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 passed,
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 superstitions 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 nobly 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 attitudes 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.