Back to your dens, ye secret traitors! Down to your own degraded spheres! Ere the first blaze of dazzling sunshine, Shortens your lives a thousand years. Haste thee along, thou glorious noonday! Oh, for the eyes of ancient seers! Oh, for the faith of him who reckons Each of his days a thousand years! --_Henry Clay Work._ Henry Clay Work was born in Middletown, Connecticut, October 1, 1832. The family came originally from Scotland, and the name is thought to have come from a castle, "Auld Wark, upon the Tweed," famed in the border wars in the times made immortal by Sir Walter Scott. He inherited his love of liberty and hatred of slavery from his father, who suffered much for conscience' sake. While quite young, his family moved to Illinois, near Quincy, and he passed his boyhood in the most abject poverty, his father having been taken from home and imprisoned because of his strong anti-slavery views and active work in the struggles of those enthusiastic and devoted reformers. In 1845, Henry's father was pardoned on condition that he would leave the State of Illinois. The family then returned to Connecticut. After a few months' attendance at school in Middletown, our future song writer was apprenticed to Elisha Geer, of Hartford, to learn the printer's trade. He learned to write over the printer's case in much the same way as did Benjamin Franklin. He never had any music lessons except a short term of instruction in a church singing school. The poetic temperament, and his musical gifts as well, were his inheritance. He began writing very early, and many of his unambitious little poems found their way into the newspapers during his apprenticeship. Work's first song was written in Hartford and entitled, _We're coming, Sister Mary_. He sold this song to George Christie, of Christie's minstrels, and it made a decided hit. In 1855 he removed to Chicago, where he continued his trade as a printer. The following year he married Miss Sarah Parker, of Hubbardston, Massachusetts, and settled at Hyde Park. In 1860 he wrote _Lost on the "Lady Elgin,"_ a song commemorating the terrible disaster to a Lake Michigan steamer, which became widely known.