The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland by Various

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THE BOOK OF BOOKS.

Written on a blank leaf of a Bible presented to Martha Cowan, June
1st, 1868.

Esteemed young friend
This book I send,
I know full well thou wilt receive;
For thou canst read
Its shining creed,
And understand it and believe.

Oh could I say
As much to-day,
What joys would thrill this heart of grief,--
I do believe.
Oh Lord, receive
My prayer--help THOU mine unbelief!

This book though small,
Is more than all
The wealth of India to thee;
Oh priceless treasure!
Rich beyond measure
Are all who build their hopes on thee.

THE LESSON OF THE SEASONS.

Written for a little girl on her eleventh birthday.

Fleeting time is on the wing--
Surely Winter, joyous Spring,
Glowing Summer, Autumn sere,
Mark the changes of the year.

Late the earth was green and fair,
Flowers were blooming everywhere;
Birds were singing in the trees,
While the balmy healthful breeze,
Laden with perfume and song,
Health and beauty flowed along.

But a change comes o'er the scene;
Still the fields and trees are green,
And the birds keep singing on,
Though the early flowers are gone;
And the melting noon-day heat,
Strips the shoes from little feet,
And the coats from little backs;
While the paddling bare-foot tracks,
In the brooklet which I see,
Tell of youthful sports and glee.
Hay is rip'ning on the plain,
Fields are rich in golden grain,
Mowers rattle sharp and shrill,
Reapers echo from the hill,
Farmer, dark and brown with heat,
Push your labor--it is sweet,
For the hope, in which you plow,
And sow, you are reaping now.
Corn, which late, was scarcely seen,
Struggling slowly into green,
'Neath the Summer's torrid glow--
How like magic it does grow;
Rising to majestic height,
Drinks the sunbeams with delight,
Sends its rootlets through the soil,
Foraging for hidden spoil;
Riches more than golden ore,
Silent workers they explore:
With their apparatus small,
Noiselessly they gather all.
When their work is done, behold
Treasures, richer far than gold,
Fill the farmers store-house wide--
And his grateful soul beside.

But the scene must change again,
Hill and dell and spreading plain,
Speak so all can comprehend
Summer's reign is at an end.
Forests, gorgeously arrayed,
(Queens such dresses ne'er displayed)
Grace the coronation scene
Of the lovely Autumn queen.
Birds, with multifarious notes,
Ringing from ten thousand throats,
Shout aloud that Summer's dead,
And Autumn reigns in her stead.
Now another change behold--
All the varied tints of gold,
Purple, crimson, orange, green--
Every hue and shade between,
That bedecked the forest trees,
Now lie scattered by the breeze.
The birds have flown. Faithless friends
Love the most when they're best fed;
And when they have gained their ends,
Shamefully have turned and fled.
Winter claims his wide domain,
And begins his frigid reign.
Thus the seasons come and go:
Spring gives place to Summer's glow;
Then comes mellow Autumn's sway,
Rip'ning fruits and short'ning day;
Gorgeous woods in crimson dress,
Surpassing queens in loveliness.
Then the Frost King mounts the throne,
Claims the empire for his own;
Hail and rain and sleet and snow
Are his ministers that go
On the swift wings of the blast,
At his bidding, fierce and fast.

Like the seasons of the year,
Your young life will change, my dear.
Now you're in your early Spring,
Hope and joy are on the wing;
Flow'rets blooming fresh and gay,
Shed their fragrance round your way.
Summer's heat is coming fast,
And your Spring will soon be past;
For, where you are, I have been;
All that you see, I have seen.
Hopes that beamed around my way,
Cast their light on yours to-day.
All that you do, I have done;
All your childish ways I've run,
All your joys and pangs I've had--
All that make you gay or sad;
I have sported in the brook,
Truant from my work or book;
Chased the butterfly and bee,
Robb'd the bird's nest on the tree;
Damm'd the brook and built my mill;
Flew my kite from hill to hill;
Sported with my top and ball--
Childish joys, I know them all.
Childish sorrows, too I've felt--
Anguish that my heart would melt;
Tears have wet my burning cheek,
Caused by thoughts I could not speak.
Mysteries then confused my brain,
Which have since become more plain;
Much that then seemed plain and clear
Has grown darker year by year;
When my artless prayers I said,
Skies were near--just over head;
And the angels seemed so near,
I could whisper in their ear.
All that I have learned since then,
I would give, if once again,
Those bright visions would return.
For I find, the more I learn,
Further off the skies appear,
And the angels come not near.
Though in better words I pray,
Heaven seems so far away,
That I wish, but wish in vain,
That the skies were near again;
That no other words I knew,
But those simple ones and few,
That the angels used to hear,
When I whispered in their ear.
I would barter all the fame,
Wealth and learning that I claim,
Which a life of toil have cost,
For those priceless seasons lost.

JOHN A. CALHOUN, MY JOE JOHN.

A PARODY.

This poem was the outgrowth of a newspaper controversy between John
A. Calhoun, a school teacher of this county, and one of the trustees
of Jackson Hall, who wrote above the signature of "Turkey," in which
Mr. Calhoun said some rather hard things about the school trustees
of the county. The poem was written at the request of the trustee,
who was the other party engaged in the controversy.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, "I wonder what you mean?"
You're always getting in some scrape and getting off your spleen;
Keep cooler, John, and do not fret, however things may go;
You'll longer last and have more friends, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, don't pout about your name;
It never will disgrace you, John, but you may it defame
By doing silly things, John, and things, you ought to know,
Will but recoil upon yourself, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, the "Turkey" let alone;
My name is very humble, John, but then it is my own.
"There's nothing in a name," John, and this you ought to know,
That actions are the cards that win, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John; your temper must be sour;
Your scholars pester you, John; you flog them every hour.
But leave the rod behind you, John, when from the school you go,
Or else you may get flogged yourself, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, the terror of your name
Does not extend beyond the walls which for your own you claim;
So drop your haughty airs, John, and lay your wattle low,
And people will esteem you more, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, just take a friend's advice;
And drop your pedagogic ways (you know they are not nice;)
And treat grown people with respect, and they the same will show,
And use those "open eyes" of yours, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, the trustees of our schools
Are not so smart as you, John, but then they're not all fools;
And you have made yourself, John, appear a little low,
By your abuse of these poor men, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

John A. Calhoun, my Joe John, now let us part in peace,
And may your honest name, John, so mightily increase,
That half a score of sons, John, may like their father grow--
But just a little modester, John A. Calhoun, my Joe.

EMMA ALICE BROWNE.

Emma Alice Browne was born about forty-five years ago, in an
unpretentious cottage, which is still standing near the northeast corner
of the cross-roads, on the top of Mount Pleasant, or Vinegar Hill, as it
was then called, about a mile west of Colora. She is the oldest child of
William A. Browne and Hester A. Touchstone, sister of the late James
Touchstone. Her father was the youngest son of William Brown, who
married Ann Spear, of Chester county, and settled a few yards north of
the State Line, in what is now Lewisville, Chester county, Pennsylvania,
where his son William was born, early in the present century. He was a
stonemason by trade, and though comparatively uneducated, was possessed
of a brilliant imagination, and so highly endowed by nature with poetic
ability that he frequently amused and delighted his fellow-workmen by
singing songs which he extemporized while at his work. There is no doubt
that his granddaughter, the subject of this sketch, inherited much of
her poetic talent from him; though her family is connected with that of
Mrs. Felicia Hemans, the English poetess, whom though in some respects
she resembles, we hesitate not to say she greatly surpasses in grandeur
of conception and beauty of expression.

William Brown was a half-brother of the mother of the editor of this
book; consequently Emma and he are cousins. If, therefore, this sketch
should seem to exceed or fall short of the truth, the reader must
attribute its imperfections to the inability of the writer to do justice
to the subject, or to the great, but he hopes pardonable, admiration
which he has long entertained for his relative's literary productions.

The Brown family are of Scotch-Irish extraction, and trace their lineage
away back through a long line of ancestors to the time when the name was
spelled Brawn, because of the great muscular development of the rugged
old Scotch Highlander who founded it.

William Brown's early education was obtained at the common schools of
the neighborhood where he was born. He was endowed by nature with a
logical mind, a vivid imagination and great practical common sense; and
a memory so tenacious as to enable him to repeat a sermon almost, if not
quite, verbatim, a year after he had heard it delivered. Early in life
he became an exemplary member of the Methodist Church, and was ordained
as a Local Preacher in the Methodist Protestant persuasion, by the Rev.
John G. Wilson, very early in the history of that denomination, in the
old Harmony Church, not far south of Rowlandville. Subsequently he was
admitted to the Conference as a traveling minister and sent to
southeastern Pennsylvania, where he continued to preach the gospel with
much success until his death, which occurred when his daughter Emma was
a child about eight years of age.

Emma's education began on her father's knee, when she was little if any
more than three years old. Before she was four years old she could
repeat Anacreon's Ode to a Grasshopper, which her father had learned
from a quaint old volume of heathen mythology, and taught his little
daughter to repeat, by reciting it aloud to her, as she sat upon his
knee. Subsequently, and before she had learned to read, he taught her in
the same manner "Byron's Apostrophe to the Ocean," Campbell's "Battle of
Hohenlinden," and Byron's "Destruction of Sennacherib," all of which
seem to have made a deep impression upon her infantile mind,
particularly the latter, in speaking of which she characterizes it as "a
poem whose barbaric glitter and splendor captivated my imagination even
at that early period, and fired my fancy with wild visions of Oriental
magnificence and sublimity, so that I believe all my after life caught
color and warmth and form from those early impressions of the gorgeous
word-painting of the East." Emma's subsequent education was limited to a
few weeks' attendance at a young ladies' seminary at West Chester,
Pennsylvania, and a like experience of a few weeks in Wilmington,
Delaware, when she was about sixteen years old. But her mind was so full
of poesy that there was no room in it for ordinary matters and things,
and the duties of a student soon became so irksome that she left both
the institutions in disgust. Of her it may be truly said, "she lisp'd in
numbers, for the numbers came," for she composed verses at four years of
age, and published poems at ten. Her first effusions appeared in a local
paper at Reading, Pa. Being a born poetess, her success as a writer was
assured from the first, and her warmth of expression and richness of
imagery, combined with a curious quaintness, the outgrowth of the deep
vein of mysticism that pervades her nature, soon attracted the attention
of the _literati_ of this country, one of the most distinguished of
whom, the late George D. Prentice, did not hesitate to pronounce her the
most extraordinary woman of America; "for," said he, "if she can't find
a word to suit her purpose, she makes one." While some of her earlier
poems may have lacked the artistic finish and depth of meaning of those
of mature years, they had a beauty and freshness peculiar to themselves,
which captivated the minds and rarely failed to make a deep impression
upon the hearts of those who read them.

In 1855, the family came to Port Deposit, where they remained about two
years, and then went West, Emma having secured a good paying position on
the _Missouri Republican_, for which she wrote her only continued story,
"Not Wanted." For the last twenty years she has been a regular
contributor to the _New York Ledger_.

In 1864, Emma came East and was married to Captain J. Lewis Beaver, of
Carroll county, Maryland, whose acquaintance she made while he was a
wounded invalid in the Naval School Hospital at Annapolis. After her
marriage, she continued to write under her maiden name, and has always
been known in the literary world as Emma Alice Browne, though all the
rest of the family spell the name without the final vowel. Her marriage
was not a fortunate one, and the writer in deference to the wishes of
his relative, will only say she is now a widow, with three sons, the
youngest of whom seems to have inherited much of his mother's poetic
talent, and who, though only about ten years of age, has written some
very creditable verses, which have been published.

Within a year or two, Emma has developed a talent for painting, which
seems to have been overshadowed and dwarfed by her poetic faculty, but
which now bids fair to make her as famous as an artist as she has long
been as a poetess. She resides in Danville, Illinois, and is about
publishing a volume of poems, which will be the first book from her pen.

The following selections have been made with the view of showing the
versatility, rather than the poetic beauty and power of their author.
Most, if not all, of those designated as earlier poems were written more
than thirty years ago.

EARLIER POEMS.

MY BROTHER.

Oh, brier rose clamber;
And cover the chamber--
The chamber, so dreary and lone--
Where with meekly-closed lips,
And eyes in eclipse,
My brother lies under the stone.

Oh, violets, cover,
The narrow roof over,
Oh, cover the window and door!
For never the lights,
Through the long days and nights,
Make shadows across the floor!

The lilies are blooming,
The lilies are white,
Where his play haunts used to be;
And the sweet cherry blossoms
Blow over the bosoms
Of birds in the old roof tree.

When I hear on the hills
The shout of the storm,
In the valley the roar of the river;
I shiver and shake,
On the hearth stone warm,
As I think of his cold "forever."

His white hands are folded,
And never again,
With the song of the robin or plover,
When the Summer has come,
With her bees and her grain,
Will he play in the meadow clover.

Oh, dear little brother,
My sweet little brother,
In the palace above the sun,
Oh, pray the good angels,
The glorious evangels,
To take me--when life is done.

MY FATHER.

IN MEMORIAM, 1857.

The late George D. Prentice in speaking of this poem used the
following language: "To our minds there is nothing in all the In
Memoriam of Tennyson more beautiful than the following holy tribute
to a dead father from our young correspondent at Pleasant Grove."
The poem was first published in the "Louisville Journal" of which
Mr. Prentice was the editor.

[Transcriber's note: The original text referred to the "Louirville
Journal" (clearly an erratum).]

My Father! Orphan lips unknown
To love's sweet uses sob the word
My father! dim with anguish, heard
In Heaven between a storm of moan
And the white calm that faith hath fixed
For solace, far beyond the world,
Where, all our starry dreams unfurled,
We drink the wine of peace unmixed.

Mine! folded in the awful trust
That draws the world's face down in awe,
Holding her breath, as if she saw
God's secret written in the dust--
My father! oh, the dreary years
The dreary winds have wailed across
Since his path, from the hills of loss,
Wound, shining, o'er the golden spheres.

What time the Angel at our door
Said soft, between our orphan-moan--
Arise! oh, soul! the night is done
And day hath bloomed forevermore!
I locked my icy hand across
My sobbing heart and sadly cried--
I lose thee in the glorified--
The world is darkened with my loss!

Oh, Angel! cried I--wrath complete!
With awful brows and eyes intense!
(For faith's white robe of reverence
Slid noiseless to my sorrow's feet)
Oh, Angel, help me out of strife!
I could have borne all mortal pain--
I could have lived my life in vain--
But this hath touched my inner life!

And eighteen hundred fifty-seven
Hath filled a decade of slow years
Since first my orphan cries and tears
Broke wild across the walls of Heaven.
This eve his grave is winter-white!
And 'twixt the snow-wind's stormy thrills
I hear across the Northern hills
The solemn footsteps of the night!

Blow wind! Oh, wind, blow wild and high!
Blow o'er the dismal space of woods--
Blow down the roaring Northern floods
And let the dreary day go by!
Blow, wind, from out the shining West,
And wrap the hazy world in glow--
Blow wind and drift about my snow
The summer of his endless rest!

For he has fallen fast asleep
And cannot give me moan for moan--
My heart is heavy as a stone
And there is no one left to weep!
My _soul_ is heavy and doth lie
Reaching up from my wretchedness--
Reaching up blindly for redress
The stern gray walls of entity!

Once in the golden spring-time hours,
In the sweet garden of my youth,
There fell a seed of bitter truth
That sprang and shadowed all the flowers--
Alone! The roses died apace
And pale the mournful violet blew--
Only the royal lily grew
And glorified the lonesome place!

In me the growth of human ills
Than human love had reached no higher,
But Seraphim with lips of fire
Have won me to the shining hills--
I cannot hide my soul in art--
I cannot mend my life's defect--
This thunderous space of intellect
God gave me for a peaceful heart!

Hush! oh, my mournful heart, be still,
The heavy night is coming on,
But heavier lie the shadows drawn
About his grave so low and chill--
From out the awful sphere of God,
Oh, deathly wind, blow soft and low!
My soul is weary and would go
Where never foot of mortal trod!

AT THE NIGHTFALL.

I muse alone in the fading light,
Where the mournful winds forever
Sweep down from the dim old hills of night,
Like the wail of a haunted river.

Alone! by the grave of a buried love,
The ghostly mist is parted,
Where the stars shine faint in the blue above,
Like the smile of the broken-hearted.

The living turn from my fond embrace,
As if no love were needed;
The tears I wept on thy young dead face
Were never more unheeded

Than my wild prayer for peace unwon--
One pure affection only,
One faithful heart to lean upon,
When life is sad and lonely.

The low grassy roof, my glorious dead,
Is bright with the buttercup's blossom,
And the night-blooming roses burn dimly and red
On the green sod that covers thy bosom.

Thy pale hands are folded, oh beautiful saint,
Like lily-buds chilly and dew-wet,
And the smile on thy lip is as solemn and faint
As the beams of a norland sunset.

The angel that won thee a long time ago
To the shore of the glorious immortals,
In the sphere of the starland shall wed us, I know,
When I pass through the beautiful portals.

THE MIDNIGHT CHIME.

Suggested by the tolling of the bell on the sash factory in Port
Deposit on a stormy night in January, 1856.

The rain is the loudest and wildest
Of rains that ever fell;
And the winds like an army of chanters
Through the desolate pine-woods swell,
And hark! through the shout of the tempest,
The sound of the midnight bell.

Now close on the storm it rises,
Now sadly it sinks with a moan--
Like a human heart in its anguish,
Crushing a fruitless groan--
Like a soul that goes wailing and pining,
Thro' the motherless world, alone.

Is it hung in an ancient turret?
Is it swung by a mortal hand?
Is it chiming in woe or gladness,
Its symphonies sweet and grand?
Is it rung for a shadowy sorrow,
In the shadowy phantom land?

Alas for the beautiful guesses
That live in a poet's rhyme--
'Tis only the bell of the factory
Tolling its woe sublime;
And the wind is the ghostly ringer,
Ringing the midnight chime.

Toll, mournful bell of the tempest,
Through my dreams by sleep unblest;
My bosom is throbbing as madly
To surges of wild unrest--
E'en as thy heart of iron
Is beating thy brazen breast!

MAY-THALIA.

TO THOMAS HEMPSTEAD.

Thy lay--a sweet sung bridal hymn,
Wedding the Old year to the New,
'Mid starry buds, and silver dew,
And brooks, and birds in woodlands dim--

That touched the hidden veins of thought
With the electric force of strife,
Thrilled the dumb marble of my life
Unto a perfect beauty wrought.

And straight, unclasping from my brow
The thorny crown of lost delight,
The solemn grandeur of the night
Flashed on me from old years, as now.

The budding of my days is past!
And May sits weeping in the shade
The weeds on April's grave have made,
Blown slantwise in the sobbing blast.

Ah me! but in the Poet's heart
Some pools of troubled water lie!
The hidden founts of agony,
That keep the better springs apart.

What comfort is there in the Earth!
What height, or depth, where we may hide
Our life long anguish, and abide
The ripening unto newer birth!

But Poet, in thy song is power
To lift the flood gates of my woe,
And bid its solemn surging flow
Far from the triumph of this hour.

Yea, rising from life's evil things,
My soul, long blinded from the light,
Starlit across the purple night
Sweeps the red lightning of her wings!

I will be free! there is a strength
In the full blowing of our youth
To climb the rosied hills of truth
From the dry desert's burning length.

From far a voice shouts to my fate
As shout the choiring Angels, when
The fiery cross of suffering men
Falls broken at the narrow gate!

Be brave! be noble, and sublime
Thyself unto a higher aim--
Keeping thy nature white of blame
In all the dreary walks of time!

Oh musty creeds in mouldy books!
Blind teachers of the blind are ye--
A plainer wisdom talks with me
In God's full psalmody of brooks.

The rustling of a leaf hath force
To wake the currents of my blood,
That sweep, a wild Niagara-flood,
Hurled headlong in its fiery course.

The moaning of the wind hath power
To stir the anthem of my soul,
Unto a mightier thunder roll
Than ever shook a triumph hour.

Betwixt the gorgeous twilight bars
Rare truths flow from melodious lips--
God's all-sublime Apocalypse--
His awful poem writ in stars!

Each ray that spends its burning might
In the alembic of the morn,
Is, in the Triune splendors, born
Of the great uncreated light!

To me the meanest creeping thing
Speaks with a loud Evangel tongue,
Of the far climes forever young
In His all-glorious blossoming.

And thus, oh Poet! hath thy lay--
Woven of brightest buds and flowers
Blowing, in breezy South-land bowers,
Against the blushing face of May--

A passion, and a power, that thrills
My hidden nature unto strife,
To battle bravely, for the life
Across the dim Eternal hills!

MEMORIES.

While the wild north hills are reddening
In the sunset's fiery glow,
And along the dreary moorlands,
Shine the stormy drifts of snow,
Sit I in my voiceless chamber
From the household ones apart,
And again is Memory lighting
The pale ruins of my heart.

And again are white hands sweeping,
Wildly, its invisible chords,
With the burden of a sorrow
That I may not wed to words.
Vainly I this day have striven,
List'ning to the snow-wind's roll,
To forget the haunting music
That is throbbing in my soul.

Not my pleasant household duties,
Nor the rosied light of Morn,
Nor the banners of the sunset
On the wintry hills forlorn,
Could unclasp the starry yearning
From my mortal, weary breast,
Nor interpret the weird meaning
Of the phantom's wild unrest.

All last night I heard the crickets
Chirping on the lonely hearth,
And I thought of him that lieth
In the embraces of the earth;
Till the lights died in the village,
And the armies of the snow,
In the bitter woods of midnight
Tracked the wild winds to and fro.

Oh my lover, safely folded
In the shadow of the grave,
While about my low-roofed dwelling
Moaning gusts of winter rave.
Well I know thy pale hands, folded
In the silence of long years,
Cannot give me back caresses
For my sacrifice of tears.

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