Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912. Vol. 1 of 2

HENRY T. STANTON

Henry Thompson Stanton, one of the most popular poets Kentucky has produced, was born at Alexandria, Virginia, June 30, 1834. He was brought by his father, Judge Richard Henry Stanton, to Maysville, Kentucky, when he was only two years old. Stanton was educated at the Maysville Academy and at West Point, but he was not graduated. He entered the Confederate army as captain of a company in the Fifth Kentucky regiment, and through various promotions he surrendered as a major. Major Stanton saw much service on the battlefields of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia. After the war he practised law for a time and was editor of the Maysville Bulletin until 1870, when he removed to Frankfort, Kentucky, to become chief assistant to the State Commissioner of Insurance. Major Stanton's first volume of verse was The Moneyless Man and Other Poems (Baltimore, 1871). This title poem, written for a wandering elocutionist who "struck" the town of Maysville one day, and asked the major to write him "a poem that would draw tears from any audience," made him famous and miserable for the rest of his life. For the nomad he "dashed off this special lyric and it brought all Kentucky to the mourners' bench. It was more deadly as a tear-provoker than 'Stay, Jailer, Stay,' and though the author wrote other things which were far better, the public would never admit it, and many people innocently courted death by rushing up to Stanton and exclaiming: 'Oh, and is this Major Stanton who wrote 'The Moneyless Man?' So glad to meet you.'" One Kentucky poet took the philosophy of The Moneyless Man too seriously, and A Reply to the Moneyless Man was the pathetic result. The rhythm of the poem is very pleasing, but it is, in a word, melodramatic. Major Stanton's second and final collection of his verse was Jacob Brown and Other Poems (Cincinnati, 1875). It contains several poems that are superior to The Moneyless Man, but the general reader refuses to read them. From 1875 till 1886 he edited the Frankfort Yeoman; and during President Cleveland's first administration he served as Land Commissioner. Besides his poems, Major Stanton wrote a group of paper-backed novels, entitled The Kents; Social Fetters (Washington, 1889); and A Graduate of Paris (Washington, 1890). Major Stanton died at Frankfort, Kentucky, May 8, 1898. Two years later Poems of the Confederacy (Louisville, 1900), containing the war lyrics of the major, was artistically printed as a memorial to his memory. The introduction to the little book was written by Major Stanton's friend and fellow man of letters, Colonel J. Stoddard Johnston, and it is an altogether fitting remembrance for the author of The Moneyless Man.

Bibliography. Poems of the Confederacy (Louisville, 1900); Confessions of a Tatler, by Elvira Miller Slaughter (Louisville, 1905).

THE MONEYLESS MAN

[From The Moneyless Man and Other Poems (Baltimore, 1871)]

Is there no secret place on the face of the earth,
Where charity dwelleth, where virtue has birth?
Where bosoms in mercy and kindness will heave,
When the poor and the wretched shall ask and receive?
Is there no place at all, where a knock from the poor,
Will bring a kind angel to open the door?
Ah, search the wide world wherever you can
There is no open door for a Moneyless Man!

Go, look in yon hall where the chandelier's light
Drives off with its splendor the darkness of night,
Where the rich-hanging velvet in shadowy fold
Sweeps gracefully down with its trimmings of gold,
And the mirrors of silver take up, and renew,
In long lighted vistas the 'wildering view:
Go there! at the banquet, and find, if you can,
A welcoming smile for a Moneyless Man!

Go, look in yon church of the cloud-reaching spire,
Which gives to the sun his same look of red fire,
Where the arches and columns are gorgeous within,
And the walls seem as pure as a soul without sin;
Walk down the long aisles, see the rich and the great
In the pomp and the pride of their worldly estate;
Walk down in your patches, and find, if you can,
Who opens a pew to a Moneyless Man.

Go, look in the Banks, where Mammon has told
His hundreds and thousands of silver and gold;
Where, safe from the hands of the starving and poor,
Lies pile upon pile of the glittering ore!
Walk up to their counters—ah, there you may stay
'Til your limbs grow old, 'til your hairs grow gray,
And you'll find at the Banks not one of the clan
With money to lend to a Moneyless Man!

Go, look to yon Judge, in his dark-flowing gown,
With the scales wherein law weighteth equity down;
Where he frowns on the weak and smiles on the strong,
And punishes right whilst he justifies wrong;
Where juries their lips to the Bible have laid,
To render a verdict—they've already made:
Go there, in the court-room, and find, if you can,
Any law for the cause of a Moneyless Man!

Then go to your hovel—no raven has fed
The wife who has suffered too long for her bread;
Kneel down by her pallet, and kiss the death-frost
From the lips of the angel your poverty lost:
Then turn in your agony upward to God,
And bless, while it smites you, the chastening rod,
And you'll find, at the end of your life's little span,
There's a welcome above for a Moneyless Man!

"A MENSÁ ET THORO"

[From Jacob Brown and Other Poems (Cincinnati, 1875)]

Both of us guilty and both of us sad—
And this is the end of passion!
And people are silly—people are mad,
Who follow the lights of Fashion;
For she was a belle, and I was a beau,
And both of us giddy-headed—
A priest and a rite—a glitter and show,
And this is the way we wedded.

There were wants we never had known before,
And matters we could not smother;
And poverty came in an open door,
And love went out at another:
For she had been humored—I had been spoiled,
And neither was sturdy-hearted—
Both in the ditches and both of us soiled,
And this is the way we parted.

A SPECIAL PLEA

[From the same]

Prue and I together sat
Beside a running brook;
The little maid put on my hat,
And I the forfeit took.

"Desist," she cried; "It is not right,
I'm neither wife nor sister;"
But in her eye there shone such light,
That twenty times I kiss'd her.

SWEETHEART[20]

[From Blades o' Bluegrass, by Mrs. F. P. Dickey (Louisville, Kentucky, 1892)]

Sweetheart—I call you sweetheart still,
As in your window's laced recess,
When both our eyes were wont to fill,
One year ago, with tenderness.
I call you sweetheart by the law
Which gives me higher right to feel,
Though I be here in Malaga,
And you in far Mobile.

I mind me when, along the bay
The moonbeams slanted all the night;
When on my breast your dark locks lay,
And in my hand, your hand so white;
This scene the summer night-time saw,
And my soul took its warm anneal
And bore it here to Malaga
From beautiful Mobile.

The still and white magnolia grove
Brought winged odors to your cheek,
Where my lips seared the burning love
They could not frame the words to speak;
Sweetheart, you were not ice to thaw,
Your bosom neither stone nor steel;
I count to-night, at Malaga,
Its throbbings at Mobile.

What matter if you bid me now
To go my way for others' sake?
Was not my love-seal on your brow
For death, and not for days to break?
Sweetheart, our trothing holds no flaw;
There was no crime and no conceal,
I clasp you here in Malaga,
As erst in sweet Mobile.

I see the bay-road, white with shells,
I hear the beach make low refrain,
The stars lie flecked like asphodels
Upon the green, wide water-plain—
These silent things as magnets draw,
They bear me hence with rushing keel,
A thousand miles from Malaga,
To matchless, fair Mobile.

Sweetheart, there is no sea so wide,
No time in life, nor tide to flow,
Can rob my breast of that one bride
It held so close a year ago.
I see again the bay we saw;
I hear again your sigh's reveal,
I keep the faith at Malaga
I plighted at Mobile.

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