Part 95

Well! every one knows what happened after '59. There is no need to repeat. The history of one is the history of all. . . . . . . . .

It might have been ten years according to some calculations, or ten eternities,--the heart and the almanac never agree about time,--but one morning old Champigny (they used to call him Champignon) was walking along his levee front . . . when he saw a figure approaching. He had to stop to look at it, for it was worth while. The head was hidden by a green barege veil, which the showers had plentifully besprinkled with dew; a tall thin figure. . . . She was the teacher of the colored school some three or four miles away. "Ah," thought Champigny, "some Northern lady on a mission." . . . Old Champigny could not get over it that he had never seen her before. But he must have seen her, and, with his abstraction and old age, not have noticed her, for he found out from the negroes that she had been teaching four or five years there. And he found out also--how, it is not important--that she was Idalie Sainte Foy Mortemart des Islets. La grande demoiselle! He had never known her in the old days, owing to his uncomplimentary attitude toward women, but he knew of her, of course, and of her family. . . . .

Only the good God himself knows what passed in Champigny's mind on the subject. We know only the results. He went and married la grande demoiselle. How? Only the good God knows that too.

FOOTNOTE:

By permission of the author, and publishers, The Century Co., N. Y.

WAITMAN BARBE.

~1864=----.~

WAITMAN BARBE was born at Morgantown, West Virginia, and educated at the State University in that town. Since the year 1884 he has been engaged in editorial and literary pursuits, being now editor of the Daily State Journal. He has already made a reputation as a speaker on literary and educational topics: and his poems, first appearing in periodicals, have now been collected into a volume called "Ashes and Incense," the first edition of which was exhausted in six months. It "has put him among the foremost of the young American poets." Edmund Clarence Stedman says of it: "There is real poetry in the book--a voice worth owning and exercising. I am struck with the beauty and feeling of the lyrics which I have read--such, for example, as the stanzas on Lanier and 'The Comrade Hills.'"

WORKS.

Ashes and Incense.

SIDNEY LANIER.

(From Ashes and Incense.)

O Spirit to a kingly holding born! As beautiful as any southern morn That wakes to woo the willing hills, Thy life was hedged about by ills As pitiless as any northern night; Yet thou didst make it as thy "Sunrise" bright.

The seas were not too deep for thee; thine eye Was comrade with the farthest star on high. The marsh burst into bloom for thee,-- And still abloom shall ever be! Its sluggish tide shall henceforth bear alway A charm it did not hold until thy day.

And Life walks out upon the slipping sands With more of flowers in her trembling hands Since thou didst suffer and didst sing! And so to thy dear grave I bring One little rose, in poor exchange for all The flowers that from thy rich hand did fall.

FOOTNOTE:

By permission of the author, and publishers, J. B. Lippincott Co., Phila.

MADISON CAWEIN.

~1865=----.~

MADISON CAWEIN, born at Louisville, Kentucky, of Huguenot descent, is one of our younger poets who seems overflowing with life and fancy. His writings show a wonderful insight into nature and power of expressing her beauties and meanings. The amount of his poetical work is astonishing, and another volume will soon appear, entitled "Intimations of the Beautiful."

WORKS.

Days and Dreams. Accolon of Gaul and other Poems. Blooms of the Berry. Lyrics and Idyls. Triumph of Music. Moods and Memories. Poems of Nature and Love. Red Leaves and Roses.

THE WHIPPOORWILL.

(From Red Leaves and Roses.)

Above long woodland ways that led To dells the stealthy twilights tread The west was hot geranium-red; And still, and still, Along old lanes, the locusts sow With clustered curls the May-times know, Out of the crimson afterglow, We heard the homeward cattle low, And then the far-off, far-off woe Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!"

II.

Beneath the idle beechen boughs We heard the cow-bells of the cows Come slowly jangling towards the house; And still, and still, Beyond the light that would not die Out of the scarlet-haunted sky, Beyond the evening-star's white eye Of glittering chalcedony, Drained out of dusk the plaintive cry Of "whippoorwill!" of "whippoorwill!"

III.