Select Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 15

Notes: Uncle Jim's Baptist Revival Hymn

I think that the following note, prefixed by the authors to their poem, sufficiently explains what is to me one of their best humorous pieces:

"Not long ago a certain Georgia cotton-planter, driven to desperation by awaking each morning to find that the gra.s.s had quite outgrown the cotton overnight, and was likely to choke it, in defiance of his lazy freedmen's hoes and ploughs, set the whole State in a laugh by exclaiming to a group of fellow-sufferers: 'It's all stuff about Cincinnatus leaving the plough to go into politics "for patriotism"; he was just a-runnin' from gra.s.s!'

"This state of things -- when the delicate young rootlets of the cotton are struggling against the hardier mult.i.tudes of the gra.s.s-suckers -- is universally described in plantation parlance by the phrase 'in the gra.s.s'; and Uncle Jim appears to have found in it so much similarity to the condition of his own ('Baptis'') church, overrun, as it was, by the cares of this world, that he has embodied it in the refrain of a revival hymn such as the colored improvisator of the South not infrequently constructs from his daily surroundings.

He has drawn all the ideas of his stanzas from the early morning phenomena of those critical weeks when the loud plantation-horn is blown before daylight, in order to rouse all hands for a long day's fight against the common enemy of cotton-planting mankind.

"In addition to these exegetical commentaries the Northern reader probably needs to be informed that the phrase 'peerten up' means substantially 'to spur up', and is an active form of the adjective 'peert'

(probably a corruption of 'pert'), which is so common in the South, and which has much the signification of 'smart' in New England, as e.g., a 'peert' horse, in ant.i.thesis to a 'sorry' -- i.e., poor, mean, lazy one."

The Mocking-bird

Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray [1]

That o'er the general leaf.a.ge boldly grew, He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, And all birds' pa.s.sion-plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue.

What e'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.

Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a gra.s.shopper, made song Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again. [11]

Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain: How may the death of that dull insect be The life of yon trim Shakspere on the tree?

____ 1877.

Notes: The Mocking-bird

Besides this sonnet Mr. Lanier wrote a longer 'To Our Mocking-bird', consisting of three sonnets, and 'Bob', a charming account, in prose, of the life and death of the bird apostrophized.

In his 'Birds and Poets' (Boston, 1877), Mr. John Burroughs says that he knows of only two noteworthy poetical tributes to the mocking-bird, those by Whitman and by Wilde, both of which he quotes.

But since the appearance of his book many poems have been written to the mocking-bird, several of which are of enduring worth.

Indeed, several noteworthy poems had been published before the appearance of Mr. Burroughs's essay, as will appear from the list below. In a search of two days I found thirty-two different authors paying tribute to our marvelous singer: Julia Bacon (see J. W. Davidson's 'Living Writers of the South'.

New York: Carleton, 1869), St. L. L. Carter (ib.), Edna P. Clarke ('Century', 24. 391, July, 1893), Fortunatus Crosby ('Davidson', l.c.), J. R. Drake (Duyckinck's 'Cyclopaedia of American Literature'.

New York, 1855), R. T. W. Duke, Jr. ('Southern Bivouac', 2. 631, March, 1887), W. T. Dumas ('The Golden Day and Miscellaneous Poems', Philadelphia, 1893), F. ('Southern Literary Messenger', Richmond, Va., 5. 523, August, 1839), H. L. Flash ('Davidson', l.c.), Va. Gentleman ('Harper's Magazine', 15. 566, September, 1857), Caroline Gilman (May's 'American Female Poets', Philadelphia, 1865), Hannah F. Gould ('Davidson', l.c.), Paul Gra.n.a.ld ('So. Lit. Mes.', 8, 508, August, 1842), P. H. Hayne ('Poems', Boston, 1882: two), W. H. Hayne ('Century', 24. 676, September, 1893), C. W. Hubner ('Poems and Essays', New York, 1881), C. Lanier ('Sunday-school Times', Phila., July 8, 1893), S. Lanier (two, as above cited), Gen. Edwin G. Lee ('Southern Metropolis', Baltimore, 1869), A. B. Meek (in his 'Songs and Poems of the South', New York, 1857), W. Mitch.e.l.l ('Scribner's Magazine', 11. 171, December, 1875), Nugator ('So. Lit. Mes.', 4. 356, June, 1838), C. J. O'Malley ('So. Bivouac', 2. 698, April, 1887), Albert Pike (Stedman & Hutchinson's 'Amer. Lit.', New York, 1891, vol. 6), D. Robinson ('Century', 24. 480, July, 1893), Clinton Scollard ('Pictures in Song', New York, 1884), H. J. Stockard ('The Century', xlviii. 898, Oct., 1894), T ('So. Lit. Mes.', 11. 117, February, 1845), Maurice Thompson ('Poems', Boston, 1892: several; also 'Lippincott's Magazine', 32. 624, December, 1883), L. V. ('So. Lit. Mes.', 10. 414, July, 1844), Walt Whitman ('Burroughs', l.c., also in Whitman's 'Poems'), R. H. Wilde ('Burroughs', l.c., and Stedman & Hutchinson's 'Am. Lit.', vol. 5).

Roughly speaking, the poems may be divided into two cla.s.ses -- first those that, as in the Indian legend cited below, make out the mocking-bird only or chiefly a thief and thing of evil, and second those that find him, though a borrower, original and great.

The former view, fortunately upheld by few, is strikingly set forth in Gra.n.a.ld's 'The Mock-bird and the Sparrow'. After describing minutely the various songs of the mocking-bird and emphasizing that they all come from other birds, the author gives the dialogue between the mock-bird and the sparrow. The former taunted the latter and insisted on his singing; and

"The sparrow c.o.c.k'd a knowing eye, And made him this most tart reply -- 'You steal from all and call it wit, But I prefer my simple "twit".'"

But the latter view is espoused by most of the writers mentioned, notably and n.o.bly by Drake, the Haynes, the Laniers, Lee, Meek, and Thompson, the poet-laureate of the mocking-bird, whose poems should be read by every lover of nature and especially of the mocking-bird.

As Thompson's tributes are all too long for quotation, I give here Meek's, in the hope that I may rescue it from the long oblivion of an out-of-print.

My attention was called to it by my friend, Dr. C. H. Ross, to whom every reader will be indebted along with myself. It runs as follows:

"From the vale, what music ringing, Fills the bosom of the night; On the sense, entranced, flinging Spells of witchery and delight!

O'er magnolia, lime and cedar, From yon locust-top, it swells, Like the chant of serenader, Or the rhymes of silver bells!

Listen! dearest, listen to it!

Sweeter sounds were never heard!

'Tis the song of that wild poet -- Mime and minstrel -- Mocking-bird.

"See him, swinging in his glory, On yon topmost bending limb!

Carolling his amorous story, Like some wild crusader's hymn!

Now it faints in tones delicious As the first low vow of love!

Now it bursts in swells capricious, All the moonlit vale above!

Listen! dearest, etc.

"Why is't thus, this sylvan Petrarch Pours all night his serenade?

'Tis for some proud woodland Laura, His sad sonnets all are made!

But he changes now his measure -- Gladness bubbling from his mouth -- Jest and gibe, and mimic pleasure -- Winged Anacreon of the South!

Listen! dearest, etc.

"Bird of music, wit and gladness, Troubadour of sunny climes, Disenchanter of all sadness, -- Would thine art were in my rhymes.

O'er the heart that's beating by me, I would weave a spell divine; Is there aught she could deny me, Drinking in such strains as thine?

Listen! dearest, etc."

As is well known, the mocking-bird is often called the American nightingale.

As to their relative merits as singers, here is the judgment of one that has heard both birds, Professor James A. Harrison ('The Critic', New York, 2. 284, December 13, 1884): "Well, it is my honest opinion that philomel will not compare with the singer of the South in sweetness, versatility, pa.s.sion, or lyrical beauty. The mocking-bird -- better the echo-bird, with a voice compounded of all sweet sounds, as the blossom of the Chinese olive is compounded of all sweet scents -- is a pure lyrist; its throat is a lyre -- Aeolian, capricious, many-stringed; as its name suggests, it is a polyglot mime, a bird linguist, a feathered Mezzofanti singing all the bird languages; yet over and above all this, with a something of its own that cannot be described."

The mocking-bird speaks for himself in Thompson's 'To an English Nightingale':

"What do you think of me?

Do I sing by rote?

Or by note?

Have I a parrot's echo-throat?

Oh no! I caught my strains From Nature's freshest veins.

. . . . .

"He A match for me!

No more than a wren or a chickadee!

Mine is the voice of the young and strong, Mine the soul of the brave and free!"

This self-appreciation is confirmed by the greatest authority on birds, Audubon: "There is probably no bird in the world that possesses all the musical qualifications of this king of song, who has derived all from Nature's self. Yes, reader, all!"

It will be interesting and instructive to compare the tributes to the mocking-bird with Keats's 'Ode to a Nightingale', Sh.e.l.ley's 'To a Skylark', and Wordsworth's 'To the Skylark'.

Aside from Audubon's 'Birds of America' and Ridgway's 'Manual of North American Birds', the student may consult with profit Burroughs's 'Birds and Poets', Thompson's 'In the Haunts of the Mocking-bird'

('The Atlantic', 54. 620, November, 1884), various articles by Olive Thorne Miller in 'The Atlantic' (vol. 54 on), and Winterfield's 'The Mocking-bird, an Indian Legend' ('The American Whig Review', New York, 1. 497, May, 1845).

14. Wilde compares the mocking-bird to Yorick and to Jacques; Meek, to Petrarch; Lanier, to Keats, in 'To Our Mocking-bird', as does Wm. H. Hayne:

"Each golden note of music greets The listening leaves divinely stirred, As if the vanished soul of Keats Had found its new birth in a bird."