Saturday Poetry Corner: My Father's Violin

 

 

"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make music."
(Psalm 57:7)

 

 

Mary and Laura listening to Pa playing his fiddle in the book,
 "Little House In The Big Woods"
 by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Illustration by Garth Williams 
Image courtesy/Pinterest

 

 

 

 

 Long years have passed since childhood's happy day.

Sorrow and joy have fallen in my way.

Sunshine and shadow along my pathway lay.

Happiness and misery have come and passed away. 

And rosy morn and twilight cold and gray,

Never to fade and never to decay.

Until this paper's page I print

With stylus of steel on slate of flint,

The words which shall forever be

A record of the melody

That lifts my soul, Oh, God, to thee. 

Those sweet old strains shall ever rise

And be with me beyond the skies,

Shall be with me and never die,

Sweet strains of the "Sweet By and By."

And oft the merry footsteps flew

And happy heart beats faster grew

As o'er the strings the bow he drew. 

And "Swanee River" "Home Sweet Home"

Shall be with me where e'er I roam

Through desert wild, o'er ocean foam,

And make the glittering teardrop start

And faster beat the throbbing heart.

But like some brilliant beacon star

As o'er the world I wander far

I seem to see my home again,

My father and his violin.

Sweeter by far to my loving heart

Than minstrels of cultured art

Was music from those mystic strings,

My father's hand to give it wings.

Oh, how I wish for an hour once more

In that dear old home on Vermillion's shore.

How I long to enter that vine-wreathed door

And stand on that old familiar floor,

Once more the dear ones there to greet

To think of the years that have passed so fleet

Since with childish romping feet

We roamed through the gardens and meadows sweet;

And to look with many blinding tears

Into the vista of the coming years.

What the future may bring we cannot know.

Joy's wings are fleet, sorrow's are slow.

Sorrow from joys of the present may glow

Or joy may come of our grief and woe.

But ever and always the song in my heart

Shall be of a time when never to part,

In the Heavenly home we'll meet again,

Sanctified, gloried, cleansed from all sin.

 

 

"My Father's Violin"
A Poem by Mary Amelia Ingalls

 

 

 

 

Mary Amelia Ingalls
(1865-1928)
Image courtesy/Wikipedia

 

 The older sister of "Little House" author Laura Ingalls Wilder,
at the age of fourteen, Mary lost her eyesight after contracting
what is now believed to be viral encephalitis. She was later
able to attend the Iowa College for the Blind. After a seven
year study course she graduated from the school in 1889.

Unlike her portrayal on the NBC television series,
"Little House On The Prairie" the real life Mary Ingalls
never became a teacher or married, but after college
returned to De Smet, South Dakota to live with her parents.
She contributed to the family's income by making hammocks
and fly nets for horses. Mary loved to read and to write poetry.
She was also actively involved in church work 
and with local social organizations. 

Mary had a beautiful soprano voice and like her father, Charles Ingalls,
 a natural talent for playing musical instruments. She served as the 
organist at the De Smet Congregational Church for 30 years.

After the deaths of Pa and Ma, Mary lived in their home
on Third Street in De Smet with her youngest sister, Grace,
 and her husband, Nate Dow. She later went to live with her
 younger sister, Carrie in Keystone, South Dakota where she
  died after suffering a stroke in 1928. She was 63 years old.