Los Angeles herald., 1905-12-17
BEAUTIFUL VOLUME Is JUST
ISSUED FROM PRESS
Songs Of the Sunny Southland COL
leeted and Arranged by Loving
Hands and Printed in
Handsome style
BY William Hamilton Cline


approximate what the heart feels the
keener, truer and more perfect may our
judgment be.
And none speaks truer from the heart
than does the poet. The scientist deals
IN abstract facts, and pure reason
guides his works. The novelist handles
romance, and the fiotlons of his imagln-
atlons people his pages. The poet. how
ever, sings what is I'm his own heart.
and have he not the music of the
spheres therein, he be no poet. and his
his song rings false.
Touched by Promethean fire must also
be the true poet; filled with the incense
OF the beautiful; hedged about with the
harmony of nature and of God; inspired
with the gift of tongues; possessing the
insight of the seer 70 him is opened
the vision of higher things. Reasons
cold sway binds him not: he transcends
the limits of grosser clay and gazing
deep into the blue of eternity and fate
and the great beyond he plucks the
secrets of the gods. enchains the refrain
eternal that the morning stars sang to-
gether before time was, touches his Lutte
to Celestial melody and transmutes the
common meanness and Grass routine Of
life into warp and woof of words.
Therein he weaves the beauties and
the truths that the human world passes
daily and heeds not, and the pattern,
under his inspired treatment, wakes
more and more perfect and lovely with
every throw of his shuttle.
And in the final whole of a poets
life and works-when deaths hand
tIn
1T is finished!-mayt the wise read this
parable:
1t Is the common, everyday world
about us that is most beautiful and
charming and inspiring. In the clouds
and the mountains, the dawn and the
sunset; the brook and the ocean, the
drought and the rain; the golden sun
shine and the wealth of tree and
flower and green turf-it is in the world
all around us that we see every day
and heed not-that God is. In his
world, his everyday" world-are the
beauties that no palette and brush
may reproduce, no pen may describe.
None need to look beyond his own
doorstep for the wonderful, the tran
scendent, the ineXplicable, the awe
some. In the humble clod is a mystery
none may penetrate, and the wisest
ton of gold into a sunbeam.
Only the true poet may read Alright
the story of earth and sky and star, of
green hill and emerald vale, of frown-
ing mountain and cleaning sea. Only
a poet may know what cosmos means,
or open the story book of the ages of
eternity. The poet knows; through
finer and higher and clearer vision he
sees behind it all, God!
Gods in His heaven; it is well with
His world"
Eliza A. Otis was true poet-one
of those singers gifted especially of
God. Through her heart and mind
she looked into the soul of Things. and
read in them the message of Eternity.
By inspiration, insight. understanding
it was given to her to look beyond the
veil of common clay; to gaze from
nature up to natures God, and to
find in the universe about her the
glowing story of Him; to read His
message to His children, writ large
and clear for the eyes that see; told
plain and loud for the ears that hear.
To her, God gave a glimpse of His
own great mind, and the power to read
His own tremendous thoughts-and
she was wise, and knew, and did!
And, still more, to her was given the
gift of Interpretation.
Some there be who, seeing, may not
tell. The skill lies not in them; they
have the thoughts, but lack the abil-
ity to set them down. They dream
dreams of great portent, but possess
no means of explaining them to others.
They have that to say which is of
mighty moment, but their voices are
dumb.
And yet others, filled with the ability
of working in words, whose business
mayhap it be to build sentences still
lack the thought which is the soul of
the utterance, and their speakings and
writings are but empty sound. How
many string platitudes together and
call them oratory! How many weave
rhymes and rhythms, and call them
poetry! And the spirit, the message,
the soul, is not there, and all they
do is but as sounding brass and
tinkling cymbals!"
But Mrs. Otis not only had the thing
to say, but she had the skill and the
ability wherewith to say it. Her harp
hung not silent upon the willows for
lack of hand trained to play; her muse
was not mute for need of lips where
with to speak. In her were combined
those elements which predicate the
true poet: The thought worthy of ut
terance, the yearning to give It voice,
and the instinct to guide Alright, in
beauty and fitness, its birth into the
world that needed and craved it.
She was singer, singing for the
love of song, the melody that welled
up III her heart, pregnant with joy and
brightness and hope and "the peace
that passeth understanding"
And we of lesser mold, who have not
the gifts which gracious Maker
Vouchsafed her-we stand silent in the
presence of her beautiful duty worth
lily done we hearken to the voice which,
though now silent, yet still sings, and
we bow our heads in thankfulness that
to us was born one who, in this glorious
southland of California, had its beauty
In her own soul, and from whose lips
blossomed flowers Of song and rhythm
and rhetoric as varied, as glowing, as
lovely and as bright as the blooms
which garland and begem in kaleido-
scopic prodigallty of hue and tint
and color the hills and wales and
mountain sides wherein she walked!
And now are these blossoms of song
gathered into one great bouquet For
the first time their riot of color and
form are assembled and assorted as