The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-01

Here waves the corn and there extends the
mead;
Here sound the murmurS or the gurglng
rills,
There bieat the fiocks upon a thousand
Fair opes the lawn--the fertile fields ex-
The kindly flowers from smiling heaven de-
scend;
The skies drop fairness on the blooming
vale;
From spicy shrubs ambrosial sweets exhale.
Fresh fragrance rises from the how'ret's
bloom
And ripening vineyards breathe a glad per-
fume.
Gay swells the music of the warbling grove,
And all around is melody and love-"
How different the fate of these eighteenth
century poets of the West! One lost in the
forests, or murdered by the savages while
yet young. The other, living to spend more
years of his life in high official stations
than any other man the country has pro-
duced-judge of the United States District
Court, Governor of Ohio, United States sem
ator, judge of the Supreme Court, being
some of the many offices in which he spent
his days. beloved and honored to the last.
1t was not, however, until after the nine
teenth century was Sin the saddle" and
some distance upon it's journey that song
writing occupied much time or attracted
much attention in the Ohio valley. VIM. L.
Coggeshall gave selections from the verse
of sixty-one Western poets who were born
prior to 1920 or in that year, and were
known as writers of poetry by or before
1910. Fully fifty of these belonged to the
Ohio valley, the balance being scattered
through Michigan, northern Ohio, northern
Indiana and northern, central and western
Illinois. His volume of Poets and Poetry
of the West was published in 1860, and
much of the best verse it contains was pro-
duced by those sixty-one poets, both before
and after 1910. Mr.. Coggeshall was a closer
and more capable critic of poetry than
most compilers of volumes Of verse that are
designed to represent a section or a State,
or the list of early poets might have been
largely increased. DR.. w. H. Venable, who
is even a closer critic than Coggeshall, men
tions a number that seem to have escaped
that gentlemans attention.
Among the writer's thus honored were
such well-known names as those of John
NJ. Harvey, Salmon p. Chase, Charles HAM
mond, Otway Curry, Peyton Short Symmes.
william d. Gallagher, Julia l.. Dumont,
Micah p. Flint, Sarah T. Bolton, John B..
Dillon, John Finley. Rebecca S. Nichols,
George w. Cutter, Amelia B. Welby, Louisa
M. Thurston, Hugh Peters, Lewis and Fred
erick W.. Thomas, Gen. William O. Butler,
Alice Carey and others of like note.
Only q small number of these were the
authors of songs that became famous
songs that, without ceasing to be poetry,
appealed to the sympathies and affections
of the music-loving multitude. A great
musical composer who writes both the mu-
sic and libretto can accomplish this task
far more readily than the poet, for the
great musical composer must also be a poet,
or at the least know poetry when he sees
it. There are comparatively few great COM
posers, and the mediocre music writer and
teacher seems to have a natural dislike for
poetry and a corresponding affection for
'doggerel." Hence it is that most of our
popular songs and even a large per cent.
of our modern hymns are, in the literary
sense, the thing that Private Dalzell calls
"hogwash." OF poems that might have been
set to sacred music the writings of Otway
Curry, that Longfellow of the West, many
of whose songs antedated Longfellow, were
singularly replete. His Kingdom Come"
beginning,
Il do not believe the sad story
OF ages of sleep in the tomb;
l snail pass far away to the glory
And grandeur Of kingdom come"
is an example of this peculiar quality as
are also 1.-The Better Land The Great
A1~A LA0 LILY W SOlliC anu III
Armies OF the Eve.'' The latter is one of
the p~rettiest and sweetest of the early
Western songs. and full of that tenderness
and pathos that appeal to the common
heart of humanity. L can do no better serv-
ice than to repeat it here for the pleasure
of those who read the Sunday Journal:
Not in the golden morning,
Shall faded forms return;
For languidly and dimly then
Tho LIGHTS of I'M pI1rn
mot when the moon unfoldeth
Its sunny light and smile,
For these unto their bright repose
The wandering spirits vile.
But when the stars are vending
Their radiant way on high,
And gentle winds are whispering back
The music of the sky;
30 then those starry millions
Their streaming banners weave,
To marshal on their wildering way
The Armies of the Eve;
1.-THE dim and shadowy armies
OF our unquiet dreams,
Whose footsteps brush the feathery fern
And print the sleeping streams.
I'VE meet them in the calmness
OF high and holier chimes;
We greet them with the blessed names
OF old and happier times.
land marching in the starlight
Above the sleeping dust
They freshen all the fountain springs
OF our undying trust.
Around our every pathway
In beauteouS ranks they roam,
To guide us to the dreamy rest
OF our eternal home"
Next to him in the musical quality of his
verse came that Nestor of Western litera-
ture and progress, William d. Gallagher,
whose name was, for a half century, so
closely welded to every advance movement
in the behalf of literature, morals, educa-
ton or human liberty that was made in the
Ohio valley. 1t is not, however. recorded
that in all the vast amount of writing that
he did, both in verse and prose, he ever at
tempted but one popular song, and that was
The Spotted Fawn,' that thirty or forty
years ago enjoyed almost as wide a vogue
as some of the so-called New York street
songs do to-day, and there are those who
remember yet how
"On Mahketewa's flowery marge,
The Red ChiefS w1gWam stood,
When first the white mans rifle rang
Loud through the echoing wood.
The tomahawk and Scalping knife
Together lay at rest;
For peace was in the forest shades
And in the red mans breast.
oh, the Spotted Fawn!
Oh, the Spotted Fawn!
The light and life of the forests shades
With the Red Chiefs child is gone"
Like all very popular songs it was paro-
died, and
ooh, the Spotted Frog!
Oh the SnOftPd Frog