Authors and Writers Associated with Morristown. Julia Keese Colles
"Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!"
Ho all ye heavy-laden, come!
Here pardon, comfort, rest, a home
Lost wanderer from a Father's face,
Return, accept his proffered grace.
Ye tempted, there's a refuge nigh
Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!
Ye who are buried in the grave
Of sin, His power alone can save.
His voice can bid your dead souls live,
True spirit-life and freedom give.
Awake! arise! for strength apply,
Jesus of Nazareth passeth by!
But if this call you still refuse
And dare such wondrous love abuse,
Soon will He sadly from you turn
Your bitter prayer in justice spurn.
"Too late! too late!" will be your cry,
"Jesus of Nazareth has passed by!"
Mrs. Adelaide S. Buckley.
Mrs. Buckley will appear again among Translators. The following verses were inspired by a painting of Cornelia and the Gracchi:
Purest pearls from the sea,
Diamonds outshining the sun,
Sapphires which vie with heaven,
With pride to Cornelia are shown.
Clasping her dark-eyed boys,
Fairer could be no other,
"These my jewels are"
Said the noble Roman mother.
Rev. Oliver Crane, D. D., LL. D.
Before coming to Morristown, in 1871, Dr. Crane's life had been a very active one, including extensive traveling in Turkey, Europe, Egypt and Palestine. Twice he had been a missionary in Turkey acquiring the Turkish language and doing efficient work there, first for five years, then for three. In the seven years interval of his return he accepted two pastorates in this country.
On coming to Morristown, having resigned his ministerial charge at Carbondale, Pennsylvania, he devoted himself mainly to literary work, and with General H. B. Carrington wrote the "Battles of the Revolution" which has since become a standard work. Nine years later as secretary of his college class, he prepared an exhaustive biographical record of every member of the class. The book was a pioneer in this class of publications.
In 1888, he published his translation of Virgil's Æneid and the following year a small volume of poems entitled "Minto and Other Poems", in which the "Rock of the Passaic Falls" is conspicuous as relating to Washington and Lafayette "who," says the poet, "visited together these Falls while their troops were stationed at Totawa (as the spot was then called) in the Winter of 1780. The initials G. W. are still to be seen cut in the rock below the cataract."
The Translation of Virgil's Æneid, "literally, line by line into English Dactyllic Hexameter," is Dr. Crane's great work and has absorbed much of his time for years. It is a singular fact that, although for more than four hundred years the learned have been giving to the English reader, through the press, specimen translations of this old classic, this is the first complete version in the original measure.
In the very interesting preface, Dr. Crane gives a careful review of the translations of Virgil, noticing the singular and severe prejudice that has always debarred any desire to render this classic in the metre of the original, and discussing the advantage of translating in the style of verse chosen by the author himself. In fact, he tells us, Longfellow had, from his own admirable translations, become thoroughly convinced of its utility, if not of its indispensability in giving the classic epics a fitting setting in English.
The following is an extract taken from Book X., lines 814 to 842 of Dr. Crane's literal English translation of Virgil's Æneid, which describes the hand to hand contest of Æneas with the youth Lausus, who insists upon fighting Æneas in opposition to his father's wishes and in the face of every effort made by Æneas to avoid the conflict:
TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL'S ÆNEID.
BOOK X, LINES 814 TO 842.
The destinies now are for Lausus the last threads
Gathering in; for Æneas his powerful scimitar ruthless815
Drives through the midst of the youth, and buries it wholly within him,
Right through the menacer's targe, and his delicate armor, the keen blade
Passed through the tunic his mother had woven in tissue of gold thread
For him, and blood filled all of his bosom; then life on the breezes
Mournful withdrew to the shades, and abandoned his body untimely.820
But as the son of Anchises in truth on the visage and features
Gazed of the dying—the features, becoming amazingly pallid—
Pitying deeply he sighed and instinctively tendered his right hand,
Fresh as the image recurred to his mind of regard for a father:
"What to thee now, O pitiable boy, for these laudable efforts,825
What shall the pious Æneas, befitting such nobleness render?
Keep it—thine armor, in which thou rejoicest, and I to thy parents'
Shades and their ashes, if this could be any requital, remit thee;
Yet thou in this, though unlucky, canst solace thy sorrowful exit,
That by the hand of the mighty Æneas thou fallest." Abruptly830
Chides he his faltering comrades, as gently from earth he uplifts him,
Soiling his ringlets with blood, that were combed in the comeliest fashion.
Meanwhile, his father was down by the wave of the stream of the Tiber
Staunching his wound with its waters, and resting his body, reclining
Close by the trunk of a tree. At a distance his coppery helmet825
Hangs on its boughs, and at rest on the sod is his cumbersome armor:
Standing around are his warriors chosen; he sickly and panting
Eases his neck, as his out-combed beard streamed down on his bosom;
Often he asks after Lausus, and many a messenger sends he
Back to recall him, and bear him his sorrowful parent's injunctions:840
But on his armor his comrades were weepingly bearing the lifeless
Lausus away—a hero o'ercome by the wound of a hero.
Rev. J. Leonard Corning, D. D.
Dr. Corning, who, with his family, was for some years a resident of Morristown and is now abroad, is represented later in the volume, among the writers on Art. We give here his beautiful poem, "The Ideal".
THE IDEAL.
Awake, asleep, in dreams, amid the din of mortal striving,
I feel thee ever near, vision