Birth of Paulding: homebred feeling

James Kirke Paulding's main goal in literature was to promote the United States, its history, its people, and its ideals. "Mr. Paulding's writings are distinguished for a decided nationality," summed up one contemporary editor, who noted all his characters were distinctly American.

Born in Dutchess County in New York on August 22, 1778, he was the son of William Paulding, who had assisted financially with the American Revolution. Another family member was involved with the capture of John André. His first literary effort, however, was less lofty: "in a frolicsome mood" he joined with his friend Washington Irving to produce the satirical Salmagundi (beginning in 1807). That humorous periodical, however, laid the groundwork for his more purposeful satire, The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan during a period in which English critics were particularly harsh in commenting on American culture (Paulding's personification of Great Britain had "a devilish, quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, which was always getting him into some scrape or other").

In fact, Paulding began experimenting with a variety of literary forms: satire, poetry, novels, drama, and biography. Perhaps because he was writing so early in American literary history, at a time without significant competition, he became fairly well known as a man of letters. He was also named Secretary of the Navy in 1838.

Nineteenth century critics seemed truly to admire Paulding, in part because of his connection to Irving. One contemporary noted "his affection for the democratical institutions of his country" was easily seen in his work and, further, his writing style was not "polished" but expressed "boldly and carelessly, without paying too nice a regard to the decrees of taste, and the canons of criticism." Some accounts suggest he never modified his rough drafts or preplanned his plots, preferring spontaneity in his work.

Perhaps that lack of polish explains the excessive length of his ambitious poem The Backwoodsman (1818), an early rallying cry for Americanism in literature. As he says in his preface, his hope was to invite young authors to focus their attentions to home and the United States. He cast away the legendary writers of the past like Homer, who represented an uncivilized age. Following this "humble theme" of nationalism, the poem evokes the landscape, history, and character of the United States as a source of literary inspiration. Further, though Paulding admits that art and poetry have not been the focus in this new country, he looks forward to the day when American culture overtakes European culture as superior:

Neglected Muse! of this our western clime,
How long in servile, imitative rhyme,
Wilt thou thy stifled energies impart,
And miss the path that leads to every heart?
How long repress the brave decisive flight,
Warm'd by thy native fires, led by thy native light?
Thrice happy he who first shall strike the lyre,
With homebred feeling, and with homebred fire;
He need not envy any favour'd bard,
Who Fame's bright meed, and Fortune's smiles reward;
Secure, that wheresoe'er this empire rolls,
Or east, or west, or tow'rd the firm fixed poles,
While Europe's ancient honours fade away,
And sink the glories of her better day,

Birth of Goodrich: instead of wickedness

In the western part of the State of Connecticut, is a small town by the name of Ridgefield. This title is descriptive, and indicates the general form and position of the place. It is, in fact, a collection of hills, rolled into one general and commanding elevation. On the west is a ridge of mountains, forming the boundary between the States of Connecticut and New York; to the south the land spreads out in wooded undulations to Long Island Sound; east and north, a succession of hills, some rising up against the sky, and others fading away in the distance, bound the horizon. In this town, in an antiquated and rather dilapidated house of shingles and clapboards, I was born on the 19th of August, 1793.

Thus Samuel Griswold Goodrich explains his own birth on August 19, 1793, in his Recollections of a Lifetime (1857). He was one of ten children (only eight of whom survived past infancy) and was raised in near poverty. His father, a minister, made only $400 a year. As such, young Goodrich was mostly self-educated. He later became a bookseller and publisher.

In the literary world, Goodrich is perhaps most well-known for founding and editing the annual gift book The Token — which published the writings of Nathaniel Parker Willis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others — as well as the Peter Parley series of educational anecdotes for children. Peter Parley's book featured an elderly gentleman telling stories about history, geography, biography, science, and other miscellaneous topics. The series proved both popular and lucrative; he later recalled his optimism: "Well, thought I, if this goes on I may yet rival Mother Goose!"

Goodrich's self-education proved his greatest inspiration for the future. As a boy, he read Robinson Crusoe, the Bible, natural history, and biographies. Looking back as an adult, he believed it was all a positive influence on him. It was through this background, he writes,

...that I first formed the conception of the Parley Tales— the general idea of which was to make nursery books reasonable and truthful, and thus to feed the young mind upon things wholesome and pure, instead of things monstrous, false, and pestilent: that we should use the same prudence in giving aliment to the mind and soul, as to the body; and as we would not give blood and poison as food for the latter, we should not administer cruelty and violence, terror and impurity, to the other. In short, that the elements of nursery books should consist of beauty instead of deformity, goodness instead of wickedness, decency instead of vulgarity.

Birth of Humphreys: wonderful at imitation

David Humphreys was born in Connecticut on July 10, 1752. A graduate of Yale, he served during the American Revolution, earning the rank of Colonel. Most notably, he also became an aide-de-camp of George Washington, who praised him for his "zeal in the cause of his country." When Washington became President of the United States, Humphreys was appointed as an overseas diplomat. He later wrote a biography of his friend Washington. In his varied career, Humphreys was also a farmer, a legislator, and an entrepreneur, as well as a poet and author. Without further ado, his poem, "The Monkey Who Shaved Himself and His Friends: A Fable" (from 1804, if not earlier):

    A man who own'd a barber's shop
At York, and shav'd full many a fop,
A monkey kept for their amusement;
He made no other kind of use on't—
This monkey took great observation,
Was wonderful at imitation,
And all he saw the barber do,
He mimic'd straight, and did it too.

    It chanc'd in shop, the dog and cat,
While friseur din'd, demurely sat,
Jacko found nought to play the knave in,
So thought he'd try his hand at shaving.
Around the shop in haste he rushes,
And gets the razors, soap, and brushes;
Now puss he fix'd (no muscle miss stirs)
And lather'd well her beard and whiskers,
Then gave a gash, as he began—
The cat cry'd "waugh!" and off she ran.

    Next Towser's beard he try'd his skill in,
Though Towser seem'd somewhat unwilling;
As badly here again succeeding,
The dog runs howling round, and bleeding.

    Nor yet was tir'd our roguish elf;
He'd seen the barber shave himself;
So by the glass, upon the table,
He rubs with soap his visage sable,
Then with left hand holds smooth his jaw,—
The razor in his dexter paw;
 Around he flourishes and slashes,
Till all his face is seam'd with gashes.
His cheeks dispatch'd—his visage thin
He cock'd, to shave beneath his chin;
 Drew razor swift as he could pull it,
 And cut, from ear to ear, his gullet.

MORAL.
    Who cannot write, yet handle pens,
Are apt to hurt themselves and friends.
Though others use them well, yet fools
Should never meddle with edge tools.

Humphreys's poem was obviously meant to be humorous and his comedic poems put him amidst the group called "The Hartford Wits" — a group which included other early Connecticut writers like John Trumbull and Joel Barlow. As for "The Monkey," the poem was almost certainly an inspiration to Edgar Allan Poe, who gave the razor-wielding idea a more homicidal turn in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

Birth of John Adams: Herculean President

John Adams was born on October 30, 1735. On his birthday in 1799, Adams was sitting as the second President of the United States in Philadelphia when playwright, actress, and author Susanna Rowson wrote an ode in his honor. Rowson, though born in England, spent most of her life in Massachusetts, Adams's home state.

Rowson's long poem first tells the legend of Alcides (an alternate name for the demigod Hercules), and how both Virtue and Vice sought him in his childhood to fight for his soul. Alcides, however, was not tempted by Vice's deceit, however, and even picks an entire oak tree to use as a spear against her. The reader of the legend is also the narrator or speaker in the poem and, so moved by the legend, she wonders if it would be possible for a mortal to have a soul so pure. Right on cue, a vision appears to her of an angelic figure with the word "Independence" on her belt and "Unity" and "Heaven" on her bracelets.

"And who art thou, bright vision?" I enquired;
    "My name," she smiling cried, "is Liberty;"
"Oh nymph, by all beloved, by all desired,
    "And art thou come," I cried, "to dwell with me?"
"No," said the goddess, "I am come to chide."
    "Why dost thou wonder at Alcides' worth?
"Columbia boasts, and she may boast with pride,
        "An equal hero's birth.
"The morn which dapples in the east,
    "And makes all nature gay,
"Speaks what should be by all exprest;
"Let every face in smiles be drest,
    "For 'tis his natal day."

The spirit of Liberty acknowledges that Alcides accomplished great things, but that Adams (named in the poem) is greater, "soaring on superior worth." She then commands the speaker (now, presumably, Rowson herself) to honor him on his birthday by writing a poem:

"Then rise, and tune the vocal lay,
    "Invoke the Muse's aid;
"Small is the tribute thou canst pay,
    "Yet be that tribute paid,
"And thousands in that tribute will bear part,
    "For all conspire to raise the festive lay,
    "And as they joyful hail his natal day,
"Pour forth the offerings of a grateful heart."

Birth of William Bingham Tappan

Described by one critic as "the most industrious and voluminous of our religious poets," William Bingham Tappan was born in Beverly, Massachusetts on October 29, 1794. It was said he began writing verse at age 9, moved to Philadelphia after reaching his majority, and published his first book in that city when he was 23. Following that, he became a teacher in New Jersey. He spent a few years in Cincinnati before returning to Massachusetts in 1837.

Many of Tappan's poems and hymns remain untitled or borrow from the first line. This, "Home of my youth," was published in a collection in 1822:

Home of my youth! with fond delight,
On thee doth recollection dwell;
Home of my youth! how gaily bright,
The scenes that childhood loved so well.

Cot of my fathers! well I know,
The spot that saw my infant dawn;
Near the green lane, the old elm row—
The village spire—the grassy lawn.

O! sweet to me the laughing hours,
When earth seemed gay, and heaven was fair;
When fancy culled her thornless flowers,
And pleasure reigned, unknown to care.

Home of my youth! this heart away,
Recals those moments dear to me;
Often in dreams will memory stray,
Home of my youth—to weep o'er thee.

Birth of John Gardiner Calkins Brainard

From his birth in New London, Connecticut, on October 21, 1796, it seemed that John Gardiner Calkins Brainard was destined to become a lawyer. His father was a judge on the superior court of Connecticut and the young Brainard was sent to his father's alma mater of Yale to study law. He passed the bar in 1819, started his own legal practice, and hated it. He particularly was displeased by the "personal altercation, contradiction and... hard collision" of his colleagues.

Instead, his genial, if not, timid, temperament pulled him to poetry, an interest of his since boyhood and into his college years. He retired from the life of a lawyer after three years and became an editor for the Connecticut Mirror based in Hartford. To write was his passion and, though he disliked the frequent controversy in the field, the world of journalism gave him a daily outlet. He dedicated space in the Mirror to his own poetry and from these writings published his first book, Occasional Pieces of Poetry. To Brainard's surprise, the book was a success and drew significant admiration.

He was, however, tempered by sudden gloominess before he could publish a second book. Though ambitious for success as a writer, he was never convinced of his own worth. Brainard turned his attention to religious themes. He left his editorship in 1827, already sick of the tuberculosis that would kill him at the age of 32.

His poem "The Robber" refers to a true-life incident wherein someone stole, of all things, two bags of newspapers from a mail coach:

The moon hangs lightly on yon western hill;
And now it gives a parting look, like one
Who sadly leaves the guilty. You and I
Must watch, when all is dark, and steal along
By these lone trees, and wait for plunder. —Hush!
I hear the coming of some luckless wheel,
Bearing we know not what— perhaps the wealth
Torn from the needy, to be hoarded up
By those who only count it; and perhaps
The spendthrift's losses, or the gambler's gains,
The thriving merchant's rich remittances,
Or the small trifle some poor serving girl
Sends to her poorer parents. But come on—
Be cautious. — There — 'tis done; and now away,
With breath drawn in, and noiseless step, to seek
The darkness that befits so dark a deed.
Now strike your light.— Ye powers that look upon us!
What have we here? Whigs, Sentinels, Gazettes,
Heralds, and Posts, and Couriers — Mercuries,
Recorders, Advertisers, and Intelligencers —
Advocates and Auroras. — There, what's that!
That's — a Price Current.
                                         I do venerate
The man, who rolls the smooth and silky sheet
Upon the well cut copper. I respect
The worthier names of those who sign bank bills;
And, though no literary man, I love
To read their short and pithy sentences.
But I hate types, and printers — and the gang
Of editors and scribblers. Their remarks,
Essays, songs, paragraphs, and prophecies,
I utterly detest. —And these, particularly,
Are just the meanest and most rascally,
"Stale and unprofitable" publications,
I ever read in my life.

Execution of John André: not the fear of death

Major John André was a British army officer hanged as a spy on October 2, 1780 after conspiring with Benedict Arnold over the fate of West Point during the American Revolution. André pleaded with George Washington that he die honorably via firing squad; instead, he was ordered to be hanged, the traditional execution method for a spy.

The drama of the conspiracy, as well as the capture of André, his trial, and his execution all unfolded in the Hudson River Valley area of New York. Nathaniel Parker Willis would eventually settle in that area but he was, in fact, living in England at the time that he composed his poem "André's Request to Washington" (1835):

It is not the fear of death
     That damps my brow;
It is not for another breath
     I ask thee now;
I can die with lip unstirr'd
     And a quiet heart—
Let but this prayer be heard
     Ere I depart.

I can give up my mother's look—
     My sister's kiss;
I can think of love—yet brook
     A death like this!
I can give up the young fame
     I burn'd to win—
All—but the spotless name
     I glory in!

Thine is the power to give,
     Thine to deny,
Joy for the hour I live—
     Calmness to die.
By all the brave should cherish,
     By my dying breath,
I ask that I may perish
     By a soldier's death.

Some 40 years after Willis's poem, just about 100 years after André's execution, Charlotte Fiske Bates offered her own poem to the executed Major. Like Willis, Bates is mostly sympathetic, though her narrator here is not André himself but a visitor to the place of his death:

This is the place where André met that death
Whose infamy was keenest of its throes,
And in this place of bravely yielded breath
His ashes found a fifty years' repose;

And then, at last, a transatlantic grave,
With those who have been kings in blood or
fame. As Honor here some compensation gave
For that once forfeit to a hero's name.

But whether in the Abbey's glory laid,
Or on so fair but fatal Tappan's shore.
Still at his grave have noble hearts betrayed
The loving pity and regret they bore.

In view of all he lost, — his youth, his love,
And possibilities that wait the brave,
Inward and outward bound, dim visions move
Like passing sails upon the Hudson's wave.

The country's Father! how do we revere
His justice, — Brutus-like in its decree, —
With André-sparing mercy, still more dear
Had been his name, — if that, indeed, could be!

Birth of John Quincy Adams: a great poet

John Quincy Adams was born in Massachusetts on July 11, 1767. The son of the second President of the United States, he is best remembered for his political roles — as congressman, diplomat, and as President of the United States himself — he also dabbled in poetry. In his teens and 20s, while studying law, Adams wrote verses in his idle moments. Later, he admitted, "Could I have chosen my own genius and condition, I would have made myself a great poet."

His writings included both religious and secular themes and, though at least one critic commented that he only received attention because of his name, some of his poems were held in high regard. In fact, a young Adams was even commissioned to write poetry for public occassions. Though his writing was published in periodicals and anthologies, an edition of his verse was not published until shortly his death in 1848. Critics, both those who disliked Adams's poetry and those who praised it, admitted that his writings were not treated fairly because of his family name.

His poem "The Hour-Glass":

Alas! how swift the moments fly!
   How flash the years along!
Scarce here, yet gone already by,
   The burden of a song.
See childhood, youth, and manhood pass,
   And age, with furrowed brow;
Time was—Time shall be—drain the glass—
   But where in Time is now?

Time is the measure but of change;
   No present hour is found;
The past, the future, fill the range
   Of Time's unceasing round.
Where, then, is now? In realms above,
   With God's atoning Lamb,
In regions of eternal love,
   Where sits enthroned I AM.

Then, pilgrim, let thy joys and tears
   On Time no longer lean;
But henceforth all thy hopes and fears
   From earth's affections wean:
To God let votive accents rise;
   With truth, with virtue, live;
So all the bliss that Time denies
   Eternity shall give.

Grandpa, what wounded you?

Hannah Flagg Gould's father Benjamin was a veteran of the American Revolution and, as such, it is perhaps not surprising that many of her poems patriotically reflect on that conflict. One such verse, "The Scar of Lexington," commemorates that skirmish in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. The poem, which apparently dates to 1830, is framed as a young boy asking his grandfather, a veteran, of his experience (and the origins of his scar):

With cherub smile the prattling boy,
   Who on the veteran's breast reclines,
Has thrown aside his favourite toy,
   And round his tender finger twines
Those scatter'd locks, that with the flight
Of fourscore years are snowy white;
And, as a scar arrests his view,
He cries, "Grandpa, what wounded you?"

"My child, 'tis five-and-fifty years
   This very day, this very hour,
Since from a scene of blood and tears,
   Where valour fell by hostile power,
I saw retire the setting sun
Behind the hills of Lexington;
While pale and lifeless on the plain
My brothers lay, for freedom slain!

"And ere that fight, the first that spoke
   In thunder to our land, was o'er,
Amid the clouds of fire and smoke
   I felt my garments wet with gore!
'Tis since that dread and wild affray,
That trying, dark, eventful day,
From this calm April eve so far,
I wear upon my cheek the scar.

"When thou to manhood shalt be grown,
   And I am gone in dust to sleep,
May freedom's rights be still thine own,
   And thou and thine in quiet reap
The unblighted product of the toil
In which my blood bedew'd the soil.
And while those fruits thou shalt enjoy,
Bethink thee of this scar, my boy.

"But, should thy country's voice be heard
   To bid her children fly to arms,
Gird on thy grandsire's trusty sword;
   And, undismay'd by war's alarms,
Remember, on the battle-field,
I made the hand of God my shield:
And be thou spared, like me, to tell
What bore thee up, while others fell."

Like the grandfather in the poem, Benjamin Gould fought with the Massachusetts militia and was wounded on Lexington Green on April 19, 1775. Hannah Gould published several books of poetry, including her first in 1832. She wrote at least three other poems focused on Lexington ("Lexington's Dead," "The Battle of Lexington," and "Liberty: An Ode for the Celebration fo the Battle of Lexington") as well as a prose essay on the "Lexington Elm." Miss Gould never married and lived a relatively retired life in Newburyport, Massachusetts, though she was known as a kind and social hostess.

A Principle which we call Love of Freedom

In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance.

The quote is from a letter dated February 11, 1774, by Phillis Wheatley, recognized as the first poet of African descent published in the New World. At the time she wrote this letter, Phillis was about 20 years old, having been brought to the Massachusetts Colony without her permission when she was a young girl. Enslaved by the Wheatley family, her true name was forgotten and she was instead named for the slave ship which brought her from her native Africa. Her enslavers taught her to read and write and particularly helped develop her religious life.

Phillis was, by then, already a published poet and the novelty of an African poet made her somewhat popular. She was no less enslaved, however, and her letter expresses the tension against the system of slavery as the colonists were beginning to look for a revolution to protect their freedom. She saw the hypocrisy in the situation, and compared her fellow slaves to the Biblical Egyptian slaves, admitting that they shared the same desire for freedom:

God grant Deliverance in his own Way and Time, and get him honour upon all those whose Avarice impels them to countenance and help forward the Calamities of their fellow Creatures. This I desire not for their Hurt, but to convince them of the strange Absurdity of their Conduct whose Words and Actions are so diametrically opposite, How well the Cry for Liberty, and the reverse Disposition for the exercise of oppressive power over others agree I humbly think it does not require the penetration of a Philosopher to determine.

Some of her poems include subversive cries against slavery, but this letter is explicit. She is "impatient" and "pants" for freedom, and notes how obvious the problem should be. It was published in several newspapers as early as a month later. It would not be another four years before she was granted her freedom.

Birth of Franklin: our first-fruits

"Franklin the Printer" by Charles E. Mills (c. 1914), from Library of Congress

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on what today would be labeled January 17, 1706 (January 6, according to the Old Style). As one of the most colorful Founding Fathers, Franklin also had an exceptional literary career beginning before his teen years as an apprentice to his brother, a printer. At age 16, his first editorials were published under the pseudonym Mrs. Silence Dogood (his brother printed these letters without knowing the author's identity at first).

Still a teenager, Franklin moved to Philadelphia and worked in print shops there. In 1728, he established his own publication, the Pennsylvania Gazette, and two years later he wrote the charter for what became the Library Company of Philadelphia. In 1733, he began Poor Richard's Almanack Throughout all his other accomplishments — diplomat, inventor, scientist, postmaster, for example — he remained most fond of his role as a printer. His lengthiest work as an author is his autobiography, inspired originally as a letter to his son. In that book, he describes setting up his print shop in Philadelphia (and the alleged state of the city) after returning from London:

We had not been long returned to Philadelphia before the new types arrived from London... We had scarce opened our letters and put our press in order, before George House, an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us, whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. All our cash was now expended in the variety of particulars we had been obliged to procure, and this countryman's five shillings, being our first-fruits, and coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any crown I have since earned; and the gratitude I felt toward House has made me often more ready than perhaps I should otherwise have been to assist young beginners.

There are croakers in every country, always boding its ruin. Such a one then lived in Philadelphia; a person of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very grave manner of speaking; his name was Samuel Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopped one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young man who had lately opened a new printing-house. Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sinking place, the people already half bankrupts, or near being so; all appearances to the contrary, such as new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain knowledge fallacious; for they were, in fact, among the things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known him before I engaged in this business, probably I never should have done it. This man continued to live in this decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, refusing for many years to buy a house there, because all was going to destruction; and at last I had the pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one as he might have bought it for when he first began his croaking.

Death of Phillis Wheatley: cease my song

She was born free and given a name lost to history but was renamed Phillis Wheatley when she was brought to the New World and enslaved. Her poetry helped her earn her own freedom, and it was as a free woman that she died on December 5, 1784. She was approximately 31 years old. She was buried in an unmarked grave in Boston's Copps Hill Burial Ground.

Though the first published African poet in the New World known to history, she was impoverished in her final years. After being granted her freedom, she remained with the Wheatley family for several years (during this period, she knew important men like Benjamin Franklin and corresponded with George Washington). She married shortly before the United States declared their independence.

Wheatley's final year proved difficult. She turned to part-time duties as a domestic servant and a teacher. The family's financial situation was dire, nevertheless, and her husband John Peters was imprisoned for debt. She planned to publish another book of poems in the hope that she would receive financial support from sponsors (as had been the case with previous books).

Through her work, Wheatley shows herself as a deeply religious and optimistic woman who adores nature. Though she occasionally seems accepting of her fate, recent critics have found more subversive questions about freedom and humanity. She can be a difficult poet to read and understand, but among her shorter works is "Hymn to the Evening":

     Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main,
The pealing thunder shook the heavenly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.
Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.

     Through all the heavens what beauteous dyes are spread,
But the west glories in the deepest red:
So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!

     Filled with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,
Let placid slumbers soothe each weary mind,
At morn to wake, more heavenly, more refined;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.
Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease my song, till fair Aurora rise.

Birth of Allston: censure not the Poet's art

Though he is most often associated with Massachusetts, the poet/painted Washington Allston was born on a plantation near Waccamaw, South Carolina on November 5, 1779. While in school in Rhode Island, he became interested in Art; by the time he graduated from Harvard in 1800, he was also interested in poetry and delivered a class poem.

After graduating, Allston spent some time at the Royal Academy in London. He then continued his studies in Paris and Rome before returning to the United States in 1809. Only two years later, he returned to Europe and there published his first book, Sylphs of the Seasons, in 1813. By 1818, he returned to the Boston area and remained there for the rest of his life.

In addition to the title poem in Allston's first book, Sylphs of the Seasons included several poems with religious themes, references to classical mythology, as well as lines dedicated to works of Art. Allston was considered by many to be among the first American poets attempting to show the Old World that creative culture existed in the United States. Moreover, there were some Americans who considered poetry a wasted effort. One of the poems in Allston's first collection, "To a Lady Who Spoke Slightingly of Poets," gets defensive:

Oh, censure not the Poet's art,
Nor think it chills the feeling heart
    To love the gentle Muses.
Can that which in a stone or flower,
As if by transmigrating power,
    His gen'rous soul infuses;

Can that for social joys impair
The heart that like the lib'ral air
    All Nature's self embraces;
That in the cold Norwegian main,
Or mid the tropic hurricane
    Her varied beauty traces;

That in her meanest work can find
A fitness and a grace combin'd
    In blest harmonious union,
That even with the cricket holds,
As if by sympathy of souls,
    Mysterious communion;

Can that with sordid selfishness
His wide-expanded heart impress,
    Whose consciousness is loving;
Who, giving life to all he spies,
His joyous being multiplies
    In youthfulness improving?

Oh, Lady, then, fair queen of Earth,
Thou loveliest of mortal birth,
    Spurn not thy truest lover;
Nor censure him whose keener sense
Can feel thy magic influence
    Where nought the world discover;

Whose eye on that bewitching face
Can every source unnumber'd trace
    Of germinating blisses;
See Sylphids o'er thy forchead weave
The lily-fibred film, and leave
    It fix'd with honied kisses;

While some within thy liquid eyes,
Like minnows of a thousand dies
    Through lucid waters glancing,
In busy motion to and fro,
The gems of diamond-beetles sow,
    Their lustre thus enhancing:

Here some, their little vases fiil'd
With blushes for thy check distill'd
    From roses newly blowing,
Each tiny thirsting pore supply;
And some in quick succession by
    The down of peaches strowing:

There others who from hanging bell
Of cowslip caught the dew that fell
    While yet the day was breaking,
And o'er thy pouting lips diffuse
The tincture—still its glowing hues
    Of purple morn partaking:

Here some, that in the petals prest
Of humid honeysuckles, rest
    From nightly fog defended,
Flutter their fragrant wings between,
Like humming-birds that scarce are seen,
    They seem with air so blended!

While some, in equal clusters knit,
On either side in circles flit,
    Like bees in April swarming,
Their tiny weight each other lend,
And force the yielding cheek to bend,
    Thy laughing dimples forming.

Ner, Lady, think the Poet's eye
Can only outward charms espy,
    Thy form alone adorning—
Ah, Lady, no: though fair they be,
Yet he a fairer sight may see,
    Thy lovely soul exploring:

And while from part to part it flies
The gentle Spirit he descries,
    Through every line pursuing;
And feels upon his nature shower
That pure, that humanizing power,
    Which raises by subduing.

Birth of Wilde: like the summer rose

Richard Henry Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland on September 24, 1789, though he moved to the United States when he was a boy. He grew up in Baltimore and was frequently ill throughout his childhood — a fact which, his earliest biographers suggested, drove him to books. At age 11, he was pulled from school to work in a store. After his father's death, Wilde's mother relocated the family to Augusta, Georgia. His mother further inspired his interest in reading. Trying to overcome his family's poverty, he studied for the bar and became a lawyer. By 1814, he was elected to Congress. Eventually, he moved to New Orleans, where he died in 1847, just short of his 58th birthday.

Throughout it all, he dabbled in his own writings and published translations of or articles on Old World authors like Tasso and Dante. Among his own original works is the poem "Stanzas," also known by its first line, "My Life is Like the Summer Rose":

My life is like the summer rose
    That opens to the morning sky,
But ere the shades of evening close,
    Is scatter'd on the ground — to die!
    Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see—
But none shall weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn life
    That trembles in the moon's pale ray,
Its hold is frail — its date is brief,
    Restless — and soon to pass away!
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The winds bewail the leafless tree,
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!

My life is like the prints, which feet
    Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
    All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface
All vestige of the human race,
On that lone shore loud moans the sea,
But, none, alas! shall mourn for me!

Freneau: the dangers of the sea

The Scotland-born John Paul Jones was given command of several ships, including his own Bon Homme Richard (named after Benjamin Franklin) as a privateer on August 14, 1779. One of the earliest poetic chroniclers of the young United States, Philip Freneau, wrote a poem about that day, "Captain Jones's Invitation" (later simplified as "The Invitation"):

Thou, who on some dark mountain's brow
Hast toil'd thy life away till now,
And often from that rugged steep
Beheld the vast extended deep,
Come from thy forest, and with me
Learn what it is to go to sea.

There endless plains the eye surveys
As far from land the vessel strays;
No longer hill nor dale is seen,
The realms of death intrude between,
But fear no ill; resolve, with me
To share the dangers of the sea.

But look not there for verdant fields—
Far different prospects Neptune yields;
Green seas shall only greet the eye,
Those seas encircled by the sky,
Immense and deep—come then with me
And view the wonders of the sea.

Yet sometimes groves and meadows gay
Delight the seamen on their way;
From the deep seas that round us swell
With rocks the surges to repel
Some verdant isle, by waves embrac'd,
Swells, to adorn the wat'ry waste.

Though now this vast expanse appear
With glassy surface, calm and clear;
Be not deceiv'd—'tis but a show,
For many a corpse is laid below—
Even Britain's lads—it cannot be—
They were the masters of the sea!

Now combating upon the brine,
Where ships in flaming squadrons join,
At every blast the brave expire
'Midst clouds of smoke, and streams of fire;
But scorn all fear; advance with me—
'Tis but the custom of the sea.

Now we the peaceful wave divide,
On broken surges now we ride,
Now every eye dissolves with woe
As on some lee-ward coast we go—
Half lost, half buried in the main
Hope scarcely beams on life again.

Above us storms distract the sky,
Beneath us depths unfathom'd lie,
Too near we see, a ghastly sight,
The realms of everlasting night,
A wat'ry tomb of ocean green
And only one frail plank between!

But winds must cease, and storms decay,
Not always lasts the gloomy day,
Again the skies are warm and clear,
Again soft zephyrs fan the air,
Again we find the long lost shore,
The winds oppose our wish no more.

If thou hast courage to despise
The various changes of the skies,
To disregard the ocean's rage,
Unmov'd when hostile ships engage,
Come from thy forest, and with me
Learn what it is to go to sea.

Beneficial to individual virtue and happiness

She started writing the book in 1846, but it was not until 1854 that Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps expanded her novel Ida Norman into a full, two-volume edition. In her preface, dated July 15, 1854, Phelps explains that it began as a series of narratives meant to impart moral lessons on her pupils at the Patapsco Female Institute in Maryland (an institution she founded; she dedicated the book to those same pupils, "wherever they may be, and in whatever condition of life"). She admitted that it is surprising that an educator, especially one who focuses on piety, would write something as base as a novel. Yet, she reminded her readers, "the Great Teacher" used parables in the Bible as well. Regardless of what people think of the story, Phelps wrote:

The author is happy in the belief that it will be, at least, a safe companion for the young, encouraging no morbid sensibilities or sickly fancies, and perverting no principles of morality; but that its tendency, so far as it may have any influence, will be found beneficial to individual virtue and happiness, and the true interests of society.

Critics agreed with her. The writer for the Southern Quarterly Review noted: "There is not a page, — scarcely a sentence, — in the work, that does not embody some useful lesson of instruction." Principally, her lessons are domestic ones: the behavior of children and parents, in particular. The title character Ida Norman is, like her brother, a spoiled teenager who must learn to live a purer life.

Phelps had also published a few textbooks on science and similar topics. As her fame grew as an educator, she moved from her home town in Connecticut to Troy, New York to Westchester Pennsylvania, to New Jersey and, finally, to Maryland. Her preface to Ida Norman was written on her birthday (she was born July 15, 1793). That same day in 1884, she died at the age of 91.

His cry of anguish sounding deep and clear

While wandering through a cemetery in Kittery, Maine, author Celia Thaxter came upon a grave which inspired her to write a poem. "Mary, wife of Charles Chauncy," the gravestone read, died at the age of 24 on April 23, 1758. Her poem, which first appeared in 1874, was titled "In Kittery Churchyard":

Crushing the scarlet strawberries in the grass,
I kneel to read the slanting stone. Alas!
How sharp a sorrow speaks! A hundred years
And more have vanished, with their smiles and tears,
Since here was laid, upon an April day,
Sweet Mary Chauncy in the grave away, —
A hundred years since here her lover stood
Beside her grave in such despairing mood,
And yet from out the vanished past I hear
His cry of anguish sounding deep and clear,
And all my heart with pity melts, as though
To-day's bright sun were looking on his woe.
"Of such a wife, O righteous Heaven! bereft,
What joy for me, what joy on earth is left?
Still from my inmost soul the groans arise,
Still flow the sorrows ceaseless from mine eyes."
Alas, poor tortured soul! I look away
From the dark stone, — how brilliant shines the day!
A low wall, over which the roses shed
Their perfumed petals, shuts the quiet dead
Apart a little, and the tiny square
Stands in the broad and laughing field so fair,
And gay green vines climb o'er the rough stone wall,
And all about the wild birds flit and call,
And but a stone's throw southward, the blue sea
Rolls sparkling in and sings incessantly.
Lovely as any dream the peaceful place,
And scarcely changed since on her gentle face
For the last time on that sad April day
He gazed, and felt, for him, all beauty lay
Buried with her forever. Dull to him
Looked the bright world through eyes with tears so dim!
"I soon shall follow the same dreary way
That leads and opens to the coasts of day."
His only hope! But when slow time had dealt
Firmly with him and kindly, and he felt
The storm and stress of strong and piercing pain
Yielding at last, and he grew calm again,
Doubtless he found another mate before
He followed Mary to the happy shore!
But none the less his grief appeals to me
Who sit and listen to the singing sea
This matchless summer day, beside the stone
He made to echo with his bitter moan,
And in my eyes I feel the foolish tears
For buried sorrow, dead a hundred years! 

Thaxter did not really know Mary Chauncy or her grieving husband who may or may not have eventually remarried. She might have predicted, however, that she would move to Kittery with her family in 1880. When she died in 1894, she was buried elsewhere, though other members of her family are buried in the same churchyard as Mary Chauncy.

Birth of Everett: God,—the Country,—Liberty!

Alexander Hill Everett was born in Boston on March 19, 1790 (his more well-known younger brother, Edward Everett, was born a few years later and became known as the "other" speaker at Gettysburg). He was 16 years old when he graduated from Harvard; three years later, he joined John Quincy Adams in St. Petersburg, Russia, as secretary to the legation. He continued in a similar role in the Netherlands until he became the ambassador at Madrid, Spain.

When Everett finally returned to the United States, he took on the role of editor and principal proprietor at the North American Review, to which he had contributed articles over the years. Among his critical reviews was an 1829 article on Washington Irving's biography of Christopher Columbus, which he called "the delight of readers and the despair of critics" because of its near-perfection. Everett also published two major books, Europe and America, on the respective political histories of both. He rapidly became a leading man of letters in the emerging world of early American literature.

One of his most interesting contributions was an essay on "Claims of Literature in America." In the article, he says that our role is to preserve the liberty which our forefathers established but, more importantly, we are left with "the easier task of enriching, with arts and letters, the proud fabric of our national glory." He writes that the American population, and its wealth of scholarship, is rapidly growing — enough that it will soon overtake England: "It will then belong to your position to take the lead in arts and letters... and to give the tone to the literature of the language." Not to be a hypocrite, Everett added his own contribution in 1845 with a book of poems, including "The Young American":

   Scion of a mighty stock!
Hands of iron,—hearts of oak,—
Follow with unflinching tread
Where the noble fathers led.

   Craft and subtle treachery,
Gallant youth! are not for thee;
Follow thou in word and deeds
Where the God within thee leads.

   Honesty with steady eye,
Truth and pure simplicity,
Love that gently winneth hearts,
These shall be thy only arts.

   Prudent in the council train,
Dauntless on the battle plain,
Ready at thy country's need
For her glorious cause to bleed.

   Where the dews of night distil
Upon Vernon's holy hill;
Where above it, gleaming far,
Freedom lights her guiding star,—

   Thither turn the steady eye,
Flashing with a purpose high;
Thither with devotion meet
Often turn the pilgrim feet.

   Let thy noble motto be
God,—the Country,—Liberty!
Planted on Religion's rock,
Thou shalt stand in every shock.

   Laugh at danger far or near;
Spurn at baseness, spurn at fear;
Still, with persevering might,
Speak the truth and do the right.

   So shall peace, a charming guest,
Dovelike in thy bosom rest;
So shall honor's steady blaze
Beam upon thy closing days.

   Happy if celestial favor
Smile upon the high endeavor;
Happy if it be thy call
In the holy cause to fall.

Birth of Solyman Brown, dentist-poet

Solyman Brown was born in Litchfield, Connecticut on November 17, 1790. A Yale graduate, he was a minister, teacher and, after moving to New York in 1812, a practicing Swedenborgian. Twenty years later, his career took a turn when he became a dentist. It was this line of work that made him famous. As a founding member of the American Association of Dental Surgeons, he also became an editor of The American Journal and Library of Dental Science.

Brown once wrote that "the proudest freedom to which a nation can aspire, not excepting even political independence, is found in complete emancipation from literary thraldom." In his own way, Brown tried to aspire to this kind of freedom. Combining his interests in dentistry and poetry, he published Dentologia, a Poem on the General Laws of the Teeth in 1838.

When man was fashioned by the Power Supreme,
Strange and mysterious as the fact may seem,
And cause of wonder; to his frame was given
Peculiar structure by the hand of heaven: —
...One common destiny awaits our kind; —
'Tis this, that long before the infant mind,
Attains maturity—and ere the sun
Has through the first septennial circle run,
The teeth, deciduous, totter and decay,
And prompt successors hurry them away.

Naturally, he became known as the poet laureate of the dental profession. Some of his other poems focused on more conventional themes. One of the best I found was "The Emigrant's Farewell":

Farewell to the land that my fathers defended;
   Farewell to the fields which their ashes inurn;
The holiest flame on their altars descended,
   Which, fed by their sons, shall eternally burn.
Ah! soft be the bed where the hero reposes!
And light be the green turf that over him closes!
Gay Flora shall deck with her earliest roses,
      The graves of my sires, and the land of my birth.

Adieu to the scenes which my heart's young emotions
   Have dressed in attire so alluringly gay;
Ah! never, no never can billowy oceans,
   Nor time, drive the fond recollections away!
From days that are past present comfort I borrow;
The scenes of to-day shall be brighter to-morrow;
In age I'll recall, as a balm for my sorrow,
   The graves of my sires, and the land of my birth.

I go to the West, where the forest, receding,
   Invites the adventurous axe-man along;
I go to the groves where the wild deer are feeding,
   And mountain-birds carol their loveliest song.
Adieu to the land that my fathers defended!
Adieu to the soil on which freemen contended!
Adieu to the sons who from heroes descended!
      The graves of my sires, and the land of my birth.

When far from my home, and surrounded by strangers,
   My thoughts shall recall the gay pleasures of youth;
Though life's stormy ocean shall threaten with dangers,
   My soul shall repose in the sunshine of truth.
While streams to their own native Ocean are tending,
And forest-oaks, swept by the tempest, are bending,
My soul shall exult, as she's proudly defending
      The graves of my sires, and the land of my birth.

Rowson debuts in Boston

Susanna Rowson had a varied career as a religious writer, poet, educator, and author of one of the highest-selling novels in the young United States. After that book, however, she did something different: she took to the stage as an actress. After performing first in Philadelphia, she debuted on the Boston stage on September 19, 1796.

The play, a farce titled The Farmer, was staged at the Federal Street Theatre in Boston (the same stage where the mother of Edgar Allan Poe performed). One reviewer said her performance "received many marks of public pleasure." Only two days later, she played a different role in a different drama, another only a few weeks after that. In fact, by the spring of the next year, she had performed at least 13 roles in as many plays - including one written by herself.

The hectic schedule may have been too much for her: within a year, Rowson quit the stage and shifted her focus to teaching. Though she was born in England and lived in Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania, she spent the rest of her life in the Boston area. Though she continued writing the occasional play, she never performed again.

Rowson's poem "Song: Independent Farmer":

When the bonny grey morning just peeps from the skies,
   And the lark mounting, tunesroop her sweet lay;
With a mind unincumbered by care I arise,
   My spirits light, airy, and gay.
I take up my gun; honest Tray, my good friend,
   Wags his tail and jumps sportively round;
To the woods then together our footsteps we bend,
   'Tis there health and pleasure are found.
I snuff the ffesh air; bid defiance to care,
   As happy as mortal can be;
From the toils of the great, ambition and state,
   'Tis my pride and my boast to be free.

At noon, I delighted to range o'er the soil,
   And nature's rough children regale:
With a cup of good home-brew'd I sweeten their toil,
   And laugh at the joke or the tale.
And whether the ripe waving corn I behold,
   Or the innocent flock meet my sight;
Or the orchard, whose fruit is just turning to gold,
   Still, still health and pleasure unite.
I snuff the fresh air; bid defiance to care,
   As happy as mortal can be;
From the toils of the great, ambition and state,
   'Tis my pride and my boast to be free.

At night to my lowly roof'd cot I return,
   When oh, what new sources of bliss;
My children rush out, while their little hearts burn,
   Each striving to gain the first kiss.
My Dolly appears with a smile on her face,
   Good humour presides at our board;
What more than health, plenty, good humour, and peace,
   Can the wealth of the Indies afford?
I sink into rest, with content in my breast,
   As happy as mortal can be;
From the toils of the great, ambition and state,
   'Tis my pride and my boast to be free.