THE RECLUSE
verse, containing 109 pages of closely written poetry which was never published. Two of these poems were printed in Hemenway’s Gazetteer, Vol. two, pages 783–96; and the whole volume was extant, we are told, in 1871, being at that time in the hands of his descendants at Hyde Park. Fitch died February 29, 1812, the last twenty years being an invalid. His “Poems On Various Subjects, Serious and Satirical”, if now extant, would become a most valuable acquisition to the literary archives of the state. One of the poems in Hemenway is entitled “The House of Prayer Becomes a Den of Thieves”; and the other, which we reprint here is:
ON THE WOMEN’S ENORMOUS HEAD-DRESS
Written June 10, 1780.
If women’s true virtue consists in their length,
As some have conjectured concerning their strength,
What vast disproportion appears in this age
Compared with those matrons who late left the stage!
Those ancient chaste heroines, so clothed with renown,
Whose stature extended full just to the crown
Can ne’er be supposed with the moderns to vie,
With top-gallant royals extended so high.
Those ancient examples of virtue, it seems,
Compared with the moderns were phantoms of dreams;
The former like plants of low stature appear—
The latter, like cedars, quite darken the air.
Those feminine virtues, arising so high,
Like clouds without rain ascending the sky,—
Cannot their admirers a temple afford
Where these female deities may be adored!
Let some skillful barber, from taxes released,
Endowed with a reverence, serve as a priest—
With bundles of horse-manes and tails to resign,
With zeal, at the new-fangled deity’s shrine.
While the career of Jabez Fitch is both interesting and instructive to the student of early Vermont poesy—while he deserves mention in any adequate review of our literary activity during Revolutionary times; yet, after all, the real value of his poetic contributions remains uncertain, because only a very few of his compositions were ever put into print.
The real Pioneer of Song in Vermont—the first Poet Laureate of the state (rightfully so styled)—was Thomas Rowley, who, born at Hebron, Conn., 1721, came to Danby, Vermont, in 1768. He settled, as was customary in those days, on a farm, acted as clerk and surveyor for the original proprietors of the town; was first town clerk of Danby; served as a member of the Revolutionary “Committee of Safety”, was Danby’s first representative in the State Legislature, and was twice re-elected to that position; became very prominent and influential on the legislative committees of the time; and served later as Judge of the Special Court at Rutland. He was a member of Ethan Allen’s “Green Mountain Boys”, by whom his genius as a poet was quickly discovered; and he was soon recognized, far and wide, as the official bard of that organization. For many years Rowley was known as “The Shoreham Bard”, an epithet which is applied to him to this present day. Many of his verses were printed in the Rural Magazine (Rutland), and in the Vermont Gazette, (Bennington) and were published and republished widely by other periodicals
