INTRODUCTION TO "GOLDEN ROD AND CYPRESS."

To quote an almost forgotten writer, "poetry is unfallen speech." It was the language spoken by our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and down to the end of time it will continue to be the mother-tongue of noble minds. The songs of a nation are powerful factors in shaping its laws and molding its institutions; and even in an age wedded to material things, we cannot-without an implication of selfreproach-affect to despise the eldest of all the arts. This exquisite volume of verse comes from the giften pen of one whose writings are already known to thousands throughout our broad Southland. The formality of intro'ducing Mrs. Loula Kendall Rogers to an audience of friends, most of whom have long felt the subtle charm of her genius, is quite a needless one, but the privilege of penning these simple lines of tribute is nevertheless most eagerly embraced, if only for the borrowed radiance with which it gilds an humbler name. When the clouds of war first began to hover over our homes, on the ominous eve of the great sectional conflict, Mrs. Rogers-then a girl in her teensfirst discovered the divine gift which was destined to weave for her many a green laurel in the years to come; and when she bade adieu to historic Wesleyan, in the summer of 1857, her commencement composition was the first poem ever written by a graduate of the oldest female college in the world. It was a gem meet for the crown of her Alma Mater.

Some of the happiest poems of Mrs. Rogers were inspired by the chivalry of Dixie's gray battalions. Under the silken folds of the "Bonnie Blue Flag," she saw our brave defenders go forth to battle. She cheered them in victory. She consoled them in defeat. She bent over them in the hospitals where they languished in pain and suffering. With the enthusiasm of youth, she gave her maiden songs to a Conquered Banner. The civilization of the Old South -its lofty ideals of honor-its noble standards of cultureits beautiful memories of plantation life in the old feudal days these have always been favorite themes with Mrs. Rogers, themes which have never failed to touch her deep

est chords of feeling and to kindle her sweetest strains of music. Though loyal to the flag under which she now lives, she has never deigned to apologize for the flag to which she once vowed allegiance and today her heart is still an Ark of the Covenant in which the precious manna of the Confederacy is kept.

But her love for the South was fore-ordained. She comes of an aristocratic old Southern family, the name of which is linked with the earliest traditions of a land of Cavaliers. She could not be other than what she is loyal in every fiber of her being to the home of her birth. Some may smile at the claims of long descent. But lineage. counts in the making of character. The bias of heredity is even stronger than the influence of environment; but in weaving the ties of loyalty which were to bind this gentle daughter of Dixie to her beloved Southland, both of these forces contributed. Mrs. Rogers traces collateral descent to Sir Ralph Lane, Jr., who sailed from Plymouth, Eng., in one of the vessels equipped by Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1585, and by virtue of his official commission he became the first Colonial Governor of the New World. Her great uncle Joel Lane, was the founder of Raleigh, N. C., while her grandmother boasted not less than five nephews, who became Governors of five different states, viz.: Joseph Lane, of Oregon; Henry Lane, of Indiana; Alfred H. Colquitt, of Georgia; David Swain, of North Carolina, and Governor Lane, of Alabama. Her great-grandfather, Jesse Lane, was a soldier of the Revolution, and fought with his three boys in the battles of Cowpens, King's Mountain, and Guilford Court House. In the light of this exhibit we can readily understand why it is that her love for the South is no ordinary passion. Mrs. Rogers, herself, is no ordinary woman. The home of her girlhood, in Upson County, Ga., was a typical old Southern home of the ante-bellum days, and in an atmosphere of books, sweetened by the enjoyment of social life and by the gentle precepts of religion, her rare intellect began to flower.

For several years in her childhood, she and her sister were taught by a competent governess in their own home,

called Bellwood. Afterward they were sent to Central Female College, Culloden, under Professor John Darby, of "Prophylactic fame," thence to Georgia Episcopal Institute, Montpelier, Ga., a celebrated school under the supervision of the Right Reverend Bishop Elliott. When this excellent institution was suspended, they entered the halls of Wesleyan College, at Macon, Ga., where she graduated.

We are told with an accent of impatience that the age in which we live is hopelessly devoid of sentiment. But no one can read this little volume of verse and hold to the doctrine that poetry is a lost art. The most powerful factor in the lives of men today is sentiment. It does not always appear upon the surface. Like the waters of Arethusa, it may sparkle in concealment, but it drives the engines, and feeds the dynamos, and lights the incandescent lamps. As long as there are human hearts to enshrine the master passion, which we call love as long as there are friends to cherish as long as there are tender memories to which we may fondly cling-as long as there are fragrant hearthstones around which our affections can center-as long as there are ideals to be kept before the minds of the youth of our land—as long as there are hopes and dreams and visions to beckon us on to higher and better things in a Heaven beyond-so long will the voice of poetry find an echo in human lives. The same God who has stored our hills with coal and iron and marble, has beautified our fields with verdure and glorified our sunsets with gold. The same God who made Adam of the dust of the earth, also breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul. If we have bodies to be clothed and . fed, we also have spirits to be nurtured for the skies. To deny sentiment is to deny God.

Mrs. Rogers has given us in this little volume of verse, a rich collection of melodies. It is a book to be prized. On every page there is sunny optimism, bidding us be of good cheer and to keep on friendly terms with Hope. There is practical religion, bidding us cling to the unseen realities and to walk the companion of Faith. There is sound and sane philosophy, bidding us do with our might what our

hands find to do in the little spheres of life around us, shrinking from no allotted task but remembering while we toil that every duty, however humble, is divine. She has given us poems in many keys, but her own life-tranquil and serene and lovely-is her real masterpiece-the sweetest poem of them all.

How one, circumstanced like Mrs. Rogers, engaged in a thousand varied employments-a devoted U. D. C., a loyal D. A. R., an active worker in the ranks of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, a zealous church woman, intent upon the Master's business-has accomplished anything in a literary way is little short of marvelous; but she has nevertheless found time to write songs which the world will not willingly let die. Usefulness has kept her heart young. Purity and faith and love have held her in touch with childhood's golden charm, and though her locks are now almost white, there is still a youthful sparkle in her eyes, a buoyancy of younger days in her footsteps, and a hint of blooming April in her cheeks. Long may she live to charm away our griefs; and when her smile is missed among us, let us still rejoice amid our tears that she has left to us and to Georgia this best emblem of herself, this fragrant wreath of evergreens.

March 25, 1914.

INTRODUCTION TO "I HEAR DE VOICES CALLING."*

This little volume of verse is sure of a warm welcome from a discriminating public. One needs only to glance hurriedly through its charming pages to find that while, diminutive in size, it contains the vital elements of a real literature. Wit, humor, pathos, imagination, wisdom, melody, all are packed into a space of dainty proportions. In an age, the chief characteristic of whose literary product is mere bulk, it is refreshing to encounter this little volume which contains in essence so much of distilled beauty, which reflects in miniature so much of a vanished world.

It is something more than a mere cluster of songs in

*From the pen of Mrs. M. L. Gaines, of Decatur, Ga.

dialect. Both the historian's pen and the artist's brush have been employed by the author. She visualizes the past with true fidelity to life. We hear again the plantation melodies. Before us looms the stately old Southern mansion, back of which, as in the dead days, are grouped, in a picturesque fashion, the slave quarters. Reaching away to the horizon, extend the white fields of fleecy cotton, all a-teem with industrious labor, all vibrant with the airs of a simple but song-loving people.

Her characters are not mechanical. She endows each with an individuality, separate and distinct. Her work is convincing because artistic. In the molds of dialect, she preserves the quaint humor, the droll philosophy, and the unfailing wit of the old-time Southern darkies. The relationship, tender and beautiful, existing between white and black, under the old feudal regime, is sketched with a loving hand. The old black mammy lives again in these pages, her laughter as contagious and her heart as loyal as ever. One almost forgets in reading this little book that the days so charmingly recalled by the author belong to a past whose memories are fast fading and that over the death-strewn field of Appomattox the gentle rains of more than half a century have fallen.

There is not a single note of bitterness to be detected in the author's work, not a trace of sinister sectionalism. It is all sweet and wholesome like mountain air. Only the beautiful things are recalled. It is also free from local obscurities and limitations. It is marred by no provincialisms. The author is both in and of the South. Born in the Old Dominion, a daughter of one of its patrician families, much of her life has been spent in Georgia. Her range of observation has, therefore, been wide. The life which she portrays is not peculiar to one isolated section, but is typical of the South as a whole. The ante-bellum regime is reflected as in a mirror. Yet all within the limits of a single duodecimo. How much of the soul of Dixie is packed into this volume-how much of its treasured lore-even as a drop of water contains in its chemistry the ingredients of

an ocean.