The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-01-06
SARAH CARMICHAEL.
A WONDERFUL WOMAN WHO WAS
RoRN A POET.
Mrs. Lille r. Pardee Writes About
This Sweet Singer of Zion-Brfl-
liant Mind That Suffered an
EeIipse-Some of Her Gems.

the banks, covered with vines and filed
with happy children"
Sarah Carmichael may be likened to
a mass of sweet flowers and a stream
Of living water found in the wastes of
the desert. The flowers are not gay,
but they are pure and fragrant The
stream does not laugh and frolic as it
flows; but its waters are always clear.
always refreshing to the weary travel
or, and sometimes they leap and re-
sound with all the passion Of a noun
tain torrent.
1t is not generally known that there
lives in Salt Lake City a woman who
is considered by good judges to be the
peer of any American poet; who, al
though humbly born and reared in a
family that she touched in nothing but
birth, possessed the true divine fire,
the sincerity, the imagination, the in
sight ard the sympathy with nature
that Emerson names as the attributes
of the poet.
Born at Setauket, Long Island. in
1888, Sarah was but a tender child when
she was brought by her parents across
the plains to this valley retreat. The
father, Uncle Billy" as he was famil-
farly called, was carpenter by trade
an honest and jovial man, but in no
way remarkable 1t is said that as he
stopped at the newspaper offices on his
way to work with his dinner pail in
one hand and his daughters manu-
script in the other, there was a puzzled
look on his face as if he were unable
70 solve the problem Of incongruity be-
1twe@n the pail and the poetry.
I'll : pioneers viii testify that books
We're rare in Zion in the early days
They will racollect how, in the long
pilgrimage over the plains when even
light burdens were becoming heavy TO
weary backs, it came to be a question
between life and books. and the prec-
ious volumes were commanded to be
dropped by the wayside, sometimes to
be gatheRed no by the fOotsore pill
grim who loved them like life, under
the cover of night But there was one
book that the weary traveller did not
leave behind them, for it gave them
strength for their journey. Sarah Car
michael had access to that book which
had inspired many q pOet-the bible.
She wrote much that is religious, but
little that is doctrinal. The height,
depth and breadth of her religion is
shown in her sublime conception of
Faith" Such is the power of this po-
en- through its tenderness and poetic
perfection that ar invalid admirer of
its author says that he reads it over
and over again, each time finding new
beauty
An angel came from her far. bright
Wrapped in the robes that moonbeams
Her hand was white as the lily leaves,
The light Of her eye was the light of
She ever smiled. but her sweet lips wore
strange expression that was not
rHlrtl-
"A pleading beauty that seemed to draw
The gazer's heart from the thoughts of
earth.
And much they wondered who saw her
That her shining sandals never bore
"A stain from the sod ii lightly trod.
That dust chung not to the robe she
wore
Twas strsnge.-she flashed like a CLEAN
Through the dear abode of shame and
woe,
To lay her hand on the outcasts brow.
And lines OF pain from his face would
His eyes would fill with an eager
And his palfng lips would part. to
breathe
Some low child-prayer that his mother
Truly. the poet Is DOGn. not maze.
The sweetest singers break forth in
song spontaneously, and like the birCs,
they are unconscious of their gift.
Sarah Carmichael is much like Robert
! Burns in her tenderness of feeling.
Like him she felt the rhythmic beatings
OF natures heart and translated them
into the melody Of verse for duller
ears. Every living creature had
claim upon her sympathy The
pile and tender as Catullus' lament on
the death OF the pet sparrow. There
is in it both sadness and resignation,
for the crushed life of the poet is pic
tured in its lines:
THE WOUNDED BIRD.
Never again in the wildwood bowers
VIII thy trembling notes be heard:
Never again VIII the branches sway
Under thee, sweet little bird!
The breath Of the spring upheld thy wing,
And the summer drank thy strain;
But the Dlumes that futtered the bios
Never VIII perch again.
Never againi In the dear old woods
The flowers Will bloom and die,
\ And many a shining pinion fit
over the sun-bathed sky;
And many a note on the soft winds float,
AS pure in its melody
AS the frozen tones in thy futtering
But never again for thee!
Never again!-there are crimsoned drops
QuiVering on thy breast;
Thy pulses curdle around the shaft
& Under thy soft wing pressed.
Ali it Is wen. thou hast breathed thy
If its low. wild gush hath stirred
One hearts deep waves. thou hast done
thy part,
Beautiful. wounded bird.
The poem California contains some
master strokes. of the artists brush:
CALIFORNIA.
Cheer for the queen of the western wavel
California!
Where the sunbeams walk on golden
And the moonlight hides in a silver cave
Where the day that comes to this land Of
Finds The brightest gems and the rarest
Where the lingering day, when it must
Leaves the last red pulse of a broken
California;
Cheer for the Italy of the west!-
California;
With wide, warm heart in jeweled
Ard a regal brow by rose crown
pressed california!
From the burning gold CT her shining
Is the aeepter forged for the nations
And the sword that cancels the traitors
Hath her diamond stars in its flashing
mt California;
Cheer for the coast where the biIoN