Poems (Schiller)

For works with similar titles, see Poems.

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Poems (1900)
by Rebecca Jane Schiller

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related portals: Poetry, American literature

Published posthumously

4641913Poems1900Rebecca Jane Schiller

Rebecca Jane Schiller.

POEMS.

...BY...

REBECCA JANE SCHILLER.

1900.

From the Evangelical Press,

Harrisburg, Pa.

Copyrighted by

Clara C. Schiller,

1900.

AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED

TO OUR PARENTS,

Samuel Stoeuer Schiller

AND

Margaret Haines Lewis Schiller,

ON THEIR

GOLDEN WEDDING ANNIVERSARY,

January 3, 1900.

Introductory.

Rebecca Jane Schiller, was born in the town of Duncannon, Perry County, Pa., on the 24th day of October, 1850. She was the first-born of a family of twelve children. In childhood she was distinguished for her precocity, and her intellectual and physical development were rapid. At an early age she was noted for her remarkable progress as a scholar in the Susquehanna Institute at Duncannon, and at fourteen years she entered Irving Female College at Mechanicsburg, Pa., where she acquired high honor as a student. On her return she helped in the domestic duties of her home and became an assistant to her father in the mercantile business. For two and a-half years she assumed control of the Duncannon Record, writing the editorials and local news for that publication, contributed to the columns of other journals, composed music, and taught many pupils instrumental music. Such is the brief record of a life of ceaseless activity that suddenly closed ere it reached its meridian; for while the shadows were still falling forward and the future was full of promise the decree came for the mortal to put on immortality. On a bright December morning in the glad Christmas time, on the 24th day of December, 1882, anxious friends and loving hearts were praying at the bedside for her recovery.

"But when the sun in all his state Illumed the eastern skiesShe passed through Glory's morning gate And walked in Paradise."

Many were the tributes rendered by devoted friends to her memory. The pastor of the church to which she was attached, wrote: "She gave her heart to God, and united with the Methodist Episcopal Church at seventeen, and remained a consistent member. On Sunday morning while the church bells were summoning worshipers to God's earthly temples, she heard the bells of heaven calling her to join the company who worship around the throne. For many years she was an efficient organist. She carried the interests of the church conscientiously on her heart. Being a natural leader, she moved conspicuously in the church and in the community. Especially was she talented in music and in verse. She lived not for herself only, but for others as well."

A friend who knew and esteemed her, said: "In life God had given her talents which were not folded up or hidden away. She possessed a poetic temperament, refined by education and cultivated by practice. Much of her literary work bears the unmistakable stamp of genius and shines with a genuine lustre in comparison with the gilded rubbish of the times. She was warm-hearted and devoted to her friends, an affectionate sister, a loving daughter, and a devout Christian. In her death she fully exemplified the truth of that oriental saying, 'We come into this world weeping, while all around us are rejoicing, we should so live that when we leave it we shall be rejoicing while all around us are weeping.'"

A former teacher, Prof. Joseph Dana Bartley, after the lapse of some time, says: "As I write after all the years, her features, voice and manners are as real as when I knew her at the age of eleven and twelve years. I can see her earnest, expressionful eyes, her rosy cheeks, her charming, unaffected manners. No words of mine are needed to show that she was a child of rare characteristics of mind and heart, mature, thoughtful, accomplished far beyond her years, and all combined with a sweet modesty of conduct as unusual as it was charming."

The above extracts, to which might be added many others, showed the esteem in which she was held by those who knew her best.

The following compilation of her fugitive poems shows what she was capable of accomplishing and justifies the prediction of the President of Irving College when he wrote to her father: "Your daughter is one of the very brightest girls we have ever had in this college. She will make her mark if she lives." Born and reared in Duncannon, "beautiful for situation," on the banks of the broad Susquehanna, just below the point where it receives the waters of the "Blue Juniata," girded around with lofty mountains, whose summits reflected upon the town the first rays of the morning sun as he climbed up the gray wall of the eastern sky, her surroundings were calculated to develop the poetic genius of one so enamored of nature and so full of love for the beautiful as she saw it displayed in mountain, rock and river, Sometimes a strain of sadness follow her writing, like the shadow of a summer's cloud trailing over the landscape. To her friends it reveals the great sorrow of a young life, springing from the cold, dark grave that held the form of one who had her plighted vows and shared her golden hopes for life's best endeavor. But in all she wrote, as in all her acts, there was displayed the simple, sublime faith of the Christian, that looks up through sorrow and suffering to the great Father of all, and says, in a chastened spirit of resignation, "Thy will be done."

Her loyalty to her friends was unwavering, and to the few who were admitted to the inner sanctuary of her confidence, she revealed a heart free from guile and a spirit incapable of insincerity. Her life was pure and chaste as snow upon a mountain. When the terrible reality of approaching death came to her, she shuddered at the thought of a last and long farewell to home and friends, but with an almost cheerful and heroic resignation she waited the appointed time and

"Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, A shadow on those features fair and thin,And softly from that hushed and darkened room Two angels issued, where but one went in.'

From her grave in the quiet hillside cemetery there springs nothing but fond regret and tender recollections, and, while loving hands in years to come will care for the "windowless house of rest" in which she lay down for her long dreamless sleep, her memory will remain for her friends and kindred as an inspiration and a blessing.

Charles H. Smiley.

Contents (not listed in original)

This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.

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