Septimus Winner

Septimus Winner Poems

Septimus Winner Biography

Septimus Winner (11 May 1827 - 22 November 1902) is best known as a songwriter of the nineteenth century. He used his own name, and also the pseudonyms Alice Hawthorne, Percy Guyer, Mark Mason, Apsley Street, and Paul Stenton. He was also a teacher, performer, and music publisher. Winner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the seventh child to Joseph E. Winner (an instrument maker specializing in violins) and wife Mary Ann. Mary Ann Winner was a relative of Nathaniel Hawthorne, hence Septimus' use of the Hawthorne name as part of his Alice Hawthorne. Winner attended Philadelphia Central High School. Although largely self-taught in the area of music, he did take lessons from Leopold Meignen around 1853, but by that time he was already an established instrumental teacher, and performed locally with various ensembles. From around 1845 to 1854, Septimus Winner partnered with his brother Joseph Eastburn Winner (1837 - 1918) as music publishers. Septimus continued in the business with various partners and names up until 1902. Winner was especially popular for his ballads published under the pseudonym of Alice Hawthorne, which became known generically as "Hawthorne's Ballads". His brother was also a composer, publishing under the alias Eastburn. Septimus Winner was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970. In addition to composing popular songs, Winner also produced more than 200 instruction method books for more than twenty-three instruments. He wrote more than 1,500 easy arrangements for various instruments and almost 2,000 arrangements for violin and piano.)

The Best Poem Of Septimus Winner

What Is Home Without A Mother

1.

What is home without a mother,
What are all the joys we meet?
When her loving smile no longer
Greets the coming of our feet;
The days seem long, the nights are drear,
And time rolls slowly on,
And oh how few are childhoods pleasures,
When her gentle gentle care is gone.

2.

Things we prize are first to vanish;
Hearts we love to pass away.
And how soon, e'en in our childhood,
We behold her turning gray;
Her eye grows dim, her step is slow,
Her joys of earth are past;
And sometimes 'ere we learn to know her,
She hath breath'd on earth her last.

3.

Older hearts may have their sorrows,
Griefs that quickly die away;
But a mother lost in childhood,
Grieves the heart from day to day.
We miss her kind, her willing hand;
Her fond and earnest care;
And oh! how dark is life around us,
What is home without her there.

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