Friday, February 22, 2013

Love

O Love! thou makest all things even

In earth or heaven;

Finding thy way through prison-bars

Up to the stars;

Or, true to the Almighty plan,

That out of dust created man,

Thou lookest in a grave, — to see

Thine immortality!

— Sarah Flower Adams (born February 22, 1805)

A Requiem

Into the eternal shadow

That girds our life around,

Into the infinite silence

Wherewith Death's shore is bound,

Thou hast gone forth, beloved!

And I were mean to weep,

That thou hast left Life's shadows,

And dost possess the Deep.

Now I can see thee clearly;

The dusky cloud of clay,

That hid thy starry spirit,

Is rent and blown away:

To earth I give thy body,

Thy spirit to the sky,

I saw its bright wings growing,

And knew that thou must fly.

Now I can love thee truly,

For nothing comes between

The senses and the spirit,

The seen and the unseen;

Lifts the eternal shadow,

The silence bursts apart,

And the soul's boundless future

Is present in my heart.

— James Russell Lowell (born February 22, 1819)

Learning To Read

Very soon the Yankee teachers

   Came down and set up school;

But, oh! how the Rebs did hate it,—

   It was agin’ their rule.

Our masters always tried to hide

   Book learning from our eyes;

Knowledge did’nt agree with slavery—

   ’Twould make us all too wise.

But some of us would try to steal

   A little from the book.

And put the words together,

   And learn by hook or crook.

I remember Uncle Caldwell,

   Who took pot liquor fat

And greased the pages of his book,

   And hid it in his hat.

And had his master ever seen

   The leaves upon his head,

He’d have thought them greasy papers,

   But nothing to be read.

And there was Mr. Turner’s Ben,

   Who heard the children spell,

And picked the words right up by heart,

   And learned to read ’em well.

Well, the Northern folks kept sending

   The Yankee teachers down;

And they stood right up and helped us,

   Though Rebs did sneer and frown.

And I longed to read my Bible,

   For precious words it said;

But when I begun to learn it,

   Folks just shook their heads,

And said there is no use trying,

   Oh! Chloe, you’re too late;

But as I was rising sixty,

   I had no time to wait.

So I got a pair of glasses,

   And straight to work I went,

And never stopped till I could read

   The hymns and Testament.

Then I got a little cabin

   A place to call my own—

And I felt independent

   As the queen upon her throne.

— Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (died February 22, 1911)

Sarah Flower Adams (1805-1848)