"They just git in a open field, where all the folks kin view, An' fire off a cannon ball an' split a cloud in two, An' then you hear a thunderin' an' the rain comes big and bright, But I just can't help a wonderin' if that kind o' rain is right. "Pears like the Lord ain't in it when the string a feller jerks Kin fire off a cannon 'at 'll bust his water-works; An' it's jest as true as preachin' an' I'm talkin' of it plain, "An' here's that ringin' telephone which never seems to tire, Fully as rich in the quality of humor and equally as pungent in the savor of real life are the portraitures of the old-time negro, written in the native dialect. Take this sample from "The Backsliding Brother": "De scheech-owl screech f'um de ol' barn lof'; En you gwine de way Whar' de sinners stay, En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day.' "Den de ol' ha'nt say, f'um de ol' chuch wall: 'You des so triflin' dat you had ter fall; En you gwine de way Whar de brimstone stay, En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day.' "Den I shake en shiver en I hunt fur kiver, En I cry ter de good Lawd: 'Please deliver!' I tell 'im plain Dat my hopes is vain, En I drinked my dram fer ter ease my pain. "Den de screech-owl screech f'um de north ter south: 'You drinked yo' dram en you smacked yo' mouth! En you gwine de way Whar' de brimstone stay, En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day.'" Stanton has written many beautiful love poems and poems of sentiment; but the most widely heralded of all his more serious verses is the poem entitled, "The Bells of St. Michael," whose liquid chimes he has caught. Three stanzas are selected at random: "Great joy it was to hear them, for they sang sweet songs to me, Where the sheltered ships rock gently in the haven, safe from sea, And the captains and the sailors heard no more the ocean's knells, But thanked God for home and loved ones and sweet Saint Michael's bells. "They seemed to waft a welcome across the ocean's foam To all the lost and lonely, 'Come home, come home, come home! Come home where skies are brighter-where love still yearns and dwells!' So sang the bells in music—the sweet Saint Michael's bells. "Oh, ring, sweet bells, forever, an echo in my breast, Soft as a mother's voice that lulls her loved one into rest! Coming to Georgia in early childhood from Charleston, South Carolina, where he was born in 1858, Stanton began his literary career on the Smithville News, which he owned and edited. He was also business manager, advertising agent and "devil." While standing at the printer's case he cast his earlier poems directly into type without stopping to write them out in advance. Captivated by the genius of the young factotum, whose columns were always bright and sparkling, Colonel John Temple Graves gave him an editorial position on the Rome Tribune; and from the Hill City he was called to his present position on the Atlanta Constitution during the latter eighties. Eugene Field and James Whitcomb Riley have both extolled the genius of the Georgia poet in the most enthusiastic terms, and between Stanton and Riley the closest personal friendship has long existed. Besides writing for the daily sheets, Stanton also writes for the Northern and Eastern magazines and numbers his friends in almost every nook and corner of the nation to which his songs have at last reached. The writer is prepared to say, after long and intimate association with Stanton, that he has never known a man with such a memory for things poetical as Stanton possesses. He can reproduce from the storehouse of his recollective impressions the entire dramas of Shakespeare, with commas and semicolons included; and he is almost if not quite as familiar with all the great masters of English verse. But if you ask him who is President of the United States or King of England, he may have to scratch his head. He writes with wonderful ease, never using the rubber-tipped end of his pencil, and never failing to make the graphite sparkle with his polished brilliants. Few poets have ever lived in any age or country whose inspirations have waited more constantly upon them in the daily grindings of the musicmill. He has touched with his playful fancies almost every phase of Southern life, and has braided with his mellow song-belt the whole wide sunny circle of Dixie's "Land of Memories." Years have only mellowed and enriched the genius of another gifted Georgia poet whose songs entitle him to be enrolled among the poet-princes of the South: Major Charles W. Hubner. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, of parents who came from the distant Fatherland, he grew to manhood on the borderline between the sections; but falling in love with the South, he followed her beckoning lashes until he found himself upon the war-warmed hills of Atlanta; and to the cause of Southern rights he gave both his pen and his sword. Unlike Stanton's, most of Major Hubner's poetry is serious; but there are few mines of precious sentiment which he has not explored in quest of sparkles. He has written poetry which will live, because he has written less for the moment than for the Muse. The inspirations which feed his pen are all lofty and uplifting; and the crystal laboratories of his own German mountains, it may be said without the least exaggeration, distil no purer rivulets to swell the liquid rhythm of the Rhine. Some of the volumes which Major Hubner has published are: "Wild Flowers," "Cinderella," "Poems and Essays," "The Wonder Stone," "Modern Communism" and "Souvenirs of Luther." To this list he has recently added another volume of poems. Major Hubner has filled many important editorial positions. He is one of the most cultured men and one of the most competent literary critics in all the South. Besides touching the hearts of thousands of admiring readers, he has won enthusiastic recognition and tribute from such brother poets as Longfellow, Holmes and Whittier, and has laid the foundations for an enduring place in American liter ature. Father Ryan, in the exercise of his sacred calling, has lived in so many different places that no single State can appropriate him. This is well perhaps, since his fame is so indissolubly interwoven with the memory of "The Conquered Banner.” But Georgia may as well claim him as any other State, or at least sue for her portion of the honor; for the poet-priest resided for several years in Augusta, where, beloved alike by Protestant and Catholic, the memory of his patriotic and saintly genius still abides among all faiths and creeds, like the very incense of his altar. What Tom Moore has done for the Irish melodies Father Ryan has done for the Confederate memories; and it may be truthfully said that his heart was an Ark of the Covenant in which the precious mementoes of the South were kept. Since Georgia's home-coming week, which was first observed in the fall of 1906, the item of information has been revived that John Howard Payne's immortal anthem, "Home, Sweet Home," though not of Georgia birth, was of Georgia inspiration; and an autograph copy of the poem was buried in the grave of his Georgia sweetheart, Miss Mary Hardin, of Athens, who down to the close of her life, which was lengthened to the Scriptural limit, carried in her heart the youthful image of the wandering exile. This soulful fragment has probably kindled more echoes throughout the world of song and mellowed more human hearts with the hymn-touch of the home sentiment than any poem which has ever been written. The poem. was composed on the banks of the Thames, when the illstarred poet was struggling to obtain literary recognition |