Works

I.

In Southern sunny clime there is a hallowed tomb,
Where rest the ashes of a minstrel priest;
And soft winds that are laden with a sweet perfume
Their requiems for him have never ceased.

...

I.

The sweetest music put in song since Robby Burns's time
Is that which breathes its harmony from Georgia's sunny clime,
Where the fragrant-scented odor that the climbing jasmine flings...

Facile Princeps.


I.

O gifted one of the Sunny South, with lips so eloquent,
In whose great heart no malice e'er was found!
And now thou art a messenger of Peace, by heaven sent...

FEBRUARY 4TH, 1894.


"Gone to his exceeding great reward,"
The friend of rich and poor alike;
And there'll rest not beneath the sward
More shining mark that death could strike.
...

I.

Oh, for a deep-shaded spot where the shadows cool
Are hid from the rays of the glaring sun,
And the sparkling waters from a limped pool
O'er the gleaming pebbles in ripples run!


II....

I.

I wouldn't mind the weather much--I'd sizzle and I'd stew,
And do the very best I could the heat to struggle through,
If I could find some way, you know, the feller to eschew,...

I.

Now Farmer Jones was noted for fast horses on his place,
And also as the father of a son with freckled face,
And hair so red it looked as if it had been dyed in blood,...

I.

Gim me back my stone-bruised heel,
And them tow-linen pants,
An' that old pole an' line an' reel,
An' all them boyhood ha'nts,
An' that old hat I used to wear,
That didn't hav' no crown,...

I.

Sweetly to sleep beneath the fresh green turf
They laid the loved and lost away;
A chair is vacant by the household hearth,
And shadow-vested Sorrow's there to-day.


II.
...

Sweet Memory! thou faculty divine--
Triumphant o'er the cruel hand of Time!
On thy tablets we may trace
The lines his fingers ne'er efface,
And take with us till latest day...

I.

I passed her on the crowded street--
This winsome maid, demure and sweet--
And envious saw the silken tresses
That seemed to give her cheeks caresses,
And rapture felt that thrilled me through...

I.

"I'll tell yer what," said Uncle Zeke, down at the country store,
"I'd been a farmer all my life--fur twenty year or more--
Until one day my noddle here, it got plumb out o' fix,...

Fought October 8th, 1862.


Here on this spot, where Nature now, with chilling, icy breath,
Has mantled in a robe of white the field of strife and death,...

I.

Oh, melancholy child of want and woe!
A brilliant meteor in an ebon sky!
Thy soul's weird music all did flow
From heart-strings touched by destiny!


II.
...

Written In The Danville (KY.) Cemetery.


I.

Within thy hallowed precincts on this sweet autumnal day,
We're wandering 'neath the cedar and the pine,...

(A PARAPHRASE.)


I.

Thou lingering Star! No less'ning ray
Will e'er bedim thy natal morn,
Or usher in the unhallowed day
When we forget that thou wert born!...

One Autumn evening, wandering, when the sun was hanging low,
Through a woodland where the music of a streamlet's gentle flow
Commingled with the rustling of the yellow golden leaves,...

I.

There's a something in the atmosphere, in sweet September days,
That mantles all the landscape with its languid, dreamy haze;
And you see the leaves a-dropping, in a lazy kind of way,...

(With Apologies To Riley.)


I.

As one who dreams at evening o'er the new hats that he's worn,
And muses on the better times that once to him were known,...

When the burning sun of Summer shines from out a brassy sky,
And has parched and browned the meadows, and the creek's run dry,
O sweet it is to wander there and hear the water sing...