Studies in Folk-Song and Popular Poetry
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Title: Studies in Folk-Song and Popular Poetry
Author: Alfred M. Williams
Author of introduction, etc.: Edward Clodd
Release date: March 31, 2014 [eBook #45277]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STUDIES IN FOLK-SONG AND POPULAR POETRY ***
STUDIES IN FOLK-SONG AND POPULAR POETRY,
By Alfred M. Williams.
With A Prefatory Note By Edward Clodd,
London:
Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E,C.
1895.
PREFACE
|Mr. Williams's essays merit a few words of commendation from
folk-lorists on this side of the Atlantic as being calculated to
interest readers in a subject which is full of profound significance,
but against which they may possibly be prejudiced in the degree that
science claims it as material for analysis.
For within the last few years folk-lore has been promoted to the rank
of a serious study and the Folk-Lore Society of London, aided by its
numerous and lusty offshoots, both American and Continental, is busily
applying the scientific method to fireside tale, custom, song, and
ballad seeking what old philosophies lie at the heart of these, and what
they have to tell about intercourse between peoples in the past.
Nevertheless, the folk-lorist treats his subject-matter as tenderly as
Isaak Walton bade the angler hook his worm, for he remembers what poetry
the song and saga hold, and that laughter and tears are ever young.
These essays range over a wide field, both of space and time. The
earlier in arrangement deal with subjects which are purely literary and
modern, and justify their presence only in the reasons advanced by the
author. But the major number come within the ken of the folk-lorist,
and appeal not to him only, but to all who are moved by the passion and
sincerity of primitive poetry, in the skill and sympathy with which the
varied note of folk-song in East and West is interpreted. In some of the
examples, however, notably those from Roumania, Mr. Williams does not
sufficiently allow for the modern dress in which the peasant verse is
clothed.
Edward Clodd.
STUDIES IN FOLK-SONG AND POPULAR POETRY.
AMERICAN SEA SONGS.
|Oh, fare ye well, my pretty, fair maids,
I'm bound for the Rio Grande!
Ri-o-Rio I
I'm bound for the Rio Grande!
No one who is old enough to remember the glorious spectacle of a
full-rigged American clipper ship getting under full sail outside of the
headlands of a harbor, after having been cast off by the tug, is likely
to have forgotten the sight: the white sails dropping from the yards,
being sheeted home, and swelling out to the fresh wind, until a cloud of
canvas sparkled in the sun; the strong and graceful life which the ship
took on under their power; the foam curling up under the bow with her
forward rush; the great plain of the ocean, with all its free airs and
salt scents, beckoning to life and adventure seaward round the world.
To this, to one on board or near enough to hear, will be added the
indefinable and mysterious charm of the sailors' chants, as they haul
in the bowline, and tauten up the tacks and sheets by a pull requiring
unison of effort; and the cadence, at once long-drawn and vigorous,
fills the air with a magic voice of the wind and the sea. It has the
melopoeism, if it may be so called, of the cadence of nature, and takes
its note from the solitude and melancholy of the world, never more
impressive than upon the vast plain of the sea. It has been heard from
immemorial time, since the first oarsmen pulled together along the
coasts of the Indian Ocean, and possesses the same essence in whatever
language it is uttered; and, while it has its practical purpose in
securing unison and accentuation of effort, it would be a mistake to
suppose it without origin in and appeal to the innate impulse for the
expression of sentiment in melody in the heart of man. Every sea captain
knows, or used to know, how much more quickly the anchor came up, or
how much more hearty were the pulls on the bowlines, if there were a
full-lunged and melodious leader for the "shanty;" and his practical
minded mate would at times shout, when the chorus was going faintly and
mechanically, "Sing out there, can't ye?" with the same purpose with
which he would exhort the men to take a stronger pull. Conversely, a
poor leader, or a second who could not or would not keep in proper time,
was a decided injury to the effectiveness of the labor; and it sometimes
happened that an energetic captain, when his ship was being got under
way, would step up to a sailor, apparently heaving sturdily at the
windlass, and knock him sprawling, for the reason that he had detected
him giving the wrong time to the chant, out of mischief, or for the sake
of testing the sharpness and intelligence of the "old man."
The words of these windlass and bowline "shanties" have, of course,
little of the element of finished poetry about them. They are not songs,
but chants, whose purpose is to give accentuation and force to the
exertion of united strength rather than to the expression of sentiment,
and of which the rhythmical melody is the essential element. Whether
they be new or old, they always have been essentially improvisations,
capable of being stopped at any moment or added to indefinitely, and,
like the refrains of the old ballads, are dependent upon the sound
rather than the sense for their effect. Nevertheless, however imperfect
and indefinite their expression, they took their tone and color
originally from the elements in which they were born, and gave out not
only the voice of the sea and the wind, the notes of the never silent
Æolian harp of the cordage and the bellying sails, but the prevailing
sentiment of the human heart upon the great deep, its underlying
oppression, its longing for home, its craving for relief from monotony;
and it is a dull ear that would not detect this, under the most absurd
and uncouth words ever strung together in a sailor's shanty.
As among the seamen of all races, the chants of the American sailors,
before they were so reduced in quality and number by the combined
influence of steam vessels and a protective tariff, were of ancient
and indefinite origin, and were constantly being altered or added to
by circumstance and improvisation. They came, of course, first from the
English seamen, who were our sailors' ancestors and associates, to whom
at least the element descended from the songs to which the galleys of
the sea kings of Scandinavia were impelled over the foaming brine, or
the Celtic coracle was paddled on the lonely lake; and it is impossible,
in a mass of rude verse, of little definite meaning, of a fluid and
fluctuating form, and handed down from lip to lip without ever, except
incidentally, having been put into print and preserved, to fix the
origin or the date of creation of any of these songs. There are traces
of old phrases and archaisms, ancient words strangely metamorphosed into
a semblance of modern meaning, and all such settlings and deposits as
are to be found in the geological strata of spoken language,--references
to mermaids, sea-serpents, and survival of myths regarding the powers of
the sea and air; but they are of no such distinct historic value as are
the indications to be found in the more definite folk-lore in prose or
verse, which have the element of dramatic interest and narrative. It is
to be remembered that these chants, as we have said, were essentially
improvisations, with a purpose different from ordinary song,--that is,
to give the governing power of melody to united exertion,--and that
whatever color and substance they have are extraneous, and not inherent.
What is distinctively American can be determined only by local allusions
or by definite knowledge of their origin: the first are of very little
value, for an English chant, with its local allusions, might be very
readily altered into an American one by the substitution of American
names; and in regard to the second, as has been said, the songs were
born, and passed from mouth to mouth, and from ship to ship, without
any one's knowing or caring where they originated. Nevertheless, the
American sailors, when there were American sailors, had as strong a
national and provincial feeling as those of any other country;
were capable of making their own chants, if not as much given to
improvisation as those of the Latin races; and had a selection of local
names as sonorous and as readily adapted to the needs of a rhythmical
chorus as those of any English-speaking people. The Rio Grande and the
Shenandoah were as mouth-filling and sonorous as the High Barbarie or
any of the refrains of the English shanties, and the American sailor
sheeted home his canvas with Virginia Ashore, or Baltimore, or Down to
Mobile Bay in his remembrance as well as on his lips.
Premising that American shanties are not American sea songs in any
definite sense of the term, and fulfill only the conditions to which
they are subject as aids to labor and stimulants to exertion, we may
take a specimen or two to show what they were like. It is needless to
say that neither the words nor a musical notation would give any idea
of their effect when sung with full-throated chorus to sea and sky, and
that their peculiar melodious cadence and inflection can be caught
only by hearing them. Like the chants of the negro slaves, which they
resemble in many respects, musical notes would give only the skeleton
of the melody, which depends for its execution upon an element which
it defies the powers of art to symbolize. They have various forms,--a
continued and unbroken melody, as when turning the capstan or pumping,
or they show an emphatic accentuation at regular intervals, as when
stretching out a bowline with renewed pulls; and such as they are,
they are given precisely as sung, with a dependence upon the reader's
imagination to supply in some degree the cadence and accentuation. The
following are good specimens of the bowline chants.
Solo. I wish I was in Mobile Bay,
Chorus. Way-hay, knock a man down!
Solo. A-rolling cotton night and day,
Chorus. This is the time to knock a man down!
And so on _ad infinitum_, until the hoarse "Belay!" of the mate or the
"bosun" ends it.
Oh, Shenandoah's a rolling river,
_Hooray_, you rolling river,
Oh, Shenandoah's a rolling river,
_Ah-hah_, I'm bound away to the wild Missouri!
Oh, Shenandoah's a packet sailor, etc.
My Tommy's gone, and I 'll go too,
Hurrah, you high-low!
For without Tommy I can't do,
My Tommy 's gone a high-low!
My Tommy's gone to the Eastern shore,
Chorus.
My Tommy's gone to Baltimore, etc.
A favorite and familiar pulling song is Whiskey for my Johnny:--
Whiskey is the life of man,
_Whiskey_-Johnny!
We 'll drink our whiskey while we can,
_Whiskey_ for my Johnny!
I drink whiskey, and my wife drinks gin,
Chorus.
The way she drinks it is a sin,
Chorus.
I and my wife cannot agree,"
Chorus.
For she drinks whiskey in her tea,
Chorus.
I had a girl; her name was Lize,
Chorus.
And she put whiskey in her pies,
Chorus.
Whiskey's gone, and I 'll go too,
Chorus.
For without whiskey I can't do, etc.
A very enlivening windlass or pumping chant is I'm Bound for the Rio
Grande:--
I'm bound away this very day,
Oh, you Rio!
I'm bound away this very day,
I'm bound for the Rio Grande!
And away, you Rio, oh, you Rio!
I'm bound away this ve-ry day,
I'm bound for the Rio Grande!
Another is Homeward Bound with a Roaring Breeze:--
We 're homeward bound with a roaring breeze,
Good-by, fare you well!
We 're homeward bound with a roaring breeze,
Hurrah, my boys! We 're homeward bound!
I wrote to Kitty, and she was well,
Good-by, fare you well!
She rooms at the Astor and dines at the Bell,
Hurrah, my boys! We 're homeward bound!
There were many, with slight American variants, which were undoubtedly
of English origin, and have been heard on English merchant ships from
time immemorial; some which relate especially to the operations of
whaling; and some which had their origin on the river flatboats and in
the choruses of the roustabouts on the Ohio and Mississippi, and have
been only slightly changed for salt-water purposes, the quality being as
little varied as the number is endless. Their essential quality was that
of an improvised chant, and the dominant feeling was to be found in
the intermingling of the words and the cadence, as in the apparently
meaningless refrain of the old ballads. They expressed, through all
their rudeness and uncouthness, and more through the melody than the
words, the minor chords which distinguish all folk music, the underlying
element in the human heart oppressed by the magnitude and solitude of
nature, as well as the enlivening spirit of strong exertion; and no
sensitive ear could ever call them really gay, however vigorous
and lively they might be. The shanties are passing away with the
substitution of iron cranks and pulleys for the muscles of men, and
the clank of machinery has taken the place of the melodious chorus from
human throats. It is not probable that they will ever entirely disappear
so long as men go down to the sea in ships; but whatever life and flavor
they had will fade away, and the first-class leading tenor among the
"shanty men" will vanish with the need and appreciation of his skill. As
for the old words, they will also be utterly lost, because they have
no existence except in oral recitation and memory, and do not contain
enough of the elements of pure poetry to secure their preservation
in print, as the folk songs and ballads have been preserved. They are
relics of custom rather than of literature; and although any poet or
musician who deals with the sea will miss a source of very valuable
inspiration if he does not possess himself of the spirit of their weird
melody and the unconscious power of their vigorous rhythm, in themselves
they are likely to be lost with the chants of the Phoenician sailors or
the rowers of the galley of Ulysses, which they have succeeded, and some
of whose melody they have perhaps reproduced.
The genuine sea songs differ from the shanties in that they had a
definite poetical purpose to tell a story or express emotion, and were
not merely words strung together to give voice to a rhythm of labor. It
cannot be said that the genius of the American sailor has turned itself
especially to expressing his emotions in song, any more than that of the
English. His nature is entirely too practical, and the touch of tender
sentiment which, in the Scotch nature, produced the beautiful fishing
songs of the coast and the grand rowing and boat songs of the Western
Islands, is wanting alike in him and his English associate.
It would probably astonish most readers to be told that English
literature is singularly deficient in sea songs, when they have in
memory the noble odes of Campbell, the long list of the Tom Bowlings and
Jack Junks of Dibdin, Cherry's Bay of Biscay and The Minute Gun at Sea,
and the many good songs about ships and sea fights by Barry Cornwall,
Cunningham, and many others. But these songs were not written by
sailors. There never has been any English sailor, except the respectable
William Falconer, the author of The Shipwreck, in several cantos of
desiccated decasyllabic verse, who has written of the sea in verse from
the standpoint of actual experience, or to do for it in poetry what
Captain Marryat, Michael Scott, and W. Clark Russell have done in prose.
English sea songs have been written by landsmen; even the charming
Wapping Old Stairs is a song of the waterside, and not of the ocean;
and as for the famous heroes of Dibdin's nautical songs, including Tom
Bowling himself, they are very much, as Thackeray said, "har-lar" Mr. T.
P. Cooke, the actor, who personated the gallant Jack Tar in a very
blue jacket with very bright buttons, and very white duck trousers, and
appealed to "England, Home, and Beauty" as represented in the cits of
the gallery at Sadler's Wells theatre. Dibdin's heroes smell of stage
gas rather than of tar, and their purpose and effect were very much more
to persuade susceptible landsmen that the British navy was an elysium,
in which beating Frenchmen was a glorious episode in an existence
devoted mainly to passing the can between decks at sea and basking in
the smiles of lovely Nan and faithful Poll on shore, than to tell what
the seamen themselves really felt about it. The writers of the ordinary
English sea songs had their lodgings in the neighborhood of Drury Lane
rather than in the forecastle, and their inspiration was as strictly
commercial as that of Mr. Slum, who supplied the anagrams and acrostics
announcing the treasures in Mrs. Jarley's waxworks. Some of them are
good in their way, as are a few of those of Dibdin and Andrew Cherry,
and particularly The Saucy Arethusa, in which there is a real flavor of
the sea spirit, and which was written by one Prince Hoare, a comic opera
libretto writer of sixty years ago; the author, by the way, of Mrs.
Micawber's favorite song, Little Tafflin with the Silken Sash. But when
one comes to look for real forecastle songs, written by a sailor, and
smelling of pitch and tar, one finds very few. Doubtless some have been
lost, although there is a strong vitality to anything that is good; but
except Kobert Kidd, Sailing down on the High Barbarie, Captain Glen,
Jacky Tar with his Trousers on,--the immortal song which appealed to the
feeling heart of Captain Edward Cuttle,--
I know you would have me wed a farmer,
And not give me my heart's delight;
Give me the lad whose tarry trousers
Shine to me like diamonds bright,--
The Mermaid, and few others, there is nothing which indicates that
the British sailor was given to expressing himself in verse beyond the
simple exigencies of the shanty. The case was very much the same with
the American, and, under ordinary circumstances, it would be as vain to
look for poetical feeling in the shrewd, practical-minded, and gritty
New England seaman as in his more stolid and coarse-fibred English
associate. Nevertheless, so much of the best spirit of the American
people was once turned toward the sea for its field of action, its
naval history has been so inspiring to national pride, and its record of
adventure in all parts of the world has been so remarkable that it would
have been impossible that it should not have produced some worthy or at
least illustrative fruit in poetry.
The era of the Revolution was not distinguished for its naval exploits,
except the memorable raid of the Scotch adventurer, John Paul Jones,
upon the English seas, and the fight of the Bonhomme Richard with
the Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough, for the reason that the
colonies had no warships, and no means of procuring any. There were,
however, a few privateers: the Hyder Ali, commanded by Captain Barney,
which won a victory over the British vessel General Monk, and was
celebrated in verse by Philip Freneau, and for which he wrote a
recruiting song, with at least one verse of a practical tendency:--
Here's grog enough; come drink about.
I know your hearts are firm and stout.
American blood will never give out,
As often we have proved it;
the Fair American, commanded by Captain Daniel
Hawthorne, which fought a British snow, laden with troops, off the
coast of Portugal, and whose exploits are recorded in a ballad of very
considerable spirit, and evidently by one of the crew; and some others,
who did not happen to have a poet on board or a laureate on shore, and
are not embalmed in verse. To this period, however, belongs what is,
perhaps, the very best of American sea songs. We do not know whether its
authorship was of that time or not, although it probably was, and from
internal evidence would seem to have been composed by one of the very
crew of the Ranger, Paul Jones's ship, which escaped from a British
squadron in the Irish Channel in 1778. It was first published by
Commodore Luce, in his collection of Naval Songs, with the statement
that it was taken down from the recitation of a sailor. It is one of the
gems of forecastle song, has the full scent of the brine and the gale,
and the ship does not manouvre as if she were a wagon on dry land, as
was said of Allan Cunningham's account of Paul Jones's cruises. The
title given is
THE YANKEE MAN-OF-WAR.
'T is of a gallant Yankee ship that flew the stripes and stars,
And the whistling wind from the west-nor'-west blew through
the pitch-pine spars.
With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys, she hung upon the
gale,
On an autumn night we raised the light on the old head of
Kinsale.
It was a clear and cloudless night, and the wind blew steady
and strong,
As gayly over the sparkling deep our good ship bowled
along;
With the foaming seas beneath her bow the fiery waves she
spread,
And bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her lee cat
head.
There was no talk of short'ning sail by him who walked the
poop,
And under the press of her pond'ring jib the boom bent like
a hoop,
And the groaning water-ways told the strain that held her
stout main tack.
But he only laughed as he glanced abaft at a white and sil
very track.
The mid-tide meets in the channel waves that flow from shore
to shore,
And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Featherstone
to Dunmore;
And that sterling light on Tusker rock, where the old bell
tolls the hour,
And the beacon light that shone so bright was quenched on
Waterford tower.
The nightly robes our good ship wore were her three topsails
set,
The spanker and her standing jib, the spanker being fast.
"Now, lay aloft, my heroes bold, let not a moment pass!"
And royals and topgallant sails were quickly on each mast.
What looms upon the starboard bow? What hangs upon
the breeze?
'T is time our good ship hauled her wind abreast the old Sal
tees;
For by her ponderous press of sail and by her consorts four
We saw our morning visitor was a British man-of-war.
Up spoke our noble captain then, as a shot ahead of us
passed,
"Haul snug your flowing courses, lay your topsail to the
mast!"
The Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs from the deck of
their covered ark,
And we answered back by a solid broadside from the decks
of our patriot bark.
"Out, booms! Out, booms!" our skipper cried, "Out,
booms, and give her sheet!"
And the swiftest keel that ever was launched shot ahead of
the British fleet.
And amidst a thundering shower of shot, with stunsails hoist
ing away,
Down the North Channel Paul Jones did steer, just at the
break of day.
The naval war of 1812 was a glorious epoch in American history. The
achievements of the troops were very far from creditable, with a few
exceptions, including, of course, the great one of the repulse of
British regulars at New Orleans; but on the ocean the American sailors
proved themselves quite the equal, if not more, of the English seamen,
who had learned to consider themselves invincible, and despised the
petty fleet of half a dozen cruisers,--not a single line-of-battle
ship in the number,--which they had force enough to sweep off the seas
without a struggle, and which they finally did blockade into inaction.
There was quite an outburst of surprise, incredulity, and indignation in
England, when the news came in that British frigates, one after another,
the Guerriere, the Java, and the Macedonian, had been captured in
singleship fights by American ships of the same grade, and that in
contests between vessels of smaller size, like the Wasp and the Frolic,
the Hornet and the Peacock, Yankee pluck and seamanship had been equally
successful; and British naval historians, then and since, have been
earnest in showing that the victories were due to superior weight of
metal, to the presence of deserters from the British navy on board the
American ships, and to the accidents of naval warfare. Nevertheless,
the facts of the captures remained the same, and privateers ravaged the
seas, plundering and burning English ships, and causing the most bitter
annoyance as well as incalculable loss and damage. To the vindictive
depreciation and abuse of the English writers the Americans were
not slow to respond, with a joyous outburst of national pride and
exultation, and a mighty flapping of the wings of the American eagle;
and the poets and song-writers joined in the shrill cock-a-doodle-doo of
victory. The country was a great deal more boastful and self-assertive
than it has been since it has come to rely on its own strength and has
known the achievement of the great and sobering task of the civil war.
The spirit of the spread eagle pervaded our national literature; the
poets burst into songs,--generally, it must be admitted, very bad,--in
which they celebrated the naval victories of the day. They indulged in
mythological flights of the highest kind, in which Neptune bestowed a
laurel crown upon Hull, Amphitrite smiled upon Bainbridge and Decatur,
and the Tritons and the Nereids joined in a chorus of love and
admiration for the American sailor. America, Commerce, and Freedom
appeared as conjoined goddesses, and everybody was summoned to fill the
bumper and pledge the flowing bowl, to thank the mighty Jove and invoke
Bacchus, and do all sorts of things entirely unfamiliar to a people
whose principal intoxicating beverages were Medford rum and Monongahela
whiskey, and who had not the slightest acquaintance with heathen gods
and goddesses. It is needless to say that none of these songs were
written by sailors, or were ever sung by them, even if they could have
been sung by anybody.
There was, however, better stuff than this in the naval songs of the war
of 1812. The American sailor himself sometimes cleared his cheek of
its quid, and sang in a clear if somewhat nasal voice some of the deeds
which he had seen and done. Thus there is a great deal of rude vigor
in one of the verses of a song describing the fight between the
Constitution and the Guerriere, the first of our naval victories, and a
very favorite theme:--
But Jonathan kept cool,
At the roaring of the Bull.
His heart filled with anything but fears;
And squirting out his quid,
As he saw the captain did,
He cleaned out his mouth for three cheers.
Another song on the same engagement, entitled
Halifax Station, begins thus:--
From Halifax Station a bully there came,
To take or be taken, called Dacres by name;
And who but a Yankee he met on his way;
Says the Yankee to him, "Will you stop and take tea?"
After giving Dacres's high and mighty address
to his crew, and Hull's more modest appeal, it
says:--
Then we off with our hats and gave him a cheer,
Swore we'd stick by brave Hull, while a seaman could
steer.
Then at it we went with a mutual delight,
For to fight and to conquer is a seaman's free right.
The poet naturally takes the privilege of presenting the confounded
Britisher in the most humiliating light, and the manner in which Captain
Dacres signified his surrender is probably more graphic than
historically correct:--
Then Dacres looked wild, and then sheathed his sword,
When he found that his masts had all gone by the board.
And, dropping astern, cries out to his steward,
"Come up and be d----d! Fire a gun to leeward!"
This battle, fought in the North Atlantic on August 2, 1812, between
the American frigate Constitution, Captain Isaac Hull, and the British
frigate Guerriere, Captain James R. Dacres, and one of consummate
seamanship as well as fighting capacity on the part of Hull, was the
theme of the best and most spirited song of the whole war; one which
still keeps its place in the forecastle, and, it may be hoped, will
keep it so long as Uncle Sam has a war-ship afloat. It is set to a very
lively and emphatic air, called, indifferently, The Landlady of France
and The Bandy-Legged Officer, from the coarsely comical words which
George Colman the younger had written to it.
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE GUERRIERE.
It ofttimes has been told
That the British sailors bold
Could flog the tars of France so neat and handy, O.
And they never found their match
Till the Yankees did them catch.
Oh, the Yankee boys for fighting are the dandy, O.
The Guerriere, a frigate bold,
On the foaming ocean rolled,
Commanded by proud Dacres, the grandee, O.
With choice of British crew,
As ever rammer drew,
They could flog the Frenchmen two to one so handy, O.
When this frigate hove in view,
Says proud Dacres to his crew,
"Come, clear the ship for action, and be handy, O.
To the weather-gage, boys, get her,"
And to make his men fight better
Gave them to drink gunpowder in their brandy, O.
Then Dacres loudly cries,
"Make this Yankee ship your prize!
You can in thirty minutes, neat and handy, O.
Thirty-five's enough, I'm sure;
And if you 'll do it in a score,
I'll give you a double dose of brandy, O."
The British shot flew hot,
Which the Yankee answered not,
Till they got within the distance they called handy, O.
Now says Hull unto his crew,
"Boys, let's see what we can do.
If we take this boasting Briton, we 're the dandy, O."
The first broadside we poured
Carried their mainmast by the board,
Which made the lofty frigate look abandoned, O.
Then Dacres shook his head,
And to his officers he said,
"Lord! I did n't think these Yankees were so handy, O."
Our second told so well
That their fore and mizzen fell,
Which doused the royal ensign so handy, O.
"By George," says he, "we 're done!"
And he fired a lee gun,
While the Yankees struck up Yankee doodle dandy, O.
Then Dacres came on board
To deliver up his sword.
Loath was he to part with it, it was so handy, O.
"O, keep your sword," says Hull,
"For it only makes you dull.
So cheer up; let us take a little brandy, O."
Come, fill your glasses full,
And we 'll drink to Captain Hull,
And so merrily will push about the brandy, O.
John Bull may toast his fill,
Let the world say what it will,
But the Yankee boys for fighting are the dandy, O.
The English celebrated their one signal victory of the war--the capture
of the Chesapeake by the Shannon, off Boston Light, a year later--by a
parody of this song, of a decidedly inferior quality.
One of the most notable events of the war was the cruise of the Essex,
Captain David Porter, in the South Pacific, in 1813 and 1814. She did an
immense amount of damage to the British whalemen, and the British ships
Cherub and Phoebe were sent to capture her. After a rencontre in the
harbor of Valparaiso, in which the captain of the Phoebe, taken at a
disadvantage, protested his purpose to respect the neutrality of the
port, and a challenge from which the British ships ran away, the Essex
was caught disabled by a squall, chased into a harbor near Valparaiso,
and captured after a tremendous engagement, in which the calibre of the
British guns gave them every advantage, and in which the neutrality
of the port was not taken into account. There was a poet on board the
Essex, and he produced a long ballad describing the cruise and the
retreat of the British ships after the challenge; but whether he
perished in the later fight, or had no heart to add it to his verses,
is not known. Among the crew of the Essex who did survive the fight was
Midshipman David G. Farragut, who lived to achieve the greatest naval
renown since that of Nelson, and be the theme of The Bay Fight, the
noblest sea poem yet written.
The ballad of the Essex is entitled "A Pleasant New Song. Chanted by
Nathan Whiting (through his nose) for the amusement of the galley slaves
on board the Phoebe, who are allowed to sing nothing but psalms." After
describing the beginning of the trouble caused by "John Bull's taking
our ships and kidnaping our true sailors," and the capture of British
vessels in the first year of the war, the ballad takes up the cruise of
the Essex.
The saucy Essex, she sailed out
To see what she could do.
Her captain is from Yankee land,
And so are all her crew.
Away she sailed, so gay and trim,
Down to the Galapagos,
And toted all the terrapins,
And nabbed the slippery whalers.
And where d' ye think we next did go?
Why, down to the Marquesas.
And there we buried underground
Some thousand golden pieces.
Then sailed about the ocean wide,
Sinking, burning, taking,
Filling pockets, spilling oil,
While Johnny's heart was aching.
The ballad then describes the arrival of the Phoebe and Cherub and the
rencontre in Valparaiso Bay, the challenge and the flight of the Phoebe,
in verses which have a great deal of rude vigor.
At last John Bull quite sulky grew,
And called us traitors all,
And swore he'd fight our gallant crew,
Paddies and Scots and all.
Then out he went in desperate rage,
Swearing, as sure as day,
He'd starve us all or dare us out
Of Valparaiso Bay.
Then out he sailed in gallant trim,
As if he thought to fright us,
Run up his flag and fired a gun
To say that he would fight us.
Our cables cut, we put to sea,
And ran down on his quarter,
And Johnny clapped his helm hard up,
And we went following after.
In haste to join the Cherub he
Soon bent his scurvy way,
While we returned in merry glee
To Yalaparaiso Bay.
And let them go. To meet the foe
We 'll take no farther trouble,
Since all the world must fairly know
They 'll only fight us double.
Ne'er mind, my lads, let's drink and sing,
"Free trade and sailors' rights."
May liquor never fail the lad
Who for his country fights.
Huzza, my lads, let's drink and sing,
And toast them as they run:
"Here's to the sailors and their king
Who 'll fight us two to one."
There were other exploits of American ships told in verse, among them
the gallant repulse, by the crew of the privateer General Armstrong,
Captain Samuel C. Reid, in the Harbor of Fayal, of the boats of three
British men-of-war, which was the subject of a forecastle ballad, but
none of this memorial verse reached the level of poetry. The battles of
Lake Erie and Lake Champlain also had their numerous laureates; and the
raid of Admiral Cockburn and the troops upon Baltimore was the subject
of a song, the opening lines of which have a vigor and strong rhythm not
maintained throughout.
Old Ross, Cochrane, and Cockburn too,
And many a bloody villain more,
Swore with their bloody, savage crew
That they would plunder Baltimore.
The naval service during the civil war did not produce any songs that
achieved popularity in comparison with that won by the songs of land
service, like John Brown's Body, The Year of Jubilo, and Marching
through Georgia, and in fact was singularly deficient in poetry,
with the remarkable exception of the productions of Mr. Henry Howard
Brownell. There were few singleship engagements except the fight between
the Monitor and the Merrimac, and the Kearsarge and the Alabama, and the
blockading service was not calculated to inspire the martial muse.
The two great naval achievements of the war were the capture of New
Orleans and of the forts in Mobile Bay by the fleets under Farragut;
and these were celebrated in poetry worthy of them--and no more can be
said--by Henry Howard Brownell, who witnessed the second from the deck
of Admiral Farragut's flagship. The fire, spirit, and grand fighting
_elan_ of The Bay Fight have never been surpassed in English poetry, and
the accuracy of its pictures is as notable as their vigor. But these
are poems, and not songs, and there is nothing in the naval songs of
the civil war which will compare with those of the war of 1812. It was
rather past the time for the genuine forecastle ballad, and none of the
land poets hit the true vein, as Buchanan Read, Stedman, and others did
when commemorating military exploits.
There was one other field of American seamanship, full of romance and
excitement, which should have produced some worthy poetry and song, and
that was the whaling service before the days of iron steamers and bomb
lances. The chase of the gigantic cetacean in the lonely solitude of the
Arctic and Indian oceans, the fights in frail boats with the maddened
monster and all the perils of sea and storm, the visits to the palmy
islands in the Southern Sea and the frozen solitude of the Arctic, were
full of the materials of poetry. The long watches of the monotonous
cruising during the four years' voyage gave plenty of time for any
occupation, whether it was carving whales' teeth or making verses; and
there were many bright spirits, attracted by the adventure of whaling,
who could have made a literary use of their opportunity. The novels
of Herman Melville, some of the strongest and most original in our
literature, have given the romance of the South Sea islands as they
appeared to the adventurer of that day; and in Moby Dick, or The White
Whale, he has shown both the prose and the poetry of a whaling cruise
with singular power, although with some touch of extravagance at the
end. The whaling songs are, however, not very abundant, nor, it must
be confessed, of a high standard of quality. To this there is one
remarkable exception, which appears to be wholly unknown in American
literature, although it has been in print. It is entitled a "Brand Fire
New Whaling Song Right from the Pacific Ocean. Tune, Maggy Lander. By a
Foremast Hand," and was printed in a little five-cent pamphlet, by E. B.
Miller, in New Bedford, in 1831. It does not seem to have come under the
eye of any critic who could appreciate its spirit and faithfulness, and
no mention is made of it in any of the collections of American poetry.
It is extremely doubtful if the author received enough from its sale to
repay him for the investment of a portion of his "lay" in printing it,
and his name is utterly lost in his modest pseudonym of "Foremast Hand;"
so that he obtained neither fame nor fortune from his epic. The poem,
which is too long for entire quotation, was unquestionably the work of a
sailor on a whaling ship, and probably, as he says, of a foremast hand.
It lacks some of the finish of professional literature, as shown in the
ruggedness of some of its rhymes, and the vigorous compulsion of the
rules of grammar and syntax, when necessary, although the author was
evidently of higher education than would belong to one in his position,
and its jigging measure becomes tiresome; but it is of very great spirit
and vigor, as well as fidelity to its theme, and by no means deserves
to have fallen so entirely into oblivion. Indeed, it seems to me to
be quite as good as, and a great deal more original than, any American
poetry which had appeared up to that time. The song has for its subject
the chase and capture of a whale in the North Pacific, and relates the
course of events from the time of the first sighting of "white water" on
the horizon by the lookouts to that when the monster, stabbed to death
by the keen lances, rolls "fins out" in the bloody water, amid the
hurrahs of the excited boats' crews. All the details of this _grande
chasse_ are given with wonderful vigor, as well as faithfulness, and the
historian of the whale fishery will find it as accurate as a log-book.
Perhaps the account of the chase by the boats and the harpooning will
give as good an idea of the force and spirit of the poem as any part
of it; and, in reference to the emphasis of the language, it may
be remembered that mates of whaling ships in pursuit of an
eight-hundred-barrel whale had a good deal of energy and excitement
to relieve. The boats have been lowered, and are darting toward the
unsuspecting whale with all the speed of ashen oars and vigorous muscle,
while their commanders objurgate and stimulate the crews, as the poet
says, "judiciously."
"Pull, men, for, lo, see there they blow!
They 're going slow as night, too.
Pull, pull, you dogs! they lie like logs,--
Thank Heaven they 're headed right, too."
"The chance is ours!" the mate now roars.
"Spring, spring, nor have it said, men,
That we could miss a chance like this
To take them head and head, men.
There's that old sog, he's like a log.
Spring, lads, and show your mettle;
Strain every oar; let's strike before
He's- gallied, mill-, or-settle-."
And so it is, the chance is his.
The others peak their oars now.
From his strained eyes the lightning flies,
And lion-like he roars now.
"Pull, pull, my lads! why don't you pull?
For God's sake, pull away, men!
Hell's blazes! pull but three strokes more,
And we have won the day, men!
"Stand up there, forward--pull the rest--
Hold water--give it to her!
Stern all, stern all--God damn it, heave
Your other iron through her!
We 're fast, we 're fast--stern out her way!
Here, let me come ahead, men.
There, peak your oars--wet--line--wet--line--
Why, bloody zounds, you 're dead, men!"
The rush of the whale towing the boat, his sounding to the uttermost
length of the line, his reappearance, the lancing, the mad dash at the
boats, and the death flurry are all described with great vividness, but
there is room only for the verses in which the monster comes up from his
long dive, and obliges the poet to appeal to the enemy of sea songs, the
steam boiler:--
Till from the deep, with mighty leap,
Full length the monster breaches,--
So strongly sped, his scarred gray head
High as our topmast reaches;
And, like a rock, with startling shock,
From mountain height descending,
Down thunders he upon the sea,
Ocean with ether blending.
And, hark! once more that lengthened roar,
As from his spout-hole gushing,
His breath, long spent, now finds a vent,
Like steam from boiler rushing.
It does not seem that a poet who could write so vividly and forcefully
as this ought to be without a place in American literature, even if
there were no other interest in his work.
There is another whaling song, entitled The Coast of Peru, and
undoubtedly the work of a forecastle poet, which is worth preserving,
despite its homeliness, for its genuine flavor, and as a relic of
the old days before steam whalers and bomb lances took so much of the
romance out of the fishery.
THE COAST OF PERU.
Come, all ye bold sailors,
Who sail 'round Cape Horn,
Come, all the bold whalers,
Who cruise 'round for sperm.
The Captain has told us,
And I hope't will prove true
That there's plenty of sperm whales
Off the coast of Peru.
The first whale we saw
Near the close of the day.
Our Captain came on deck,
And thus he did say:
"Now all my bold sailors,
Pray be of good glee,
For we 'll see him in the morning,
P'raps mider our lee."
It was early next morning,
Just as the sun rose,
The man at the mast-head
Called out, "There she blows!"
"Whereaway?" cried our Captain,
As he sprang up aloft.
"Three points on our lee bow,
And scarce two miles off."
"Now trace up your yards, boys,
We 'll fasten anear.
Get your lines in your boats,
See your box lines all clear;
Haul back the main yard, boys,
Stand by, each boat's crew,
Lower away, lower away,
My brave fellows, do."
"Now, bend to your oars, boys,
Just make the boat fly,
But whatever you do, boys,
Keep clear from his eye."
The first mate soon struck,
And the whale he went down,
While the old man pulled up,
And stood by to bend on.
But the whale soon arose;
To the windward he lay.
We hauled up 'longside,
And he showed us fair play.
We caused him to vomit,
Thick blood for to spout,
And in less than ten minutes
We rolled him "fin out."
We towed him alongside
With many a shout,
That day cut him in,
And began to boil out.
Oh, now he's all boiled out
And stowed down below,
We 're waiting to hear 'em,
Sing out, "There she blows!"
It is extremely doubtful if the Dago sailors and foreign 'longshoremen,
who now make such a large portion of the crews of the Arctic steam
whalers, are capable of even such rude verse as this, and the poetry of
the whale fishery is now as extinct as the glory of Nantucket and the
sea flavor of New Bedford. Like some greater things it may be regretted,
but cannot be recovered.
FOLK-SONGS OF THE CIVIL WAR.
Of collections and criticisms of the songs and poetry of the civil war
in this country there is no lack. Newspaper files and popular song-books
have been ransacked, as well as more pretentious volumes, and whatever
possessed a modicum of what is termed "poetic merit" has been gathered
with pious care. The standard in most cases has, naturally enough, been
that of "polite literature," that of which the writers were persons
of education, and who endeavored to express with more or less force a
dominant sentiment in logical as well as grammatical form, and to embody
their meaning in intelligent words. If popular songs, which did not
fulfil these conditions, have been included, it has usually been with
an apology for their uncouthness, or a contemptuous reference to their
banality, and an intimation that they were forced into the pages of the
collection, or upon the attention of the critic, because they could not
be ignored in any representative collection of the poetry of the war.
Nevertheless, it may be doubted if these uncouth rhymes, without sense
or consecutive meaning, like Dixie's Land and John Brown's Body, or the
cheap sentimentality of Just before the Battle, Mother, and When this
Cruel War is over, do not have something of the indefinable fascination
on the printed page which they had to the ears of the men who sung them,
and do not take a stronger hold upon the mind than the much more elegant
and refined verses by which they are surrounded. Something of this may
be due to the memory of those who heard them, and in whose minds they
were the voice of the war, as the flags, the arms, and the uniforms
were its visible insignia, but this does not entirely account for their
fascination and permanence. There was something about them which endowed
them with vital life, which gave them a hold upon every tongue and upon
every heart, a quality distinct from obvious meaning, to say nothing
of literary excellence, and which can only be described as the singing
element. It was to accomplish this purpose, to relieve the heart through
the lungs, without reference to the mind, to emphasize and lighten the
buoyant or weary march, and give voice to the pervading impulse, which
kept these songs alive and made them a practical part of the war, as the
sailor's "shanties" were a part of the life of the sea, and the negro
choruses of the life of the plantation. This fascination may fade when
the civil war becomes a matter of distant history, and John
Brown's Body be no more than a set of unmeaning jingles to future
generations, as Lillibullero, which "sung King James out of three
kingdoms," is to our own; but with their death will come a loss of
a vital element of the war, as representing its living and human
sentiment, and history will miss its function if it exclude them. How
vital they were at the time may be seen from the fact that the attempts
to supersede the unmeaning rhymes by words of substance and definite
poetry had no effect, so far as their popular use was concerned, even
when this was done with such magnificent success as in Mrs. Julia Ward
Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic, or General Albert Pike's powerful
lines to Dixie. The people and the soldiers clung to the old choruses,
and passed by with cold respect or indifference the deliberate and
purely literary appeals to their feelings. There is, perhaps, a reason
for this, which may be accounted for under the canons of literary
criticism. A song is something different from a poem, and includes a
dominant appeal to the ear, which may be even obstructed by elaborate
meaning, and the simple and taking air is the essential thing. It is not
always the case that a popular or national song is meaningless, as is
shown in the Marseillaise and Der Wacht am Rhein; and, in our own war,
Mr. James R. Randall's My Maryland was as popular in the Southern army
as a song as it is vigorous and spirited as a piece of pure literature.
But as a whole, songs which have been sung by large bodies of men, under
stress of high excitement, have depended more upon their sound than
their meaning for their vogue, and this would doubtless apply to the
chants of the Crusaders as to the choruses of the Northern and Southern
soldiers during the civil war. God save the King does not compare with
Ye Mariners of England in any element of poetry, yet the one is always
sung and the latter never; and Marching through Georgia depends upon
its air rather than its commonplace words for its hold upon the martial
heart. There was some good poetry written during the late civil war,
although not much; and in the collections, as I have said, it is
doubtful if the respectable verses, in which the incidents and feelings
of the war were expressed with deliberate art, have the vitality,
as they have not now the effect, of the rude rhymes and commonplace
sentimentality of those songs which took hold of the hearts of the
people, and were the living voices of the war. Too often they had
the contortions of patriotism without its inspiration, and were
forcible-feeble in appeal, or, when they attempted to interpret the
spirit of battle, rang false to the real feeling and knowledge of the
soldier. To this there were brilliant exceptions, like Mr. Gibbons's We
are coming, Father Abraham, Mr. Henry Howard Brownell's naval poems,
and Read's Sheridan's Ride, but as a whole it must be confessed that the
polite poetry of the civil war is rather dreary reading.
There was an immense amount of song-writing as well as of song-singing
during the war, and under the stress of excitement and the gathering
together of immense bodies of young and exuberant spirits the enthusiasm
inevitably found a vent through the lungs. The illiterate poets were
as busy as those of higher education; and those who did not seek their
public through the pages of the fashionable magazine, or even the poet's
corner of the country newspaper, but through the badly printed sheet
of the penny street ballad, or through the mouth of the negro minstrel,
contributed almost as largely to the poetry of the war as their
brothers. Dime song-books containing a curious admixture of the common
and the polite, the appropriate and the incongruous, were innumerable,
and the poetry which is below literary criticism was equal in bulk
to that which is within its scope. Actual soldiers and sailors also
sometimes wrote of their battles and experiences, or expressed their
feelings in more or less finished verse, and these found their way into
print either in the ballad sheet or the newspaper. Most of those which
were good in themselves, from their native force and vigor or from their
power as songs, have been preserved, but there is an immense amount
of this uncollected and unedited verse which has a very great value as
illustrating the sentiments and condition of the people, the waves of
popular feeling during various phases of the war, the impressions of
notable incidents and the estimates of prominent personages, and which
tell, oftentimes more than the leading articles in the newspapers, how
the common people were affected by the tremendous struggle. They have
the interest, if no other, of the relics of arms and uniforms, and the
tokens of the familiar life of a bygone age, and will one day be as
valuable to the historian as the ballads of the civil war in England,
which have been collected with so much care. In modern times and in
civilized societies, the newspaper has taken the place of the street
ballad as the record of historical events and the expression of
political feeling, and Ireland is almost the only country where it now
lingers in any quantity and force; but during such times of popular
excitement, and the occurrence of great events involving the most
intimate interests of the people, as during the civil war, the popular
ballads resumed something of their former value as the expressions of
popular feeling. It would be a mistake to omit from consideration even
those which were provided as a matter of professional business by the
minstrels of the popular stage, who reflected the pervading sentiments
of the time, and colored their rude comedy and cheap pathos with the
thoughts and feelings aroused by the war.
Thousands of these street songs were issued, to have their temporary
vogue and disappear. The principal publisher of the penny sheets was
H. de Marsan, 34 Chatham Street, New York, and he appears to have had
almost a monopoly of the trade. They were printed on coarse paper, with
an emblematic border in colors representing the American flag, and with
a soldier and sailor under arms. Some of the more successful songs were
copyrighted and published with their music, but this appears to have
made little difference to the enterprising Chatham Street publisher,
for he included almost everything that was singable, old Revolutionary
ballads, English naval songs, and some of the more finished American
poems of the war, as well as Ethiopian melodies, and ballads obviously
of original contribution. It would be interesting to know whether he
kept a staff of poets, like Jemmy Catnach of Seven Dials, or whether, as
is most probable, he simply took what he could find, and conferred the
honors of print, without remuneration, upon voluntary contributors. The
most numerous contributors who bear the stamp of originality naturally
came from the Irish element in New York, who were familiar with the
street ballad at home, and reproduced its form and sentiment for a
similar audience. There are dozens of ballads relating to the exploits
of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment, an Irish organization in the New York
State Guard, of which Michael Corcoran, an ex-member of the Irish
constabulary, was colonel, and Thomas Francis Meagher, the Irish
revolutionist, and afterward a brigadier-general of volunteers, a
captain. The regiment took part in the battle of Bull Run, during which
Colonel Corcoran was taken prisoner and carried South. The bards
were instantly inspired to sing the praises of the regiment and its
commander, and ballads were written exactly reproducing the style and
language of the Irish "Come, all yez," as thus:--
Come, all ye Gallant Heroes, along with me combine;
I 'll sing to you a ditty about the Glorious Sixty-Ninth.
They are a band of Brothers, from Ireland they came;
They had a bold Commander, Michael Corcoran was his
name.
In one or two of them there is an improvement on this very primitive
verse, gleams of humor and ebullitions of vigorous spirit. A song
entitled The Jolly Sixty-Ninth has a rollicking rhythm and rude humor,
of which the following is a specimen:--
It happened one fine day,
Down by the rajin say,
Quite convenient to the boilin' Gulf of Mexico,
That some chaps hauled down our flag,
And it through the dust did drag,
Swearin' it should never float on Fort Sumpter, O.
The author of a song entitled Freedom's Guide had a force and vigor
which, with a little more polish and form, would have entitled him to
a place in polite literature, and the real singable quality, which was,
perhaps, of more importance:--
FREEDOM'S GUIDE.
Our country now is great and free,
And this forever it shall be.
We know the way--we know the way.
Though Southern foes may gather here,
We will protect what we hold dear.
We know the way.
Chorus. We know the way--we know the way.
Through Baltimore, hooray.
For our guide is Freedom's banner.
Hooray, hooray.
The way is through Baltimore.
The South shall see that we are true,
And that we know a thing or two.
We know the way--we know the way.
As Yankee boys we are at hand,
Our countless throngs shall fill the land.
We know the way.
From east to west, from south to north,
We 'll send our mighty legions forth.
We know the way--we know the way.
The freedom that our fathers won
Shall be defended by each son.
We know the way.
Then shout, then shout o'er hill and plain,
We will our country's rights maintain.
We know the way--we know the way.
We will always guard it with our might,
And keep steadfast in the right.
We know the way.
Old Jeff has now begun to lag,
He knows that we 'll stand by the flag.
We know the way--we know the way.
With Scott to guide us in the right,
We 'll show them how the Sixty-Ninth can fight.
We know the way.
An organization almost equally popular with the New York ballad singers,
in the early days of the war, was the "Fire Zouaves," recruited among
the firemen of the metropolis, and which was expected to perform
wonderful feats of daring and energy, from the character of its
material. Its leader, Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, was killed by the
landlord of a hotel in Alexandria, Va., while hauling down the rebel
flag from the roof, and his death created a deep sensation from its
dramatic character, and from the fact that it was among the earliest in
the war. The elegies upon his death were numerous, as well as those in
praise of the regiment itself. One of the latter, by Archibald Scott,
whose name, contrary to the usual custom, was prefixed to the ballad,
had a good deal of rude vigor, of which the following is a specimen:--
Shall ugly plugs of Baltimore,
Who come out with stones and staves,
Get leave our patriots' blood to pour,
And drive our soldiers from their shore?
No, no! by Hell, in flames shall roar
Their city first by York Zouaves!
Another phase of life in the cities, from that of the enthusiasm of the
young men in marching to the war and the fervent appeals for enlistment,
was that of the feelings of the women whose sons and husbands left their
workshops to join the army. The grief was as bitter and the patriotism
as sincere among the inmates of the crowded tenement houses and the
narrow and barren homes of the families of the workingmen of New York as
among their sisters in the farmhouses in the country, whose surroundings
better lent themselves to the illumination of poetry, and it cost as
much to put down the tin pail of the city laborer as for the farmer to
Lay down the axe, fling by the spade,
and even more in pinching poverty and lack of resource. But the griefs
and sacrifices of these women of the city tenement and noisome alley
have found no place in the genteel poetry of the war, and have only been
expressed in the rude verse of the street ballad. Says one of them:--
It was in the month of April,
As I walked out one day,
I met a woman weeping
As I walked down Broadway.
She was weeping for her Johnny,
Her dear and only son,
Who joined the Northern army
To fight in Washington.
O Johnny! I gave you a schoolin',
I gave you a trade likewise,
And when you joined the Volunteers,
You know't was my advice."
The New York ballad writers were not entirely confined to the English
language, the large foreign population furnishing recruits of all
nations. There is not, so far as I have seen, any original German song
devoted to the Union cause, but The Red, White, and Blue, and other
patriotic songs, were published in German text; and of Germanized English
songs, most if not all the product of variety theatre performers, there
were a great many, including the extremely popular I'm going to fight
mit Siegel.
Ven I comes from de Deutsche Countree,
I vorks somedimes at baking.
Den I keeps a lager bier saloon,
And den I goes shoemaking.
But now I vas a sojer man
To save the Yankee eagle,
To Schlauch dem dam Southern folks,
I'm going to fight mit Siegel.
But this was no more representative of German sentiments than the
"Whack-row-de-dow" Pats of the stage were of the Irish; and the German
soldiers, when they sang in the vernacular, enlivened their foreign
patriotism with the songs of the Fatherland. There was at least one
French poet who appealed to his countrymen in their own language to
rally to the cause of the Union. His production was as follows:--
VENGEONS LA PATRIE.
Hymne Patriotique, Pah Gustave Dime, Ouvrier-Estam
Peur: Air, "Gloire Aux Martyrs Victoriaux."
Appel Aux Armes.
Debout fils de l'Union
Pour venges l'infamie
Faite à la nation,
Pour venger la Patrie,
La Constitution!
A bas Rébellion!
Debout, debout Américains,
Debout les armes à main.
l'outrage.
De Baltimore à Charleston,
De Richmont à Montgomery,
Le grand drapeau de Washington
Partout il fut souillie, flétri,
Du Fort Sumpter vengeons l'outrage
Et en la sol de Virginie
Sachions montrer notre courage
En digne fils de la Patrie.
l'assassinat.
Le Sud in horrible furie
Du Poignard de la Trahison
Perçant le cour de la Patrie,
Proclame à la Secession.
Mais le President héroïque
Et l'Autorité, le Sénat,
Sauront sauver la République
Et cet infâme Assassinat.
le triomphe.
Gloire à ton nom, libre Amérique,
Gloire à tes vaillant défenseurs
Ils sauveront la République,
Terrasseront tes oppresseurs.
Ils volent tous à la victoire,
Pour l'Union des Etats Unis.
Ils reviendront couverts de gloire
Et les traîtres Seront Punis.
The "ouvrier-estampeur" was sufficiently energetic, but his song never
became the Franco-American Marseillaise.
As the war dragged its slow length along, demanding greater and greater
sacrifices, and with its days of repulse and defeat for the Union
armies, the feeling of universal enthusiasm gave way to discouragement,
and there were not wanting in New York, among its heterogeneous
population, elements of bitterness which culminated in the deadly and
shameful outbreak of the draft riots. This feeling manifested itself in
the street ballads, not so conspicuously as the previous enthusiasm, but
enough to have attracted the attention of those who were watching the
signs of popular feeling. "Copperheadism" had its bards as well as
loyalty, although they were much fewer in number, and they cannot be
omitted in an account of the folksongs of the civil war. A rude jingle
entitled Johnny, fill up the Bowl, gave the popular expression to this
feeling:--
Abram Lincoln, what yer 'bout?
Hurrah, hurrah.
Stop this war, for it's played out,
Hurrah, hurrah.
Abram Lincoln, what yer 'bout?
Stop this war, for it's played out.
We 'll all drink stone-blind,
Johnny fill up the bowl.
The pages of the dime song-books at this time contained a number of
songs in opposition to the draft, expressing hatred to the negro, and
a demand for the stoppage of the war, of which the following is an
example:--
THE BEAUTIES OF CONSCRIPTION.
And this the "people's sovereignty,
Before a despot humbled,
Lies in the dust 'neath power unjust,
With crown and sceptre crumbled.
Their brows distained--like felons chained
To negroes called "their betters,"
Their whinings drowned in "Old John Brown,"
Poor sovereigns wearing fetters.
Hurrah for the Conscription,
American Conscription!
Well have they cashed old Lincoln's drafts,
Hurrah for the Conscription!
Some think the hideous spectacle
Should move the heart to sadness,
That fetters ought--oh silly thought!--
Sting freemen's hearts to madness.
When has the stock of Plymouth rock
Been melted to compunction?
As for Provos, the wide world knows
That chaining is their function.
Hurrah for the Conscription,
American Conscription,
And for the stock of Plymouth rock,
Whence sprung this new Conscription!
What matter if you 're _sandwiched_ in
A host of sable fellows,
Well flavored men, your kith and kin,
As Abe and Sumner tell us?
Is not the war--this _murder_--for
The negro, _nolens volens?_
For every three now killed of ye
There's just a negro stolen.
And then ye have Conscription,
American Conscription,
Your blood must flow for this, you know.
Hurrah for the Conscription!
The songs written by the soldiers and sailors themselves, descriptive of
their engagements, or incidents of camp and march, or expressing their
feelings, were not many, either in folk-ballads or finished poetry.
Major J. W. De Forrest's powerful verses, In Louisiana, are almost the
only specimen of the latter, and there are but few of the ruder
ballads. It may have been because the soldiers and sailors were too much
occupied, and that the life in camp and on shipboard was not favorable
to poetical reverie, although there were many hours on picket or watch
which might have been thus employed; but the fact remains that there was
more carving of bone rings than of verses, and more singing than writing
in the army and navy. There was not an absolute dearth, however, and the
soldiers and sailors sometimes told their own stories or expressed their
own feelings in verse. One of the best of these was written during
the early days of the war by H. Millard, a member of Company A,
Seventy-first Regiment, concerning the march from Annapolis to the
Junction, and has the genuine flavor of soldiership as well as a fine
spirit of _camaraderie_.
It is entitled Only Nine Miles to the Junction:--
The Rhode Island boys were posted along
On the road from Annapolis station,
As the Seventy-first Regiment, one thousand strong,
Went on in defense of the nation.
We'd been marching all day in the sun's scorching ray,
With two biscuits each as a ration,
When we asked Gov. Sprague to show us the way,
And "How many miles to the Junction?"
How many miles--how many miles,
And how many miles to the Junction;
When we asked Gov. Sprague to show us the way,
And "How many miles to the Junction?"
The Rhode Island boys cheered us on out of sight,
After giving the following injunction:
"Just keep up your courage, you 'll come out all right,
For it's only nine miles to the Junction."
They gave us hot coffee, a grasp of the hand,
Which cheered and refreshed our exhaustion;
We reached in six hours the long-promised land,
For't was only nine miles to the Junction.
There were not many attempts to describe the battles in which the
soldiers took part, and they were left to the poets, who did not see
them, and had to depend, not very successfully, upon their imagination.
There was, however, a ballad of the Seven Days' Fight before Richmond,
evidently written by a soldier, and of some force and vigor. It begins:
--
Away down in old Yirginny many months ago,
McClellan made a movement and made it very slow.
The Rebel Generals found it out and pitched into our rear;
They caught the very devil, for they found old Kearney
there.
In the old Yirginny low-lands, low-lands,
The old Yirginny low-lands, low.
The bard details the fights as though they were a succession of Union
victories, and concludes with a defense of General McClellan:--
Now all you politicians, a word I have for you,
Just let our little Mac alone, for he is tried and true;
For you have found out lately that he is our only hope,
For twice he saved the Capitol, likewise McDowell and
Pope.
The enthusiasm aroused by General McClellan among the rank and file
of the Army of the Potomac had no counterpart in regard to any other
commander, was proof against failure and defeat, and lingered, to a
certain extent, even to the close of the war. His removal caused a great
deal of indignation, and called out a good many protests and appeals for
his restoration. A song, Give us back our old Commander, was a good deal
sung at the time:--
Give us back our old Commander,
Little Mac, the people's pride;
Let the army and the nation
In their choice be satisfied.
With McClellan as our leader,
Let us strike the blow anew;
Give us back our old Commander,
He will see the battle through.
Give us back our old Commander,
Let him manage, let him plan;
With McClellan as our leader,
We can wish no better man.
The very rollicking and nonsensical chorus of Bummers, come and meet Us,
belongs to this period, and was almost as popular as John Brown's Body,
fulfilling amply and simply the conditions for relieving the lungs. Like
the sailors' "shanties" and the plantation choruses, it was capable of
indefinite extension and improvisation. The following is a specimen of
its construction:--
McClellan is our leader, we've had our last retreat,
McClellan is our leader, we've had our last retreat,
McClellan is our leader, we 've had our last retreat,
We 'll now go marching on.
Say, brothers, will you meet us,
Say, brothers, will you meet us,
Say, brothers, will you meet us,
As we go marching on?
*****
The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the
North,
The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the
North,
The girls we left behind us, boys, our sweethearts in the
North,
Smile on us as we march.
Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,
Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,
Oh sweethearts, don't forget us,
We 'll soon come marching home.
A seaman on board the Vandalia, one of the ships engaged in the
capture of Port Royal, wrote a description of the engagement, which has
considerable of the light of battle in it. It is entitled:--
THE PORT ROYAL DANCE.
Behold our glorious banner floats gayly in the air,
But four hours hence base traitors swore we could not plant
it there;
But brave Dupont he led us on to fight the vaunting foe,
And soon the rebel standard was in the dust laid low.
Whack row de dow,
How are you, old Port Royal?
Whack row de dow,
How are you, Secesh?
When we were seen advancing they laughed with foolish pride,
And said that soon our Northern fleet they'd sink beneath
the tide;
And with their guns trained carefully they waited our advance,
And the gallant Wabash soon struck up the music of the
dance.
The Susquehanna next in line delivered her broadside,
With deadly aim each shot was sent and well each gun was
plied;
And still our gallant ships advanced, and each one, as she
passed,
Poured in her deadly messengers, and the foe fell thick and
fast.
Each ship advanced in order, each captain wore a smile,
Until the famed Vandalia brought up the rear in style,
And as our guns were shortest we balanced to the right,
And brought us to the enemy the closest in the fight.
Then round the room (Port Royal bay) we took a Highland
Fling,
And showed them in Fort Walker what loud music we could
sing.
And then we poured in our broadsides that brought their
courage low,
And o'er the rebel batteries soon our Union flag did flow.
Three cheers for gallant Haggerty, he led us safely through;
And three for our loved Whiting, he is the real true blue.
Success to every officer who fought with us that day;
Together may we pass unscathed through many a gallant
fray.
A health to every gallant tar who did his duty well,
Peace to the ashes of the dead who nobly fighting fell.
'T was in a glorious cause they died, the Union to maintain.
We who are left, when called upon, will try it o'er again.
Some of the disagreeable features of a soldier's duty and camp life were
dealt with by the soldiers in the spirit of humorous exaggeration, which
was as much an evidence of high spirits as the enthusiastic choruses.
A camp poet thus relieves his feelings in regard to the exercise of
"double quick:"--
Since I became a volunteer things have went rather queer;
Some say I'm a three months' man, and others a three years'
volunteer.
With plenty of likes and dislikes to all I have to stick;
There's plenty of pork, salt horse, and plenty of Double
Quick.
Oh, I'm miserable, I'm miserable,
To all I 'll have to stick.
The old salt horse is passable,
But d-n the Double-Quick.
If a friend should call to see you the men have a pretty game.
They call him paymaster, obstacle, or some such kind of a
name.
They chase him around the camp; it's enough to make him
sick
To try and teach him discipline by giving him Double-Quick.
You may feel rather hungry, almost in a starving state,
And you wish to get your dinner first, all ready with your
plate;
There's always others just the same, waiting for the lick;
To be the twentieth one, you must travel Double-:Quick.
Once upon every Sunday to church you must always go,
Your bayonet by your side in case you should meet the foe;
And when the service was ended it was called the moral trick
To drive you back to your camp at a pleasant Double-Quick.
Each day there are just twelve roll-calls to keep you in the
camp;
If off three rods the bugle sounds, back you will have to tramp,
And, if you chance to miss, why, you are a poor, gone chick,--
Fourteen bricks in your knapsack, and four hours Double
Quick.
Now, all you chaps who would enlist, don't leap before you
look,
And, if you wish to fight for the Union, go on your own hook,
For, if a soldier you become, it will be your last kick,
To the devil you will surely be drove headlong Double-Quick.
The Southern poetry of the civil war was even more rhetorical
and stilted than that of the North. Its literary culture was more
provincial, and its style a great deal more inflated and artificial. It
was the "foemen" that they were to meet instead of the enemy, and "gore"
instead of blood that was to be shed; and there was a great deal about
the "clank of the tyrant's chain," and the "bloodstained sword," and
such other fuliginous figures of speech. Sometimes there was a good deal
of force behind this sounding rhetoric, as in Henry Timrod's A Call to
Arms and in James R. Randall's There's Life in the Old Land yet, but for
the most part it had an air of bombast and turgidity, which would have
given a false impression in regard to the real spirit of determination
among the Southern people, if one had only judged by its inflated
expression. The pages of the Southern Amaranth, and other collections of
rebel poetry, give the impression of having been written by school-boys,
and contain little but sophomoric rhetoric of the most sounding and
inflated description. That it had a fiery energy and an invincible
determination behind it was abundantly shown, but the voice of the South
in its polite literature was one of inflated extravagance. Nevertheless
it produced the most manly and vigorous song of the whole war in Dr.
J. W. Palmer's Stonewall Jackson's Way; and some verses appeared in a
Richmond paper in 1861, entitled Call All, which have a fiery energy and
directness unsurpassed, and were in the genuine language of the people:
CALL ALL.
Whoop! the Doodles have broken loose,
Roaring around like the very deuce.
Lice of Egypt, a hungry pack;
After 'em, boys, and drive 'em back,
Bull-dog, terrier, cur, and fice,
Back to the beggarly land of ice.
Worry 'em, bite 'em, scratch and tear
Everybody and everywhere.
Old Kentucky is caved from under;
Tennessee is split asunder,
Alabama awaits attack,
And Georgia bristles up her back.
Old John Brown is dead and gone,
Still his spirit is marching on,--
Lantern-jawed, and legs, my boys,
Long as an ape's from Illinois.
Want a weapon? Gather a brick,
A club or cudgel, a stone or stick,
Anything with a blade or butt,
Anything that can cleave or cut;
Anything heavy, or hard, or keen;
Any sort of slaying machine;
Anything with a willing mind
And the steady arm of a man behind.
Want a weapon? Why, capture one;
Every Doodle has got a gun,
Belt and bayonet, bright and new.
Kill a Doodle and capture two!
Shoulder to shoulder, son and sire,
All, call all! to the feast of fire,
Mother and maiden, child and slave,
A common triumph or a single grave.
The street ballad did not exist in the South, so far as I can discover,
and the popular song-books were very few in comparison with those of the
North. There were some, however, printed on discolored paper and with
worn-out type. Among them were The New Confederate Flag Songster, S. C.
Griggs, Mobile; The General Lee Songster, John C. Schreiner & Son, Macon
and Savannah; The Jack Morgan Songster, compiled by a captain in General
Lee's army; and Songs of Love and Liberty, compiled by a North Carolina
lady, Raleigh, 1864. Like the Northern song-books, they contained an
admixture of the popular negro melodies with the songs of the war, and
there are but few instances of any genuine and native expression. The
song which gave the title to The Jack Morgan Songster, however, has
a good deal of force and vigor, and was evidently written by the camp
fire. It is entitled Three Cheers for our Jack Morgan:--
The snow is in the cloud,
And night is gathering o'er us,
The winds are piping loud,
And fan the flame before us.
Then join the jovial band,
And tune the vocal organ,
And with a will we 'll all join in
Three cheers for our Jack Morgan.
Chorus. Gather round the camp fire,
Our duty has been done,
Let's gather round the camp fire
And have a little fun.
Let's gather round the camp fire,
Our duty has been done,
'T was done upon the battle field,
Three cheers for our Jack Morgan.
Jack Morgan is his name,
The peerless and the lucky;
No dastard foe can tame
The son of old Kentucky.
His heart is with his State,
He fights for Southern freedom;
His men their General's word await,
They 'll follow where he 'll lead 'em.
He swore to free his home,
To burst her chains asunder,
With sound of trump and drum
And loud Confederate thunder.
And in the darksome night,
By light of homesteads burning,
He puts the skulking foe to flight,
Their hearts to wailings turning.
The dungeon, dark and cold,
Could not his body prison,
Nor tame a spirit bold
That o'er reverse had risen.
Then sing the song of joy,
Our toast is lovely woman,
And Morgan he's the gallant boy
To plague the hated foeman.
The tone of the Southern songs was not only a good deal more ferocious
and savage than that of those of the North, but there were fewer
indications of that spirit of humor which pervaded the Northern camps,
and found expression in the soldiers' songs. There is, however, one
Southern piece of verse, descriptive of the emotions of the newly
drafted conscript, which has an original flavor of comicality, although
evidently inspired by the spirit of Yankee Doodle:--
THE VALIANT CONSCRIPT.
How are you, boys? I'm just from camp,
And feel as brave as Cæsar;
The sound of bugle, drum, and fife
Has raised my Ebenezer.
I'm full of fight, odds shot and shell,
I 'll leap into the saddle,
And when the Yankees see me come,
Lord, how they will skedaddle!
Hold up your head, up, Shanghai, Shanks,
Don't shake your knees and blink so,
It is no time to dodge the act;
Brave comrades, don't you think so?
I was a ploughboy in the field,
A gawky, lazy dodger,
When came the conscript officer
And took me for a sodger.
He put a musket in my hand,
And showed me how to fire it;
I marched and countermarched all day;
Lord, how I did admire it!
With corn and hog fat for my food,
And digging, guarding, drilling,
I got as thin as twice-skimmed milk,
And was scarcely worth the killing.
And now I'm used to homely fare,
My skin as tough as leather,
I do guard duty cheerfully
In every kind of weather.
I'm brimful of fight, my boys,
I would not give a "thank ye"
For all the smiles the girls can give
Until I've killed a Yankee.
High private is a glorious rank,
There's wide room for promotion;
I 'll get a corporal's stripes some day,
When fortune's in the notion.
'T is true I have not seen a fight,
Nor have I smelt gunpowder,
But then the way I 'll pepper 'em
Will be a sin to chowder.
A sergeant's stripes I now will sport,
Perhaps be color-bearer,
And then a captain--good for me--
I 'll be a regular tearer.
I'll then begin to wear the stars,
And then the wreaths of glory,
Until the army I command,
And poets sing my story.
Our Congress will pass votes of thanks
To him who rose from zero,
The people in a mass will shout,
Hurrah, behold the hero!
(Fires his gun by accident.)
What's that? oh dear! a boiler's burst,
A gaspipe has exploded,
Maybe the Yankees are hard by
With muskets ready loaded.
On, gallant soldiers, beat'em back,
I 'll join you in the frolic,
But I 've a chill from head to foot,
And symptoms of the colic.
The spirit of the Southern women is well known to have been as vigorous
and determined as that of their brothers, and the sacrifices which they
were compelled to make were much more severe and general than at the
North. They had been dependent upon the North and foreign countries for
clothing and the luxuries of the household, and when these sources of
supply were cut off by the war and the blockade, they had to make and
sew their own homespun dresses, and forego all the delights of fashion
and adornment. The sacrifices and devotion of the daughters of the South
were sung in turgid rhetoric, like the threats and appeals of the men,
but here is a genuine voice, evidently a woman's own, which speaks
for her sisters in their homelier trials, as well as in their deeper
emotions:--
THE SOUTHERN GIRL'S SONG.
Oh yes, I am a Southern girl,
And glory in the name,
And boast it with far greater pride
Than glittering wealth or fame.
We envy not the Northern girl
With robes of beauty rare,
Though diamonds grace her snowy neck
And péarls bedeck her hair.
Hurrah, hurrah,
For the sunny South so dear.
Three cheers for the homespun dress
That Southern ladies wear!
The homespun dress is plain, I know,
My hat's palmetto, too,
But then it shows what Southern girls
For Southern rights will do.
We have sent the bravest of our land
To battle with the foe,
And we will lend a helping hand;
We love the South, you know.
Now, Northern goods are out of date,
And since old Abe's blockade,
We Southern girls can be content
With goods that's Southern made.
We sent our sweethearts to the war,
But, dear girls, never mind,
Your soldier love will ne'er forget
The girl he left behind.
The soldier is the lad for me,
A brave heart I adore;
And when the sunny South is free,
And when the fight is no more,
I 'll choose me then a lover brave
From out the gallant band;
The soldier lad I love the best
Shall have my heart and hand.
The Southern land's a glorious land,
And has a glorious cause;
Then cheer, three cheers for Southern rights
And for the Southern boys.
We 'll scorn to wear a bit of silk,
A bit of Northern lace;
And make our homespun dresses up,
And wear them with such grace.
And now, young men, a word to you:
If you would win the fair,
Go to the field where honor calls
And win your lady there.
Remember that our brightest smiles
Are for the true and brave,
And that our tears are all for those
Who fill a soldier's grave.
The folk-songs of the civil war, in which millions were engaged and
which lasted for four years, do not compare in quality with those which
much lighter struggles have produced, notably the Jacobite rebellion in
Scotland. The Americans were not a singing people in the bent of their
genius, and the conditions of life and civilization were not favorable
to this form of expression. The newspaper had taken the place of the
ballad as a means of influencing the public mind, and poetry had passed
from the people to the literary artists. So when the great crisis of
the civil war came, affecting all minds and all hearts, the people were
unfamiliar with this mode of expression, and the literary artists had
not the power to interpret their feelings except in their own artificial
forms without touching the heart or giving vital meaning to the voice.
The accident of the combination of genius with this sincerity, which
produced La Marseillaise and Der Wacht am Rhein, did not occur, so
that the great struggle is without an equally great song embodying and
interpreting the spirit of the nation, and whatever fine poems and songs
there were distinctly fall below this ideal. But in such a struggle the
voice of the people could not fail to find expression by the means which
the history of mankind has shown to be the most natural expression of
emotion and enthusiasm, and their songs, however imperfect, either as
literature or popular poetry, are the most genuine expression of the
feelings and thoughts which filled their hearts and minds, and have a
genuineness which informs the rude or inadequate words, and are a most
important illustration of the history of that tremendous conflict.
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS.
|Professor Francis James Child's edition of
the English and Scottish Popular Ballads, monumental in size, is still
more monumental in the labor which it represents. It embodies not only
diligent research for the most authentic and original versions of the
ancient ballads in all the known sources in print or in manuscript, and
the recovery of many from still living traditions in Great Britain and
the United States, but a careful study and comparison of the folk-song
of kindred European nations and of the world for resemblances in subject
and story; thus making a most interesting and valuable addition to the
knowledge of the common development of the human intellect in primitive
thought and form of expression in diverse countries. How much study this
has involved can only be appreciated by those who have seen its results
in the concise introductions to each ballad, citing comparisons in every
known literature, and yet further work in this direction will be left
for later scholars, as the study and collection of folk-song is being
pursued with more and more zeal and success in every quarter of
the world, under the appreciation of its great literary as well as
historical value. Professor Child has been governed by the strictest
conscientiousness in giving his version of the popular ballads, not
only going to the original sources like the Percy folio, the manuscript
materials for The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border preserved at
Abbotsford, Motherwell's note books, and other manuscripts and stall
copies, but reprinting them with all their omissions and defects,
not supplying the most obvious missing word or even letter without
indicating it. He has not followed the example of the strictly faithful
editors of the ancient ballads like Motherwell in presenting alone the
most complete and perfect specimen, nor allowed himself like others,
substantially faithful, like Scott and Jamieson, to collate a number of
copies derived from different sources into a harmonious whole,-but gives
each version distinct in itself, even to a solitary variant verse. It
is one of the commonplaces of the history of English and Scottish
ballad poetry that most of its collectors and editors from Bishop
Percy downward have felt themselves entitled to amend and correct the
imperfect fragments to a greater or less degree, supplying missing lines
or stanzas to connect or complete the story, and that this has resulted
sometimes in the most incongruous patchwork in which the sentiments
and poetical fashions of one generation have been foisted upon those of
another to the utter destruction of all verisimilitude, to say nothing
of strength and genuineness of expression. Bishop Percy, with all his
fine taste and genuine poetic power, was a conspicuous sinner in this
respect, and patched the rough and strong frieze of the ancient ballads
with pieces of the thin and sleazy silk of eighteenth century sentiment
and diction. Even Scott, with all his sense of honesty and appreciation
of the value of the integrity of the ancient ballads, could not always
refrain from his possessing temptation "to give a hat and stick" to the
stories which he heard, and, as Professor Child points out, there are
some stanzas in the Border Minstrelsy which bear suspiciously his
mark, and of which the originals have not been found in his manuscript
materials. It is true enough that Scott's additions and emendations,
as well as those of Allan Cunningham, who was wholly indifferent to the
genuineness and integrity of his originals, were likely to be in the
very spirit and turn of expression of the ancient ballads, and that the
lover of poetry for its own sake will not be likely to find fault with
them, but the real student of folk-song must repudiate them, and can
be content only with the genuine expressions of the people, as they
lived in tradition, however inchoate and imperfect they may he. The
historical and ethnological value of the ancient ballads consists
in their absolute genuineness, and even the imperfection of their
utterances illustrates the condition of the popular mind and the
characteristics of the individual intelligence which produced them, and
are important geological evidences of the growth and development of the
human intellect. At the same time this very imperfection of speech,
and the struggle of primitive thought to express itself in language
sometimes creates, as it were by accident, the very flower of strength
and vividness in picturesque description, and the interpretation of
emotion as the most skillful art has been unable to do. How strong these
ballads were, and what a hold they had upon the minds and imaginations
of the people, as the interpretation of their innate poetic spirit, is
shown in the tenacity with which they have lived, and been reproduced in
varying forms through generations down to the present day. Ballads like
The Cruel Sister and Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, the production probably
of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, have been recovered, with the
essential burden of their verse and the subject of their story, from the
mouths of English peasants and Irish servant girls, and in the folk-lore
of the American nursery, to which they had been transmitted simply by
the force of oral tradition, and without any assistance from print; and
it is not likely that they will entirely disappear for generations to
come, any more than the perennial nursery tales which were created by
and appeal to the primitive and childish imagination. These traditional
versions have been altered to suit the localities, and weakened in
their coherence and vigor of expression from the time when they were the
literature of the main body of the people instead of the lowest class,
as the stall copies of the ballads of the ancient minstrels, when they
were the attendants of kings and nobles and shared the inspiration of
chivalry, have been degraded to the level of the intelligence of the
audience of the street singers or the gatherings in the taprooms of
the village alehouses; but they retain the essential characteristics of
simple emotion, inherent melody, and primitive language, and have still
something of the fine and penetrating flavor of popular romance.
It is almost needless to say to the student of literature that the
art of popular ballad writing is extinct, or is successful only in the
rarest instances. Poets of genuine power and inspiration, imbued and
saturated with the spirit of the ancient ballads, have attempted to
re-create them in the telling of an ancient or modern story, but,
whatever their original power or imitative skill, they have failed to
reproduce that native strength and peculiar flavor of expression which
gives the ancient ballads such a hold upon the mind. The modern ballads
are admired by the intellect rather than felt by the heart, and are
recognized as the product of skillful art rather than as the expression
of original emotion. Even Scott, whose literary genius was so saturated
with their spirit, and Wordsworth, who sought his inspiration in the
simple emotions of the peasant heart and interpreted them so perfectly
in a literary form of glowing simplicity, could not produce a popular
ballad, and even Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, with all its powerful and
naked mystery and natural archaism of thought and language, appeals
to the literary rather than to the popular imagination. All the more
absolute imitations of ancient literature, like those of Rossetti
and Morris, have still more the air of unreality, in spite of what is
oftentimes their very great power and skill, and Sir Samuel Ferguson's
Lays of the Western Gael, perfect as they are in the reproduction of the
Celtic spirit and expression, are for the admiration of scholars rather
than the feeling of the people. It is hardly too much to say that in
modern English literature there are but two poems which fulfill the
conditions of the ancient ballads in their simplicity, directness, and
originality of language, their power upon the mind and heart through
the ear, and the indefinable flavor of primitive emotion, and those very
different in style, subject, and form of expression. These are Cowper's
Loss of the Royal George, and Rudyard Kipling's Danny Deever. Every one
who has heard it or read it can repeat,--
Toll for the brave,
The brave that are no more,
Sunk beneath the wave
Fast by their native shore;
and the burden and the measure, the simplicity and strength of diction,
of Danny Deever are equally calculated to take a possessing hold upon
the ear. These ballads are not imitations derived from study of the
ancient popular ballads, but obtaining their inspiration from the same
original source in strong and primitive emotion interpreted in the
simplest language possible, and speaking through the ear by the chanted
rather than through the eye by the printed line. It is this appeal to
the ear which is the strongest characteristic of the form of the ancient
ballads. They were made to be sung or chanted rather than read, and
therefore they have a felicity of sound as an interpreter of meaning
which is often perfect in its expression; and when imperfect, that is,
when the meaning is not clear, but is only vaguely and dimly attached
to the sound, as in the refrains and burdens, there is a flavor or an
atmosphere of meaning which pervades it and adds to the effect.
There is a touch of the plaintiveness of natural sounds which no
literary art could give in the opening of The Queen of Elphan's
Nourrice:--
I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,
An' a cow low down in yon fauld.
Long, long will my young son greet
Or his mother take him from cauld.
Even when the burden is still more arbitrary, and without any direct
reflection of the meaning whatever, it is never felt to be incongruous
or artificial, and has a mystic and intensifying effect, as in the
painful ballad of The Sheath and Knife:--
He has made a grave that was long and deep,
The broom blooms bonnie, and says it is fair,
And he's buried his sister, with her babe at her feet,
And they 'll never gang down to the broom any mair.
And even when the refrain might be called simply a meaningless chant, it
makes a part of the ballad which could not be taken away without a loss
of the quality which gives it a living voice, as in the chorus, which
sings of itself to The Elfin Knight:
My plaid awa, my plaid awa,
And o'er the hills and far awa,
And far awa to Norowa.
My plaid shall not be blawn awa.
As to these stanzas and lines, which give a perfect marriage of sound
and meaning either in the interpretation of emotion or description,
and in which the ear is the interpreter of the eye and the heart with
a skill which no art could give, they are numberless, and of the very
substance of the genius of the old ballad singers. There is nothing
in the cultivated skill of trochee and spondee to equal such untaught
perfections of the human voice as these:--
O, we were sisters, sisters seven;
We were the fairest under heaven.
(Gil Brenton.)
And a lightsome bugle then heard he blowe,
Over the bents sae browne.
(Sir Cawline.)
It was a sad and rainy night,
As ever rained from town to town.
(Clerk Saunders.)
But't was wind and weet and fire and sleet
When we came to the castle wa.
(Kinmont Willie.)
O, he has ridden o'er field and fell
Through ruins and moss and many a mire,
He spurs a steed that was sair to ride,
And frae her forefeet flew the fire.
(Annan Water.)
And this, in which the very gallop of the horse's feet runs along the
lines:--
It's twenty lang miles to Sillerton toun,
The langest that ever were gane,
But the steed it was wight and the lady was light,
And she rade linkin in.
(Prince Robert.)
The element of poetry of the highest kind in these ballads is the
strength as well as the simplicity of passion interpreted in language of
naked directness and dramatic power. Their stories are mainly those of
the bloody tragedies and the violent events and emotions in the lives
of a people to whom strife and adventure were an integral part of
existence, and whose passions were strong and vigorous, although a
proportion of the ballads have an element of rustic humor, and the cycle
of those relating to Robin Hood is mainly of this kind. There is an
element of the supernatural in the English and Scottish ballads, more
particularly in the latter, which, if not so marked and pervading as in
those of the Celtic nations, shows that the mysterious terrors of nature
were still embodied in the visible forms of the imagination, and that
the woods were still haunted by elfin knights, the green braes by
fairies, while human beings were still liable to be transformed into
laidly worms and foul toads by the enchantment of witches, in at least
a pervading shadow of popular belief. But for the most part they were
singularly free from the tincture of the marvelous, and mainly the
simple chronicles of stirring events or the tragedies of passion.
This gives them an element of strength, which is wanting to the
phantasmagorial figures of more imaginative nations, whatever glow of
misty glory shines about them as in the creations of the early
Celtic bards. The impression of the soul of nature is strong but not
overpowering as in these latter, and the influence of the landscape and
the sky in storm or calm illuminates but does not interfere with the
dramatic action. As has been said, strength of thought and strength
of language are their prevailing characteristics. Their strength of
language is that which belongs to the speech of a people when it is
fresh and new, and before it has been overlaid with words created for
literary purposes and by the introduction of foreign words to give
niceties of meaning, and no cultivated language has the same power and
directness as that which is the simple expression of the thoughts of
the people. Goethe, with his sound critical insight, noted this when he
said, "The unsophisticated man is the more master of direct, effective
expression than he who has had a regular training," and a language may
often lose in strength what it gains in ornament and flexibility.
This strength of expression is written large over all the English and
Scottish ballads, and specimens are merely arbitrary and may be taken
almost at random:--
Aye she waukened at the dead man,
And aye she waukened him to and fro.
(Clerk Saunders.)
And when she came out of the Kirk,
She shimmered like the sun.
(Lord Thomas and Fair Annet.)
The Lindsays flew like fire about,
Till all the fray was done.
(The Battle of Otterbourne.)
One spak slow, and another whispered out,
She's gone wi' Gipsy Davy.
(The Gipsy Laddy.)
Twice it lifted its bonnie blue ee,
Thae looks gae through the saul o' me.
(The Cruel Mother.)
There was no maen made for that lady,
In bower where she lay dead,
But a' was for the bonnie babe,
That lay blabbering in her bleed.
(Lord Ingram and Child Wyett.)
O, then she stood and better she stood,
And never did shed a tear,
Till once she saw lier seven brethren slain,
And her father she loved sae dear.
(The Douglas Tragedy.)
And when he came to her bower she was pale and wan,
But she grew red and ruddy, when Glenlogie came in.
(Glenlogie.)
The dramatic power of expression, that which illumines it with a touch
of action, is not less remarkable than that of direct phraseology:--
"Hold up, hold up, Lord William," she says,
"I fear that you are slain."
"It's nothing but the shadow of my scarlet cloak,
That shines in the water sae plain."
(Earl Brand.)
And aye she served the lang table,
With white bread and with brown,
And aye she turned her round about,
Sae fast the tears fell down.
(Fair Annie.)
She turned her head ou her left shoulder,
Saw her girdle hang on a tree,
O, God bless those that gave me that,
They 'll never give more to me.
(Lary Maissy.)
When I rose up in the morn,
My goodly palace for to lea,
I knocked at my lord's chamber door,
But never a word wad he speak to me.
(Jamie Douglass.)
The King looked over his left shoulder,
And a grim look looked he,
Earl Martial an' 't were na for my oath
Or hanged thou shouldst be.
(Queen Elinor's Confession.)
The look cast over the shoulder is a very fa-miliar action in the
ballads, as is also that where an angry man strikes the table with his
hand and "keps" it with his knee. Every one who receives the letter is
described as first smiling and then having his eyes filled with tears,
as in Sir Patrick Spence, and almost in an exact repetition of the
language, and there are numerous actions and phases which are the common
stock of the ballad poets. The idea of the exclusive rights to poetical
property and of the sin of plagiarism does not seem to have occurred
to them, and they took a striking image or an effective phrase wherever
they found it as a part of the common stock of poetry. These familiar
and striking phrases doubt-less added to the effect, being recognized
as old friends by the audience, and, like the repetitions of words and
action by a number of persons in the same ballad, such as by the
members of a family in succession denying the prayer of an unfortunate,
emphasizing and deepening the impression. Certain adjectives also became
attached to words as a part of their property, such as red to gold and
wan to water, and are essential parts of the ballad language, which add
to its effect by constant repetition.
One of the charms of these ancient ballads is the appreciation of the
effects of nature, given sometimes with a magical effect of suddenness
and originality. What can be more effective, for instance, than the
touch of beauty and charm in the tragedy of Babylon:--
He's killed the maid and he's laid her by
To bear the red rose company.
And can we not feel the magic of the note of elfin horn, touching the
heart with irresistible call through the summer air, in the opening to
Hind Etin?--
Lady Margaret sits at her bower door,
Sewing her silken seam;
She heard a note in Elmond wood,
And wished she there had been.
The voice of the unseen sea gives a note of deep solemnity and terror
to the supernatural landscape through which Thomas, the Rhymer, journeys
with the elfin queen:--
And they rode on and farther on,
And they waded the river above the knee,
And they saw neither sun nor moon,
But they heard the roaring of the sea.
How the strength of a lover's thought is illuminated by the touch of
nature itself in Willie and Alison:--
When he was in his saddle set,
And slowly ridin' on his way,
He had more mind o' Alison
Than he had o' the light o' day.
These touches of the power of nature upon human action, and revealing
human thought, are scattered throughout the ballads, and have the effect
of perfect naturalness and simplicity, as though the heart and not the
mind spoke in them.
A specimen of the ancient ballad in its most perfect strength, absolute
and concise in its construction, without wandering into irrelevancies
and incongruities, as many of them do, and in which the appalling
tragedy strikes with a sudden blow upon the heart at its close, is
Edward. It has all the characteristic features of the ballads, in
the vivid colors of nature illuminating and intensifying his dramatic
dialogue, while it has the mist of blood in the witchlike questions of
its opening, and the passion of hatred and despair in its close.
Ballads of similar form and subject are to be found in Scandinavian
literature, and counterparts to its methods of revelation in various
English and Scottish ballads, but none have so pure a construction and
so perfect an effect as this:--
"Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
Edward, Edward?
Why does your brand sae drap wi' bluid,
And why sae sad gang yee, O?"
"O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
Mither, mither.
O, I hae killed my hauke sae guid,
And I had nae mair but hee, O."
"Your hauke's bluid was nevir sae reid,
Edward, Edward.
Your hauke's bluid was nevir sae reid,
My deir son, I tell thee, O."
O, I hae killed my red roan steed,
Mither, mither.
O, I hae killed my red roan steed
That was sae fair and free, O."
"Your steed was auld and ye hae gat mair,
Edward, Edward.
Your steed was auld and ye hae got mair.
Sum other dule ye drie, O."
"O, I hae killed my fadir deir,
Mither, mither.
O, I hae killed my fadir deir.
Alas! and wae is mee, O."
"And whatten penance will ye drie for that,
Edward, Edward?
And whatten penance will ye drie for that,
My deir son? Now tell mee, O."
"I 'll set my feit in yonder boat,
Mither, mither.
I 'll set my feit in yonder boat,
And I 'll fare ovir the sea, O."
"And what will you doe wi' your towirs and your ha',
Edward, Edward?
And what will you doe wi' your towirs and your ha',
That were sae fair and free, O?"
"I 'll let them stand tul they down fa',
Mither, mither.
I 'll let them stand tul they down fa',
For here nevir mair maun I bee, O."
"And what wul ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leave to your bairns and your wife,
When ye gang ovir the sea, O?"
"The warlde's room, late them beg thrae life,
Mither, mither.
The warlde's room, late them bag thrae life,
For them nevir mair wul I see, O."
"And what wul ye leave to your ain mither, deir,
Edward, Edward?
And what wul ye leave to your ain mither, deir,
My deir son? Now tell mee, O."
"The curse of hell frae me sail ye beir,
Mither, mither.
The curse of hell frae me sail ye beir,
Sic counseils ye gave to me, O."
Edward was communicated to Bishop Percy from Scotland by Lord Hailes,
and there is some affectation in the ancient spelling, but it is
undoubtedly genuine, and, as Professor Child remarks, "as spelling will
not make an old ballad, so it will not unmake one."
One of the most famous and best known of the ancient Scottish ballads
is that entitled Waly, Waly, gin Love be Bony, or, as it is sometimes
called, Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament, which was first published in
Ramsay's Tea Table Miscellany. It has numerous variants embodying the
language of the lament in stories of a more dramatic character, founded
on a tradition of the Douglas family, but this has the strength and
simplicity of an original:--
O, waly, waly, up the bank,
And waly, waly, down the brae;
And waly, waly, yon burn-side,
Where I and my love wont to gae.
I leaned my back unto an aik,
I thought it was a trusty tree;
But first it bowed, and syne it brak,
Sae my true love did lightly me.
O, waly, waly, but love be bony,
A little time, while it is new;
But when it's auld it waxeth cauld,
And fades away like morning dew.
O, wherefore should I brush my head?
O, wherefore should I kaim my hair,
For my true love has me forsook,
And says he 'll never love me mair.
Now, Arthur's seat shall be my bed,
The sheets shall ne'er be fyld by me;
Saint Anton's well shall be my drink
Since my true love's forsaken me.
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,
And shake the green leaves off the tree
O, gentle death, when wilt thou come,
For of my life I am weary.
'T is not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snaw's inclemency;
'T is not the cauld as makes me cry,
But my love's heart grown cauld to me.
When we came in by Glasgow town,
We were a comelie sight to see;
My love was clad in black velvet,
And I myself in cramoisie.
But had I wist before I kist
That love had been sae ill to win;
I'd locked my heart in a case of gold,
And pinned it with a silver pin.
Oh, oh, if my young babe was born,
And set upon the nurse's knee;
And I mysell were dead and gone,
For a maid again I 'll never be.
The burden of this lament, its simple passion appealing to the popular
heart and its melody holding the ear, has been perpetuated through the
generations since it was first sung. It has been printed in all forms
and variations in the broadsides and penny song books, as well as in the
critical collections of poetry, solaced the sentimental feeling of
the dairy maid as well as haunted the vision of Charles Lamb, and
its refrain may be heard to-day in the burlesque choruses of the negro
minstrel stage. A very interesting example is given by Professor Child
of the way in which an old ballad of perfect form and construction may
be made incoherent and shapeless in a broadside copy, mere matter of
"silly sooth" for old age or primitive ignorance, without losing the
fine flower of pathos and feeling, or the grace of expression, in its
disconnected and ejaculatory stanzas. It is also interesting as an
example, of which many others could be given, of the effect of oral
tradition passing from minds of native strength, if without education,
down to and through those of a lower order of intelligence, from whom
now only the debris of the ancient songs and ballads can be obtained.
It is from a broadside printed in Edinburgh, without date, but of
considerable antiquity, and entitled Arthur's Seat shall be My Bed,
etc., or Love in Despair.
Come lay me soft and draw me near,
And lay thy white hand over me;
For I am starving in the cold,
And thou art bound to cover me.
O, cover me in my distress,
And help me in my miserie;
For I do wake, when I should sleep,
All for the love of my dearie.
My rents they are but very small,
For to maintain my love withall;
But with my labour and my pain,
I will maintain my love with them.
O, Arthur's seat shall be my bed,
And the sheets shall never be filed by me,
St. Anthony's well shall be my drink,
Since my true love's forsaken me.
Should I be bound, that may go free?
Should I love them that love not me?
I 'll rather travel into Spain,
Where I 'll get love for love again.
And I 'll cast off my robes of black,
And will put on the robes of blue;
And I will come to some other land
To see if my love will on me rue.
It is not the cold that makes me cry,
It is not the weet that wearies me;
Nor is it the frost that freezes fell,
But I love a lad, and I dare not tell.
Oh, faith is gone, and truth is past,
And my true love's forsaken me;
If all be true that I hear say,
I 'll mourn until the day I die.
Oh, if I had nere been born,
That to have died, when I was young;
Then I had never wet my cheeks
For the love of any woman's son.
Oh, oh, if my young babe was born,
And set upon the nurse's knee;
And I myself were dead and gone,
For a maid again I shall never be.
Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,
And blow the green leefs off the tree;
O gentle Death, when wilt thou come,
For of my life I am wearie.
As in all single hearts and primitive natures, the visible features of
death, the white shroud and the grave, "hap'd with the sods sae green,"
make a deep impression, and the imagination concerning the loved one
lost is not lifted to spiritual forms, but dwells upon the painful
figures of the charnel house. The ghosts that visit the living have the
fatal breath of decaying mortality, and are summoned back by the cock to
the winding sheet and the worm. The ballads that deal with this subject
are all in the same strain, and repeat the same phrases. The lady asks
her dead lover if there is any room at his head or any room at his feet
in his new bed, and he answers that there is none, it is made so narrow,
and that the worms are his only bedfellows; and warns her that he cannot
give the kiss she craves, for his breath would be fatal. Sometimes the
images of mortality are extremely powerful as well as grotesque, as in
the ballad of Sweet William's Ghost:--
My meikle toe is my gavil post,
My nose is my roof tree,
My ribs are kebars to my house;
There is no room for thee.
Sometimes they have a touch of homely pathos, which relieves them from
the conventional note of sorrow, as when the three sons of The Wife of
Usher's Well are called back to the grave by the crowing cock, and the
youngest says:--
Fare ye weel, my mother, dear;
Farewell to barn and byre,
And fare ye weel, the bonny lass,
That kindles my mother's fire.
One of the most interesting specimens of the ballads of this kind, as
they exist to-day, borrowed in a modified form from the ancient, but
embodying a still popular superstition, is The Unquiet Grave, recently
taken down from the lips of a young girl in Sussex. It is founded on
the belief, common to many primitive peoples, that excessive weeping
disturbs the repose of the departed, and has a touch of that natural
originality of description and that abruptness which presupposes a
quickness of appreciation, which does not require an elaborate story to
make the connection intelligible, characteristic of popular poetry,
and which shows that the elements of mind to which it is addressed are
always the same:--
The wind doth blow to-day, my love,
And a few small drops of rain.
I never had but one true love--
In the cold grave she was lain.
I 'll do as much for my true love
As any young man may,
I 'll sit and mourn all at her grave
For a twelvemonth and a day.
The twelvemonth and a day being up,
The dead began to speak:
"O, who sits weeping on my grave
And will not let me sleep?"
"'T is I, my love, sits on your grave
And will not let you sleep;
For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips,
And that is all I seek."
"You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips,
But your breath smells earthly strong;
If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips
Your time will not be long."
'T is down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk:
The finest flower that e'er was seen
Is withered on the stalk.
The stalk is withered dry, my love,
So will our hearts decay:
So make yourself content, my love,
Till God calls you away.
By far the larger number of the popular ballads had their origin in
Scotland, and they are also of much finer quality than those of England.
Even if the question of the origin of the ballad of Chevy Chace should
be decided in favor of the latter, it would simply be localized upon the
Border within the limit of Scottish influence. The English ballads are
mostly heavy and dull, imperfect in form and expression, in comparison
with the Scottish, and show few signs of the depth and glow of feeling
in the burning words of the latter. The English ballads relating to
King Arthur are greatly inferior in strength and spirit to the
prose chronicles, and their dealing with the marvelous is coarse and
commonplace in comparison with the spiritual and majestic mystery of the
Welsh cycle of Arthurian romance. And the English ballads continued
to degenerate, rather than improve, from the rude vigor of some of the
Arthurian ballads, and took on the element of coarse humor which is
characteristic of the Robin Hood cycle, from which nearly every gleam of
poetry is eliminated. It may be said that the degeneracy of the English
popular ballad was due to the spread of education among the people, and
the development of their genius in more strictly literary forms under
the influence of Chaucer and his associates. But the spread of education
and the increase of literary production among the English people was by
no means so general as to affect the quality of the popular ballad at
this period, and certainly less than that which prevailed in Scotland at
a later time, when the production of popular poetry was in its fullest
flower. The adventures of the English outlaws, of whom Robin Hood,
however mythical his actual existence, was the type, were not less
stirring and full of the natural elements of poetry than those of the
reivers and cattle thieves of the Scottish Border, but the ballads of
the former cycle are only full of a vulgar peasant humor, while the
latter are illuminated with the light of battle, and have the quarter
staff and broken pate in place of the spear and the bleeding breast. Of
Robin Hood it is said:--
Then Robin took them both by the hand,
And danced about the oke tree;
For three merry men and three merry men
And three merry men are we.
While the Lord of Branxholm cries:
Gae warn the water broad and wide,
Gae warn it sune and hastilie;
He that winna ride for Telfer's Kyle
Let him neer look in the face o' me.
and the difference in the spirit is reflected in the quality of
the verse, the one dull and commonplace, suited to an audience of
heavy-faced rustics in an alehouse, and the other full of fire and
vigor, fit to be chanted in the dining hall of a Border chief. It is
impossible to analyze ethnologically the causes of the great superiority
of the Scottish popular poetry, or to define how much of the elevation
of feeling and appreciation of the magic of nature came from the greater
admixture of the Celtic element, which in its turn was given force and
vigor, directness of expression and coherence of construction by the
stronger nature of the invading element, which, for the want of a more
definite term, is called Saxon. The effect of these influences is merely
conjectural, as is also that of the country itself, its natural scenery,
the disturbed life of the people, and the ferment of the popular mind.
It can only be said that there was something in the national genius of
the Lowland Scotch different from that of their more stolid neighbors
at the south and their more mystical neighbors at the north, and which
fitted them for the production of popular poetry in song and ballad at
once elevated and impassioned, and which has resulted in a quantity and
quality which no other province of the world has rivaled. It is known
over the world, and has been translated into almost every literary
language of Europe. To the English reader it is only necessary to give
the titles to recall the verses that cling to the memory, and express
the deepest glow of passion and pathos in words whose magic melody is
beyond the reach of art, and which are winged with a force above the
powers of uninspired speech. The Border Widow tells how she buried her
slain husband:--
I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed and whiles I sat,
I digged a grave and laid him in,
And happd him with sod sae green.
Lord Randal comes home to his mother from his false love's poisoned
banquet:--
O, where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son,
O, where hae ye been, my handsome young man;
I have been to the greenwood; mither, mak my bed soon,
For I'm wearie wi hunting and fain wald lie down."
The lady of the House of Airlie cries out from the burning reek to the
cruel Edom o' Gordon:--
"Were my good lord but here this day,
As he's awa wi Charlie;
The dearest blood o' a' thy men
Wad sloken the lowe o' Airlie."
Johnnie Armstrong gives his last "Good Night" in defiance:--
O, how John looked over his left shoulder,
And to his merry men thus spoke he;
"I have asked grace of a graceless face,
No pardon here for you and me."
Mary Hamilton cries from the gallows-tree in a burst of anguish:--
O, little did my mother ken,
The day she cradled me,
The land I was to travel in,
The death I was to dee.
These verses, and many like them, cling to the tongues and have sunk
deep into the hearts of men, and will live until the speech in which
they were created has passed away. The Flower of Yarrow will always
utter her melodious lament so long as there is English poetry, and the
Border moss-troopers will ride with spear in hand and "splent on spauld"
until the valleys of the Tweed and the Tyne are inhabited by an alien
race, and the songs in which they are sung have perished like those of
the Assyrian shepherds.
The collection and study of folk-song is being pursued with a vigor and
a scholarly diligence which promises to leave no corner of the world
unransacked, and no people, however simple and savage, neglected, and
very valuable treasures of poetry have been and are being collected,
which speak to the heart with the native eloquence of unsophisticated
feeling and thought, and which give a more accurate knowledge of
national temperament and of the stages of the development of the human
intellect than any material remains or any historical records. But none
have as yet been discovered, or are likely to be, which have a stronger
power of original poetry, passion, and pathos, or which reveal a more
vigorous and noble native genius than the ballads and songs which were
produced within the limits of the little province between the Grampians
and the Border.
LADY NAIRNE AND HER SONGS.
The supreme felicity of lyric song is extremely rare even in the
greatest masters of the art, and seems to come from something outside
of themselves, some accident of the moment, some almost fortuitous
intermingling of sound with meaning, which could have been attained by
no ordinary inspiration and no deliberate skill, however accomplished
and sure and strong the poetical organ which produced it. It is this
supreme felicity, when it occurs, by which the lyric song of man, with
only the elements of harsh and prosaic speech and common words to frame
it, rivals the magic of the bird's note in joyous ecstasy or sorrow, and
floods the heart, as it captivates the ear, with emotions sweeter and
deeper, more ethereal and more mysterious, than life had seemed able
to give. It is well known that singers, whose skill in the use of their
vocal organs is the result of highly trained art, giving certainty and
assurance to a great natural gift, and able at all times to command what
seems the full extent of their power, sometimes have moments when they
surpass themselves and exceed the limits of any art, when the voice
touches a note of magic melody, which they can reach by no conscious
effort even in the highest moments of inspiration, and which seems to
come from some power not at their conscious command. It seems to be the
same in lyric poetry, and when the power does come, then we have the
touch which makes it song, as the thrill of the lark, and the ecstasy
of the mocking-bird in the tropic night, are songs. The magic may not
be prolonged through an entire lyric. It seldom is. It may be only in a
single line or in a single verse. It may not be even the highest strain
of feeling or nobility of sentiment, and may even carry with it little
definite meaning upon analysis. It derives its power from the magic
melody as much as from the feeling or the intelligible sense of the
words, and its effect is indefinable by any law of the understanding.
In its highest estate it combines the most penetrating feeling with not
only perfect but magic melody, but it sometimes comes in a wild refrain,
in which the meaning merely floats in the words, and the rhythm, the
accent, the song itself, so to speak, is predominant. For the first
instance there is the perfect example of Burns, the rapture caught once
for a single strain in a song, which does not rise above the level of
his accomplished skill otherwise, and which has the keenest and most
penetrating feeling, joined to, and permeated by, the perfect and magic
melody:--
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Never met and never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted. 1
For the second instance, where the melody is predominant over the
meaning, and where the poet seemed only to be affected by the desire to
frame words that would sing themselves and merely symbolize his thought,
there are very many examples in the peasant poetry and folk-song of
Scotland,--refrains that have no direct connection with the song, but,
like the note of a second flute in a concerto, intensify the effect of
the first strain by a kindred, yet diverse accentuation, as
The broom blooms bonnie and says it is fair;
and as the most perfect specimen that occurs, the refrain to the ballad
of Lord Barnard in Jamieson's collection:--
O, wow for day!
And dear gin it were day!
Gin it were day and I were away,
For I haena long time to stay.
It is only the uneducated poets who have the courage to use language
arbitrarily with a purpose
1 It is needless to say that the supreme felicity of these
lines has been pointed out by other and more distinguished
critics.
more for melody than for meaning, and when an attempt is made to
reproduce its effect deliberately, as has been done by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and William Morris, the result is simply artificial and
bizarre, in spite of the skill, the intensity, and the poetical power of
Sister Helen, and the melody of the most perfect example of the modern
imitation of the refrain in Morris's The Wind.
Wind, Wind, thou art sad, art thou kind?
Wind, Wind, unhappy; thou art blind,
Yet still thou wanderest the lily seed to find.
Perhaps the most perfect example of the lyric song, in which the melody
is mingled with and sustains and elevates the feeling, and both are
conjoined in an effect which melts the heart and possesses the ear,
although the strain is not of so high a rapture of love or sorrow as
parts of Burns's Ae Fond Kiss or Lady Anne Bothwell's Balow, and is of
a peaceful sweetness and resignation rather than passion, is The Land of
the Leal, by Carolina, Lady Nairne. In its original and simplest form,
before she had interpolated a verse to express some of her theological
ideas, it is the perfect interpretation of a sweet, solemn, and simple
thought, the tenderest and purest emotion, breathed in an equally
simple, but absolutely perfect melody, that is like the flowing of
limpid water, crystal clear and unbroken to the end. The heart of the
world has responded, and it has a place like none other in the tongue of
song.
I'm wearin' awa, John,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I 'm wearin awa'
To the land o' the leal.
There's nae sorrow there, John,
There's neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair
In the land o' the leal.
Our bonnie bairn's there, John,
She was baith gude and fair, John,
And, oh, we grudged her sair
To the land o' the leal.
But sorrow's sel' wears past, John,
And joy's a-comin' fast, John,
The joy that's aye to last,
In the land o' the leal.
Oh, dry your glist'ning ee, John,
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me
To the land o' the leal.
O, haud ye leal and true, John,
Your day it's wearin' through, John,
And I 'll welcome you
To the land o' the leal.
Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
The world's cares are vain, John,
We 'll meet and will be fain
In the land o' the leal.
The fame of the authoress, so far as she can be said to have any of
her own individual personality, rests upon this song, and sufficiently,
while the English language shall last, but it was not the solitary
example of her genius, and her poetical work, although not great in
hulk, contains other lyrics of a very high quality, with a wide range
from high martial spirit and homely pathos to gay and frolicsome humor,
and instinct with the vital and living element of song. Lady Nairne was
almost morbidly anxious to retain her incognito as a writer during her
life, so that her own husband and nearest relatives were not in the
secret, and those who surmised or guessed it hardly dared to allude to
it in her presence, and the veil has rested over her personality to a
great degree in comparison with the flood of light poured over the
words and actions of her great contemporaries, Scott and Burns, and many
lesser figures in Scotch provincial literature like Professor Wilson and
Hogg. Nevertheless, since her death at a very advanced age in 1846, her
songs have been collected and published under her own name, and enough
has been made known concerning her life and character to give to her
poetry an individuality, and reveal a very gracious, noble and engaging
figure.
Carolina Oliphant was born in "the auld house of Gask," in Perthshire,
on the 16th of August, 1766, six years later than Robert Burns. She came
of stanch Jacobite stock on both sides, her father, Laurence Oliphant,
a name since made familiar by the singular and notable career of the
accomplished writer, traveler, and scholar, who puzzled the world not
less by his naïve religious aberrations than by his accomplishments,
took up arms for the Stuarts in "the Forty-five," and suffered attainder
and temporary banishment in company with his father, who had also been
"out" in the Earl of Mar's rebellion in "the Fifteen." Young Laurence
Oliphant, while in exile at Versailles, married his cousin, Margaret
Robertson, daughter of Duncan Robertson of Strowan, chief of the clan
Dorrochy. The Robertsons had also been ardent Jacobites, and suffered in
purse and person for their loyalty. The grandfather, Duncan Robertson,
was notable in character and personality as well in adventure and
misfortune, and had his portrait painted in immortal colors by Scott as
the Baron of Bradwardine. Carolina, baptized after the exiled prince,
spent her infancy and early childhood on the Continent in France and
Belgium, under the care of her grandmother, her parents being in feeble
health, and then returned with them to the old home at Gask, where she
spent her happy, healthy, and gay youth and young womanhood. From a
feeble and delicate child she had grown into a strong, vigorous, and
beautiful young woman, the beauty of the country-side, called "the
Flower of Strathearn" and "the lovely Car," and her life was of a kind
to strengthen her ardent patriotism and cultivate her fondness for the
native music, poetry, and song of which Scotland was full, but whose
transcendent merits were unknown and unappreciated by the literary world
until they were illuminated by the light of the genius of Burns a few
years later. The anecdotes of her life give a very charming picture
of innocent gayety, family affection, and friendship. She played the
Jacobite airs for her aged grandfather, as she afterward wrote Jacobite
songs for his pleasure, and with a skill and feeling which won the
difficult approval of the famous Neil Gow, the wandering fiddler, whose
skill on his instrument was like that of Scott's "Wandering Willie," and
whose presence at a laird's house would draw all the young people
for miles around to dance to the winged notes of his strathspeys and
hornpipes. She was foremost in all scenes of gayety, and is said to have
taken a carriage at midnight and driven several miles to bring one
of her young lady friends out of bed for a party where partners were
scarce. In the simple social pleasures of the local aristocracy, the
county balls and meetings, and the gatherings of the tenantry, "the
Flower of Strathearn" was a conspicuous figure, while her keen eyes
were taking in the queer figures that appeared later in all the glow of
bright humor in The Laird of Cockpen, The County Meeting, and Jamie, the
Laird. Her first verses, The Ploughman, were written for a harvest home
dinner, and were read by her brother as a contribution by an unknown
author. About this time the first poems of Burns made their appearance,
and stirred the heart of Scotland not less by their original genius than
by the revivification of the old airs and scraps of songs, finished and
cleansed of their coarseness, and made to speak to the hearts of the
people in the drawing-room as well as in the peasant's cottage and the
taproom of the country alehouse. It was the first acknowledgment, if not
the beginning, of that appreciation of the wealth of pathos and humor in
the peasant poetry of Scotland, among the cultivated classes, and drew
that attention and emulation to which all there is of value in modern
Scotch poetry is due. It was the inspiration of the genius of Carolina
Oliphant, and from this time she began to write the new verses to the
old airs, and to replace the imperfect, unworthy, and sometimes coarse
and vulgar scraps of songs with the beautiful ones of her own, equally
Scotch and racy of the soil, and full of the thoughts and sentiments
as well as the dialect of the people. The old grandfather, worn with
disease and living in the past light of fervid days, heard his favorite
airs of welcome, gathering, and victory, for the Young Chevalier sung to
new and glowing words, and the young ladies laughed at the funny lilts
in which were drawn the queer figures of the dullards and provincial
fops, without knowing to whose keen pen they were indebted. The Land
o' the Leal was written for Mrs. Archibald Campbell Colquhoun, a dear
friend of Miss Oliphant, upon the death of an infant daughter, and
to one other only was the secret of its authorship ever definitely
disclosed, although its aurora, more or less mysteriously, finally
settled around the head of Lady Nairne. Mrs. Colquhoun was born Mary
Anne Erskine, and was the sister of that William Erskine afterward Lord
Kinedder who was the dearest friend and associate of Walter Scott in his
early Edinburgh days, and the sister, who kept the house for her brother
until her marriage with Mr. Colquhoun, was the earliest and deepest love
of Scott.
Somewhat late in life Carolina Oliphant married her cousin, Major
William Nairne, the heir to the forfeited Barony of Nairne, Assistant
Inspector General of Barracks in Scotland, and with him removed to
Edinburgh, where she occupied for a time a cottage at Portobello and
afterward official quarters in Holyrood place. The impulse given by
Burns to the cultivation of native Scotch poetry still continued, and
was being strengthened by his contributions of songs for the music of
the old airs in Johnson's Museum, and a coterie of the literary ladies
of Edinburgh established the Scotch Minstrel for the same purpose.
To this Mrs. Nairne became a contributor, with a single friend for
a confidant, under the name of "Mrs. Bogan of Bogan," with other
pseudonyms, a disguised handwriting and other elaborate precautions
for concealment. There was, of course, a keen curiosity to discover the
author of these beautiful songs, but the secret was well guarded, and
not even the husband was aware of it. "I dare not even tell William"--
Mrs. Nairne wrote to her friend--"lest he blab." She and her friend at
one time cherished the purpose of "cleansing and moralizing" the songs
of Burns, as he had done those of his unknown predecessors, but a wiser
second thought restrained them. Miss Oliphant had been "converted," as
the phrase goes, when a young woman on a visit to England, and her
piety and religious feeling deepened with her years, until it took
on completely the rigid, depressing, and dismal forms of Scotch
denominationalism, and her genius for poetry shriveled under it. During
the visit of George the Fourth to Edinburgh he signalized his theatrical
clemency by a restoration of the forfeited titles of the Jacobite
nobility, and Major Nairne became Baron Nairne. Lord Nairne survived his
restoration but a few years, and died in 1829, leaving his widow with an
only son. To his education she devoted herself, residing for a time
in Bath, afterward in Ireland, and traveling on the Continent for the
health of the young lord, who was of feeble constitution, and who died
at Brussels in 1837. It is painful to read of the narrow bigotry and
theological gloom which enveloped the joyous and healthy spirit of Lady
Nairne. She would not allow her son to be taught to dance, and regarded
her poetry as the somewhat flagitious exercise of a worldly spirit, and
spent her days in the doubt and self-affliction of a harsh creed and in
the petty interests of a narrow church. She was deeply interested in the
hopeless task of "converting" the Catholics of Ireland and the Jews to
Scotch Presbyterianism, and was the mentor of her relatives after the
fashion of Mrs. Hannah More, the patroness of bazaars, and at one time
with her sister was expelled from an Italian town for distributing
Protestant Bibles to the people. But her native nobleness of character
shone through the theological clouds. She was regarded with affection
as well as reverence by her younger relatives and her servants, and
impressed all who came in contact with her by the cordial grace of her
manners, and the aristocratic and highly marked contour of her features,
which in the bloom of youth had made her "the Flower of Strathearn."
Her benevolence was unceasing and self-sacrificing, if not always wisely
directed, and at one time she had all her family plate sold and the
proceeds sent to Dr. Chalmers for the support of an industrial school
for the poor. She lived during her later years at the old house of Gask,
the honored guest of her nephew and his wife, and died in 1845 at the
advanced age of seventy-one, in peace and tranquillity, and with only
the gentle decay of her mental faculties and bodily forces. The year
after her death her poems were collected and published under her own
name, and the world for the first time knew to whom it was indebted
for the songs which had impressed themselves upon the popular heart and
become a distinct and notable part of the lyric poetry of Scotland.
As has been said, The Land o' the Leal reaches the highest note in its
inspiration, perfection, and completeness, within the limits of its
purpose, not only of Lady Nairne's work, but of all the lyric poetry of
Scotland, but it was not the solitary example of a genius which had
much of the versatility, if not the fecundity and strength, of Burns, in
interpreting the emotions and the thoughts, the passions and the humors,
of the Scotch people. Lady Nairne's poetical genius was entirely lyric.
There was no Cotter's Saturday Night, much less any scene from
Poosey Nancy's alehouse, or witch's gathering at Kirk Alloway, in her
interpretation of Scotch life, and her voice was only the pure lilt of
Scotch song, grave or gay. Without determined literary ambition and
the responsibility of a known name, the stimulus of production was
not absorbing and lasting, and a good deal of her work was simply
occasional, careless, and imperfect. The best, that which will live as
long as Scotch song, could be comprised within the limits of a dozen
pages. But its quality is of the very highest in inspiration and
execution, the pure voice of the lark lilting beneath the blue cloud,
the mourning of the croodlin' doo, and the gay warble of the cheery
thrush.
Almost as famous in its own and very different way as The Land o' the
Leal, and almost as perfect in its execution, the limitation of the
true lyric to the simplest and most absolute words, and the complete
interpretation of its spirit in the melody, is The Laird of Cockpen. It
was written, it is said, to supply proper words to the gay old air of
When She cam ben, She bobbit, which being interpreted, means that when
she came into the front of the house, she curtsied, and of which the
first verse of the imperfect and rather vulgar old song is--
When she cam' ben, she bobbit,
When she cam' ben, she bobbit,
When she cam' ben she kissed Cockpen
And syne denied that she did it.
But no one can doubt that it was the true picture of a character and
incident which had given laughter to Carolina Oliphant and her young
friends, and had been the joke of the country-side, ere it lilted itself
to the rollicking jig. The commonly printed version of The Laird of
Cockpen is injured by the fact that it has two additional verses,
contributed by Miss Ferrier, the novelist, which destroy its absolute
completeness and perfection of humor as it was written by Lady Nairne.
THE LAIRD OF COCKPEN.
The laird of Cockpen, he's proud an' he's great;
His mind is taen up wi' things o' the State.
He wanted a wife his braw house to keep,
But favour wi' wooin' was fasheous to seek.
Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table-head he thought she'd look well,
M'Clish's ae daughter o' Claverse-ha'-Lee,
A penniless lass wi' a long pedigree.
His wig was well pouthered, as gude as when new,
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
He put on a ring, a sword and cock'd hat,
And wha could resist a laird wi' a that.
He took the grey mare and rode cannily,
An' rapped at the yett o' Claverse-ha'-Lee.
"Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben--
She's wanted to speak wi' the Laird o' Cockpen."
Mistress Jean was makin' the elder-flower wine;
"O, what brings the laird at sic' a like time."
She put off her apron and on her silk gown,
Her mutch wi' red ribbons, and gaed awa' down.
An' when she cam' ben he bowed fu low,
An' what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amazed was the laird when the lady said "Na,"
And wi' a laigh curtsie she turned awa'.
Dumfoundered was he, nae sigh did he gie.
He mounted his mare--he rade cannily.
An' often he thought as he gaed thro' the glen,
She's daft to refuse the laird o' Cockpen.
Only a little less humorous and perfect is Jamie, the Laird, whose
doting mother may have persecuted Carolina Oliphant herself, or some of
her friends, with the story of his mental and physical perfections until
there was this burst of mocking vexation, to the tune of The Rock and
the Wee Pickle Tow:--
JAMIE, THE LAIRD.
Send a horse to the water, ye 'll no mak' him drink
Send a fule to the college, ye 'll no mak' him think;
Send a craw to the surgin, an' still he will craw;
An' the wee laird had nae rummelgumpshion ava;
Yet he is the pride o' his fond mother's e'e;
In body or mind nae faut can she see;
"He's a fell clever lad an' a bonnie wee man,"
Is aye the beginnin' an' end o' her sang.
An' oh, she's a haverin' Lucky, I trow,
An' oh, she's a haverin' Lucky, I trow.
"He's a fell clever lad, an' a bonnie wee man,"
Is aye the beginnin' an' end o' her sang.
His legs they are bow'd, his e'es they do glee,
His wig, whiles its off, an' when on, its ajee.
He's braird as he's long--an' ill-faur'd is he,
A dafter like body I never did see.
An' yet for this cretur she says I am deein';
When that I deny--she's fear'd at my leein'.
Obliged to pit up wi' the sair defamation,
I'm liken to dee wi' shame and vexation.
An' oh, she's a haverin' Lucky, etc.
An' her clish-ma-clavers gang a' thro' the town,
An' the wee lairdie trows I 'll hang or I 'll drown;
Wi' his gawkie like face yestreen he did say,
"I 'll maybe tak' you, for Bess I 'll no hae,
Nor Mollie, nor Effie, nor long-legged Jeanie,
Nor Nellie, nor Katie, nor skirlin' wee Beenie."
I stoppet my ears, ran off in a fury--
I'm thinkin' to bring them before Judge and Jury.
For oh, what a randy old Lucky is she, etc.
Frien's, gie yere advice--I 'll follow yere counsel.
Maun I speak to the Provost or honest Town Council?
Or the writers, or lawyers, or doctors? now say,
For the law o' the Lucky I shall and will hae.
The hale town at me are jibbin' an' jeerin',
For a leddy like me it's really past hearin';
The Lucky now maun hae done wi' her claverin',
For I 'll no pit up wi' her an' her haverin'.
For oh, she 's a randy, I trow, I trow,
For oh, she's a randy, I trow, I trow.
"He's a fell clever lad an' a bonnie wee man,"
Is aye the beginuin' an' end o' her sang.
The finest efflorescence of Scotch lyric poetry,
which is the richest and finest in the English language, if not in the
world, was that of the Jacobite era, and the influence which followed
it and inspired the renaissance of Scotch song is the genius of Burns,
Hogg, Cunningham, Lady Nairne, and many more of less distinction, who
made a galaxy of singers hardly less remarkable in their way, as marking
an era in literature, than the dramatists of the Elizabethan age.
The genius of folk-song and ballad poetry had always been remarkably
developed in Scotland, in comparison, at least, with England, and, in
spite of many characteristics among the Lowlanders, worldly thrift,
bitter and barren bigotry, and a sort of dourness and hardheadedness,
not calculated to encourage sentiment and emotion; and the student of
racial distinctions may be inclined to attribute it to the influence
of Celtic blood and tradition, creating a vein of sensitiveness,
tenderness, and susceptibility to the magic of song and music in the
strong and hard fabric of the Saxon character. But from whatever
cause the tendency of the native genius was created, its existence
was obvious, and from the very earliest time, since song began to
be preserved in written words, the quality and quantity of Scotch
folk-poetry and folk-music have been remarkable. The native faculty
and the inherited tendency were all present when the spark of an
inspiration, involving all the elements of patriotism, daring adventure,
personal devotion, despair, and lamentation, gave fire to the genius
of national poetry. All the incidents and events of the Rebellion of
Forty-five, the landing of the young Prince Charles at Moidart with
only seven followers, the blaze of fiery loyalty that swept through
the Highlands at his call, the extraordinary victories won by the
sheer impetus and hand-to-hand onslaughts of the Highland clans, the
picturesque entry into Edinburgh and the gallant court of Holyrood, the
swift march into England, which seemed at one time to promise to carry
the Chevalier into St. James's Palace by its rush, the retreat and
disorganization, and finally the woeful slaughter of Culloden, followed
by the attainders and executions and the romantic adventures of the
Prince in hiding from his hunters among the mountains and islands, all
contrived to create themes for song and poetry which have never been
surpassed in modern history. The enterprise was as foolish as it was
daring, an episode of knight-errantry after the age when success was
possible, but it had all the elements of chivalry in its impulse and
conduct, and no modern war has been less selfish and sordid, not even
the insurrections of Poland or the uprising of the Spanish and German
people against Napoleon. The young Chevalier himself, only twenty-four
years of age, tall, handsome, and martial, with his flowing yellow hair
and Tartan dress, and with the fascination of his race in his manner,
his courage, clemency, and misfortune, gave it the personal element so
necessary to the highest poetry, and altogether the circumstances and
the conditions combined to create an effervescence of popular poetry
which has never been surpassed. Its quantity was as remarkable as its
quality. The two large volumes of Hogg's Jacobite Relics by no means
exhausted the collection of songs in the Lowland dialect, and to
this day those in Gaelic are still being discovered by the labors of
Professor Blackie and others, as they are yet preserved in the bothies
of the Highlands and the islands. The inspiration of the later poets,
Burns, Hogg, Cunningham, and
Lady Nairne, was hardly less strong, fed as it was upon the vivid
traditions and by the stories and histories of the men living about
them, or of their own families, full of all the elements of poetry, and
their purpose to vivify and recreate the native song of Scotland must
have had its most fertile impulse and material in the Jacobite songs,
of which the country is full. In Lady Nairne the ancestral and personal
impulse must have been especially strong. Her father and mother had
been married in exile; her grandfather had been distinguished for his
services as well as for his misfortunes, and upon both sides her family
had been notable for more than one generation for its loyalty and its
importance in the Scotch struggle for the restoration of the Stuarts. An
old ballad says:--
Gask and Strowan were nae slack,
and letters of thanks and tokens of gratitude from
the royal hands were heirlooms of the houses. It was a keen pleasure to
the grandfather in his old age to hear the songs and the music which
had illumined the unhappy cause, and it is no wonder that the earliest
inspiration of the young poetess was from such themes, and her keenest
reward to see the blood warming more freely the old man's worn cheeks as
she sang the new and stirring words to the old airs, and found the token
of her success in his appreciation. The greater portion of her Jacobite
songs were composed under this inspiration, and so long as she wrote at
all they were her favorite themes. They are among the finest in what may
be termed the modern Jacobite songs, unsurpassed by anything of the kind
by Burns, Hogg, or Cunningham, and only so by that consummate flower of
all Scotch Jacobite poetry by William Glen:--
A wee bird cam' to our ha' door,
while in the pure singing quality, the lilt and the
verse, there is nothing to exceed the power of--
The news from Moidart cam' yestreen.
The story of The Hundred Pipers an' A' is historically correct in that
there were so many musicians of the class attached to the little army of
the Prince, and that the Highland lads did dance themselves dry to the
pibroch's sound after fording the Esk, but it was not on the advance to
Carlisle, but on the retreat from England, and the scene had doubtless
been often described by the old laird of Strowan.
THE HUNDRED PIPERS.
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a';
We 'll up an' gie them a blaw, a blaw,
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Oh, it's owre the Border awa', awa';
It's owre the Border awa', awa';
We 'll on and we 'll march to Carlisle ha;
Wi' its yetts, its castle an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', etc.
Our young sodger lads looked braw, looked braw,
With their tartans, kilts an' a', an' a',
With their bonnets and feathers and glittering gear,
An' pibrochs sounding sweet an' clear.
Will they a' return to their ain dear glen?
Will they a' return, our Hieland men?
Second-sighted Sandy looked fu wae,
An' mothers grat, when they marched away,
Wi' a hundred pipers, etc.
O, wha' is foremost o' a', o' a';
O, wha' does follow the blaw, the blaw,
Bonnie Charlie, the King o' us a', hurra!
Wi' his hundred pipers an' a', an' a';
His bonnet an' feather he's wavin' high,
His prancin' steed maist seems to fly,
The nor' wind plays wi' his curlin' hair,
While the pipers blew up an' unco flare,
Wi' a hundred pipers, etc.
The Esk was swollen sae red and sae deep,
But shouther to shouther the brave lads keep,
Two thousand swam o'er to fell English ground,
An' danced themselves dry to the pibroch's sound.
Dumfoundered the English saw--they saw,
Dumfoundered they heard the blaw, the blaw;
Dumfoundered they a' ran awa', awa',
From the hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'.
We 'll up an gie them a blaw, a blaw,
Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'.
Burns, Hogg, and Lady Nairne all wrote songs to the beautiful air of
Charlie is my Darling, embodying in each case the first verse of the
unknown poet who originated the song. They are all beautiful, but the
words of Lady Nairne have conquered in the popular ear, and taken final
possession of the air.
CHARLIE IS MY DARLING.
'T was on a Monday morning,
Right early in the year,
When Charlie cam' to our town,
The young Chevalier.
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
My darling, my darling,
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
The young Chevalier.
As he cam' marching up the street
The pipes played loud an' clear,
An' a' the folks cam' running out
To meet the Chevalier.
Wi' Hieland bonnets on their heads,
An' claymores bright an' clear,
They cam' to fight for Scotland's right
An' the young Chevalier.
They 'ye left their bonnie Highland hills,
Their wives and bairnies dear,
To draw the sword for Scotland's lord,
The young Chevalier.
Oh, there were mony beating hearts
An' mony a hope an' fear,
An' mony were the prayers sent up
For the young Chevalier.
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
My darling, my darling,
Oh, Charlie is my darling,
The young Chevalier.
There is one of Lady Nairne's songs not quite perfect, for one forced
and faulty line in the refrain, which has a higher touch of the
imagination than any of the others. The influence of the magic of nature
in the interpretation of human sorrow or gladness, and the wild mystery
of the birds' melody upon the heart, which is characteristic of the
highest order of the folk-song, and which, in its irregularity and
simplicity, not less than the melody, which is nature's own voice,
rather than the rhythm of art, is beyond the reach of any deliberate
skill. It would be hard to find anything more perfect at once in its
picture and its interpretation of the voice of nature in human words
than--
And then the burnie's like the sea,
Roarin' an' reamin';
Nae wee bit sangster's on the tree,
But wild birds screamin'.
While the sadness of human despair that follows and emphasizes the
passion of the flood strikes the ear like a veritable wail in the
loneliness and darkness.
Bonnie ran the burnie down,
Wandrin' an' windin'.
Sweetly sang the birds above,
Care never mindin'.
The gentle summer wind
Was their music saft an' kind,
And it rockit them an' rockit them
All in their bowers sae hie.
Bonnie ran, etc.
The mossy rock was there,
An' the water lily fair,
An' the little trout would sport about
All in the sunny beam.
Bonnie ran, etc.
Tho' summer days be lang,
An' sweet the birdies sang,
The wintry night and chilly light
Keep aye their eerie roun'.
Bonnie ran, etc.
An' then the burnie's like a sea,
Roarin' an' reamin';
Nae wee bit sangster's on the tree,
But wild birds screamin'.
Oh, that the past I might forget,
Wandrin' an' weepin';
Oh, that aneath the hillock green
Sound I were sleepin'.
In one other famous song, heard wherever Scotch music is sung, Lady
Nairne interpreted the pathos, hardship, and suffering behind the
strong, clear voices of the Newhaven fishwives, which may still be heard
in the wynds and closes of Edinburgh as they march on their sturdy limbs
with the heavy creels laden with the silvery fishes on their backs, and
fill the air with their deep, melodious cry.
CALLER HERRIN'.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
They 're bonnie fish and halesome farin',
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth.
When ye were sleepin' on your pillows,
Dream'd ye aught o' our fine fellows,
Darkling as they faced the billows
A' to fill the woven willows.
Buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
They 're no bought without brave darin';
Buy my caller herrin',
Haled thro' wind and rain.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'? etc.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
Oh, ye may call them vulgar farm';
Wives and mithers maist despairin'
Ca' them the lives o' men.
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin'?
They 're bonnie fish and halesome farin',
Wha 'll buy my caller herrin',
New drawn frae the Forth.
There are other verses to Caller Herrin', but they were merely
occasional, intended to serve as a benefit to Nathaniel Gow, the son of
the famous fiddler, Niel Gow, the composer of the air, who was seeking
patronage in Edinburgh, and they only injure the effect of the first and
perfect stanzas.
The poetical work of Lady Nairne was smaller in bulk than that of
her chief contemporaries, even than that of Allan Cunningham. She was
without any personal literary ambition whatever, and her inspiration was
smothered by domestic grief and an absorbing and narrow piety. A portion
of what there is is also imperfect, ephemeral, and careless, but she has
written one of the most perfect lyrics in the English language, and a
number of others, which, in their melody, their interpretation of simple
emotion, their vividness and strength, and their power upon the heart
as well as the ear, have a place which few have equaled and none have
surpassed in the lyric treasures of a land more rich than all others in
the voice of poetry speaking to the heart in song.
SIR SAMUEL FERGUSON AND CELTIC POETRY.
|The great controversy over the genuineness of
the Ossianic poems of James Macpherson, which existed during his
lifetime and was carried on for a considerable period after his death,
has died away without being settled. Opinions of eminent Celtic scholars
still differ as to whether the so-called Gaelic originals of his poems,
published after his death, were genuine transcripts from ancient
poems, or were translations into the Gaelic from Macpherson's English
composition made by his friends to conceal the fraud and maintain
provincial pride. He himself never produced the originals of his poems,
and took refuge in a silence which went far to confirm the impression of
fraud and forgery. But whether he had any direct originals or not,
and the weight of probability is that he had not, his poems were
unquestionably founded on the vast mass of Celtic poetry and legend
existing in Ireland and Scotland in tradition and manuscript. The names
of his heroes, their characters and their exploits, are to be found in
this poetry, and many of his most admired episodes and descriptions,
like that of Ossian's address to the sun, and the description of
Cuchullin's chariot, were taken directly from it. Whatever the amount
of transformation and interpolation, and whatever the change in the
literary style, from the plain and simple expressions of primitive
poetry to the vague and rhetorical imagery of inflated artifice, were
made by Macpherson, he unquestionably preserved the pervading spirit of
Celtic poetry, its melancholy, its sensitiveness to the impressions of
nature, and its lofty and humane spirit, and was the first to make it
known to the world. Critics like Hazlitt and Matthew Arnold, who were
impressed simply by its spirit of pure poetry, and the most accomplished
Celtic scholars of a later day, have alike agreed upon internal and
external evidence as to the faithfulness of the reproduction of the
spirit of Celtic poetry by Macpherson, and have regarded the faults of
his literary style as those of the age, and his interpretation of the
poems of Ossian by the spirit of the eighteenth century as not more
faulty or less natural than Chapman's transfusion of Homer into the
style of the Elizabethan era, or Pope's into that of Queen Anne. His
great drawback was the suspicion of absolute fraud and forgery which
attached to him, and which he was unable to dispel, from his mistake
in not acknowledging in the beginning that his poems were derived from
general tradition instead of being absolute translations from originals.
But in spite of this discredit, which was more of a personal literary
quarrel than a critical attack upon the quality of the poetry itself,
its value was at once instinctively recognized as a new and original
revelation, as an appeal to sensibilities in human nature which had
been stifled by the narrow and dry reasoning of English and Continental
poetry at the time, and as a breath from the wide air of nature itself.
It touched the European spirit, then struggling to emancipate itself
from the swaddling bands of authority and artificial society, with
electric power, and was a powerful influence in the emancipation both of
literature and human action. Ossian profoundly affected the intellectual
awakening of Goethe and was a favorite with Napoleon, and throughout
the whole of Europe its spirit was an inspiring and governing force.
In English literature its effect was not less powerful, although less
openly acknowledged owing to the discredit created by the charges of
forgery, and both Byron's melancholy and Wordsworth's appreciation of
the soul of nature were derived from this pervading spirit of ancient
Celtic poetry.
So far as the direct study of Celtic poetry was concerned the Ossianic
controversy was unquestionably a misfortune. It threw a cloud of
suspicion and discredit upon the genuine fragments which remained, and
discouraged the study which might otherwise have been given to them, so
that, unquestionably, some traditional Celtic poetry has been lost by
the decay of the language as a living speech, and it is only in later
years that enlightened scholarship and patriotic feeling have led to
the careful and appreciative study of the manuscript volumes which have
survived time and neglect, for their inherent literary and historical
value, and to a consideration of the influence of the Celtic spirit
upon English literature. They have been found to be of great value and
interest, to possess elements of pure poetry of marked and original
quality, and a spirit which has had a strong effect upon English
literature. Nevertheless there has not been found in the remains of
Celtic literature any single poem which in itself would compare with
the Nibelungen Lied or with the Song of Roland, in epic form and
constructiveness, in clearness of diction and dramatic strength; nor
even any prose legend or narrative history, which would compare with
the clear and vigorous character drawing and lucid narration of the
Icelandic and Scandinavian Sagas. What would have been the case had the
original poems and histories of the sixth century been preserved can
only be conjectured. Those which now exist are only in the transcripts
of the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, greatly transformed,
altered, and confused in dates and characters, and bearing the marks of
a great deterioration in style, like the degradation of Latin prose
in its later era. The passages which competent Celtic scholars have
pronounced from philological evidence to be of an earlier construction,
are a good deal stronger as well as simpler in expression than those by
which they are surrounded, and indicate that, if the earlier poetry had
been preserved in its purity without being amplified and weakened by
scholastic and artificial phraseology, it might have rivaled the early
Teutonic poetry in force, directness and simplicity, and strength of
construction. As it is, the Celtic poems and histories are not only
confused and prolix with interminable genealogies and proverbial
reflections, but are written in a style, with a redundance and
complication of epithets, at once weakening and tiresome. Thus in
an Irish history of the Triumphs of Turlogh O'Brien, written in the
thirteenth century, there is the following description of the dress and
arms of a hero:--"His noble garment was first brought to him, viz.,
a strong, well-formed, close-ridged, defensively-furrowed, terrific,
neat-bordered, new-made, and scarlet-red cassock of fidelity; he
expertly put on that gold-bordered garment, which covered him as far as
from the lower part of his soft, fine, redwhite neck, to the upper part
of his expert, snowwhite, round-knotted knee. Over that mantle he put on
a full, strong, white-topped, wide-round, gold-bordered, straight,
and parti-colored coat of mail, well-fitted, and ornamented with many
curious devices of exquisite workmanship. He put on a beautiful, thick,
and saffron-colored belt of war, embellished with clasps and buckles
set with precious stones, and hung with golden tassels; to this belt was
hung his active and trusty lance, regularly cased in a tubic sheath, but
that it was somewhat greater in height than the height of the sheath;
he squeezed the brilliant, gilt, and starry belt about the coat of
mail; and a long, blue-edged, bright-steeled, sharp-pointed, broad-sided,
active, whitebacked, half-polished, monstrous, smooth-bladed,
small-thick, and well-fashioned dagger was fixed to the tie of that
embroidered and parti-colored belt; a white, embroidered, full-wide,
strong, and well-wove hood was put on him over his golden mail;
he himself laid on his head a strong-cased, spherical, towering,
polished-shining, branch-engraved, long-enduring helmet; he took
his edged, smooth-bladed, letter-graved, destructive, sharp-pointed,
fight-taming, sheathed, gold-guarded, and girded sword, which he tied
fast in haste to his side."
The confusion which exists in the transcripts of the ancient
poems between the pagan mythology and the Christian faith, and the
superposition of
Latin learning and mediaeval thought, is also a great injury to the
consecutiveness and vraisemblance of the story, and the effect is as if
the tale of the Nibelungen Lied had been told by a monkish chronicler
with all the embellishments of a later faith and the ornaments of an
artificial style. The poetry has not all perished from the earlier
originals, and in many instances there is a vigor of narrative, a
poetical power of description, and an elevation of sentiment, which
shines through the amplification and verbiage, and redeems the prolixity
and tediousness of the story; but, as has been said, the prevailing
impression is one of a corrupted and weakened, instead of a strong and
original primitive poetry, and a literal translation of an Irish or
Scotch Celtic poem or history is not likely to attract the general
reader from its purely literary quality. The poetry lies in a heap of
dross, and must be painfully smelted out.
The only way in which ancient Celtic poetry can be known and appreciated
by the English reader, and have its effect in English literature, is by
the presentation of its spirit and atmosphere, its essential elements in
local form and color, its characteristic phraseology and tone of thought
in English poetry of original power as well as essential faithfulness.
The poet who is to do this successfully must have, what Macpherson had
not, a thorough knowledge of the language and an appreciation of its
method as the expression of thought, be completely saturated with the
knowledge of the time, and possess the literary conscience and taste
to be completely faithful to the original spirit. The most conspicuous
example in our time of an attempt to reproduce the spirit of legendary
romance in original poetry is, of course, The Idylls of the King, and
the impress of a very thorough study and saturation of the spirit of the
ancient chronicles is as visible as the exquisite substance of original
poetry. But the stories of The Idylls of the King are based upon, rather
than' closely reproduce, the legends of Arthurian romance, and the
spirit has been elevated and refined by that of modern poetry and the
nature of Tennyson's own genius to essential unreality. They are like
the pictures of Madonnas and mediaeval saints done by a modern painter
of genius with all the skill and technique of art, but without the sense
of devotion which shows through the ruder sketches of the earlier and
greatly inferior painters, who were inspired by something more than
merely artistic enthusiasm. It is needless to say that for a poet to
possess the self-restraint to be entirely faithful to his originals, and
aim mainly at reproducing their form as well as spirit, is more rare,
and may be said to have less power, than one who creates an original
structure of poetry upon the basis of ancient romance; but he has his
function also, and may be something more than a mere translator, as he
gives his material shape in modern form and with the embellishments of
his own genius, while he yet preserves the ancient characteristics.
He is like the skillful architect who restores a ruined castle to a
habitable dwelling, clearing away the rubbish which has choked its
portals and surrounded its walls, while preserving its ancient shape and
structure, and blending his new materials with the old so that it seems
a harmonious building. This is the work to which Sir Samuel Ferguson has
devoted himself in his reproduction of Irish Celtic poetry, both ballad
and epic, and particularly in his poem of Congal, which is a recreation
of the bardic romance of the Battle of Moyra, and its introductory
Pre-Tale of the Banquet of Dunangay, prose versions which have been
given by the eminent Celtic scholar, Dr. John O'Donovan, in the
publications of the Irish Archaeological Society.
The battle of Moyra was an authentic historic event, and took place
A. D. 637 between the forces of Domnal, king of Ireland, and those
of Congal, sub-king of Ulster, and his allies, from Scotland, Wales,
England, Brittany, and Scandinavia. It is regarded by Celtic historians
as the last struggle of the bardic and pagan party in Ireland against
the newly established power of Christianity, for which a pretext rather
than a cause was found in an alleged slight of Domnal to Congal. The
history, which is in prose interspersed with speeches and exhortations
in verse in the usual manner of the bardic chronicles, was apparently
written in its present form in the latter part of the eleventh century,
and from earlier traditionary chronicles, which are now lost. Its style
has a good deal of vigor and force, but is marked with the faults of
confusion, and the redundance of 'descriptive epithets characteristic of
the writers of the time. Its story is that Congal, having been invited
by Domnal to a banquet at the royal house at Dunangay, was served with
a hen's egg upon a wooden platter, instead of with a goose egg upon a
silver dish, as were the remainder of the company, and, denouncing it as
an unforgivable insult, departed to seek assistance from his relatives
and 'allies in Great Britain and the Continent. Returning with these
a great battle was fought on the plains of Moyra, which lasted for
six days, and in which the foreign invaders were routed and Congal
was killed. The principal heroes of the chronicle were historical
personages, but there were others of which there is no definite
knowledge, and who probably owed their origin to the imagination of the
bards, as in the Iliad and the Nibelungen Lied. Sir Samuel Ferguson's
poem of Congal follows the main narrative of events in the original
chronicle, but with an addition in the shape of a love episode
between Lafinda, a sister of Sweeny, an Irish prince, and Congal,
the introduction of several new characters, and of some supernatural
episodes derived from the pagan mythology of Ireland. The narrative is
made intelligible where it is obscure in the original, and incredible
events, such as the chaining together of the warriors lest they should
run away from each other, are omitted, while the tautology and verbiage
of the language is eliminated. Its faithfulness as the reproduction
of an ancient Celtic poem consists in the skill with which the
characteristic style of language, its multiplied and doubled epithets,
is renewed in English without the effect of archaism, and the
reproduction of its heroic and primitive tone and spirit. Its original
merits are the force and vigor of the narrative, the vivid descriptions
of scenery, the strength and impressiveness of the supernatural figures,
the genuine inspiration of battle in the combats, and the easy mastery
of the "long, resounding line" in the verse. There is no modern poem
which so thoroughly reproduces the ancient form and spirit of a bygone
age, and in which so complete and accurate an idea can be obtained of
the element of a vanished poetry as in Congal, and, as has been said,
it is like a restoration in shape and substance of a ruined castle. The
opening lines give a specimen of the style of the verse and the vigorous
spirit of the measure:--
The Hosting here of Congal Claen. 'T was loud lark-car
oling May
When Congal, as the lark elate and radiant as the day,
Rode forth from steep Rath-Keltar gate.
Of the felicity with which these double descriptive epithets are used
there are a thousand specimens, such as
The white-maned, proud-neck-arching tide;
and they give the dominant characteristic of the
style as in the original, with a grace and appropriateness which make
them a natural part of the English language. In order to show how the
Celtic narrative has been transformed into English poetry without losing
its characteristic features, the two accounts of the episode in
the battle in which Sweeny becomes smitten with a frenzy of fear by
supernatural visitation may be compared. This is the original:--
"Fits of giddiness came over him at _the sight_ of
the horrors, grimness, and rapidity of the Gaels; at the looks,
brilliance, and irksomeness of the foreigners; at the rebounding,
furious shouts and bellowings of the various embattled tribes on both
sides, rushing against and coming into collision with one another. Huge,
flickering, horrible, aerial phantoms rose up, so that they were in
curved, commingled crowds tormenting him; and in dense, rustling,
clamorous, life-tormenting hordes, without ceasing; and in dismal,
regular, aerial, storm-shrieking, hovering, fiend-like hosts, constantly
in motion, shrieking and howling as they hovered about them in every
direction, to cow and dismay cowards and soft youths, but to invigorate
and mightily rouse champions and warriors; so that from the uproar of
the battle, the frantic pranks of the demons, and the clashing of arms,
the sound of heavy blows reverberating on the points of heroic spears,
and keen edges of swords, and the war-like borders of broad shields, the
noble hero Suibne was filled and intoxicated with tremor, horror, panic,
dismay, fickleness, unsteadiness, fear, flightiness, giddiness, terror,
and imbecility; so that there was not a joint or member of him from foot
to head which was not converted into a confused, shaking mass, from
the effect of fear and the panic of dismay. His feet trembled as if
incessantly shaken by the force of a stream; his arms and various-edged
weapons fell from him, the power of his hands having been enfeebled and
relaxed around them, and rendered incapable of holding them. The inlets
of hearing were quickened and expanded by the horrors of lunacy; the
vigor of his brain in the cavities of his head was destroyed by the
clamors of the conflict; his heart shrunk within him with the panic of
dismay; his speech became faltering from the giddiness of imbecility;
his very soul fluttered with hallucination, and with many and various
phantoms, for that was the root and true basis of fear itself. He might
be compared on this occasion to a salmon in a weir, or to a bird after
being caught in the strait prison of a crib."
The following is the way in which this is rendered in Congal, Sweeny's
offense having consisted in drowning the hermit Ere in the Boyne:--
To Sweeny as the hosts drew near, ere yet the fight should
join,
Seemed still, as if between them rolled the foam-strewed,
tawny Boyne.
And as the swiftly nearing hosts consumed the narrowing
space,
And arrow flights and javelin casts, and sword strokes came
in place,
Through all the rout of high-raised hands, and wrathful,
glaring eyes,
Erc's look of wrath, and lifted hand before him seemed to
rise,
Through all the hard-rebounding din from breasts of Gaels
and Gauls,
That jarred against the vault of heaven, when clashed the
brazen walls,
Through all the clangorous battle-calls, and death shouts
hoarse and high,
Erc's shriller curse he seemed to hear and Erc's despairing
cry.
Much did the hapless warrior strive to shake from breast
and brain
The illusion and the shameful wish fast-rising; but in vain;
The wish to fly seized all his limbs; the stronger dread of
shame,
Contending with the wish to fly, made spoil of all his frame.
His knees beneath him wavered as if shaken by the stress
Of a rapid running river; his heart, in fear's excess,
Sprang to and fro within him, as a wild bird newly caged,
Or a stream-ascending salmon in a strong weir's trap en
gaged.
Some of the single combats of the heroes, following the details of the
narrative, are described with Homeric vigor, and the address of the King
of Lochlan to the invading army, disheartened by apparitions, has the
fire and spirit, as well as the form, of the Scandinavian runic verse:
--
This is my sentence:
Fairy nor Fire-Drake
Keep back the Kemper
At home, in the burg,
Leaves he the maiden
Boon for the bridal;
Abroad, on the holme,
Leaves he the harvest,
Ripe for the reaper;
The bowl, on the board,
In the hall of the banquets,
Leaves he untasted,
When lances uplift
The foe in the field.
Noting the Norsemen
Out on the water-throng,
Hark! how the Eagle
Vaunts to the Vulture.
Spread thy wing, Scald-Neck,
Says she, and screams she;
Seest thou the Sea-Kings
Borne on the gannet-bath,
Going to garner
Every bird's eyrie?
Fell from her fishy-perch
Answers the Bald-Beak,
Scream no more, little cfne,
Feeders are coming.
Hearkening their colloquy,
Grins the grey beast,
The wolf on the wold.
This is my sentence:
These are the Norseman's
Pandect and canon.
Thyrfing is thirsty;
Quern-biter hungers;
Shield-walker wearieth
Shut in the scabbard.
This is my sentence:
Bring us to battle.
Perhaps, however, the greatest strength in Congal will be found in the
dealing with the apparitions, the gigantic and malign demons, who haunt
the hill and the stream, and represent the primitive imaginings of a
race not yet emancipated from the terrors of the supernatural in the
forces and forms of nature. These figures of ancient Irish poetry, the
Herdsman Borcha, who swept down Finn's fortress with his staff, and
counts the kine in the unconquered lands, the Giant Walker, who strides
angrily around the hostile camp at night, and the Washer at the Ford,
who dabbles with slain men's heads, live again in Ferguson's verse
with their original reality and terror, and amid the setting of natural
scenery from which their phantoms were created. This is the picture of
the Giant Walker, whose apparition presaged doom to Cougal at his first
night's camp:--
Around the Mound of Sighs
They filled the woody-sided vale; but no sweet sleep their
eyes
Refreshed that night; for all the night, around their echo
ing camp,
Was heard continuous from the hills a sound as of a tramp
Of giant footsteps; but so thick the white mist lay around
None saw the Walker save the King. He, starting at the
sound,.
Called to his foot his fierce red hound; athwart his shoulders
cast
A shaggy mantle, grasped his spear, and through the moon
light passed
Alone up dark Ben-Boli's heights, towards which, above the
woods,
With sound as when at close of eve the noise of falling floods
Is borne to shepherd's ear remote on stilly upland lawn,
The steps along the mountain-side with hollow sound came on.
Fast beat the hero's heart; and close, down-crouching by his
knee
Trembled the hound, while through the haze, huge as through
mists at sea,
The week-long sleepless mariner descries some mountain
cape,
Wreck-infamous, rise on his lee, appeared a monstrous shape
Striding impatient, like a man much grieved, who walks
alone
Considering of a grievous wrong; down from his shoulders
thrown
A mantle skirted stiff with soil, splashed from the miry
ground,
At every stride against his calves struck with as loud rebound
As makes the mainsail of a ship brought up along the blast,
When with the coil of all its ropes it beats the sounding
mast.
So, striding vast, the giant passed; the King held fast his
breath;
Motionless save his throbbing heart; and still and chill as
death
Stood listening while a second time the giant took his round
Of all the camp; but when, at length, the third time the
sound
Came up, and through the haze a third time huge and dim
Rose out the Shape, the valiant hound sprang forth and
challenged him.
And forth, disdaining that a dog should put him so to shame,
Sprang Congal and essayed to speak.
"Dread shadow, stand! Proclaim
What wouldst thou that thou thus around my camp shouldst
keep
Thy troublous vigil, banishing the wholesome gift of sleep
From all our eyes, who, though inured to dreadful sounds
and sights
By land and sea, have never yet in all our perilous nights
Lain the ward of such a guard."
The Shape made answer none,
But with stern wafture of his hand went angrier striding on,
Shaking the earth with heavier steps. Then Congal on his
track
Sprang fearless.
"Answer me, thou Churl,"he cried, "I bid thee back."
But, while he spoke, the giant's cloak around his shoulders
grew
Like a black-bulged thunder-cloud; and sudden out there
flew.
From all its angry, swelling folds, with uproar unconfined,
Direct against the King's pursuit a mighty blast of wind:
Loud flapped the mantle, tempest-lined, while fluttering
down the gale,
As leaves in Autumn, man and hound were swept into the vale,
And heard through all the huge uproar, through startled
Dalaray,.
The giant went with stamp and clash, departing south away.
A conspicuous feature of the excellence of Congal as an original poem is
the vividness and faithfulness with which the natural scenery of Ireland
is painted. The dark and barren hills, the tawny and foam-flecked
streams, the misty seas, the vast and lonely raths and burial places of
heroes, the emerald fields bathed with dew and glittering with sunshine,
all the characteristics of Irish scenery, with their soul of meaning,
which appeals to the heart as well as the outward form to the eye, are
depicted with remarkable power, and make a living element in which the
figures move. Almost every page has a touch of this skill, and every
aspect of field and sea and sky is enlivened. As fine a specimen as any
is this picture of an autumn champaign from a hilltop in Leinster:--
Such as one
Beholds, and thankful-hearted he, who casts abroad his gaze
O'er some rich tillage country-side, when mellow autumn
days
Gild all the sheaf y food-full stooks, and, broad before him
spread,--
He looking landward from the prow of some great sea-cape's
head
Bray or Ben-Edar--sees beneath in silent pageant grand
Slow fields of sunshine spread o'er fields of rich, corn-bearing
land;
Red glebe and meadow-margin green commingling to the
view,
With yellow stubble, browning woods, and upland tracts of
blue;--
Then, sated with the pomp of fields, turns seaward to the
verge
Where, mingling with the murmuring wash made by the
far-down surge,
Comes up the clangorous song of birds unseen, that, low be
neath
Poised off the rock, fly underfoot, and, mid the blossoming
heath,
And mint-sweet herb that loves the ledge rare-aired, at ease
reclined,
Surveys the wide, pale-heaving floor crisped by a curling
wind;
With all its shifty shadowing belts, and chasing scopes of
green,
Sun strewn, foam-freckled, sail-embossed, and blackening
squalls between,
And slant, cerulean-skirted showers, that with a drowsy
sound,
Heard inward, of ebullient waves, stalk all the horizon round.
With its faithfulness to tone and character, its skillful reproduction
of style and language, its force and vigor of narrative, its forms of
mythologie mysticism and its appreciation of the magic of nature, Congal
is the most perfect reproduction of the form and spirit of ancient
Celtic poetry in existence, and from it the English reader, who is not a
Celtic student, can obtain the best knowledge of its pervading elements.
Congal is not the only contribution made by Sir Samuel Ferguson to
Celtic poetry. The Lays of the Western Gael are a series of ballads
founded on events in Celtic history and derived from the early
chronicles and poems. They are original in form and substance, the
ballad form and measure being unknown to the early Celtic poets of
Ireland, but they preserve in a wonderful degree the ancient spirit,
and give a picture of the ancient times with all the art of truth and
verity. As I have said elsewhere 1:--
"To have done this clearly and completely, so
that the past lives again and is felt by the instinct of nature to be
true and real, free from confusion and extravagance, the imperfections
of utterance in a people just learning to express themselves, the
alien and antique methods of thought, through the inevitably imperfect
knowledge of a language half faded and changed, while preserving not
only the terms of expression but the characteristics of thought and
feeling, seems a no less difficult task than to trace and interpret
the worn letters and half-effaced inscriptions on the Ogham stones, and
could only have been done by the genius of the great poet vivifying the
labor of the profound scholar. Finally, the impress of the past as it is
visible to the present, the effect of the gray cairn and grassy burial
mound, and almost the last fading of the tokens of the aboriginal race
into the bosom of nature, and the perception of its spirit amid the
light and bustle of the day,
The loneliness and awe secure of the forgotten dead,
is the task of the modern poet speaking in his own time and to his own
generation of the past."
1 Introduction to popular edition of _Lays of the Western
Gael_ Dublin, 1888.
These ballads have a solemnity of measure like the voice of one of the
ancient bards chanting of
Old, forgotten, far-off things
And battles long ago,
and they are clothed with the mists of a melancholy age. They include
such subjects as The Tain Quest, the search of the bard for the lost lay
of the great cattle raid of Queen Maev of Connaught, and its recovery by
invocation from the voice of its dead author arising in misty form above
his grave; The Healing of Conall Carnach, a story of violated sanctuary
and its punishment; The Welshmen of Tyrawly, one of the most spirited
and original, and which has been pronounced by Mr. Swinburne as among
the finest of modern ballads, telling of a cruel mulct inflicted upon
the members of a Welsh colony in Ireland and its vengeance, and other
incidents in early Irish history. The verses on Aideen's Grave are a
characteristic specimen of the tone and spirit of these ballads. The
author's introductory note says:--
"Aideen, daughter of Angus of Ben Edar (now the Hill of Howth), died of
grief for the loss of her husband Oscar, son of Ossian, who was slain at
the battle of Gavra (Gowra near Tara in Meath) A. D. 284. Oscar was
entombed in the rath, or earthen fortress, that occupied part of the
field of battle, the rest of the slain being cast in a pit outside.
Aideen is said to have been buried on Howth, near the mansion of her
father, and poetical tradition represents the Fenian heroes as present
at her obsequies. The cromlech in Howth Park is supposed to have been
her sepulchre."
AIDEEN'S GRAVE.
They heaved the stones; they heaped the cairn.
Said Ossian, "In a queenly grave
We leave her, 'mong her fields of fern
Between the cliff and wave."
The cliff behind stands clear and bare,
And bare, above, the heathery steep
Scales the clear heaven's expanse, to where
The Danaan Druids sleep.
And all the sands that, left and right,
The grassy isthmus-ridge confine,
In yellow bars lie bare and bright
Among the sparkling brine.
A clear pure air pervades the scene,
In loneliness and awe secure,
Meet spot to sepulchre a Queen,
Who in her life was pure.
Here far from camp and chase removed,
Apart in Nature's quiet room,
The music that alive she loved
Shall cheer her in the tomb.
The humming of the noontide bees,
The lark's loud carol all day long,
And, borne on evening's salted breeze,
The clanking sea-birds' song
Shall round her airy chamber float,
And with the whispering winds and streams,
Attune to Nature's tenderest note
The tenor of her dreams.
And oft at tranquil eve's decline,
When full tides lap the Old Green Plain,
The lowing Moynalty's kine
Shall round her breathe again.
In sweet remembrance of the days
When, dut
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