Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1859-02-15
CLEVELAND TUESDAY MORNING. FEBRUARY l5 1859
MORNING LEADER.
Gen. Morris and his songs in England.

Gen. Morris and his Songs in England.
The Songs of GEo. p MORRIS, of the Home
Journal, have been voiced by Americans until
they are in truth household words. They are
the songs of the people, and for quarter of a
century they have been read and sung through
out the land. In his twentieth year he became
editor of the New York Mirror, and from 1922
to 1894, the Mirror and NORRIS held the same
enviable relation 20 the choice literature of the
country that the Home Journal and NORRIS and
WILLIS do now. The songs of MoRRIs like the
songs of BURNS are home songs, simple, natu-
raj, unaffected, yet heart gushing and heart
touching Both, therefore, have an undying
popularity, and will live in the memories and
the voices of the ages,
'sThe song-writer of America has won the
encomiums of European masters of the pen and
Tyre, and we clip with pleasure the following
gem from sketch of Gen. Morris and his Songs
published in Hoioitt's and the Peoples JOlErnGl
''What simple tenderness is contained IN the
ballad of We were boys togetherI Every
word in that beautiful melody comes home to
the heart of him whose early days have been
happy. God help those in whom this poem
swakens no fond remembrances Those whose
memories it does not get wandering up the
stream of life, toward its source; behOlding at
every step the sun smiling more brightly, the
heavens assuming deeper hue, the grass
fresher green, and the flowers sweeter per-
fume. How wondrous are its effects upon
ourselves! The wrinkles have disappeared from
our brow, and the years from our shoulder, and
the marks of the branding iron of experience
from our heart; and again we are careless
child, gathering primroses, and chasing butter
flies, and drinking spring-water from out the
hollow of our hands. Around US are the hedges
with gollen gor.e bright blossoming, as none
bloom now-a-day' We have heard of death,
but we know not what it is; and the word
change has nc meaning for US; and summer and
winter, and seed time and harvest, has each Its
unutterable joys. Alas we can never remain
long in this happy dream-land. Nevertheless,
we have profted greatly by the journey The
cowslips and violets gathered by US in child
hood, shall be potent in the hour of temptation;
and the cap of rushes woven for us by kind
hands in DAYS gone by, shall be a surer defence
than helmet of steel in the hour of battle
No, no; we will never disgrace our anteeedents.
We were Boys Together.
We were boys together,
And never can forget
The schoollho near the heather,
In childhood where we met;
The humble home TO memory dear,
Its sorroWs and its joys;
Where woke the transient smile or tear.
When you and were boys.
We were youths together,
And castles built in air,
Your heart was like feather,
And mine weighed down with care;
To you came wealth with manhOod's prime,
To me it brought alloys
FOreshadoVed in the primrose time,
When you and were boys.
We're old men together
The friends we loved of yore,
With leaves of autumn weather,
Are gone for evermore.
How blest to age the impulse given,
The hope time ne'er destroys
Which led our thoughts from earth 10 heaven,
When you and l were boys!
ave regret we have not space to enter more
largely into the merits of Morris but there is
one quality in his songs to which we cannot
but direct attention-and this is their almost
feminine purity. The proPensities have had
their laureates; and genius, alas has often de-
filed its angel wings by contact with the sensu-
al and the impure; but Morris has never attemp-
ted to robe vice in beauty; and, as has been well
remarked, his lays can bring to the cheek of
purity no blush save that of pleasure"