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Show Vol. POEM AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TO BISHOP EDWABD HUNTER ON HIS EIOIITY' SIXTH BIRTHDAY. We bail thee, as the hero of the day! A veteran In Integrity and truth, An honest man, thy friends and neighbors say. Of sterling: principle from early youth. Wellnaat thou fouybt life's battles, brave and strong, Nor turned aside for honor, or for fame, But valiantly contended 'gralnst the wrong And thus secured a grand ana noble name. Among the chcen people of the Lord Thy lot was cast while yet la manhood's rrinif ; And through obedience to the Gospel word, The record of thy life U made sublime. Thou wert a pilgrim In the nobie band Who sought the desert, that they might be fret : And in this ban en and deserted land, Hoped to gain peace, and rest, and liberty. four-sco- re years and n re, usefulness. in Filled up in honor and And God has blesaed thy basket, and thy felore, And multiplied thy days of happiness. Thiae.Ia.ft noble mission here be low-- To succor the distressed and feed the poor, To comfort those whose Urea are fraught with ttoc, And help them in their trials to endure. Toll onl faint not! nor weary of the strife, Thy days are bright with mem'ry o' good deed;-- ; And in the evening of thy preclota life, Still minister to others in their needs. So shalt thou iay thy treasures up in heav'n, An earnest of the life that Is to be; And through the revelation Ood has glvn, We comprehend In that eternity, Whero we shall meet our loved ones gone before, There's no more parting, no more doubts and fears; And when we pass to that eternajfhore, We'll cast aside the burden of our years. Renew'd in spirit, then, and freed from ill, With all the faithfnl ones who've gone before, Thou wilt be laboring io tby mission stil', And po progressing onward evermore. i.MIT And thou hast seen now X. THOUGHTS ON THE POETS. BY HANNAH T. KING. Crabbe No. 4. SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, JULY 15, 1870. 8. I have not much to say abouf him. 'But he. was esteemed by Burke, and from his first interview with that generous man his prosperity dates. I leave him in good hands when I leave him with Uurke, and pass to Shelly. Had his rich, raro and beautiful mind been anchored on "the rock of ages" could he have been a disciple of the Divine Founder of universal love and charity, which he made tho basis ef hi3 teachings then Indeed would he have been a planet in tho poetical hemisphere but alas! he worshipped an Ignus fatuus of his own loving and beautiful mind, which resembled a goodly vessel tossed on the rough waves of a tempestuous ocean without chart or compass, and so was wrecked I will not say lost for his life was one search after truth and love, and such shall find, though the road they stumble over Is dark and thorny. His tragedy of "The Cenci" has been highly applauded for the tact and refinement with which ho treated so horriblo a subject A celebrated authority has said, "When I beheld the passive calmness of Beatrice 4 n the "Barberini Palace,?,it seemed thopaint-e- r had explained tho ideal of his But the Poet Shelly has surrounded Itstory. with an interest surpassing the "Limner's Art,' and tho tragedy should be read with the picture in view. Ho advocated a dietectic reform from a strange conviction that abstinence from spirituous liquors and animal food, ould do much to renovate the human race. Upon JhisideaJiis owiLhabir.3 were based he could not believe in the Christianity of the day, and hence much of his young life was poisoned by the eruelest persecutionhe ever carried a pocket Bible, about his person. Ho was drowned with a friend in a squall offbe Gulf of Spezzia and a Bible was found in his pocket The bodies were afterwards burned according to Shelly's request to his friend Byron to see . that it was done, should he bo the survivor. Leigh Hunt Association with its thousand whisperings, hang around this poet, consequently he is a favorite. Who that has sipped from his "Jar of Houoy, from Mount Hybla" can ever forget him? His father was descended from a line of West India gentlemen, and his mother from a Pennsylvania Quaker; both hi3 parents wore disposed, and his mother was won by her lover's fine readings of ' partly the English Poets, which the son truly describes as a "noblo kind of courtship." His parents were poor, and his oarly days were His passed in family embarrassments. mother was a lover of books and nature, and she encouraged her son's poetic and literary tendency j she treasured his early rhymes, and carried them about nor person, showing them to her friends. What an influence this must have had on the young poet's early life, in confirming his devotion to truth, his love of beauty, his superiority to the world's idols! The discerning heart of tho mother applauded tho juvenile efforts of the son, and fostered by her approving love that germ which coldness and apathy have so often destroyed. Ono word of scorn from revered lips has a weight and a power that has colored many an after life, and turned into darkness the clear and beautiful stream of the soul! Let mothers note this and apply it! The habit of thinking for himself was a blessing he inherited from his parents. He and his brother were tho joint proprietors of the ''Examiner" and were prosecuted for a libel on the Prince Eegent. They would not allow their friends to pay the fine adjudged, and therefore they went to prison. He was in poor health at the time, but ho managed to fit up his room charmingly, anango a.jgarden, read and make verses, and receive visits from his friends. One might almost envy him when we think of tho raro spirits that brightened his confinement and brought a glorious free dom to his better nature. At the close of one of his letters to Byron alter his release, he reverts to the kind surpriso ho and others gave him, and closes by saying: 8 that frank surprise when Moore and you Came to my case like warblers, kind and true, And told mo with your arts of cordial lying-Howell I looked, although you thought mo dying.'' -- His ablest production ja. "Rimini," and through all his writings he exhibits a liberal, and candid mind and heart. His influence i3 genial and always refreshing Three thousand copies of Byron's Byron. poems are sold annually.. "My dear sir," said Dr, Johnson, Mclear your mind of cant." This process is essential to a right appreciation of Byron. No one ever more com. pletely "woro his heart upon' his sleeve," and no heart was' ever more thoroughly pecked at by the daws. The same frank, uess and freedom that marked his life, are evident in hi3 productions, and tho3e who whine about the danger in reading Byron, I should fear to trust amid tho moral exposure of their surroundings. There can scarcely bo found a book more melancholy, and more moral then ''Moore's Life pf Byron." There we see the struggle of a gifted spirit, between good and evil. There are many minute strings that form the chords of a beautiful Instrument, and all these must bo drawn only to a proper tension, to render the whole harmonious. Byron was one of those finely organized beings, possessing all the material for forming one of the best, and noblest of human characters. But alas! ho fell into the hands of a weak, ignorant, superstitious mother, I wunous any one 10 cuuni,ur-uaiauu- I , uer injudicious influence who ono moment would effeminate him with her foolish fondness' and the next spurn him as "a lame brat." These small but cruel words must have sunk deep into such a soul as he possessed, even as a - child; indeed, they are said to have produced, years after, that powerful drama, "Tho Doformod Transformed." And did she not, by such passion-attreatment, lay the foundation of the bitterness displayed occasionally in his after life and writings? Yes, upon such an exquisitely sensitive temperament they were suffi. cient to convert the very springs of life into the "waters of Marah," what might ho not have been,had ho fallen into the atmosphere of an enlightened, affectionate but decldecj character,bne who would not have attempted to crush his volcanic nature, but have taught him to hold in his impetuous with the reins of reason and religion. With such a heart as he is allowed, by all who knew him to have possessed In child, hood and youth, so warm, so generous, so expansive and so exquisitely devotional, would ho not In judicious hands, have become a happy man? noblo in nature as In birth? Yet with all the material for hap piness he never attained it; and I believe from improper training, early perversion, etcetera. Had it been otherwIse,EngIand would have hailed him' as one of her, noblest sons as he stands to day ono of her noblest poets; one of her brightest patriots, ono of her principal men, and a man of principle. But let him be judged from his own works righteously, tako his "Chtlde Harold," open the book promiscuously, aud out of that let the verdict be given. W ords are vain things often in sucjh a case: 3, 000 copies sold annually, tell: the tale. "Man sees the deed, God tho circumstance. Judge not that ye be not judged" iy A. 1 e 1 t e pas-sion- s ! 1 Neither days nor lives can by doing nothing in them. bo made holy The best at the beginning of a day is,; that weprayer may not lose Its momenta; and tho best , grace before meat is, tho consciousness that ;we havo justly earned our dinner. Rusldn |
