Clinton Scollard was a prolific American poet and occasional writer of fiction. He was a Professor of English at Hamilton College, and collaborator and husband of Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

Jessie Belle Rittenhouse Scollard , daughter of John Edward and Mary Rittenhouse, was a literary critic, compiler of anthologies, and poet. After graduating in 1890 from Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, Rittenhouse taught school in Cairo, Illinois and Grand Haven, Michigan...

.

Professional career

Scollard was born at Clinton, New York on 28 September 1860, son of James Isaac and Mary Elizabeth (Stevens) Scollard. He graduated from Hamilton College in 1881, and later attended Harvard,
,
where his friends included poets Bliss Carman

Bliss Carman

Bliss Carman FRSC was a Canadian poet who lived most of his life in the United States, where he achieved international fame. He was acclaimed as Canada's poet laureate during his later years....

 and Frank Dempster Sherman. After a period in Cambridge, Mass., he spent a year at Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 in England. In 1888 he became an Associate Professor of English at Hamilton College, where he remained until 1896. Except for a further year in the English Department at Hamilton College in 1911, he devoted the rest of his life to creative writing. Hamilton granted him an honorary L.H.D. in 1906.

Associates

Corresponded with Martha Foote Crowe. Oley Speaks

Oley Speaks

Oley Speaks was an accomplished composer and songwriter who was born in Canal Winchester, Franklin County, Ohio...

 composed the song "Sylvia" to lyrics by Scollard.

Family

On 3 July 1890 Scollard married Georgia Brown of Jackson, Michigan; they had one daughter, but they divorced in 1924. On 20 March 1924 Scollard married fellow poet Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

Jessie Belle Rittenhouse

Jessie Belle Rittenhouse Scollard , daughter of John Edward and Mary Rittenhouse, was a literary critic, compiler of anthologies, and poet. After graduating in 1890 from Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in Lima, New York, Rittenhouse taught school in Cairo, Illinois and Grand Haven, Michigan...

. They had no children and he died in 1932.

Assessment

Scollard has been characterized as a minor poet but a fine technician:

He knew himself to be a fine craftsman, able to fashion delicate lyrics that forbear contemplative weight for perfection in form. His verse delights in the natural world, in small incidents that are honed to perfection. It is easy to view him as a Frost without the philosophy.

Principal Works of Verse

• Pictures in Song (1884)
• With Reed and Lyre (1886)
• Old and New World Lyrics (1888)
• Songs of Sunrise Lands (1982)
• Under Summer Skies (1892)
• On Sunny Shores (1893)
• The Hills of Song (1895)
• The Lutes of Morn (1901)
• Lyrics of the Dawn (1902)
• The Lyric Bough (1904)
• A Southern Flight (1906) (with Frank Dempster Sherman)
• Blank Verse Pastels (1907)
• Chords of the Zither (1910)
• Poems (1914)
• Sprays of Shamrock (1914)
• Italy in Arms, and Other Poems(1915)
• Vale of Shadows and Other Verses of the Great War (1915)
• Ballads, Patriotic and Romantic (1916)
• The Poems of Frank Dempster Sherman, Ed. Clinton Scollard (1917)
• The Bird-Lovers' Anthology, Compiled by Clinton Scollard and Jessie Belle Rittenhouse (1930)
• Patrician Rhymes; a Résumé of American Society Verse from Philip Freneau to the Present Day, Ed. by Clinton Scollard and Jessie B. Rittenhouse (1932)
• Songs from a Southern Shore (1932)
• The Singing Heart; Selected Lyrics and Other Poems of Clinton Scollard Ed. by Jessie B. Rittenhouse (1934)

External links