The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1892-10-27

teriOus voice borne along the cable
shouting out, "All right, De Saury," O
hear him sing in mock sympathy an ode
to "The Music Grinders" or tell his tai,
of "Contentment" in such mirth pro
voking lines as these:
Little ask, my wants are few,
I only wish hut Of stone,
| very plain, brown stone will do,
| That may call my own.
| Take his occasion poems, the best that
ever were read at college commence
ment, not tiresomely stiff as prescribed
set orator is apt to be, but fresh, attrac
tive, charming. We do not wonder that
after year. A, good laugh such as he
gave s.the boys was worth whole term
of hard study.
But his music is not all ripping laugh
ter. There comes soft, solemn strain
in 1.-The Chambered Nautilus" his own
favorite composition. After describing
with exquisite exactness natures tiny
"Ship of PEARL and its frail tenant, and
how
"Year after year behind the silent toll
That spread the lustrous coil;
Still as the spirit grew.
He left the past years dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step it's shining archway through
Built up its idle door.
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the
old no more"
The poet and priest of nature con-
tinues:
Build thee more stately mansions O my soul,
AS the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-valted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last.
Shut thee from Heaven with dome more vast,
Till thou at last are free.
Leaving thine outgrowu shell by life's unresting
sea-!
Again he scars to the SUBMITS of the
Sublime at the suggestion of the gulls
and other sea birds, which he whimsi-
cally describes in poem entitled my
Aviary." It is a dying water fowl struck
by the huntsman's idle shaft, and the
whole terrible problem of existence is
present to the poets mind at sight of the
lovely creatures death. He breaks forth
49, loAASoS oPPSeSAALes iAAAOo.
SIS this the whole sad story of creation,
Live by its breathing myriads DER and DER
One glimpse Of day, then black humiliation
sunlit passage to sunless shore?
Give back our faith, We mystery solving lynxes.
Robe us once more in heaven aspiring creeds,
Happier was dreaming Egypt with her sphinxes
The stony convent with its cross and beadsr'
1t seems almost needless to quote from
1.-The Voiceless.n So many quivering
hearts have been soothed by the melody
OF this sympathetic interpreter:
"a few may touch the magic string,
And noisy fame is proud to win them;
Alas for those who never sing
But die with all the music in them!"
DIR. Holmes prose is almost as beauti
full as his poetry. The monologne of the
'Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, with
it's we'll defined silhouettes of character,
its valuable hints in regard to conduct
and courtesy, its keen probing of selfish
ness and vanity and the thread of a
story connecting the whole discourse,
forms the most delightful book of it's
kind | ever opened. Though entertain
ed by the brilliant play of the authors
irony, we are never startled by lights
ming shaft of sarcasm. His nature is too
loving and genial to indulge in witt
cism at the expense of wounding anoth>
ers feelings. He touches our weakness
es as delicately as he would his own. 1t
is some time since I read 1.-The Profess
sor," but well do | remember the i'm
preston it made upon me.
The silhouettes were wildly real, es-
pecially the eager, earnest little man
from Boston, whose native sweetness of
disposition had been warped by bodily
intirmity, rendering hill at times peevish
and acutely sensitive. 1t is a pathetic
scene where this poor little dwarf is
dying and pours forth for the first time
to listening ears the lifelong, bitter lone
illness and hunger of his soul. He had
not been orthodox in his religious faith,
yet the prating priest who came to ask
"shall l pray for your" changes his
words into the request. MAY pray with
your" feeling it a privilege to be near so
exalted being at the hour of his de-
parture. And how we love the angel
girl kneeling at the bedside when she
stoops and presses her lips to his who
had never known the kiss of woman un-
less it might have been a Mothers
Iris" sees only the patient, brave heart
and noble soul which no bodily deform-
ity could mar, and her plying woman
hood is altogether charming,
There is a pathos in the relation of
this incident which tells how near to
tears is the tender humor cleaning
through all DR.. Holmes has written in
prismatic hues. 1t is this same spirit
which animates that droll poem, which
stands apart from his other productions
sometimes in a volume to itself, with il
Illustrations, 1.-The Last Leafn After
picturing the tottering, feeble old man
in his quaint, old-fashioned clothes, the
poet closes with the reflection
land if should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile as l do now
AT the old forsaken bouyh
Where l cling
| Has the day come when paraphrase
upon these lines would be appropriatei
May try?
| 1.-THE LAST LEAF"
| 1t has proved his lot to be
The last leaf upon the tree,
| Even SO.
As he sang by happy chance