February

TAMPA ROBINS

The robin laughed in the orange-tree:
"Ho, windy North, a fig for thee:
While breasts are red and wings are bold
And green trees wave us globes of gold,
Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me-
Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree

"I'll south with the sun, and keep my clime;
My wing is king of the summer-time;
My breast to the sun his torch shall hold;
And I'll call down through the green and gold

Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me,

Bestir thee under the orange-tree."

SIDNEY LANIER

February First

The Emperor of France made him Commander of the Legion of Honor; The Emperor of Russia, Knight of the Order of St. Ann; the King of Denmark, Knight of the Dannebrog; the King of Portugal, Knight of the Tower and Sword; the King of Belgium, Knight of the Order of St. Leopold; simultaneously with Tennyson, he was awarded an LL.D. by the University of Cambridge, England; he received honorary membership from a score of the world's leading societies of science and scholarship; the Pope conferred upon him a noteworthy testimonial; the Emperor of Mexico gave him a decoration; and Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Holland, Sardinia, Bremen, and France struck medals in his honor as the greatest scientist of the New World, and the peer of any in the Old.

The government of his own country, says Professor Francis H. Smith, has "carefully omitted his name in official records of the departments he created"; nor is it even given a place among the many inscribed in the mighty mosaic of our National Library.

Matthew Fontaine Maury dies at Lexington, Va., 1873 Texas secedes, 1861

February Second

MAURY'S LAST WISH

"Home-bear me home, at last," he said, "And lay me where my dead are lying, But not while skies are overspread,

And mournful wintry winds are sighing.

"When the sky, the air, the grass,

Sweet Nature all, is glad and tender, Then bear me through "The Goshen Pass' Amid its flush of May-day splendor."

February Third

Snow! Snow! Snow!

MARGARET J. PRESTON

Do thy worst, Winter, but know, but know That, when the Spring cometh, a blossom shall

blow

From the heart of the Poet that sleeps below,
And his name to the ends of the earth shall
In spite of the snow!

JOHN B. TABB

go,

(In welcoming The Forthcoming Volume" of the poems of his fellow soldier, fellow patriot, and fellow artist,

Sidney Lanier born, 1842

Albert Sidney Johnston born, 1803

SIDNEY LANIER)

February Fourth

What a beneficent provision of the Creator it was, to roll our little planet but one side at a time next the sun, that while one half of the world fretted and stormed and sinned, the other half might repent and sleep.

WILLIAM ALEXANDER CARRUTHERS

February Fifth

MAURY

The stars had secrets for him; seas

Revealed the depths their waves were screen

ing;

The winds gave up their mysteries;

The tidal flows confessed their meaning.

Of ocean paths, the tangled clew

He taught the nations to unravel;

And showed the track where safely through The lightning-footed thought might travel. MARGARET J. PRESTON

February Sirtb

GENERAL JOHN B. GORDON

Patriot, soldier, statesman,

Prince of the race of men;
Cypress and rue for his passing,
Laurel for sword and pen.

Dust for the hand that wrought;
But for the lessons taught

Life without end.

IDA SLOCOMB MATTHEWS

John B. Gordon born, 1832

John Pegram killed near Hatcher's Run, 1865

February Seventh

And there's Joe-my bully Joe—wouldn't I walk ten miles of a rainy night to see them hazel eyes, and feel the grip of his soldier hand? Didn't my rooster always clap his wings and crow whenever he passed our quarters? "Instinct told him that he was the true prince," and it would make anybody brave to be nigh him.

MAJOR CHARLES H. SMITH

(Bill Arp)

Joseph E. Johnston born, 1807