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NEW ENGLAND HISTORY 
 IN BALLADS 
 
NEW ENGLAND HISTORY 
 IN BALLADS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE 
 
 AND HIS CHILDREN 
 WITH A FEW ADDITIONS BY OTHER PEOPLE 
 
 Illustrated by 
 
 ELLEN D. HALE, PHILIP L. HALE, AND 
 LILIAN HALE 
 
 »•» •< 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1903 
 

 1 i (^1 
 
 Copyright, 1893, 1903, 
 By Edward E. Hale. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 
 UNIVKRSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 I AJsi fond of saj-ing that we have never had 
 fifty good American ballads. AVe have never 
 had any, if the ballad is to fulfil the conditions 
 which ]SIr. Lowell and other writers who know 
 have assigned for good ballad poetrj'. 
 
 The truth is that the immortal ballads of the 
 past could never have existed had not the people 
 who composed them Hved in the conditions of 
 life which made them what they were. 
 
 ^It. Lowell said that the authors of the EngHsh 
 and Scotch ballads had these advantages, wliich 
 are hardly possible to-day : 
 
 On€. They were not encumbered with infor- 
 mation. 
 
 Two. They sang well because they never 
 thought about it. 
 
 Three. In repeating their poems, they had the 
 magnetism of the sympathy of their hearers, — 
 they saw their faces as they spoke. 
 
 Four. Thev plunged at once into deep water 
 without preface. 
 
vi Introduction 
 
 JF^ive. They lived when and where there were 
 no newspapers. 
 
 Sia:. They said things. They neither ha- 
 rangued nor described. And to Mr. Lowell's 
 remark here, I will add that they never furnished 
 a moral. 
 
 Seven. The ballads are really folk-songs, and 
 they are the only folk-songs. 
 
 Eight. Travelling from place to place as 
 ballad singers did, they had that education for 
 uplift which comes from life m the open air, and 
 from that only. 
 
 I have abridged somewhat severely Mr. Low- 
 ell's eight conditions, but I have used his language 
 so far as I could. He says that for such reasons 
 the ballad singers stood face to face with life in 
 such ways as we cannot enter. He also says 
 what is also true, that the old English ballads are 
 models of narrative poetry. 
 
 One cannot write down these eight conditions 
 without seeing that most of them have been im- 
 possible to any person in New England in the 
 last three centuries. As for number four, all of 
 us might plunge into deep water without preface, 
 but I, who have knocked about the world for 
 eighty years, have never met five public men who 
 were able to do this. A speaker at a dinner 
 always has to tell you why he is there, or that he 
 
Introduction vii 
 
 does not want to speak. There seems something 
 in our modern time which makes this beginning 
 or propylaeum necessary whenever we build a 
 temple. And there is something else which com- 
 pels us to adorn a tale or to state a moral, though 
 we could simply state things^ as Mr. Lowell says. 
 Here are two of his conditions which we might 
 live up to, but which we do not choose to live up 
 to. And the other six conditions represent social 
 arrangements which have been impossible since 
 this country was settled. People have been "en- 
 cumbered with information " ever since 1620, and 
 there has been no occasion for ballad singers to 
 travel from place to place. The newspaper has 
 been in advance of them since the end of the 
 century. 
 
 The Uncle Remus Stories of the South are 
 often models of good narrative, and this is clearly 
 just because those to whom they are told camiot 
 read. But in New England there has never been 
 any group of people who could not read. For 
 such reasons I might say of the New England 
 ballads in this preface what the English midship- 
 man said of the manners and customs of the 
 Ro-to-to Islands. His captain had assigned to 
 him the duty of preparing a report for the Admi- 
 ralty on the manners and customs of these islands. 
 The poor young man shut himself up in his cabin 
 
Vlll 
 
 Introduction 
 
 for a day, and at the end of the day his manu- 
 script was examined by the captain. In fifteen 
 hom-s he had written these words only : " As for 
 manners they have none, and their customs are 
 very filthy." It might be said of New England 
 that she has no ballads and that those she has 
 are not good. 
 
 To this remark there are two exceptions, per- 
 haps three or four. But even when our best 
 " Makers " have tried their hands, the result as 
 compared with the ballad has been like a wax 
 rose when compared with one fresh cut ft'om the 
 garden. Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, and 
 Lowell himself, have tried their hands. Long- 
 fellow and Whittier have best succeeded in 
 throwing overboard the hamper of literary train- 
 ing, in plunging into deep water, and swimming 
 for life ; yet their best narrative poems are not 
 ballads, if one uses language critically. 
 
 There are, however, some forty or fifty poems, 
 more or less narrative, which ought to be read in 
 any thoughtful study of New England history. 
 We have determined in my house that it will be 
 well to bring together some of the fifty, and to 
 indicate where the rest of them may be found. 
 And if this book pretended to nothing else it 
 would " CLAIM," as the Patent Office says, 
 that it gives to young readers some hints as 
 
Introduction ix 
 
 to these broken lights of the history of three 
 centuries. Of the Four Makers in any such se- 
 lection there should appear the poems, to which 
 they have given these names. 
 
 Longfellow, The Burial of the Minnisink, The Skele- 
 ton in Armor, The Wreck of the Hesperus, The Arsenal 
 at Springfield, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, The Phantom Ship, 
 In the Churchyard at Cambridge, The Newport Cemetery, 
 Paul Revere"'s Ride, Lady Wentworth, The Bells of Lynn. 
 
 Whittier. Cassandra Southwick, Funeral Tree of the 
 Sokokis, Pentucket, St. John, The Exiles, The Familisfs 
 Hymn, The Fountain, The Merrimack, The New Wife 
 and the Old, The Norsemen, Massachusetts to Virginia, 
 New Hampshire, — 1845, A New England Legend, The 
 Pumpkin, The Quaker of the Olden Time, In the Old 
 South. 
 
 Holmes. Old Ironsides, The Dorchester Giant, Lex- 
 ington, Harvard Centennial, Berkshire Jubilee, Agnes, The 
 Ploughman, The New England Society, 1855, Webster's 
 Birthday, Parson Turell's Election, Robinson of Leyden, 
 Dorothy Q., The Ballad of the Boston Tea Party, After 
 the Fire, The Commemoration Service, God Save the Flag, 
 Long Wharf, Grandmother's Bunker Hill, The Old South, 
 King's Chapel, The Broomstick Train. 
 
 Lowell. To a Pine Tree, Indian Summer, The Crisis, 
 Some of the Biglow Papers, Myles Standish, Pictures from 
 Appledore, The Voyage to Vinland, The Fatherland. 
 
 There are, as I have said, many unwritten bal- 
 lads. Some of the more interesting titles would 
 be — 
 
X Introduction 
 
 Winslow and Massasoit, 1621. 
 The Lobsters at Squantum. 1621. 
 Winthrop's Landing in Beverly Harbor. 
 
 " They had gathered strawberries." 1630. 
 The Explosion on the Rose. 1640. 
 William Blaxton leaves Boston. 
 
 The Sale of King Philip's Wife and Child into Slavery. 
 The Imprisonment of Sir Edmund Andros. 
 Franklin and his Mother. 
 The Birth of the Dauphin. 
 
 I count Mr. Longfellow's ballad of the French 
 Fleet as the best New England ballad so far. 
 That will be found here. 
 
 The book in the reader's hands, however, was 
 not born in the intention to furnish such a cata- 
 logue. It happened to me more than twenty 
 years ago to go to Europe on a holiday, and to 
 leave behind a family of young people who had 
 pencils and pens in their hands. I told them 
 that there were no ballads proper in New Eng- 
 land history, and I proposed to them that while 
 we were parted from each other, we should begin 
 a series to see if we could not fill in, in a way, 
 this blank of the literary history of our own region. 
 They did not do a great deal, and I am afraid I 
 did nothing in the matter in those four months. 
 
Introduction xi 
 
 But we all of us knew that we had these ballads 
 on our list of omitted duties ; and from time to 
 time we have pulled them out from the pigeon- 
 holes and hammered away at them. This meta- 
 phor is very bad, but the reader must let it 
 stand. 
 
 I have brought together now the ballads we 
 have written and with them we print ten illus- 
 trations. Some of the illustrations must take the 
 place of those which we have not written. And 
 so the reader has in his hands the collection 
 which we have made, say in five and twenty years, 
 for better for worse, for richer for poorer. 
 
 Beside these, I have printed here some other 
 verses which have been printed before. These 
 are not selected for their special interest, but be- 
 cause I think they are hard to find. If 1 chose 
 the poems of value and interest merely, I should 
 have to reprint many of the four " Makers " I 
 have named. But their ballads are in every one's 
 hands. 
 
 As matter of chronology, I suppose that Mr. 
 Longfellow's ballad of the Skeleton in Armor, 
 the same whom they discovered in Fall River in 
 1833, would be the first poem in this book. If 
 this Viking were here at all, he was here with 
 Thorvald or Thorfinn as early as the first mil- 
 lenium of the Christian era. But the Skeleton 
 
Xll 
 
 Introduction 
 
 in Armor had for his armor the same copper 
 tubes which Gosnold afterwards saw on the In- 
 dians in 1602. No such armor was ever worn 
 by a Viking. With reluctance, therefore, I give 
 this poor Viking up and do not reprint the 
 ballad. No. If you please, we will begin with 
 Columbus. 
 
 1 need hardly say that the word ballad has 
 been used in the broadest possible range of any 
 language to which the word belongs. And to 
 the word ballad the reader must be careful to 
 add the other words and other verses. 
 
 EDWARD E. HALE. 
 
 RoxBURY, Massachusetts, 
 September 7, 1903. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 t\)t iforerunners; 
 
 Columbus Pase 3 
 
 Sonnet " 5 
 
 The Three Anniversaries " 6 
 
 Adrian Block's Song " 8 
 
 t\)t ifirsit feneration 
 
 The Finding of the First Mayflower "13 
 
 Boston in 1621 "15 
 
 Anonymous " l6 
 
 Anne Hutchinson's Exile "20 
 
 The First Settler "24 
 
 ifrom ttje Colony to tlje ^tate 
 
 Uncle Tracy's Thanksgiving "29 
 
 Anne Dudley "31 
 
 The Lamentable Ballad of the Bloody Brook . . "33 
 
 William Kidd "37 
 
 " Ye Lamentable Ballad and Ye True Historie of 
 
 Captaine Robert Kidd " "40 
 
 Robinson Crusoe "47 
 
 The Queen's Road "51 
 
xiv Contents 
 
 The Franklin Ballads Page 55 
 
 The Downfall of Piracy " 57 
 
 Franklin's Wit " 61 
 
 At the Inn " 63 
 
 Black Beard " 67 
 
 " Song of Lovewell's Fight " " 6.9 
 
 From Potomac to Merrimac " 76 
 
 Louisbourg " 80 
 
 A Ballad of the French Fleet " 82 
 
 Elegy on the Young Man Bitten by a Rattlesnake " 86 
 
 The Other Half " 91 
 
 The British Grenadier " 92 
 
 Paul Revere's Ride " 95 
 
 New England's Chevy Chase "100 
 
 A Song "108 
 
 Ballad "Ill 
 
 The Marching Song of Stark's Men . . . . "112 
 
 Concord Bridge "114 
 
 The Yankey's Return from Camp '' ll6 
 
 The Yankee Privateer "121 
 
 The Old South Picture Gallery "126 
 
 Another Century " 134 
 
 Chesapeake and Shannon "135 
 
 Old Ironsides "137 
 
 The Funeral of Old John Rudd "140 
 
 The Breach by Point Judith Point "147 
 
 Cotton . "154 
 
Contents xv 
 t\)t Citjil Wiut 
 
 The Civil War Page 159 
 
 Old Faneuil Hall " l6l 
 
 Take the Loan « l63 
 
 The Great Harvest Year "167 
 
 Manila Bay . " 175 
 
 New England to a Truant Lover . . , , c " 177 
 
 Phillips Brooks "179 
 
 Francis Parkman "180 
 
 The Stars "181 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 The Great Christ Bearer quailed not . . Frontispiece 
 "* The spring is come,' she said " Page 14 
 
 " The baby dings ; the mother sings 
 
 " ' Your horse won't eat them, sir ' " 
 
 " And even as I prayed 
 The answering tempest came " 
 
 " So through the night rode Paul Revere "" . . 
 
 In a barn at Milk Row 
 
 Stabbed and killed in Havana 
 
 His soul 's marching on 
 
 And then I spent the parting night .... 
 
 20 
 60 
 
 81 
 99 
 106 
 153 
 159 
 162 
 
THE FORERUNNERS 
 
NEW ENGLAND HISTORY 
 
 COLUMBUS 
 
 Give me white paper ! 
 This which you use is black and rough with 
 
 smears 
 Of sweat and grime and fraud and blood and tears, 
 Crossed with the story of men's sins and fears, 
 Of battle and of famine all these years, 
 
 When all God's children had forgot their 
 
 birth, 
 And drudged and fought and died like 
 beasts of earth. 
 
 " Give me white paper ! " 
 One storm-trained seaman listened to the word ; 
 What no man saw he saw ; he heard what no 
 man heard. 
 In answer he compelled the sea 
 
4 Ballads of 
 
 To eager man to tell 
 The secret she had kept so well 1 
 Left blood and guilt and tyranny behind, — 
 Sailing still West the hidden shore to find ; 
 
 For all mankind that unstained scroll un- 
 furled, 
 Where God might write anew the story of 
 the World. 
 
New England History 
 
 SONNET 
 
 To THE Ship which brought a Copy of Michael Angelo's Statue 
 OF Christ from Italy to America 
 
 Bark after bark has sunk in gales like these, 
 Facing the jealous West, as thou dost now. 
 Still thou must breast each wave, nor shun the 
 
 seas, 
 Which beetle downward on thy westward prow. 
 The great " Christ-bearer " quailed not : he, as 
 
 thou. 
 Left Italy to seek our Western shore ; 
 And, as another dove another olive bore, 
 Seeing across the waste another promise-bow. 
 
 Beat westward still ! beat downward every wave 1 
 
 The Christ who gave our New World to the Old, 
 
 E'en then his secret to his Michael told. 
 
 And to his eye the sacred vision gave. 
 
 Beat the waves down ! let them his form behold 
 
 Who are his " other sheep," not of his early fold. 
 
 ANTiauABiAN Hall, Worcester. 1853, 
 
Ballads of 
 
 THE THREE ANNIVERSARIES 
 
 Short is the day, and night is long ; 
 
 But he who waits for day 
 In darkness sits not quite so long, 
 
 And earlier hails the twilight gray, 
 A little earlier hails the ray. 
 That drives the mists of night away. 
 
 So was this land cold, dead, and drear. 
 
 When to the rock-bound shore 
 That Pilgrim band, Christ-led, drew near. 
 The promise of a new-born year, — 
 Twilight, which shows that even here 
 The sun of gladness shall appear. 
 The land be dark no more. 
 
 So was the world dark, drear, and wild. 
 When on that blessed morn 
 
 A baby on his mother smiled. 
 
 The dawning comes, the royal child, 
 The Sun of life, is born. 
 
New England History 
 
 The lengthening days shall longer grow, 
 Till summer rules the land ; 
 
 From Pilgrim rills full rivers flow, — 
 Roll stronger and more grand. 
 
 So, Father, grant that year by year 
 The Sun of Righteousness more clear 
 To our awaiting hearts appear, 
 And from his doubtful East arise 
 The noonday Monarch of the skies, — 
 Till darkness from the nations flies ; 
 Till all know him as they are known, 
 Till all the earth be all his own. 
 
Ballads of 
 
 ROSES ISLAND 
 
 I BELIEVE that the State of Rhode Island derives its name 
 from its beautiful Rhododendron. 
 
 This is certain that Adrian Block, who gave the name to the 
 island on which Newport stands, must have seen the rhodo- 
 dendron maximum in bloom if he landed on the south shore 
 of the State, and made any march inland. 
 
 The glory of the Rhode Island flora is in its magnificent 
 display of rhododendron maximum. This noble plant appears 
 to no more advantage than in the swamps of Rhode Island. 
 There is a covert crowded with it, within a mile of my own 
 Rhode Island home, to which Aladdin might have been proud 
 to take the daughter of the Emperor of China. 
 
 The supposition, therefore, that Adrian Block named 
 Rhode Island from its display in July of these beautiful 
 flowers is not without foundation in natural history. It is 
 quite as likely a supposition as any other which has been 
 offered for the origin of the modern name of the island and 
 the State. 
 
 ADRIAN BLOCK'S SONG 
 
 Hard aport I Now close to shore sail I 
 Starboard now, and drop your foresail ! 
 
 See, boys, what yon bay discloses, 
 
 What yon open bay discloses ! 
 
 Where the breeze so gently blows is 
 
 Heaven's own land of ruddy roses. 
 
New England History- 
 Past the Cormorant we sail. 
 Past the ripphng Beaver Tail, 
 Green with summer, red with flowers. 
 Green with summer, fresh with showers, 
 Sweet with song and red with flowers, 
 Is this new-found land of ours ! 
 
 Roses close above the sand, 
 
 Roses on the trees on land, 
 I shall take this land for my land. 
 Rosy beach and rosy highland, 
 And I name it Roses Island. 
 
THE FIRST GENERATION 
 
 1620-1638 
 
THE FINDING OF THE FIRST 
 MAYFLOWER 
 
 Plymouth, 1621 
 
 The gray mists on the hillside fall, 
 The gray gulls o'er the harbor call. 
 With silent tread they wander down 
 Through last year's leaves and grasses brown. 
 Said he, " The months go by, this year, 
 
 And all is still and dead. 
 Is it, then, always winter here ? " 
 
 " The spring will come," she said. 
 
 An east wind cuts the mist in twain, — 
 There is the straight sea line again. 
 She draws her mantle close, and he, 
 Turning his back upon the sea. 
 Speaks : " Lord, thy servant here behold 1 
 
 JVIy sins upon my head ; 
 But why, Lord, slay us by thy cold ? " 
 " The spring will come," she said. 
 
14 Ballads of 
 
 She drops her head, and at her feet 
 There is a flower white and sweet. 
 They brush the leaves aside, and there 
 Its pink and white are everywhere. 
 A ray of sun — and all the slope 
 
 Laughs with its white and red. 
 " It is the Ma5rflower of our hope ; 
 
 The spring is come," she said. 
 
New England History 15 
 
 BOSTON IN 1621 
 
 After the hardships of the first winter the Pilgrim Fathers 
 sent a shallop up the bay to explore the coast. In this boat, 
 apparently, was William Bradford, the first governor. The 
 lines below show that he saw the peninsula of Shawmut, 
 where Boston stands, before the arrival of its first inhabitant, 
 William Blaxton. I say first "inhabitant," for there is no 
 evidence that any man, white or red, lived on that peninsula 
 before him. 
 
 BOSTON IN 1621 
 
 Oh Boston, though thou now art grown 
 To be a great and wealthy Town, 
 Yet I have seen thee a wild Place, 
 Shrubs and Bushes covering thy Face : 
 And House then in thee, none there were : 
 Nor such as Gold and Silk did wear : 
 No Drunkenness were then in thee, 
 Nor such Excess as now we see. 
 We then drank freely of thy Spring, 
 Without paying of Anything. 
 We lodged freely where we vv^ould, 
 All Things were free and Nothing sold. 
 
i6 Ballads of 
 
 And they that did thee first begin 
 Had Hearts as free and as willing 
 Their poor Friends for to entertain 
 And never looked at sordid Gain. 
 
 William Bradford. 
 
 The author of the following lines is not known. They 
 were first printed in 1773, having been preserved traditionally. 
 
 1630-1640 
 
 New England's annoyances, you that would 
 
 know them, 
 Pray ponder these verses which briefly do show 
 
 them. 
 
 The Place where we live is a wilderness Wood, 
 Where Grass is much wanting that 's fruitful and 
 
 good, 
 Our Mountains and Hills and our Valleys below 
 Being commonly covered with Ice and with 
 
 Snow : 
 And when the Northwest Wind with violence 
 
 blows. 
 Then every Man pulls his Cap over his Nose ; 
 But if any 's so hardy and will it withstand. 
 He forfeits a Finger, a Foot, or a Hand. 
 
New England History 17 
 
 But when the Spring opens we then take the Hoe 
 And make the Ground ready to plant and to sow : 
 Our Corn being planted and Seed being sown, 
 The Worms destroy much before it is gi'own. 
 And when it is growing some spoil there is made 
 By Birds and by Squirrels that pluck up the Blade ; 
 And when it is come to full Corn in the Ear, 
 It is often destroyed by Raccoon and by Deer. 
 
 And now all our Garments begin to grow thin. 
 And Wool is much wanted to card and to spin. 
 If we can get a Garment to cover without, 
 Our other In-Garments are Clout upon Clout. 
 Our Clothes we brought with us are apt to be torn, 
 They need to be clouted soon after they 're worn ; 
 But clouting our Garments they hinder us 
 
 nothing : 
 Clouts double are warmer than single whole 
 
 Clothing. 
 
 If fresh Meat be wanting to fill up our Dish, 
 We have Carrots and Turnips as much as we 
 
 wish, 
 And if there 's a Mind for a delicate Dish 
 We repair to the Clam-Banks and there we catch 
 
 Fish. 
 
1 8 Ballads of 
 
 For Pottage and Puddings and Custards and Pies 
 Our Pumpkins and Parsnips are common Supplies, 
 We have Pumpkins at Morning and Pumpkins 
 
 at Noon, 
 If it was not for Pumpkins we should be undone. 
 
 If Barley be wanted to make into Malt, 
 We must be contented and think it no Fault, 
 For we can make liquor to sweeten our Lips 
 Of Pumpkins and Parsnips and Walnut-Tree 
 Chips. 
 
 Now while Some are going let Others be coming. 
 For while Liquor's boiling it must have a 
 
 scumming. 
 But I will not blame them, for Birds of a Feather 
 By seeking their Fellows are flocking together. 
 But you whom the Lord intends hither to bring 
 Forsake not the Honey for fear of the Sting ; 
 But bring both a quiet and contented Mind, 
 And all needful blessings you surely will find. 
 
 [Some verse or verses seem to have been 
 lost just before the end. — E. E. H.] 
 
New England History 19 
 
 ANNE HUTCHINSON 
 
 Nothing in New England history is more interesting or 
 more tantalizing than the life of Anne Hutchinson. 
 
 The little colony at the head of Boston Bay had struggled 
 along for four years. In September, l630, some twenty or 
 thirty families had crossed from their tents or shanties in 
 Charlestown, to Shawmut, or Trimountain, opposite, because 
 there was the perpetual spring of water there. It is remem- 
 bered to-day in " Spring Lane/' and its water supplies the 
 steam engine of the Post Office. Bradford refers to it in his 
 verses printed already. 
 
 In that first winter the " houses " were little better than 
 holes in the ground with roofs above them, — on the lower 
 part of the slope from our Tremont Street as you would go 
 down to the sea. 
 
 With that Spartan beginning the town had increased 
 until, in 1634, there were roads, a meeting-house, the begin- 
 ning of a schoolhouse, — and the prospect of being the 
 capital. Still, a new settlement, we all know what that is. 
 Into such a new town John Cotton came in 1633, his admirer 
 and friend, Anne Hutchinson, in 1634, and Sir Henry Vane 
 in 1635. 
 
 Who shall say how these newcomers wounded and hurt 
 the old settlers. " A certain condescension observable in all 
 foreigners," this is Lowell's charming phrase when he de- 
 scribes it. What is certain is that Anne Hutchinson, after a 
 career like that of Madame Recaniier in her salon in Paris, 
 in three years' time had offended the rulers of the State. 
 For the first time, and the last, the State authorities inter- 
 
20 Ballads of 
 
 fered with a local church, and the First Church of Boston 
 sent into exile some of its very best members. The magis- 
 trates tried Anne Hutchinson on a civil charge. They could 
 not prove that her theology was wrong, and they sent her into 
 exile on a charge of disturbing the peace by maligning the 
 ministers. So the poor woman with her husband and her 
 children had to go, and the ballad below describes one night's 
 encampment in Rhode Island. There is no authority for the 
 supposition that this was a little west of Point Judith. 
 
 1638 
 
 ANNE HUTCHINSON'S EXILE 
 A BALLAD 
 
 " Home, home — where 's my baby's home ? 
 Here we seek, there we seek my baby's home 
 to find. 
 Come, come, come, my baby, come ! 
 
 We found her home, we lost her home, and 
 home is far behind. 
 Come, my baby, come I 
 Find my baby's home I " 
 
 The baby clings ; the mother sings ; the pony 
 stumbles on ; 
 The father leads the beast along the tangled, 
 muddy way ; 
 
New England History 21 
 
 The boys and girls trail on behind ; the sun will 
 soon be gone, 
 And starlight bright will take again the place 
 of sunny day. 
 " Home, home — where 's my baby's home ? 
 Here we seek, there we seek, my baby's home 
 to find. 
 Come, come, come, my baby, come ! 
 
 We found her home, we lost her home, and 
 home is far behind. 
 Come, my baby, come ! 
 Find my baby's home I " 
 
 The sun goes down behind the lake ; the night 
 
 fogs gather chill. 
 The children's clothes are torn ; and the 
 
 children's feet are sore. 
 " Keep on, my boys, keep on, my girls, till all 
 
 have passed the hill ; 
 Then ho, my girls, and ho, my boys, for fire 
 
 and sleep once more I " 
 And all the time she sings to the baby on her 
 
 breast, 
 "Home, my darling, sleep, my darling, find a 
 
 place for rest ; 
 
22 Ballads of 
 
 Who gives the fox his burrow will give my bird 
 a nest. 
 Come, my baby, come I 
 Find my baby's home ! " 
 
 He lifts the mother from the beast ; the hemlock 
 boughs they spread, 
 And make the baby's cradle sweet with fern- 
 leaves and with bays. 
 The baby and her mother are resting on their 
 bed ; 
 He strikes the flint, he blows the spark, and 
 sets the twigs ablaze. 
 " Sleep, my child ; sleep, my child I 
 Baby, find her rest. 
 Here beneath the gracious skies, upon her 
 
 father's breast ; 
 Who gives the fox his burrow will give my 
 bird her nest. 
 Come, come, with her mother, come ! 
 Home, home, find my baby's home I " 
 
 The guardian stars above the trees their loving 
 vigil keep ; 
 The cricket sings her lullaby, the whippoorwill 
 his cheer. 
 
New England History 23 
 
 The father knows his Father's arms are round 
 them as they sleep ; 
 The mother knows that in His arms her darhng 
 need not fear. 
 ** Home, home, my baby's home is here ; 
 
 With God we seek, with God we find the place 
 for baby's rest. 
 Hist, my child, list, my child ; angels guard us 
 here. 
 The God of heaven is here to make and keep 
 my birdie's nest. 
 Home, home, here 's my baby's home I " 
 
24 Ballads of 
 
 THE FIRST SETTLER 
 
 What was his name ? I do not know his name. 
 I only know he heard God's voice and came ; 
 Brought all he loved across the sea, 
 To live and work for God — and me ; 
 Felled the ungracious oak, — 
 With horrid toil 
 Dragged from the soil 
 The thrice-gnarled roots and stubborn rock ; 
 With plenty piled the haggard mountain-side, 
 And when his work was done, without memorial 
 
 died. 
 No blaring trumpet sounded out his fame ; 
 He lived and died. I do not know his name. 
 
 No form of bronze and no memorial stones 
 Show me the place where lie his mouldering 
 bones. 
 
 Only a cheerful city stands, 
 
 Builded by his hardened hands ; 
 
New England History 25 
 
 Only ten thousand homes, 
 Where every day 
 The cheerful play 
 Of love and liope and courage comes ; 
 These are his monuments, and these alone, — 
 There is no form of bronze and no memorial 
 stone I 
 
 And I? 
 Is there some desert or some boundless sea 
 Where thou, gi'eat God of angels, wilt send me ? 
 Some oak for me to rend, some sod 
 For me to break. 
 Some handful of thy corn to take, 
 And scatter fiir afield, 
 Till it in turn shall yield 
 Its hundredfold 
 Of grains of gold. 
 To feed the happy children of my God ? — 
 Show me the desert, Father, or the sea. 
 Is it thine enterprise ? Great God, send me ! 
 And though the body lie where ocean rolls, 
 Father, count me among all faithful souls I 
 
 NoviaiBER, 1885 
 
FROM THE COLONY TO THE 
 STATE 
 
UNCLE TRACY'S THANKSGIVING 
 
 There can be no doubt but that this queer song runs back 
 in time to the end of the first century of the colony. 
 
 It is purely traditional. I heard it as early as 1825, and 
 I do not believe it has ever been printed until now. 
 
 I have no doubt as to its antiquity. It belongs before 
 1689 and after I661. 
 
 UNCLE TRACY'S THANKSGIVING. 1675? 
 
 'T WAS up to Uncle Tracy's 
 The Fifth of November, 
 Last Thanksgiving night 
 As I very well remember 
 And there we had a Frolic, 
 
 A Frolic indeed, 
 Where we drank good full Glasses 
 Of old Anise-seed. 
 
 And there was Mr. Holmes 
 And there was Peter Drew, 
 
 And there was Seth Gilbert 
 And Seth Thomas too 
 
30 Ballads of 
 
 And there were too many 
 Too many for to name, 
 
 And by and by I '11 tell you how 
 They carried on the Game. 
 
 They carried on the Game 
 
 Till 't was late in the night, 
 And one pretty Girl 
 
 Almost lost her Eyesight. 
 No wonder, no wonder 
 
 No wonder indeed, 
 For she drank good full Glasses 
 Of old Anise-seed. 
 
New England History 31 
 
 ANNE DUDLEY 
 
 I WAS most desirous to print here, before the date of 
 Philip's War, some verses by the New England poet, Anne 
 Dudley, who became by marriage Anne Bradstreet. It is she 
 whom Cotton Mather calls the " tenth Muse." 
 
 She had some ear for rhythm. She had read Du Bartas 
 and deUghted in him. The same may be said of John Milton. 
 Anne Dudley may have seen Milton. She was twelve years 
 younger than he was. 
 
 But alas ! I have read Anne Dudley Bradstreet' s poems, 
 though not for the first time, in hope that I might find one 
 line which should show that she had ever seen a hepatica, or 
 a wood anemone, or bloodroot, or a ladies' slipper, or a fringed 
 gentian. No ! She had only seen violets and primroses and 
 roses — the conventional flowers of English poetry. And, to 
 all appearances she had never seen a moccasin, or a dug-out, or 
 a toboggan, or a squaw, or a pappoose. No ! Her acquaint- 
 ances were of the First Monarchy and the Second Monarchy. 
 
 I think that the only allusions in her poems which can be 
 tortured into an observation of Nature or Nature's work in 
 New England are these. The North Andover people may 
 imagine that she has strayed to the bank of the Merrimac 
 from the Phillips Brooks house. 
 
 " Under the cooling shadow of a stately elm 
 
 Close sate I by a goodly River's side. 
 Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm 
 
 A lonely place, with pleasures dignified. 
 I once that lov'd the shady woods so well. 
 Now thought the rivers did the trees excel!. 
 And if the sun would ever shine, there would I dwell." 
 
32 Ballads of 
 
 Here are the conventional references which she makes to 
 flowers. "Azure violets" may pass. But "primroses" in 
 the Merrimac Valley .'' Ah me ! 
 
 " The primrose pale and azure violet 
 Among the verdurous grass hath Nature set." 
 
 For birds, she says : 
 
 " The sweet-tongued Philomel perched o'er my head." 
 
 But alas ! Philomel never came within three thousand 
 miles of her. 
 
 For insects on the lawn : 
 
 " I heard the merry grasshopper then sing. 
 
 The black clad cricket bear his second part. 
 They kept one tune and played on the same string. 
 Seeming to glory in their little art." 
 
 These are the least conventional and most genuine lines 
 in the volume of her poems. But grasshoppers are merry, 
 and crickets are black in England. 
 
 I go into this exhaustive review, because I suppose that I 
 am now, since the death of her editor, Mr. John Harvard 
 EUis, the only person who has read her poems. 
 
 " It is proper," as one of my Zuni friends said, that I 
 should say that since the death of my accomplished friend, 
 Mr. Ellis, no man lives, except myself, who has fulfilled this 
 pious duty. 
 
 Let us remember that Christopher North speaks kindly of 
 her. 
 
New England History 33 
 
 BLOODY BROOK 
 
 The slaughter of Lathrop with the " Flower of Essex " on 
 the eighteenth of September, 1 675, was one of the most tragic 
 incidents of King Philip's War. 
 
 I wrote this ballad to read at the celebration at " Bloody 
 Brook," at the anniversary of the battle in the year 1888. 
 
 It is a good aid to memory that Philip's War broke out 
 exactly a century before Lexington and Bunker Hill. The 
 colony, only forty-five years old, was very near destruction. 
 But the pluck of the fathers was such that they would not 
 send "home " for an ounce of powder or of lead. 
 
 It is rather curious that no allusion has been found in the 
 excited literature of 1775 to the recurrence of the centennial 
 anniversaries of the crisis of 1675. 
 
 THE LAMENTABLE BALLAD OF THE BLOODY 
 BROOK 
 
 Come listen to the Story of brave Lathrop and 
 his Men, — 
 How they fought, how they died. 
 When they marched against the Red Skins in 
 the Autumn Days, and then 
 How they fell, in their pride. 
 By Pocumtuck Side. 
 
34 Ballads of 
 
 " Who will go to Deerfield Meadows and bring 
 the ripened Grain ? " 
 Said old Mosely to his men in Array. 
 " Take the Wagons and the Horses, and bring it 
 back again ; 
 But be sure that no Man stray 
 All the Day, on the Way." 
 
 Then the Flower of Essex started, with Lathrop 
 at their head, 
 Wise and brave, bold and true. 
 He had fought the Pequots long ago, and now to 
 Mosely said, 
 " Be there Many, be there Few, 
 I will bring the Grain to you." 
 
 They gathered all the Harvest, and marched 
 back on their Way 
 Through the Woods which blazed like Fire. 
 No soldier left the Line of march to wander or 
 to stray. 
 Till the Wagons were stalled in the Mire, 
 And the beasts began to tire. 
 
New England History 35 
 
 The Wagons have all forded the Brook as it 
 flows, 
 And then the Rear-Guard stays 
 To pick the Purple Grapes that are hanging from 
 the Boughs, 
 When, crack ! — to their Amaze, 
 A hundred Fire-locks blaze I 
 
 Brave Lathrop, he lay dying ; but as he fell he 
 cried, 
 " Each man to his Tree," said he, 
 " Let no one yield an Inch ; " and so the Soldier 
 died ; 
 And not a Man of all can see 
 Where the Foe can be. 
 
 And Philip and his Devils pour in their Shot 
 so fast, 
 From behind and before. 
 That man after Man is shot dovi^n and breathes 
 his last 
 Every Man lies dead in his Gore 
 To fight no more, — no more 1 
 
36 Ballads of 
 
 Oh, weep, ye Maids of Essex, for the Lads who 
 
 have died, — 
 The Flower of Essex they ! 
 The Bloody Brook still ripples by the black 
 
 Mountain-side, 
 But never shall they come again to see the 
 
 ocean-tide, 
 And never shall the Bridegroom return to his 
 
 Bride, 
 From that dark and cruel Day, — cruel Day ! 
 
New England History 37 
 
 WILLIAM KIDD 
 
 Our friends in New York who care at all for the history of 
 the seventeenth century have sometimes intimated that the 
 products of piratical adventure were to be seen in the houses 
 of the well-to-do people of Boston as the end of that century 
 passed by. On the other hand, the Boston historians are a 
 little apt to intimate that in the lower streets of New York 
 adventures were planned for seamen who did not much care 
 what flag they sailed under. It is certain that those years of 
 the end of that century and the beginning of the next were 
 great years for piracy or for " freebooters." 
 
 Mr. Macaulay in a chapter of his history which was printed 
 after his death says, " Many of the pirates of the Indian 
 Ocean, it was said, came from our North American Colonies, 
 and carried back to those Colonies the spoils gained by 
 crime." And he specifies New York and the Puritans of 
 New England as those who profited by the ill-gotten spices 
 and stuffs which the pirates had to sell. 
 
 With regard to such suspicions, as far as New England is 
 concerned, it is safe to say that there is not an old candle- 
 stick or an old pistol or musket or cutlass in New England 
 regarding which there is any tradition that it came from a 
 buccaneer or other "freebooter." On the other hand, what 
 is certain is that the " Colonial Records " are full of the efforts 
 to suppress piracy, and that for some of these years at least 
 the Province of Massachusetts had cruisers under its own 
 commission and flag, quite regardless of home authorities, to 
 keep the seas of their neighborhood free. Lord Bellomont, 
 who became governor of Massachusetts and New York in 
 
38 Ballads of 
 
 1695, was specially charged by William III. to suppress " free- 
 booting." Bellomont commissioned a New York merchant of 
 good standing, named William Kidd, to take command of a 
 privateer called the Adventure Galley, which was equipped 
 in London for the special purpose of seizing pirates. Kidd 
 crossed the Atlantic in this vessel, and in New York found 
 volunteers in abundance for her crew. In 1697 he sailed 
 from the Hudson with one hundred and fifty men, and in 
 July readied Madagascar. 
 
 What happened in the Indian Ocean it is hard to tell. 
 Macaulay says coolly, " The risk of being called to severe 
 reckoning might not unnaturally seem small to one who had 
 seen many old buccaneers living in comfort and credit at New 
 York and Boston." So far as Boston is concerned I do not 
 believe that Kidd had seen any such thing. It is, however, 
 perhaps true, that he threw off the character of the "privateer " 
 and became a pirate. But some doubt certainly is thrown on 
 this charge against him, by the fact that he returned to New 
 York, apparently with no fear, having burned his ship, as is 
 supposed, and dismissed his men. He wrote to Bellomont, 
 who was in Boston, that he had been unjustly accused, and 
 offered to visit him in Boston. Bellomont replied by giving 
 him an absolute safe-conduct, promising him that he could 
 come to Boston and return safely to his home. Kidd came to 
 Boston, he took up his quarters in the best inn in the place, 
 and he called with perfect freedom at the council chamber 
 again and again. Unfortunately for him and for Bellomont's 
 character, orders then arrived from London that Bellomont 
 should arrest him and await further orders from the Admiralty. 
 Bellomont was afraid. He violated his own safe-conduct, and 
 imprisoned Kidd in the Boston jail. Kidd's wife came on to 
 Boston to visit him there. Kidd was sent to London and was 
 hanged. 
 
New England History 39 
 
 The personal correspondence between Kidd and Bellomont 
 is in the Massachusetts Archives. So are Sarah Kidd's 
 letters, signed with her mark because she could not write. 
 
 The misery of it all is that the prosecution was purely a 
 political prosecution. For the charge was a charge not really 
 against Kidd, but against Somers, who was one of the sub- 
 scribers to the Adventure Galleij enterprise. The govern- 
 ment prosecuting him abandoned the charge of piracy and he 
 was hanged for the murder of one of his sailors. Whether 
 Kidd were unjustly sentenced or not, he was sentenced and 
 he was hanged. The southern part of Rhode Island, where 
 is my summer home, is honeycombed with holes which have 
 been made by people who have been seeking for Kidd's 
 treasure, in the two hundred years which have passed since 
 he was hanged at Execution Dock. Some English ballad 
 writer of the time wrote the ballad which is still sung in the 
 forecastle. I have myself heard old seamen sing it when 
 everything was dark around us, and a northeast fog was form- 
 ing in drops upon our clothes. 
 
 I have sometimes thought that Macaulay gave to the ballad 
 rather more historical authority than it deserved. 
 
 The reader will observe that the ballad calls the hero 
 Robert Kidd, while there is no doubt that his name was 
 William and that the other details of the ballad, excepting 
 perhaps the death of William Moore, are untrue. 
 
 There is a general agreement that the ship in which Kidd 
 and his men returned was not the Adventure Galley but the 
 Quedak, an Asiatic vessel which he had taken as a prize. A 
 generation after the Whidah, supposed to be a buccaneer, was 
 shipwrecked on Cape Cod. Was she the same ship .'* 
 
40 Ballads of 
 
 «Ye lamentable ballad and Ye TRUE HIS- 
 TORIE OF CAPTAINE ROBERT KIDD, WHO WAS 
 HANGED IN CHAINS AT EXECUTION DOCK, 
 FOR PIRACY AND MURDER ON Ye HIGH SEAS." 
 1701 
 
 You captains bold and brave, hear our cries, hear 
 our cries. 
 You captains bold and brave, hear our cries, 
 You captains brave and bold, tho' you seem 
 uncontroll'd. 
 Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls, lose 
 your souls. 
 Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls. 
 
 My name was Robert Kidd, when I sail'd, when 
 I sail'd. 
 My name was Robert Kidd, when I sail'd. 
 My name was Robert Kidd, God's laws I did 
 forbid, 
 And so wickedly I did, when I sail'd. 
 
New England History 41 
 
 My parents taught me well, when I sail'd, when 
 I sail'd, 
 My parents taught me well, when I sail'd, 
 My parents taught me well to shun the gates of 
 hell, 
 But against them I rebell'd when I sail'd. 
 
 I cursed my father dear, when I sail'd, when I 
 sail'd, 
 
 I cursed my father dear, when I sail'd, 
 I cursed my father dear and her that did me bear 
 
 And so wickedly did swear, when I sail'd. 
 
 I made a solemn vow when I sail'd, when I 
 sail'd, 
 
 I made a solemn vow when I sail'd, 
 I made a solemn vow, to God I would not bow. 
 
 Nor myself one prayer allow, as I sail'd. 
 
 I was sick and nigh to death, as I sail'd, as I 
 sail'd, 
 I was sick and nigh to death as I sail'd. 
 And I was sick and nigh to death, and vowed at 
 every breath. 
 To walk in wisdom's ways as I sail'd. 
 
42 Ballads of 
 
 I thought I was undone as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
 I thought I was undone as I sail'd, 
 
 I thought I was undone and my wicked glass 
 had run, 
 But my health did soon return as I sail'd. 
 
 My repentance lasted not, as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
 My repentance lasted not, as I sail'd. 
 
 My repentance lasted not, my vows I soon for- 
 got, 
 Damnation 's my just lot, as I sail'd. 
 
 I steer'd from sound to sound, as I sail'd, as I 
 sail'd, 
 I steer'd from sound to sound, as I sail'd, 
 I steer'd from sound to sound, and many ships I 
 found. 
 And most of them I burn'd as I sail'd. 
 
 I spy'd three ships from France, as I sail'd, as I 
 sail'd, 
 I spy'd three ships from France, as I sail'd, 
 I spy'd three ships from France, to them I did 
 advance, 
 And took them all by chance, as I sail'd. 
 
New England History 43 
 
 I spy'd three sliips of Spain, as I sail'd, as I 
 sail'd, 
 I spy'd three ships of Spain, as I sail'd, 
 I spy'd three ships of Spain, I fired on them 
 amain, 
 Till most of them were slain, as I sail'd. 
 
 I 'd a bible in my hand when I sail'd, when I 
 sail'd, 
 I 'd a bible in my hand when I sail'd, 
 I 'd a bible in my hand by my father's great 
 command, 
 And I sunk it in the sand when I sail'd. 
 
 I murdered William Moore, as I sail'd, as I 
 sail'd, 
 I murdered William Moore, as I sail'd, 
 I murdered William Moore, and left him in his 
 gore, 
 Not many leagues from shore as I sail'd. 
 
 And being cruel still, as I sail'd, as I sail'd. 
 
 And being cruel still, as I sail'd, 
 And being cruel still, my gunner I did kill. 
 
 And his precious blood did spill, as I sail'd. 
 
44 Ballads of 
 
 My mate was sick and died as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
 My mate was sick and died as I sail'd, 
 
 My mate was sick and died, which me much 
 terrified. 
 When he called me to his bedside as I sail'd. 
 
 And unto me he did say, see me die, see me die, 
 And unto me did he say see me die, 
 
 And unto me did say, take warning now by me, 
 There comes a reckoning day, you must die. 
 
 You cannot then withstand, when you die, when 
 you die. 
 You cannot then withstand when you die. 
 You cannot then withstand the judgments of 
 God's hand. 
 But bound then in iron bands, you must die. 
 
 I 'd ninety bars of gold, as I sail'd, as I sail'd, 
 I 'd ninety bars of gold, as I sail'd, 
 
 I 'd ninety bars of gold, and dollars manifold, 
 With riches uncontroll'd, as I sail'd. 
 
New England History 45 
 
 Then fourteen ships I saw, as I sail'd, as I 
 sail'd. 
 Then fourteen ships I saw as I sail'd, 
 Then fourteen ships I saw and brave men they 
 are, 
 Ah I they were too much for me as I sail'd. 
 
 Thus being o'ertaken at last, I must die, I must 
 die. 
 
 Thus being o'ertaken at last, I must die. 
 Thus being o'ertaken at last and into prison cast, 
 
 And sentence being pass'd, I must die. 
 
 Farewell the raging sea, I must die, I must die, 
 Farewell the raging main, I must die, 
 
 Farewell the raging main, to Turkey, France, 
 and Spain, 
 I ne'er shall see you again, I must die. 
 
 To Newgate now I 'm cast, and must die, and 
 must die. 
 To Newgate now I 'm cast, and must die. 
 To Newgate I am cast, with a sad and heavy 
 heart. 
 To receive my just desert, I must die. 
 
46 Ballads of 
 
 To Execution Dock I must go, I must go, 
 
 To Execution Dock I must go, 
 To Execution Dock will many thousands flock, 
 
 But I must bear the shock, I must die. 
 
 Come all you young and old, see me die, see me 
 die? 
 Come all you young and old, see me die, 
 Come all you young and old, you 're welcome to 
 my gold, 
 For by it I Ve lost my soul, and must die. 
 
 Take warning now by me, for I must die, for I 
 must die. 
 Take warning now by me, for I must die. 
 
 Take warning now by me, and shun bad company, 
 Lest you come to hell with me, for I must die. 
 Lest you come to hell with me, for I must die. 
 
New England History 47 
 
 ROBINSON CRUSOE 
 
 The greatest of modern romances has an American hero. 
 For Robinson Crusoe, who had left England when he was 
 scarcely twenty-one years old, landed in America when he 
 was about twenty-three. He was shipwrecked on his island 
 about the time when Richard Cromwell retired from the 
 government of England. Crusoe returned to establish him- 
 self when he was an old man, so to speak, arriving in England 
 on the week when William III. entered London. 
 
 I suppose that by these definite dates Defoe meant to 
 show that a true-born Englishman could not live in England 
 while the Stuarts sat on the throne. 
 
 In his second voyage, in the year l695, Crusoe came as 
 near us as the banks of Newfoundland, and there is an inti- 
 mation that if thus and so had happened he might have 
 looked in on us in the " northern parts of Virginia." One 
 may add that Daniel Defoe had a son in North Carolina. 
 And the precision of his narrative of white slaveiy in his 
 novel of "Captain Jack" makes one think that Daniel Defoe 
 himself had visited America. But the North Carolina people 
 do not find him or his son. 
 
 Many imitations of Robinson's life have been written, 
 but the " New England Crusoe " is yet in the inkstand. 
 The song which I reprint is still to be found on the wharves, 
 in a broadside, with a picture of Robinson carrying a kid on 
 his shoulders. It was written in the latter part of the 
 
48 Ballads of 
 
 eighteenth century, for Mr. Cussans, an English actor, and 
 was for a century a favorite song between acts on the Eng- 
 lish and American stage. 
 
 When I was a lad, I had cause to be sad, 
 
 My grandfather I did lose, Oh ! 
 I '11 bet you a cann, you have heard of the 
 man, 
 His name was Robinson Crusoe. 
 Chorus. — Oh ! poor Robinson Crusoe, 
 Tink a tang a tang. 
 Oh ! poor Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 You have read in a book of a voyage he took, 
 How the howling whirlwinds blew so ; 
 
 The ship with a shock, drove plump on a rock, 
 Near drowning poor Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 Poor soul, none but he, remain'd on the sea, 
 Ah I fate, fate ! how couldest thou do so ! 
 
 Till ashore he was thrown, on an island unknown. 
 Oh ! poor Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 He wanted to eat, and he sought for some meat. 
 But the cattle away from him flew so. 
 
 That but for his gun, he 'd been surely undone, 
 Oh 1 poor Robinson Crusoe. 
 
New England History 49 
 
 But he sav'd from on board, an old gun and 
 sword, 
 And another odd matter or two so ; 
 That by dint of his thrift, he manag'd to 
 shift, 
 Well done poor Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 And he happen'd to save, from the merciless 
 wave, 
 A poor parrot, T assure you, it was so ; 
 That when he come home, from a wearisome 
 roam. 
 She 'd cry out, " Poor Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 He got all in the wood, that ever he could, 
 And he stuck it together with glue, so 
 
 That he made him a hut, in which he might 
 put 
 The body of Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 He wore an old cap, and a coat with long 
 nap. 
 And a beard as long as a Jew, so 
 That, by all that is evil, he look'd like the 
 devil. 
 
 More than like Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 4 
 
50 Ballads of 
 
 And then his man Friday, kept the hut neat and 
 tidy, 
 To be sure 't was his business to do so ; 
 They were friendly together hke neighbor and 
 brother, 
 Liv'd Friday and Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 At length, an English sail, came near, within hail, 
 
 Oh, then he took to his canoe, so 
 That on reaching the ship, they gave him a trip, 
 
 To the country of Robinson Crusoe. 
 
New England History 51 
 
 THE QUEEN'S ROAD 
 
 To any one who lives in the " South County " it is needless 
 to tell what we mean there when we speak of the " Queen's 
 Road." But alas ! There are some people who have not even 
 heard "whether there be any South County." To them let it 
 be said that Rhode Island, though a small State apparently, 
 is really three States : — 
 
 1. Providence Plantations. 
 
 2. Newport and Rhode Island as above. (See Adrian 
 Block.) 
 
 3. The King's Province. Capital, King's Town. This is 
 the South County. 
 
 Now through the King's Proxince passes the old seaboard 
 road from Newport to New York, — on which George Fox 
 travelled in l672, on which Madam Knight rode on a pillion, 
 and where Franklin carried the mail, on certain impossible 
 hypotheses. And in the reign of good Queen Anne, the niece 
 of King Charles, for whom the King's Province was named, 
 this road was made sure. Before that time it had been only 
 an Indian trail. It is, therefore, by all people who are more 
 than eighty years old, called the " Queen's Road." And even 
 young people call the wild carrot, when in July it blossoms 
 with all its summer beauty, by the pretty name of " Queen 
 Anne's Lace." But we must not give to the ballad any his- 
 torical importance. 
 
52 Ballads of 
 
 Old Queen Anne, she lay a-dying, 
 
 Oh, sad to see, 
 On her silver bedstead lying, 
 While the golden sands are flying. 
 
 Ah, weary me ! 
 
 On her right the priest is kneeling, 
 
 With his Latin prayer ; 
 To the Queen of Heaven appealing. 
 That this Queen, whose life is steaHng 
 Far from earth or earthly feeling. 
 May quickly name her heir. 
 
 At her left the bishop praying, — 
 
 And the words he said : 
 " Recollect, Great God, the wonder 
 When her fleets with bolts of thunder 
 Drove the wicked Papists under. 
 And their armies fled." 
 
 Sudden steps surprise the palace ! — 
 Vain the sentry at the wall is ; — 
 The Messenger upsets the chalice ! — 
 
 Roger Williams' son 
 Scornfully upsets the chalice. 
 And defies the churchman's malice. — 
 
New England History 53 
 
 He has words to cheer the dying 
 On her silver bedstead lying. 
 Hear him in her chamber crying 
 That her work is done. 
 
 O'er the dying queen he bended, 
 
 Screaming in her ear, 
 ** Great Queen Anne, your road is mended. 
 From the floods the track 's defended. 
 All your money is expended. 
 But the task has been well ended, 
 
 And the road is there. 
 
 " From Block-house on Tower Hill," 
 
 (Screaming in her ear,) 
 " By Willow Dell to Perryville, 
 By Loisha's house to Cross's Mill, 
 Queen Anne's road is built with skill, — 
 
 Tell me if you hear ! " 
 
 See the Queen's dim eyeballs glisten, 
 
 Rising in her bed ; 
 How her frail form bends to listen 
 
 To the words he said. 
 
54 Ballads of 
 
 " Williams, say those words again I 
 Those are words that conquer pain I 
 All the work explain — explain — 
 Say again — say — say — again — " 
 And the Queen is dead. 
 
 Rose the Bishop from his kneehng, 
 Ceased the priest from his appealing 
 
 To the Holy Rood, 
 Vain was Satan's thunderous levin, 
 To her failure pardon 's given 
 For Queen Anne has gone to heaven 
 
 On the old Queen's Road. 
 
New England History ^§ 
 
 THE FRANKLIN BALLADS 
 
 Benjamin Franklin plays an important part in our ballad 
 history as in all our history. 
 
 He is not generally remembered as a poet. Yet in his 
 matchless autobiography, with all his own humor, he tells us 
 how narrow was his escape from a poet's life. When he was 
 apprentice to his brother in the office of the New England 
 Courant, it so fell out that Mr. Worthylake, the keeper of the 
 lighthouse, and his daughters came in a boat from the light- 
 house to the town to attend the divine service on Sunday. 
 It was on the third of November, 1718, as they attempted 
 to return from the service, a squall of wind struck the boat 
 and they were all drowned. 
 
 An event so sad arrested the quick attention of the Courant 
 people, and the apprentice, Benjamin, was set to " composing " 
 a ballad on the lamentable tragedy. This he did literally. 
 With the compositor's stick in his hand, he set up the verses 
 at the case, and the type was lifted on the stone and locked 
 up without pen or pencil or paper. 
 
 The press was worked by the hand which had composed 
 the ballad. And the apprentice boy who had printed it was 
 sent into the streets to cry it and to sell it. 
 
 It had great success, very great success. And so was it, 
 that when not long after the Courant received news that the 
 famous Rover Black Beard had been taken and beheaded, 
 the boy composed another ballad with equal success. 
 
 It was then that he had the critical conversation with 
 his father which changed the current of his life. And who 
 
56 Ballads of 
 
 sliall say how much more it changed — " what might have 
 been " ? 
 
 For fifty years, more or less, I had the hope of disinterring 
 these Frankhn ballads. I came so near it one day, that 
 when I asked the ballad monger on Tremont Street, by the 
 Albany road, if he had the ballad of " Black Beard," he said, 
 " No ! Mr. Hale, but I will have it this afternoon ! " 
 
 But alas ! — he did not have it that afternoon — and in all 
 his life after he did not find it. 
 
 But I lived on, — in the hope that it might be found. 
 For my dear friend. Dr. Hayward, recollected this verse of 
 ^a ballad of Black Beard. 
 
 " So each man to his gun ! 
 For the work must be done. 
 
 With musket, sword, and pistol, — 
 And when we can no more strike a blow 
 We 'II fire the powder, and up we '11 go. 
 'T is better to swim in the sea below 
 Than to hang in the air and feed the crow. 
 
 Said jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. " 
 
 Dr. Hayward remembered this as early as 1 840 ; probably 
 it belongs much earlier. It is so good that I carried it in 
 my head for twenty or thirty years, quite sure that it was 
 Franklin's. 
 
 But no ! — alas and alas ! Mr. Ashton in his " Real 
 Sailor Songs " disinterred the original Franklin, — I suppose 
 in the British Museum. It is very bad, — as bad as it could 
 be. But it bears every mark of being the original by Ben- 
 jamin Franklin. 
 
 Black Beard was a famous pirate who was met and killed 
 by a king's sloop under Maynard. You may see the island 
 on which his head was left to terrify on-lookers, as you stand 
 in front of Dr. Frissell's house at Hampton G^llege. It is 
 called Black Beard's Island. His name was Ned Teach. 
 
New England History ^y 
 
 THE DOWNFALL OF PIRACY 
 
 WiLi. you liear of a bloody Battle, 
 
 Lately fought upon the Seas, 
 It will make your Ears to rattle. 
 
 And your Admiration cease ; 
 Have you heard of Teach the Rover, 
 
 And his Knavery on the Main ; 
 How of Gold he was a Lover, 
 
 How he lov'd all ill got Gain. 
 
 When the Act of Grace appeared. 
 
 Captain Teach with all his Men, 
 Unto Carolina steered. 
 
 Where they kindly us'd him then ; 
 There he marry 'd to a Lady, 
 
 And gave her five hundred Pound, 
 But to her he prov'd unsteady. 
 
 For he soon march'd off the Ground. 
 
 And returned, as I tell you. 
 
 To his Robbery as before, 
 Burning, sinking Ships of value. 
 
 Filling them with Purple Gore ; 
 
58 Ballads of 
 
 When he was at Carolina, 
 There the Governor did send, 
 
 To the Governor of Virginia, 
 That he might assistance lend. 
 
 Then the Man of War's Commander, 
 
 Two small Sloops he fitted out. 
 Fifty Men he put on board, Sir, 
 
 Who resolv'd to stand it out : 
 The Lieutenant he commanded 
 
 Both the Sloops, and you shall hear. 
 How before he landed, 
 
 He suppress'd them without fear. 
 
 Valiant Maynard as he sailed, 
 
 Soon the Pirate did espy. 
 With his Trumpet he then hailed. 
 
 And to him they did reply : 
 Captain Teach is our Commander, 
 
 Maynard said, he is the Man, 
 Whom I am resolv'd to hang. Sir, 
 
 Let him do the best he can. 
 
 Teach replyed unto Maynard, 
 You no Quarter here shall see. 
 
 But be hang'd on the Mainyard, 
 You and all your Company ; 
 
New England History 59 
 
 Maynard said, I none desire, 
 
 Of such Knaves as thee and thine, 
 
 None I '11 give. Teach then replycd. 
 My Boys give me a Glass of Wine. 
 
 He took the Glass, and drank Damnation 
 
 Unto Maynard and his Crew ; 
 To himself and Generation, 
 
 Then the Glass away he threw ; 
 Brave Maynard was resolv'd to have him, 
 
 Tho' he 'd Cannons nine or ten ; 
 Teach a broadside quickly gave him. 
 
 Killing sixteen valiant Men. 
 
 Maynard boarded him, and to it 
 
 They fell with Sword and Pistol too ; 
 They had Courage, and did show it, 
 
 Killing of the Pirate's Crew. 
 Teach and Maynard on the Quarter, 
 
 Fought it out most manfully, 
 Maynard s Sword did cut him shorter. 
 
 Losing his head, he there did die. 
 
 Every Sailor fought while he, Sir, 
 Power had to wield the Sword, 
 
 Not a Coward could you see. Sir, 
 Fear was driven from abroad : 
 
6o Ballads of 
 
 Wounded Men on both Sides fell, Sir, 
 'T was a doleful Sight to see. 
 
 Nothing could their Courage quell. Sir, 
 O, they fought courageously. 
 
 When the bloody Fight was over, 
 
 We 're informed by a Letter writ, 
 TeacJis Head was made a Cover, 
 
 To the Jack Staff of the Ship : 
 Thus they sailed to Virginia, 
 
 And when they the Story told, 
 How they kill'd the Pirates many. 
 
 They 'd Applause from young and old. 
 
New England History 6i 
 
 FRANKLIN'S WIT 
 
 And here will be a fit place for the other Franklin poems. 
 They belong after his residence was established in Philadel- 
 phia, on one of his long journeys, by the north side of Long 
 Island Sound to Newport and Boston. The first is at least as 
 old as 1818. I take it from the Connecticut Gazette of 
 1818, and it is perhaps the work of one of the wits who made 
 Hartford so distinguished a literary centre in that time. I 
 am sure that the other is more modem. 
 
 Franklin, one night, cold, freezing to his 
 
 skin, 
 Stopped on his journey at a pubHc inn ; 
 Rejoiced, perceives the kindhng flames arise, 
 But luckless sage, perceives -with distant eyes 
 A motley crowd monopolize the heat. 
 Each firm as Banquo's ghost, maintains his 
 
 seat. 
 
 " Ho ! " cries the doctor never at a loss, 
 
 " Landlord, a peck of oysters for my horse." 
 
62 Ballads of 
 
 " Your horse eat oysters ? " cries the wondering 
 
 host. 
 " Give him a peck, you '11 see they won't be lost." 
 The crowd astonished, rush into the stall : 
 '* A horse eat oysters — what with shells and all ? " 
 
 Meantime our traveller, as the rest retire. 
 
 Picks the best seat at the deserted fire ; 
 
 A place convenient for the cunning elf 
 
 To roast his oysters and to warm himself. 
 
 The host returned — " Your horse won't eat them, 
 
 sir. 
 " Won't eat good oysters ! he 's a simple cur ; 
 I know who will," he adds in merry mood ; 
 "Hand them to me, a horse don't know what's 
 
 good." 
 
New England History 63 
 
 AT THE INN 
 
 The historical authority for this ballad is in that earlier 
 excellent ballad, printed in the Connecticut Gazette in 1818. 
 I wish I knew who wrote it. 
 
 I am told that the story is more than two thousand years 
 old. The scene must have been between New York and 
 Newport, and I took the liberty to place it at Willow Dell. 
 
 It was JMr. Benjamin Franklin, a-carrying of 
 the mail 
 (Sing ho, for the tallow-chandler's brother !) ; 
 
 He had to be at Newport Friday morning with- 
 out fail 
 (Sing rather, t 'other, pother, fuss, and bother !) 
 
 When passing Trustum Pond, as he rode with 
 might and main, 
 
 He was soaked to the skin by the thunder and 
 the rain ; 
 
 And when he came to Dead INIan's Brook his 
 pony stumbled in. 
 
 And tumbled Mr. Franklin off, and wet him 
 through again 
 (Sing ho, for the tallow-chandler's mother !). 
 
64 Ballads of 
 
 *' Speed up," he cried, " and bring me to the inn 
 
 at Willow Dell" 
 (Sing " ho, for the tallow-chandler's cousin ") ; 
 " Ben Seegar there shall give you oats and Hiram 
 
 groom you well," 
 (Sing "ten, eleven, twelve, a baker's dozen"). 
 So quick they strode along the road, and here he 
 
 entered in. 
 And first, of course, he left his horse all wetted 
 
 to the skin. 
 But lo ! so many people were around the land- 
 lord's fii'e 
 That he was forced to stand outside and could n't 
 
 come no nigher 
 (Sing "five and four and two and one 's a 
 
 dozen "). 
 
 " Good friend," said Mr. Franklin, as if it were 
 of course 
 (Sing " Trustum Bay and lobster-claw and 
 clam-shell "), 
 " I wish that you would give a peck of oysters to 
 my horse " 
 (Sing "lobster-claw and pickerel and clam- 
 shell"). 
 
New England History 65 
 
 The landlord heard without a word ; and quick 
 
 as he was able 
 He shelled the fish and took the dish of oysters 
 
 to the stable ; 
 And with surprise in all their eyes, the people 
 
 left the stranger, 
 And crossed the yard in tempest hard, to crowd 
 
 around the manger. 
 Ben Franklin, he cared not to see, but took the 
 
 warmest seat. 
 And hung his coat above the fire, and sat and 
 
 dried his feet 
 (Sing "centipede and crocodile and bomb- 
 shell"). 
 
 Five minutes more, and through the door came 
 
 Mr. Landlord, swearing 
 (Sing "OUver, Tom Nopes, and Benjamine 
 
 Seegar ") ; 
 And after him came all the folks, a-wondering 
 
 and a-staring 
 (Sing "Oliver, Queen Moll, and Colonel 
 
 Wager "). 
 " Your horse won't touch the oysters, sir, although 
 
 they 're fresh and new, sir." 
 
66 Ballads of 
 
 " He won't ? " asked Mr. Franklin ; " That 's no 
 
 offence to you, sir. 
 You see he does n't know what 's good ; but if he 
 
 don't, I do, sir " 
 
 (Sing " rheumatiz and gout and shaking 
 ager"); 
 
 If he had tried your oysters fried he might not 
 
 then refuse 'em. 
 But I will sit and toast my feet while Mistress 
 
 Bowers stews 'em. 
 
New England History 67 
 
 BLACK BEARD 
 
 Somewhere in the lobes of some old lady's memory is the 
 rest of what we connoisseurs call " Dr. Hay ward's ballad/' 
 quoted above. It is too good to be lost. But, while I have 
 begged antiquarians to find it, I have not succeeded. Still 
 there is a hope that it is in an old school reader. Who 
 remembers it .'' 
 
 Here are, however, some verses by some of my staff who 
 have kindly volunteered in a service which requires new 
 rhymes for " Bristol." They have no historical value. 
 
 I 'll comb out the beard of the man that 's afeared 
 Be he Enghshman, Dutchman, or Spaniard ! 
 
 By God he shall swing 
 
 At the end of a string. 
 If I stretch out the bow-chaser lanyard ! 
 For we have no use here, for milk sops or fear, 
 
 Says Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 
 
 Who will fool with the girls 
 Who will dive for the pearls 
 In the Spaniard's clear water of crystal ? 
 
68 Ballads of 
 
 It is Black Beard, you know. 
 And Black Beard will show 
 The mountains of gold and silver untold, 
 Says Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 
 
 Who will fool with the girls 
 Or dive for the pearls 
 In the Spaniard's clear waters of crystal, 
 And when we have done 
 With that sort of fun, 
 Have flirted with all, and have kissed all. 
 Then up with the kedges and off for the sea. 
 To see in what water the Gold Fishes be. 
 Says Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 
 
 How the Admiral swore 
 
 When he swaggered on shore. 
 For he thought he was going to enlist all 
 The hearties so free who follow the sea. 
 But the Admiral found he had missed all ! 
 
 For the gentlemen free had all rather be 
 
 Where the guineas are gold and the liquor 
 is free ! 
 
 Said Jolly Ned Teach of Bristol. 
 
New England History 69 
 
 "SONG OF LOVEWELL'S FIGHT." 
 
 This ballad is one of the genuine ballads^ one of the oldest 
 there is^ composed, it is said, the year of the fight. The 
 author is unknown. It is printed in " Farmer and Moore's 
 Historical Collections." The historical facts here stated are 
 no doubt reliable. The date is May, 1725. 
 
 Of worthy Captain Lovewell I purpose now to 
 
 sing, 
 How valiantly he served his country and his 
 
 king; 
 He and his valiant soldiers did range the woods 
 
 full wide, 
 And hardships they endured to quell the Indian's 
 
 pride. 
 
 'Twas nigh unto Pigwacket, on the eighth day 
 of May, 
 
 They spied a rebel Indian soon after break of day ; 
 
 He on a bank was walking, upon a neck of land 
 
 Which leads into a pond, as we 're made to un- 
 derstand. 
 
JO Ballads of 
 
 Our men resolved to have him, and travelled two 
 
 miles round 
 Until they met the Indian, who boldly stood his 
 
 ground, 
 Then spake up Captain Lovewell, "Take your 
 
 good heed," says he ; 
 " This rogue is to decoy us, I very plainly see. 
 
 " The Indians lie in ambush, in some place nigh 
 
 at hand. 
 In order to surround us upon this neck of land ; 
 Therefore we '11 march in order, and each man 
 
 leave his pack 
 That we may boldly fight them when they shaU 
 
 us attack." 
 
 They came unto the Indian who did them thus 
 
 defy ; 
 As soon as they come nigh him, two guns he did 
 
 let fly, 
 Which wounded Captain Lovewell, and likewise 
 
 one man more ; 
 But when this rogue was running, they laid him 
 
 in his gore. 
 
New England History 71 
 
 Then having scalped the Indian, they went back 
 
 to the spot 
 Where they had laid their packs down, but there 
 
 they found them not ; 
 For the Indians having spied them when they 
 
 them down did lay. 
 Did seize them for their plunder, and carry them 
 
 away. 
 
 These rebels lay in ambush, this very place 
 
 near by. 
 So that an English soldier did one of them 
 
 espy, 
 And cried out, " Here 's an Indian I " with that 
 
 they started out 
 As fiercely as old lions, and hideously did 
 
 shout. 
 
 With that our valiant English all gave a loud 
 
 huzza. 
 To show the rebel Indians they feared them not 
 
 a straw ; 
 So now the fight began as fiercely as could be ; 
 The Indians ran up to them, but soon were 
 
 forced to flee. 
 
72 Ballads of 
 
 Then spoke up Captain Lovewell when first the 
 
 fight began, 
 " Fight on my gallant heroes I you see they fall 
 
 like rain." 
 For as we are informed the Indians were so 
 
 thick, 
 A man could scarcely fire a gun, and not some 
 
 of them hit. 
 
 Then did the rebels try their best our soldiers to 
 
 surround, 
 But they could not accomplish it because there 
 
 was a pond, 
 To which our men retreated, and covered all the 
 
 rear, 
 The rogues were forced to flee them, although 
 
 they skulked for fear. 
 
 Two bogs that were behind them so close to- 
 gether lay. 
 
 Without being discovered they could not get 
 away ; 
 
 Therefore our valiant English they travelled in a 
 row. 
 
 And at a handsome distance, as they were wont 
 to go. 
 
New England History 73 
 
 'T was ten o'clock in the morning when first the 
 
 fight begun, 
 And fiercely did continue until the setting sun, 
 Excepting that the Indians some hours before 
 
 't was night. 
 Drew off into the bushes, and ceased a while to 
 
 fight. 
 
 But soon again returned in fierce and furious 
 
 mood. 
 Shouting as in the morning, but yet not half so 
 
 loud. 
 For, as we are informed, so thick and fast they 
 
 fell. 
 Scarce twenty of their number at night did get 
 
 home well. 
 
 And that our valiant English 'til midnight there 
 
 did stay 
 To see whether the rebels would have another 
 
 fray; 
 But they no more returning, they made off 
 
 toward their home. 
 And brought away their wounded as far as they 
 
 could come. 
 
74 Ballads of 
 
 Of all our valiant English there were but thirty- 
 four, 
 
 And of the rebel Indians there were about four- 
 score. 
 
 And sixteen of our English did safely home 
 return, 
 
 The rest were killed and wounded for which we 
 all must mourn. 
 
 Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there 
 
 did die, 
 They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded 
 
 good young Frye, 
 Who was our English chaplain, he many Indians 
 
 flew. 
 
 Young FuUam, too, I '11 mention, because he 
 
 fought so well. 
 Endeavoring to save a man, a sacrifice he fell. 
 And yet our valiant Englishmen in fight were 
 
 ne'er dismayed. 
 But still they kept their motion, and Wyman 
 
 captain made. 
 
New England History y^ 
 
 Who shot the old Chief Paugus, which did the 
 
 foe defeat, 
 Then set his men in order, and brought off the 
 
 retreat, 
 And, braving many dangers and hardships by the 
 
 way, 
 They safe arrived at Dunstable the thirteenth 
 
 day of May. 
 
76 Ballads of 
 
 FROM POTOMAC TO MERRIMAC 
 
 February 11, 1732 
 
 i. potomac side 
 
 Do you know how the people of all the land 
 Knew at last that the time was at hand 
 When He should be sent to give command 
 To armies and people, to father and son ! 
 How the glad tidings of joy should run 
 Which tell of the birth of Washington ? 
 
 Three women keep watch of the midnight sky 
 
 Where Potomac ripples below ; 
 They watch till the light in the window hard by 
 The birth of the child shall show. 
 Is it peace ? Is it strife ? 
 Is it death ? Is it life ? 
 The light in the window shall show 1 
 Weal or woe I 
 We shall know I 
 
New England History jj 
 
 The women have builded a signal pile 
 
 For the birthday's welcome flame, 
 That the light may show for many a mile 
 To tell when the baby came I 
 And south and north 
 The word go forth 
 That the boy is born 
 On that blessed morn ; 
 The boy of deathless fame 1 
 
 II. SIGNAL FIRES 
 
 The watchmen have waited on Capitol Hill 
 And they light the signal flame ; 
 
 And at Baltimore Bay they waited till 
 The welcome tidings came ; 
 
 And then across the starlit night, 
 
 At the head of Elk the joyful light 
 Told to the Quaker town the story 
 Of new-born life and coming glory ! 
 To Trenton Ferry and Brooklyn Height 
 They sent the signal clear and bright, 
 And far away. 
 Before the day, 
 
78 Ballads of 
 
 To Kaatskill and Grey lock the joyful flame 
 And everywhere the message came, 
 
 As the signal flew 
 
 The people knew 
 That the man of men was born I 
 
 III. MERRIMAC SIDE, AND AGIOCHOOK 
 
 So it is, they say, that the men in the bay, 
 
 In winter's ice and snow. 
 See the welcome light on Wachusett Height 
 While the Merrimac rolls below. 
 The cheery fire 
 Rose higher and higher, 
 Monadnock and Carrigain catch the flame, 
 And on and on, and on it came. 
 And as men look 
 
 Far away in the north 
 The word goes forth, 
 To Agiochook. 
 The welcome fire 
 Flashed higher and higher 
 To our mountain ways. 
 
 And the dome, and Moat and Pequawket 
 blaze I 
 
New England History 79 
 
 So the farmers in the Intervale 
 See the light which shall never fail, 
 The beacon light which shines to tell 
 To all the world to say 
 
 That the boy has been born 
 On that winter's morn 
 By Potomac far away. 
 Whose great command 
 Shall bless that land 
 Whom the land shall bless 
 In joy and distress 
 Forever and a day ! 
 
8o Ballads of 
 
 LOUISBURG 
 
 In 1745 William Pepperell led the New England seamen 
 to their eventful attack upon Louisburg. In the success of 
 this attack was foreshadowed the success of the American 
 Revolution. A Boston paper of that day contains these 
 stately verses which seem worth copying. 
 
 Neptune and Mars in Council sate 
 
 To humble France's pride, 
 Whose vain unbridled insolence 
 
 All other Powers defied. 
 
 The gods having sat in deep debate 
 
 Upon the puzzling theme. 
 Broke up perplexed and both agreed 
 
 Shirley should form the scheme. 
 
 Shirley, with Britain's glory fired, 
 Heaven's favoring smile implored : 
 
 " Let Louisburg return," — he said, 
 " Unto its ancient Lord." 
 
New England History 8i 
 
 At once the Camp and Fleet were filled 
 
 With Britain's loyal sons, 
 Whose hearts are filled with generous strife 
 
 T' avenge their Country's wrongs. 
 
 With Liberty their breasts are filled, 
 
 Fair Liberty 's their shield ; 
 'T is Liberty their banner waves 
 
 And hovers o'er their field. 
 
 Louis ! — behold the unequal strife, 
 
 Thy slaves in walls immured ! 
 While George's sons laugh at those walls — 
 
 Of victory assured. 
 
 One key to your oppressive pride 
 Your Western Dunkirk 's gone ; 
 
 So Pepperell and Warren bade 
 And what they bade was done ! 
 
 Forbear, proud Prince, your gasconades, 
 
 Te Deums cease to sing, — 
 When Britons fight the Grand Monarque 
 
 Must yield to Britain's King. 
 
 Boston, December, 1745 
 
82 Ballads of 
 
 DANVILLE'S FLEET 
 
 I SUPPOSE that the world never saw any man more mad, as 
 the vernacular would say, than Louis XV. when he heard of 
 the loss of Louisburg. 
 
 To avenge it, he sent under D'Anville the largest fleet 
 which had ever crossed the Atlantic, in 1746. The English 
 government was asleep and made no effort to arrest its 
 progress. 
 
 Longfellow's ballad, which he calls the ''Ballad of the 
 French Fleet," tells its history. Men who know say to me 
 that on a clear day if you look down into a smooth sea, off 
 Cape Sable, you may see the wrecks as they lie there. 
 
 A BALLAD OF THE FRENCH FLEET 
 
 I 
 
 A FLEET with flags arrayed 
 
 Sailed from the port of Brest, 
 And the Admiral's ship displayed 
 
 The signal : " Steer south-west." 
 For this Admii'al d'Anville 
 
 Had sworn by cross and crown 
 To ravage with fire and steel 
 
 Our helpless Boston Town. 
 
jp-n™ 
 
New England History 83 
 
 II 
 
 There were rumors in the street, 
 
 In the houses there was fear 
 Of the coming of the fleet, 
 
 And the danger hovering near ; 
 And while from mouth to mouth 
 
 Spread the tidings of dismay, 
 I stood in the Old South, 
 
 Saying humbly : " Let us pray." 
 
 Ill 
 
 " O Lord ! we would not advise ; 
 
 But if, in thy providence, 
 A tempest should arise 
 
 To drive the French fleet hence. 
 And scatter it far and wide, 
 
 Or sink it in the sea. 
 We should be satisfied, 
 
 And thine the glory be." 
 
 IV 
 
 This was the prayer I made. 
 For my soul was all on flame ; 
 
 And even as I prayed 
 
 The answering tempest came. 
 
84 Ballads of 
 
 It came with a mighty power, 
 Shaking the windows and walls, 
 
 And tolling the bell in the tower 
 As it tolls at funerals. 
 
 The lightning suddenly 
 
 Unsheathed its flaming sword, 
 And I cried : " Stand still and see 
 
 The salvation of the Lord ! " 
 The heavens were black with cloud, 
 
 The sea was white with hail. 
 And ever more fierce and loud 
 
 Blew the October gale. 
 
 VI 
 
 The fleet it overtook. 
 
 And the broad sails in the van 
 Like the tents of Cushan shook. 
 
 Or the curtains of Midian. 
 Down on the reeling decks 
 
 Crashed the o'erwhelming seas ; 
 Ah, never were there wrecks 
 
 So pitiful as these ! 
 
New England History 85 
 
 VII 
 
 Like a potter s vessel broke 
 
 The great ships of the Hne ; 
 They were carried away as a smoke, 
 
 Or sank Hke lead in the brine. 
 O T^ord ! before thy path 
 
 They vanished and ceased to be, 
 When thou didst walk in wrath 
 
 With thine horses through the sea. 
 
 This ballad is according to me the best of the American 
 ballads. Mi*. Longfellow wrote it at the request of the Old 
 South Committee as his contribution, which proved invalu- 
 able, for the effort for saving the Old South Meeting House 
 after the Boston fire. The ballad is a really good historical 
 account of what happened. Prince was preaching in the after- 
 noon of a Fast Day ordered by Governor Shirley on the occa- 
 sion of the expectation of D'Anville's Fleet. All the train 
 bands of Massachusetts were encamped on Boston Common 
 at the time. The typhoon described swept over the Meeting 
 House, so that old men half a century afterwards remembered 
 the storm. 
 
 It overtook D'Anville's Fleet off Cape Sable, and as I have 
 said the ships lie there till this day. 
 
 Much of the imagery of Mr. Longfellow's ballad is taken 
 from Prince's Thanksgiving Sermon of the same year in which 
 he himself describes the storm. This sermon was reprinted 
 in 1774 "to encourage the people of God under the execu- 
 tion of the Boston Port Bill." 
 
86 Ballads of 
 
 THE BALLAD OF SPRINGFIELD ^ 
 MOUNTAIN. August 7, yS^l ^ 
 
 This ballad belonging to the year 1773 has often been 
 commented and improved upon. The revision here given is 
 that reproduced by Dr. Stebbins, and is, I think, as accurate 
 as any text that can be now constructed. 
 
 ELEGY ON THE YOUNG MAN BITTEN BY A 
 RATTLESNAKE 
 
 " On Springfield mountains there did dwell 
 A likely youth who was knowne full well 
 Lieutenant Mirick 's onley sone 
 A likely youth nigh twenty one. 
 
 II 
 
 " One friday morning he did go 
 in to the medow and did moe 
 A round or two then he did feal 
 A pisin sarpent at his heal. 
 
New England History 87 
 
 III 
 
 " When he received his dedly wond 
 he dropt his sithe a pon the ground 
 And strate for home wase his intent 
 Cahng aloude stil as he went 
 
 IV 
 
 " tho all around his voys was hered 
 but none of his friends to him apiere 
 they thot it wase some workmen calld 
 and there poor Timothy alone must fall 
 
 " So soon his Carful father went 
 to seek his son with discontent 
 and there hes fond onley son he found 
 ded as a stone a pon the ground 
 
 VI 
 
 " And there he lay down sopose to rest 
 with both his hands Acrost his brest 
 his mouth and eyes Closed fast 
 And there poor man he slept his last 
 
88 Ballads of New England History 
 
 VII 
 
 " his father vieude his track with great consarn 
 Where he had ran across the corn 
 uneven tracks where he did go 
 did apear to stagger to and frow 
 
 VIII 
 
 The seventh of August sixty-one 
 
 this fatal axsident was done 
 
 Let this a warning be to all 
 
 to be prepared when God does call." 
 
 " I hardly overstated the variety of claimants, or rather 
 authors, to whom this Elegy (?) is attributed, to Daniel or 
 Jesse Carpenter, to a young lady to whom young Merrick was 
 engaged, and to Nathan Torrey. The latter has the honor 
 of authorship, if any reliance can be placed upon the most 
 direct and authentic tradition on the subject. The original 
 has been tampered with by editors. I have done my best to 
 approach the author's copy." — Dr. Stebbins's address at 
 Wilbraham. 
 
THE OTHER HALF 
 
THE OTHER HALF 
 
 We have come to an end of our songs and ballads of the 
 preparation of the Pilgrims, of the Colonies, and of the 
 Province. 
 
 There is yet to be written the ballad of Boston Bay, when, 
 in 1747, the British Admiral impressed the Boston sailors and 
 had to give them up again. But it is not in this inkstand, and 
 I do not know who will write it. 
 
 With 1770 we come to the turning-point: Red-coats in 
 garrison at Boston ; half the men you meet in the street in 
 soldier's uniform, — " Lobster backs " we call them, for we 
 have never seen a soldier before, unless he were one of our 
 own boys from our own train bands, soldiering because we 
 needed him and told him to take his gun and his powder- 
 horn. Even then his coat was blue. 
 
 In 1859, nearly ninety years after this central date of 
 1770, I crossed the ocean in the steamboat Europa, with 
 some accomplished English officers. One night some of 
 them sang on deck, among other things, the camp song of 
 "The British Grenadiers," with the words then new, which 
 fitted the air of the song to the battles of Alma, Inkerman, 
 and the rest of the Crimea. They were interested to find 
 that my version of the song was nearly a hundred years 
 older. I have often been sung to sleep by it, and I have 
 sung other children to sleep with it, as perhaps I may yet 
 sing grandchildren to sleep. So, I will print it here as a New 
 England reminiscence of Boston at " the North End " some- 
 where between 1770 and 1775. 
 
92 Ballads of 
 
 I may as well say here that the word " British " was in 
 familiar use in England and Scotland during the middle of the 
 eighteenth century^ after the English and Scotch union. 
 You find it in Fielding and Smollett, in Boswell and Dr. 
 Johnson. It was in use here in the time of the Stamp Act 
 and of the Revolution. The familiar use of the word died 
 out in England, until within a few years just past, when it 
 has come up again. But through the nineteenth century, it 
 was much more common in America than in England. 
 
 English and Colonial writers made the anomalous word 
 " Britisher" out of it. But I never heard this used in New 
 England, and I do not believe that it ever was used here. 
 
 THE BRITISH GRENADIER 
 
 I 
 
 Come, come fill up your glasses, 
 And drink a health to those 
 
 Who carry caps and pouches,^ 
 And wear their looped clothes.^ 
 
 1 I suppose *' pouches " to be a memorial of the time when the 
 grenadier actually carried a hand grenade to be used as the name 
 implies. 
 
 2 In Gay's Pastoral, " The Shepherd's Week," the Shepherd says, 
 
 " I sold my sheep, and lambkins too. 
 For silver loops and garment blue ; 
 
 So forth I far'd to court with speed, 
 Of soldier's drum withouten dreed ; 
 For peace allays the shepherd's fear 
 Of wearing cap of grenadier." 
 
 He does this that he may go to CJourt. 
 
New England History 93 
 
 For be you AVhig or Tory, 
 
 Or any mortal thing, 
 Be sure that you give glory 
 
 To George, our gracious King. 
 For if you prove rebellious, 
 
 He '11 thunder in your ears 
 Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza I 
 
 For the British Grenadiers. 
 
 II 
 
 And when the wars are over, 
 
 We '11 march by beat of drum, 
 The ladies cry " So, Ho girls 
 
 The Grenadiers have come ! 
 The Grenadiers who always 
 
 With love our hearts do cheer. 
 Then Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza ! Huzza 1 
 
 For the British Grenadier." 
 
94 Ballads of 
 
 There was one burlesque verse of pure Boston origin 
 
 III 
 
 Their patriot, Jimmy Otis, 
 
 That bully in disguise. 
 That well-known tyke of Yorkshire, 
 
 That magazine of lies. 
 And he will mount the rostrum 
 
 And loudly he will bray 
 Rebel ! Rebel ! Rebel ! Rebel I 
 
 Rebel America ! 
 
 After the war began, the rebels made their version : 
 
 Vain Britons, boast no longer 
 
 With proud indignity 
 By land, your conquering legions, 
 
 Your matchless strength at sea : 
 Since we, your braver sons, incensed 
 
 Our swords have gu'ded on 
 Huzza, huzza, huzza 
 
 For war and Washington I 
 
 with much more of the same sort. 
 
New England History 95 
 
 PAUL REVERES RIDE 
 
 The reader must turn to Dr. Holmes for the ballad of the 
 Tea Party. And when we come to the eighteenth of April, 
 when Paul Revere went out from Boston by water and William 
 Dawes by land to waken Middlesex County, there comes in 
 Mr. Longfellow's " Ride of Paul Revere/' which every New 
 England schoolboy knows by heart. 
 
 This is the beginning and end of this celebrated ballad. 
 It is printed with the consent of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin 
 & Co. and will be found in full in their collections of Long- 
 fellow's Poems. The authority for it is Revere's own narra- 
 tive in the Massachusetts Historical Collection, First Series, 
 Vol. V. p. 106. The date is Jan. 1, 1798. 
 
 Listen, my children, and you shall hear 
 
 Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 
 
 On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five ; 
 
 Hardly a man is now alive 
 
 Who remembers that famous day and year. 
 
 He said to his friend, " If the British march 
 
 By land or sea fi-om the town to-night, 
 
 Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
 
 Of the North Church tower as a signal light, — 
 
 One, if by land, and two, if by sea ; 
 
 And I on the opposite shore will be 
 
96 Ballads of 
 
 Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
 Through every INIiddlesex village and farm. 
 For the country folk to be up and to arm." 
 
 Then he said, " Good night ! " and with muffled 
 
 oar 
 Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore, 
 Just as the moon rose over the bay, 
 Where swinging wide at her moorings lay 
 The Somerset, British man-of-war ; 
 A phantom ship, with each mast and spar 
 Across the moon like a prison bar. 
 And a huge black hulk, that was magnified 
 By its own reflection in the tide, 
 ^leanwhile his friend, through alley and street. 
 Wanders and watches with eager ears. 
 Till in the silence around him he hears 
 The muster of men at the barrack door, 
 The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet. 
 And the measured tread of the grenadiers, 
 Marching down to their boats on the shore. 
 
 Then he chmbed the tower of the Old North 
 
 Church, 
 By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, 
 To the belfry chamber overhead. 
 
New England History 97 
 
 And startled the pigeons from their perch 
 On the sombre rafters that round him made 
 Masses and moving shapes of shade, — 
 By the trembhng ladder, steep and tall. 
 To the highest window in the wall, 
 AVhere he paused to listen and look down 
 A moment on the roofs of the town, 
 And the moonlight flowing over all. 
 
 • •••••• 
 
 Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride, 
 Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride 
 On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere. 
 Now he patted his horse's side. 
 Now gazed at the landscape far and near. 
 Then impetuous, stamped the earth, 
 And turned, and tightened his saddle girth ; 
 But mostly he watched witli eager search 
 The belfiy tower of the Old North Church, 
 As it rose above the graves on the hill. 
 Lonely and spectral and sombre and still. 
 And lo ! as he looks, on the belfry's height 
 A glimmer, and then a gleam of light I 
 He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns, 
 But Hngers and gazes, till full on his sight 
 A second lamp in the belfry burns ! 
 
98 Ballads of 
 
 It was twelve by the village clock 
 
 When he crossed the bridge into Medford town. 
 
 He heard the crowing of the cock, 
 
 And the barking of the farmer's dog, 
 
 And felt the damp of the river fog, 
 
 That rises after the sun goes down. 
 
 It was one by the village clock. 
 
 When he galloped into Lexington. 
 
 He saw the gilded weathercock 
 
 Swim in the moonlight as he passed, 
 
 And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare, 
 
 Gaze at him with a spectral glare, 
 
 As if they already stood aghast 
 
 At the bloody work they would look upon. 
 
 It was two by the village clock, 
 
 When he came to the bridge in Concord town. 
 
 He heard the bleating of the flock, 
 
 And the twitter of birds among the trees, 
 
 And felt the breath of the morning breeze 
 
 Blowing over the meadows brown. 
 
 And one was safe and asleep in his bed 
 
 Who at the bridge would be first to fall. 
 
 Who that day would be lying dead, 
 
 Pierced by a British musket-ball. 
 
New England History 99 
 
 You know the rest. In the books you have 
 
 read, 
 How the British Regulars fired and fled, — 
 How the fiirmers gave them ball for ball, 
 From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, 
 Chasing the red-coats down the lane, 
 Then crossing the fields to emerge again 
 Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
 And only pausing to fire and load. 
 
 So through the night rode Paul Revere ; 
 
 And so through the night went his cry of alarm 
 
 To every Middlesex village and farm, — 
 
 A cry of defiance and not of fear, 
 
 A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 
 
 And a word that shall echo forevermore I 
 
 For, borne on the night- wind of the Past, 
 
 Through all our history, to the last. 
 
 In the hour of darkness and peril and need, 
 
 The people will waken and listen and hear, 
 
 The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed. 
 
 And the midnight message of Paul Revere. 
 
 LcfC. 
 
loo Ballads of 
 
 NEW ENGLAND'S CHEVY CHASE 
 
 Lord Percy went to the relief of Colonel Smith early in 
 the day. As he passed the Dudley Stone at Roxbury he 
 noticed a Roxbury boy who appeared to be ridiculing the 
 Red-Coats. Percy sent to the boy to reprove him. To which 
 the little rebel replied by this allusion to the noble house of 
 Percy. 
 
 " You go out to ' Yankee Doodle/ but you '11 dance by and 
 by to ' Chevy Chase.' " 
 
 We owe the story, which is probably true, to Dr. Gordon, a 
 Roxbury man. He says that the repartee stuck to Percy all 
 the rest of the day. Horace Walpole speaks of " the hunting 
 of that day." The lines of the old " Chevy Chase " are, 
 
 " The child unborn 
 Shall rue the hunting of that day." 
 
 I 
 
 'T WAS the dead of the night. By the pine- 
 knot's red hght 
 Brooks lay, half-asleep, when he heard the 
 alarm, — 
 Only this, and no more, from a voice at the 
 door : 
 "The Red-Coats are out, and have passed 
 Phips s farm." 
 
New England History loi 
 
 II 
 Brooks was booted and spurred ; he said never a 
 word; 
 Took his horn from its peg, and his gun from 
 the rack ; 
 To the cold midnight air he led out his white 
 mare, 
 Strapped the girths and the bridle, and sprang 
 to her back. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Up the North County road, at her full pace she 
 strode. 
 Till Brooks reined her up at John Tarbell's 
 to say, 
 " We have got the alarm, — they have left Phips's 
 farm ; 
 You rouse the East Precinct, and I '11 go this 
 way." 
 
 IV 
 
 John called his hired man, and they harnessed 
 the span ; 
 They roused Abram Garfield, and Abram 
 called me : 
 
I02 Ballads of 
 
 " Turn out right away ; let no minute-man 
 stay; 
 The Red-Coats have landed at Phips's," says 
 he. 
 
 V 
 
 By the Powder-House Green seven others fell in ; 
 At Nahum's the men from the Saw-MiU came 
 down; 
 So that when Jabez Bland gave the word of 
 command, 
 And said, " Forward, march ! " there marched 
 forward The Town. 
 
 VI 
 
 Parson Wilderspin stood by the side of the 
 road. 
 And he took off his hat, and he said, " Let us 
 pray! 
 O Lord, God of Might, let thine angels of 
 light 
 Lead thy children to-night to the glories of 
 day, 
 And let thy stars fight all the foes of the Right 
 As the stars fought of old against Sisera." 
 
New England History 103 
 
 VII 
 
 And from heaven's high arch those stars blessed 
 our march, 
 Till the last of them faded in twilight away ; 
 And with morning's bright beam, by the bank 
 of the stream, 
 Half the county marched in, and we heard 
 Davis say : 
 
 VIII 
 
 *' On the King's own highway I may travel all 
 day. 
 And no man hath warrant to stop me," says he ; 
 " I 've no man that 's afraid, and I '11 march at 
 their head." 
 Then he turned to the boys, " Forward, march I 
 Follow me." 
 
 IX 
 
 And we marched as he said ; and the Fifer he 
 played 
 The old " White Cockade," and he played it 
 right well. 
 We saw Davis fall dead, but no man was afraid ; 
 That bridge we 'd have had, though a thousand 
 men fell. 
 
104 Ballads of 
 
 X 
 
 This opened the play, and it lasted all day. 
 We made Concord too hot for the Red-Coats 
 to stay ; 
 Down the Lexington way we stormed, black, 
 white, and gray ; 
 We were first in the feast, and were last in the 
 fray. 
 
 XI 
 
 They would turn in dismay, as red wolves turn 
 at bay. 
 They levelled, they fired, they charged up the 
 road. 
 Cephas Willard fell dead ; he was shot in the head 
 As he knelt by Aunt Prudence's well-sweep 
 to load. 
 
 XII 
 
 John Danforth was hit just in Lexington Street, 
 John Bridge at that lane where you cross Beaver 
 Falls, 
 And Winch and the Snows just above John 
 Monroe's, — 
 Swept away by one swoop of the big cannon 
 balls. 
 
New England History 105 
 
 XIII 
 
 I took Bridge on my knee, but he said, " Don't 
 mind me ; 
 Fill your horn from mine, — let me lie where 
 I be. 
 Our fathers," says he, " that their sons might be 
 free. 
 Left their king on his throne, and came over 
 the sea ; 
 And that man is a knave or a fool who, to 
 save 
 His life for a minute, would live like a 
 slave." 
 
 XIV 
 
 Well, all would not do I There were men good 
 
 as new, — 
 From Rumford, from Saugus, from towns far 
 
 away, — 
 Who filled up quick and well for each soldier 
 
 that fell ; 
 And we drove them, and drove them, and 
 
 drove them, all day. 
 We knew, every one, it was war that begun, 
 When that morning's marching was only half 
 
 done. 
 
io6 Ballads of 
 
 XV 
 
 In the hazy twilight, at the coming of night, 
 
 I crowded three buckshot and one bullet down. 
 'T was my last charge of lead ; and t aimed her 
 and said, 
 *' Good luck to you, lobsters, in old Boston 
 Town." 
 
 XVI 
 
 In a barn at Milk Row, Ephraim Bates and 
 Monroe, 
 And Baker, and Abram, and I made a bed. 
 We had mighty sore feet, and we 'd nothing 
 to eat ; 
 But we 'd driven the Red- Coats, and Amos, he 
 said: 
 " It 's the first time," says he, " that it 's happened 
 to me 
 To march to the sea by this road where we Ve 
 come ; 
 But confound this whole day, but we 'd all of us 
 say 
 We 'd rather have spent it this way than to 
 home."^ 
 
 1 One of the veterans of the Lexington fight told his story of it to 
 Mr. Edward Everett. Mr. Everett said, " You have never regretted 
 that day, I am sure," and the old man replied, " Well, I 'd rather 
 have spent it so than to hum." 
 
New England History 107 
 
 XVII 
 
 The hunt had begun with the dawn of the sun. 
 And night saw the wolf driven back to his den. 
 
 And never since then, in the memory of men, 
 Has the Old Bay State seen such a hunting 
 again. 
 
 April 19, 1882. 
 
io8 Ballads of 
 
 A SONG 
 
 Composed by the British Soldiers, after the Fight at Bunker 
 Hill, June 17, 1775 
 
 Dr. Holmes has covered the story of Bunker Hill in 
 " Grandmamma's Ballad/' but I copy a few verses from a 
 contemporary broadside, printed to encourage recruiting for 
 English Arms. There are other "popular" ballads of the 
 same kind : — 
 
 It was on the seventeenth by brake of day. 
 
 The Yankees did surprise us, 
 With their strong works they had thrown up, 
 
 To burn the town and drive us ; 
 But soon we had an order come, 
 
 An order to defeat them : 
 Like rebels stout they stood it out 
 
 And thought we ne'er could beat them. 
 
 About the hour of twelve that day. 
 
 An order came for marching, 
 With three good flints and sixty rounds. 
 
 Each man hop'd to discharge them. 
 
New England History 109 
 
 We marched down to the long wharf, 
 Where boats were ready waiting ; 
 
 With expedition we embark 'd, 
 Our ships kept cannonading. 
 
 And when our boats all filled were 
 
 With officers and soldiers, 
 With as good troops as England had, 
 
 To oppose who dare controul us ; 
 And when our boats all filled were 
 
 We row'd in fine of battle, 
 Where show'rs of balls like hail did fly. 
 
 Our cannon loud did rattle. 
 
 There 's some in Boston pleas'd to say. 
 
 As we the field were taking, 
 We went to kill their countrymen, 
 
 While they their hay were making ; 
 For such stout Whigs I never saw ; 
 
 To hang them all I 'd rather, 
 For making hay with musket-balls, 
 
 And buck-shot mixed together. 
 
 Brave Howe is so considerate, 
 
 As to prevent all danger ; 
 He allows half a pint a day. 
 
 To rum we are no strangers. 
 
no Ballads of 
 
 Long may he live by land and sea, 
 For he 's beloved by many ; 
 
 The name of Howe the Yankees dread, 
 We see it very plainly. 
 
 And now my song is at an end ; 
 
 And to conclude my ditty. 
 It is the poor and ignorant, 
 
 And only them, I pity. 
 As for their king John Hancock, 
 
 And Adams, if they 're taken, 
 Their heads for signs shall hang up high 
 
 Upon that hill call'd Bacon. 
 
New England History m 
 
 An American ballad to the tune of Anacreon in Heaven 
 appeared in a Boston paper at some time in the 'Forties of 
 the last century ; but though the ring is good, it is clearly 
 modern. This will be enough of it. 
 
 We lay in the trenches we 'd dug in the 
 ground 
 While Phoebus blazed down from his Glory- 
 lined car ; 
 And then from the lips of our Leader re- 
 nowned 
 This lesson we heard in the Science of War I 
 " Let the foemen draw nigh 
 Till the White of his Eije 
 Is in range with your Rifles, and then, Lads ! 
 Let Fly ! 
 And show to Cohimbia, to Britain, and Fame, 
 How Justice smiles awful when Freemen take 
 Aim!" 
 
112 Ballads of 
 
 THE MARCHING SONG OF 
 STARK'S MEN 
 
 [The Battle of Bennington was the turning-point of the 
 Revolution. It is fair, therefore, to call the day when it was 
 fought the crisis day of Modern History.] 
 
 March 1 March ! March ! from sunrise till it 's 
 dark, 
 And let no man straggle on the way ! 
 March ! March ! March ! as we follow old John 
 Stark, 
 For the old man needs us all to-day. 
 
 Load ! Load ! Load ! Three buckshot and a 
 ball. 
 With a hymn-tune for a wad to make them 
 stay I 
 But let no man dare to fire till he gives the word 
 to all. 
 Let no man let the buckshot go astray. 
 
New England History 113 
 
 Fire ! Fire ! Fire ! Fire all along the line, 
 
 When we meet those bloody Hessians in 
 array ! 
 They shall have every grain from this powder- 
 horn of mine, 
 Unless the cowards turn and run away. 
 
 Home ! Home ! Home I When the fight is 
 fought and won. 
 To the home where the women watch and 
 prayl 
 To tell them how John Stark finished what he 
 had begun. 
 And to hear them thank our God for the 
 day. 
 
 August 16, 1777. 
 
 " The year of the triple Gallows " was the joke of the 
 patriots of the time : the reference was to 7 three times 
 repeated. 
 
1 14 Ballads of 
 
 CONCORD BRIDGE 
 
 There 's peace and quiet by Yorkshire Bridge 
 
 Where early sunbeams fall. 
 There 's a drowsy hum in the summer morn, 
 And the far-away note of the hunter's horn 
 
 Brings back an answering call. 
 
 Two fair-haired boys meet by the bridge, 
 At that far-away answering call. 
 
 II 
 
 There's bustle and hurry on London Bridge, 
 
 With its ceaseless come and go : — 
 There 's the tramp of feet and the roll of drums. 
 And the cold, clear note of the bugle comes 
 Up from the ships below I 
 
 Two soldiers are waiting hard by the bridge 
 Watching the ships below. 
 
New England History 115 
 
 III 
 
 There 's a call to arms by Charlestown Bridge I 
 
 And ere the cock has crowed, 
 There 's a rattle of guns, there 's a muffled tread, 
 And the low stern voice of command ahead 
 
 As they swing up the country road. 
 
 Two comrades are marching across the bridge 
 As they swing up the country road. 
 
 IV 
 
 There 's peace and quiet by Concord Bridge 
 
 After the angry fight, — 
 There 's the stillness of death in the lonely spot, 
 Though the far-away sound of a musket shot 
 
 Comes faint through the soft twilight. 
 
 Two English soldiers are sleeping there — 
 And they dream of home and the early dawn 
 When the far-away note of the hunting horn 
 Came faint through the evening air. 
 
ii6 Ballads of 
 
 THE YANKEY'S RETURN FROM 
 CAMP 
 
 I REPRINT this authentic copy of this well-known ballad for 
 two reasons. First, as I think, this is the earliest copy known. 
 Mr. Barton, of the Antiquarian Society, is so good as to furnish 
 it for me from their invaluable collection. 
 
 Second, an autograph note of Judge Dawes, of the Harvard 
 class of 1777, addressed to my father, says that the author of 
 the well-known lines was Edward Bangs, who graduated with 
 him. It is easy to imagine how the class of '77, which was 
 first at Cambridge in 1773 and '74, was carried to Concord in 
 
 1775, and returned to Old Hollis and Old Massachusetts in 
 
 1776, must have been affected by the arrival of the minute- 
 men, the gathering of Artemas Ward's army, and the inaugu- 
 ration of Washington. It seems to me that the poem has a 
 special interest from the knowledge that it was written by a 
 college lad of those days. I beg the members of the Insti- 
 tute of 1770 to find some trace of something like it in their 
 Revolutionary Records. Mr. Bangs had, as a college boy, 
 joined the Middlesex farmers in the pursuit of April 19, 
 1775. He was aftei-ward a Judge in Worcester County. 
 
 The College was transferred from Cambridge to Concord in 
 September, 1775. At any period between the twentieth of 
 April and September, young Bangs, who was a sophomore, 
 could have seen what he describes. 
 
New England History 117 
 
 Father and I went down to camp, 
 
 Along with Captain Gooding. 
 And there we see the men and boys, 
 
 As thick as hasty pudding. 
 Chorus. — Yankey doodle, keep it up, 
 Yankey doodle, dandy. 
 Mind the music and the step, 
 And with the girls be handy. 
 
 And there we see a thousand men. 
 
 As rich as 'Squire David ; 
 And what they wasted every day, 
 
 I wish it could be saved. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 The lasses they eat every day. 
 Would keep an house a winter : 
 
 They have as much that 1 11 be bound 
 They eat it when they 're a mind to. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 And there we see a swamping gun. 
 
 Large as a log of maple. 
 Upon a deucid little cart, 
 
 A load for father's cattle. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
1 1 8 Ballads of 
 
 And every time they shoot it off, 
 
 It takes a horn of powder, 
 And makes a noise hke father's gun, 
 
 Only a nation louder. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 I went as nigh to one myself, 
 
 As siah's underpinning ; 
 And father went as nigh again, 
 
 I thought the deuce was in him. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 Cousin simon grew so bold, 
 
 I thought he would have cock'd it ; 
 
 It sear'd me so I shrink'd it off. 
 And hung by father's pocket. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 And Captain Davis had a gun. 
 He kind of clap'd his hand on't. 
 
 And stuck a crooked stabbing Iron 
 Upon the little end on 't. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
New England History 119 
 
 And there I see a pumpkin shell 
 
 As big as mother's bason ; 
 And every time they touch'd it off. 
 
 They scamper 'd like the nation. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 I see a little barrel too, 
 
 The heads were made of leather, 
 They knock'd upon 't with little clubs, 
 
 And call'd the folks together. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 And there was Captain Washington, 
 
 And gentlefolks about him. 
 They say he 's grown so tarnal proud, 
 
 He will not ride without 'em. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 He got him on his meeting cloathes. 
 
 Upon a slapping stallion, 
 He set the world along in rows. 
 
 In hundreds and in millions. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
I20 Ballads of 
 
 The flaming ribbons in his hat, 
 They look'd so taring fine ah, 
 
 I wanted pockily to get, 
 To give to my Jemimah. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 I see another snarl of men 
 
 A digging graves, they told me. 
 
 So tarnal long, so tarnal deep. 
 
 They 'tended they should hold me. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
 It scar'd me so, I hook'd it off. 
 
 Nor stop'd, as I remember. 
 Nor turn'd about till I got home, 
 
 Lock'd up in mother's chamber. 
 
 Yankey doodle, etc. 
 
New England History 121 
 
 THE YANKEE PRIVATEER 
 
 The incident referred to in this ballad is perfectly authenti- 
 cated. Of the ten prizes taken by Whipple in successive 
 nights, nine arrived safely into Massachusetts harbors. 
 
 " Old Whipple " is Abraham Whipple, one of the Rhode 
 Island Vikings. After the war he went out with Abraham 
 Cutter to Marietta, and he is thus one of the founders of the 
 State of Ohio. At Marietta he built the first ship which 
 ever went to sea from Ohio. A good deal of ship-building 
 was carried on in Ohio after the success of this voyage. The 
 ships were built where timber was plenty, and were then 
 sent down the rivers to "Orleans " never to return to their 
 birthplace. 
 
 Come listen and I '11 tell you 
 
 How first I went to sea, 
 To fight against the British 
 
 And earn our liberty. 
 We shipped with Cap'n Whipple 
 
 Who never knew a fear, 
 The Captain of the Providence, 
 
 The Yankee Privateer. 
 
122 Ballads of 
 
 We sailed and we sailed 
 
 And made good cheer, 
 There were many pretty men 
 
 On the Yankee Privateer. 
 
 The British Lord High Admiral 
 
 He wished old Whipple harm, 
 He wrote that he would hang him 
 
 At the end of his yard arm. 
 " My Lord," wrote Cap'n Whipple back, 
 
 " It seems to me it 's clear 
 That if you want to hang him, 
 
 You must catch your Privateer." 
 
 We sailed and we sailed 
 
 And made good cheer, 
 For not a British frigate 
 
 Could come near the Privateer. 
 
 We sailed to the south'ard. 
 
 And nothing did we meet 
 Till we found three British frigates 
 
 And their West Indian fleet. 
 Old Whipple shut our ports 
 
 As he crawled up near. 
 And he sent us all below 
 
 On the Yankee Privateer. 
 
New England History 123 
 
 So slowly he sailed 
 
 We dropped to the rear. 
 And not a soul suspected 
 
 The Yankee Privateer. 
 
 At night we put the lights out 
 
 And forward we ran 
 And silently we boarded 
 
 The biggest merchantman. 
 We knocked down the watch, — 
 
 And the lubbers shook for fear. 
 She 's a prize without a shot, 
 
 To the Yankee Privateer. 
 
 We sent the prize north 
 
 While we lay near 
 And all day we slept 
 
 On the bold Privateer. 
 
 For ten nights we followed, 
 
 And ere the moon rose. 
 Each night a prize we 'd taken 
 
 Beneath the Lion's nose. 
 When the British looked to see 
 
 Why their ships should disappear. 
 They found they had in convoy 
 
 A Yankee Privateer. 
 
124 Ballads of 
 
 But we sailed and sailed 
 And made good cheer I 
 
 Not a coward was on board 
 Of the Yankee Privateer. 
 
 The biggest British frigate 
 
 Bore round to give us chase, 
 But though he was the fleeter 
 
 Old Whipple would n't race, 
 Till he 'd raked her fore and aft, 
 
 For the lubbers could n't steer, 
 Then he showed them the heels 
 
 Of the Yankee Privateer. 
 
 Then we sailed and we sailed 
 And we made good cheer. 
 
 For not a British frigate 
 
 Could come near the Privateer. 
 
 Then northward we sailed 
 
 To the town we all know, 
 And there lay our prizes. 
 
 All anchored in a row ; 
 And welcome were we 
 
 To our friends so dear, 
 And we shared a million dollars 
 
 On the bold Privateer. 
 
New England History 125 
 
 We 'd sailed and we 'd sailed 
 
 And we made good cheer. 
 We had all full pockets 
 
 On the bold Privateer. 
 
 Then we each manned a ship 
 
 And our sails we unfurled, 
 And we bore the Stars and Stripes 
 
 O'er the oceans of the world. 
 From the proud flag of Britain 
 
 We swept the seas clear, 
 And we earned our independence 
 
 On the Yankee Privateer. 
 
 Then landsmen and sailors, 
 
 One more cheer ! 
 Here is three times three 
 
 For the Yankee Privateer ! 
 
 JuLV, 1779. 
 
126 Ballads of 
 
 THE OLD SOUTH PICTURE- 
 GALLERY 
 
 To hide the time-stains on our wall 
 Let every tattered banner fall I 
 The Bourbon lihes, green and old, 
 That flaunted once in burnished gold ; 
 The oriflamme of France that fell 
 That day when sunburned Pepperrell 
 His shotted salvos fired so well, 
 The fleur de Lys trailed sulky down, 
 And Louisburg was George's town. 
 The Bourbon yields it in despair 
 To Saxon arm and Pilgrim prayer. 
 
 Hang there the Lion and the Tower, 
 Pale emblems of Castilian power, 
 The flags which Lyman brought away 
 In triumph from Havana Bay 
 A hundred years ago. 
 
New England History 127 
 
 Lion and tower have to fall 
 Unwilling from the Morro wall, 
 As at the Yankee fife and drum 
 New England and her train-bands come, 
 They swim the moat ; they climb the ledge, 
 They drive the sentries from the edge. 
 They storm the IMorro on the steep. 
 And tear away the flags to keep. 
 That so our walls may show 
 To England and to dying Spain 
 How freedom makes our sort of men. 
 
 Hang there, and there, the dusty rags 
 Which once were jaunty battle flags, 
 And for a week, in triumph vain. 
 Gay flaunted over blue Champlain, 
 Gayly had circled half the world, 
 Until they dropped, disgraced and furled, 
 
 That day the Hampshire line 
 Stood to its arms at dress parade, 
 Beneath the Stars and Stripes arrayed, 
 
 And Massachusetts Pine, 
 To see the great atonement made 
 
 By Riedesel and Burgoyne. 
 
128 Ballads of 
 
 Eagles which Caesar's hand had fed, 
 Banners which Charlemagne had led, 
 
 A thousand years before, 
 A dozing empire meanly gave 
 To be the eagles of a slave. 
 And let the mean Elector wave 
 
 Those banners on our shore. 
 
 The mean Elector basely sold 
 Eagle and flag for George's gold ; 
 
 And in the storm of war, 
 In crash of battle, thick and dark, 
 Beneath the rifle-shot of Stark, 
 The war-worn staff", the crest of gold. 
 The scutcheon proud and storied fold, 
 In surges of defeat were rolled. 
 So even Roman banners fall. 
 To screen the time-stains on our wall 1 
 
 Between the Roman and the Gaul 
 See where our English colors fall ! 
 Yes ! under there we led the way 
 With Wolfe, and in Havana Bay ; 
 But when the time had come. 
 That cross of white, that cross of red, 
 Fell in their turn, that in their stead 
 
New England History 129 
 
 The pine-tree and the thirteen bars, 
 
 At sound of Yankee fife and drum, 
 Might float on Beacon Hill that day, 
 
 That happy spring-time morning when 
 
 In triumph he, our first of men, 
 
 Rode along Boston Neck, the day 
 Howe and his red-coats sailed away. 
 So white-robed peace resumed her sway 
 For us the dwellers by the Bay. 
 
 The cross which stubborn Endicott 
 Had from King Charles's ensign cut. 
 
 Shall on our Beacon wave no more I 
 No ! from that hour till now. 
 No foeman's foot has found its way, 
 Across the marches of our Bay, 
 
 Nor foreign eagles sought our shore. 
 
 Beneath the war-flag's faded fold 
 I see our sovereigns of old 
 
 On magic canvas there. 
 The tired face of " baby Charles " 
 Looks sadly down from Pilgrim walls, 
 
 Half pride and half despair. 
 
 Doubtful to flatter or to strike, 
 
 To cozen or to dare. 
 9 
 
130 Ballads of 
 
 His steel clad charger he bestrides 
 As if to smite the Ironsides, 
 When Rupert with his squadron rides ; 
 Yet such his gloomy brow and eye, 
 You wonder if he will not try 
 Once more the magic of a lie 
 To lift him from his care. 
 
 Hold stiU your truncheon ! If it moves, 
 The ire of Cromwell's rage it braves I 
 
 For the next picture shows 
 The grim Protector on his steed, 
 Ready to pray, to strike, to lead, — 
 Dare all for England, which he saves, 
 
 New England, which he loves. 
 
 Vandyck drew Charles. 'T is Kneller there 
 Has pictured a more peaceful pair ; 
 There Orange gives his last command, 
 The charter gives to Mather's hand ; 
 And blooming there, the queenly she. 
 Who takes " now counsel, and now tea," 
 Confounding Blenheim and Bohea, 
 Careless of war's alarm. 
 
New England History 131 
 
 Yet as of old, the virgin Queen, 
 When armed for victory, might press 
 The smoky firelock of " Brown Bess," 
 So Anna, in a fond caress, 
 
 Rests on a black " Queen's Arm," 
 Beneath those forms another band, 
 Silent but eloquent, shall stand. 
 There is no uttered voice nor speech 
 As still of liberty they teach ; 
 No language and no sound is heard. 
 Yet still the everlasting word 
 Goes forth to thrill the land. 
 Story and Greenough shall compel 
 The silent marble forms to tell 
 The lesson that they told so well. 
 
 Lesson of Fate and Awe, — 
 Franklin still point the common place 
 
 Of Liberty and Law ; 
 Adams shall look in Otis' face, 
 
 Blazing with Freedom's soul ; 
 And Molyneux see Hancock trace 
 The fatal word which frees a race, 
 There in New England's well-earned place, 
 
 The head of Freedom's roll. 
 
132 Ballads of 
 
 These are not all. The past is gone, 
 But other victories shall be won, 
 For which the time-worn tale we read 
 Is but the sowing of the seed. 
 The harvest shall be gathered when 
 Our children's children meet again 
 
 Upon the time-worn floor ; 
 When ruddy drops flush living cheek. 
 And tribunes of the people speak 
 As living man can speak to living men ; 
 When future Adamses conspire, 
 When other Danas feed the fire, 
 Each grandson worthy of his sire ; 
 When other Phillipses shall tell 
 Again the tale he tells so well ; 
 When other Minots shall record 
 The victories of some other Ward, 
 And other Prescotts tell the story 
 Of other Warrens' death and glory ; 
 When, in some crisis of the land. 
 Some other Quincy takes the stand. 
 To teach, to quicken, to command, — 
 
 To speak with prophet's power 
 Of Liberty and Law combined. 
 Of Justice close with Mercy joined. 
 
New England History 133 
 
 United in one hand and mind ; 
 
 That talisman of victory find 
 
 In which our laurels all are twined, — 
 
 And for one struggle more 
 Forget those things which lie behind, 
 
 And reach to those before. 
 
134 Ballads of 
 
 ANOTHER CENTURY 
 
 The unpleasantness with France at the end of the eigh- 
 teenth century and the Algerine wars furnished their contri- 
 bution, such as they are, to ballad literature. There are one 
 or two poems of western emigration, some ridiculing it, some 
 approving it. 
 
 The adoption of the Federal Constitution brought its 
 share. Here comes what amuses a Boston ear. 
 
 Convention did in State House meet. 
 And when it would n't hold 'em, 
 They all went down to Federal Street, 
 And there the truth was told them. 
 
 The short war with England brought an immense crop of 
 sailor songs and other songs. I would print " Bold Dacres 
 came on board," which is perhaps the only sailor song which 
 has survived, but that it is so well remembered on every 
 American forecastle. It begins : 
 
 I often have been told 
 That the British seamen bold 
 Could beat the tars of France 
 Neat and handy, O. 
 
 But they never got their match 
 Till the Yankees did them catch. 
 For the Yankee tars for fighting 
 Are the dandy, O. 
 
 What is not so well known, and may be worth pre- 
 serving, is the retaliatory song to the same air, which was 
 
New England History 135 
 
 written by some English ballad-monger after the Shannon 
 took the Chesapeake. I am able to print it by the kindness 
 of Mr. James E. Whitney, Jr. 
 
 CHESAPEAKE AND SHANNON 
 
 " The Chesapeake so bold 
 Out of Boston, I Ve been told, 
 Came to take a British Frigate 
 
 Neat and handy, O ! 
 While the people of the port 
 Flocked out to see the sport. 
 With their music playing 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, O ! 
 
 " Now the British Frigate's name 
 Which for the purpose came 
 Of cooling Yankee courage 
 
 Neat and handy, O ! 
 Was the Shannon, Captain Broke, 
 Whose crew were heart of oak. 
 And for fighting were confessed 
 
 To be the dandy, O ! 
 
 " The engagement scarce begun 
 Ere they flinched from their guns. 
 Which at first they thought of working 
 Neat and handy, O I 
 
I '56 Ballads of 
 
 J 
 
 The bold Broke he waved his sword, 
 Crying, * Now, my lads, on board, 
 And we '11 stop their playing 
 
 Yankee Doodle Dandy, O I ' 
 
 " They no sooner heard the word 
 Than they quickly rushed aboard 
 And hauled down the Yankee ensign 
 
 Neat and handy, O ! 
 Notwithstanding all their brag, 
 Now the glorious British flag 
 At the Yankee's mizzen-peak 
 
 Was quite the dandy, O ! 
 
 " Successful Broke to you, 
 And your officers and crew. 
 Who on board the Shannon frigate 
 
 Fought so handy, O I 
 And may it ever prove 
 That in fighting as in love 
 
 The true British tar is the dandy, O I " 
 
New England History 137 
 
 OLD IRONSIDES 
 
 " Old Ironsides," as the Constitution frigate was familiarly 
 called, was built at a Boston wharf. She sailed from Boston 
 in June, 1812, to fight the Guerriere. Legitimate commerce 
 was at an end ; there were a plenty of seamen hungry for 
 a fight, and an old New Englander is apt to say, whether 
 truly or not I do not know, that every man of her crew, 
 when she fought the Guerriere, was a well-trained skipper 
 who could have "navigated " the ship. 
 
 By the combination of the new western States with the 
 southern oligarchies. General Jackson was chosen President. 
 The new dynasty well in the saddle, as a neat bit of bravado, 
 gave orders to break up the New England frigate Constitution. 
 She had been built under the older Adams. They had now 
 turned out the younger Adams, and the plan for her destruc- 
 tion was rather an ingenious insult to the North. The ship 
 herself was not much more than thirty years old at the time. 
 
 The insult was received with more spirit than was expected. 
 It was perhaps suggested by some over-officious person in 
 Jackson's cabinet. But it roused Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
 then scarcely more than a boy, and he himself has told how 
 he retired to his attic room, in General Ward's old headquar- 
 ters at Cambridge, and wrote the verses which " fired the 
 northern heart." The order for the destruction of the ship 
 was withdrawn, and we still preserve her under the shadow 
 of Bunker Hill as the Athenians preserved the Galley of 
 
138 Ballads of 
 
 Theseus. Dr. Holmes might well claim the credit of saving 
 " Old Ironsides/' and the poem, printed everywhere in the 
 northern States, won for him at once his national reputation. 
 
 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 
 
 Long has it waved on high, 
 And many an eye has danced to see 
 
 That banner in the sky ; 
 Beneath it rung the battle's shout. 
 
 And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
 The meteor of the ocean air 
 
 Shall sweep the clouds no more. 
 
 Her deck once red with heroes' blood. 
 
 Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
 When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 
 
 And waves were white below, 
 No more shall feel the victor's tread, 
 
 Or feel the conquered knee ; — 
 The harpies of the shore shall pluck 
 
 The eagle of the sea I 
 
 Oh, better that her shattered hulk 
 Should sink beneath the wave ; 
 
 Her thunders shook the mighty deep. 
 And there should be her grave ; 
 
New England History 139 
 
 Nail to the mast her holy flag, 
 
 Set every threadbare sail, 
 And give her to the God of storms. 
 
 The lightning and the gale ! 
 
 The capture of the Guerriere was not the last of New Eng- 
 land's victories, nor the loss of the Chesapeake the last of her 
 defeats. But life went on with its chances and changes of 
 hope and fear. And these ballads of what the Rhode Island- 
 ers call the "South country " come next in the history of the 
 last century. Then comes the " marshalling in arms." 
 
140 Ballads of 
 
 THE FUNERAL OF OLD JOHN 
 RUDD 
 
 A Southwest wind on Matimuck Beach brings 
 
 the seaweed up on the shore, 
 And then will the farmers' carts be down, you 
 
 can often count a score. 
 And see the men in the water, knee-deep as 
 
 though they were spearing eels, 
 While the seaweed carts stand just by the edge 
 
 with kelp all over the wheels. 
 The carts come down from the whole Backside 
 
 to gather their dripping load, 
 And from upland farms away in the woods, and 
 
 from all the Kingston Road, 
 And even from Carolina, nine miles and more 
 
 away 
 Where they hitch the oxen up to the carts before 
 
 the gray dawn o' the day. 
 
 So one night Ben Segar's team was mounting the 
 
 rise of Halfway Hill ; 
 It was almost light, for the stars were bright and 
 
 the moon shone soft and still ; 
 
New England History 141 
 
 And Ben could see the Block Island lights as he 
 mounted the little crest. 
 
 With Judith flashing away in the east, and Mon- 
 tauk off in the west. 
 
 But on reaching the flat where the road is bad, 
 (for the sand lies heavy and deep). 
 
 Uncle Ben lay down on the seat for a bit and 
 soon fell half asleep, 
 
 And left his team to get on by themselves with- 
 out the guide of the goad. 
 
 The oxen jogging one step at a time as they 
 lurched along the road. 
 
 'T is a weary ride, for the houses are few and far 
 
 between. 
 And there 's hardly a sound to be heard for miles 
 
 or a sign of life to be seen, 
 Save now and then the piercing cry of a cock that 
 
 has waked and crowed. 
 Or the sudden dash of a woodchuck as he scuttles 
 
 across the road. 
 And so for a time Ben nodded along, and then 
 
 with a start he woke 
 And lifted his head and snuffed the air, for he 
 
 smelt the smell of smoke. 
 
142 Ballads of 
 
 Off here to the left lived Old John Rudd, the 
 
 Hermit as people said, 
 He had lived by hiinself for twenty years since 
 
 old man Rudd was dead. 
 
 An unfriendly man was the hermit. He 'd lived 
 
 so long alone 
 That his heart was about as soft and kind as a 
 
 Green Hill cobblestone. 
 He had read no book but the Bible since ever 
 
 he'd learned to read, 
 And out of the texts he'd made for himself a 
 
 gloomy and grievous creed. 
 And he 'd go to Corneha's to meeting, and after 
 
 he 'd sat a spell 
 He 'd up and preach the Good Tidings of Death, 
 
 Damnation and Hell. 
 
 So the children ran when they saw him, and he 
 
 frowned when he saw a child. 
 For what was a child but the image of Christ 
 
 with original sin defiled ? 
 And he lived apart in his house in the woods as 
 
 lonely as could be. 
 And nobody loved him in all this world and he 
 
 loved nobody. 
 
New England History 143 
 
 As he smelt the smoke Ben left his team and 
 
 ran off into the wood, 
 Along the cart track over the hill to where John 
 
 Rudd's house had stood. 
 But when he reached the clearing, in place of the 
 
 house, he found 
 Charred beams and glowing embers spread over 
 
 the blackened ground. 
 And there stood Csesar the negro, who lived in 
 
 the hills to the East, 
 The hermit's nearest neighbour though a mile 
 
 away at least. 
 
 " Yer 've come too late," said Uncle Ben, " we 've 
 
 both on us come too late ; 
 We 'd a had to been here hours ago to a saved 
 
 John Rudd from his fate." 
 He pointed down and there stretched out from 
 
 the roof a-clutching the sand 
 Was the charred and blackened remnant of what 
 
 had been John Rudd's hand. 
 
 The two men moved no nearer ; they looked, and 
 
 stood apart. 
 The ashes of awe in their faces and the dread of 
 
 death at the heart. 
 
144 Ballads of 
 
 For a moment then there was silence : till Ben 
 
 spoke up and said 
 " I guess the ole man was smothered to death 
 
 afore he could leave his bed. 
 Or p'raps he was struck by the fall of the roof 
 
 at the door he was crawlin' fur, 
 He was awful bad with the rheumatiz'. and at 
 
 times could n t hardly stir." 
 
 Then Csesar said : " I see him comin' home las' 
 
 Sat 'day night. 
 He was snarlin' and talkin' dreadful, as he did 
 
 when things were n't right. 
 He said this earth was so wicked, the Lord did n't 
 
 love it no more. 
 An' he said the Lord had hidden His face as it 
 
 never was hidden before. 
 But he said the days was comin', the days was 
 
 close at hand 
 AVhen the Lord would smite the evil through 
 
 the len'th and breadth of the land. 
 For he said we was judged : we was all on us 
 
 weighed and foun' wantin' an' all. 
 An' there was n't a spot on the whole wide world 
 
 where the wrath of the Lord would n't fall. 
 
New England History 145 
 
 For Christ would come with his angels in chay- 
 
 yuts of fire an' of flame 
 An' the blazin' sword of his conquerin' Word, an' 
 
 the dread of his awful Name 
 An' he 'd smite the earth an' destroy it : the sea, 
 
 an' the sand, an' the sod, 
 An' it 's flame should go up forever amen, for the 
 
 greater glory of God." 
 And Caesar paused and showed his teeth and his 
 
 eyeballs glistened white, 
 And he thought of these future horrors with holy 
 
 and high delight. 
 
 " Well the flamin' chayyut 's come for him, said 
 
 Ben, " and there 's the proof. 
 But now I guess we'm best to go for some help 
 
 to raise that roof. 
 'T won't do John Rudd no good. He don't want 
 
 help no more. 
 But I '11 rouse the folks along the road — I was 
 
 goin' down t' the shore." 
 So Ben went back to his oxen and Caesar went 
 
 on his way. 
 And John Rudd's pyre was left to itself in the 
 
 glow of the newborn day. 
 
 10 
 
146 Ballads of 
 
 And the laurel was pink on the hillside, and its 
 
 dark leaves gleamed in the dew, 
 The morning breeze moved through the trees and 
 
 the grey sky warmed to blue, 
 The birds began to twitter as the day stole over 
 
 the hill. 
 The bees buzzed round o'er the blackened ground 
 
 as they followed their wandering will, 
 And the birds and the bees and the flowers and 
 
 the trees and the morning glow in the air 
 Were a living proof by the blackened roof, that 
 
 the Glory of God was there. 
 But the Hermit lay all quiet after his last fierce 
 
 strife 
 As blind and deaf to the flowers and the birds as 
 
 he ever had been in life. 
 Yet off" in the dawn of the perfect day which 
 
 began with such fiery birth, 
 John Rudd had found the Glory of God which 
 
 he missed in his night on this earth. 
 
New England History 147 
 
 THE BREACH BY POINT JUDITH 
 POINT 
 
 The wind blows hard on Point Judith Point 
 
 and the sea 's all black and white, 
 No wind that has blown for fifty year£ has blown 
 
 like the wind to-night. 
 Along to the west the shore curves round and as 
 
 far as the eye can reach 
 The sea is rolling and breaking high for a half 
 
 a mile from the beach. 
 The western sky is a cold red streak beneath the 
 
 cloudbank's frown, 
 Red with the gold of the sun, but cold in the 
 
 place where the sun went down. 
 
 Along by the Saltpond Breach is the place where 
 the surf has the sport most rare, 
 
 For the sea runs in and the pond runs out, and 
 the waves crash high in the air. 
 
 The breakers reach far into the Breach in a roll- 
 ing snowwhite wedge, 
 
148 Ballads of 
 
 And they gnaw the sand on either hand as they 
 
 eat up the sandy ledge. 
 The breakers reach far into the Breach with a 
 
 lashing rumble and roar, 
 And the white foam flecks the half-ribbed wrecks 
 
 that lie far up on the shore, 
 If half-tide runs so near the dunes, high tide will 
 
 wash them o'er. 
 
 Up from the shore of Meadow Point where the 
 
 two Saltponds divide. 
 Is Long John Tucker's farmhouse, with the 
 
 barns on either side. 
 Long John leans over the barnyard gate as the 
 
 cows come home. " I fear 
 To-night will be the worst night at sea there 's 
 
 been for many a year." 
 The cattle are milked, the barnyard closed, the 
 
 chickens are gathered and fed. 
 And the farmer's folks take supper and soon be- 
 take themselves to bed. 
 They sleep full sound nor trouble their sleep with 
 
 thought of the ships at sea. 
 And the breaker's roar comes up from the shore 
 
 a-grumbling ceaselessly. 
 
New England History 149 
 
 The little room in the farmhouse ell, over the 
 
 kitchen door, 
 Is the room of the farmer's hired girl, the room 
 
 of JNIaiy More. 
 Mary INI ore, the girl that you see when you pass 
 
 the house as you go 
 To the Kingfisher fishing-gang's house on the 
 
 bluff a half a mile below. 
 An Irish girl ^\dth a fresh, frank face, a cheerful, 
 
 pleasant sight, — 
 But God in Heaven I the look on the face of 
 
 Mary More this night. 
 As she looks from her window and tries to pierce 
 
 the dark and the wind and the gloom. 
 Leaning far out on the window ledge in her poor 
 
 little garret room. 
 Poor JNIary, — no father nor mother, — her lover 
 
 away at sea. 
 Homeward bound perhaps, in a gale the worst 
 
 that a gale can be. 
 
 All tired out with watching at last Mary sinks to 
 
 her bed 
 To a sleep that is worse than waking, for the 
 
 dreams that dance through her head, 
 
150 Ballads of 
 
 Dreams of wrecks and drowning men and storms 
 
 and ships at sea, 
 With breakers groaning and sounds of moaning 
 
 as though of the grim Banshee. 
 Storms and wrecks and drowning men chase 
 
 through her feverish dream 
 Till she wakes with a start, her hand on her heart, 
 
 at the fearful sound of a scream. 
 At a drowning scream that chills her heart, Mary- 
 wakes up from sleep, 
 And sick with dread she springs from her bed to 
 
 look out at the noise of the deep. 
 But except for the sound of the wind and the 
 
 surf the farmhouse stands all still, 
 Except for the sound of the surf and the wind, — 
 
 silent, lonely, chill. 
 And out of the Mdndow Mary leans and to pierce 
 
 the night she tries ; 
 A night so black that it almost seems less black 
 
 when you close your eyes. 
 
 Crazed with horror and sick with dread, Mary 
 
 runs to the door, 
 Slips down the stair and into the air, and makes 
 
 for the wild seashore. 
 
New England History 151 
 
 She 's run through the meadow and crossed the 
 
 ford, where the carts bring up marsh-hay, 
 She 's run by the side of the pond where the tide 
 
 is ankle-deep over the way, 
 She 's thrown herself into the swift-running gut 
 
 that 's swept her on to the bar. 
 And now she stands on the wet sea sands where 
 
 the wrecks and the seabirds are, 
 She strains her eyes at the darkness and out at 
 
 the storm looks she. 
 But nothing 's in sight save the lone sand beach 
 
 and the clouds and the white, white sea. 
 Nothing in sight save the sea so white and the 
 
 clouds and the lone sand beach, 
 And nothing to hear but the gi'owling drear of 
 
 the surf and the roaring Breach. 
 She's alone with the wrecks and the seabirds, 
 
 alone with her fear and her fears 
 While the dro\Miing scream she heard in her 
 
 dream still rings and rings in her ears. 
 
 That night Pawawget changed its shape, for the 
 
 sand filled up the Breach, 
 And the water opened another way by the cabin 
 
 of old Ned Teach, 
 
152 Ballads of 
 
 Where the cart track runs between the dunes, in 
 
 the path that was made by the sea 
 Just six and sixty years ago, in the gale of 
 
 Twenty-three. 
 And the place on the beach where Mary stood 
 
 and looked for her lover that night 
 Was all cut off by the water at first, and then 
 
 was buried from sight. 
 And over the place where Mary had stood with 
 
 her shawl round shoulders and head 
 The breakers roared their stormy fugue as a 
 
 Wedding March for the Dead. 
 
 And the Sally and Jane went ashore that night, 
 
 as had happened in Mary's dream, 
 And maybe the scream that Mary had heard was 
 
 somebody's drowning scream. 
 But neither among the saved nor the drowned, 
 
 and neither on sea nor on shore. 
 Was the man whom Mary had seen in her dream, 
 
 the lover of Mary More. 
 For the lover that Mary had looked for on the 
 
 stormy night she was drowned 
 Had never shipped in the Sally and Jane from 
 
 Havana homeward bound. 
 
New England History 153 
 
 He had shipped for a longer and quicker voyage, 
 bound for God knows where, — 
 
 Stabbed and killed in Havana for courting a bull- 
 fighter's mistress there. 
 
154 Ballads of 
 
 COTTON 
 
 Soon as the country rolls up from the plain 
 The hills remind me of the hills of Maine. 
 The same dark pines around to frown o'er all, — 
 The same rank growth where'er the forests 
 
 fall,— 
 The same green slopes, the same black swamps 
 
 below. 
 Where not the lightest foot, nor lightest boat- 
 men go. 
 
 That likeness hardly holds, the web foot cypress 
 
 here 
 Gives shade we borrow from the cedar there ; 
 And when these hills assume their blaze of red 
 Where the long crops whole acres have o'er- 
 
 spread. 
 The scene suggests no metaphor at all, 
 But of long ivy on a bright brick wall. 
 
New England History 155 
 
 Or green embroidery on a brick dust dress, 
 Or of green war paint on an Indian's face. 
 
 And here the valley of dull Congaree 
 As unhke dear Penobscot seems to me 
 As the proud accents of that manly name 
 To the soft slipshod of the southern stream I 
 See I rows of cotton stretch across the plain, 
 Nature's curst present to her brother man ! 
 
 God to the Saxon such a mission gave, 
 To light the blinded and to free the slave I 
 And the poor Saxon, Cotton blinded stands. 
 Feet Cotton tangled. Cotton bound his hand ! 
 Cotton ! from seed to web a twist of groans and 
 
 fears ! 
 Wrought with men's rights, and watered with 
 
 their tears. 
 From here to Manchester its tale the same ! 
 Bartered with blood, and saturate with shame I 
 Till spinner, weaver, slave, each curse its name ! 
 
 Cotton ! the curse, the glory of our time. 
 Type of its wealth, its shame, its power, its 
 crime I 
 
156 Ballads of New England History- 
 Why in the Iron times did none reveal 
 Presage of future times, their woe ? their weal ? 
 Why does not ancient lore, not Hebrew page 
 Not all the rhapsodies of Delphic rage, 
 Foretell the fifth, the proud, mean Cotton Age ! 
 
 CoNGAREE River, May 20, 1848 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
THE CIVIL WAR 
 
 The poetical literature of the Civil War would make a 
 volume in itself. Professor Child, the great authority on 
 English ballads, gave himself the duty of providing war songs 
 for the army. He has printed them in a valuable pamphlet. 
 
 The most celebrated of all was written, as I suppose, by 
 Henry Howard Brownell, whom Dr. Holmes has called " our 
 Battle Laureate." It was first known to literary ears, I think, 
 when Fletcher Webster's Regiment of Massachusetts Volun- 
 teers marched up State Street, in 1862, and the men were 
 singing this ode. Mrs. Howe's celebrated version followed 
 not long after. The following copy is from the original 
 broadside. Mr. Brownell afterwards made the changes so 
 well known. 
 
 John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the 
 
 grave I 
 John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the 
 
 grave ! 
 John Brown's body lies a mouldering in the 
 
 grave : 
 
 His soul 's marching on ! 
 
 Glory Hally Hallelujah I 
 Glory Hally Hallelujah I 
 Glory HaUy HaUelujah ! 
 His soul 's marching on I 
 
i6o Ballads of 
 
 He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our 
 
 Lord, 
 He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our 
 
 Lord, 
 He's gone to be a soldier in the army of our 
 
 Lord. 
 
 His soul 's marching on I 
 
 John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his 
 
 back 
 John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his 
 
 back 
 John Brown's knapsack is strapped upon his 
 
 back. 
 
 His soul 's marching on ! 
 
 His pet lambs will meet him on the way, — 
 His pet lambs will meet him on the way, — 
 His pet lambs will meet him on the way, — 
 They go marching on. 
 
 They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree I 
 They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree I 
 They will hang Jeff Davis to a tree I 
 As they march along. 
 
New England History i6i 
 
 Now, three rousing cheers for the Union ! 
 
 Now, three rousing cheers for the Union ! 
 
 Now, three rousing cheers for the Union I 
 
 As we are inarching on. 
 
 All the " Four Makers " were at their very best in the 
 War, and week by week, almost, contributed to its literature. 
 Here are some other verses, more ephemeral. 
 
 OLD FANEUIL HALL 
 
 Come, soldiers, join a Yankee song. 
 And cheer us, as we march along. 
 With Yankee voices, full and strong, — 
 
 Join in chorus all ; 
 Our Yankee notions here we bring. 
 Our Yankee chorus here we sing, 
 To make the Dixie forest ring 
 
 With Old Faneuil Hall I 
 
 When first our fathers made us free. 
 
 When old King George first taxed the tea. 
 
 They swore they would not bend the knee. 
 
 But armed them one and all ! 
 
 In days like those the chosen spot 
 
 To keep the hissing water hot, 
 
 To steep the tea leaves in the pot. 
 
 Was Old Faneuil Hall I 
 11 
 
i62 Ballads of 
 
 So when, to steal our tea and toast, 
 At Sumter first the rebel host 
 Prepared to march along the coast. 
 
 At JefF Davis' call. 
 He stood on Sumter's tattered flag, 
 To cheer them with the game of brag. 
 And bade them fly his Rebel Rag 
 
 On Old Faneuil Hall I 
 
 But war 's a game that two can play ; 
 They waked us up that very day. 
 And bade the Yankees come away 
 
 Down South, at Abram's call ! 
 And so I learned my facings right. 
 And so I packed my knapsack tight, 
 And then I spent the parting night 
 
 In Old Faneuil Hall ! 
 
 And on that day which draws so nigh. 
 When rebel ranks our steel shall try, — 
 When sounds at last the closing cry 
 
 " Charge bayonets all ! " 
 The Yankee shouts from far and near. 
 Which broken ranks in flying hear. 
 Shall be a rousing Northern cheer 
 
 From Old Faneuil Hall 1 
 
 April 19, 1861 
 
' t" • I'MtWI 
 
 wfifpmmitmtmA 
 
 jB"'""" ?"*' 
 
 t ;. MilLJg 
 
New England History 163 
 
 TAKE THE LOAN 
 
 Come, freemen of the land, 
 Come meet the great demand, 
 True heart and open hand, — 
 
 Take the loan ! 
 For the hopes the prophets saw, 
 For the swords your brothers draw, 
 For hberty and law. 
 
 Take the loan ! 
 
 Ye ladies of the land, 
 
 As ye love the gallant band 
 
 Who have drawn a soldier's brand, 
 
 Take the loan ! 
 Who would bring them what she could, 
 Who would give the soldier food. 
 Who would staunch her brothers' blood. 
 
 Take the loan ! 
 
 All who saw our hosts pass by, 
 All who joined the parting cry, 
 When we bade them do or die, 
 Take the loan ! 
 
64 Ballads of New England History 
 
 As ye wished their triumph then, 
 As ye hope to meet again, 
 And to meet their gaze hke men. 
 Take the loan I 
 
 Who would press the great appeal 
 Of our ranks of serried steel, 
 Put your shoulders to the wheel, 
 
 Take the loan ! 
 That our prayers in truth may rise, 
 Which we press with streaming eyes 
 On the Lord of earth and skies. 
 
 Take the loan 1 
 
 May, 1861 i 
 
 1 Written when people had to be persuaded as patriots to subscribe 
 for a 7.30 loan ! Those who did so are to-day's millionaires. (October, 
 1903.) 
 
AFTERWARD 
 
THE GREAT HARVEST YEAR 
 
 Let us hope that we shall have to write no more War 
 Ballads. What was it Allston said, " No more battle pieces " ? 
 As early as 1878 we came to what was then called "the Great 
 Harvest Year "to which New England contributed her apples 
 and ice and codfish and cheese. From the ballad of " The 
 Great Harvest Year," therefore, I copy what I may claim as 
 the New England verses. 
 
 THE GREAT HARVEST YEARi 
 
 The night the century ebbed out, all worn with 
 work and sin, 
 
 The night a twentieth century, all fresh with 
 hope, came in. 
 
 The children watched, the evening long, the mid- 
 night clock to see, 
 
 And to wish to one another " A Happy Cen- 
 tury ! " 
 
 They climbed upon my knee, and they tumbled 
 on the floor ; 
 
 And Bob and Nell came begging me for stories 
 of the War. 
 
 ^ The harvest of the year 1878 was by far the largest harvest which 
 had ever ripened in America. The exp)orts of food were much greater 
 than ever before. They have been much larger since. 
 
1 68 Ballads of 
 
 But I told Nell that I would tell no tales but 
 
 tales of peace, — 
 God grant that for a hundred years the tales of 
 
 war might cease I 
 I told them I would tell them of the blessed 
 
 Harvest Store, 
 Of the year ui which God fed men as they ne'er 
 
 were fed before ; 
 For till that year of matchless cheer, since suns or 
 
 worlds were made. 
 Never sent land to other lands such gift of Daily 
 
 Bread ! 
 
 The War was done, and men began to live in 
 
 peaceful ways, 
 For thu-teen years of hopes and fears, dark nights 
 
 and joyful days. 
 If wealth would slip, if wit would trip, and neither 
 
 would avail, 
 " Lo ! the seed-time and the harvest," saith the 
 
 Lord, " shall never fail." 
 And to all change of ups and downs, to every hope 
 
 and fear. 
 To men's amaze came round the days of the 
 
 Great Harvest Year, 
 
New England History 169 
 
 When God's command bade all the land join 
 
 heart and soul and mind, 
 And health and wealth, and hand and land, for 
 
 feeding half mankind. 
 
 The boys and girls the orchards thronged in those 
 
 October days 
 Where the golden sun shone hotly down athwart 
 
 the purple haze. 
 It warmed the piles of ruddy fruit which lay be- 
 neath the trees, 
 From which the apples, red and gold, fell down 
 
 with every breeze. 
 The smallest boy would creep along to clasp the 
 
 farthest bough. 
 And throw the highest pippin to some favored 
 
 girl below. 
 The sound hard fruit with care we chose, we 
 
 wiped them clean and dry. 
 While in the refuse heaps, unused, we let the 
 
 others lie. 
 For pigs and cows and oxen those ; for other 
 
 lands were these, 
 And only what was hard and sound should sail 
 
 across the seas. 
 
170 Ballads of 
 
 Then, as the sun went down too soon, we piled 
 
 the open crates. 
 And dragged them full where cellar cool threw 
 
 wide its waiting gates, 
 So that the air which circled there was cold, but 
 
 not too cold, 
 To keep for Eastern rivalry our Western fruit of 
 
 gold. 
 And as old Evans thoughtful stood, and watched 
 
 the boys that day, 
 I stood so near that I could hear the grim old 
 
 Shaker say, 
 "Shame on our Yankee orchards, if the fruit 
 
 should not be good. 
 The year the land at God's command sends half 
 
 the world its food ! " 
 
 A northeast gale, with snow and hail, bore down 
 
 upon the sea ; 
 With heavy rolls, beneath bare poles, we drifted 
 
 to the lee. 
 When morning broke, the skipper spoke, and 
 
 never sailor shirked. 
 But with a will, though cold and chill, from morn 
 
 to night we worked. 
 
New England History 171 
 
 Off in the spray the Hvelong day our spinning 
 
 Hnes we threw. 
 And on each hook a strugghng fish back to the 
 
 deck we drew. 
 I know I looked to windward once, but the old 
 
 man scowled, and said, 
 " Let no man flinch, nor give an inch, before his 
 
 stent is made. 
 We Ve nothing for it, shipmates, but to heave the 
 
 lines and pull. 
 Till each man's share has made the fare, and every 
 
 cask is full. 
 This is no year for half a fare, for God this year 
 
 decreed 
 That the forty States their hungry mates in all 
 
 the lands shall feed." 
 
 While fields were bright with summer light, and 
 
 heaven was all ablaze. 
 O'er the broad sunny pastures I saw the cattle 
 
 graze. 
 At early day they take their way, when cheerful 
 
 morning warns. 
 And slowly leave the shelter of the hospitable 
 
 barns. 
 
172 Ballads of 
 
 The widow's son drew all the milk which the 
 
 crowded bag would yield, 
 And sent his pretty Durham to her breakfast in 
 
 the field. 
 One portion then for the children's bowls the 
 
 urchin set away, 
 One part he set for cream for the next churning- 
 
 day; 
 But there was left enough for one little can 
 
 beside. 
 And with this the thrifty shaver to the great 
 
 cheese factory hied. 
 
 His milk was measured with the rest, and poured 
 
 into the stream, 
 And as he turned away he met Van Antwerp's 
 
 stately team, 
 Which bore a hundred gallons from the milking 
 
 of that day. 
 And this was poured to swell the hoard fed by 
 
 that milky way. 
 
 The snowy curd is fitly stirred ; the cruel presses 
 
 squeeze 
 Until the last weak drop has passed, and lo, the 
 
 solid cheese I 
 
New England History 173 
 
 In Yorkshire mill, on Snowdon's hill, men eat it 
 
 with their bread. 
 Nor tliink nor ask of the distant task of the boy 
 
 by whom they 're fed. 
 But when autumn's done the widow's son stands 
 
 at Van Antwerp's side, 
 And takes in his hand his dividend paid for the 
 
 milky tide. 
 
 So South and North the food send forth to meet 
 the nation's need ; 
 
 So black and white, with main and might, the 
 hungry peoples feed. 
 
 Since God bade man subdue the earth, and har- 
 vest-time began, 
 
 Never in any land has earth been so subdued by 
 man. 
 
 Praise God for wheat, so white and sweet of 
 which to make our bread ! 
 
 Praise God for yellow corn, with which his wait- 
 ing world is fed ! 
 
 Praise God for fish and flesh and fowl, he gave 
 to man for food I 
 
 Praise God for every creature which He made, and 
 called it good I 
 
174 Ballads of 
 
 Praise God for winter's store of ice I Praise God 
 
 for summer's heat I 
 Praise God for fruit-tree bearing seed ; " to you 
 
 it is for meat " I 
 Praise God for all the bounty by which the world 
 
 is fed ! 
 Praise God His children all, to whom He gives 
 
 their daily bread I ^ 
 
 1 Mr. Lang did me the honor to set these eight lines to music ; and 
 it is our Thanksgiving Hymn annually at the South Congregational 
 Church. 
 
New England History 175 
 
 MANILA BAY 
 
 From keel to fighting top, I love 
 
 Our Asiatic fleet, 
 I love our officers and crews 
 
 Who 'd rather fight than eat. 
 I love the breakfast ordered up 
 
 When enemies ran short, 
 But most I love our chaplain 
 
 With his head out of the port. 
 
 Now, a naval chaplain cannot charge 
 
 As chaplains can on land, 
 With his Bible in his pocket. 
 
 His revolver in his hand, 
 He must wait and help the wounded 
 
 No danger must he court ; 
 So our chaplain helped the wounded 
 
 With his head out of the port. 
 
 Beneath his red and yellow. 
 At bay the Spaniard stood 
 
 Till the yellow rose in fire 
 
 And the crimson sank in blood. 
 
176 Ballads of 
 
 And till the last fouled rifle 
 
 Sped its impotent retort, 
 Our chaplain watched the Spaniard 
 
 With his head out of the port. 
 
 Then here 's our admiral on the bridge 
 
 Above the bursting shell ; 
 And here 's our sailors who went in 
 
 For victory or hell, 
 And here 's the ships and here 's the guns. 
 
 That silenced fleet and fort ; 
 But don't forget our chaplain 
 
 With his head out of the port. 
 
 May 1, 1898 
 
New England History 177 
 
 NEW ENGLAND TO A TRUANT 
 LOVER 
 
 The grey November stream is still ; 
 
 The russet woods you used to know 
 Await upon their tranquil hill 
 
 The silent promise of the snow ; 
 And you whose younger pulses beat 
 
 At my shy favors, dear and few, 
 Have come your earlier loves to meet, — 
 
 Am I not still enough for you ? 
 
 Far in the country of the sun. 
 
 Where never winter tempest blows, 
 
 Quicker your blood has learned to run 
 In airs of never-fading rose ; 
 
 The gardens of your newer love 
 
 Beyond their walls of mountain blue 
 
 Lie fair her magic seas above, — 
 
 But am not I enough for you ? 
 
 12 
 
78 Ballads of 
 
 Not one alone, nor two nor three, 
 
 But many a man, and not in vain. 
 Content with hardness and with me. 
 
 Has made his loss his endless gain ; 
 Has better loved one ardent day 
 
 Close to my heart lived madly tlirough 
 Than sluggish ages far away, — 
 
 Is not that day enough for you ? 
 
 I gave you life and gave you breath ; 
 
 I spun the thread you waste to-day. 
 Why grudge a year or two to death 
 
 If what I gave I take away ? 
 Choose if you will the palm and vine. 
 
 Leave me for all the South can do ; 
 Yet I am yours and you are mine. 
 
 And is not that enough for you ? 
 
New England History 179 
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
 Once when my soul was dull and closed and 
 grim 
 And I was tired of stern Life's endless fray, 
 I met that man who died the other day, 
 And as he spoke, I felt through every limb 
 He was my master. From the horizon dim 
 Bidding me come, and pointing out the way. 
 His spirit called : my spirit must obey. 
 You must be noble while you are with him. 
 As some poor wretch from fortune's lowest lurch, 
 Limping with downcast eyes through scornful 
 crowds, 
 Watching the gutter water ripple by, 
 Comes suddenly upon a stately church 
 
 With lofty spire pointing toward the clouds. 
 And finds that he is gazing at the sky. 
 
 R. B. H. 
 
i8o Ballads of 
 
 FRANCIS PARKMAN 
 
 With youth's blue sky and charming sunhght 
 blest 
 And flushed with hope, he set himself to trace 
 The fading footprints of a banished race. 
 
 Unmindful of the storm-clouds in the west. 
 
 In silent pain and torments unconfessed. 
 Determination written on his face. 
 He struggled on, nor faltered in his pace 
 
 Until his work was done and he could rest. 
 
 He was no frightened paleface stumbling through 
 An unknown forest wandering round and 
 round. 
 Like his own Indians, with instinct fine, 
 He knew his trail, though none saw how he 
 knew ; 
 Reckoned his time and reached his camping 
 ground 
 Just as the first white stars began to shine. 
 
 R. B. H. 
 
New England History i8i 
 
 THE STARS 
 
 I LAY at my ease in my little boat, 
 Fast moored to the shore of the pond, 
 
 And looked up through the trees that swayed in 
 the breeze 
 At God's own sky beyond. 
 
 And I thought of the want and the sin in the 
 world, 
 
 And the pain and the grief they bring, 
 And I marvelled at God for spreading abroad 
 
 Such sorrow and suffering. 
 
 Evening came creeping over the earth, 
 
 And the sky grew dim and gray 
 And faded from sight ; and I grumbled at Night 
 
 For stealing my sky away. 
 
 Then out of the dark just the speck of a face 
 Peeped forth from its window bars ; 
 
 And I laughed to see it smile at me : 
 I had not thought of the stars I 
 
i82 Ballads of New England History 
 
 There are millions of loving thoughts and deeds 
 
 All ripe for awakening, 
 That never would start from the world's cold 
 heart 
 
 But for sorrow and suffering. 
 
 Yes, the blackening night is sombre and cold, 
 
 And the day was warm and fine ; 
 And yet if the day never faded away 
 
 The stars would never shine. 
 
 R. B. H., 1892 
 
Edward Everett Hale^s Works 
 
 A new uniform collected edition of the principal books of the 
 author of "The Man Without a Country." lo vols. With 
 frontispiece. lamo. Cloth, gilt top. Per volume, $1.50. 
 
 Prhted in clear and beautiful type, issued under the supervision of 
 the author, and including revision and new matter. 
 
 I. The Man Without a Country, and Other Stories. 
 
 The Man Without a Country. Round the World in a Hack. 
 
 My Double, and How He Undid Did He Take the Prince to Ride ? 
 
 Me. The Children of the Public. 
 
 The Rag-Man and the Rag- The Skeleton in the Closet. 
 
 Woman. The Modern Psyche. 
 
 His Level Best. The Happy Island. 
 
 II. In His Name, and Christmas Stories. 
 
 In His Name. They Saw a Great Light. 
 
 Christmas W^aits in Boston. Hands Off. 
 
 Daily Bread. Cromwell's Statue. 
 
 III. Ten Times One, and Other Stories. 
 
 Ten Times One is Ten. Hepzibah's Turkeys. 
 
 Neither Scrip nor Money. Our New Crusade. 
 
 Stand and Wait. 
 
 IV. The Brick Moon, and Other Stories. 
 
 The Brick Moon. 99 Newbury Street. 
 
 Crusoe in New York. The Survivor's Story. 
 
 The Lost Palace. Thanksgiving at the Polls. 
 
 Ideals. One Cent. 
 Bread on the Waters. 
 
 V. Philip Nolan's Friends. 
 
 VI. A New England Boyhood, etc. 
 
 VII. How to Do It, and How to Live. 
 
 VIII. Addresses and Essays on Subjects of History, Edu- 
 cation, and Government. 
 
 IX. Sybaris, and How They Lived at Hampton. 
 
 X. Poems, Criticisms, and Literary Essays. 
 
 In workmanship and appearance the edition gives every satisfaction. The sage- 
 green linen covers, stamped in gold only on the back, are serviceable and attractive, 
 and the paper and type are delightfully pleasant to the eye. — Literary World. 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, ^ COMPANY, Publishers 
 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
The Man Without a Country 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 New Edition. With a preface giving an account of the 
 circumstances and incidents of its pubUcation, and a 
 new introduction by the author in the year of the war 
 with Spain. i6mo. Cloth. 50 cents. 
 
 Illustrated Edition* With forty pictures by Frank T. 
 Merrill. Square 8vo. Cloth. 75 cents. 
 
 The Story of the Man without a Country will be remem- 
 bered and read as long as the American flag flies, and it will 
 continue to do good to successive generations of young 
 Americans. . . . What a splendid work of imagination and 
 patriotism that story is ! Its theme is vital, and consequently 
 its influence is perennial. — New York Sun {Editorial), 
 
 It is so full of a lofty patriotism, so full of subtle sug- 
 gestions that would mean nothing to a foreigner but that 
 move our hearts strangely, that to read it is to grow prouder 
 than ever of the country and the flag. — Cincinnati Com- 
 mercial Gazette. 
 
 The moral of the story may be found in Nolan's own pitiful 
 words to a young sailor: "And for your country, boy, and for that 
 flag, never dream a dream but of serving her as she bids you, though 
 the service carry you through a thousand hells. No matter what 
 happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never 
 look at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless 
 that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to do 
 with, behind officers and government and people even, there is the 
 country herself, your country, and that you belong to her as you 
 belong to your own mother." 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, Iff COMPANY, Publishers 
 254 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
PIONEER SPANIARDS IN 
 NORTH AMERICA 
 
 By William Henry Johnson, author of ''The World's Dis- 
 covers," etc. With numerous illustrations. i2mo. Decorated 
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 In his new book the author of "The World's Discoverers" takes up the 
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 mysterious interior of the vast continent those dauntless adventurers, 
 De Soto and Coronado ; tells with vivid interest the stirring tale of early 
 New Mexico ; and, finally, brings together in the Appendix a mass of 
 information. 
 
 By the Same Author: 
 
 THE WORLD'S DISCOVERERS 
 
 The Story of Bold Voyages by Brave Navigators 
 during a Thousand Years 
 
 With 8 maps and 36 illustrations. i2mo. Decorated cloth. 
 
 ^1.50. 
 
 This is believed to be the only book giving, as a whole, a connected 
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 Professor John Fiske said of "The World's Discoverers": "It was an 
 excellent idea to make a book of this sort, as it fills a place not exactly 
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 should think would give the general reader quite an idea of the treasures 
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 LITTLE, BROWN, & COMPANY, Publishers 
 ZS^ WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
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