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if
I do not ask, my little son,
That God shall give thee gold,
The yellow metal Midas loved
Much as thy hands can hold!
Nor will I vex the ear Divine
With prayers for futile fame,
That even the very winds of heaven
Shall bear abroad thy name!
Nor wish have I that kingly crown
Upon thy brow may rest;
Nor yet that thou shalt walk abroad
By cringing slaves addrest!
Old Woman asks in her letter to
day, what Southern girl wrote the
short poem which she quotes, giving
not all the poem, however, which be
gins, if I rightly recall it, thus:
“I wandered out one summer night,
’Twas when my life was young.”
The poem w r as written by Amelia
Nelby, a Maryland young woman,
whose poems w r ere largely read and
praised in her time. She w r as born
in 1889. Her book, “Poems by
Amelia,” is seldom seen in libraries
today, and may be out of print. She
married a Mr. Coppuck, and died
when she was only thirty-two.
Our Old Woman writes of Henry
Timrod, and says, truly, that the
South let her poets starve fifty years
ago, but remember that the poor,
Crippled South had the wolf of
want at her throat when Hayne, Tim
rod and Lanier were making their
brave, pathetic fight with ill health
and poverty. Paul Hayne and Tim
rod, who were near the same age,
were friends and desk-mates in their
boyhood while at school in Charles
ton, which was the city beloved of
both. Their after life was alike in
aspirations and disappointments. Tim
rod’s noble war lyrics published dur
ing the South’s struggle for inde
pendence, attracted attention even in
the tumultuous reconstruction period,
and his admirers formed the plan of
having them published in London in
a beautiful illustrated volume. The
scheme failed and the poet was bit
terly disappointed. He wrote to his
sympathizing friend, Hayne: “So
fades and dies the hope of every poet
who has not money.” Again he wrote,
to his friend from Columbia, South
Carolina. “You ask me to tell you my
story for the last year. It is embod
ied in a few words, ‘Starvation, death,
bitter grief, utter loss of hope.” He
add: “We lived for some time, and
are still living, on the proceeds of our
furniture and silver plate. We have
—let me see —yes, we have eaten two
silver pitchers, a dozen silver forks,
several sofas and a huge mahogany
bedstead. In a forlorn hope, I for
warded some poems to Northern peri
odicals, and in every instance they
were coldly declined.”
“As for supporting myself and large
family—wife, mother, sister and
neices—by literary work, it is utter
ly preposterous. I would consign
every line I have ever written to ob
livion, for one hundred dollars.”
His friend, Paul Hayne, was very
nearly in the same hard strait yet
he gladly offered the hospitality of
THE HOUSEHOLD
A Department of Expression For Those Who Feel and Think
A Prayer for Rupert
By ARTHUR GOODENOUGH
CHA T
Nor hope have I that warring hosts
In future thou may’st lead,
To bind a conquered race in chains
Or make a nation bleed.
I make no prayer that thou may’st
share
Apollo’s matchless grace,
That all who see shall envy thee
Or love thee for thy face!
But this I ask; that God may see
Whatever star control,
The current of thy destiny,
Some beauty in thy soul!
his humble little cottage among the
pines of Copse Hill to his fast de
clining friend. There Timrod enjoyed
a month of happy communion with his
brother poet and his gifted wife. Re
turning to his work in Columbia he
had two hemorrhages followed soon
after by his death, in October, 1867.
Just before the end came he said to
his sister, “Do you remember that lit
tle poem of mine, beginning:
“Somewhere on this earthly planet
In the dust of flowers to be;
In the dew-drop and the sunshine,
Waits a solemn hour for me.
Now that hour which then seemed
so far away has come, may I
be able to say, “Thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory through our
Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Paul Hayne died fifteen years later
of the same fatal disease. This po
etic gift, like their lives, had a sim
ilarity. Hayne’s poems are more
carefully finished, but Timrod’s have
the freshness of direct inspiration.
It is a singular coincidence that
our trio of eminent Southern poets
—Lanier, Hayne and Timrod —should
have died of the same malady, ag
gravated by poverty and anxiety.
Lanier contracted the disease, to
which he was inclined by heredity,
during his five months imprison
ment in the damp prison of Point
Lookout, after his capture on the
blockade running vessel of which he
had been put in charge. Both Lanier
and Hayne were sustained and
cheered through their trials by the
devotion of noble wives, who bravely
bore the burden of poverty with
them and encouraged them by abid
ing faith in their genius. Both poets
have left beautiful poetic tributes to
these peerless wives. Paul Hayne
wrote of his wife: “Little Bonny
Brown Hand.”
The hand that points to heaven yet
makes a heaven of earth.
This slender aristocratic hand of
the daughter of Napoleon’s most fa
vored army surgeon, had miraculous
ly been strengthened to cook and
wash for her family after the war,
and later when her domestic burden
was lightened as her husband’s arm
aments —to average a thousand let
ters a year.
Lanier’s poem apostrophizing his
wife’s eyes is well known. Os these
eyes that bent over him devotedly
in his illness, he described as:
“Oval and large and passion pure.
And gray and wise and honor sure;
The Golden Age, for November 21, 1912
Soft as a dying violet’s breath,
Yet calmly unafraid of death;
I marvel that God made you mine,
For when He frowns ’tis then you
shine.”
Cordially we welcome Mary Ligon
Miller to our Household. She is an
old favorite of the Sunny South clan,
and the pages of that dear old paper
were graced by her beautiful poems,
her womanly letters and stories, one
of which took a high prize in the
Story Contest. I hope she will write
for us often.
Fineta sends a charming story —all
her stories are good—with a moral
hidden deftly in their core. The long
evenings are with us. Where are our
readers of new books who used to be
kind enough to tell us about these and
give an outline of their plots with in
teresting comment.
Dear Julia Coman Tait, do come
back to us —and you—Mizpah—what
are you reading and thinking? An
nice has not spoken in meeting for
quite a time. Have her flowers,
chickens and Thanksgiving , turkeys
taken up all her time?
Wttb ®ur Gorresponbents
WHAT THE DRAWER CONTAINED.
“Once more to Time’s old grave-yard
I return
And scrape the moss from memory’s
pictured urn.”
This handsome old mahogany secre
tary at which I am writing has been
in our family for many years; but it
was only about eight years ago that
it came into my immediate family, de
scending to us from a lovely woman
who went to the better land through
a veritable furnace of suffering.
I have often explored its many
nooks and drawers, or rather, I have
sought to do so, for one particular
drawer has ever resisted my efforts
to open it —until today. Giving it a
final and despairing pull, what was
my surprise when it smoothly and
easily slipped out in my grasp! And
what did I 'find? What secret so
well guarded? Nothing but a few
personal and intimate letters from
friends to the dear woman, long time
gone, still sadly missed, and three
copies of the dear, always remembered
“Sunny South.” In one issue, March
26, 1887, in “The Household and Wo
man’s Kingdom,” at that time pre
sided over by “Mother Hubbard,” we
find our always welcome and inter
esting “Mizpah” moralizing in her in
imitable way over the sad fact that
“Into Each Life Some Rain Must
Fall.” “Pandora” is there with “A
Question Answered,” and by “Percy
Mordaunt” of Mexia, Texas, “The
Familiar Subject Is Again Revived.”
These three are the only contribu
tors to that issue of “The House
hold,” but there is the “Matrimonial,
or Love Among the Roses” column
which in that day graced, or dis
graced, the paper, according to the
viewpoint of the reader.
“Comfort Marshall” gives a sketch
of “Briar Rose Farm,” and “Bill Arp,
the Country Philosopher,” sits on a
picturesque stile, his ancient beaver
atop a fence-rail and holds forth about
“The Measles.”
Another issue, bearing date of April
9, 1887, has a letter from “Musa
Dunn,” wherein she “Makes a Book.”
Who that has read “Musa’s” piquant
letters will ever forget them? Often
I have wondered why one so bright
should have dropped her pen. She
speaks of Mrs. Bryan’s beautiful
“Random Talks.”
Here “Florida” sends “Greeting,”
and “Leona” a message to “Home and
Its Household.”
What it was in these two papers
that specially caught the fancy of my
dear friend and caused her to cherish
them, I do not know, but the third
issue, November 21, 1903, contained
my own small triumph in the story
contest. I remember how I laughed
at her extravagant words of praise,
so out of proportion to the small
achievement, let so sincerely spoken.
Little I thought that one day the
memory of these words would bring
the tears a-welling.
The swiftly fleeing years have had
no effect upon my memory of and love
for the “Sunny South,” and I hope
this “looking backward” at scenes
long gone may interest some member
of the present “Household.”
It has been so long since I have
written that I can scarcely hope to
be remembered, Save by my dear
Mrs. Bryan, which is happiness
enough.
MARY LIGON MILLER.
Trenton, S. C.
4. 4.
A TALK TO OUR GIRLS—BOOKS I
HAVE BEEN READING.
I want to talk to the girls just a lit
tle. About marriage, of course, this
being the universally interesting sub
ject. Girls, if you have been brought
up in a comfortable home, with, all the
money you really need, to spend on
clothes and amusements, don’t go and
marry a young man of small means,
unless you have fully made up your
minds to live within the income he
is able to provide. Figure it out
carefully, beforehand, and make your
decision accordingly. You need also
co study yourself a good deal. Feel
assured that you can be content as
well as Wise enough to save and do
without. If you have a doubt about
it, tell your lover candidly that you
must say no, or wait until conditions
are bettered.
I knew a young man, a handsome
gentlemanly young fellow, but poor.
Ho married a girl, who knew his cir
cumstances, but who, after marriage
could not be content with what he
was able to give her. She expressed
her dissatisfaction in those nagging
ways that exasperate a man. He stood
it until he became desperate, and going
to a neighboring city took his young
life. He left a note say thing he had
done this because he was not able to
have his wife live in the style she
wished. How do you suppose she
felt when she read this? No doubt,,
remorse haunted her all her life.
Other men I have known have been
driven to drink by being made miser
able at home through the discontent
and reproaches of their wives.
So, dear girls, study the prospective
situation and look well before you leap
into the life-long relation of mar
riage.
Yes, dear M. E. B. I believe I
would like to have Mrs. Summer’s
story published in The Golden Age. I
know since Fineta has pronounced it
good, that we will be pleased with it.
V am delighted with the good piece that
“The Tramp” wrote for the girls. Come
again, my dear Tramp. I like the way
you write.
I have lately reread Longfellow’s
Evangeline. I think it is one of his
best productions, though his “Night
fall” and “Psalm of Life” are better
&
——_
