OCR Text |
Show ; ; WHO WROTE THE POEM ? The Controversy Regarding the Authorship Author-ship of "Beautiful Snow" Reopened and Sunning in Full Blast. SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF WATSON. Who Died Recently in New York, and . Whose Claims Seenvto Hate Had , the Best Authenticity. Siw YoMC.' July 387 It has happened to many men who haw worked for a long lifo- time patiently and well that they have achieved fame by aorae 'tingle piece ot work that seem by comparison no better than many other things hey may have done. Bach fortune as thUaeenis especially to fall to literary man, and en of the moot coa-iplc-oua raoeot examples was Jamea W. Wah-' Wah-' on, who died only the other day in thii , city. Ha bad bean for fifty year a writer, and by bo nutans an unaaonesaful one as the fcuatnsai robs; yet of all hia writings only one poem ia fairly to be called f among, and euniooaly enough toe authorship of ' thai one led to one of tbe bitterest conbro-. conbro-. versieata the hietoy of Anacioad literature, ilo leader of the present generation can be Ignerec of the dispute that lneted for year over tlia qnwtion a, to who really wrote "BefttttlfuJ Know." It was. originally origi-nally pabMshed In Harper's "vVeckly.in No-vejaVwv No-vejaVwv 1858. At the time of its publication ' the Harper were not in the habit of pub- other of Watson's poems brouftht out several editions which sold well. From them, however. Mr. Watson received very little. During the last few years of his life Mr. Watson was in very straitened circum-atanceg, circum-atanceg, and for the last six months was a hopeless invalid, though he keft up hia j work till almost the very last. He lived in a modest boarding house in Bank stijpet with his daughear, who is the only member of hia immediate family, excepting two sinters, to hut viva him. He was a man of ploasant manners and great culture,: but whs too retiring and mudest in hia personality to make a strong impression on any excepting those who knew him well. . HiiustiiBdy independence, however, wua shown in his refusing to accept, ac-cept, old whan he might have had it from many of hiB friends. He repeatedly said that all be wanted waa ao opportunity to work and to be paid far it. An example of the procariousneas of the work by which be lived was the article already mentioned, which waa published In To North American Ameri-can Review. . He offered this to The Bun-day Bun-day Mercury, for which paper he wrote constantly, and only demanded $8 for it. The Mercury refused it, and The North American Review paid him 940 for it when it waa published afterward. I Among the beat poems which Mr. Wat- i son wrote, la addition to "Beautiful Snow," were "Ring Down the Curtain, I Cannot Play," "The Sailing of the Yacbte," "The Oldest Pauper on the Town," "The Patter of Little Feet," "Farmer Brown" and "The Dying Soldier." Sol-dier." ' David A. Cchtis. ' BEAUTIFUL SNOW. O the snow, the beautiful snow, Filling lie sky and the earth below I Over the house tops, oror the street, Over the heads of the people you meet, DanclBt-, . , Flirtinc ' - ' ' ' Bklmming alonij. ' Beautiful snow I It can do nothing wrong. Flyu: to Mm a fair lady's cheek; i dinning to lips la a frolicsome Ireak; 1 Beautiful snow, from the heavens above, ' Pure as an angel and fickle as love I - ' O the snow, the beautiful snow i How the flakes gather and laugh as they gol Whirling about in Its maddening fu, It plays in its glee with every one. Chasing, Laughing, Hurrying by, It lights up the face and It sparkles the eye; And even the dogs, with a bark and a bound, Bnap at the crystals that eddy around. The town is alie and Its heart In a glow, To welcome the coming of beautiful snow. How the wild crowd go swaying along, ITalllng each ot her with humor and song I How the gay sledges like meteors flash by-Bright by-Bright for tnement, then lost to the eyel . Einglng,- i Swinging, Dashing they go Over the crest of the beautiful snow: Snow so pun when it falls from the sky, To be trampled in mud by the crowd rushing by; To be trampled and tracked by the thousands of feet Till It blends with the horrible filth in the street. Once I was pure as the snow but I fell: Fall, like the saow flak, from hsaven to hells Fell, to be tramped as the filth of the street: Fell, to be scoffed, to be spit on and beat. Pleading, Cursing, . . Dreading to die, Selling mv soul to whoever would buy, Dealing In shame for a morsel of bread, Hating the living ans tearing the dead. Merciful Ood ! have I fallen so low? And yet I waa onos like this beautiful snowl Once I was fair as the beautiful snow, With an eye like Its crystals, a heart like Its glowj Onos I waa loved for ray innocent grace-Flattered grace-Flattered an sought for the charm ot my face. Father, Mother, Sisters all, Dod and myself I have lost by my fall. The veriest wretch tfcat goes shivering by Will take a wide sweep lest I wander too nigh; For of all that Is on or about me 1 know There Is nothing that's pure but the beautiful snow., ' How stnauge it should be that this beautiful snow Should fall on a sinner with nowkf re to gol How strange it would be, when Tat night comes sgain. If the snow and the ice struck my desperate brain I Fainting, Freeslng, vying alone, Too wicked for prayer, too weak for my moan To be hoard In the crash of the oraay town, Gone mad in Its Joy at the saow's coming dowa To He and to die In my terrible woe. With a bed and a shroud of the beautiful snowl Jakes w. watsos. 4 . Hahlng the signatures of their contributor!, contribu-tor!, and the poem appeared anonymously. It caught the popular favor, and has be-i be-i come oae of the beat known poema of American authorship, being included in . varioas collections, audi aa school readers and ni)oka ef aeaitationa. It ia hard te tell just nbf it became pep alar, for it ia not, Irpej a literary stand point, entitled to great prfcJie, hot Mieebhlng la fie simple direct-tieaa direct-tieaa naade tt atruoceas. After a Urae several persons claimed t o have written it, ami for a time there was great doubt aa to rho the real author was, but it waa at length acknowledged generally gener-ally that Mr. Watson waa entitled to the credit. rVillhvn Coilon Bryant included the poont is his iamoua collection and "aaorihed Pa aataarabip to Watyion, and tbo question may be fairly coaaiderod settled. In addition to Mr. Bryant's authority Boraoe Qreofcy lentUid force of his name to the aanntkM tdiatwatann wae the real au- thor, and the Harpers declared positively that be had vritxatn the, poem. The elder Harperi, it may b mentioned, were warm friends of Mr. Watson aa long as they lived. I aee that in a recent issue of The New lrk WarW Ool. WilHam Allen Silloway claim teat hia name was given as tho - author of the poem in Bryant's book, but this is )et tone. Ool. SHloway, whs la printer by econpatlen, and lives in Went Washington place,, that he wrote the poem in 18S0 and sent it to Mrs. Lytlia II. Sigourney, and that it was first published la 18M Ia Maria Louise Han kins' paper. A portrait painter named McMasters, of New York, jbritabeth Akera, Dora Thorne, , , Henry W. Faxon and others are among the claimants to authorship of the verses. Mr. Watson waa born in New York city in Hia father, Mr. Alexander Wat- aon, waa an ISnglUhman by birth, and waa at one time a prosperous merchant. Before his son reached manhood, however, reverses re-verses oarae, and the boy waa obliged to look ont for himself. He had a natural aptitude for the engraver's art, and learned it, only to leave it afterward for the less reliable bnt more fascinating art of authorship. au-thorship. He began work aa a journalist on The New York Heraid on the day that James Gordon Benneflt the younger was born, which waa Jist about fifty yeara ago. Continuing Con-tinuing for some time to work in The Herald office, be gradually became known as a graceful wnduer and stury writer, and up to the time nf hin,laofc illness ho waa a frequent contributor to a great du tuber tu-ber of publications. At one time, for aome twelve or fourteen years, he was under contract to write four continued stories a year for Saturday Night, each story to be oversljrty columns in length. For this he received an income of $1,000 a year and lived eomfartahly. Thn work, however, tvhs not cojageuial tp him, and after the time lnentioaad he felt unable to continue under the strain. He therefore resigned his placej and from that time onward supported sup-ported himself atl too poorly by the sale of occasional conttlbututnj to any and all of the periodicals which he could reach. In this way hia name became known to theTeadera of nearly all the American literary lit-erary papers and magazine of the lnnt half, oentury, and his work appeared in not a few newspapers. He was ut one time an editorial writer on The New York Times, bat in his later years was crowded ost of the race by younger men, and wrote an infinite deal of trash for the cheaper publications. During his long career he waa, like many other writers, beset with a constant desire to get into some other pursuit, caring little for any form of composition excepting poetry. He had considerable "mechanical aptitude, and was anxious to become a manufacturer, but having Kttle busincsa ability was never able to get a start In that iliroci.ion. At one time he sailed as supercargo in a vessel tlmt visited Africa. While there he jn.rja the acquaintance of the king of Dahomey, Da-homey, and iu a moat readable article in The North American Review be described m.iny wonderful and interesting things that he saw in the land of that interesting aavnge. His story of hia adventnree, bow-ever, bow-ever, was so wonderful that it waa rejected aa a traveler's romance by more than one editor, including his friends the Harpers. They laughed at him, and utterly refused to believe anything he had written about tho journey. It 1 not, perhaps, surprising, in view of the fact that ha waa all hia life writing "pot boilers," that he has left ao little behind be-hind him, lor his name is attached aa author to only ona book. That is a collection col-lection of hi poema, and netted him little monajrbut jnuob fame. He nrooiw &u the HarpexB and from Frank Leslie the copy-right copy-right of audi poem as tbey had pub liahed, and made an arrangement with the Turners, of Chestnut street, Philadelphia, to publish them in book form. The volume proved remunerative, and aome amall payments pay-ments were received by the author, But the Turners ware not successful and wer apeedily. sold out byhe sheriff. The Peter-aojus'.bouKht Peter-aojus'.bouKht the book. ujL adding .nrvejal |