woodland snare
Bound the peerless wand'rer there,
And her deeply earnest prayer

Home could not restore her.

The Dead Maiden. i^y

Upon her brow and waving hair,
Dew-drops in the Hghtning's glare,
Formed a crown that trembled there,

And in darkness glisten'd ;
While her snowy hand would part
Lairs where timid fawn would start,
She with wildly beating heart,

To the tempest listened.

For the skies were overcast,
And the fiercely shrieking blast
Chilled her as it thundered past,

In the forest trackless,
While the " Storm God " madly hurled
Brands of lightning o'er the world,
And the scroll of death unfurled

In the midnight blackness.

Cypress trees, the type of gloom,
Whisper'd, " Maiden meet thy doom,
For this lonely wood's thy tomb,

And the gale now sighing,
When the sparkling dew shall lave
Flow'rets in their graceful wave,
Will kiss them on thy unseen grave,

At the daylight's dying."

T48 The Dead Maiden.

And the night-owl screamed aloud,
*' Leaflets here shall be thy shroud !
As he poised high in the cloud

Drifting o'er the river :
While the spectral fire-fly,
As it passed the lost one by,
Breathed unto the Maiden, " Die ! *'

Then was gone forever.

High on the cliffs the hoary moss
In the waiHng gale would toss,
Sighing, " Maiden, for thy loss

Friends will be deploring " ;
And the quiv'ring lightning's gleam
Brighter danced upon the stream,
And more frightful, too, did seem

The tempest's hollow roaring.

" Father," spake the Maid alone,
In her gentle earnest tone,
"Thou who oft hast mercy shown,

Guide me thro' this danger ! " :
Only clouds more darkly frowned,
And the prayer, alas ! was drowned
In the writhing tempest's sound,

Near the virgin stranger.

The Dead Maiden. i^g

In the haunted woodland green,
Dead, within its shaded screen,
Where her spirit oft is seen,

The Maiden lost, reposes ;
And she's wept for even now,
While the wood-nymphs lowly bow
As they deck her lily brow

With the forest roses.

Apollo pours his low sad strains
O'er her bleaching, white remains,
When at evening daylight wanes

In the vale enchanted ;
And as mourners o'er the dead.
Close beside her mossy bed
Flowers their pale tresses spread,

By the wood-nymphs planted.

IN MEMORIAM.

Land of the South ! embalmed in song

That echoes down the years,
Above thy dead to-day we strew
The victor Bay and burial Yew,

To tell thy fame in tears :
For tho' thy starry cross went down

Amid the wrathful fight,
Upon its shining wreck we read
How hero hearts can break and bleed,

Before they yield the right.

Land of the South ! the sweet May-time

That wooes thy buds and blooms.
Doth in its flight adown the Spring
Its rosy garlands freely bring

To wreathe thy place of tombs,
Where lowly winds like mourners bend

To whisper to the brave.
Whose quiet brows, tho' cold beneath.
Are circled with the laurel's wreath

That sparkles from the grave.

In Memoriain.

Land of the South ! thy blades no more

Leap out in hands of steel,
But in their rust the record sleeps
That jealous Honor steadfast keeps,

How Southrons scorn to kneel ;
And on thy deeds shall Romance love

To rear her dazzHng fane,
And pilgrims come to haunt the Urns
Where Sorrow broods and Valor turns

To muse upon thy slain.

Land of the South ! the stars that burst

Like blossoms from thy sky,
Reflect in each a hero's shade
Whose knightly deeds shall only fade

When Time itself shall die ;
And future Bards shall sweetly wake

To thee their chosen lyre.
And woman's lips shall hymn the praise
To childlish ears in tender lays

Of Fallen Southern sire.

Land of the South ! a Bayard keeps

All mute his marble rest,
Within each grave whose storied clay
Lies in its winding sheet of grey

^5^

T^2 In Memoriam.

Upon thy mother breast ;
And now we bring our floral gifts,

And braids of Immortelle,
As tribute to the courtly dead
Who followed where thy banner led.

And with that banner fell.

Land of the South ! thy squadrons rush

Down in the fray no more,
'Mid rifle flash and sabre stroke
And scenes of blood and battle smoke,

As in the days of yore.
But, ah ! the lightning track they left

Is paved with Spartan dust.
And legends linger where they rode.
That gild the page of Valor's Code,

Of how they kept their trust.

Land of the South ! a halo gleams
Upon thy midnight gloom.

And 'round thy broken shrine it throws

A wreath of light that constant glows
About the martyr's tomb,

And from thy darkest ruins spring,
Where life and hope are dumb.

In Memoriam. 153

Traditions that shall live in song
That other Minstrels shall prolong
In days that are to come.

Land of the South ! about thy wrecks

The fires of Courage play,
And Glory gathers from thy grief
The grandest gleanings in its sheaf

To garner them for aye ;
For when the last throb of thy drums

Grew faint upon the air,
Immortals bore on wings of flame
The echo up the steeps of Fame

And left it living there.

Land of the South ! no martial muse

A purer theme shall teach,
Than how thy colors swift and far
Swept o'er the purple field of war

And lit the deadly breach :
And Vandal pen can ne'er profane,

Or blight with venom stroke,
A single star that hung thereon
And shone till every hope was gone

To dare the despot's yoke.

OCT 3 1900