Thomas Crittenden Armstrong.
Louisianais.
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LOUISIANAIS
A general view of the great interior valley of North America may not be inappropriate as an introduction to this work, as that valley is about synonymous with our theme, the former Province of Louisiana. For that reason the following address, delivered by the writer some time since, before the Teachers’ Institute of Sabine Parish, La, may not be considered out of place.
Tho’s Ignotus,
Mar. — 1904.
The Western Foreland;
Or, a View of the Vale of Vales and its
Relation to the State of States.
Ladies and Gentlemen: — It may seem a little unusual for me to resort, not to philosophy or art, religion or politics, but to the plain science of geography for a subject on this occasion. But as that subject is the greatest of earthly valleys it may not be devoid of interesting features, or unworthy of public discussion. The great Vale of Vales to which I will call your attention today, is not without elements of grandeur and sublimity, being greater and mightier than any other valley of earth, and in these particulars presumably second only to that one visioned by Milton through his sightless eyes, the paridisian valley:
This greatest and sublimest of valleys is the one in which we live; the one which extends through the heart of this continent from the 30th parallel of latitude to the Artic Circle, a distance of 3000 miles as the wild goose flies, and of 6000 miles as the waters run: while from each of its extremes to its far eastern outlet into the Atlantic the distance is equally as great. This valley of our theme and our home, although but recently reclaimed from its savage state, is already spoken of as “the Garden of the World”. In minor details and qualities it may be rivalled by many. Its climate is not the nicest one imaginable, but De Tocqueville a greater philosopher than any of us, saw, even in its variable clime an influence that would prevent the lassitude of the tropics, and promote the progress of its people. In beauty and floral luxurance it is often excelled by the real or unreal subjects of the painter’s art or the poet’s song. We would hardly dare to say that in these respects it would compare for instance, with that palm-sheltered one, in which Tom Moore located the finale of his immortal poem, Lalla Rookh, especially as viewed by him through the flattering medium of a poetic fancy; the vale of Cashmere:
In these respects it might not compare either with the enchanting valley of the Damascene, from which, it is said, the prophet withdrew with the exclamation that it was too lovely for mortal man. In this connection I am reminded of another valley, so called, also lying between hillocks of snow, where the lovely Katrina wore her silver crucifix; from the sight and thought of which the author of Knickerbocker, a pious bachelor, like myself, withdrew with a similar exclamation, that it was too lovely.
In startling grandeur, our theme may not compare with the Australian abyss, a mile or so in depth, into which the frightened Govett leaped; or with the wonderful valley of Yosemite, on our western coast, with its shimmering cataracts pouring apparently from the skies and its precipitous mountain-walls from half a mile to a mile in height. In antiquity it may not compare with the Greek’s purpureal Tempe nor with the ancient valley of the Nile.
It may be well, in passing, to pay a deserved compliment to that far-famed valley nestled in the heart of the plateau of Mexico, known anciently as Tenoctilan, and where, it is said, the good omen of the American eagle, with a serpent in his talons, caused the wandering Aztec tribe to found the historic city of the Montezumas. Watered by its chain of glittering lakelets, and warded by those twin mountain peak, of unpionounceable names, the Smoky Giant, and the shrouded White Lady; that famous valley, the pride of Mexico, is well-entittled to rank as an earthly paradise.
A similar beauty-spot perhaps, is to be found a little further to the south, in the Andean valley of Cauca, in the South American republic of Columbia, which was made by Geo. Isaacs, the setting of his romantic story of Maria. But these picturesqe mountain valleys, with their narrow fields, can campare with the theme of our discourse only as the lakelet compares with the ocean.
In the combined elements of beauty and grandeur, our subject may be excelled, in the opinion of some, by the vale of Oratava, in the Isle of Teneriffe, which was given the palm, I believe, by the noted traveller, Humboldt: that valley of surprising beauty and startling magnificence combined, extending from the sea that laves its lower extremity, by a series of gradations, through all temperatures and all flora of earth, from a torrid to a frigid clime; flanked on either side by mountain-walls and extending upward to the base of the sublime volcano of Teneriffe. I think however, that Humbolt would have admitted, that on a comprehensive view, Oratava would have been more sublime if its mountain-walls had been placed, Some hundreds of leagues apart, like our own; if its romantic fields had been extended sufficiently to allow them, to maintain, like ours, a great proportion of the present population of the earth; and if it extended from sun-land to snowland, not on account of ascending a mountainside, but, by over-laping zone after zone of the earth’s surface; like the valley of our theme; which extends from the realm of orange-groves and sugarcane to and beyond the realm of wheat-fields and rose-gardens; to and beyond the realm of potatoes and barley-corn; and while one of its extremes is washed by the tropic gulf, the other is lost amid arctic snows and hyper-borean gloom.
In historic interest, our great vale is excelled of course, by almost any noted locality of the old world, which has heretofore been the seat of civilization. From Scotland’s Dundees and “bonnie Doons”, to the blood-stained Jezreels of Holy Land, are many localities of more extended historic associations. Passing between those limits, we would be compelled to acknowledge the superiority, in this respect, of the “castled rhine” and the “storied Guadilquiver”. In sunny Italy too, wc would perhaps pause in involuntary admiration. In Val D‘Ema or Val D‘Arno, in view either of La Cetosa, with its towers like dreams in stone, or of beautiful Florence, of glorious memory, we would seem transported bodily into the dreamlands of the past, and would live, as it were, in the age of chivalry. Nevertheless, were I to turn poet, and undertake the writing of an epic I would choose as my locale, none of the historic valleys of the east, but instead, the great valley of the west, thronged as it is, not with shadows of the past, but with visions of the future: I would stand, as did Henry Clay, on its rocky boundaries, would stand upon the Foreland of our theme, and, overlooking its expansive plains, would listen like that inspired patriot, to the ingress of its coming millions: would paint the prospective beauty and glory of the Garden of the World, marked as it is by all the signs of progress; tilled by unremitting science and industry; its encircling hill-tops aglow with the coming day, and its fields overarched, and filled with reflected beauty by the glittering bow of peace and promise.
As already stated, ours is the greatest and most productive valley in the world. The hills that constitute its confines and boundary lines are as far distant from each other as the midnight from the sunrise. The most extensive river systems, including that of the Father of Waters himself serve to drain its basin, which contains besides a mighty chain of inland seas without a parallel upon earth. It is said to be a fact that we have here in this region, more than half of all the fresh-water on the globe. It is a misnomer however, to speak of this iumiense region as the Mississippi Valley, simply, for that river basin. constitutes in fact only part of a great three-fold, or perhaps I should say, four-fold valley, embrasing the basins of the Great Lakes, and those trending northward into Hudson’s Bay and the Arctic, as well as the Mississippi Valley; which properly-speaking, includes only the region lying between the Rockies and the Alleghanies. In fact all of North America that is outside of the great valley may be ranked as the porticoes and vestibules of a temple, of which that great basin constitutes the inner court and principal apartment. Influenced, I presume, by the grandeur of this valley of the west; by its well-deserved title as the Garden of the World; and supposing, I presume, that the Creator would naturally have selected the richest region of earth for His experiment at gardening; some wise westerner has advanced the idea that our great west was perhaps the quondam paradise, the Eden of our first ancestor.
The fact that ours is geologically the oldest of the contingents; that some of the eastern nations had traditions relating apparently to America, may lend some color to this idea. The tradition of the lost Atlantis indicates that our country was known to the Egyptians in prehistoric times and may have supported one of the first civilizations.
Add to these considerations the fact that the commonly accepted location of Eden does not correspond with the biblical description of that favored spot; the fact that there were traditions of the Edenic Garden suggestive of our thundering Niagara, or of the giant geysers of our national park, which, as I will show presently, bears a peculiar relation to our great valley; and the further fact that Dr. Talmige has recently found, in the last-named locality, the veritable throne of God Himself; and we have, perhaps, as good a claim to paradise as almost any* land. At all events, this greatest and greenest of earthly paradises, is one of the sublimest objects in nature, with its ocean of verdure a thousand leagues in length and breadth; and the fact that it is at other times a snow-field of equal extent, may be excused in accordance with the philosophy of De Tocqueville, on account of the moral benefit of climatic changes.
According to the Bible statement “God planted a Garden eastward in Eden.” If that be so, we may still say whether the fact be of record or not, that He planted a greater garden westward in America. We note in passing however that He planted the Garden westward in Eden, which is the position of our Garden of the world with reference to its continent.
“And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and thence it became divided into four heads.” The wise man of the west, above referred to, who considered the national park the Eden of our ancestors, may have been influenced by this peculiar statement. It is a fact that the several river systems which water our great valley, all of which however are so interlocked and intermingled as to make them but one in reality, have a common source on the dome of our continent, and, we may say, in or about the national park. This statement as to their common origin may be considered true even of the Great Lake or St. Lawrence system, for that system is interlocked witJi Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan river, and the last takes its rise along with the Missouri in the neighborhood I have mentioned. It is also a fact that the waters of that valley are discharged into the surrounding seas by four great mouths or outlets, each of them ranking among the largest rivers of this world. The mighty McKenzie drains it into the arctic: a twofold estuary cf like proportions, into the Hudson Bay; the mighty St. Lawrence into the gulf of that name; while the majestic Father of Waters drains it into the Gulf of Mexico. If it is a fact that our Garden of the World was really the Garden of Paradise, these great streams would have borne and have dignified the God-given names of Pison, Gihon, Euphrates, Hiddekel; and their teeming productions would have been worthy of the attention of the Lord God Himself, while walking among them in the cool of the day. But if it cannot be shown that our great valley has given us a Paradise Lost, its advantages and present tendencies indicate that it may enable us to realize a Paradise Regained.
To gain an adequate idea of the grandeur and immensity of that valley, let us imagine ourselves in the Rocky Mountain country, say on some of the beetling heights that crown the Plateau of the Missouri. We would there find ourselves on the uppermost step of a terraced tableland that extends from the Rocky Mountains far out into the great valley about midway its length, being opposite the transverse extension of it which includes the Great Lakes. The snowy and Shoshone ranges above and behind us, capped by the fairylands and obsidian cliffs of the National Park might easily take the form of a rock-walled paradise or a seat of grandeur worthy of the King of kings; while the tableland of our position, with its rounded extremity, and its successive steps or plateaus, might as easily be considered either the terrace in front of His temple, or the dais before His throne.
From that elevated position, with the aid of a supposable telescope that would adjust itself so as to make up for the convexity of the earth’s surface, we might obtain a series of most impressive views. Thus located and equipped, on glancing about, we might find ourselves in a more commanding position than that of the poet:
We might obtain on one hand a view of the most romantic mountain region of earth, with its towered and castellated rocks and parti-colored cliffs looking down upon the rolling cloudlands at their feet; and on the other hand a still more wondrous view of the great valley or garden of our theme. With the aid of the supposable telescope mentioned, we might command, to the east, a view of the chain of inland seas known as the Great Lakes, constituting the largest bodies of fresh water on the globe. The entire panorama of that immense valley of almost a thousand leagues in extent, with its wide outlet to the ocean beyond: its thundering niagara turning to give us a view of its inexpressible grandeur: with its foaming seas; its teeming capitals, and its boundless fields of commingled corn and grain; would burst upon our startled vision.
Turning to the south-east and south, we would there behold a scene of equal sublimity in the southern extension of that great vale. In that direction we would look down the wide basin of the Missouri to the Mexican gulf beyond, over almost limitless fields that justify this region’s title as the Garden of the World by their almost incalculable product of the world’s breadstuffs and a great proportion of its clothing besides, for the snow of the southern cotton-fields would there meet our view, and on the limit of the horizon in that direction, a hint of the luxuries and sweetnesses of life in the glint of orange groves, and the sheen of rustling cane-fields.
Turning to the north-east and north, we would witness the continuation of the great valley in that direction.
Would there behold a silent and slumbering ocean of green; the level and limitless prairies constituting the great lone land of Canada, the natural home of the wheat-plant, and which while uninviting as yet to the settler on account of its remotenes and supposedly severe climate, will yet justify its position as a componant part of the world’s garden, by its fabulous product of wheat, the staff of life itself.
In that direction we would also witness a chain of mighty lakes, being in fact a continuation of the chain of inland seas we have mentioned, extending northward 2000 miles to the shores of the frozen ocean, the swash of their waves only breaking the silence of the solitude, and their verdant shores capable of boundless development on being opened to settlement by R. R’s and connecting water-ways.
From that position, along the main valley, we might view to advantage the teeming produce of that region, which even in its natural state, as the uncultured prairie, or the unbroken woodland, would sweep by us like a mighty stream of verdure, foam-flecked with flowers; or ’neath the autumnal sun, would roll at our feet in waves of molten gold. The advance of civilization has embellished the scene by adding to it myriads of happy homes, enlivened it with the shriek of the steam-goblin, and annihilated its immense distances by telegraphic and telephonic communication .
From that elevated position, which seems to have been intended as a post of observation, even a God might have enjoyed such a glorious vision of beauty in the light of the rising, or of the setting sun. Prom that position we might realize the accuracy of the poet’s picture of it.
Whether the wise man of the west be correct in his surmises or not, I am disposed to think that the great Creator, the Jehovah of Moses, the Jove of Phidias, in the midst of angelic and jubilant hosts, must have occupied that point of vantage? or the cloud capped fairyland beyond, and have looked on with satisfaction, when the Missouri, the fountain-head of the father of waters, issuing from the paradise of the west, and communicating, possibly by extinct channels, with the Winnipeg system; began to pour its accumulating floods into the plain beneath, and under the magic of Heaven’s sunlight, and that immense system of waters, the rainbows began to o’er-arch the scene, and at their feet the flowers began to gleam and the fruitage to glisten throughout the Garden of the World.
A recent event shows the continuity and the vast extent of that valley. The city of Chicago by reopening a former river-bed has connected the systems of the Mississippi and the St.Lawrence, and ’ere long even ocean-steamers will pass from the Gulf of Mexico to the far off Gulf of St Lawrence, by way of that unequalled all-inland water-route; passing on their journey into the very heart of this continent, and then moving out through its eastern portal to the sea. No doubt similar engineering feats will soon connect these systems with those trending northward into Hudson’s Bay and the Arctic: The Great Lake and the McKenzie and Katchewan system can be connected easily by canals aggregating about one hundred miles in length; while the Mississippi system and its northern counterpart are separated from each other by merely a short portage in Brown’s Valley, Dakota, which divides the fountain-heads of the Minnesota River, and the Red River of the north; which slight obstruction can be easily removed.
The total extent of this vast network of streams is almost beyond calculation. the Mississippi system alone aggregating some fifteen thousand miles of navigable water-ways, while its northern counterpart is of almost equal extent; and the third, or Great Lake system, makes up in volume what it lacks in linear measure. The agricultural product of this well-watered and greatest of gardens, consisting of all the necessaries, and, in minor degree, of the luxuries of life, already amount, in value, to thousands of millions of dollars annually; and its output in the future will be increased beyond all computation. The business men of the east have a saying to the effect that all prophecies fall short of the truth when they attempt to forecast the growth and development of the mighty west; by which is meant the great interior valley of this continent: and it is probable that few of us have realized, even yet, the vastness and future importance of our rapidly unfolding and developing Garden of the World.
Within its bounds are included some twenty American states, and about as many British provinces, each one of these possessing the natural riches and resources of an empire; the agricultural product of most of them already comparing favorably with that of the average Kingdom of the Old World.
These commonwealths are increasing rapidly in wealth and population; and on a moderate calculation, they could maintain half of the present population of the earth. “Population”, says De Toqueville, “moves westward as if driven by the mighty hand of God.” To this a recent writer adds: “From the mountain-valleys of Asia, commonly supposed to be our origin, a ceaseless pilgrimage has moved ever on and on.” But on the western coast of this great continent, the timelong journey will at length be done: here in the great west the race will reach its final home. Here have been grouped as nowhere else in all the world, mountain, and valley and plain, river and lake and sea. Here have been stored illimitable wealth in mine and forest, sea and soil, and to these broad foundations for a sure prosperity, has been added a climate adapted to produce the highest possible development of the individual and of the race.
Such are the physical features of the world’s great garden. I would now call attention to the fact that under the hand of Providence it has become the seat of a national fabric which is the fitting counterpart of its physical grandeur: of political institutions as noble and sublime as its natural scenery. In furtherance of divine purposes no doubt. Providence has peopled this great region with the proudest and most progressive of the human race and has made the great Garden of the World the basis and broad foundation of the Great Republic of the world and of the ages.
The simultaneous unfolding of the greatest of countries and of nations, was the work of Fate. The blessings that have attended that nation’s advent indicate its providential origin. The history of the fairyland we have been discussing has been fruitful in prodigies.
A recent historian of France attributed more importance to the few months included in the French revolution, than he allowed to the seventeen centuries of her preceding history, on the ground that the revolutionary period constituted the fruition period, when the results of her former experiences became manifest. The same remark might be made of the history of the United States as compared with the antecedent history of the world. Ours has been the world’s fruition period and our land alone being sufficiently enlightened to profit by experience, our brief history is yet an epitome of the boundless past. It presents the flower and fruition of the world’s experience in all ages. This is especially true of the opening chapters of our political history. The science of government, that plant of centuries, burst into bloom and disclosed the beauty of its hidden heart only when transplanted into American soil. I imagine that soil and clime had been preserved for the purpose of fostering the wonderful developments we have witnessed there. I imagine the Garden of the World was sequestered and kept apart as the only fitting basis of the state of states, the republic of republics; that its gateways were guarded by as many angels, like those of the apocalyptic New Jerusalem. This gem of the natural world, of wealth surpassing the riches of Aladin’s cave, was not to be lightly bestowed on an unworthy object or government. It was not intended that despotism should there take root, to flourish amid barbarism and gloom, like those of Egypt and the east.
So, when Eric the Red landed upon our coast, doubtless with the blood-stained sword of murder in his hand, I imagine it was the angel-guardian of the shore that drove him thence, with the exclamation perhaps, that the time appointed for its settlement had not yet come; that the race had not yet undergone the necessary apprenticeship nor acquired the needful wisdom. But in the fullness of time, after mankind had been sufficiently schooled in affliction, after long-continued oppression had prepared the sens of Eric for the enjoyment of political liberty; after a Tho’s Torquemada, with the hell-torch of persecution, had prepared the way for a Tho’s Jefferson and the God given mandate of religious freedom: I imagine the same angelic warden received and tenderly watched over the pilgrim fathers, when in their flight from persecution, they landed on Plymouth Rick; that he extended one hand in welcome to the Catholic Baltimoreans and the other in blepsing over the Hugenot Carolinians: that, in accordance with a divine command, he opened to these classes of men, and to their successors, and to the oppressed of all lands, the barred gateways of the long hidden and mysterious Garden of the World.
At any rate, the nature of the institutions that have been founded there, the only worthy products we have of the experience of ages, inculcating equal rights and the brotherhood of man, would justify us in believing that angelic and divine agencies were instrumental in their adoption; in believing that in one American political convention at least, the hand of God was manifested. In that one which was presided over by Geo. Washington, and which devised our form of government; that one, which was the first instance in the history of the world when the representatives of a people met, and voluntarily selected their form of government; that one, which consulted history, in extenso, and went to primal Greece for a prototype of the government best suited to our conditions; and then wisely and deliberately founded our confederate republic of co-ordinate states.
Under the supervision of a greater architect than Hiram of Tyre, or Merlin of the magic wand: with its materials ready prepared from the quarry of a world’s experience: that greatest of political structures rose more sublimely than Solomon’s temple, or Arthur’s mystic hall in Camelot. The inspired builders then raised above that fabric of their love and pride, a banner that suggests the beauty of the rainbow and the immutability of the stars. They bequeathed, as it’s appropriate emblem the bird of good omen, the royal eagle of Jupiter; that, on its first descent from heaven, perched on the ensigns of conquering Rome, the great republic of the ancients; that, on its second visit to our sphere, graced the war-galleys of Venetia, the great republic of the dark ages; and, on its last and final visitation, has transferred its allegiance to America, the great republic of the moderns; As the most precious legacy of all, the builders placed upon that temple, as a national motto, a cabalistic phrase which suggests the solution of the problem of democratic government; e pluribus unum; a dearly bought idea, which, with us, is embodied in the potent form of the Union, wielding the sword of an archangel for the protection of an otherwise helpless band of sister-states.
The vale of our theme now constitutes the central court of that edifice, the nave and transept of its temple.It may be observed, in passing, that the flowers of the world’s great garden, which decorate that inner court and holy of holies, cannot surpass in beauty, the divine figures of liberty and her attendants, which ornament that superstructure as with “flights of angels;” and that its basic principles, like the mosaics of Tennyson’s Palace of Art, have embodied suggestions caught from the cycles of human experience, and are, as the bard expressed it.
It may be observed besides, that in spite of its growth and grandeur; in spite of the vermin that occasionally infest its dark-places; its trusts, monopolies, boodlers and ballot-box stuffers; this seat of superlative grandeur may still be considered the home of freedom, and the hope of mankind.
We are justified in holding such views with reference to a land and nation that in the short period of a century and a quarter, in accordance with the views of the historian we have mentioned, has done more for the good of mankind, I might almost say, than all preceding ages combined; that within the sphere of its influence, has freed, not only man but the mind of man from oppression; that has glorified the earth with the splendor of its scientific inventions; and beneath whose influence we may truthfully say:
The part our great valley will take in perpetuating this government has already been indicated by its influence in the past. Knitting together and consolidating the country, and giving the great majority which inhabit its basin, common interests and common views, it acts as a bond of union, and tends to prevent our dissolution as a nation. This was actually the part it played in the great civil war. But for the stern determination of the people of the great valley to keep its waterways open, and it’s commerce unobstructed, the federal union would then have been destroyed. That sublime valley extending throughout the continent acts as an indissoluble tie that may forever unite our band of sister-states, and yet consolidate the continent politically. That may be a desirable event. According to one of the fathers of our country, the broader our domain, the greater our stability. Liberty, in the infancy of intelligence, was guarded with difficulty, and flourished only amid the mountain valleys of Switzerland and Greece: but in our land and time she thrives and expands, till in the form of a Columbia, she wields the sword of an archangel and stands invincible as the guardian-spirit of a hemisphere.
No doubt Canada will yet be made to realize, may be by the touch of a mystic wand, that our destiny is her destiny, and her family of Provinces will yet enter as colleagues into the great American sisterhood of states. This may be accomplished peacefully, and England more than compensated for her lose, by the realization of her fondest dream; by a re-union of the Anglo-Saxon race in an alliance of such magnitude and power that it will disarm opposition and establish the reign of perpetual peace.
In the mean time, our great Garden-Valley the gem of the civilized world; with a possible population of a thousand million human beings; with its teeming fields, fruit-laden and flower-scented, will still delight mankind with its pictures of peaceful industry inducing abundant prosperity; with its civil and religious liberty inciting universal progress and hastening the long-predicted period when eternal wisdom shall judge the earth, and “the nations shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks:” may even introduce the poet pictured era when upon its smiling plains will rise:
LOUISIANAIS.
Or,
Valley of the West.
By Tho’s Ignotus.
ALL rights reserved.
PREFACE.
The following extract from a letter of the learned and venerable Glials Gayarre, the lately deceased historian of Louisiana, will show that the author of this volume is not alone in becoming infatuated with the romances enacted in the whilom French province of Louisiana. Under date of Apr. 27th, 1891, Mr Gayarre writes.
’The colonial history of Louisiana is very romantic. I wrote once to Fenimoie Cooper, inviting him to select a subject for a novel out of the vast mine of rich material to which I called his attention. His reply was very courteous and friendly indeed, but he declined complying with my desire, on the ground that he had long ago discovered that his writings were more appreciated by the Europeans than by his own fellow-citizens; and that if he continued to write his subject would be a foreign one. Undeterred by the experiences of the immortal Cooper, the author of this volume can only hope that the intrinsic merit of his subject, rather than any peculiar ability on his part, will cause it to awaken some interest among his patriotic fellow citizens.
Besides dealing with romantic characters and incidents in our history, this serial poem treats of subjects of increasing interest from a sociological point of view: in its discussion of the comparative merits of our own modes of life and those prevalent in a state of arcadian simplicity; in its forecast of the future of the great Valley of the West, our home, which is kept in view throughout the work, and over which our heroes stood as guardians and protectors: and, in connection with the latter theme, in its presentation of:
PREFACE TO PART, I.
An apology may be due the reader for the somewhat desultory and disconnected character of this part of our poem. It necessarily lacks the artistic mould and connected form of the entirely original work of fancy: being based, as it is, on historical facts in the life of the so-called Lion of the South, the worthy pater-Patriæ of the Louisianian: the second part being founded on the career of the equally worthy, and scarcely less notable hero known as the father of the Red River country. The writer is of the opinion that the colonial history of Louisiana is sufficiently romantic to constitute, in itself, an entertaining story, on being merely amplified and furnished with the details necessary to its proper and life-like presentation.
The first book is, as stated, more particularly in commemoration of the first governor and so- called father of Louisiana. The following picture is given of the hero of this book in the works of Charles Gayarre, the best historian of Louisiana. ‘A man of undoubted integrity, a strict observer of his word, punctilious as a knight-errant as to his honor and fair fame, devotedly attached to his country and king: true, heart and soul, to his friends; to his kinsmen, and family connections: bland and courteous in his manners, humane, generous, possessing a highly gifted personal appearance, having all the distinction inherent to a man of refined and elegant tastes, he retained that air of grandeur so peculiar to the age of Louis XIV, which had closed when he had already reached manhood, being over thirty when the grand monarch died. With all these qualifications, he might have been set up as a faithful representation of the gentleman of the time.’ The same historian states: ’When he left Louisiana he had reached the age of sixty-five years: and he carried with him the regrets, the esteem, and the affections of the colonists who called him the father of the country. With it as an object of his creation, he was naturally identified, and he loved it with all the fervor of the parental heart.’ The position he occupied, and the difficulties he encountered during the first period referred to in this work, are tersely summed up by his recent and fair biographer, Miss Grace King. Speaking of the period when he first assumed the reins of authority, she says: ‘Fort St Louis de la Mobile, the head-quarters of Bienville, became the capital of the new French dominion and the young man of twenty-two the chief executive, virtually the first governor of Louisiana;’ a position which according to the same writer, has never been noted for ease of administration or laurel-leaved emoluments. But while every holder of it since Bienville, with the usual notable exceptions in the near past, has commended himself to the sympathy if not to the admiration of the impartial observer, not one of them is more deserving the meed of compassion than this tyro-official.
Speaking more generally of the race to which Sieur de Bienville belongs, the same writer freely awards them and him, a conspicuous member of that order, their well-earned meed of praise. Says she: ‘For bold hardihood, valour, and endurance, for dauntless enterprise, persistent effort, and inextinguishable determination; for the rugged essentials of primitive virility, these recrudescent adventurers s loom up in the dawn of American settlement, with the huge distinction and gigantic proportions of their Homeric ancestors’. Another talented and recent authoress refers to the family of our hero as “those illustrious LeMoynes whose deeds may be traced in our day from the St Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico.”
Another eminent writer speaking of the gigantic character of the French scheme of colonization in America, says: ‘Whatever may be the judgment of the historian upon the policy or the work of France in this bold scheme, there can be little difference of opinion as to the qualities displayed by the Frenchmen who were leaders in the movement. They were certainly cast in the heroic mould.’ ‘Indeed,’ says that author, it seems well for those of us who have been nurtured on the English literature of the last three centuries, to make now and then some careful study of the lives of the French explorers during the same period, if only to keep our perceptions achromcatic respecting the French character. There are many good people of Anglo-Saxon descent who have a vague feeling that a Frenchman has always been comparatively, a poor creature, a fop, a fribble, destitute of true earnestness of character, and quite beyond the reach of saving grace, whether of the political or theological sort. For such an inadequate estimate of a great nation there can be better corrective than a study of the story of Louisiana.
The characters treated in this book may be justly regarded, not only as the avant-couriers of civilization in a new world, but perhaps among the most romantic and genuine specimens of knight-errantry and true chivalry known to the history of our race. The Imagination of the gifted bard, in delineating and glorifying the knights of Arthur and his Table Round, hardly conceived of such heroic quests and romantic wanderings as the journey of the Iron Hand from his post on the upper Illinois in search of the remnant of the expedition of his friend, La Salle, and the unexplored wilds of Texas: or, such as the equally historic journeyings of a St Denis from the post of Natchitoches to the far-off city of the Montezumas: whether moved by love alone, or the combined influence of the tender passion and a passion for trade and adventure. The miniature court of Bienville, about which clustered so much romance in real life, in which sojourned such heroic knights-errant, and over which presided a kindred spirit in the person of that notable first governor, is accordingly as worthy of the minstrel’s harp and the poet‘s song as that of the mystic Arthur, or that of the semi-barbarous Charlemagne.
Book 1st. Le Lion Guardant.
Or, The Warden at the Gateway.
Stories of the Father of Louisiana.
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not;
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears: and sometimes voices
That if I then had waked out of long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that when I waked,
I cried to dream again.
Copyright, 1904,
By T . C. Armstrong
All rights reserved.
At the Gate of Dreams.
Chap. 1st.
La Val D’Occident;
Or, The Great Valley,
in Light and in Shadow.
The Valley of Silence.
Chap. II. ‘Mon Petit Frere’.
Or, The Lion of the South.
Chap. III.
Les Paladins;
Or, From Snowland to Sunland.
Are ministers of fate, the elements,
Of whom your swords are tempered, may as well
Wound the loud winds, or with bemocked at stabs,
Kill the still closing waterss; as diminish
One dowle upon my plume. — The tempest.
Chapter IV. Le Baton-Rouge.
Or, A Hunting Scene in the Great Forest.
Chapter IV. Le Baton-Rouge. Part II
Or, The Meeting with the Daughter of the Sun.
Chapter V.
Man De Fer;
Or, A Home in the Far Valley.
Chapter VI.
Louisiane et le Fête;
or, A Tryst with the Mystic Maiden.
The Forest Primeval.
Divertisement.
Chap. VII. L’Alabama or,
The Land of Rest.
Chap. VIII. L’Insurrection;
or, The Petticoat-Rebellion.
Chap. IX. Rosalie.
or, The Natchez’ Hate.
The Tropic Valley.
Armageddon, Past and Present;
or,
Reflections on the Battle-Ground of Nations.
A Divertisement.
We often turn in imagination toward ‘the shinning orient’ for pastime and profit withal; and it is to be hoped the purposes of a divertisement vill be answered by the following view from fancy’s oriel toward the gates of day; which, however, is in the form of an address delivered by the writer, some months since, at the Central High School of Sabine Parish, La.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As a preliminary I will invite you all to join me this morning in an imaginary pilgrimage to Holy Land, in a short excursion at least to the goal of the palmer’s and the crusaders desires. I would have you wander with me in fancy among the hills of Gallilee, the mountains of Zebulon’s land, and southward over the fields of Manasseh. Would linger in thought by that ancient river, Kislion, that divides the storied plain of Esdraelon. It is to that historic spot I invite your attention most particularly. It is variously known as the vale of Jezreel, as the plain of Esdraelon, as the Armageddon of prophecy, as the Battleground of Nations in profane story; and to the present habitues of that vicinity as the Pasture-Land of the son of Amor.
A modem traveler speaking of a view of the landscape alluded to from one of the beautiful summits of lower Gallilee, says that apart from all sacred and historic associations, and viewed simply as unknown valleys and hills, ht never behefd a more attractive prospect than was there presented. “How much more interesting was the scene in fact, said he, since the flowery field of Esdraelon, known to prophecy as Armageddon, and to profane history’ as “the Battleground of nations” lay outspread before him, while upon it back-ground of hills lay the scene of the childhood and transfiguration of Christ. There, says the French historian Guizot, is the most favorable scene for indulging in dreams of human felicity. That plain, says another, is still of astonishing fertility. Still another speaking of it while in a state of desolation said it resembled a great meadow, and under normal conditions, should resemble a great garden some hundreds of square miles in extent. There teeming harvests should still reward the careful husbandman. There the olive and the vine may still flourish in luxuriance and the stately palm with its plumes of victory. There nature, with her veil of tender verdure conceals the ravages of ancient wars, and the dream of paradisian beauty and happiness is there revived beneath the spell of the tropic flowers, and the song of the eastern nightingale. There every tree and flower is redolent of the part. There the lily of the valley once attracted and still recalls the Shnnemite, the pride and inspiration of Solomon. There the feathery date-tree once sheltered and still suggests the victorious march of Deborah, the heroine of Israel, “going up to the help of the Lord against the mighty,” Perhaps the best epitome of that valley s history is found in her majestic song: There indeed the “kings came and fought;” There “fought the kings of Canaan, in Taanach by the waters of Meggiddo. They took no gain of money. The river of Kishon swept them away.’ Such has been a summary of its history. The kings of the east have there met and fought and fell; and the waters of Meggiddo have swept their dast into the sea, or with it enriched the pasture-land of the son of Amor.
But could the wand of a fairy recall the stirring scenes enacted in that historic field we would there behold an epitome of the struggles of mankind through the ages. We would there behold Sisera, with his nine hundred chariots of iron, overthrown by a woman. Would there see revealed the sword of the Lord and of Gideon, in discomfiture of the hosts of Midian.
Would see the majestic Saul of Israel, in couflict with his mortal foes, the Philistines; would find there embattled through s:uccessive ages the Jews and Gentiles, Egyptians and Persians, Greeks and Romans, Crusaders and Saracens, Turks and Arabs, and of course the Briton and the Gaul. As one writes has said: ’Warriors of every nation under heaven have pitched their tents upon tlic plain of Esdraelon and beheld the banners of iheir various nations wet with the dews of Tabor and Hermon It has been the chosen place for battles and military operations in every age, from the time of Barak to that of Bonaparte.
Among the scenes of Holy Land none really, not even Jerusalem or Zion’s Hill, affords a better topic for discussion than our blood-stained Armageddon, the garden-spot of Gallilee, and the Battleground of Nations. I rather prefer that historic fold in spite of its warlike associations. It is true there are other influences and associations connected with that storied plain. While it has so often resounded to the din of arms and drunk the blood of struggling hosts, upon its verge is seen the sacred mount of the transfiguration and that of the nativity of Christ, flanked on either hand by the mount of Blessings and the mount of Beatitudes. And those that place their trust in Christianity as the salvation of the world, may point to that historic field, and the thousand wars of old, and to the folly and fruitlessness of such struggles and conflicts, and then picture as a striking contract, as the emblem of a better and holier spirit, the christ-child in youthful innocence among the flowers of beautiful Jezreel, and afterwards of mature age preaching peace to the nation? warring there, and rejoice in the victory of his creed as the harbinger of a better and a brighter age. Indeed it would seem not inappropriate if a benign and heavenly influence should take its rise upon that greatest sepulchre of man, the Battleground of Nations with its stupendous struggles and its corresponding moral teachings. The most impressive teachings of that subject, the ancient field of Armageddon with its arpents of human dust, are the vanity and futility of mere earthly and temporal struggles and achievements. Man must perish and his proudest works must fall, though he aspire to heaven, and though his head touch the clouds, yet shall he flee away as a shadow and as a vision of the night.
Vain indeed must our earthly achievements be held unless these tend to improve the heart and fit the soul for the hereafter: unless those achievements can elevate our race, and like the golden chain of Jupiter, raise man from earth to heaven and preserve communication between our own and that eternal shore. Our first duty then should be to seek God and his goodness, whose divine power and grace may yet revive all the myriads of human lives that have been queue hed on the various battlegrounds of earth, and unite the just at last in an eternal relm.
And yet there is a destiny before the living world, there is a victory in store for the struggling nations on earth’s battle-fields: which is worthy of consideration. This moves of necessity, and thus for, though partial and interrupted progress is manifest. Compare the enlightened with the unenlightened portions of the globe, and the intellectual working of today with that of former times. We find the mind in past ages loaded with chains and fetters; at the present, disenthralled and moving with irresistible force, the menace of the universe. At our present rate of progress it seems we must reach the goal of our are at no distant day. The theme of our discourse, in addition to being the Battleground of Nations in the past, has been referred to in prophecy as the scene of the last and greatest of conflicts known as the Great Day of the Lord. It is true our horoscopes bearing upon the darkened future may be somewhat unreliable. Christ, in mockery, asked the pretentious Pharisees why they could not discern the signs of the times. With this we may compare what was, according to Arnold’s Mirza, the statement of the holy angels to Mohammed. Said they: ‘Times and Signs we wot not, only Allah knows,’ But whether our version of the prophetic conflict of Armageddon be the true one or not, I hold that merely as a rhetorical figure the metaphor is an impressive one, and may well be applied to the stirring events of our own day and tinic. Ours is the age of great achievements, of Herculean labors, and of decisive progress towords a higher state.
I have already stated, and I repeat, so great and decisive is the world s progress in these times that it seems we must needs reach the goal of our race at no distant day. The achievements of our modern science are such as to make us believe that mankind are about to leave the dead wastes of the past, the improgressive stages of their career and enter upon perhaps a higher order of existence.
However this may be, the fact remains that the so-called chosen race, with their scythe-armed war-chariots, crushing the flowers of Jezreel; with splintering spears and battle-axes flashing in air; failed to accomplish the victory of peace, or anything like the far-off republic of love.
Throughout subsequent eras too, we find the tribes of earth there engaged without avail in promiscuous battle and bloodshed despite the teachings of Him who from the adjoining height, blessed the peace-maker and reiterated His command: Love ye one another. The kings of the historic east have met and warred, and that gory Battleground of Nations has full often been the scene of carnage and of death. But the sparkling waters of Megiddo still freshened their verdant Jezreel, the gore and carnage but enriched its teeming soil, and tliat typical aid most ancient battleground of earth has remained a picture of unrivalled loveliness. Such have continued to be the typical scenes of history; the battleground reeking with human gore, and nature, drawing her veil of living beauty over the sanguinary scene; war’s dread golgothas full often becoming the most fertile and blooming spots of rarth. The flowering vine there enfolding with its verdant tendrils the ghastly skull and the scattered bones of the slain and the emblems of life there standing in contrast and in mockery beside the horrid emblems of death and decay. And man has seemed as heedless in such matters as inanimate nature. The poetic Byron stood aghast at the profusion in which the flowers bloomed on the blood-enriched field of Waterloo while his more callous countrymen have gazed untouched on their many battle fields strewn with the bones of brothers; and unfeelingly transported the carnage of Plevna into their gardens as a fertilizer.
But signs of progress are manifest. The two leading nations of our modem civilization have recently resorted once more to bloodshed and war as the arbiter of their differences, but at the same time we must remember that eacbof them rules in peace as great a realm as was the civilized world in olden times, and each of them, in conjunction with the other leading nations, have taken the most advanced ground the world has yet known in the interest of peace by establishing an International Court of Arbitration; and from tradition and prophecy we still have the assurance that man will yet forsake his ancient course and no longer commit such stupendous follies and crimes as have the nations of old and those of later date, on their fields of blood. Besides nature herself in effacing the marks of strife, and counteracting the arts of destruction imparts a potent lesson On the smiling battleplain, late the scene of wars revolting horrors, but again, after this, reinvested with a mantle of verdure and bedecked with flowers, we are most impressed by the poet’s lines:
With regard to a golden age lingering somewhere in the future, I am not disposed, in the light of modern events, to dispute what has been a prophecy and a tradition in all ages. Throughout history is found, along with the memory of a past paradise, the hope of a paradise to be regained. The Hebrew prophet from his remote station in the past, beheld, through the vista of ages, and on the shore of a renewed Eden, that which had been a prime article of his patriachal faith; the blest yet long delayed period, when eternal wisdom shall judge the earth and when the nations shall beat their swords into plough-shares and their spears into pruning-hooks. Even the uninspired Virgil sang of “the bright era when the golden age shall over all the world arise,” and with his prophetic visions of the future gained his reputation as:
It is but reasonable to presume that perfect and perpetual peact will be one result of our final victory on the battleground of nations.
It is but reasonable to presume that the greatest of blessings will be among the first-fruits of our final success in that strife, whose chief aim should be a more perfect life. And yet the subject we have chosen, the prophetic world-struggle of Armageddon, does not convey the idea that the coming and most perfect social state will be super-induced or heralded by a period of inactivity, or of inglorious quietude, but the contrary. From that subject we are rather led to believe in the inspiration of the bard who wrote with referance to that period, that:
We are not to believe either that the final goal of our hopes will be the realm of luxurious idleness or the poetical and mythical cockaigne. That ideal sphere is not fittingly typified by “the land of Lotos, with its flowery coast.” Says a philosophical French statesman: “whether in humanity or nature, the only organisms that have a durable existence and effect, are those that are born in pain and developed by strife.” But whatever be the true nature of that promised era of happiness, the poet’s golden age, and the Beulah of John Bunyan, we hold only the prophetic Armageddon, the worldwide, and decisive conflict of our race, conveys a fitting notion of the great events, peaceful and industrial as well as warlike, that have been transpiring in the modern world.
In discussing this phase of our subject; in picturing the prophetic Armageddon, whether of the present or of coming times, we wish to call attention to the fact that the pasture-land of the Son of Amor, on which transpired an epitome of the wars of old, is no longer great or broad enough to serve as a battleground of the mordern nations or as a fitting stage for the conflicts of our times. In view of this fact it seems likely that the Apocalpytic writer made use of that battleground of the ancients as a type or symbol of some greater and grander field that should become the battleground of nations in the future. And while discussing as our subject today; the fair valley of Jezreel, the garden-spot of Gallilee, with his ancient river and its mountain walls; I involuntarily dream of that greater and grander valley of the west, which has been called the garden of the world, whose ancient river is the Father of Waters himself; within whose ample bounds ten thousand Esdraelons might be included, and upon whose mighty stage the nations of the world seem collectmg as if in preparation for the great and final day of the Lord. At any rate whether the prophet so intended or not, it seems to be a fact that, instead of flowery Jezreel, the world’s greatest valley, constitnting as it does the principal factor of the world’s greatest nation, is destined to be the future battle-ground of our kind. It seems probable moreover that the conflict that shall then decide the destiny of our race will not be a conflict of arms, but an industrial and an intellectual struggle. The arms that will be wielded in that conflict with most effect will not be the sword or spear, or the deadly firearms of modern warfare; but the wanderworking inventions of modern science; whose object will be improvement and progress, rather than death and destruction. In that struggle it will be demonstrated that the pin is mightier than the sword. In that struggle, instead of the scythe-armed war-chariot we behold the iron-horse of commerce; and instead of the plumed and steel-clad knight, on barbed steed, wielding battle-axe and spear; we find a more potential and beneficent hero in the scientific student of nature’s mysteries, wielding a wand of magic and revolutionizing our modes of life. The heroine and Deborah of our modern Esdraelon is the American spirit of liberty; and not even the martial heroine of old Israel, invoking the God of Hosts, and calling on “the stars in their courses” to fight against the oppressors of her country; presented a more inspiring figure than does our Columbia to-day liberating the New World from oppression, and well-nigh revolutionizing the Old World by the influence of her example. We may not fully appreciate the grandeur of the institutions that over-shadow us, and the beauty and perfection of our system of states; that the solar system with it’s central sun and it’s planetary orbs of light, has an antitype, and not an unworthy oae, in our mighty central government, encircled with sovereign states; and that the fabled melody of the spheres should find a counter-part in tht harmony of half a hundred republics chanting together, through the ages, their songs of uniity and fraternity. We may not fully realize or properly appreciate all the blessings thus bestowed upon us. I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, yet me thinks I may truthfully affirm that ages and millenniums hence, an appreciative and exalted humanity will still acknowledge their indebtedaess to the great American Republic for its correct solution of the chief problem of human government by establishing as its chief corner-stone, the civil and religious liberty of the people, from which notable event they will pererhaps date the progressive civilization of our race.
We may not fully appreciite the fact but it seems true nevertheless that our country is to be, in one sense, the battle-ground of nations; that here probably the fate of the human race is to be decided: the fact that here man has taken his position on a higher plane, and is waging a more successful and glorious struggle than ever before. It hardly admits of question that in our Great Republic are to be decided issues that involve the well-being of the human race, and such being the case, it seems but a reasonable interpretation of scripture to say that within its bounds will be located the Armageddon of prophecy and that the narrow vale of Jezreel might after all have been but a type and symbol of that Great Valley of the West which, in all probability, is it be the scene of the final and decisive conflict of mankind. I am disposed to think that our great country will accomplish the solution of the problem of human government, and with it as a leader and exemplar, the world will yet witness the reign of universal and perpetual peace.
Since the father sage pictured his imaginary Republic of Love, the advocates of human perfectibility have never been so numerous and hopeful as now; and considering the wonderful progress of the last century, what thinking man will dare say that at the end of such another era, frail humanity may not occupy heights and boast of perfections which are now unattained and unattainable. Edward Bellamy, in his remarkable and his prophetic work, Looking Backward, gives us rational and realistic views of the life of a century hence; when most of the evils of our social state shall have been eradicated; when wars and rumors of wars shall no longer prevail; when the love of money the root of all evil, shall have been supplanted by the love of justice and right; when wealth and poverty shall no longer give rise to differences and distinctions: and, in view of the fact that some of his most remarkable prophecies seem or the point of fulfillment, who will say that his dreams and visions may not be substantially realized; even though, like most prophets, he may view the future “as through a glass, darkly,” and prove in error possibly, as to details.
Milton wrote that God’s object in the creation of mankind was to rear an angelic race to supply the places of the fallen angels; and in spite of the curse of sin and death it seems we may yet believe in some measure to raise ourselves to the angelic standard. In spite of the curse of sin and death the old earth may yet fulfill Milton’s discription of the earthly paradise, and become:
When the genius of Bulwer undertook to portray our race as it will be in the future, while he indulged in some burlesque in that connection, the picture he presented of beings of ethereal beauty, soaring on wings of light, each brandishing a wonder-working wand capable of destroying the proudest city at a stroke; was much upon the order of Milton’s description of the hosts of heaven. In that work too, he portrayed the American as the most progressive of men, and his great commonwealth as the most perfect of states. Such then is to be the goal of our endeavors, and the reward that will attend our final victory on that battle-ground of nations. At any rate, while standing as we do today on our great modern Esdraelon, observing the signs of the times there presented for our observation, with the millions of our race there struggling and striving onward and upward, with the words cf the Peace-maker resounding amid the din as forcefully as ever; we have some reason for hope in the future of our race and can exclaim with the philosophic Carlisle. “Deep and sad is the feeling that we stand yet in the bodeful night, yet equally deep and indestructible is the assurance that the morning also will not fail.”
Chap. X.
La Vente et La Motte;
Or,
The Encounter with Bigotry and Tyranny.
Chap. XI.
Le Chevalier et le Cure.
El Conquistador. Bold wanderer, in burnished mail, Treading our new-found sphere, Opening to us our mystic vale. Deathless, forever dear, To memory is the heroes name; So haply shall be thine; The conquests that exalt thy fame On Vega’s page they shine. Thy soul of daring and the lance, Esteemed the pride of Spain, These that shall gladden fair romance Let not the muse disdain. But were thy conquests but a dream Thy name will dcathbss be. Aye, Soto; while the Father Stream Rolls o’er thee te the sea, It’s billows shall with endless dole, Recall the explorer brave, And thou, approved of mighty soul, Can’st boast a hero’s grave.
Le Paladin. In glittering arms And ’neath the Norman shield, The Paladin Adorned the martial field Most glorious spirit In the lists of time, The errant knight Enacting deeds sublime. Crested gallant! Hail to thy sttel-glad form! ’Mong death-dealt shafts Impervious to the storm; Or wandering far, On many a well-fought field Waging just war, — While kings their homage yield,
Chap. XII
Le Cour et la Camp.
STOPPED HERE
’Mong the night-flowers waking his riant call Is yet meet for an idyl’s theme.Where the vilhi^e arose in llie er;s ])ast, . And love n,ve(l tlu- woo^llands );reen; Where ih.. ilovwrcLs smile and their eharnis contrast, On the ^rave of the lore-t-qneen; Hallowed spot! with the ])resenee of death oVi- east! iCven here the bold nioeker is seen.
Sinj^er, lienee with thy mirth and thv mimiery: Do the flowers of the sonthhmds j^leam?
ending earth and her graves wilh sneh hla/onry/ And the smiles of fair heaven beam;
And shall life Iv the snbject of pleasantry? ( )r the i^rave bnt the moeker’^ theme?
knmois of warfare from his favorite hannt
Recalled onr ehief and ’mid a wild a.ray
He sat in armor, in his hall, with n
The palisade of Fort de Immobile.
A Freneh ship, lately arrived, riding at ease
In the wide river at his portal lay..
It’s V iri And to Bienville, as he sat in stat<^ Paid their devoirs. ’Mon^ these a sad-heid erew Of Mnt^neno’s, that exih-d from fair iManc e liv tliL’ al)olili(m of the ediet (i Nantes, Now sought periiiission to rebuild their homes
’Ivlong’ tlieir compatriots ou this distaut shore.
Now, for the second time, they came to learn
II’ l)i!:^’otr\’ had 3’et relented, or
Would grant tliem space, wliere Sj)ace was 3’et so \’ast.
’i^hcir sect, tliroiigl: persecution, th:.u-etofore
Unrivalled, and their midnight massacre
On the ev^ of St Bartholouicw, had waked.
Throughour the w.)rld compassion for their kind.
At their approach the frere, who sal hard l)y,
Upheld his hands in horror, and thus showed
Tile truth of the ’’ucient apothegm tliat holds
’i^lie liolv lialred the n\ost savage still:
And M. Bienville, b}^ rebuking there
The m:M-ciless upholder of the cross
Regardless of ihe tenets of the Christ,
There show’ed himself a hero in advance
Of that dread age whereon intolerance,
With the frll stake, still shed it’s baleful glare.
Uir chief, (U spite the edicts cf royalty,
Anpapacy as well,’ cast on the recreant priest
withering glance, ’neath wdiich a hanlier soul
I lar’ hailed and, even as the priesr, recoiled;
And then, with hand extende:l, and a smile,
Welcomed the Huguenot with heart-felt joy.
’Tw.’s (icd’s good angel in his form, methinkj-,
Thai tlius received, u])on our .shore, the opprest. He affirmed that in this Valley of the West,
Albeit deemed the abode of savagery,
No cloud e’er rested of such harrowing gloom
As that which, sad to say, even at that day,
O’er-shadowed Europe and her boastful tribes;
No cloud or gloom so bodeful of all ill
As the black shade of dread intolerance.
The Huguenots, through persecution taught
The justice of such views, loudly affirmed
Their full assent thereto, and gathering round.
Hung on his words with rapture and delight.
Upon the sectaries kindly he gazed
And, as I deem, a tear bedimmed his eye,
A pang beset his heart, in looking on
The sorrows of his exiled countrymen.
"Aye," he exclaimed, ’’behold in me a friend,
And as your loyal governor henceforth
Be well assured that like Obeidah old.
Like the Islamite that practiced tolerance,
And blest Damascus in her darkest day;
And by that course made the red Damask-rose
The emblem divine of brotherhood and love;
I Like him I essay to stay the bigot’s hand.
And ’gainst his madness shield the innocent.
Here roam at will, and should fanatic power
Molest you, look, I pray, upon this vale;
Note if the eye can compass it’s extremes.
That widely expanding hold in their embrace A mighty segment of our mundane sphere. And know, my brothers, in its wastes are found Full sustenance for our afflicted race. And therewithal it’s long-sought liberty Of person and of mind: and know besides, That in the future, when the Master of Life, A greater than Mohammed, shall stand here, As did the prophet by Damascus’ vale. That mighty one will see these wastes transformed Into a paradise fit, haply, for His eye; And ’mong it’s beauties will He observe at length A blossom lovelier than the Damask-rose, Or the artizan’s famed flower of gold, silk-wrought, That blest the White City of Obeidah’s love; Will there behold in lieu of iron creed, The tree of Liberty, in life and leaf, And thereupon the amaranthine bloom Of art and life undreamt of and untold.” Then to the bugle’s notes our chief went forth Followed by a bristling formidable throng Of fire-locks and of archers famed afar, Like Coeur-de-Lion, heading merry-men Of Robin Hood; or errant knight of yore, Waging wild wars in regions of romance. A neighboring nation had defied his power And slain besides his fellow country-men. In power he moved upon their villages And with drawn sword before their sovereigns seat Appeared; yet ere the fatal weapon fell, He extended, on just terms, the branch of peace; Which, gladly accepted, he achieved with joy A bloodless victory; such as oft-times Shed lustre on a chief whose sylvan wars Were oftener waged upon the council-ground. Than on the gore-stained field; a fact sublime. Which makes him worthier of a nation’s love, And of a poet’s song, than many a knight Of loftier name, that flecked with gory stains Of innocent blood, rides o’er the blood-bought field. His sylvan fortress, to the native’s eye Invincible, with log-built walls, rough-hewn, Machicolate, and moated palisade; Oft echoed to the jarring clash of arms, And steel-clad knights passed to and from its hall; Like Arthur’s court in mystic days of old. Unto the native’s eye, that bristling hold Was the rude palace of a sylvan king, And while the clash of steel far-echoing thence His spirit awed, a kindlier influence there Attracted his rude heart, and gazing on That fortress from encircling woods and wilds-. He smiled unwittingly and dreamt with love And admiration of the forest-queen That there bore sway and wnth her influence mild Oft seconded the labors of her lord, And with love’s arms extended still his reign. What though disguised, while in that hold, she moved,
Each native taciturn knew and revered
The secret of the woodland’s king and queen.
That secret influence, while it bore his sway
Even over distant tribes, and gave him oft
Unwonted influence round their council-fires;
Oft checked his sword even in it’s swift descent
In vengeance on the naked warrior’s head;
And in the brown hued princess of that race.
He had, Mercutio-like, good cause to spare
His sylvan foe whereof the world knew naught.
Ere long his rival on that bosky shore.
The Spaniard, in a stronghold like his own.
But by his sufferance that post retained;
And when conflicting interests made them foes,
Our hero summoned braves of every race.
And while his fellows from the sea approached
As if to assault, and thus divert the foe.
From the surrounding wolds a thousand braves
With shouts demoniac appalled his powers
That rushed for safety to their conqueror’s arms. Kachmire be Nazeer;
Or, The Cloud o’er the Happy Valley. An Episode. The poet’s thrice-blest Indian queen. Portrayed in his enchanting book,
As through his mystic dream-gate seen; The spangled princess Lalla Rookh;
Borne onward in her silken car, Had yet her griefs however fleet,
And joys, like fruit of Iscahar, Of mingled flavors, bitter-swr-et. Her cortege, a fair, jeweled train; Her path flower-strewn, bine skies above;
Her fruitful cause of tears and pain. The anguish of a wa3side love.
A singer in his lowly guise. With tender songs had won her heart,
As even here a lowlier tries. And for loves sake, th? poet’s art. The daughter of a royal race, Her unknown monarch’s destined bride.
She yet had felt loves tender grace," By the forbidden river’s side.
No beauty now, her soul elates; Mournful on Kachmire be Nezeer
She looks, nor cau it’s flowering dares
. Sufiice a love-lorn heart to cheer. It’s stream^; and sacred fountains roll Into its lake of palmy isles,
Yet these cannot enchant her soul, Nor even awake her wonted smiles.
Greived now she contemplates her throne, Nor more the di-adtm esteems;
She sees, she hears the harp alone, Of him whom bc-st llie c:own beseems; The poet, more than king, I ween; E’en though devoid of robe and crown.
Supreme in realm of glittering sheen, And fllb’ng earth with his renown.
But mark! her grief a glcry proves; When that leige-lord she so misdeems,
Smiles on her, and the veil removes: ’Tis the sweet singer of her dreams. Dull sorrow is the foil of joy. As clouds relieve the sun-bright bow.
And love may thus our griefs employ In fashioning a heaven below.
So Lalla finds, and fairer far, After such grief to her appear
The shining halls of Shalamar, The glorious Valley of Cashmere. May you that bear’st as soft a name
As that which graced the Indian queen. And rul’st me with the love-lit flame. Within your eye of splendor seen;
May you sweet Lalla’s fortunes share, As pictured in the poet’s tale;
And suffer but such transient care, As over-cast her Happy Vale. Meantime, since you njust needs beguile Your journey hence to heaven’s gate:
Since, like our heroine, you smile On those of less than royal srate:
I’d strive, like the Cashmerian kinp-. To merit favor with a lay,
And 10 the kitar’s trembling string, My softest song of love essay; And did not penury debar My hand from proffering royal cheer;
Th}^ smile should grace a Shalamar, And rule a Kachmire be Nazeer. Chap. XIIL Le Plateau du Missouri; Or,
A Vision of the Garden of the World. Of en wide the gate of horn,
Whence beautiful as planets rise The dreams of truth vuith starry eyes.
And all the woyidrous prophecies, And visions of the inorn, Long Oft-tunes in dreamful mood IVe trod that shore
Where, brimmino- o’er, the Mississippi flows,
’Mid scenes id3^11ic toil’s embouchure.
Malbonchia! Mississippi! Indian-named,
Majestic river! vainly I essay
To express my feeling^: when thy sea-like surge,
Resounding, fills mine ear; albeit ’t^s not
Thy majest}^ alone, unrivalled stream,
Tliat thus impresses me; though thou*rt well-named
Father of Waters; Ocean’s eldest born;
I think besides of tluU whereto thou art
Tlie simple dr^-iin; I think of Louisiane, Yea, of the imperial Valley of the West, That, yet unfilled, boasts of a score of states; That, with it’s foar great rivers will at last Become a paradise, whereof^ I ween. The edenic garden was a fleeting type. Yea, ’tis of Louisiane I dream and sing^ And, were my fancy equal to the theme, I’d picture her as in millenial times. By her accomplished, sovereign and supreme. ’Twas with such thoughts as these our sentinel, Our Louisianais wanderrd on that shore. While stalwart axnieu felled the cypress-tree, The spreading oak, and reared his capital. His Non’lle Orleans, As with a young compeer. Himself a 3’outh, he viewed that busy scene, He paused straightway and serious became. Solent upon the wolds, upon scream he gazed: Then to his comrade thus his thoughts exprest: *’Dost realize," said hr, that on this scene Will stand one day the fitting capital Of this fair, summery southland; that ’twill rise And with itV favored, subject realm keep pace; And with the progress of the years, outvie Sicilian Agrigentum, once esteemed Of i^.ortal cities fairest; if indeed Jt faili: to. eel ipse that which tlie world toda}^ Reckons supreme, the city by the Seine; Or tliat uhete England’s glory monstrous-grown. And sinokc-begi imed, o’er-awes the silver Thames. What mortal faney can, thus form afar.
Rightly portray the destined capital
To o’er-look one day this great stream’s embouchure,
In th.e Egypt of that world, as yet to be,
Whose light mu.->t needs illuminate mankind.
To found that city has been my chief care.
And founding it even now tliis act sublim*^
Will memorate my deeds, and make my name,
However unworthy, deathless for all time.
His frere then, of our pater-Patriæ.
Required a discourse on his favorite theme,
His care; fit subject of heroic song.
And of our love; our mystic Louisiane.
Then sans prelude or form he thus began:
^ I esieem it a high honor, in good sooth,
To be accounted ruler of this realni.
As you well know my authority extends,
Or through my letters-patent should extend,
Throughout this valley of shadow, on each hand,
To it’s mountain-bulwarks; toward the north,
To its distant bourn, that never yet explored.
Doth drain, ’tis said, into le mer del oueste,
And veering joins the realm of the Great Kahn.
Rt-oion immense! fairest of temporal realms! Wherein the thousand millions of the earth Might safely abide and easily subsist. Such myriads yet will its vast bounds include. In that predestined realm, god-like indeed, Must be the hero worthiest to bear The title Rome eave t* her noblest son; And not to him held first in deeds of blood, But to ’’Sweet Tully pat? r-patrise. In that great realm I’d bea’" the honored part Of him that gave Cadmean arts to Greece, And to that end, I’d strive to roll from it The night of ignorance and bodeful gloom: For o’er that vale a pall of darkness spreads. And superstition, savagery, abound. In forms well-worthy of Dantesque imagery. And yet, o’er all, resplendent, cloud-relieved, A heaven-reflecting iris spans the scene; And there, even there, I’ve visioned phantasies, And dreams that seem prognostic and inspired, Or by the times, or zodiacal signs. Of these, one seemed assuredly Jove-sent; In Greece that dream of mine had thus appeared, And, of portentous and resounding name, Had been regarded as a sequel fit Unto the Atlantic story, matchless strain, Begun in wisdom by the Father-S^ge. One eve upon tlie Inyan Karats height, A western bulwark of this shadowy vale, I encamped and thence a wide-spread land-scape view’d.
There while the mock-bird sang, and sunset^s glow
Transformed the wilderness; of years to come,
Methinks I (breamed, or of th^ Atlantis past.
There to my ken a wondrous vision sh#ne;
A driam-land, yet a ri^ilex of our sphere^
On an exploring expedition there;
My genial guide and hopt, ru Indian sage,
So-Called, whose name was yet Isonomos;
And who, as I aver, in sober sootli.
Was a good angel, fair and nobl}- -named.
Who watches o’er this Valley of the West:
I attributed this vision to his art.
Vasty it rose, with mountain-likd immures,
Since it yet bore the semblance of this vale;
An that a vale be calle 1 between whose bounds
So great a segment of the sphere obtrudes.
’Twas our great vale, ^nd through the midst methought,
The lather of Waters still unchanging flowed;
The hesperian fields lay boundlessly outspread;
The hoary woodlands but appeared more fair.
And in configuration much as these;
Albeit those wolds were as the wilderness, Unshorn that cinctured Milton’s realm of bliss, Or Alghieri’s earthly paradise; “That heavenly forest, dense and living green.” The Inyan Kara seemed a bulwark huge, The bastion of a fortress, mountain walled, Rock-pinnacled and grand beyond belief. Yet on one hand appeared a broad plateau, That stretched far down toward the valley’s heart, And westward rose in mighty terraces, Blending, at last, in the great mountain-wall, That forms the acme of the continent, And, on that side, the valley’s bounding line, Huge panorama! Westward I beheld Rocks high-embattled; rocks with towers and spires,
And loftier still, along the sky-line far.
Mountains snow-crowned, including, as twas said,
An earthly paradise where ’mid calm lakes
Transparent as the skies; ’mid pictured rocks
And cliffs obsidian, at brief intervals,
A myotic fountain heavenward rose immense,
And arched with rainbows, stood apparently
That one which in the edenic garden played,
And, as tradition says, became at last.
The source of the great stream, far-famed, four-fold,
Thence wandering eastward through elysian fields,
And watering all the lowers of paradise. There at my feet the turbid river rolled; Missouri, Indian-named, the fountain-head Of our great Father-Stream; that arm in arm With it’s great sister, with Saskatchewan, The swiftly-flowing river, issues from That mountain-paradise, and wandering forth Into the vale of vales, waters it’s wastes; And then, by four great outlets, even as The edenic river, falls inio the sea. Meantime I stood, methought, within the abode Of the ancient sage* which outwardly appeared A relic of the old Saturnian age, Of mound-builders and times long since forgot. Within, as well I wot, ’twas fitted up With products of a science likewise lost, Or otherwise, as yet unknown to man. ’Twas no unnatural art, as I opine. Yet mystified by optics yet unkenned, Scarce could the eye it’s whereabouts discern. I thus beheld the mystic vale of vales, “Well-watered as the garden of the Lord;" Beheld, through distance infinite, despite The swelling earth’s convexity; beheld It’s mighty rivers and it’s inland seas. And each of these throughout it’s vast extent; Whilst fronting us and to that end, as ’twere, Quite retroverted, it’s Niagara foamed: Beheld, with awe, it’s thousand leagues of plain, And therewithal it’s thousand leagues of wood. The first, apparently, a cultured field; The last, an endless maze of floral bowers As fair as thai of Eve in Paradise. And o’er those scenes the light of Heaven flowed; Since, as of yore, it’s wonted beams of peace Revived the lost Atlantis. Brighter far Than Ivan, boastful of her orient scenes, Or the ancient land of roses, Suristan; That vale seemed like the paradise discerned By the rapt Parsee ’neath his tamarind tree, Or by Mohammed in his dreams of bliss: An Aden or a Janat al Ferdoos. Aye, there; e’en there,I weet, was realized, Or, as I said, the Atlantic Isle divine, Or that fond dream, so dear to wildered minds, That robs our darkness of it’s horrid form; That bright mirage, unfading evermore, So long the object of our fond pursuit Over the sands of life; the joys superne. The fair elysian state, v/hich vaguely viewed Through death’s dark vista, glads the child of faith.
The Paradise of the West, as in the lore
Of Boodha pictured, those elysian fields
The Greekling visioned o’er the western sea;
E’en there, methought, in primal beauty smiled. I’d ne’er assert that ’twas the spirit’s home,
The last reward of loving deeds below;
But that it’s new-found glories well-fulfilled
Whatever bright ideals men have known,
Whether as fond traditions of the prime,
Or cherished dreams of better days to come. Ere long the chief of marvels there appeared: A wondrous city shone, with cloud-cap’t towers. In magic reared by architects divine. Out-rivaling Mulciber’s celestial skill. Blest scat! that far the Utopian’s pride outshone; Or Caracalla’s cite de Soleil, Or e’en Dorado’s dream-built capital, Of structures aureate and argentine; Midway our vale, at juuciure of it’s streams, That city lay, on rivers nobler far Than those of old deemed worthiest paradise. Pison, Gihon, Euphrates, Hiddekel, What were your streams lo these? About its walls Eastward the wold, westward the boundless plain; The one tilth field, the other, wide pleasance, Designed in beauty, this to smile for aye. There from distructive art was nature free, And oft as in the golden age men dwelt In bowers rudr-built, like those here seen, or like The tabernacles reared ’mong Eden’s palms. Dwelt in most primal mode; like him of old To Elijah appearing in the wilderness, With bread and water-cruise, of simple guise,
Yet numbered ’mong the flaming seraphim.
With art that swayed the seasons, stilled the storm,
And distance overcame; man needed not
To change, or with rude hand, to disenchant
His rural haunts and bowers of pleasance.
On every hand the wold seemed populous.
As ’twere with spirits high that roved and sang
’Neath bowering shades, and scarce a foot-print left,
Much less disturbed a scene of God ordained.
But as to that dream city of which I spake:
There situate afar it’s bounds spread forth;
On either hand, by furlongs measured, vast,
As to the dreamer of the Apocalyse,
That Holy City, New Jerusalem,
And like it gorgeous as tho’ framed of gold.
And thick inlaid, with glit’ring gems and stones.
Yea, on each side, it’s mighty arms stretched forth.
As from Niagara’s foaming flood, ’twas said,
And from the far Msssouri’s thundering falls,
She drew a power incalculably great,
That, once uncurbed, had wrecked the sphere well-nigh;
And therewithal she changed her night to day,
Impelled at will gigantic industries. And cars and messages that, lightning-winged, In all directions sped. She even essayed With that weird power to still the hurricane, At pleasure, and the circling seasons rule, Methought I trod her ways, and ’neath a dome, A structure such, mayhap, as mortal hand Ne’er built before, nor fancy’s magic wand Reared in the cities of her fairy-land, I stood at length amid a heavenly throng, Or such those puissant forms appeared to me. Yea, stood, and heard the white-robed seraph sing, ’Mid waving palms, the victories of truth. An exhibition of that art was given, Even as I watched the scene; and mighty domes, And cloud-capped towers arose, a vision bright, Unspeakable, and though of form immense, Snow-white, as foam clad cytherea fair. The mystic city, as ’twas truly called, All glorious as the fabric of a dream. That common-weal was but the brotherhood Whereof the sages write and poets sing; lt’s maxim true, the equality of all In the ancient phrase exprest, Isonomos. Such was the Great Republic and it’s chief, The Ancient of Days, so-called in prophecy. Was eke the leveller of blood-bought thrones. Wise ruler! ’mong whose counselors appeared The brothers famed for fore and after-thought. The first Promethens-Vinctus, oft protrayed On Caucasus imbound, and vulture-torn, Till e’en the foolish Epimietheus saw, And checked the abuses of the fiery arts The first had given, but perfecting their use, As at one stroke, set man and Titan free. The Atlantid’s; though in seeming such as we, Were yet in art consummate and supreme. ’’Mou-Dieu!" the knight exclaimed, with sense acute,
Those mortals caught faint whispers from afar,
Conversing with compadres overseas;
With goblins breathing flame beneath their yoke
Were trade’s rich stores, and earth’s productions borne.
While lights pharosian far the unending day
Dispensed at will and shamed the fitful sun.
The teeming soil, ’neath such ethereal fires,
Brought forth the golden grain, unkempt, until’d.
They induced the former and the latter rain,
They reared the choicest products of the field,
And shared the harvest-home; nor ever deigned
To weild the ploughshare, or to bind the sheaf.
There science esoieric o’er the soil,
Wielded supernal powers, as poets say,
The rod of Ceres and the bolts of Jove. Men toiled not, neither did they spin, and yet
The field hesperian, o’erspreading half that vale,
As it doth still, e’en from the Mexique gulf
Expanding northward a full thousand leagues;
Stood yearly enrobed in cereals green and gold.
Men toiled not, neither did they spin; and yet
The dyes purpureal and hyacinthine robes
Wherewith the earth of old her kings indued.
Were naught unto the wealth of their array
When glittering in their fairy palaces.
Joyous they trod the groves, the elysian fields.
Or else aloft on wings of light arose.
They enjoyed the music of the sunbright earth;
They e’en traversed with speed the ethral vault;
Wandered at will ’mong sister orbs more fair,
Like mariners that rove the isle-gem’d seas;
And finally, mayhap, defying fate.
On winged steeds like the Al Borak of Mahound,
Arose and reached high heaven at a bound.
Aye, wonders reigned supreme, for happiness
And science dawned upon the earth once more;
Nor passion unrestrained, nor suffering,
Nor death, methought, deformed that radiant shore.
There, if death came, twas at the appropriate hour,
Nor e’er untimely urged by sin, or crime.
At last discerning whence their art arose, And to their modes habituate, said he, I marvel’d much that they were long unknown, Nor doubted more a Jared’s thousand years, Nor e’en the advent of the chiliast’s age; Yet more admired the ancient sage inspired. That from our mortal framed a perfect state, And presaged the Republic there to rise And blend earth’s races in it’s brotherhood. A word as to the most stupendous strife That there arose; the victory of Truth: ’Twas that of Light and Liberty withal; Th^ Armageddon of the prophet’s dream. The mightiest of states, even that dread power. Which in this valley centreing stretched afar To all surrounding seas, with those it drew Into its alliance; all the Americas, The Asian and Australasian isles; This mighty power o’er all the earth besides Triumphed at length; albeit the conflict waged Was such as shamed all antecedent strife. There myriads fought with novel arts and arms. Like fell Medea with her dragon team. And car aerial mid-air they appeared; Or ranged in conflict, like the embattled hosts Of Gabriel and Apolyon, strove on high In cloud-lands mystic; strove with glittering arms Electric-bayoneted; Jove’s fiery bolts, They seized god-like and with precision hurled, And hideous thunder, hideous rain ensued. The most horrific factors in the strife Were, on each side , the navies of the air. Aye, truly, on the far horizon’s verge Did these appear like vultures broad of wing>-, Wide-circling in the sky; as they approached, Their huge proportions, as the storm-cloud vast, O’er shadowed earth and dim’d the light of day: And oft, horribile dictu, they paused, And slaughtered thousands, and from dizzy heights
Demolished cities with a rain of fire.
At length the final conflict came, that one.
The most eventful of all tides and times,
That with it’s thunders did determinate
The destiny of man, and thus disclose.
Even in this long-lost valley of our dream,
Tlie blood-stained field, to prophecy revealed,
The Armageddon of the Apocalypse,
From the Inyan-Kara’s height I observed the strife.
The patriot-host o’er-spread the vale below,
And through the outlets of the rivers four,
As well as through the encircling realms of air.
The Invader came. Each great contending host
Was shrouded in a mantling all of clouds.
And as those war-clouds over-spread the scene,
The shades of midnight fell. But suddenly
The strife began, and vivid lightnings glared And startling thunders stun’d the list’ning ear.
Earth trembled as beneath an earthquake shock.
The din increased until the vale beneath,
To it’s utmost bounds, a pandemonium seemed,
And through the rifted darkness, in the glare
Of fearful lightnings, I beheld broad fields
With carnage strewn, and rivers running blood.
But as the climax came and when it seemed
The quivering planet would in ruins fall,
I heard, as ’twere, the rustling of swift wings,
And saw the terraced plateau toward the north
Covered with forms divine that all absorbed
In earth’s last conflict, heeded naught besides.
Meantime the sage, whose honored guest I’d been,
His pLain disguise forsook, and radiant rose,
And in celestial arms and armor, stood
The angel of Liberty, Isonomos.
Into the strife, on wings of light, he plunged;
And, thus enforced, tis needless to relate
The Atlantids won the victory of truth,
And tyranny was driven from the earth.
At last the turmoil ceased, and with it ceased
The invidious rule of wrong; resounding fell
The thrones of czar and kaiser, king and khan.
How fair thereafter, in millennial days,
’Neath angel-guardians, grew the vale of vales
Is more than tongue can tell, or dreams portray.
He ceased, and Louisiane, divinely fair;
Armed with the lute, mysteriously appeared. ’Twas thus she sang: Plus Ultra. As athwart the wild valley we gaze, Opening hence in it’s dark semi-sphere.
Can we view but the wood-land’s green maze, And can naught but the savage appear?
Ah! the eye o’er it’s green wold of leaves, In the opaline region afar,
Where it merges in heaven, perceives The gates of Elysium unbar. ’Neath the beacon of hope I behold Dimly-visioned, bright castles in air,
Or Dorado, bright-glittering with gold. Or Utopia, the blest and the fair.
From that far, shining dream-land there fall Sunny beams of it’s heavenly sheen,
On the wold ’neath it’s cloud-pictured wall, And an iris o’er-arches the scene; And the wilderness smiles ’neath it’s gleam, As the valley of paradise, and -
’Twas the rustling of boughs- - I did deem, ’Twas the hymn of a heaven-taught band.
Oh! I weet ’tis a vision sublime, ’Tis a glimpse of the maze of fate,
And it types the List product of time, ’Tis the blest and tlie coming state. As dim-seen by the savage of old, By Amerigo’s sailor forlorn;
As ’twill gleam in the ages untold, In the light of millennial morn. She ceased. Our good knight seemed inspired as ’twere:
Would, he exclaimed, I had the potent art
Of Orleans’ ancient school, or tabulae
Toletenae, or hymn theurgical;
I Would that dream of fairyland revive.
Aye truly, she replied, would it were so.
They spake, and from their aspect rapt.
The cure deemed they visioned realms unknown. “Maldicion," exclaimed the holy man, “If from Jamblichus de Mysteriis, Or such theurgic hymns, ye have the power Of second sight, or gifts of like import, Ye should at least on pulse or pebbles walk, As penance meet, and by such deeds approve Your observance of the seventh sacrament.” Exclaiming thus, he raised tne crucifix. And chanted excantations of learned phrase, At which our good knight, unalarmed, but smiled. Chap. XIV. Carlotta:
Or, The Princess of Brunswick. A pretty Woman’s worth some pains to see,
Nor is she spoiled, I take it, if a crown
Completes the forehead pale and tresses pure. Rob’t Browning. Soon ’neath the blades of fifty choppers fell
The adjoining" woodland. Sundry arpents wide,
As many miliares long,perhaps, stretched forth
The escarpment, for the town’s defense designed,
’Twas made at length to serve another use,
And in due time rustled with fields of maize.
Upon the rvier-side rose palisades,
Encircling barracks, commissarial stores;
Among them, sundry abodes of officers.
That rudely built, subserved the intended use.
There stood our chieftain’s cottage, afterwards,
As the Hotel Bienville, widely known.
On the fair day whose happenings we recount,
’Twas but a rustic castle girded with
Circling verandas and an upper floor,
That over-looked the turbid Father-Stream,
And immemorial woods. From it’s wide hall.
Athwart the seething waters, looked that day>
Our group of heroes. There in jocund mood,
The effect, mayhap, of full-paid salaries, A thing unlikely the historian says, Or wines of Bordeaux recently arrived, They indulged in rallyings facetious, not. As well I wot, uncourtly or uncouth. A bout at arms proposed for jollity, In that, St Denis excepted, all engaged, And dangerous play and flashing steel ensued. Each face with youth and hot blood radiant glowed In conflict hand to hand, and bright eyes flashed And glinting sparks leaped from their flashing blades,
And gold-laced uniforms, and broidered hats,
Doublets and mantles in the sunlight gleamed.
More serious grown by a casual wound thus given,
They ceased their sport the bleeding wound to stanch.
Our Jean presiding thus in rustic state,
Then asked of Sieur D’Aubant the wondrous tale
To which his strange adventures had given form.
Be it remembered Sieur D’Aubant alone
Dwelling afar by the stream called St John,
Knew that strange story of his varying life,
And hitherto no entreaty had availed
To call it forth, Howe’er, at Jean’s command
The lovelorn hermit even rehearsed his deeds;
And in so doing held the host entranced,
And even the most un heedful ear engaged.
Of knightly grace was he, albeit lass-lorn. His course had been that of the sad recluse. Gently he laid aside his chapeau-bras And seemingly in reminiscent mood, He thus began: ’’The story, I admit, Of my past deeds, if properly rehearsed, Would be of interest to romantic youth, And such, I assume, my auditors remain. At the outset I will say that each of you Has doubtless felt the deep enthralling charm Pervading the imprints even of castles old, Of lordly halls, such as have thickly graced Old Europe since her medieval age. Standing before those huge majestic piles, What soul is not uplifted? What fond heart Doth not imagine that within such walls Romance prevails, and that those pillared fronts Have each concealed a scene of fairyland; And when, anon, within their lofty halls Sweet melodies arise and dulcet tones Of lute and harpsichord commingling with The soulful voice of woman, ah, in truth! What dreams divine on wings of angels borne Smile on us as the fancied habitants, The fitting tenants of such glorious towers. Such thoughts, at least, found lodgment in the soul
Of a young chevalier, who of rugged frame And martial aspect, spurred his worn steed down
The rough declivities that westward bound
The storied Iser and it’s vine-clad vale.
Before him gleamed that which awoke those dreams.
On Iser’s banks a ducal palace stood:
A noble one, forsooth! it’s beauties still
By distance softened, it appeared in troth,
A pictured scene as ’twere, a dream in stone;
A reflex, seemingly, of fairy-land.
Majestic rose it’s battlemented walls
’Mid groves of ancient oaks: o’er it unfurled,
A glistening banner flowed, while in it’s front,
The curving stream that beauteous scene enchased
And in clear depths reflected all it’s towers.
Enchanted by that vision of delight.
Our young adventurer drew up his worn steed,
And stood awhile in admiration mute;
In doubt, as ’twere, whetlier to advance or pause.
’Tis said Mohammed on the rocky bound
Of old Damascus and it’s happy vale,
Even thus drew back for fear lest his stern soul,
Thus lured and charmed by an earthly paradise,
Would forfeit that above, or else approve
Unequal to the proud pursuit of fame.
Such thoughts, mayhap, our hero’s soul assailed.
Howe’er, unlike Mohammed, he advanced
And risked, and lost, if not a deathless soul. At least a heart upon the doubtful chance.
Let us in thought recur to seventeen-twelve.
The lord of Brunswick, Wolfenbuttel called,
From some escutcheon, or for aught we know,
From the brave Teuton’s penchant for huge words
Rough-sounding as the clash of savage brands;
This duke, I say, well-worthy of the name,
Dwelt in his hall by Iser’s storied stream:
Dwelt nobly in the castle beautiful.
That glittering woke the fancv of our swain.
The duke himself, a courteous gentleman,
Cultured, suave, appeared a nobleman
By nature and art, both nobly bred and born;
And when at length the young adventurer
Approached that stately leader in his hall,
Although himself well-bred, he quaked somewhat,
As much in admiration as in awe.
As stated, an adventurer was he,
Seeking his fortune as the knights of old.
Thrown with the duke, a kindred soul, mayhap,
The latter loved him well, and made him soon,
The chief and captain of his household guard.
Ere long a heavenly vision, seemingly.
Unto his eye appeared, and with it woke,
In his young heart, a deathless dream of love.
On the next day, being then a guardsman Sworn, He viewed the schloss, ’Neath lofty colonnades,
Greek-capital’d, and rich entablatures,
With bated breath, he entered marble halls.
As dazed well-nigh with grandeur, he advanced
Mid Gobelin tapestries, o’er tesselated floors.
He approached at length a glorious masterpiece,
A rare chef-donuvre of the architect
That reared the edifice: he approached at last,
The apartment known as the garden-salon,
Where pillars with arboreous capitals,
Resembled palms in ranks and series ranged;
Where beds and bowers of tropic plants in bloom
Charmed every sense with beauty and perfume:
While over-arching these, a rainbow, as ’twere,
From high pilasters on each hand, arose,
Apparently the bow of heaven indeed,
Gilding with reflex beams the flowers below.
I met Carlotta there, in that rare scene;
A queen, apparently, in fairyland.
She wore, in truth, a jeweled diadem,
And vestments worthy of her high degree;
While liveried servants formed a cortege fair
About her, yet did she, like her great sire,
P’rom our first meeting, deign to notice me.
Well-pleased as ’twere, she threw on me, e’en then.
The smile that changed my bodeful night to cay
And soon became my comrade and my friend. All accident that in those days occurred, Deeply imprest her image on my heart, And in most pleasing form. A neigliboring prince A rival of the Wolfenbuttel house, Assailed the latter; and, with force and arms, Essayed to o’er-come it while its owner’s powers Were absent on a distant field of strife. In truth, as captain of the house-hold guard, A veteran company but far too small To oppose the foe; I lead it’s sole support. Even this was taken unawares, and I, Its chief, while ’mong the neighboring hills With scant escort, equipped bnt for the chase, Was fiercely assailed; my followers dispersed; And I was left unconscious on the field. Being sorely wounded by a sabre stroke, I fell as dead; the roar of musketry, The clash of battleaxe and gleaming sword, Being the deathful sounds that stun’d mine ear. I awoke ere long, and o’er my prostrate form There stooped a figure that with flowing curls, And face angelic; that with helm of gold And buckler of like lustre, seemed to me A true Valkyrie, and my first impulse, Was to rejoice, despite my sufferings. That I, by encountering thus a warrior’s deatli, Had merited a warrior’s paradise At length, beneath her smile, I found myself, And my Valkyrie, slill of mortal form; Yd more I admired the princess when I fonnd That moved by love and armed with battle-axe, She rescued me from over-powering; foes. And in the act displayed a heroism Well worthy of a truly royal race. But time wore on, and peace again returned; And, as I ween, never did mortal love A fellow-being quite so fondly as I Fully recovered, loved the princess then, After thus finding her noble in deed As well as name, and brave as well as fair. ’Tis needless to recount her varied charms Since their enumeration would but more Oppress my soul; or name the accomplishments Of mind and heart that made her doubly dear Throughout the realm, alike to low and high. These are the subjects whereunto my dreams Are ever wont, in secret, to recur. In sober sooth I aver she loved me well; Although a princess, and although to me It seemed as if some form of heavenly mould Stooped downward from the bowers of Paradise To cheer my heart with a celestial smile. But time passed on, and evil days drew nigh. The Russian crown-prince, hideous shape! one day Invaded, and like Satan’s serpent form Disturbed and desecrated the rare bower Of love and beauty in which our hearts reposed: For, as it chanced, even I, the lowly born, The simple soldier with but a true heart, A character unstained and a good blade, Rival’d in love the future emperor, That boastful of illimitable power. And wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, Yet lacked the essential attributes of man, And in habitual intemperance, Swine-like and foul, oft wallowed in the mire. And, be it remembered, merit and modest worth, Even in that most unequal strife, had won; Had not the despot of half Europe, aye, The Czar of all the Russias seconded The inebriates efforts and foully decreed The ambrosial charms of one worthy of heaven Should be surrendered to an imp of hell; Had not decreed besides, with threats decreed, That the weak duchy should his wish fulfill And on its life should tremble and obey. Thus power at length succumbed; thus brute force, And gold combined, o’er simple worth prevailed. Carlotta, at last, unwillingly succumbed. Partly to shield her parent from the rage Of a rude despot, partly in the hope That her weak hand on the rough prince bestowed, Would mend, mayhap reform a dastard’s life, Yielded; and on the unworthy one bestowed Her hand, but not her heart. Soon afterwards, As at the altar, all dispirited. She passed in silence through the mockery Of plighting solemnly her sacred faith; Even while the hymn of jubilation shook The great cathedral’s loftiest arcades, And smiles of seeming joy lit and illumed A jeweled throng of lords and ladies fair; Even then I observed upon the princess’ face A look of silent loathing, ill-disguised, A movement of repulsion ’gainst the form That stood beside her there. By these impelled, I followed in disguise the new-wed pair, And ’mong the silent Cossacks in their train, Rode to the heart of Russia, equipped and nerved To free the princess, or for her to die. She entertained, but deemed impractical My bold design, and in old Moscow at length Our journey ceased. There on the columned porch Of the green palace of a savage Czar, The princess’ maiden, who was won’t erewhile To bear our missives, for the last time came And gave a note and turned away to weep. “I love you," thus the scented missive said, And then went on: “Which, placed as we are, love, Denotes that we must never meet again.” Needless to tell my unhappy wanderings thence; And I conclude this story of my love And fatal loss, the latter fearful quite. As the other was exalted, in few words. In my bark-covered cottage by St. John, The antithesis of that beyond the sea Wherein Carlotta, unhappy still, remains; Ye’ve seen, mayhap, and wondered much to see The portrait of a queenly lady stand And gaze upon the insignia of a heart Down pressed beneath a glittering, jewel’d crown. Sad emblem of Carlotta’s weary life! That came, somewhat mysteriously to me. And with a look of sadness bids me hope.” He ceased, as by deep feeling overcome, And round him prest a sympathetic throng Conjuring him to dream of brighter days. Chap. XV. La Reine de la Prairie
Or, Love on The Texan Plains. Oh, that the desert were imy dwelling=place,
With one fair spirtt for my minister ,
That I might all forget the huwan race
And hating no one, love but only her. Do I err,
In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. Byron. Another eve in his baronial hall The Louisianian sat with all his freres; With railery assailed the Benedick, The knight of St Denis, who smiled well-pleased, And smoked mean-time a native pipe of peace, Filled with tobacco from the Natchitoches. At length at the request of each and all, He told of his romance in Mexico. “Oft as yon sun," began Sieur Juchereau, Sinks ’mid the blooming pampas of the west, To my fond thought revives a golden dream; In visions of bright beauty comes again, The cherished memory of the prairie-queen. Some suncry seasons gone, a setting sun That lit those Texan plains, allured a band Of roving wanderers toward his radiant goal. From northlands far they came. To their rapt gaze
Thrice-beauteous seemed that floral summer-land.
Fair realm! where once reposed the central sea,
Whose lapsing waters left the coral beds
And plains of ocean, waveless ’neath the sun.
Though still their boundless fields of verdure flow,
And weigh, and seem fair seas of living green.
Those native fields unbroken by the plow
Yield teeming harvests; rising o’er the plain,
Immantling earth with green; in autumn days
Transmute to gold without man’s toil or care.
For nature o’er those boundless tracts bears sway,
And wild and lone they stretch from zone to zone.
Full many days the adventurer may rove
Still journeying through that fragrant land of flowers,
While round his path on every hand arise
The unending vistas of it’s emerald meads.
With transport I recall those western wilds,
Those floral meads encompassed by the sky;
A paradise as of tht king of kings.
Filled with youth’s poesy I seemed to approach,
A legion of romance; a realm of bliss;
A Mezzoramia, the approach to which
I then explored, Gaudentio-like, alone.
Aye, with delight we approached those far-famed fields, Haunts of the herded buffalo, thenceforth Most sumptuously we fared. On furry robes, Or slept at ease, or bounteously dined Of venison and bison’s haunch galore.” The hearers closer drew, with interest deep, As eloquent the glittering chief went on. “But our adventurers dared a hostile clime, And I, their chief, intent on royal gains. With caravans of Crozat’s merchandise, Yet strove to elude the fell Commanches’ bands, Or clad in mail, with fateful batteaxe, Their naked warriors thin’d and safely passed. At length we approached our goal, the Iberian posts,
And careful of my wares and freres, alone,
I advanced toward the Presidio del Norte,
And soon the sentinel’s sereno rang
From a rude fortress rising o’er the plain.
The heavenly Queen, Vergen Purissima,
Inscribed upon the Spanish banerol,
And in her features an Iberian fair,
O’erhung the rude, romautic seat of arms. Fair sign!
Bodeful perchance, prognostic of my fate,
Determined there by a senorita’s smile.
There ’mong the adobes Spanish veterans strolled,
And warsteeds lay in fields of rich mesquite,
Porgetting battles in their deep repose. There in his court the grave hidalgo sat, The worthy senor, Zanchez de Navarre, The ruler and the prefect of the post. Advanced in years, a courtier in grace, Albrit of low degree, his heart had reached The loftiest rank, type of the true noblesse; Great-souled, yet with a father’s kindly breast. Even thus appeared that Spanish veteran, Whose days were passed in rude America; Since in his youth he left his natal shore; Ancient Navarre for distant Mejico; With the conquistadors those realms explored Nor ever after quit the Aztec clime. Thus with regard and kindliness received My fears at once dispelled, yet said the Don, “Our service claim in aught we can perform, And be thy stay an estada of joy; Yet must I say, to admit thy caravan Exceeds my power: our governor alone, Whose residence is hence full three-score leagues, Can answer thee. Untill his will be known. My tent thou’lt share and an honored guest.” That far presidio stood on a height, A flowery knoll amid the extended plain. The weighing grasses clothed the pampas round And rolled a verdant sea, whose circling waves Flowed ever ’neath the islet’s rocky base. Mayhap in times long gone, on that fair site, A summer isle o’erlooked a tropic sea.
Delightful haunt, fair scenes were there disclosed,
With moss-clad rocks, alooves and chrystal springs;
The orange on those sunny slopes appeared,
And oleanders green, the sweet bay rose,
Whose home enchanted are the south-sea isles.
Withdrawn amid the green declivities
Of that fair mount and opening o’er the plain,
The chief’s adobe stood, tile-roofed and low.
Yet fairly spacious with its court enclosed
While thickly round in groves of broad pecans,
That close-embowering marked that mystic shore,
Rose native villages. The plain beyond,
A sea becalmed, stretched toward the horizon’s verge.
Sweet Isle in oceanic fields of green;
In all the vast, romantic wilderness
The central and most beauteous spot it seemed.”
Approaching a most pleasing incident
Sieur Juchereau now doffed his laced chapeau,
As with increasing interest, and resumed.
"Filled with youth’s poesy entranced I viewed
That region of romance whereof, I ween,
The Algonquins dreamed when in the far south-west,
Their sages placed their happy hunting-grounds. In thought I sang:
Where’er I rove I still behold Fair fields and scenes enchanting,
A floral realm, a land of gold And naught but love is wanting:. Don Pedro’s quaint abode was furnitured
Nor rich, nor gaudy; brighter yet it seemed
Than soldier’s lodging in the camps of war,
Or dwellings in Arcadian Mexico.
More bright than these our chieftain’s home appeared,
And fraught with emblems of Iberian life.
The estrada there about the apartment’s wall
An air of welcome ease dispensed and e’en
Of lover’s joys and blythe terulias spake.
And there the stranger came an honored guest;
And each domestic in his service vied
And eke for him the feast of welcome spread.
Meanwhile within some nigh adjoining room
He heard soft murmurs and the silvery tone
Disclosed at length a charming presence there;
And wondering still at such unwonted sounds,
He gazed entranced when on the scene appeared
That beauteous senorita, famed and fair,
The brave hidalgo’s daughter. Worthy child
Of honored sire; nor backward nor yet bold,
Well pleased she seemed to greet the adventurer
there. Of easy grace and bearing non-chalant,
She showed Europa’s every art attained,
Though enrobed well-nigh as the pavesas maid.
Ere long of his most cherished friend she spake
Whose heart on Francia’s shore had been his own;
Of that loved friend, her own likewise, she knew
His name and strange career. Him now she hailed,
As one long sought and welcomed with delight.
’Twas thus in truth she seemed. And ne’er before,
In court or palace had that stranger bowed
With such regard, by beauty thus enthralled,
Or, sooth to say, unto a face so fair.
A creole and a child of nature she,
Of woman’s form, though immature in years.
Her face o’er-shadowed by her raven hair.
Possessed the deep charm of the loved brunette.
A sun whose heat calls forth the orange bloom
Quickened her senses, warmed her tender heart
And with the love-beams lit her sparkling eyes.
Never the Andalusian capital,
Proud Seville, famed for maids of beauty rare.
Nor e’er the grand Castilian prado when
Blythe Madrilenas haunt it’s promenade,
Beheld a fairer form or lovelier face.
Delighted with a beauty sweet and strange
Where still the olive faintly tinged the rose
He learned at length her Aztec lineage,
And that her grandam’s race was eke her pride, Descended from no servile origin, In that ancestral line were ranked great names Of high renown, and over all, a king, The last that graced the Montezuma’s throne; The fate-defying ZinGuatamo; In death a king indeed, when smilingly Out-strethed upon his bed of burning coals. Manuela, beauty’s royalty appeared When that transported guest thy charms beheld And bowed beneath thine eyes enchanted sway. Ere long he found her cultivated mind Well-worthy of her persons radiant charms. And that her loved guitara’s dulcet sound Voicing sweet Andalusian roundelays, Entranced his soul with thoughts of joy and love Till bliss seemed near and life became divine; And that she led the blithesome minuets And Zarabandas of her Mexique train, With manchless grace, with joyful castanet, And delicate zapato, ill-concealed By these short skirts from his admiring eye. In such well-versed, he taught her rare coupees, The gay cotillon much renowned gavotte, The measures of the antique farandole, And trod with her, a la Provence likewise, The rigadon, to youthful lovers dear, Wherein the twain close-twining move alone. As time were on, yet stronger grow the spell In which he found his captive soul enthralled. What rapture ’twas that fairy form to view, And list the music of that gentle voice: Tho that mild nature cast a spell o’er all, To low and great alike presenting still A sweet demeanor and a smiling face He yet with joy and secret rapture knew Her sweetest smile awaited his approach And when to him she spoke, its gentlest terms, That voice assumed, its most endearing tones: Till more than friendliness their bosoms warmed, Till scarce reluctant, each at length beheld Love unconcealed within their mutual eyes, I care not to detail that love at length, ,Or on the carte du tendre, trace it’s course, From this, its birth propitious in the realm Of delicate attentions, as tis said, Unto its acme on that mount divine, Once termed reciprocal affection, yet, I’d note its triumph and its crucial test. A mid the fragrance of the floral bowers That graced the patios of that quaint abode, At eve we roamed beneath the South Sea rose, The floral tree that blooms in summer-lands, And brightly decks the broad Pacific’s queen, Fair Otaheite and her sister isles. There oft we viewed the plains coleur-de-rose. One eve, reposing ’mong the clouds of gold And bending toward Balboa’s distant main,
A setting sun his vague attention held,
And fancy pictured in pacific seas,
The shores of those new-found Hesperides,
As fair as e’er Hellenic bards portrayed.
He thus recalled the seamen worn and bronzed
That furled for aye their tempest-tattered sail,
Songht out Tahiti’s bowers and blooming maids.
Nor wearied e’er of love and sunny skies.
E’en by such charms he found his heart assailed.
Less strange the hidalgo’s cultured daughter, aye,
And less barbaric far than the nude queens
That lured at will the toil-worn mutineers
Wihiin Tahiti’s flower-decked coral zone;
Yet quaint at times she appeared, and wildly fair,
The fitting sovran of her tameless fields.
Her sweet face still the same, she at times appeared
In beauteous masquerade, with plume bedight,
With snowy garments of panola woven
And wondrous mantle of rare feather-work.
From golden down of tropic birds contrived,
Looking the Mexique maiden such as graced
That vale when came the fell conquistador,
And Cortez o’er Tezcuco’s glistening lake,
Beheld the Montezema’s rock-built towers,
Yet thinking that fair vision but a dream.
But most she seemed the Iberian maiden true, Less like the belles supine in royal bowers, Than the blythe queens of the payesas train, That joyous dance in Andalusian groves. And even ’mong these I ween, was none so fair, As Manuela Zanchez de Navarre: La Tose-ferin; lovelier than fleur-de-lis, To my rapt thought, the queen of fairy-land, Regent, imperial, with her native charms. No less she appeared, that witching one, with me There lingering ’neath the oleander tree. There urged to love, “Mi amigo," she replied, “I own thy friendship dear, and yet," she said, To speak as Guatamozin’s child had spoken, Thou winged wanderer from Tlapallan’s Isle, Canst thou with me remain? Forbear, I pray," “Dulzura mia, doubt me not," he cried, “Know, if I go, my heart must linger here," On that jornado he was not disguised, As afterwards, and from his crested helm, His corslet ’neath his roquelaur agleam. She knew he was a martial son of France, Knew well the land to which his faith was sworn;
Knew if to him, her yielding heart she gave,
She must, at length, her Texan clime fosake.
How-e’er he pictured his wild Louisiane,
In colors glowing, not to say o’erwrought, Till thitherward she wandered in her dreams And thought of it, with tender love likewise. With ardor thus, and love-given eloquence, He urged his suit and seeming unrepelled, On her fair hand and flower-soft cheek at length Imprinted deep love’s signet with a kiss, And yeilding she became his fiancee. Their future life and home they then discussed. Refering to his distant post, said he: “And dost thou think, mon ange guardienne, Thy rod caducean adequate to charm That wilderness into thy fit abode?" She with a smile: “Didst think thellano’s queen, Thus am I by my flattering friends oft called, Whose regal domain is. itself full wild, Must quake and tremble ’neath the woodlands’ shade.
Far be that thought from thee. Ah! we will now
Unite our empires of the wood and plain,
Regardless of the whims of France and Spain,
And build our home beside la rouge riviere.
Indeed,’ she exclaimed, we’ll bide delighted there.
Where blend la Nouvelle France and Mejico,
The first thine own, the last, my native Land.”
"Then be it so," her amorado exclaimed,
"On some fair height beside Sabloniere,
Will we construct our fortress-chateau, there,
Where oaks broad-branching intercept the glare Of summer suns, where grandiflora gleam, And symboling fair lovers death-darkened sphere, The cypress shades the myrtle’s roseate bower. A fortnight thus on angel-wings passed by, Yet ne’er was happiness without alloy Of tears and bitter sorrow, and tis said: “The course of true love never did run smooth. Soon rose our star of ill; Anaya rose, The governer of Caouis; even he, A suitor fierce, albeit hapless, strove By fraud or force to win my Manuelle’s hand. Unwearied, unabashed was he, than whom. Nor blythe Antinous, nor Eurymachus, Nor one of all the amorous train renowned, That tireless wooed the sad Penelope, Was more invidious, more inveterate. Alas of my advent, and prosperous suit At once he learned and with demoniac rage, Sent hostile troops and bore me thence afar To Coahuila, Near its fortressed walls The postern opening showed a prison cell Crowning the fort within; my abode ere long; By foes received, their enemy forsooth. An hour later in that darkened cell By rock-built walls I found my steps restrained. And night on wing of darkness came full soon, And from my grated window I beheld The distant plain, o’er-cast with deepening shades, And caught the breeze flower-laden from the wolds.
Immured and prisoned close, I watched till dawn,
And Heaven’s fair ensign beaming on me there,
The star-gem’d crosier of the southern skies,
Beheld no scene more sad, more dolorous.
Than my alternate rage and pent-up grief,
Or Manuelle, sorrowing in her distant home,
And weeping vainly o’er IilT love-lorn state.
The hours pissed on. At length the chieftain came,
Soulless Anaya, prefect of the post,
Who there, invidious, strove with promises
Of fair rewards, and liberty forsooth,
To o’ercome the pledge to Manuelita given.
Therein deep-scorned he essayed dread menacings
To enforce subservience to his dark designs,
’For I’, said he, Gaspardo Anaya, I,
El Gobornador, sole commandant here,
In this far realm supreme, I truly vow.
Unless thou yield and my inlents subserve,
Thy life hall pay the penalty extreme.”
Yet bootless proved his threats and promisings.
He then inveterate, sought to o’ercome with fear
My Manuelita, threatening thus my life,
If she dared disobey his mandate rude, Or scorn his suit. Albeit a maid so fair,
And dove-like mild, her message awed his soul;
For with firm voice and meaning look she said: “Loving Sieur Juchereau, I cannot wed,
While he doth live, and if ill-starred he die,
While in those walls confined; this dagger’s blade,
By mine, or by mine agent’s hand impelled,
Shall well requite the fell Anaya’s deeds
And cleave his dastard heart.” The days passed on:
By strategies deep-laid she at length obtained
From, the Aztec capital a stern rescript
Transporting to the vice-king’s high tribune,
My hapless cause, to thwart Anaya’s rage.
Thither straightway o’er leagues unnumbered borne,
I reached that far imperial capital,
The worthy pride of Quetzel’s ancient realm.
Yet there the law delayed, and change of place
Changed not my luckless state, brought not relief;
Still in a dungeon chained I vainly sighed
Till hope delusive changed to dark despair.
As yet ceased not my accustomed suffering,
When, lo! in state the vice king’s aide-de-camp,
By chance as it ’were, appeared. He approached my celL
"Whom have we here," to me at length he spake.
"I, Juchereau de St Denis," I exclaimed.
Praying for justice. Weereupon he paused.
Startled, astonished; then advancing scan’d;
More closely scan’d my face so Woe-begone,
And sobbing cried: “Loose, Jailer, loose his chains,’ And over-joyed, in him I at length discerned,
My youth’s best friend, Le Marquis de Larnage.”
Then truly was I cheered by fortune’s smile,
And by a revolution of her wheel
E’en from the prison to the palace reared.
For by that long-lost friend, unto the throne
Conducted, he that occupied that throne,
Became my frere and his chateau my home.
There haply I had lived, but from afar.
From the presidio’s walls love beck’ning smiled.
At length with gold supplied, with loving hearts,
A stately cortege and a royal steed,
And letters-patent granting powers supreme
Over Anaya, homeward forth I fared.
Nor many added toils did love require.
As you may know the Iberian maiden rare
With silken tresses of the raven’s hue,
With brilliant eye and sweet and rapturons smile,
Ere long a loved and living bride became.
Boundless the joys our formal bans supplied
And boards homeric heaped with oxen slain,
With casques of native pulque and rich wines,
Whilst loving guests in tribes convened. Howe’er,
A stronger bond than Hymen’s blent our lives.
Devotion deeply-tried our clasped hands joined.
Divine that potent tie; the pearly chain
Round Cupid and fair Psyche thrown was ours,
While winged loves attendant hovered nigh, And to our hearts sang epathalamies. Florida y Dorado! mystic realms’ Enwreathed with flowers, enriched with naive gold,
Whereto the dreamer’s thought transformed our shore;
To whom the fair Floridian coast became
The Bimini, where chrystal fountains pure,
Their youthful rose to faded cheeks restored;
While southward ’mong Andean heights arose
Manoa glittering with it’s towers of gold.
The passing centuries his fault revealed
And banished quite the Iberian’s cherished dream,
And yet reposing ’mong those fragrant bowers,
Amid the teeming gardens of the west,
With scarce a want by nature unsupplied,
Methought, perchance blest realms were there revealed,
Or that bright kingdom, El Dorado, or
The Algonquin’s paradise, the hunting-ground,
Far toward the sunset ’neath Sowanna’s rule.
At ease, amid sunbright, edenic scenes,
With love delightful roving at my side,
Such then the form my varying life assumed.
Ah, Manuelita, by the Iberians named
"La Reyna del Llano’, magic queen,
In beauty reigning o’er a happy sphere;
Her royal seat, a plain adobe’s halls, Rude dwelling-place upon the hillsides green,
Her subjects were it’s loving occupants;
Yet not the conquering Zenobia,
Fair eastern queen luxurious, amid
Palmyrian groves and sculptured marble halls,
Nor Cleopatra coursing Cyduns’ stream,
With silken sails and bannerets of gold;
More perfect sway or greater charms possest.
Still, Manuela, still thy regal loveliness,
Proved greater as thy heart was fully known.
Thy charms resistless when no longer veiled,
And when departing I beheld thy face,
Thy love reigned o’er mv breast with fuller sway,
Than when I clasped thy throbbing breast to mine,
And hailed thee first mine own, ma belle des belles.
Through all that season’s brilliant, glowing days.
We lived enraptured in each other’s arms.
Or roving ’mong those floral solitudes.
Long days fraught with the enrapturing silences,
Stillness unbroken, but by words of love,
Rolled by, for that romantic seat of arms
Nestling above the islet’s orange groves,
Was now forgotten, and our life retired
Scarce knew companionship beyond our own.
That daily life well-nigh edenic seemed:
Oft-times we trod the island’s orange groves.
Or dreamt in grots beneath its terraced shore. O’erlooking vasty fields that sighing waved;
Where once, ere ocean from the plain retired,
The mermaid woke her mystic melody,
And strewed the sea-shells o’er the caverned floor.
The chief of marvels on that wondrous isle
Was a rude grotto by what race contrived,
None of the neighboring tribes could e’en surmise.
Mound builders, or some ocean-king of old,
Reared it, I ween, in centuries long-gone,
While seas primeval rolled about that shore.
Conveying thither from the South Sea isles,
The Aztec tribes: and yet did some contend
That nature and not art, fashioned its walls
Of mossy stone, the doorway’s simple arch,
And e’en the roof’s concave. There oft we strayed.
To show the figure just wherein ye’ve made
Odyseus fortune mine, (except in grief),
Whilst in that bower and in that presence rare;
I oft recalled Calypso’s grot divine,
And oft that nymph of old Meonides,
So well portrayed; so beauteously enrobed:
"Whose swelling loins a radiant zone embraced,
With flowers of gold; whose under-robe unbound,
In snowy waves flowed glittering on the ground.”
Yet, truthfully, salvo pudore, I own This beauteous picture of our Manuelle just
As to her form and swelling loins alone.
Thus with my queen I viewed her fair domain.
Those native villages to her recalled
Old Andalusia and her cities five;
Fair Seville, Gades, Cordova,
Malaga and the glory of the Moor.
Oft rang the adobes there with festal sounds,
And rife with beauty’s bloom, whence then arose
The releck’s, the guitara’s symphony,
With blended sounds of reveling and joy.
Though of simplicity Arcadian,
Unvaried plenty o’er those realms prevailed: ’
Don Pedro numbered ’mong his stores withal
The sheep and cattle of a thousand hills.
There nature’s gardens every want supplied:
From her green fields that boundless waved beneath, ,
Came wild-clad natives with their chickawicks
O’erfilled with purslain, fruits and flowers rare.
There reigning still with Egil’s ancient arms,
The hunter sought the herded buffalo;
Yet scarce from need amid that teeming land.
The richest viands graced our rustic board
And e’en luxurious was that summer-home;
And yet each carkless native reveling free
In fair abundance ’neath those genial skies,
As sweet repasts and bounteous wealth enjoyed. O’er all the north-ward plain that state prevailed, While south-ward in still fairer vales enchained, The Mexicano wrought his pulque wine, Or of the cochineal a crimson dye, Or summer vestments from the gossamer That there adorns his fair algadon tree. There without toil, or culinary fires, The broad magney pours forth a beverage That oft supplants the product of the vine.” Recalling thus the red canarias, That tempting glowed beside our worthy knight, He drained a chalice, and his tale pursued. “Delightful days amid the chase we passed, When mounted fair upon her Mexique steed, La Manuelita, by my side, traversed The floral pampas gathering the blooms Whose radiance adorned the summer-fields: And I in those poetic scenes entranced, Forsook vain forms and fashions there unknown, While in oblivion lapsed my former cares, And thoughts of fame on European shores. Unnoted there the circling seasons passed Until I found a score of moons had risen, Since first I trod that isle’s enchanted shore. Yet as the bard hath said: “Voisins, Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins.” In grief, at length, I bade my love adieu, To seek once more the distant world of strife. Yet ever from those wide hesperian fields,
When west-winds waft their subtle harmony,
And from days portal, shines the evening star,
Come memories sweet as flowers by zephyrs borne,
That speak of her whose heart is yet mine own;
Whose smile of love doth make the wilderness
A land of flowers and a realm of gold.
"Vivent la joi, le bagatelle l’amour;"
Echoed our paladins, the cure too,
In the same breath exclaimed: “Romantic love!
Thrice blest the souls that such fond dreams enjoy. How could you then such blissful love forsake?"
"A question grave" replied Sieur Juchereau,
"As vexed learned minds and tried the Court of Love.
In la Provence, in days of chivalry,
Was reared that high tribunal. Justice there,
In pride and power upheld the even scale.
At Love’s behest sent forth saiset arret,
And with strong arm enforced the rightful claim.
One cause perplexed the Court of Love full long.
Three suitors strove to win a lady fair,
With varied arts her yielding heart to gain.
While to the first she gave her sweetest smile,
Another’s hand she held in secret clasped.
Nor might the third repine; her slippered foot,
In wantonness was prest upon his own. Thrice doubtful task to name the favorud cause.
As great my task, as difficult the choice,
Between Lovers smile and Duty’s urgent call.
But soon resolving all my doubts and fears,
Will Manuelle seek the pathless wild and me.
In wildernesses lorn to live and love,
And eke display the fortitude sublime
Of him that smiled upon his couch of fire.
He said and while the harper’s instrument
Responsive rung, sang feelingly and welL
Thus flowed the lay: La Reine de mes Amours.
My queen bides in a flowery land, In western fields afar;
The sunset glows at her command, And eke the evening star.
Her sceptre sways the land and sea; Her smile the heart allures;
Ma rose ferin des prairies, oui, La Reine des mes Amours.
She roves the gardens of the west; She wards the gates of day;
And over fields forever blest, Extends her regal sway.
Her sceptre sways the land and sea; Her smile the heart allures;
Ma rose ferin des prairies, oui,
La Reine de mes Amours. ’Tis thou, belle amie, from yon fields, Thus lightening earth I ween,
To thee my heart its homage yields, And finds thee still its queen.
Though in Languedoc and Languedoui, Unsung, that smile allures;
Ma rose ferin des prairies, oui,
La Reine de mes amours.
Bravo! Bravo’! exclaimed his loving freres,
And highly pleased the assembly then adjourned. Chap. XVI. “La Cour d’Amour
Or, The Louisianian’s Hall Fair land! of chivalry the old domain, Though not for the with classic shorts to vie
In charms that fix th’ enthusiast’s pensive eye;
Yet hast thou scenes of beauty, richly fraught
With all that wakes the glow of lofty thought. Mrs. Hemans’ Abencerrage. Some time thereafter to the sound of harp
And citharistic song, (since in his train,
The governor then numbered the gray bard, And his fair daughter), the conseil d’etat In form convened. Our Jean in chair of state. And now of mature age, appeared in troth A stringent chief, yet social and suave. When thus convened in his white-walled chateau, His famed hotel, the assemblage there appeared Much like the household of some pincely duke, Or feudal lord of old: the officials there Being mostly still, scions of his great house, His kinsmen and his freres; his word was law. Albeit with the consent of all he ruled And their affection was his title still, To that supreme control. When thus convened, A pleasing incident varied somewhat The accustomed routine there. Aye, sooth to say,
An incident romantic and unique.
Before the cheif in his baronial state,
Were led together, ’mid a smiling train,
The errant princess and the prairie queen;
Each with her loving lord. A joyous crew.
And in good sooth, on many a royal throne
Sat forms less lovely than in simple state,
Stood there within the Louisianian’s hall.
Presenting his fair lady, Sieur D’Aubant
Came forth with her and to the chair announced:
"Obedient to the order of your grace
I here present the princess of Brunswick He paused, and Sieur Jean, from his chair of state
Descending, shook the hand of Sieur D’Aubant,
And likewise that of Sieur de St Denis,
And gravely kissed each of the smiling brides.
Needless to say the gallant Frenchmen all,
And their sweet ladies, quaint and debonair,
Paid to the errant princess, queenly still,
And to la Manuelita, their devoirs;
And with deep gratulations hailed them there.
Then Sieur D’Aubant the fair finale gave
Of the sad story he had left half-told,
While every ear attended, and each eye
Roved from the speaker to the winsome face
Of his fair heroine, continued he:
"I’ve heretofore related how and why
Carlotta, present here, though fair and good,
Wedded a bestial shape of royal name.
Regardful of her wish, I’d briefly speak
Upon a theme that ever gives her pain.
Her life with the young Blue-beard of our tale.
The prince besotted, was even such, I ween,
As one of God’s good angel’s had endured,
Linked for a season to a fiend of hell.
Though enshrined in lordly halls, the ills she endured
Were such as crush the life from out young hearts.
At length the climax came: in brutal rage, He shocked her with opprobrious epithets,
And even with blows, whereat her pride arose,
And at the risk of life itself rebelled.
A Bluebeard truly, he forbade her then
To summon or inform the followers
Of her brave sire, the latter being drecased:
Forbade her even, and upon pain of death,
To leave the abode accursed of royalty
And cruelty wherein her spirit pined.
To escape his presence and his wrath alike,
She dared, though weak, to invade the charnel-house,
And brook, even there, the gorgon form of death.
She dared, like Juliet, with a lethal drug
Arrest her senses and in death-like trance,
Sleep lifeless in the coffin and the tomb,
’Till a confederate, in the dead of night
Seeking her there, applied the antidote.
And, Lazarus-like, in shroud and grave-clothes wrapped.
She arose, as at the Saviors call, arose;
And ’scaped, though fainting, from the house of death.
Of this event, and in due time, informed;
I apprised her of my deathless love unchanged,
And of the rustic home that over-sea,
Awaited her, beyond the reach of kings;
Where now, in peaceful bliss, we live and love. Then Sieur de St Denis his smiling bride Presented in like form, at the request Of M. Bienville and his comarades. He briefly told them of his latest trip, Jornado, as ’twas called, to Mexico, And his return thence with his prairie-queen. When love had last recalled him to her side. He essayed with others the wide wilderness. At Natchitoches procuring cavarans, Departed once again for Mejico. Reaching a village of the Asinais, Encamped and there in native lodge eusconsed, Adream on couch of bear-skin, he beheld His love, as twere, in visions of blest realms. He dreamt, and ere the lagging dawn arose. Impelled by hopes and fears unutterable, And his companions loitering there, alone, With scant escort at least, through frowning wilds,
And the Commanche’s haunt, he sought her side.
Soon from her side, enforced by duty’s call,
Again I roved and in far Mejico,
Was held once more in strict imprisonment,
A spy and foe inimical esteemed,
For now Linarez’ duke no longer reigned.
Albeit the childish haunt and natal town
Of Manuelle, mon Ange Guardienne,
Was that fair city by Tezcuco’s lake, Delightful in her mount-encircled vale;
That views the dread volcano wreathed in fires,
And at his side that mountain-figure rare,
Prone on the heights with death-like face upturned,
Tht Pallid Lady in her shroud of snow.
And there again dame fortune smiled; even there,
He found kinsmen and friends forever leal,
That loved him for his lady’s sake, and these,
O’er all the viceroy’s servitors prevailed,
And freed the captive from his chains once more.
Yet not without great pains. To Monterey,
In the tierras temperadores, the foe
Had sent strict orders to arrest his flight,
When heedfully he approached the town, but first,
A new-found kinsman’s hacienda, where
The rock-walled casa hedged with olives smiled.
The kinsman hailed him and due warning gave.
Post haste he fled and foiled the foe’s design.
From the Presidio soon, his love with him,
He hastened hither through the wilderness,
But ere he reached his distant goal,
The sylvan fortress by Sabloniere,
He fared but ill; of meagre trains despoiled.
He arrived at length as did the brave Geraint,
That blameless knight of Arthur’s table-round,
Who with his Enid safe behind him rode,
And single-handed dared the wilderness. Romantic truly was that mimic court,
When on that self-same eve, a fete occurred,
And every class appeared. When Louisiane,
The Indian maiden with her buskined crew,
Were seen in state, and, without stint, admired:
When, with the taste of those poetic days.
In masquerade she typed our forest state,
And wreathed in flowers, ’neath white magnolia blooms,
Amid her smiling train, received with grace,
The cultured dame and eke the woodland belle.
There then, bedecked with crowns, our queens of song,
Typeing the Teuton and the Latin race,
The east and west, the old world and the new,
Smiled on the new-found state. Then music rose,
The minstrel’s harp by a new-found lute enforced,
Enchanted all; and to those dulcet strains,
The knights and dames, and their attendants all,
Danced minuets and gavottes; and forms as fair.
And glittering chiefs, as stately and as brave.
As France, or earth affords, commingled there. Conclusion.
But time wore on. At length the forest-lord
Wns stripped of power, through his rival’s calumny;
The mighty valley and its buskined tribes With grief beheld him leave their troubled shore,
Threatened with strife and dire calamities.
Full soon were heard portentous notes of ill
Where late the woodland world rejoiced to see
Athwart that vale outstretched, the bow of hope,
Prognostic, haply, of Elysian scenes;
The heavens grew dark and clouds portentous frowned.
Disorder reigned until the scene appeared
Like Milton’s dream of chaos and old night,
And, as I deem, the guileless chief unskilled,
Succeeding the young Lion of the South,
Stood like the arbiter, whose judgments vain.
But made confusion worse. The natives rose,
The Natchez first, ere long the Chicasaws,
The movement grew till even the kindly tribes,
The potent Choctaws and the Natchitoches,
The vengeful hatchet raised, athirst for blood,
And moved in concern ’gainst the Gallic towns.
A miracle, as ’twere, those posts preserved,
Except the fairest, the most favored one,
Ill-omened Rosalie! whose birth ill-starred,
Attracted first our muse. Even then ’twas seen
That shore was darkened ’neath the frown of fate.
Some seasons passed ere yet the dread decree
Of the three fatal sisters was fulfilled.
A decade sped, and it accomplished stood.
To accomplish it, and thy predestined fall, O, Rosalie! they but removed from power
That chief, of measures mild in common life,
In warfare called “the Lion of tde South;"
But placed o’er thee, in lieu of nobler forms,
The vile hulk of the drunken fool, Choparte;
He, of thought chaotic and potations deep,
From its dark lair goaded the beast of strife;
The howling savage from his hut defied,
Till nameless terrors clothed the wilderness,
And shapes demonian thronged its realm of gloom.
Too late the French perceived their vital need
Of the exiled chief beneath whose hand alone
Those wilds were hushed to peace, whose art su- preme,
With three-score hunters had o’er-awed a race,
That rising now with brandished arms defied
The Choctaws thousands, and the powers of Gaul.
But Rosalie, bought with a price of blood,
Beset by evil passions from its birth,
And reared ’neath savage cursings, dark and dire;
Was destined from its building both to fall
And prove the author of a nation’s doom.
Ah, Rosalie’ ne’er sadder fate befel
Lorn wanderers on the “dark and bloody ground;"
Than chanced thy sons upon the Natchez’ shore.
Oace favored village by the Father Stream,
The muse recalls thy desolated grounds, And o’er those harrowing scenes in memory, Will linger still, despite the lapse of time. Ill omened, ’mid a hostile nation reared, Whose treacherous deeds and fell disguise were known: At length the savage, full of hate arose, And brandished the red axe of massacre, And smote the helpless ’neath the eye of day. A deed of darkness still; with care devised. And long in hallowed secresy revolved; ’Till one lethean stroke impelled it’s doom. ’Most horrid form if strife’ War’s Dragon Rouge Ne’er heralded worse deeds. Gore-reeking braves! What though some grievous ills their tribe op- prest,
Shall red assassins, worthiest of the name. In rage assail and strike both friend and foe? Of that fell hand the chief full worthy seemed. His treacherous scheme of death had e’en amazed The assassins’ prince, that hoary sheik of old, Whose hidden crimes affrighted eastern kings. A monster foul though termed an orb of day, Fiendlike, accomplished here his vengeance dire. His scheme of murder in his fane matured, His secret guarded by the flamen’s care. On that dread day of vengeance, dark and dire, He smoked at ease a peaceful calumet, And viewed the pallid faces of the slain About his feet in gory circles ranged. Short time sufficed to effect the deed of death: The rising sun beheld the fortress’ fall; The village wrapped in flames; while shrieking braves
O’er-ran the shore, with wine and strife enflamed.
And danced round pyramids of heads up-piled,
And wreaked fell vengeance on the mangled slain.
When shadowy night o’er-cast the deathful scene,
Yet fearful grew the shouts of revelry,
And sounds cemoniac smote the startled ear,
As though foul fiends had thronged the gloom of death
O’er-spreading pall-like that wild river’s shore,
Where late the queen, the royal village stool.
’Mid I the all pervading gloom of that sad time,
The second hero of our dual tale,
Undaunted still, at his far post remained.
Sieur de St. Denis by Sabloniere,
Of the dim border of our shadow-land,
Had built a royal seat, and round it reared
The basis of the forest kingdom wide
Wose varying fortunes, in our after-piece,
Are dwelt upon with pride; yet he, even he,
The errant knight and sylvan king withal,
Was there with his fair prairie queen, besieged
By a score of tribes that ever theretofore
Had followed him with all them painted braves. The prevalent disorders of the time,
Induced by hands unskilled, invaded even,
And sorely tried his sylvan monarchy.
Tht world of savage life, including even
Tne Choctaw, ’gainst the Oklanahullo at last
Embittered, rose, and as an angry sea
Engulfed or threatened every Gallic post;
And, gathering force, in dire ferocity.
Encompassed even the trembling palisades
Of the big village by the Father-Stream.
Such the results of our good knight’s recall.
And thus the scene in darkness closed: the vale,
As by the warden from it’s gateway viewed,
Was then with night and threatening gloom o’er- cast.
The embryonic state there bodied forth.
Amid surrounding darkness, to his eye,
Forbidding seemed; and, for the nonce, appeared
Barbaric still and of most monstrous form.
Ah! well I ween, ’twas with dejected mien.
The warden of the gateway turned at last,
And backward gazing left our mystic vale.
Nor ken’d as yet the light of coming day.
Albeit, the worthy instrument of fate,
Had he there labored in the realm of shade.
With cosmoplastic hand; and given form,
Incipient yet decisive, to the state,
Based on the vast world-valley of our song. The seers had there beheld a kingdom rise,
Commensurate with that mighty vale of vales,
And greatest therefore of all earthly powers:
With clearer ken may we that state behold,
Since it now stands a fact accomplished, aye,
And greater even than it’s builders’ dreams.
’Twere meet, in a brief epode to our song,
To observe that state, the greatest of all time. Upon our hero’s exit, as his queen
Went not with him to France and fair Paris,
The bard opines that ’neath the forest-flowers,
Like her whose requiem in her last song
Was hymned erewhile, in some lone grave she lay:
Or else, the undying genius of our vale,
She but withdrew from mortal sense and sight,
And ’mong our angel-guardians, ever fair;
In choirs invisible, her post resumed. Address. Our Progress and Destiny. A Divertisement.
We now introduce our orator who will furnish
us, we hope, an agreeable diversion during this
hiatus in our song; the following being extracts
from an address delivered by him, some time since,
before the Central High School referred to in the
preceding pages of this work. We will add that
this discussion on the subject above given will
hardly be considered out of place in this connection as the acquisition of the World’s Garden had
more effect than any other event in accelerating
the progress and in determining the destiny, both
of our great valley, and of our country at large.
Ladies and Gentlemen: I take great pleasure in responding to the
invitation of the worthy faculty of this promising
institution, in contributing my proratum to the
speechifying and, presumably to the interest of
this occasion, and in standing again on this his
toric ground. Ft Jessup, in it’s pristine day, was
in the i’st military district of the south-west; the
military capital of the states of Ala, Miss., La,
and Ark. Many distinguished ’soldiers then fre
quented it’s scenes; and one, subsequently president, as commandant, made it his home for a series
of years. On the hill up yonder stood the loftiest and most conspicuous object about the fort.
The stars and stripes there waved on it’s flagstaff at a dizzy height. Under the floating folds of
that significant and historic banner, while the regimental bands played the anthem suggested by
its beauty, the soldier’s bosom swelled with pride,
as he matched amid the thronging ranks of his
comrades on the parade-ground. From these scenes
that heroic band passed to tlie confines of Mexico, bearing wilh them the flag of their country
and their pride: the star-spangled banner! now
the appropriate emblem of the greatest and most
portentous of world-powers; each of whose emblematic stars represents a powerful free state, and
whose glittering galaxy, as a whole, typifies an
august confederation that has no parallel in the
past, and is the most interesting political product
of the modern age. The remaining insignia upon
its folds, the mysticil stripes that complete its
ensemble, properly suggests a section of the bow
of hope, delighting the eye with its combination of
colors, and smiling upon the blood-stained earth
with its promise of better things to come. Such sentiments are not unworthy of
the truest and bravest southerner; inasmuch as
the brave are always magnanimous, and as we
are all Americans again, in fact as well as name. Washington, in his farewell address to his fellow-citizens said: the name American, which belongs
to you in your collective capacity; must ever excite the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. And I guess the old gentleman was right about
it. At any rate our southern people paid a heavy
penalty for neglecting his advice during the late
unpleasantness, and after such an experience as
we then had, it could only be some fellow with a
badly shaped head that would have us again disregard the sage advice of the father of his Country. Let us then subordinate the thought that we
are Louisianians, or southerners, or westerners,
to the higher consideration that we are also Amercans; members of that great family of mankind
that infallibly has yet a mighty mission to accomplish, wiih it’s heaven-inspired ideals on the sub
ject of equal rights and of civil and religious liberty: and it may be possible that the mission of
our people will yet be manifested in connection
with the growth and development of the great republic of the world and of the ages. In keeping
with our religious beliefs it can hardly be doubted that Providence exercises an influence in connection with great national and world movemtnts.
I accordingly believe it has seconded the efforts
of our people in conducting this great popular
government; in indirectly raising up the myriad
free states of the New World, and, with their support, carrying on it’s crusade in behalf of the
rights of man: and, in due time, that mighty and
adequate results will be manifested. Cherishing such convictions, it becomes unnecessary to
give more particular reasons for my faith in our
political institutions, and my pride in that large
and interesting family known as the American
people. But in confirmation of that belief, I desire
to call attention to the achievements of our people
hitherto, and to their impending destiny, as foreseen in the past and foreshadowed by current events. The achievements of our people have been
foreshown in prophetic visions. A recent poet
sings: Circling Sol his steps shall count Henceforth from Thule’s western mount, And lead new rulers round the seas FrDiJi furthest Cassiterides. Found is now the Golden Tree, Solved the Atlantic Mystery.
It is an interesting bit of historic lore that refers to what is here termed the Atlantic Mystery.
It is a remarkable fact that the land that now
bids fair to embody the ideals of statesmen and
the dreams of poets on the subject of a happy
conamonwealth, was unwittingly made the scene
of those visions. Our land was their lost Atlantis. Louisiana, Bought and Sold;
Or, Emancipation by Purchase. A Divertisement. When Louisiana was purchased, while it followed naturally that she became the property of
the purchaser; yet, through the magnanimity of
that vendee, she went not into slavery but into
the enjoyment of liberty under the law; the enjoyment of advantages and privileges she had never
before known. By that act, Louisiana and her
family of rustic provinces became identified with
the large and interesting community of free
American states. That her purchase was really
her emancipation is shown, I think, by a resume
of the advantages and tendencies of that nation
of which she now forms a component part; and,
as our divertisements have hitherto been chiefly
in the form of orations, we accordingly reintroduce our public speaker, a 4th of July orator
this time, for the purpose of showing the advantages and manifest destiny of the American people; and incidentally, the blessings bestowed
upon Louisiana by her admission into that nation. We bespeak for him a respectful hearing,
and for his views, the thoughful consideration of
our people. Ladies and Gentlemen: I desire now to portay the advantages and tendencies of that large and interesting- family known as the American people;
and I cannot more properly do so than by calling
attention to their achievements and by pointing
to their impending destiny, as foreseen in the
past, and foreshadowed by current events- The acheivements of our people have been
foreshown in prophetic visions. A recent poet
sing-s: ’Circling Sol his steps shall count Henceforth from Thule’s western mounts And lead new rulers round the seas From furthest cassiterides. Found is now the Golden Tree, vSolved the Atlantic Mystery.” It is an interesting bit of historic lore that refers to wiiat is here called “the Atlantic Mystery.” It is a remarkable fact that the land that
now bids fair to embody die ideals of statesmen
and dreams of poets on the subject of a happy
commonwealth was unwittingly made the scene
of those dreams and ideals from time immemorial. It can hardly be doubted that the old tradition
of the lost Atlantis referred to America, which
had once been known to the Old World, but was
afterwards well-nigh forgotten At any rate the
description of that land was suggestive of ours.
’Twas about five-hundred years B. C. when
Solon, the Solomon of Greek legislation, recieve
that ancient legend, and made that far and mys
tic shore the seat of an ideal commonwealth. I
is worthy of passing notice that our country thus
made it’s advent as the fabulous dream-world of
the wisest of the seven sages of antiquity. That
captivating theme was afterwards seized upon by
-Plato, the father-sage, and made the seat of his
far-visioned and dimly-discerned Republic of
Love. At a later age, we find the same legendary realm made the seat of More’s Utopia, and of
Bacon’s New Atlantis. Incredulous as we may
be, we involuntarily grow a little superstitious
when we find our country thus pointed to in prophetic vision, and dreamt of as the ideal government by those who are said to have possessed the
loftiest intellects of the past: “Plato, the wise, and large browed Verulam,
The first of those who know.” And what have been our country’s accomplishments thus far? Have they been unworthy of
these high prognostications? What was it that
dispelled the dark age? It is said that gloomy
period extended from the year 495 A. D. to the
year 1495: or, as I take it, from the complete establishment of civil and religious despotism in
the Roman Empire, to the wonderful awakening
caused by the discovery of America. It is true the discovery of gunpowder and the
printing-press occurred about the time of Columbus’ discovery, and helped the good work along.
Yet, even with the aid of gunpowder, and musket
balls thrown in, the peasants of Europe haven’t
yet put down their oppressive lords, and on that
side of the water the printing-press even now is
throttled by the ipse dixit of kings, and the index expurgatorius of the catholic faith. Under the iron hand of the feudal lord, and the
hideous nightmare of the reigning superstition
the persons and minds of the common people of
Europe had been most effectually enslaved.
Those evil influences co-operating together had
raised an insurmountable barrier in the pathway
of progress; had had the effect of preventing the
normal development of mankind for a thousand
years: and it seemed at last that the God of goodness found it necessary to bring a new continent
to the light; to transplant the human race to a
new world and give it a new departure, before
the pernicious and age-old customs of medievalism could be successfully shaken off. It may
indeed be a fact that the advent of our country
dispelled the shadows of that bodeful age. It next furnished the world an edifying example when after the manner of the infant Hercules,
and while still in its swaddling clothes, it strangled
the hydra of British tyranny, and saved it’s
people from servility and serldom. At the same
time it went a step further than any goverment
ever did before and freed the minds of it’s people
from religious slavery, by abolishing the invidious union of church and state. These accomplishments alone are amply sufficient to render
our constitution immortal in the annals of good
government. After accomplishing these great measures, it
proceeded to show by the wonderful enterprise of
its people that the secret of progress lies in the
liberty and enlightenment of the citizen, or what
Gibbon refers to as “the competition of a free
state," The free states of the world have always been
the most progressive and enterprising. Witness
those of Greece and Rome in ancient times: those
of the Venetians, Florentines and Genoese in the
middle ages, and England and, above all, America in modern days. But of all the nations of the
past, whether bond or free, the leader of the free
states of ancient Greece made the highest record
for progress in the arts of sciences: and it did so
when it rose, and reigned and scintillated with
intellectual brilliancy during the age of Pericles. I believe Plutarch, in his life of that farseeing statesman, says he attempted to draw the
discordant Greek states into a union like our own
for the purpose of preventing internal discord,
and external danger. If that had been accomplished the course of
history might have been different. If they had
organized such a confederation, and had been enabled thereby to maintain the rate of progress
they kept up during tht age; or such as the
American people have maintained during this
century; the imagination can hardly conceive of
the height to which our humanity would have
attained during the milenniums that have since
elapsed. But they failed and fell. Two thousand years later, however, we find the
Athenians even over-reached and outdone as a
progressive people, when we behold the free states
of America, with their untrammelled genius,
illuminating and irradiating the old earth with
the phenomenal developments of the modern age.
It can hardly be denied that the American people
have been the prime-movers of the wonderful
light and progress of the century that has just
elapsed. But we need not go to the Old World
to study the effects of equal rights upon a state
or nation. The Province of Louisiana while under the sway of European despots, although the
appropriate seat of wild romance, yet languished
and often retrogated in strength; and during the
century of it’s existence as an appendage of the
Christian and Catholic crowns, in spite of all efforts to foster it, consisted of a few straggling
settlements well-nigh lost in the western wilderness: but upon it’s acquisition by the freemen
of America, a wonderful change in it’s condition
immediately ensued; and during the century of
it’s existence as a community of free states, it
has astonished the world with it’s rapid progress
and it’s wonderful development. We may accordingly congratulate ourselves, Fellow-Louisianians, on the fact that while we, or our predecessors, were bought with a price, our great Garden
of the World was, by that act, imbued with, the
spirit of liberty and progress and made ’o flourish
beyond measure and blossom as the rose. In addition to being progressive like other
free governments, ours is of more practical form
than any heretofore known. This advantage
is indicated by our national motto, E pluribus
unum; out of the many, one; and lies in the fact
that we are many, and at the same time but one;
that is to say, in the possession of states acting
separately and severally; and of a federal government representing the nation as a whole: the
first, to prevent the centralization that destroyed
the republic of Rome; and the latter to prevent
the anarchy that destroyed the republics of Greece. To me then it does not seem so unreasonable
to suppose that our inventive and progressive
people applying their ingenuity to the science
of government, will finally succeed in solving
that vexed problem, if they haven’t already done
so; and as an incident of that great work, that
they will ultimately abolish war and strife and es_
tablish the reign of universal and perpetual
peace; and that they will do so, possibly, through
the instrumentality of a world-wide Republic of
Love, that in it’s beauty and efficacy, will far exceed the visions of the Father Sage. It is one of
the teachings of the modern age, and of American
genius, that nothing is too wonderful for accomplishment. But do current events justify such
views? in my opinion they do. Recent events
have more fully than ever disclosed the wondrous
figure of our destiny, as the most impressive
spectacle of the future world. It can now be
pretty clearly foreseen and pretty safely foretold
that the future republic will be co-extensive with
it’s continent from north to south as well as
from east to west, since its northern boundary
has touched the Arctic Ocean, while its southern
limit seems blocked out along the line of Cuba
paid the Panama Canal. It can also be safely said,
since it is already an accomplished fact, that it
will dominate and control the East and West Indies, the floral chains of tropic isles, that sertinel
the new world’s central coast, and passing east
and west mark out a pathway from the orient to
the Occident with a succession of fairy-lands. Nor is this all. It is not improbable that in
the course of time it will consolidate into one immense household, it’s family of legitimate descendants, and its natural though sunburnt children
to the south of us. Not improbable that all the
sister states of the new world will join hands in
a more or less compact bond of union, and that
each and every American state will yet become
part and parcel of a world-wide domain. This
may be practical when their civilization equals
ours. The coming Republic may inclnde the western
world, and the starry banner may yet wave over
a host of free states, embracing a population
greater than that of the habitable globe at the
present time. This may seem visionary but at
our present rate of increase, our own population
will equal the present population of the earth in
two hundred years; and if, with our institutions,
the secret of our progress be given to the other
American states that period might arrive almost in the course of another century I agree
with Alfred Tennyson, that it would be worth
the while; if we could,, to revisit earth at the end
of another hundred years, in order to witness:
"The vast republics that may grow,
The federations and the powers,
Titanic forces taking birth.
In divers seasons, divers climes;
For we are ancients of the earth
And in the morning of the times.
If such a view would be interesting at the end
of a single century , what would it be at the end
of a thousand years, when a rejuvinated earth
and a glorified humanity will be such as are suggested by the chiliast with his minennial dreams.
How far then beyond our present conception will
be the beauty and glory of the Louisianian vale;
then, as now, the Garden of ihe World. This
Great Republic of ours may be the predestined,
theatre of events and changes, whose importance
we cannot, as yet, appreciate nor even conceive
of The vast events that will here transpire
will be as far above the trite happenings of bygone history, as our changed conditions and new
civilization are superior to the semi-barbarism of
the past. But whatever be the nature of the
changes that are to come, or the conditions that
shall here prevail, even if it should be that consummation of our hope, and which the poets have
pictured as the prospective Golden Age, even if
that state should prevail, if any government be
then reqiured, I would fain predict it will bear
some resemblance at least, to that beautiful
confederacy ff co-ordinate sister states suggested by our revolutionary sires. We may not realize what will be the final outcome of this age of progress; what may be the
goal and grand finale of our modern enlightment.
We may not realize the fact that the 19th century has been more fruitful in benefits and blessings to our race, and in all the active factors of
human progress, than all preceeding ages combined; in other words that mankind have made
greater progress in the last hundred years than
they did throughout the whole of their previous
history. But in view of this most significant
and startling fact, it is a very dull mind indeed,
that does not realize that another century of
equal progress and even a much less period of
time, may witness the solution of the problem of
human government and the beginning of a golden
age of prosperity and peace; and in that great
work, that the wonder-working nation that has
brought about this era. of progress will be perhaps
the most conspicuous factor. At any rate, after such a variety of experiences,
and the lapse of a century and a quarter of time,
we have reason to beleive that there is a stronger
hand than the hand of man at the rudder of our
ship of state; that there is a mightier power than
any human agency presiding over the governmental affairs, over the fortunes and destiny
of this great republic. The fact that it did not
fall in 1860 is, to me, sufficient evidence that it
was not intended to fall in our day and time;
that it’s mission has not been accomplished; that
it’s mission is a divine one, and it’s goal probably
beyand our mortal ken. Under the supervising
eye of a Divine Providence it seems to be working out its own high destiny, and in that destiny
is involved the political fate of all mankind.
"Sail on, then; O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years.
Is hanging breathless on thy fate.”
It may seem a very extravagant idea, and yet
be hardly too much to hope for, that this profound
system of government, with proper attendant
conditions, will stand the lest of unlimited expansion, if that be necessary to accomplish its
ends; that it will verify the opinion of Cicero as
to a republic of equal rights and stand forever;
and, in the end, that it will prove not unacceptable to man in his highest state, and to earth in
her final and Golden age. EPODE. The Skin-Clad Knight:
Or, The Angel of Liberty and the Garden of the
World. Ah! blesstd vision! blood of God! My apirit heats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides. And, star=like, mingles with the stars. Tennyson. As a fit epode to our wild-wood tales, I’d tell how another, not a steel-clad knight, Paid his devoirs to fair Louisiane: Yet, should I indulge in metaphor again, I’d speak not now of the Indian maid, so-called, Not of the Love of our first Louisianais, But of the offspring, held of French descent, That, ever-existing, ever calls him sire. Aye, as it seems in order, as to time, With deeds depictod in the tales just told, And scarce in conflict with our afterpiece, I’d briefly tell how that affaire-du-cœur, If such it may be called, transformed the life Of fair Louisiane, and somewhat changed, But stilled not, even her tongue. As just affirmed, That suitor was no steel-clad paladin: In lieu of helm a furry cap he wore; A hunting-shirt instead of glittering mail; And leathern leggings were the russet greaves Of one who ne’er in knightly orders ranked, Nor knew of courts or kings.’Mid clouds of morn, On the apex of the Appalachian heights, Our rustic paladin in wonder stood, And thence surveyed the wild-mess beyond. Before him spread the mighty vale of vales, To him, as yet, a wonderland indeed; To his eagle eye it lay unlimited. On either hand it’s mountain bulwarks stretched, And from his feet broad rivers westward flowed Athwart it’s waste, and to his wondering thought, Brought visions of it’s green immensity. Joyous he viewed a boundless wilderness: Joyous beheld a silent sea of green. That laved bis feet and o’er the horizon’s verge, Rolled limitless and infinite well-nigh. Delighted quite he viewed a forest world Where ’neath the shade the skin-clad hunter still, With Nimrod’s arms, his savage prey pursued. Even from his boyhood in the smiling vale On the east side of the wall-like Cumberland,
He looked with awe upon that mountain sheer;
The bulwark, seemingly, of mystic realms,
Unknown to huntsmen, even, of his race.
That mystic realm, even then, he longed to see:
And now, in looking on that verdant waste,
Rejoiced to find a cherished dream fulfilled.
A rustic knight was he; yet, as I ween,
With the quaint weapon of flint lock, whereon
He looked with pride and leaned full non-chalant,
Did he, as with the lightning’s gleam, dispatch,
And that unerringly, his sylvan foe:
And held as sport the encounter with the bear,
Or savage conger in his darksome dell.
Even as a daring boy, skin-clad as now,
He used that weapon, and with deadly effect:
With it, even then, he met and boldly slew
The dreaded panther as with wailing cries.
It chased his fellows at their forest home.
Even then, enamored of such daring deeds.
And of the wilderness, he wandered forth,
And in a rustic booth, when not engaged
In stalking game, of small or savage kind,
He lingered, and for many moons, alone.
’Gainst that fell weapon in such skillful hands.
The sword anc battle-axe had scarce availed, Nor any knight of story panoplied In woven or in laminated steel. Such was the skin-clad paladin; and yet, Possessor of a home and loved ones there, Was he, at heart, rather than errant knight, A tiller of the soil, and ever sought, Though amid the forests of the mighty west; Some smiling oasis, some prairie green. Wherein from care remote, to uprear a home, Albeit logbuilt; and in it’s purlieus wild, To plant fair flowers, and without thought of strife,
To toil, sun-browned, in weighing fields of grain.
Behold, in primal state and Adam-like,
Yet fetterless and free, the laborer;
The Gardener ordained by Heaven’s decree,
To dress the famed world-garden of our song.
Unknown to him the height whereon he stood.
Exalted ’mong the clouds, was hallowed ground.
There, as I ween, the angel of the Lord,
The Warden of the Garden of the World,
Was wont to pause in his aerial flights,
About the realm committed to his care.
There, oftentimes, far from the courts of light,
That radiant sentinel kept watch and ward.
There oftentimes, ’mid Sylvan solitudes,
From the eye of man remote, he assumed, I ween, His native guise, and in effulgent light,
Far-glittering, stood a shining one revealed:
Fven such a one as ’neath the whispering oaks
Of ancient Ophrah appeared to Jerub-Baal,
And with whose aid the rural warrior quelled
The hosts of Midian with his hundred blades.
Hard by the hunter, on his blasted tree,
A great bald eagle sat. The bird of Jove,
To man and his fell deeds a stranger still,
Observed the intruder with a fearless eye.
And in defiance or in welcome, raised.
At his approach, a harsh resounding cry.
As signalled by that cry, an anchorite,
Armed with a staff, with flowing locks of snow,
Appeared and toward the skin-clad form approach. ed.
"Weldome, my son," said he, “thou lookest on
The fairest realm of earth: and with this glass,
May’st thou with clearer ken it’s beauties trace.”
The hunter through the seeming toy but glanced,
And back recoiling with astonished mien:
"I saw," said he’ or haply seemed to see.
The dark and bloody ground outspread, as ’twere.
Though of forbidding name, it seems indeed,
An earthly paradise in leaf ahd flower;
With it’s Kaintuckee, throughout all it’s course,
Reflecting Heaven from it’s, azure depths. Then turning to the anchorite he inquired, And with deep wonder, whence and who was he. With dignity and with a kindly smile He answered: As a friend of liberty, Long exiled from the insensate older world, Where I adjudged, and righteously, to death, Some of it’s so-called kings; I linger here To assist the skin-clad freeman, such as thou, Regain man’s heritage, and by his side, To labor in this Garden of the World. He said, and toward the valley waved his hand That held the magic glass, and, as by chance, The hunter saw again with broader view. The reflex of the Garden of the Earth, The world-wide vision of the Vale of vales. The anchorite continued* “Know, my son, That Providence hath opened the New World, And placed in primitive condition, here, The chosen spirits of the earth, and here.. Remote from Europe and her evil modes, Here from her despots and her bigots free, Although skin-clad, must man at length regain His inborn rights and native liberty. Our hero then, a freeman bred and born, With pious fervor in such sentiments, So like the shibboleth oi his confreres. Concurred with emphasis; whereat the sage With pleasure smiled. Needless to say
As to a father’s voice our paladin
Now listened to the stranger; or detail
How thence together on high deeds intent,
They journeyed forth into the realm of shade.
On their departure, as in friendliness,
The king of birds approached and journeyed nigh
The sage, and finally, at his behest,
Stretched his broad wings and through the mantling cloud,
Flew boldly o’er the datk and bloody ground.
As with fierce eye and harsh imperious cry,
He sailed aloft, he seemed a herald fit
Of Freedom’s advent in the vale of vales.
Meantime, like fair Andromeda of old,
Louisiane lay languishing in chains;
O’er-awid by an ogre called the catholic king;
Who held her captive and enfettered, not
Because of profit to his treasury
From her inpoverished, rustic settlements;
But, says the historian, on the ground, forsooth,
That if released, her vast prosperity,’
Even then foreshadowed, would by contrast shame
His Mexique provinces, abject and prone.
Aye, for such reasons truly, to prevent
Her destined happiness and liberty.
And not even for vainglory, gold, or gain, The afflicted province, lihe a shuttle-cock, Played, twist those powers of sacreligious name, The so-called catholic and christian kings. Our quondam hero and her honored sire, A gray-haired patrirrch then, with grief beheld Her misery from his home across the sea, The object lowly of barter and of sale. Our pater-Patriæ, grown gray with years, Strove Against DeChoiseul the evil minister, In Louisiana’s cause, as he then deemed, In that he strove to uphold the fleur-de-lis Upon her shore. Failing at length in this, The aged hero, on reflection, saw The interests of that state and that vile king, Diverse in nature, could not be the same; And knowing well the western wilderness, And it’s inhabitants; knowing besides, The severanct of the English colonies From Britain’s driveling king even then ap proached:
He, haply for the first time, clearly kenned
The fate of Louisiane. With interest then,
He inquired the progress of the foresters,
Skin-clad, that from the Atlantic littoral,
Spread westward toawrd the valley of his love.
Spake of them as true-born Americans,
That disregarded, even then, the powers, And scorned the names of kings. Then, as it were, Prognostic grown with wisdom and with years, He showed the destined rise of that great power Which now o’er-shadows all the Americas; And proudly pictured the great vale of vales Included in the destined state of states. The accomplishment of that prophetic dream, A labor mightier than the several toils Of Hercules combined; such, in good sooth, Such was the destined task, bravely sustained, By him I’d honor as the skin-clad knight. His country’s freedom was his end and aim. The Holy Grail for which his toils were borne. Fit mead of perfect knighthood; nobler far Than any ancient book of hymns or prayers. And while our hero on that quest went forth, To him a voice as that to Galahad, The apprroving voice of all the wise and good, Exclaimed: “O, just and faithful knight of God! Ride on!" it said, “rice on, ihe prize is near.” On him approvingly a Washington, Fron the eastern littoral looked, and Jefferson, As proto-consul of tne sister states, A helping hand supplied; and evermore The angelic mentor of our palrdin Imbued, I ween, with wisdom more than man’s His mind uncultured, and as need required, O’er him extended a protecting wing.
The Angel of Liberty! Were it false to say,
in olden time, at God’s command, he moved
’Mong the Aryan leaders of the human race?
Were it false to say, upon the shores of Greece
He taught man wisdom, and from rustic states
Essayed to establish the first commonweal?
And when at times he observed the beauteons plan
Unfold, and saw man, unopprest and free,
Develop in the likeness of his God,
He smiled well-pleased and radiant glowed?
’Twere but the truth, I ween. But when, at last,
Uncultured tribes, albeit attempting, failed
To accomplish God’s design, and, sad to say,
The first republics all in ruins fell.
I weet the angel wept. Essaying next
The conquering x Roman and the Latian states,
He scorned, and with a Tilly’s eloquence,
Declaimed against the false pitrician’s pride;
And when at length that primal state of states,
Avoiding the Charyblis of the Greek,
The anarchy of many warring states,
Was hurled upon the Seylla of her doom,
And ’neath a Nero’s throne, she and the world
Were stilled to lifelessness; the angel looked
With fearlul gaze upon a suffering race Deprived of hope and happiness again. Once more essaying the great work assigned, Of raising prostrate man, of placing him Erect, as ’twere, with faculties at play, Of driving from his sky the clouds of gloom, And casting beams of heaven’s light upon The unfolding flower of the sentient mind; He came again, came with the brightening dawn Of earth’s recurrent day, and gladly turned To fair Florentia and her sister states. Still with success imperfect, once again. He saw with indignation, saw the bower Of Liberty uprooted by the swine Of bigotry and tyranny combined. Thereafter, as I ween, across the sea He winged his flight, where as a bulwark huge, The wastes of ocean guard the Nsw World’s shore.
Observing there our matchless garden, though
Untilled as yet, and wildly over-grown.
The fittest seat of empire, and, mayhap.
The destined basis of the state of states:
He awaited there the dawn of brighter days.
He thence debarred the enemies of man,
The despot and the biget, till at length
The expected era came: and when upon
The borders of that vale the freeman stood, .He welcomed him and led him gladly down
It’s fairest rivers to it’s shady depths.
On the Kaintuckee, in the wildest west,
Midway the dark and bloody ground, so-called,
Was raised at length a block-house, a stockade;
And there, without delay, our paladin
Replaced his household and rebuilt his home.
There dwelt in endless shade. His fellows came,
Rough-vestured; yet, like him, of manly mould;
And thus the far-fetched village grew apace.
Anon came evil days: the savage rose,
And war-whoops through the forest-vistas rang.
The sage, that so mysteriously appeared,
In equal mystery withdrew. In truth,
Events of dread import had called him thence.
The time had come when freemen numerous grown.
Were struggling for man’s rights on the eastern shore,
And ’neath a Washington, with dauntless breasts,
Confronted the oppressor of their fields.
The sage then, for a time at least, forsook,
And seemingly forgot his former care.
On the eastern shore, in council and in camp,
He aided Freedom’s cause: from the older world
Brought LaFayette, Pulaski, brought De Kalb,
And Kosciusko, chosen spirits all. To aid the cause of heaven and of man. At length the struggle’s crucial era came. At length he opposed, opposed successfully. The christian, and at last the catholic king, Against the tenant of the British throne, And while fierce despots raged in mutual strife Truth rose again and Freedom’s field was won. Returning to his charge aglow with hope, The angelic mentor filled the forester With his exuberant soul; gave him a heart Aspiring and unyielding, and withal. With ardent love of liberty imbued. Such the grave Mentor of our paladin. As when of old the favorite of the gods ’Gainst the Gorgonian monster was dispatched, The powers above endowed him with their arms; And he, with Mercury’s talaria winged, And god-given blade and buckler armed, sped forth Invisible ’neath Pluto’s shadowing helm: So, when our paladin, skin-clad, was led, As by the spirit into the wilderness, To o’er come the savage and wild nature, and. In farthest shades to erect the first of states; The gods imbued him, heaven favored too, With more than mortal arms. With aid divine, With aegus and with herpe, heaven bestowed, He o’er-came the dread Medusa of the wild, The savage of Gorgdnian mien. At last, Armed with good gold, as well as glittering brand, He loosed the chained Andromeda that here Was represented by a Louisiane, Dowered with her forest kingdom, wild and wide. Onr rustic knight thus rescued Louisiane, Then languishing beneath a distant king. Through him, fit instrument, at length was reared The frame-work of a temple heaven designed. And with his strength and spirit was imbued The young yet mighty nation of the free. In his lone watches in the wilderness, Our guardian-angel assorted wood and plain, And nearer made the forest, yet unoped, Beyond the inviting field predominant; And when at length the clay of Freedom dawned, And the great valley; simultaneously. Was-oped, and to a waiting world displayed; Tht mightiest hegira known to earth, As prearranged, began: and then ’twas found, As westward passed the hastening emigrant, The farthest ever were the fairest fields. And so the mighty vale with millions filled. In an incredibly brief space; so too, As prearranged likewise, the nation sprang, As in a day, to greatness and to power. Thus, ere the jarring kings forgot their rage, And mutual strife, the nation of the free Arose, as by cuchantment, and in strength O’er-topped the mightiest of their boastful powers.
Our pen, unequal to the task assigned,
May fail to fitly paint the work sublime
Of our brave forester and of that one,
Who, as his mentor, aided him always,
And on him threw supernal light and power;
Invisible, yet not the less sublime.
To lightly paint the Garden of the World,
Improved, we assume, by an angel’s hand;
Might well an angels art, or pen employ.
From the bold towers of the exposition planned
To memorate the purchase of our vale
We observe, to-day, a scene of fairyland.
There, some few seasons gone , we saw out-stretch’d
A tangled labyrinth of darksome woods,
A shadowy wilderness; there now, behold!
’Mid leaping fountains and white statuary set,
Are glorious palaces with cloud-capped towers;
Like dreams in stone, yet of Cyclopean size.
Wherein, ’mid colonnades and stately peristyles,
’Mid domes and spires cloud-piercing, are beheld
The nations of the earth and all their lore.
Beneath their many-colored flags, enshrined.
Even such the work, so swift and magical, ’
Yet mightier by a thousand fold, the task
Whereby a world of shade hath been transformed.
As with a mystic wane, and in brief time,
Into the world-wide garden of our pride; That now, fruit-laden and flower-scented spreads Athwart the broadest vale of earth, and links It’s tropic to it’s hyperborean shore. ’Twere far beyond my power to paint or sing Each of it’s thousand rivers, amber-hued, Enchased throughout it’s course with floral bow’rs, And fields immantled all with green or gold. To rightly paint the Southland’s famed Cote-DO’r Would call for nobler art; to limu it’s seas Of Waving cane, it’s orange groves, or paint A slumberous Teche in sacchariferous fields Adream alway; or tven the rice-fields fair, Lac D’ Arthur and it’s murmuring Mermentau. Of equal beamy many another stream In neighboring states agleam upon each hand, And broid’ring with green fields that sunlit shore. As fair well-nigh, those of the zone succeeding where.
Beside the Father Stream, in sunlight roll
A Yazoo, a Sunflower, a Sabloniere,
Calm Alabamas, sacred Trinities,
Broad Tennesees and mighty Arkansas’,
Meandering through sweet-scented cotton-fields,
That change ’neath autumn’s sun, to stainless plains
Of mimic snow. But more stupendous still,
Must prove the task to sing the varied charms Of the great garden’s central realm sublime,
Where in azure calm the river beautiful,
Where Illinois, draining inland seas,
Where Mississippi and Missouri huge,
With affluents many a score, ’neath summer’s sun.
Forever flow through matchless, endless fields
Of weighing grain and fair, gold-tasselled maize.
Such the world-garden of our song and pride;
Such and so beautiful it’s vernal fields.
Embroidered all with rose-plats and thick-set
With happy homes. A thousand cities gleam,
And shrines and seats of learning stud the scene,
And palaces of varied industries,
Of art and agriculture nestle there.
Unmarked well-nigh in it’s immensity.
A thousand water-ways and tracks of steel,
In labyrinthine mazes spread, convey
It’s people and their stores, in water.craft
And cars palatial, drawn by the dread power
That loosed in nature, rends her quaking hills,
Or that which fired the fabled bolts of Jove.
In thus concluding our storial song;
In this last vision of our vale of vales;
We observe the matchless garden as enclosed
By the strong walls of the great state of states, And by it’s teeming millions dressed and tilled. Like the vast hall, like the inner court sublime, Of one of those hypoethral palaces, Above-described, to that far-glit’ring pile; Like the great nave, high-arched, majestical, Of some cathedral to it’s edifice; The vale of vales unto the state of states. ’Twere then unmeet to land it’s varied charms, And fail to observe the equal majesty Of that encircling, that o’er-shadowing fane; The temple of the Union. While we observe The o’er- flowing granary, and therewithal, The treasury of earth in that broad vale, In the great super-structure, heaven-ordained. That o’er it throws it’s mightiest arcades, Are equal glories and sublimities; Albeit these, like tnose of our great vale. Are yet too numerous to reproduce Or picture in a simple epode’s bounds. ’Twere endless quite to unfold the history Of that great structure, or at length portray It’s ancient prototypes. ’Twere endless too. To paint or sing each of the beauteous states, That in fair ranks and series round us rise. And as majestic caryatides. Sustain the arches, the entablatures, Of that endurig fane, “not built wllh hands". Sublime that structure, stern it’s battlements
O’er- looking on each band the ocean-shore:
Divine it’s holy of holies, mountain-walled,
Wherein we stand this day: and gazing there.
With reverence on his works, may we behold
The autbor, under God, of man’s best home.
And of the matchless garden of our song;
The Mentor of the skin-clad knight; behold
The Angel of Liberty, the friend of man,
The spirit high that raised up Washington;
Thar taught Bienville in the wilderness;
And him that penned our charter of equal rights,
And as a further blessing, bought with gold
The mighty remnant of Louisiane,
And perfected the garden of our song.
Such, as I ween, the Angel of Liberty,
Our country’s guardian sublime and high;
One of the flaming seraphim, with power
To rule the waves and still the tempests; yet
With countenance benignant filled with love
To God and man: a Cato in dignity,
And;like a Roman senator enrobed;
Yet, like the youthful Gracchi, upholding still
The equal rights of man and toward this shore,
Mayhap from paradisian scenes, he turns,
And treads oft-times the foreland of the west:
And there among companion spirits, ’mong The deathless Gracchi of the ages past,
And those of recent days; he observes oft-times,
Observes with pride the vale immensurable,
The world-wide basin of it’s Father-Stream,
The endless vista of it’s sea-like lakes,
And then, I ween, and with a wistful eye,
Looks on it’s counterparts, as vast, well-nigh,
Yet unreclaimed from loneliness and snow,
That trend in silence toward the icy seas.
Cable, George Washington. "Posson Jone’" and P�re Raphaël: With a New Word Setting Forth How and Why the Two Tales Are One. Illus. Stanley M. Arthurs. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909. Google Books. Web. 27 Feb. 2012. <http://books. google.com/books?id=bzhLAAAAIAAJ>. Notes
Text prepared by: Spring 2018-2019 Group
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