  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: |
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