The Poets and Poetry of America

JOHN G. SAXE.

[Born, 1816.]

JOHN G. SAXE was born in Highgate, Franklin county, Vermont, on the second day of June, 1816. His youth was passed in rural occupations, until he was seventeen years of age, when he determined to study one of the liberal professions, and with this view entered the grammar school at St. Albans, and after the usual preliminary course, the college at Middlebury, where he was graduated bachelor of arts in the summer of 1839. He subsequently read law at Lockport, in New York, and at St. Albans, and was admitted to the bar at the latter place, in September, 1843.

He soon after removed to Burlington, where he conducted several years "The Sentinel," a leading democratic newspaper, and became district attorney and inspector of the customs. Since 1850, however, his attention has been principally devoted to literature, and he has been remarkably successful, not only in his printed productions, but in public readings of his humorous and satirical poems.

In 1846 he published "Progress," in which he ridicules in a very happy manner the grotesque and offensive theories by which sham philosophers have attempted to regenerate society, and other "novelties which disturb our peace," in literature, fashion, politics, religion, and morals. In 1849 appeared, in Boston, a collection of his "Poems," which has since passed through many editions. In this are included, besides " Progress,' and all his shorter pieces, his "New Rape of the

THE PROUD MISS MACBRIDE. A LEGEND OF GOTHAM.

6, гERRIBLY proud was Miss MACBRIDE,
The very personification of pride,
As she minced along in fashion's tide,
Adown Broadway-on the proper side-

When the golden sun was setting;

There was pride in the head she carried so high,
Pride in her lip, and pride in her eye,
And a world of pride in the very sigh

That her stately bosom was fretting:

A sigh that a pair of elegant feet,
Sandal'd in satin, should kiss the street-
The very same that the vulgar greet
In common leather not over "neat”-

For such is the common booting;
(And Christian tears may well be shed,
That even among our gentlemen-bred,
The glorious Day of Morocco is dead,
And Day and Martin are reigning instead,
On a much inferior footing!)

Lock," written in 1847, and "Proud Miss Mac Bride," written in 1848, both in the vein of Hoon, but full of verbal felicities and humour, and origi nal observation of manners. Among his unprinted satires are "The Times,"" New England," "The Money King," and "The Press," which are of the average length of about one thousand lines.

Mr. SAXE excels most in fun, burlesque, and satire, fields upon the confines of the domain of poetry, in which we have many of the finest specimens of lyric expression, and which have furnished, from the times of JUVENAL, a fair proportion of the noblest illustrations of creative energy. His verse is nervous, and generally highly finished; and in almost all cases it is admirably calculated for the production of the desired effects. One of the happiest exhibitions of his skill in language is the piece commencing

"Singing through the forests,
Rattling over ridges,

Shooting under arches,

Rumbling over bridges;

Whizzing through the mountains,

Buzzing o'er the vale-
Bless me! this is pleasant,
Riding on a rail!"

The whole composition is an echo of the crowded railroad-car. In all his writings are displayed the same happy adaptation of sound to sense, and in all agreeable images, comic displays of wisdom, and wit equally genial and pointed.

O, terribly proud was Miss MACBRIDE, Proud of her beauty, and proud of her pride, And proud of fifty matters beside

That wouldn't have borne dissection; Proud of her wit, and proud of her walk, Proud of her teeth, and proud of her talk, Proud of "knowing cheese from chalk,"

On a very slight inspection!—
Proud abroad, and proud at home,
Proud wherever she chanced to come-
When she was glad, and when she was glum
Proud as the head of a Saracen

Over the door of a tippling-shop!—
Proud as a duchess, proud as a fop,
"Proud as a boy with a bran-new top,"
Proud beyond comparison!

It seems a singular thing to say,
But her very senses led her astray
Respecting all humility;

In sooth, her dull, auricular drum
Could find in humble only a “hum,"
And heard no sound of "gentle" come,
In talking about gentility.

What lowly meant she didn't know,
For she always avoided "everything low,"
With care the most punctilious;
And, queerer still, the audible sound
Of "super-silly" she never had found
In the adjective supercilious!

The meaning of meek she never knew,

But imagined the phrase had something to do
With "Moses," a peddling German Jew,
Who, like all hawkers, the country through,

Was "a person of no position;"
And it scem'd to her exceedingly plain,
If the word was really known to pertain
To a vulgar German, it wasn't germane
To a lady of high condition!
Even her graces-not her grace-
For that was in the "vocative case"-
Chill'd with the touch of her icy face,

Sat very stiffly upon her!
She never confess'd a favour aloud,
Like one of the simple, common crowd-
But coldly smiled, and faintly bow'd,
As who should say, "You do me proud,
And do yourself an honour!"
And yet the pride of Miss MACBRIDE,
Although it had fifty hobbies to ride,

Had really no foundation;

But like the fabrics that gossips devise-
Those single stories that often arise
And grow till they reach a four-story size-

Was merely a fancy creation!

"Tis a curious fact as ever was known In human nature, but often shown

Alike in castle and cottage,

That pride, like pigs of a certain breed,
Will manage to live and thrive on "feed"

As poor as a pauper's pottage!

That her wit should never have made her vain, Was-like her face-sufficiently plain;

And, as to her musical powers,
Although she sang until she was hoarse,
And issued notes with a banker's force,
They were just such notes as we never endorse
For any acquaintance of ours!

Her birth, indeed, was uncommonly high-
For Miss MAC BRIDE first opened her eye
Through a skylight dim, on the light of the sky;
But pride is a curious passion--

And in talking about her wealth and worth,
She always forgot to mention her birth
To people of rank and fashion!

Of all the notable things on earth,
The queerest one is pride of birth,

Among our " fierce democracie!"
A bridge across a hundred years,
Without a prop to save it from sneers--
Not even a couple of rotten peers—
A thing for laughter, fleers, and jeers,
Is American aristocracy!
English and Irish, French and Spanish,
German, Italian, Dutch and Danish,
Crossing their veins until they vanish

In one conglomeration;
So subtle a tangle of blood, indeed,
No heraldry-HARVEY will ever succeed
In finding the circulation!

Depend upon it, my snobbish friend,
Your family thread you can't ascend,
Without good reason to apprehend

You may find it wax'd at the farther end,
By some plebeian vocation;

Or, worse than that, your boasted line
May end in a loup of stronger twine,

That plagued some worthy relation!

But Miss MAC BRIDE had something beside
Her lofty birth to nourish her pride-
For rich was the old paternal MACBRIDE,
According to public rumour;

And he lived up town," in a splendid square,
And kept his daughter on dainty fare,
And gave her gems that were rich and rare,
And the finest rings and things to wear,

And feathers enough to plume her.
An honest mechanic was JonN MACBRIDE,
As ever an honest calling plied,

Or graced an honest ditty;

For JOHN had work'd in his early day,
In "pots and pearls," the legends say
And kept a shop with a rich array
Of things in the soap and candle way,
In the lower part of the city!
No "rara avis" was honest JOHN-
(That's the Latin for "sable-swan")—

Though in one of his fancy flashes,
A wicked wag, who meant to deride,
Call'd honest JOHN “Old Phonix MacBride,"
"Because he rose from his ashes!"
Little by little he grew to be rich,
By saving of candle-ends and "sich,"
Till be reach'd at last an opulent niche-
No very uncommon affair;

For history quite confirms the law
Express'd in the ancient Scottish saw—
A MICKLE may come to be may'r
Alack for many ambitious beaux!
She hung their hopes upon her nose-
(The figure is quite Horatian!)
Until, from habit, the member grew
As very a hook as ever eye knew,
To the commonest observation.

A thriving tailor begg'd her hand,
But she gave "the fellow" to understand
By a violent manual action,
She perfectly scorn'd the best of his clan,
And reckon'd the ninth of any man

An exceedingly vulgar fraction!
Another, whose sign was a golden boot,
Was mortified with a bootless suit,

In a way that was quite appalling, For, though a regular sutor by trade, He wasn't a suitor to suit the maid,

Mickle, wi' thrift, may chance to be mair."-Nesh Proverb.

Who cut him off with a saw-and bade

«The cobbler keep to his calling!'

(The muse must let a secret out:
There is n't the faintest shadow of doubt
That folks who oftenest sneer and flout

At the dirty, low mechanicals,"

JOHN G. SAXE.

Are they whose sires, by pounding their knees,
Or coiling their legs, or trades like these-
Contrived to win their children ease

From poverty's galling manacles.)

A rich tobacconist comes and sues,
And, thinking the lady would scarce refuse
A man of his wealth and liberal views,
Began, at once, with "If you choose-

And could you really love him—”
But the lady spoil'd his speech in a huff,
With an answer rough and ready enough,
To let him know she was up to snuff,
And altogether above him!

A young attorney, of winning grace,
Was scarce allow'd to "open his face,"
Ere Miss MACBRIDE had closed his case

With true judicial celerity ;

For the lawyer was poor, and "seedy" to boot,
And to say the lady discarded his suit,

Is merely a double verity!

The last of those who came to court,
Was a lively beau, of the dapper sort,
Without any visible means of support,"
A crime by no means flagrant
In one who wears an elegant coat,
But the very point on which they vote
A ragged fellow "a vagrant!"

A courtly fellow was dapper JIM,
Sleek and supple, and tall and trim,
And smooth of tongue as neat of limb;

And maugre his meagre pocket,
You'd say from the glittering tales he told,
That JIM had slept in a cradle of gold,
With FORTUNATUS to rock it!

Now dapper JIM his courtship plied
(I wish the fact could be denied)

With an eye to the purse of the old MACBRIDE,

And really nothing shorter!"

For he said to himself, in his greedy lust,
"Whenever he dies-as die he must-
And yields to Heaven his vital trust,
He's very sure to come down with his dust,'
In behalf of his only daughter."

And the very magnificent Miss MACBRIDE,
Half in love, and half in pride,

Quite graciously relented;

And, tossing her head, and turning her back,
No token of proper pride to lack-
To be a Bride, without the "Mac,"

With much disdain, consented!

Alas! that people who've got their box
Of cash beneath the best of locks,
Secure from all financial shocks,
Should stock their fancy with fancy stocks,
And madly rash upon Wall-street rocks,
Without the least apology!

Alas! that people whose money-affairs
Are sound, beyond all need of repairs,
Should ever tempt the bulls and bears
Of Mammon's fierce zoology!

Old JOHN MACBRIDE, one fatal day,
Became the unresisting prey

Of Fortune's undertakers;
And staking all on a single die,
His founder'd bark went high and dry
Among the brokers and breakers!

At his trade again, in the very shop
Where, years before, he let it drop,

He follows his ancient calling-
Cheerily, too, in poverty's spite,
And sleeping quite as sound at night,
As when, at fortune's giddy height,
He used to wake with a dizzy fright

From a dismal dream of falling.

But alas for the haughty Miss MACBRIDE,
"I was such a shock to her precious pride!
She could n't recover, although she tried
Her jaded spirits to rally;

"T was a dreadful change in human affairs,
up stairs,"
From a Place "up town," to a nook “
From an avenue down to an alley!-

"T was little condolence she had, Gon wot-
From her "troops of friends." who had n't forgot
The airs she used to borrow;

They had civil phrases enough, but yet
'Twas plain to see that their "deepest regret"
Was a different thing from sorrow!
They own'd it could n't have well been worse.
To go from a full to an empty purse:
To expect a "reversion," and get a reverse,
Was truly a dismal feature;

But it wasn't strange-they whisper'd-at all!
That the summer of pride should have its fall
Was quite according to Nature!

And one of those chaps who make a pun,
As if it were quite legitimate fun
To be blazing away at every one
With a regular, double-loaded gun-

Remark'd that moral transgression
Always brings retributive stings
To candle-makers as well as kings:
For "making light of cereous things"
Was a very wick-ed profession!
And vulgar people-the saucy churls-
Inquired about "the price of pearls,"

And mock'd at her situation:

She wasn't ruin'd-they ventured to hope-
Because she was poor, she need n't mope;
Few people were better off for soap,

And that was a consolation!"
And to make her cup of wo run over,
Her elegant, ardent plighted lover

Was the very first to forsake her;
"He quite regretted the step, 't was true-
The lady had pride enough for two,'
But that alone would never do

To quiet the butcher and baker!"

And now the unhappy Miss MACBRIDE-→ The merest ghost of her early pride

Bewails her lonely position: Cramp'd in the very narrowest niche, Above the poor, and below the richWas ever a worse condition?

MORAL.

Because you flourish in worldly affairs,
Don't be haughty, and put on airs,

With insolent pride of station!
Don't be proud, and turn up your nose
At poorer people in plainer clo'es,

But learn, for the sake of your mind's repose,
That wealth's a bubble that comes-and goes!
And that all proud flesh, wherever it grows,
Is subject to irritation!

EXTRACTS FROM "PROGRESS."

FASHION.

WHAT impious mockery, when with soulless art Fashion, intrusive, seeks to rule the heart; Directs how grief may tastefully be borne; Instructs Bereavement just how long to mourn; Shows Sorrow how by nice degrees to fade, And marks its measure in a riband's shade! More impious still, when through her wanton laws She desecrates Religion's sacred cause; Shows how the narrow road" is easiest trod, And how genteelest, worms may worship Gon; How sacred rites may bear a worldly grace, And self-abasement wear a haughty face; How sinners, long in Folly's mazes whirl'd, With pomp and splendour may “renounce the world;"

How "with all saints hereafter to appear," Yet quite escape the vulgar portion here!

"THE PRESS."

O MIGHT the muse prolong her flowing rhyme,
(Too closely cramp'd by unrelenting Time,
Whose dreadful scythe swings heedlessly along,
And, missing speeches, clips the thread of song),
How would she strive in fitting verse to sing
The wondrous progress of the printing king!
Bibles and novels, treatises and songs,
Lectures on "rights," and strictures upon wrongs;
Verse in all metres, travels in all climes,

Rhymes without reason, sonnets without rhymes;
"Translations from the French," so vilely done,
The wheat escaping, leaves the chaff alone;
Memoirs, where dunces sturdily essay
To cheat Oblivion of her certain prey;
Critiques, where pedants vauntingly expose
Unlicensed verses in unlawful prose;
Lampoons, whose authors strive in vain to throw
Their headless arrows from a nerveless bow;
Poems by youths, who, crossing Nature's will,
Harangue the landscape they were born to till;
Huge tomes of law, that lead by rugged routes
Through ancient dogmas down to modern doubts,
Where judges oft, with well-affected ease,
Give learned reasons for absurd decrees,

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Association" is the magic word

From many a social "priest and prophet" heard;
" Attractive labour" is the angel given.
To render earth a sublunary heaven!
"Attractive labour!" ring the changes round,
And labour grows attractive in the sound;
And many a youthful mind, where haply lurk
Unwelcome fancies at the name of "work,"
Sees pleasant pastime in its longing view
Of "toil made easy" and "attractive" too-
And, fancy-rapt, with joyful ardour, turns
Delightful grindstones and seductive churns!
Inventive France! what wonder-working schemes
Astound the world whene'er a Frenchman dreams!
What fine-spun theories-ingenious, new,
Sublime, stupendous, everything but true!
One little favour, O "imperial France:"
Still teach the world to cook, to dress, to dance:
Let, if thou wilt, thy boots and barbers roam,
But keep thy morals and thy creeds at home!

BEREAVEMENT.

NAY, weep not, dearest, though the child be dead,
He lives again in heaven's unclouded life,
With other angels that have early fled

From these dark scenes of sorrow, sin, and strife, Nay, weep not, dearest, though thy yearning love Would fondly keep for earth its fairest flowers, And e'en deny to brighter realms above

The few that deck this dreary world of ours. Though much it seems a wonder and a wo That one so loved should be so early lostAnd hallow'd tears may unforbidden flow, To mourn the blossom that we cherish'd most- Yet all is well: Gon's good design I see, That where our treasure is, our hearts may be

HENRY B. HIRST.

[Born, 1817.]

MR. HIRST was born in Philadelphia, on the His father, twenty-third day of August, 1817. THOMAS HIRST, was a reputable merchant of When only that city, and held in high respect. eight years old he entered the law office of his brother, WILLIAM L. HIRST, Esq., and at the age of eighteen he was registered as a student. His professional studies were now interrupted for a long period, and he engaged in mercantile pursuits, but at the age of twenty-five he made his application for admission, and graduated with the highest honors in the early part of 1843, and is now in successful practice at the Philadelphia Bar.

Mr. HIRST's first attempts at poetry, he informs me, were in his twenty-first or twenty-second year, about which time he became a contributor to Graham's Magazine. His poems were very successful and extensively copied. In 1845 he "The Compublished in Boston his first volume, ing of the Mammoth, the Funeral of Time, and other Poems," a book which certainly received all the praises to which it was entitled. It was not without graceful fancies, but its most striking characteristics were a clumsy extravagance of invention, and a vein of sentiment neither healthful nor poetical. It had the merit, however, of musical though somewhat mechanical versification, and its reception was such as to encourage the author to new and more ambitious efforts.

Endym-
In the summer of 1848 he published
ion, a Tale of Greece," an epic poem, in four can-
tos. It was a long-meditated and carefully elabo-
rated production, some parts of which had been
kept the full Horatian period. It may be regard-
ed, therefore, as an exhibition of his best abilities.
He evinced a certain boldness in subjecting him-
self to a comparison with KEATS, whose fine fan-
cies, woven about it, will share the immortality of
the Grecian fable. In the finish and musical flow
of his rhythm, and in the distinctness and just pro-
portion with which he has told his story, he has
With pas-
equalled KEATS: but in nothing else.
sages of graphic and beautiful description, and a
happy clearness in narrative, the best praise of
Mr. HIRST's performance is, that it is a fine piece
of poetical rhetoric. There is not much thought
in the poem, and where there is any that arrests
attention, it whispers of familiar readings.

The fault of the book is the want of a poetical del.
icacy of feeling; it is not classical; it is not beauti-
ful; it is merely sensual; there is none of the diviner
odour of poetry about it. Mr. HIRST'S "chaste Di-
ana" is a strumpet. The metre, though inappropri
ale, to such a poem, is unusual, and is managed by
To illustrate his
Mr. Hrust with singular skill.
mastery of versification, and at the same time to

present one of the most attractive passages of the
poem, the following lines are quoted from the
first canto:

Through a deep dell with mossy hemlocks girded
A dell by many a sylvan Dryad prest,-
Which Latmos' lofty crest

Flung half in shadow-where the red deer herded-
While mellow murmurs shook the forests gray-
ENDYMION took his way.....

Mount Latmos lay before him. Gently gleaming,
A roseate halo from the twilight dim
Hung round its crown. To him
The rough ascent was light; for, far off, beaning,
Orion rose-and Sirius, like a shield,

Shone on the azure field.....

At last he gain'd the top, and, crown'd with splendour,
The moon, arising from the Latmian sea,
Stepp'd o'er the heavenly lea,
Flinging her misty glances, meek and tender
As a young virgin's, o'er his marble brow
That glisten'd with their glow.
Beside him gush'd a spring that in a hollow
Had made a crystal lake, by which he stood
To cool his heated blood-

His blood yet fever'd, for the fierce APOLLO

Throughout the long, the hot, the tropic day,
Embraced him with his ray.

Beside the lake whose waves were glassily gleaming,
A willow stood in DIAN's rising rays,

And from the woodland ways

Its feather'd, lance-like leaves were gently streaming
Along the water, with their lucent tips
Kissing its silver lips.

And still the moon arose, serenely hovering,
Dove-like, above the horizon. Like a queen
She walk'd in light between
The stars-her lovely handmaids-softly covering
Valley and wold, and mountain-side and plain.
With streams of lucid rain.

ENDYMION Watch'd her rise, his bosom burning
With princely thoughts; for though a shepherd's scn
He felt that fame is won

By high aspirings; and a lofty yearning,

From the bright blossoming of his boyish days,
Made his deeds those of praise.

Like her's, his track was tranquil: he had gather'd
By slow degrees the glorious, golden lore,
Hallowing his native shore;
And when at silent eve his flock was tether'd,
He read the stars, and drank, as from a stream,
Great knowledge from their gleami.

And so he grew a dreamer-one who, panting
For shadowy objects, languish'd like a bird
That, striving to be heard

Above its fellows, fails, the struggle haunting
Its memory ever, for ever the strife pursuing
To its own dark undoing.

In the summer of 1849 Mr. HIRST published
in Boston a third volume, entitled "The Penanco
of Roland, a Romance of the Peiné Forte et Dure
and other Poems," from which the extracts in the
Its contents are all well
next pages are copied.
versified, and their rhetoric is generally poetical.

533

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