Waiting for the Bell
By Emmons Sylvester Pierce (1890)
“Backward, turn backward, oh time, in your flight.”
These words seem to haunt me while thinking to-night
Of the drivers and horses who’ve passed from the track.
Through the gate that ne’er opens to let them come back.
Recollections come crowding so thick and so fast.
That I only can wonder and stand aghast.
Backward; ah, yes, as we ponder, and look
At the names that are crossed on memory’s book.
We hear the bell ring, and the call from the stand;
We see the old faces that once took a hand;
We hear the word “go!” as they sweep past the score,
We admire the old veteran’s cool courage once more.
We remember it all, so vivid and plain.
That it seems we are having it over again.
But where are the forms, and where are the faces
We saw years ago at the grand circuit races?
And where are the kings and the queens of the turf
That we deemed had no peers on the top of the earth?
They’ve vanished, as well as the time that they made,
And their greatest achievements are knocked in the shade.
Not backward, but forward, old time’s mighty wheel
Unperceived revolves, and new wonders reveals.
And soon it will take you and me from our place;
Just distance us both, and we’re out of the race.
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Pierce published Poems of the Turf and Other Ballads in 1890, a collection of poems about horses and especially about harness racing. While they are not literary masterpieces, they are competently written. Their chief virtue is in the stories they tell—generally pretty interesting snapshots. This is one of the better single-author collections of horse-related poetry that I have found. It’s free from Archive.org if you are interested.
This particular poem is a little more abstract than most of them, but I pulled it out because it’s one of those cases where one poem leads to another, which leads to some interesting something or other.
In this case, the first line of the poem is from “Rock Me to Sleep” by Elizabeth Akers Allen (1860), which runs:
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,
Make me a child again just for tonight!
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears,—
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—
Take them, and give me my childhood again!
I have grown weary of dust and decay,—
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;
Weary of sowing for others to reap;—
Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!
Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!
Many a summer the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between:
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,
Long I tonight for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Over my heart, in the days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone;
No other worship abides and endures,—
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.
Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old;
Let it drop over my forehead tonight,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Mother, dear mother, the years have been long
Since I last listened your lullaby song:
Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem
Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.
Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,
With your light lashes just sweeping my face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—
Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!
Akers Allen originally published the poem under a pseudonym, and it’s one of those sweetly sentimental poems that is likely to be picked up and used by all and sundry. And so it was—it was soon set to music, turned into an illustrated book, used in Civil War flyers, incorporated into novels, and otherwise sold to the tune of more than $5,000 in profit according to one publisher.
Akers Allen did not receive any sort of commission for any of these uses. The only money she made off the poem was the $5 from the original publication.
Worse, more often than not she didn’t even receive credit as the author.
Even worse, other individuals attempted to claim the authorship. The most brazen of these, Alexander Ball, actually published a book staking his claim on the authorship. One of Akers Allens publishers recounts the fallout:
But it grew to a serious matter, and he [Ball] caused a book called his “Vindication,” now known only as a rare literary curiosity, to be produced at a large expense. So much influence was aroused in his favor, and so retiring had been the life and nature of the true author, that the pretender had the advantage for a time. Even so upright and careful a man as William Cullen Bryant, when preparing his “Library of Poetry and Song,” wrote to Mrs. Akers desiring her to show cause why credit should not be given to Mr. Ball in that compilation. Mrs. Akers replied with proper spirit that the only reason was that Mr. Ball did not write the poem, and she did. The lifelong champion of literary honor, J. T. Trowbridge, however, spoke boldly in her favor, and finally the brilliant William Douglas O’Connor effectively demolished the claims of Ball, finding among the “specimens” given in the “Vindication,” plagiarisms from other writers. With the ready chivalry of the reputable press, a number of editors wrote honorable apologies to Mrs. Akers, but the eminent citizens who had allowed the support of their names to the cause of the saddler made suddenly rich by army contracts never had the manliness to address the one whom they had so deeply wronged.
—From The Sunset Song and Other Verses by Elizabeth Akers Allen. Norwood: J. S. Cushing & Co. (1902).
While no royalties were forthcoming, at least Akers Allen received some apologies—and came out of the fight the acknowledged author of the poem.
And I am not sure whether to find an unfortunate appropriateness in the literary battle considering the poems subject—after all, by the end of it, Akers Allen was probably longing for the quieter, simpler literary fame she had before the controversy erupted—or to find it deliciously twisted that such a softly nostalgic poem should have sparked such a feisty literary spat.