Though crowned with civic honors is his name, Husband and Father have a dearer fame; Glory attends the leader to his rest, But most she mourns the man who knew him best. Nor swiftest wind, nor farthest ocean’s foam, Visits a spot so dear to man as home; O, you who mourn an upright President, Mourn with a stricken wife in her lament. Lament a loving husband, nobler name Than King or Czar or Emperor can claim. Love, not oppression, built for her a throne-- The tribute, gladly paid, was love alone. She needs no hollow pomp of heraldry; God gave the wife the greatest majesty. Pure as Madonna, whose celestial blush Glows in the tints of Raphael’s magic brush, Gems of the heart and jewels of the mind Enriched the wife and all her acts refined, And with a native majesty endued “America’s uncrowned Queen of Womanhood,”[F] For Home is ever woman’s grandest sphere, Whose fruitful virtues make her memory dear, While vice and ruin curse the falling land, Where childhood lacks the mother’s plastic hand. Through many changing years of good and ill, The name of Westfield shall be honored still. Pure homes compose the country’s best defense, The strongest, promptest, and of least expense, And round its coasts a surer guard will keep Than camps or forts or navies on the deep. THE HARP IN THE AIR; OR A NIGHT WITH GERARDI IN SEELBACH’S ROOF-GARDEN. (A Family Epistle from a Girl full of “Grace” to “Big Sis” in Cherokee Park.) Dear Sis-- You’re losing fun galore, rusticating just at present, Although fresh eggs and buttermilk and country fare are pleasant. Music and mirth are in the air--not razors keen and sharp-- ’Tis the touch of old Gerardi, a-twanging on his harp. Love rages in his silver flute; love pines upon his viol; Love pleads his cause with eloquence which lists to no denial; And he or she who will not bow to Cupid’s charming mother, I set him down a dullard--if you praise him, you’re another. The crowds keep sailing upward upon the elevators, And the boys are very, very small and the girls all sweet potatoes; There are taffetas and mousselines, and laces and illusion, Like all the rainbows since the flood, crushed in one grand confusion. Gerardi’s high on Seelbach’s Roof, with harp and flute and fiddle; Women divine crowd thickly round, and the devil’s in the middle. Did you ever hear a harpist like the Florentine, pray tell me? Like some sweet mocking-bird he soars, and his notes with rapture swell me. The moon and stars shine bright aloft; “on such a night as this” Lorenzo fled with Jessica, and kisses rhymed with bliss, “As far as Belmont”--this hanging bower hath treasure Of beauteous girls whose voice and glance are redolent of pleasure.