The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 2
LETTER LX.
REPORTING THE SECOND REGULAR MEETING OF THE COSMOPOLITAN CLUB, AND THE BRITISH MEMBER'S CITATION OF THE ENGLISH POETS.
WASHINGTON, D. C., August 5th, 1862.
This is a dull day, my boy; and when there is no longer any sunshine tomake steel bayonets and brass buttons glimmer to the eye, war is striptof half its pomp, and the American mind takes a plain, practical viewof the strife.
Truth to tell, this secession is a very shabby, unromantic thing tofight about. There is really no poetry at all about it, my boy, andwhen one would rhyme about it, the mantle of poesy refuses to fall uponhim, though a bogus sort of Hood may possibly keep him in countenance.The cause of this war is simply this--
PER SE.
Sepoys--sea-thieves-- C. Bonds--see slaves-- See seizures made in every kind of way; See debts sequestrated-- Sea-island frustrated; Segars--seditionists--and C. S. A., Seduced from honor bright-- Secluded from serenest Wisdom's light-- Sea-pent by ships of war-- Selected planters for the world no more; Severely snubbed by all-- Secure to fall; Sedately left alone by all who see Seed poisonous sown in sectional retrogression; See-saw diplomacy, sedition foui _per se_; Sequel--that serio-comic scene-- SECESSION!
Speaking of poetry; I attended the meeting of the Cosmopolitan Club onMonday night, and was much electrified by the treasures of Britishliterature unfolded by Smith-Brown. That double-chinned chap brought toview a roll of manuscript, and says he:
"Instead of reading a story for your entertainment, gentlemen, Ipropose to make you acquainted with the war-sentiments of a few ofAlbion's poet's, as expressed in certain unpublished verses of theirswhich have privately come into my possession.
"First, let me commend to your attention some amiable rhymes by a bardwho knows more about this blarsted country than it knows about hitself":
A MISTAKE BY HEAVEN!
_By Dr. Charles Mack--y._
In Heaven's Chancery the Records stand Of men and deeds in each and ev'ry land, And as new rulers rise, or empires fall, Appointed angels make a note of all.
To mark the changes in this world of late There came a Spirit from the Throne of Fate, Instructed closely, to be sure and see Who earth's chief rulers for _this_ year might be.
His task accomplished, back the Spirit flew To Heaven's Chancery, as bade to do, And from his vestments took the mystic scroll That named each potentate, from Pole to Pole.
Recording Angels glanced it sharply o'er, To note each change from what the Records bore; But found no nations changing potentates Until they came to the United States.
"Another President!" the angels sighed, "Another President!" the Fates replied; And straight a pen the Chief Recorder took To write the ruler's name within his book.
He wrote--(alas! 'twill hardly be believed The very angels could be so deceived)-- He wrote the name that all his sprites might read-- Not Abr'am Lincoln; no! but--THURLOW WEED.
!! # # # !! # # # !!
If foreign nations fail to judge your cause In strict accordance with set Christian laws, It is no proof of their intending crimes, Since angels, even, make mistakes at times!
We were all silent after that, my boy, and says the old British chap:
"The next manuscript expresses the conservative sentiment of Britain'sIsle, the measure being peculiar and the manner inquiring. Hattention!--
THE WAR.
BY SIDNEY DOBELL.
I.
Oh, the war, the war, _Oh_, the war, the war, OH, the war-- With pools of gory, dripping grime, And ghastly, beastly, horrible rime, The soldier bloody, stiff and stark-- The cannon thunders, hark! hark! Columbia, how's the war?
II.
Oh, the blood, the blood, _Oh_, the blood, the blood, OH, the blood-- Curdling, welling, staining the ground, Bubbling from wounds with sick'ning sound; The life gone out in a wind of swords,-- Murderers leagued in hordes! hordes! Columbia, how's the blood?
III.
Oh, the roar, the roar, _Oh_, the roar, the roar, OH, the roar-- Thousands grappling, tearing to death, Fever, madness and hell in a breath; Rage, despair, oath and scream-- Rivers crimson stream! stream! Columbia, how's the roar?
IV.
Oh, the blaze, the blaze, _Oh_, the blaze, the blaze. OH, the blaze, Homes in flames, lighting the storm, Torches for death in a brother's form; Ruin, ravage, ashes and smoke,-- Hopes and heart-strings broke! broke! Columbia, how's the blaze?
V.
Oh, the groan, the groan, _Oh_, the groan, the groan, OH, the groan-- Mothers sonless, homeless and old, Sisters brotherless, lone and cold, Children starving, wailing for bread,-- Fathers and brothers dead! dead! Columbia, how's the groan?
VI.
Oh, the woe, the woe, _Oh_, the woe, the woe, OH, the woe, Cities famishing, villages still, Blood in the valley and fire on the hill; Horror, havoc, curses and tears,-- Dark desolation for years! years! Columbia, how's the woe?
VII.
Oh, the end, the end, _Oh_, the end, the end, OH, the end, Griefs and graves at every hearth, Heaven offended, outraged Earth: Prayers for vengeance from ev'ry tomb-- Borne to the living a doom! doom! Columbia, how's the end?
Here Bonbon, the French chap, struck in, and says he: "Oh, the ass, theass, _Oh_, the ass, the ass, OH, the ass----"
"Silence, Napoleon!" says the British chap, "and r-r-remember Waterloo!The next metrical gem," says he, "illustrates the deeper profundity ofBritish thought, and conveys a moral lesson of the deepest significanceto babes and sucklings. Hem!"--
COLUMBIA'S AGONY.
BY MARTIN FARQUHAR TUP----R.
I hold it good--as who shall hold it bad? To lave Columbia in the boiling tears I shed for Freedom when my soul is sad, And having shed proceed to shed again: For _human sadness sad to all appears_, And tears men sometimes shed are shed by men.
The normal nation lives until it dies, As men may die when they have ceased to live; But when abnormal, by a foe's surprise, It may not reach its first-appointed goal; For _what we have not is not ours to give_, And if we miss it all we miss the whole.
Columbia, young, a giant baby born, Aimed at a manhood ere the child had been, And slipping downward in a strut forlorn, Learns, to its sorrow, what 'tis good to know, That _babes who walk too soon, too soon begin To walk_ in this dark vale of life below.
When first the State of Charleston did secede, And Morrill's tariff was declared repealed, The soul of Freedom everywhere did bleed For that which, having seen, it sadly saw; So true it is, _death-wounds are never healed_, And law defied is not unquestioned law.
The mother-poet, England, sadly viewed The strife unnatural across the wave, And with maternal tenderness renewed Her sweet assurances of neutral love; _A mother's love may not its offspring save; But mother's love is still a mother's love._
Learn thou, Columbia, in thine agony, That England loves thee, with a love as deep As my "Proverbial Philosophy" Has won for me from her approving breast; _The love that never slumbers cannot sleep_, And all for highest good is for the best.
Thy Freedom fattens on the work of slaves, Her Grace of Sutherland informeth me; And all thy South Amboy is full of graves, Where tortured bondmen snatch a dread repose; Learn, then, the _race enslaved is never free_, And in thy woes incurred, behold thy woes.
Thy pride is humbled, humbled is thy pride, And now misfortunes come upon thee, thick With dark reproaches for the right defied, And cloud thy banner in a dim eclipse; _Sic transit gloria gloria transic sic_, The mouth that speaketh useth its own lips.
Thus speeds th
e world, and thus our planet speeds; What is, must be; and what can't be, is not; Our acts unwise are not our wisest deeds, And what we do is what ourselves have done; _Mistakes remembered are not faults forgot_, And we must wait for day to see the sun.
I looked up at Smith-Brown, my boy, and says I:
"What does he mean by the 'State of Charleston,' my fat friend?"
"Why," says he, "that's a poetic license, or American geography dilutedby the Atlantic. And here we have something by the gifted hauthor of'Locksley Hall,' which it is somewhat in that vein:
AMERICA.
BY ALFRED TEN----N.
Westward, westward flies the eagle, westward with the setting sun, To an eyrie growing golden in a morning just begun; Where the world is new in promise of a virgin nation's love. And the grand results of ages germs of nobler ages prove;
Where a prophecy of greatness runs through all the soul of youth, And the miracle of Freedom blesses in a living truth; Where the centuries unnumbered narrow to a single night, And their trophies are but planets wheeling round a central light.
Where the headlands breast the Ocean sweeping round creation's East, And the prairies roll in blossoms to the Ocean of the West; Where the voices of the seas are blended o'er a nation's birth, In the harmony of Nature's hymn to Liberty on earth.
Land of Promise! Revelation of a loyalty that springs From a grander depth of purple than the heritage of kings-- From the inner purple cherished at the thrones of lives sublime, Cast in glorious consecration 'neath the plough of Father Time--
Home of Freedom, hope of millions born and slain and yet to be, Shall the spirit of the bondless, caught from heaven, fail in thee? Shall the watching world behold thee falling from thy starry height? Like a meteor, in thine ending leaving only darker night?
Oh! my kinsmen, Oh! my brothers--fellow-heirs of Saxon hearts, Lo the Eagle quits his eyrie swifter than a swallow darts, And the lurid flame of battle burns within his angry eye, Glowing like a living ember cast in vengeance from the sky.
At thy hearth a foe has risen, fiercer yet to burn and kill, That he was thy chosen brother--friend no more, but brother still; For the bitter tide of hatred deeper runs and fiercer grows, As the pleading voice of Nature addeth self-reproach to blows.
Strike! and in the ghastly horrors of a fratricidal war, Learn the folly of your wanderings from the guiding Northern Star; What were all your gains and glories, to creation's fatal loss When ye crucified your Freedom on the cruel Southern Cross?
Oh! my brothers narrow-sighted--Oh! my brothers slow to hear What the phantoms of the fallen ever whisper in the ear; God is just, and from the ruins of the temple rent in twain Rises up the invocation of a warning breathed in vain.
All thy pillars reel around thee from the fury of the blow, And the fires upon thine altars fade and flicker to and fro; Call the vigor of thy manhood into arms from head to foot, Strike! and in thy strife with error let the blow be at the root.
So thy war shall wear the glory of a purpose to refine From the dross of early folly all the honor that is thine; So thine arms shall gather friendship to the standard of a cause Blending in its grand approval British hearts and British laws.
Form thy heroes into armies from the mart and from the field, And their ranks shall stretch around thee in a bristling, living shield; Take the loyal beggar's offer; for the war whose cause is just Breathes the soul of noblest daring into forms of meanest dust.
Let thy daughters wreathe their chaplets for the foreheads of the brave, Let thy daughters trace their lineage from the patriot's honored grave; Woman's love is built the strongest when it rests on woman's pride, Better be a soldier's widow than a meek civilian's bride.
Onward let thine Eagles lead thee, where the livid Southern sun Courts the incense for the heavens of a righteous battle won; And the bright Potomac, winding through the fields unto the sea Shall no longer mark the libel--what is bond and what is free.
Rising from the fierce ordeal washed in blood and purified, See the future stretch before thee, limitless on every side; And in all the deep'ning envy of the nations wed to sloth, Mark the record of thy progress, see the mirror of thy growth.
Rising from thy purifying, like a giant from his rest, Thou shalt find thy praise an echo from the East unto the West; Thou shalt find thy love a message from the South unto the North, Each its past mistake of duty finding out and casting forth.
And thy States in new communion, by the blood they all have shed, Shall be wedded to each other in the pardon of the dead; Each, a scale of steel to cover vital part from foreign wrong, All, a coat of armor guarding that to which they All belong.
Thou shalt measure seas with navies, span the earth with iron rails, Catch the dawn upon thy banner and the sunset on thy sails; Northern halls of ice shall echo to thy sailor's merry note, And the standard of thy soldier on the Southern isle shall float.
Turning to thy mother, England, thou shalt find her making boast Of the Great Republic westward, born of strength that she has lost; And thy Saxon blood shall join ye, never to be torn apart, Moving onward to the future, hand in hand and heart to heart.
At the conclusion of this last reading, my boy, we separated. When weare "heart to heart" with England, my boy, the heart that is underneathmay possibly have ceased to beat.
Yours, to beat, or not to beat, ORPHEUS C. KERR.