JOSEPH HOPKINSON (1770-1842)

The author of 'Hail Columbia' was the son of Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and he was born at Philadelphia and educated at the University of Pennsylvania. His life-work was almost wholly in the field of war and statesmanship. He is known to-day only because of his one stirring patriotic song. An account of the circumstances under which the song was composed may be found in the notes at the end of the volume.

HAIL COLUMBIA
Tune-President's March'

Hail, Columbia! happy land!
Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band!

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause, And when the storm of war was gone, Enjoyed the peace your valor won.

Let independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies.

Firm, united, let us be, Rallying round our Liberty; As a band of brothers joined, Peace and safety we shall find.

Immortal patriots! rise once more:
Defend your rights, defend your shore:
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Let no rude foe, with impious hand,
Invade the shrine where sacred lies
Of toil and blood the well-earned prize.
While offering peace sincere and just,
In Heaven we place a manly trust,
That truth and justice will prevail,
And every scheme of bondage fail.

Firm, united, etc.

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25

Sound, sound, the trump of Fame!
Let WASHINGTON'S great name
Ring through the world with loud applause,
Ring through the world with loud applause;

The writer of the American national song was born in Frederick, Maryland, the son of a veteran of the Revolution. He was educated at St. Johns College, Annapolis, and, like Hopkinson, chose the law as his nofession. In later years he removed to Washington, where he became district attorney. He was in no way connected with the army or navy and his being on board the ship of the enemy came about through an attempt to negotiate the release of a prisoner. The full story is told in the notes. Key's lyric, set to the music Anacreon in Heaven,' became instantly popular and it has now won recognition as the American national anthem.

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And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall, wave

O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

(1814)

JOHN PIERPONT (1785-1866)

On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze, o'er the tower

His

Airs of Palestine, 1816, sold three editions within two years, and it was long supposed that it held a secure place among the American classics, but with the rising of the new school of poetry which ruled the middle century he faded from view until to-day along with such other poets contemporaneously famous as Charles Sprague and James Hillhouse and James G. Percival, he is read only by a few students of the history of American literature. His 'Warren's Address' was long a favorite with schoolboy orators.

WARREN'S ADDRESS TO THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS

STAND! the ground's your own, my braves! Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it, ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they're a-fire!

And, before you, see
Who have done it! From the vale
On they come! And will ye quail? —
Leaden rain and iron hail

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Let their welcome be!

Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'nrescued land

Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto,-In God is our trust: '

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In the God of battles trust!
Die we may,- and die we must;
But, O, where can dust to dust

Be consigned so well,
As where heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,
And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell!
(1812)

Richard Henry Dana, father of Richard Henry Dana, Junior, author of Two Years Before the Mast, was a native of Cambridge and a graduate of Harvard College. He was one of the earliest of the Boston group of writers to devote himself to literature as a profession. He was one of the editors of The North American Review when Bryant's 'Thanatopsis was accepted by that quar terly and published, and he was one of the earliest of American critics to recognize the new English school of poetry headed by Wordsworth and Coleridge. His critical articles. his Idle Man which was published in numbers, and his stories must be considered by the historian of American literature. His best known poem is The Buccaneer, 1827, very popular in its day but now almost wholly forgotten.

Born in Ireland, 1789, brought a child to America by his emigrating parents, reared in poverty, but at every step making the most of his opportunities until at last he arose to eminence as a lawyer in New Orleans, Wilde lives among the American poets by virtue of a single pathetic lyric that has secured a permanent place in the American anthology. He was a true poet with a fervid Celtic soul, a lover of art and beauty, and under kindlier conditions might have won a larger place among the poets.

STANZAS

My life is like the summer rose,

That opens to the morning sky, But ere the shades of evening close,

Is scattered on the ground-to die! Yet on the rose's humble bed The sweetest dews of night are shed, As if she wept the waste to seeBut none shall weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf

That trembles in the moon's pale ray: Its hold is frail-its date is brief, Restless and soon to pass away! Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The winds bewail the leafless treeBut none shall breathe a sigh for me.

My life is like the prints, which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,

All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface
All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea
But none, alas! shall mourn for me!
(About 1815)

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE (1792-1852)

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The author of 'Home Sweet Home' was perhaps the most homeless man of his generation. Born in New York City, reared in Bos

ton, and then, after a brief stay at Union College, which he left in 1809 to go upon the stage, condemned by his chosen vocation to a life of wandering, he became at length a familiar figure in all the cities of America, as well as in London and Paris. In all he wrote upwards of sixty dramatic pieces, only one of which, however, Brutus, may claim literary merit. The song 'Home, Sweet Home' which occurs in his opera Clari, or the Maid of Milan, was first sung at the Covent Garden Theater, London, in 1823. He died in Tunis in 1852. In 1883 his remains were removed to Washington, D. C.

There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home! (1823)

MARIA GOWEN BROOKS
(1795-1845)

Few have ever written of Maria Brooks without quoting the poet Southey, who hailed her as Maria del Occidente' and in Chapter LIV of his The Doctor styled her 'the most impassioned and most imaginative of all poetesses.' She was born at Boston in a family of wealth and culture. After the death of her father and the failure of his business, her education was continued by Mr. Brooks, a Boston merchant, who later became her husband. After his death in 1823 she lived for a time in Cuba and then in London where, under the supervision of Southey, was issued in 1833 her chief poetical work, Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven, an oriental romance of the Byron-Moore type, its theme undoubtedly suggested by the book of Tobit in the Apocrypha. In 1842 she published an autobiographical romance entitled Idomen; or, the Vale of Yumuri. If all her poetical work were at the impassioned height reached by a few of her lyrical passages, critics still might echo, perhaps, the somewhat sweeping judgment of Southey.