Our Profession and Other Poems
Chapter 1
Produced by Susan Skinner, Marilynda Fraser-Cunliffe and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
OUR PROFESSION
AND
OTHER POEMS.
BY
JARED BARHITE,
Principal of Third Ward Grammar School, Long Island City, N. Y.
PUBLISHED BY
WILLIAM E. BARHITE,
270 Freeman Avenue, Long Island City, N. Y.
1895.
COPYRIGHT, 1895.
PRESS OF WEISEL, MEIER & WITTE, 109 NASSAU ST., N. Y.
PREFACE.
During the past quarter of a century, it has been a pleasant pastime for me to obey the dictates of my feelings and inscribe them upon paper.
The present volume is a collection of these vagrant pastimes, some of which have wandered far, while others have never before appeared to any eye save the writer's.
To call them home, introduce them to each other, and properly house them, seems a parental duty.
If in them there is a thought that shall inspire others of my profession to feel the dignity and responsibility of the calling, their publication will not have been in vain.
The intent being good, the fruit cannot be evil.
The Author.
DEDICATION.
TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER, WHOSE DEVOTION, ENERGY, AND PERSEVERANCE LED ME TO DRINK AT THE FOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH, UNTIL I SAW BEAUTY THEREIN, THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
The true end of life is to elevate man In body, in mind, and in spirit, That here he may serve some beneficent plan, Then a mansion in heaven inherit.
INDEX.
PAGE.
A Beacon Light 129
A Boy 81
A Lesson from Nature 189
All Things are Second-handed 212
Alone 140
Amityville 215
An Open Book 175
A Picture 200
Arbor Day Tribute 84
Artist Nature 119
Boding Snow 174
Buttercups and Daisies 87
Communion with Nature 96
Courage and Faith 26
Discontent 132
Drifting Away 158
Duty Done 42
Ere and at my Call 173
Evil Habits 56
Faces I Read 214
Fact versus Form 29
Fidelity 219
Finis 231
Fragments 127
Good Habits 53
Heartstrings 147
Important Moments 166
Incompetence 27
Indulgence 61
Interest 31
Invocation to the Muse 9
Kindred Spirits 160
Lake George, N. Y. 106
Liberty 154
Lies 145
Life's Emergencies 58
"Lo," The Departed 157
Love 142
Many 40
Maple at my Father's Door 115
Memory 130
Memory and Reason 32
Mind Awakened 71
Mirrors 39
Morning Flowers 118
Mountain Brook 99
Music 120
My Brother's Birthday 196
My Choice 76
My Mother's Love 192
My Room in Boyhood's Days 202
Nature's Child 105
Nature's Voice 204
Needs and Powers 19
Oceanus' Mirrors 116
On Brooklyn Bridge 183
Our Battlefield 49
Our Politics 134
Our Profession 11
Perhaps 165
Pious Pie Poem Puns 218
Poundridge, N. Y. 205
Rest 123
Retrospection 138
Robin Redbreast 110
Rye 95
School Days 162
Selfishness 137
Some Characters I Can't Admire 180
Some Characters I Much Adore 177
Soul Speaks to Soul 48
Strand Despair 60
Success 125
Sunset 135
Survival of the Fittest 66
The Dandelion 90
The Desirable Undefined 34
The Difference 67
The Evening before my Brother's Fifty-third Birthday 194
The Farmer 112
The Flowers I Love 91
The Fringed Gentian 89
The Future 170
The Goldenrod 86
The Hair 152
Their Life is what they Make It 185
The Lone Bird 187
The Morning Glory 94
The Ogre 72
The Old Farm 114
The Requirements of the Hour 80
The Rose 85
The Second Sunday in May 104
The Senses 44
The Stream's Story 102
The Teacher's Soliloquy 63
The Thrush 108
The Tree of State 82
The Unwritten Letter 210
The Voice 198
Tim 208
To a Mountain Brook 101
To My Daughter Blanche in Heaven 197
Trailing Arbutus 93
True Wealth 217
Twilight Hour 150
Who Knows? 149
Who Shall Judge? 169
INVOCATION TO THE MUSE.
Didactic muse Calliope, Expand thy soothing silent wings, Touch chords of measured harmony Wherein the soul ecstatic sings, Let language fraught with living truth Find such expression by thy art, As shall assist the guides of youth To fire the soul and win the heart.
Remove the barriers which so long Have held in thraldom many a mind, Sing to the deaf a ransom-song, Be eyes to those whose souls are blind; Teach those who mould the plastic mind To know that God hath never given A mission weightier, more refined, To angels round the courts of heaven, Than that of training human minds Committed unto human hands, In which the spirit e'er survives And through eternity expands.
Paint truthfully the living dead Whose sensibilities were slain By tyros, oft unskilled, unread, In all the workings of the brain; Whose concepts of the avenues That reach the mind of tender youth, Are labyrinths of tangled views Devoid of art, science, and truth; Touch but that chord of magic power Which gives the soul augmented bliss, And lifts it for the present hour Above the world's base selfishness; Then let the search-light of the soul Illumine every page that's read, Until an animated whole Shall supersede the living dead.
Then, then shall dawn the golden day When Ignorance shall shamed-faced fly Before the potent living ray Of mind, touched by effulgency That pours its light in vital force, Upon the mind of plastic youth, And leads it gently to the source Of light and scientific truth.
OUR PROFESSION.
There's an art in our profession, Which cannot be wholly learned From all books in our possession, Though their leaves be deftly turned Till the mind shall grasp the meaning Of each truth they may contain, Yet there remains a gleaning Not a product of the brain.
One may know the truths of science Till his mind may have full store, Or may place some great reliance On ancient and modern lore; He may count the stars in heaven, He may trace them in their course, And from data that is given He may prove creation's source; He may use the best of diction To portray his studied thought; He may draw from truth and fiction All the charm with which they're fraught; He may be a friend of Nature And may understand her laws; He may prove embryo creature Has within itself a "cause"; He may fathom all creation And dwell among the stars, Visit every land and nation And return with honor's scars; Yet he may lack a power,-- Occult to scientific truth-- Which is Heaven's richest dower To the guides of ardent youth.
Though all these may give a polish To the gem that lights the soul, They are weak, useless, and foolish, When they're taken for the whole Of all the powers required To entrance the youthful mind, With a spirit so inspired As to touch the eyes of blind With a bright illumination That shall prove itself to be More than a corruscation Of a short-lived ecstasy.
By intuition, children know A heart that cares for them; They recognize a friend or foe, At instantaneous ken. No mask can shield a fraud or fool, E'en from a puerile mind; It knows by rules not learned at school The way true hearts to find. An earnest love, unbounded, firm,-- A God-gift from our birth-- By far outweighs the noblest charm Can be acquired on earth.
Who has not drunk deep at the well Of childhood's innocence, Or thinks that he should ever dwell At such an eminence, That he can never bend to raise And cheer a longing heart, Will waste his precious hours and days, And finally depart Without such fruitage or reward As ever should be given To him, who serves master or Lord, And hopes for bliss in heaven.
Who sees no soul-buds here expand To blossom by and by, Hath fathomed not the great command For which we live and die. The State demands that every son And daughter shall be free From ignorance and vice which run Toward crime and misery. The future of our noble State Dwells now in plastic form; If she her past would emulate And meet the coming storm Of chaos, whose portentous wing Seems hovering not afar, In every school-room we should sing Of banner and of star That gave the land to Liberty, And with a bold huzza Proclaim that he who would be free Must honor right and law.
Who serves his State and fellow-man And plies his skill at best, Assists to carry out the plan To make all truly blest; He may not sit in marble hall Where legislators meet, Nor may he rear fine towers tall, Or dwell in a retreat Where monks and nuns with solemn prayer Pour out their orison; The test of faith is filial care, And duty nobly done. Minds let us mould, men may we rear, For God, for State, for man, Using the right without a fear To mar the heaven-born plan.
The test of great didactic skill Is not to train the few Whose active genius, tact, and will Are always plain to view; But he who takes an inert mind, Housed in a sluggish frame, And forms such man as God designed, Deserves an honored name.
Like Sisyphus some ever roll The same old round of things Which dwarf the mind and starve the soul, Until they long for wings To fly from dull monotony, Which carries in its train That wreck of thought--Despondency-- Which preys on heart and brain.
The artist knows the colors best That blend in harmony With richest cloud-scenes, in the west, That gild the sunset sky; The minstrel knows what song to sing To please the multitude; His fingers deftly touch the strings That yield response subdued When weary soul would find relief From sorrow's withering sigh, Or when the heart is bowed with grief, And tear-drops dew the eye; But when the soul is full of joy, How jubilant the strain The tactful artist will employ To please the heart and brain.
If those who toil in lowly spheres Employ such artful ways To charm the dull and listless ears That such may sound their praise, Why should the artist of the mind Shrink from that noble aim That seeks to elevate mankind, And light a deathless flame! Or why should he who shapes the lives And destiny of man, Be less exact than he who strives From mercenary plan.
No instrument man ever made-- None ever can be found-- No matter when or where 'tis played, Will yield so rich a sound As that which falls from human tongue When heart speaks unto heart, Nor are its mysteries among The hidden things of art; A tyro on life's winding road Reads understandingly Each tone and word, each varied mode The tongue and form portray.
Our heart's intents are from our looks More plainly to be read, Than thoughts expressed in printed books Whose language oft seems dead, Because it lacks a living form-- A voiceless, dull decree That of itself has little charm For youth's activity.
A potent charm of living light Flows with resistless force, Dispelling clouds of mental night That meet its onward course, When all the soul is centred in The great and primal thought That services which hearts would win, With price can ne'er be bought. Such service heaven alone repays E'en though on earth 'tis done, Its echoes last through endless days, And dies but with the sun. A mercenary soul must find A more congenial field Than that of training human mind Wherein a soul's concealed, If it would live out all the days Allotted unto man, And bask in all the genial rays Revealed in God's great plan.
No lubrication of the nerves Has ever yet been found, For him who like a menial serves Dull lesson's daily round; But gnawing friction, stern and gaunt, Tears flesh and brain away, While ghosts nocturnal ever haunt A soul with fell dismay, Whose mercenary greed has led Itself into a snare That counts by scores its strangled dead, Its hundreds, in despair.
He doubly lives who can forget Himself and his own ease, While toiling patiently to set New gems in crowns he sees, That may adorn some other head Than that he calls his own, And animate the germs wide spread In seeds already sown.
* * * * *
To skim the surface of knowledge, And seldom its root to reach, Is a recipe one may offer To direct "How Not To Teach."
NEEDS AND POWERS.
I know of no profession 'Mong profane or divine, Excelling in its mission The power embraced in mine.
It reaches earth and heaven Through heart and soul of man, It lives beyond the present-- Eternity doth span.
Mind in its first formation, While in its plastic state, Receives primal impressions Which make it vile or great.
When soil of thought is fertile And ready for the seeds, It may bring precious fruitage, Or vile and noxious weeds.
No sower should be careless, For harvest much depends Upon the well-selected seeds, With mental soil he blends.
If field be rich and mellow And no good seed be sown, With tangled mass of vileness It will be overgrown,
And shield the deadly serpent, The basilisk of sin, That far exhales its pois'nous breath, Then crawls its den within.
No atoms of pollution In matter e'er was known, So vile or so destructive As soul by sin o'erthrown.
The vilest spot upon the earth, Through sunshine, air, and rain, May be transformed in ev'ry part And purified again.
The fields where chaos reigned supreme And Nature frowned aghast, By patient-toil have fruitage borne And blossomed fragrance cast.
The wreck of spheres by traction's laws Hurled wildly into space, May gather atoms round itself And find some resting place
Where it may serve creation's end, And 'mong the planets roll, True to the laws of gravity That marks its outer pole.
The mind and soul can never Within themselves find rest, When all the sin's pollutions Are harbored in the breast.
Then sow good seed, brave teacher, And deeply plant with care, That both here and hereafter Rich harvest it may bear.
The sowing may be silent-- It may be but a tear, Its strength is in its purpose, Its aim must be sincere.
It should not be a rite or creed, But wider far than these, It should encompass God and man, Home and antipodes.
To learn the truths of science, Know tables, books and charts, To analyze the potent thrill That fires all earnest hearts,
To revel in the mysteries That lie deep in the earth, To give the proper data When planets had their birth,
To know the exact elements That constitute the sun, The causes why swift currents Within the ocean run,
The ratio of the vapors That color sunset skies, Time's infinitesimal fraction When planets set and rise,
To solve the problems of the air, The secrets of the deep, Are all intrinsic subjects And worthy of our keep.
But these alone are worthless, They need augmented force To lead mind toward the fountain From which it had its source.
They leave one vital question-- Development of man-- Without e'en crude solution, Without a working plan.
They leave the mighty problem Of Maker and the Made, Devoid of any sequence, Or any plan portrayed.
These are of greatest moment To persons and to State, Upon their wise adjustment Must hang progression's fate.
Cold are the truths of science, Lifeless their every plan, Until in living presence, They're crystalized in man.
As hidden truths are useless And aid not human skill, So slumber mighty forces Through lack of human will.
To know the right is not enough, It must be given power Through culture of the heart and soul, If it shall blessings shower.
To State, to manhood and to God Must mind be wholly given, Ere truth will shine a beacon light, To illumine earth and heaven.
All things were made but to subserve Man's powers to improve, And beautify his being here Through charity and love.
Power, gold, and wealth are agencies Placed in a creature's hand To serve an end, but not to rule,-- Obey, but not command.
As mind and soul matter surpass And error flies from truth, So should we train the nobler parts Of plastic, trusting youth.
The sacred man by God ordained, Links sinful earth with heaven, But his success oft must depend On how instruction's given.
The holy task of training mind Is not a trivial thing, Its influence lives, grows and expands Till harvest it shall bring.
No task, to human hands assigned, Excels in force and weight The grave responsibilities Of those who educate.
Let knowledge of the sciences, Skill in didactic art, Power in the impulse of the soul A knowledge to impart,
A love for God and human kind, Forgetfulness of self, A heart devoted to the cause More than to worldly pelf,
Be given as a heritage To those who fain would teach, Then living truth shall flourish, And all mankind shall reach.
* * * * *
There's an ebb and flow of sentiment In educational tides, Which oft discards some solid old facts, And on wild new hobbies rides. The educator of modern times Must prove the false and the true, Hold fast the worthy of the old, Unprejudiced, test the new.
COURAGE AND FAITH.
Courage and Faith are of heavenly birth, Though sent down to our lowly earth To cheer the heart of man; They are only strong when the human soul Yields perfect trust and full control To heaven's benignant plan.