The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland by Various
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Various >> The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland
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On the 7th of August, 1873, she married James McCormick, of
Woodlawn, and for about a year after her marriage resided with
her husband near that place. In 1876 the family removed to
Philadelphia where they have since resided, except short intervals
when traveling.
MY FANCY LAND.
I'm roaming to-day in a far-away land
Where the roses and violets grow,
Where white waves break on a silvery strand,
And are lost on the cliffs below.
High up in a palace of sparkling gold
Where voices are hushed and still,
Where lips are silent and hearts are cold,
And the days are rich with a glory untold,
And no one disputes my will.
The walls are rich with an amber light,
And waters in fountains fall,
There are landscapes which vie with Italy bright,
And servants within my call;
There are sounds of music, bewitchingly sweet,
With tender, plaintive chords,
Like the patter of tiny innocent feet,
Or the voices of joy when loved ones meet
And their hearts speak out, their words.
All day from my turret I watch the sails
That fleck the sweep of the tide,--
Whose passengers all are joyous and hale,
As into the harbor they ride.
They enter my golden castle gate,--
They roam thro' my stately halls,--
They rest in chambers furnished in state,
Then close by my glory-throne they wait,
Until I shall answer their call.
There are faces bright with a merry light
And the music of long ago;
And others dark as Lethe's night
And as cold as the winter's snow.
Hands that meet mine in a trusty clasp
With blushes that come and go,
Strangers to pain in this world so vast,
With its pleasure now and sorrow at last,
In the land we do not know.
They are bound for this strangely mystical land
So shadowy, lone and so dim,
And my castle's a port on the ocean strand,
Where they wait for the ferryman grim,
To row them away from the silvery beach
Beyond the foam of the tide,
Where a palace looms far away from their reach,
Whose gates are closed with a clang to each
Who have chosen the pathway wide.
They tell me I'm treading with careless feet
This thorny, deceitful path,
When the Master cometh my face to greet
He will open his vials of wrath.
But I turn again to the world so real,
And my "Fancy Land" grows dim,
Time's hand has taught me not to feel
The wounds which sympathy cannot heal,
And I anchor my faith in Him.
WITH THE TIDE.
Beneath the bright sun's dazzling ray,
She watched his vessel sail away
To distant, far-famed lands.
Her heart was gone,--upon her hand
Sparkled a diamond fair and grand,
Telling in silent jubilee
"His love is all the world to me."
Time goes by wings,--the years flew on,
The days had come,--the summers gone,
And still no loved one came
To feed the burning passion flame
Still glowing in her heart.
They told her "in another land
He captive held a heart and hand
And graced Dame Fashion's mart."
She listened to love's second tale
That came with Autumn's misty gale,
And hid her heart within the fold
Of satins rare, and lustrous gold,
Sadness so deep, must live untold
Shut in her marble palace high,
Reared almost up to touch the sky.
Haughty and cold her heart had grown,
For wealth and glory she lived alone,
Yet as oft she watched an out bound ship
Its prow in foamy waters dip,
The day came back when lip to lip
Her heart met his in a sad farewell.
Murmuring this sad and low refrain,
As cold and chill as winter rain--
"He's falser than human tongue can tell."
* * * * *
September's sun with yellow heat,
Fell burning where the waves had beat
With restless motion, against the shore,
And music like unto that of yore,
When a tiny speck in the clouds she saw,
Moving and nearing the pleasant land
Quietly, swiftly, as by a law.
Screening her brown eyes with her hand,
She saw it strike the pebbled sand,
And heard a glad shout cleave the air,
And saw a noble, manly form,
With locks of silvered raven hair,
And a heart with love and passion warm.
She held her breath in silent dread,
The crimson from her soft cheek fled,
Low at her feet he knelt;--
"No welcome for the leal and true?
Speak, darling, speak! it is my due,
Back through the years I've come to you
Faithful as when I went!"
"No answer still? my love, oh, why
No answer to my pleading cry?"
Thou'rt dead! Why have I lived for this?
To gain a life of shipwrecked bliss?
To distant lands to roam and then
Dead lips to welcome me again?
* * * * *
A funeral train,--all mourners great,
Pall-bearers clothed in robes of state,
The form they love more fair in death
Than when 'twas warmed by living breath,
A haughty man with silvered hair,
Among the strangers gathered there;--
A rose dropped by an unknown hand
With perfume from a foreign land,
Upon the casket lid,--
A ship at anchor in the bay,
That in the evening bore away
A form that landed yesterday.
THE OLD FASHION.
"The old, old fashion,--Death! Oh, thank God, all who see it, for
that older fashion yet, of Immortality!"
--Dickens.
Despite all human passion,
And all that we can do,--
There is an old, old fashion
That comes to me and you.
It has come to me so often
That I know its meaning well,
Nothing its pain can soften
Nothing its power can quell.
When the battle-field was silent,
Gone to their final rest,
Dead in their last encampment
Lay the ones I loved the best.
And then, when my heart was lightest,
It came with a snake-like tread,
And darkened the day that was brightest,
Then left me with my dead.
It came in the wild March weather
With bluster of storm and sleet,
And stilled in our home forever
The patter of boyish feet.
And then,--God pity my treason,
When life again had smiled,
It came in the holiday season
And took from me my child.
"Give thanks for the old, old fashion,"
No, that can never be.
Where is the Divine compassion
That God has shown to me?
Fling wide each shining portal,--
Let me--a sinner through,--
Thank God for the immortal
Is all that I can do.
No prayer of love or passion
Can give my dead to me,
But I bless the old, old fashion,
Of immortality.
MY BABY AND THE ROSE.
A rose tree grew by the garden wall,
And its highest blossom was just as tall
As my baby's curly head;
A lovely, fragrant, perfect rose,--
But sweeter from head to dimpled toes,
Was the baby I fondly led.
Now summer is over and winter gone,
And the winds of March are whistling on
Where the rose its petals shed;
No trace of rose perfumed and rare,
No baby face as seraph fair,
My baby sweet is dead.
The summer sun will shine again,
And 'neath the pattering, warm June rain,
Again the rose will bloom,
And so beyond these lowering skies
My baby dear, with smiling eyes,
Shall peer through earthly gloom,
And guide me with her angel hand
Through Heaven's gates,--and with me stand
Away from worldly woes,--
Where Heaven's flowers, divinely sweet,
Soften the path for weary feet
With perfume of the rose.
FOLGER McKINSEY.
Folger McKinsey was born in Elkton, on the 29th of August, 1866, in the
cottage on Bow street now occupied by Thomas W. Green. His early life
was spent in Elkton, except a few years in childhood when his parents
resided in the West and South, until 1879, when they removed to
Philadelphia, taking their son with them. His paternal grandfather was a
Scotchman, and his grand parents on his mother's side were Germans, from
the country bordering on the Rhine. Through the marriage of his maternal
great grandmother he is distantly related to Daniel Defoe, the author of
Robinson Crusoe. Both his parents are persons of intellectual ability,
and have written verse, his mother having been a contributor to the
local newspapers of this county, and to several western journals.
Mr. McKinsey received his education at the primary school of Miss
Tabitha Jones, on Main street, in Elkton, where he was sent when seven
years of age. Except an attendance of eight months at the public school
of Elkton, he never attended any other schools. In early childhood he
showed a great desire to read, and is indebted to his relative, William
J. Jones, and to L. Marshall Haines and E.E. Ewing for the means of
gratifying his early thirst for information. Shortly after removing to
Philadelphia Mr. McKinsey entered a mercantile establishment as clerk,
but soon afterwards accepted a position in the office of a publishing
house, and subsequently entered the office of the Philadelphia and
Reading railroad company as clerk in the record department. While in the
office of the railroad company he wrote and published his first poem. It
is called "Satana Victo" and is written in blank verse. Since that time
he has been a prolific writer of both poetry and prose, much of which
has been published.
In October, 1884, Mr. McKinsey accepted the position of editor of the
_Shore Gazette_, a weekly journal published at Ocean Beach, N.J., which
he continued to fill for some months, when he returned to Philadelphia
and accepted a position as special writer on a prominent daily journal
of that city. In October, 1885, Mr. McKinsey accepted the position of
associate editor of the _Cecil Whig_, which he continued to fill until
the following March when he became editor of the _Daily_ and _Weekly
News_, of Frederick City, Maryland. During the time he was connected
with the _Whig_ he began the publication of a journal in Darby, called
the _Delaware County Independent_.
In January, 1886, Mr. McKinsey married Miss Fannie Holenrake Dungan, an
estimable young English lady of Camden, N.J. Mr. McKinsey is a great
admirer of Joaquin Miller and Walt Whitman, and a warm personal friend
of the latter.
Though young in years he writes with as much fluency and ease as if he
had been writing poetry for half an ordinary lifetime, and gives promise
of a brilliant career that will be creditable to his native town, and
beneficial to the human race.
WAITING THEIR CROWNS.
They wait, the forest monarchs tall,
In naked beauty on the hills,
Until the snows of Winter fall,
And icy arms embrace the rills.
The golden glory of the days,
When Indian Summer fills the land,
Descends in gleams and dreamful haze,
Like blessings from the Lord's right hand.
No matin call of tardy bird,
Long stayed by sunshine in the north,
Above the fluttering clouds is heard.
A moment's pause, then bursting forth
In all the glorious sweets of song
That thrill from soul to soul aflame,
And die the barren hills among
From whence the summer carols came.
All day the leafless monarchs wave
Their hoary branches high in air,
And white-winged spirits guard the grave
Where late they laid the Autumn fair.
A sterner nature marks the land,
The soft blue airs of spring-time sleep,
The Summer trips it, hand in hand,
With Autumn o'er the distant deep.
Where lift the dim, perpetual isles
Their purple ensigns of the youth
That ever dimples, romps and smiles
Beyond the wrinkled pale of ruth.
And deep within the wooded lane
The oak and pine, in plaintive call,
Unto the wintry tide complain,
As leaves and brown nuts constant fall.
They wait their crowns, the naked kings!
And down the avenues of night
The frosty god, December, brings
Them glistening diadems of white.
White petals of the virgin snow,
With sprigs of ivy here and there,
They deck the forest monarch's brow,
While breezes whistle through his hair.
A sterner nature marks the soul,
Men's lips draw near the cup of life,
They wait to hear the centuries' roll
That bring the kingly crowns of strife.
The spring-time months and summer years
Beside the Autumn days are laid,
Beneath the grave of conquered fears,
Beneath the sloping hill-side's shade.
And deeper joy, serener faith,
Spring forth the golden crowns to grasp,
While death, the monarch, gently lay'th
Upon their brows a kinglier clasp.
They wait no more the golden crown;
Men, trees, the careless days of strife,
Drift onward to the far, sweet town,--
God's kingdom of eternal life.
SEA ECHOES.
I walk not by the sounding sea;
I dwell full many leagues from shore
And still an echo drifts to me
Of the eternal, constant roar
Of waves, that beetle past the crags
And moan in weary flights of song
Where wet sea moss and coral drags
The shiny lengths of sand along.
I see beyond the friendly vales,
And grand old hills that guard my home,
To where the seaward petrel sails
And storm winds of the Northland moan.
I live again in brighter days,
New-born from dreams of the dead past,
When she and I stood there to gaze
At sparkling hull, and spar, and mast
Of some staunch sea-craft bound amain
At will of wayward wind and fate,
Deep plunging in the waves to gain
Some northern isle, or rich estate
Of palm and pine in southward clime,
Where all day long the playful air
Pranks with the grizzled beard of time
And paints his hoary visage fair.
Within the dim, old forests here,
I wander now long leagues from shore,
And still the old song haunts my ear,
The century singing ocean's roar;
And now I know, fond soul of love;
Why still the murmurous echoes live,
And sound for aye the hills above
That back to earth the music give;
She, too, walked there in dreams with me,
In love's sweet unity we trod
The moon-bathed sands, and swore to be
Forever true before our God.
I see it still, her pale, calm face,
With angel love-light in her eyes,
And ever there, beside such grace,
A dim, sweet token of surprise.
Oh, tender touch of one soft hand!
I held it then in simple trust,
Alas, ye waves that lick the sand!
How long has that hand lain in dust?
I see her soul in yonder star,
I see the soft lines of her face,
And could God so unkindly mar
That angel beauty and its grace?
Roll, murmuring echoes of the sea!
Repeat thy sweet, immortal moan,
Drift ever inland unto me
Within my sunny Southern home;
And it shall be a tender dream--
Thy plaintive music thrilling me,
And her star face above--shall seem
Like other days beside the sea
When our lips touched eternally.
WHERE FANCY DWELLS.
The sea winds blow from western isles,
From isles where fancy dwells and peace.
Where summer sunshine softly smiles
And perfumes of the far off east
Float over waves white-capped with foam
That glisten in the pale sweet light
Shed from the far eternal dome
Where fair star faces paint the night.
Life must have rest sometime, somewhere,
On land or wave its peace shall be,
And I have found my life's fond share
In yon fair isle of Hebride;
In yon fair isle where all day long
The sunlight shadows drift and float
And all the world seems bathed in song
Borne trembling from the skylark's throat.
O! isle of peace, the waves that kiss
Thy beaches all the centuries through,
Flow from mysterious founts of bliss
From founts o'er run with sunny dew,
And o'er thy tree-tops lazily
The perfumed breezes come and go
With odors from that far countree
Where eglantine and jessamine grow.
Fair isle of summer, isle of love,
Where souls forget their bitter strife
And mingled sadnesses that move
In tempests o'er the sea of life;
I kiss thy fair shore with my knee,
And lift a thankful heart to God,
For perfect joy comes unto me
Where thy trees' blossomed branches nod.
Thy long sea waves float in beyond
The dim blue lines of sunlit sky,
Where films of cloudy lacework frond
The billows tumbling mountain high;
And shoreward in the still sweet eve
The low songs of the mermaids drift,
As in some coral grot they weave
Their seaweed robes, and sometimes lift
Their long, strong, tangled lengths of hair
Above the bosom of the wave,
While 'mid its golden meshes fair
The distant sunbeams stoop to lave.
Sweet isle of fancy, far beyond
The dark dim vales of human woe,
My bark of love sails o'er the fond
Blue waves that ever shoreward flow.
My bark sails on the unknown sea
Led by a large, pale star alone,
That star wherein her face may be,
Who to that better land hath gone.
O, never turn, brave white-sailed ship,
Again towards that barren shore
But bear me on the waves that dip
And kiss yon isle forevermore.
Sweet day of rest when toil is past,
When hearts can lay their burdens by
And feel the peace God's angels cast
In isleward flights from his fair sky!
Sweet isle of love where fancy dwells,
And nature knows no pang of care,
I hear the music of its bells
Far floating on the evening air.
I hear the lonely shepherd's song
Flow down the green and mossy vale,
And westward all the calm night long
The restless sea gulls sail.
I sometimes turn towards the stars
With sudden shock of glad surprise,
And half believe these island bars
Are but the gates to Paradise.
AT KEY'S GRAVE.
I stood one summer, friend, beside
The foam waves of a distant sea
That muttered all the summer through
A low sweet threnody.
A mournful song was ever on
The lips that it were death to kiss,
A song for those who died as died
The brave at ancient Salamis.
A thousand graves lay in the trough
Of that great ocean of the East,
A thousand souls fled through its foam
Towards the starlit land of peace.
And for each ship-wrecked soul that slept
Beneath the dark inconstant waves
The wind gave songs in memory
Of men true-hearted, pure and brave.
But I have stood, sweet-singer, by
Thy lonely, unmarked grave to-day,
And all the songs thy memory got
Came from the branches in their sway.
Ah, peace! ah, love! ah, friendship true!
No wreath rests here wove by your hands
To mark the Poet's silent tomb.
As tombs are marked in other lands.
But in my noon-day dream there came
From the fair bosom of the hills
The voice of some sweet psalmist, thus--
"'Tis so God wills, 'tis so God wills."
THE ETERNAL LIFE.
I care not for the life that is,
I think not of the things that are;
I live, oh! soul of tenderness,
Beneath an angel blessedness
That draws its light from one small star.
I know not if the world be ill,
I care not for its throb of pain,
I live, oh heart, in fellowship
With other hearts that rise and dip
In the great sea that floods the main
From east to west with tides of love--
The ocean of Eternal Life,
Whose waves flow ever free and warm
From land of snow to land of palm
And heal the naked wounds of strife.
I only know God's law is just,
And that is all we need to know,
I live down creeds of hate and spite,
I build the nobler creeds of right
That beautify our beings so.
The days are brief that come apace,
When morn wakes up and night sinks down,
But far beyond the hills of jet
The glory of the sweet sunset
Lights all the steeples of the town
Within whose walls no sadness lives,
No broken hearts, no simple strife,
For that I live, oh soul of faith,
For that whereof the Master saith
"Here find eternal love and life."
MRS. ROSALIENE ROMULA MURPHY.
Mrs. Rosaliene Romula Murphy, daughter of John and Hannah Mooney, was
born in Philadelphia, May, 1, 1838, and married Thomas H.P. Murphy, son
of John C. and Ann Rothwell Murphy, and grandson of Hyland Price, of
Cecil county, on the 18th of May, 1858. Her education was obtained at a
school taught by the Sisters of Mercy, and at the public schools of her
native city.
Immediately after her marriage Mrs. Murphy came to Cecil county, and for
ten years resided near the head of Bohemia river; subsequently she has
resided in Middletown, Delaware, in Chester county, Pennsylvania, and
for the last ten years in Philadelphia. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy are the
parents of eight children, four of whom are now living.
From early childhood Mrs. Murphy has shown a remarkable aptitude for
literary work, and when quite a little girl at school, frequently took
the highest average for composition. She commenced to write for the
press at an early age and while in this county contributed poetry to the
columns of the local newspapers and some of the journals of Wilmington
and Philadelphia.
WOMAN'S RIGHTS.
Woman has certain rights I own,
That none will dare deny;
No king nor senate can destroy
Her claims,--nor will they try.
'Tis hers to smooth the homeward path
Of age,--her strength their stay;
To guide their feeble footsteps here,--
To brush life's thorns away.
'Tis hers to make a sunny home,
To cherish and support
With love, the one who claims her heart,
Through good and bad report.
To watch the tiny sleeping babe,
Just nestling in her breast,
To shield it with her mother-love,
And guard it in its rest.
To watch in vigils of the night,
The fever-tossed frame;
To cool the dry, and parched lips,
And ease the racking pain.
To close the eyes when all is o'er,
To weep with those who weep;
To help the weary in their task,
Keep guard whilst others sleep.
To love and cherish, guard, protect,
Make home a sunny spot--
Keep ever pure her mother name,
A name not soon forgot!
To win and wear her husband's love,
As an honored, cherished crest;
To hold her children's hearts, so "they
Will rise and call her bless'd."
To nobly share the widow's woe,
To dry the orphan's tears,
To pray for strength for hearts oppress'd,
And help allay their fears;
To reach a helping, loving hand,
To those who go astray,
And woo them back again to God,
As they faint along the way.
She claims but loving trusting hearts!--
Let all their wealth be shown!--
No law can take, nor ballot give
The jewels of her crown!
These, these, are all a woman's rights--
Quite easy to attain--
For most she governs, it is said,
"When least she seems to reign."
ONLY A BABY.
My way was stopped, as I hurried on,
A carriage pass'd--and again 'twas clear,
But my glance took in the tiny box,
And the mourners bending near.
"Only a baby"--was lightly said--
As I safely crossed the street,
But my heart went with the little group,
With their darling at their feet.
"Only a baby,"--God but knows
The mother's bleeding heart;
And the father's white, sad face would tell,
How hard it is to part.
"Only a baby!" what a void,
In a merry, cheery home;
An empty cradle, a half worn shoe;
And a mother's broken tone.
"Only a baby!" the aching eyes
Look out on the busy street,
And fall on other laughing babes,
And the silent form at her feet.
"Only a baby!" a desolate home,
Those stricken hearts will know,
When they lay their darling down to rest,
'Neath the willows bending low.
"Only a baby!" how cold it seemed
To speak of the angel near,--
My heart went after the snowy form.
For its parents I breathed a prayer:
"Only a baby!" ah, the weary day
And the sleepless night,
The feverish longing--the aching heart--
For the baby gone from sight!
"Only a baby!" the heart sobs out,
What hopes lie shatter'd here,
The broken bud--the tiny frame,
An angel hovering near.
"Only a baby!"--the years creep by--
'Twill ever be, tho' locks be gray;
Growing no older--only their babe;
As years before it passed away.
TO HELEN,
ON WRITING A SECOND TIME IN HER ALBUM.
You plucked a grey hair from my head,
To-day, as you stood near me:
There's plenty more, that are deftly hid
By wavy crimps,--I fear me.
'Tis many years since last I wrote,
With fun, and spirits plenty;
But now my fourth son has a vote,
And my babe's not far from twenty.
Ah! so it goes; old time strides on,
Nor cares for years, and worries,
But knocks us here; and hits us there,
As past us quick he hurries;
We still are friends, and have our fun,
In spite of years, and trouble;
We've planted, reaped, and had our day.
And now we're in the stubble.
RACHEL ELIZABETH PATTERSON.
Rachel Elizabeth Patterson, better known as Lizzie Patterson, is the
daughter of William Patterson and Sarah (Catts) Patterson, and was born
in Port Deposit, February 2, 1820. She is also the granddaughter of an
Englishman who settled on Taylor's Island, in Chesapeake Bay, where he
owned considerable property, which by some means seems to have been lost
by his family.
Her father at one time kept a clothing store in Port Deposit, where he
died when the subject of this sketch was quite young, leaving a family
of helpless children, who were soon scattered among strangers. Elizabeth
was placed in a family residing a short distance south of the village of
Rising Sun. While in this family she was seized with a violent illness,
which confined her to bed for many months and from which she arose a
cripple and a sufferer for life.
Her poetic talent began to manifest itself in those early days of
suffering, and during subsequent years of confinement she found solace
and recreation by composing her "Songs in Affliction," which about
thirty years ago, in accordance with the advice of her friends, she
published in a small volume bearing that name. The first edition
consisted of eight hundred, and was so well received as to warrant the
publication of another one of five hundred copies. In 1872 she published
another small volume, entitled "The Little Streamlet," which contained
some poems written since the publication of the first volume. Miss
Patterson at present and for many years past has resided in Baltimore.
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