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Incense," the first edition of which was exhausted in six months. It
"has put him among the foremost of the young American poets." Edmund
Clarence Stedman says of it: "There is real poetry in the book--a
voice worth owning and exercising. I am struck with the beauty and
feeling of the lyrics which I have read--such, for example, as the
stanzas on Lanier and 'The Comrade Hills.'"
WORKS.
Ashes and Incense.
SIDNEY LANIER.
(_From Ashes and Incense._[51])
O Spirit to a kingly holding born!
As beautiful as any southern morn
That wakes to woo the willing hills,
Thy life was hedged about by ills
As pitiless as any northern night;
Yet thou didst make it as thy "Sunrise" bright.
The seas were not too deep for thee; thine eye
Was comrade with the farthest star on high.
The marsh burst into bloom for thee,--
And still abloom shall ever be!
Its sluggish tide shall henceforth bear alway
A charm it did not hold until thy day.
And Life walks out upon the slipping sands
With more of flowers in her trembling hands
Since thou didst suffer and didst sing!
And so to thy dear grave I bring
One little rose, in poor exchange for all
The flowers that from thy rich hand did fall.
FOOTNOTE:
[51] By permission of the author, and publishers, J. B. Lippincott
Co., Phila.
MADISON CAWEIN.
~1865=----.~
MADISON CAWEIN, born at Louisville, Kentucky, of Huguenot descent, is
one of our younger poets who seems overflowing with life and fancy.
His writings show a wonderful insight into nature and power of
expressing her beauties and meanings. The amount of his poetical work
is astonishing, and another volume will soon appear, entitled
"Intimations of the Beautiful."
WORKS.
Days and Dreams.
Accolon of Gaul and other Poems.
Blooms of the Berry.
Lyrics and Idyls.
Triumph of Music.
Moods and Memories.
Poems of Nature and Love.
Red Leaves and Roses.
THE WHIPPOORWILL.
(_From Red Leaves and Roses._[52])
I.
Above long woodland ways that led
To dells the stealthy twilights tread
The west was hot geranium-red;
And still, and still,
Along old lanes, the locusts sow
With clustered curls the May-times know,
Out of the crimson afterglow,
We heard the homeward cattle low,
And then the far-off, far-off woe
Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!"
II.
Beneath the idle beechen boughs
We heard the cow-bells of the cows
Come slowly jangling towards the house;
And still, and still,
Beyond the light that would not die
Out of the scarlet-haunted sky,
Beyond the evening-star's white eye
Of glittering chalcedony,
Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry
Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!"
III.
What is there in the moon, that swims
A naked bosom o'er the limbs,
That all the wood with magic dims?
While still, while still,
Among the trees whose shadows grope
'Mid ferns and flow'rs the dew-drops ope,--
Lost in faint deeps of heliotrope
Above the clover-scented slope,--
Retreats, despairing past all hope,
The whippoorwill, the whippoorwill.
FOOTNOTE:
[52] By permission of the author, and publishers, G. P. Putnam's Sons,
N. Y.
DIXIE.
I.
I wish I wuz in de land ob cotton,
Ole times dar am not forgotten;
Look away! look away! look away!
Dixie land.
In Dixie land whar I wuz born in,
Early on one frosty mornin';
Look away! look away! look away!
Dixie land.
CHORUS.
Den I wish I were in Dixie, hooray! hooray!
In Dixie land
I'll took my stand
To lib and die in Dixie,
Away, away, away down south in Dixie,
Away, away, away down south in Dixie.
II.
Dar's buckwheat cakes and Ingen batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Den hoe it down and scratch your grabble,
To Dixie land I'm bound to trabble.
LIST OF AUTHORS.
The following is a list of other authors and works that would have
been included in the body of the book if space had allowed. It is with
great regret that only this mention of them can be made. See "List of
Southern Writers" for fuller notice.
Allan, William: Army of Northern Virginia.
Asbury, Francis: Journals.
Blair, James: State of His Majesty's Colony in Virginia.
Bledsoe, Albert Taylor: A Theodicy, Is Davis a Traitor?
Brock, R. A.: Southern Historical Society Papers.
Burnett, Mrs. Frances Hodgson: That Lass o' Lowrie's.
Cable, George Washington: Bonaventure (Acadian sketches in
Louisiana).
Caruthers, William A.: Knights of the Golden Horseshoe (tale of
Bacon's Rebellion).
Dabney, Virginius: Don Miff.
Davis, Mrs. Varina Jefferson: Jefferson Davis.
Dinwiddie Papers.
Elliott, Sarah Barnwell: John Paget.
Goulding, Francis Robert: Young Marooners.
Hearn, Lafcadio: Youma.
Hooper, Johnson Jones: Captain Suggs' Adventures.
Ingraham, Joseph Holt: Prince of the House of David.
Jones, John Beauchamp: Rebel War Clerk's Diary, Wild Western Scenes.
Kouns, Nathan Chapman: Arius the Libyan.
Le Conte, Joseph: Geology, Science and the Bible.
Loughborough, Mrs. Mary Webster: My Cave Life in Vicksburg (in
prison during the war).
McCabe, James Dabney, Jr.: Gray-Jackets.
McGuire, Mrs. Judith Walker: Diary of a Southern Refugee; (said
to be a most faithful and pathetic picture of the terrible times
in 1861-5. It was a private journal kept during the war, and Mrs.
McGuire was afterwards induced to publish it).
Mason, Emily Virginia: Popular Life of R. E. Lee.
Maury, Dabney Herndon: Recollections of a Virginian.
Meade, William: Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia.
Parker, William Harwar: Recollections of a Naval Officer.
Piatt, Mrs. Sarah Morgan Bryan: Poems.
Randolph, Innis: Good Old Rebel, Back-Log.
Randolph, Sarah Nicholas: Domestic Life of Jefferson.
Semmes, Raphael: Service Afloat, Cruise of the Alabama.
Semple, Robert Baylor: History of Virginia Baptists.
Sims, James Marion: Story of My Life.
Smedes, Mrs. Susan Dabney: A Southern Planter; (a biography of
Mrs. Smedes' father. Of this work, Hon. W. E. Gladstone says in a
letter to the author: "I am very desirous that the Old World
should have the benefit of this work. I ask your permission to
publish it in England. . . . Allow me to thank you, dear Madam,
for the good the book must do.").
Smith, Francis Hopkinson: Colonel Carter of Cartersville.
Spotswood, Alexander: Letters, 1710-22.
Stith, William: History of Virginia (before 1755).
Strother, David Hunter: Virginia Illustrated.
Taylor, Richard: Destruction and Reconstruction.
Wiley, Edwin Fuller: Angel in the Cloud.
[Illustration: ~Mississippi Industrial Institute and College for
Girls, Columbus, Miss.~]
QUESTIONS.
These questions are not recommended as essential, but merely as
suggestive and perhaps useful to teachers who prefer the Socratic
method. They might also serve to call the attention of students to
some point which they would otherwise overlook.
The general questions and those in ordinary type may be answered from
the text itself; the answers to those in italics are to be found in
other parts of the book, in a history of the Previous Next |