Every poem of the South is a National Hymn!—bought not with dollars, but with five hundred wrongs and ten times five hundred precious lives!
To one who has not studied the subject, the vast number of southern war poems would be most surprising, in view of restricted means for their issue. Every magazine, album and newspaper in the South ran over with these effusions and swelled their number to an almost countless one. Many of them were written for a special time, event, or locality; many again were read and forgotten in the engrossing duties of the hour. But it was principally from the want of some systematized means of distribution that most of them were born to blush unseen.
Before my little collection—"South Songs, from the Lays of Later Days"—went to press, over nineteen hundred poems had accumulated on my hands! And since that time the number has greatly increased. There were battle odes, hymns, calls to arms, pæans and dirges and prayers for peace—many of them good, few of them great; and the vast majority, alas! wretchedly poor. Any attempted notice of their authors in limits like this would be sheer failure; and where many did so well, it were invidious to discriminate. The names of John R. Thompson, James Randall, Henry Timrod, Paul Hayne, Barron Hope, Margaret Preston, James Overall, Harry Lyndon Flash and Frank Ticknor had already become household words in the South, where they will live forever.
Wherever his people read anything, the classic finish of his "Latané," the sweet caress of his "Stuart" and the bugle-blast of his "Coercion" and "Word with the West," had assured John R. Thompson's fame. The liltful refrain of "Maryland, my Maryland" echoed from the Potomac to the Gulf; and the clarion-call James R. Randall so nobly used—"There's Life in the Old Land Yet!"—warmed every southern heart, by the dead ashes on its hearth. Who does not remember "Beechenbrook," that pure Vestal in the temple of Mars? Every tear of sympathy that fell upon its pages was a jewel above rubies, in the crown of its gentle author.
Paul Hayne had won already the hearts of his own readers; and had gained transatlantic meed, in Tennyson's declaration that he was "the sonneteer of America!" And the yearning sorrow in all eyes that looked upon the fresh mound, above what was mortal of tender Henry Timrod, was more eloquent of worth than costly monument, or labored epitaph.
But not only the clang of action and the freedom of stirring scenes produced the southern war-poems. Camp Chase and forts Warren and Lafayette contributed as glowing strains as any written. Those grim bastiles held the bodies of their unconquered inmates; while their hearts lived but in the memory of those scenes, in which their fettered hands were debarred further portion. Worn down by confinement, hunger and the ceaseless pressure of suspense; weakened by sickness and often oppressed by vulgar indignity—the spirit of their cause still lingered lovingly around them; and its bright gleams warmed and lighted the darkest recesses of their cells.
That bugle blast, "Awake and to horse, my brothers!", Teackle Wallis sent from the walls of Warren, when he was almost prostrated by sickness and mental suffering. Another poem, more mournful but with a beautiful thought of hope beyond, comes from that dismal prison-pen, Camp Chase. Colonel W. S. Hawkins, a brave Tennesseean, who was held there two long years, still kept up heart and ministered to his fellow-sufferers day and night. The close of the war alone released him, to drag his shattered frame to "his own, fair sunny land," and lay it in the soil he loved so well. But he has left a living monument; and the tender pathos of "The Hero without a Name"—and the flawless poetical gem that closes his "Last of Earth," will be remembered as long as the sacrifices of their noble author. The pent walls of other military prisons sent forth plaintive records of misery, as well as stirring strains of hope unconquered; but the two here named are easily first of the rebel-prisoner poets.
Dirges for the great dead became a popular form, in which the spirit of southern song poured itself out. I had in my collection no fewer than forty-seven monodies and dirges on Stonewall Jackson; some dozens on Ashby and a score on Stuart. Some of these were critically good; all of them high in sentiment; but Flash's "Jackson"—heretofore quoted, when noting that irremediable loss—stands incomparably above the rest. Short, vigorous, completely rounded—it breathes that high spirit of hope and trust, held by that warrior people; and, not alone the finest war dirge of the South, it is excelled by no sixteen lines in any language, for power, lilt and tenderness!
Perhaps Thompson's "Dirge for Ashby," Randall's song of triumph over dead John Pelham and Mrs. Margaret Preston's "Ashby," may rank side-by-side next to the "Jackson." The modest author of the last-named did not claim it, until the universal voice of her people called for her name; and it is noteworthy that large numbers of war-song writers hid from their just meed, behind the sheltering anonymous. And the universal characteristic of this dirge-poetry is not its mournful tenderness—while nothing could be more touching than that; but its strong expression of faith in the efficacy of the sacrifice and in the full atonement of the martyrdom!
The battle-breeze bore back to the writers no sound of weak wailing. It wafted only the sob of manly grief, tempered by a solemn joyousness; and—coming from men of many temperaments, amid wide-differing scenes and circumstance—every monody bears impress of the higher inspiration, that has its origin far beyond the realm of the narrow house!