Ride onward, in thy chariot ride,
Thou peerless queen; ride on, ride on—
With Truth and Justice by thy side—
From pole to pole, from sun to sun!
Nor linger in our bleeding South,
Nor domicile with race or clan;
But in thy glorious goings forth,
Be thy benignant object Man—
Of every clime, of every hue,
Of every tongue, of every race,
’Neath heaven’s broad, ethereal blue;
Oh! let thy radiant smiles embrace,
Till neither slave nor one oppressed
Remain throughout creation’s span,
By thee unpitied and unblest
Of all the progeny of man.
We fain would have the world aspire
To that proud height of free desire,
That flamed the heart of Switzer’s Tell
(Whose archery skill none could excell),
When once upon his Alpine brow,
He stood reclining on his bow,
And saw, careering in his might—
In all his majesty of flight—
A lordly eagle float and swing
Upon his broad, untrammeled wing.
He bent his bow, he poised his dart,
With full intent to pierce the heart;
But as the proud bird nearer drew,
His stalwart arm unsteady grew,
His arrow lingered in the groove—
The cord unwilling seemed to move,
For there he saw personified
That freedom which had been his pride;
And as the eagle onward sped,
O’er lofty hill and towering tree,
He dropped his bow, he bowed his head;
He could not shoot—’twas Liberty!
Whitman, a younger contemporary of Bell’s, is the author of several long tales in verse. Like Bell, he wrote only in standard English, and like him also, shows a mastery of expression, with fluency of style, wealth of imagery, and a command of the forms of verse given vogue by Scott and Byron. Both likewise write fervently of the wrongs suffered by the black man at the hands of the white. Thus far they resemble; but if we extend the comparison we note important differences. Bell has more of the fervor of the orator and the sense of fact of the historian. He adheres closely to events and celebrates occasions. Whitman invents tragic tales of love and romance, clothing them with the charm of the South and infusing into them the pathos which results from the strife of thwarted passions, the defeat of true love.
A stanza or two from Whitman’s An Idyl of the South will exemplify his qualities. The hero of this pathetic tale is a white youth of aristocratic parentage, the heroine is an octoroon. He is thus described:
He was of manly beauty—brave and fair;
There was the Norman iron in his blood,
There was the Saxon in his sunny hair
That waved and tossed in an abandoned flood;
But Norman strength rose in his shoulders square,
And so, as manfully erect he stood,
Norse gods might read the likeness of their race
In his proud bearing and patrician face.
The heroine is thus portrayed:
A lithe and shapely beauty; like a deer,
She looked in wistfulness, and from you went;
With silken shyness shrank as if in fear,
And kept the distance of the innocent.
But, when alone, she bolder would appear;
Then all her being into song was sent
To bound in cascades—ripple, whirl, and gleam,
A headlong torrent in a crystal stream.
Only tragedy, under the conditions, could result from their mutual fervent love. The poet does not moralize but in a figure intimates the sadness induced by the tale: