Part 32 (1/2)

Looking again, one can see the army in motion--

”A sight it was! that sea of army blue, The sloping guns of the swift tramping host, Winding its way the fields and forests through, As winds some river slowly to the coast.

The snow-white trains, the batteries grim, and then The steady tramp of sixty thousand men.”

Pa.s.sing over pages filled with stories of the camp and march, and with moving pictures of the dusky throng of camp-followers who saw in the coming of Sherman's men ”G.o.d's new exodus,” we come to the dramatic climax:

”But on a day, while tired and sore they went, Across some hills wherefrom the view was free, A sudden shouting down the lines was sent; They looked and cried, 'This is the sea! the sea!'

And all at once a thousand cheers were heard And all the army shout the glorious word.

”Bronzed soldiers stood and shook each other's hands; Some wept for joy, as for a brother found; And down the slopes, and from the far-off sands, They thought they heard already the glad sound Of the old ocean welcoming them on To that great goal they had so fairly won.”

I would not be unmindful of our Iowa poet's other contributions.

Before the century's close, Mr. Byers had written ”Switzerland and the Swiss,” and ”What I saw in Dixie,” also a book of verse ent.i.tled ”Happy Isles and Other Poems,” besides much occasional verse in celebration of events in Iowa history. So many and excellent are Major Byers' contributions to such occasions that their author has fitly been styled the ”uncrowned poet laureate of Iowa.” The t.i.tle is strengthened by two distinctively Iowa songs, one, ”The Wild Rose of Iowa,” a tribute to our State Flower; the other ent.i.tled ”Iowa,” sung to the air of ”My Maryland.”

One of Iowa's pioneer poets was signally honored by public insistence that his ”swan song” was the song of another and greater. In July, 1863, John L. McCreery, of Delhi, Iowa, published in _Arthur's Home Magazine_ a poem ent.i.tled ”There Is No Death.” The poem went the round of the press attributed to Bulwer Lytton. A newspaper controversy followed, the result of which was that the Iowa poet was generally awarded the palm of authors.h.i.+p. But error sometimes seems to possess more vitality than truth! Every few years thereafter, the McCreery poem would make another round of the press with Bulwer Lytton's name attached! Finally, in response to urgent request, the modest author published his story of the poem.

It is interesting to note the circ.u.mstances under which the first and best stanza was conceived. The author was riding over the prairie on horseback when night overtook him. Orion was ”riding in triumph down the western sky.” The ”subdued and tranquil radiance of the heavenly host” imparted a hopeful tinge to his somber meditations on life and death, and under the inspiration of the scene he composed the lines:

”There is no death; the stars go down To rise upon some other sh.o.r.e; And bright in heaven's jeweled crown They s.h.i.+ne forever more.”

The next morning he wrote other stanzas, the last of which reads:

”And ever near us, though unseen, The dear, immortal spirits tread; For all the boundless universe Is life--there are no dead.”

One of the curiosities of literature is the fact that the subst.i.tution of Bulwer's name for that of the author arose from the inclusion of McCreery's poem (without credit) in an article on ”Immortality” signed by one ”E. Bulmer.” An exchange copied the poem with the name Bulmer ”corrected” to Bulwer--and thus it started on its rounds. As late as 1870, Harper's ”Fifth Reader” credited the poem to Lord Lytton! The Granger ”Index to Poetry” (1904) duly credits it to the Iowa author.

It is interesting to recall, in pa.s.sing, the fact that nowhere in or out of the state is there to be found a copy of McCreery's little volume of ”Songs of Toil and Triumph,” published by Putnam's Sons in 1883, the unsold copies of which the author says he bought, ”thus acquiring a library of several hundred volumes.”

It seems to have been the fate of Iowa's pioneer poets to find their verse attributed to others. So it was with Belle E. Smith's well-known poem, ”If I Should Die To-night.” Under the reflex action of Ben King's clever parody, it has been the habit of newspaper critics to smile at Miss Smith's poem. But when we recall the fact that several poets thought well enough of it to stake their reputation on it; and that, in the course of its odyssey to all parts of the English-reading world, it was variously attributed to Henry Ward Beecher, F. K.

Crosby, Robert C. V. Myers, Lucy Hooper, Let.i.tia E. Landon, and others, and that Rider Haggard used it, in a mutilated form, in ”Jess,” leaving the reader to infer that it was part of his own literary creation, may we not conclude that the verse is a real poem worthy of its place in the anthologies? In the Granger Index (1904) it is credited to Robert C. V. Myers,--the credit followed by the words: ”Attributed to Arabella E. Smith”!

If support of Miss Smith's una.s.serted but now indisputable claim to the poem be desired, it can be found in Professor W. W. Gist's contribution on the subject ent.i.tled ”Is It Unconscious a.s.similation?”[2] Miss Smith--long a resident of Newton, Iowa, and later a sojourner in California until her recent death--was of a singularly retiring nature. She lived much within herself and thought profoundly, as her poetical contributions to the _Midland Monthly_ reveal. In none of her other poems did she reveal herself quite as clearly as in the poem under consideration. It is in four stanzas. In the first is this fine line referring to her own face, calm in death: ”And deem that death had left it almost fair.”

[2] Midland Monthly, March, 1894.

The poem concludes with the pathetic word to the living:

”Oh! friends, I pray to-night, Keep not your kisses for my dead, cold brow-- The way is lonely, let me feel them now.

Think gently of me; I am travel-worn; My faltering feet are pierced with many a thorn.

Forgive, O hearts estranged; forgive, I plead!

When dreamless rest is mine I shall not need The tenderness for which I long to-night!”

I like to think of the veteran Tacitus Hussey, of Des Moines, as that octogenarian with the heart of youth. This genial poet and quaint philosopher made a substantial contribution to the century's output of literature, a collection of poems of humor and sentiment ent.i.tled ”The River Bend and Other Poems.” This author has contributed the words of a song which is reasonably sure of immortality. I refer to ”Iowa, Beautiful Land,” set to music by Congressman H. M. Towner. It fairly sings itself into the melody.

”The corn-fields of billowy gold, In Iowa, 'Beautiful Land,'

Are smiling with treasure untold, In Iowa,'Beautiful Land.'”

The next stanza, though including one prosaic line, has taken on a new poetic significance since the war-stricken nations of the old world are turning to America for food. The stanza concludes:

”The food hope of nations is she-- With love overflowing and free And her rivers which run to the sea, In Iowa, 'Beautiful Land.'”