scenes and themes, and two or three among these, such as Eutaw Springs* and The Indian Burying- Ground, are usually selected as examples of his poetic genius at its best. Scott gave testimony to his appreciation of the former by adopting, with a slight change, one of its lines for his Marmion (Introduction to Canto III.),— "And took the spear, but left the shield;" while Campbell borrowed for his O'Connor's Child the fine fancy at the close of the following stanza from The Indian Burying- Ground: "By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews, In vestments for the chase arrayed, The hunter still the deer pursues, The hunter and the deer-a shade." Freneau's most ambitious poem is The House of Night, written while he was in Jamaica, at the age of twenty-four. It is grimly imaginative, and possibly, in places, foreshadows the genius of Poe, but it is a very uneven production and has been overpraised. Far better is the little lyric of four stanzas, The Wild Honeysuckle (Poems, 1795), in which this native flower is apostrophized in all its modest, evanescent beauty: "Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat, "From morning suns and evening dews For when you die you are the same; The frail duration of a flower." *Freneau's title was "To the Memory of the Brave Americans, under General Greene, who Fell in the Action of September 8, 1781." Most critics have cared to remember of Freneau only this one lyric, but he essayed another and rather more difficult kind of verse with such success that it should not be overlooked. This is "social verse, —a somewhat inexact and general term for various kinds of sentimental effusions that are light without levity and grave without gravity, that, in other words, range freely all the way from laughter to tears without quite touching upon either. Freneau could write a most pathetic tribute To the Dog Sancho who nearly lost his life defending his master's cabin against midnight robbers; or he could compose a graceful ditty on A Lady's Singing Bird, or on Pewter Platter Alley; but his best efforts in this direction are distinctly bacchanalian, celebrating the praises of wine and the joys of tavern life. The Parting Glass, On the Ruins of a Country Inn, To a Honey Bee, are poems that should not be allowed to drop out of our anthologies, all the more because we have so few of the kind. The last named is especially happy. The tippler addresses a wandering bee that has alighted on his glass: "Welcome!--I hail you to my glass; All welcome here you find; Here let the cloud of trouble pass, Here be all care resigned. This fluid never fails to please, And drown the griefs of men or bees." But the bee finally succeeds in drowning itself as well as it griefs: "Do as you please, your will is mine; Enjoy it without fear, And your grave will be this glass of wine, Go, take your seat in Charon's boat; We'll tell the hive, you died afloat." William Clifton, a young Philadelphian of promise who More died in 1799, also produced a few occasional poems, which were published in 1800, the best one of which -a bit of melodious social verse with the refrain of "Friendship, Love, Wine, and a Song"-scarcely suffers by comparison with the lyrics of Freneau. And in 1780, while the result of the Revolution still hung in the balance, there appeared an anonymous drinking song with a strong patriotic ring, The Volunteer Boys, of which it seems worth while to preserve still an echo, if only that we may catch at this distance a little of the spirit of our forefathers: "Hence with the lover who sighs o'er his wine, Chloes and Phillises toasting; Hence with the slave who will whimper and whine, Hence with love's joys, Follies and noise, The toast that I give is the Volunteer Boys." From this time on the echoes of the Revolution grew rapidly more and more faint, and though they did not cease until well into the next century, we shall find, when we take up the thread of poetry again, that the character of the poetry was materially changed. |