Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
Red Jacket
By Fitz-Greene Halleck (17901867)C
First in her files, her P
A wanderer now in other climes, has proven
His love for the young land he left behind;
Robed like the deluge rainbow, heaven-wrought;
Magnificent as his own mind’s creations,
And beautiful as its green world of thought:
As law authority, it passed nem. con.,
He writes that we are, as ourselves have voted,
The most enlightened people ever known;
In Paris, full of song, and dance, and laugh;
And that, from Orleans to the Bay of Fundy,
There’s not a bailiff or an epitaph;
We shall export our poetry and wine;
And our brave fleet, eight frigates and a schooner,
Will sweep the seas from Zembla to the Line.
Gazing, as I, upon thy portrait now,
In all its medalled, fringed, and beaded glory,
Its eye’s dark beauty, and its thoughtful brow—
Its eye upsoaring like an eagle’s wings—
Well might he boast that we, the Democratic,
Outrival Europe, even in our kings!
Tell not the planting of thy parent tree,
But that the forest tribes have bent for ages
To thee, and to thy sires, the subject knee.
Could make R
Though some one with a genius for the tragic
Hath introduced it in a pantomime—
Of thine own land, and on her herald-roll;
As bravely fought for, and as proud a token
As Cœur de Lion’s of a warrior’s soul.
That medal pale, as diamonds the dark mine,
And George the Fourth wore, at his court at Brighton,
A more becoming evening dress than thine;
And fitted for thy couch, on field and flood,
As Rob Roy’s tartan for the Highland heather,
Or forest green for England’s Robin Hood.
Thou art as tall, as sinewy, and as strong
As earth’s first kings—the Argo’s gallant sailors,
Heroes in history and gods in song.
But the love-legends of thy manhood’s years,
And she who perished, young and broken-hearted,
Are—but I rhyme for smiles and not for tears.
The heart, and makes the wisest head its sport;
And there’s one rare, strange virtue in thy speeches,
The secret of their mastery—they are short.
The birth-hour gift, the art Napoleon,
Of winning, fettering, moulding, wielding, banding
The hearts of millions till they move as one:
The road to death as to a festival;
And minstrels, at their sepulchres, have shrouded
With banner-folds of glory the dark pall.
Lies the dear charm of life’s delightful dream;
I cannot spare the luxury of believing
That all things beautiful are what they seem;
Would, like the Patriarch’s, soothe a dying hour,
With voice as low, as gentle, and caressing,
As e’er won maiden’s lip in moonlit bower;
With motions graceful as a bird’s in air;
Thou art, in sober truth, the veriest devil
That e’er clinched fingers in a captive’s hair!
Deadlier than that where bathes the Upas-tree;
And in thy wrath a nursing cat-o’-mountain
Is calm as her babe’s sleep compared with thee!
Its lip as moveless, and its cheek as clear,
Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart’s emotions,
Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow—all save fear:
Her pipe in peace, her tomahawk in wars;
Hatred—of missionaries and cold water;
Pride—in thy rifle-trophies and thy scars;
Remembered and revenged when thou art gone;
Sorrow—that none are left thee to inherit
Thy name, thy fame, thy passions, and thy throne!