The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-01-21
sOUTH's SONGS AND POEMS.
Southern literature stands the Test
N~- of Time.

N~- of Time.
Mr.. Pleasant A. Stovall in response
to the toast, Songs and Poems of the
South made one of the most graceful
addresses of the evening
They. tell u.s. he said that the old
South had no literature. Modern mag
azines are demonstrating to their own
satisfaction that letters did not -four
ish where slavery existed. Some of
our own writer's who try to catch the
Northern eye are led away by the fall
lacy that under the old regime our
people did not make books or poetry,
and that the Southern pen needed the
emancipation which freedom furnished.
This is a very beautiful theory for
those who claim that the muse was
unshackled at Appomattox; the only
trouble is, it is not true. 1t was fact,
perhaps, that our best writers drifted
into polemics. Statesmen and orators
never lived with higher ideals or no.
bier style. The law held some of the
best talent of the day, but beyond all
this there was no school of writer's
with purer English or more engaging
fancy. Some of the best novels in the
language were the products of South
the lyric creations of the old South
scared above the commonplace stand
ards of the present and reached the
highest mark of American poetry.
Our people possessed the broad Gull
ture which grew from lives of easy cir
cumstances. of leisure, of close read
ing and of extensive travel Every far
mer had his library, and his son were
trained in the best colleges at home
Oh. 4 H. &c
deeply stirred by the events leading
up to the war. Popular feeling was
never more aroused; public imag
ination never more inf1amed; courage
and manliness never more Hassertive;
heroism and endurance never more
conspicuous and disaster never more
overwhelming. Given these conditions
and this temperament and you have
the high Olympus of the epic era.
Upon the notes of the bugle call rode
the echoes of the poets Tyre with the
inspiration which animates the min
strel who sings of arms and of the
hero" As soon as secession was pro-
claimed the Southern harp sounded an
exalted key, cheering the statesmen
who unfurled the young flag to an
admiring world and strengthening the
arm of the soldier who followed the
Southern cross and
Fed his country's sacred dust
With floods of crimson rain"
we needed no Byron to come from
a foreign shore to summon our patri-
otto pride with an alien muse; we
needed no Campbell to weep over the
ruins of a newer Warsaw or to invoke
the departed spirits of the mighty
dead From every poets heart was
sounded poets song, which could
OnlV hn t~ed Inv -,
ton or find response in heroic people.
l doubt whether land has ever been
so blessed by its warriors, so despoiled
by its enemies so glorified by it's songs
and POEMS Every journal had its
poets corner; men did not write for
money or for fame, but sang from an
overlooking heart. We burned our
books of trade unfettered the tragic
muse; the poets song followed the bat
tie cry; patriotism marched in exalted
numbers and from every battle plain
from Manassas to Appomattox kept
the fires of ehivalry bright in the
hearts of gold.
There was Paul Hamilton Hayne
whose invocation to Carolina lives to-.
day in classic verse; there was Henry
Timrod whose poems have Just been
published and read in every section;
there were James r. Randall and
Abram j. Ryan who illuminated the
struggle with their stirring poems
there were Frank o. Ticknor and Car
RE Belle Sinclaire; and there was our
own poet, soldier and orator to pre-
serve in tender ode The Old Gray Suit
and to enbalm the gallantry of The
Man of the Twelfth of May. All, Mr.
chairman! when l read the production
of those gifted pens, I realize what
grovelling workers the literary hack of
to-day has become How exalted those
standards; how unselfish those i'm
pulses; how pure and uplifting the
style of the war poems of the South
We may tone down our politics to suit
the spirit of a commercial age: we may
adjust our craftsmanship to the policy
of compromise; we may reduce our
literature to meet the fads and preju-
dice of Northern readers, but thank
God the songs and poems of the South
can never be reconstructed
eve pledge our troth to a reunited
country. 1t is safe to live in a great
republic; it is we'll for brethren TO
dwell together in unity but there is the
same old rebel yell which leaps from
Southern threats at the song of Dixie
and there are cheers and tears when we
listen to the refrain of the 'Bonny Blue
Flag. We greet our brethren of the
Northern states with assured frater-
nifty we share in the laurels of a
Schley with something of the pride of
kinship. But when think of Mary
land, his native state, it is with the
added pride that after eight years of
political apostasy it has returned to the
ranks of the solid South. In welcom-
ing it back to the house of it's fathers I
recall the stirring words of James r.
Randall, its most gifted son, the poet
laureate of the South, beseeching it to
join the struggling sisterhood in 1861:
THE despots heel is on thy shore,
Maryland,
The torch is at thy temple door,
Maryland.
AVenge the patriotic gore,
Which flecked the STREETS of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of wore