The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-05-06
A Poet Who Was a Here.

A IOeJ VINO Was a Here.
In all the range of literary biography
one comes across very few lives so full
OF quiet, unvaunted self-denial and hero
ISM of that of Robert Southey, Poet
Laureate of England from 1913 till his
ueath In 1S43. He was an humble
CHRISTIAN and self-sacrifice was the law
Oh his life. He married his wife when
ne was SO poor that he could hardly buy
tne wedding ring, because her circum-
stances were unhappy, and he, who
loved her, wished to be allowed to send
ner all the money he could make during
an approaching absence of six months.
From that time he lived for her and their
children, rather than himself I
But he did not live for them alone.
Coleridge had married Mrs. Southey's
sister, and Coleridge was the typical
poet OF the old satirists-too poetical for
the prose duties of life. He went away
and left his wife and children on
Southey's hands, and Southey worked
Tor them just as cheerfully as for his
own. When he had but little, he lived
upon that little; for he had a clear
conscience in the matter o, debt q. d..
In the year 1921 he had become the
possessor of six hundred and twenty
iive pounds (about S3,000). He was
then forty-seven years old. This sum
OF money was all that he had saved
through his Woodworking life--his sole
dependence in case of illness, or when
helpless old age should come.
But no sooner had he congratulated
himself on its possession than he heard
l-acsShe misfortunes of his friend, John
May, to whom he had formerly been in
debted for much kindness. May had
suddenly lost his all. ........
Instantly Southey's mind was made
up. He wrote to May thus:. 7.j.
d" BY this same post / am writing to
Bedford, desiring him to transfer to you
SIX hundred and twenty-five pounds in
the Ihree-per-cents. | wish it was more,
and that | had more at my command in
my way. l shall have in the spring,
when ] am paid for the first volume of
my history ......
He goes on to urge May to visit him
to come to Keswick, and lay in pleas
ant store of recollections:" One can
hardly read this letter without tears in
ones eyes. ..f.. .............
What other man ever lived who, at
forty-seven, would have transferred to an
unfortunate friend all the Accommodations
of his life and neither asked or hoped
for return, Or considered the deed as one
about which it was possible to hesitate?
Yet Southey made no parade of his
affections or his friendships. He wrote
once to Coleridge:
Your feelings go naked. l cover
mine with bear skin; will not say that
you harden yours by your treatment of
them, but | am sure that mine are
warmer for their clothing"
He lived for others up to the very end
of his life. In 1884 terrible malady
which had long been assailing his beloved
wife reached its crisis, and he wrote to a
friend who was as near to him as his own
households:
g | have been parted from my wife by
something worse than death. Forty years
she has been the life of my life, and
have left her this day in a lunatic asy-
mm.r . I..
Thank God that after year of treat
ment in the asylum he was able to bring
her back again to wear out the rest of
her sad days in her own home. This
restored to Southey some measure of
hope and cheerfulEess, for Through the
weary dream which was now Mrs.
Southey's life, she always knew him,
and took pleasure in his presence. The
strong arm on which she had leaned for
fory-two years supported her down
stairs each day, and bore her up again
at evening. .....| sd.
In 1885 she died; and though, when
she had been dead nearly four years,
Southey married Caroline Bowles, then
woman of fifty-two, it was rather as a
refuge for the cold solitude of old age
than with hope of anything like happi-
ness. Happiness had been buried with
her whom he had called the life of his
life, and whom, in 1843, eight years after
her death, he went gladly to rejoin.
There were far greater poets among
Southey's contemporaries than he, but
where, among all the poets who have
ever lived, shall we look for truer or a
nobler man?
He could truly say,
.My thoughts are with the dead Anon
My place with them shall be, ..
And with them shall travel on
Through all eternity. '-1
Yet leaving name, trust,
That will not moulder in the dust"