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SOME PAGES FROM MM SCRAP ROOK i
A PROSE POEM ON GRASS.
Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, is a
rough citizen in a political way, and
we have had frequent cause to de
nounce and abuse him.
But he has written an article on
grass that displays the genius of sen
timent as well as of language. We
print it herewith. Those who read it,
and who catch its sense and its poe
try will agree with us that he cannot
be an utterly bad man, who has
formed in his heart such thoughts
as these. Though Senator Ingalls
probably comes as near being utterly
bad as such a man can be.
Attracted by the bland softness of
an afternoon in my primeval winter
in Kansas, I rode southward through
the dense forest that then covered the
bluffs of the north fork of Wildcat.
The ground was sodded with
the ooze of melting snow. The
dripping trees were as motionless as
granite. The last year’s leaves, tena
cious lingerers, loath to leave the
scene of their brief bravery, adhered
to the boughs like fragile bronze.
There were no visible indications of
life, but the broad, wintry landscape
was flooded with that indescribable
splendor that was never on sea or
shore —a purple and silken softness
that half veiled, half disclosed the
alien horizon, the vast curves of the
remote river, the transient architec
ture of the clouds, and filled the re
sponsive soul with a vague tumult of
emotions, pensive and pathetic, in
which regret and hope contended for
the mastery. The dead and silent
•globe, with all its hidden kingdoms,
seemed swimming like a bubble, sus
pended in an ethereal solution of
amethyst and silver, compounded of
the exhaling whiteness of the snow,
the descending glory of the sky. A
tropical atmosphere brooded upon an
arctie scene, creating the strange
spectacle, of summer in winter, June
in January, peculiar to Kansas, which
unseen cannot be imagined, but once
seen can never be forgotten. A sud
den descent into the sheltered valley
revealed an unexpected verdure, glit
tering like a meadow in early spring,
unreal as an incantation, surprising
as the sea to the soldiers of Xeno
phon as they stood upon the shore
and shouted “Thalatta.” It was
Blue grass unknown in Eden, the
final triumph of nature, reserved to
compensate her favorite offspring in
the new paradise of Kansas for the
loss of the old upon the banks of the
Tigris and Euphrates.
Next in importance to the divine
profusion of water, light, and air,
those three great physical facts which
render existence possible, may 'be
reckoned the universal beneficence
of grass. Exaggerated by tropical
heats and vapors to the gigantic cane
congested with its saccharine secre
tion, or dwarfed by polar rigors to
the fibrous hair of Northern soli
tudes, embracing between these ex
tremes the maize with its resolute
pennons, the rice plant of Southern
swamps, the wheat, rye, barley, oats,
and other cereals, no less than the
humbler verdure of hill-side, pasture
and prairie in the temperate zone,
grass is the most widely distributed
of all vegetable beings, and is at once
the type of our life and the emblem
of our mortality. Lying in the sun
shine among buttercups and dande
lions of May, scarcely higher in intel
ligence than the minute tenants of
that mimic wilderness, out earliest
recollections are of grass, and when
the fitful fever is ended and the fool
ish wrangle of the market and the
forum is closed, grass heals over the
scar which our descent into the bos
om of the earth has made, and the
carpet of the infant becomes the
blanket of the dead.
As he reflected upon the brevity of
human life, grass has been the favor
ite symbol of the moralist, the chos
en theme of the philosopher. il All
flesh is grass,” said the prophet.
“My days are as grass,” sighed the
troubled patriarch; and the pensive
Nebuchadnezar in his penitential
mood exceeded even these, and as
the sacred historian informs us did
eat grass like an ox.
Grass is the forgiveness of nature
—her constant benediction. Fields
trampled with battle, saturated with
blood, torn with ruts of cannon, grow
green again with grass, and carnage is
forgotten. Streets abandoned by
traffic becomes grass grown like ru
ral lanes and are obliterated. For
ests decay, harvests perish, flowe-s
vanish, but grass is immortal. Be
leaguered by the sullen hosts of win
ter, it withdraws into the impregna
ble fortress of its subterranean vi
tality, and emerges upon the first so
licitation of spring. Sown by the
winds, by wondering birds, propa
gated by the subtle horticulture of
the elements, which are its ministers
and servants, it softens the rude out
line of the world. Its tenacious fibres
hold the earth in its place, and pre
vent its soluble components from
washing into the wasting sea. It in
vades the solitudes of deserts, climbs
the inaccessible slopes and forbidding
pinnacles of mountains, modifies cli
mates, and determi jes the history,
character and destiny of nations Un
obtrusive and patient it has in.mor
tal vigor and aggression. Banished
from the thoroughfare and the field
it bides its times to return, and when
vigilance is relaxed, or the dynasty
has perished, it silently resumes the
throne from which it has been expell
ed, but which it never abdicates. It
bears no blatonry of bloom to charm
the senses with fragrance or splen
dor, but its homely hue is more en
chanting than the lily or the rose.
It yields no fruit in earth or air, and
yet should its harvest fail for a sin
gle year famine would depopulate the
world. *
One grass differs from another in
glory. One is vulgar, another patri
cian. There are grades in its vege
table nobility. Some varieties are
useful. Some are beautiful. Others
combine utility and ornament. The
sour reedy herb of swamps is base
born. Timothy is a valuable servant.
Red top and clover are a degree high
er in the social scale. But the king
of them all, with genuine blood roy
al, is blue grass. Why is it called
blue, save that it is most vividly and
intensely green, is inexplicable, but
il- .’I V'. •■> ■ ■ ■ . :k ■ ■
WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
had its unknown priest baptized it
with all the hues of the prism he
would not have changed its heredi
tary title to imperial superiority ov
er all its humbler kin.
The primary form of food is grass.
Grass feeds the ox; the ox nourishes
man; man dies and goes to grass
again, and so the tide of life with
everlasting repetition in continuous
circles moves endlessly on and up
ward, and in more senses than one
all flesh is grass. But all flesh is not
blue grass. If it were the devil’s
occupation would be gone.
There is a portion of Kentucky
known as the “Bluegrass Region,”
and it is safe to say that it has been
the arena of the most magnificent in
tellectual and physical development
that has been witnessed among men
or animals upon the American conti
nent, or perhaps upon the whole face
of the world. In corroboration of
this belief it is necessary only to men
tion the name of Henry Clay, the ora
tor, and the horse Lexington, both
peerless, electric, immortal. The erh
nobling love of the horse has extend
ed to all other races of animals. In
comparable herds of highbred cattle
graze the tranquil pastures, their ele
vating protoplasm supplying a finer
force to human passions, brains and
will. Hog artists devote their genius
to shortening the snouts and swelling
the hams of their grunting brethren.
The reflex of this solicitude appears
in the muscular, athletic vigor of men
and the voluptuous beauty of the
women who inhabit this favored land.
Palaces, temples, forests, peaceful
institutions, social order, spring like
exhalations from the congenial soil.
All these marvels are attributable
as directly to the potential influence
of blue grass as day and night to the
revolution of the earth. Eradicate it
—substitute for it the scrawny herb
age of impoverished barrons —and in
a single generation man and beast
would alike degenerate into a com
mon clay.
If we would have one prosperity
commensurate with their opportuni
ties we must look to blue grass. It
will raise the temperature, increase
the rainfall, improve the climate, de
velop a higher fauna and flora, and
consequently a loftier attendant civ
ilization.
Blue grass is marching into the
bowels of the land without impedi
ment. Its perennial verdure clothes
the bluffs and uplands along the
streams, its spongy sward retaining
the moisture of the earth, preventing
the annual scarification by fire, pro
moting the growth of forests, and
elevating the nature of man.
THE TRAGEDY OF POE’S
DEATH.
Vivid Description of the Closing
Scene in Edgar Allan Poe’s Life.
From the Book News Monthly.
Had Poe been bom a generation
later he might have been spared a
life’s anguish, and his good name
would have been unbesmirched. In
the light of modern science Poe be
longed to a class of unfortunates now
called dipsomaniacs. Modem scien-
tific investigation and research have
disclosed the existence of a malady
underlying drunken phenomena,
which it has christened inebriety or
narcomania—a mania for narcotism
or intoxication which it recognizes as
a specific disease, as is mental un
consciousness, that not so very long
ago was believed to be a demoniacal
possession. Indeed, in the jurispru
dence of some countries, as Belgium,
dipsomania is regarded as a variety
of insanity.
There can be no question whatever
that, palliate the facts as we may, the
end of Poe was the most dreadful in
the history of letters. Francois Vil
lon disappeared into the night of
Time after the career of a desperate
criminal. His end can only be con
jectured fearfully. But in Poe’s case
every ray that the twin lamps of cir
cumstance and judgment can bring
to bear upon the scene only serves to
strengthen the plain testimony of his
friend and physician. It was not a
record written for the eyes of rela
tives and friends. It was not a de
fense. It was the statement of a
scientific man and a humanitarian to
eye-witnessed facts.
As to the scenes in the hospital, it
is best to draw a veil over what can
but too plainly be read between the
lines of current account. He was at
first unconscious—sleeping at once the
sleep of exhaustion and of death. To
this succeeded spells of delirium, con
stant talking with spectral and imag
inary objects on the walls, during
which “his face was pale and his
whole person drenched in perspira
tion,” which was not wholly subdued
till the second day after his admis
sion. “In the interval of lucidity
which followed,” says Dr. Moran,
physician in charge of the hospital,
‘‘ I endeavored to cheer him; but he
broke out with an imprecation ‘that
the best thing his best friend could
do would be to take a pistol and blow
out his brains.’ Shortly after giv
ing expression to these words Mr.
Poe seemed to doze, and I left him
for a short time. When I returned I
found him in a violent delirium, re
sisting the efforts of two nurses to
keep him in bed. This state contin
ued until Saturday evening, when
he commenced calling for one ‘Rey
nolds,’ which he did through the night
until 3 on Sunday morning. At this
time a very decided change began to
affect him. Having become exhausted
from exertion, he became quiet, and
seemed to rest for a short time. Then,
gently moving his head, he said,
‘Lord, help my poor soul!’ and ex
pired. His remains,” the doctor adds
(it is his post mortem account to
Mrs. Clemm in a letter), “were vis
ited by some of the first individuals
of the city, many of them anxious to
have a lock of his hair.”
As the Republican tariff reform
ers insist that the reduction of the
schedules shall be left to the bene
ficiaries of protection, why not in
sist that railroad regulation be left
to the railway presidents and anti
trust legislation to the trust mag
nates? It would be just as reasona
ble.—The Commoner.
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