Part 1 (1/2)
Carolina Chansons.
by DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen.
PREFACE
In a continent but recently settled, many parts of which have as yet little historical or cultural background, the material for this volume has been gathered from a section that was one of the first to be colonized. Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all pa.s.sed, leaving each his legend; and a brilliant and more or less feudal civilization with its aristocracy and slaves has departed with the economic system upon which it rested.
From this medley of early colonial discovery and romance, from the memories of war and reconstruction, it has been as difficult to choose coherently as to maintain restraint in selection among the many grotesque negro legends and superst.i.tions so rich in imagery and music.
Coupled with this there has been another task; that of keeping these legends and stories in their natural matrix, the semi-tropical landscape of the _Low Country_, which somehow lends them all a pensively melancholy yet fitting background. Not to have so portrayed them, would have been to sacrifice their essentially local tang. To the reader unfamiliar with coastal Carolina, the unique aspects of its landscapes may seem exaggerated in these pages; the observant visitor and the native will, it is hoped, recognize that neither the colors nor the shadows are too strong. These poems, however, are not local only, they are stories and pictures of a chapter of American history little known, but dramatic and colorful, and in the relation of an important part to the whole they may carry a decided interest to the country at large.
Local color has a fatal tendency to remain local; but it is also true that the universal often borders on the void. It has been said, perhaps wisely, that the immediate future of American Poetry lies rather in the intimate feeling of local poets who can interpret their own sections to the rest of the country as Robinson and Frost have done so n.o.bly for New England, rather than in the effort to _yawp_ universally. Hence there is no attempt here to say, ”O New York, O Pennsylvania,” but simply, ”O Carolina.”
The South, however, has been ”interpreted” so often, either with condescending pity or nauseous sentimentality, that it is the aim of this book to speak simply and carefully amid a babel of unauthentic utterance. Nevertheless, the contents of this volume do not pretend to exact historical accuracy; this is poetry rather than history, although the legends and facts upon which it rests have been gathered with much painstaking research and careful verification. It should be kept in mind that these poems are impressionistic attempts to present the fleeting feeling of the moment, landscape moods, and the ephemeral att.i.tudes of the past. Legends are material to be moulded, and not facts to be recorded. Above all here is no pretence of propaganda.
As some of the material touched on is not accessible in standard reference, prose notes have been included giving the historical facts or background of legend upon which a poem has been based. These notes together with a bibliography will be found at the back of the volume.
If the only result of this book is to call attention to the literary and artistic values inherent in the South, and to the essentially unique and yet nationally interesting qualities of the Carolina Low Country, its landscapes and legends, the labor bestowed here will have secured its harvest.
DuBOSE HEYWARD--HERVEY ALLEN.
Charleston, S.C.
December, 1921.
CAROLINA CHANSONS
LEGENDS OF THE LOW COUNTRY
SeANCE AT SUNRISE
Place the new hands In the old hands Of the old generation, And let us tilt tables In the high room Of our imagination.
Let the thick veil glow thin, At sunrise--at sunrise-- Let the strange eyes peer in, The red, the black, and the white faces Of the still living dead Of the three races.
Let a quaint voice begin:
_Voice of an Indian_ ”Gone from the land, We leave the music of our names, As pleasant as the sound of waters; Gone is the log-lodge and the skin tepee, And moons ago the ghost-canoe brought home The latest of our sons and daughters-- Yet still we linger in tobacco smoke And in the rustling fields of maize; Faint are the tracks our moccasins have left, But they are there, down all your ways.”
_Voice of a Slave_ ”We do not talk Of hours in the rice When days were long, Nor of old masters Who are with us here Beyond all right or wrong.
Only white afternoons come back, When in the fields We reached the Mercy Seat On wings of song.”
_Voice of a Planter_ ”Nothing moves there but the night wind, Blowing the mosses like smoke; All would be silent as moonlight But for the owl in the oak-- Stairways that lead up to nothing-- Windows like terrible scars-- Snakes on a log in the cistern Peering at stars....”
_Spirit of Prophecy_ ”Dawn with its childish colors Stipples the solemn vault of night; Behind the horizon the sun shakes a b.l.o.o.d.y fist; Mysteries stand naked by the lakes of mist; Spirits take flight, The medicine man, The voodoo doctor-- Witches mount brooms.
The day looms.
Faster it comes, Bringing young giants Who hate solitude, And march with drums-- Beat--beat--beat, Down every ancient street, The young giants! Minded like boys: Action for action's sake they love And noise for noise.”