THE DYING YEAR
(Written the last of 1922, a dark day with continuous rain, and published in the Atlanta Constitution, January 1st, a day of sunshine and life.)
“My time is up,” bemoaned the dying year,
And Nature wept and freely spread her gloom;
“My record past, and I must now make room
For buoyant youth, another still more dear.
Some comfort mine that weep my friends sincere,
Thus easier I may pass into my tomb;
But joyful more to speak a nobler boon
For those who hope and trust and persevere.”
And all shall heed the inevitable call,
From fragrant rose to chieftain strong shall fall;
The greater they the more widespread the grief
Of living men, the people great and small,
But list, ye weeping ones—O sweet relief—
It’s Heaven’s plan, through death to Life for all!
Footnotes:
[1] Aristotle’s Physics.
[2] As heard by John Burroughs.
[3] This repeated paraphrase is from F. Schuyler Mathews, ornithologist and musician.
[4] The words suggested to John Burroughs by the variations of the Song Sparrow.
[5] Toxaway, the Indian’s name for the Cardinal.
[6] There were only seven children in this family when the first two stanzas were written three years ago.—C. J.
[7] If anyone thinks the author has overdrawn the artistic merits of the bird, he is referred to the expert opinion of F. Schuyler Mathews in his “Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music,” pages 234-246, wherein this musician and lover of birds convincingly compares and contrasts, by musical scales and other data, the powers of the Hermit and Nightingale in favor of the former.—C. J.
[8] With slight change the interpretation by Mathews of the song of the Olive Back Thrush.
[9] After the author had written this line he was glad to learn that the late John Burroughs in his “Birds and Poets,” page 17, spoke of the Mocking-bird as “both Lark and Nightingale in one.”
[10] A tradition with some says that the Jay goes to the lower regions every Friday, and carries a grain of sand.
[11] This particular butterfly was first seen clinging, about three feet above the pavement, to the large masonic temple in Charlotte, N. C., and was gently enticed by the author into his hand, later crawling up his arm and remaining with his new companion for over an hour.
[12] Based on a newspaper story of “Aunt” Sarah Wycoff in the North Carolina Penitentiary.
[13] The title of one of his works.
[14] Struggling with that simple passage—“This is the heir; come, let us kill him”—he rendered it, “This is the hair-comb, let us kill him;” and hence reached his logical interpretation, which is left to the imagination of the reader.
[15] This beautiful character and other proven friends described in these pages measure up to the standard now, as the author sees it and them—yet the coveted ideal rises ever higher as we press on toward the Highest. C. J.
[16] The illustrations by courtesy of Kodakery.
[17] In the mountains of North Carolina.
[18] The title of his most famous poem.
Transcriber’s Notes:
The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs and so that they are next to the text they illustrate.
Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.