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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[Footnote A: The Pantheon that was built to all the gods was transformed
into a Christian temple.]
THE INFANT ST. JOHN, THE BAPTIST.
O sweeter than the breath of southern wind
With all its perfumes is the whisper'd prayer
From infant lips, and gentler than the hind,
The feet that bear
The heaven-directed youth in wisdom's pathway fair.
And thou, the early consecrate, like flowers
Didst shed thy incense breath to heaven abroad;
And prayer and praise the measure of thy hours,
The desert trod
Companionless, alone, save of the mighty God.
As Phosphor leads the kindling glory on,
And fades, lost in the day-god's bright excess,
So didst thou in Redemption's coming dawn,
Grow lustreless,
The fading herald of the Sun of Righteousness.
But when the book of life shall be unsealed,
And stars of glory round the throne divine
In all their light and beauty be revealed,
The brightest thine
Of all the hosts of earth with heavenly light shall shine.
SHELLEY'S OBSEQUIES.
Ibi tu calentem
Debita sparges lacryma favillam
Vatis amici.
--Horace.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, an eminent English poet, while sailing in the
Mediterranean sea, in 1822, was drowned off the coast of Tuscany in
a squall which wrecked the boat in which he had embarked. Two weeks
afterwards his body was washed ashore. The Tuscan quarantine
regulations at that time required that whatever came ashore from the
sea should be burned. Shelley's body was accordingly placed on a
pyre and reduced to ashes, in the presence of Lord Byron and Leigh
Hunt, who are the "brother bards" referred to in the last stanza of
the poem.
Beneath the axle of departing day
The weary waters on the horizon's verge
Blush'd like the cheek of children tired in play,
As bore the surge
The poet's wasted form with slow and mournful dirge.
On Via Reggio's surf-beaten strand
The late-relenting sea, with hollow moan
Gave back the storm-tossed body to the land,
As if in tone
Of sorrow it bewailed the deed itself had done.
There laid upon his bed of shells--around
The moon and stars their lonely vigils kept;
While in their pall-like shades the mountains bound
And night bewept
The bard of nature as in death's cold arms he slept.
The tuneful morn arose with locks of light--
The ear that drank her music's call was chill;
The eye that shone was sealed in endless night,
And cold and still
The pulses stood that 'neath her gaze were wont to thrill.
With trees e'en like the sleeper's honors sered
And prows of galleys, like his bosom riven,
The melancholy pile of death was reared
Aloft to heaven,
And on its pillared height the corpse to torches given.
From his meridian throne the eye of day
Beheld the kindlings of the funeral fire,
Where, like a war-worn Roman chieftain, lay
Upon his pyre
The poet of the broken heart and broken lyre.
On scented wings the sorrowing breezes came
And fanned the blaze, until the smoke that rushed
In dusky volumes upward, lit with flame
All redly blushed
Like Melancholy's sombre cheek by weeping flushed.
And brother bards upon that lonely shore
Were standing by, and wept as brightly burned
The pyre, till all the form they loved before,
To ashes turned,
With incense, wine, and tears was sprinkled and inurned.
THE FOUNTAIN REVISITED.
Let the classic pilgrim rove,
By Egeria's fount to stand,
Or sit in Vancluse's grot of love,
Afar from his native land;
Let him drink of the crystal tides
Of the far-famed Hippocrene,
Or list to the waves where Peneus glides
His storied mounts between:
But dearer than aught 'neath a foreign sky
Is the fount of my native dell,
It has fairer charms for my musing eye
For my heart a deeper spell.
Dear fount! what memories rush
Through the heart and wildered brain,
As beneath the old beech I list to the gush
Of thy sparkling waves again;
For here in a fairy dream
With friends, my childhood's hours
Glided on like the flow of thy beautiful stream,
And like it were wreathed with flowers:
Here we saw on thy waves, from the shade,
The dance of the sunbeams at noon;
Or heard, half-afraid, the deep murmurings made
In thy cavernous depths, 'neath the moon.
I have heard thy waves away
From thy scenes, dear fount, apart;
And have felt the play, in life's fevered day,
Of thy waters through my heart;
But oh! thou art not the same:
Youth's friends are gone--I am lone--
Thy beeches are carved with many a name
Now graved on the funeral stone.
As I stand and muse, my tears
Are troubling the stream whose waves
The lullaby sang to their infantile years,
And now murmur around their graves.
DEATH OF SAMSON.
Within Philistia's princely hall
Is held a glorious festival,
And on the fluctuant ether floats
The music of the timbrel's notes,
While living waves of voices gush,
Echoing among the distant hills,
Like an impetuous torrent's rush
When swollen by a thousand rills.
The stripling and the man of years,
Warriors with twice ten thousand spears,
Peasants and slaves and husbandmen,--
The shepherd from his mountain glen,
Vassal, and chief arrayed in gold
And purple robes--Philistines all
Are drawn together to behold
Their mighty foeman held in thrall.
Loud pealed the accents of the horn
Upon the air of the clear morn,
And deafening rose the mingled shout,
Cleaving the air from that wild rout,
As, guarded by a cavalcade
The illustrious prisoner appeared
And, 'mid the grove the dense spears made,
His forehead like a tall oak reared.
He stood with brawny shoulders bare,
And tossed his nervous arms in air--
Chains, leathern thongs, and brazen bands
Parted like wool within his hands;
And giant trunks of gnarled oak,
Splintered and into ribbons rent,
Or by his iron sinews broke,
Increased the people's wonderment.
The amphitheatre, where stood
Spell-bound the mighty multitude,
Rested its long and gilded walls
Upon two pillars' capitals:
His brawny arms, with labor spent,
He threw around the pillars there,
And to the deep blue firmament
Lifted his sightless orbs in prayer.
Anon the columns move--they shake,
Totter, and vacillate, and shake,
And wrenched by giant force, come down
Like a disrupted mountain's crown,
With cornice, frieze, and chapiter,
Girder, and spangled dome, and wall,
Ceiling of gold, and roof of fir,
Crumbled in mighty ruin all.
Down came the structure--on the air
Uprose in wildest shrieks despair,
Rolling in echoes loud and long
Ascending from the myriad throng:
And Samson, with the heaps of dead
Priest, vassal, chief, in ruin blent,
Piled over his victorious head
His sepulchre and monument.
AN INFANT'S PRAYER.
The day is spent, on the calm evening hours,
Like whispered prayer, come nature's sounds abroad,
And with bowed heads the pure and gentle flowers
Shake from their censers perfume to their God;
Thus would I bow the head and bend the knee,
And pour my soul's pure incense, Lord, to Thee.
Creator of my body, I adore,
Redeemer of my soul, I worship Thee,
Preserver of my being, I implore
Thy light and power to guide and shelter me;
Be Thou my sun, as life's dark vale I tread,
Be thou my shield to guard my infant head.
And when these eyes in dewy sleep shall close,
Uplifted now in love to Thy great throne,
In the defenceless hours of my repose,
Father and God, oh! leave me not alone,
But send thy angel minister's to keep
With hovering wings their vigils while I sleep.
JOHN MARCHBORN COOLEY.
John Marchborn Cooley, the eldest son of the late Corbin Cooley, was
born at the Cooley homestead, on the Susquehanna river, in Cecil county,
a short distance below the junction of that stream and the Octoraro
creek, on the first of March, 1827; and died at Darlington, Harford
county, Maryland, April 13th, 1878.
In childhood he showed a taste for learning, and in early youth was sent
to West Nottingham Academy, where he received his education. While at
the Academy he is said to have been always willing to write the
compositions of his fellow students, and to help them with any literary
work in which they were engaged.
Mr. Cooley studied law in the office of the late Col. John C. Groome,
and was admitted to the Elkton bar on the 4th of April, 1850. He
practiced his profession in Elkton for a short time, during a part of
which he was counsel to the County Commissioners, but removed to Warsaw,
Illinois, where he continued to practice his profession for six years,
after which he came to Harford county, where he resided until the
outbreaking of the war of the rebellion, when he joined the Union army
and continued to serve his country until the close of the war. In 1866,
he married Miss Hattie Lord, of Manchester, New Hampshire, and settled
in Darlington, Harford county, Maryland, where he was engaged in
teaching a classical school until the time of his death.
Mr. Cooley was born within a few miles of the birthplace of William P.
and E.E. Ewing, and Emma Alice Brown and almost within sight of the
mansion in which Mrs. Hall wrote the poems which are published in this
book.
Mr. Cooley was a born poet, a voluminous and beautiful writer, and the
author of several poems of considerable length and great merit.
Mr. Cooley's widow and son, Marvin L. Cooley, still survive, and at
present reside in Darlington.
A STORY WITH A MORAL.
One ev'ning, as some children play'd
Beneath an oak tree's summer shade,
A stranger, travel-stained and gray,
Beside them halted on his way.
As if a spell, upon them thrown,
Had changed their agile limbs to stone,
Each in the spot where it first view'd
Th' approaching wand'rer mutely stood.
Ere silence had oppressive grown
The old man's voice thus found a tone;
"I too was once as blithe and gay--
My days as lightly flew away
As if I counted all their hours
Upon a dial-plate of flowers;
And gentle slumber oft renew'd
The joyance of my waking mood,
As if my soul in slumber caught
The radiance of expiring thought;
As if perception's farewell beam
Could tinge my bosom with a dream--
That twilight of the mind which throws
Such mystic splendor o'er repose.
Contrasted with a youth so bright
My manhood seems one dreary night,
A chilling, cheerless night, like those
Which over Arctic regions close.
I married one, to my fond eyes
An angel draped in human guise.
Alas! she had one failing;
No secret could she keep
In spite of all my railing,
And curses loud and deep.
No matter what the danger
Of gossiping might be,
She'd gossip with a stranger
As quickly as with me.
One can't be always serious,
And talking just for show,
For that is deleterious
To fellowship, and so
I oft with her would chatter,
Just as I felt inclined,
Of any little matter
I chanced to call to mind.
Alas! on one ill-fated day,
I heard an angry neighbor say,
'Don't tell John Jones of your affairs,
Don't tell him for your life,
Without you wish the world to know,
For he will tell his wife.'
'For he will tell his wife' did ring
All day through heart and brain;
In sleep a nightmare stole his voice,
And shouted it again.
I spent whole days in meditating
How I should break the spell,
Which made my wife keep prating
Of things she shouldn't tell.
Some awful crime I'll improvise,
Which I'll to her confide,
Upon the instant home I rushed,
My hands in blood were dyed.
'Now, Catharine, by your love for me,
My secret closely hide.'
Her quiet tongue, for full three days,
The secret kept so well,
I almost grew to hope that she
This secret wouldn't tell.
Alas! upon the following day
She had revealed it, for I found
Some surly men with warrants arm'd
Were slyly lurking round.
They took me to the county jail
My tristful Kate pursuing,
And all the way she sobb'd and cried
'Oh! what have I been doing?'
Before the judge I was arraigned,
Who sternly frowning gazed on me,
And by his clerk straightway inquired,
What was the felon's plea.
May't please your honor, I exclaim'd
This case you may dismiss--
Now hearken all assembled here,
My whole defence is this:
I killed a dog--a thievish wretch--
His body may be found,
Beneath an apple tree of mine,
A few feet under ground,
This simple plot I laid in hope
To cure my tattling wife;
I find, alas! that she must talk,
Though talking risk my life.
So from her presence then I fled,
In spite of all the tears she shed,
And since, a wand'ring life I've led,
And told the tale where'er I sped."
FORTY YEARS AFTER.
For twenty guests the feast is laid
With luscious wines and viands rare,
And perfumes such as might persuade
The very gods to revel there.
A youthful company gathered here,
Just two score years ago to-day,
Agreed to meet once ev'ry year
Until the last one passed away.
And when the group might fewer grow
The vacant chairs should still be placed
Around the board whereon should glow
The glories of the earliest feast.
One guest was there, with sunken eye
And mem'ry busy with the past--
Could he have chosen the time to die,
Some earlier feast had been his last.
"But thrice we met" the old man said,
But thrice in youthful joy and pride,
When all for whom this board was spread
Were seated gaily at my side.
Then first we placed an empty chair
And ev'ry breast was filled with gloom,
For he we knew, who should be there,
That hour was absent in the tomb.
The jest and song were check'd awhile,
But quickly we forgot the dead,
And o'er each face th' arrested smile
In all its former freedom spread.
For still our circle seem'd intact.
The lofty chorus rose as well
As when our numbers had not lack'd
That voice the more in mirth to swell.
But we parted with a sadder mien
And hands were clasped more kindly then,
For each one knew where death had been
We might expect him o'er again.
Ah! wondrous soon our feast before
A lessening group was yearly spread,
And all our joys were ruffled o'er
With somber mem'ries of the dead.
The song and jest less rude became,
Our voices low and looks more kind,
Each toast recall'd some cherish'd name
Or brought a buried friend to mind.
At length, alas! we were but two
With features shrivel'd, shrunk, and changed,
Whose faded eyes could scarcely view
The vacant seats around us ranged.
But fancy, as we passed the bowl,
Fill'd ev'ry empty chair again.
Inform'd the silent air with soul
And shaped the shadowy void to men.
The breezy air around us stirr'd
With snatches of familiar song,
Nor cared we then how fancy err'd
Since her delusion made us strong.
But now, I am the only guest,
The grave--the grave now covers all
Who joined me at the annual feast
We kept in this deserted hall.
He paused and then his goblet fill'd,
But never touch'd his lips the brim,
His arm was stay'd, his pulses still'd,
And ah! his glazing eyes grew dim.
The farther objects in the room
Have vanish'd from his failing sight;
One broad horizon spreads in gloom
Around a lessening disc of light.
And then he seem'd like one who kept
A vigil with suspended breath--
So kindly to his breast had crept
Some gentlest messenger of death.
THE PAST.
Still--still the Earth each primal grace renews,
And blooms, or brightens with Creation's hues:
Repeats the sun the glories of the sky,
Which upward lured the earliest watcher's eye;
Yet bids his beams the glowing clouds adorn
With all the charms of Earth's initial morn,
And duplicates at eve the splendors yet
That fixed the glance, that first beheld him set.
LOVED AND LOST.
Love cannot call her back again,
But oh! it may presume
With ceaseless accents to complain,
All wildly near her tomb.
A madd'ning mirage of the mind
Still bids her image rise,
That form my heart can never find
Yet haunts my wearied eyes.
Since Earth received its earliest dead,
Man's sorrow has been vain;
Though useless were the tears they shed,
Still I will weep again.
The breast, that may its pangs conceal,
Is not from torture freed,
For still the wound, that will not heal,
Alas! must inly bleed.
Vain Sophist! ask no reason why
The love that cannot save,
Will hover with despairing cry
Around the dear ones grave.
Mine is not frenzy's sudden gust,
The passion of an hour,
Which sprinkles o'er beloved dust
Its brief though burning shower.
Then bid not me my tears to check,
The effort would but fail,
The face, I hid at custom's beck,
Would weep behind its veil.
The tree its blighted trunk will rear,
With sap and verdure gone,
And hearts may break, yet many a year
All brokenly live on.
Earth has no terror like the tomb
Which hides my darling's head,
Yet seeking her amid its gloom,
I grope among the dead.
And oh! could love restore that form
To its recovered grace,
How soon would it again grow warm
Within my wild embrace.
DEATH OF HENRY CLAY, JR.
KILLED IN ONE OF THE BATTLES OF THE MEXICAN WAR.
Fierce as the sword upon his thigh,
Doth gleam the panting soldier's eye,
But nerveless hangs the arm that swayed
So proudly that terrific blade.
The feeble bosom scarce can give
A throb to show he yet doth live,
And in his eye the light which glows,
Is but the stare, that death bestows.
The filmy veins that circling thread
The cooling balls are turning red;
And every pang that racks him now,
Starts the cold sweat up to his brow,
But yet his smile not even death
Could from his boyish face unwreath,
Or in convulsive writhing show
The pangs, that wring the brain below.
To the far fight he seeks to gaze,
Where battling arms yet madly blaze,
And with a gush of manly pride,
Weeps as his banner is descried
Above the piling smoke-clouds borne,
Like the first dubious streaks of morn
That o'er the mountains misty height
Will kindle in a lovely sight.
"A foreign soil my blood doth stain,
And the few drops that yet remain
Add but still longer to my pain.
Land of my birth! thy hills no more
May these fast glazing eyes explore,
Yet oh! may not my body rest
Beneath that sod my heart loves best?
My father--home! Joys most adored
Dwell in that simple English word--
Go, comrades! Till your field is won
Forget me--father, I die thy son."
Hark the wild cry rolls on his ear!
The foe approach who hovered near;
Rings the harsh clang of bick'ring steel
In blows his arm no more may deal.
"Beside me now no longer be,
Ye need not seek to die with me;
Go, friends"--his manly bosom swell'd
With life the stiff'ning wounds withheld;
And struggling to his knees, he shook
The sword his hand had not forsook,
But to his arm it was denied
To slay the foe his heart defied.
The faintly wielded steel was left
In the slight wound it barely cleft.
Borne to the earth by the same thrust,
That smote his en'my to the dust,
His breast receiv'd their cowardly blows--
The fluttering eye-lids slowly close,
Then parting, show the eye beneath
White with the searching touch of Death.
The last thick drops congeal around
The jagged edge of many a wound;
See breaking through the marble skin
The clammy dews that lurk within,
The lip still quivers, but no breath
Seeks the unmoving heart beneath.
Thou gallant Clay--thy name doth cast
A halo o'er the glorious past;
For in the brightness of such blaze
Even Alexander fame decays,
Yes--yes, Columbia's noble son
Died! Monarchs could no more have done.
A VALENTINE.
Oh! for a brief poetic mood
In which to write a merry line--
A line, which might, could, would or should
Do duty as a Valentine.
Then to the woods the birds repair
In pairs, prepared to woo
A mate whose breast shall fondly share
This world's huge load of ceaseless care
Which grows so light when borne by two.
But ah! such language will not suit,
I'd better far have still been mute.
My mate is dead or else she's flown
And I am left to brood alone,
To think of joys of vanish'd years
And banish thus some present tears;
But then our life is but a dream
And things are not what they seem.
LINES
SUGGESTED ON VISITING THE GRAVE OF A DEAR FRIEND.
Like him who mourns a jewel lost
In some unfathomable sea,
The precious gem he cherish'd most--
So, dearest, do I mourn for thee.
For oh! the future is as dark
As is the ocean's barren plain,
Whose restless waters wear no mark
To guide his eyes, who seeks in vain.
True, reckless Fancy dares invade
The realm of time's uncounted hours,
As fondly gay, as if she stray'd
In safety through a land of flowers.
And still doth hope shine bright and warm--
But oh! the light with which it cheers,
My darling one, but glows to form
A rainbow o'er a vale of tears.
GEORGE WASHINGTON CRUIKSHANK.
George W. Cruikshank was born in Fredericktown, Cecil county, Md., May
11th, 1838. He received his early education in the common school of
Cecilton, and was afterwards sent to a military academy at Brandywine
Springs, in New Castle county, Delaware, and graduated at Delaware
College in 1858.
He is among the very best classical and literary scholars that his
native county has produced. Mr. Cruikshank studied law for about a year
in the office of Charles J.M. Gwinn, of Baltimore, but was compelled by
the threatened loss of sight to relinquish study until 1865, when he
completed the prescribed course of reading in the office of Colonel John
C. Groome, in Elkton, and was admitted to the Elkton Bar on September
18th, 1865, and on the same day purchased an interest in _The Cecil
Democrat_, and became its editor, a position he still continues to fill.
In 1883 Mr. Cruikshank became connected with the Baltimore _Day_, which
he edited while that journal existed.
Mr. Cruikshank, in 1869, married his cousin Sarah Elizabeth Cruikshank.
They are the parents of five children--three of whom survive.
Mr. Cruikshank is one of the most forcible and brilliant editorial
writers in the State, and the author of a number of chaste and erudite
poems written in early manhood, only two or three of which have been
published.
STONEWALL JACKSON.
[1863.]
AN IMPROMPTU ON HEARING OF HIS DEATH.
Bury the mighty dead--
Long, long to live in story!
Bury the mighty dead
In his own shroud of glory.
Question not his purpose;
Sully not his name,
Nor think that adventitious aid
Can build or blight his fame,
Nor hope, by obloquizing what
He strove for, glory's laws
Can be gainsaid, or he defiled
Who'd honor any cause.
Question not his motives,
Ye who have felt his might!
Who doubts, that ever saw him strike,
He aimed to strike for right?
His was no base ambition;--
No angry thirst for blood.
Naught could avail to lift his arm,
But love of common good.
Yet, when he deigned to raise it,
Who could resist its power?
Or who shall hope, or friend, or foe,
E'er to forget that hour?
His life he held as nothing.
His country claimed his all.
Ah! what shall dry that country's tears
Fast falling o'er his fall?
His life he held as nothing,
As through the flame he trod;
To duty gave he all of earth
And all beyond to God.
The justness of his effort
He never lent to doubt.
His aim, his arm, his all was fix'd
To put the foe to rout.
Mistrusting earth's tribunals,
Scorning the tyrant's rod,
He chose the fittest Arbiter,
'Twixt foe and sword, his God.
And doubted not, a moment,
That, when the fight was won,
Who rules the fate of nations
Would bid His own:--Well done!
And doubted not, a moment,
As fiercest flashed the fire,
The bullet's fatal blast would call:--
Glad summons!--Come up higher!
And who would hence recall thee?--
Thy work so nobly done!
Enough for mortal brow to wear
The crown thy prowess won:--
Grim warrior, grand in battle!
Rapt christian, meek in prayer!--
Vain age! that fain would reproduce
A character as rare!
The world has owned its heroes;--
Its martyrs, great and good,
Who rode the storm of power,
Or swam the sea of blood:--
Napoleons, Caesars, Cromwells,
Melancthons, Luthers brave!
But, who than Jackson ever yet
Has filled a prouder grave?
The cause for which he struggled,
May fall before the foe:
Stout hearts, devoted to their trust,
All moulder, cold and low.
The land may prove a charnel-house
For millions of the slain,
And blood and carnage mark the track
Where madmen march amain,--
Fanatic heels may scourge it,
Black demons blight the sod;
And hell's foul desolation
Mock Liberty's fair God.--
The future leave no record,
Of mighty struggle there,
Save hollowness, and helplessness,
And bitter, bald despair.--
Proud cities lose their names e'en;
Tall towers fall to earth.--
Mount Vernon fade, and Westmoreland
Forget illustrious birth;--
And yet, upon tradition,
Will float the name of him
Whose virtues time may tarnish not,
Eternity not dim.
Whose life on earth was only,
So grand, so free, so pure,
For brighter realms and sunnier skies,
A preparation sure.
And whose sweet faith, so child-like,
Nor blast, nor surge nor rod,
One moment could avert from
The bosom of his God.
Bury the mighty dead!
Long, long to live in story!
Bury the hero dead
In his own shroud of glory!
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