The Daily clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1866-1888, 1867-03-02

his country Tho volume, If contrasted with
any collection Of tho war poetry OF the
North, will, We think, DO most unwelcome
ordeal to our Abolition poets. Indeed we do
not call to mind q single northern poem
born Of the war which can hope for place
In history. For belt understood, that not
one oftlle multitudin0us partisan Abolition
philipics called Histories, VIII ever reach that
honorable altitude In the future. They are
the widest, the m0at pnprlncipled and I'M
truthful partisan records Like the war POI
etry Of the North, they arc the siclly ebnl-
litions of spleen, spite, malice and int0ler-
ance-elements IN which good poetry is
rarely born. Or lift may possess the mere
artistic qualities Of poetry, II Is forever des-
titute Of it9true fire and soul. The man
who knows he is In, the wrong II sorry
poet. No man ever yet wrote anything
worth remembering who plead the cause Of
tyranny. His own heart always smote him
IN the face. That IL tho office Of mans
heart. to chastise the Maynard fancies or
falsehoods Of the brain.
The character0fa people may be gathered
from their poetry. The hopes, and fears,
andpassions, and all the moral modes Of diff
ferent periods Of the Same nation are col:
spicu0us in their songs. The character OF
the ancient Britons can be learned only from
the music Of their harps, at o time when
their bards invoked the warlike 0din, and
In lofty lyrics sang their wild and terrible
legends. Then came the Saxon and the Nor
man periods, the one with its gloomy Runic
rhymes, and the other withits MINISTRIES Of
merrier and more romantic verse, each indi.
cative of the varying tone and temper Of
the national mind. The character and So
cial life of the English in the fourteenth CEN
tury, must be sought for in the poetry Of
Chaucer, and the gentle" Cover. And,
coming down to the sixteenth century, we
find again the passions and inner life Of the
English people faithfully portrayed in that
glorious constellation Of poets, embracing
the names Of NARROW, Spencer, Shakespeare,
Ben johnson, Fletcher, Beaumont, Sucking,
Herrick, Lovelace, and others. Come down
another century, and the national charac-
teristics must be sought for in the poetry Of
Cowly. Denham, Waller, Milton, Butler,
Rochester, Sedly, Dryden, and Otway.
Another half century still, and we find
Prior, Addison, Pope, Parnel and RAMSAY,
the faithful painters of the nations heart.
America has had no national poets, be-
cause intellectually and socially we have no
nationality, We are medley of all Euro
pean nationalities, with, latterly, strong
infusion of the African. We are yet too re-
Gently come into this country to have any
LEGENDS OF our own. We have not even SO
much as q superstition Of our own creation.
The nearest approach to it is, perhaps our
Puritan type Of bigotry; but that extends
over only o little more than half of our coun-
try. 1t has never touched the South; as
spiritualism, free-loveisin, and community
ism never have.
But the South has just passed through an
ordeal which may, If her people are still
true to their own honor, give them a ma
tionality and literature of their own. She
has now abundant fields for romance and
poetry of her own. The story of her wrongs
unborn generations of her offspring. To say
that it win not be so, is to libel human ma
ture. We desire to see the ancient bonds of
amity between these States restored but
that does not, by any means, include the for
giyeness of the horrible party which inaugu-
rated and conducted such o war.