entitled _Under a Fool's Cap: Songs_ (London, 1884), and contained one
hundred and forty-four pages in an edition that did not exceed five
hundred copies. The poet whimsically placed his boyhood name of
"Daniel Henry Junior" upon the title-page. This little volume is one
of the most unique things ever done by an American hand. Holmes took
twenty-four old familiar nursery jingles, which are printed in
black-face type at the top of the lyrics relating to them, and he
worked them over and turned them over and did everything but parody
them; and in only one of them--_Margery Daw_--did he discard the
original metres. He employed "three methods of dealing with his
nursery rhymes; he either made them the basis of a story, or he took
them as an allegory and gave the 'modern instance,' or he simply
continued and amplified. The last method is, perhaps, the most
effective and successful of all," the poems done in this manner being
far and away the finest in the book. Holmes spent the seven years
subsequent to the appearance of _Under a Fool's Cap_, in France,
Italy, and Germany. In 1890 his father gave him Holmesdale. He
returned to Kentucky, and the remaining years of his life were spent
at Covington, save several winters abroad.
Holmes's second book of lyrics, _A Pedlar's Pack_ (New York, 1906),
which was largely written at Holmesdale, contained many exceedingly
clever and charming poems, but, with the exception of some fine
sonnets, _A Pedlar's Pack_ is verse, while _Under a Fool's Cap_ is
genuine poetry. Holmes was an accomplished musician, and his _Hempen
Homespun Songs_ (Cincinnati, 1906), mostly written in Dresden,
contained fourteen songs set to music, of which four had words by the
poet. Of the other ten songs, three were by W. M. Thackeray, two by
Alfred de Musset, and Austin Dobson, Henri Chenevers, W. E. Henley,
Edgar Allan Poe, and Alfred Tennyson were represented by having one of
their songs set to music. This was his only publication in the field
of music, and his third and final book. Holmes's last years were spent
at the old house in Covington, devoted to arranging his large library,
collected from the bookshops of the world, and to his music. His life
was one of endless ease, the universal pursuit of wealth being neither
necessary nor engaging. He had lived parts of more than forty years of
his life at Holmesdale when he left it for the last time in the fall
of 1908 to spend the winter at Hot Springs, Virginia, where he died
suddenly on December 14, 1908. He had hardly found his grave at
Cincinnati before lovers of poetry on both sides of the Atlantic arose
and demanded word of his life and works. This demand has been in part
supplied by Mr. Thomas B. Mosher, the Maine publisher, who has
exquisitely reprinted _Under a Fool's Cap_, and written this beautiful
tribute to the poet's memory:
"One vital point of interest should be restated: the man who took
these old tags of nursery rhymes and fashioned out of them some of
the tenderest lyrics ever written was an American by birth and in
the doing of this unique thing did it perfectly. That he never
repeated these first fine careless raptures is nothing to his
discredit. That he _did_ accomplish what he set himself to do with
an originality and a proper regard to the quality of his work
rather than its quantity is the essential fact; and in his ability
to touch a vibrating chord in the hearts of all who have come
across these lyrics we feel that the mission of Daniel Henry
Holmes was fulfilled both in letter and in spirit."
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Hesperian Tree_, edited by J. J. Piatt
(Cincinnati, 1900); _The Cornhill Magazine_ (August, 1909), review
of _Under a Fool's Cap_, by Norman Roe; _The Bibelot_ (May, 1910);
_Under a Fool's Cap_ (Portland, Maine, 1910; 1911), lovely
reprints of the 1884 edition, with Mr. Roe's review and foreword
by Mr. Mosher; letters from Mrs. Holmes, the poet's widow, who has
recently reopened Holmesdale.
BELL HORSES
[From _Under a Fool's Cap_ (London, 1884)]
Bell horses, Bell horses,
What time of day?
One o'clock! Two o'clock!
Three! and away.
I shall wait by the gate
To see you pass,
Closely press'd, three abreast,
Clanking with brass:
With your smart red mail-cart
Hard at your heels,
Scarlet ground, fleck'd around
With the Queen's seals.
Up the hills, down the hills,
Till the cart shrink
To a faint dab of paint
On the sky-brink,
Never stop till you drop,
On to the town,
Bearing great news of state
To Lords and Crown.
And down deep in the keep
Of your mail-cart,
There's a note that I wrote
To my sweetheart.
I had no words that glow,
No penman's skill,
And high-born maids would scorn
Spelling so ill;
But what if it be stiff
Of hand and thought,
And ink-blots mark the spots
Where kisses caught,
He will read without heed
Of phrases' worth,
That I love him above
All things on earth.
I must wait here, till late
Past Evensong,
Ere you come tearing home--
Days are so long!--
But I'll watch, till I catch
Your bell's chime clear ...
If you'll bring _me_ something--
Won't you please, dear?
MY LADY'S GARDEN
[From the same]
How does my Lady's garden grow?
How does my Lady's garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle-shells,
And pretty girls all in a row.
All fresh and fair, as the spring is fair,
And wholly unconscious they are so fair,
With eyes as deep as the wells of sleep,
And mouths as fragrant as sweet June air.
They all have crowns and all have wings,
Pale silver crowns and faint green wings,
And each has a wand within her hand,
And raiment about her that cleaves and clings.
But what have my Lady's girls to do?
What maiden toil or spinning to do?
They swing and sway the live-long day
While beams and dreams shift to and fro.
And are so still that one forgets,
So calm and restful, one forgets
To think it strange they never change,
Mistaking them for Margarets.
But when night comes and Earth is dumb,
When her face is veil'd, and her voice is dumb,
The pretty girls rouse from their summer drowse,
For the time of their magic toil has come.
They deck themselves in their bells and shells,
Their silver bells and their cockle-shells,
Like pilgrim elves, they deck themselves
And chaunting Runic hymns and spells,
They spread their faint green wings abroad,
Their wings and clinging robes abroad,
And upward through the pathless blue
They soar, like incense smoke, to God.
Who gives them crystal dreams to hold,
And snow-white hopes and thoughts to hold,
And laughter spun of beams of the sun,
And tears that shine like molten-gold.
And when their hands can hold no more,
Their chaliced hands can hold no more,
And when their bells, and cockle-shells,
With holy gifts are brimming o'er,
With swift glad wings they cleave the deep,
As shafts of starlight cleave the deep,
Through Space and Night they take their flight
To where my Lady lies asleep;
And there, they coil above her bed,--
A fairy crown above her bed--
While from their hands, like sifted sands,
Falls their harvest winnowed.
And this is why my Lady grows,
My own sweet Lady daily grows,
In sorcery such, that at her touch,
Sweet laughter blossoms and songs unclose.
And this is what the pretty girls do,
This is the toil appointed to do,
With silver bells, and cockle-shells,
Like Margarets all in a row.
LITTLE BLUE BETTY
[From the same]
Little Blue Betty lived in a lane,
She sold good ale to gentlemen.
Gentlemen came every day,
And little Blue Betty hopp'd away.
A rare old tavern, this "Hand and Glove,"
That Little Blue Betty was mistress of;
But rarer still than its far-famed taps
Were Betty's trim ankles and dainty caps.
So gentlemen came every day--
As much for the caps as the ale, they say--
And call'd for their pots, and her mug to boot:
If it bettered their thirst they were welcome to't;
For Betty, with none of those foolish qualms
Which come of inordinate singing of psalms,
Thought kissing a practice both hearty and hale,
To freshen the lips and smarten the ale.
So gallants came, by the dozen and score,
To sit on the bench by the trellised door,
From the full high noon till the shades grew long,
With their pots of ale, and snatches of song.
While little Blue Betty, in shortest of skirts,
And whitest of caps, and bluest of shirts,
Went hopping away, rattling pots and pence,
Getting kiss'd now and then as pleased Providence.
How well I remember! I used to sit down
By the door, with Byronic, elaborate frown
Staring hard at her, as she whisk'd about me,--
Being jealous as only calf-lovers can be,
Till Betty would bring me my favourite mug,
Her lips all a-pucker, her shoulders a-shrug,
And wheedle and coax my young vanity back,
So I fancied myself the preferred of the pack.
Ah! the dear old times! I turn'd out of my way,
As I travell'd westward the other day,
For a ramble among those boy-haunts of mine,
And a friendly nod to the crazy old sign.
The inn was gone--to make room, alas!
For a railroad buffet, all gilding and glass,
Where sat a proper young person in pink,
Selling ale--which I hadn't the heart to drink.
THE OLD WOMAN UNDER THE HILL
[From the same]
There was an old woman lived under the hill,
And if she's not gone, she lives there still;
Baked apples she sold and cranberry pies,
And she's the old woman who never told lies.
A queer little body, all shrivelled and brown,
In her earth-colour'd mantle and rain-colour'd gown,
Incessantly fumbling strange grasses and weeds,
Like a rickety cricket, a-saying its beads.
In winter or summer, come shine or come rain,
When the bustles and beams into twilight wane,
To the top of her hill, one can see her climb,
To sit out her watch through the long night-time.
The neighbourhood gossips have strange tales to tell--
As they sit at their knitting and tongues waggle well
Of the queer little crone who lived under the hill
When the grannies among them were hoppy-thumbs still.
She was once, they say, a young lassie, as fair
As white-wing'd hawthorn in April air,
When under the hill--one fine evening--she met
A stranger, the strangest maid ever saw yet:
From his crown to his heels he was clad all in red,
And his hair like a flame on his shoulders was shed;
Not a word spake he, but clutching her hand,
Led her off through the darkness to Shadowland.
What befell her there no mortal can tell,
But it must have been things indescribable,
For when she returned, at last, alone,
Her beauty was dead, and her youth was gone.
They gather'd about her: she shook her head
--She had been through Hell--that was all she said
In answer to whens, and hows, and whys;
So they took her word, for she never told lies.
And now, they say, when the sun goes down
This queer little woman, all shrivell'd and brown
Turns into a beautiful lass, once more,
With gold-stranded hair and soft eyes of yore,
And out of the hills in the stills and the gloams
Her beautiful fabulous lover comes,
In scarlet doublet and red silken hose,
To woo her again--till the Chanticleer crows.
And she, poor old crone, sits up on her hill
Through the long dreary night, till the dawn turns chill,
And suffers in silence and patience alway,
In the hope that God will forgive, some day.
MARGERY DAW
[From the same]
See-Saw! Margery Daw!
Sold her bed to lie upon straw;
Was she not a dirty slut
To sell her bed, and live in dirt?
And yet perchance, were the circumstance
But known, of Margery's grim romance,
As sacred a veil might cover her then
As the pardon which fell on the Magdalen.
It's a story told so often, so old,
So drearily common, so wearily cold:
A man's adventure,--a poor girl's fall--
And a sinless scapegoat born--that's all.
She was simple and young, and the song was sung
With so sweet a voice, in so strange a tongue,
That she follow'd blindly the Devil-song
Till the ground gave way, and she lay headlong.
And then: not a word, not a plea for her heard,
Not a hand held out to the one who had err'd,
Her Christian sisters foremost to condemn--
God pity the woman who falls before them!
They closed the door for evermore
On the contrite heart which repented sore,
And she stood alone, in the outer night,
To feed her baby as best she might.
So she sold her bed, for its daily bread,
The gown off her back, the shawl off her head,
Till her all lay piled on the pawner's shelf,
Then she clinch'd her teeth and sold herself.
And so it came that Margery's name
Fell into a burden of Sorrow and Shame,
And Margery's face grew familiar in
The market-place where they trade in sin.
What use to dwell on this premature Hell?
Suffice it to say that the child did well,
Till one night that Margery prowled the town,
Sickness was stalking, and struck her down.
Her beauty pass'd, and she stood aghast
In the presence of want, and stripped, at the last,
Of all she had to be pawned or sold,
To keep her darling from hunger and cold.
So the baby pined, till Margery, blind
With hunger of fever, in body and mind,
At dusk, when Death seem'd close at hand,
Snatch'd a loaf of bread from a baker's stand.
Some Samaritan saw Margery Daw,
And lock'd her in gaol to lie upon straw:
Not a sparrow falls, they say--Oh well!
God was not looking when Margery fell.
With irons girt, in her felon's shirt,
Poor Margery lies in sorrow and dirt,
A gaunt, sullen woman untimely gray,
With the look of a wild beast, brought to bay.
See-saw! Margery Daw!
What a wise and bountiful thing, the Law!
It makes all smooth--for she's out of her head,
And her brat is provided for. It's dead.
WILLIAM H. WOODS
William Hervey Woods, poet, was born near Greensburg, Kentucky,
November 17, 1852, the son of a clergyman. He was educated at
Hampden-Sidney College, in Virginia, after which he studied for the
church at Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Virginia. Mr. Woods
was ordained to the ministry of the Southern Presbyterian church in
1878; and since 1887 he has been pastor of the Franklin Square church
at Baltimore. For the past several years he has contributed poems to
_Scribner's_, _Harper's_, _The Century_, _The Atlantic Monthly_, _The
Youth's Companion_, _The Independent_, and several other periodicals.
This verse was collected and published in a pleasing little volume of
some hundred and fifty pages under the title of _The Anteroom and
Other Poems_ (Baltimore, 1911). As is true of the purely literary
labors of most clergymen, a few of the poems are somewhat marred by
the homiletical tone--they simply must point a moral, even though that
moral does not adorn the tale. Several of the poems reveal the
author's love for his birthplace, Kentucky; and, taken as a whole, the
book is one of which any of our singers might be proud.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Courier-Journal_ (January 16, 1912);
_Scribner's Magazine_ (July; August, 1912).
SYCAMORES[9]
[From _The Anteroom and Other Poems_ (Baltimore, 1911)]
They love no crowded forest dark,
They climb no mountains high,
But ranged along the pleasant vale
Where shining waters lie,
Their brown coats curling open show
A silvery undergleam,
Like the white limbs of laughing boys
Half ready for the stream.
What if they yield no harvests sweet,
Nor massive timbers sound,
And all their summer leafage casts
But scanty shade around;
Their slender boughs with zephyrs dance,
Their young leaves laugh in tune,
And there's no lad in all the land
Knows better when 'tis June.
They come from groves of Arcady,
Or some lost Land of Mirth,
That Work-a-day and Gain and Greed
May not possess the earth,
And though they neither toil nor spin,
Nor fruitful duties pay,
They also serve, mayhap, who help
The world keep holiday.
FOOTNOTE:
[9] Copyright, 1911, by the Author.
ANDREW W. KELLEY
Andrew W. Kelley ("Parmenas Mix"), poet preeminent of life on a country
newspaper, was born in the state of New York about 1852. When twenty
years of age he left Schenectady, New York, for Tennessee, but in 1873
he settled at Franklin, Kentucky, where he spent the remainder of his
life. He was associate editor of Opie Read's paper, _The Patriot_, for
some time, but when that sheet died, he drifted from pillar to post
until a kindly death discovered him. The gossips of the quiet little
town of Franklin will to-day tell the enquirer for facts regarding
Kelley's life that he was engaged to a New York girl, all things were
ready for the celebration of the ceremony, when the bride-to-be suddenly
changed her mind, and poor _Parmenas Mix_ was thus started in the
drunkard's path. He planned to go East for several years prior to his
death, to seek his literary fortunes, but he sat in his room and dreamed
his life away. Kelley died at Franklin, Kentucky, in 1885. He was buried
in the potter's field, a pauper and an outcast, which condition was
wholly caused by excessive drinking. The very place of his grave can
only be guessed at to-day. Kelley wrote many poems, nearly all of which
celebrated some phase of life on a country newspaper, but his
masterpiece is _The Old Scissors' Soliloquy_, which was originally
published in _Scribner's Monthly_--now _The Century Magazine_--for
April, 1876. It appeared in the "Bric-a-Brac Department," illustrated
with a single tail-piece sketch of editorial scissors "lying at rest"
upon newspaper clippings, with "a whopping big rat in the paste." Many
of his other poems were also published in _Scribner's_. _The New
Doctor_, _Accepted and Will Appeal_, and _He Came to Pay_, done in the
manner of Bret Harte's _The Aged Stranger_, are exceedingly clever. A
slender collection of his poems could be easily made, and should be.
Opie Read wrote a tender tribute to the memory of his former friend, in
which his merits were thus summed up: "The country has surely produced
greater poets than 'Parmenas Mix,' but I doubt if we shall ever know a
truer lover of Nature's divine impulses. He lightened the heart and made
it tender, surely a noble mission; he talked to the lowly, he flashed
the diamond of his genius into many a dark recess. He preached the
gospel of good will; he sang a beautiful song."
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Blades o' Blue Grass_, by Fannie P. Dickey
(Louisville, 1892); _Poetry of American Wit and Humor_, by R. L.
Paget (Boston, 1899).
THE OLD SCISSORS' SOLILOQUY
[From _Scribner's Monthly_, April, 1876]
I am lying at rest in the sanctum to-night,--
The place is deserted and still,--
To my right lie exchanges and manuscripts white,
To my left are the ink and the quill--
Yes, the quill, for my master's old-fashioned and quaint,
And refuses to write with a pen;
He insists that old Franklin, the editor saint,
Used a quill, and he'll imitate Ben.
I love the old fellow--together for years
We have managed the _Farmer's Gazette_,
And although I am old, I'm his favorite shears
And can crowd the compositors yet.
But my duties are rather too heavy, I think,
And I oftentimes envy the quill
As it lazily leans with its nib in the ink
While I'm slashing away with a will.
But when I was new,--I remember it well,
Though a score of long years have gone by,--
The heaviest share of the editing fell
On the quill, and I think with a sigh
Of the days when I'd scissor an extract or two
From a neighboring editor's leader,
Then laugh in my sleeve at the quill as it flew
In behalf of the general reader.
I am being paid off for my merriment then,
For my master is wrinkled and gray,
And seldom lays hold on his primitive pen
Except when he wishes to say:
"We are needing some money to run this machine,
And subscribers will please to remit;"
Or, "That last load of wood that Jones brought us was green,
And so knotty it couldn't be split."
He is nervous and deaf and is getting quite blind
(Though he hates to acknowledge the latter),
And I'm sorry to say it's a puzzle to find
Head or tale to the most of his matter.
The compositors plague him whenever they see
The result of a luckless endeavor,
But the darling old rascal just lays it to me,
And I make no remonstrance whatever.
Yes, I shoulder the blame--very little I care
For the jolly compositor's jest,
For I think of a head with the silvery hair
That will soon, very soon be at rest.
He has labored full long for the true and the good
'Mid the manifold troubles that irk us--
His only emolument raiment and food,
And--a pass, now and then, to the circus.
Heigho! from the past comes a memory bright
Of a lass with the freshness of clover
Who used me to clip from her tresses one night
A memorial lock for her lover.
That dear little lock is still glossy and brown,
But the lass is much older and fatter,
And the youth--he's an editor here in the town--
I'm employed on the staff of the latter.
I am lying at rest in the sanctum to-night--
The place is deserted and still--
The stars are abroad and the moon is in sight
Through the trees on the brow of the hill.
Clouds hurry along in undignified haste
And the wind rushes by with a wail--
Hello! there's a whooping big rat in the paste--
How I'd like to shut down on his tail!
LATE NEWS
[From _Scribner's Monthly_, December, 1876]
In the sanctum I was sitting,
Engaged in thought befitting
A gentleman of letters--dunning letters, by the way--
When a seedy sort of fellow,
Middle-aged and rather mellow,
Ambled in and questioned loudly, "Well, sir, what's the news to-day?"
Then I smiled on him serenely--
On the stranger dressed so meanly--
And I told him that the Dutch had taken Holland, sure as fate;
And that the troops in Flanders,
Both privates and commanders,
Had been dealing very freely in profanity of late.
Then the stranger, quite demurely,
Said, "That's interesting, surely;
Your facilities for getting news are excellent, that's clear;
Though excuse me, sir, for stating
That the facts you've been narrating
Are much fresher than the average of items gathered here!"
YOUNG E. ALLISON
Young Ewing Allison, one of the most versatile of the Kentucky writers
of the present school, was born at Henderson, Kentucky, December 23,
1853. He left school at an early age to become the "devil" in a
Henderson printing office. At seventeen years of age Mr. Allison was a
newspaper reporter. At different times he has been connected with _The
Journal_, of Evansville, Indiana; city and dramatic editor of _The
Courier-Journal_; editor of _The Louisville Commercial_; and from 1902
to 1905 he was editor of _The Louisville Herald_. Mr. Allison founded
_The Insurance Field_ at Louisville, in 1887, and has since edited it.
He has thus been a newspaper man for more than forty years; and though
always very busy, he has found time to write fiction, verse, literary
criticism, history, and librettos. In prose fiction Mr. Allison is best
known by three stories: _The Passing of Major Kilgore_, which was
published as a novelette in _Lippincott's Magazine_ in 1888; _The
Longworth Mystery_ (_Century Magazine_, October, 1889); and _Insurance
at Piney Woods_ (Louisville, 1896). In half-whimsical literary criticism
he has published two small volumes which are known in many parts of the
world: _The Delicious Vice_ (Cleveland, 1907, first series; Cleveland,
1909, second series). These papers are "pipe dreams and adventures of an
habitual novel-reader among some great books and their people." Mr.
Allison's libretto, _The Ogallallas_, a romantic opera, was produced by
the Bostonians Opera Company in 1894; and his _Brother Francisco_, a
libretto of tragic opera, was presented at the Royal Opera House,
Berlin, by order of Emperor William II. The music to both of these
operas was composed by Mr. Henry Waller, Liszt's distinguished pupil. In
history Mr. Allison has written _The City of Louisville and a Glimpse of
Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1887); and _Fire Underwriting_ (Louisville,
1907). Of his lyrics, _The Derelict_, a completion of the four famous
lines in Robert Louis Stevenson's _Treasure Island_, has been printed by
almost every newspaper and magazine in the English-speaking world, set
to music by Mr. Waller, and an illustrated _edition de luxe_ has
recently appeared. _The Derelict_ and _The Delicious Vice_ have firmly
fixed Mr. Allison's fame.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Confessions of a Tatler_, by Elvira M. Slaughter
(Louisville, 1905); letter from Mr. Allison to the writer.
ON BOARD THE DERELICT
A Reminiscence of _Treasure Island_
[From a leaflet edition]
_Fifteen men on the Dead Man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!_
--[_Cap'n Billy Bones his song_]
Fifteen men on the Dead Man's chest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!
The mate was fixed by the bos'n's pike,
The bos'n brained with a marlinspike,
And the Cookey's throat was marked belike
It had been gripped
By fingers ten;
And there they lay,
All good dead men,
Like break-o'-day in a boozin' ken--
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!