Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1883 — The Childhood of a Poet. [ARTICLE]

The Childhood of a Poet.

The wind that goes blowing where-it listeth, once, in the early beginning of this century, came sweeping through the garden of this old Lincolnshire rectory, and, as the wind blew, a sturdy child of 5 years old with shining locks stood opening his arms upon the blast and letting himself be blown along, and as he traveled on he made his first line of poetry and said, “I hear a voice that’s speaking in the wind,” and he tossed his arms, and the gust whirled on, sweeping into* the great abyss of winds. One might perhaps still trace in the noble familiar face of our Poet Laureate? the features of this child, one of many deep-eyed sons and daughters born in the quiet rectory among the elm tides. Alfred Tennyson was born on the 6th cf Augnst, 1809. Be has heard many and many a voice calling to him since the time when he listened to the wind 11s he played alone in his father's garden, or joined the other children at their games and jousts. They were a noble little dan of poets and of knights, coming if a knightly race, with castles to defend, with mimic tournaments to fight. Somersby was so far away from the world, so behindhand in its echoes (which must have come there softened through all manner of green and tranquil things, and as it were hushed into pastoral silence), that though the early part of the century was stirring with the clang of legions, few of its rumors seem to have reached the children. They never heard at the timg of the battle of Waterloo. They grew up together playing their own games, living their own life; and where is such a life to be found as that of a happy, eager family of boys and girls before doubt, the steps of time, the shocks of chance, the blows of death, have come to shake their creed? These handspme children had beyond most children that wondrous toy at their command which some people call imagination. The boys played great games like Arthur’s knights; they were champions and warriors defending a stone heap, or, again they would set up opposing camps with a king in the midst of each. The king was a willow wand stuck into the ground, with an outer circle«of immortals to defend him of firmer, stiffer sticks. Then each party would come with stones, hurling at each other’s king, and trying to overthrow him. Perhaps as the day wore on they became romancers, leaving the jousts" deserted. When dinner-time came, and they all sat round the table, each in turn put a chapter of his history underneath the potato bowl—-long endless histories, chapter after chapter diffuse, absorbing, unending, as are the stories of real life of which each sunrise opens on a new part; some of these romances were in letters, like Clarissa Harlowe. Alfred used to tell a story which lasted for months, and which was called “The Old Horse.” Alfred’s first verses, so I once heard him say, were written upon a slate which his brotlier Charles put into hia hand one Sunday at Louth, when al] the elders of the party were going intc church, and the child was left alone. Charles give him a subject—the flow ers in the garden—and when he came back from church little Alfred broughl the slate to his brother all covered with written lines of blank verse. They were made on the models of Thomson** “Seasons,” the only poetry he had evei read. One can picture it all to one’s self, the flowers in the garden, the verses, the little poet with waiting eyes and the young brother scanning the lines. “ Yes, you can write,” said Charles, and he gave Alfred back the slate. I have also heard another story of his grandfather, later on, asking him to write an elegy on his grandmother, who had recently died, and, when it was written, putting 10 shillings into his hands and saying, “There, that is* the first money you have ever earned by your poetry, and, take my word for it, it will be the last.”— Kirs. ThackerayRitchie, in Harper’s Magazine.

Plantation Philosophy. Dar’s some little truth eben in de bigges’ lie, eben es it is no more den de sack dat it is a lie. Poverty o’ body is bad, but poverty o’ mine is wus. I doan feel as sorry fur a po’ sensible man as I does fur a rich fool. De wust whuppin’ dat a man eber gits is done by a coward. Pen up a snappin’ cur an’ he ken whup all de dogs on de plantation. Wid me, de ole man is more ’tractive den de boy. De gol’dat’s on a leaf jes’ arter de fust frost is puttier den de green on de leaf jes’ airter spring opens. De sack dat a man is useful ter de curmunity doan make him a ’zirable member of s’ciety. We couldn’t hardly git along widout de blizzard, yet I doan hanker airter. ’sociatin’ wid him. De mourners’ bench would do mo’' good fur de nigger nf der was fewer groans an’ mo’ Soft soap an’ rain water dar. I’se seed many a nigger too dirty ter go ter a dance, but I never seed one too dirty to ’fess ’ligion. Dar’s two kines o’ men what doan do business de right way: De man what ain’t got time enough an’ de man what’s got too much; fur de man what ain’t got time enough, rushes through wid de work, an’ de man what’s got too much time waits till it’s too. late.— Arkansaw Traveler.' A. half-sick man is the sickest kind of a man.