Nathan Hale

by Jean Christie Root

On its one-hundredth anniversary, July 27, 1853,—Commencement Week,—the poet of the occasion was Francis Miles Finch, Yale, 1846, later Judge of the New York Court of Appeals. As poet, Mr. Finch of course recalled many former members of the society. He ended with a poem on Nathan Hale in which he held his listeners spellbound as stanza after stanza, magnetic in proportion to their truthful beauty, fell from his lips.

There has been a further service to his country by Judge Finch. His own character has been graven into two different poems,—the one just referred to, and one that he wrote later. The latter poem had, undoubtedly, a powerful influence in causing our national Decoration Day to be celebrated throughout the United States.

The story of this poem is interesting. In a town in Mississippi certain Southern women went on a spring day, soon after the close of the Civil War, to cover with flowers the graves of their beloved dead. The gracious and tender thought must have come to them that in the graves of aliens buried among them lay those as deeply mourned in Northern homes as were those they themselves had loved.

Certainly no sweeter suggestion could have been more tenderly carried out than that which led these bereaved women to spread flowers over the graves of those who were once their enemies. Mr. Finch was told of this incident, and the lines he wrote show his appreciation of the "generous deed." The poem, "The Blue and the Gray," did much to heal the wounds in both North and South.

The two poems by Judge Francis Miles Finch are quoted here, the first with the drum-beat pulsing through it; the second in musical, flowing lines that carry in them sorrow, loyalty, and the community of a common bereavement.

Hale's Fate and Fame

And one there was—his name immortal now—
Who dies not to the ring of rattling steel,
Or battle-march of spirit-stirring drum,
But, far from comrades and from friendly camp,
Alone upon the scaffold.
To drum-beat and heart-beat
A soldier marches by;
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat
In a moment he must die.
By starlight and moonlight
He seeks the Briton's camp,
He hears the rustling flag,
And the armèd sentry's tramp.
And the starlight and moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.
With slow tread and still tread
He scans the tented line,
And he counts the battery guns
By the gaunt and shadowy pine,
And his slow tread and still tread
Give no warning sign.
The dark wave, the plumed wave!
It meets his eager glance;
And it sparkles 'neath the stars
Like the glimmer of a lance:
A dark wave, a plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.
A sharp clang, a steel clang!
And terror in the sound;
For the sentry, falcon-eyed,
In the camp a spy hath found;
With a sharp clang, a steel clang,
The patriot is bound.
With calm brow, steady brow,
He listens to his doom;
In his look there is no fear
Nor a shadow trace of gloom;
But with calm brow and steady brow
He robes him for the tomb.
In the long night, the still night,
He kneels upon the sod;
And the brutal guards withhold
E'en the solemn Word of God!
In the long night, the still night,
He walks where Christ hath trod.
'Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn,
He dies upon the tree;
And he mourns that he can lose
But one life for Liberty;
And in the blue morn, the sunny morn,
His spirit-wings are free.
His last words, his message words,
They burn, lest friendly eye
Should read how proud and calm
A patriot could die,
With his last words, his dying words,
A soldier's battle-cry!
From Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf,
From monument and urn,
The sad of Earth, the glad of Heaven,
His tragic fate shall learn;
And on Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf,
The name of Hale shall burn!

The Blue and the Gray

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron had fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead:
Under the sod and the dew;
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the one the Blue;
Under the other, the Gray.
These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.
From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers,
Alike for the friend and the foe:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the roses, the Blue,
Under the lilies, the Gray.
So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
So, when the summer calleth
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue,
Wet with the rain, the Gray.
Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done,
In the storm of the years that are fading
No braver battle was won:
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue,
Under the garlands, the Gray.
No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment-day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.

On the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the evacuation of New York by the British—November 25, 1893—a bronze statue of Nathan Hale was presented to the city of New York. It was given by the New York Society of the "Sons of the American Revolution," a society founded in 1876 to perpetuate the memory and deeds of the war for American independence. The presentation was made by the president of the society, Mr. Frederic Samuel Tallmadge, the grandson of Major Tallmadge, Hale's classmate and fellow-captain. The statue is of bronze and is by Frederick Macmonnies of Paris. It represents Hale bareheaded, bound about his arms and his ankles, ready for his death. It was placed in City Hall Park where Hale was, for a time, supposed to have been executed. On the pedestal are graven his last wonderful words.