The Autograph Book Part 4

Cards and Clippings

Tucked between the pages of Belle's autograph book were several cards including this one with red roses and a sweet poem. There were also newspaper and magazine clippings like these three:

The poem "Withered
Flowers" fits well with 
the drawing pasted
inside the back cover
of the book.


Transcription:

WITHERED FLOWERS

Strange are the memories, oh, withered flowers'                   THE MILKY WAY

That to my heart ye bring in wordless speech

Brightly as sunshine falls on distant towers,                     Grey Fluffums is softly resting

And gilds their outlines-of the past ye teach.                       In her cushions of crimson silk;

                                                                                           She is napping:in fancy lapping

For from my childhood and its sunny pleasures,                  Full saucers of foaming milk.

As with a key, ye turn the lock of years,

Ye lift the lid, and bring forgotten treasures                      Can it be that our Fluffums is dreaming,

Before these eyes that watch the store with tears.               This mute little sphinx all in grey -

                                                                                           Of the Eons of Cream that rise and set

Have ye a mirror in your withered petals                             In an Infinite Milky Way?

Wherein I read the history of my youth,                                                                  Ellen Watson

That ye give back like glass or polished metals

A thousand visions fraught with light and truth.         

                                                                                        

Again I view my home at quiet even:                            

The sparrows hopping on the gabled eaves,                      

Windows illumined by the crimson heaven,                     
Varnished with joy and framed with quivering leaves.      

                                                                                             

I seem to hear the murmur of the river,

As it flows on beneath the arching bridge:

To see the moonlight with its white-hued shiver,

Lying in bands upon the pebbly ridge.                          "We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts

                                                                                               not breaths,

And, stranger still, I have the same-self feeling              In feelings, not in figures on a dial;   

That traced the letters of my old romance:                      We should count Time by heart throbs-
The glow of love, o'er all around me dealing                        he most lives  

One hue of joy – that old forgotten trance.                       Who thinks most - feels the noblest -   

                                                                                               acts the best."      

A moment since, and some unknown connexion [sic]            

Gave me a strange reality of bliss:                                              

I pressed another's hand in dear affection;

I felt my forehead glow beneath a kiss.

Now – but the light is vanished from my spirit,

A cloud conceals the splendor of my sky.

How could I build on mortals who inherit

The common fate – to live – to love – to die?

For they are dead, those loved ones. Life is fleeting

And steals away the props on which we trust:

Leaving one only hope of future meeting,

A stamp for memory, and a heap of dust.

Leaving affections like those withered flowers,

That we may hold and turn with reverent hands;

And thoughts that picture out the glorious bowers

Of which these figures are but shadowed band.

                                           Every Other Saturday.

And, finally, there was a photo of four men which appears to have been clipped from a magazine. There is no identification but the man on the left bears a distinct resemblance to Sam Booksh.