Charles Lewis Reason

Charles Lewis Reason Poems

Charles Lewis Reason Biography

Charles Lewis Reason (July 21, 1818 – 1893) was a mathematician, linguist, and educator. Born in New York City to immigrants from the West Indies, he became the first African-American university professor at a predominately white college in the US. A child prodigy in mathematics, Reason began teaching the subject at the age of fourteen at the African Free School in New York, which he and two of his brothers attended. He then attended McGrawville College, an integrated institution founded by members of the Baptist Church in McGraw, New York. In 1847, Reason, along with Charles Bennett Ray, founded the New York-based Society for the Promotion of Education among Colored Children. Twelve years later, he was appointed professor of belles lettres, Greek, Latin, and French at New York Central College in McGrawville, while also serving as an adjunct professor of mathematics. It was a majority white institution. In 1852 Reason left that post to become the principal of the Quaker Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia (later Cheyney University), a post he held until 1856. During his time there, Reason increased enrollment from six students to 118. Reason returned to New York, where he spent the rest of his career in public education as a teacher, administrator, and reformer. During this time, he was instrumental in his efforts to abolish slavery and segregation, successfully spearheading an 1873 statute to integrate New York's public schools. He was politically active in many community groups. Reason was also a writer. He contributed verse to the Colored American in the 1830s and was a leader of New York City's Phoenix Society in the 1840s. He wrote the poem "Freedom," which celebrated abolitionist Thomas Clarkson and was published in Alexander Crummell's 1849 biography of Clarkson. Reason's personal life is obscure. He was married and widowed three times; only the identity of his third wife, Clorice Esteve, is known. He died in New York City in 1893.)

The Best Poem Of Charles Lewis Reason

Silent Thoughts

Around, how joyful in the chilly air
Sweet sounds are floating! While above, the sky,
Peopled with visions bright, seems calm and fair
As infant smiling 'neath a mother's eye.
It is the chant of joy that fresh, sincere,
Springs up from youthful hearts! Yet louder from that
The souls of men, to greet the laughing year
That clothed in promise, from afar doth come,
Burdened with hope and gift unfold. 'Tis well
The tortured feelings and the sad should rise
To hail some vision'd good, and tuneful swell
With songs of fairy scenes that in the skies
Are forming; of the peace and glorious fame,
And wealth and pleasure in the distance strewn.
But all must learn that song and garnished dream
May end; that magic spells around them thrown
Will melt in air; that sweet thoughts, redolent
As spring-time buds may droop and faint and die;
That wish and vision bright are impotent
To clothe the mind with light; to fit the eye,
To guide the spirit's growth; to lead it on
To triumph in the world; to gain a wreath
Of praise enduring, as those souls have won,
Whose works do raise them from contempt and death.
'Tis thought alone, creative fervent thought!
Earnest in life, and in its purpose bent
To uphold truth and right, that rich is fraught
With songs unceasing, and with gleamings sent
Of sure things coming from a brighter world.
'Tis thought alone; girt round with quickening light,
With vision lofty, and with wing unfurled
Ready to soar, self-poised, when darkest night
Of power and of death descends, that can,
As days flit by, and years grow old apace,
Rejoice o'er bright scenes fled, and strengthened stand
More glorious things, singing with youthful face.

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