Hattie Howard

“ A brighter world than ours divined;
For never clouds obscured the sky
That she could see, while we were blind.
Oh, it must be an awful thing
To be shut out from light of day!—
From summer's grace, and bloom of spring
In gladness words cannot portray.
But haply into every heart
May enter that Celestial Light
That doth to life's dark ways impart
A radiance hid from mortal sight. ”

“ With the rich flavoring of hearty cheer,
It ne'er shall be forgot.
It is the milestone on life's road
Where we may lay our burdens down, and take
A look at souvenirs, for love's dear sake
So prettily bestowed.
Upon its shining tablet we may write—
If, like the good Samaritan, in deed—
A record that the angel band shall read
With impulse of delight.
And this is why on Christmas morn
The world should smile and wear its brightest glow:
Because some nineteen hundred years ago
A little child was born. ”

“ Oh, great the blessedness must be
Of heart and hand and brain alert
In projects wise and manifold,
Impending sorrow to avert
That duller natures fail to see,
Or stand aloof severe and cold!
And who shall doubt that this is why
In womanhood's florescent prime
She passed the portals of the sky?
As if a life thus truly given
To purpose pure and act sublime
Were needed also up in Heaven.
[Pg 145]
"Thy Will Be Done."
Sometimes the silver cord of life
Is loosed at one brief stroke;
As when the elements at strife,
With Nature's wild contentions rife,
Uproot the sturdy oak. ”

“ Nature, erewhile so marvelously lovely, is bereft
Of her supernal charm;
And with the few dead garlands of departed splendor left,
Like crape upon her arm,
In boreal hints, and sudden gusts
That fan the glowing ember,
By multitude of ways fulfills
The promise of November.
Upon the path where Beauty, sylvan priestess, sped away,
Lies the rich afterglow
Of Indian Summer, bringing round the happy holiday
That antedates the snow:
The glad Thanksgiving time, the cheer,
The festival commotion
That stirs fraternal feeling from
The mountains to the ocean. ”

“ For the poor and the famished doth kindness prepare
A world of diversion and excellent fare.
To swing in the hammock, disport in the breeze,
To lie in the shade of magnificent trees—
Oh, this is like quaffing from luxury's bowl
The life-giving essence for body and soul!
[Pg 33] Nor distance nor time shall efface from the mind
The influence gentle, the ministry kind;
While gratitude fondly enhallows the thought
Of a home and a holiday never forgot.
Ah, one is remembered of saintliest men
To lovely Geneva who comes not again ”

“ Do beings, forsooth, fashioned out of the mold,
So secretly, strangely, those elements hold
That may be developed in goodness and grace
To shine in demeanor, in form and in face
Till they, by renewal of heavenly birth,
Shall merit their title—the salt of the earth?
[Pg 8] To the landsman at home or the sailor at sea,
With nausea, scurvy, or canker maybe,
'Tis never in language to overexalt
The potent preservative virtue of salt—
A crystal commodity wholesome and good,
A cure for disease, and a savor for food. ”

“ Humanity's helper, companion of God.
In the hearts of the many there sheltered and fed,
As unto a hospice by Providence led,
Does often a thought like a sunbeam intrude
Of the bounty so free, and the donors so good?
Who of their abundance have cheerfully given
Wherewith to develop an embryo heaven—
To brighten conditions too hard and too sad
And make the unhappy contented and glad.
Be blessedness theirs, who like knights of renown
Thus scatter such largesse o'er country and town,
Their monument building in many a dome
Like healthful and beautiful Holiday Home. ”

“ Like that of untamed fledglings in the parent nest
For ampler room.
What is it prompts the roving mania—is it love
Of wild adventure fanciful, unique, and odd?
Is it to be in fashion, and to others prove
One's social standing, that impels the madness of
The tramp abroad?
The question hangs unanswered, like an unwise prayer,
Importunate, but powerless response to bring;
Go ask the voyagers, the rovers everywhere—
They only say it is their rest-time, outing, their
Vacationing. ”

“ He lives but half who never stood
By the grave of one held dear,
And out of the deep, dark loneliness
Of a heart bereaved and comfortless,
From sorrow's crystal plentitude,
Feeling his loss severe,
Dropped a regretful tear.
Oh, life's divinest draught doth not
In the wells of joy abound! ”

“ Where mistress and helper together compete
In excellent management, quiet and neat;
And though in the bosom of earth I am sleeping,
Shall somebody live to whom life will be sweet
And home an ideal, idyllic retreat. ”

“ Within our home doth gladness tread
So closely upon grief
That, in the tears of sorrow shed
O'er our beloved, lamented dead,
We see reflected joy instead
That gives a blest relief.
A father and a daughter gone
Beyond our fireside—
For one we loved and leaned upon
The skillful archer Death had drawn
His bow; and one in life's sweet dawn
Went out a happy bride.
We gave to Heaven, in manhood's prime,
Him whose brave strength and worth
Life's rugged steeps had taught to climb ”

“ Something to conquer, to achieve,
Makes life well worth the struggle hard;
Its petty ills to disregard,
In high endeavor day by day
With this incentive—that he may
Somehow mankind the richer leave
When he has passed away. ”

“ Know well where the springs and the "salt-licks" abound,
Where streams salinaceous flow out of the ground;
And their cravings appease by sipping the brine
With more than the relish of topers at wine.
Our wants may be legion, our needs are but few,
And every known ill hath its remedy true;
'Tis ours to discover and give to mankind
Of hidden essentials the best that we find ”

“ Than others—shekels richer, honors fuller, and all that—
That he can pass his fellows by with lofty scorn,
Nor even show this slight regard—the lifting of the hat?
Why prate of social status, class, or rank when earth
Is common tenting-ground, the heritage of all mankind?
Except in purity is there no royal birth,
No true nobility but nobleness of heart and mind.
Life is so short—one journey long, a pilgrimage
That we cannot retrace, nor ever pass this way again ”

“ To give a graceful word or smile, or lend a hand
To one downcast and trembling on the borders of despair,
May help him to look up and better understand
Why God has made the sky so bright and put the rainbow there. ”

“ There's many a child, from the roof-tree diurnal,
A scene of distraction or dullness severe,
With the longing of youth for diversion and cheer,
That comes like the spring-time refreshing and vernal,
Goes out on a ruinous, reckless career,
Returning, if ever, not many a year.
O negligent female, imperfect housekeeper,
Though faultless in figure and charming of face,
In ruffles of ribbon and trailings of lace
Usurping the part of a common street-sweeper,
You never can pose as a type of your race
In frowsy appearance mid things out of place. ”

“ Like salt in its simple and soluble way
Infusing malodor, preventing decay.
So human endeavor in action sublime
Must never relax till the finale of time.
[Pg 9] To thousands discouraged this comforting truth
Appeals like the promise of infinite youth:
To know, as they labor like bees in the hive,
Yet do little more than keep goodness alive—
To know that the Master accredits their worth
As blessed disciples—"the salt of the earth."
Not Gone.
They are not gone whose lives in beauty so unfolding
Have left their own sweet impress everywhere ”

“ His personnel and purpose can none misunderstand,
For each upon his frontlet bears his honest brand—
The fool-ish one!
By caravan and car, from country and from town,
A great grasshopper army fell foraging the land;
Like bumblebees that know not where to settle down,
Impossible it is to curb or scare or drown
The tourist band.
With guidebook, camera, with rod and gun, to shoot,
To lure the deer, the hare, the bird, the speckled trout,
The pauper or the prince unbidden they salute,
And everywhere their royal right dare none dispute—
To roam about. ”

“ Banqueting and minstrelsy,
Bacchus holding sovereignty.
Then, perchance, in mood capricious
Stripped and scorned and turned away
Those who tasted for a day
Pleasure sweet and food delicious;
Nor might any say them nay—
Lest his head the forfeit pay
Who a king dared disobey.
But our own benignant Giver,
Almoner impartial, true,
Constantly doth gifts renew;
Nor would fitfully deliver
Aught unto the chosen few,
But to all the wide world through,
Who admire his wonders, too.
Never shall the heart be poorer,
Never languish in despair,
That such affluence may share ”

“ Makes any life inane and flat,
Without diversion sandwiched in,
The drudgery, the overplus
Of toil and trouble arduous,
Were rugged discipline.
What time for books and music, when
The lambs were bleating in their pen,
The chickens peeping at the door;
The rodent gnawing at the churn,
The buckwheat wafers crisped to burn,
The kettle boiling o'er?
To hers, so far between and few,
What resting-spells the farmer knew!
What intervals for culture! and
[Pg 153] When intellect assumed the race,
He peerless held the foremost place—
No nobler in the land. ”

“ Let gratitude's pure incense in warm orisons ascend,
A blessing to secure,
And gracious impulse bearing largesse of good gifts extend
To all deserving poor;
So may the day be hallowed by
Unstinted thanks and giving,
In sweet remembrance of the dead
And kindness to the living.
[Pg 100]
Receiving Sight.
In hours of meditation fraught
With mem'ries of departed days,
Comes oft a tender, loving thought
Of one who shared our youthful plays.
In gayest sports and pleasures rife
Whose happy nature reveled so,
That on her ardent, joyous life
A shadow lay, we did not know ”

“ Her fairy hands have modeled o'er
The same habiliments she wore
At her primeval coronation;
And still the pattern exquisite,
For every age a perfect fit,
In every land the favorite,
Elicits world-wide admiration. ”

“ How he loves to be digging about its root,
Or grafting the bud in the tender shoot,
The daintiest palate that he may suit
With the fairest and finest selected fruit.
How he boasts of his Sweetings, so big for size ”

“ Copyright, 1904, by Hattie Howard.
[Pg 3]
Contents. FRONTISPIECE.
[Pg 7]
Poems. "The Salt of the Earth."
The salt of the earth—what a meaningful phrase
From the lips of the Saviour, and one that conveys
A sense of the need of a substance saline
This pestilent sphere to refresh and refine,
And a healthful and happy condition secure
By making it pure as the ocean is pure. ”

“ Of the skiff, or the barge striking out from the shore,
While merry excursionists shout till the gale
Reverberates laughter through rigging and sail.
[Pg 32] How it scallops its basin and shimmers and shines
Like a salver of silver encompassed with vines,
In crystal illusion reflecting the skies
And the mountain that seems from its bosom to rise.
There stands a great house on a summit so high,
Like an eyrie of safety enroofed by the sky ”

“ And mirrors that glistened in wonderful sheen;
There was feasting and mirth in the banqueting-hall,
For this was the annual Charity Ball.
There were pompous civilians, in wealth who abide,
Displaying their purses, the source of their pride ”

“ The holy warder looking o'er,
"'Tis 'Honest John!'" he said aright;
And his pilgrim spirit passed within
Because his walk with God had been.
Bushnell Park.
Sweet resting place! that long hath been
A boon Elysian 'mid the din
Of city life, 'mid city smoke;
Where weary ones who toil and spin
Have turned aside as to an inn
Whose swinging sign a welcome spoke ”

“ It is a pleasant book, sure to be welcomed by all."
"These garnered gems reveal a genuine poetic faculty, and are worthy their attractive setting. We give the book a hearty welcome."
"Many of the poems abound in playful humor or tender touches of sympathy which appeal to a refined feeling, and love for the good, the true, and the beautiful." ”

“ And turning pages o'er
Discover therein safely laid
The bills forgot and never paid—
Somehow that of the corner store
Such dunning memories bring.
It gives a chance to liquidate
Epistolary debts;
[Pg 14] To write in humble penitence
Acknowledging the negligence,
The sin that so besets,
And cheer the hearts that hold us dear,
Who've known and loved us many a year—
Back to the days of pantalets
And swinging on the gate.
It gives occasion to repair
Unlucky circumstance ”

“ A covert cool and airy,
So leaf-embowered as to seem
The dwelling of a fairy.
It is the place to lie supine
Within a hammock swinging,
[Pg 63] To watch the sunset, red as wine,
To hear the crickets singing ”

“ There is a variety of subject and treatment, sufficient for all tastes, and these are poems which should be cherished."
"Lovers of good poetry will herald with pleasure this new and attractive volume by the well-known authoress of Hartford. A wooing sentiment and genial spirit seem to guide her in every train of thought. ”

“ In winter wearing summer's dress.
[Pg 87] With gelid sap and frozen gum
In maple trees and hackmatack,
While waiting for the spring to come
Of life's necessities we lack;
And sip the nectar that we find
In luscious fruit with golden rind.
But down the street we dread to walk,
For all the teachings of our youth
Receive an agonizing shock;
Do tempting labels lie, forsooth?
For "out of Florida," she says,
"Come our Bermuda oranges."
To speed the penitential prayer
Our rosary we finger o'er,
A yellow necklace rich and rare—
'Twas purchased at the dollar store ”