Long live the poems and prose of our very own Lizzette Woodworth Reese

Lizette Woodworth Reese was born before the Civil War in Huntingdon, now known as Waverly, and died after the Great Depression. She is buried in St Johns in the Village cemetery at Old York Road and Greenmount Avenue.

Her life was spent in or close to the village she loved and chronicled in A Victorian Village and The York Road. She witnessed and wrote of historic events, including the Industrial Revolution, which forever changed the country roads, orchards, pastures and rural way of life - a mere two miles from town - before her village was engulfed by the city.  But she did stay put. 

And in her poetry is clearly seen her great love of the natural world. It brought her many admirers and recognition, including being named Poet Laureate of Maryland.  

Most of her adult years was spent working as a teacher in city public schools. 

The Evening Sun wrote, “she touched the tawdry old York Rand and converted it into a highway of enchantment.”

The Baltimore Sun noted she “ composed while standing on Baltimore’s gusty street corners - and wearing much mended cotton gloves. School and home duties left little leisure for poetry, so she composed and laboriously revised from memory while waiting in wind and rain for jogging streetcars to carry her to and from school for 45 years.”

Her most famous poem is the one cast in bronze at the entrance to Western High School where she taught for many years downloaded from www.sonnets.org.

Tears

When I consider Life and its few years --  

A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun; 

A call to battle, and the battle done 

Ere the last echo dies within our ears; 

A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears; 

The gusts that past a darkening shore do beat; 

The burst of music down an unlistening street,-- 

I wonder at the idleness of tears. 

Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight 

Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep 

By every cup of sorrow that you had, 

Loose me from tears, and make me see aright 

How each hath back at once he stayed to weep: 

Homer his sight, David his little lad! 

Lizette Woodworth Reese poems are along the Charles and Waverly Villages Poem Walk - at Herman's Discount and Village Learning Place.

Other poets' works are at Tinges Commons, Waverly Library, Hair Inernational Barbershop, Barnes and Noble JHU, Terra Cafe, Normals Bookstore and Abell Community Bulletin Board.

Thanks to these patrons for making poetry live and to Poetry in Community for celebrating National Poetry Month in such very special ways.