John Hay

John Hay Poems

A lover prayed to Eros in this wise:-

Since my love loves not me, Eros! I pray
That thou wilt take this torturing love away.
...

A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
"Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!
...

I love a woman tenderly,
But cannot know if she loves me.
I press her hand, her lips I kiss,
But still love's full assurance miss.
...

The winter wind is raving fierce and shrill
And chides with angry moan the frosty skies,
The white stars gaze with sleepless Gorgon eyes
That freeze the earth in terror fixed and still.
...

Fytte the First: wherein it shall be shown how the Truth is too mighty a Drug for such as be of feeble temper

The King was sick. His cheek was red
And his eye was clear and bright;
...

There's a happy time coming,
When the boys come home.
There's a glorious day coming,
When the boys come home.
...

When Youth's warm heart beats high, my friend,
And Youth's blue sky is bright,
And shines in Youth's clear eye, my friend,
Love's early dawning light,
...

Th3 beauty of the northern dawns,
Their pure, pale light is thine;
Yet all the dreams of tropic nights
Within thy blue eyes shine.
...

I

Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her.
This one may love her some day, some day the lover will not.
...

The luminous pages of all story prove
High love hath ending in heroic woe;
Sharp-fanged and fell, dark death doth ever go
In waiting for the wandering feet of love.
...

Pindar, the Theban, sang to Hieron
In Doric verse, rich as rough-hammered gold,
The Immortals deal to men, now as of old,
Two ill things for one good. These words, forth blown
...

Love, in this summer night, do you recall
Midnight, and Venice, and those skies of June
Thick-sown with stars, when from the still lagoon
We glided noiseless through the dim canal?
...

Enough of thunderous passion
That clouds life's weary way.
Bid now in merrier fashion
The jocund pulses play.
...

Remarks of Sergeant Tilmon Joy to the White Man's Committee of Spunky Point, Illinois

I reckon I git your drift, gents,-
You 'low the boy sha'n't stay;
...

I sat on a worm fence talking
With one of the Bear Creek boys,
When all the woods were ringing
With the blue jay's jubilant noise.
...

Son of a sire whose heart beat ever true
To God, to country, and the fireside love
To which returning, like a homing dove,
From each high duty done, he gladly flew,
...

Wise men I hold those rakes of old
Who, as we read in antique story,
When lyres were struck and wine was poured,
Set the white Death's Head on the board-
...

O beauteous daughter of a mighty race!
In thy fair features and thy radiant eyes
Like bright clouds floating over brighter skies
The shadows of a glorious past we trace.
...

Each shining light above us
Has its own peculiar grace;
But every light of heaven
Is in my darling's face.
...

I strove, like Israel, with my youth,
And said, Till thou bestow
Upon my life Love's joy and truth,
I will not let thee go.
...

John Hay Biography

John Milton Hay was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. Early Life Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, of Scottish ancestry, the third son of Dr. Charles Hay and Helen Leonard from Middleboro, Massachusetts, who had come to Salem to live with her sister. He was raised in Warsaw, Illinois, and educated first at the private school of the Reverend Stephen Childs, an Episcopal clergyman. In 1851 John went to an academy at Pittsfield in Pike County, where he met an older student, John G. Nicolay, with whom he would later work as private secretary to Abraham Lincoln. In 1852 John Hay went to the college at Springfield, and in 1855 was sent to Brown University, where he joined Theta Delta Chi. At Brown, he developed an interest in poetry, and Hay became a part of Providence's literary circle which included Sarah Helen Whitman and Nora Perry. When he graduated, he was named Class Poet. He left Brown in 1858 before receiving his diploma and went home to Warsaw to study law with his uncle, Milton Hay. Lincoln's secretary Abraham Lincoln's law office was next door to the law office of Milton Hay, John's uncle, and Lincoln thus became acquainted with John Hay. When Lincoln won election as president, his secretary, John G. Nicolay, recommended John Hay to Lincoln as assistant private secretary. Thus, at age 22 he began a lifelong career in government, except for a stint in journalism from 1870-78. Though technically a clerk in the Interior Department, he served as Lincoln's secretary until 1864. He lived in the northeast corner bedroom on the second floor of the White House, which he shared with his fellow secretary and Pittsfield Academy schoolmate, Nicolay. For a few months, he served in the Union army under Generals David Hunter and Quincy Adams Gillmore. He rose to the rank of major and was later brevetted lieutenant colonel and colonel. Hay's diary and writings during the Civil War are basic historical sources. Some have credited Hay with being the real author of Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby, consoling her for the loss of her sons in the war. Hay was present when Lincoln died after being shot at Ford's Theatre. Hay and Nicolay wrote a formal 10-volume biography of Lincoln (Abraham Lincoln: A History, 1890) and prepared an edition of his collected works. Portions of Hay's diaries and letters from 1861–1870, published in the book Lincoln and the Civil War, show Lincoln in a far more intimate light. John Hay as a young man Legal Career In 1861, he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Illinois. Diplomatic Career Between 1865 and 1870, he was secretary of legation at Paris (1865-7) and Madrid (1867-8), and chargé d'affaires at Vienna (1868–70). In 1878 he became assistant secretary of state in the Hayes administration. Hay was named U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1897 when William McKinley became President. Some of the recognition of the longstanding community of interests between that country and the United States was the result of Hay's stay there. Journalism Career In 1870 he left government and worked for 6 years as an editor for the New York Tribune under Whitelaw Reid . Secretary of State In August 1898, Hay was named by President McKinley as Secretary of State and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1898, which ended the Spanish–American War. Hay continued serving as Secretary of State after Theodore Roosevelt succeeded McKinley, serving until his own death in 1905. He established the Open Door policy in China. Legacy His contributions included the adoption of an Open Door Policy in China (announced on January 2, 1900) which may have been a contributing factor in the Boxer Rebellion, and the preparations for the Panama Canal. He negotiated the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty (1901), the Hay–Herran Treaty (1903), and the Hay–Bunau Varilla Treaty (1903), all of which were instrumental in clearing the way for the construction and use of the Canal. In all, he brought about more than 50 treaties, including the settlement of the Samoan dispute, as a result of which the United States secured Tutuila, with a harbor in the Pacific; a definitive Alaskan boundary treaty in 1903; the negotiation of reciprocity treaties with Argentina, France, Germany, Cuba, and the British West Indies; the negotiation of new treaties with Spain; and the negotiation of a treaty with Denmark for the cession of the Danish West India Islands. In 1904, Hay was one of the first seven chosen for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Hay is also known for his comment, written in a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt, describing the Spanish–American War as a "splendid little war". Hay appears as a prominent character in Gore Vidal's historical novels Lincoln and Empire and in William Safire's historical novel Freedom. He appears, portrayed by John Huston, in the 1975 film The Wind and the Lion, a fictionalization of the Perdicaris Affair in Morocco in 1904. Steven Culp portrayed John ("Johnny") Hay in the 1988 miniseries Lincoln, based on Vidal's book. He is portrayed in the 1997 miniseries Rough Riders by actor and retired United States Marine R. Lee Ermey. After Roosevelt signed an executive order setting aside land in the Benguet region of the Philippines for a military reservation under the United States Army, Camp John Hay of Baguio City was established on October 25, 1903 and named in his honor. It was re-designated John Hay Air Base in 1955. The base was used for rest and recreation for U.S. military personnel and the dependents of U.S. military personnel in the Philippines as well as Department of Defense employees and their dependents. The 690-hectare property was finally turned over to the Philippines 1991 upon the expiration of the R.P.-U.S. Bases Agreement. Since 1997 it has been in the hands of a private developer, on a long term lease, which has transformed the property into a world class resort. Hay was a close friend of Henry Brooks Adams, American historian and author. In 1884, architect Henry Hobson Richardson designed adjoining townhouses for Hay and Adams on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.. The houses were demolished in 1927 and the site is now occupied by the Hay–Adams Hotel. Brown University's John Hay Library housed the entire library collection from its construction in 1910 until the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library was built in 1964. In 1971, when physical science materials were transferred to the new Sciences Library, the John Hay Library became exclusively a repository for the library's Special Collections. Hay's New Hampshire estate has been conserved as part of the John Hay National Wildlife Refuge, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests' John Hay Land Studies Center, and the Garden Conservancy's Fells Reservation. The Fells, a local nonprofit organization that has maintained and managed the John Hay Estate on Lake Sunapee for over a decade, acquired the northern half of the property from the US Fish and Wildlife Service on March 25, 2008. Hay and Abraham Lincoln are depicted in a larger-than-life bronze sculpture by Mark Martino, entitled A Learning Moment, in the Sesquicentennial Plaza at Carthage College. Hay was an alumnus of the Illinois State University in Springfield (previously Hillsboro College), which later became Carthage College when it moved to Carthage, IL in 1870. Hay was a correspondent member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1900 until his death. Personal Life Hay married Clara Stone, a daughter of Amassa Stone of Cleveland, Ohio. They are buried together in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio. Their daughter Helen Julia Hay, a writer and poet, married Payne Whitney of the influential Whitney family; their children were U.S. ambassador John Hay Whitney and Joan Whitney Payson. Trivia Hay and Hillary Rodham Clinton are the only persons to have resided in the White House prior to becoming Secretary of State.)

The Best Poem Of John Hay

A Prayer In Thessaly

A lover prayed to Eros in this wise:-

Since my love loves not me, Eros! I pray
That thou wilt take this torturing love away.
But since she is so fair, still let mine eyes
Unloving, joy in her, her beauty prize;
Still let her clear voice ring as pure and gay
To my calm heart as mating birds in May.
The words went up the blue Thessalian skies.

But ere they reached the high god's golden seat,
The lover to retract his prayer was fain:

Nay, let me keep the bitter with the sweet,
Better than placid bliss is love's dear pain.
My love I'll hold and cherish though it prove
More blighting than the frowning brows of Jove.

John Hay Comments

J. Faraday 24 July 2020

Man and master of - at least - two worlds!

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