Happy Holidays to everyone! Please enjoy a reflective Thanksgiving poem written by Ellen M. Ferris (1843-1876), daughter of Charles Drake Ferris (1812-1850) and niece of Warren Angus Ferris (1810-1873). This poem was published in a Buffalo, New York newspaper (date unknown). Ms. Ferris clipped this and over a 1000 published poems which she admired (including her own) and placed them in her commonplace book collection. The poetry can be found in the Ferris/Lovejoy collection of family papers at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

THANKSGIVING

By Ellen M. Ferris

Through sombre aisles and vaulted roof

The organ-tones are swelling,

Their grand and solemn harmonies

Of some high service telling;

And now in murmurs soft and low,

And now in cadence thrilling,

With under-tones of melody

The singers’ voices filling.

“All glory be to God on high”-

So chant the choral voices-

“In whom we live and breathe and move,

In whom the world rejoices;

Who sends the sunshine and the rain,

With food for all the living;

To Him our grateful hearts we raise

With praises and thanksgiving.”

A mother to the chancel rail

Her little child is leading,

With rich thank-offerings to God,

Who heard her anguished pleading.

But while for mercies great and strange

Her costly tribute paying,

Forgets the mercies day by day

Upon her path arraying.

For each day is a miracle

Of blessing and forgiving;

God’s tender pity, like the sky,

Enfoldeth all the living.

We take the gifts His bounty sends

Ungrateful and cold-hearted,

Without a thought of love or praise,

Till from us they are parted.

We set aside one meagre day

Of all our yearly treasure,

Wherewith to pay the homage due

For blessings beyond measure.

But Thou be merciful, O God,

Consider Thou our weakness;

Accept the tribute which we pay,

Though late, with awe and meekness.

Turn Thou our hearts, that we may see

All things are of Thy sending,

And lift an endless song of praise

For mercies never-ending;

Till all the radiant angelhood

Shall aid our poor endeavor

To magnify the Lord our God,

And praise His name forever.

Blog written by Christine Cohen. Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

Descendants of those buried in the Warren Ferris Cemetery and anyone interested in sharing historical information about the cemetery are encouraged to write with stories, additions, and corrections. Please contact me at greyhairfarm@yahoo.com

Warren Angus Ferris and his brother, Charles Drake Ferris, were both gifted writers. Although they received limited formal education, the Ferris brothers were well read, with interests in history, literature, mathematics, the arts, and language. The Ferris/Lovejoy collection of family papers reveals an entire family of skilled writers of prose and verse.

Charles Drake Ferris and his wife Hester A. (Bivens) Ferris, had 5 children. Their daughter, Ellen May Ferris was born May 2nd, 1843. She graduated from Buffalo Central High School in 1861 and became a public school teacher. She died November 26, 1876, unmarried and without children. She possessed elegant literary ability and had a passion for poetry. Many of her poems were published in New York and Buffalo papers and periodicals. In 1867, her poem “Narcissus” won a literary prize of $50 worth of books from the Young Men’s Library Association of Buffalo. Ellen kept a scrap-book hoarding of poems written by herself and by other poets whom she admired. The scrap-book has over 1000 poems which she clipped from newspapers and pasted into her collection. It’s a beautiful collection of writing that gives the reader an inside view of the wonders and woes of the people during their times and times past. Interestingly, there are several poems capturing the expressions of emotions from citizens during the Civil War. The scrap-book is held at the Tom L. Perry Special Collections Library at BYU in Provo, Utah. It is my hope to someday see this poem collection made public, either through a published collection or through a website.

The story of Narcissus is an intriguing tale from Greek mythology. Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was known to be a very beautiful young man. After rejecting all romantic advances from others, he eventually falls in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. He vainly stares at his own image for the rest of his life. After he died, a golden flower sprouted, bearing his name. His story is a warning against vanity and self-adoration, thus the origin of the term narcissism.

NARCISSUS by Ellen May Ferris (1867)

He lay reclining on a fountain's brink,

Narcissus, fairest youth of mortal mold;

Half-closed his radiant eyes, adown his neck

Wide rolled his hair in waves of living gold;

The earth was lapped in summer's purple haze,

Enamored zephyrs kissed his ivory brow,

The fountain murinured softly in his ear,

A wild bird twittered from a neighboring bough;

All summer sights, all pleasant summer sounds

Allured him, and he drank in their delight,

And in delicious languors steeped his soul,

As flowers are steeped in sunshine hot and bright -

But at his heart eternal longing lay,

A longing that half pleasure was, half pain;

A dream of beauty never yet fulfilled,

A dream whose substance he had sought in vain.

“Why did the gods make me thus beautiful,

Why give me this sweet sense of all things fair,

Yet place me lonely, in a lonely land

With no dear soul my happiness to share?

“For oh! it is a blessedness to feel

Myself thus beautiful and I am blest;

But were there yet some fair and golden head

To smooth its curls, to pillow on my breast;

“To gather kisses from its vermeil lips,

To answer in low silver speech to mine,

To read soft passion in its tender eyes,

Oh! then were life, indeed, a thing divine.

“Yet, there are many young and many fair,

And some who love me. It perchance were well

If I could win some fond and gentle nymph

And in sweet peace and calm affection dwell.

“But they who from the gods have godlike gifts

Seem by their very gifts men set apart

From all the world; by common joys and griefs

Untouched, no common love can fill the heart.

“And such am I, and thus I wait and watch

For her, the goddess beautiful and bright,

Who shall unlock the chambers of my soul

And bring its secret treasures forth to light.

“I feel —I feel the appointed hour has come,

I feel — I feel the goddess now is near;

The murmuring fountain seems to call her name.

O love, my beautiful! appear! appear!

And gazing down into the crystal pool

What face is this smiles up into his own?

Oh! never since on mortal's favored sight

Hath face of such unearthly fairness shone.

Half-parted were the lips of vermeil bloom,

The azure eyes of amorous passion told;

Adown the ivory brow and polished neck,

Wide rolled the hair in waves of living gold.

Entranced he gazed upon the pictured face,

Wildly he called the goddess, but in vain.

She smiled upon him with soft luring eyes,

She smiled and smiled but answered not again.

Unhappy youth, well works the evil charm,

Who loves himself too well shall woe betide.

Thenceforth none knew Narcissus in the land,

But by that fatal pool he pined and died.

Blog written by Christine Cohen. Great granddaughter (X3) of Warren Angus Ferris. Great granddaughter (X2) of Henry Ferris.

THANKSGIVING by Ellen M. Ferris

Ferris Family: Lovers of Prose and Verse