Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1923-10-03
Wrote Majestic Verse.

any other. This poem of three hum
dred seyenty-four stanzas of the type
used by Spenser in THE Faerie
Queen" Astounding in classic imagery,
and, like most of his other reflective
productions, replete with melancholy,
was said by Whittier to be "a noble
poem, grand and darkly majestic, with
no affectedness about it,; and he
characterized stanza number 125, part
two, which follows, as of "unrivalied
excellence:
Thine are the mountains, where they
purely lift
Shows that have never wasted, in
sky
Which hath no stain; below the storm
may drift
Its darkness, and the thunder-gust
rCtr by,
Aloft in thy eternal smile they lie
Dazzling but cold; thy farewell glance
looks there,
And when below thy hues of beauty
die,
Girt round them as a rosy belt, they
bear
Into the high, dark vault brow that
still is fair.
"The Coral Grove" is very generally
considered by critics his best piece of
verse and it is yet usually found i'll
collections of standard American
poems In Wilstach's Dictionary of
Smiles" he quotes twice from this
product of the poets fancy, as fol-
lows
Bending like corn on the upland lea.
Blush like a banner bathed in slaugh-
ter.
The Judgment of a later generation
than his own is that the little poem
'To Seneca Lake, referred to in the
Cambridge History of American Lit
erature" as a little gem, ranks sec
ond, at least, in merit. 1t has place
in some of the recent anthologies. In
view of it's simplicity, contrasting so
markedly with the verbiage OF
,cellence, shall give it now in full, for
it is short:
On thy fair bosom, silver lake!
The wild swan spreads his snowy
sail,
And round his breast the ripples
break,
AS down he bears before the gale.
On they fair bosom, waveless stream!
The dipping paddle echoes far,
And flashes in the moonlight CLEAN,
And bright reflects the polar star.
The waves along thy pebbly shore,
AS blows the north-wind, heave
their foam,
And curl around the dashing oar,
AS late the boatman HES him home.
How sweet at set of sun, to view
Thy golden mirror spreading wide,
And see the mist of mantling blue
Float round the distant mountains
side
At midnight hour, as shines the moon,
A sheet of silver spreads below,
And swift she cuts, at highest noon
Light clouds, like wreaths OF purest
snow.
On thy fair bosom, silver lake!
o, | could ever sweep the car,
When early birds at morning wake
And evening tells us toll is DER.
In Grocott's Familiar Quotations"
which | picked up in the Congression-
al Library while looking up this
strange character somewhat inten-
sively, found stanza from Percival,
taken from Language of the Flow
ers". 1t was:
In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in garland their
loves and cares:
Each blossom that blooms in their
garden bowers,
On it's leaves a mystic language
bears.
Ford's Poems of History" contains
PercivaPs "Perry's Victory on Lake
Erie; Stevenson's Poems of Ameri-
can History" includes the "Apos-
trophe to the Island of Cuba; and
Harper's Encyclopaedia of British and
American Poetry" prints among others
MAY. 1.-THE Deserted Wife, used to
be found in the readers used in the
schools and was, read, quite fav-
orite for defamation purposes. Like
wise, ITO the Eagle, beginning Bird
of the broad. and sweeping wing! got
into the school readers, one of which
was McGuffey's sixth Reader, wide
ly used a generation or more ago.
''The Suicide" long poem, written
after he had made two attempts at
suicide, shows his abiding melancholy.
Consumption" is an example of fire.
quent tendency to what Richardson IN
his American Literature" calls Sick
ly sweet sentimentality." 1t begins:
There is sweetness in women's decay
When the light of beauty is fading
away.
Thundered Against Critics.
That this melancholy character was
egotistical and misanthropic is shown
by internal as we'll as external evil
dence. That he bitterly resented the
public's not taking him and his verse
more favorably is revealed to. us in
AN Imprecation'', one of his juvenile
oil Cd Of ho ~