Gilder, Richard Watson

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

Richard Watson (1844-1909), an American editor and poet. He was a native of New Jersey and became managing editor of the Newark Advertiser. He was editor of Hours at Home, and in 1870, when that publication was merged with Scribner's Monthly, he became managing editor of the latter. Ten years later he succeeded J. G. Holland as editor-inchief, which position he retained after Scribner's became the present Century Magazine, and until his death, which occurred November 18, 1909. He has published many verses. Not only was he an editor and a poet, but he was a lecturer on great reforms and a recognized authority on public questions. A collection of Gilder's poems, published in 1894, entitled Five Books of Song, contains his best poems. He has also published In Palestine and Other Poems, and Poems and Inscriptions. A short poem on New York City, where Mr. Gilder made his home for many years, will serve as an example of his style: Oh, dear is the song of the pine When the wind of the night-time blows, And dear is the murmuring river That afar through my childhood flows; And soft is the raindrop's beat And the fountain's lyric play, But to me no music is half so sweet As the thunder of Broadway! Stream of the living world Where dash the billows of strife!- One plunge in the mighty torrent Is a year of tamer life! City of glorious days, Of hope, and labor, and mirth, With room, and to spare, on thy splendid bays For the ships of all the earth!