Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1921-02-15
"My Fallen Star Has Spent Its
Light" Wrote Dying Poet.
THE STORY ABOUT A COLORED MAN
Deep Feeling Shown in Roeni IS. Negro
Soldier Wrote While III at Fort Nc
,,Hcnry-Served Eighteen Years.

I1oilIy. oH llIe uetS VI his ucdlH. hS
Evening Sun printed the following
verses-thc last he wrote:
Loved and Lost.
My fallen star has spent Its light
And left but memory to me;
My day Of dreams has kissed the night
Farewell it's sun no more see;
Ny summer doomed for winters frost;
Alas, I've lived and loved and lost!
What matters it today should earth
Lay on my head gold bright crown
Lit with the gems Of royal worth
BETTING well a kings renown
My lonely soul is trouble tossed
For have lived and loved -and lost!
Great God! I dare not question Thee
!: Thy way cterrrally is just;
This seeming mystery to me -
Will be revealed, # but. trust;
All, Thou alone dost. know the cost
When one has lived and loved and lost!
Lucian 3. Watkins.
Hospital, Fort 'McHenry, Md.
They read like prophecy. fAt least 1T
is strange coincidence that, they
should be published just IN time to
serve as his epitaph.; ...a.
Watkins, negro, was born in a cab
in near Chesterfield, Va. His surviving
relatives say he was always smart in
the head" He loved books. A few
months ago he sent some verses on the
subject to The Evening Sun.
..~,r. Ny Books -
They stand erect, in neat and nolseless
rows. - =, <',.
Or, left in used disorder, lean and lie
About me-each one ready to supply
The beauty Of the truth 1t can dis
~. close. -: :'s-. - .'-'" "
Where Homer harped or some mad
masters prose
Still holds the world. Great souls
that never die ;.;':.
In these breath=given pages smile
80" or sigh - :. " $500
They sing my utmost Joys and weep
my woes.
And there are friends-my friends.
'Tis not in vain -
My heart has tried their loyalty su-
preme.
Each day. that over loss my bit Of
gain
Sums with the centuries OF. faith
agleam, '.''..
Makes dear to me these comrades that
remain il e.
In speech or silence-while I will
and dream. - -
Lucian' 3. Watkins.
Hospital, Fort McHenry, Md.
During his long service as private
and sergeant in the army he read
much, and his small poems show Il
growing feeling for the music Of words
and growing skill in their arrange
ment.
Disease, acquired in the. army, barred
him from any service in the World
war. For many months a wasting i'll
ness kept him in the hospital. There.
proppcd up in bed. he wrote many
verses. Some of them come near hav-
ing the touch Of the, real poet:
:MilIet- Markham's MAN With the Hoe
call you crazed and curst
Bowed by the weight
Of centuries" of burden-doom and
They say of you, "He leans upon
his hoe
And gazes on the ground" They mark
your state
That you are dead TO rapture" and the
great
Star-worlds above your aching
stoop"; you know
Naught of the 'reddening of the
rose''-for 10.
You're brother to the OK" brute Of
fate!
But, I have seen your soul. No evil
there
Makes hard your task. You hum
bly, serve and plod.
In love with life and life's created care,
You read the living scriptures Of the
soul.
Man with the hoe!" Son of the Eden
pair!
You work the wonder and the dream
Of God. )
Lucian. B. Watkins.
Hospital, Fort McHenry. Md.
Watkins was 42 years old. His
brother, the Rev. John B. Watkins. is
pastor of the Colored Evangelical and
Spiritual church, on Hillen street.