The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-10-18

the green grass uNueF MS IOOl, anu tHS
blossom starred hawthorn hedges at his
hand, he saw wide gray sea and gray
old church, and above the song Of thrush
and skylark, to his inward ear there
sounded the rush of incoming waves as
they broke white and foaming against
the low cliffs not a hundred yards from
Clevedon church, under whose aisle Ar
thur Hallam had found his last resting
place. So, in that solitary walk, out OF
his saddened heart sprang the now famil-
lar lines:
Break, break break,
On thy cold gray stones, 0 sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me-
A poem that voices, as hardly any other,
the hopeless yearning, the longing OF be-
reavement, the sob of all hearts that
ache and eyes that weep. 1t is not as an
expression of the sea, but because he has
made the sea to stand for the sorrow the
mystery the ineXorableness of death, that
the world has made it part of the lit
erature of grief, and multitudes of hearts
who never heard the murmur of wave or
watched the foam of a breaker have
through it voiced a passion all their
own
Tennyson was an old man of past four
score when he wrote the other poem
which is to this the complement, the
antithesis, the gloria for the threnody,
Crossing the Bar" In this the sea is
no longer to the poet lament for the
dead. but has become the pathway to i'm
mortal life
when that which drew from out the
boundless deep
Turns again home"
Not in the springtime was this, but Oh
a ripe October day, that Tennyson, to
whom zone clear call" has already come,
for almost the last time was making
the easy journey from Aldworth to his
beloved Farringford and it's fair sea view
when in moment, as he himself said
there came to him those lines which the
world will not soon or willingly for
get:
Sunset and evening star,
And orc clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar
When l put out to sea"
That same autumn evening he wrote out
the poem and showed it to his son, who
at once said, THAT is the crown OF your
life work" It was a well-rounded YER
dict, and fruitage worthy to crown Ten
nyson's ripened years: as simple as the
language of a child; as noble as his own
great genius; as devout as the faith
which has been the cornerstone OF his
character. That he himself felt it TO be
the fitting finale of all he had written is
shown by the fact that but few days
before his death he charged his son, Mind
YOU put Crossing the Bar at the end of
all editions of my poems
little later, and to the music OF the
great organ of Westminster Abbey, a
white robed choir sang the beautiful
words as they laid the poet in his honored
grave; and again and again it has been
heard beside still forms, when life has
passed with that outgoing tide.-Self Gull
turc Magazine.
Mrs Burton Harrison has embodied in
her story, "Winwood's Luck" published
in the September New" Lippincott. one
of the incidents of her childhood in Vir-
ginia, at the outbreak of the Civil War.
Two chests of old English silver, part
of that brought by Lord Fairfax to the
Colony in 1862, were hastily buried by
Mrs. Harrison's mother, aided by a young
cousin of the family CHILLED afterwards
in the war, and an old negro steward.
who died, carrying the secret of the HID
ing place with him. The old house above
the hiding place of the treasure was sub
sequently burnt to the ground. the for
est surrounding it laid waste, the trees
Of the lawn used as breast works for a
fort erected on the site Of the dwelling.
camp of Federal soldiers occupied the
place, and had they but known of it,
the lounging troopers to occupy their
waiting hours by possessing themselves
of what lay so conveniently at hand. But
years afterwards, the exact spot was
identified by the family, and the contents
of the two chests found under the ruins
of the cellar, lying loose in the keeping
of Mother Earth, blackened. but other
wise intact. The tragedy of the story
was, happily, not a part of the family
chronicle of the author, but was supplied
from the experiences of others, not un-
common in border history of that day.
In 1880 Dr. Greenhill, of Hastings
England. wrote to Cardinal Newman
asking him to explain the meaning OF
this couplet Of Lead, Kindly Light -
And with the morn those angel faces
smile
Which l have had long since and lost
awhile.
To this request the following charac-
teristic reply was received:
The Oratory, January IS. 1880.
My Dear Mr. Greenhill: You fattel
me by your question but / think it was
Keble who, when asked in his own case
answered that poets were not bound to
be critics, or TO give sense to what
they had written; and, though / am not
like him, poet, at least / may plead
that | am not bound to remember my
own meaning. whatever it was, at the
end OF fifty years. Anyhow, there must
be statute of limitations for writers
of verse, or it would be quite tyran-
ny If, in an art which is the express
sion not of truth but of imagination and
sentiment, one were Obliged to be ready
for examination on the transient state
of mind which came upon one when
nomesick or seasick, or in any other
way sensitive or excited.
Yours most truly,
JOHN H. NEWMAN.
The Business Side of a Great Univer-
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