Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories

300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.

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	STABS OF THE SUMMER NIGHT.		233
	Stars of the summer night! Far in your azure deeps, Hide, hide your golden light! She sleeps! My lady sleeps! Sleeps! Moon of the summer night! Far down yon western steeps, Sink, sink in silver light! She sleeps! My lady sleeps! Sleeps!	Wind of'the summer night! Where yonder woodbine creeps, Fold, fold thy pinions light! She sleeps! My lady sleeps! Sleeps! Dreams of the summer night! Tell her, her lover keeps Watch, while in slumbers light She sleeps! My lady sleeps! Sleeps!
	MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE. Eichard Henry Wilde, author of " My Life is like the Summer Bose," was born in Dublin, Ireland, September 24, 1789. Just after his birth, the family came to this country, and suffered the total loss of a considerable fortune. Mr. Wilde died, and his widow opened a milliner's store in Augusta, Georgia. Her little son, Eichard Henry, was her clerk by day, and her pupil at night. He studied with delight, and rapidly developed remarkable powers. Italian literature gave him peculiar pleasure, and after serving two terms in Congress, he went to Italy, where he discovered valuable documents which threw light upon the life and times of Dante. He also learned that there was upon the wall of the chapel of Barghello, a painting by Giotto, and, finally, obtained money and permission to investigate. The whitewash had been carefully removed from two sides without result, but upon the third the painting was discovered. Wilde returned to this country, practiced law very successfully in New Orleans, and held the professorship of common law in the University of Louisiana. He died in New Orleans, September 10, 1846. The following lyric was the subject of a long literary debate. The North American Review made a bold charge of plagiarism, because a Greek ode had come to light, purports ing to have been written by Alcseus, which contained the ideas expressed in Mr. Wilde's poem. The same article said that an almost verbatim copy of the English version had been published as originating with O'Kelly, author of the " Curse of Doneraile." The reviewer supposed both to have been translated from the Greek ode. The charge became so serious and wide-spread, that Mr. Wilde wrote to the gentleman who, he understood, had translated his song into Greek, and received in reply from Mr. Anthony Barclay, for many years a resident of Savannah, the following statements: