Poems of American History
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Title: Poems of American History
Editor: Burton Egbert Stevenson
Release date: November 27, 2014 [eBook #47476]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS OF AMERICAN HISTORY ***
POEMS OF AMERICAN HISTORY
AMERICA
_My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountain-side
Let freedom ring._
_My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills
Like that above._
_Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake,
Let all that breathe partake,
Let rocks their silence break,--
The sound prolong._
_Our fathers' God, to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing;
Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King._
SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH.
POEMS OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
COLLECTED AND EDITED
BY
BURTON EGBERT STEVENSON
[Illustration]
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1908 AND 1922, BY BURTON EGBERT STEVENSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE
All rights on poems in this volume are reserved by the holders of
the copyright. The publishers and others named in the following list
are the proprietors, either in their own right or as agents for the
authors, of the poems of which the authorship and titles are given,
and of which the ownership is thus specifically noted and is hereby
acknowledged.
Messrs. D. Appleton & Co., New York.--William Cullen Bryant: "The
Green Mountain Boys," "Seventy-Six," "Song of Marion's Men," "Oh
Mother of a Mighty Race," "Our Country's Call," "Abraham Lincoln,"
"Centennial Hymn."
Messrs. Richard D. Badger & Co., Boston.--Edwin Arlington Robinson:
"The Klondike."
The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis.--Charles Edward Russell:
"The Fleet at Santiago," from "Such Stuff as Dreams."
The Century Company, New York.--Richard Watson Gilder: "At the
President's Grave," "Charleston," "The White City," "The Comfort
of the Trees"; Robert Underwood Johnson: "Dewey at Manila";
Silas Weir Mitchell: "Herndon," "How the Cumberland went down,"
"Kearsarge," "Lincoln," "The Song of the Flags." From the Century
Magazine.--William Tuckey Meredith: "Farragut"; Helen F. More:
"What's in a Name"; Will Henry Thompson: "The High Tide at
Gettysburg."
The Robert Clarke Company, Cincinnati.--William Davis Gallagher:
"The Mothers of the West"; William Haines Lytle: "The Siege of
Chapultepec," "The Volunteers."
Messrs. Henry T. Coates & Co., Philadelphia.--Ethel Lynn Beers: "The
Picket-Guard"; Charles Fenno Hoffman: "Rio Bravo," "Monterey."
Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Co., New York.--Ernest McGaffey: "Little Big
Horn," "Geronimo"; William Henry Venable: "John Filson," "Johnny
Appleseed," "The Founders of Ohio," "El Emplazado," "Battle-Cry,"
"National Song."
The R. R. Donnelly & Sons Company, Chicago.--Francis Brooks: "Down
the Little Big Horn."
Messrs. Dana Estes & Co., Boston.--Hezekiah Butterworth: "The
Thanksgiving for America," "The Legend of Waukulla," "The Fountain
of Youth," "Verazzano," "Ortiz," "Five Kernels of Corn," "The
Thanksgiving in Boston Harbor," "Roger Williams," "Whitman's Ride for
Oregon," "The Death of Jefferson," "Garfield's Ride at Chickamauga,"
"The Church of the Revolution."
Messrs. Funk & Wagnalls, New York.--Richard Realf: "The Defence of
Lawrence."
Messrs. Harper & Brothers, New York.--Wallace Bruce: "Parson Allen's
Ride"; Will Carleton: "The Prize of the Margaretta," "Across the
Delaware," "The Little Black-Eyed Rebel," "Cuba to Columbia," "The
Victory-Wreck"; William Dean Howells: "The Battle in the Clouds";
Herman Melville: "Malvern Hill," "The Victor of Antietam," "The
Cumberland," "Running the Batteries," "A Dirge for McPherson,"
"Sheridan at Cedar Creek," "The Fall of Richmond," "The Surrender
at Appomattox," "At the Cannon's Mouth." From Harper's Magazine and
Harper's Weekly.--Guy Wetmore Carryl: "When the Great Gray Ships come
in"; Joseph B. Gilder: "The Parting of the Ways"; Thomas A. Janvier:
"Santiago"; Thomas Dunn English: "Arnold at Stillwater," "The Charge
by the Ford," "The Fall of Maubila," "The Battle of the Cowpens,"
"The Battle of New Orleans"; John Eliot Bowen: "The Man who rode to
Conemaugh."
Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston.--Thomas Bailey Aldrich:
"Fredericksburg," "By the Potomac," "The Bells at Midnight," "An Ode
on the Unveiling of the Shaw Memorial," "Unguarded Gates"; Phoebe
Cary: "Ready," "Peace"; John White Chadwick: "Mugford's Victory,"
"Full Cycle"; Mrs. Florence Earle Coates: "Columbus," "Buffalo," "By
the Conemaugh"; Christopher Pearse Cranch: "After the Centennial";
Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Concord Hymn," "Boston Hymn"; Annie Fields:
"Cedar Mountain"; Louise Imogen Guiney: "John Brown"; Francis Bret
Harte: "Caldwell of Springfield," "The Reveille," "John Burns of
Gettysburg," "A Second Review of the Grand Army," "An Arctic Vision,"
"Chicago"; John Hay: "Miles Keogh's Horse"; Oliver Wendell Holmes:
"A Ballad of the Boston Tea-Party," "Lexington," "Grandmother's
Story of Bunker-Hill Battle," "Old Ironsides," "Daniel Webster,"
"Brother Jonathan's Lament for Sister Caroline," "Sherman's in
Savannah," "After the Fire," "Welcome to the Nations," "On the
Death of President Garfield," "Additional Verses to Hail Columbia";
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe: "Our Country," "Battle-Hymn of the Republic,"
"Robert E. Lee," "Pardon," "Parricide," "J. A. G."; William Dean
Howells: "The Battle in the Clouds"; Lucy Larcom: "Mistress Hale of
Beverly," "The Nineteenth of April," "The Sinking of the Merrimack";
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "The Skeleton in Armor," "Sir Humphrey
Gilbert," "The War-Token," "The Expedition to Wessagusset,"
"Prologue," "The Proclamation," "Prologue," "The Trial," "The Battle
of Lovell's Pond," "A Ballad of the French Fleet," "The Embarkation,"
"Paul Revere's Ride," "Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem," "The
Wreck of the Hesperus," "Victor Galbraith," "The Cumberland," "The
Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face," "President Garfield," "The Republic";
James Russell Lowell: "Flawless his Heart," "The New-Come Chief,"
"Mr. Hosea Biglow speaks," "What Mr. Robinson thinks," "Jonathan to
John," "The Washers of the Shroud," "Ode recited at the Harvard
Commemoration"; William Vaughn Moody: "On a Soldier fallen in the
Philippines," "An Ode in Time of Hesitation"; Nora Perry: "Running
the Blockade"; Edna Dean Proctor: "Columbus Dying," "The Captive's
Hymn," "The Lost War-Sloop," "Sa-cá-ga-we-a," "John Brown,"
"The Brooklyn Bridge"; Margaret Junkin Preston: "The Mystery of
Cro-a-tàn," "The Last Meeting of Pocahontas and the Great Captain,"
"The First Proclamation of Miles Standish," "The First Thanksgiving
Day," "Dirge for Ashby," "Under the Shade of the Trees," "Virginia
Capta," "Acceptation"; John Godfrey Saxe: "How Cyrus laid the Cable";
Edward Rowland Sill: "The Dead President"; Harriet Prescott Spofford:
"How we became a Nation," "Can't"; Edmund Clarence Stedman: "Peter
Stuyvesant's New Year's Call," "Salem," "Aaron Burr's Wooing," "How
Old Brown took Harper's Ferry," "Sumter," "Wanted--A Man," "Kearny
at Seven Pines," "Treason's Last Device," "Gettysburg," "Abraham
Lincoln," "Israel Freyer's Bid for Gold," "Custer," "Liberty
Enlightening the World," "Cuba," "Hymn of the West"; Bayard Taylor:
"Through Baltimore," "Lincoln at Gettysburg," "The National Ode";
Joseph Russell Taylor: "Breath on the Oat"; Edith M. Thomas: "A
Christopher of the Shenandoah," "To Spain--A Last Word"; Maurice
Thompson: "The Ballad of Chickamauga"; J. T. Trowbridge: "Columbus at
the Convent"; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward: "Conemaugh"; Mrs. A. D.
T. Whitney: "Peace"; John G. Whittier: "The Norsemen," "Norembega,"
"John Underhill," "Cassandra Southwick," "The King's Missive," "St.
John," "Pentucket," "Lexington," "The Vow of Washington," "Skipper
Ireson's Ride," "Texas," "The Angels of Buena Vista," "The Crisis,"
"To William Lloyd Garrison," "Ichabod," "The Kansas Emigrants,"
"Burial of Barber," "Le Marais du Cygne," "Brown of Ossawatomie,"
"Barbara Frietchie," "The Battle Autumn of 1862," "At Port Royal,"
"To John C. Frémont," "Astræa at the Capitol," "The Proclamation,"
"Laus Deo," "To the Thirty-Ninth Congress," "The Cable Hymn,"
"Chicago," "Centennial Hymn," "On the Big Horn," "The Bartholdi
Statue"; Forceythe Willson: "Boy Brittan"; Constance Fenimore
Woolson: "Kentucky Belle." From the Atlantic Monthly.--George
Houghton: "The Legend of Walbach Tower"; Henry Newbolt: "Craven";
Thomas William Parsons: "Dirge."
Mr. P. J. Kenedy, New York.--Abram J. Ryan: "The Conquered Banner."
The Ladies' Home Journal, Philadelphia.--Virginia Woodward Cloud:
"The Ballad of Sweet P."
The J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia.--George Henry Boker:
"Upon the Hill before Centreville," "Dirge for a Soldier," "Zagonyi,"
"On Board the Cumberland," "The Cruise of the Monitor," "The Ballad
of New Orleans," "The Varuna," "Hooker's Across," "Before Vicksburg,"
"The Black Regiment," "The Battle of Lookout Mountain"; William C.
Elam: "The Mecklenburg Declaration"; Robert Loveman: "Hobson and
his Men"; Marion Manville: "The Surrender of New Orleans," "Lee's
Parole"; Henry Peterson: "The Death of Lyon"; Thomas Buchanan Read:
"The Rising," "Valley Forge," "Blennerhassett's Island," "The
Attack," "Sheridan's Ride," "The Eagle and Vulture"; Francis Orrery
Ticknor: "The Virginians of the Valley," "A Battle Ballad," "Our
Left," "Little Giffen."
The Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, Boston.--Richard Burton: "The Old
Santa Fé Trail"; Paul Hamilton Hayne: "Macdonald's Raid," "Beyond
the Potomac," "Vicksburg," "The Battle of Charleston Harbor,"
"Charleston," "The Stricken South to the North," "South Carolina
to the States of the North," "Yorktown Centennial Lyric"; William
Hamilton Hayne: "The Charge at Santiago."
The McClure Company, New York.--Edwin Markham: "Lincoln."
Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago.--Kate Brownlee Sherwood:
"Albert Sidney Johnston," "Thomas at Chickamauga."
The Macmillan Company, New York.--Hamlin Garland: "Logan at Peach
Tree Creek"; George Edward Woodberry: "Our First Century," "Essex
Regiment March," "The Islands of the Sea," "O Land Beloved."
The Mershon Company, New York.--John Boyle O'Reilly:
"Crispus Attucks," "At Fredericksburg," "Chicago," "Boston,"
"Midnight--September 19, 1881," "The Ride of Collins Graves,"
"Mayflower."
The Oliver Ditson Company, New York.--Kate Brownlee Sherwood: "Molly
Pitcher."
Out West, Los Angeles.--Sharlot M. Hall: "Arizona."
Messrs. L. C. Page & Co., Boston.--Charles G. D. Roberts: "Brooklyn
Bridge," "In Apia Bay," "A Ballad of Manila Bay."
Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.--Louis James Block: "The Final
Struggle"; Guy Wetmore Carryl: "When the Great Gray Ships come in."
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.--William Ernest Henley:
"Romance"; George Parsons Lathrop: "Keenan's Charge"; Sidney
Lanier: "The Story of Vinland," "The Triumph," "Lexington," "Land
of the Wilful Gospel," "The Dying Words of Stonewall Jackson," "The
Centennial Meditation of Columbia"; Thomas Nelson Page: "The Dragon
of the Seas"; James Jeffrey Roche: "Panama"; Richard Henry Stoddard:
"Abraham Lincoln," "Men of the North and West," "The Little Drummer."
Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co., Boston.--Richard Hovey: "The Word
of the Lord from Havana," "The Battle of Manila"; Walt Whitman:
"Ethiopia Saluting the Colors," "O Captain! My Captain!" "The Sobbing
of the Bells."
Messrs. Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago.--John Williamson Palmer:
"The Fight at San Jacinto."
The Whitaker & Ray Company, San Francisco.--Joaquin Miller:
"Columbus," "The Defence of the Alamo," "Alaska," "Rejoice,"
"Cuba Libre," "San Francisco," "Resurge San Francisco." The
Youth's Companion, Boston.--Mary A. P. Stansbury: "The Surprise at
Ticonderoga"; Thomas Tracy Bouvé: "The Shannon and the Chesapeake."
In addition to the above, the compiler begs to acknowledge express
permission from the following authors for the use of such of their
poems as appear in this volume:
Joel Benton, Louis James Block, Virginia Fraser Boyle, Robert
Bridges, Wallace Bruce, Richard Burton, S. H. M. Byers, Will
Carleton, Madison Cawein, Robert W. Chambers, John Vance Cheney,
Joseph I. C. Clarke, Virginia Woodward Cloud, Florence Earle Coates,
Kinahan Cornwallis, F. Marion Crawford, Mrs. Ernest Crosby (for
Ernest Crosby), Caroline Duer, Barrett Eastman, Francis Miles Finch,
Hamlin Garland, Joseph D. Gilder, Richard Watson Gilder, Arthur
Guiterman, Sharlot M. Hall, Edward Everett Hale, William Hamilton
Hayne (for himself and Paul Hamilton Hayne), Caroline Hazard, Rupert
Hughes, Minna Irving, Thomas A. Janvier, Tudor Jenks, John Howard
Jewett, Robert Underwood Johnson, Walter Learned, Robert Loveman,
Charles F. Lummis, Ernest McGaffey, Edwin Markham, John James Meehan,
Lloyd Mifflin, William Vaughn Moody, Thomas Nelson Page, Mrs. John
W. Palmer (for John Williamson Palmer), John James Piatt, Wallace
Rice, Laura E. Richards, Edwin Arlington Robinson, James Jeffrey
Roche, John Jerome Rooney, Alfred D. Runyon, Charles Edward Russell,
Clinton Scollard, Mrs. Katherine Brownlee Sherwood, Lewis Worthington
Smith, Joseph Russell Taylor, Richard H. Titherington, William Henry
Venable, Robert Burns Wilson.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE FOR NEW EDITION
The Editor is indebted to the following authors and publishers for
permission to use the poems mentioned, all rights in which are
reserved:
Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews: "A Call to Arms."
Robert Bridges: "To the United States of America."
Dana Burnet: "Marching Song."
Amelia Josephine Burr: "Pershing at the Tomb of Lafayette."
Witter Bynner (by Anne L. Wellington): "Republic to Republic."
Eleanor Rogers Cox: "The Return."
George H. Doran Company: "The White Ships and the Red," from _Main
Street, and Other Poems_, by Joyce Kilmer, copyright 1917.
John Chipman Farrar: "Brest Left Behind," from _Contemporary Verse_.
Richard Butler Glaenzer: "A Ballad of Redhead's Day."
Daniel Henderson: "The Road to France."
Houghton Mifflin Company: "Victory Bells," from _Wilderness Songs_,
by Grace Hazard Conkling.
Robert Underwood Johnson: "To the Returning Brave."
Aline Kilmer (for Joyce Kilmer): "The White Ships and the Red,"
"Rouge Bouquet."
Richard Le Gallienne: "After the War."
Vachel Lindsay: "Abraham Lincoln walks at Midnight."
J. Corson Miller: "Epicedium."
Randall Parrish: "Your Lad and My Lad."
Clinton Scollard: "The First Three," "The Unreturning."
Charles Scribner's Sons: "A Call to Arms," by Mary Raymond Shipman
Andrews; "Ode in Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for
France," by Alan Seeger; "Mare Liberum," by Henry van Dyke.
Marion Couthouy Smith: "The Star," "King of the Belgians."
Henry van Dyke: "Mare Liberum."
Willard Wattles: "The Family of Nations."
George Edward Woodberry: "Sonnets written in the Fall of 1914."
TO
E. B. S.
HELPMATE
One who underrates the significance of our literature, prose or
verse, as both the expression and stimulant of national feeling, as
of import in the past and to the future of America, and therefore
of the world, is deficient in that critical insight which can judge
even of its own day unwarped by personal taste or deference to public
impression. He shuts his eyes to the fact that at times, notably
throughout the years resulting in the Civil War, this literature has
been a "force."--EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN.
INTRODUCTION
The poetry relating to American history falls naturally into two
classes: that written, so to speak, from the inside, on the spot,
and that written from the outside, long afterwards. Of the first
class, "The Star-Spangled Banner" is the most famous example, as
well as perhaps the best. Even at this distant day, reading it with
a knowledge of the circumstances which produced it, it has a power
of touching the heart and gripping the imagination which goes far
toward proving the genuineness of its art. Of the second class,
"Paul Revere's Ride" is probably the most widely known, though Mr.
Longfellow's own "Ballad of the French Fleet" is a better poem.
It is evident that, in compiling an anthology such as this, different
standards must be used in judging these two classes. The first, aside
from any quality as poetry which it may have, is of value because of
its historical or political interest, because it is an expression
and an interpretation of the hour which gave it birth. With it,
poetic merit is not the first consideration, which is, perhaps, as
well. Yet, however slight their merit as poetry may be, many of the
early ballads possess an admirable energy, directness, and aptness
of phrase, and there is about them a childlike simplicity impossible
of reproduction in this sophisticated age--as where Stephen Tilden,
in his epitaph on Braddock, requests the great commanders who have
preceded that unfortunate soldier to the grave to
"Edge close and give him room."
With the retrospective ballad, on the other hand, poetic merit is a
sine qua non. It has little value historically, however accurate its
facts. It differs from the contemporary ballad in the same way that
the "New Canterbury Tales" differ from Froissart; or as the "Idylls
of the King" differ from "Le Morte Arthur." It is less authentic,
less convincing, less vital. It may have atmosphere, but there is no
infallible way of telling whether the atmosphere is right. Unless
it is something more, then, than mere metrical history, the modern
ballad has little claim to consideration.
These are the two principles which the present compiler has had
constantly in mind. Yet the second principle has been violated more
than once, since, in a collection such as this, one must cut one's
coat according to the cloth; or, rather, one must make sure that
one is decently covered, though the covering may here and there be
somewhat inferior in quality. So it has been necessary, in order to
keep the thread of history unbroken, to admit some strands anything
but silken; and if the choice has sometimes been of ills, rather than
of goods, the compiler can only hope that he chose wisely.
The most difficult and trying portion of his task has been, not
to get his material together, but to compress it into reasonable
limits. Especially in the colonial period was the temptation great to
include more early American verse. Peter Folger's "A Looking-Glass
for the Times," Benjamin Tompson's "New England's Crisis," Michael
Wigglesworth's "God's Controversy with New England," the "Sot-Weed
Factor," and many others, which it is recalling an old sorrow to name
here, were excluded only after long and bitter debate. No doubt other
exclusions will be noticed by nearly every reader of the volume--and
it may interest him to know that the material gathered together would
have made four such books as this.
The thread of narrative upon which the poems have been strung
together has been made as slight as possible, just strong enough
to carry the reader understandingly from one poem to the next. The
notes, too, have been limited to the explanation of such allusions
as are not likely to be found in the ordinary works of reference,
with here and there an account of the circumstances which caused the
lines to be written, or an indication of source, where the source
is unusual. Every available source has been drawn upon--the works
of all the better known and many of the minor American and English
poets, anthologies, newspaper collections, magazines, collections
of Americana and especially of broadsides--in a word, American and
English poetry generally.
In this connection, the compiler wishes to make grateful
acknowledgment of the assistance he has received on every hand,
especially from Mr. Herbert Putnam and Miss Margaret McGuffey, of
the Library of Congress; Mr. N. D. C. Hodges, librarian of the
Cincinnati, Ohio, Public Library; Mr. C. B. Galbreath, librarian
of the Ohio State Library; Mr. Charles F. Lummis, librarian of the
Los Angeles, California, Public Library; Dr. Edward Everett Hale,
Mr. William Henry Venable, Mr. Isaac R. Pennypacker, Mr. Arthur
Guiterman, and Mr. Wallace Rice. He might add that it is a matter of
deep personal gratification to him that in no instance has any author
refused to permit the use of his work in this collection. On the
contrary, many of them have been most helpful in suggestions.
A special effort has been made to secure accuracy of text,--no light
task, especially with the early ballads. Where the text varied, as
was often the case, that has been followed which seemed to have the
greater authority, except that obvious misprints have been corrected.
In this, the compiler has had the coöperation of The Riverside Press,
and has had frequent occasion to admire the care and knowledge of the
corrector and his assistants.
B. E. S.
CHILLICOTHE, OHIO, July 23, 1908.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
AMERICA, Arthur Cleveland Coxe 2
CHAPTER I
_The Discovery of America_
THE STORY OF VINLAND, Sidney Lanier 3
THE NORSEMEN, John Greenleaf Whittier 4
THE SKELETON IN ARMOR, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 6
PROPHECY, Luigi Pulci 7
THE INSPIRATION, James Montgomery 8
COLUMBUS, Lydia Huntley Sigourney 9
COLUMBUS TO FERDINAND, Philip Freneau 9
COLUMBUS AT THE CONVENT, John T. Trowbridge 10
THE FINAL STRUGGLE, Louis James Block 11
STEER, BOLD MARINER, ON, Friedrich von Schiller 12
THE TRIUMPH, Sidney Lanier 12
COLUMBUS, Joaquin Miller 14
THE THANKSGIVING FOR AMERICA, Hezekiah Butterworth 15
COLUMBUS IN CHAINS, Philip Freneau 17
COLUMBUS DYING, Edna Dean Proctor 18
COLUMBUS, Edward Everett Hale 18
COLUMBUS AND THE MAYFLOWER, Lord Houghton 18
CHAPTER II
_In the Wake of Columbus_
THE FIRST VOYAGE OF JOHN CABOT, Unknown 19
THE LEGEND OF WAUKULLA, Hezekiah Butterworth 19
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH, Hezekiah Butterworth 21
PONCE DE LEON, Edith M. Thomas 22
BALBOA, Nora Perry 23
WITH CORTEZ IN MEXICO, W. W. Campbell 24
THE LUST OF GOLD, James Montgomery 24
VERAZZANO, Hezekiah Butterworth 25
ORTIZ, Hezekiah Butterworth 26
THE FALL OF MAUBILA, Thomas Dunn English 27
QUIVÍRA, Arthur Guiterman 31
NOREMBEGA, John Greenleaf Whittier 32
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 34
THE FIRST AMERICAN SAILORS, Wallace Rice 34
CHAPTER III
_The Settlement of Virginia_
THE MYSTERY OF CRO-A-TÀN, Margaret Junkin Preston 36
JOHN SMITH'S APPROACH TO JAMESTOWN, James Barron Hope 38
POCAHONTAS, William Makepeace Thackeray 38
POCAHONTAS, George Pope Morris 39
BERMUDAS, Andrew Marvell 39
NEWES FROM VIRGINIA, Richard Rich 40
TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE, Michael Drayton 42
THE MARRIAGE OF POCAHONTAS, Mrs. M. M. Webster 43
THE LAST MEETING OF POCAHONTAS AND THE GREAT CAPTAIN, Margaret
Junkin Preston 43
THE BURNING OF JAMESTOWN, Thomas Dunn English 44
BACON'S EPITAPH, Unknown 45
ODE TO JAMESTOWN, James Kirke Paulding 46
THE DOWNFALL OF PIRACY, Benjamin Franklin 48
FROM POTOMAC TO MERRIMAC, Edward Everett Hale 49
CHAPTER IV
_The Dutch at New Amsterdam_
HENRY HUDSON'S QUEST, Burton Egbert Stevenson 50
THE DEATH OF COLMAN, Thomas Frost 50
ADRIAN BLOCK'S SONG, Edward Everett Hale 51
THE PRAISE OF NEW NETHERLAND, Jacob Steendam 52
THE COMPLAINT OF NEW AMSTERDAM, Jacob Steendam 53
PETER STUYVESANT'S NEW YEAR'S CALL, Edmund Clarence Stedman 54
CHAPTER V
_The Settlement of New England_
THE WORD OF GOD TO LEYDEN CAME, Jeremiah Eames Rankin 56
SONG OF THE PILGRIMS, Thomas Cogswell Upham 57
LANDING OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS, Felicia Hemans 57
THE FIRST PROCLAMATION OF MILES STANDISH, Margaret Junkin
Preston 58
THE MAYFLOWER, Erastus Wolcott Ellsworth 59
THE PEACE MESSAGE, Burton Egbert Stevenson 60
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING DAY, Margaret Junkin Preston 60
THE WAR-TOKEN, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 61
FIVE KERNELS OF CORN, Hezekiah Butterworth 62
THE EXPEDITION TO WESSAGUSSET, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 63
NEW ENGLAND'S ANNOYANCES, Unknown 65
THE PILGRIM FATHERS, William Wordsworth 66
THE PILGRIM FATHERS, John Pierpont 66
THE THANKSGIVING IN BOSTON HARBOR, Hezekiah Butterworth 67
THE FIRST THANKSGIVING, Clinton Scollard 68
NEW ENGLAND'S GROWTH, William Bradford 69
THE ASSAULT ON THE FORTRESS, Timothy Dwight 70
DEATH SONG, Alonzo Lewis 70
OUR COUNTRY, Julia Ward Howe 71
CHAPTER VI
_Religious Persecutions in New England_
PROLOGUE, from "John Endicott," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 71
ROGER WILLIAMS, Hezekiah Butterworth 72
GOD MAKES A PATH, Roger Williams 72
CANONICUS AND ROGER WILLIAMS, Unknown 73
ANNE HUTCHINSON'S EXILE, Edward Everett Hale 73
JOHN UNDERHILL, John Greenleaf Whittier 74
THE PROCLAMATION, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 76
CASSANDRA SOUTHWICK, John Greenleaf Whittier 77
THE KING'S MISSIVE, John Greenleaf Whittier 80
CHAPTER VII
_King Philip's War and the Witchcraft Delusion_
THE LAMENTABLE BALLAD OF THE BLOODY BROOK, Edward Everett Hale 82
THE GREAT SWAMP FIGHT, Caroline Hazard 83
ON A FORTIFICATION AT BOSTON BEGUN BY WOMEN, Benjamin Tompson 85
THE SUDBURY FIGHT, Wallace Rice 85
KING PHILIP'S LAST STAND, Clinton Scollard 88
PROLOGUE, from "Giles Corey of the Salem Farms," Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow 88
SALEM, Edmund Clarence Stedman 89
THE DEATH OF GOODY NURSE, Rose Terry Cooke 90
A SALEM WITCH, Ednah Proctor Clarke 91
THE TRIAL, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 92
GILES COREY, Unknown 96
MISTRESS HALE OF BEVERLY, Lucy Larcom 97
CHAPTER VIII
_The Struggle for the Continent_
ST. JOHN, John Greenleaf Whittier 99
THE BATTLE OF LA PRAIRIE, William Douw Schuyler-Lighthall 101
THE SACK OF DEERFIELD, Thomas Dunn English 102
PENTUCKET, John Greenleaf Whittier 105
LOVEWELL'S FIGHT, Unknown 106
LOVEWELL'S FIGHT, Unknown 108
THE BATTLE OF LOVELL'S POND, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 109
LOUISBURG, Unknown 110
A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 110
THE BRITISH LYON ROUSED, Stephen Tilden 111
THE SONG OF BRADDOCK'S MEN, Unknown 112
BRADDOCK'S FATE, Stephen Tilden 112
NED BRADDOCK, John Williamson Palmer 114
ODE TO THE INHABITANTS OF PENNSYLVANIA, Unknown 114
THE EMBARKATION, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 115
ON THE DEFEAT AT TICONDEROGA OR CARILONG, Unknown 117
ON THE LATE SUCCESSFUL EXPEDITION AGAINST LOUISBOURG, Francis
Hopkinson 118
FORT DUQUESNE, Florus B. Plimpton 119
HOT STUFF, Edward Botwood 121
HOW STANDS THE GLASS AROUND, James Wolfe 121
BRAVE WOLFE, Unknown 122
THE DEATH OF WOLFE, Unknown 123
THE CAPTIVE'S HYMN, Edna Dean Proctor 123
A PROPHECY, Arthur Lee 125
PART II
THE REVOLUTION
FLAWLESS HIS HEART, James Russell Lowell 128
CHAPTER I
_The Coming of Discontent_
THE VIRGINIA SONG, Unknown 129
THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN, Unknown 130
A SONG, Unknown 130
THE LIBERTY POLE, Unknown 131
THE BRITISH GRENADIER, Unknown 132
CRISPUS ATTUCKS, John Boyle O'Reilly 132
UNHAPPY BOSTON, Paul Revere 134
ALAMANCE, Seymour W. Whiting 135
A NEW SONG CALLED THE GASPEE, Unknown 135
A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY, Oliver Wendell Holmes 136
A NEW SONG, Unknown 137
HOW WE BECAME A NATION, Harriet Prescott Spofford 138
A PROCLAMATION, Unknown 138
THE BLASTED HERB, Mesech Weare 139
EPIGRAM, Unknown 140
THE DAUGHTER'S REBELLION, Francis Hopkinson 140
ON THE SNAKE DEPICTED AT THE HEAD OF SOME AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS,
Unknown 140
FREE AMERICA, Joseph Warren 140
LIBERTY TREE, Thomas Paine 141
THE MOTHER COUNTRY, Benjamin Franklin 142
PENNSYLVANIA SONG, Unknown 142
MARYLAND RESOLVES, Unknown 142
MASSACHUSETTS SONG OF LIBERTY, Mercy Warren 143
EPIGRAM, Unknown 144
TO THE BOSTON WOMEN, Unknown 144
PROPHECY, Gulian Verplanck 144
CHAPTER II
_The Bursting of the Storm_
PAUL REVERE'S RIDE, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 144
WHAT'S IN A NAME, Helen F. More 146
LEXINGTON, Sidney Lanier 146
LEXINGTON, Oliver Wendell Holmes 147
NEW ENGLAND'S CHEVY CHASE, Edward Everett Hale 148
THE KING'S OWN REGULARS, Unknown 150
MORGAN STANWOOD, Hiram Rich 151
THE MINUTE-MEN OF NORTHBORO, Wallace Rice 152
LEXINGTON, John Greenleaf Whittier 153
THE RISING, Thomas Buchanan Read 154
THE PRIZE OF THE MARGARETTA, Will Carleton 155
THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION, William C. Elam 156
A SONG, Unknown 157
CHAPTER III
_The Colonists take the Offensive_
THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS, William Cullen Bryant 157
THE SURPRISE AT TICONDEROGA, Mary A. P. Stansbury 157
THE YANKEE'S RETURN FROM CAMP, Edward Bangs 159
TOM GAGE'S PROCLAMATION, Unknown 160
THE EVE OF BUNKER HILL, Clinton Scollard 161
WARREN'S ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS, John Pierpont 161
THE BALLAD OF BUNKER HILL, Edward Everett Hale 162
BUNKER HILL, George H. Calvert 162
GRANDMOTHER'S STORY OF BUNKER-HILL BATTLE, Oliver Wendell
Holmes 163
THE DEATH OF WARREN, Epes Sargent 166
THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL, Unknown 167
THE NEW-COME CHIEF, James Russell Lowell 168
THE TRIP TO CAMBRIDGE, Unknown 169
WAR AND WASHINGTON, Jonathan Mitchell Sewall 170
THE BOMBARDMENT OF BRISTOL, Unknown 171
MONTGOMERY AT QUEBEC, Clinton Scollard 171
A SONG, Unknown 172
A POEM CONTAINING SOME REMARKS ON THE PRESENT WAR, Unknown 173
MUGFORD'S VICTORY, John White Chadwick 174
OFF FROM BOSTON, Unknown 176
CHAPTER IV
_Independence_
EMANCIPATION FROM BRITISH DEPENDENCE, Philip Freneau 176
RODNEY'S RIDE, Unknown 177
AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, Francis Hopkinson 178
THE FOURTH OF JULY, John Pierpont 179
INDEPENDENCE DAY, Royall Tyler 179
ON INDEPENDENCE, Jonathan Mitchell Sewall 179
THE AMERICAN PATRIOT'S PRAYER, Unknown 180
COLUMBIA, Timothy Dwight 180
CHAPTER V
_The First Campaign_
THE BOASTING OF SIR PETER PARKER, Clinton Scollard 181
A NEW WAR SONG BY SIR PETER PARKER, Unknown 182
THE MARYLAND BATTALION, John Williamson Palmer 183
HAARLEM HEIGHTS, Arthur Guiterman 183
NATHAN HALE, Unknown 185
NATHAN HALE, Francis Miles Finch 186
THE BALLAD OF SWEET P, Virginia Woodward Cloud 186
ACROSS THE DELAWARE, Will Carleton 188
THE BATTLE OF TRENTON, Unknown 188
TRENTON AND PRINCETON, Unknown 188
ASSUNPINK AND PRINCETON, Thomas Dunn English 189
SEVENTY-SIX, William Cullen Bryant 191
BETSY'S BATTLE FLAG, Minna Irving 191
THE AMERICAN FLAG, Joseph Rodman Drake 192
CHAPTER VI
"_The Fate of Sir Jack Brag_"
THE RIFLEMAN'S SONG AT BENNINGTON, Unknown 193
THE MARCHING SONG OF STARK'S MEN, Edward Everett Hale 193
PARSON ALLEN'S RIDE, Wallace Bruce 194
THE BATTLE OF BENNINGTON, Thomas P. Rodman 195
BENNINGTON, W. H. Babcock 196
THE BATTLE OF ORISKANY, Charles D. Helmer 198
SAINT LEGER, Clinton Scollard 199
THE PROGRESS OF SIR JACK BRAG, Unknown 200
ARNOLD AT STILLWATER, Thomas Dunn English 200
THE FATE OF JOHN BURGOYNE, Unknown 202
SARATOGA'S SONG, Unknown 202
CHAPTER VII
_The Second Stage_
LORD NORTH'S RECANTATION, Unknown 204
A NEW BALLAD, Unknown 205
GENERAL HOWE'S LETTER, Unknown 205
CARMEN BELLICOSUM, Guy Humphreys McMaster 206
VALLEY FORGE, Thomas Buchanan Read 207
BRITISH VALOR DISPLAYED; OR, THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS, Francis
Hopkinson 208
THE LITTLE BLACK-EYED REBEL, Will Carleton 209
THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH, Unknown 210
THE BATTLE OF MONMOUTH, Thomas Dunn English 211
MOLLY PITCHER, Kate Brownlee Sherwood 213
MOLLY PITCHER, Laura E. Richards 213
YANKEE DOODLE'S EXPEDITION TO RHODE ISLAND, Unknown 214
RUNNING THE BLOCKADE, Nora Perry 215
BETTY ZANE, Thomas Dunn English 216
THE WYOMING MASSACRE, Uriah Terry 217
CHAPTER VIII
_The War on the Water_
THE CRUISE OF THE FAIR AMERICAN, Unknown 219
ON THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN NICHOLAS BIDDLE, Philip Freneau 220
THE YANKEE PRIVATEER, Arthur Hale 221
PAUL JONES, Unknown 222
THE YANKEE MAN-OF-WAR, Unknown 223
PAUL JONES--A NEW SONG, Unknown 224
PAUL JONES, Unknown 224
THE BONHOMME RICHARD AND SERAPIS, Philip Freneau 225
BARNEY'S INVITATION, Philip Freneau 226
SONG ON CAPTAIN BARNEY'S VICTORY, Philip Freneau 227
THE SOUTH CAROLINA, Unknown 228
CHAPTER IX
_New York and the "Neutral Ground"_
SIR HENRY CLINTON'S INVITATION TO THE REFUGEES, Philip Freneau 229
THE STORM OF STONY POINT, Arthur Guiterman 230
WAYNE AT STONY POINT, Clinton Scollard 230
AARON BURR'S WOOING, Edmund Clarence Stedman 231
THE MODERN JONAS, Unknown 232
CALDWELL OF SPRINGFIELD, Bret Harte 232
THE COW-CHACE, John André 233
BRAVE PAULDING AND THE SPY, Unknown 237
ARNOLD THE VILE TRAITOR, Unknown 238
EPIGRAM, Unknown 238
ANDRÉ'S REQUEST TO WASHINGTON, Nathaniel Parker Willis 238
ANDRÉ, Charlotte Fiske Bates 239
SERGEANT CHAMPE, Unknown 239
A NEW SONG, Joseph Stansbury 240
THE LORDS OF THE MAIN, Joseph Stansbury 241
THE ROYAL ADVENTURER, Philip Freneau 241
THE DESCENT ON MIDDLESEX, Peter St. John 242
CHAPTER X
_The War in the South_
HYMNS OF THE MORAVIAN NUNS OF BETHLEHEM, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow 245
ABOUT SAVANNAH, Unknown 245
A SONG ABOUT CHARLESTON, Unknown 246
THE SWAMP FOX, William Gilmore Simms 247
SONG OF MARION'S MEN, William Cullen Bryant 248
MACDONALD'S RAID, Paul Hamilton Hayne 248
SUMTER'S BAND, J. W. Simmons 250
THE BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN, Unknown 251
THE BATTLE OF THE COWPENS, Thomas Dunn English 252
THE BATTLE OF EUTAW, William Gilmore Simms 254
EUTAW SPRINGS, Philip Freneau 255
THE DANCE, Unknown 256
CORNWALLIS'S SURRENDER, Unknown 256
THE SURRENDER OF CORNWALLIS, Unknown 257
NEWS FROM YORKTOWN, Lewis Worthington Smith 257
AN ANCIENT PROPHECY, Philip Freneau 258
CHAPTER XI
_Peace_
ON SIR HENRY CLINTON'S RECALL, Unknown 259
ON THE DEPARTURE OF THE BRITISH FROM CHARLESTON, Philip
Freneau 260
ON THE BRITISH KING'S SPEECH, Philip Freneau 261
ENGLAND AND AMERICA IN 1782, Alfred Tennyson 262
ON DISBANDING THE ARMY, David Humphreys 262
EVACUATION OF NEW YORK BY THE BRITISH, Unknown 262
OCCASIONED BY GENERAL WASHINGTON'S ARRIVAL IN PHILADELPHIA,
ON HIS WAY TO HIS RESIDENCE IN VIRGINIA, Philip Freneau 263
THE AMERICAN SOLDIER'S HYMN, Unknown 264
THANKSGIVING HYMN, Unknown 264
LAND OF THE WILFUL GOSPEL, Sidney Lanier 265
PART III
THE PERIOD OF GROWTH
"OH MOTHER OF A MIGHTY RACE," William Cullen Bryant 268
CHAPTER I
_The New Nation_
A RADICAL SONG OF 1786, St. John Honeywood 269
THE FEDERAL CONVENTION, Unknown 269
TO THE FEDERAL CONVENTION, Timothy Dwight 270
THE NEW ROOF, Francis Hopkinson 270
CONVENTION SONG, Unknown 271
THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, William Milns 272
THE FIRST AMERICAN CONGRESS, Joel Barlow 273
WASHINGTON, James Jeffrey Roche 274
THE VOW OF WASHINGTON, John Greenleaf Whittier 274
ON THE DEATH OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Philip Freneau 275
GEORGE WASHINGTON, John Hall Ingham 275
WASHINGTON, Lord Byron 276
ADAMS AND LIBERTY, Robert Treat Paine 276
HAIL COLUMBIA, Joseph Hopkinson 277
YE SONS OF COLUMBIA, Thomas Green Fessenden 278
TRUXTON'S VICTORY, Unknown 279
THE CONSTELLATION AND THE INSURGENTE, Unknown 280
WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT, Unknown 280
HOW WE BURNED THE PHILADELPHIA, Barrett Eastman 281
REUBEN JAMES, James Jeffrey Roche 282
SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE, John Greenleaf Whittier 283
A PLEA FOR FLOOD IRESON, Charles Timothy Brooks 284
CHAPTER II
_The Second War with England_
THE TIMES, Unknown 285
REPARATION OR WAR, Unknown 286
TERRAPIN WAR, Unknown 286
FAREWELL, PEACE, Unknown 287
COME, YE LADS, WHO WISH TO SHINE, Unknown 287
HULL'S SURRENDER, Unknown 287
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE GUERRIÈRE, Unknown 288
HALIFAX STATION, Unknown 289
ON THE CAPTURE OF THE GUERRIÈRE, Philip Freneau 290
FIRSTFRUITS IN 1812, Wallace Rice 291
THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTOWN, William Banker, Jr. 292
THE WASP'S FROLIC, Unknown 293
THE UNITED STATES AND MACEDONIAN, Unknown 293
THE UNITED STATES AND MACEDONIAN, Unknown 294
JACK CREAMER, James Jeffrey Roche 295
YANKEE THUNDERS, Unknown 296
THE GENERAL ARMSTRONG, Unknown 296
CAPTURE OF LITTLE YORK, Unknown 298
THE DEATH OF GENERAL PIKE, Laughton Osborn 299
OLD FORT MEIGS, Unknown 300
THE SHANNON AND THE CHESAPEAKE, Thomas Tracy Bouvé 300
CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON, Unknown 301
DEFEAT AND VICTORY, Wallace Rice 302
ENTERPRISE AND BOXER, Unknown 302
PERRY'S VICTORY, Unknown 303
THE BATTLE OF ERIE, Unknown 303
PERRY'S VICTORY--A SONG, Unknown 305
THE FALL OF TECUMSEH, Unknown 305
THE LEGEND OF WALBACH TOWER, George Houghton 306
THE BATTLE OF VALPARAISO, Unknown 307
THE BATTLE OF BRIDGEWATER, Unknown 308
THE HERO OF BRIDGEWATER, Charles L. S. Jones 309
THE BATTLE OF STONINGTON, Philip Freneau 309
THE OCEAN-FIGHT, Unknown 310
THE LOST WAR-SLOOP, Edna Dean Proctor 311
ON THE BRITISH INVASION, Philip Freneau 312
THE BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN, Philip Freneau 312
THE BATTLE OF PLATTSBURG BAY, Clinton Scollard 313
THE BATTLE OF PLATTSBURG, Unknown 314
THE BATTLE OF BALTIMORE, Unknown 315
FORT MCHENRY, Unknown 316
THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER, Francis Scott Key 317
YE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND, Unknown 318
THE BOWER OF PEACE, Robert Southey 318
REID AT FAYAL, John Williamson Palmer 319
THE FIGHT OF THE ARMSTRONG PRIVATEER, James Jeffrey Roche 319
THE ARMSTRONG AT FAYAL, Wallace Rice 321
FORT BOWYER, Charles L. S. Jones 323
THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS, Thomas Dunn English 323
JACKSON AT NEW ORLEANS, Wallace Rice 325
TO THE DEFENDERS OF NEW ORLEANS, Joseph Rodman Drake 326
THE HUNTERS OF KENTUCKY, Unknown 326
THE CONSTITUTION'S LAST FIGHT, James Jeffrey Roche 327
SEA AND LAND VICTORIES, Unknown 328
ODE TO PEACE, Unknown 329
CHAPTER III
_The West_
THE SETTLER, Alfred B. Street 329
THE MOTHERS OF THE WEST, William Davis Gallagher 330
ON THE EMIGRATION TO AMERICA, Philip Freneau 331
JOHN FILSON, William Henry Venable 331
SAINCLAIRE'S DEFEAT, Unknown 332
JOHNNY APPLESEED, William Henry Venable 334
THE FOUNDERS OF OHIO, William Henry Venable 335
BLENNERHASSETT'S ISLAND, Thomas Buchanan Read 335
THE BATTLE OF MUSKINGUM, William Harrison Safford 337
TO AARON BURR, UNDER TRIAL FOR HIGH TREASON, Sarah Wentworth
Morton 338
THE BATTLE OF TIPPECANOE, Unknown 339
THE TOMB OF THE BRAVE, Joseph Hutton 339
SA-CÁ-GA-WE-A, Edna Dean Proctor 340
ON THE DISCOVERIES OF CAPTAIN LEWIS, Joel Barlow 341
WHITMAN'S RIDE FOR OREGON, Hezekiah Butterworth 342
DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY, Richard Edward White 343
JOHN CHARLES FRÉMONT, Charles F. Lummis 345
"THE DAYS OF 'FORTY-NINE," Unknown 345
THE OLD SANTA FÉ TRAIL, Richard Burton 346
CALIFORNIA, Lydia Huntley Sigourney 346
CHAPTER IV
_Through Five Administrations_
THEODOSIA BURR, John Williamson Palmer 346
ON THE DEATH OF COMMODORE OLIVER H. PERRY, John G. C.
Brainard 347
ON THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE, Fitz-Greene Halleck 348
ON LAYING THE CORNER-STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT, John
Pierpont 348
LA FAYETTE, Dolly Madison 349
THE DEATH OF JEFFERSON, Hezekiah Butterworth 349
OLD IRONSIDES, Oliver Wendell Holmes 351
CONCORD HYMN, Ralph Waldo Emerson 351
THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 351
OLD TIPPECANOE, Unknown 353
THE DEATH OF HARRISON, Nathaniel Parker Willis 353
CHAPTER V
_The War with Mexico_
THE VALOR OF BEN MILAM, Clinton Scollard 354
BEN MILAM, William H. Wharton 355
THE MEN OF THE ALAMO, James Jeffrey Roche 355
THE DEFENCE OF THE ALAMO, Joaquin Miller 357
THE FIGHT AT SAN JACINTO, John Williamson Palmer 357
SONG OF TEXAS, William Henry Cuyler Hosmer 358
TEXAS, John Greenleaf Whittier 358
MR. HOSEA BIGLOW SPEAKS, James Russell Lowell 360
THE GUNS IN THE GRASS, Thomas Frost 361
RIO BRAVO--A MEXICAN LAMENT, Charles Fenno Hoffman 362
TO ARMS, Park Benjamin 363
MONTEREY, Charles Fenno Hoffman 363
VICTOR GALBRAITH, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 364
BUENA VISTA, Albert Pike 364
THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA, John Greenleaf Whittier 366
THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD, Theodore O'Hara 368
WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS, James Russell Lowell 369
BATTLE OF THE KING'S MILL, Thomas Dunn English 370
THE SIEGE OF CHAPULTEPEC, William Haines Lytle 371
ILLUMINATION FOR VICTORIES IN MEXICO, Grace Greenwood 371
THE CRISIS, John Greenleaf Whittier 372
THE VOLUNTEERS, William Haines Lytle 374
CHAPTER VI
_Fourteen Years of Peace_
THE SHIP CANAL FROM THE ATLANTIC TO THE PACIFIC, Francis
Lieber 374
THE WAR SHIP OF PEACE, Samuel Lover 375
ON THE DEFEAT OF HENRY CLAY, William Wilberforce Lord 376
ON THE DEATH OF M. D'OSSOLI AND HIS WIFE, MARGARET FULLER,
Walter Savage Landor 376
THE LAST APPENDIX TO "YANKEE DOODLE," Unknown 376
DANIEL WEBSTER, Oliver Wendell Holmes 377
THE FLAG, James Jeffrey Roche 378
KANE, Fitz-James O'Brien 379
HERNDON, S. Weir Mitchell 380
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER, Wallace Rice 380
BARON RENFREW'S BALL, Charles Graham Halpine 382
PART IV
THE CIVIL WAR
BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC, Julia Ward Howe 384
CHAPTER I
_The Slavery Question_
TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, John Greenleaf Whittier 385
CLERICAL OPPRESSORS, John Greenleaf Whittier 385
THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT, James Russell Lowell 386
ICHABOD, John Greenleaf Whittier 388
THE KIDNAPPING OF SIMS, John Pierpont 388
THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS, John Greenleaf Whittier 389
BURIAL OF BARBER, John Greenleaf Whittier 389
THE DEFENCE OF LAWRENCE, Richard Realf 390
THE FIGHT OVER THE BODY OF KEITT, Unknown 391
LE MARAIS DU CYGNE, John Greenleaf Whittier 392
HOW OLD BROWN TOOK HARPER'S FERRY, Edmund Clarence Stedman 393
THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTOWN, Henry Howard Brownell 395
BROWN OF OSSAWATOMIE, John Greenleaf Whittier 396
GLORY HALLELUJAH! OR JOHN BROWN'S BODY, Charles Sprague Hall 397
JOHN BROWN, Edna Dean Proctor 397
JOHN BROWN: A PARADOX, Louise Imogen Guiney 397
LECOMPTON'S BLACK BRIGADE, Charles Graham Halpine 398
LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE, Edwin Markham 399
BROTHER JONATHAN'S LAMENT FOR SISTER CAROLINE, Oliver Wendell
Holmes 400
JEFFERSON D., H. S. Cornwell 401
THE OLD COVE, Henry Howard Brownell 401
A SPOOL OF THREAD, Sophie E. Eastman 402
GOD SAVE OUR PRESIDENT, Francis DeHaes Janvier 403
CHAPTER II
_The Gauntlet_
BOB ANDERSON, MY BEAU, Unknown 403
ON FORT SUMTER, Unknown 403
SUMTER, Edmund Clarence Stedman 404
THE BATTLE OF MORRIS' ISLAND, Unknown 404
SUMTER--A BALLAD OF 1861, Unknown 405
THE FIGHT AT SUMTER, Unknown 407
SUMTER, Henry Howard Brownell 408
THE GREAT BELL ROLAND, Theodore Tilton 408
MEN OF THE NORTH AND WEST, Richard Henry Stoddard 409
OUT AND FIGHT, Charles Godfrey Leland 409
NO MORE WORDS, Franklin Lushington 410
OUR COUNTRY'S CALL, William Cullen Bryant 410
DIXIE, Albert Pike 411
A CRY TO ARMS, Henry Timrod 411
"WE CONQUER OR DIE," James Pierpont 412
"CALL ALL," Unknown 412
THE BONNIE BLUE FLAG, Annie Chambers Ketchum 413
I GIVE MY SOLDIER BOY A BLADE, Unknown 413
CHAPTER III
_The North gets its Lesson_
THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL, Lucy Larcom 414
THROUGH BALTIMORE, Bayard Taylor 414
MY MARYLAND, James Ryder Randall 415
ELLSWORTH, Unknown 416
COLONEL ELLSWORTH, Richard Henry Stoddard 416
ON THE DEATH OF "JACKSON," Unknown 417
THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY, Francis Orrery Ticknor 417
BETHEL, A. J. H. Duganne 417
DIRGE, Thomas William Parsons 419
WAIT FOR THE WAGON, Unknown 419
UPON THE HILL BEFORE CENTREVILLE, George Henry Boker 420
MANASSAS, Catherine M. Warfield 423
A BATTLE BALLAD, Francis Orrery Ticknor 424
THE RUN FROM MANASSAS JUNCTION, Unknown 425
ON TO RICHMOND, John R. Thompson 426
CAST DOWN, BUT NOT DESTROYED, Unknown 427
SHOP AND FREEDOM, Unknown 428
THE C. S. A. COMMISSIONERS, Unknown 428
DEATH OF THE LINCOLN DESPOTISM, Unknown 429
JONATHAN TO JOHN, James Russell Lowell 430
A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE, Unknown 432
CHAPTER IV
_The Grand Army of the Potomac_
CIVIL WAR, Charles Dawson Shanly 432
THE PICKET-GUARD, Ethel Lynn Beers 433
TARDY GEORGE, Unknown 433
HOW MCCLELLAN TOOK MANASSAS, Unknown 434
WANTED--A MAN, Edmund Clarence Stedman 435
THE GALLANT FIGHTING "JOE," James Stevenson 436
KEARNY AT SEVEN PINES, Edmund Clarence Stedman 437
THE BURIAL OF LATANÉ, John R. Thompson 437
THE CHARGE BY THE FORD, Thomas Dunn English 438
DIRGE FOR ASHBY, Margaret Junkin Preston 439
MALVERN HILL, Herman Melville 439
A MESSAGE, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps 440
THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE, James Sloan Gibbons 440
CEDAR MOUNTAIN, Annie Fields 441
"OUR LEFT," Francis Orrery Ticknor 441
DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER, George Henry Boker 442
THE REVEILLE, Bret Harte 442
BEYOND THE POTOMAC, Paul Hamilton Hayne 443
BARBARA FRIETCHIE, John Greenleaf Whittier 444
MARTHY VIRGINIA'S HAND, George Parsons Lathrop 445
THE VICTOR OF ANTIETAM, Herman Melville 445
THE CROSSING AT FREDERICKSBURG, George Henry Boker 446
AT FREDERICKSBURG, John Boyle O'Reilly 447
FREDERICKSBURG, Thomas Bailey Aldrich 449
BY THE POTOMAC, Thomas Bailey Aldrich 449
THE WASHERS OF THE SHROUD, James Russell Lowell 450
CHAPTER V
_The War in the West_
THE LITTLE DRUMMER, Richard Henry Stoddard 451
THE DEATH OF LYON, Henry Peterson 453
ZAGONYI, George Henry Boker 453
BATTLE OF SOMERSET, Cornelius C. Cullen 454
ZOLLICOFFER, Henry Lynden Flash 454
BOY BRITTAN, Forceythe Willson 455
ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON, Kate Brownlee Sherwood 456
ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON, Francis Orrery Ticknor 457
BEAUREGARD, Mrs. C. A. Warfield 457
THE EAGLE OF CORINTH, Henry Howard Brownell 458
THE BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO, Kinahan Cornwallis 459
LITTLE GIFFEN, Francis Orrery Ticknor 460
THE BATTLE AUTUMN OF 1862, John Greenleaf Whittier 460
CHAPTER VI
_The Coast and the River_
AT PORT ROYAL, John Greenleaf Whittier 461
READY, Phoebe Cary 461
THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT, Clinton Scollard 462
THE TURTLE, Unknown 462
THE ATTACK, Thomas Buchanan Read 463
THE CUMBERLAND, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 464
ON BOARD THE CUMBERLAND, George Henry Boker 464
THE CUMBERLAND, Herman Melville 466
HOW THE CUMBERLAND WENT DOWN, S. Weir Mitchell 466
THE CRUISE OF THE MONITOR, George Henry Boker 467
THE SINKING OF THE MERRIMACK, Lucy Larcom 468
THE RIVER FIGHT, Henry Howard Brownell 468
THE BALLAD OF NEW ORLEANS, George Henry Boker 472
THE VARUNA, George Henry Boker 474
THE SURRENDER OF NEW ORLEANS, Marion Manville 475
MUMFORD, Ina M. Porter 476
BUTLER'S PROCLAMATION, Paul Hamilton Hayne 476
CHAPTER VII
_Emancipation_
TO JOHN C. FRÉMONT, John Greenleaf Whittier 477
ASTRÆA AT THE CAPITOL, John Greenleaf Whittier 478
BOSTON HYMN, Ralph Waldo Emerson 478
THE PROCLAMATION, John Greenleaf Whittier 480
TREASON'S LAST DEVICE, Edmund Clarence Stedman 480
LAUS DEO, John Greenleaf Whittier 481
CHAPTER VIII
_The "Grand Army's" Second Campaign_
MOSBY AT HAMILTON, Madison Cawein 482
JOHN PELHAM, James Ryder Randall 482
HOOKER'S ACROSS, George Henry Boker 483
STONEWALL JACKSON'S WAY, John Williamson Palmer 483
KEENAN'S CHARGE, George Parsons Lathrop 484
"THE BRIGADE MUST NOT KNOW, SIR," Unknown 485
STONEWALL JACKSON, Henry Lynden Flash 486
THE DYING WORDS OF STONEWALL JACKSON, Sidney Lanier 486
UNDER THE SHADE OF THE TREES, Margaret Junkin Preston 486
THE BALLAD OF ISHMAEL DAY, Unknown 487
RIDING WITH KILPATRICK, Clinton Scollard 488
GETTYSBURG, Edmund Clarence Stedman 489
THE HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG, Will Henry Thompson 491
GETTYSBURG, James Jeffrey Roche 492
THE BATTLE-FIELD, Lloyd Mifflin 492
JOHN BURNS OF GETTYSBURG, Bret Harte 493
KENTUCKY BELLE, Constance Fenimore Woolson 494
THE DRAFT RIOT, Charles de Kay 496
LINCOLN AT GETTYSBURG, Bayard Taylor 497
CHAPTER IX
_With Grant on the Mississippi_
RUNNING THE BATTERIES, Herman Melville 498
BEFORE VICKSBURG, George Henry Boker 499
VICKSBURG, Paul Hamilton Hayne 499
THE BATTLE-CRY OF FREEDOM, George Frederick Root 500
THE BLACK REGIMENT, George Henry Boker 500
THE BALLAD OF CHICKAMAUGA, Maurice Thompson 501
THOMAS AT CHICKAMAUGA, Kate Brownlee Sherwood 502
GARFIELD'S RIDE AT CHICKAMAUGA, Hezekiah Butterworth 503
THE BATTLE OF LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, George Henry Boker 505
THE BATTLE IN THE CLOUDS, William Dean Howells 506
CHARLESTON, Henry Timrod 507
THE BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR, Paul Hamilton Hayne 507
BURY THEM, Henry Howard Brownell 508
TWILIGHT ON SUMTER, Richard Henry Stoddard 509
CHAPTER X
_The Final Struggle_
PUT IT THROUGH, Edward Everett Hale 509
LOGAN AT PEACH TREE CREEK, Hamlin Garland 510
A DIRGE FOR MCPHERSON, Herman Melville 511
WITH CORSE AT ALLATOONA, Samuel H. M. Byers 511
ALLATOONA, Unknown 512
SHERMAN'S MARCH TO THE SEA, Samuel H. M. Byers 512
THE SONG OF SHERMAN'S ARMY, Charles Graham Halpine 513
MARCHING THROUGH GEORGIA, Henry Clay Work 513
ETHIOPIA SALUTING THE COLORS, Walt Whitman 514
SHERMAN'S IN SAVANNAH, Oliver Wendell Holmes 514
SAVANNAH, Alethea S. Burroughs 514
CAROLINA, Henry Timrod 515
CHARLESTON, Paul Hamilton Hayne 515
ROMANCE, William Ernest Henley 516
THE FOE AT THE GATES, John Dickson Bruns 516
ULRIC DAHLGREN, Kate Brownlee Sherwood 517
LEE TO THE REAR, John Randolph Thompson 518
CAN'T, Harriet Prescott Spofford 519
OBSEQUIES OF STUART, John Randolph Thompson 519
A CHRISTOPHER OF THE SHENANDOAH, Edith M. Thomas 520
SHERIDAN AT CEDAR CREEK, Herman Melville 521
SHERIDAN'S RIDE, Thomas Buchanan Read 521
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE, Henry Clay Work 522
VIRGINIA CAPTA, Margaret Junkin Preston 523
THE FALL OF RICHMOND, Herman Melville 523
THE SURRENDER AT APPOMATTOX, Herman Melville 524
LEE'S PAROLE, Marion Manville 524
ROBERT E. LEE, Julia Ward Howe 524
CHAPTER XI
_Winslow and Farragut_
THE EAGLE AND VULTURE, Thomas Buchanan Read 525
KEARSARGE AND ALABAMA, Unknown 526
KEARSARGE, S. Weir Mitchell 526
THE ALABAMA, Maurice Bell 527
CRAVEN, Henry Newbolt 527
FARRAGUT, William Tuckey Meredith 528
THROUGH FIRE IN MOBILE BAY, Unknown 529
THE BAY FIGHT, Henry Howard Brownell 530
"ALBEMARLE" CUSHING, James Jeffrey Roche 535
AT THE CANNON'S MOUTH, Herman Melville 537
CHAPTER XII
_The Martyr President_
LINCOLN, S. Weir Mitchell 537
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! Walt Whitman 537
THE DEAD PRESIDENT, Edward Rowland Sill 538
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Edmund Clarence Stedman 538
PARDON, Julia Ward Howe 539
THE DEAR PRESIDENT, John James Piatt 539
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, William Cullen Bryant 540
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Richard Henry Stoddard 540
PARRICIDE, Julia Ward Howe 542
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Tom Taylor 543
CHAPTER XIII
_Peace_
"STACK ARMS," Joseph Blynth Alston 545
JEFFERSON DAVIS, Walker Meriwether Bell 545
IN THE LAND WHERE WE WERE DREAMING, Daniel B. Lucas 546
ACCEPTATION, Margaret Junkin Preston 547
THE CONQUERED BANNER, Abram J. Ryan 547
PEACE, Adeline D. T. Whitney 547
PEACE, Phoebe Cary 548
A SECOND REVIEW OF THE GRAND ARMY, Bret Harte 548
WHEN JOHNNY COMES MARCHING HOME, Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore 549
DRIVING HOME THE COWS, Kate Putnam Osgood 550
ODE RECITED AT THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION, James Russell
Lowell 550
PART V
THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION
THE EAGLE'S SONG, Richard Mansfield 558
CHAPTER I
_Reconstruction and After_
TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS, John Greenleaf Whittier 559
"MR. JOHNSON'S POLICY OF RECONSTRUCTION," Charles Graham
Halpine 559
THADDEUS STEVENS, Phoebe Cary 560
SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE STATES OF THE NORTH, Paul Hamilton
Hayne 561
KU-KLUX, Madison Cawein 562
THE REAR GUARD, Irene Fowler Brown 562
THE BLUE AND THE GRAY, Francis Miles Finch 563
THE STRICKEN SOUTH TO THE NORTH, Paul Hamilton Hayne 564
HOW CYRUS LAID THE CABLE, John Godfrey Saxe 565
THE CABLE HYMN, John Greenleaf Whittier 565
AN ARCTIC VISION, Bret Harte 566
ALASKA, Joaquin Miller 567
ISRAEL FREYER'S BID FOR GOLD, Edmund Clarence Stedman 567
CHICAGO, John Greenleaf Whittier 568
CHICAGO, Bret Harte 569
CHICAGO, John Boyle O'Reilly 569
BOSTON, John Boyle O'Reilly 570
THE CHURCH OF THE REVOLUTION, Hezekiah Butterworth 570
AFTER THE FIRE, Oliver Wendell Holmes 571
THE RIDE OF COLLINS GRAVES, John Boyle O'Reilly 571
CHAPTER II
_The Year of a Hundred Years_
OUR FIRST CENTURY, George Edward Woodberry 572
CENTENNIAL HYMN, John Greenleaf Whittier 573
THE CENTENNIAL MEDITATION OF COLUMBIA, Sidney Lanier 573
CENTENNIAL HYMN, William Cullen Bryant 574
WELCOME TO THE NATIONS, Oliver Wendell Holmes 574
THE NATIONAL ODE, Bayard Taylor 575
OUR NATIONAL BANNER, Dexter Smith 578
AFTER THE CENTENNIAL, Christopher Pearse Cranch 578
CHAPTER III
_The Conquest of the Plains_
THE PACIFIC RAILWAY, C. R. Ballard 579
AFTER THE COMANCHES, Unknown 579
DOWN THE LITTLE BIG HORN, Francis Brooks 580
LITTLE BIG HORN, Ernest McGaffey 581
CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE, Frederick Whittaker 582
CUSTER, Edmund Clarence Stedman 583
THE REVENGE OF RAIN-IN-THE-FACE, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 583
MILES KEOGH'S HORSE, John Hay 584
ON THE BIG HORN, John Greenleaf Whittier 585
THE "GREY HORSE TROOP," Robert W. Chambers 585
GERONIMO, Ernest McGaffey 586
THE LAST RESERVATION, Walter Learned 586
INDIAN NAMES, Lydia Huntley Sigourney 587
CHAPTER IV
_The Second Assassination_
REJOICE, Joaquin Miller 587
THE BELLS AT MIDNIGHT, Thomas Bailey Aldrich 588
J. A. G., Julia Ward Howe 589
MIDNIGHT--SEPTEMBER 19, 1881, John Boyle O'Reilly 589
AT THE PRESIDENT'S GRAVE, Richard Watson Gilder 590
ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD, Oliver Wendell Holmes 590
PRESIDENT GARFIELD, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 591
YORKTOWN CENTENNIAL LYRIC, Paul Hamilton Hayne 592
THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE, Edna Dean Proctor 593
BROOKLYN BRIDGE, Charles George Douglas Roberts 593
CHARLESTON, Richard Watson Gilder 594
MAYFLOWER, John Boyle O'Reilly 594
FAIREST OF FREEDOM'S DAUGHTERS, Jeremiah Eames Rankin 594
LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD, Edmund Clarence Stedman 595
THE BARTHOLDI STATUE, John Greenleaf Whittier 595
ADDITIONAL VERSES TO HAIL COLUMBIA, Oliver Wendell Holmes 596
NEW NATIONAL HYMN, Francis Marion Crawford 596
IN APIA BAY, Charles George Douglas Roberts 597
AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE, Caroline T. Duer 598
BY THE CONEMAUGH, Florence Earle Coates 599
THE MAN WHO RODE TO CONEMAUGH, John Eliot Bowen 599
A BALLAD OF THE CONEMAUGH FLOOD, Hardwick Drummond Rawnsley 600
CONEMAUGH, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward 601
"THE WHITE CITY," Richard Watson Gilder 602
THE KEARSARGE, James Jeffrey Roche 602
TENNESSEE, Virginia Fraser Boyle 603
AN ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIAL, Thomas Bailey
Aldrich 603
THE KLONDIKE, Edwin Arlington Robinson 604
CHAPTER V
_The War with Spain_
APOSTROPHE TO THE ISLAND OF CUBA, James Gates Percival 606
THE GALLANT FIFTY-ONE, Henry Lynden Flash 606
CUBA, Edmund Clarence Stedman 607
THE GOSPEL OF PEACE, James Jeffrey Roche 607
CUBA, Harvey Rice 608
CUBA TO COLUMBIA, Will Carleton 608
CUBA LIBRE, Joaquin Miller 609
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS, Joseph B. Gilder 609
THE MEN OF THE MAINE, Clinton Scollard 609
THE WORD OF THE LORD FROM HAVANA, Richard Hovey 610
HALF-MAST, Lloyd Mifflin 611
THE FIGHTING RACE, Joseph I. C. Clarke 611
ON THE EVE OF WAR, Danske Dandridge 612
TO SPAIN--A LAST WORD, Edith M. Thomas 612
THE MARTYRS OF THE MAINE, Rupert Hughes 612
EL EMPLAZADO, William Henry Venable 613
BATTLE SONG, Robert Burns Wilson 613
GREETING FROM ENGLAND, Unknown 614
BATTLE CRY, William Henry Venable 614
JUST ONE SIGNAL, Unknown 614
DEWEY AT MANILA, Robert Underwood Johnson 615
DEWEY AND HIS MEN, Wallace Rice 617
"OFF MANILLY," Edmund Vance Cooke 618
MANILA BAY, Arthur Hale 618
A BALLAD OF MANILA BAY, Charles George Douglas Roberts 618
THE BATTLE OF MANILA, Richard Hovey 619
DEWEY IN MANILA BAY, R. V. Risley 620
"MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN," Madison Cawein 620
THE SPIRIT OF THE MAINE, Tudor Jenks 621
THE DRAGON OF THE SEAS, Thomas Nelson Page 621
THE SAILING OF THE FLEET, Unknown 622
"CUT THE CABLES," Robert Burns Wilson 622
THE RACE OF THE OREGON, John James Meehan 624
BATTLE-SONG OF THE OREGON, Wallace Rice 624
STRIKE THE BLOW, Unknown 625
EIGHT VOLUNTEERS, Lansing C. Bailey 626
THE MEN OF THE MERRIMAC, Clinton Scollard 626
THE VICTORY-WRECK, Will Carleton 627
HOBSON AND HIS MEN, Robert Loveman 627
THE CALL TO THE COLORS, Arthur Guiterman 627
ESSEX REGIMENT MARCH, George Edward Woodberry 628
THE GATHERING, Herbert B. Swett 629
COMRADES, Henry R. Dorr 629
WHEELER'S BRIGADE AT SANTIAGO, Wallace Rice 629
DEEDS OF VALOR AT SANTIAGO, Clinton Scollard 630
THE CHARGE AT SANTIAGO, William Hamilton Hayne 630
PRIVATE BLAIR OF THE REGULARS, Clinton Scollard 631
WHEELER AT SANTIAGO, James Lindsay Gordon 631
SPAIN'S LAST ARMADA, Wallace Rice 632
SANTIAGO, Thomas A. Janvier 633
THE FLEET AT SANTIAGO, Charles E. Russell 634
THE DESTROYER OF DESTROYERS, Wallace Rice 635
THE BROOKLYN AT SANTIAGO, Wallace Rice 636
THE RUSH OF THE OREGON, Arthur Guiterman 637
THE MEN BEHIND THE GUNS, John Jerome Rooney 637
CERVERA, Bertrand Shadwell 638
MCILRATH OF MALATE, John Jerome Rooney 639
WHEN THE GREAT GRAY SHIPS COME IN, Guy Wetmore Carryl 640
FULL CYCLE, John White Chadwick 640
BREATH ON THE OAT, Joseph Russell Taylor 641
THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA, George Edward Woodberry 641
BALLADE OF EXPANSION, Hilda Johnson 642
"REBELS," Ernest Crosby 643
ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES, William Vaughn Moody 643
THE BALLAD OF PACO TOWN, Clinton Scollard 644
THE DEED OF LIEUTENANT MILES, Clinton Scollard 644
AGUINALDO, Bertrand Shadwell 645
THE FIGHT AT DAJO, Alfred E. Wood 645
AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION, William Vaughn Moody 646
CHAPTER VI
_The New Century_
A TOAST TO OUR NATIVE LAND, Robert Bridges 649
BUFFALO, Florence Earle Coates 649
MCKINLEY, Unknown 649
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH, Richard Handfield Titherington 650
THE COMFORT OF THE TREES, Richard Watson Gilder 650
OUTWARD BOUND, Edward Sydney Tylee 650
PANAMA, James Jeffrey Roche 651
DARIEN, Edwin Arnold 651
PANAMA, Amanda T. Jones 652
A SONG OF PANAMA, Alfred Damon Runyon 652
HYMN OF THE WEST, Edmund Clarence Stedman 653
BRITANNIA TO COLUMBIA, Alfred Austin 654
THOSE REBEL FLAGS, John H. Jewett 654
THE SONG OF THE FLAGS, S. Weir Mitchell 655
ARIZONA, Sharlot M. Hall 655
SAN FRANCISCO, Joaquin Miller 657
SAN FRANCISCO, John Vance Cheney 657
TO SAN FRANCISCO, S. J. Alexander 657
RESURGE SAN FRANCISCO, Joaquin Miller 658
GROVER CLEVELAND, Joel Benton 658
UNGUARDED GATES, Thomas Bailey Aldrich 659
NATIONAL SONG, William Henry Venable 659
AD PATRIAM, Clinton Scollard 660
O LAND BELOVED, George Edward Woodberry 660
THE REPUBLIC, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 660
CHAPTER VII
_The World War_
SONNETS WRITTEN IN THE FALL OF 1914, George Edward Woodberry 661
ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT, Vachel Lindsay 661
THE "WILLIAM P. FRYE," Jeanne Robert Foster 662
THE WHITE SHIPS AND THE RED, Joyce Kilmer 663
MARE LIBERUM, Henry van Dyke 664
ODE IN MEMORY OF THE AMERICAN VOLUNTEERS FALLEN FOR FRANCE,
Alan Seeger 664
REPUBLIC TO REPUBLIC, Witter Bynner 666
TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Robert Bridges 666
THE CAPTIVE SHIPS AT MANILA, Dorothy Paul 666
THE ROAD TO FRANCE, Daniel Henderson 667
PERSHING AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE, Amelia Josephine Burr 667
YOUR LAD, AND MY LAD, Randall Parrish 668
A CALL TO ARMS, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews 668
THE FIRST THREE, Clinton Scollard 669
TO AMERICA, ON HER FIRST SONS FALLEN IN THE GREAT WAR, E. M.
Walker 670
ROUGE BOUQUET, Joyce Kilmer 670
MARCHING SONG, Dana Burnet 671
OUR MODEST DOUGHBOYS, Charlton Andrews 671
SEICHEPREY 672
A BALLAD OF REDHEAD'S DAY, Richard Butler Glaenzer 672
VICTORY BELLS, Grace Hazard Conkling 673
EPICEDIUM, J. Corson Miller 673
THE DEAD, David Morton 674
THE UNRETURNING, Clinton Scollard 674
THE STAR, Marion Couthouy Smith 674
BREST LEFT BEHIND, John Chipman Farrar 674
TO THE RETURNING BRAVE, Robert Underwood Johnson 675
THE RETURN, Eleanor Rogers Cox 676
KING OF THE BELGIANS, Marion Couthouy Smith 676
THE FAMILY OF NATIONS, Willard Wattles 677
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS, Mary Siegrist 677
BEYOND WARS, David Morton 678
"WHEN THERE IS PEACE," Austin Dobson 678
AFTER THE WAR, Richard Le Gallienne 678
NOTES 681
INDEX OF AUTHORS 699
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 705
INDEX OF TITLES 713
PART I
THE COLONIAL PERIOD
AMERICA
Oh, who has not heard of the Northmen of yore,
How flew, like the sea-bird, their sails from the shore;
How westward they stayed not till, breasting the brine,
They hailed Narragansett, the land of the vine?
Then the war-songs of Rollo, his pennon and glaive,
Were heard as they danced by the moon-lighted wave,
And their golden-haired wives bore them sons of the soil,
While raged with the redskins their feud and turmoil.
And who has not seen, mid the summer's gay crowd,
That old pillared tower of their fortalice proud,
How it stands solid proof of the sea chieftains' reign
Ere came with Columbus those galleys of Spain?
'Twas a claim for their kindred: an earnest of sway,--
By the stout-hearted Cabot made good in its day,--
Of the Cross of St. George on the Chesapeake's tide,
Where lovely Virginia arose like a bride.
Came the pilgrims with Winthrop; and, saint of the West,
Came Robert of Jamestown, the brave and the blest;
Came Smith, the bold rover, and Rolfe--with his ring,
To wed sweet Matoäka, child of a king.
Undaunted they came, every peril to dare,
Of tribes fiercer far than the wolf in his lair;
Of the wild irksome woods, where in ambush they lay;
Of their terror by night and their arrow by day.
And so where our capes cleave the ice of the poles,
Where groves of the orange scent sea-coast and shoals,
Where the froward Atlantic uplifts its last crest,
Where the sun, when he sets, seeks the East from the West.
The clime that from ocean to ocean expands,
The fields to the snow-drifts that stretch from the sands,
The wilds they have conquered of mountain and plain,
Those pilgrims have made them fair Freedom's domain.
And the bread of dependence if proudly they spurned,
'Twas the soul of their fathers that kindled and burned,
'Twas the blood of the Saxon within them that ran;
They held--to be free is the birthright of man.
So oft the old lion, majestic of mane,
Sees cubs of his cave breaking loose from his reign;
Unmeet to be his if they braved not his eye,
He gave them the spirit his own to defy.
ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE.
POEMS OF AMERICAN HISTORY
CHAPTER I
THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
Bjarni, son of Herjulf, speeding westward from Iceland in 986,
to spend the Yuletide in Greenland with his father, encountered
foggy weather and steered by guesswork for many days. At last
he sighted land, but a land covered with dense woods,--not
at all the land of fiords and glaciers he was seeking. So,
without stopping, he turned his prow to the north, and ten days
later was telling his story to the listening circle before the
blazing logs in his father's house at Brattahlid. The tale
came, in time, to the ears of Leif, the famous son of Red Eric,
and in the year 1000 he set out from Greenland, with a crew of
thirty-five, in search of the strange land to the south. He
reached the barren coast of Labrador and named it Helluland, or
"slate-land;" south of it was a coast so densely wooded that
he named it Markland, or "woodland." At last he ran his ship
ashore at a spot where "a river, issuing from a lake, fell
into the sea." Wild grapes abounded, and he named the country
Vinland.
THE STORY OF VINLAND[1]
From "Psalm of the West"
Far spread, below,
The sea that fast hath locked in his loose flow
All secrets of Atlantis' drownèd woe
Lay bound about with night on every hand,
Save down the eastern brink a shining band
Of day made out a little way from land.
Then from that shore the wind upbore a cry:
_Thou Sea, thou Sea of Darkness! why, oh why
Dost waste thy West in unthrift mystery?_
But ever the idiot sea-mouths foam and fill,
And never a wave doth good for man, or ill,
And Blank is king, and Nothing hath his will;
And like as grim-beaked pelicans level file
Across the sunset toward their nightly isle
On solemn wings that wave but seldom while,
So leanly sails the day behind the day
To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray,
And down its mortal fissures sinks away.
Master, Master, break this ban:
The wave lacks Thee.
Oh, is it not to widen man
Stretches the sea?
Oh, must the sea-bird's idle van
Alone be free?
Into the Sea of the Dark doth creep
Björne's pallid sail,
As the face of a walker in his sleep,
Set rigid and most pale,
About the night doth peer and peep
In a dream of an ancient tale.
Lo, here is made a hasty cry:
_Land, land, upon the west!--
God save such land! Go by, go by:
Here may no mortal rest,
Where this waste hell of slate doth lie
And grind the glacier's breast._
The sail goeth limp: hey, flap and strain!
Round eastward slanteth the mast;
As the sleep-walker waked with pain,
White-clothed in the midnight blast,
Doth stare and quake, and stride again
To houseward all aghast.
Yet as--_A ghost!_ his household cry:
_He hath followed a ghost in flight.
Let us see the ghost_--his household fly
With lamps to search the night--
So Norsemen's sails run out and try
The Sea of the Dark with light.
Stout Are Marson, southward whirled
From out the tempest's hand,
Doth skip the sloping of the world
To Huitramannaland,
Where Georgia's oaks with moss-beards curled
Wave by the shining strand,
And sway in sighs from Florida's Spring
Or Carolina's Palm--
What time the mocking-bird doth bring
The woods his artist's-balm,
Singing the Song of Everything
Consummate-sweet and calm--
Land of large merciful-hearted skies,
Big bounties, rich increase,
Green rests for Trade's blood-shotten eyes,
For o'er-beat brains surcease,
For Love the dear woods' sympathies,
For Grief the wise woods' peace.
For Need rich givings of hid powers
In hills and vales quick-won,
For Greed large exemplary flowers
That ne'er have toiled nor spun,
For Heat fair-tempered winds and showers,
For Cold the neighbor sun.
* * * * *
Then Leif, bold son of Eric the Red,
To the South of the West doth flee--
Past slaty Helluland is sped,
Past Markland's woody lea,
Till round about fair Vinland's head,
Where Taunton helps the sea,
The Norseman calls, the anchor falls,
The mariners hurry a-strand:
They wassail with fore-drunken skals
Where prophet wild grapes stand;
They lift the Leifsbooth's hasty walls,
They stride about the land--
New England, thee! whose ne'er-spent wine
As blood doth stretch each vein,
And urge thee, sinewed like thy vine,
Through peril and all pain
To grasp Endeavor's towering Pine,
And, once ahold, remain--
Land where the strenuous-handed Wind
With sarcasm of a friend
Doth smite the man would lag behind
To frontward of his end;
Yea, where the taunting fall and grind
Of Nature's Ill doth send
Such mortal challenge of a clown
Rude-thrust upon the soul,
That men but smile where mountains frown
Or scowling waters roll,
And Nature's front of battle down
Do hurl from pole to pole.
Now long the Sea of Darkness glimmers low
With sails from Northland flickering to and fro--
Thorwald, Karlsefne, and those twin heirs of woe,
Hellboge and Finnge, in treasonable bed
Slain by the ill-born child of Eric Red,
Freydisa false. Till, as much time is fled,
Once more the vacant airs with darkness fill,
Once more the wave doth never good nor ill,
And Blank is king, and Nothing works his will;
And leanly sails the day behind the day
To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray,
And down its mortal fissures sinks away,
As when the grim-beaked pelicans level file
Across the sunset to their seaward isle
On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile.
SIDNEY LANIER.
[1] From Poems by Sidney Lanier; copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D.
Lanier; published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
Leif and his crew spent the winter in Vinland, and in the
following spring took back to Greenland news of the pleasant
country they had discovered. Other voyages followed, but the
newcomers became embroiled with the natives, who attacked
them in such numbers that all projects of colonization were
abandoned; and finally, in 1012, the Norsemen sailed away
forever from this land of promise.
THE NORSEMEN
[On a fragment of statue found at Bradford.]
Gift from the cold and silent Past!
A relic to the present cast;
Left on the ever-changing strand
Of shifting and unstable sand,
Which wastes beneath the steady chime
And beating of the waves of Time!
Who from its bed of primal rock
First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block?
Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,
Thy rude and savage outline wrought?
The waters of my native stream
Are glancing in the sun's warm beam;
From sail-urged keel and flashing oar
The circles widen to its shore;
And cultured field and peopled town
Slope to its willowed margin down.
Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing
The home-life sound of school-bells ringing,
And rolling wheel, and rapid jar
Of the fire-winged and steedless car,
And voices from the wayside near
Come quick and blended on my ear,--
A spell is in this old gray stone,
My thoughts are with the Past alone!
A change!--The steepled town no more
Stretches along the sail-thronged shore;
Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud,
Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud:
Spectrally rising where they stood,
I see the old, primeval wood;
Dark, shadow-like, on either hand
I see its solemn waste expand;
It climbs the green and cultured hill,
It arches o'er the valley's rill,
And leans from cliff and crag to throw
Its wild arms o'er the stream below.
Unchanged, alone, the same bright river
Flows on, as it will flow forever!
I listen, and I hear the low
Soft ripple where its waters go;
I hear behind the panther's cry,
The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by,
And shyly on the river's brink
The deer is stooping down to drink.
But hark!--from wood and rock flung back,
What sound comes up the Merrimac?
What sea-worn barks are those which throw
The light spray from each rushing prow?
Have they not in the North Sea's blast
Bowed to the waves the straining mast?
Their frozen sails the low, pale sun
Of Thulë's night has shone upon;
Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep
Round icy drift, and headland steep.
Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters
Have watched them fading o'er the waters,
Lessening through driving mist and spray,
Like white-winged sea-birds on their way!
Onward they glide,--and now I view
Their iron-armed and stalwart crew;
Joy glistens in each wild blue eye,
Turned to green earth and summer sky.
Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside
Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide;
Bared to the sun and soft warm air,
Streams back the Northmen's yellow hair.
I see the gleam of axe and spear,
A sound of smitten shields I hear,
Keeping a harsh and fitting time
To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme;
Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung,
His gray and naked isles among;
Or muttered low at midnight hour
Round Odin's mossy stone of power.
The wolf beneath the Arctic moon
Has answered to that startling rune;
The Gael has heard its stormy swell,
The light Frank knows its summons well;
Iona's sable-stoled Culdee
Has heard it sounding o'er the sea,
And swept, with hoary beard and hair,
His altar's foot in trembling prayer!
'Tis past,--the 'wildering vision dies
In darkness on my dreaming eyes!
The forest vanishes in air,
Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare;
I hear the common tread of men,
And hum of work-day life again;
The mystic relic seems alone
A broken mass of common stone;
And if it be the chiselled limb
Of Berserker or idol grim,
A fragment of Valhalla's Thor,
The stormy Viking's god of War,
Or Praga of the Runic lay,
Or love-awakening Siona,
I know not,--for no graven line,
Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign,
Is left me here, by which to trace
Its name, or origin, or place.
Yet, for this vision of the Past,
This glance upon its darkness cast,
My spirit bows in gratitude
Before the Giver of all good,
Who fashioned so the human mind,
That, from the waste of Time behind,
A simple stone, or mound of earth,
Can summon the departed forth;
Quicken the Past to life again,
The Present lose in what hath been,
And in their primal freshness show
The buried forms of long ago.
As if a portion of that Thought
By which the Eternal will is wrought,
Whose impulse fills anew with breath
The frozen solitude of Death,
To mortal mind were sometimes lent,
To mortal musings sometimes sent,
To whisper--even when it seems
But Memory's fantasy of dreams--
Through the mind's waste of woe and sin,
Of an immortal origin!
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
This, in mere outline, is the story of Vinland, as told in the
Icelandic Chronicle. Of its substantial accuracy there can be
little doubt. Many proofs of Norse occupation have been found
on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. The "skeleton in armor,"
however, which was unearthed in 1835 near Fall River, Mass.,
was probably that of an Indian.
THE SKELETON IN ARMOR
"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who, with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?"
Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the Northern skies
Gleam in December;
And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
From the heart's chamber.
"I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;
For this I sought thee.
"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the gerfalcon;
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.
"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the were-wolf's bark,
Until the soaring lark
Sang from the meadow.
"But when I older grew,
Joining a corsair's crew,
O'er the dark sea I flew
With the marauders.
Wild was the life we led;
Many the souls that sped,
Many the hearts that bled,
By our stern orders.
"Many a wassail-bout
Wore the long winter out;
Often our midnight shout
Set the cocks crowing,
As we the Berserk's tale
Measured in cups of ale,
Draining the oaken pail,
Filled to o'erflowing.
"Once as I told in glee
Tales of the stormy sea,
Soft eyes did gaze on me,
Burning yet tender;
And as the white stars shine
On the dark Norway pine,
On that dark heart of mine
Fell their soft splendor.
"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,
Yielding, yet half afraid,
And in the forest's shade
Our vows were plighted.
Under its loosened vest
Fluttered her little breast,
Like birds within their nest
By the hawk frighted.
"Bright in her father's hall
Shields gleamed upon the wall,
Loud sang the minstrels all,
Chanting his glory;
When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
To hear my story.
"While the brown ale he quaffed,
Loud then the champion laughed,
And as the wind-gusts waft
The sea-foam brightly,
So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.
"She was a Prince's child,
I but a Viking wild,
And though she blushed and smiled,
I was discarded!
Should not the dove so white
Follow the sea-mew's flight,
Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?
"Scarce had I put to sea,
Bearing the maid with me,
Fairest of all was she
Among the Norsemen!
When on the white sea-strand,
Waving his armèd hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,
With twenty horsemen.
"Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,
When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
Laugh as he hailed us.
"And as to catch the gale
Round veered the flapping sail,
'Death!' was the helmsman's hail,
'Death without quarter!'
Mid-ships with iron keel
Struck we her ribs of steel!
Down her black hulk did reel
Through the black water!
"As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
With his prey laden.--
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,
Through the wild hurricane,
Bore I the maiden.
"Three weeks we westward bore,
And when the storm was o'er,
Cloud-like we saw the shore
Stretching to leeward;
There for my lady's bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,
Stands looking seaward.
"There lived we many years;
Time dried the maiden's tears;
She had forgot her fears,
She was a mother;
Death closed her mild blue eyes,
Under that tower she lies;
Ne'er shall the sun arise
On such another!
"Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,
Oh, death was grateful!
"Thus, seamed with many scars,
Bursting these prison bars,
Up to its native stars
My soul ascended!
There from the flowing bowl
Deep drinks the warrior's soul,
_Skoal!_ to the Northland! _skoal!_"
Thus the tale ended.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
The centuries passed, and no more of the white-skinned race
came to the New World. But a new era was at hand; the day drew
near when a little fleet was to put out from Spain and turn its
prows westward on the grandest voyage the world has ever known.
PROPHECY
From "Il Morgante Maggiore"
1485
His bark
The daring mariner shall urge far o'er
The Western wave, a smooth and level plain.
Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel.
Man was in ancient days of grosser mould,
And Hercules might blush to learn how far
Beyond the limits he had vainly set
The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way.
Man shall descry another hemisphere,
Since to one common centre all things tend.
So earth, by curious mystery divine
Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres.
At our antipodes are cities, states,
And throngèd empires, ne'er divined of yore.
But see, the sun speeds on his western path
To glad the nations with expected light.
LUIGI PULCI.
About 1436 a son was born to Dominico Colombo, wool-comber, of
Genoa, and in due time christened Cristoforo. Of his boyhood
little is known save that he early went to sea. About 1470
he followed his brother Bartholomew to Lisbon, and in 1474
he was given a map by Toscanelli, the Florentine astronomer,
showing Japan and the Indies directly west of Portugal,
together with a long letter in which Toscanelli explained his
reasons for believing that by sailing west one could reach the
East. Columbus, studying the problem month by month, became
convinced of the feasibility of such a route to the Indies, and
determined himself to traverse it.
THE INSPIRATION
From "The West Indies"
Long lay the ocean-paths from man conceal'd;
Light came from heaven,--the magnet was reveal'd,
A surer star to guide the seaman's eye
Than the pale glory of the northern sky;
Alike ordain'd to shine by night and day,
Through calm and tempest, with unsetting ray;
Where'er the mountains rise, the billows roll,
Still with strong impulse turning to the pole,
True as the sun is to the morning true,
Though light as film, and trembling as the dew.
Then man no longer plied with timid oar,
And failing heart, along the windward shore;
Broad to the sky he turn'd his fearless sail,
Defied the adverse, woo'd the favoring gale,
Bared to the storm his adamantine breast,
Or soft on ocean's lap lay down to rest;
While free, as clouds the liquid ether sweep,
His white-wing'd vessels coursed the unbounded deep;
From clime to clime the wanderer loved to roam,
The waves his heritage, the world his home.
Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand
Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land;
The floods o'erbalanced:--where the tide of light,
Day after day, roll'd down the gulf of night,
There seem'd one waste of waters:--long in vain
His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main;
When sudden, as creation burst from nought,
Sprang a new world through his stupendous thought,
Light, order, beauty!--While his mind explored
The unveiling mystery, his heart adored;
Where'er sublime imagination trod,
He heard the voice, he saw the face of God.
Far from the western cliffs he cast his eye,
O'er the wide ocean stretching to the sky:
In calm magnificence the sun declined,
And left a paradise of clouds behind:
Proud at his feet, with pomp of pearl and gold,
The billows in a sea of glory roll'd.
"--Ah! on this sea of glory might I sail,
Track the bright sun, and pierce the eternal veil
That hides those lands, beneath Hesperian skies,
Where daylight sojourns till our morrow rise!"
Thoughtful he wander'd on the beach alone;
Mild o'er the deep the vesper planet shone,
The eye of evening, brightening through the west
Till the sweet moment when it shut to rest:
"Whither, O golden Venus! art thou fled?
Not in the ocean-chambers lies thy bed;
Round the dim world thy glittering chariot drawn
Pursues the twilight, or precedes the dawn;
Thy beauty noon and midnight never see,
The morn and eve divide the year with thee."
Soft fell the shades, till Cynthia's slender bow
Crested the furthest wave, then sunk below:
"Tell me, resplendent guardian of the night,
Circling the sphere in thy perennial flight,
What secret path of heaven thy smiles adorn,
What nameless sea reflects thy gleaming horn?"
Now earth and ocean vanish'd, all serene
The starry firmament alone was seen;
Through the slow, silent hours, he watch'd the host
Of midnight suns in western darkness lost,
Till Night himself, on shadowy pinions borne,
Fled o'er the mighty waters, and the morn
Danced on the mountains:--"Lights of heaven!" he cried,
"Lead on;--I go to win a glorious bride;
Fearless o'er gulfs unknown I urge my way,
Where peril prowls, and shipwreck lurks for prey:
Hope swells my sail;--in spirit I behold
That maiden-world, twin-sister of the old,
By nature nursed beyond the jealous sea,
Denied to ages, but betroth'd to me."
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
In 1484 Columbus laid his plan before King John II, of
Portugal, but became so disgusted with his treachery and
double-dealing, that he left Portugal and entered the service
of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Spanish monarchs listened to him
with attention, and ordered that the greatest astronomers and
cosmographers of the kingdom should assemble at Salamanca and
pass upon the feasibility of the project.
COLUMBUS
[January, 1487]
St. Stephen's cloistered hall was proud
In learning's pomp that day,
For there a robed and stately crowd
Pressed on in long array.
A mariner with simple chart
Confronts that conclave high,
While strong ambition stirs his heart,
And burning thoughts of wonder part
From lip and sparkling eye.
What hath he said? With frowning face,
In whispered tones they speak,
And lines upon their tablets trace,
Which flush each ashen cheek;
The Inquisition's mystic doom
Sits on their brows severe,
And bursting forth in visioned gloom,
Sad heresy from burning tomb
Groans on the startled ear.
Courage, thou Genoese! Old Time
Thy splendid dream shall crown;
Yon Western Hemisphere sublime,
Where unshorn forests frown,
The awful Andes' cloud-wrapt brow,
The Indian hunter's bow,
Bold streams untamed by helm or prow,
And rocks of gold and diamonds, thou
To thankless Spain shalt show.
Courage, World-finder! Thou hast need!
In Fate's unfolding scroll,
Dark woes and ingrate wrongs I read,
That rack the noble soul.
On! on! Creation's secrets probe,
Then drink thy cup of scorn,
And wrapped in fallen Cæsar's robe,
Sleep like that master of the globe,
All glorious,--yet forlorn.
LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY.
The council convened at Salamanca and examined Columbus; but
it presented to him an almost impenetrable wall of bigotry and
prejudice. Long delays and adjournments followed; and for three
years the suppliant was put off with excuses and evasions.
At last, worn out with waiting and anxiety, he appealed to
Ferdinand to give him a definite answer.
COLUMBUS TO FERDINAND
[January, 1491]
Illustrious monarch of Iberia's soil,
Too long I wait permission to depart;
Sick of delays, I beg thy list'ning ear--
Shine forth the patron and the prince of art.
While yet Columbus breathes the vital air,
Grant his request to pass the western main:
Reserve this glory for thy native soil,
And what must please thee more--for thy own reign.
Of this huge globe, how small a part we know--
Does heaven their worlds to western suns deny?--
How disproportion'd to the mighty deep
The lands that yet in human prospect lie!
Does Cynthia, when to western skies arriv'd,
Spend her sweet beam upon the barren main,
And ne'er illume with midnight splendor, she,
The natives dancing on the lightsome green?--
Should the vast circuit of the world contain
Such wastes of ocean, and such scanty land?--
'Tis reason's voice that bids me think not so,
I think more nobly of the Almighty hand.
Does yon fair lamp trace half the circle round
To light the waves and monsters of the seas?--
No--be there must beyond the billowy waste
Islands, and men, and animals, and trees.
An unremitting flame my breast inspires
To seek new lands amidst the barren waves,
Where falling low, the source of day descends,
And the blue sea his evening visage laves.
Hear, in his tragic lay, Cordova's sage:
"_The time shall come, when numerous years are past,
The ocean shall dissolve the bonds of things,
And an extended region rise at last;_
"_And Typhis shall disclose the mighty land
Far, far away, where none have rov'd before;
Nor shall the world's remotest region be
Gibraltar's rock, or Thule's savage shore._"
Fir'd at the theme, I languish to depart,
Supply the barque, and bid Columbus sail;
He fears no storms upon the untravell'd deep;
Reason shall steer, and skill disarm the gale.
Nor does he dread to lose the intended course,
Though far from land the reeling galley stray,
And skies above and gulphy seas below
Be the sole objects seen for many a day.
Think not that Nature has unveil'd in vain
The mystic magnet to the mortal eye:
So late have we the guiding needle plann'd
Only to sail beneath our native sky?
Ere this was found, the ruling power of all
Found for our use an ocean in the land,
Its breadth so small we could not wander long,
Nor long be absent from the neighboring strand.
Short was the course, and guided by the stars,
But stars no more shall point our daring way;
The Bear shall sink, and every guard be drown'd,
And great Arcturus scarce escape the sea,
When southward we shall steer--O grant my wish,
Supply the barque, and bid Columbus sail,
He dreads no tempests on the untravell'd deep,
Reason shall steer, and skill disarm the gale.
PHILIP FRENEAU.
Early in 1491 the council of Salamanca reported that the
proposed enterprise was vain and impossible of execution, and
Ferdinand accepted the decision. Indignant at thought of the
years he had wasted, Columbus started for Paris, to lay his
plan before the King of France. He was accompanied by his son,
Diego, and stopped one night at the convent of La Rabida, near
Palos, to ask for food and shelter. The prior, Juan Perez de
Marchena, became interested in his project, detained him, and
finally secured for him another audience of Isabella.
COLUMBUS AT THE CONVENT
[July, 1491]
Dreary and brown the night comes down,
Gloomy, without a star.
On Palos town the night comes down;
The day departs with a stormy frown;
The sad sea moans afar.
A convent-gate is near; 'tis late;
Ting-ling! the bell they ring.
They ring the bell, they ask for bread--
"Just for my child," the father said.
Kind hands the bread will bring.
White was his hair, his mien was fair,
His look was calm and great.
The porter ran and called a friar;
The friar made haste and told the prior;
The prior came to the gate.
He took them in, he gave them food;
The traveller's dreams he heard;
And fast the midnight moments flew,
And fast the good man's wonder grew,
And all his heart was stirred.
The child the while, with soft, sweet smile
Forgetful of all sorrow,
Lay soundly sleeping in his bed.
The good man kissed him then, and said:
"You leave us not to-morrow!
"I pray you rest the convent's guest;
The child shall be our own--
A precious care, while you prepare
Your business with the court, and bear
Your message to the throne."
And so his guest he comforted.
O wise, good prior! to you,
Who cheered the stranger's darkest days,
And helped him on his way, what praise
And gratitude are due!
JOHN T. TROWBRIDGE.
Isabella and Ferdinand were with their army before Granada,
and received Columbus well; but his demands for emoluments and
honors in the event of success were pronounced absurd; the
negotiations were broken off, and again Columbus started for
France. The few converts to his theories were in despair, and
one of them, Luis de Santangel, receiver of the ecclesiastical
revenues of Aragon, obtained an audience of the Queen, and
enkindled her patriotic spirit. When Ferdinand still hesitated,
she exclaimed, "I undertake the enterprise for my own crown of
Castile. I will pledge my jewels to raise the money that is
needed!" Santangel assured her that he himself was ready to
provide the money, and advanced seventeen thousand florins from
the coffers of Aragon, so that Ferdinand really paid for the
expedition, after all.
THE FINAL STRUGGLE
From "The New World"
[January 6--April 17, 1492]
Yet had his sun not risen; from his lips
Fell in swift fervid accents his desire,
And Talavera's eyes of smouldering fire
Shone with a myriad doubts, a dark eclipse
Of faith hung round him, and the longed-for ships
Ploughed but the ocean of his star-lit dreams;
Time had not tried his soul enough with whips
And scorns, for so the rigid Master deems
He makes his servants fit
For the hard toils which knit
The perfect garment, firm and without seams,
The world shall wear at last; his hurt brain teems
With indignation and he turns away
Undaunted, and he girds him for the fray
Once more; but first he hears the words of his good friend,
Marchena, strong with trust in the far-shining end.
His wanderings reached at last the lonely door
Of calm La Rabida; there the silence came
Grateful upon his grief's consuming flame;
The simple cloisters gave him peace once more,
And the live ocean rolled up to the shore
In ceaseless voice of promise; through the pines
The sun looked down benignant, and the roar
Of the far world of rivalries declines
Into an inward murmur
With each day growing firmer,
Whose sense is conquest at the last; as shines
A lamp across a rocky path's confines,
Making the outlet clear, Juan Perez' faith
Who heard him and conceived his words no wraith
Of fevered fancy but the very truth, was light
To bring the Queen to know his purposes aright.
O noble priest and friend! you reached the court
And turned the Queen from conquest's mid career
To hearken; other triumphs glittered clear
Before her, and again from Huelva's port
The seeker came; he saw Granada's fort
Open its gates reluctant, and the King,
El Zogoibi, bewail his bitter sort
And loss which made the rich _Te Deums_ ring
When on La Vela's tower
The cross bloomed like a flower
Of heaven's own growing; but the sudden spring,
Loud with birds silent long that strove to sing,
After the winter's weary voiceless reign,
Was overcast with storms of cold disdain;
Haughtily forth he fared and reached Granada's gates
When the clouds lifted and the persecuting fates
Relented from their fury; for the Queen
Listened unto the urgings manifold
Of Santangel, and counsel, wise and bold,
Of the far-seeing Marchioness, whose keen
Divinings pierced the misty ocean's screen
And felt the deed must surely come to pass;
So they recalled him, and his life's changed scene
Grew bright with blooms and smile of thickening grass;
O royal woman then
Your hand received again
The keys of a great realm; in the clear glass
Of actions yet to be whose fires amass
Infinite stores of impulse toward the good,
Your image permanent lies; forth from the wood
Of beasts malicious and the unrelenting dread
You showed the way, but sought not from the gloom to tread.
The wind was fair, the ships lay in the bay,
And the blue sky looked down upon the earth;
Prophetic time laughed toward the nearing birth
Of the strong child with whom should come a day
That dulled all earlier hours. Forth on the way
With holy blessings said, and bellied sails,
And mounting joy that knows not let nor stay!
Lo! the undaunted purpose never fails!
O patient master, seer,
For whom the far is near,
The vision true, and the mere present pales
Its lustre, what mild seas and blossomed vales
Awaited you? haply a paradise
But not the one which drew your swerveless eyes;
Could you have known what lands were there beyond the main,
You surelier would have turned to gladsomeness from pain.
LOUIS JAMES BLOCK.
With the greatest difficulty, Columbus managed to secure three
little vessels, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Niña, and
to enlist about a hundred and twenty men for the enterprise.
Early in the morning of Friday, August 3, 1492, this tiny
fleet sailed out from Palos and turned their prows to the west.
STEER, BOLD MARINER, ON!
[August 3, 1492]
Steer, bold mariner, on! albeit witlings deride thee,
And the steersman drop idly his hand at the helm.
Ever and ever to westward! there must the coast be discovered,
If it but lie distinct, luminous lie in thy mind.
Trust to the God that leads thee, and follow the sea that is silent;
Did it not yet exist, now would it rise from the flood.
Nature with Genius stands united in league everlasting;
What is promised by one, surely the other performs.
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER.
The fleet reached the Canaries without misadventure, but
when the shores of Ferro sank from sight, the sailors gave
themselves up for lost. Their terror increased day by day; the
compass behaved strangely, the boats became entangled in vast
meadows of floating seaweed; and finally the trade-winds wafted
them so steadily westward that they became convinced they could
never return. By October 4 there were ominous signs of mutiny,
and finally, on the 11th, affairs reached a crisis.
THE TRIUMPH[2]
From "Psalm of the West"
[Dawn, October 12, 1492]
Santa Maria, well thou tremblest down the wave,
Thy Pinta far abow, thy Niña nigh astern:
Columbus stands in the night alone, and, passing grave,
Yearns o'er the sea as tones o'er under-silence yearn.
Heartens his heart as friend befriends his friend less brave,
Makes burn the faiths that cool, and cools the doubts that burn:--
"'Twixt this and dawn, three hours my soul will smite
With prickly seconds, or less tolerably
With dull-blade minutes flatwise slapping me.
Wait, Heart! Time moves.--Thou lithe young Western Night,
Just-crownèd king, slow riding to thy right,
Would God that I might straddle mutiny
Calm as thou sitt'st yon never-managed sea,
Balk'st with his balking, fliest with his flight,
Giv'st supple to his rearings and his falls,
Nor dropp'st one coronal star above thy brow
Whilst ever dayward thou art steadfast drawn!
Yea, would I rode these mad contentious brawls
No damage taking from their If and How,
Nor no result save galloping to my Dawn!
"My Dawn? my Dawn? How if it never break?
How if this West by other Wests is pieced,
And these by vacant Wests on Wests increased--
One Pain of Space, with hollow ache on ache
Throbbing and ceasing not for Christ's own sake?--
Big perilous theorem, hard for king and priest:
_Pursue the West but long enough, 'tis East!_
Oh, if this watery world no turning take!
Oh, if for all my logic, all my dreams,
Provings of that which is by that which seems,
Fears, hopes, chills, heats, hastes, patiences, droughts, tears,
Wife-grievings, slights on love, embezzled years,
Hates, treaties, scorns, upliftings, loss and gain,--
This earth, no sphere, be all one sickening plane!
"Or, haply, how if this contrarious West,
That me by turns hath starved, by turns hath fed,
Embraced, disgraced, beat back, solicited,
Have no fixed heart of Law within his breast,
Or with some different rhythm doth e'er contest
Nature in the East? Why, 'tis but three weeks fled
I saw my Judas needle shake his head
And flout the Pole that, East, he Lord confessed!
God! if this West should own some other Pole,
And with his tangled ways perplex my soul
Until the maze grow mortal, and I die
Where distraught Nature clean hath gone astray,
On earth some other wit than Time's at play,
Some other God than mine above the sky!
"Now speaks mine other heart with cheerier seeming:
_Ho, Admiral! o'er-defalking to thy crew
Against thyself, thyself far overfew
To front yon multitudes of rebel scheming?_
Come, ye wild twenty years of heavenly dreaming!
Come, ye wild weeks since first this canvas drew
Out of vexed Palos ere the dawn was blue,
O'er milky waves about the bows full-creaming!
Come set me round with many faithful spears
Of confident remembrance--how I crushed
Cat-lived rebellions, pitfalled treasons, hushed
Scared husbands' heart-break cries on distant wives,
Made cowards blush at whining for their lives,
Watered my parching souls, and dried their tears.
"Ere we Gomera cleared, a coward cried,
_Turn, turn: here be three caravels ahead,
From Portugal, to take us: we are dead!_--
_Hold Westward, pilot,_ calmly I replied.
So when the last land down the horizon died,
_Go back, go back!_ they prayed: _our hearts are lead_.--
_Friends, we are bound into the West_, I said.
Then passed the wreck of a mast upon our side.
_See_ (so they wept) _God's Warning! Admiral, turn!_--
_Steersman_, I said, _hold straight into the West_.
Then down the night we saw the meteor burn.
_So do the very heavens in fire protest:
Good Admiral, put about! O Spain, dear Spain!_--
_Hold straight into the West_, I said again.
"Next drive we o'er the slimy-weeded sea.
_Lo! here beneath_ (another coward cries)
_The cursèd land of sunk Atlantis lies!
This slime will suck us down--turn while thou'rt free!_--
_But no!_ I said, _Freedom bears West for me!_
Yet when the long-time stagnant winds arise,
And day by day the keel to westward flies,
My Good my people's Ill doth come to be:
_Ever the winds into the West do blow;
Never a ship, once turned, might homeward go;
Meanwhile we speed into the lonesome main.
For Christ's sake, parley, Admiral! Turn, before
We sail outside all bounds of help from pain!_--
_Our help is in the West_, I said once more.
"So when there came a mighty cry of _Land!_
And we clomb up and saw, and shouted strong
_Salve Regina!_ all the ropes along,
But knew at morn how that a counterfeit band
Of level clouds had aped a silver strand;
So when we heard the orchard-bird's small song,
And all the people cried, _A hellish throng
To tempt us onward by the Devil planned,
Yea, all from hell--keen heron, fresh green weeds,
Pelican, tunny-fish, fair tapering reeds,
Lie-telling lands that ever shine and die
In clouds of nothing round the empty sky.
Tired Admiral, get thee from this hell, and rest!_--
_Steersman,_ I said, _hold straight into the West_.
"I marvel how mine eye, ranging the Night,
From its big circling ever absently
Returns, thou large low Star, to fix on thee.
_Maria!_ Star? No star: a Light, a Light!
Wouldst leap ashore, Heart? Yonder burns--a Light.
Pedro Gutierrez, wake! come up to me.
I prithee stand and gaze about the sea:
What seest? _Admiral, like as land--a Light!_
Well! Sanchez of Segovia, come and try:
What seest? _Admiral, naught but sea and sky!_
Well! but _I_ saw It. Wait! the Pinta's gun!
Why, look, 'tis dawn, the land is clear: 'tis done!
Two dawns do break at once from Time's full hand--
God's, East--mine, West: good friends, behold my Land!"
SIDNEY LANIER.
[2] From Poems by Sidney Lanier; copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D.
Lanier; published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
At daybreak of Friday, October 12 (N. S. October 22), the boats
were lowered and Columbus, with a large part of his company,
went ashore, wild with exultation. They found that they were on
a small island, and Columbus named it San Salvador. It was one
of the Bahamas, but which one is not certainly known.
COLUMBUS
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?"
"Why, say 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"
"My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan, and weak."
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
"What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
"Why, you shall say at break of day,
'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say"--
He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!"
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
"This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.
He lifts his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Admiral, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
"Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck--
A light! a light! a light! a light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: "On! sail on!"
JOAQUIN MILLER.
Columbus reached Spain again on March 15, 1493, and at once
sent word of his arrival to Ferdinand and Isabella, who were
at Barcelona. He was summoned to appear before them and was
received with triumphal honors. The King and Queen arose at his
approach, directed him to seat himself in their presence, and
listened with intense interest to his story of the voyage. When
he had finished, they sank to their knees, as did all present,
and thanked God for this mark of his favor.
THE THANKSGIVING FOR AMERICA
[Barcelona, April, 1493]
I
'Twas night upon the Darro.
The risen moon above the silvery tower
Of Comares shone, the silver sun of night,
And poured its lustrous splendors through the halls
Of the Alhambra.
The air was breathless,
Yet filled with ceaseless songs of nightingales,
And odors sweet of falling orange blooms;
The misty lamps were burning odorous oil;
The uncurtained balconies were full of life,
And laugh and song, and airy castanets
And gay guitars.
Afar Sierras rose,
Domes, towers, and pinnacles, over royal heights,
Whose crowns were gemmed with stars.
The Generaliffe,
The summer palace of old Moorish kings
In vanished years, stood sentinel afar,
A pile of shade, as brighter grew the moon,
Impearling fountain sprays, and shimmering
On seas of citron orchards cool and green,
And terraces embowered with vernal vines
And breathing flowers.
In shadowy arcades
Were loitering priests, and here and there
A water-carrier passed with tinkling bells.
There came a peal of horns
That woke Granada, city of delights,
From its long moonlight reverie. Again:--
The suave lute ceased to play, the castanet;
The water-bearer stopped, and ceased his song
The wandering troubadour.
Then rent the air
Another joyous peal, and oped the gates
And entered there a train of cavaliers,
Their helmets glittering in the low red moon,
The streets and balconies
All danced with wondering life. The train moved on,
And filled the air again the horns melodious,
And loud the heralds shouted:--
"_Thy name, O Fernando, through all earth shall be sounded,
Columbus has triumphed, his foes are confounded!_"
A silence followed.
Could such tidings be? Men heard and whispered,
Eyes glanced to eyes, feet uncertain moved,
Never on mortal ears had fallen words
Like these. And was the earth a star?
On marched the cavaliers,
And pealed again the horns, and again cried
The heralds:--
"_Thy name, Isabella, through all earth shall be sounded,
Columbus has triumphed, his foes are confounded!_"
All hearts were thrilled.
"Isabella!" That name breathed faith and hope
And lofty aim. Emotion swayed the crowds:
Tears flowed, and acclamations rose, and rushed
The wondering multitudes toward the plaza.
"Isabella! Isabella!" it filled
The air--that one word "Isabella!"
And now
'Tis noon of night. The moon hangs near the earth--
A golden moon in golden air; the peaks
Like silver tents of shadowy sentinels
Glint 'gainst the sky. The plaza gleams and surges
Like a sea. The joyful horns peal forth again,
And falls a hush, and cry the heralds:--
"_Thy name, Isabella, shall be praised by all the living;
Haste, haste to Barcelona, and join the Great Thanksgiving!_"
What nights had seen Granada!
Yet never one like this! The moon went down
And fell the wings of shadow, yet the streets
Still swarmed with people hurrying on and on.
II
Morn came,
With bursts of nightingales and quivering fires.
The cavaliers rode forth toward Barcelona.
The city followed, throbbing with delight.
The happy troubadour, the muleteer,
The craftsmen all, the boy and girl, and e'en
The mother--'twas a soft spring morn;
The fairest skies of earth those April morns
In Andalusia. Long was the journey,
But the land was flowers and the nights were not,
And birds sang all the hours, and breezes cool
Fanned all the ways along the sea.
The roads were filled
With hurrying multitudes. For well 'twas known
That he, the conqueror, viceroy of the isles,
Was riding from Seville to meet the king.
And what were conquerors before to him whose eye
Had seen the world a star, and found the star a world?
Once he had walked
The self-same ways, roofless and poor and sad,
A beggar at old convent doors, and heard
The very children jeer him in the streets,
And ate his crust and made his roofless bed
Upon the flowers beside his boy, and prayed,
And found in trust a pillow radiant
With dreams immortal. Now?
III
That was a glorious day
That dawned on Barcelona. Banners filled
The thronging towers, the old bells rung, and blasts
Of lordly trumpets seemed to reach the sky
Cerulean. All Spain had gathered there,
And waited there his coming; Castilian knights,
Gay cavaliers, hidalgos young, and e'en the old
Puissant grandees of far Aragon,
With glittering mail, and waving plumes, and all
The peasant multitude with bannerets
And charms and flowers.
Beneath pavilions
Of brocades of gold, the Court had met.
The dual crowns of Leon old and proud Castile
There waited him, the peasant mariner.
The trumpets waited
Near the open gates; the minstrels young and fair
Upon the tapestried and arrased walls,
And everywhere from all the happy provinces
The wandering troubadours.
Afar was heard
A cry, a long acclaim. Afar was seen
A proud and stately steed with nodding plumes,
Bridled with gold, whose rider stately rode,
And still afar a long and sinuous train
Of silvery cavaliers. A shout arose,
And all the city, all the vales and hills,
With silver trumpets rung.
He came, the Genoese,
With reverent look and calm and lofty mien,
And saw the wondering eyes and heard the cries
And trumpet peals, as one who followed still
Some Guide unseen.
Before his steed
Crowned Indians marched with lowly faces,
And wondered at the new world that they saw;
Gay parrots shouted from their gold-bound arms,
And from their crests swept airy plumes.
The sun
Shone full in splendor on the scene, and here
The old and new world met. But--
IV
Hark! the heralds!
How they thrill all hearts and fill all eyes with tears!
The very air seems throbbing with delight;
Hark! hark! they cry, in chorus all they cry:--
"_Á Castilla y á Leon, á Castilla y á Leon,
Nuevo mundo dio Colon!_"
Every heart now beats with his,
The stately rider on whose calm face shines
A heaven-born inspiration. Still the shout:
"_Nuevo mundo dio Colon!_" how it rings!
From wall to wall, from knights and cavaliers,
And from the multitudinous throngs,
A mighty chorus of the vales and hills!
"_Á Castilla y á Leon!_"
And now the golden steed
Draws near the throne; the crowds move back, and rise
The reverent crowns of Leon and Castile;
And stands before the tear-filled eyes of all
The multitudes the form of Isabella.
Semiramis? Zenobia? What were they
To her, as met her eyes again the eyes of him
Into whose hands her love a year before
Emptied its jewels!
He told his tale:
The untried deep, the green Sargasso Sea,
The varying compass, the affrighted crews,
The hymn they sung on every doubtful eve,
The sweet hymn to the Virgin. How there came
The land birds singing, and the drifting weeds,
How broke the morn on fair San Salvador,
How the _Te Deum_ on that isle was sung,
And how the cross was lifted in the name
Of Leon and Castile. And then he turned
His face towards Heaven, "O Queen! O Queen!
There kingdoms wait the triumphs of the cross!"
V
Then Isabella rose,
With face illumined: then overcome with joy
She sank upon her knees, and king and court
And nobles rose and knelt beside her,
And followed them the sobbing multitude;
Then came a burst of joy, a chorus grand,
And mighty antiphon--
"_We praise thee, Lord, and, Lord, acknowledge thee,
And give thee glory!--Holy, Holy, Holy!_"
Loud and long it swelled and thrilled the air,
That first Thanksgiving for the new-found world!
VI
The twilight roses bloomed
In the far skies o'er Barcelona.
The gentle Indians came and stood before
The throne, and smiled the queen, and said:
"I see my gems again." The shadow fell,
And trilled all night beneath the moon and stars
The happy nightingales.
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
Royal favor is capricious and Columbus had his full share of
enemies at court. These, in the end, succeeded in gaining the
King's ear; Columbus was arrested in San Domingo and sent back
to Spain in chains. Isabella ordered them struck off, and
promised him that he should be reimbursed for his losses and
restored to all his dignities; but the promise was never kept.
COLUMBUS IN CHAINS
[August, 1500]
Are these the honors they reserve for me,
Chains for the man who gave new worlds to Spain!
Rest here, my swelling heart!--O kings, O queens,
Patrons of monsters, and their progeny,
Authors of wrong, and slaves to fortune merely!
Why was I seated by my prince's side,
Honor'd, caress'd like some first peer of Spain?
Was it that I might fall most suddenly
From honor's summit to the sink of scandal?
'Tis done, 'tis done!--what madness is ambition!
What is there in that little breath of men,
Which they call Fame, that should induce the brave
To forfeit ease and that domestic bliss
Which is the lot of happy ignorance,
Less glorious aims, and dull humility?--
Whoe'er thou art that shalt aspire to honor,
And on the strength and vigor of the mind
Vainly depending, court a monarch's favor,
Pointing the way to vast extended empire;
First count your pay to be ingratitude,
Then chains and prisons, and disgrace like mine!
Each wretched pilot now shall spread his sails,
And treading in my footsteps, hail new worlds,
Which, but for me, had still been empty visions.
PHILIP FRENEAU.
On November 7, 1504, Columbus landed in Spain after a fourth
voyage to America, during which he had endured sufferings and
privations almost beyond description. He was a broken man,
and the last blow was the death of Isabella, nineteen days
after he reached Seville. Her death left him without patron or
protector, and the last eighteen months of his life were spent
in sickness and poverty. He died at Valladolid, May 20, 1506.
COLUMBUS DYING
[May 20, 1506]
Hark! do I hear again the roar
Of the tides by the Indies sweeping down?
Or is it the surge from the viewless shore
That swells to bear me to my crown?
Life is hollow and cold and drear
With smiles that darken and hopes that flee;
And, far from its winds that faint and veer,
I am ready to sail the vaster sea!
Lord, Thou knowest I love Thee best;
And that scorning peril and toil and pain,
I held my way to the mystic West,
Glory for Thee and Thy Church to gain.
And Thou didst lead me, only Thou,
Cheering my heart in cloud and calm,
Till the dawn my glad, victorious prow
Greeted Thine isles of bloom and balm.
And then, O gracious, glorious Lord,
I saw Thy face, and all heaven came nigh
And my soul was lost in that rich reward,
And ravished with hope of the bliss on high,
So, I can meet the sovereign's frown--
My dear Queen gone--with a large disdain;
For the time will come when his chief renown
Will be that I sailed from his realm of Spain.
I have found new Lands--a World, maybe,
Whose splendor will yet the Old outshine;
And life and death are alike to me,
For earth will honor, and heaven is mine
Is mine!--What songs of sweet accord!
What billows that nearer, gentler roll!
Is mine!--Into Thy hands, O Lord,
Into Thy hands I give my soul!
EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.
COLUMBUS
Give me white paper!
This which you use is black and rough with smears
Of sweat and grime and fraud and blood and tears,
Crossed with the story of men's sins and fears,
Of battle and of famine all these years,
When all God's children had forgot their birth,
And drudged and fought and died like beasts of earth.
"Give me white paper!"
One storm-trained seaman listened to the word;
What no man saw he saw; he heard what no man heard.
In answer he compelled the sea
To eager man to tell
The secret she had kept so well!
Left blood and guilt and tyranny behind,--
Sailing still West the hidden shore to find;
For all mankind that unstained scroll unfurled,
Where God might write anew the story of the World.
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
COLUMBUS AND THE MAYFLOWER
O little fleet! that on thy quest divine
Sailedst from Palos one bright autumn morn,
Say, has old Ocean's bosom ever borne
A freight of faith and hope to match with thine?
Say, too, has Heaven's high favor given again
Such consummation of desire as shone
About Columbus when he rested on
The new-found world and married it to Spain?
Answer,--thou refuge of the freeman's need,--
Thou for whose destinies no kings looked out,
Nor sages to resolve some mighty doubt,--
Thou simple Mayflower of the salt-sea mead!
When thou wert wafted to that distant shore,
Gay flowers, bright birds, rich odors met thee not,
Stern Nature hailed thee to a sterner lot,--
God gave free earth and air, and gave no more.
Thus to men cast in that heroic mould
Came empire such as Spaniard never knew,
Such empire as beseems the just and true;
And at the last, almost unsought, came gold.
But He who rules both calm and stormy days,
Can guard that people's heart, that nation's health,
Safe on the perilous heights of power and wealth,
As in the straitness of the ancient ways.
LORD HOUGHTON.
CHAPTER II
IN THE WAKE OF COLUMBUS
The news of Columbus's discoveries soon spread through western
Europe, and in May, 1497, John Cabot sailed from Bristol,
England, in the Matthew, and discovered what he supposed to
be the Chinese coast on June 24. The thrifty Henry VII gave
him the sum of £10 as a reward for this achievement. Cabot was
the first European since the vikings to set foot on the North
American continent.
THE FIRST VOYAGE OF JOHN CABOT
[1497]
"He chases shadows," sneered the British tars.
"As well fling nets to catch the golden stars
As climb the surges of earth's utmost sea."
But for the Venice pilot, meagre, wan,
His swarthy sons beside him, life began
With that slipt cable, when his dream rode free.
And Henry, on his battle-wrested throne,
The Councils done, would speak in musing tone
Of Cabot, not the cargo he might bring.
"Man's heart, though morsel scant for hungry crow,
Is greater than a world can fill, and so
Fair fall the shadow-seekers!" quoth the king.
Colonies were planted by the Spaniards in Cuba and Hispaniola,
but the New World continued to be for them a land of wonder and
mystery. They were quite ready to believe any marvel,--among
others, that somewhere to the north lay an island named Bimini,
on which was a fountain whose waters gave perpetual youth to
all who bathed therein.
THE LEGEND OF WAUKULLA
[1513]
Through darkening pines the cavaliers marched on their sunset way,
While crimson in the trade-winds rolled far Appalachee Bay,
Above the water-levels rose palmetto crowns like ghosts
Of kings primeval; them, behind, the shadowy pines in hosts.
"O cacique, brave and trusty guide,
Are we not near the spring,
The fountain of eternal youth that health to age doth bring?"
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The fount is fair,
Waukulla!
"But vainly to the blossomed flower will come the autumn rain,
And never youth's departed days come back to age again;
The future in the spirit lies, the earthly life is brief,
'Tis _you_ that say the fount hath life," so said the Indian chief.
"Nay, Indian king; nay, Indian king,
Thou knowest well the spring,
And thou shalt die if thou dost fail our feet to it to bring."
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The spring is bright,
Waukulla!"
Then said the guide, "O men of Spain, a wondrous fountain flows
From deep abodes of gods below, and health on men bestows.
Blue are its deeps and green its walls, and from its waters gleam
The water-stars, and from it runs the pure Waukulla's stream.
But men of Spain, but men of Spain,
'Tis _you_ who say that spring
Eternal youth and happiness to men again will bring."
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The fount is clear,
Waukulla!"
"March on, the land enchanted is; march on, ye men of Spain;
Who would not taste the bliss of youth and all its hopes again.
Enchanted is the land; behold! enchanted is the air;
The very heaven is domed with gold; there's beauty everywhere!"
So said De Leon. "Cavaliers,
We're marching to the spring,
The fountain of eternal youth that health to age will bring!"
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The fount is pure,
Waukulla!"
Beneath the pines, beneath the yews, the deep magnolia shades,
The clear Waukulla swift pursues its way through floral glades;
Beneath the pines, beneath the yews, beneath night's falling shade,
Beneath the low and dusky moon still marched the cavalcade.
"The river widens," said the men;
"Are we not near the spring,
The fountain of eternal youth that health to age doth bring?"
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The spring is near,
Waukulla!"
"The fount is fair and bright and clear, and pure its waters run;
Waukulla, lovely in the moon and beauteous in the sun.
But vainly to the blossomed flower will come the autumn rain,
And never youth's departed days come back to man again.
O men of Spain! O men of Spain!
'Tis you that say the spring
Eternal youth and happiness to withered years will bring!"
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The fount is deep,
Waukulla!"
The river to a grotto led, as to a god's abode;
There lay the fountain bright with stars; stars in its waters flowed;
The mighty live-oaks round it rose, in ancient mosses clad;
De Leon's heart beat high for joy; the cavaliers were glad,
"O men of Spain! O men of Spain!
This surely is the spring,
The fountain fair that health and joy to faces old doth bring!"
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The spring is old,
Waukulla!"
"Avalla, O my trusty friend that we this day should see!
Strip off thy doublet and descend the glowing fount with me!"
"The saints! I will," Avalla said. "Already young I feel,
And younger than my sons shall I return to old Castile."
Then plunged De Leon in the spring
And then Avalla old,
Then slowly rose each wrinkled face above the waters cold.
The cacique sighed,
And Indian guide,
"The fount is false,
Waukulla!"
O vainly to the blossomed flower will come the autumn rain,
And never youth's departed days come back to man again;
The crowns Castilian could not bring the withered stalk a leaf,
But came a sabre flash that morn, and fell the Indian chief.
Another sabre flash, and then
The guide beside him lay,
And red the clear Waukulla ran toward Appalachee Bay.
Then from the dead
The Spaniards fled,
And cursed the spring,
Waukulla.
"Like comrades life was left behind, the years shall o'er me roll,
For all the hopes that man can find lies hidden in the soul.
Ye white sails lift, and drift again across the southern main;
There wait for me, there wait us all, the hollow tombs of Spain!"
Beneath the liquid stars the sails
Arose and went their way,
And bore the gray-haired cavaliers from Appalachee Bay.
The young chief slept,
The maiden wept,
Beside the bright
Waukulla.
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
In 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon received a grant to discover
and settle this fabulous island. He sailed from Porto Rico
in search of it in March, 1513, and found an island but no
fountain. Pushing on, he discovered the mainland March 27, and,
on April 2, landed and took possession of the country for the
King of Spain, calling it Florida.
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
A DREAM OF PONCE DE LEON
[1513]
I
A story of Ponce de Leon,
A voyager, withered and old,
Who came to the sunny Antilles,
In quest of a country of gold.
He was wafted past islands of spices,
As bright as the Emerald seas,
Where all the forests seem singing,
So thick were the birds on the trees;
The sea was as clear as the azure,
And so deep and so pure was the sky
That the jasper-walled city seemed shining
Just out of the reach of the eye.
By day his light canvas he shifted,
And rounded strange harbors and bars;
By night, on the full tides he drifted,
'Neath the low-hanging lamps of the stars.
Near the glimmering gates of the sunset,
In the twilight empurpled and dim,
The sailors uplifted their voices,
And sang to the Virgin a hymn.
"Thank the Lord!" said De Leon, the sailor,
At the close of the rounded refrain;
"Thank the Lord, the Almighty, who blesses
The ocean-swept banner of Spain!
The shadowy world is behind us,
The shining Cèpango, before;
Each morning the sun rises brighter
On ocean, and island, and shore.
And still shall our spirits grow lighter,
As prospects more glowing enfold;
Then on, merry men! to Cèpango,
To the west, and the regions of gold!"
II
There came to De Leon, the sailor,
Some Indian sages, who told
Of a region so bright that the waters
Were sprinkled with islands of gold.
And they added: "The leafy Bimini,
A fair land of grottos and bowers,
Is there; and a wonderful fountain
Upsprings from its gardens of flowers.
That fountain gives life to the dying,
And youth to the aged restores;
They flourish in beauty eternal,
Who set but their foot on its shores!"
Then answered De Leon, the sailor:
"I am withered, and wrinkled, and old;
I would rather discover that fountain
Than a country of diamonds and gold."
III
Away sailed De Leon, the sailor;
Away with a wonderful glee,
Till the birds were more rare in the azure,
The dolphins more rare in the sea.
Away from the shady Bahamas,
Over waters no sailor had seen,
Till again on his wondering vision,
Rose clustering islands of green.
Still onward he sped till the breezes
Were laden with odors, and lo!
A country embedded with flowers,
A country with rivers aglow!
More bright than the sunny Antilles,
More fair than the shady Azores.
"Thank the Lord!" said De Leon, the sailor
As feasted his eye on the shores,
"We have come to a region, my brothers,
More lovely than earth, of a truth;
And here is the life-giving fountain,--
The beautiful Fountain of Youth."
IV
Then landed De Leon, the sailor,
Unfurled his old banner, and sung;
But he felt very wrinkled and withered,
All around was so fresh and so young.
The palms, ever-verdant, were blooming,
Their blossoms e'en margined the seas;
O'er the streams of the forests bright flowers
Hung deep from the branches of trees.
"Praise the Lord!" sung De Leon, the sailor;
His heart was with rapture aflame;
And he said: "Be the name of this region
By Florida given to fame.
'Tis a fair, a delectable country.
More lovely than earth, of a truth;
I soon shall partake of the fountain,--
The beautiful Fountain of Youth!"
V
But wandered De Leon, the sailor,
In search of that fountain in vain;
No waters were there to restore him
To freshness and beauty again.
And his anchor he lifted, and murmured,
As the tears gathered fast in his eye,
"I must leave this fair land of the flowers,
Go back o'er the ocean, and die."
Then back by the dreary Tortugas,
And back by the shady Azores,
He was borne on the storm-smitten waters
To the calm of his own native shores.
And that he grew older and older,
His footsteps enfeebled gave proof,
Still he thirsted in dreams for the fountain,
The beautiful Fountain of Youth.
* * * * *
VI
One day the old sailor lay dying
On the shores of a tropical isle,
And his heart was enkindled with rapture,
And his face lighted up with a smile.
He thought of the sunny Antilles,
He thought of the shady Azores,
He thought of the dreamy Bahamas,
He thought of fair Florida's shores.
And, when in his mind he passed over
His wonderful travels of old,
He thought of the heavenly country,
Of the city of jasper and gold.
"Thank the Lord!" said De Leon, the sailor,
"Thank the Lord for the light of the truth,
I now am approaching the fountain,
The beautiful Fountain of Youth."
VII
The cabin was silent: at twilight
They heard the birds singing a psalm,
And the wind of the ocean low sighing
Through groves of the orange and palm.
The sailor still lay on his pallet,
'Neath the low-hanging vines of the roof;
His soul had gone forth to discover
The beautiful Fountain of Youth.
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
In March, 1521, De Leon led a large party to Florida and
attempted to plant a colony there, but they were driven away
by the Indians. De Leon himself was wounded in the thigh by
an arrow. The wound was unskillfully treated, and the old
adventurer died of it in Cuba shortly afterwards.
PONCE DE LEON
[1521]
You that crossed the ocean old,
Not from greed of Inca's gold,
But to search by vale and mount,
Wood and rock, the wizard fount
Where Time's harm is well undone,--
Here's to Ponce de Leon,
And your liegemen every one!
Surely, still beneath the sun,
In some region further west,
You live on and have your rest,
While the world goes spinning round,
And the sky hears the resound
Of a thousand shrill new fames,
Which your jovial silence shames!
Strength and joy your days endow,
Youth's eyes glow beneath your brow;
Wars and vigils are forgot,
And the Scytheman threats you not.
Tell us, of your knightly grace,
Tell us, left you not some trace
Leading to that wellspring true
Where old souls their age renew?
EDITH M. THOMAS.
The Spaniards, meanwhile, had pushed on across the Caribbean
Sea and founded Darien, whither, in 1510, came one Vasco Nuñez
Balboa. He made numerous explorations, and, learning from the
Indians that there was a great sea to the south, determined to
search for it. He started from Darien September 1, 1513, and on
the 25th reached the top of a mountain from which he first saw
the Pacific. He gained the shore four days later, and, wading
into the water, took possession of it for the King of Spain.
BALBOA
[September 25, 1513]
With restless step of discontent,
Day after day he fretting went
Along the old accustomed ways
That led to easeful length of days.
But far beyond the fragrant shade
Of orange groves his glances strayed
To where the white horizon line
Caught from the sea its silvery shine.
He knew the taste of that salt spray,
He knew the wind that blew that way;
Ah, once again to mount and ride
Upon that pulsing ocean tide,--
To find new lands of virgin gold,
To wrest them from the savage hold,
To conquer with the sword and brain
Fresh fields and fair for royal Spain!
This was the dream of wild desire
That set his gallant heart on fire,
And stirred with feverish discontent
That soul for nobler issues meant.
Sometimes his children's laughter brought
A thrill that checked his restless thought;
Sometimes a voice more tender yet
Would soothe the fever and the fret.
Thus day by day, until one day
Came news that in the harbor lay
A ship bound outward to explore
The treasures of that western shore,
Which bold adventurers as yet
Had failed to conquer or forget;
"Yet where they failed, and failing died,
My will shall conquer!" Balboa cried.
But when on Darien's shore he stept,
And fast and far his vision swept,
He saw before him, white and still,
The Andes mocking at his will.
Then like a flint he set his face;
Let others falter from their place,
His hand and foot, his sturdy soul
Should seek and gain that distant goal!
With speech like this he fired the land,
And gathered to his bold command
A troop of twenty score or more,
To follow where he led before.
They followed him day after day
O'er burning lands where ambushed lay
The waiting savage in his lair,
And fever poisoned all the air.
But like a sweeping wind of flame
A conqueror through all he came;
The savage fell beneath his hand,
Or led him on to seek the land
That richer yet for golden gain
Stretched out beyond the mountain chain.
Steep after steep of rough ascent
They followed, followed, worn and spent,
Until at length they came to where
The last peak lifted near and fair;
Then Balboa turned and waved aside
His panting troops. "Rest here," he cried,
"And wait for me." And with a tread
Of trembling haste, he quickly sped
Along the trackless height, alone
To seek, to reach, his mountain throne.
Step after step he mounted swift;
The wind blew down a cloudy drift;
From some strange source he seemed to hear
The music of another sphere.
Step after step; the cloud-winds blew
Their blinding mists, then through and through
Sun-cleft, they broke, and all alone
He stood upon his mountain throne.
Before him spread no paltry lands,
To wrest with spoils from savage hands;
But, fresh and fair, an unknown world
Of mighty sea and shore unfurled
Its wondrous scroll beneath the skies.
Ah, what to this the flimsy prize
Of gold and lands for which he came
With hot ambition's sordid aim!
Silent he stood with streaming eyes
In that first moment of surprise,
Then on the mountain-top he bent,
This conqueror of a continent,
In wordless ecstasy of prayer,--
Forgetting in that moment there,
With Nature's God brought face to face,
All vainer dreams of pomp and place.
Thus to the world a world was given.
Where lesser men had vainly striven,
And striving died,--this gallant soul,
Divinely guided, reached the goal.
NORA PERRY.
In 1518 a great expedition, under Hernando Cortez, sailed from
Cuba in search of a land of marvellous wealth which was said to
exist somewhere north of Darien. The result was the discovery
of Mexico, which the Spaniards subdued with indescribable
cruelties.
WITH CORTEZ IN MEXICO
[1519]
"Mater á Dios, preserve us
And give us the Mexican gold,
Viva España forever!"
Light-hearted, treacherous, bold,
With clashing of drums and of cymbals,
With clatter of hoofs and of arms,
Into the Tezcucan city,
Over the Tezcucan farms;
In through the hordes of Aztecs,
Past glitter of city and lake,
Brave for death or for conquest,
And the Mother of God's sweet sake.
Perchance from distant Granada,
Perchance from the Danube's far blue,
He had fought with Moor and Saracen,
Where the death hail of battle-fields flew.
Down through the smoke and the battle,
Trolling an old Moorish song,
Chanting an Ave or Pater,
To whiten the red of his wrong,
Dreaming of Seville, Toledo,
And dark, soft catholic eyes,
Light-hearted, reckless, and daring,
He rides under Mexican skies.
Child of valor and fortune,
Nurtured to ride and to strike,
Fearless in defeat or in conquest,
Of man and of devil alike;
Out through the clamor of battle,
Up through rivers of blood,
"Viva España forever!
God and the bold Brotherhood!
Strike for the memories left us,
Strike for the lives that we keep,
Strike for the present and future,
In the name of our comrades who sleep;
Strike! for Jesus' sweet Mother,
For the arms and the vows that we hold;
Strike for fortune and lover,
God, and the Mexican gold!"
* * * * *
At morning gay, careless in battle,
With love on his lips, in his eyes;
At even stretched pallid and silent,
Out under Mexican skies.
And far in some old Spanish city,
Two dark eyes wait patient and long
For a lover who sailed to the westward,
Trolling an old Moorish song.
W. W. CAMPBELL.
Shortly afterwards, Pizarro completed the conquest of Peru.
Heavily-laden treasure-ships were sent homeward across the
Atlantic, and at last the Spanish lust of gold seemed in a fair
way to be satisfied.
THE LUST OF GOLD
From "The West Indies"
Rapacious Spain
Follow'd her hero's triumphs o'er the main,
Her hardy sons in fields of battle tried,
Where Moor and Christian desperately died.
A rabid race, fanatically bold,
And steel'd to cruelty by lust of gold,
Traversed the waves, the unknown world explored,
The cross their standard, but their faith the sword;
Their steps were graves; o'er prostrate realms they trod;
They worshipp'd Mammon while they vow'd to God.
Let nobler bards in loftier numbers tell
How Cortez conquer'd, Montezuma fell;
How fierce Pizarro's ruffian arm o'erthrew
The sun's resplendent empire in Peru;
How, like a prophet, old Las Casas stood,
And raised his voice against a sea of blood,
Whose chilling waves recoil'd while he foretold
His country's ruin by avenging gold.
--That gold, for which unpitied Indians fell,
That gold, at once the snare and scourge of hell,
Thenceforth by righteous Heaven was doom'd to shed
Unmingled curses on the spoiler's head;
For gold the Spaniard cast his soul away,--
His gold and he were every nation's prey.
But themes like these would ask an angel-lyre,
Language of light and sentiment of fire;
Give me to sing, in melancholy strains,
Of Charib martyrdoms and Negro chains;
One race by tyrants rooted from the earth,
One doom'd to slavery by the taint of birth!
* * * * *
Dreadful as hurricanes, athwart the main
Rush'd the fell legions of invading Spain;
With fraud and force, with false and fatal breath
(Submission bondage, and resistance death),
They swept the isles. In vain the simple race
Kneel'd to the iron sceptre of their grace,
Or with weak arms their fiery vengeance braved;
They came, they saw, they conquer'd, they enslaved,
And they destroy'd;--the generous heart they broke,
They crush'd the timid neck beneath the yoke;
Where'er to battle march'd their fell array,
The sword of conquest plough'd resistless way;
Where'er from cruel toil they sought repose,
Around the fires of devastation rose.
The Indian, as he turn'd his head in flight,
Beheld his cottage flaming through the night,
And, midst the shrieks of murder on the wind,
Heard the mute bloodhound's death-step close behind.
The conflict o'er, the valiant in their graves,
The wretched remnant dwindled into slaves;
Condemn'd in pestilential cells to pine,
Delving for gold amidst the gloomy mine.
The sufferer, sick of life-protracting breath,
Inhaled with joy the fire-damp blast of death:
--Condemn'd to fell the mountain palm on high,
That cast its shadow from the evening sky,
Ere the tree trembled to his feeble stroke,
The woodman languish'd, and his heart-strings broke;
--Condemn'd in torrid noon, with palsied hand,
To urge the slow plough o'er the obdurate land,
The laborer, smitten by the sun's quick ray,
A corpse along the unfinish'd furrow lay.
O'erwhelm'd at length with ignominious toil,
Mingling their barren ashes with the soil,
Down to the dust the Charib people pass'd,
Like autumn foliage withering in the blast:
The whole race sunk beneath the oppressor's rod,
And left a blank among the works of God.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
Although Pope Alexander VI had, in 1493, issued a bull
dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal, neither
France nor England paid any heed to it. One of France's most
active corsairs was Giovanni da Verazzano. In 1524 he crossed
the Atlantic, and, sighting the coast at Cape Fear, turned
northward, discovered the Hudson, landed at Rhode Island, and
kept on, perhaps, as far as Newfoundland.
VERAZZANO
AT RHODES AND RHODE ISLAND
[1524]
In the tides of the warm south wind it lay,
And its grapes turned wine in the fires of noon,
And its roses blossomed from May to May,
And their fragrance lingered from June to June.
There dwelt old heroes at Ilium famed,
There, bards reclusive, of olden odes;
And so fair were the fields of roses, they named
The bright sea-garden the Isle of Rhodes.
Fair temples graced each blossoming field,
And columned halls in gems arrayed;
Night shaded the sea with her jewelled shield,
And sweet the lyres of Orpheus played.
The Helios spanned the sea: its flame
Drew hither the ships of Pelion's pines,
And twice a thousand statues of fame
Stood mute in twice a thousand shrines.
And her mariners went, and her mariners came,
And sang on the seas the olden odes,
And at night they remembered the Helios' flame,
And at morn the sweet fields of the roses of Rhodes.
From the palm land's shade to the land of pines,
A Florentine crossed the Western Sea;
He sought new lands and golden mines,
And he sailed 'neath the flag of the Fleur-de-lis.
He saw at last in the sunset's gold,
A wonderful island so fair to view
That it seemed like the Island of Roses old
That his eyes in his wondering boyhood knew.
'Twas summer time, and the glad birds sung
In the hush of noon in the solitudes;
From the oak's broad arms the green vines hung;
Sweet odors blew from the resinous woods.
He rounded the shores of the summer sea,
And he said as his feet the white sands pressed,
And he planted the flag of the Fleur-de-lis:
"I have come to the Island of Rhodes in the West.
"While the mariners go, and the mariners come,
And sing on lone waters the olden odes
Of the Grecian seas and the ports of Rome,
They will ever think of the roses of Rhodes."
To the isle of the West he gave the name
Of the isle he had loved in the Grecian sea;
And the Florentine went away as he came,
'Neath the silver flag of the Fleur-de-lis.
O fair Rhode Island, thy guest was true,
He felt the spirit of beauteous things;
The sea-wet roses were faint and few,
But memory made them the gardens of kings.
The Florentine corsair sailed once more,
Out into the West o'er a rainy sea,
In search of another wonderful shore
For the crown of France and the Fleur-de-lis.
But returned no more the Florentine brave
To the courtly knights of fair Rochelle;
'Neath the lilies of France he found a grave,
And not 'neath the roses he loved so well.
But the lessons of beauty his fond heart bore
From the gardens of God were never lost;
And the fairest name of the Eastern shore
Bears the fairest isle of the Western coast.
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
The Spaniards still dreamed of a great empire somewhere in
Florida, and in 1528 Pánfilo de Narvaez set out with an
expedition in search of it. Only four members of the party got
back to Cuba alive, the others having been killed or captured
by the Indians. Among those captured and enslaved was Juan
Ortiz. He was rescued by De Soto nearly ten years later.
ORTIZ
[1528]
"Go bring the captive, he shall die,"
He said, with faltering breath;
"Him stretch upon a scaffold high,
And light the fire of death!"
The young Creeks danced the captive round,
And sang the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
They brought the fagots for the flame,
The braves and maids together,
When came the princess--sweet her name:
The Red Flamingo Feather.
Then danced the Creeks the scaffold round,
And sang the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
In shaded plumes of silver gray,
The young Creeks danced together,
But she danced not with them that day,
The Red Flamingo Feather.
Wild sped the feet the scaffold round,
Wild rose the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
They stretched the stranger from the sea,
Above the fagots lighted,--
Ortiz,--a courtly man was he,
With deeds heroic knighted.
And sped the feet the scaffold round,
And rose the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
The white smoke rose, the braves were gay,
The war drums beat together,
But sad in heart and face that day
Was Red Flamingo Feather.
They streaked with flames the dusky air,
They streaked the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
"Dance, dance, my girl, the torches gleam,
Dance, dance, the gray plumes gather,
Dance, dance, my girl, the war-hawks scream,
Dance, Red Flamingo Feather!"
More swiftly now the torches sped,
Amid the Dance of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
She knelt upon the green moss there,
And clasped her father's knees:
"My heart is weak, O father, spare
The wanderer from the seas!"
Like madness now swept on the dance,
And rose the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Ye wings of the warrior's plume!"
"Grand were the men who sailed away,
And he is young and brave;
'Tis small in heart the weak to slay,
'Tis great in heart to save."
He saw the torches sweep the air,
He heard the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
"My girl, I know thy heart would spare
The wanderer from the sea."
"The man is fair, and I am fair,
And thou art great," said she.
The dance of fire went on and on,
And on the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
Fly, wings of the warrior's plume!"
The dark chief felt his pride abate:
"I will the wanderer spare,
My Bird of Peace, since I am great,
And he, like thee, is fair!"
They dropped the torches, stopped the dance,
And died the Song of Doom,--
"Fly, fly, ye hawks, in the open sky,
_Away_ with the warrior's plume!"
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
In 1538 Hernando de Soto was appointed governor of Cuba and
Florida, with orders to explore and settle the latter country.
He landed at Tampa Bay with nearly a thousand men and started
into the interior. He was forced to fight his way across the
country against the tribes of the Creek confederacy, and in
October, 1540, had a desperate battle with them at a palisaded
village called Maubila, at the mouth of the Alabama River.
THE FALL OF MAUBILA
[October 18, 1540]
Hearken the stirring story
The soldier has to tell,
Of fierce and bloody battle,
Contested long and well.
Ere walled Maubila, stoutly held,
Before our forces fell.
Now many years have circled
Since that October day,
When proudly to Maubila
De Soto took his way,
With men-at-arms and cavaliers
In terrible array.
Oh, never sight more goodly
In any land was seen;
And never better soldiers
Than those he led have been,
More prompt to handle arquebus,
Or wield their sabres keen.
The sun was at meridian,
His hottest rays fell down
Alike on soldier's corselet
And on the friar's gown;
The breeze was hushed as on we rode
Right proudly to the town.
First came the bold De Soto,
In all his manly pride,
The gallant Don Diego,
His nephew, by his side;
A yard behind Juan Ortiz rode,
Interpreter and guide.
Baltasar de Gallegos,
Impetuous, fierce and hot;
Francisco de Figarro,
Since by an arrow shot;
And slender Juan de Guzman, who
In battle faltered not.
Luis Bravo de Xeres,
That gallant cavalier;
Alonzo de Carmono,
Whose spirit knew no fear;
The marquis of Astorga, and
Vasquez, the cannoneer.
Andres de Vasconcellos,
Juan Cales, young and fair,
Roma de Cardenoso,
Him of the yellow hair--
Rode gallant in their bravery,
Straight to the public square.
And there, in sombre garments,
Were monks of Cuba four,
Fray Juan de Gallegos,
And other priests a score,
Who sacramental bread and wine
And holy relics bore.
And next eight hundred soldiers
In closest order come,
Some with Biscayan lances,
With arquebuses some,
Timing their tread to martial notes
Of trump and fife and drum.
Loud sang the gay Mobilians,
Light danced their daughters brown;
Sweet sounded pleasant music
Through all the swarming town;
But 'mid the joy one sullen brow
Was lowering with a frown.
The haughty Tuscaloosa,
The sovereign of the land,
With moody face, and thoughtful,
Rode at our chief's right hand,
And cast from time to time a glance
Of hatred at the band.
And when that gay procession
Made halt to take a rest,
And eagerly the people
To see the strangers prest,
The frowning King, in wrathful tones,
De Soto thus addressed:
"To bonds and to dishonor
By faithless friends trepanned,
For days beside you, Spaniard,
The ruler of the land
Has ridden as a prisoner,
Subject to your command.
"He was not born the fetters
Of baser men to wear,
And tells you this, De Soto,
Hard though it be to bear--
Let those beware the panther's rage
Who follow to his lair.
"Back to your isle of Cuba!
Slink to your den again,
And tell your robber sovereign,
The mighty lord of Spain,
Whoso would strive this land to win
Shall find his efforts vain.
"And, save it be your purpose
Within my realm to die,
Let not your forces linger
Our deadly anger nigh,
Lest food for vultures and for wolves
Your mangled forms should lie."
Then, spurning courtly offers
He left our chieftain's side,
And crossing the enclosure
With quick and lengthened stride,
He passed within his palace gates,
And there our wrath defied.
Now came up Charamilla,
Who led our troop of spies,
And said unto our captain,
With tones that showed surprise,
"A mighty force within the town,
In wait to crush us, lies.
"The babes and elder women
Were sent at break of day
Into the forest yonder,
Five leagues or more away:
Within yon huts ten thousand men
Wait eager for the fray."
"What say ye now, my comrades?"
De Soto asked his men;
"Shall we, before these traitors,
Go backward, baffled, then;
Or, sword in hand, attack the foe
Who crouches in his den?"
Before their loud responses
Had died upon the ear,
A savage stood before them,
Who said, in accents clear,
"Ho! robbers base and coward thieves!
Assassin Spaniards, hear!
"No longer shall our sovereign,
Born noble, great, and free,
Be led beside your master,
A shameful sight to see,
While weapons here to strike you down
Or hands to grasp them be."
As spoke the brawny savage,
Full wroth our comrades grew--
Baltasar de Gallegos
His heavy weapon drew,
And dealt the boaster such a stroke
As clove his body through.
Then rushed the swart Mobilians
Like hornets from their nest;
Against our bristling lances
Was bared each savage breast;
With arrow-head and club and stone,
Upon our band they prest.
"Retreat in steady order!
But slay them as ye go!"
Exclaimed the brave De Soto,
And with each word a blow
That sent a savage soul to doom
He dealt upon the foe.
"Strike well who would our honor
From spot or tarnish save!
Strike down the haughty Pagan,
The infidel and slave!
Saint Mary Mother sits above,
And smiles upon the brave.
"Strike! all my gallant comrades!
Strike! gentlemen of Spain!
Upon the traitor wretches
Your deadly anger rain,
Or never to your native land
Return in pride again!"
Then hosts of angry foemen
We fiercely held at bay,
Through living walls of Pagans
We cut our bloody way;
And though by thousands round they swarmed,
We kept our firm array.
At length they feared to follow;
We stood upon the plain,
And dressed our shattered column;
When, slacking bridle rein,
De Soto, wounded as he was,
Led to the charge again.
For now our gallant horsemen
Their steeds again had found,
That had been fastly tethered
Unto the trees around,
Though some of these, by arrows slain,
Lay stretched upon the ground.
And as the riders mounted,
The foe, in joyous tones,
Gave vent to shouts of triumph,
And hurled a shower of stones;
But soon the shouts were changed to wails,
The cries of joy to moans.
Down on the scared Mobilians
The furious rush was led;
Down fell the howling victims
Beneath the horses' tread;
The angered chargers trod alike
On dying and on dead.
Back to the wooden ramparts,
With cut and thrust and blow,
We drove the panting savage,
The very walls below,
Till those above upon our heads
Huge rocks began to throw.
Whenever we retreated
The swarming foemen came--
Their wild and matchless courage
Put even ours to shame--
Rushing upon our lances' points,
And arquebuses' flame.
Three weary hours we fought them,
And often each gave way;
Three weary hours, uncertain
The fortune of the day;
And ever where they fiercest fought
De Soto led the fray.
Baltasar de Gallegos
Right well displayed his might;
His sword fell ever fatal,
Death rode its flash of light;
And where his horse's head was turned
The foe gave way in fright.
At length before our daring
The Pagans had to yield,
And in their stout enclosure
They sought to find a shield,
And left us, wearied with our toil,
The masters of the field.
Now worn and spent and weary,
Our force was scattered round,
Some seeking for their comrades,
Some seated on the ground,
When sudden fell upon our ears
A single trumpet's sound.
"Up! ready make for storming!"
That speaks Moscoso near;
He comes with stainless sabre,
He comes with spotless spear;
But stains of blood and spots of gore
Await his weapons here.
Soon, formed in four divisions,
Around the order goes--
"To front with battle-axes!
No moment for repose.
At signal of an arquebus,
Rain on the gates your blows."
Not long that fearful crashing,
The gates in splinters fall;
And some, though sorely wounded,
Climb o'er the crowded wall:
No rampart's height can keep them back,
No danger can appall.
Then redly rained the carnage--
None asked for quarter there;
Men fought with all the fury
Born of a wild despair;
And shrieks and groans and yells of hate
Were mingled in the air.
Four times they backward beat us,
Four times our force returned;
We quenched in bloody torrents
The fire that in us burned;
We slew who fought, and those who knelt
With stroke of sword we spurned.
And what are these new forces,
With long, black, streaming hair?
They are the singing maidens
Who met us in the square;
And now they spring upon our ranks
Like she-wolves from their lair.
Their sex no shield to save them,
Their youth no weapon stayed;
De Soto with his falchion
A lane amid them made,
And in the skulls of blooming girls
Sank battle-axe and blade.
Forth came a wingèd arrow,
And struck our leader's thigh;
The man who sent it shouted,
And looked to see him die;
The wound but made the tide of rage
Run twice as fierce and high.
Then came our stout camp-master,
"The night is coming down;
Already twilight darkness
Is casting shadows brown;
We would not lack for light on strife
If once we burned the town."
With that we fired the houses;
The ranks before us broke;
The fugitives we followed,
And dealt them many a stroke,
While round us rose the crackling flame,
And o'er us hung the smoke.
And what with flames around them,
And what with smoke o'erhead,
And what with cuts of sabre,
And what with horses' tread,
And what with lance and arquebus,
The town was filled with dead.
Six thousand of the foemen
Upon that day were slain,
Including those who fought us
Outside upon the plain--
Six thousand of the foemen fell,
And eighty-two of Spain.
Not one of us unwounded
Came from the fearful fray;
And when the fight was over
And scattered round we lay,
Some sixteen hundred wounds we bore
As tokens of the day.
And through that weary darkness,
And all that dreary night,
We lay in bitter anguish,
But never mourned our plight,
Although we watched with eagerness
To see the morning light.
And when the early dawning
Had marked the sky with red,
We saw the Moloch incense
Rise slowly overhead
From smoking ruins and the heaps
Of charred and mangled dead.
I knew the slain were Pagans,
While we in Christ were free,
And yet it seemed that moment
A spirit said to me:
"Henceforth be doomed while life remains
This sight of fear to see."
And ever since that dawning
Which chased the night away,
I wake to see the corses
That thus before me lay:
And this is why in cloistered cell
I wait my latter day.
THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH.
Early in 1540 a great expedition under Francisco de Coronado
started northward from Mexico in search of the Seven Cities of
Cibola, of whose glories and riches many stories had been told.
The cities were really the pueblos of the Zuñis, and the ballad
tells the story of the march.
QUIVÍRA
[1540-1541]
Francisco Coronado rode forth with all his train,
Eight hundred savage bowmen, three hundred spears of Spain,
To seek the rumored glory that pathless deserts hold--
The city of Quivíra whose walls are rich with gold.
Oh, gay they rode with plume on crest and gilded spur at heel,
With gonfalon of Aragon and banner of Castile!
While High Emprise and Joyous Youth, twin marshals of the throng,
Awoke Sonora's mountain peaks with trumpet-note and song.
Beside that brilliant army, beloved of serf and lord,
There walked as brave a soldier as ever smote with sword,
Though nought of knightly harness his russet gown revealed--
The cross he bore as weapon, the missal was his shield.
But rugged oaths were changed to prayers, and angry hearts grew tame,
And fainting spirits waxed in faith where Fray Padilla came;
And brawny spearmen bowed their heads to kiss the helpful hand
Of him who spake the simple truth that brave men understand.
What pen may paint their daring--those doughty cavaliers!
The cities of the Zuñi were humbled by their spears.
Wild Arizona's barrens grew pallid in the glow
Of blades that won Granada and conquered Mexico.
They fared by lofty Acoma; their rally-call was blown
Where Colorado rushes down through God-hewn walls of stone;
Still, North and East, where deserts spread, and treeless prairies
rolled,
A Fairy City lured them on with pinnacles of gold.
Through all their weary marches toward that flitting goal
They turned to Fray Padilla for aid of heart and soul.
He bound the wounds that lance-thrust and flinty arrow made;
He cheered the sick and failing; above the dead he prayed.
Two thousand miles of war and woe behind their banners lay:
And sadly fever, drought and toil had lessened their array,
When came a message fraught with hope to all the steadfast band:
"Good tidings from the northward, friends! Quivíra lies at hand!"
How joyously they spurred them! How sadly drew the rein!
There shone no golden palace, there blazed no jewelled fane.
Rude tents of hide of bison, dog-guarded, met their view--
A squalid Indian village; the lodges of the Sioux!
Then Coronado bowed his head. He spake unto his men:
"Our quest is vain, true hearts of Spain! Now ride we home again.
And would to God that I might give that phantom city's pride
In ransom for the gallant souls that here have sunk and died!"
Back, back to Compostela the wayworn handful bore;
But sturdy Fray Padilla took up the quest once more.
His soul still longed for conquest, though not by lance and sword;
He burned to show the Heathen the pathway to the Lord.
Again he trudged the flinty hills and dazzling desert sands,
And few were they that walked with him, and weaponless their hands--
But and the trusty man-at-arms, Docampo, rode him near
Like Great Heart, guarding Christian's way through wastes of Doubt and
Fear.
Where still in silken harvests the prairie-lilies toss,
Among the dark Quivíras Padilla reared his cross.
Within its sacred shadow the warriors of the Kaw
In wonder heard the Gospel of Love and Peace and Law.
They gloried in their Brown-robed Priest; and oft in twilight's gold
The warriors grouped, a silent ring, to hear the tale he told,
While round the gentle man-at-arms their lithe-limbed children played
And shot their arrows at his shield and rode his guarded blade.
When thrice the silver crescent had filled its curving shell,
The Friar rose at dawning and spake his flock farewell:
"--And if your Brothers northward be cruel, as ye say,
My Master bids me seek them--and dare I answer 'Nay'?"
Again he strode the path of thorns; but ere the evening star
A savage cohort swept the plain in paint and plumes of war.
Then Fray Padilla spake to them whose hearts were most his own:
"My children, bear the tidings home--let me die here alone."
He knelt upon the prairie, begirt by yelling Sioux.--
"Forgive them, oh, my Father! they know not what they do!"
The twanging bow-strings answered. Before his eyes, unrolled
The City of Quivíra whose streets are paved with gold.
ARTHUR GUITERMAN.
The Spaniards were not the only people who searched in vain for
fabulous cities. South of Cape Breton lay a country which the
early French explorers named Norembega, and there was supposed
to exist, somewhere within its boundaries, a magnificent
city of the same name. Roberval and Jacques Cartier spent a
number of years after 1541 seeking it, and in 1604 Champlain
explored the Penobscot River, on whose banks it was supposed
to be situated, but found no trace of it, nor any evidence of
civilization except a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.
NOREMBEGA
[c. 1543]
The winding way the serpent takes
The mystic water took,
From where, to count its beaded lakes,
The forest sped its brook.
A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore,
For sun or stars to fall,
While evermore, behind, before,
Closed in the forest wall.
The dim wood hiding underneath
Wan flowers without a name;
Life tangled with decay and death,
League after league the same.
Unbroken over swamp and hill
The rounding shadow lay,
Save where the river cut at will
A pathway to the day.
Beside that track of air and light,
Weak as a child unweaned,
At shut of day a Christian knight
Upon his henchman leaned.
The embers of the sunset's fires
Along the clouds burned down;
"I see," he said, "the domes and spires
Of Norembega town."
"Alack! the domes, O master mine,
Are golden clouds on high;
Yon spire is but the branchless pine
That cuts the evening sky."
"Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these
But chants and holy hymns?"
"Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees
Through all their leafy limbs."
"Is it a chapel bell that fills
The air with its low tone?"
"Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills,
The insect's vesper drone."
"The Christ be praised!--He sets for me
A blessed cross in sight!"
"Now, nay, 'tis but yon blasted tree
With two gaunt arms outright!"
"Be it wind so sad or tree so stark,
It mattereth not, my knave;
Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,
The cross is for my grave!
"My life is sped; I shall not see
My home-set sails again;
The sweetest eyes of Normandie
Shall watch for me in vain.
"Yet onward still to ear and eye
The baffling marvel calls;
I fain would look before I die
On Norembega's walls.
"So, haply, it shall be thy part
At Christian feet to lay
The mystery of the desert's heart
My dead hand plucked away.
"Leave me an hour of rest; go thou
And look from yonder heights;
Perchance the valley even now
Is starred with city lights."
The henchman climbed the nearest hill,
He saw nor tower nor town,
But, through the drear woods, lone and still,
The river rolling down.
He heard the stealthy feet of things
Whose shapes he could not see,
A flutter as of evil wings,
The fall of a dead tree.
The pines stood black against the moon,
A sword of fire beyond;
He heard the wolf howl, and the loon
Laugh from his reedy pond.
He turned him back; "O master dear,
We are but men misled;
And thou hast sought a city here
To find a grave instead."
"As God shall will! what matters where
A true man's cross may stand,
So Heaven be o'er it here as there
In pleasant Norman land?
"These woods, perchance, no secret hide
Of lordly tower and hall;
Yon river in its wanderings wide
Has washed no city wall;
"Yet mirrored in the sullen stream
The holy stars are given:
Is Norembega, then, a dream
Whose waking is in Heaven?
"No builded wonder of these lands
My weary eyes shall see;
A city never made with hands
Alone awaiteth me--
"'_Urbs Syon mystica_;' I see
Its mansions passing fair,
'_Condita coelo_;' let me be,
Dear Lord, a dweller there!"
Above the dying exile hung
The vision of the bard,
As faltered on his failing tongue
The song of good Bernard.
The henchman dug at dawn a grave
Beneath the hemlocks brown,
And to the desert's keeping gave
The lord of fief and town.
Years after, when the Sieur Champlain
Sailed up the unknown stream,
And Norembega proved again
A shadow and a dream,
He found the Norman's nameless grave
Within the hemlock's shade,
And, stretching wide its arms to save,
The sign that God had made,
The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot
And made it holy ground:
He needs the earthly city not
Who hath the heavenly found.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
Until the middle of the sixteenth century, Spain was the only
nation which had succeeded in establishing colonies in the
New World. In 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert secured permission
from Queen Elizabeth to set out on a voyage of discovery and
colonization, for the glory of England. He landed at St.
John's, Newfoundland, August 5, and established there the first
English colony in North America. Then he sailed away to explore
further, and met the fate described in the poem. The colony
proved a failure.
SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT
[1583]
Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and fast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.
His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.
Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land!"
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark,
They drift in close embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
With the destruction of the Armada in 1588, Spain's sea power
was so shattered that the Atlantic ceased to be a battleground.
English sailors could come and go with a fair degree of safety,
and before long the American coast was alive with these daring
and adventurous voyagers.
THE FIRST AMERICAN SAILORS
_Five fearless knights of the first renown
In Elizabeth's great array,
From Plymouth in Devon sailed up and down--
American sailors they;
Who went to the West,
For they all knew best
Where the silver was gray
As a moonlit night,
And the gold as bright
As a midsummer day--
A-sailing away
Through the salt sea spray,
The first American sailors._
Sir HUMPHREY GILBERT, he was ONE
_And Devon was heaven to him_,
He loved the sea as he loved the sun
_And hated the Don as the Devil's limb--
Hated him up to the brim_:
In Holland the Spanish hide he tanned,
He roughed and routed their braggart band,
And God was with him on sea and land;
Newfoundland knew him, and all that coast
For he was one of America's host--
And now there is nothing but English speech
For leagues and leagues, and reach on reach,
From near the Equator away to the Pole;
While the billows beat and the oceans roll
On the Three Americas.
Sir FRANCIS DRAKE, and he was TWO
_And Devon was heaven to him_,
He loved in his heart the waters blue
_And hated the Don as the Devil's limb--
Hated him up to the brim_!
At Cadiz he singed the King's black beard,
The Armada met him and fled afeard,
Great Philip's golden fleece he sheared;
Oregon knew him, and all that coast,
For he was one of America's host--
And now there is nothing but English speech
For leagues and leagues, and reach on reach,
From California away to the Pole;
While the billows beat and the oceans roll
On the Three Americas.
Sir WALTER RALEIGH, he was THREE
_And Devon was heaven to him_,
There was nothing he loved so well as the sea--
_He hated the Don as the Devil's limb--
Hated him up to the brim_!
He settled full many a Spanish score,
Full many's the banner his bullets tore
On English, American, Spanish shore;
Guiana knew him, and all that coast,
For he was one of America's host--
And now there is nothing but English speech
For leagues and leagues, and reach on reach,
From Guiana northward to the Pole;
While the billows beat and the oceans roll
On the Three Americas.
Sir RICHARD GRENVILLE, he was FOUR
_And Devon was heaven to him_,
He loved the waves and their windy roar
_And hated the Don as the Devil's limb--
Hated him up to the brim_!
He whipped him on land and mocked him at sea,
He laughed to scorn his sovereignty,
And with the Revenge beat his fifty-three;
Virginia knew him, and all that coast,
For he was one of America's host--
And now there is nothing but English speech
For leagues and leagues, and reach on reach,
From the Old Dominion away to the Pole;
While the billows beat and the oceans roll
On the Three Americas.
And Sir JOHN HAWKINS, he was FIVE
_And Devon was heaven to him_,
He worshipped the water while he was alive
_And hated the Don as the Devil's limb--
Hated him up to the brim_!
He chased him over the Spanish Main,
He scoffed and defied the navies of Spain--
His cities he ravished again and again;
The Gulf it knew him, and all that coast,
For he was one of America's host--
And now there is nothing but English speech
For leagues and leagues, and reach on reach,
From the Rio Grandè away to the Pole;
While the billows beat and the oceans roll
On the Three Americas.
_Five fearless knights have filled gallant graves
This many and many a day,
Some under the willows, some under the waves--
American sailors they;
And still in the West
Is their valor blest,
Where a banner bright
With the ocean's blue
And the red wrack's hue
And the spoondrift's white
Is smiling to-day
Through the salt sea spray
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