Page:Oregon Literature by Horner.djvu/80

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58
OREGON LITERATURE.

HENRY H. WOODWARD.

Near where the Umpquas meet, "the veteran soldier-poet," Henry H. Woodward, has pitched his tent and sung his song. Quiet, homelike and peaceful are his haunts; sweet, tender, and serene, his song. A half century of travel and war and touch with men rings in the "Lyrics of the Umpqua." The spirit of his song is love and friendship, and religion as influenced by the land and the sea; and he records a memorial to many a friend who lives in poetry, but not in the history of men. It is true that he is neither a Shakespeare, a Milton, nor a Byron, but his writings prove to us that he has a good heart, that he upholds the right, and speaks a cherry word to every fellow traveler; hence we sit down contentedly under his melodies, little regarding the strain of his song or the march of its music.

In his "Mariner's Life" we read—

"On the raging deep they often see
Humanity's blessings freely poured;
Where the weak to the strong for succor flee,
And pity is oft in a rough bosom stored."

In the "Apostrophe to the Ocean" are these lines,—

"Deep and expansive sea which encircleth

This terrestrial sphere, sublimely