Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (March 10, 1900)
THE COURIER. r y i ) fV A these Shropshire songs, wandered to London town and dwelt there a com fortless exile. "Far in a western brookland, That bred me years ago, The poplars stand and tremble By pools I used to know. "There, in the windless night-time, The wanderer, marvelling why, Halts on the bridge to harken How soft the poplars sigh. "He hears: long since forgotten In fields where I was known, Here I lie down in London And turn to rest alone. "There, by the starlit fences, The wanderer halts and hears My soul that lingers sighing About the glimmering wiers." That is true poetry, and there is a touch as genuine as Heine's, an ex pression simple, compete, perfect; a mood, a personality, a lifetime in six teen short lines. But here is a little poem which Mrs. Ethelbert Xevin had me copy in her own edition of Mr. Nevin's "Narcissus." "Look not in my eyes! for fear They mirror true the sight I see ; And there you find your face too clear, And love it, and be lost like me. One the long nights thro' must lie, Spent in star-defeated sighs; But why should you, as well as L Perish ? Gaze not in my eyes. "A Grecian lad, as I hear tell, One that many loved in vain, Looked into a forest well, And never looked away again. There where turf in springtime flowers, With downcast eye and gazes sad, Stands amid the glancing showers A jonquil, not a Grecian lad." For exquisite grace of form and delicacy of fancy I scarcely know its equal. This is Mr. Iluusman's lirst volume of poetry, but lie seems to have learned the important thing ao the beginning. There is not one lyric in the collection which has not this absolute genuineness. This Shropshire lad has an existence in literature as actual and indisputable as Ciiilde Harold's. This homesick boy is one of the dwellers on Helicon. But hear him further, and at his best: "On your midnight pallet lying, Listen, and undo the door ! Lads that waste the light in sighing, In the dark should sigh no more. Night should ease a lover's sorrow ; Therefore, since I go tomorrow, Pity me before. "In that to which I travel, That far dwelling, let me say ; Once, if here the couch be gravel, On a kinder bed I lay ; And the breast the oarnel smothers, Rested once upon another's, When it was not clay." That is what it means to write poetry: to be able to say the oldest thing in the orldas though it had never been said before, to make the old wounds of us all bled fresh, to give a new voice to the tcelt schvierz, that, perhaps, is the most exalted lyric of the entire collection. Yet he can be as light as he is sad: "When I was one and twenty I heard a wise man say: 'Give crowns and pounds and guineas, But not your heart away. Give pearls away and rubies, But keep your fancy free.' But I was one and-twenty, No use to talk to me. "When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again: 'The heart out of the bosom Was ever given in vain. 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty, And sold for endless rue.' And now I'm twoand-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis trueP, But after all, it is the homesick songs that I love the best: " 'Tis time, I think, by Wenlock town The golden broom should blow ; The hawthorne, sprinkled up and down, Should charge the land with snow. "Spring will not wait the loiterer's time Who keeps too long away; So others wear the broom, and climb The hedgerows heaped with May. "O tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold that I never seel Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That will not shower on me." Of this lyric Louise IniogenoGuiney and ah! what songs she has sung herself, that sad, little New England woman! has said: "OJSancta Simjilicitasl Lovely ver bal austerity, heroic, quiet, better than dramatic feelings! As old Bas-e, in his elegy, sweetly invited Kiwii ser and Beaumont, ia their Abbey graves, to lie nearer and make room for a greater third, so may our minor bards stand back a little for a young stranger who, in quality, has hardly a rival among them, and touch their rusty lances to the rim of his shining shield-'' Here is another, exquisite as it is brief: "The winds out of the west land blow, My friends have breathed them there; Warm with the blood of the lads I know Comes east the sighing air. "It fanned their temples, filled their lungs Scattered their forelocks free, My friends made words of it with tongues That speak no more to me." Sometimes I wonder whether this man is old or young, whether these verses are the tirst output of youth and loneliness, or whether they are the slow secretions or long, lonely, dreamful years, the cry of an unbap piness that has well high exhausted the singer's life; whether he will have more to say, or whether, having told of his solitude, he will be silent, and in this volume has given his whole heart. Well, if he should never be heard from again, there is more poetry in this little book than in any lulf d;zen volumes of contemporary verse I know of. Again I wonder who and what this man Housnian may be. But at least I know that he has eaten the bitter bread of exile, and trod the hostile streets of great cities and hungered for the little vil lage where he was a boy and suffered in the lives of the lads he knew in the years agone and died in their dead. 1 know that he lias dwelt among thousands more solitary than the last man will be, that he has tramped the desert of brick and stone and seen such monstrous distortions of life that he has wept for the west wind and the brown tields and the quiet country stars. And in so far, many of us are his brothers in exile. I only hope that he too, at last, has found how delightful companionship is after loneliness, and how kind Destiny can be in the way least look ed for, and how much better life can be than song; that that has come to him which can make exile sweet and rob distance of its weary pain and set the maddening tramp in the streets to music; that an infinite kindness has made him forget the long, black loneliness of those first London years, and that in eyes that look summer into his he sees his Shropshire skies again, and once again believes in life a little. Ed. Courier, Lincoln, Nebr.: I have read with much intore6t and pleasuro jour courageous defense of England in its picsont war with the Boors. Ever einco the war of indepond onco. it has been the popular thing for tho press, political demagogues, comic papers, comedians on the etago, and clowns in tho circus, in season and out of eoason, to Hing abuse and mean jokes al England until the masees havo un consciously become prejudiced and biuBotl ugainst everything English. Realizing this condition of the public mind, tho press as well as tho politicians (of both parties) lack tho courago to speak openly, fearing the loss of circula tion or votes. Wherever England ruleB one is suro to 11 nd civilization, liberty (not license), tho protection of life and property, trial by jury, a competent and fearlesp judiciary, speedy trial and con viction of criminals in fact, law, order and justice to all, the best conditions under which civilized society may thrive ant' reach its highest ideals, the edu cated and cultured being in control. The conditions under Boer rulo aro just the reverse. The people of the Transvaal will be immeasurably better otr under English rule, which they will discover as soon as they become enlight ened. England's cause boing just and in the interestof humanity and fair play, will bo victorious. Under existing pop ular prejudice your heroic and fearless defense of our cousin's cause is very re freshing; you are to bo congratulated. Youre very truly, Adolimi Nathan. Chicago, March 2, 1900. The site tendered tho city of Lincoln by Mr. D. E. Thompson, upon which to build the Andrew Carnegie library, was refused by tho library board, some say for political reasons; and now a popular subscription is being taken to raise the price of a site. This is to certify that if Mr. Thompson will go in cahoots with Mr. Carnegio and furnish a building and site for a library in Fremont, no questions will be asked. From Fre mont Tri-Weekly Tribune. main new. Thro were plenty of ua who could take the Haydn Btrutght, oven hero in tho Old Town. Let tnom com poso all the now things they wnnt to. but bhvo the old inviolato, and not bo everlastingly trimming thom with mod orn furbelow?. It is like "miking over" your greatgrandmothor'B wedding dretw. And then "A Dream of Wagner"- it was a rather vociferous dream; pardon my bluntness, but I thought it whb more like a hash of Wagner. I remem ber last year thoy played a majestic "Grand Scene from Parsifal" so that it was not to bo forgotten. But that was in tho fair city on Salt Creek, and even there tho unmusical wero uninterested. So Sousa, being wise rather than strict ly artistic, given his audiences tho clas sics in diluted and nowly arranged doses. He charms, gives ovorjono his money's worth, and, so far at) he goes, shows us what approximate perfection in music may bo. But because one feels that tho big band is euch a finely ron structed and offejtivo instrument ho wishes that for a little space in a pro gram it could be made to satisfy especi ally all who really enjoy fine classical music. I don't recollect that there was anything advertised as "new'' in Pad erewski's program. Newness in no detri ment to a musical composition of real merit, but then it isn't a crown of glory eithor. It is just that we irunt Beeth oven, Mozirt, Haydn and all because they aro old friends. Their names are better than a golden seal. But who, for pity's sake, is .Jones, who wrote something or other "new ?" The name of Mrs. .7. R. Sousley haa been added to the list of old residents of Tbo Town on the River who have heard the final summons this winter. She passed away at the home of a daughter in Lowville, New York, Mon day last, after a long and severe illness. Bright hopes for her recovery had been entertained by her family and friends during the last wo weeks, so that the news of her death came as a severe shock to all. Her daughter. Miss Gert rude, a musician who is well known in Lincoln, has gone to St. Louis, where the interment will be made. I OLD TOWN ON I RIVER FLORA BULLOCK. Glad to see you, old man. How is your health these days ? I really don't know. It has not been near mo all winter. Town Topics. Sousa, the magician, deigned to Btop over for a few hours at the Old Town on the River, to show the people how he waved his wand and what came of it. Ho was on his way to a better town I wot or and, of course, he must have been in a hurry to reach its gracious portals. So it was a delightful condescension in him to pause in his ilight and .lay his band for us. An afternoon crowd greeted him an audience chielly of women and school-girls and boys for the Echools enjojed a half-holiday. Probably half the crowd were out-of-town folks. A large delegation of Peru normal school studentB was on hand. Still the house was not over crowded, and probably it did not pay the band to stop with us. But as for ua well, it always pays to hear and see Sousa play his band. His published program was the same as that advertised for Lincoln but encore numbers were granted with Sousa'e usual liberality, and 6o the pro gram degenerated into juet an ordinary Sousa march display. I say degenerated, but in the same breath will confess that the encores were acceptable. Sousa would not be Sousa without them. A town that is just set up over the recent visit of Paderewski and Clarence Eddy might have accepted and enjoyed a much more classical program one, say, not so plastered with that really un necessary sign, "new.'' Let us hope that mangle of Haydn will always re- There is a special tier of griddles in Hades for painlesss dentists. Town Topics. A suggestion for a new arrangament of current events comes from the North Carolina Sorosis of Wilmington. Tho events are grouped under a definite head for each month. Music and drama is discussed in January when the season is at its height. For February, March and April, "New Sciences,' "Inventions," and "Arts and ArtistB;" for November, "National Affairs; December, "Foreign Policies." J. F. HARRIS, No. I, Board of Trade, CHICAGO. STOCKS AND- BONDS. Grain, Provisions; Cotton. Private Wires to New York Gty and Many Gties East and West. Ml MEMBER New York Stack Exchange. Chicago Stock Exchange. Cliicatfo Hoard of Trado