Poetry of
William Nicholas Denton
1864-1926

William was a writer for the Birmingham, AL newspaper.  He published a book of poetry in 1906.   Below are a few of his poems.

MY OLD SCRAP BOOK.

SOMEWHERE from the litter and dust of my den,
I have carefully hidden away
A treasured old volume the work of my pen
In recording my life in its May.

A whimsical jumble of fable and truth,
Of the trifles as light as the air,
That vary the mind of a light-hearted youth
With a smile and a tear here and there.

‘Tis an old scrap-book that is yellow with age,
And is falling to pieces with time,
But it shadows forth my life’s brightest stage,
Its hopes and dreams recorded in rhyme.

Too foolish, I know, for the eyes of the world,
Yet too sacred to me for the flames,
I hide it away from the light of the day,
With its rhyme-written treasures of names.

The names of my friends and the tokens so dear
That in friendship were given to me;
Mementos of love I behold with a tear,
And of follies I smile but to see,

The trace of a face in a dark silhouette,
Or in the shadowy art of Daguerre’s;
Of cedar a sprig and some dried nignonette
That is crumbling to dust with the years.

A ribbon of blue in rememberance of Sue,
And a book-mark from fair Caroline;
A dead, faded rose and a sweet billet-doux,
With curl of her hair, silken fine,

From Nellie, of whom, in her beauty and bloom,
I believed in my heart’s inner core
It better the gloom of the cold silent tomb
Than to live when she loved me no more.

So I find it a part of memory’s chain,
With its links of the leaden and gold,
Connecting the life of today with its pain
To the glory and gladness of old;

A boquet of bloom from the garden of dreams,
In the freshness and fragrance of dawn,

All redolent bright with the roseate gleams
Of the light of the days that are gone.

 
SONG OF THE SOUTH

LIKE a garden in the splendor,
Of the summer is the South,
With its beauty bright and tender,
And its story from the mouth
Of some master minstrel singer,
Were its love and valor told,
In the minds of men would linger
Like the classic lore of old.

Land of bayou, brake and river,
Of palmetto and of pine,
And of lilied lakes a-quiver,
In the shifting shade and shine,
Where the vine festoons are swinging
From the willows by the stream,
And the mocking-birds are singing
Like the music of a dream.

Land of sun whose beauty brightens
In the summer’s afterglow,
When the cotton fiber whitens
To a filmy floss of snow;
And the breeze sings in the mountains,
With a song of mystery,
Like the croon of unseen fountains
Or the moaning of the sea.

Land for which a band of brothers,
Gallant sons and noble sires,
Urged by spartan wives and mothers,
Faced the flame of war’s wild fires--
When its history is written
And the tale’s on every tongue,
Or some Homer’s lyre is smitten
And its deeds in epic sung--

Then with mighty men of olden
On the scroll of Time and Fame’s,
Written large in letters golden
Were her galaxy of names--
Like the star-writ page of glory
Of a moonless midnight sky--
For the South in song and story
Is a theme to never die. 

UNCLE SI

OLD Uncle Si is as black as a pot,
But his wool is as white as snow,
For he was old Si when I was a tot,
And that has been many years ago;
But he putters around and croons a song,
Through the hottest or the coldest day,
And sure as I happen to pass along
With: "Howdy Uncle Si," he will say:

"I’se a-libbin along,
Marse John---
Jes a-libbin along
To-day."

So day after day, as the years go by,
My own feet falter, my hair grows gray,
But crooning around is Old Uncle Si,
In the quaint, old-time darkey way.

And sometimes I tell him we soon must quit
Living along, and sleep neath the sod:
"Yassuh, by-um-by, but we ain’t gwien yit,"
He replies with a grin and a nod--
"Fur we’s libbin along,
Marse John--
We’s a-libbin a long
T’ank Gawd!"

DAWN LIGHTS

I SAW the light break through the pale
Of darkness at the dawn, and sweep
Across the mist enshrouded vale,
Asleep in the shadow deep.

Then as the gleaming glory spread,
Swift as a startled thief, the night,
With all her sable minions, fled
Before the fleet-winged light.

Oft times a ceaseless sorrow lies,
Life’s discontenting shadow, on
The heart a-weary while the eyes
Weep, watching for the dawn.

And swiftly, as the darkness drifts
Before the light’s unfolding scroll,
The gracious dawn of love uplifts
The sorrows from the soul.

THE BLUE TENNESSEE

A BEAUTIFUL river -- the blue Tennessee,
And as sweet as a love-lighted dream,
Remembrance that thrills me with longing to be
On the banks of its wild, winding stream.

The valleys are fertile and mountains are grand
With the bluest of soft summer sky
O’er-arching the forest and green meadow-land
That its waters flow murmuring by.

The serpentine brooks by the clover fields sweet,
As if ribbons of silver unrolled,
A-quiver with breezes that rimple the wheat
To a billowy glimmer of gold;

The crab-apple, grape and the chestnut in bloom,
With the locust and tall tulip tree,
That tend to the forest the sweetest perfume
On the banks of the blue Tennessee.

The song of the wheel of an old watermill,
With its music of slumbersome spell--
The little brown cottage that stood on the hill
Where the belle of the valley did dwell--

The queen of my first love of spirit as light
As the heart of the bird on the wing;
Its beauty more tenderly sweet to the sight
Than the blossoming roses of spring.

The sweet rose of loving is faded and dead
With the mourning of youth far away--
The bright star of hope has forsaken and fled,
And the shadows are gathering gray.

Around me in life where its light used to gleam,
But in fancy I often shall be
The lover of yore in illusions to dream
By the beautiful, blue Tennessee.