Postlude

—Which ought to have been The Prelude to this Spray of Kentucky Pine. Because it was written, published, a little more than a year before the Death of the Poet. Therefore, it was a Tribute to him, Living!

A Promethean Poet was there. He had touched the Heavenly flame; he had lasted the Waters of Inspiration: he had drained the Crystal Cup of Fancy, finding therein neither Lees nor Dregs, which bite the tongue, stifle the song, of lesser Men; he had reverently kissed the coy hand of Fame, when she had crowned his Worthy Brow, with her Wreath Immortal! His Poems, homely, simple, sweet—springing from the lap of Nature—had spread, like wild-fire of the Forest, into the Four Quarters of the Globe. He came from the Land, across the River, where, in these latter days, the People quit the planting of the Potato, to pen a Poem: pause in the cultivation of the Corn, to compose a Novel. Some of it is good, very good; Some of it is bad, very bad: but all of it produces a princely Revenue far in excess of any return from either the Potato or the Corn. Long before the avalanche-like advent of this State- wide Literary Madness, the Star of this Poet had risen— risen before, and still shines beyond, and above them all. The hand which wrote "Goodbye, Jim"—not classical in either Greek or Roman sense, yet a great American Classic—with its pungent odor of Blue Jeans, with its clean, sweet, clear-cut, fine smell, of its native soil— that hand may never again hold the Pen; the man himself, may crumble—God forbid!—back into the Dust— that "Little Dust of Harm"—out of which he came; but his Poems will not, cannot die. When those other Writers will have been forgotten; when even the gifted Maker of "Ben Hur" will be, but as an empty name; even then, this Poet, and his Poems, will cleave to the Mind, cling to the Heart, of countless Generations, not yet born!