Bos IBID. The Monitions of the Unseen, and Poems of Love and Childhood. Author's edition. ton: Roberts Brothers, 1871. 16mo, pp. 162. IBID. Complete Poems. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1878. 16mo, pp. 313 and 332 and 145. IBID. Poems of the Old Days and the New Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1885. 16m0, pp. 229. STARR, ELIZA ALLEN. Songs of a Life-Time. Chicago: Published by the Author, 1887. pp. 21 and 400. 12mo, ABBEY, HENRY. The Poems of Henry Abbey. New, enlarged edition. Kingston, New York: Henry Abbey, 1885. 12mo, pp. 5 and 256. JEFFREY, ROSA VERTNER. Poems, by Rosa Vertner Johnson. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. Lexington: Hitchcock and Searles, 1857. 12mo, pp. 7 and 334. IBID. Daisy Dare and Baby Power: Poems, with eight illustrations, designed by D. Vertner Johnson, Esq. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen and Haffelfinger, 1871. 12mo, pp. 57. IBID. The Crimson Hand and Other Poems. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1881. 12 mo, pp. 200. MORGAN, MARY. Poems and Translations, by Mary Morgan, (Gowan Lea), Montreal: J. Theo. Robinson, 1887. 16mo, pp. 77 and 195. BUSHNELL, WILLIAM H. Miscellaneous poems. SCOLLARD, CLINTON. Pictures in Song. York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1884. 16m0, pp. 9 and 137. IBID. With Reed and Lyre. Boston: D. Lothrop Co., 1886. 16mo, pp. 173. IBID. Old and New World Lyrics. Frederick A. Stokes and Brother, 1888. 8 and 174. ROBERTS, CHARLES G. D. Poems. Philadelphia: J. B. 1880. 16m0, pp. 114. New York: 16m0, pp. Orion and Other Lippincott and Co., WHITE, HENRY KIRKE. The Poetical Works and Remains of Henry Kirke White, with Life by Robert Southey. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 12mo. BLAKE, WILLIAM. The Poems, with specimens of the Prose Writings of William Blake, with a Prefatory Notice, Biographical and Critical by Joseph Skepsey. London: Walter Scott, 1885. 18mo. SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE. The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. The text carefully revised by William Michel Rossetti. York: Thomas Y. Crowell, and Co., 12mo. New GOODALE, DORA READ. Apple Blossoms. Poems of Two Children. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1886 (1878). 18mo. COWLEY, ABRAHAM. The British Poets, including Translations. Abraham Cowley. Chiswick: C. Whittingham, 1822. 16mo. PRIZE POEMS. The Publisher of THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY offers prizes to the amount of Three Hundred Dollars in cash for the best original poems submitted for publication. Other prizes will be awarded hereafter. QUATRAIN. For the best Quatrain (subject: Poetry) received by the editor on or before June 1 1889, one hundred dollars. First prize, $50; second prize, $30; third prize, $20. SONNET. For the best Sonnet (subject: Life) received by the editor on or before September 1, 1889. one hundred dollars. First prize, $50; second prize, $30; third prize, $20. RONDEAU. For the best Rondeau (on any subject) received by the editor on or before December 1, 1889, one hundred dollars. First prize, $50; second prize, $30; third prize, $20. MANNER OF AWARD.- Poems offered in competition should be written plainly, with proper punctua tion, on one side of note paper only. In forwarding to the Editor the competitor should enclose name on a separate sheet. Upon receipt of poems they will be properly numbered. Type-written copies will be made of each poem and sent to a select Committee who will make the awards. Not more than three poems on the same subject by the same author will be received in competition. The Committee of Award shall consist of not less than five persons of known literary reputation. The names of said Committee will be made public with the published awards. PRIZE QUOTATIONS. CASH PRIZES to the amount of Three Hundred Dollars will be awarded by the Publisher to the persons who will name the author of the greatest number of the PRIZE QUOTATIONS. RULES FOR COMPETITORS. I. Nineteen prizes will be declared. First prize, $100.00; second prize. $50.00; third prize, $30.00; fourth prize, $20.00; fifth to ninth prizes, $10.00 each; tenth to ninteenth prizes, $5.00 each. II. Every subscriber to THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY will be entitled to compete. III. Answers should be arranged and numbered, written legibly in ink, on one side of note paper only, and signed by the full address of the competitor, IV. The name of the poem from which the selection is made, as well as the author of the quotation, is required. The competitor who answers the greatest number of authors will be awarded first prize, etc. V. Clubs and Reading Circles are allowed to compete as one individual, but not more than one member of the same club will be awarded a prize. Each winner will be required to furnish a statement that he has neither assisted, nor received assistance, from any other prize winner. VI. In case of a tie in totals, the combined prizes will be divided pro rata. VII. Prizes will be declared March 15, 1890, and all answers should be received by the publisher on or before that date. VIII. All answers and inquiries concerning them should be addressed, with postage fully prepaid, to the EDITOR OF "PRIZE QUOTATIONS," in care of C. W. Moulton, Buffalo, N. Y. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. FOR ENGRAVINGS in this number of THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY the Publisher wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of Minna Williams, Cincinnati, Ohio; Messrs. Horner and Burch, Buffalo, N. Y.; The American Bookmaker, New York, (Howard Lockwood and Company, owners of copyright, for portrait of Walt Whitman by Frank Fowler); David McKay, Philadelphia, Pa., (publisher of Whitman's Poems); Matthews, Northrup and Company, Buffalo, N. Y.; The Crosscup and West Engraving Company, Philadelphia, Pa.; Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, New York, (publishers of "Girls who Became Famous," by Jean Ingelow); The Chicago Photo-Gravure Company, Chicago, Ill.;_ F. A. Ringler and Company, New York; The Moss Engraving Company, New York; Estes and Lauriat, Boston, Mass.,(publishers of " Fairy Lilian" by Alfred Tennyson); and Cassell and Company, New York, (copyright, by O. M. Dunham). publishers of Miss McClelland's works. FOR COPYRIGHT poems and other selections the Publisher returns thanks to The Century Company, Estes and Lauriat, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, George Houghton, David McKay, Walt Whitman, G. P. Putnam's Sons, Anna Katherine Green, John Eliot Bowen, Frederick A. Stokes and Brother, Harriet Maxwell Converse, Trübner and Company, William Wilsey Martin, John Boyle O'Reilly, The Pilot Publishing Company, Roberts Brothers, D. Lothrop Company, O. C. Auringer, Jean Ingelow, Eliza Allen Starr, J. B. Lippincott Company, Francis Howard Williams, Henry Abbey, Rosa Vertner Jeffrey, William H. Bushnell, Charles H. Kerr and Company, Alice Williams Brotherton, Thomas Y. Crowell and Company, Sarah Knowles Bolton, J. R. Tutin, Clinton Scollard, Charles G. D. Roberts, Dora Read Goodale, Harper and Brothers, Mary D. Brine, Anson G. Chester, Robert McIntyre, Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt, D. Appleton and Company, Rose Terry Cooke, Eliza S. Pierson, M. H. Cobb, A. A. Hopkins, Anna L. Ward, Will Carleton, Cyrus H. K. Curtis Charles Scribner's Sons, and The American Magazine. THE MAGAZINE OF POETRY. VOL. I. NO. 2. JOHN T. TROWBRIDGE. IKE Whittier and like Charles Dudley Warner, was fourteen years old his father told him that he could turn a furrow as well as any man. He was born in a log cabin, which his father had built eight miles west of the present city of Rochester, N. Y., and his boyhood was spent in farm labor, varied during the winter by attendance at the district school. The site of the city was occupied by one house and a saw-mill, and crossing the Genesee River on the ice, his father had come from the eastern part of the state to wrest a living from the wilderness beyond. The cabin was "rolled" together: not a nail was used in it, and wooden pegs took their place. The floor was of split chestnut logs, and the boards of the sleigh box, laid across poles under the roof, formed a loft. Such was the birthplace of the future poet, humbler even than the cabin by the Doon in which Robert Burns was born. Though primitive, it was not squalid or mean, however; it was pervaded by that simple dignity and refinement which the freedom and hopefulness of American life allow. His father was a man of humor and imagination, and his mother (both parents were natives of New England) was a woman of education and a sensitive temperament. Still it is not to be denied that the conditions were not those which would be chosen as a preparation for that literary career which opened rainbow vistas to the boy while yet very tender and green. His lessons in school did not interest him, though he found them easy, but he was possessed with a desire to learn French and Latin, and with great difficulty he acquired a knowledge of those languages sufficient to enable him to read works written in them. The pronunciation was another thing. "The grammar gave me no limits as to that, and I did not know anybody who had the slightest acquaintance with the language. But I simplified the matter by pronouncing all words precisely as they were spelled." We can well believe him when he tells us that the result was sometimes incredible. "I couldn't believe," he adds, "that any people really spoke in that way." All the books he could find he read, and no pleasure with him equaled that of reading. When he was about fourteen he began to make verses while he was at work in the fields with no companions but the steady-going horses at the plow, and in the evening he wrote them down. Some of his friends accused him of copying them out of books, but he silenced his detractors by composing an acrostic on the name of one of them; it did not seem probable that he could have found that in Byron or Pope. At last he got into print. He had written some verses on The Tomb of Napoleon," and either his father or the schoolmaster sent them to the Rochester Republican, in which they appeared. But the glory of the event was tarnished by two untoward circumstances: his school-fellows refused to believe that he had not “cribbed" them, and his hypersensitive mind detected an attempt to extenuate the achievement in the fact that they were ascribed to "A lad of sixteen." Why should his age be mentioned? His wounded feelings revolted against the imputation that they were not good enough for a full-fledged poet, and that indulgence was asked for on account of the youth of the writer. But from this moment, despite the chagrin caused by the reflections upon him, he loved to think that a literary career might be possible for him. He still milked the cows, foddered the cattle and sheep, rode the horses to water and shoveled paths through the snow, but between whiles he was poring over his beloved books and scribbling rhymes. The rainbow vista lost none of its allurements as he drew nearer to it and found that its arches and vistas were open to him. The farm-work became more and more distasteful to him, however, and when his father died he at once availed himself of an opportunity that was offered him to attend a classical school at Lockport, where he began the study of Greek and improved his French and Latin. In Lockport, too, he received the first money that he ever earned by his pen. The Niagara Courier offered a copy of Griswold's Poets of America" for the bestwritten "New Year's Address of the Courier to its Patrons," and Trowbridge "took" the prize. That is to say his verses were declared to be the best, and were issued and distributed. "I shall never forget how well it looked to me with a rising sun for a heading, over the large numerals, 1845!" he says of his poem in a chapter of autobiography, Copyright, 1889, by CHARLES WELIS MOULTON. All rights reserved. |