Poems
by
George P. Morris

Part 1 out of 6








This eText prepared by Brett Fishburne (bfish@atlantech.net)





Poems

by George P. Morris




Contents.




Memoir
The Deserted Bride
The Main-Truck; Or, A Leap For Life
Poetry
The Croton Ode
Fragment of an Indian Poem
Land-Ho!
Woodman, Spare that Tree
The Cottager's Welcome
Land of Washington
The Flag of Our Union
Lines After the Manner of Olden Time
The Dream of Love
I'm With You Once Again
Oh, Would That She Were Here
The Sword and the Staff
The Chieftain's Daughter
Thy Will Be Done
Life in the West
Song of Marion's Men
Janet Morea
Lisette
My Mother's Bible
The Dog-Star Rages
Legend of the Mohawk
The Ball-Room Belle
We Were Boys Together
Oh, Boatman, Haste
Funeral Hymn
O'er the Mountains
Woman
Rosabel
Thy Tyrant Sway
A Hero of the Revolution
Rhyme and Reason: An Apologue
Starlight Recollections
Wearies My Love of My Letters?
Fare Thee Well, Love
Thou Hast Woven the Spell
Bessie Bell
The Day is Now Dawning, Love
When Other Friends are Round Thee
Silent Grief
Love Thee, Dearest?
I Love the Night
The Miniature
The Retort
Lines on a Poet
The Bacchanal
Twenty Years Ago
National Anthem
I Love Thee Still
Look From Thy Lattice, Love
She Loved Him
The Suitors
St. Agnes' Shrine
Western Refrain
The Prairie on Fire
The Evergreen
The May-Queen
Venetian Serenade
The Whip-Poor-Will
The Exile to His Sister
Near the Lake Where Drooped the Willow
The Pastor's Daughter
Margaretta
The Colonel
The Sweep's Carol
The Seasons of Love
My Woodland Bride
Oh, Think of Me
My Bark is Out Upon the Sea
Will Nobody Marry Me?
The Star of Love
Well-A-Day
Not Married Yet
Lady of England
Oh, This Love
Mary
The Beam of Devotion
The Welcome and Farewell
'Tis Now the Promised Hour
The Songs of Home
Masonic Hymn
The Dismissed
Lord of the Castle
The Fallen Brave
Song of the Troubadour
Champions of Liberty
The Hunter's Carol
Washington's Monument
The Sister's Appeal
Song of the Reapers
Walter Gay
Grounds For Divorce
Temperance Song
Boat-Song
Willie
The Rock of the Pilgrims
Years Ago
The Soldier's Welcome Home
The Origin of Yankee Doodle
Lines on the Burial of Mrs. Mary L. Ward
New-York in 1826
The Hero's Legacy
What Can It Mean
Where Hudson's Wave
Au Revoir
To My Absent Daughter
Song of the Sewing Machine
My Lady Waits For Me
Music
The Millionaire
In Memory of Charles H. Sandford
Seventy-Six
A Parody
The Stag-Hunt
Deliver Us From Evil
Union
We Part For Ever
Come to Me in Cherry Time
On the Death of Mrs. Jessie Willis
Thank God for Pleasant Weather
The Master's Song
The Missing Ship
Jeannie Marsh
Lucy
Epitaph
In Memory of John W. Francis, Jr
Nature's Noblemen
A Wall-Street Lyric
King Cotton
Words Adapted to a Spanish Melody
Love in Exile
To the Evening Star
Welcome Home
The Sycamore Shade
Up the Hudson
Only Thine
Epigram on Reading Grim's Attack upon Clinton
On Hearing that Morse Did Not Invent the Telegraph

Address for the Benefit of William Dunlop
Address for the Benefit of J. Sheridan Knowles
Address for the Benefit of Henry Placide

The Maid of Saxony: Or, Who's the Traitor?
Ho! Hans!--Why, Hans!
Rejoice! Rejoice! We're Safe and Sound
The Life For Me is a Soldier's Life
Confusion! Again Rejected!
When I behold that Lowering Brow
'Tis a Soldier's Rigid Duty
The Spring-Time of Love is Both Happy and Gay
From My Fate There's No Retreating
Lads and Lasses Trip Away
All Hail the King!
Home
Sky, Stream, Moorland, and Mountain
Dared These Lips My Sad Story Impart
Fiery Mars, Thy Votary Hear
Ah! Love is not a Garden-Flower
The King, The Princes of the Court
Victoria! Victoria!
This Gloomy Cell is my Abode at Last
Hark! 'Tis the Deep-Toned Midnight Bell
Once, Mild and Gentle was my Heart
The Gentle Bird on Yonder Spray
That Law's the Perfection of Reason
With Mercy Let Justice
What Outrage More?--At Whose Command
The Javelin From an Unseen Hand
Rejoice! Our Loyal Hearts We Bring
Our Hearts are Bounding with Delight

Notes
The Deserted Bride
The Croton Ode
Woodman, Spare That Tree
The Chieftain's Daughter
Song of Marion's Men
Janet McRea
The Dog-Star Rages
The Prairie on Fire
The Sweep's Carol
The Fallen Brave of Mexico
The Champions of Liberty
The Rock of the Pilgrims
The Soldier's Welcome Home
The Origin of Yankee Doodle
New-York in 1826
The Maid of Saxony




Memoir of George P. Morris.


By Horace Binney Wallace.


Bless thou thy lot; thy simple strains have led
The high-born muse to be the poor man's guest,
And wafted on the wings of song, have sped
Their way to many a rude, unlettered breast.

-- Beranger.


Morris has hung the most beautiful thoughts in the world upon hinges
of [illegible]; and his songs are destined to roll over bright lips
enough to form a [sonnet? illegible]. His sentiments are simple,
honest, truthful, and familiar; his language is pure and eminently
musical, and he is prodigally full of the poetry of every-day
living.

-- Willis.




The distinction with which the name of General Morris is now
associated in a permanent connection with what is least factitious
or fugitive in American Art, is admitted and known; but the class
of young men of letters in this country, at present, can hardly
appreciate the extent to which they, and the profession to which
they belong, are indebted to his animated exertions, his varied
talents, his admirable resources of temper, during a period of twenty
years, and at a time when the character of American literature, both
at home and abroad was yet to be formed. The first great service
which the literary taste of this country received, was rendered by
Dennie; a remarkable man; qualified by nature and attainments to
be a leader in new circumstances; fit to take part in the formation
of a national literature; as a vindicator of independence in thought,
able to establish freedom without disturbing the obligations of
law; as a conservative in taste, skilful to keep the tone of the
great models with which his studies were familiar, without copying
their style; by both capacities successful in developing the one,
unchangeable spirit of Art, under a new form and with new effects.
In this office of field-marshal of our native forces, General
Morris succeeded him under increased advantages, in some respect
with higher powers, in a different, and certainly a vastly more
extended sphere of influence. The manifold and lasting benefits
which, as editor of "The Mirror," General Morris conferred on art and
artists of every kind, by his tact, his liberality, the superiority
of his judgement, and the vigor of his abilities; by the perseverance
and address with which he disciplined a corps of youthful writers,
in the presence of a constant and heavy fire from the batteries of
foreign criticism; by the rare combination, so valuable in dealing
with the numerous aspirants in authorship with whom his position
brought him in contact; of a quick, true eye to discern in the
modesty of some nameless manuscript the future promises of a power
hardly yet conscious of itself; a discretion to guide by sound
advice, and a generosity to aid with the most important kind of
assistance; the firm and open temper which his example tended to
inspire into the relations of literary men with one another throughout
the land; and more than all, perhaps, by the harmony and union, of
such inappreciable value, especially in the beginning of national
effort, between the several sister arts of writing, music,
painting, and dramatic exhibition, which the singular variety and
discursiveness of his intellectual sympathies led him constantly
to maintain and vindicate; these, in the multiplicity of their
operation, and the full power of their joint effect, can be perfectly
understood only by those who possessed a contemporaneous knowledge
of the circumstances, and who, remembering the state of things
at the commencement of the period alluded to, and observing what
existed at the end of it, are able to look back over the whole interval, and see to what influences
and what persons the
extraordinary change which has taken place, is to be referred. If,
at this moment, the literary genius of America, renewed in youth,
and quivering lie the eagle's wings with excess of vigor, seems
about to make a new flight, from a higher vantage-ground, into
loftier depths of airy distance, the capacity to take that flight
must, to a great degree, be ascribed to those two persons whom we
have named; without whose services the brighter era which appears
now to be dawning, might yet be distant and doubtful.

Besides these particulars of past effort, which ought to make his
countrymen love the reputation of the subject of this notice, we
regret that our limits forbid us to speak at large of those more
intimate qualities of personal value, which, in our judgment, form
the genuine lustre of one who, admirable for other attainments, is
to be imitated in these.

To us it is an instinctive feeling that a wrong is done to the
proper grandeur of our complex nature--that a violence is offered
to the higher consciousness of our immortal being--whenever an
intellectual quality is extolled tot he neglect of a moral one.
Moral excellence is the most real genius; and a temper to cope and
calmly baffle the multitudinous assaults of the spiritual enmity
of active life, is a talent which outshines all praise of mental
endowments. Unhappily, the biographer of literary creators affords
few occasions in which a feeling of this kind can be indulged and
gratified: that sensibility of mental apprehensions which is the
fame of the author, is usually attended by a susceptibility of
passionate impression which is the fate of the man; and earth and
sense delight to wreak their destructive vengences upon the spiritual
nature of him, of whose intellectual being they are the slaves and
the sport. In the present instance, we are concerned with the
character--'totus, teres, atque rotundus;' which may be looked upon,
from every side, with an equal satisfaction. Search the wide world
over, and you shall not find among the literary men of any nation,
one on whom the dignity of a free and manly spirit sits with a
grace more native and familiar--whose spontaneous sentiments have
a truer tone of nobleness--the course of whose usual feelings is
more expanded and honorable--whose acts, whether common and daily,
or deliberate and much-considered, are wont at all times to be more
beautifully impressed with those marks of sincerity, of modesty, and
of justice, which form the very seal of worth in conduct. Those
jealousies, and littlenesses, and envyings, which prey upon
the spirits of many men, as the vulture on the heart that chained
Prometheus--and whose fierce besetment they who WILL be magnanimous,
have to fight off, as one drives away the eagles from their prey,
with voice and gestures--seem never to assail him. It is the
happiness of his nature to have THAT only absolute deliverance from
evil which is implied in being rendered insensible to temptation.
While the duty which is laid upon us, in this paper, mainly is to
open and set forth his poetic praises and claim the laurel for his
literary merits; when the crown of song is to be conferred upon
him, we shall interpose to beg that the chaplet may be accompanied
by some mark, or some inscription which shall declare,

"This is the reward of moral excellence."

For the success of our special purpose, in this notice, which is
to consider and make apparent the specific character which belongs
to General Morris as a literary artist and a poetic creator,
to explain his claims to that title which the common voice of the
country has given to him--of The Song-Writer of America--it would
have probably been more judicious had we kept out of view the
matters of which we have just spoken. It is recorded of a Grecian
painter, that having completed the picture of a sleeping nymph, he
added on the foreground the figure of a satyr gazing in amazement
upon her beauty; but finding that the secondary form attracted
universal praise, he erased it as diverting applause from that
which he desired to have regarded as the principal monument of his
skill. There is in this anecdote a double wisdom; the world is as
little willing to yield to a twofold superiority as it is able to
appreciate two distinct objects at once.

In a review of literary reputations, perhaps nothing is fitted to
raise more surprise than the obvious inequality in the extend and
greatness of the labors to which an equal reward of fame has been
allotted. The abounding energy and picturesque variety of Homer
are illustrated in eight-and-forty books: the remains of Sappho
might be written on the surface of a leaf of the laurus nobilis.
Yet if the one expands before us with the magnificent extent, the
diversified surface, the endless decorations of the earth itself,
the other hangs on high, like a lone, clear star--small but
intense--flashing upon us through the night of ages, invested with
circumstances of divinity not less unquestionable than those which
attend the venerable majesty of the Ancient of Song. The rich and
roseate light that shines around the name of Mimnermus, is shed
from some dozen or twenty lines: the immortality of Tyrtaeus rests
upon a stanza or two, which have floated to us with their precious
freight, over the sea of centuries, and will float on unsubmergible
by all the waves of Time. The soul of Simonides lives to us in
a single couplet; but that is the very stuff of Eternity, which
neither fire will assoil, nor tempest peril, nor the wrath of years
impair. The Infinite has no degrees; wherever the world sees in
any human being the fire of the Everlasting, it bows with equal
awe, whether that fire is displayed by only an occasional flash,
or by a prolonged and diffusive blaze. There is a certain tone
which, hear it when we may, and where we may, we know to be the
accents of the gods; and whether its quality be shown in a single
utterance, or its volume displayed in a thousand bursts of music,
we surround the band of spirits whom we there detect in their mortal
disguise, with equal ceremonies of respect and worship, hailing
them alike as seraphs of a brighter sphere--sons of the morning.
This is natural, and it is reasonable. Genius is not a degree of
other qualities, nor is it a particular way or extent of displaying
such qualities; it is a faculty by itself; it is a manner, of which
we may judge with the same certainty from one exhibition, as from
many. The praise of a poet, therefore, is to be determined not
by the nature of the work which he undertakes, but by the kind of
mastery which he shows; not by the breadth of surface over which
he toils, but by the perfectness of the result which he attains.
Mr. Wordsworth has vindicated the capacity of the sonnet to be
a casket of the richest gems of fame. We have no doubt that the
song may give evidence of a genius which shall deserve to be ranked
with the constructor of an epic. "Scorn not the SONG." We would
go so far, indeed, as to say that success in the song imports,
necessarily, a more inborn and genuine gift of poetic conception,
than the same proportion of success in other less simple modes of
art. There are some sorts of composition which may be wrought out
of eager feeling and the foam of excited passions; and which are
therefore to a large extent within the reach of earnest sensibilities
and an ambitious will; others are the spontaneous outflow of the
heart, to whose perfection, turbulence and effort are fatal. Of
the latter kind is the song. While the ode allows of exertion
and strain, what is done in it must be accomplished by native and
inherent strength.

Speaking with that confidence which may not improperly be assumed
by one who, having looked with some care at the foundations of the
opinion which he expresses, supposes himself able, if called upon
by denial, to furnish such demonstration of its truth as the nature
of the matter allows of, we say that, in our judgment, there is
no professed writer of songs, in this day, who has conceived the
true character of this delicate and peculiar creation of art, with
greater precision and justness than Mr. Morris, or been more felicitous
than he in dealing with the subtle and multiform difficulties that
beset its execution. It is well understood by those whose thoughts
are used to be conversant with the suggestions of a deeper analysis
than belongs to popular criticism, that the forms of literary art
are not indefinite in number, variable in their characteristics,
or determined by the casual taste or arbitrary will of authors:
they exist in nature; they are dependent upon those fixed laws of
intellectual being, of spiritual affection, and moral choice, which
constitute the rationality of man. And the actual, positive merit
of a poetical production--that real merit, which consists in native
vitality, in inherent capacity to live--does not lie in the glitter
or costliness of the decorations with which it is invested--nor
in the force with which it is made to spring from the mind of its
creator into the minds of others--nor yet in the scale of magnitude
upon which the ideas belonging to the subject are illustrated in
the work; but rather, as we suppose, obviously, and in all cases,
upon the integrity and truth with which the particular form that has
been contemplated by the artist, is brought out, and the distinctness
with which that one specific impression which is appropriate to
it, is attained. This is the kind of excellence which we ascribe
to Mr. Morris; an excellence of a lofty order; genuine, sincere, and
incapable of question; more valuable in this class of composition
than in any other, because both more important and more difficult.
For the song appears to us to possess a definiteness peculiarly
jealous and exclusive; to be less flexible in character and to
permit less variety of tone than most other classes of composition.
If a man shall say, "I will put more force into my song than your
model allows, I will charge it with a greater variety of impressions,"
it is well; if he is skilful, he may make something that is very
valuable. But in so far as his work is more than a song, it is not
a song. In all works of Art--wherever form is concerned--excess
is error.

The just notion and office of the modern song, as we think of it,
is to be the embodiment and expression, in beauty, of some one
of those sentiments or thoughts, gay, moral, pensive, joyous, or
melancholy, which are as natural and appropriate, in particular
circumstances, or to certain occasions, as the odor to the flower;
rising at such seasons, into the minds of all classes of persons,
instinctive and unbidden, yet in obedience to some law of association
which it is the gift of the poet to apprehend. Its graceful
purpose is to exhibit an incident in the substance of an emotion,
to communicate wisdom in the form of sentiment; it is the refracted
gleam of some wandering ray from the fair orb of moral truth, which
glancing against some occurrence in common life, is surprised into
a smile of quick-darting, many colored beauty; it is the airy ripple
that is thrown up when the current of feeling in human hearts
accidentally encounters the current of thought and bubbles forth
with a gentle fret of sparkling foam. Self-evolved, almost, and
obedient in its development and shaping to some inward spark of
beauty which appears to possess and control its course, it might
almost seem that, in the out-going loveliness of such productions,
sentiment made substantial in language, floated abroad in natural
self-delivery; as that heat which is not yet flame, gives forth
in blue wreaths of vaporous grace, which unfold their delicateness
for a moment upon the tranquil air, and then vanish away. It is
not an artificial structure built up by intellect after a model
foreshaped by fancy, or foreshadowed by the instincts of the
passions; it is a simple emotion, crystalled into beauty by passing
for a moment through the cooler air of the mind; it is merely
an effluence of creative vigor; a graceful feeling thickened into
words. Its proper dwelling is in the atmosphere of the sentiments,
no the passions; it will not, indeed, repel the sympathy of deeper
feelings, but knows them rather under the form of the flower that
floats upon the surface of meditation, than of the deeper root that
lies beneath its stream. And this is the grievous fault of nearly
all Lord Byron's melodies; that he pierces them too profoundly, and
passes below the region of grace, charging his lyre with far more
vehemence of passion than its slight strings are meant to bear. The
beauty which belongs to this production, should be in the form of
the thought rather than the fashion of the setting: that genuineness
and simplicity of character which constitute almost its essence, are
destroyed by any appearance of the cold artifices of construction,
palpable springs set for our admiration, whereby the beginning
is obviously arranged in reference to a particular ending. This
is the short-reaching power of Moore--guilty, by design, of that
departure from simplicity, by which he fascinated one generation
at the expense of being forgotten by another. The song, while it
is general in its impression, should be particular in its occasion;
not an abstraction of the mind, but a definite feeling, special to
some certain set of circumstances. Rising from out the surface of
daily experience, like the watery issuings of a fountain, it throws
itself upward for a moment, then descends in a soft, glittering
shower to the level whence it rose. Herein resides the chief defect
of Bayly's songs; that they are too general and vague--a species
of pattern songs--being embodiments of some general feeling, or
reflection, but lacking that sufficient reference to some season
or occurrence which would justify their appearing, and take away
from them the aspect of pretension and display.

The only satisfactory method of criticism is by means of clinical
lectures; and we feel regret that our limits do not suffer us--to
any great degree--to illustrate what we deem the vigorous simplicity,
and genuine grace of Mr. Morris, by that mode of exposition. We
must refer to a few cases, however, to show what we have been meaning
in the remarks which we made above, upon the proper character of
the song. The ballad of "Woodman, spare that tree"--one of those
accidents of genius which, however, never happen but to consummate
artists--is so familiar to every mind and heart, as to resent
citation. Take, then, "My Mother's Bible." We know of no similar
production in a truer taste, in a purer style, or more distinctly
marked with the character of a good school of composition. Or
take "We were boys together." In manly pathos, in tenderness and
truth, where shall it be excelled? "The Miniature" posses the
captivating elegance of Voiture. "Where Hudson's Wave" is a glorious
burst of poetry, modulated into refinement by the hand of a master.
Where will you find a nautical song, seemingly more spontaneous in
its genial outbreak, really more careful in its construction, than
"Land-ho!" How full of the joyous madness of absolute independence,
yet made harmonious by instinctive grace, is "Life in the West!"
That the same heart whose wild pulse is thrilled by the adventurous
interests of the huntsman and the wanderer, can beat in unison
with the gentlest truth of deep devotion, is shown in "When other
Friends are round Thee." "I love the Night" has the voluptuous
elegance of the Spanish models. Were we to meet the lines "Oh, think
of me!" in an anthology, we should suppose they were Suckling's--so
admirably is the tone of feeling kept down to the limit of
probable sincerity--which is a characteristic that the cavalier
style of courting never loses. "The Star of Love" might stand as
a selected specimen of all that is most exquisite in the songs of
the "Trouveurs." "The Seasons of Love" is a charming effusion of
gay, yet thoughtful sentiment. The song, "I never have been false
to thee," is, of itself, sufficient to establish General Morris's
fame as a great poet--as a "potens magister affectuum"--and as
a literary creator of a high order. It is a thoroughly fresh and
effective poem on a subject as hackneyed as the highway; it is as
deep as truth itself, yet light as the movement of a dance. We had
almost forgotten, what the world will never forget, the matchless
softness and transparent delicacy of "Near the Lake." Those lines, of
themselves, unconsciously, court "the soft promoter of the poet's
strain," and almost seem about to break into music. It is agreeable
to find that, instead of being seduced into a false style by the
excessive popularity which many of his songs have acquired, General
Morris's later efforts are in a vein even more truly classic than
his earlier ones, and show a decided advance, both in power and
ease. "The Rock of the Pilgrims," and the "Indian Songs," are
a very clear evidence of this. We would willingly go on with our
references, as there are several which have equal claims with these
upon our notice, but--"claudite jam rivos."

Such are some of the compositions, original in style, natural in
spirit, beautiful with the charm of almost faultless execution,
which may challenge for their author the title of the lauraete of
America....

A writer in "Howitt's and the People's Journal" furnishes the
following sketch of General Morris and his Songs, which was copied
and endorsed by the late Dr. Rufus W. Griswold, in his International
Magazine:--

"Before us lies a heap of songs and ballads, the production of
the rich fancy and warm heart of George P. Morris. Not many weeks
since, at a public meeting in London, a gentleman claimed to be
heard speak on the ground of his connection with the public press
from the time when he was seven years of age. We will not undertake
to say that General Morris ran his juvenile fingers over the chords
of the lyre at so very early a period; but it is certain he tried
his hand at writing for the newspapers when he was yet but a mere
boy. While in his teens, he was a constant contributor to various
periodicals. Many of his articles attracted notice. He began to
acquire a literary reputation; and at length, in 1823, being then
in his twentieth year, he became editor of the 'New York Mirror.'
This responsible post he continued to hold until the termination
of the paper's existence in 1834.

"Morris accomplished an infinity of good in the twenty years
during which he wielded the editorial pen. Perhaps no other man in
the United States was so well qualified for the noble task he set
himself at the outset of his career as editor. American literature
was in its infancy, and subject to all the weaknesses of that period.
Morris resolved to do his utmost toward forming a character for
it, and looked abroad anxiously for such as could aid him in his
endeavor. The 'Mirror" will ever be fondly remembered by the American
literary man, for it has been the cradle of American genius.

"To him a writer in 'Graham's Magazine' attributes the present
flourishing condition and bright prospects of transatlantic literature.
He evidently possesses a personal knowledge of General Morris, and
discourses right eloquently in his praise. Nor do we think that
he overrates his merits in the least. From other sources we have
ourselves learned much of the genial nature of George P. Morris,
and his gigantic labors as a literary pioneer. Considering
its juvenility as a nation, republican America, indeed, has been
amazingly prolific of good writers. The large share Morris has had
in awakening the latent talent of his countrymen, must ever be to
him a high source of gratulation. And then, as an original writer,
he has won for himself a high place among literary Americans; he is,
in fact, known throughout the States as 'The Songwriter of America;'
and we have the authority of Willis for stating that 'ninety-nine
people out of a hundred--take them as they come in the census--would
find more to admire in Morris's Songs than in the writings of any
other American poet.' Willis also tells us, as proof of the General's
popularity with those shrewd dollar-loving men, the publishers,
that 'he can, at any time, obtain fifty dollars for a song unread,
when the whole remainder of the American Parnassus could not sell
one to the same buyer for a single shilling!' He is the best-known
poet of the country by acclamation--not by criticism.

"Morris seems to have had juster notions of what was required in
a song than many who have achieved celebrity as song-writers in
England. 'The just office and notion of the modern song' has been
defined to be, the embodiment and expression in beauty of some
thought or sentiment--gay, pensive, moral, or sentimental--which
is as natural and appropriate in certain circumstances as the odor
to the flower. Its graceful purpose is to exhibit an incident in
the substance of an emotion, to communicate wisdom in the form of
sentiment. A song should be the embodiment of some general feeling,
and have reference to some season or occurrence.

"It is not a difficult thing to make words rhyme; some of the most
unimaginative intellects we ever knew could do so with surprising
facility. It is rare to find a sentimental miss or a lackadaisical
master who cannot accomplish this INTELLECTUAL feat, with the help
of Walker's Rhyming Dictionary. As for love, why, every one writes
about it now-a-days. There is such an abhorrence of the simple
Saxon--such an outrageous running after outlandish phraseology--that
we wonder folks are satisfied with this plain term.

"We wonder they do not seek for an equivalent in high Dutch or in
low Dutch, in Hungarian, or in Hindostanee. We wish they would,
with all our heart and soul. We have no objection, provided the
heart be touched, that a head should produce a little of the stuff
called 'nonsense verses'--that this article should be committed to
scented note-paper, and carefully sealed up with skewered hearts
of amazing corpulence. God forbid that we should be thought guilty
of a sneer at real affection!--far from it; such ever commands our
reverence. But we do not find it in the noisy tribe of goslings
green who would fain be thought of the nightingale species. Did
the reader ever contemplate a child engaged in the interesting
operation of sucking a lollipop?--we assure him that that act was
dictated by quite as much of true sentiment as puts in action the
fingers and wits of the generality of our young amatory poetasters.

"We know of none who have written more charmingly of love than George
P. Morris. Would to Apollo that our rhymsters would condescend to
read carefully his poetical effusions! But they contain no straining
after effect--no extravagant metaphors--no driveling conceits; and
so there is little fear of their being taken as models by those
gentlemen. Let the reader mark the surprising excellence of the
love songs; their perfect naturalness; the quiet beauty of the
similes; the fine blending of graceful thought and tender feeling
which characterize them. Morris is, indeed, the poet of home joys.
None have described more eloquently the beauty and dignity of true
affection--of passion based upon esteem; and his fame is certain
to endure while the Anglo-Saxon woman has a hearthstone over which
to repeat her most cherished household words.

"Seldom have the benign effects of the passion been more felicitously
painted than in the 'Seasons of Love'; and what simple tenderness
is contained in the ballad of 'We were boys together.' Every word
in that beautiful melody comes home to the heart of him whose early
days have been happy. God help those in whom this poem awakens no
fond remembrances!--those whose memories it does not get wandering
up the stream of life, toward its source; beholding at every step
the sun smiling more brightly, the heavens assuming a deeper hue,
the grass a fresher green, and the flowers a sweeter perfume. How
wondrous are not its effects upon ourselves! The wrinkles have
disappeared from our brow, and the years from our shoulder, and
the marks of the branding-iron of experience from our heart; and
again we are a careless child, gathering primroses, and chasing
butterflies, and drinking spring-water from out the hollow
of our hands. Around us are the hedges 'with golden gorse bright
blossoming, as none blossom now-a-day.' We have heard of death,
but we know not what it is; and the word CHANGE has no meaning for
us; and summer and winter, and seed-time and harvest, has each its
unutterable joys. Alas! we can never remain long in this happy
dream-land. Nevertheless, we have profited greatly by the journey.
The cowslips and violets gathered by us in childhood, shall be
potent in the hour of temptation; and the cap of rushes woven for
us by kind hands in days gone by, shall be a surer defence than
a helmet of steel in the hour of battle. No, no; we will never
disgrace our antecedents.

"There is one quality in his songs to which we can not but direct
attention--and this is their almost feminine purity. The propensities
have had their laureates; and genius, alas! has often defiled its
angel wings by contact with the sensual and the impure; but Morris
has never attempted to robe vice in beauty; and as has been well
remarked, his lays can bring to the cheek of purity no blush save
that of pleasure."

The following letter, from the pen of Grace Greenwood, is a lady's
tribute to the genius of the poet:--

"I have read of late, with renewed pleasure and higher appreciation,
the songs and ballads of our genial-hearted countryman, Morris. I
had previously worried myself by a course of rather dry reading,
and his poetry, tender, musical, fresh, and natural, came to me like
spring's first sunshine, the song of her first birds, the breath
of her first violets.

"What a contrast is this pleasant volume to the soul-racking "Festus,"
which has been one of my recent passions. That remarkable work
has passages of great beauty and power, linked in unnatural marriage
with much that is poor and weak. It is like a stately ruined
palace,


'Mingling its marble with the dust of Rome;'


or it is like its own fabled first temple built to God, in the
new earth--a multitude of gems, swallowed by an earthquake, and
scattered through a world of baser matter. The soul of the reader
now faints with excess of beauty, now shudders at the terrible and
the revolting. the young poet's muse at times goes like Proserpine
to gather flowers, but straightway is seized by the lord of the
infernal regions, and disappears in flame and darkness. The entire
volume is a poetical Archipelago--isles of loveliness sprinkling
a dead sea of unprofitable matter.

"It were absurd to compare the light and graceful poems of Morris
with the work "Festus"--a simple Grecian arch with a stupendous
Turkish mosque--an Etruscan vase with a Gothic tower. Yet there are
doubtless many who will prefer the perfect realization of modest
aspirations, to grand, but ineffectual graspings after glory's highest
and most divine guerdons--a quiet walk with truth and nature, to
an Icarus flight of magnificent absurdities.

"It has been said that the author of 'Long time ago' has rung
too many changes on the sentiment and passion of LOVE. Love, the
inspiration of the glorious bards of old,


'Who play upon the heart as on a harp,
And make our eyes bright as we speak of them;'


'love ever-new, everlasting, fresh, and beautiful, now as when
the silence of young Eden was thrilled, but scarce broken, by the
voice of the first lover--a joy and a source of joy for ever.'

"I know it is much the fashion now-a-days, to hold in lordly contempt
many of those sweet and holy influences which are--

'As angel hands, enclosing ours,
Leading us back to Paradisean bowers.'


"Love and liberty are fast becoming mere abstractions to the
enlightened apprehension of some modern wise men. It is sad to see
how soon those white-winged visitors soil their plumage and change
their very nature by a mere descent into the philosophic atmosphere
of such mind. One is reminded of the words of Swedenborg--'I saw
a great truth let down from heaven into hell, and it THERE BECAME
A LIE.'

"This cynical objection to the lays of our minstrel, surely never
could have emanated from the heart of WOMAN. SHE is ever loyal
to love--that tender and yearning principle in the bosom of the
Father, from which and by which the feminine nature was created.

"The poems of Morris are indeed like those flowers of old, born of
the blood-drops which oozed from the wounded foot of the queen of
love--blushing crimson to the very heart; yet there is not, to my
knowledge, in the whole range of English literature, so large a
collection of amatory songs in which sensualism and voluptuousness
find no voice. These lays can bring to the cheek of purity no blush,
save that of pleasure--the mother may sing them to her child, the
bride to her young husband.

"'Festus' has an eloquent reply to such as hold love a theme unworthy
the true bard:--


'Poets are all who love--who feel great truths,
And tell them; and the truth of truths is LOVE.'


"The muse of Morris was Poesy's own 'summer child.' Hope, love,
and happiness, sunny-winged fancies and golden-hued imaginings,
have nested in his heart like birds.

"His verse does not cause one to tremble and turn pale--it charms
and refreshes. It does not 'posses us like a passion'--it steals
upon us like a spell. It does not storm the heart like an armed
host--it is like the visitation of gentle spirits,


'Coming and going with a musical lightness.'


It is not a turbulent mountain-torrent, hurling itself down rocky
places--it is a silver stream, gliding through quiet valleys,
in whose waves the sweet stars are mirrored, on whose bosom the
water-lilies sleep.

"Now and then there steals in a strain of sadness, like the plaint
of a bereaved bird in a garden of roses; but it is a tender, not
an OPPRESIVE sadness, and we know that the rainbow beauty of the
verse could only be born in the wedlock of smiles and tears. In
a word, his lays are not 'night and storm and darkness'--they are
morning and music and sunshine.

"It were idle at this time to quote or comment upon all those songs
of Morris best known and oftenest sung. It would be introducing to
my readers old friends who took lodgings in their memories 'long
time ago.' In reference to them, I would only remark their peculiar
adaptedness to popular taste, the keen discrimination, the nice
tact, or, to use one of Sir James Mackintosh's happy expressions,
the 'FEELosophy' with which the poet has interlaced them with the
heart-strings of a nation.

"'A Rock in the Wilderness' is an ode that any poet might be proud
to own. It is much in the style of Campbell--chaste, devotional,
'beautiful exceedingly.' I know nothing of the kind more musically
sweet than the serenade ''Tis now the promised hour'--the first
line in especial--


'The fountains serenade the flowers,
Upon their silver lute--
And nestled in their leafy bowers,
The forest birds are mute.'


"Many an absent lover must have blessed our lyrist for giving voice
to his own yearning affection, half sad with that delicate jealousy
which is no wrong to the loved one, in the song 'When other friends
are round thee.'

"'The Bacchanal'--if our language boasts a lovelier ballad than this,
it has never met my eye. The story of the winning, the betraying
and the breaking of a woman's heart, was never told more touchingly.
'The Dismissed' is in a peculiar vein of rich and quiet humor. I
would commend it to the entire class of rejected lovers as
containing the truest philosophy. 'Lines after the manner of the
olden time' remind one of Sir John Suckling. They are 'sunned o'er
with love'--their subject, by the way. 'I never have been false
to thee' was an emanation from the FEMININE nature of the minstrel
alone. Who does not believe the poet gifted with duality of soul?
'Think of me, my own beloved,' and 'Rosabel,' are the throbbings
of a lover's breast, set to music; and 'One balmy summer night,
Mary,' 'The heart that owns thy tyrant sway,' and 'When I was in
my teens,' the distillation of the subtlest sweets lodged in the
innermost cells of all flowers dedicated to love.

"I come now to my favorite, 'Where Hudson's wave;' a poem which
I never read but that it glows upon my lip and heart, and leaves
the air of my thoughts tremulous with musical vibrations. What a
delicious gush of parental feeling! How daintily and delicately
move the 'fitly chose words,' tripping along like silver sandaled
fairies.

"'Land-Ho!' and the 'Western Refrain' thrill one gloriously. 'The
Cottager's Welcome' would of itself carry the poet's name to the
next age, and the 'Croton Ode' keep his bays green with a perpetual
baptism. The last-mentioned is fresh and sparkling as its subject,
and displays much of the imaginative faculty.

"'Oh, a merry life does the hunter lead,' rolled up the tenth wave
of Morris-ian popularity at the West. It stirs the hunter's heart
like a bugle blast--it rings out clear as a rifle-crack on a hunting
morning.

"General Morris has recently published some songs, which have all
the grace, melody, and touching sweetness of his earlier lays. But
as these have been artistically set to music, and are yet in the
first season of popularity--are lying on the pianos and 'rolling
over the bright lip' of all song-dom, they call for no further
mention here.

"I think I cannot better close this somewhat broken and imperfect
notice, than by referring to one of the earlier songs of Morris,
which, more than all others, perhaps, has endeared him to his native
land. 'Home from travel' is a simple, hearty, manly embodiment
of the true spirit of patriotism, a sentiment which throbs like a
strong pulse beneath our poet's light and graceful verse, and needs
but the inspiration of 'stirring times' to prompt to deeds of heroic
valor, like the lays of the ancient bards, or the 'Chansons' of
Beranger."

The biography of Morris would not be complete without a word from
Willis. We have a dash of his pencil in the following letter to
the editor of "Graham's Magazine":--

"My Dear Sir: To ask me for my idea of General Morris, is like
asking the left hand's opinion of the dexterity of the right. I have
lived so long with the 'Brigadier'--know him so intimately--worked
so constantly at the same rope, and thought so little of ever
separating from him (except by precedence of ferriage over the
Styx), that it is hard to shove him from me to the perspective
distance--hard to shut my own partial eyes, and look at him through
other people's. I will try, however; and, as it is done with but
one foot off from the treadmill of my ceaseless vocation, you will
excuse both abruptness and brevity.

"Morris is the best-known poet of the country, by acclamation, not
by criticism. He is just what poets would be if they sang, like
birds, without criticism; and it is a peculiarity of his fame, that
it seems as regardless of criticism, as a bird in the air. Nothing
can stop a song of his. It is very easy to say that they are
easy to do. They have a momentum, somehow, that it is difficult
for others to give, and that speeds them to the far goal of
popularity--the best proof consisting in the fact that he can, at
any moment, get fifty dollars for a song unread, when the whole
remainder of the American Parnassus could not sell one to the same
buyer for a shilling.

"It may, or may not, be one secret of his popularity, but it is the
truth--that Morris's heart is at the level of most other people's,
and his poetry flows out by that door. He stands breast-high in the
common stream of sympathy, and the fine oil of his poetic feeling
goes from him upon an element it is its nature to float upon, and
which carries it safe to other bosoms, with little need of deep
diving or high flying. His sentiments are simple, honest, truthful,
and familiar; his language is pure and eminently musical, and he
is prodigally full of the poetry of every-day feeling. These are
days when poets try experiments; and while others succeed by taking
the world's breath away with flights and plunges, Morris uses his
feet to walk quietly with nature. Ninety-nine people in a hundred,
taken as they come in the census, would find more to admire in
Morris's songs, than in the writings of any other American poet;
and that is a parish in the poetical episcopate, well worthy a wise
man's nurture and prizing.

"As for the man--Morris, my friend--I can hardly venture to 'burn
incense on his moustache,' as the French say--write his praises
under his very nose--but as far off as Philadelphia, you may pay
the proper tribute to his loyal nature and manly excellencies.
His personal qualities have made him universally popular; but this
overflow upon the world does not impoverish him for his friends. I
have outlined a true poet, and a fine fellow--fill up the picture
to your liking. Yours, very truly,

"N. P. Willis."

In 1825, General Morris wrote the drama of "Briercliff," a play,
in five acts, founded upon events of the American Revolution. It
was performed forty nights in succession; and the manager paid him
for it $3,500--a solid proof of its attractive popularity. It has
never been published. Prior, and subsequent to this period, his
pen was actively engaged upon various literary and dramatic works.

He wrote a number of the "Welcomes to Lafayette," and songs and
ballads, which were universally popular, besides many prologues
and addresses.

In 1842, he wrote an opera for Mr. C. E. Horn, called the "Maid of
Saxony," which was performed fourteen nights, with great success,
at the Park Theatre. The press of the city, generally, awarded to
this opera the highest commendation.

From the period when General Morris commenced his career as
a writer, his pen has been constantly employed in writing poems,
songs, ballads, and prose sketches.

In 1840, the Appletons published an edition of his poems, beautifully
illustrated by Weir & Chapman; in 1842, Paine & Burgess published
his songs and ballads; and in 1853, Scribner's edition, illustrated
by Weir and Darley, appeared. This last beautiful work has had an
immense sale.

They were highly commended by the press throughout the country,
and these and other editions have had large sales. A portion of
his prose writings, under the title of "The Little Frenchman and
his Water-Lots," were published by Lea & Blanchard, which edition
has been followed by others, enlarged by the author.

General Morris has edited a number of works; among them are the
"Atlantic Club Book," published by the Harpers; "The Song-Writers of
America," by Linen & Ferin; "National Melodies," by Horn & Davis;
and, in connection with Mr. Willis, "The Prose and Poetry of Europe
and America," a standard work of great value.

In 1844, in connection with Mr. Willis, he established a beautiful
weekly paper, called the "New Mirror," which, in consequence of
the cover and engravings, was taxed by the post-office department
a postage equal to the subscription price; and not being able to
obtain a just reduction from Mr. Wickliffe, then post-master-general,
the proprietors discontinued its publication, after a year and a
half, notwithstanding it had attained a circulation of ten thousand
copies.

The daily "Evening Mirror" was next commenced, and continued for
one year by Morris & Willis.

A few months after withdrawing from the "Evening Mirror," General
Morris began the publication of the "National Press and Home
Journal;" but as many mistook its object from its name, the first
part of its title was discontinued; and in November, 1846 (Mr.
Willis having again joined his old friend and associate), appeared
the first number of the "Home Journal," a weekly paper, published
in New York every Saturday, which is edited with taste, spirit,
and ability, and which has a circulation of many thousand copies.

General Morris is still in the prime and vigor of life, and it
is not unlikely that the public will yet have much to admire from
his pen, and which will, without doubt, place him still higher in
the niche of fame. His residence is chiefly at Undercliff, his
country seat, on the banks of the Hudson, near Cold Spring, surrounded
by the most lovely and beautiful scenery in nature, which can not
fail to keep the muse alive within him, and tune the minstrel to
further and still higher efforts.

Although he possesses abilities which eminently qualify him for
public station, his literary taste and habits have, in spite of
the strenuous solicitations of his friends, led him to prefer the
retirement of private life. This, however, does not prevent his
taking an active interest in all questions of public good; and the
city of New York is greatly indebted to his vigorous aid for many
of her most beautiful and permanent improvements.

We can not close this sketch without adverting to the following
incident, which occurred in the British House of Commons:--

"Mr. Cagley, a member from Yorkshire," says the "London Times,"
"Concluded a long speech in favor of protection, by quoting
the ballad of 'Woodman, spare that tree' (which was received with
applause of the whole house), the 'tree' according to Mr. Cagley,
being the 'Constitution,' and Sir Robert Peel the 'woodman,' about
to cut it down."

What poet could desire a more gratifying compliment to his genius?





Poems and Ballads.




Poems.




The Deserted Bride. [See Notes]


Suggested by a scene in the play of the hunchback.


Inscribed to James Sheridan Knowles.




"Love me!--No.--He never loved me!"
Else he'd sooner die than stain
One so fond as he has proved me
With the hollow world's disdain.
False one, go--my doom is spoken,
And the spell that bound me broken.

Wed him!--Never.--He has lost me!--
Tears!--Well, let them flow!--His bride?
No.--The struggle life may cost me!
But he'll find that I have pride!
Love is not an idle flower,
Blooms and dies the self-same hour.

Title, land, and broad dominion,
With himself to me he gave;
Stooped to earth his spirit's pinion,
And became my willing slave!
Knelt and prayed until he won me--
Looks he coldly upon me?

Ingrate!--Never sure was maiden
Deeply wronged as I. With grief
My true breast is overladen--
Tears afford me no relief--
Every nerve is strained and aching,
And my very heart is breaking!

Love I him?--Thus scorned and slighted--
Thrown, like worthless weed, apart--
Hopes and feelings seared and blighted--
Love him?--Yes, with all my heart!
With a passion superhuman--
Constancy, "thy name is woman."

Love, nor time, nor mood, can fashion--
Love?--Idolatry's the word
To speak the broadest, deepest passion,
Ever woman's heart hath stirred!
Vain to still the mind's desires,
Which consume like hidden fires!

Wrecked and wretched, lost and lonely,
Crushed by grief's oppressive weight
With a prayer for Clifford only,
I resign me to my fate.
Chains that bind the soul I've proven
Strong as they were iron woven.

Deep the wo that fast is sending
From my cheek its healthful bloom;
Sad my thoughts as willows bending
O'er the borders of the tomb!
Without Clifford, not a blessing
In the world is worth possessing.

Wealth!--a straw within the balance
Opposed to love, 'twill strike the beam:
Kindred, friendship, beauty, talents?--
All to love as nothing seem;
Weigh love against all else together,
And solid gold against a feather.

Hope is flown--away disguises
Naught but death relief can give--
For the love he little prizes
Can not cease, and Julia live!
Soon my thread of life will sever--
Clifford, fare thee well--for ever!





The Main-Truck; Or, A Leap for Life


A Nautical Ballad.


[Founded upon a well-known tale from the pen of the late William
Leggett, Esq.]




Old Ironsides at anchor lay,
In the harbor of Mahon;
A dead calm rested on the bay--
The waves to sleep had gone;
When little Jack, the captain's son,
With gallant hardihood,
Climbed shroud and spar--and then upon
The main-truck rose and stood!

A shudder ran through every vein--
All eyes were turned on high!
There stood the boy, with dizzy brain,
Between the sea and sky!
No hold had he above--below,
Alone he stood in air!
At that far height none dared to go--
No aid could reach him there.

We gazed--but not a man could speak!--
With horror all aghast
In groups, with pallid brow and cheek,
We watched the quivering mast.
The atmosphere grew thick and hot,
And of a lurid hue,
As, riveted unto the spot,
Stood officers and crew.

The father came on deck--He gasped,
"O, God, Thy will be done!"
Then suddenly a rifle grasped,
And aimed it at his son!
"Jump far out, boy! into the wave!
Jump, or I fire!" he said:
"That only chance your life can save!
Jump--jump, boy!"--He obeyed.

He sank--he rose--he lived--he moved--
He for the ship struck out!
On board we hailed the lad beloved
With many a manly shout.
His father drew, in silent joy,
Those wet arms round his neck,
Then folded to his heart the boy
And fainted on the deck!





Poetry.




To me the world's an open book
Of sweet and pleasant poetry;
I read it in the running brook
That sings its way toward the sea.
It whispers in the leaves of trees,
The swelling grain, the waving grass,
And in the cool, fresh evening breeze
That crisps the wavelets as they pass.

The flowers below, the stars above,
In all their bloom and brightness given,
Are, like the attributes of love,
The poetry of earth and heaven.
Thus Nature's volume, read aright,
Attunes the soul to minstrelsy,
Tinging life's clouds with rosy light,
And all the world with poetry.





The Croton Ode. [See Notes]


Written at the request of the corporation of the city of New York.




Gushing from this living fountain,
Music pours a falling strain,
As the goddess of the mountain
Comes with all her sparkling train.
From her grotto-springs advancing,
Glittering in her feathery spray,
Woodland fays beside her dancing,
She pursues her winding way.

Gently o'er the rippling water,
In her coral-shallop bright,
Glides the rock-king's dove-eyed daughter,
Decked in robes of virgin white.
Nymphs and naiads, sweetly smiling,
Urge her bark with pearly hand,
Merrily the sylph beguiling
From the nooks of fairy-land.

Swimming on the snow-curled billow,
See the river-spirits fair
Lay their cheeks, as on a pillow,
With the foam-beads in their hair.
Thus attended, hither wending,
Floats the lovely oread now,
Eden's arch of promise bending
Over her translucent brow.

Hail the wanderer from a far land!
Bind her flowing tresses up!
Crown her with a fadeless garland,
And with crystal brim the cup.
From her haunts of deep seclusion,
Let intemperance greet her too,
And the heat of his delusion
Sprinkle with this mountain-dew.

Water leaps as if delighted,
While her conquered foes retire!
Pale Contagion flies affrighted
With the baffled demon Fire!
Safety dwells in her dominions,
Health and Beauty with her move,
And entwine their circling pinions
In a sisterhood of love.

Water shouts a glad hosanna!
Bubbles up the earth to bless!
Cheers it like the precious manna
In the barren wilderness.
Here we wondering gaze, assembled
Like the grateful Hebrew band,
When the hidden fountain trembled,
And obeyed the prophet's wand.

Round the aqueducts of story,
As the mists of Lethe throng,
Croton's waves in all their glory
Troop in melody along.
Ever sparkling, bright, and single,
Will this rock-ribbed stream appear,
When posterity shall mingle
Like the gathered waters here.





Fragment of an Indian Poem.




* * * * * *

They come!--Be firm--in silence rally!
The long-knives our retreat have found!
Hark!--their tramp is in the valley,
And they hem the forest round!
The burdened boughs with pale scouts quiver,
The echoing hills tumultuous ring,
While across the eddying river
Their barks, like foaming war-steeds, spring!
The blood-hounds darken land and water;
They come--like buffaloes for slaughter!

See their glittering ranks advancing,
See upon the free winds dancing
Pennon proud and gaudy plume.
The strangers come in evil hour,
In pomp, and panoply, and power!
But, while upon our tribes they lower,
Think they our manly hearts will cower
To meet a warrior's doom?

Right they forget while strength they feel;
Our veins they drain, our land they steal;
And should the vanquished Indian kneel,
They spurn him from their sight!
Be set for ever in disgrace
The glory of the red-man's race,
If from the foe we turn our face,
Or safety seek in flight!

They come--Up, and upon them braves!
Fight for your alters and your graves!
Drive back the stern, invading slaves,
In fight till now victorious!
Like lightning from storm-clouds on high,
The hurtling, death-winged arrows fly,
And wind-rows of pale warriors die!--
Oh! never was the sun's bright eye
Looked from his hill-tops in the sky
Upon a field so glorious!

* * * * * *

They're gone--again the red-men rally;
With dance and song the woods resound:
The hatchet's buried in the valley;
No foe profanes our hunting-ground!
The green leaves on the blithe boughs quiver,
The verdant hills with song-birds ring,
While our bark-canoes the river
Skim like swallows on the wing.
Mirth pervades the land and water,
Free from famine, sword, and slaughter.

* * * * * *

Let us, by this gentle river,
Blunt the axe and break the quiver,
While, as leaves upon the spray,
Peaceful flow our cares away.

* * * * * *

Yet, alas! the hour is brief
Left for either joy or grief!
All on earth that we inherit
From the hands of the Great Spirit--
Wigwam, hill, plain, lake, and field--
To the white-man must we yield;
For, like sun-down on the waves,
We are sinking to our graves!

From this wilderness of wo
Like the caravan we go,
Leaving all our groves and streams
For the far-off land of dreams.
There are prairies waving high,
Boundless as the sheeted sky,
Where our fathers' spirits roam,
And the red-man has a home.

Let tradition tell our story.
As we fade in cloudless glory,
As we seek the land of rest
Beyond the borders of the west,
No eye but ours may look upon--
WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN.

* * * * * *





Land-Ho!




UP, UP WITH THE SIGNAL!--The land is in sight!
We'll be happy, if never again, boys, to-night!
The cold cheerless ocean in safety we've passed,
And the warm genial earth glads our vision at last.
In the land of the stranger true hearts we shall find,
To soothe us in absence of those left behind.
Land!--land-ho!--All hearts glow with joy at the sight!
We'll be happy, if never again, boys, to-night!

THE SIGNAL IS WAVING!--Till morn we'll remain,
Then part in the hope to meet one day again!
Round the hearth-stone of home in the land of our birth,
The holiest spot on the face of the earth!
Dear country! our thoughts are as constant to thee
As the steel to the star, or the stream to the sea.
Ho!--land-ho!--We near it!--We bound at the sight!
Then be happy, if never again, boys, to-night!

THE SIGNAL IS ANSWERED!--The foam-sparkles rise
Like tears from the fountain of joy to the eyes!
May rain-drops that fall from the storm-clouds of care,
Melt away in the sun-beaming smiles of the fair!
One health, as chime gaily the nautical bells:
To woman--God bless her!--wherever she dwells!
THE PILOT'S ON BOARD!--thank heaven, all's right!
So be happy, if never again, boys, to-night!





Woodman, Spare that Tree! [See Notes]




Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
'Twas my forefather's hand
That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not.

That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown
Are spread o'er land and sea--
And wouldst thou hew it down?
Woodman, forebear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties;
Oh, spare that aged oak,
Now towering to the skies!

When but an idle boy,
I sought its grateful shade;
In all their gushing joy
Here, too, my sisters played.
My mother kissed me here;
My father pressed my hand--
Forgive this foolish tear,
But let that old oak stand.

My heart-strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild-bird sing,
And still thy branches bend.
Old tree! the storm still brave!
And, woodman, leave the spot;
While I've a hand to save,
thy axe shall harm it not.





The Cottager's Welcome.




Hard by I've a cottage that stands near the wood--
A stream glides in peace at the door--
Where all who will tarry, 'tis well understood,
Receive hospitality's store.
To cheer that the brook and the thicket afford,
The stranger we ever invite:
You're welcome to freely partake at the board,
And afterwards rest for the night.

The birds in the morning will sing from the trees,
And herald the young god of day;
Then, with him uprising, depart if you please--
We'll set you refreshed on the way:
You're coin for our service we sternly reject;
No traffic for gain we pursue,
And all the reward that we wish or expect
We take in the good that we do.

Mankind are all pilgrims on life's weary road,
And many would wander astray
In seeking Eternity's silent abode,
Did Mercy not point out the way!
If all would their duty discharge as they should
To those who are friendless and poor,
The world would resemble my cot near the wood,
And life the sweet stream at my door.





The Land of Washington.




I glory in the sages
Who, in the days of yore,
In combat met the foemen,
And drove them from our shore.
Who flung our banner's starry field
In triumph to the breeze,
And spread broad maps of cities where
Once waved the forest-trees.
--Hurrah!--

I glory in the spirit
Which goaded them to rise
And found a might nation
Beneath the western skies.
No clime so bright and beautiful
As that where sets the sun;
No land so fertile, fair, and free,
As that of Washington
--Hurrah!--





The Flag of our Union.




"A song for our banner?"--The watchword recall
Which gave the Republic her station:
"United we stand--divided we fall!"--
It made and preserves us a nation!
The union of lakes--the union of lands--
The union of States none can sever--
The union of hearts--the union of hands--
And the Flag of the Union for ever
And ever!
The Flag of our Union for ever!

What God in his mercy and wisdom designed,
And armed with his weapons of thunder,
Not all the earth's despots and factions combined
Have the power to conquer or sunder!
The union of lakes--the union of lands--
The union of states none can sever--
The union of hearts--the union of hands--
And the Flag of the Union for ever
And ever!
The Flag of our Union for ever!

Oh, keep that flag flying!--The pride of the van!
To all other nations display it!
The ladies for union are all to a--MAN!
But not to the man who'd betray it.
Then the union of lakes--the union of lands--
The union of states none can sever--
The union of hearts--the union of hands--
And the Flag of the Union for ever
And ever!
The Flag of our Union for ever!





Lines


After the Manner of the Olden Time.




O Love! the mischief thou hast done!
Thou god of pleasure and of pain!--
None can escape thee--yes there's one--
All others find the effort vain:
Thou cause of all my smiles and tears!
Thou blight and bloom of all my years!

Love bathes him in the morning dews,
Reclines him in the lily bells,
Reposes in the rainbow hues,
And sparkles in the crystal wells,
Or hies him to the coral-caves,
Where sea-nymphs sport beneath the waves.

Love vibrates in the wind-harp's tune--
With fays and oreads lingers he--
Gleams in th' ring of the watery moon,
Or treads the pebbles of the sea.
Love rules "the court, the camp, the grove"--
Oh, everywhere we meet thee, Love!

And everywhere he welcome finds,
From cottage-door to palace-porch--
Love enters free as spicy winds,
With purple wings and lighted torch,
With tripping feet and silvery tongue,
And bow and darts behind him slung.

He tinkles in the shepherd's bell
The village maiden leans to hear--
By lattice high he weaves his spell,
For lady fair and cavalier:
Like sun-bursts on the mountain snow,
Love's genial warmth melts high and low.

Then why, ye nymphs Arcadian, why--
Since Love is general as the air--
Why does he not to Lelia fly,
And soften the obdurate fair?
Scorn nerves her proud, disdainful heart!
She scoffs at Love and all his art!

Oh, boy-god, Love!--An archer thou!--
Thy utmost skill I fain would test;
One arrow aim at Lelia now,
And let thy target be her breast!
Her heart bind in thy captive train,
Or give me back my own again!





The Dream of Love.




I've had the heart-ache many times,
At the mere mention of a name
I've never woven in my rhymes,
Though from it inspiration came.
It is in truth a holy thing,
Life-cherished from the world apart--
A dove that never tries its wing,
But broods and nestles in the heart.

That name of melody recalls
Her gentle look and winning ways
Whose portrait hangs on memory's walls,
In the fond light of other days.
In the dream-land of Poetry,
Reclining in its leafy bowers,
Her bright eyes in the stars I see,
And her sweet semblance in the flowers.

Her artless dalliance and grace--
The joy that lighted up her brow--
The sweet expression of her face--
Her form--it stands before me now!
And I can fancy that I hear
The woodland songs she used to sing,
Which stole to my attending ear,
Like the first harbingers of spring.

The beauty of the earth was hers,
And hers the purity of heaven;
Alone, of all her worshippers,
To me her maiden vows were given.
They little know the human heart,
Who think such love with time expires;
Once kindled, it will ne'er depart,
But burn through life with all its fires.

We parted--doomed no more to meet--
The blow fell with a stunning power--
And yet my pulse will strangely beat
At the remembrance of that hour!
But time and change their healing brought,
And years have passed in seeming glee,
But still alone of her I've thought
Who's now a memory to me.

There may be many who will deem
This strain a wayward, youthful folly,
To be derided as a dream
Born of the poet's melancholy.
The wealth of worlds, if it were mine,
With all that follows in its train,
I would with gratitude resign,
To dream that dream of love again.





I'm With You Once Again.




I'm with you once again, my friends,
No more my footsteps roam;
Where it began my journey ends,
Amid the scenes of home.
No other clime has skies so blue,
Or streams so broad and clear,
And where are hearts so warm and true
As those that meet me here?

Since last with spirits, wild and free,
I pressed my native strand,
I've wandered many miles at sea,
And many miles on land.
I've seen fair realms of the earth
By rude commotion torn,
Which taught me how to prize the worth
Of that where I was born.

In other countries, when I heard
The language of my own,
How fondly each familiar word
Awoke an answering tone!
But when our woodland songs were sung
Upon a foreign mart,
The vows that faltered on the tongue
With rapture thrilled the heart!

My native land, I turn to you,
With blessing and with prayer,
Where man is brave and woman true,
And free as mountain air.
Long may our flag in triumph wave
Against the world combined,
And friends a welcome--foes a grave,
Within our borders find.





Oh, Would that She were Here!




Oh, would that she were here,
These hills and dales among,
Where vocal groves are gayly mocked
By Echo's airy tongue:
Where jocund nature smiles
In all her boon attire,
And roams the deeply-tangled wilds
Of hawthorn and sweet-brier.
Oh, would that she were here--
The gentle maid I sing,
Whose voice is cheerful as the songs
Of forest-birds in spring!

Oh, would that she were here,
Where the free waters leap,
Shouting in sportive joyousness
Adown the rocky steep:
Where zephyrs crisp and cool
The fountains as they play,
With health upon their wings of light,
And gladness on their way.
Oh, would that she were here,
With these balm-breathing trees,
The sylvan daughters of the sun,
The rain-cloud, and the breeze!

Oh, would that she were here,
Where glide the rosy hours,
Murm'ring the drowsy hum of bees,
And fragrant with the flowers:
Where Heaven's redeeming love
Spans earth in Mercy's bow--
The promise of the world above
Unto the world below.
Oh, would that she were here,
Amid these shades serene--
Oh, for the spell of woman's love,
To consecrate the scene!





The Sword and the Staff




The sword of the hero!
The staff of the sage!
Whose valor and wisdom
Are stamped on the age!
Time-hallowed mementos
Of those who have riven
The sceptre from tyrants,
"The lightning from heaven!"

This weapon, O Freedom!
Was drawn by the son,
And it never was sheathed
Till the battle was won!
No stain of dishonor
Upon it we see!
'Twas never surrendered--
Except to the free!

While Fame claims the hero
And patriot sage,
Their names to emblazon
On History's page,
No holier relics
Will liberty hoard
Than FRANKLIN's staff, guarded
By WASHINGTON's sword.





The Chieftain's Daughter [See Notes]




Upon the barren sand
A single captive stood;
Around him came, with bow and brand,
The red-men of the wood.
Like him of old, his doom he hears,
Rock-bound on ocean's rim:
The chieftain's daughter knelt in tears,
And breathed a prayer for him.

Above his head in air
The savage war-club swung:
The frantic girl, in wild despair,
Her arms about him flung.
Then shook the warriors of the shade,
Like leaves on aspen limb--
Subdued by that heroic maid
Who breathed a prayer for him.

"Unbind him!" gasped the chief--
"Obey your king's decree!"
He kissed away her tears of grief,
And set the captive free.
'Tis ever thus, when, in life's storm,
Hope's star to man grows dim,
An angel kneels in woman's form,
And breathes a prayer for him.





Thy Will Be Done.




Searcher of Hearts!--from mine erase
All thoughts that should not be,
And in its deep recesses trace
My gratitude to Thee!

Hearer of Prayer!--oh, guide aright
Each word and deed of mine;
Life's battle teach me how to fight,
And be the victory Thine.

Giver of All!--for every good--
In the Redeemer came--
For raiment, shelter, and for food,
I thank Thee in His name.

Father and Son and Holy Ghost!
Thou glorious Three in One!
Thou knowest best what I need most,
And let Thy will be done.





Life in the West.




Ho! brothers--come hither and list to my story--
Merry and brief will the narrative be.
Here, like a monarch, I reign in my glory--
Master am I, boys, of all that I see!
Where once frowned a forest, a garden is smiling--
The meadow and moorland are marshes no more;
And there curls the smoke of my cottage, beguiling
The children who cluster like grapes round my door.
Then enter, boys; cheerly, boys, enter and rest;
The land of the heart is the land of the West!
Oho, boys!--oho, boys!--oho!

Talk not of the town, boys--give me the broad prairie,
Where man, like the wind, roams impulsive and free:
Behold how its beautiful colors all vary,
Like those of the clouds, or the deep-rolling sea!
A life in the woods, boys, is even as changing;
With proud independence we season our cheer,
And those who the world are for happiness ranging,
Won't find it at all if they don't find it here.
Then enter, boys; cheerly, boys, enter and rest!
I'll show you the life, boys, we live in the West!
Oho, boys!--oho, boys!--oho!


Here, brothers, secure from all turmoil and danger,
We reap what we sow, for the soil is our own;
We spread hospitality's board for the stranger,
And care not a jot for the king on his throne.
We never know want, for we live by our labor,
And in it contentment and happiness find;
We do what we can for a friend or a neighbor,
And die, boys, in peace and good-will to mankind.
Then enter, boys; cheerly, boys, enter and rest;
You know how we live, boys, and die in the West!
Oho, boys!--oho, boys!--oho!






Song of Marion's Men. [See Notes]




In the ranks of Marion's band,
Through morass and wooded land,
Over beach of yellow sand,
Mountain, plain, and valley,
A southern maid, in all her pride,
Marched gayly at her lover's side,
In such disguise
That e'en his eyes
Did not discover Sallie!

When returned from midnight tramp,
Through the forest dark and damp,
Oh his straw-couch in the camp,
In his dreams he'd dally
With that devoted, gentle fair,
Whose large black eyes and flowing hair
So near him seem,
That in his dream,
He breathes his love for Sallie!

Oh, what joy, that maiden knew,
When she found her lover true!--
Suddenly the trumpet blew,
Marion's men to rally!
To ward the death-spear from his side!--
In battle by Santee she died!--
Where sings the surge
A ceaseless dirge
Near the lone grave of Sallie.





Janet McRea. [See Notes]




She heard the fight was over,


 


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