Fitz-Greene Halleck

“ Our manliest battle-tune and merriest bridal song.
XXXV.
The good the Rhine-song does to German hearts,
Or thine, Marseilles! to France’s fiery blood;
The good thy anthemed harmony imparts,
“God save the Queen!” to England’s field and flood,
A home-born blessing, Nature’s boon, not Art’s;
The same heart-cheering, spirit-warming good,
To us and ours, where’er we war or woo,
Thy words and music, Yankee-Doodle!—do. ”

“ The wild war-music of the manlier song,
That bids the soldier’s heart beat quick and gay,
The song of “O’er the hills and far away.”
And now, beside the slumberer’s couch of leaves,
His parting web of thought the warrior chieftain weaves.
How sweetly the Boy in the beauty is sleeping
Of Life’s sunny morning of hope and of youth!
May his guardian angels, their watch o’er him keeping,
Keep his evening and noon in the pathways of truth! ”

“ Then sketched, as to his home he hurried fast,
This sentimental song—his saddest, and his last:
SONG.
1.
Young thoughts have music in them, love
⁠And happiness their theme;
And music wanders in the wind
⁠That lulls a morning dream.
And there are angel voices heard,
⁠In childhood's frolic hours,
When life is but an April day
⁠Of sunshine and of showers.
2.
There's music in the forest-leaves
⁠When summer winds are there,
And in the laugh of forest girls
⁠That braid their sunny hair. ”

“ These gentlemen make when they’re begging for votes;
There’s John Haff, and Ben Bailly, and Christian, and Bracket,
Only think what fine music must come from their throats!
Colonel Warner calls Clinton a “star in the banner,”
Mapes swears by his sword-knot he’ll ruin us all;
While Meigs flashes out in his fine classic manner,
“The meteor Gorgon of Clinton must fall!”
In vain I endeavor to give them a hint on
Sense, reason, or temper—they laugh at it all;
For sense is nonsense when it makes against Clinton,
And reason is treason in Tammany Hall. ”

“ Ocean, and earth, and heaven, burst before him;
Clouds slumbering at his feet, and the clear blue
Of summer's sky in beauty bending o'er him—
The city bright below; and far away,
Sparkling in golden light, his own romantic bay.
XCVIII.
Tall spire, and glittering roof, and battlement,
And banners floating in the sunny air;
And white sails o'er the calm blue waters bent,
Green isle, and circling shore, are blended there
In wild reality. When life is old,
And many a scene forgot, the heart will hold
XCIX.
Its memory of this ”

“ For all three in my dreams since rose the sun,
Have sought to make me their adopted one,
Destined to run the race that each has run;
But my Ambition’s leaves no more are green,
In one brief month my age will be Fifteen.
I’ve seen the world, and by the world been seen,
And now am speeding fast upon the way
To the calm, quiet evening of my day ”

“ Farewell, farewell, while the spirit of evil
Has power in a creditor’s bosom, we swear
To be with thee on earth—if thou goest to the devil,
He is an old friend of ours, and will visit thee there.
Farewell, be it ours to embitter thy pillow
With thistles whose wounds are eternal and deep,
There are packets of letters afloat on the billow
That shall poison thy whiskey and torture thy sleep. ”

“ Champagne will bathe the heart a while in bliss,
⁠And keep the head a little time from thinking
Of cares or creditors—the best wine in town
You'll get from Lynch—the cash must be paid down.
xxiv.
But if you are a bachelor, like me,
⁠And spurn all chains, even though made of roses,
I'd recommend cigars—there is a free
⁠And happy spirit, that, unseen, reposes
On the dim shadowy clouds that hover o'er you,
When smoking quietly with a warm fire before you. ”

“ All we adore of nature in her wild
And frolic hour of infancy, is met;
And never has a summer's morning smiled
Upon a lovelier scene, than the full eye
Of the enthusiast revels on—when high
XCV.
Amid thy forest solitudes, he climbs
O'er crags, that proudly tower above the deep,
And knows that sense of danger which sublimes
The breathless moment—when his daring step
Is on the verge of the cliff, and he can hear
The low dash of the wave with startled ear,
XCVI.
Like the death-music of his coming doom,
And clings to the green turf with desperate force,
As the heart clings to life ”

“ And change, for field and forest-bed,
Our bowers of love and beauty.
Music! bid thy minstrels play
No tunes of grief or sorrow,
Let them cheer the living brave to-day,
They may wail the dead to-morrow.
Such were the words, unvoiced by lip or tongue,
The thought-enwoven themes, the mental song
Of One, high placed, beside the slumberer’s bower,
In the stern, silent chieftainship of power. ”

“ And made their death-beds beautiful with fame—
Fame true and gracious as a widow’s tear
To her departed darling husband given;
Him whom she scolded up from earth to heaven.
XXXIII.
Thanks for his funeral-sermons; they recall
The sunshine smiling through his folio’s leaves,
That makes his readers’ hours in bower or hall
Joyous as plighted hearts on bridal eves;
Chasing, like music from the soul of Saul,
The doubt that darkens, and the ill that grieves;
And honoring the author’s heart and mind,
That beats to bless, and toils to ennoble human kind. ”

“ There, where the ocean-wave sparkles at meeting
(As sunset dreams tell us) the kiss of the sky,
On his dim, dark cloud is the infant storm sitting,
And beneath the horizon his lightnings are nigh.
5
Another hour—and the death-word is given,
Another hour—and his lightnings are here;
Speed! speed thee, my bark; ere the breeze of even
Is lost in the tempest, our home will be near.
6
Then away o'er the wave, while thy pennant is streaming
In the shadowy light, like a shooting star;
Be swift as the thought of the wanderer, dreaming,
[Pg 44] In a stranger land, of his fireside afar. ”

“ There is an evening twilight of the heart,
When its wild passion-waves are lull'd to rest,
And the eye sees life's fairy scenes depart,
As fades the day-beam in the rosy west.
'Tis with a nameless feeling of regret
We gaze upon them as they melt away,
And fondly would we bid them linger yet,
But hope is round us with her angel lay,
Hailing afar some happier moonlight hour ”

“ To point out here, unless in yon scare-crow,
That stands full-uniformed upon the plain,
To frighten flocks of crows and blackbirds from the grain.
VI.
For he would look particularly droll
In his “Iberian boot” and “Spanish plume,”
And be the wonder of each Christian soul
As of the birds that scare-crow and his broom.
But Gertrude, in her loveliness and bloom,
Hath many a model here; for woman’s eye,
In court or cottage, wheresoe’er her home,
Hath a heart-spell too holy and too high
To be o’erpraised even by her worshipper—Poesy. ”

“ Mine pass'd in low-roof'd leafy bower,
Yours in high halls of pomp and power,
Yet are we, be the moral told,
Alike in one thing—growing old,
Ripen'd like summer's cradled sheaf,
Faded like autumn's falling leaf—
And nearing, sail and signal spread,
The quiet anchorage of the dead.
For such is human life, wherever
The voyage of its bark may be,
On home's green-bank'd and gentle river
Or the world's shoreless, sleepless sea. ”

“ And politics, and country; the pure glow
⁠Of patriot ardor, and the consciousness
That talents such as his might well bestow
⁠A lustre on the city; she would bless
His name; and that some service should be done her,
He pledged "life, fortune, and his sacred honor."
xviii.
And when the sounds of music and of mirth,
⁠Bursting from Fashion's groups assembled there,
Were heard, as round their lone plebeian hearth
⁠Fanny and he were seated—he would dare
To whisper fondly that the time might come
When he and his could give as brilliant routs at home. ”

“ Morn’s fragrant music from their lips of Song.
Within the loveliest of wayside bowers,
The summer home of loveliest leaves and flowers,
Cradled on rose-leaves, curtained round with vines,
And canopied by branches of a tree
Whose buds and blossoms charm the wandering bee,
In deep and dreaming sleep the youth reclines. ”

“ Fine fun for firemen, but dull sport for plays;
The proudest of our whole dramatic corps
Such warm reception never met before.
It was a woeful night for us and ours,
Worse than dry weather to the fields and flowers.
The evening found us gay as summer’s lark,
Happy as sturgeons in the Tappan Sea;
The morning, like the dove from Noah’s ark,
As homeless, houseless, desolate as she. ”

“ Whether dancing on Sundays, at Lebanon Springs,
With those Madame Hutins of religion, the Shakers;
Or, on Tuesdays, with maidens who seek wedding rings
At Ballston, as taught by mammas and match-makers;
Whether sailing St. Lawrence, with unbroken neck,
From her thousand green isles to her castled Quebec;
Or sketching Niagara, pencil on knee
(The giant of waters, our country's pet lion) ,
Or dipp'd at Long Branch, in the real salt sea,
With a cork for a dolphin, a Cockney Arion;
Whether roaming earth, ocean, or even the air,
Like Dan O'Rourke's eagle—good luck to you there. ”

“ The answer is a silent one,
⁠More eloquent than words.
6.
The moonlight music of the waves
⁠In storms is heard no more,
When the living lightning mocks the wreck
⁠At midnight on the shore;
And the mariner's song of home has ceased,
⁠His corse is on the sea—
And music ceases when it rains
⁠In Scudder's balcony. ”

“ As it bade the fond scenes of my childhood adieu.
Oh! mock not that pang, for my heart was retracing
Past visions of happiness, sparkling and clear:
My heart was still warm with a mother’s embracing,
My cheek was still wet with a fond sister’s tear.
Like an infant’s first sleep on the lap of its mother,
Were the days of my childhood—those days are no more ”

“ While there are open lips and dimpled cheeks,
When music breathes, or wit or humour speaks;
While Shakspeare's master spirit can call up
Noblest and worthiest thoughts, and brim the cup
Of life with bubbles bright as happiness,
Cheating the willing bosom into bliss;
So long will those who, in their spring of youth,
Have listen'd to the Drama's voice of truth,
Mark'd in her scenes the manners of their age,
[Pg 120] And gather'd knowledge for a wider stage,
Come here to speed with smiles life's summer years,
And melt its winter snow with pleasant tears ”

“ With last night’s dream and last night’s dew.
Yes, they are gone; alas! each one of them;
Departed—every mother’s son of them.
Yet often, at the close of day,
When thoughts are winged and wandering, they
Come with the memory of the past,
Like sunset clouds along the mind,
Reflecting, as they’re flitting fast
In their wild hues of shade and light,
All that was beautiful and bright
In golden moments left behind. ”

“ XLVII.
'Twas their misfortune to be born too soon
By centuries, and in the wrong place too;
They never saw a steamboat, or balloon,
Velocipede, or Quarterly Review;
Or wore a pair of Baehr's black satin breeches,
Or read an Almanac, or Clinton's Speeches.
XLVIII.
In short, in every thing we far outshine them,—
Art, science, taste, and talent; and a stroll
Through this enlighten'd city would refine them
More than ten years hard study of the whole
Their genius has produced of rich and rare—
God bless the Corporation and the Mayor! ”

“ Seems sweetest-voiced and loveliest of the Nine,
The minstrel of the bowers of happiness,
She whom the Graces nurtured—at her birth,
The sea-born Goddess and the Huntress maid,
Beings whose beauty is not of the earth,
Came from their myrtle home and forest shade,
Blending immortal joy with mortal mirth
And Dian said, “Fair sister, be she mine
In her heart’s purity, in beauty thine.” ”

“ And while memory lingers I'll fondly believe thee
A being with life and its best feelings warm;
And freely the wild song of gratitude weave thee,
Bless'd spirit! that bore me and mine from the storm.
CIV.
But where is Fanny? She has long been thrown
Where cheeks and roses wither—in the shade.
The age of chivalry, you know, is gone;
And although, as I once before have said,
I love a pretty face to adoration,
Yet, still, I must preserve my reputation,
CV.
As a true dandy of the modern schools. ”

“ Yes, there’s much in a name, and a Hogbin’s so fit is
For that great moral purpose whose impulse divine
Bids men leave their own workshops to work in committees,
And their own wedded wives to protect yours and mine!
That we working-men prophets are sadly mistaken,
If yours is not, Hogbin, a durable fame,
As lasting as England’s philosopher Bacon,
Whom your ancestors housed, if we judge by his name. ”

“ No more on the river's bosom,
When sky and wave are calm,
And the clouds are in summer quietness,
And the cool night-breath is balm,
Will she glide in the swan-like stillness
Of the moon in the blue above,
A messenger from other lands,
A beacon to hope and love.
No more, in the midnight tempest,
Will she mock the mounting sea,
Strong in her oaken timbers,
[Pg 123] And her white sail's bravery.
She hath borne, in days departed,
Warm hearts upon her deck ”

“ Are covered in vain with false tresses.
The autumn is on thee—fell Scandal prepares
To hasten the wane of thy glory;
Too soon Disappointment will hand thee down-stairs,
And old maidenhood end the sad story:
For me—long escaped from your trammels—I choose
To enlist in the new corps of jokers;
Abandoning Chloe, I kneel to the Muse,
And, instead of love-ditties, write Croakers. ”

“ Was echoed by his plighted word,
And ah, how dear its song to me!
But wailed the hour will ever be
When to the air the bugle gave,
To hush love’s gentle minstrelsy,
The wild war-music of the brave. ”