Charles Felton Pidgin - "The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks"

Ellis Wynne - "The Sleeping Bard"

AEsop - "The AEsop for Children"

Lafcadio Hearn - "Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan"

Editorial
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Canadian Elocutionist

A >> Anna Kelsey Howard >> The Canadian Elocutionist




With trembling haste, and breathless,
With noiseless step, she sped;
Horses and weary cattle
Were standing in the shed;
She loosed the strong, white charger,
That fed from out her hand,
She mounted, and she turned his head
Toward her native land.

Out--out into the darkness--
Faster, and still more fast;
The smooth grass flies behind her,
The chestnut wood is past;
She looks up; clouds are heavy;
Why is her steed so slow?
Scarcely the wind beside them
Can pass them as they go.

"Faster!" she cries, "O faster!"
Eleven the church-bells chime:
"O God," she cries, "help Bregenz,
And bring me there in time!"
But louder than bells' ringing,
Or lowing of the kine,
Grows nearer in the midnight
The rushing of the Rhine.

Shall not the roaring waters
Their headlong gallop check?
The steed draws back in terror--
She leans upon his neck
To watch the flowing darkness;
The bank is high and steep;
One pause--he staggers forward,
And plunges in the deep.

She strives to pierce the blackness,
And looser throws the rein;
Her steed must breast the waters
That dash above his mane.
How gallantly, how nobly,
He struggles through the foam,
And see--in the far distance
Shine out the lights of home!

Up the steep bank he bears her,
And now, they rush again
Towards the heights of Bregenz,
That tower above the plain.
They reach the gate of Bregenz
Just as the midnight rings,
And out come serf and soldier
To meet the news she brings.

Bregenz is saved! Ere daylight
Her battlements are manned;
Defiance greets the army
That marches on the land.
And if to deeds heroic
Should endless fame be paid,
Bregenz does well to honour
That noble Tyrol maid.

Three hundred years are vanished,
And yet upon the hill
An old stone gateway rises.
To do her honour still.
And there, when Bregenz women
Sit spinning in the shade,
They see in quaint old carving
The Charger and the Maid.

And when, to guard old Bregenz,
By gateway, street, and tower,
The warder paces all night long
And calls each passing hour:
"Nine," "ten," "eleven," he cries aloud,
And then (O crown of Fame!)
When midnight pauses in the skies,
He calls the maiden's name!

_Adelaide A. Procter._

* * * * *

A TARRYTOWN ROMANCE.

'Twas in ye pleasant olden time,
Oh! many years ago,
When husking bees and singing-schools
Were all the fun, you know.

The singing-school in Tarrytown,
A quaint old town in Maine--
Was wisely taught and grandly led
By a young man named Paine.

A gallant gentleman was Paine,
Who liked the lasses well;
But best he liked Miss Patience White,
As all his school could tell.

One night the singing-school had met;
Young Paine, all carelessly,
Had turned the leaves and said: "We'll sing
On page one-seventy."

"'See gentle patience smile on pain.'"
On Paine they all then smiled,
But not so gently as they might;
And he, confused and wild.

Searched quickly for another place,
As quickly gave it out;
The merriment, suppressed before,
Rose now into a shout.

These were the words that met his eyes
(He sank down with a groan);
"Oh! give me grief for others' woes,
And patience for my own!"

_Good Cheer._

* * * * *

THE BISHOPS VISIT.

Tell you about it? Of course, I will!
I thought 'twould be dreadful to have him come,
For Mamma said I must be quiet and still,
And she put away my whistle and drum--

And made me unharness the parlour chairs,
And packed my cannon and all the rest
Of my noisiest playthings off up stairs,
On account of this very distinguished guest.

Then every room was turned upside down,
And all the carpets hung out to blow;
For when the Bishop is coming to town,
The house must be in order you know.

So out in the kitchen I made my lair,
And started a game of hide-and-seek;
But Bridget refused to have me there,
For the Bishop was coming--to stay a week--

And she must make cookies and cakes and pies,
And fill every closet and platter and pan,
Till I thought this Bishop so great and wise,
Must be an awfully hungry man.

Well, at last he came; and I do declare,
Dear grandpapa, he looked just like you,
With his gentle voice and his silvery hair,
And eyes with a smile a-shining through.

And whenever he read, or talked, or prayed,
I understood every single word;
And I wasn't the leastest bit afraid,
Though I never once spoke or stirred;

Till, all of a sudden, he laughed right out
To see me sit quietly listening so;
And began to tell us stories about
Some queer little fellows in Mexico.

All about Egypt and Spain--and then
He wasn't disturbed by a little noise,
But said that the greatest and best of men
Once were rollicking, healthy boys.

And he thinks it no great matter at all
If a little boy runs and jumps and climbs;
And Mamma should be willing to let me crawl
Through the bannister-rails, in the hall, sometimes.

And Bridget, she made a great mistake,
In stirring up such a bother, you see,
For the Bishop--he didn't care for cake,
And really liked to play games with me.

But though he's so honoured in words and act--
(Stoop down, for this is a secret now)--
He couldn't spell Boston! That's a fact!
But whispered to me to tell him how.

_Emily Huntington Miller_.

* * * * *

HANNAH BINDING SHOES.

Poor lone Hannah,
Sitting at the window, binding shoes!
Faded, wrinkled,
Sitting, stitching, in a mournful muse.
Bright-eyed beauty once was she,
When the bloom was on the tree;--
Spring and winter,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Not a neighbour
Passing, nod or answer will refuse
To her whisper,
"Is there from the fishers any news?"
Oh, her heart's adrift with one
On an endless voyage gone;--
Night and morning,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Fair young Hannah,
Ben the sunburnt fisher, gaily woos;
Hale and clever,
For a willing heart and hand he sues
May-day skies are all aglow,
And the waves are laughing so!
For her wedding
Hannah leaves her window and her shoes.

May is passing;
'Mid the apple-boughs a pigeon coos;
Hannah shudders,
For the wild south-wester mischief brews.
Round the rocks of Marblehead,
Outward bound a schooner sped;
Silent, lonesome,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

'Tis November:
Now no tear her wasted cheek bedews,
From Newfoundland
Not a sail returning will she lose,
Whispering hoarsely: "Fishermen,
Have you, have you heard of Ben?"
Old with watching,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

Twenty winters
Bleak and drear the ragged shore she views,
Twenty seasons!
Never one has brought her any news.
Still her dim eyes silently
Chase the white sails o'er the sea;--
Hopeless, faithful,
Hannah's at the window, binding shoes.

_Lucy Larcom._

* * * * *

BELLS ACROSS THE SNOW.

O Christmas, merry Christmas!
Is it really come again?
With its memories and greetings,
With its joy and with its pain
There's a minor in the carol,
And a shadow in the light,
And a spray of cypress twining
With the holly wreath to-night.
And the hush is never broken,
By the laughter light and low,
As we listen in the starlight
To the bells across the snow!

O Christmas, merry Christmas!
'Tis not so very long
Since other voices blended
With the carol and the song!
If we could but hear them singing,
As they are singing now,
If we could but see the radiance
Of the crown on each dear brow;
There would be no sigh to smother,
No hidden tear to flow,
As we listen in the starlight
To the bells across the snow!

O Christmas, merry Christmas!
This never more can be;
We cannot bring again the days
Of our unshadowed glee.
But Christmas, happy Christmas!
Sweet herald of good-will,
With holy songs of glory
Brings holy gladness still.
For peace and hope may brighten,
And patient love may glow,
As we listen in the starlight
To the bells across the snow!

_Frances Ridley Havergal._

* * * * *

A MODEST WIT.

A supercilious nabob of the East--
Haughty, being great--purse-proud, being rich--
A governor, or general, at the least,
I have forgotten which--
Had in his family a humble youth,
Who went from England in his patron's suite,
An unassuming boy, and in truth
A lad of decent parts, and good repute.

This youth had sense and spirit;
But yet, with all his sense,
Excessive diffidence
Obscured his merit.

One day, at table, flushed with pride and wine,
His honour, proudly free, severely merry,
Conceived it would be vastly fine
To crack a joke upon his secretary.

"Young man," he said, "by what art, craft, or trade,
Did your good father gain a livelihood?"
"He was a saddler, sir," Modestus said,
"And in his time was reckon'd good."

"A saddler, eh! and taught you Greek,
Instead of teaching you to sew!
Pray, why did not your father make
A saddler, sir, of you?"

Each parasite, then, as in duty bound,
The joke applauded, and the laugh went round.
At length Modestus, bowing low,
Said (craving pardon, if too free he made),
"Sir, by your leave, I fain would know
Your father's trade!"

"My father's trade! by heaven, that's too bad!
My father's trade? Why, blockhead, are you mad?
My father, sir, did never stoop so low--
He was a gentleman, I'd have you know."

"Excuse the liberty I take,"
Modestus said, with archness on his brow,
"Pray, why did not your father make
A gentleman of you?"

* * * * *

"NAY, I'LL STAY WITH THE LAD."

Six hundred souls one summer's day,
Worked in the deep, dark Hutton seams;
Men were hewing the coal away,
Boys were guiding the loaded teams.
Horror of darkness was everywhere;
It was coal above, and coal below,
Only the miner's guarded lamp
Made in the gloom a passing glow.

Down in the deep, black Hutton seams
There came a flowery, balmy breath;
Men dropped their tools, and left their teams,
They knew the balmy air meant death,
And fled before the earthquake shock,
The cruel fire-damp's fatal course,
That tore apart the roof and walls,
And buried by fifties, man and horse.

"The shaft! the shaft!" they wildly cried;
And as they ran they passed a cave,
Where stood a father by his son--
The child had found a living grave,
And lay among the shattered coal,
His little life had almost sped.
"Fly! fly! For there may yet be time!"
The father calmly, firmly said:
"Nay; I'll stay with the lad."

He had no hurt; he yet might reach
The blessed sun and light again.
But at his feet his child lay bound,
And every hope of help was vain.
He let deliverance pass him by;
He stooped and kissed the little face;
"I will not leave thee by thyself,
Ah! lad; this is thy father's place."

So Self before sweet Love lay slain.
In the deep mine again was told
The story of a father's love.
Older than mortal man is old;
For though they urged him o'er and o'er,
To every prayer he only had
The answer he had found at first,
"Nay; I'll stay with the lad."

And when some weary days had passed,
And men durst venture near the place,
They lay where Death had found them both,
But hand in hand, and face to face.
And men were better for that sight,
And told the tale with tearful breath;
There was not one but only felt,
The man had died a noble death,
And left this thought for all to keep--
If earthly fathers can so love,
Ah, surely, we may safely lean
Upon the Fatherhood above!

_Lillie E. Barr._

* * * * *

MARY MALONEY'S PHILOSOPHY.

"What are you singing for?" said I to Mary Maloney.

"Oh, I don't know, ma'am, without it's because my heart feels happy."

"Happy are you, Mary Maloney? Let me see; you don't own a foot of land in
the world?"

"Foot of land, is it?" she cried, with a hearty Irish laugh; "oh, what a
hand ye be after joking; why I haven't a penny, let alone the land."

"Your mother is dead!"

"God rest her soul, yes," replied Mary Maloney, with a touch of genuine
pathos; "may the angels make her bed in heaven."

"Your brother is still a hard case, I suppose."

"Ah, you may well say that. It's nothing but drink, drink, drink, and
beating his poor wife, that she is, the creature."

You have to pay your little sister's board."

"Sure, the bit creature, and she's a good little girl, is Hinny, willing to
do whatever I axes her. I don't grudge the money what goes for that."

"You haven't many fashionable dresses, either, Mary Maloney."

"Fashionable, is it? Oh, yes, I put a piece of whalebone in my skirt, and
me calico gown looks as big as the great ladies. But then ye says true, I
hasn't but two gowns to me back, two shoes, to me feet, and one bonnet to
me head, barring the old hood you gave me."

"You haven't any lover, Mary Maloney."

"Oh, be off wid ye--ketch Mary Maloney getting a lover these days, when the
hard times is come. No, no, thank Heaven I haven't got that to trouble me
yet, nor I don't want it."

"What on earth, then, have you got to make you happy? A drunken brother, a
poor helpless sister, no mother, no father, no lover; why, where do you get
all your happiness from?"

"The Lord be praised, Miss, it growed up in me. Give me a bit of sunshine,
a clean flure, plenty of work, and a sup at the right time, and I'm made.
That makes me laugh and sing, and then if deep trouble comes, why, God
helpin' me, I'll try to keep my heart up. Sure, it would be a sad thing if
Patrick McGrue should take it into his head to come an ax me, but, the Lord
willin', I'd try to bear up under it."

_Philadelphia Bulletin._

* * * * *

THE POLISH BOY.

Whence came those shrieks, so wild and shrill,
That like an arrow cleave the air,
Causing the blood to creep and thrill
With such sharp cadence of despair?
Once more they come! as if a heart
Were cleft in twain by one quick blow,
And every string had voice apart
To utter its peculiar woe!

Whence came they? From yon temple, where
An altar raised for private prayer
Now forms the warrior's marble bed,
Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.
The dim funereal tapers throw
A holy lustre o'er his brow,
And burnish with their rays of light
The mass of curls that gather bright
Above the haughty brow and eye
Of a young boy that's kneeling by.

What hand is that whose icy press
Clings to the dead with death's own grasp,
But meets no answering caress--
No thrilling fingers seek its clasp?
It is the hand of her whose cry
Rang wildly late upon the air,
When the dead warrior met her eye,
Outstretched upon the altar there.

Now with white lips and broken moan
She sinks beside the altar stone;
But hark! the heavy tramp of feet
Is heard along the gloomy street;
Nearer and nearer yet they come,
With clanking arms and noiseless drum.
They leave the pavement. Flowers that spread
Their beauties by the path they tread
Are crushed and broken. Crimson hands
Rend brutally their blooming bands.
Now whispered curses, low and deep,
Around the holy temple creep.

The gate is burst. A ruffian band
Rush in and savagely demand,
With brutal voice and oath profane,
The startled boy for exile's chain.

The mother sprang with gesture wild,
And to her bosom snatched the child;
Then with pale cheek and flashing eye,
Shouted with fearful energy,--
"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread
Too near the body of my dead!
Nor touch the living boy--I stand
Between him and your lawless band!
No traitor he--but listen! I
Have cursed your master's tyranny.
I cheered my lord to join the band
Of those who swore to free our land,
Or fighting, die; and when he pressed
Me for the last time to his breast,
I knew that soon his form would be
Low as it is, or Poland free.
He went and grappled with the foe,
Laid many a haughty Russian low;
But he is dead--the good--the brave--
And I, his wife, am worse--a slave!
Take me, and bind these arms, these hands,
With Russia's heaviest iron bands,
And drag me to Siberia's wild
To perish, if 'twill save my child!"

"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,
Tearing the pale boy from her side;
And in his ruffian grasp he bore
His victim to the temple door.

"One moment!" shrieked the mother, "one;
Can land or gold redeem my son?
If so, I bend my Polish knee,
And, Russia, ask a boon of thee.
Take palaces, take lands, take all,
But leave him free from Russian thrall.
Take these," and her white arms and hands
She stripped of rings and diamond bands,
And tore from braids of long black hair
The gems that gleamed like star-light there;
Unclasped the brilliant coronal
And carcanet of orient pearl;
Her cross of blazing rubies last
Down to the Russian's feet she cast.

He stooped to seize the glittering store;
Upspringing from the marble floor;
The mother, with a cry of joy,
Snatched to her leaping heart the boy!
But no--the Russian's iron grasp
Again undid the mother's clasp.
Forward she fell, with one long cry
Of more than mother's agony.

But the brave child is roused at length,
And breaking from the Russian's hold,
He stands, a giant in the strength
Of his young spirit, fierce and bold.

Proudly he towers, his flashing eye,
So blue and fiercely bright,
Seems lighted from the eternal sky,
So brilliant is its light.
His curling lips and crimson cheeks
Foretell the thought before he speaks.
With a full voice of proud command
He turns upon the wondering band.

"Ye hold me not! no, no, nor can;
This hour has made the boy a man.
The world shall witness that one soul
Fears not to prove itself a Pole.

"I knelt beside my slaughtered sire,
Nor felt one throb of vengeful ire;
I wept upon his marble brow--
Yes, wept--I was a child; but now
My noble mother on her knee,
Has done the work of years for me.
Although in this small tenement
My soul is cramped--unbowed, unbent
I've still within me ample power
To free myself this very hour.
This dagger in my heart! and then,
Where is your boasted power, base men?"

He drew aside his broidered vest,
And there, like slumbering serpent's crest,
The jewelled haft of a poinard bright,
Glittered a moment on the sight.
"Ha! start ye back? Fool! coward! knave!
Think ye my noble father's glaive,
Could drink the life blood of a slave?
The pearls that on the handle flame,
Would blush to rubies in their shame.
The blade would quiver in thy breast,
Ashamed of such ignoble rest!
No; thus I rend thy tyrant's chain,
And fling him back a boy's disdain!"

A moment, and the funeral light
Flashed on the jewelled weapon bright;
Another, and his young heart's blood
Leaped to the floor a crimson flood.
Quick to his mother's side he sprang,
And on the air his clear voice rang--
"Up, mother, up! I'm free! I'm free!
The choice was death or slavery:
Up! mother, up! look on my face,
I only wait for thy embrace.
One last, last word--a blessing, one,
To prove thou knowest what I have done,
No look! No word! Canst thou not feel
My warm blood o'er thy heart congeal?
Speak, mother, speak--lift up thy head.
What, silent still? Then thou art dead!
Great God, I thank thee! Mother, I
Rejoice with thee, and thus to die."
Slowly he falls. The clustering hair
Rolls back and leaves that forehead bare.
One long, deep breath, and his pale head
Lay on his mother's bosom, dead.

_Mrs. Ann S. Stephens._

* * * * *


THOUGH LOST TO SIGHT, TO MEMORY DEAR.

Sweetheart, good-bye! the flutt'ring sail
Is spread to waft me far from thee,
And soon before the favouring gale
My ship shall bound upon the sea.
Perchance, all desolate and forlorn,
These eyes shall miss thee many a year;
But unforgotten every charm--
Though lost to sight, to memory dear.

Sweetheart, good-bye! one last embrace;
O, cruel fate, two souls to sever!
Yet in this heart's most sacred place
Thou, thou alone shalt dwell forever;
And still shall recollection trace
In fancy's mirror, ever near,
Each smile, each tear--that form, that face--
Though lost to sight, to memory dear.

_Ruthven Jenkyns._

* * * * *

THE AGUE.

Once upon an evening bleary,
While I sat me dreaming, dreary,
In the parlour thinking o'er
Things that passed in days of yore,
While I nodded, nearly sleeping,
Gently came something creeping,
Creeping upward from the floor.
"'Tis a cooling breeze," I muttered,
"From the regions 'neath the floor:
Only this and nothing more."

Ah! distinctly I remember--
It was in that wet September,
When the earth and every member
Of creation that it bore,
Had for weeks and months been soaking
In the meanest, most provoking,
Foggy rain, that without joking,
We had ever seen before.
So I knew it must be very
Cold and damp beneath the floor,
Very cold beneath the floor.

So I sat me, nearly napping,
In the sunshine, stretching, gaping,
With a feeling quite delighted
With the breezes 'neath the floor,
Till I felt me growing colder,
And the stretching waxing bolder,
And myself now feeling older,
Older than I felt before;
Feeling that my joints were stiffer
Than they were in days of yore,
Stiffer than they'd been before.

All along my back, the creeping
Soon gave place to rustling, leaping,
As if countless frozen demons
Had concluded to explore
All the cavities--the varmints!--
'Twixt me and my nether garments,
Through my boots into the floor:
Then I found myself a shaking,
Gently shaking more and more,
Every moment more and more.

'Twas the ague; and it shook me
Into heavy clothes, and took me
Shaking to the kitchen, every
Place where there was warmth in store,
Shaking till the china rattled,
Shaking till the morals battled;
Shaking, and with all my warming,
Feeling colder than before;
Shaking till it had exhausted
All its powers to shake me more.
Till it could not shake me more.

Then it rested till the morrow,
When it came with all the horror
That it had the face to borrow,
Shaking, shaking as before,
And from that day in September--
Day which I shall long remember--
It has made diurnal visits,
Shaking, shaking, oh! so sore,
Shaking off my boots, and shaking
Me to bed if nothing more,
Fully this if nothing more.

And to-day the swallows flitting
Bound my cottage see me sitting
Moodily within the sunshine
Just inside my silent door,
Waiting for the ague, seeming
Like a man forever dreaming,
And the sunlight on me streaming,
Casts no shadow on the floor,
For I am too thin and sallow
To make shadows on the floor,
Never a shadow any more.

* * * * *

THE OLD MAN IN THE MODEL CHURCH.

Well, wife, I've found the model church! I worshipped there to-day!
It made me think of good old times before my hairs were gray;
The meetin' house was fixed up more than they were years ago,
But then I felt, when I went in, it wasn't built for show.

The sexton didn't seat me away back by the door;
He knew that I was old and deaf, as well as old and poor;
He must have been a Christian, for he led me boldly through
The long aisle of that crowded church to find a pleasant pew.

I wish you'd heard the singin'; it had the old-time ring;
The preacher said, with trumpet voice: "Let all the people sing!"
The tune was "Coronation," and the music upward rolled,
Till I thought I heard the angels striking all their harps of gold.

My deafness seemed to melt away; my spirit caught the fire;
I joined my feeble, trembling voice with that melodious choir,
And sang as in my youthful days: "Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all."

I tell you, wife, it did me good to sing that hymn once more;
I felt like some wrecked mariner who gets a glimpse of shore;
I almost wanted to lay down this weather-beaten form,
And anchor in that blessed port, forever from the storm.

The prech'en? Well, I can't just tell all that the preacher said;
I know it wasn't written; I know it wasn't read;
He hadn't time to read it, for the lightnin' of his eye
Went flashin' 'long from pew to pew, nor passed a sinner by.

The sermon wasn't flowery; 'twas simple gospel truth;
It fitted poor old men like me; it fitted hopeful youth;
'Twas full of consolation, for weary hearts that bleed;
'Twas full of invitations to Christ and not to creed.

How swift the golden moments fled, within that holy place;
How brightly beamed the light of heaven from every happy face;
Again I longed for that sweet time, when friend shall meet with friend,
"When congregations ne'er break up, and Sabbath has no end."

I hope to meet that minister--that congregation, too--
In that dear home beyond the stars that shine from heaven's blue;
I doubt not I'll remember, beyond life's evenin' gray,
The happy hour of worship in that model church to-day.

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