AMERICAN BALLADS.
My American Ballads, perhaps after "Proverbial Philosophy," the chief
cause of my Transatlantic popularities, had their origin at Albury. The
first of these and the most famous, as it induced several friendly
replies from American poets, was one whereof this below is the first
stanza. I wrote it in 1850, and read it after dinner to four visitors
from over the Atlantic to their great delectation, and of course they
sent MS. copies all over the States. It begins--
_To Brother Jonathan._
"Ho! brother, I'm a Britisher,
A chip of heart of oak,
That wouldn't warp or swerve or stir
From what I thought or spoke;
And you--a blunt and honest man,
Straightforward, kind, and true,
I tell you, brother Jonathan,
That you're a Briton too!"
I would copy more here, but as the whole ballad (equally with the two
just following) is printed in my Miscellaneous Poems and still extant at
Paternoster Square, I refer my reader thereto if he wants more of it.
The next of note was one headed "Ye Thirty Noble Nations," and is
remarkable for this strange fact, viz., that I composed about the half
of those eighteen eight-line stanzas in a semi-slumber. I was as I
thought asleep, but I got out of bed and pencilled the ballad (or most
of it, for I added and amended afterwards) straight off, and went to bed
again, of course to sleep profoundly; when I got up next morning and
found the MS. on my table, it seemed like a dream, but it wasn't. Those
who are curious may look out this piece of "_quasi_ inspiration" in that
poem-book aforesaid. But here is the opening verse for those who cannot
get the volume in bulk:--
"Ye thirty noble Nations
Confederate in one,
That keep your starry stations
Around the Western sun,--
I have a glorious mission,
And must obey the call,
A claim!--and a petition!
To set before you all."
The claim being love for Mother Britain; the petition for freedom to the
slave. It was published in 1851.
A third is chiefly noticeable for this. America had since my last
address to her as "Thirty Nations" added three more States; and I was
challenged to include them: which I did as thus; here are three of the
Stanzas in proof:--
"Giant aggregate of Nations,
Glorious Whole of glorious Parts,
Unto endless generations
Live United, hands and hearts!
Be it storm or summer weather,
Peaceful calm, or battle jar,
Stand in beauteous strength together,
Sister States, as Now ye are!
"Charmed with your commingled beauty
England sends the signal round,
'Every man must do his duty'
To redeem from bonds the bound!
Then indeed your banner's brightness
Shining clear from every star
Shall proclaim your joint uprightness,
Sister States, as Now ye are!
"So a peerless constellation
May those stars together blaze!
Three and ten-times threefold Nation
Go ahead in power and praise!
Like the many-breasted goddess
Throned on her Ephesian car,
Be--one heart in many bodies,
Sister States, as Now ye are!"
There are also several other like balladisms, and sundry sonnets, all of
which I had from time to time to greet my American audiences withal. And
thus before I paid my visits over there, the land was salted with ore
and the water enriched with ground-bait, so that when the poetaster
appeared he was welcomed by every class as a promoter of International
Kindliness.