William Henry Venable

“ Yon amethystine hill-top kist
By lingering enamored mist,
Hears in the sky warm zephyrs sigh
To wooing clouds that dally by;
The wandering whispers seem to say,
“Is’t not the Day?—it is the Day!
Why comes no bridal train this way?”
Forlorn of mood, by love pursued,
A youth laments in solitude ”

“ Our children bask in beam of Pestalozzi’s day.{79}
He deemed his lavish life of no avail,
Dim was his prospect of the Promised Land;
But even then when faith and hope did fail,
The seed, wide scattered from his weary hand,
Was springing, waving, bursting into flower;
For grain of truth is waft on every gale
And sinks in every soil its root of deathless power. ”

“ The wing’d voice of the sky?
Nor listened to the love-lorn bird
Whose plaints in darkness die?
The poets improvise for me
Lark-notes that never fail,
And make more sweet than sound can be
The song of nightingale. ”

“ Through all my meditation and my prayer
Steals reminiscence of the Stream of Light,
And of the Rose unutterably fair,—
And O! the threefold glory of The One,
The Love that moves the circling stars and sun! ”

“ Of deeds in less transcendent fashion
Than youth’s high drama realizes
In visions, dreams, and enterprises,
That lift to godhood mortal men!
Naught is impossible to Heaven,
Nor to the puissance of youth! ”

“ A man-child in whose soul new gospels waited birth.
The world is ever plastic in the hand
Of humble saviours fearless of the cross:
One self-forgetting hero may command
And mould the future, scorning present loss:
Meek Pestalozzi, herding in his mind
Helvetia’s strayling little children, planned
By their salvation surely to redeem mankind.{77}
Much hope, more love possessed him, but most grief ”

“ Visioned splendor reared from naught
Rose sublime;
Art and Beauty thither brought
All Imagination taught
Of the mystery of Man
And of Time;
Wisdom, smiling on the plan,
Bade the wonderwork be wrought,
In Utopia! ”

“ Have you knocked the persimmons and taken the cake?
No? Here’s a small wallet—we’ll share it—
Let’s shake!{105}
You may bank on my heart,—it is truer than gold;
Hot, hotter it grows as the world waxes cold;
Through flood and through flame I would go for your sake,
That’s so, Bill, you grizzly old humbug,
Let’s shake!
You’re married, I dare say, or leastwise, in love?
Speak out, for you know we are like hand and glove;
I used to think you and Belle Esmond would wed;—
Yes, yes, as I wrote you, the baby is dead;—
I feared for awhile that my wife’s heart must break ”

“ Flew on the eager wings of the breeze,
Doubting of naught that his foolish heart feels,
Sure that the country of Do-as-you-please,
If any such ever is found upon earth,
Is the home of our mother, the land of our birth. ”

“ As he grappled his terrible foe!
Now which shall be victor, the brute or the man?
Hands battle against teeth and claws!
Survive the dread struggle the nature that can!
Savage might against letters and laws!
The beast by the master was throttled and crushed
On his desk, while its fangs stung his side;
With the crimsoning rill from his pulses that gushed,
The leaves of his Vergil were dyed.
Who fly to the rescue? Who scream with alarm?
Three scared little maidens! Then said
The schoolmaster, smiling, “No harm, dears, no harm!
I have caught you a wild-cat;—it’s dead.{56}” ”

“ Sleeps in rich gloom of summer boscage green;
Its dreamy dells, in solemn twilight hush,
Echo dulce warblings of the hermit-thrush;
Kist by young May, the windflower trembles there,
And frail dicentra breathes the dainty air ”

“ Not a kreutzer on the trees;
Every bretzel must be bought;
Naught is proffered him for naught.
’Tis the Region of Unrest,
Busy, toiling, moiling West!
All the peasant kings he found
Building houses, tilling ground. ”

“ Dare Charity her fighting ensign furl.
Where rings no song for freedom, none are free;
Where gleams no sword for justice, justice dies;
Where gates of hell prevail, then must it be
The Powers of Darkness storm the very skies.{91}
The Prince of Gentleness, did He not bring
A brand, lest violence on earth prevail?
He preached, He prayed. And poets needs must sing
War against wrong, or Christ himself must fail.
{92} JAMES E. MURDOCH.
On His Eightieth Birthday. ”

“ Their gentle hearts enclose.
Their winsome beauty gladdens me
With this immortal truth:
No age can quite unhappy be
That still remembers youth.{112}
Dear boys! companions! friends sincere!
More warm and true than men,
I thank you most because my tear
Made me a boy again.
{113} THE OLD HOMESTEAD.
ENSHRINED among roses
The Homestead reposes
With vines mantled o’er;
Ground-ivy and clover
Are running all over
The stone at the door.
Pinks, lilies, are blowing,
Blue violets showing
Gold hearts to the June;
Bees going and coming
Keep evermore humming
Their Hyblean tune. ”

“ Whoever doeth righteous deeds
Hath read his Bible well.
Like fragrant blooms of lavish spring
Are adoration’s vows;
The tree that pleases God will bring
Fair fruitage on its boughs.
{76} PESTALOZZI. For the 150th anniversary of the birthday of Pestalozzi, celebrated in Cincinnati, January 13, 1896. ”

“ John Filson and companions bold
A frontier village planned,
In forest wild, on sloping hills,
By fair Ohio’s strand.{58}
John Filson from three languages
With pedant skill did frame
The novel word Losantiville
To be the new town’s name.
Said Filson: “Comrades, hear my words:
Ere three-score years have flown
Our town will be a city vast.” ”

“ But, William, I tell you they do get a hold{106}
Of the heartstrings, these babies, and, since ours went,
Why, somehow or other, we’re not quite content
With this planet;—but when all our miseries here
Are over, I hope we may strike a new sphere
Up yonder, where hearts never hunger nor ache;—
You’ll get there, I reckon, if I do?
Let’s shake!
{107} A WELCOME TO BOZ.
Impromptu. ”

“ More beautiful is, nor so true;
The meed of devotion to duty is song:
Then pay John McKinney his due.
{57} JOHN FILSON. Matthias Denman, Robert Patterson and John Filson laid out the town of Losantiville, now the city of Cincinnati, in 1788. Filson, schoolmaster and surveyor, went out to explore the woods between the Miamis, but never returned. ”

“ To Fields Elysian where the Ancients stray;{96}—
By some celestial brook of lucent flow,
Where plane-trees with immortal verdure grow,
May sit, discoursing calm philosophies,
The Concord Seer, with argute Socrates.
{97} THE POET OF CLOVERNOOK.
READ at the Celebration of Alice Cary’s birthday,
to the children of the Public Schools of
Cincinnati, April 26, 1880.
A POET born, not made,
By Nature taught, she knew,
And, knowing, still obeyed
The Beautiful, the True.
Hers was the seeing eye,
The sympathetic heart,
The subtle art whereby
Lone genius summons art. ”

“ On votive stone, the prey of time;—
Behold where monumental States
Immortalize their lives sublime!
{52} FOREST SONG. Read at the first meeting of the American Forestry Congress, in Music Hall, Cincinnati, April 19, 1882. ”

“ With eyes of dreamy wonder.{63}
The pioneer flings open wide
The cabin door, naught fearing;
The grim woods drowse on every side,
Around the lonely clearing.
“Come in! come in! nor like an owl
Thus hoot your doleful humors ”

“ None other than to share their utmost dolorous need.
“Oh, better never to be born at all
Than live forlorn, the victim of neglect!
To fall from brotherhood is lowest fall.
Lift up the low! bid man’s soul stand erect!
On Education found the Church and State.
I send through Europe my imploring call:
Millennial blessings round the Kindergarten wait!{78}
“Unfold what is within! Develop! ”