The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ was appointed School Commissioner in 1882, which office he filled with great acceptability to the public until incapacitated by the disease which terminated his life.

      Mr. Scott, though one of the most amiable of men, was fond of argument when properly conducted, and from the time he was twenty years of age until nearly the close of his life was always ready to participate in a debate if he could find any person to oppose him; and thought it no hardship to walk any where within a radius of four or five miles, in the coldest weather, in order to attend a debating society. He was possessed of a large and varied stock of information and a very retentive memory, which enabled him to quote correctly nearly everything of importance with which he had ever been familiar. His ability in this direction, coupled with a keen sense of the ridiculous and satirical, rendered him an opponent with whom few debaters were able to successfully contend. But it was as a companion, a friend and a poet that he was best known among the people of his neighborhood, to which his genial character and kind and amiable disposition greatly endeared him.

      Mr. Scott began to write poetry when about twenty-one years of age, and continued to do so, though sometimes at long intervals, until a short time before his death. His early poems were printed in “The Cecil Whig,” but being published anonymously cannot be identified. Like many others, he did not preserve his writings, and a few of his best poems have been lost. Of his poetic ability and religious belief, we do not care to speak, but prefer that the reader should form his own judgment of them from the data derived from a perusal of his poems.

      In 1844, Mr. Scott married Miss Agatha R. Fulton, a most estimable lady, who, with their son Howard Scott and daughter Miss Annie Mary Scott, survive him.

      In conclusion, the editor thinks it not improper to say that he enjoyed the pleasure of Mr. Scott’s intimate friendship for nearly thirty years, and esteemed him as his best and most intimate friend. And that while his friend was only mortal, and subject to mortal frailities, he had a kind and generous heart; a soul which shrank from even the semblance of meanness, and was the embodiment of every trait which ennobles and elevates humanity.

Lines

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Suggested by the Singing of a Bird Early in March, 1868.

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      Sing on, sweet feathered warbler, sing!

       Mount higher on thy joyous wing,

       And let thy morning anthem ring

       Full on my ear;

       Thou art the only sign of spring

       I see or hear.

      The earth is buried deep in snow;

       The muffled streams refuse to flow,

       The rattling mill can scarcely go,

       For ice and frost:

       The beauty of the vale below

       In death is lost.

      Save thine, no note of joy is heard—

       Thy kindred songsters of the wood

       Have long since gone, and thou, sweet bird,

       Art left behind—

       A faithful friend, whose every word

       Is sweet and kind.

      But Spring will come, as thou wilt see,

       With blooming flower and budding tree,

       And song of bird and hum of bee

       Their charms to lend;

       But I will cherish none like thee,

       My constant friend.

      Like the dear friends who ne’er forsake me—

       Whatever sorrows overtake me—

       In spite of all my faults which make me

       Myself detest,

       They still cling to and kindly take me

       Unto their breast.

An Eastern Tale

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Addressed to Mrs. S.C. Choate.

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      A Persian lady we’re informed—

       This happened long, long years before

       The Christian era ever dawned,

       A thousand years, it may be more,

       The date and narrative are so obscure,

       I have to guess some things that should be sure.

      I’m puzzled with this history,

       And rue that I began the tale;

       It seems a kind of mystery—

       I’m very much afraid I’ll fail,

       For want of facts of the sensation kind:

       I therefore dwell upon the few I find.

      I like voluminous writing best,

       That gives the facts dress’d up in style.

       A handsome woman when she’s dressed

       Looks better than (repress that smile)

       When she in plainer costume does appear;

       The more it costs we know she is more dear.

      The story is a Grecian one,

       The author’s name I cannot tell;

       Perhaps it was old Xenophon

       Or Aristotle, I can’t dwell

       On trifles; perhaps Plutarch wrote the story:

       At any rate its years have made it hoary.

      The Greeks were famous in those days

       In arts, in letters and in arms;

       Quite plain and simple in their ways;

       With their СКАЧАТЬ