Ellen also wrote another book of poems titled "Songs of the South"
"Faith or Earthly Paradise and other Poems" by Ellen E. Hebron "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." Published for the author by the W. T. P. A., 161 La Salle St., Chicago. 1890.Written on her birthday, March 30
MY BIRTHDAY Sweep on! Sweep on ye years! Though short has been your stay Since my last natal day, And oftentimes I've known deep sorrow's tears, I would not call you back From grand, celestial track, Nor mar your march with my poor hopes nor fears. Ye are God's angels bright! Send from around the throne Where joy is ever known, To soften and subdue the souls of men; That through the cycles grand Of far-off Better Land We may be likened to Himself again. Ye've been most kind to me!-- When earth in vernal bloom Was laden with perfume, And Love and Mercy breathing everywhere, Ye brought me being*--now, With furrows on my brow. My spirit bounds to breathe its natal air. Retined and purified By woes, I stand beside Old Time's resistless tide, Nor fear his utmost power that bears me on __________ *March 30thSOME DAY Some day the morning's sun shall rise As beauteous as in years of yore; Its glow shall gild the eastern skies, But she I love will be no more, The birds will trill their gladsome lays, The fragrant flowers will sweetly bloom; But she who blessed my infant-days Will sleep within the silent tomb. They'll smooth her braids of dark-brown hari, Of, if the brown shall all be gone, They'll weave a crown of silver there Upon the brow so cold and lone. They'll place her hands--life's duties done--- So calmly on her sleeping breast They'll typify that heaven is won While she on earth is taking rest. They'll bear her to the churchyard near, Where children long ago were laid, And close beside the forms so dear They'll gently place her 'neath the shade. But O! that day, if it should come, To me would be so dark and drear I'll long to enter too her home, Her angel-welcome there to hear. For well I know fond hearts that stem This world, so true to God and Heaven Must have a home prepared for them; Must have a crown unto them given, But should I leave first, mother dear!* That life-eclipse I'll never know; And these sad lines I'm tracing here May comfort on thy heart bestow. ________ *Thirteen years after these lines were written, suddenly, after a day's illness with a smile on her lips, she departed.We may talk of "financial depression" and "poor crops," but as long as our men will leave their professions, their legitimate business avocations, their field to spend the day in participating in, or looking on at any kind of gaming, we can not reasonably expect the country to prosper. Though the gambler's wife expend every energy in trying to "keep up appearances," or to "drive the wolf from the door," so long as her husband continued to game, so long will she be engaged in a desperate and probably futile struggle with the adversary of her home and of her heart's peace.
Talk of marrying a member of the "starving profession," as I once heard a communicant of a church say in reference to preachers; but, so long as gambling continues to be a disease of society, so long will it require all the prayers of the clergy and other Christians to avert even greater evils than starvation from our beloved land. And, in the meantime, go on noble men of God, in your high and holy work! And, if your wives are "starving" at home, they at least have the consolation of knowing that their husbands are engaged in trying to rescue men from sin and Satan: and this is what the gambler's poor wife can never know, so long as he continues to game, no matter if she be attired in velvets, laces and diamonds, and "fare sumptously" evey day. And should you "die in the harness," should you expires, as some noble soldiers of the Cross have done, while proclaiming God's truth from the pulput, you will leave your children and inheritance of gracious promises that many a gambler's wife would welcome, could she claim them for her little brood as the ship-wrecked mariner rejoices to grasp the plank that bears him from a tempestuous sea in safety to a far-off shore.
But what moral support has the gambler's wife? His relatives who knew him from a child, and who failed to do their duty towards him by impressing his youthful mind with the sin and sorrow necessarily attendant upon gaming, in the hour of his calamity can escape from him and from it. but she who knew him not until he was a mature man, who did not even suspect his having the least disposition or inclination to such a course, must bear with all its bitter consequences. And if, in the course of long and trying years, she manifests impatience under her deep and unexpected woes, how many are ready to say she is not a faithful wife, a true woman? The fond hopes that were hers on her marriage day have long since been laid in the grave. The bright anticipations that cheered here girlhood and he early womanhood have drifted away slowly, sadly, solemnly as the barque, that leaving a fair port at morn, sails steadily and unconsciously towards some ocean-maelstrom, and ne'er is heard of more. At dead hours of night, when other hearts are gathering strength for the next day's duties in refreshing slumber, in loneliness and tears, and no watches to aid her save God and angels, she is shrouding her dead hopes, and consigning them, not only to death but to an ignominious grave.
O skeptic! O atheist! O infidel! You may reride the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the Jews question, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Yet were it not for this ame religion; were it not for the power of the Godhead that can "roll away the stone from the sepulcher" of our dead hopes, and bid them re-arise; were it not for the assurance of the Resurrection, and of an immortality of glory in the life to come, where oh where! in the Great Universe of God, with all its blazing suns and attendant systems, would be the refuge of the gambler's poor, earth-weary, soul-stricken, heart-broken wife? _______________ *A picture from real life.
Georgia Whitney
October 10, 1999
gwhitney@mail.win.org
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