"Bachelor's Hall! What a quare-looking place it is!
Kape me from sich all the days of my life!
Sure, but I think what a burnin' disgrace it is,
Niver at all to be gettin' a wife.
See the ould bachelor, gloomy and sad enough,
Placing his tay-kittle over the fire;
Soon it tips over—St. Patrick! he's mad enough
(If he were present) to fight with the Squire.
Pots, dishes, pans, and sich grasy commodities,
Ashes and praty-skins kiver the floor;
His cupboard's a storehouse of comical oddities,
Things that had niver been neighbors before.
Late in the night then he goes to bed shiverin';
Niver the bit is the bed made at all;
He crapes like a terrapin under the kiverin':
Bad luck to the picture of Bachelor's Hall!"
His poem entitled, Our Home's Fireside, expresses his appreciation of domestic life. He felt that the homes of a country are the fountain of all true happiness, and the bulwark of civil and religious liberty:
"There's not a place on earth so dear
As our Home's Fireside,
When parents, children all draw near
To our Home's Fireside;
When the toil-spent day is past,
And loud roars the wintry blast,
Then how sweet to get at last
By our Home's Fireside!
'Tis wedded love's peculiar seat,
At our Home's Fireside,
Where happiness and virtue meet
At our Home's Fireside;
When each prattler, loth to miss,
Climbs to claim the wonted kiss,
'Tis the sum of human bliss,
At our Home's Fireside."
He was ambitious to write a National Hymn which should voice the patriotism of the people, but this wish was never gratified. The "Ode for the Fourth of July" was an effort in that direction—constant attention to business prevented the cultivation of his poetical talent:
"ODE FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY."
Tune—"Hail to the Chief."
Hail to the day that gave birth to a nation!
And hail each remembrance it annu'lly brings!
Hail Independence! Thy stern declaration
Gave Freedom a home in defiance of Kings.
Britain's despotic sway
Trammeled thy early day.
Infant America, "child of the skies."
Till with a daring hand
Freedom's immortal band
Severed thy shakles and bid thee arise!
Then was the standard of Liberty planted—
The star-spangled banner proud floated on high;
Columbia's sons met the foeman undaunted,
With firm resolution to conquer or die.
Precious the prize they sought,
Dearly that prize they bought:
Freedom and peace cost the blood of the brave.
Heaven befriended them,
Fortune attended them—
Liberty triumphed o'er tyranny's grave!
Peace to those patriots, heroes, and sages,
Whose glorious legacy now we enjoy!
May it descend to the world's latest ages,
Like primitive gold, without any alloy!
Then let our motto be,
"Union and Liberty,"
High on our national banner enshrined,
Like a bright morning star,
Glittering from afar,
Casting its beams o'er the world of mankind.
When urged by friends to make a collection of poems for publication; he found, (in 1866), that many had been lost beyond recovery, his hope of writing something more worthy of preservation made him careless of that which had been published; there is, however, considerable variety in the collection, ranging from "grave to gay." These are some of the titles; "Lines," written on opening a mound on the bank of Whitewater near Richmond, Ind. containing a human skeleton. "What is Life," "What is Faith," "A Prayer," "My Loves and Hates." This was the first poem written for publication. "Valedictory, on closing my term as Clerk of the Wayne County Courts."
In lighter vein are, "Advertisment for a Wife," "The Last of the Family," "To My Old Coat," and "The Miller."
Mr. Finley was not a church member but his creed is embraced in the following sentence—"The Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man."
An unpublished fragment, found after death in the pocket-book he carried, shows his truly devotional spirit:—