[From The Hesperian Tree, edited by J. J. Piatt (Columbus, Ohio, 1903)]
O snow-white blade, thou openest for me
So many a page filled with delightful lore
Where deathless minds have left the precious store
Of words that breathe and truth that makes us free.
To hold thee in my hand, or but to see
Thee lying on my desk, O ivory oar,
Waiting to drive my bark to any shore,
Is fortaste of fresh joy and liberty.
Thou bringest dreams of the Dark Continent
Where herded elephants in freedom roam,
Or blow their trumpets when they danger scent,
Or in wide rivers shoot the pearly foam,
Yet art of vital books all redolent,
Where highest thoughts have made themselves a home.
[NATHANIEL S. SHALER]
Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, the distinguished Harvard geologist, poet, historian, and sociologist, was born at Newport, Kentucky, February 20, 1841. He was graduated from Harvard in 1862, where he had the benefit of almost private instruction from the great Agassiz. Shaler returned to Kentucky, and for the next two years he served in the Union army. In 1864 he was appointed assistant in palentology at Harvard; and four years later he became assistant in zoology and geology in the Lawrence Scientific School and head of the department of palentology. In 1873 the Governor of Kentucky appointed Professor Shaler director of the Kentucky Geological Survey, and he devoted parts of the next seven years to this work. He was the most efficient State geologist Kentucky has ever known, and his work for the Survey pointed out the path trodden by his successors. His assistant, Professor John R. Proctor, followed him as Director, and he stands next to his chief in the work he accomplished. The Kentucky Geological Survey (1874-1880, 6 vols.), volume three of which, entitled A General Account of the Commonwealth of Kentucky (Cambridge, Mass., 1876), was written entirely by Shaler, are excellent memorials of the work he did for his native state. In 1884 Shaler was placed in charge of the Atlantic division of the United States Geological Survey; and in 1891 he was chosen dean of the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard. This position he held until a year or two before his death. Dean Shaler published Thoughts on the Nature of Intellectual Property (Boston, 1878); Glaciers (Boston, 1881); The First Book of Geology (Boston, 1884); Kentucky: A Pioneer Commonwealth (Boston, 1885), the philosophy of Kentucky history summarized; Aspects of the Earth (New York, 1889); Nature and Man in America (New York, 1891); The Story of Our Continent (Boston, 1892); Sea and Land (New York, 1892); The United States (New York, 1893); The Interpretation of Nature (Boston, 1893); Domesticated Animals (New York, 1895); American Highways (New York, 1896); Outlines of the Earth's History (New York, 1898); The Individual (New York, 1900); Elizabeth of England (Boston, 1903, five vols.), a "dramatic romance," celebrating "the spacious times of great Elizabeth"; The Neighbor (Boston, 1904); The Citizen (New York, 1904); Man and the Earth (New York, 1905); and From Old Fields (Boston, 1906), a book of short poems. Besides these books, Dean Shaler wrote hundreds of magazine articles, reports, scientific memoirs, miscellaneous essays. He died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 10, 1906, just as he was about to make ready for a final journey to Kentucky. Dean Shaler was loved and honored more at Harvard, perhaps, than any other teacher the University has ever known.
Bibliography. The World's Work (June, 1906); Science (June 8, 1906); The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, with a Supplementary Memoir by his Wife, published posthumously (Boston, 1909), is a charming record of his days at Harvard and in Kentucky.
THE ORPHAN BRIGADE[28]
[From From Old Fields (Boston, 1906)]
Eighteen hundred and sixty-one:
There in the echo of Sumter's gun
Marches the host of the Orphan Brigade,
Lit by their banners, in hope's best arrayed.
Five thousand strong, never legion hath borne
Might as this bears it forth in that morn:
Hastings and Cressy, Naseby, Dunbar,
Cowpens and Yorktown, Thousand Years' War,
Is writ on their hearts as onward afar
They shout to the roar of their drums.