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 WELLS MOULTON. All rights reserved. "and how well it read, too!" But the prize he had won was withheld. Three times he visited the editor's office, and on each occasion he was put off. Waxing wroth under such treatment, he insisted on having satisfaction, and as a last resort he accepted a dollar and a half, which the impecunious editor offered him in lieu of the book. Then he went back to farming, and then became a schoolmaster. But his heart was set on literature, and when he was only nineteen he started for New York with the intention of supporting himself by his pen. It was bread and cheese and an attic for a long time, and even the cheese was scarce now and then. But the haughty and capricious dame, Fame, discovered him at last, and alighting from her carriage one day, she dragged him down stairs from his sky parlor into the sunshine of the street. Trowbridge's work has been divided between verse and pure fiction. As a writer of prose he will be remembered by two or three novels, a group of extremely clever short stories and for more admirable books for boys. There is little danger of contradiction in describing him as the most popular boys' author in America. The natural critic finds him at his best in his poems, in which are blended loftiness of thought, catholicity of sympathy and lyrical simplicity. W. H. R. THE SEEKING. I. By ways of dreaming and doing. And we say to ourselves, "Oh! surely, The land of our longing lies." Each seeks some favored pathway, With broken hearts is strown. The Giver of Sleep breathed also, And fire of unrest, to save us Fair is the opening rose-bud, And fair the full-blown rose; And sweet, after rest, is action, And, after action, repose. But indolence, like the cow-bird, That's hatched in an alien nest, EVENING AT THE FARM. OVER the hill the farm-boy goes. The early dews are falling;- Cheerily calling. "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" Farther, farther, over the hill, Faintly calling, calling still, "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!" Into the yard the farmer goes, The friendly sheep his welcome bleat, His cattle calling, "Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" Now to her task the milkmaid goes, While the pleasant dews are falling;— And the white stream into the bright pail flows, When to her task the milkmaid goes, Soothingly calling, "So, boss! so, boss! so! so! so!" The cheerful milkmaid takes her stool, And sits and milks in the twilight cool, Saying "So! so, boss! so! so!" To supper at last the farmer goes. The housewife's hand has turned the lock; Singing, calling,— "Co', boss' co', boss! co'! co'! co'!" And oft the milkmaid, in her dreams, Drums in the pail with the flashing streams, Murmuring, "So, boss! so!" THE VAGABONDS. We are two travellers, Roger and I. Five years we've tramped through wind and weather, And slept out-doors when nights were cold, We've learned what comfort is, I tell you! (This out-door business is bad for strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up for kings! No, thank ye, Sir, I never drink; Roger and I are exceedingly moral,-Are n't we Roger?- See him wink!— Well, something hot, then, we won't quarrel. He understands every word that 's said,- The truth is, Sir, now I reflect, I've been so sadly given to grog, I wonder I've not lost the respect (Here's to you, Sir!) even of my dog. He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets. There isn't another creature living Would do it, and prove, through every disaster, So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving, To such a miserable, thankless master! |