Introduction
Introduction
Born: August 19, 1883, New Britain, Connecticut.
Died: November 1, 1918, Lahore, India (now Pakistan). Perished in the influenza pandemic.
Born: August 19, 1883, New Britain, Connecticut.
Died: November 1, 1918, Lahore, India (now Pakistan). Perished in the influenza pandemic.
Howard was the son of Henry Stanley Walter and Martha A. Arnold, and husband of Marguerite B. Darlington (married 1910).
In 1905, he graduated with honors from Princeton University, New Jersey. He went on to study at Hartford Theological Seminary, Connecticut; in Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland; and in Göttingen, Germany.
At age 23, he spent a year teaching English at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.
After ordination, he became assistant pastor at the Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut.
Walter later became a missionary with the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA). As of about 1920, he was Literary Secretary for the National Council of the YMCA of India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
Doctors had advised against his going, due to his weak heart, but he insisted he must be true.
He died while working at the Forman Christian College in Lahore.
Baby sleep, the night is nearing,
Softest twilight tints, appearing.
Dim the garish sunset splendor,
Bathe the earth in shadows slender.
Blinking star-eyes none can number
Watch above thy peaceful slumber,
Guard thy breast from every danger;
Stars that watched above a manger.
Long and long ago.
Baby sleep, the shades are falling,
Voices of the night are calling.
From the depths of dreamy distance.
Echoes of a far existence.
Now the moon, all wan and hoary,
Floods the earth with argent glory,
Down his silver path of pardon
Moon that shone upon a garden,
Long and long ago.
Baby sleep, till evanescent
Dawn receives the silver crescent
In its bosom,tawny, glistening.
When the birds, alert and listening,
Carol forth the fragrant morning.
Mist-hung earth and sky adorning,
Gilded with the sun’s reflection
Morn that viewed a resurrection.
Long and long ago.
Howard Arnold Walter
My Creed, and Other Poems, 1912