Let Us Have Faith
by Helen Keller (1940)

Security is mostly a superstition.
It does not exist in nature,
nor do the children of men
as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer
in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
To keep our faces toward change and
behave like free spirits
in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

In 1893, when she was 13, Helen wrote what she described as “a word picture of Autumn as I see it with the eyes of my soul.” The poem would go on to be published in a magazine, but she typed a copy for herself and inscribed it to her friend, Alexander Graham Bell. As you read the poem, think about how writers communicate their personal thoughts and feelings with readers whose experiences may have been very different from their own:

AUTUMN
by Helen Keller, (1893)

Oh, what a glory doth the world put on
These peerless, perfect autumn days
There is a beautiful spirit of gladness everywhere,
The wooded waysides are luminous with brightly painted leaves;
The forest-trees with royal grace have donned
Their gorgeous autumn tapestries;
And even the rocks and fences are broidered
With ferns, sumachs and brilliantly tinted ivies.
But so exquisitely blended are the lights and shades,
The golds, scarlets and purples, that no sense is wearied;
For God himself hath painted the landscape.

The hillsides gleam with golden corn;
Apple and peach-trees bend beneath their burdens of golden fruit.
The golden-rods, too, are here, whole armies of them,
With waving plumes, resplendent with gold;
And about the wild grapes, purple and fair and full of sunshine,
The little birds southward going
Linger, like travelers at an Inn,
And sip the perfumed wine.
And far away the mountains against the blue sky stand
Calm and mysterious, like prophets of God,
Wrapped in purple mist.
 
But now a change o’er the bright and glorious sky has come
The threatening clouds stand still,
The silent skies are dark and solemn;
The mists of morning hide the golden face of day.
And a mysterious hand has stripped the trees;
And with rustle and whir the leaves descend,
And like little frightened birds
Lie trembling on the ground.
Bare and sad the forest-monarchs stand
Like kings of eld, all their splendor swept away.

And down from his ice-bound realm in the North
Comes Winter, with snowy locks, and tear-drops frozen on his cheeks;
For he is the brother of Death, and acquainted with Sorrow.
Autumn sees him from afar,
And, as a child to her father runneth,
She to the protecting arms of kindly Winter fleeth;
And in his mantle of snow
Tenderly he folds her lovely form,
And on his breast she falls asleep
re yet the storm-winds have loosed their fury
Upon a white and silent world.

She sleeps unconscious of the sorrow that must be,
And dreams perchance of sylvan music,
And the splendor that was, and will again be hers;

For Autumn dies not ’Tis as the Poet says:
“There is no Death What seems is so transition.”
All that is divine lives
In some nobler sphere, some fairer form.

 

Hello, and welcome back to Poetry Wednesday 5/13/09. You can sign in today and take the tour thru Thursday, so take your time.

Before we get started, please make sure that your post has a link to get back to this page to make it easier to take the tour:

1) Copy and paste the following link that I have provided for you from this page to somewhere on your poetry post.

Link back to the Poetry Wednesday tour on Laurita’s page

2) Leave the link of your poetry post in the comments section below. This is the link guests will click on to read your poem.

Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. The story of how Keller’s teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the isolation imposed by a near complete lack of language, allowing the girl to blossom as she learned to communicate, has become known worldwide through the dramatic depictions of the play and film, The Miracle Worker.

A prolific author, Keller was well traveled and was outspoken in her opposition to war. She campaigned for women’s suffrage, workers’ rights, and socialism, as well as many other progressive causes.

Helen Adams Keller was born at an estate called Ivy Green in Tuscumbia, Alabama, on June 27, 1880, to Captain Arthur H. Keller, a former officer of the Confederate Army, and Kate Adams Keller, a cousin of Robert E. Lee and daughter of Charles W. Adams, a former Confederate general. The Keller family originates from Germany.

Helen Keller was not born blind and deaf; it was not until she was nineteen months old that she contracted an illness described by doctors as “an acute congestion of the stomach and the brain,” which could possibly have been scarlet fever or meningitis. The illness did not last for a particularly long time, but it left her deaf and blind.

At that time, her only communication partner was Martha Washington, the six-year-old daughter of the family cook, who was able to create a sign language with her; by the age of seven, she had over sixty home signs to communicate with her family. According to Soviet blind-deaf psychologist A. Meshcheryakov, Martha’s friendship and teaching was crucial for Helen’s later developments.

In 1886, her mother, inspired by an account in Charles Dickens‘ American Notes of the successful education of another deaf and blind child, Laura Bridgman, dispatched young Helen, accompanied by her father, to seek out Dr. J. Julian Chisolm, an eye, ear, nose, and throat specialist in Baltimore, for advice. He subsequently put them in touch with Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell advised the couple to contact the Perkins Institute for the Blind, the school where Bridgman had been educated, which was then located in South Boston. Michael Anaganos, the school’s director, asked former student Anne Sullivan, herself visually impaired and then only 20 years old, to become Keller’s instructor.

It was the beginning of a 49-year-long relationship, eventually evolving into governess and then eventual companion.

In 1940, Helen graduated from Radcliffe College with honours. She then became a lecturer. After World War II (1939-1945), she visited wounded veterans in United States’ hospitals and lectured in Euroupe on behalf of physically handicappped people. If Helen didn’t have the courage to learn Braille and to speak she wouldn’t have been able to communicate her ideas to all the people she spoke to around the world.

Helen Keller helped raise enough money to build schools to educate deaf, blind, and mute students. She wrote books to tell blind, deaf, and mute people that they are just ordinary people. She wrote books to tell people not to tease or hurt people who had disabilities beacause they were not any different from them. Helen made sign language better and easier to understand by re-doing it using her own ideas. If it weren’t for Helen Keller, deaf and blind students wouldn’t have as much education as they do today. Helen’s life was so different from others but she accomplished so much.

Mine To Keep

They took away what should have been my eyes
But I remembered Milton’s Paradise.

They took away what should have been my ears,
But Beethoven came and wiped away my tears.

They took away what should have been my tongue,
But I had talked with God when I was young.

He would not let them take away my soul –
Possessing that, I still possess the whole.

–Helen Keller (1880-1968)

The Influence of Alexander Graham Bell

Most Americans know Alexander Graham Bell as an inventor of the telephone. But few know that the central interest of his life was education for deaf children or that he was one of the strongest proponents of oralism in the United States.

Bell and his father before him studied the physiology of speech. His mother was hard of hearing, and while she had enough hearing to use an ear tube for one-on-one conversations, Bell often used the British, two-handed manual alphabet to communicate with her.

He also knew the sign language used in the United States. Through articles, papers, speeches, and teaching, Bell’s support of oral education profoundly changed the way deaf children were taught.

Bell was a pragmatist who was willing to use sign language or other means to communicate with deaf adults. With children, however, he advocated a strictly oral education, without any signing.

Bell was helpful in finding a teacher for Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind.

In the photograph above, Keller and Bell talk with assistance from Annie Sullivan, Keller’s teacher and mentor.

Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904.

The Miracle Worker – Final Scene

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

~ John Newton (1725 – 1807)