No maid is near,
I have no wife;
But here’s my pipe
And, on my life;
With it to smoke,
And woo the Muse,
To be a king,
I would not choose.
—William H. Davies.
William Henry Davies, a noted Welsh poet, was born in Monmouthshire, April 20, 1870. He has written: “The Soul’s Destroyer,” “New Poems,” “Nature Poems,” “Farewell to Poesy,” “Songs of Joy,” “Foliage,” “The Bird of Paradise,” “Child Lovers,” “Collected Poems,” “The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp,” “A Pilgrim in Wales,” “A Poet’s Pilgrimage.”
The first groundwork of religious life is love—love to God and man—in the bosom of the family.
“Aphorisms,”—Friedrich Froebel.
Friedrich Froebel, an eminent German educator, was born at Oberweissbach, April 21, 1782, and died at Marienthal, June 21, 1852. He won fame by his celebrated work, “The Education of Man.”
From Greenland’s icy mountains,
From India’s coral strand,
Where Afric’s sunny fountains,
Roll down their golden sand.
“Missionary Hymn.”—Reginald Heber.
Reginald Heber, a famous English hymn-writer and clergyman, was born in Cheshire, April 21, 1783, and died at Trichinopoly, India, April 2, 1826. His prose writings include the Bampton lectures on “The Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter,” “Life of Jeremy Taylor,” “Journey Through India,” etc. His fame rests, however, on his hymns, “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” and “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!”
Life, believe, is not a dream,
So dark as sages say;
Oft a little morning rain
Foretells a pleasant day!