The Canadian Elocutionist

A >> Anna Kelsey Howard >> The Canadian Elocutionist

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Dear wife, the fight will soon be fought--the victory soon be won;
The shinin' goal is just ahead; the race is nearly run;
O'er the river we are nearin', they are throngin' to the shore,
To shout our safe arrival where the weary weep no more.

_John H. Yates_.

* * * * *

THE YOUNG GRAY HEAD.

I'm thinking that to-night, if not before,
There'll be wild work. Dost hear old Chewton roar.
It's brewing up, down westward; and look there!
One of those sea-gulls! ay, there goes a pair;
And such a sudden thaw! If rain comes on
As threats, the water will be out anon.
That path by the ford is a nasty bit of way,
Best let the young ones bide from school to-day.

The children join in this request; but the mother
resolves that they shall set out--the two girls, Lizzie and
Jenny, the one five, the other seven. As the dame's will
was law, so--

One last fond kiss--
"God bless my little maids," the father said,
And cheerily went his way to win their bread.

Prepared for their journey they depart, with the
mother's admonition to the elder--

"Now mind and bring
Jenny safe home," the mother said. "Don't stay
To pull a bough or berry by the way;
And when you come to cross the ford hold fast
Your little sister's hand till you're quite past,
That plank is so crazy, and so slippery
If not overflowed the stepping stones will be;
But you're good children--steady as old folk,
I'd trust ye anywhere." Then Lizzie's cloak
(A good gray duffle) lovingly she tied,
And amply little Jenny's lack supplied
With her own warmest shawl. "Be sure," said she,
"To wrap it round, and knot it carefully,
(Like this) when you come home--just leaving free
One hand to hold by. Now, make haste away--
Good will to school, and then good right to play."

The mother watches them with foreboding, though she knows not why. In a
little while the threatened storm sets in. Night comes, and with it comes
the father from his daily toil--There's a treasure hidden in his hat--

A plaything for the young ones he has found--
A dormouse nest; the living ball coil'd round
For its long winter sleep; all his thought
As he trudged stoutly homeward, was of naught
But the glad wonderment in Jenny's eyes,
And graver Lizzie's quieter surprise,
When he should yield, by guess, and kiss, and prayer,
Hard won, the frozen captive to their care.

No little faces greet him as wont at the threshold; and to his hurried
question--

"Are they come?"--t'was, "No,"
To throw his tools down, hastily unhook
The old crack'd lantern from its dusky nook
And, while he lit it, speak a cheering word
That almost choked him, and was scarcely heard,--
Was but a moment's act, and he was gone
To where a fearful foresight led him on.

A neighbour goes with him, and the faithful dog follows
the children's tracks.
"Hold the light
Low down, he's making for the water. Hark!
I know that whine; the old dog's found them, Mark;"
So speaking, breathlessly he hurried on
Toward the old crazy foot bridge. It was gone!
And all his dull contracted light could show
Was the black void, and dark swollen stream below;
"Yet there's life somewhere--more than Tinker's whine--
That's sure," said Mark, "So, let the lantern shine
Down yonder. There's the dog and--hark!"
"O dear!"
And a low sob came faintly on the ear,
Mocked by the sobbing gust. Down, quick as thought,
Into the stream leaped Ambrose, where he caught
Fast hold of something--a dark huddled heap--
Half in the water, where 'twas scarce knee deep
For a tall man: and half above it propped
By some old ragged side piles that had stop't
Endways the broken plank when it gave way
With the two little ones, that luckless day!
"My babes! my lambkins!" was the father's cry,
_One little voice_ made answer, "Here am I;"
'Twas Lizzie's. There she crouched with face as white,
More ghastly, by the flickering lantern light,
Than sheeted corpse. The pale blue lips drawn tight,
Wide parted, showing all the pearly teeth,
And eyes on some dark object underneath,
Washed by the turbid waters, fix'd like stone--
One arm and hand stretched out, and rigid grown,
Grasping, as in the death-grip, Jenny's frock.
There she lay, drown'd.
They lifted her from out her watery bed--
Its covering gone, the lovely little head
Hung like a broken snowdrop all aside,
And one small hand. The mother's shawl was tied
Leaving that free about the child's small form,
As was her last injunction--"fast and warm,"
Too well obeyed--too fast! A fatal hold,
Affording to the scrag, by a thick fold
That caught and pinned her to the river's bed.
While through the reckless water overhead,
Her life breath bubbled up.
"She might have lived,
Struggling like Lizzie," was the thought that rived
The wretched mother's heart when she heard all,
"But for my foolishness about that shawl."
"Who says I forgot?
Mother! indeed, indeed I kept fast hold,
And tied the shawl quite close--she
Can't be cold--
But she won't move--we slept--I don't know how--
But I held on, and I'm so weary now--
And its so dark and cold! Oh, dear! oh, dear!
And she won't move--if father were but here!"
All night long from side to side she turn'd,
Piteously plaining like a wounded dove.
With now and then the murmur, "She won't move,"
And lo! when morning, as in mockery, bright
Shone on that pillow--passing strange the sight,
The young head's raven hair was streaked with white!

_Mrs. Southey._

* * * * *

SCENE AT NIAGARA FALLS.

It is summer. A party of visitors are just crossing the iron bridge that
extends from the American shore to Goat's Island, about a quarter of a mile
above the Falls. Just as they are about to leave, while watching the stream
as it plunges and dashes among the rocks below, the eye of one fastens on
something clinging to a rock, caught on the very verge of the Falls.
Scarcely willing to believe his own vision, he directs the attention of his
companions. The terrible news spreads like lightning, and in a few minutes
the bridge and the surrounding shore are covered with thousands of
spectators. "Who is he?" "How did he get there?" are questions every person
proposed, but answered by none. No voice is heard above the awful flood,
but a spy-glass shows frequent efforts to speak to the gathering multitude.
Such silent appeals exceed the eloquence of words; they are irresistible,
and something must be done. A small boat is soon upon the bridge, and with
a rope attached sets out upon its fearless voyage, but is instantly sunk.
Another and another are tried, but they are all swallowed up by the angry
waters. A large one might possibly survive; but none is at hand. Away to
Buffalo a car is despatched, and never did the iron horse thunder along its
steel-bound track on such a godlike mission. Soon the most competent life-
boat is upon the spot. All eyes are fixed upon the object, as trembling and
tossing amid the boiling white waves it survives the roughest waters. One
breaker past and it will have reached the object of its mission. But being
partly filled with water and striking a sunken rock, that next wave sends
it hurling to the bottom. An involuntary groan passes through the dense
multitude, and hope scarcely nestles in a single bosom. The sun goes down
in gloom, and as darkness comes on and the crowd begins to scatter,
methinks the angels looking over the battlements on high drop a tear of
pity on the scene. The silvery stars shine dimly through their curtain of
blue. The multitude are gone, and the sufferer is left with his God. Long
before morning he must be swept over that dreadful abyss; he clings to that
rock with all the tenacity of despair, and as he surveys the horrors of his
position strange visions in the air come looming up before him. He sees his
home, his wife and children there; he sees the home of his childhood; he
sees that mother as she used to soothe his childish fears upon her breast;
he sees a watery grave, and then the vision closes in tears. In imagination
he hears the hideous yells of demons, and mingled prayers and curses die
upon his lips.

No sooner does morning dawn than the multitude again rush to the scene of
horror, Soon a shout is heard: he is there; he is still alive. Just now a
carriage arrives upon the bridge, and a woman leaps from it and rushes to
the most favourable point of observation. She had driven from Chippewa,
three miles above the Falls; her husband had crossed the river night before
last, and had not returned, and she fears he may be clinging to that rock.
All eyes are turned for a moment toward the anxious woman, and no sooner is
a glass handed to her fixed upon the object than she shrieks, "Oh, my
husband!" and sinks senseless to the earth. The excitement, before intense,
seems now almost unendurable, and something must again be tried. A small
raft is constructed, and, to the surprise of all, swings up beside the rock
to which the sufferer had clung for the last forty-eight hours. He
instantly throws himself full length upon it. Thousands are pulling at the
end of the rope, and with skillful management a few rods are gained toward
the nearest shore. What tongue can tell, what pencil can paint, the anxiety
with which that little bark is watched as, trembling and tossing amid the
roughest waters, it nears that rock-bound coast? Save Niagara's eternal
roar, all is silent as the grave. His wife sees it and is only restrained
by force from rushing into the river. Hope instantly springs into every
bosom, but it is only to sink into deeper gloom. The angel of death has
spread his wings over that little bark; the poor man's strength is almost
gone; each wave lessens his grasp more and more, but all will be safe if
that nearest wave is past. But that next surging billow breaks his hold
upon the pitching timbers, the next moment hurling him to the awful verge,
where, with body, erect, hands clenched, and eyes that are taking their
last look of earth, he shrieks, above Niagara's eternal roar, "Lost!" and
sinks forever from the gaze of man.

_Charles Tarson._

* * * * *

"CURFEW MUST NOT RING TO-NIGHT."

Slowly England's sun was setting o'er the hilltops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day,
And the last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,--
He with footsteps slow and weary, she with sunny, floating hair;
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she with lips all cold and white,
Struggled to keep back the murmur,--
"Curfew must not ring to-night."

"Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old,
With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp and cold,
"I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die,
At the ringing of the curfew--and no earthly help is nigh;
Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white
As she breathed the husky whisper,--
"Curfew must not ring to-night"

"Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton, every word pierced her young heart
Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly, poisoned dart.
"Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;
Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour;
I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right,
Now I'm old I still must do it,
Curfew it must ring to-night."

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,
And within her secret bosom, Bessie made a solemn vow.
She had listened while the judges read without a tear or sigh,
"At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."
And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright--
In an undertone she murmured,--
"Curfew must not ring to-night."

She with quick steps bounded forward, sprung within the old church door,
Left the old man treading slowly paths so oft he'd trod before;
Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow,
Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro;
And she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light,
Up and up--her white lips saying--
"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

She has reached the topmost ladder, o'er her hangs the great dark bell;
Awful is the gloom beneath her, like a pathway down to hell.
Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging, 'tis the hour of curfew now
And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.
Shall she let it ring? No, never! Flash her eyes with sudden light,
And she springs and grasps it firmly--
"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

Out she swung, far out, the city seemed a speck of light below,
'Twixt heaven and earth her form suspended, as the bell swung to and fro,
And the sexton at the bell rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,
But he thought it still was ringing fair young Basil's funeral knell.
Still the maiden clung most firmly, and with trembling lips and white,
Said to hush her heart's wild beating,--
"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

It was o'er, the bell ceased swaying, and the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the dark old ladder, where for hundred years before,
Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done
Should be told long ages after, as the rays of setting sun
Should illume the sky with beauty; aged sires with heads of white,
Long should tell the little children,
Curfew did not ring that night.

O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him and her brow,
Full of hope and full of gladness, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;
And her face so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow pale and worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eye with misty light:
"Go, your lover lives," said Cromwell,
"Curfew shall not ring to-night!"

* * * * *

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.

Here were not mingled, in the city's pomp,
Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom;
Judgment awoke not here her dismal trump,
Nor sealed in blood a fellow-creature's doom;
Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb.
One venerable man, beloved of all,
Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom,
To sway the strife, that seldom might befall;
And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.

How reverend was the look, serenely aged,
He bore, this gentle Pennsylvanian sire,
Where all but kindly fervours were assuaged,
Undimmed by weakness' shade, or turbid ire!
And though, amidst the calm of thought, entire,
Some high and haughty features might betray
A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire
That fled composure's intellectual ray,
As Aetna's fires grow dim before the rising day.

I boast no song in magic wonders rife;
But yet, O Nature! is there naught to prize,
Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life?
And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies
No form with which the soul may sympathize?--
Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild
The parted ringlet shone in sweetest guise,
An inmate in the home of Albert smiled,
Or blessed his noonday walk;--she was his only child.

The rose of England bloomed on Gertrude's cheek:--
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire;
And many a halcyon day he lived to see,
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart--but she
Was gone;--and Gertrude climbed a widowed father's knee.

A loved bequest;--and I may half impart
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flower uprose beneath his eye,
Dear as she was from cherub infancy,
From hours when she would round his garden play,
To time when, as the ripening years went by,
Her lovely mind could culture well repay,
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.

I may not paint those thousand infant charms;
(Unconscious fascination, undesigned!)
The orison repeated in his arms,
For God to bless her sire and all mankind;
The book, the bosom on his knee reclined;
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind!)
All uncompanioned else her heart had gone,
Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.

_Campbell._

* * * * *

AN AUTUMN DAY.

But now a joy too deep for sound,
A peace no other season knows,
Hushes the heavens, and wraps the ground,--
The blessing of supreme repose.
Away! I will not be, to-day,
The only slave of toil and care;
Away! from desk and dust, away!
I'll be as idle as the air.
Beneath the open sky abroad,
Among the plants and breathing things,
The sinless, peaceful works of God,
I'll share the calm the season brings.
Come thou, in whose soft eyes I see
The gentle meaning of the heart,--
One day amid the woods with thee,
From men and all their cares apart;--
And where, upon the meadow's breast,
The shadow of the thicket lies,
The blue wild flowers thou gatherest
Shall glow yet deeper near thine eyes.
Come,--and when 'mid the calm profound,
I turn those gentle eyes to seek,
They, like the lovely landscape round,
Of innocence and peace shall speak.
Rest here, beneath the unmoving shade;
And on the silent valleys gaze,
Winding and widening, till they fade
In yon soft ring of summer haze.
The village trees their summits rear
Still as its spire; and yonder flock,
At rest in those calm fields, appear
As chiselled from the lifeless rock.
One tranquil mount the scene o'erlooks,
Where the hushed winds their Sabbath keep,
While a near hum from bees and brooks,
Comes faintly like the breath of sleep.--
Well might the gazer deem, that when,
Worn with the struggle and the strife,
And heart-sick at the sons of men,
The good forsake the scenes of life,--
Like the deep quiet, that awhile
Lingers the lovely landscape o'er,
Shall be the peace whose holy smile
Welcomes them to a happier shore!

_Bryant._

* * * * *

SONNET.

Our love is not a fading earthly flower:
Its winged seed dropped down from Paradise,
And, nursed by day and night, by sun and shower
Doth momently to fresher beauty rise.
To us the leafless autumn is not bare,
Nor winter's rattling boughs lack lusty green:
Our summer hearts make summer's fullness where
No leaf or bud or blossom may be seen:
For nature's life in love's deep life doth lie,
Love,--whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,
Whose mystic key these cells of Thou and I
Into the infinite freedom openeth,
And makes the body's dark and narrow grate
The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate.

_James Russell Lowell._

* * * * *

BABY'S VISITOR.

My baby boy sat on the floor;
His big blue eyes were full of wonder
For he had never seen before
That baby in the mirror door--
What kept the two, so near, asunder?
He leaned toward the golden head
The mirror border framed within,
Until twin cheeks, like roses red,
Lay side by side; then softly said,
"I can't get out; can you come in?"

_Atlanta Constitution._

* * * * *

A PRAYER.

God! do not let my loved one die,
But rather wait until the time
That I am grown in purity
Enough to enter Thy pure clime
Then take me, I will gladly go,
So that my love remain below!

Oh, let her stay! She is by birth
What I through death must learn to be,
We need her more on our poor earth
Than Thou canst need in heaven with Thee;
She hath her wings already: I
Must burst this earth-shell ere I fly.

Then, God, take me! we shall be near,
More near than ever, each to each:
Her angel ears will find more clear
My earthly than my heavenly speech;
And still, as I draw nigh to Thee,
Her soul and mine shall closer be.

_James Russell Lowell._

* * * * *

THERE'S NOTHING TRUE BUT HEAVEN.

This world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow--
There's nothing _true_ but Heaven.

And false the light on glory's plume,
As fading hues of even;
And love, and hope, and beauty's bloom,
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb--
There's nothing _bright_ but Heaven.

Poor wanderers of a stormy day,
From wave to wave we're driven;
And fancy's flash, and reason's ray,
Serve but to light the troubled way--
There's nothing _calm_ but Heaven.

_Moore._

* * * * *

HOME SONG.

Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
To stay at home is best.

Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, and they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
To stay at home is best.

Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O'er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
To stay at home is best.

_H. W. Longfellow._

* * * * *

SAVED.

Crouching in the twilight-gray,
Like a hunted thing at bay,
In his brain one thought is rife:
Why not end the bootless strife?

Who in God's wide world would weep,
Should he brave death's dreamless sleep?
Hark! a child's voice, soft and clear,
Pulsing through the gloaming drear;

And the word the singer brings
Like a new evangel rings;
"Jesus loves me! this I know,"
Swift his thoughts to childhood go.

Memories of a mother's face
Bending to her boy's embrace,
And the boy at eventide
Kneeling by the mother's side,

Like "sweet visions of the night"
Fill the lonesome place with light,
While the singer's tender trill--
"Jesus loves me! loves me still"--

Hovers in the dreamlit air
Like an answer to the prayer.
Offered in those happy days
When he walked in sinless ways.

"Jesus loves me!" Can it be
His, this _benedicite_?
Is there One who knows and cares?
One who all his sorrow shares?

"Jesus loves me!" While the song
Guileless lips with joy prolong,
Lo! a soul has ceased its strife,
Reconciled to God and life.

_Mary B. Sleight._

* * * * *

SONG OF BIRDS.

Did you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Did you ne'er think who made them, and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household word are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught;
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

Think, every morning, when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the, grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old melodious madrigals of love!
And, when you think of this, remember, too,
'Tis always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents, from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore!

_Longfellow._

* * * * *

JIMMY BUTLER AND THE OWL.

'Twas in the summer of '46 that I landed at Hamilton, fresh as a new pratie
just dug from the "old sod," and wid a light heart and a heavy bundle I sot
off for the township of Buford, tiding a taste of a song, as merry a young
fellow as iver took the road. Well, I trudged on and on, past many a
plisint place, pleasin' myself wid the thought that some day I might have a
place of my own, wid a world of chickens and ducks and pigs and childer
about the door; and along in the afternoon of the sicond day I got to
Buford village. A cousin of me mother's, one Dennis O'Dowd, lived about
sivin miles from there, and I wanted to make his place that night, so I
enquired the way at the tavern, and was lucky to find a man, who was goin'
part of the way an' would show me the way to find Dennis. Sure, he was very
kind indade, and when I got out of his wagon, he pointed me through the
wood and told me to go straight south a mile an' a half, and the first
house would be Dennis's.

"An' you have no time to lose now," said he, "for the sun is low, and mind
you don't get lost in the woods."

"Is it lost now," said I, "that I'd be gittin, an' me uncle as great a
navigator at iver steered a ship across the thrackless say! Not a bit of
it, though I'm obleeged to ye for your kind advice, an thank yez for the
ride."

An' wid that he drove off an' left me alone. I shouldered my bundle
bravely, an' whistling a bit of tune for company like, I pushed into the
bush. Well, I went a long way over bogs, and turnin' round among the bush
and trees till I began to think I must be well nigh to Dennis's. But, bad
cess to it! all of a sudden, I came out of the woods at the very identical
spot where I started in, which I knew by an ould crotched tree that seemed
to be standin' on its head an' kicking up its heels to make divarsion of
me. By this time it was growing dark, and as there was no time to lose, I
started in a second time, determined to keep straight south this time and
no mistake. I got on bravely for awhile, but och hone! och hone! it got so
dark I couldn't see the trees, and I bumped me nose and barked me shins,
while the miskaties bit me hands and face to a blister; and after tumblin'
and stumblin' around till I was fairly bamfoozled, I sat down on a log, all
of a trimble, to think that was lost intirely, and that maybe a lion or
some other wild craythur would devour me before morning.

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