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THE OLD FOLKS AT HOME

 
Way down upon de Suwanee ribber,
Far, far away,
Dere’s wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere’s wha de old folks stay.
All up and down de whole creation,
Sadly I roam,
Still longin’ for de old plantation,
And for de old folks at home.
All de world am sad and dreary,
Eb’rywhere I roam.
Oh! darkies, how my heart grows weary,
Far from de old folks at home.
 
 
All round de little farm I wander’d
When I was young,
Den many happy days I squander’d,
Many de songs I sung.
When I was playin’ wid my brudder,
Happy was I,
Oh! take me to my kind old mudder,
Dere let me live and die.
 
 
One little hut among de bushes,
One dat I love,
Still sadly to my mem’ry rushes,
No matter where I rove.
When will I see de bees a-humming
All round de comb?
When will I hear de banjo tumming
Down in my good old home?
 

– Stephen Collins Foster.

Stephen Collins Foster has a very tender place in the hearts of the American people. His songs are marked by a tenderness and pathos which goes straight to the fountain of tears. Foster was born on the 4th of July, 1826, at Lawrenceburg, Pennsylvania. His native town was founded by his father, but was many years ago merged into the city of Pittsburg.

Young Foster had good opportunities for education in an academy at Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and afterward at Jefferson College. He had a genius for music almost from his birth; while yet but a baby he could wake sweet harmonies from any musical instrument he touched. At the age of seven he had mastered the flageolet without a teacher, and had already become quite proficient on the piano and the flute. He had a clear though not a very strong voice, but one that was under perfect control. As a lad he wrote his first composition, a waltz, which was rendered at a school commencement. The composition, coming from so young a boy, attracted a good deal of attention. His talent for music was so marked that he became the leader throughout his school days of all musical affairs among the students, and he was the center of every serenading party or concert. To compose the words and music of a song was his chief delight. He wrote the words first, and then hummed them over and over till he found notes that would express them properly. While he was in the academy a minstrel troupe came to town and he attended their performance. He succeeded in having one of his songs introduced into their program the next night, which greatly pleased the local public. This was Oh, Susanna, which was afterward published in 1842, and immediately gained great popularity. This aroused his musical enthusiasm, and he offered still other songs to publishers, and finally determined to devote himself to musical composition for a livelihood. He attended all the negro camp meetings he could reach, listened to the songs of colored people, gathering new ideas, and this faithful reproduction of what was up to that time an undiscovered mine of musical possibilities, was the secret of his great success as a writer of negro melodies.

Foster had a deeply poetic soul, and would go into the wildest ecstasy over a pretty melody or a bit of rich harmony. There is a certain vein of tender retrospect in nearly all his songs. Take Old Dog Tray, of which a hundred and twenty-five thousand copies were sold the first eighteen months after publication. There is something exceedingly tender about it: —

 
“The morn of life is past, and ev’ning comes at last,
It brings me a dream of a once happy day,
Of merry forms I’ve seen upon the village green,
Sporting with my old dog Tray.
Old dog Tray’s ever faithful,
Grief cannot drive him away,
He’s gentle, he is kind; I’ll never, never find
A better friend than Old Dog Tray!”
 

How often we say one to another, “It is good to be missed.” But no one has ever voiced that universal feeling of the heart as perfectly as has Foster in his popular song, Do They Miss Me at Home?

 
“Do they miss me at home, do they miss me?
’Twould be an assurance most dear,
To know that this moment some lov’d one
Were saying, ‘I wish he were here’;
To feel that the group at the fireside
Were thinking of me as I roam;
Oh, yes, ’twould be joy beyond measure
To know that they miss me at home.”
 

Foster was a most prolific writer, producing between two and three hundred popular songs, furnishing both the words and the music. Among his best known war songs are We’ve a Million in the Field, Stand by the Flag, For the Dear Old Flag I Die, and Was my Brother in the Battle? His most famous song, however, and one which he hoped would rival Home, Sweet Home, – a song of which the soldiers amid the loneliness and homesickness of camp never grew weary – was The Old Folks at Home. For the time it has been before the public, it is probably the best known song in the world. Four hundred thousand copies of it were sold the first few years after it was written. The tune has crossed all oceans and become a favorite with martial bands of music in every region of the earth.

The author of this sweet old melody that touches the heart of all peoples closed his life in great sorrow and poverty. In the days of his youth and early manhood he was greatly beloved by all who knew him. He had multitudes of friends and in character was modest, unassuming, and almost as shy as a girl. He was happily married in 1854, in Pittsburg, but the bright prospects which he then had of a happy home life were eclipsed through his yielding to the appetite for strong drink. In 1860 his dissipation separated him from his family, and he settled in New York City, where for awhile he kept an old down-town grocery on the corner of Hester and Christy Streets. Some of his most famous songs were composed in the back room of that old grocery on pieces of brown wrapping-paper. Many of these songs that under the impelling force of his appetite for drink were sold for a few dollars, often brought hundreds and even thousands of dollars to the purchasers.

On the 12th of January, 1864, he was injured by a fall, and died on the following day in Bellevue Hospital, friendless, and in abject poverty. This brilliant man whose melodies were sung by hundreds and thousands of tongues, and to whom a single publisher had paid more than twenty thousand dollars of royalties on his music, died lonely in a great city, and his body was carried back to his native State through the charity of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. His funeral, however, was attended by an immense concourse of people, comprising both the rich and poor of Pittsburg who remembered his brighter days, and who felt that the city was honored by his genius. Musicians attended in large force, and the songs they sang above his grave were his own melodies.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY

 
By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the one the Blue;
Under the other the Gray.
 
 
These, in the robings of glory;
Those, in the gloom of defeat;
All, with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.
 
 
From the silence of sorrowful hours
The desolate mourners go,
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and foe;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the roses, the Blue;
Under the lilies, the Gray.
 
 
So, with an equal splendor,
The morning sun-rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender,
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Broidered with gold, the Blue;
Mellowed with gold, the Gray.
 
 
So when the summer calleth
On forest and field of grain,
With an equal murmur falleth
The cooling drip of the rain;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Wet with the rain, the Blue;
Wet with the rain, the Gray.
 
 
Sadly, but not with upbraiding,
The generous deed was done;
In the storm of the years that are fading,
No braver battle was won;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Under the blossoms, the Blue;
Under the garlands, the Gray.
 
 
No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.
 

– Francis Miles Finch.

Francis Miles Finch, the author of The Blue and the Gray, was born in Ithaca, New York, in 1827. He graduated with honor from Yale College in 1845 in his eighteenth year. He studied law and became a practicing lawyer of fine reputation at Ithaca, being elected an associate judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York in 1881. In July, 1853, he read a poem at the centennial celebration of the Linonian Society of Yale, in which several lyrics were introduced, including one on Nathan Hale, the patriot spy of the Revolution. This at once achieved wide popularity. His one poem, however, which will carry his name down to the future is The Blue and the Gray.

Two years after the war of the Rebellion there appeared in the New York Tribune, the following item: “The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by nobler sentiments than many of their sisters, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers.” This, coming at a time when a great deal of the soreness of defeat and the bitterness aroused by the war still remained, seemed to be the first indication of an era of more kindly feeling and a more generous Christian spirit.

The eye of a poet is always seeing the poetic possibilities in current incidents, and when Mr. Finch saw this news item in his favorite daily paper, he not only saw the romance and pathos of the situation, but thought that such an exhibition of generosity should be at once met and welcomed in the same temper. It was out of that impulse that The Blue and the Gray grew into being. Mr. Finch sent it to the Atlantic Monthly, where it was published in the September number of 1867, prefaced with the news extract from the Tribune which had suggested it. The poem at once aroused marked attention and became popular throughout the entire country, but especially so in the South.

John Hutchinson was paying a visit to Vinnie Ream, the sculptor, who designed the General Thomas monument in April, 1874. Among the guests were three ex-Confederate generals. At her request Hutchinson sang The Blue and the Gray; when he had finished singing the song, the three Confederates rose simultaneously, and one after the other shook his hand with great heartiness. “Mr. Hutchinson,” they said, “that song is a passport to you anywhere in the South.” Alexander H. Stephens, the ex-vice-president of the Confederacy, upon hearing from these gentlemen of Mr. Hutchinson’s singing, sent a special request to him to come to his hotel and sing The Blue and the Gray. He was wheeled into the room in his chair to listen to the song. At the conclusion he declared that the country was safe when such sentiments became popular.

Mr. Hutchinson himself composed the music for Finch’s famous song. At the great Atlanta Exposition in 1895, Mr. Hutchinson made the journey to Atlanta by special invitation of the management, and was present on “Blue and Gray” Day. He says of the experience: “Who can picture my thoughts on that notable occasion? To think that, at last, the man who had known what it was to be maligned and buffeted in the South, should be received with honor in its chief city, and witness the effects of reconstruction in the great cotton country! It was a ‘New South,’ indeed, that I saw. And there, to the great gathering of Union and Confederate soldiers, I sang the song that had so often in later years been a key to open the Southern heart to the Hutchinsons: —

 
“‘No more shall the war cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red;
They banish our anger forever,
When they laurel the graves of our dead!
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;
Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.’”
 

Perhaps no one thing has done so much to soften the bitterness which civil war left in our country as the beautiful ceremonies connected with Memorial Day. As the years have gone on, and every Memorial Day the Southern soldiers have been more and more wont to cover the graves of their dead foemen with wreaths of Southern flowers, and again and again gray-haired veterans from both the “Blue and the Gray” have met beside the Hudson to do honor to the great commander who at Appomattox said, “Let us have peace,” the coldness of suspicion and distrust have blown away, until, now that the boys from the South as well as from the North have marched together again under the old flag to fight a foreign foe, we see eye to eye.

The birth of Decoration Day deserves to be held in everlasting remembrance. Mrs. John A. Logan, the wife of the great Volunteer General, in company with some friends, made a trip to Richmond in March, 1868. Mrs. Logan was particularly impressed by the evidences of desolation and destruction which she witnessed everywhere, but which seemed to her to be particularly emphasized by the innumerable graves which filled the cemeteries, many of which were those of Confederate soldiers. In the summer before they had all been decorated by wreaths of flowers and little flags, all of which were faded, but which seemed to the tender-hearted woman to be a mute evidence of the devotion and gratitude of those people to the men who had lost their lives to their cause.

On speaking of this to General Logan, on her return, he said it was a beautiful custom and one worthy to be copied, and, as he was then Commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, that he intended issuing an order, asking the entire people of the nation to inaugurate the custom of annually decorating the graves of the patriotic dead as a memorial of their sacrifice and devotion to country. He issued the first order for May 30, 1868, and it was so enthusiastically received that Congress made it a national holiday.

It will thus be seen, that Memorial Day was born out of a partnership between a woman’s tender heart and a man’s noble purpose. It is also sweet to reflect that South and North united at its birth. The Southern mourners were the first to cover the graves of their dead with flowers, as they were the first to decorate the graves of their fallen foes; while their Northern brothers led in calling to it national attention, and made the custom as wide as the country. From henceforth we all unite in the closing couplet of Finch’s noble song: —

 
“Love and tears for the Blue;
Tears and love for the Gray.”
 

RULE, BRITANNIA

 
When Britain first, at heaven’s command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter, the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
 
 
The nations, not so blest as thee,
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
While thou shalt flourish, great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
 
 
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blast that rends the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
 
 
Thee, haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame, —
But work their woe and thy renown.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
 
 
To thee belongs the rural reign,
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore encircles thine.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
 
 
The Muses, still with freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coasts repair,
Blessed Isle! With matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
Rule, Britannia,
Britannia rule the waves,
Britons never shall be slaves.
 

– James Thomson.

The poet Southey declares that this noble ode in honor of Great Britain will be the political hymn of that country as long as she maintains her political power. It had a peculiar origin. Dr. Thomas Arne, the great musical composer, composed the music for his Masque of Alfred, and it was first performed at Cliefden House, near Maidenhead, on August 1, 1740. Cliefden was then the residence of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the occasion was to commemorate the accession of George I. and in honor of the birthday of young Princess Augusta. Doctor Arne afterward altered it into an opera, and it was so performed at Drury Lane Theater on March 20, 1745, for the benefit of Mrs. Arne. In the advertisement of that performance Doctor Arne specially announces that Rule Britannia, which he calls “a celebrated ode,” will be sung. We judge from this that it had even at that time gained great popularity.

Dr. Thomas Arne himself had a very interesting story. He was the son of a wealthy upholsterer in London and was born in 1704. He was educated at Eton, and his father intended him for the law, but while in school he had such a craving for music that he would often dress himself in servant’s livery and sit in the upper gallery at the theaters. He learned to play with the strings of his spinet muffled in a handkerchief. One day his father attended a musicale at the house of a friend, and to his great astonishment and disgust, his own son occupied the place of first violinist. The father, however, decided to make the best of it, and not to fight against nature. From that time on the music-loving boy was allowed to play at home, and it was not very long before the whole family were proud of his achievements. He was the first English composer to rival Italian music in compass and difficulty. Doctor Arne lived and died absorbed in musical tones. Death came to him in the midst of his work, March 5, 1778. While attempting to illustrate a musical idea, he sang an air in faltering tones; the sound grew fainter, until song and breathing ceased together. Perhaps if he could have chosen his way to die this would have pleased him best of all.

The words for this Masque of Alfred, in which Rule Britannia appears, were written jointly by James Thomson, the author of The Seasons, and David Mallet, a Scotch tutor. It is not certain who was the author of these verses, Thomson, or Mallet. During Thomson’s life in the newspapers of the day he alone was mentioned as the author. He died in 1751, and Mallet brought out, in 1755, his Masque of Britannia, at Drury Lane Theater, and it was received with great applause. The Monthly Review, a Scottish magazine of the time, in noticing it says: “Britannia, a Masque set to music by Doctor Arne. Mr. David Mallet is its reputed author. His design is to animate the sons of Britannia to vindicate their country’s rights, and avenge her wrongs.” On the whole, the weight of evidence seems to be in favor of the famous ode having been written by Thomson, but no one will ever be able to prove certainly as to whether it originated in his brain or Mallet’s.

Rule Britannia soon became a favorite with the Jacobite party. Many parodies of it have been written, some of which were very famous in their time. One is to be found in The True Royalist, a collection of English songs long since out of print, which is perhaps worth repeating here: —

 
“Britannia, rouse at heav’n’s command!
And crown thy native Prince again;
Then Peace shall bless thy happy land,
And Plenty pour in from the main:
Then shalt thou be – Britannia thou shalt be
From home and foreign tyrants free.
 
 
“Behold, great Charles! thy godlike son,
With majesty and sweetness crown’d;
His worth th’ admiring world doth own,
And fame’s loud trump proclaims the sound.
Thy captain him, Britannia, him declare!
Of kings and heroes he’s the heir.
 
 
“The second hope young Hero claims,
Th’ extended empire of the main;
His breast with fire and courage flames,
With Nature’s bounds to fix thy reign.
He (Neptune-like), Britannia, will defy
All but the thunder of the sky.
 
 
“The happiest states must yield to thee,
When free from dire corruption’s thrall;
Of land and sea thou’lt Emp’ror be,
And ride triumphant round the ball:
Britannia, unite! Britannia must prevail,
Her powerful hand must guide the scale.”
 

There is still another parody, also once very famous, contained in the book referred to. The first verse is as follows, —

 
“When our great Prince, with his choice band,
Arriv’d from o’er the azure main,
Heav’n smil’d with pleasure, with pleasure on the land,
And guardian angels sung this strain:
Go, brave hero; brave hero, boldly go,
And wrest thy scepter from thy foe.”
 

In letting the parodies die, and in retaining the original song, succeeding generations have manifestly ensured the survival of the fittest. There has perhaps been no time since the Revolutionary War when Americans have listened to Rule Britannia with as sympathetic ears as since the beginning of our war with Spain. The almost universal sympathy expressed for us by all classes in England has served to bring the two nations closer together than a hundred years of ordinary intercourse. Whether or no it brings about the Anglo-American alliance so widely discussed, it has made Rule Britannia a grateful song to patriotic Americans.