54 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



But here near his home where 

 everybody knows him and loves his 

 verses, how vain it is for me even to 

 attempt to analyze Charles H. Cran- 

 dall's poetry. It is poetry, not to be dis- 

 sected but to be left as nature is to 

 him around his home. He has seen 

 and described the beauty of the com- 

 monplace. Our readers will recollect 

 that several months ago a potato in 

 the form of a heart came to this office. 

 It was sent by a kind friend who had 

 welcomed it as an emblem of a heart 

 hidden in the bosom of Mother Earth. 

 In that conventionalized form it rep- 

 resented the fruition of a new life, a 

 resurrection of a life that had van- 

 ished. Most of us would have seen 

 only an oddly formed potato. Farmer 

 Crandall looked beyond the mere vege- 

 table to the thought and uplift and 

 encouragement that that odd form in- 

 spired. Here is what he saw : 



"Heart's Love Remains." 



BY CHARLES H. CRANDALL, IDVLLAND, STAMFORD, 

 CONNECTICUT. 



We buried a Heart in the mother mold, 

 A Heart that was silent, still and cold. 

 And we went about in our saddened round, 

 Trying to smile as we tilled the ground, 



THE POTATO IN HEART PORM. 

 "As out of the soil we lift this sign." 



Dropping the seed in the fruitful earth, 

 Praying, with faith, for the timely birth 

 Of flower and fruitage to greet our eyes — 

 But Oh, that Heart we buried with sighs ! 

 Of the flower and harvest we feel so sure ! 

 But what of that Heart? Shall it endure? 



Blade and leaf and blossom have come, 

 Frost the garden will soon benumb, 

 Faith is faltering, promises weak; 

 But still the earth has a word to speak. 



As out of the soil we lift this sign — 

 Life, like all life, ever divine — 

 Lowly type of immortal kind, 

 Bringing the promise again to mind: 

 "Hearts may be dust, hearts' loves remain ; 

 Hearts' love shall greet us yet again." 



Mr. Crandall is successful as a 

 farmer. He "tickles the earth with a 

 hoe and it laughs with a harvest" for 

 him. The earth gives him a good liv- 

 ing, in the popular phrase. But in 

 his poetry of life, he has raised a 

 greater and better harvest, and for a 

 greater number of consumers. He 

 tries to keep people young. The fol- 

 lowing words of encouragement are 

 taken as a salutation from the preface 

 to his book of poems. Let us that love 

 nature poetically as well as scientifi- 

 cally, listen to them as to a benedic- 

 tion. 



"If you are one who would not sell, 

 at a price, the poetry of life ; if you love 

 a stroll over the autumn hills at 

 chestnut-time ; if you enjoy buffeting a 

 winter storm ; if you have the heart of 

 the boy or girl that thrills with joy at 

 the sight of the first violets, or the 

 sound of the first blue birds, I am sure 

 we shall agree to drop all books when- 

 ever we are hungry for Natures own 

 poetry of the great Out-of-Doors. 



But when the mood comes for a 

 book and a cosy nook by the fire-place, 

 then if you should grant a hearing to 

 my lines, and find entertainment, I 

 fancy my own fire will glow the 

 brighter — and I shall say to myself : 

 'Some one is reading "Songs from Sky 

 Meadows." ' " 



A Biographical Sketch. 



Greenwich, New York, a beautiful 

 village among the hills of Washington 

 County, a region of lovely lakes and 

 rushing rivers, was the birthplace of 

 Charles H. Crandall. It was in 1858, 

 but the child never forgot many im- 

 pressions of the Civil War period. 

 Education was first sought in a typical 

 red country schoolhouse. A few years 

 of graded schools in Greenwich and 

 Brooklyn, and the boy was passed on 

 to mercantile life in New York, and sub- 

 sequently to five years active service on 

 "The New York Tribune," in report- 

 er's, correspondent's and editorial po- 

 sitions. This experience Mr. Crandall 

 calls his university education. Besides 



