Fitz-Greene Halleck: A Memorial

“No—a born poet;—at his cradle-fireThe Muses nursed him—as their bud unblown,And gave him, as hid mind grew high and higher,Their ducal strawberry leaf’s enwreathed renown.”

“When Prussia hurried to the fieldAnd snatched the spear—but left the shield.”

“They saw their injured country’s woe,The flaming towns, the wasted fields,—They rushed to meet th’ insulting foe,They took the spear—but left the shield.”

“Your hand, my dear Junior! we’re all in a flameTo see a few more of your flashes!The Croakers for ever! I’m proud of the name,—But brother, I fear, though our cause is the same,We shall quarrel like Brutus and Cassius.

“But why should we do so! ’tis false what they tell,That poets can never be cronies;Unbuckle your harness, in peace let us dwell,Our goose-quills will canter together as wellAs a pair of Prime’s mouse-colored ponies.

“Once blended in spirit, we’ll make our appeal,And by law be incorporate too;Apply for a charter in crackers to deal,A fly-flapper rampant shall shine on our seal,And the firm shall be Croaker & Co.

“Fun! prosper the Union—smile, Fate, on its birth;Miss Atropos, shut up your scissors;Together we’ll range through the regions of mirth,A pair of bright Gemini, dropt on the earth,The Castor and Pollux of quizzers.”

“————to airy nothingsA local habitation and a name.”

“Vainly had Concord mourned its early dead,Vainly had Charlestown burned and Warren bled,Or Guilford’s loss, or Trenton’s capture been;Eutaw’s red flood; or Monmouth’s trampled green:

Had the proud Hudson from her eyrie porchQuenched the lone splendor of her beacon torch,Yielded the trust her sister States consigned,And lost, with Arnold, hope for human kind.”

“‘A fairy visionOf some gay creatures of the elements,That in the colors of the rainbow live,And play in the pligited clouds.

Milton.’”

“‘On Linden, when the sun was low,All bloodless lay the untrodden snow.’

“‘But Linden saw another sight,'When the drum beat at dead of night,Commanding fires of death to lightThe darkness of the scenery!’

‘By torch and trumpet, fast arrayed,Each horseman drew his battle-blade.’

‘—the cobweb woven across the cannon’s throat,Shall shake its threaded tears in the wind no more.’

‘To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,To throw a perfume on the violet,To smooth the ice, or add another hueUnto the rainbow, or with taper-lightTo seek the beauteous eye of Heaven to garnish,la wasteful and ridiculous excess;’

Where’er beneath the sky of Heaven,The birds of fame have flown.

“All honor to woman, the sweet-heart, the wife,The delight of the fireside by night and by day,Who never does any thing wrong in her life,Except when permitted to have her own way.”

“Through care and pain, and want and woe,With wounds that only death can heal—Tortures—the poor, alone, can know,The proud, alone, can feel,

He kept his honesty and truth,His independent tongue and pen,And moved in manhood, as in youth,Pride of his fellow-men.”

“When through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,With the dull marble to uniteThe kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;Behold him straining every nerve intent,Behold how, o’er the subject-element,The stately thought with march laborious goes!For never, save to toil untiring, spokeThe unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—The statue only to the chisel’s stroke,Wakes from its marble cell.

“But onward, to the sphere of beauty,—goOnward, O Child of Art! and, lo,Out of the matter which thy pains controlThe statue springs! not as with labor wrung,From the hard block, but as from nothing sprung,Airy and light—the offspring of the soul!The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost,Leave not a trace when once the work is done—The artist’s human frailty merged and lost,In Art’s great victory won!”