Hiram Peck McKnight

“ Great heavens! what a jamboree of sin and shame and strife!
How few would measure half a span if Mind alone we closely scan!
Where is the man on this broad earth, so pure, so good, so true,
That never gave an action birth he dared not bring to view?
The Christ alone was sinless here, none other lives aright;
All human goodness springs from fear of death's approaching night!
There is no soul so white I know but what temptation's power
Its purity can overthrow and all its good deflower!
Disguise the truth as best we can, he errs the most who most is Man! ”

“ Although in this small cell I'm found,
A prisoner I am not.
The door is made of iron bars,
The lock is large and strong,
But my mind soars free, up to the stars,
As if I'd done no wrong.
The mind of man is ever free,
By nature's law itself,
While this wicked, wretched corpus
May be laid upon the shelf.
What of this wretched body?
What care we for this hand?
But there's one thing safe to wager on,
"That mind's the standard of the Man." ”

“ Thou sin-cursed city of the stricken plain,
Whose heinous lust all after time shall shame,
'Twas thine to rouse Jehovah's awful ire,
And test the strength of Heaven's revengeful fire.
Thy senseless lust and crime had spread
Till virtue, hope and shame had fled;
Degraded youth and tottering age
Could not appease thy senseless rage;
Thy leacherous sons, that roamed at night,
Were human only to the sight;
Their motto was hell's direst fruit:
"Debase the man, exhalt the brute!"
One man alone of all thy teeming millions sate,
And pondered on thy sin with deathless hate ”

“ And felt the sting of th' master's lash, as o'er our task we stood.
As the dark and gloomy cloud, that hovered o'er our past,
Has been wafted off by humane hands—'tis swept away at last.
We now emerge from darkness into a welcome light,
And live in brighter future hopes—a day made out of night.
We hail you, noble, honest men, whose hearts beat five as one,
Thus far in your prison work your duty you have done;
Eternal God will always right the brutal wrongs of man,
And therefore He did send you here to do the best you can. ”

“ Go, search each heart! and then report if truth we'll not defend.
Onward, onward, upward, upward may your labors ever roll;
Reach out for poor fallen sinner, and your work we'll all extol:
Yet 'tis not too late to labor—God will answer, "Aye, extol!"
"Fair-child" of Heaven's august plan, how comest thou to wed yourself to Man?
A name is nothing but to designate, but, Oh—how often it does consecrate
In language pure and clear as diamond scale, while thou, Fair-child, we, every one, do hail!
Real sympathy is not so strong a band as binds fair woman unto haughty man! ”

“ CHAPLAIN AND MRS. C. L. WINGET. Cyprian, the father of the orators' plan, a preacher, a priest and godly man;
You have been, by the good Lord sent, on the mission your heart is ever bent.
Passed through trials of life severe, God was good when He sent you here,
Right in the midst of a sweltering gang of sinners, corrupt on every hand.
I, for one, have watched you keen, and from you haven't an evil deed seen;
All has been so easy to see that your whole soul's bent on setting us free—
Not from earthly, bodily pains, but from our evil, and sin, and shame! ”

“ The dulcet tones of her dear voice
Bids my aching heart rejoice;
She folds me 'neath her dazzling wings,
While all the heart within me sings!
Oh, list those melting tones of love,
More soft than note of cooing dove!
Oh, hear the words her dear lips speak:
"Death, dear one, is the boon to seek!
"False are the glittering gems of earth,
Eternity's gold is the gold of worth;
One moment in heaven is worth a life
Spent on earth 'mid care and strife!
"Death is but the dawn of day,
Destroying naught save worthless clay!
The soul lives on in rapturous bliss
More perfect than a virgin kiss! ”

“ Teach yourself that work is play
Of brain and muscle, rightly used—
And hurtful only when abused;
Deep interest take in all you do;
'Twill others please, as well as you.
Relieve a fellow prisoner's need;
Righteous counsel always heed;
Be not suspicious or unjust—
Few men betray a perfect trust;
He trusts the most whose heart is pure,
And generous thought will malice cure.
Brood not o'er the ills of life;
Give no cause for needless strife;
Tomb the past with all its sin;
Purify yourself within;
Rear your standard, be a MAN,
And do whatever good you can. ”

“ None so lost to virtue, none so devoid of art,
As he who fails to capture the empire of a heart;
He who knows not sympathy feels no fellow's woe,
Will never feel the rapture of happiness below;
God planted seeds of pity in every human breast,
And he who loses most of woe secures most of rest:
Love is man's all, his conqueror, his cordial and wine,
The measure of his inner life that stamps him as divine. ”

“ Just consider, for one moment, all the good this man has done.
On full many a field of battle he the victory hath won;
Swept he with victorious Sherman from Atlanta to the sea,
Ever acting as a soldier, from all fear and malice free;
Proving true in every station, like a soldier tried and true,
He has earned and won the friendship of the boys who wore the blue!
Since his advent in this prison he has, with impartial mind,
Made it plain that every duty can be done and still be kind.
In his bosom rests no malice towards a single human soul ”

“ To this grim cell for guilty ones designed.
Yet I'm no convict—I have never known
The deep remorse by guilty wretches shown!
I am a martyr—doomed by adverse fate
To brave the billows of malicious hate!
Yet I am free, for Nature's august plan
Makes MIND not matter constitute the MAN.
Tho' men may curse me and cast out my name,
Like some vile bauble on the sea of shame;
Brand me as murderer or catiff thief,
Or atheistic infidel—steepid in unbelief;
Foe to all that's pure and good—wretch unfit to live;
Outlaw whom no honest man can even pity give! ”

“ She lives a social outcast, with broken, bleeding heart;
But each base seducer, in our social plan.
Makes poor, trusting woman bear the sins of Man!
Many men are now misjudged, and meet an awful fate,
Whose innocence is published, but alas, it is too late!
Many, too, are breathing freedom's precious air
Whose vile conduct merits prison dress and fare.
Only little rascals in your prisons die,
While stupendous villians liberty can buy!
Each one strives with fervor his neighbor to outshine,
And he who has the most of gold is reckoned half divine. ”

“ Was that old Greek right, who, tho' a man of sense,
Could mete out death to all for each small offense?
Apply his heartless rule, and can you truly say
Any man or woman would be left to slay?
Man is only mortal, and to sin is prone;
Never cure another's faults till you quit your own.
Many are convicted by the press at large;
The Public Mind is rarely Heaven's peculiar charge.
Bring the judge and jury who declared my fate
For the shining dollars furnished them by hate,
And their guilty conscience by my own arrange,
And then tell me frankly if my fate should change! ”

“ To teach the soul its wondrous powers?
And best they love to lead us back
O'er scenes to memory doubly dear,
For those we, waking, love the most
In dreams will seem most near.
While reason sleeps the soul, awake,
Lives o'er each precious hour,
And woos us with a gentle strain
Of pathos and of power.
Dreams index to our waking thought
Plans on which the heart is set,
And he who heeds their warning voice
Has in life least to regret.
In waking hours we sow the seed,
In dreams we reap the grain:
Sometimes the harvest all is joy,
Sometimes, alas! 'tis pain. ”

“ While the poor and honest toiler none with pride or pleasure pays!
See Religion don the garments of all worldly pride and lust,
While the Savior's honest followers are but trampled in the dust!
See the press, with startling headlines, every vice and sin portray
That can sink your moral standard or lead innocence astray!
View the legions of temptation strewn along the path of youth,
See how few do practice virtue, and how few adore the truth!
There! the cause of crime is patent, and our downfall you behold,
To condemn it in a sentence: "It was women, wine and gold!" ”

“ Since first Jehovah, bending low to earth,
Breathed in man's nostrils an eternal birth,
The rain drop falling, from the heavy cloud,
In waiting dust, finds ready shroud,
And there commingling fills each separate cell,
Yet still remains as pure as when it fell:
To man appearing but a dampened clod,
'Tis chambered favor of a gracious God;
And serves his purpose till He calls above
This liquid semblance of Immortal Love,
There not to perish, but return again
To deck the forest and adorn the plain;
All nature feels its fructifying power
In laughing streamlets and in nodding flower ”

“ Or shall truth be crushed and bleeding, ever bound in prison chain?
Will you cast your glances backward, gathering age along by age,
Proof that man is wholly brutal when controlled by maddening rage?
View the pen of downy feathers, where men choked and choked to death,
Without power to ask for pardon with their last expiring breath!
See your brother in that river, safely chained to yonder rock,
While his thirst is wildly raging and the waves his tortures mock!
See yon dungeon, dark and dreary, built by human art and skill,
Whose dread mission is to madden any one the law says kill! ”

“ With dungeon torture and by iron bar?
Can rock-ribbed walls and bars of steel
Deprive man of the power to feel?
Can you the stream of Lethe roll
In maddening torrents o'er the soul,
Pluck from my brow love's garland fair
And brand me "Victim of despair?"
No! weakling son of vengeful fate,
God grants to none a power so great.
My body is your lawful prey,
Poor lump of spirit-crumbling clay;
Seize, chain and manacle each part,
Aye, even starve my bleeding heart,
But know that for Creative Thought
All fetters by one's self is wrought. ”

“ Immortal love! not even death
Can damp thy flame or chill thy breath!
Nay, while eternal ages roll,
'Tis thine to feed the hungry soul
With manna dipped in passion's fire,
True birthright of the heart's desire;
Blest food no mortal lips can take
And fail enrapturing bliss to wake!
Heaven's corner-stone, earth's chief delight.
Tululah's captive soul tonight
Is but living o'er the dream
[Pg 166] Thou didst create beside this stream.
Her hapless fate all must deplore,
Self-sacrificed in days of yore;
And, could Tululah live again,
At least one heart would soothe her pain! ”

“ Religion to his soul is love, and love no wrong entails!
Ye who love eternal right and wish your fellows well
Refuse him not the meed of praise—'tis his our aches to quell!
Each heart within these prison walls that tests his wondrous skill
Unites to sing his praises and bless his generous will.
By kindly words he cheers the soul of those whom dread disease
Envelops in her mystic folds and gives each patient ease.
Naught caring for their praise or blame, he steers his course aright,
Proving duty, well performed, is matchless in its might. ”

“ Every legal right has perished, every social tie is snapped!
Crushing Force is ever present, body mind and soul entrapped!
Kindness is a total stranger, human treatment rarely shown,
Man is faultless when his fellow for a fault must needs atone!
Can such beings know the rapture Heaven decrees to poet souls?
Know they where to place the cymbals of the sounding lyre
Never yet has human malice stilled the music of the spheres!
In the loathesome prison dungeon Heaven the sweetest music hears!
Guilt or shame, or human anger, ne'er can fold the poet's wings. ”

“ There comes the self same voice to me,
Like softest note of cooing dove,
[Pg 27] And sweetly whispers, "God is Love."
All nature is obedient to heaven's august plan,
And none will dare rebellion, save ever-erring man.
He, of a dual nature—purity and lust—
Defies his Great Creator and thus betrays his trust.
Thrones within his being the hydra-headed sin,
All his joy to murder and create hell within;
Self-conscienceness completes the triple blow
While memories of happier years augments his hapless woe. ”

“ His cultured mind and noble soul
Truth and virtue both control.
Tell the world his perfect skill
Can conquer every human ill
That lends to science or to art,
From shattered limb to dormant heart.
Each pill and potion that he makes
Relieves your pain and health awakes:
And should he use the surgeon's knife,
He never will sacrifice a life.
His skilfull fingers place a band
As gently as a woman's hand;
And not one patient needs to feel
That he the truth will not reveal. ”

“ The sacred Muse should ne'er descend.
Vice to guild, nor wound a friend.
Heaven gave no man poetic art,
Save to improve the human heart.
You may not find, in coming page,
The ripened wisdom of the age:
Yet you will find, untrained by art,
The deathless music of the heart:
And truth shall caress each flaming line.
Inspired by The Tuneful Nine;
No fear of man nor greed of praise
Shall make or mar our tuneful lays;
We simply voice the ripest thought
Of prisoned souls with meaning fraught. ”