Poems of American History

By DigiCat

The book "Poems of American History" is filled with hundreds of poems written from the within, on the spot, and those written long afterward. This book contains poems of ancient and historical relevance. It describes events that led to the discovery of America before the breakout of the First World War in 1914.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DigiCat
• Release date: Jun 3, 2022
• ISBN: 8596547043263

Book preview

Poems of American History

EAN 8596547043263

DigiCat, 2022

Contact: [e-mail]

Table of Contents

PART I THE COLONIAL PERIOD

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

PART II THE REVOLUTION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

PART III THE PERIOD OF GROWTH

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

PART IV THE CIVIL WAR

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

PART V THE PERIOD OF EXPANSION

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

INDEX OF AUTHORS

INDEX OF FIRST LINES

INDEX OF TITLES

---

PART I

THE COLONIAL PERIOD

Table of Contents

AMERICA

Oh, who has not heard of the Northmen of yore,

How flew, like the sea-bird, their sails from the shore;

How westward they stayed not till, breasting the brine,

They hailed Narragansett, the land of the vine?

Then the war-songs of Rollo, his pennon and glaive,

Were heard as they danced by the moon-lighted wave,

And their golden-haired wives bore them sons of the soil,

While raged with the redskins their feud and turmoil.

And who has not seen, mid the summer's gay crowd,

That old pillared tower of their fortalice proud,

How it stands solid proof of the sea chieftains' reign

Ere came with Columbus those galleys of Spain?

'Twas a claim for their kindred: an earnest of sway,—

By the stout-hearted Cabot made good in its day,—

Of the Cross of St. George on the Chesapeake's tide,

Where lovely Virginia arose like a bride.

Came the pilgrims with Winthrop; and, saint of the West,

Came Robert of Jamestown, the brave and the blest;

Came Smith, the bold rover, and Rolfe—with his ring,

To wed sweet Matoäka, child of a king.

Undaunted they came, every peril to dare,

Of tribes fiercer far than the wolf in his lair;

Of the wild irksome woods, where in ambush they lay;

Of their terror by night and their arrow by day.

And so where our capes cleave the ice of the poles,

Where groves of the orange scent sea-coast and shoals,

Where the froward Atlantic uplifts its last crest,

Where the sun, when he sets, seeks the East from the West.

The clime that from ocean to ocean expands,

The fields to the snow-drifts that stretch from the sands,

The wilds they have conquered of mountain and plain,

Those pilgrims have made them fair Freedom's domain.

And the bread of dependence if proudly they spurned,

'Twas the soul of their fathers that kindled and burned,

'Twas the blood of the Saxon within them that ran;

They held—to be free is the birthright of man.

So oft the old lion, majestic of mane,

Sees cubs of his cave breaking loose from his reign;

Unmeet to be his if they braved not his eye,

He gave them the spirit his own to defy.

Arthur Cleveland Coxe.

---

POEMS OF AMERICAN HISTORY

CHAPTER I

Table of Contents

THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

Bjarni, son of Herjulf, speeding westward from Iceland in 986, to spend the Yuletide in Greenland with his father, encountered foggy weather and steered by guesswork for many days. At last he sighted land, but a land covered with dense woods,—not at all the land of fiords and glaciers he was seeking. So, without stopping, he turned his prow to the north, and ten days later was telling his story to the listening circle before the blazing logs in his father's house at Brattahlid. The tale came, in time, to the ears of Leif, the famous son of Red Eric, and in the year 1000 he set out from Greenland, with a crew of thirty-five, in search of the strange land to the south. He reached the barren coast of Labrador and named it Helluland, or slate-land; south of it was a coast so densely wooded that he named it Markland, or woodland. At last he ran his ship ashore at a spot where a river, issuing from a lake, fell into the sea. Wild grapes abounded, and he named the country Vinland.

THE STORY OF VINLAND

[1]

From Psalm of the West

Far spread, below,

The sea that fast hath locked in his loose flow

All secrets of Atlantis' drownèd woe

Lay bound about with night on every hand,

Save down the eastern brink a shining band

Of day made out a little way from land.

Then from that shore the wind upbore a cry:

Thou Sea, thou Sea of Darkness! why, oh why

Dost waste thy West in unthrift mystery?

But ever the idiot sea-mouths foam and fill,

And never a wave doth good for man, or ill,

And Blank is king, and Nothing hath his will;

And like as grim-beaked pelicans level file

Across the sunset toward their nightly isle

On solemn wings that wave but seldom while,

So leanly sails the day behind the day

To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray,

And down its mortal fissures sinks away.

Master, Master, break this ban:

The wave lacks Thee.

Oh, is it not to widen man

Stretches the sea?

Oh, must the sea-bird's idle van

Alone be free?

Into the Sea of the Dark doth creep

Björne's pallid sail,

As the face of a walker in his sleep,

Set rigid and most pale,

About the night doth peer and peep

In a dream of an ancient tale.

Lo, here is made a hasty cry:

Land, land, upon the west!—

God save such land! Go by, go by:

Here may no mortal rest,

Where this waste hell of slate doth lie

And grind the glacier's breast.

The sail goeth limp: hey, flap and strain!

Round eastward slanteth the mast;

As the sleep-walker waked with pain,

White-clothed in the midnight blast,

Doth stare and quake, and stride again

To houseward all aghast.

Yet as—A ghost! his household cry:

He hath followed a ghost in flight.

Let us see the ghost—his household fly

With lamps to search the night—

So Norsemen's sails run out and try

The Sea of the Dark with light.

Stout Are Marson, southward whirled

From out the tempest's hand,

Doth skip the sloping of the world

To Huitramannaland,

Where Georgia's oaks with moss-beards curled

Wave by the shining strand,

And sway in sighs from Florida's Spring

Or Carolina's Palm—

What time the mocking-bird doth bring

The woods his artist's-balm,

Singing the Song of Everything

Consummate-sweet and calm—

Land of large merciful-hearted skies,

Big bounties, rich increase,

Green rests for Trade's blood-shotten eyes,

For o'er-beat brains surcease,

For Love the dear woods' sympathies,

For Grief the wise woods' peace.

For Need rich givings of hid powers

In hills and vales quick-won,

For Greed large exemplary flowers

That ne'er have toiled nor spun,

For Heat fair-tempered winds and showers,

For Cold the neighbor sun.

* * * * *

Then Leif, bold son of Eric the Red,

To the South of the West doth flee—

Past slaty Helluland is sped,

Past Markland's woody lea,

Till round about fair Vinland's head,

Where Taunton helps the sea,

The Norseman calls, the anchor falls,

The mariners hurry a-strand:

They wassail with fore-drunken skals

Where prophet wild grapes stand;

They lift the Leifsbooth's hasty walls,

They stride about the land—

New England, thee! whose ne'er-spent wine

As blood doth stretch each vein,

And urge thee, sinewed like thy vine,

Through peril and all pain

To grasp Endeavor's towering Pine,

And, once ahold, remain—

Land where the strenuous-handed Wind

With sarcasm of a friend

Doth smite the man would lag behind

To frontward of his end;

Yea, where the taunting fall and grind

Of Nature's Ill doth send

Such mortal challenge of a clown

Rude-thrust upon the soul,

That men but smile where mountains frown

Or scowling waters roll,

And Nature's front of battle down

Do hurl from pole to pole.

Now long the Sea of Darkness glimmers low

With sails from Northland flickering to and fro—

Thorwald, Karlsefne, and those twin heirs of woe,

Hellboge and Finnge, in treasonable bed

Slain by the ill-born child of Eric Red,

Freydisa false. Till, as much time is fled,

Once more the vacant airs with darkness fill,

Once more the wave doth never good nor ill,

And Blank is king, and Nothing works his will;

And leanly sails the day behind the day

To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray,

And down its mortal fissures sinks away,

As when the grim-beaked pelicans level file

Across the sunset to their seaward isle

On solemn wings that wave but seldomwhile.

Sidney Lanier.

Leif and his crew spent the winter in Vinland, and in the following spring took back to Greenland news of the pleasant country they had discovered. Other voyages followed, but the newcomers became embroiled with the natives, who attacked them in such numbers that all projects of colonization were abandoned; and finally, in 1012, the Norsemen sailed away forever from this land of promise.

THE NORSEMEN

[On a fragment of statue found at Bradford.]

Gift from the cold and silent Past!

A relic to the present cast;

Left on the ever-changing strand

Of shifting and unstable sand,

Which wastes beneath the steady chime

And beating of the waves of Time!

Who from its bed of primal rock

First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block?

Whose hand, of curious skill untaught,

Thy rude and savage outline wrought?

The waters of my native stream

Are glancing in the sun's warm beam;

From sail-urged keel and flashing oar

The circles widen to its shore;

And cultured field and peopled town

Slope to its willowed margin down.

Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing

The home-life sound of school-bells ringing,

And rolling wheel, and rapid jar

Of the fire-winged and steedless car,

And voices from the wayside near

Come quick and blended on my ear,—

A spell is in this old gray stone,

My thoughts are with the Past alone!

A change!—The steepled town no more

Stretches along the sail-thronged shore;

Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud,

Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud:

Spectrally rising where they stood,

I see the old, primeval wood;

Dark, shadow-like, on either hand

I see its solemn waste expand;

It climbs the green and cultured hill,

It arches o'er the valley's rill,

And leans from cliff and crag to throw

Its wild arms o'er the stream below.

Unchanged, alone, the same bright river

Flows on, as it will flow forever!

I listen, and I hear the low

Soft ripple where its waters go;

I hear behind the panther's cry,

The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by,

And shyly on the river's brink

The deer is stooping down to drink.

But hark!—from wood and rock flung back,

What sound comes up the Merrimac?

What sea-worn barks are those which throw

The light spray from each rushing prow?

Have they not in the North Sea's blast

Bowed to the waves the straining mast?

Their frozen sails the low, pale sun

Of Thulë's night has shone upon;

Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep

Round icy drift, and headland steep.

Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters

Have watched them fading o'er the waters,

Lessening through driving mist and spray,

Like white-winged sea-birds on their way!

Onward they glide,—and now I view

Their iron-armed and stalwart crew;

Joy glistens in each wild blue eye,

Turned to green earth and summer sky.

Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside

Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide;

Bared to the sun and soft warm air,

Streams back the Northmen's yellow hair.

I see the gleam of axe and spear,

A sound of smitten shields I hear,

Keeping a harsh and fitting time

To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme;

Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung,

His gray and naked isles among;

Or muttered low at midnight hour

Round Odin's mossy stone of power.

The wolf beneath the Arctic moon

Has answered to that startling rune;

The Gael has heard its stormy swell,

The light Frank knows its summons well;

Iona's sable-stoled Culdee

Has heard it sounding o'er the sea,

And swept, with hoary beard and hair,

His altar's foot in trembling prayer!

'Tis past,—the 'wildering vision dies

In darkness on my dreaming eyes!

The forest vanishes in air,

Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare;

I hear the common tread of men,

And hum of work-day life again;

The mystic relic seems alone

A broken mass of common stone;

And if it be the chiselled limb

Of Berserker or idol grim,

A fragment of Valhalla's Thor,

The stormy Viking's god of War,

Or Praga of the Runic lay,

Or love-awakening Siona,

I know not,—for no graven line,

Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign,

Is left me here, by which to trace

Its name, or origin, or place.

Yet, for this vision of the Past,

This glance upon its darkness cast,

My spirit bows in gratitude

Before the Giver of all good,

Who fashioned so the human mind,

That, from the waste of Time behind,

A simple stone, or mound of earth,

Can summon the departed forth;

Quicken the Past to life again,

The Present lose in what hath been,

And in their primal freshness show

The buried forms of long ago.

As if a portion of that Thought

By which the Eternal will is wrought,

Whose impulse fills anew with breath

The frozen solitude of Death,

To mortal mind were sometimes lent,

To mortal musings sometimes sent,

To whisper—even when it seems

But Memory's fantasy of dreams—

Through the mind's waste of woe and sin,

Of an immortal origin!

John Greenleaf Whittier.

This, in mere outline, is the story of Vinland, as told in the Icelandic Chronicle. Of its substantial accuracy there can be little doubt. Many proofs of Norse occupation have been found on the shores of Massachusetts Bay. The skeleton in armor, however, which was unearthed in 1835 near Fall River, Mass., was probably that of an Indian.

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR

"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!

Who, with thy hollow breast

Still in rude armor drest,

Comest to daunt me!

Wrapt not in Eastern balms,

But with thy fleshless palms

Stretched, as if asking alms,

Why dost thou haunt me?"

Then, from those cavernous eyes

Pale flashes seemed to rise,

As when the Northern skies

Gleam in December;

And, like the water's flow

Under December's snow,

Came a dull voice of woe

From the heart's chamber.

"I was a Viking old!

My deeds, though manifold,

No Skald in song has told,

No Saga taught thee!

Take heed, that in thy verse

Thou dost the tale rehearse,

Else dread a dead man's curse;

For this I sought thee.

"Far in the Northern Land,

By the wild Baltic's strand,

I, with my childish hand,

Tamed the gerfalcon;

And, with my skates fast-bound,

Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,

That the poor whimpering hound

Trembled to walk on.

"Oft to his frozen lair

Tracked I the grisly bear,

While from my path the hare

Fled like a shadow;

Oft through the forest dark

Followed the were-wolf's bark,

Until the soaring lark

Sang from the meadow.

"But when I older grew,

Joining a corsair's crew,

O'er the dark sea I flew

With the marauders.

Wild was the life we led;

Many the souls that sped,

Many the hearts that bled,

By our stern orders.

"Many a wassail-bout

Wore the long winter out;

Often our midnight shout

Set the cocks crowing,

As we the Berserk's tale

Measured in cups of ale,

Draining the oaken pail,

Filled to o'erflowing.

"Once as I told in glee

Tales of the stormy sea,

Soft eyes did gaze on me,

Burning yet tender;

And as the white stars shine

On the dark Norway pine,

On that dark heart of mine

Fell their soft splendor.

"I wooed the blue-eyed maid,

Yielding, yet half afraid,

And in the forest's shade

Our vows were plighted.

Under its loosened vest

Fluttered her little breast,

Like birds within their nest

By the hawk frighted.

"Bright in her father's hall

Shields gleamed upon the wall,

Loud sang the minstrels all,

Chanting his glory;

When of old Hildebrand

I asked his daughter's hand,

Mute did the minstrels stand

To hear my story.

"While the brown ale he quaffed,

Loud then the champion laughed,

And as the wind-gusts waft

The sea-foam brightly,

So the loud laugh of scorn,

Out of those lips unshorn,

From the deep drinking-horn

Blew the foam lightly.

"She was a Prince's child,

I but a Viking wild,

And though she blushed and smiled,

I was discarded!

Should not the dove so white

Follow the sea-mew's flight,

Why did they leave that night

Her nest unguarded?

"Scarce had I put to sea,

Bearing the maid with me,

Fairest of all was she

Among the Norsemen!

When on the white sea-strand,

Waving his armèd hand,

Saw we old Hildebrand,

With twenty horsemen.

"Then launched they to the blast,

Bent like a reed each mast,

Yet we were gaining fast,

When the wind failed us;

And with a sudden flaw

Came round the gusty Skaw,

So that our foe we saw

Laugh as he hailed us.

"And as to catch the gale

Round veered the flapping sail,

'Death!' was the helmsman's hail,

'Death without quarter!'

Mid-ships with iron keel

Struck we her ribs of steel!

Down her black hulk did reel

Through the black water!

"As with his wings aslant,

Sails the fierce cormorant,

Seeking some rocky haunt,

With his prey laden.—

So toward the open main,

Beating to sea again,

Through the wild hurricane,

Bore I the maiden.

"Three weeks we westward bore,

And when the storm was o'er,

Cloud-like we saw the shore

Stretching to leeward;

There for my lady's bower

Built I the lofty tower,

Which, to this very hour,

Stands looking seaward.

"There lived we many years;

Time dried the maiden's tears;

She had forgot her fears,

She was a mother;

Death closed her mild blue eyes,

Under that tower she lies;

Ne'er shall the sun arise

On such another!

"Still grew my bosom then,

Still as a stagnant fen!

Hateful to me were men,

The sunlight hateful!

In the vast forest here,

Clad in my warlike gear,

Fell I upon my spear,

Oh, death was grateful!

"Thus, seamed with many scars,

Bursting these prison bars,

Up to its native stars

My soul ascended!

There from the flowing bowl

Deep drinks the warrior's soul,

Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!"

Thus the tale ended.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The centuries passed, and no more of the white-skinned race came to the New World. But a new era was at hand; the day drew near when a little fleet was to put out from Spain and turn its prows westward on the