The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland Part 18

Still speed thy truth!--still wave thy spirit sword, Till every land acknowledge Thee the Lord, And the broad banner of the Cross, unfurled In triumph, wave above a subject world.

And here O G.o.d! where feuds thy church divide-- The sectary's rancor, and the bigot's pride-- Melt every heart, till all our b.r.e.a.s.t.s enshrine One faith, one hope, one love, one zeal divine, And, with one voice, adoring nations call Upon the Father and the G.o.d of all.

[Footnote A: The Pantheon that was built to all the G.o.ds was transformed into a Christian temple.]

THE INFANT ST. JOHN, THE BAPTIST.

O sweeter than the breath of southern wind With all its perfumes is the whisper'd prayer From infant lips, and gentler than the hind, The feet that bear The heaven-directed youth in wisdom's pathway fair.

And thou, the early consecrate, like flowers Didst shed thy incense breath to heaven abroad; And prayer and praise the measure of thy hours, The desert trod Companionless, alone, save of the mighty G.o.d.

As Phosphor leads the kindling glory on, And fades, lost in the day-G.o.d's bright excess, So didst thou in Redemption's coming dawn, Grow l.u.s.treless, The fading herald of the Sun of Righteousness.

But when the book of life shall be unsealed, And stars of glory round the throne divine In all their light and beauty be revealed, The brightest thine Of all the hosts of earth with heavenly light shall shine.

Sh.e.l.lEY'S OBSEQUIES.

Ibi tu calentem Debita sparges lacryma favillam Vatis amici.

--Horace.

Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley, an eminent English poet, while sailing in the Mediterranean sea, in 1822, was drowned off the coast of Tuscany in a squall which wrecked the boat in which he had embarked. Two weeks afterwards his body was washed ash.o.r.e. The Tuscan quarantine regulations at that time required that whatever came ash.o.r.e from the sea should be burned. Sh.e.l.ley's body was accordingly placed on a pyre and reduced to ashes, in the presence of Lord Byron and Leigh Hunt, who are the "brother bards" referred to in the last stanza of the poem.

Beneath the axle of departing day The weary waters on the horizon's verge Blush'd like the cheek of children tired in play, As bore the surge The poet's wasted form with slow and mournful dirge.

On Via Reggio's surf-beaten strand The late-relenting sea, with hollow moan Gave back the storm-tossed body to the land, As if in tone Of sorrow it bewailed the deed itself had done.

There laid upon his bed of sh.e.l.ls--around The moon and stars their lonely vigils kept; While in their pall-like shades the mountains bound And night bewept The bard of nature as in death's cold arms he slept.

The tuneful morn arose with locks of light-- The ear that drank her music's call was chill; The eye that shone was sealed in endless night, And cold and still The pulses stood that 'neath her gaze were wont to thrill.

With trees e'en like the sleeper's honors sered And prows of galleys, like his bosom riven, The melancholy pile of death was reared Aloft to heaven, And on its pillared height the corpse to torches given.

From his meridian throne the eye of day Beheld the kindlings of the funeral fire, Where, like a war-worn Roman chieftain, lay Upon his pyre The poet of the broken heart and broken lyre.

On scented wings the sorrowing breezes came And fanned the blaze, until the smoke that rushed In dusky volumes upward, lit with flame All redly blushed Like Melancholy's sombre cheek by weeping flushed.

And brother bards upon that lonely sh.o.r.e Were standing by, and wept as brightly burned The pyre, till all the form they loved before, To ashes turned, With incense, wine, and tears was sprinkled and inurned.

THE FOUNTAIN REVISITED.

Let the cla.s.sic pilgrim rove, By Egeria's fount to stand, Or sit in Vancluse's grot of love, Afar from his native land; Let him drink of the crystal tides Of the far-famed Hippocrene, Or list to the waves where Peneus glides His storied mounts between: But dearer than aught 'neath a foreign sky Is the fount of my native dell, It has fairer charms for my musing eye For my heart a deeper spell.

Dear fount! what memories rush Through the heart and wildered brain, As beneath the old beech I list to the gush Of thy sparkling waves again; For here in a fairy dream With friends, my childhood's hours Glided on like the flow of thy beautiful stream, And like it were wreathed with flowers: Here we saw on thy waves, from the shade, The dance of the sunbeams at noon; Or heard, half-afraid, the deep murmurings made In thy cavernous depths, 'neath the moon.

I have heard thy waves away From thy scenes, dear fount, apart; And have felt the play, in life's fevered day, Of thy waters through my heart; But oh! thou art not the same: Youth's friends are gone--I am lone-- Thy beeches are carved with many a name Now graved on the funeral stone.

As I stand and muse, my tears Are troubling the stream whose waves The lullaby sang to their infantile years, And now murmur around their graves.

DEATH OF SAMSON.

Within Philistia's princely hall Is held a glorious festival, And on the fluctuant ether floats The music of the timbrel's notes, While living waves of voices gush, Echoing among the distant hills, Like an impetuous torrent's rush When swollen by a thousand rills.

The stripling and the man of years, Warriors with twice ten thousand spears, Peasants and slaves and husbandmen,-- The shepherd from his mountain glen, Va.s.sal, and chief arrayed in gold And purple robes--Philistines all Are drawn together to behold Their mighty foeman held in thrall.

Loud pealed the accents of the horn Upon the air of the clear morn, And deafening rose the mingled shout, Cleaving the air from that wild rout, As, guarded by a cavalcade The ill.u.s.trious prisoner appeared And, 'mid the grove the dense spears made, His forehead like a tall oak reared.

He stood with brawny shoulders bare, And tossed his nervous arms in air-- Chains, leathern thongs, and brazen bands Parted like wool within his hands; And giant trunks of gnarled oak, Splintered and into ribbons rent, Or by his iron sinews broke, Increased the people's wonderment.

The amphitheatre, where stood Spell-bound the mighty mult.i.tude, Rested its long and gilded walls Upon two pillars' capitals: His brawny arms, with labor spent, He threw around the pillars there, And to the deep blue firmament Lifted his sightless...o...b.. in prayer.

Anon the columns move--they shake, Totter, and vacillate, and shake, And wrenched by giant force, come down Like a disrupted mountain's crown, With cornice, frieze, and chapiter, Girder, and spangled dome, and wall, Ceiling of gold, and roof of fir, Crumbled in mighty ruin all.

Down came the structure--on the air Uprose in wildest shrieks despair, Rolling in echoes loud and long Ascending from the myriad throng: And Samson, with the heaps of dead Priest, va.s.sal, chief, in ruin blent, Piled over his victorious head His sepulchre and monument.

AN INFANT'S PRAYER.

The day is spent, on the calm evening hours, Like whispered prayer, come nature's sounds abroad, And with bowed heads the pure and gentle flowers Shake from their censers perfume to their G.o.d; Thus would I bow the head and bend the knee, And pour my soul's pure incense, Lord, to Thee.

Creator of my body, I adore, Redeemer of my soul, I worship Thee, Preserver of my being, I implore Thy light and power to guide and shelter me; Be Thou my sun, as life's dark vale I tread, Be thou my shield to guard my infant head.

And when these eyes in dewy sleep shall close, Uplifted now in love to Thy great throne, In the defenceless hours of my repose, Father and G.o.d, oh! leave me not alone, But send thy angel minister's to keep With hovering wings their vigils while I sleep.

JOHN MARCHBORN COOLEY.

John Marchborn Cooley, the eldest son of the late Corbin Cooley, was born at the Cooley homestead, on the Susquehanna river, in Cecil county, a short distance below the junction of that stream and the Octoraro creek, on the first of March, 1827; and died at Darlington, Harford county, Maryland, April 13th, 1878.

In childhood he showed a taste for learning, and in early youth was sent to West Nottingham Academy, where he received his education. While at the Academy he is said to have been always willing to write the compositions of his fellow students, and to help them with any literary work in which they were engaged.

Mr. Cooley studied law in the office of the late Col. John C. Groome, and was admitted to the Elkton bar on the 4th of April, 1850. He practiced his profession in Elkton for a short time, during a part of which he was counsel to the County Commissioners, but removed to Warsaw, Illinois, where he continued to practice his profession for six years, after which he came to Harford county, where he resided until the outbreaking of the war of the rebellion, when he joined the Union army and continued to serve his country until the close of the war. In 1866, he married Miss Hattie Lord, of Manchester, New Hampshire, and settled in Darlington, Harford county, Maryland, where he was engaged in teaching a cla.s.sical school until the time of his death.

Mr. Cooley was born within a few miles of the birthplace of William P.

and E.E. Ewing, and Emma Alice Brown and almost within sight of the mansion in which Mrs. Hall wrote the poems which are published in this book.

Mr. Cooley was a born poet, a voluminous and beautiful writer, and the author of several poems of considerable length and great merit.