More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed- What gulfs between him and the seraphim! Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, Cries protest to the Judges of the World, O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? Give back the upward looking and the light; O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, PREPAREDNESS For all your days prepare, And meet them ever alike: When you are the hammer, strike. 1 LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 1 When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down The color of the ground was in him, the red earth; The rectitude and patience of the cliff; The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves; The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn; The secrecy of streams that make their way That gives as freely to the shrinking flower Up from log cabin to the Capitol, One fire was on his spirit, one resolve- Pouring his splendid strength through every blow: Was on the pen that set a people free. So came the Captain with the mighty heart; раёй As when a lordly cedar, green with boughs, And leaves a lonesome place against the sky. Irwin Russell Irwin Russell was born, June 3, 1853, at Port Gibson, Mississippi, where he studied law and was admitted to the bar. His restless nature and wayward disposition drove him from one place to another, from a not too rugged health to an utter breakdown. Although Russell did not take his poetry seriously and though the bulk of it is small, its influence has been large. Thomas Nelson Page and Joel Chandler Harris have acknowledged their indebtedness to him; the creator of Uncle Remus writing, "Irwin Russell was among the first-if not the very first-of Southern writers to appreciate the literary possibilities of the negro character." He entered their life, appreciated their fresh turns of thought, saw things with that peculiar mixture of reverence and unconscious humor that is so integral a part of negro songs and spirituals. "De Fust Banjo" (from Russell's operetta ChristmasNight in the Quarters, possibly his best known work) is a faithful rendering of the mind of the old-fashioned, simple and sententious child of the plantation. In this poem the old story of Noah is told, with delightful additions, from the colorful angle of the darky, local in its setting, diverting in its modern details and revealing in its quaint psychology. Russell died, in an obscure boarding house in New Orleans, December 23, 1879. DE FUST BANJO Go 'way, fiddle! folks is tired o' hearin' you a-squawkin'. Keep silence fur yo' betters! don't you heah de banjo talkin'? About de 'possum's tail she's gwine to lecter-ladies, listen! About de ha'r whut isn't dar, an' why de ha'r is missin': "Dar's gwine to be a' oberflow," said Noah, lookin' 'solemn Fur Noah tuk de "Herald," an' he read de ribber column An' so he sot his hands to wuk a-clarin' timber-patches, An' 'lowed he's gwine to build a boat to beat de steamah Natchez. Ol' Noah kep' a-nailin' an' a-chippin' an' a-sawin'; An' forty days an' forty nights de rain it kep' a-drappin'. Now, Noah had done cotched a lot ob ebry sort o' beas'es Ob all de shows a-trabbelin', it beat 'em all to pieces! He had a Morgan colt an' sebral head o' Jarsey cattleAn' druv 'em 'board de Ark as soon's he heered de thunder rattle. Den sech anoder fall ob rain! It come so awful hebby, An' men he'd hired to wuk de boat-an' one to mix de bitters. De Ark she kep' a-sailin' an' a-sailin' an' a-sailin'; |