THE
EVANGELIST,
AND OTHER
POEMS.
BY SANDFORD C. COX
.CINCINNATI:
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTER.
1867.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867,
BY S. C. COX,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Indiana.
page: [3][View Page [3]]PREFACE.
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MOST of the poems contained in this little volume were written and published in the newspapers as early as the years 1833 and 1834. Some of them have been republished in books and periodicals, and others appear for the first time in print.
The dates of the composition of several pieces are given for reasons that will appear obvious to the reader, and the dates of others to show their appropriateness at the time of their composition.
I trust the few flowers I have gathered from the foot of Parnassus, will be allowed an humble place with the brighter and more gorgeous chaplets plucked by abler hands from the top of the classic hill.
THE AUTHOR.
AUGUST 14, 1867.
page: [4][View Page [4]] page: [5][View Page [5]]CONTENTS.
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- Page.
- THE EVANGELIST 13
- THE FIRST SABBATH 17
- THE VOICE OF SPRING 21
- WILL YOU GO WITH ME? 22
- EVENING WALK 23
- PLEASURE 24
- AUTUMN 26
- THE WINTER TEMPEST 27
- LINES ON THE DEATH OF OSBORN D. HENKLE 28
- SLAVERY 30
- FAREWELL TO — — 31
- THE GREEN WOODS FOR ME 32
- CRIMEAN WAR 33
- LINES FOR AN ALBUM 35
- TO ASENETH 37
- BIRTH OF LIBERTY 38
- NIGHT 39
- HOME 41
- LINES ON THE DEATH OF MRS. ELIZABETH RUE 42
- LONELY HOURS 43
- TO LEVINA 44
- SONG, ON REVISITING THE SCENES OF MY CHILDHOOD 45
- THE FLOWER—AN ALLEGORY 47
- DEATH FERRY 48
- BIRD'S NEST IN THE THISTLE 51
- LINES ON THE DEATH OF ELLA G. SPENCER 52
- THE WILDERNESS MAID 54
- RETURN OF SPRING 56
- MY NATIVE GROVE 58
- LAYS OF THE YEAR—1862 63
- LAYS OF THE YEAR—1864 69
- LAYS OF THE YEAR—1865 74
- LAYS OF THE YEAR—1866 77
- LAYS OF THE YEAR—1867 85
- IMPROMPTU 90
- JOY AND SORROW 91
- WORDS 94
- CHILD'S QUESTIONS 94
- ADVICE 95
- LOVE 96
- AUTUMN WINDS 97
- DREAM OF CHILDHOOD 98
- THE WAMPUM RETURNED 100
- SIR WILLIAM 104
- MAXINKUCKEE 109
- INVOCATION TO THE HARP 111
- TIME 112
- TEMPERANCE 114
- NATIVE AMERICAN CREED 115
- HYMENEAL ALTAR 116
- GOD'S LOVE 117
- LINES FOR THE ALBUM OF MISS ELIZABETH H— 118
- THE ANTEDILUVIANS 121
WHAT IS POETRY?
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VARIOUS definitions have been given of poetry. It has been called the language of passion—the divine art—scintillations of a fruitful and glowing imagination—the mirage of fancy—the love of the bright and beautiful in nature, and in the moral and social world.
Wild flowers blooming in the desert— pearls glittering in ocean caves—the rainbow spanning the heavens after a storm—the aurora borealis streaking the northern sky from the horizon to the zenith with bars of lurid light—the myriads of stars that glow in the nocturnal sky—bright clouds, tinged with gold and purple, that gather around the rising and setting sun, are all full of poetry. Wood-birds with gay plumage caroling amidst green arbors—bees, butterflies, and bright-winged insects reveling in sunlight—meadows page: 8[View Page 8] carpeted with flowers of every lovely tint and delicious fragrance—music with its magic tones, and echo which repeats the sweet harmony—brooks mirroring the landscape, or reflecting the moonbeams as they ripple along through verdant valleys, are subjects of poetry, firing the imagination and gilding the fancy with their inherent charms and brilliancy. Every emotion and impulse of the heart—hope, fear, joy, sorrow—is a fountain of poetry in the human soul. The earthquake and the volcano, whirlwind, and the lightning and the thunder, awaken sublime and terrible emotions in the human bosom, calculated to elicit the most grand and lofty strains of the poet, whose harp is strung in unison with the voice of the tempest that strews desolation in its path.
- "Time shall remove the keystone of the sky,
- Heaven's roof shall fall, and all but virtue die."
The Arabians and Greeks were the first to construct poetry into metrical numbers. They did so to accommodate music, which they considered as the essence and soul of poetry. Indeed, in all the early nations of the earth, poetry and music were combined, and their union tended to their mutual refinement and elevation. Odes and hymns of various kinds were sung by the bards to their entranced countrymen, who were delighted at the recital of the daring deeds and exalted page: 10[View Page 10] patriotism of their ancestors, who were represented as being on social terms with the gods, who often left their empyreal employments to aid some earth-born hero, who was struggling to kill a sphinx or centaur, or overthrow some tyrant who was trampling upon the liberties of his country.
At first history, philosophy, eloquence, and poetry were all the same. Poetry had not then been divided into the different regular forms, and distinguished as pastoral, elegiac, epic, heroic, didactic, and dramatic. The genius and inspiration of the poet are divine gifts, and not the result of intellectual culture. Homer, the inventor of epic poetry, stands without a rival. Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who may be regarded as the first dramatic poets, still remain masters of that class of composition. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Anacreon, and Pindar are names that will ever live in the annals of song. Here we would like to advert to the galaxy of modern poets, in Europe and America, whose immortal numbers will echo down the stream of time until it mingles with the ocean of page: 11[View Page 11] eternity; but the jar and jostle of this actual, bustling, bread-and-butter world admonishes us to come back to terra-firma, and take part in the more practical yet absolutely necessary pursuits of every-day life.