To give full time to his literary work

The records at the Library of Congress are simple in recording the loss of one of its most talented employees: "Paul Laurence Dunbar, appointed from New York to position assistant in Reading Room, Library of Congress... Resigned December 31, 1898, to give full time to his literary work." Dunbar, who earned a $720 salary, left the job after one year and two months.

His main motivation for the job was basic: he needed money. Though his poetry had been popular, he was financially strapped and, if he ever wanted to marry the beautiful Alice Ruth Moore, he had to secure an income. Dunbar also hoped that access to the great Library of Congress would enrich his mind and, in turn, his literary output. His time there, however, was ultimately not positive.

After putting in a full day's work, Dunbar would attempt to work on his writing from home (by this time, more prose than poetry) but found himself exhausted. Two months into the job, he wrote to a friend, "I am working very hard these days, so if it is only for the idle that the devil runs his employment bureau, I have no need of his services." Adding to his busy schedule, Dunbar was also traveling to give public recitations. His throat was beginning to suffer; he attributed the problem to the dusty books.

Dunbar also missed his home town of Dayton, Ohio and that is where he focused on his "full time" devotion to his "literary work." Unfortunately, however, that period would be short-lived. By 1900, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Six years later, he was dead at the age of 33.

While working at the Library of Congress, Dunbar was also writing The Uncalled, a semi-autobiographical novel. Here's one scene:

"I've been hard at work all my life."

"Eh, that so? You don't look like you'd done much hard work. What do you do?"

"I — I — ah — write," was the confused answer.

Perkins, fortunately, did not notice the confusion. "Oh, ho!" he said: "do you go in for newspaper work?"

"No, not for newspapers."

"Oh, you 're an author, a regular out-and-outer. Well, don't you know, I thought you were somehow different from most fellows I've met. I never could see how you authors could stay away in small towns, where you hardly ever see any one, and write about people as you do; but I suppose you get your people from books."

"No, not entirely," replied Brent, letting the mistake go. "There are plenty of interesting characters in a small town. Its life is just what the life of a larger city is, only the scale is smaller."

Guest post: Revealing Fanny Fern

Fanny Fern’s famous first novel, Ruth Hall, was released amid much hoopla in December 1854. Fern, the pseudonym for Sara Willis Eldredge Farrington, had recently left Boston and had settled in New York to write, first for the Musical World and Times and then for the New York Ledger. In the few years leading to the release of her first novel, critics and fans unsuccessfully tried to learn her identity and gender. Speculation about just who Fanny Fern really was rose to a fever pitch, especially upon the much-awaited release of Ruth Hall. Mason Brothers, her publisher, struggled to print enough copies to meet the never-before-seen demand for an American novel, yet utilized one of the most-successful early advertising campaigns to fuel that demand. Early critics insisted on reading the novel as autobiographically-based, something Mason Brothers denied, even as they publicized these speculations.

When Fern left Boston, she left behind her first two editors. One of those, William U. Moulton, editor of the True Flag, made it clear that he was bitter and angry at Fern for several reasons. Moulton was not used to dealing with a business-minded woman and resented Fern’s requests for earnings increases (to bring her income closer to a living wage) and especially resented her “abandoning” Boston (and the True Flag) for the greater earning power and prestige to be had in New York City. Although Moulton gladly profited from Fern’s pithy writing when he had her under his commission, nevertheless, he seemed disturbed and annoyed that she failed to conform to conventional feminine expectations of the era.

On December 30, 1854, just a few weeks after Ruth Hall was released, Moulton did the unthinkable – he outted Fanny Fern. Moulton announced that Fern’s identity was that of Sara Willis Eldredge Farrington, the scandalized ex-wife of Boston merchant Samuel Farrington, and, moreover, posited that Ruth Hall was a biographically-based novel laced with unflattering and, perhaps, false, representations of her family and acquaintances, including Moulton himself and Fern’s famous poet/editor brother, N. P. Willis. Fern’s novel, indeed, was biographically-based, and she wrote it with the assurance of anonymity. But, once her identity was known, it wasn’t difficult for readers to identify possible true-life models for the novel’s characters. Fern was hurled to the critical, though fascinated, masses, which devastated her personally, but ultimately led to making her book a phenomenal success.

*Debra Brenegan teaches English and Women’s Studies at Westminster College in Missouri. She is the author of Shame the Devil (SUNY Press), a historical novel based on the life of nineteenth-century journalist, novelist and feminist, Fanny Fern.

Crane's Monster: an outrage on art and humanity

Julian Hawthorne concluded the story was "an outrage on art and humanity" in his review published in the Philadelphia North American on December 29, 1899. The work in question was The Monster (either a lengthy short story or a short novella) by Stephen Crane, published earlier that year.

Crane's story follows a black coachman named Henry Johnson and his employers, the Trescott family. When the Trescott home catches fire, Johnson puts himself in danger and saves the boy, Jimmie. In doing so, however, Johnson is horrifically disfigured (all we are told is that he has "no face"; Crane is deliciously coy on details). The story then shifts to Dr. Trescott, the family patriarch, in dealing with the "monster" who saved the life of his son but now causes revulsion and horror among the townspeople. The story is told largely through the eyes of the judgmental, rumor-mongering townspeople. Ultimately, the story is one of oppression and of societal shunning — but not the shunning of Johnson. In fact, the monster himself becomes less and less a part of the story, with only one scene of actual dialogue after the fire.

Julian Hawthorne, the son of the famous novelist, immediately drew comparison with another book published some 80 years earlier: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. "What is a man to do with a monster which exists owing to his own efforts?" Hawthorne asks in his review. Like Shelley's book, the book is really asking the ethical questions surrounding not the monster, but the man behind the monster. And Crane, in a style reminiscent of his poetry, leaves massive gaps for the reader to fill in — particularly in its final scene. This style was not appreciated by Hawthorne: "And if you believe it, Crane leaves the matter... without the faintest pretense of doing anything whatever to relieve it!"

The real question in the story is this one, asked not coincidentally by the judge of the town:

...the judge said, suddenly, "Trescott, do you think it is —" As Trescott paused expectantly, the judge fingered his knife. He said, thoughtfully, "No one wants to advance such ideas, but somehow I think that that poor fellow ought to die."

There was in Trescott's face at once a look of recognition, as if in this tangent of the judge he saw an old problem. He merely sighed and answered, "Who knows?" The words were spoken in a deep tone that gave them an elusive kind of significance.

But it is not the death of the monster Henry Johnson that concerned Crane (who, incidentally, died about seven months later). These are the enigmatic last lines of the story that so angered Hawthorne — and the passage should convince you to go back and read the whole thing:

The wind was whining round the house, and the snow beat aslant upon the windows. Sometimes the coal in the stove settled with a crumbling sound, and the four panes of mica flashed a sudden new crimson. As he sat holding her head on his shoulder, Trescott found himself occasionally trying to count the cups. There were fifteen of them.

Timrod: the Southron and his English bride

A poem came to Henry Timrod as an early Christmas gift; as he told a friend on Christmas day, "The Goddess knocked at my door... and handed me a poem titled 'Katie'." Within about a week of its composition The Charleston Mercury for December 28, 1861 published the love poem, "Katie":

It may be through some foreign grace,
And unfamiliar charm of face;
It may be that across the foam
Which bore her from her childhood's home,
By some strange spell, my Katie brought,
Along with English creeds and thought—
Entangled in her golden hair—
Some English sunshine, warmth, and air!
I cannot tell—but here to-day,
A thousand billowy leagues away
From that green isle whose twilight skies
No darker are than Katie's eyes.
She seems to me, go where she will,
An English girl in England still!

The "Katie" in question was Katie Godwin, a British woman who was also the sister of his own sister's husband. According to the poem, as she walks, nature responds and comes to life. They walk together through this pictorial scene, "through rippling waves of wheat" and "mats of clover sweet," first in an Ancient Saxon town, then in the town where she was born. Together they visit a church and other scenes from her youth ("Some spot that's sacred to her Past"). All the while, the world around is an ideal paradise:

Has not the sky a deeper blue,
Have not the trees a greener hue,
And bend they not with lordlier grace
And nobler shapes above the place
Where on one cloudless winter morn
My Katie to this life was born?
Ah, folly! long hath fled the hour
When love to sight gave keener power,
And lovers looked for special boons
In brighter flowers and larger moons.
But wave the foliage as it may,
And let the sky be ashen gray,
Thus much at least a manly youth
May hold—and yet not blush—as truth:
If near that blessed spot of earth
Which saw the cherished maiden's birth
No softer dews than usual rise,
And life there keeps its wonted guise,
Yet not the less that spot may seem
As lovely as a poet's dream...

Timrod, in the form of his narrator, soon realizes that he is a stranger in these lands across the sea and they are transported to his own native land in the American South. Bewitched by her beauty, he barely recognizes his homeland, however, and mistakes it for another town in England. This, he realizes, is precisely why he hopes she will join him there:

Such is the land in which I live,
And, Katie! such the soul I give.
Come! ere another morning beam,
We'll cleave the sea with wings of steam;
And soon, despite of storm or calm,
Beneath my native groves of palm,
Kind friends shall greet, with joy and pride,
The Southron and his English bride!

Timrod excused himself for the poem's highly romantic notions. As he described in a letter, "Katie and I are by no means on the lover-like terms implied in my verse. Nor indeed are we likely to become so." The real-life Katie was equally modest, noting that the poem "invested me with attributes I never possessed. Many is the time, that I have urged him to see me as I really was." Even so, Timrod and Katie Godwin married in February 1864.

2011: An American Literary Year in Review

With only a few days left on the 2011 calendar, it seems like a good time to look back at 2011 on the American Literary Blog. Blog statistics might be slightly skewed, but it looks like the last 6 months sums up the popularity of specific posts fairly well. Here are, so far as I can tell, the most popular posts from 2011:

10. Marriage of Edgar Poe (May 16, 2010)

In this longer-than-average post, I wrote about the marriage of Edgar Allan Poe (age 27) and Virginia Clemm (age 13), and whether or not the age difference was unusual in those days. More importantly, I wrote extensively about their (presumed) sex life as a married couple. I'm sure the lack of the salacious disappointed those who found the post through Google. Still, the Poes drew enough interest that two posts about their marriage made it to this top 10 list (see number 4 below).

9. Death of Stephen Crane and O. Henry (June 5, 2010)

To tell the truth, I have no clear indication that the bigger draw to this post was Stephen Crane or O. Henry. They share a death anniversary (1900 and 1910, respectively). Incidentally, since writing this post, I have read significantly more of the work of both Crane and Henry.

8. Alcott: in a month I mean to be done" (November 1, 2010)

This letter from Louisa May Alcott includes the promise that the second volume of her book Little Women will be finished in a month. The letter, dated November 1, sparked some interest from participants in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Like Miss Alcott, those participants vowed to complete a novel in 30 days.

7. Whitman's funeral and burial (March 30, 2010)

This post focuses on the funeral of Walt Whitman. More importantly, it includes a photograph of the poet's death mask; from what statistics tell me, it's the image that has drawn people (morbidly curious?).

6. And the papers will tell you the rest (November 7, 2010)

This political limerick by a very young Ezra Pound in 1896 drew big numbers when it was originally posted, and remains strong today. My guess is that internet users have had difficulty finding the complete text of the poem, which I have so kindly provided here — along with an adorable image of the young Pound with his mother. 

5. Guest Post: Death of Poe and Holmes (October 7, 2010)

This entry was last year's most-visited post, and it still remains respectably in the top five. Here, historical novelist Matthew Pearl delves into his interest in Edgar Allan Poe and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who both died on the same day (albeit decades apart). Pearl has included both Poe and Holmes in his fiction (The Poe Shadow and The Dante Club, respectively). I'm sure Mr. Pearl deserves much of the credit for the popularity of this post; then again, Poe's death always draws the curious (and it doesn't hurt that it was October).

4. Death of Virginia Clemm Poe (January 30, 2010)

The confusing relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and his younger wife Virginia Clemm continues to draw interest from all corners. In this post, I look at their marriage, Poe's drinking habits, and his obsession with sick women in his writing — I only hope that some of the many visitors who read it every day note that I have attempted to knock down the assumptions that his wife's death drove him to drink or to obsess over sick women in his writing! 

3. De Forest: The Great American Novel (January 9, 2011)

One of the first posts of 2011, this analysis of John William De Forest's call for the "Great American Novel" remains unsurprisingly popular. From the responses I got, few actually knew that De Forest originated the term/challenge for American writing. With the context, I think the term makes more sense (and, in a way, leaves its meaning slightly less daunting).

2. Prohibition, temperance, and T. S. Arthur (January 16, 2010)

I'm perpetually surprised by the ongoing popularity of this post which, to be honest, I threw in as a sort of filler. One of my earliest posts (January 2010), it celebrates the first day that Prohibition took affect by looking back at 19th-century literature and its temperance advocates. The majority of the post focuses on Timothy Shay Arthur's novel Ten Nights in a Bar-room (a book I highly recommend). I can't imagine, however, that Arthur or his book is particularly well-known today so the popularity of this post leaves me baffled.

1. Dickinson: I'm nobody! Who are you? (December 10, 2010)

By far, the most visited post of the year was this one on the birthday of Emily Dickinson, including one of her most-quoted poems. I'm a little surprised that the single most popular post of the year 2011 was from back in 2010! I suspect much of the traffic was driven there by searches for images of Dickinson (there sure aren't many authenticated ones) — but I'll take it! And, to be clear, this post had nearly double the number of hits as the second place winner so there really was no contest here.

I am admittedly pleased that Edgar Allan Poe has been such a draw; he is, and has been, a specialty of mine. It still appears that the majority of traffic to the American Literary Blog comes from Google searches, rather than regular followers of the site. No matter — I'm happy to see people are benefiting one way or another (judging by some search terms, I'm glad I've been so helpful with homework assignments!). Someone recently asked how long I spend writing each post. In response, I think I can safely admit that each takes an average of an hour to research and then another 30 minutes to write the first draft. I'm not sure if that's impressive or not!

Finally, I have to admit that even I am surprised that I'll be starting my third year with this blog in just a few days — I hope you'll stick around!

Field: the bliss of one sweet kiss

St. Louis-born poet and humorist Eugene Field dated his poem "A Song for the Christmas Wind" as December 26, 1885. In it, he personifies a gust of wind as it travels (the only indication it is Christmas is in the title):

As on my roving way I go
   Beneath the starlight's gleaming,
Upon a bank of feathery snow
   I find a moonbeam dreaming;
I crouch beside the pretty miss
   And cautiously I give her
My gentlest, tend'rest little kiss,
   And frown to see her shiver.
            Oho! Oho!
            On bed of snow
Beneath the starlight's gleaming,
            I steal the bliss
            Of one sweet kiss
From that fair friend a-dreaming.

I scamper up the gloomy street
   With wild, hilarious shrieking,
And each rheumatic sign I meet
   I set forthwith to creaking;
The sooty chimneys wheeze and sigh
   In dismal apprehension,
And when the rich man passes by
   I pay him marked attention.
            Oho! Oho!
            With gusts of snow
I love to pelt and blind him;
            But I kiss the curls
            Of the beggar-girls
Who crouch in the dark behind him.

In summer-time a posy fair
   Bloomed on the distant heather,
And every day we prattled there
   And sang our songs together;
And thither, as we sang or told
   Of love's unchanging glory,
A maiden and her lover strolled,
   Repeating our sweet story.
            "Oho! Oho!"
            We murmur low—
The maid and I, together;
            For summer 's sped
            And love is dead
Upon the distant heather.

Christmas: to bind them with the chain

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was born on Christmas Eve. Years later, she wrote her poem "Christmas." Typical for Chandler, the poem appeals directly to women. Also typical for Chandler, she infuses the poem with her Quaker-inherited anti-slavery sentiments:

Mother, when Christmas comes once more,
      I do not wish that you
Should buy sweet things for me again,
      As you were used to do:

The taste of cakes and sugar-plums
      Is pleasant to me yet,
And temptingly the gay shops look,
      With their fresh stores outset.

But I have learn'd, dear mother,
      That the poor and wretched slave
Must toil to win their sweetness,
      From the cradle to the grave.

And when he faints with weariness
      Beneath the torrid sun,
The keen lash urges on his toil,
      Until the day is done.

But when the holy angels' hymn,
      On Judea's plains afar,
Peal'd sweetly on the shepherds' ear,
      'Neath Bethlehem's wondrous star,

They sung of glory to our God,—
      "Peace and good will to men,"—
For Christ, the Saviour of the world,
      Was born amidst them then.

And is it for His glory, men
      Are made to toil,
With weary limbs and breaking hearts,
      Upon another's soil?

That they are taught not of his law,
      To know his holy will,
And that He hates the deed of sin,
      And loves the righteous still?

And is it peace and love to men,
      To bind them with the chain,
And sell them like the beasts that feed
      Upon the grassy plain?

To tear their flesh with scourgings rude,
      And from the aching heart,
The ties to which it fondliest clings,
      For evermore to part?

And 'tis because of all this sin, my mother,
      That I shun
To taste the tempting sweets for which
      Such wickedness is done.

If men to men will be unjust, if slavery must be,
Mother, the chain must not be worn; the scourge be plied for me.

As a side note, I found the last stanza, which switched from quatrain to couplet, very attention-grabbing. I couldn't find the original publication date for certain, but it was collected in 1836, two years after her death. Last year, my Christmas post featured Henry Timrod and the struggle to celebrate amidst Civil War.

Birth of Chandler: naught but changeless gloom

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler was born in Centreville, Delaware on December 24, 1807. Her mother died two days later and her father, unable to care for his daughter, left her in the care of her grandmother in Philadelphia. He died when young Margaret was about 8 years old. At 16, she began publishing poems locally. By age 23, she moved to the Michigan Territory but died only four years later in 1834.

By 18, her writing became more serious as she focused on anti-slavery pieces — likely inspired by her Quaker background. One critic concluded Chandler was "the first American female author that ever made the Abolition of Slavery the principal theme of her active exertions."

Often, Chandler's poems directly appeal to womanly sensibilities. In one of her poems, a child asks, "What is a slave, mother?" The child does not believe that people can be bought and sold and children can be torn away from their parents. "Alas, yes, my child," the mother answers. The child concludes it is "a sinful thing" and only a "savage and wicked" land would allow it. According to contemporary sources, Chandler's most famous poem was "The Slave's Appeal":

Christian mother! when thy prayer
Trembles on the twilight air,
And thou askest God to keep,
In their waking and their sleep,
Those whose love is more to thee
Than the wealth of land or sea,
Think of those who wildly mourn
For the loved ones from them torn!

Christian daughter, sister, wife!
Ye who wear a guarded life—
Ye, whose bliss hangs not, like mine,
On a tyrant's word or sign,
Will ye hear, with careless eye,
Of the wild despairing cry,
Rising up from human hearts,
As their latest bliss departs!

Blest ones! whom no hands on earth
Dares to wrench from home and hearth,
Ye whose hearts are shelter'd well,
By affection's holy spell,
Oh, forget not those for whom
Life is naught but changeless gloom,
O'er whose days of cheerless sorrow,
Hope may paint no brighter tomorrow.

"Ruthless Hall" and the "chronicler of Idlewild"

Mason Brothers knew they had a good thing in Fanny Fern when they asked her to write a novel to publish. When she started writing it, they knew it would be controversial — and also knew they could capitalize on that controversy. Still, even the Mason Brothers might have been surprised at just how successful Ruth Hall became.

Advertisements released before the book's publication predicted the book was "destined to make a sensation." Sure enough, within days of its release in December 1854, critics realized the book was mean-spirited ("Ruthless Hall," Grace Greenwood called her) and, more importantly, that it was autobiographical. Of course, the real problem was that one of the villains in the book, Hyacinth Ellet, was apparently based on "the chronicler of Idlewild," the very popular writer Nathaniel Parker Willis.

On December 23, 1854, the Mason Brothers began advertising that the author never claimed it was autobiography and that critics were looking for trouble. They never denied that it was Willis (it was, after all) but it wasn't their fault that critics recognized an unflattering portrait of that famous writer. The ads inevitably drew more attention to the controversy, and sales of the book skyrocketed, adding up to some 70,000 copies sold.

But the Mason Brothers could not have anticipated William U. Moulton, the former employer of Fanny Fern (and soon to become husband of author and poet Louise Chandler). His embittered response ended the controversy once and for all. More on that in just a few days.

Adams: December's face grows mild

By Gilbert Stuart, 1818

The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in December 1620. After more than a century, people in Massachusetts wanted to commemorate the day, choosing December 22 in 1769. Originally called "Old Colony Day," it eventually was renamed as "Forefathers Day" and was typically celebrated in song. In 1803,  a young United States Senator was chosen to write the song for that year. His name was John Quincy Adams, future President of the United States. His song was called "Hymn for the 22d of December":

When o'er the billow-heaving deep,
  The fathers of our race,
The precepts of their God to keep,
  Sought here their resting-place,

That gracious God their path prepared,
  Preserved from every harm,
And still for their protection bared
  His everlasting arm.

His breath, inspiring every gale,
  Impels them o'er the main;
His guardian angels spread the sail,
  And tempests howl in vain.

For them old ocean's rocks are smoothed;
  December's face grows mild;
To vernal airs her blasts are soothed,
  And all their rage beguiled.

When Famine rolls her haggard eyes,
  His ever-bounteous hand
Abundance from the sea supplies,
  And treasures from the sand.

Nor yet his tender mercies cease;
  His over-ruling plan
Inclines to gentleness and peace
  The heart of savage man.

And can our stony bosoms be
  To all these wonders blind?
Nor swell with thankfulness to thee,
  O Parent of mankind?

All-gracious God, inflame our zeal;
  Dispense one blessing more;
Grant us thy boundless love to feel,
  Thy goodness to adore.

Interestingly enough, Adams was not the only President who was also a recognized poet; James Garfield wrote several poems while in college, for example. Certainly, other writers were also politicians as well. There is even at least one White House servant who was an author.

Glory to our Southern cause

Illustration of the Battle of Belmont, from Nineteenth Century Battles, 1900

The Battle of Belmont during the Civil War was fought in Missouri in November 1861. Just over a month later, the Memphis Appeal for December 21, 1861 included a poem titled "The Battle of Belmont" by J. Augustine Signaigo. Though historians today find no definitive winner, the Confederacy considered it a victory, as Signaigo shows in his poem:

Now glory to our Southern cause, and praises be to God,
That He hath met the Southron's foe, and scourged him with his rod:
On the tented plains of Belmont, in their might the Vandals came,
And they gave unto destruction all they found, with sword and flame;
But they met a stout resistance from a little band that day,
Who swore nobly they would conquer, or return to mother clay.

Signaigo, born in Italy in 1835, moved to Tennessee and founded a newspaper. He later wrote an operetta about the Civil War, The Vivandiere. In "The Battle of Belmont," one of several war poems he wrote, Signaigo names several soldiers individually, including some who died:

Let us think of those who fell there, fighting foremost with the foe,
And who nobly struck for Freedom, dealing Tyranny a blow:
Like the ocean beating wildly 'gainst a prow of adamant,
Or the storm that keeps on bursting, but cannot destroy the plant...

The battle resulted in the retreat of the Union Army, including then Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. Signaigo says that their cowardice was so embarrassing, "their great grandchildren's children will be shamed to name that day." More importantly, the bravery shown by Confederates should be considered a warning to the Union and, further, should be considered proof that the Confederacy proceeds with divine blessing:

Let the horrors of this day to the foe a warning be,
That the Lord is with the South, that His arm is with the free;
That her soil is pure and spotless, as her clear and sunny sky.
And that he who dare pollute it on her soil shall basely die;
For His fiat hath gone forth, e'en among the Hessian horde,
That the South has got His blessing, for the South is of the Lord.

Then glory to our Southern cause, and praises give to God,
That He hath met the Southron's foe and scourged him with His rod;
That He hath been upon our side, with all His strength and might,
And battled for the Southern cause in every bloody fight;
Let us, in meek humility, to all the world proclaim,
We bless and glorify the Lord, and battle in His name.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!

When frontiersman Daniel Boone died in 1820, he was buried in Missouri. Later, his remains were moved to Kentucky but several decades went by before a monument was placed over his new grave. Regardless of the controversy over Boone's burial and re-burial, a Kentucky writer named Theodore O'Hara thought the lack of a marker was inappropriate. So, he wrote "The Old Pioneer"; it was published on December 19, 1850:

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
Knight-errant of the wood!
Calmly beneath the green sod here
He rests from field and flood;
The war-whoop and the panther's screams
No more his soul shall rouse,
For well the aged hunter dreams
Beside his good old spouse.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
Hushed now his rifle's peal;
The dews of many a vanish'd year
Are on his rusted steel;
His horn and pouch lie mouldering
Upon the cabin-door;
The elk rests by the salted spring,
Nor flees the fierce wild boar.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
Old Druid of the West!
His offering was the fleet wild deer,
His shrine the mountain's crest.
Within his wildwood temple's space
An empire's towers nod,
Where erst, alone of all his race
He knelt to Nature's God.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
Columbus of the land!
Who guided freedom's proud career
Beyond the conquer'd strand;
And gave her pilgrim sons a home
No monarch's step profanes,
Free as the chainless winds that roam
Upon its boundless plains.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
The muffled drum resound!
A warrior is slumb'ring here
Beneath his battle-ground.
For not alone with beast of prey
The bloody strife he waged,
Foremost where'er the deadly fray
Of savage combat raged.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
A dirge for his old spouse!
For her who blest his forest cheer,
And kept his birchen house.
Now soundly by her chieftain may
The brave old dame sleep on,
The red man's step is far away,
The wolf's dread howl is gone.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
His pilgrimage is done;
He hunts no more the grizzly bear
About the setting sun.
Weary at last of chase and life,
He laid him here to rest,
Nor recks he now what sport or strife
Would tempt him further west.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!
The patriarch of his tribe!
He sleeps—no pompous pile marks where,
No lines his deeds describe.
They raised no stone above him here,
Nor carved his deathless name—
An empire is his sepulchre,
His epitaph is Fame.

Incidentally, Boone's new grave is in Frankfort Cemetery, where O'Hara also is interred today after initial burial in the state of Georgia.

Reese: the battle done

Lizette Woodworth Reese died on December 17, 1935 after a long career as a teacher and poet. She was one month shy of her 80th birthday. The Maryland native published her first poem in 1874 when she was 18 years old. Including her posthumous editions, she was the author of 14 books (not only poetry, but also memoir).

Reese earned many honors throughout her life, including election to Phi Beta Kappa and an honorary doctorate from Goucher College. Just a few years before her death, she was named poet laureate of Maryland. After her death, a large monument to her was placed on East 33rd Street in Baltimore.

Perhaps Reese's most famous poem was "Tears," a sonnet first published in 1899:

When I consider Life and its few years— ,
A wisp of fog betwixt us and the sun;
A call to battle, and the battle done
Ere the last echo dies within our ears;
A rose choked in the grass; an hour of fears;
The guests that past a darkening shore do beat;
The burst of music down an unlistening street—
I wonder at the idleness of tears.
Ye old, old dead, and ye of yesternight,
Chieftains, and bards, and keepers of the sheep,
By every cup of sorrow that you had,
Loose me from tears, and make me see aright
How each hath back what once he stayed to weep:
Homer his sight, David his little lad!

And just to add one more, this one is called "A December Rose":

A rose is a rose all times of the year.
I have one out in my garden there,
In the deep grass out by the gray old stair —
A breath of June in December drear.

Ah, but its red is a little sere,
And nipped by the frost in last night's air!
A rose is a rose all times of the year.
I have one out in my garden there.

So, when Love comes, he is counted dear,
With his reed at his lips, in June-tide fair,
A-piping sweet, or with wind-blown hair,
And tears in his eyes in December drear.
A rose is a rose all times of the year.

Howl, battle-cry, cheer, and congratulation

Sidney Lanier was 25 years old and living in Alabama when he wrote Tiger Lilies, his only novel. He was living in Macon, Georgia, when he reported to a friend on December 16, 1867:

'Tiger Lilies' is just out, and has succeeded finely in Macon. I have seen some highly complimentary criticisms in a few New York papers on the book, and what was written in illustration of a very elaborate and deliberate theory of mine about plots of novels has been mistaken for the 'carelessness of a dreamy' writer; I would I knew some channel through which to put forth this same theory.

Though better known as a poet, Lanier had yet to publish a book of poetry by this time. In his preface, the author likens a new book to a baby. Unlike a newborn child, however, the book must enter the world fully mature, ready to "grasp swordhilt with chubby fingers" to defend its very existence. "A man has seventy years in which to explain his life," he wrote, "but a book must accomplish its birth and its excuse for birth in the same instant."

According to one contemporary reviewer, Tiger Lilies was "a spirited story of Southern life, beginning just before the war, and closing after the war." Its settings are in the mountains of Tennessee and the battlegrounds of Virginia (where the author himself had served as a Confederate soldier). But Lanier intended it to be a simple book: it is not about crime or murder, he wrote in his preface. "That it has dared to waive this interest," he explains, "must be attributed... wholly to a love, strong as it is humble, for what is beautiful in God's Nature and in Man's Art." Luckily, his method seemed appreciated. Only three months later, he told his friend a second edition was already planned.

Though much of the novel is enmeshed in the Civil War, modern critics are frustrated that Lanier makes little attempt to show the reality of war. In fact, Lanier's book was not as humble as his preface implied: the book was heavily loaded with symbolism (in one scene, a Confederate soldier shouts out a hurrah, before being shot in the mouth), making the comment about being a "dreamy writer" somewhat understandable. Perhaps his most visceral description on the battle field is the scene in which the "Rebel Yell" is presented:

From the right of the ragged line now comes up a single long cry, as from the leader of a pack of hounds who has found the game. This cry has in it the uncontrollable eagerness of the sleuth-hound, together with a dry harsh quality that conveys an uncompromising hostility. It is the irresistible outflow of some fierce soul immeasurably enraged, and it is tinged with a jubilant tone, as if in anticipation of a speedy triumph and a satisfying revenge. It is a howl, a hoarse battle-cry, a cheer, and a congratulation, all in one.

They take it up in the centre, they echo it on the left, it swells, it runs along the line as fire leaps along the rigging of a ship. It is as if some one pulled out in succession all the stops of the infernal battle-organ, but only struck one note which they all speak in different voices.

She sprang afraid, like a trembling maid

While shopping in New York, the Wisconsin-born poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox saw an opal for the first time. A friend suggested she write a poem about the gem, saying he was compiling a poetry anthology with that theme. The next day, December 14, 1886, she wrote "The Birth of the Opal":

The Sunbeam loved the Moonbeam,
   And followed her low and high,
But the Moonbeam fled and hid her head,
   She was so shy—so shy.

The Sunbeam wooed with passion;
   Ah, he was a lover bold!
And his heart was afire with mad desire.
   For the Moonbeam pale and cold.

She fled like a dream before him,
   Her hair was a shining sheen,
And oh, that Fate would annihilate
   The space that lay between!

Just as the day lay panting
   In the arms of the twilight dim,
The Sunbeam caught the one he sought
   And drew her close to him.

But out of his warm arms, startled
   And stirred by Love's first shock,
She sprang afraid, like a trembling maid.
   And hid in the niche of a rock.

And the Sunbeam followed and found her
   And led her to Love's own feast;
And they were wed on that rocky bed.
   And the dying day was their priest.

And lo! the beautiful Opal—
   That rare and wondrous gem—
Where the moon and sun blend into one,
   Is the child that was born to them.

According to her autobiographical The Worlds and I, it took Wilcox "perhaps a half-hour's time" to write; she was paid $25 for it. It was printed without her name, however, and when it later appeared in her collection Poems of Pleasure, some readers demanded evidence that it was truly written by her.

The poem is oddly able to commingle traditional sentimentalist women's themes with an almost violent sexuality: the "bold" lover is the sun, which chases after the uninterested moon "with mad desire." He is described as loving her and having "warm arms"; she, on the other hand, never seems to return that love and is referred to as "cold." Her hope to stay away from the aggressive male figure, however, will soon be "annihilated." When she is finally caught, she first chooses to spring away and hide, afraid and startled by "Love's first shock" (presumably their first sexual encounter and the end of her virginity, here labeled by maidenhood). Only after this encounter (and another referred to as "Love's own feast") do they wed on a rocky bed.

Despite the title, "The Birth of the Opal" is more about the opal's conception rather than its birth. The salacious nature of the theme was furthered when Wilcox recited the poem at private parties and public gatherings while she herself was pregnant.

Through fortune's bitterest hour

Photo by Randy Garsee, used with permission

The Charleston Academy of Music hosted an evening of "Dramatic Entertainment" on December 13, 1877 in support of the memorial fund for William Gilmore Simms, the Southern novelist/critic/poet who had died about seven years earlier. One year before his death, an aging Simms had written a special poem for the opening of the Academy, despite being essentially retired. Now, so long after his death, he was recognized as an important icon of South Carolina by the people of that state — including fellow writer and personal friend Paul Hamilton Hayne.

Hayne presented a long monody to Simms, simply titled in his collected works as "W. Gilmore Simms: A Poem." Somewhat shocked at how time has gone away so quickly, Hayne writes that "the past becomes the present to our eyes." The "dismal years" in between have been full of "anguished desolation," "veiled tears," and "despondent sighs." Their "curbless mirth" which once exited has since "vanished like wine-foam." But, summoning the "faithful eyes" that once beamed back at the assembled crowd, they remember the hero who can bring them back to happier days:

The man who toiled through fortune's bitterest hour,
As calmly steadfast and supremely brave,
As if above a fair life's tranquil wave.
Brooded the halcyon with unruffled breast;
The man whose sturdy frame upheld aright,
We meet, (O friends), to consecrate tonight!

In honoring Simms, Hayne recreates him in a form resembling a larger-than-life mythological warrior-poet: he was imbued with "imagination, robed in mystical flame" by angels and nymphs, who give him not only intellect but humor as well. Yet, all this manifested for one purpose according to Hayne:

All that he was, all that he owned, we know
Was lavished freely on one sacred shrine,
The shrine of home and country! from the first
Fresh blush of youth, when merged in sanguine glow,
His life-path seemed a shadowless steep to shine,
Leading forever upward to the stars...

Despite being "shadowless," however, Hayne acknowledges that Simms's life was full of "desperate and embittered strife." Still, Simms's soul was "unconquered and majestic" as he mad it his goal:

           ...not that he might rise
Alone and dominant; but that all men's eyes
Might view, perchance through much brave toil of his,
His country stripped of every filthy weed
Of crime imputed; in thought, word, and deed,
A noble people, none would dare despise.

The poem is, without a doubt, over the top (the italics above are his) and, to a degree, matches the same boisterous style of Simms's own poetry. Hayne refers to Simms as a "vanished genius," a "Titan" with "a Viking mien." When Simms's summoned spirit arises, Hayne refers to him as the "stalwart-statured Simms!" Certainly, the poem must have been inspirational enough to encourage monetary donations. The memorial fund eventually was large enough to commission a bust by John Quincy Adams Ward; it stands today at Battery Park in Charleston, South Carolina.

Riley on McCulloch: heroically voicing

Oscar C. McCulloch moved to Indianapolis from Wisconsin at a terrible time in the state's history. Hurt by a bank panic, its citizens were poverty-stricken and despondent. Becoming the minister of the Plymouth Congregational Church in 1877, he wanted to do something. He soon became one of the strongest charity organizers the state had ever seen.

McCulloch emphasized the need to focus on individual suffering, and to find the causes of poverty and other obstacles in life in order to address them. One of those causes, he initially believed, was genetic (early on, he was an advocate of eugenics) before realizing that anyone can fall on hard times, regardless of background. Seeking inspiration from his religion, he often called upon Biblical stories and parables of Jesus. "We can do nothing, unless we see, as he saw, the divine humanity in each one,— broken, disfigured, deformed, all but obliterated," McCulloch once wrote. "This, and this only, gives the impulse to personal charity... As each blade of grass differs from each other, so each nature is different from each other." He further saw inspiration in literature and his speeches are full of references to Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, and even Bret Harte.

When McCulloch died in 1891, Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley honored him with a poem for his funeral; it was printed in the Indianapolis Journal on December 12, 1891 (two days after McCulloch's death). Titled simply as "Oscar C. McCulloch," the poem asks its readers to avoid "sighs and tears" and, instead, honor him by continuing his work:

What would best please our friend, in token of
    The sense of our great loss?—Our sighs and tears?
Nay, these he fought against through all his years,
    Heroically voicing, high above
Grief's ceaseless minor, moaning like a dove,
    The paean triumphant that the soldier hears,
Scaling the walls of death, midst shouts and cheers,
    The old Flag laughing in his eyes' last love.

Nay, then, to pleasure him were it not meet
    To yield him bravely, as his fate arrives?—
Drape him in radiant roses, head and feet,
    And be partakers, while his work survives,
Of his fair fame,—paying the tribute sweet
    To all humanity—our nobler lives.

Everything you have heard, seen, or done

I suppose it seems to you as it does to me that everything you have heard, seen, or done, since you opened your eyes on the world, is coming back to you sooner or later, to go into stories.

Thus wrote Mary Wilkins Freeman on December 10, 1889 to her friend and fellow writer Sarah Orne Jewett. In the preceding decade, the Halloween-born Freeman had become a prolific author – the beginning of her long career. Both Freeman and Jewett were soon to publish their most famous works: A New England Nun And Other Stories (1892) and The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), respectively.

Freeman was 37 years old when she wrote her letter to Jewett and, by then, had published over 50 short stories in about six years. It is unclear if any of them were as autobiographical as her quote suggests. Certainly, her work reflected her life in New England and following the traditions of that region. Inspired by the new realism literary movement, her writing paints pictures of ordinary people: editor Horace Scudder complimented her "truthfulness," and another critic praised her ability to show the "pathos and beauty of simple lives."

Years later in 1921, she wrote a short autobiographical essay about her first published work, "A Shadow Family." After winning a $50 prize with it, she indulged herself by buying new clothes (ashamedly admitting she only gave away one-tenth of it):

However, I give myself the tardy credit of being perfectly conscious, whether or not I have succeeded, in caring more in my heart for the art of my work than for anything else.

Forten: Their works shall live

The Philadelphia-born Sarah Louisa Forten (a relative of the more famous Grimké sisters) was of many mixed races: Caucasian, African, and Native American. Her father was a supporter of William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator newspaper and her mother was a member of an anti-slavery society. As she grew up, Forten's home was opened to such well-known abolitionists as John Greenleaf Whittier.

Her own poems in support of the anti-slavery movement were published as early as 1831, often under the pseudonym "Ada." About the same time, "Ada" was used as the pen name of at least one other writer, leaving it difficult to authenticate some of Forten's works. One, "The Separation," is dated December 9, 1833 and was written after witnessing an abolitionist convention in Philadelphia, though the poem's content is not explicitly anti-slavery:

"Friend after friend departs."
And they are gone — that little band
Of friends — the firm and true!
We feel the void which absence makes,
With joy, and sorrow too.
We joy that duties call them forth,
Clad in an armor bright;
With shield of faith, their surest guard,
And sword of truth and light.
We bid God speed their parting steps,
And bless the righteous cause: —
Where'er the path of duty points,
May duty never pause.
And yet, we sorrow most of all
And from the heart deplore
That we perchance on earth again
May see these friends no more.
Their works shall live when other deeds,
Which ask a nation's fame,
Have sunk beneath Time's whelming wave,
Unhonored and unnamed.

Literary property will be as sacred as whiskey

During a trip to Canada, admirers in Montreal threw a banquet for Mark Twain on December 8, 1881. He took the opportunity to lash out against Canadian publishers pirating the works of authors in the United States.

I did not come to Canada to commit crime — this time — but to prevent it. I came here to place myself under the protection of the Canadian law and secure a copyright... This is rather a cumbersome way to fence and fortify one's property against the literary buccaneer, it is true; still, if it is effective, it is a great advantage upon past conditions, and one to be correspondingly welcome.

The real reason for Twain's trip, as he alludes to here, is to secure Canadian copyright for his book The Prince and the Pauper. One Canadian publisher alone, Belford Brothers, published some twenty editions of Twain's works, without paying royalties, and usually listing a cover price cheaper than authorized editions. Worse still, they were distributing not only in Canada but in the United States as well, making them a major competition. When he complained, the publisher told him "the law allows us to pirate them."

At least one biographer of "Samuel Clemens" notes that he took the pseudonym "Mark Twain" as a sort of trademark symbol that had better protection than copyright. But circumventing law was not the real issue. Piracy was a moral concern, and one in which governments should become involved.In his speech in Montreal, Twain tried to make his point using his characteristic humor:

It makes one hope and believe that a day will come when, in the eye of the law, literary property will be as sacred as whiskey, or any other of the necessaries of life. In this age of ours, if you steal another man's label to advertise your own brand of whiskey with, you will be heavily fined and otherwise punished for violating that trademark; if you steal the whiskey without the trademark, you go to jail; but if you could prove that the whiskey was literature, you can steal them both, and the law wouldn't say a word. It grieves me to think how far more profound and reverent a respect the law would have for literature if a body could only get drunk on it.

*Much of the information for this post comes from Writing 'Huck Finn': Mark Twain's Creative Process (1992) by Victor A. Doyno.

One of the nation's most valuable assets

His intention was to speak before Congress, but Mark Twain was not given the floor on December 7, 1906. Instead, he asked for the use of the office of the Speaker of the House, Joseph Gurney Cannon. There, surrounded by blue tobacco smoke, members of Congress visited Twain to hear him out. As he wrote in a letter that day, his desire was to "talk to the members, man by man, in behalf of the support, encouragement and protection of one of the nation's most valuable assets and industries — its literature." The subject in question was, more specifically, copyright.

Twain was part of a delegation of authors and publishers lobbying on behalf of a bill that would extend copyright on a published work beyond the lifetime of the author for another 50 years. It would have included protection not only of literary works but also of musical works.

Though he was not the head of the delegation, he was certainly among its most prominent members. Others included publisher Richard Rogers Bowker (vice-president of the American Copyright League), Edward Everett Hale (chaplain of the Senate, who noted his own work The Man Without a Country was already out of copyright while he was yet living), Thomas Nelson Page, and composer John Philip Sousa, among others.

Though Twain could not speak on the floor of Congress, he offered a statement supporting the bill to a committee. "I like that bill," he said, "...I think it is just. I think it is righteous, and I hope it will pass without reduction or amendment of any kind." He notes that a certain law dictates, "Thou shalt not steal." But, he wrote, "the laws of England and America do take away property from the owner."

The vote on the bill did not come up that session. Interestingly enough, it was during this trip to Washington, D.C. that Mark Twain debuted his now-iconic white suit. Newspaper reports focused not on Twain's lobbying, but his odd choice of winter apparel.

Stedman: the Guest of the Evening

When the New York-based Authors Club honored Edmund Clarence Stedman on December 6, 1900, it was done specifically to recognize the completion of his An American Anthology. The book was meant as an exhaustive study of American poetry in the century just ended; it remains impressive today. Even so, by then the Connecticut native had already left an impressive trail of literary criticism, biography, scholarship, copyright advocacy — and a few poems of his own.

That evening, Stedman addressed the rumor that the night marked his retirement from literature. "This would be exceptionally hard to do," he noted, admitting that he finally had enough leisure time to think about future writings. He never dreamed that he would ever "voluntarily cease from trying to perform the labor" — even now in his elder years. He went on:

Which of us toiler of the pen, if born with the art to write, does not know that it is as the last analysis of his love, his wealth, his religion, his solace, and that to it he must return, for better or worse, again and again, so long as breath is in him?

During this reception, a toast in the form of a poem was written by Stedman's friend Charles Henry Webb (who was but a few months younger than Stedman). It was titled "To the Guest of the Evening":

Dear Edmund, when I count the years
    That over us have rolled,
It seems to me I must be young,
    And only thou art old.
For, yet a private in the ranks,
    At best I close the rear,
Whilst thou dost ride in front bestarred, —
    A mounted Brigadier...

Ah, dearest friend and poet, best
    Of all who woo the muse,
I am not envious, but I'd like
    To stand there in thy shoes.
While all this mighty guild press round
    With words of love and praise,
None baying at thy heels, but all
    Enwreathing thee with bays.

And well they may, for hast thou not
    Been generous to them,
To each extending the glad hand
    And not thy garments' hem?
To thee they twang their rusty harps,
    Old men, and wonder why
Thou stretchest too the helping hand
    To youngsters such as I.

If asked, Webb writes, why Stedman performs these duties, offering always "the helping hand" or "words of cheer," he should be compared to zoo animals: Why do lions and tigers bark and bite? It is in their nature. Further, Stedman is presented as someone who is kind to all ("women as well as men"). Webb concludes that "I will drink":

A cup to him who from his heart
    Pours Poesy's choicest wine,
And as a critic never wrote —
    Or thought — one unkind line.

Birth of Bennett: Hats off!

The US flag had 35 stars when Bennett was born.

Henry Holcomb Bennett was born in Chillicothe, Ohio on December 5, 1863. After graduating from Kenyon College in 1886, he moved west to work in the railroad business before returning to his home town as a journalist. By 1897, he left journalist to focus on more creative writing, including short stories and poems (he also often illustrated his own works; he was a landscape painter as well). His other nonfiction work included essays about military life, Ohio history, and ornithology.

Bennett's most famous work remains his patriotic poem "The Flag Goes By," which was immediately included in several students' readers around the turn of the century. It is still taught in some Ohio schools:

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,
A flash of color beneath the sky:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,
Over the steel-tipped, ordered lines.
Hats off!
The colors before us fly;
But more than the flag is passing by.

Sea-fights and land-fights, grim and great,
Fought to make and to save the State:
Weary marches and sinking ships;
Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;
March of a strong land's swift increase;
Equal justice, right and law;
Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong
To ward her people from foreign wrong:
Pride and glory and honor,— all
Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!
Along the street there comes
A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;
And loyal hearts are beating high:
Hats off!
The flag is passing by!

Splendid blossoming promise of future fruits

She was born "Anne Drinker" on December 3, 1827, but her poetry is better known through her pen name "Edith May." She started writing in the 1840s and saw her works published in various newspapers and magazines. Her friends and fans insisted she publish a book and, accordingly, Poems by Edith May was released in 1850 in a high quality, expensive edition. A cheaper version was published four years later. The poet, editor, and frequent supporter of new talent, Nathaniel Parker Willis wrote the introduction to the book, and noted that these early works should be considered "promises" that better work was to come: "They are literally the fore-reachings of genius which anticipate the teachings of experience." Anthologist Rufus W. Griswold agreed, noting she was among the "most brilliant of our younger poets," but that a "critical reader" would see "splendid blossoming promise of future fruits."

Edith May's poem "A Song for Autumn":

Frighten the bird from the tasselled pine,
   Where he sings like a hope in a gloomy breast;
Tread down the blossoms that cling to the vine,
   Winnow the blooms from the mountain's crest;
Let the balm-flower sleep where the small brooks twine,
And the golden-rod treasure the yellow sunshine.

Muffle the bells of the faint-lipped waves;
   Let the red leaves fall; let the brown fawn leap
Through the golden fern; in the weedy caves
   Let the snake coil up for his winter sleep.
Let the ringed snake coil where the earth is drear,
Like a grief that grows cold as the heart grows sere.

Pluck down the rainbow; make steadfast the throne
   Of the star that was faint in the summer night;
Let the white daughters of wave and sun
   Weep as they cloister the pale, pale light;
Let the mist-wreaths brood o'er the valley-bound rills,
And the sky trail its mantle far over the hills.

Plunder the wrecks of the forest, and blind
   The waters that picture its ruinous dome.
Wildly, oh wildly, most sorrowful wind!
   Chant, like a prophet of terror to come—
Like a Niobe stricken with infinite dread,
Leave the spirit of Beauty alone with her dead.

Throne the white Naiad that filleth her urn
   At the fount of the sun; on the curtain of night
Paint wild Auroras like visions that burn,
   Rosy Auroras, like dreams of delight
Mantle the earth, fold the robe on her breast,
While the sky, like a seraph, hangs over her rest.

The "promise" seen by Willis and Griswold was never fulfilled. As one newspaper reported, she soon "lost her reason" and was institutionalized in an asylum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (where the poet Charles Fenno Hoffman was also sent). She was finally released in 1885 and died, forgotten despite her early promise, in 1903.

No more shall they in bondage toil

A reverend wrote down the words of a spiritual song he overheard sung by escaped enslaved people at Fortress Monroe in Virginia (recently named a National Park unit). A correspondent copied those words in a letter dated December 2, 1861, which he sent to editors at the New York Tribune, who published the text for the first time. The song soon became well-known among both white and black Americans. The newspaper gave it the title "Let My People Go: A Song of the 'Contrabands,'" though it is also called "Go Down, Moses":

When Israel was in Egypt's land,
               O let my people go!
Oppressed so hard they could not stand,
               O let my people go!

Chorus:  O go down, Moses,
               Away down in Egypt's land;
               And tell King Pharaoh
               To let my people go!

Thus saith the Lord bold Moses said,
               O let my people go!
If not, I'll smite your first-born dead,
               O let my people go!

No more shall they in bondage toil,
               O let my people go!
Let them come out with Egypt's spoil,
               O let my people go!

Then Israel out of Egypt came
               O let my people go!
And left the proud oppressive land,
               O let my people go!

O 'twas a dark and dismal night,
               O let my people go!
When Moses led the Israelites,
               O let my people go!

'Twas good old Moses, and Aaron, too,
               O let my people go!
'Twas they that led the armies through,
               O let my people go!

The Lord told Moses what to do,
               O let my people go!
To lead the children of Israel through,
               O let my people go!

O come along, Moses, you'll not get lost,
               O let my people go!
Stretch out your rod and come across,
               O let my people go!

As Israel stood by the water side,
               O let my people go!
At the command of God it did divide,
               O let my people go!

When they had reached the other shore,
               O let my people go!
They sang a song of triumph o'er,
               O let my people go!

Pharaoh said he would go across,
               O let my people go!
But Pharaoh and his host were lost,
               O let my people go!

O Moses, the cloud shall cleave the way,
               O let my people go!
A fire by night, a shade by day,
               O let my people go!

You'll not get lost in the wilderness,
               O let my people go!
With a lighted candle in your breast,
               O let my people go!

Jordan shall stand up like a wall,
               O let my people go!
And the walls of Jericho shall fall,
               O let my people go!

Your foe shall not before you stand,
               O let my people go!
And you'll possess fair Canaan's land,
               O let my people go!

'Twas just about in harvest time,
               O let my people go!
When Joshua led his host Divine,
               O let my people go!

O let us all from bondage flee,
               O let my people go!
And let us all in Christ be free,
               O let my people go!

We need not always weep and mourn,
               O let my people go!
And wear these Slavery chains forlorn,
               O let my people go!

This world's a wilderness of woe,
               O let my people go!
O let us on to Canaan go,
               O let my people go!

What a beautiful morning that will be!
               O let my people go!
When time breaks up in eternity,
               O let my people go!