The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1897-07-15

AUOul lIt lllD6 VI tilC w tSH Uul lis anu
the Lovejoys, S. S. Prentiss, Portland
boy and graduate of Bowdoin college,
had won great fame in Congress as a
sippi, for his remarkable eloouence and
power as debater Unfortunately he
died at Il. victim of yellow fever.
Portland's immortal poet was also in
touch with this stormy period. In the
fervor of his youth he wrote that grand
apostrophe to the Union:
Thou too sail on O ship of State:
Sail on Q [ Mon strong and great.
Humanity with all its fears,
With all its hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathleSS on thy fate.
We know what master laid thy keel,
What workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,
w no made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what forge and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope.
Fear not each sudden sound and shock;
IT'S of the wave and not the rock -
It's but the Tapping of the sail,
And not rent made by the gale.
In spite of rock and tempeSts roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea;
Our hearts our hopes are all with thee -
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith, triumphant DER our fears,
Are all with thee ARE all with thee.
These lines are full of tender solcitude,
exalted patriotism, unbounded faith, but
not word of bitterness for those who
We're threatening to destroy the Union.
We must not forget to name some of
the women who have won honor for our
State.
Backward. turn backward, O Time in your
flight,
Make me child again, just for tonight"
What a poem we have here in these
two short lines. A refined woman in mid
die life. whose sensitive heart had grown
weary of life cares, chilled by the world S
indifference, butfeted by its selfshness or
stang by its disappointments, until, in
the silence of midnight, she breaks out
into ecstatic supplcation for one more
taste of childhood-one more taste of that
charmed existence which the Master has
likened to the Kingdom Of heaven itself
One more taste, no matter how brief,
''just for to- night" And how the pathos
is intensified by the fact that this troubled
soul 5 petition must be made to the mana
ger of the pitiless scythe; that grizzly old
personitication whose heart has been
turned to stone by the havoc he has
wrought along the pathway of the ages.
Backward, turn backward 0 Time in YOUR
flight.
Make NE child again, just for tonight
Mother, come back from the echoless shore
Take me again in your arms as of yore.
Kiss from my forehead the burrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair
over my SAUNDERS your loving watch keep
Rock Inc TO sleep, mother, rock ME to sleep.
Backward, flow backward tide OF the wears !.
am so weary OF toll and OF tears, -
1oll without recompenst-tearsa all in vain
Take them and give me my childhood again.
| have grown weary of dust and decay,
Weary Of tlinging my soul-w ealth away
Weary of sowing for others to reap
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.
Mother, dear mother, the years have been
long,
Since last listened your lulliby song:
Sing now, and unto my soul it shall seem,
Womanhood's years have been only dream
ClaSped to your heart in loving embrace
With your light lashes just weeping my face
Never hereafter to wake or to weep
Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.
The little village of Strong should ac-
cept the immortality won for it by it's
gifted daughter. The people should set
up her statue, in monumental bronze,
where the children of unborn generations
can look upon her face and read the in
scription -''Elizabeth Akels Allen, she
sang Crock me to sleep.''
There are many other names of Maine
people who have produced something for
their State, such as N. P. Willis and his
talented sister Mrs. Parton, Elizabeth
Payson, Judson or Ned Buntline, author
of many stories of the sea, and others, not
to omit those very respectable chestnuts,
Artemus Ward and Bill Nye.
Maine has also wonderful inventor.
Hiram Maxim, who has revolutionized
the worlds machine guns by a device
which makes the recoil of one shot reload
and fire the next, thus setting up chain
of automatic destruction, limited in rapid
ity and duration only by the supply of
cartridges. He is now in England per.
fecting flying machine.
If time would permit, l should like to
name some of Names noted soldiers and
sailors and some of her professional men,
especially the distinguished Chief Justice
OF the United States. 1t is also a note
worthy fact that both houses of the pres
ent congress have chosen their presiding
officers from the Maine delegation, and
without exhausting its talent.
In the beginning of this paper | made
some reference to the hackneyed saying
that Maine is a ''good State to be born
in" Before closing l think / should say
that some people born elsewhere, have
found Maine good place to live and work
in. Harriet Beecher was born in Connec-
ticut, but she married a Maine College
professor, and lived under the classic
shades of Bowdoin College, breathing the
fragrance of her pines and hemlocks.
They gave her the inspiration which pro-
duced ''Uncle Toms Cabin" which is
therefore Maine production. If it is to
be measured by its millions of readers in
every land and every tongue, by its other
millions of spectators as a drama, by its
power to arouse listless world, by it's
influence in the production of great re-
suits, then ''Uncle Toms Cabin is
clearly the worlds grandest epic.
James G. Blaine was native of Pennsyl-
vania. He came to Maine as a young
man and made his home there. He must
have seen the mighty Atlantic when lash
ed into fury by an equinoxial storm, and
listened to its waves battling the but