Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863

The souls of mighty chiefs in battle slain;
Whose limbs, unburied on the fatal shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore;
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign doom and such the will of Jove.'[17 - Μἡνιν αειδε θεἁ, Πηλιἁδεω, Ἁχιλἡος,Ουλομἑνην, ἡ μυρἱ Ἁχαιοἱς αλγε ἑθηκεν,Πολλἁς δ' ιφθἱμους ψυχἁς Ἁἱδι προταψενἩρὡων, αυτοὑς δἑ ελὡρια τεὑχε κὑεσσινΚ. Τ. Λ.]

We opine that Pope, being trammelled with a copy, and consequently his imagination cramped, displays every attribute of poetic genius fully equal, if not superior, to that of the beau ideal of the Grecian Muse.

But Alexander Pope, of England, is not the Pope of English Poetry, a brother Poet being judge, for Dryden says:

'Three Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
The first in majesty of thought surpassed,
The next in melody – in both the last:
The force of Nature could no further go,
To make the third she joined the other two.'

And who awards not to Milton the richest medal in the Temple of the Muses! Not, perhaps, for the elegant diction and sublime imagery of his Paradise Lost, but for his grand conceptions of Divinity in all its attributes, and of humanity in all its conditions, past, present, and future.

We Americans have a peculiar respect for Lyric Poetry. We have not time for the Epic. If anything with us is good, it is superlatively good for being brief. Short sermons, short prayers, short hymns, and short metre are peculiarly interesting. We are, too, a miscellaneous people, and we are peculiarly fond of miscellanies. The age of folios and quartos is forever past with Young America. Octavos are waning, and more in need of brushing than of burnishing. But still we must have Poetry —good Poetry; for we Americans prefer to live rather in the style of good lyric than in that of grave, elongated hexameter. Variety, too, is with us the spice of life. We are not satisfied with grand prairies, rivers, and cataracts, and even cascades and jet d'eaus!

Collections of miscellaneous Poetry seem alike due to the Poetic Muse and to the American people. We love variety. It is, as we have remarked, the spice of American life; and our country will ever cherish it as being most in harmony with itself. It is, moreover, more in unison with the conditions of human nature and human existence. There is, too, as the wisest of men and the greatest of kings has said, 'a time for every purpose and for every work.' No volume of Poetry or of Prose can, therefore, be popular or interesting to such a nation as we are, that does not adapt itself to the versatile genius of our people, and to the ever-varying conditions of their lives and fortunes.

There is, therefore, a propriety in getting up good selections, because a greater advantage is to be derived from well selected specimens of the Poetic Muse than from the labors of any one of the great masters of the Lyre! Who would not rather visit a rich and extensive museum of the products and arts of civilized life – some well assorted repository of its scientific or artistic developments, than to traverse a whole state or kingdom in pursuit of such knowledge of the wisdom, talents, and contrivances of its population?

Of all kinds of composition, Poetry is that which gives to the lovers of it the greatest and most enduring pleasure. Almost every one of them can heartily respond to the beautiful words of one who was not only a great Poet, but a profound philosopher – Coleridge – who, speaking of the delight he had experienced in writing his Poems, says: 'Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward. It has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.'

In no way can the imagination be more effectually or safely exercised and improved than by the constant perusal and study of our best Poets. Poetry appeals to the universal sympathies of mankind. With the contemplative writers, we can indulge our pensive and thoughtful tastes. With the describers of natural scenery, we can delight in the beauties and glories of the external universe. With the great dramatists, we are able to study all the phases of the human mind, and to take their fictitious personages as models or beacons for ourselves. With the great creative Poets, we can go outside of all these, and find ourselves in a region of pure Imagination, which may be as true to our higher instincts – perhaps more so – than the shows which surround us.

If it be as truthfully as it has been happily expressed by the prince of dramatic Poets, that

'He who has no music in his soul
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,'

it should be a paramount duty with every one who loves his species, and cultivates a generous philanthropy, to patronize every effort to diffuse widely through society, Poetry of genuine character, and to cultivate a taste for it as an element of a literary, religious, and moral education. We commend, as a standard of appreciation of the true character of the gifts of the Poetic Muse, the following critique from Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham:

''Tis not a flash of fancy, which sometimes,
Dazzling our minds, sets off the slightest rhymes,
Bright as a blaze, but in a moment done;
True wit is everlasting, like the sun,
Which, though sometimes behind a cloud retired,
Breaks out again, and is by all admired.
Number and rhyme, and that harmonious sound
Which not the nicest ear with harshness wound,
Are necessary, yet but vulgar arts;
And all in rain these superficial parts
Contribute to the structure of the whole,
Without a genius too – for that's the soul;
A spirit which inspires the work throughout,
As that of Nature moves the world about;
A flame that glows amidst conceptions fit;
E'en something of divine, and more than wit;
Itself unseen, yet all things by it shown,
Describing all men, but described by none.'

We neither intend nor desire to institute any invidious comparisons between Old Britain and Young America. We are one people – one in blood, one literature, one faith, one religion, in fact or in profession. Our language girdles the whole earth. Our science and our religion more or less enlighten every land, as our sails whiten every sea, and our commerce, in some degree, enriches every people. There is a magnanimity, a benevolence, a philanthropy, in English Poetry, whether the Muse be English, Scotch, Irish, or American, that thrills the social nerve and warms the kindred hearts of all who think, or speak, or dream in our vernacular. The pen of the gifted Bard is more puissant than the cannon's thundering roar or the warrior's glittering sword; and the soft, sweet melodies of English Poetry, gushing from a Christian Muse, are Heaven's sovereign specifics for a wounded spirit and an aching heart!

PATRIA SPES ULTIMA MUNDI.

FLAG OF OUR UNION

National Song

By Hon. Robert J. Walker

Dedicated to the Union Army and Navy

The day our nation's life began,
Dawned on the sovereignty of man,
His charter then our Fathers signed,
Proclaiming Freedom for mankind.
May Heaven still guard her glorious sway,
Till time with endless years grows gray.

Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.

Americans, your mighty name,
With glory floods the peaks of fame;
Ye whom our Washington has led,
Men who with Warren nobly bled,
Who never quailed on land or sea,
Your watchword, Death or Liberty!

Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.

It was the Union made us free,
Its loss, man's second fall would be.
States linked in kindred glory save,
Till the last despot finds a grave;
And angels hasten here to see
Man break his chains, the whole earth free!

Flag of our Union! float unfurled,
Thy stars shall light a ransomed world.

Ye struggling brothers o'er the sea,
Who spurn the chain of tyranny,
Like brave Columbus westward steer,