From Canal Boy to President; Or, the Boyhood and Manhood of James A. GarfieldAlger, Horatio, Jr.
History
From Canal Boy to President; Or, the Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield
Alger, Horatio, Jr.
Garfield, James A. (James Abram), 1831-1881 -- Childhood and youth; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
There was published at Williams College, in Garfield's time, a magazine
called the _Williams Quarterly_. To this the young man became a frequent
contributor. In Gen. James S. Brisbin's campaign Life of Garfield, I
find three of his poetic contributions quoted, two of which I will also
transfer to my pages, as likely to possess some interest for my young
reader. The first is called
"THE CHARGE OF THE TIGHT BRIGADE,"
and commences thus:
"Bottles to right of them,
Bottles to left of them,
Bottles in front of them,
Fizzled and sundered;
Ent'ring with shout and yell,
Boldly they drank and well,
They caught the Tartar then;
_Oh, what a perfect sell!_
Sold--the half hundred!
Grinned all the dentals bare,
Swung all their caps in air,
Uncorking bottles there,
Watching the Freshmen, while
Every one wondered;
Plunged in tobacco smoke,
With many a desperate stroke,
Dozens of bottles broke;
Then they came back, but not,
Not the half hundred!"
Lest from this merry squib, which doubtless celebrated some college
prank, wrong conclusions should be drawn, I hasten to say that in
college James Garfield neither drank nor smoked.
The next poem is rather long, but it possesses interest as a serious
production of one whose name has become a household word. It is entitled
"MEMORY.
"'Tis beauteous night; the stars look brightly down
Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow.
No light gleams at the window save my own,
Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me.
And now with noiseless step sweet Memory comes,
And leads me gently through her twilight realms.
What poet's tuneful lyre has ever sung,
Or delicatest pencil e'er portrayed
The enchanted, shadowy land where Memory dwells?
It has its valleys, cheerless, lone, and drear,
Dark-shaded by the lonely cypress tree.
And yet its sunlit mountain tops are bathed
In heaven's own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs,
Robed in the dreamy light of distant years,
Are clustered joys serene of other days;
Upon its gently sloping hillside's bank
The weeping-willows o'er the sacred dust
Of dear departed ones; and yet in that land,
Where'er our footsteps fall upon the shore,
They that were sleeping rise from out the dust
Of death's long, silent years, and round us stand,
As erst they did before the prison tomb
Received their clay within its voiceless halls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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