Ah! tyrants, forge your chains at will—
Nay! gall this flesh of mine:
Yet, thought is free, unfettered still,
And will not yield to thine!
Take, take the life that Heaven gave,
And let my heart's blood stain thy sod;
But know ye not Kentucky's brave
Will kneel to none but God!
You've quenched fair freedom's sunny light,
Her music tones have stilled,
And with a deep and darkened blight,
The trusting heart has filled!
Then do you think that I will kneel
Where such as you have trod?
Nay! point your cold and threatening steel—
I'll kneel to none but God!
As summer breezes lightly rest
Upon a quiet river,
And gently on its sleeping breast
The moonbeams softly quiver—
Sweet thoughts of home light up my brow
When goaded with the rod;
Yet, these cannot unman me now—
I'll kneel to none but God!
And tho' a sad and mournful tone
Is coldly sweeping by;
And dreams of bliss forever flown
Have dimmed with tears mine eye—
Yet, mine's a heart unyielding still—
Heap on my breast the clod;
I'll kneel to none but God!
My soaring spirit scorns thy will—
[REUBEN T. DURRETT]
Reuben Thomas Durrett, founder of the Filson Club and editor of its publications, was born near Eminence, Kentucky, January 22, 1824. He was graduated from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in 1849. The following year he began the practice of law at Louisville, and for the next thirty years he was one of the leaders of the Louisville bar. He was editor of the Louisville Courier from 1857 to 1859, and throughout his long life he has been a contributor of historical essays to the Louisville press. Colonel Durrett was imprisoned for his Southern sympathies during the Civil War, and for this reason he saw little service. In 1871 he founded the Public Library of Louisville; and in 1884 he organized the now well-known Filson Club, which meets monthly in his magnificent library—the greatest collection of Kentuckiana in the world. While his library has never been catalogued, he must possess at least thirty thousand books, pamphlets, manuscripts, and newspaper files. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, Dr. Robert M. McElroy, and many other historical investigators have made important "finds" in Colonel Durrett's library. He has one of the six extant copies of the first edition of John Filson's History of Kentucke; and he has the copy of Dean Swift's Gulliver's Travels, which Neely, the pioneer, read to Daniel Boone on Lulbegrub Creek, near Winchester, Kentucky, in 1770, as they sat around the evening camp fire. The Filson club was founded to increase the interest then taken in historical subjects in Kentucky, and to issue an annual publication. That this purpose has been well carried out may be seen by the twenty-six handsome and valuable monographs which have appeared.[12] The Club's first book was Colonel Durrett's The Life and Writings of John Filson, the first historian of Kentucky (Louisville, 1884). This work brought Filson into world-wide notice and revived an interest in his precious little history. An Historical Sketch of St. Paul's Church, Louisville (Louisville, 1889); The Centenary of Kentucky (Louisville, 1892); The Centenary of Louisville (Louisville, 1893); Bryant's Station (Louisville, 1897); and Traditions of the Earliest Visits of Foreigners to North America (Louisville, 1908), all of which are Filson Club publications, comprise Colonel Durrett's work in book form. This distinguished gentleman and writer resides at Louisville, where he keeps the open door for any who would come and partake of the wisdom of himself and of his books.
Bibliography. Memorial History of Louisville, by J. S. Johnston (Chicago, 1896); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. iv).
LA SALLE: DISCOVERER OF LOUISVILLE[13]
[From The Centenary of Louisville (Louisville, Kentucky, 1893)]