Poems of Home and Country/Preface

by Henry B. Carrington

EDITOR'S PREFACE.

 

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IT is an esteemed privilege to have been entrusted by the author of our national hymn, "America," with the original manuscript of his poetical writings, which cover a period of nearly seventy years, for the purpose. of presenting them in durable form, as a legacy to his countrymen and the Christian world.

As an ardent student of comparative philology, the poet prosecuted its congenial pursuit until he mastered fifteen languages, and rarely found himself at loss for words by which to convey his thoughts and wishes, the wide world over, without the aid of an interpreter.

An intense appreciation of Nature and country was stimulated by a rare religious spirituality; and this imbued his life and writings with a sympathy for others which embraced all mankind. A vein of quiet humor, hardly less delicate than that of his congenial classmate Oliver Wendell IIolmes, brightened all contributions to social and literary entertainments; but he never failed to season such playful sallies and apt allusions with the charity that "thinketh no evil," and seeks only how best to impart happiness to others.

It rarely falls to the lot of man to reach the advanced age of Dr. Smith with intellectual vigor, youthful sympathies, physical vitality, and an accurate memory in full and healthy exercise. His poems illusstrate his life; and old and young alike, of whatever section, party, or creed, can find wholesome stimulant as well as a bright example in the pleasing, harmonious record.

The selections, their arrangement, and their relation to each other and to his life, have had his cordial sanction. Among the nearly three hundred and fifty odes. and poems thus grouped or distributed, is represented nearly every possible phase of domestic, social, religious, and civic life. Nearly sixty patriotic hymns, or odes, supplement "America;" and one of these, "Patriot Sons of Patriot Sires," or, "A Song for Young America," written on Washington's birthday, 1894, shows how tenderly his heart sympathizes with the youth of his native land. Another, bearing as its title, "My Native Land," was composed immediately after his return from a two-years' absence in India and other remote foreign countries.

Sacred Psalmody has been equally enriched by his contributions. One of these, "The morning light is breaking," was contemporaneous in origin with "My country, 't is of thee," both having been written while he was a student at Andover Theological Seminary, in 1832. Another, "The Lone Star," has a record that will endear his name to the countless millions of India so long as time endures. As his classmate's "Old Ironside rescued the frigate "Constitution" from demolition, so did this poem preserve in more enduring form than oak or bronze the mission altar at Telugu, India, in the year 1868.

Equally to be prized are others which have blessed many who never associated his name with the precious lines. A few are noted:—

• "Blest be the sacred tie that binds;"
• "Morn of Zion's glory;"
• "As fades the light of closing day;"
• "When shall we meet again, meet ne'er to sever?"
• The Prince of Salvation in triumph is riding;" and,
• "Sister, thon wast mild and lovely."

It has been a prompting incentive in this compilation to present the poet's life and work while he might be able to have some recognition of his good service for God and country. It should incite others to seek the assurance of a happy old age, through acceptance of the same lofty aims and unselfish methods which have. crowned his career, and that of his lovely companion, with purity and lustre.

Occasional notes indicate the special conditions under which many of the poems were written; and yet their breadth of thought and sympathetic expression enlarge their sphere of happy influence. A costly jewelled badge from the veterans of the Nineteenth Illinois Infantry, and a magnificent banner from the Grand Army Corps of Chicago, are among the many gifts, from all sections and from many lands, which remind him, and those who visit his modest home, that he is both loved and honored wherever he had contact with the world.

The selection made from his miscellaneous poems. to close the volume, indicates his early conception of the grandeur of our destiny as a Republic; and in the mingled grave and light the reader will find that a mature patriotism and a ripe piety have uniformly characterized his life.

The tributes of his friends, Whittier and Holmes, who have so recently passed from earth, and of Washburn, who, at the age of eighty, gives to the world his "Vacant Chair and Other Poems," are fitly associated with this greeting to the public.

The following is the poet Whittier's letter:

 

My dear Friend, I am thinking that thy birthday occurs about this time, and I cannot let the occasion pass without a word of kindly remembrance, I wish to give thee a hearty welcome to the octogenarian circle which everybody desires to reach, but is in no haste to do so.

The historian George Bancroft has been there for some time; and my dear friend and thy genial classmate Dr. Holmes is ready to join us, though I fancy he is willing to remain outside as long as possible. We shall all be proud of the acquisition of the Christian teacher and patriot poet, whose song of "Our Country" has been adopted by sixty millions of freemen. It has kept time to the marchi of Freedom. It has been sung around camp-fires, and the sick and wounded have forgotten their pain in listening to it. It has followed the American flag around the world.

I am sure, my dear friend, that we can both say that we are grateful to the Divine Providence which has blessed us in so many ways, and enabled us to feel, even at our age, that life is well worth living.

With love to thy dear wife, who, I do not forget, was my schoolmate in the old llaverhill Academy, and with every good wish for thyself, I am thy old and affectionate friend,

"Oak Knoll," Danvers, Oct. 18, 1888,

 

The letter from Dr. Holmes is next in order.

 

Dear Mrs. Smith,—I enclose a few lines for your husband's coming birthday, which I hope will be a pleasant reminder to him of an old classmate who holds him in great regard and honor. You will know how to present this, with the far more important offerings which will greet him on the coming most interesting anniversary.

Very truly yours,

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

 

To the Reverend S. F. Smith, D.D., Author of "My Country, 'tis of thee," on his eightieth birthday, Oct. 21, 1888.

While through the land the strains resound,
What added fame can love impart
To him who touched the string that found
Its echoes in a nation's heart?

No stormy ode, no fiery march,
His gentle memory shall prolong;
But on fair Freedom's climbing arch,
He shed the light of hallowed song.

Full many a poet's labored lines
A country's creeping waves will bide;
The verse a people's love enshrines
Stands like the rock that breasts the tide.

Time wrecks the proudest piles we raise:
The towers, the domes, the temples fall;
The fortress ever crumbles and decays,
One breath of song outlasts them all.

 

The third tribute which belongs to this honored. group is the following:—

 

To Rev. Samuel F. Smith, D.D., Author of "America." 1809–1888.

Dear friend of well-remembered years,
When youth was on thy brow and mine,
Thy smoothly flowing numbers seemed
A well-spring from a source divine.

With undiminished affluence still,
From the same fountain calm and clear,
Flow melodies as musical
As dropped upon my boyhood's ear.

Aye, holier are their undertones,
And richer with the lore of age;
The opening vista dowu the vale
Grows broader to the saint and sage.

As friends beloved reach, one by one,
Life's limit, three-score years and ten,
Thy fingers touch the old-time chords,
Responsive with their sweet Amen.

For never fairer is the vine
Than when its purpling grapes hang low;
And life's divinest hour is when
'Tis radiant in its sunset glow.

And thon dost stay the fleeting hours
To paint the blush ere it dopart,
And weave thy benedictions round
The holiest tendrils of the heart.

O heavenly gift of poesy!
And beautiful, when it doth bless,
As thine hath done, its fellow-man
In its embracing tenderness.

As oft a harp will murmur on
When the sweet song we sang is o'er,
And charm us with its memories when
The hand that swept it is no more,—

So will remembrance of thy life,
1ts four-score years of song and cheer,
Like music, linger when we miss
Thy presence from the pathways here.

 

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A letter from Rev. W. E. Towson, dated Osaka, Japan, March 13, 1895, was received April 8, just as these pages were going to press. He wrote that "the native Christians of Japan have adopted the music of 'America,' to be sung with words equivalent to 'God save our Native Land,' on all national days;" and that "selections from Beacon Lights of Patriotism' have. been translated and distributed, in tract form, to the Japanese army." IIe also desired that Dr. Sinith be advised of the following: "On a recent visit of two American lady missionaries to one of our men-of-war, after eight years of isolation in the interior of India. and Japan, they heard the band play 'America.' At the welcome sound of our national hynn, one wept for joy, the other fainted."

The author's immediate response is given on the following page.

 

ECHOES OF "AMERICA."

"What are these notes of melody that float around me here, -
The tones of love that in my youth broke on my ravished car,
The swelling notes from infant lips, the anthem of the free,
When childish voices trilled the song, 'My country, 't is of theo t

"My fate has led me far from home; new scenes salute my eyes;
New climes and seasons greet me here, new flowers, fruits, and skies,-
But still my heart, untravelled, turns, dear native land to thee;
I sing again the old refrain, Sweet land of liberty'!"

She spoke in sweet and gentle tones, her cheeks with tears. were wet;
"Dear native land, its light, its love, how can I c'er forget?"
She heard the strain; her bounding heart longed for the brave and free;
She breathed in ecstasy of love, "Sweet land of Liberty! "

Another pilgrim, far from home, heard the same echoing strain;
Her throbbing heart grew wild with joy to greet the thrill again.
She fainted as the glorious sound along the gamut ran,
"Is this the land of liberty?" "Alas, 't is but Japan!

But Freedom stooped to wipe the tears, to kiss the dead to life, —
Freedom that speaks the words of peace, healer of human strife.
Visions of love came o'er the soul; in faith, they rose to see
The tribes of all the peopled earth made, through the Gospel, free.

NEWTON CENTRE, MASS., April 9, 1895.