And falled down slam,
that, I reckon, be poetry. But ef you say instead,
He went up to the mill-dam
And falled down wop,
that’s blank verse. Knaw now, do ’ee?”
This was Jonas Coaker’s conception of poetry. He was born at Hartland, Post Bridge, on 23 February, 1801, as he sang:—
I drew my breath first on this moor;
There my forefathers dwell’d.
Its hills and dales I’ve traversed o’er,
Its desert parts beheld.