Item 3: Poem titled, “Wyoming” by Fitz-Greene Halleck, no date
Item — Box: 15, Folder: 3
Series VII: Poetry, 1827-1941
From the Series:
Series VII: Poetry, 1827-1941, is arranged chronologically and features a broad range of mid 19th century to mid 20th century works including poems, booklets, and correspondence of various themes covering the difficult nature of military battles, religious faith, and romance. A main portion of the series highlights poetry and ballads focusing on the natural beauty of the American landscape and contrasting this with the nation's violent past. Featured authors in this series include Fitz-Greene Halleck, an American poet who worked as the personal secretary and advisor to John Jacob Aster, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, one of the most proficient American poets of the 19th century. Halleck and Longfellow's poems cover religious themes that explore the role that faith plays in determination, its relationship to the land, and how it impacts younger generations. William Henry Furness, American poet who was described by his peers as a theologian, transcendentalist, and an abolitionist, is another author in the collection that explores these religious themes without the nationalistic perspective. Finally, the largest outlier of this series is the romantic poem written by a British Major John Andre who was a major in the British Army and head of its Secret Service in America during the American Revolutionary War. Andre’s poem, The Frantick Lover, is included in a larger booklet with an introduction by Howard H. Peckham, historian and an authority on colonial and early American history, who provides background and historical context on the Major and the development of the poem. Central themes of this work include the destructive effect that feelings of jealousy and obsession can have especially when disguised as feelings of love. This work provides an interesting comparison to the other American poets within the collection.
Dates
- Created: no date
Creator
- Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 1790-1867 (Person)
Disclaimer for Name and Subject Authorities
Some of the name and subject authority tags have been assigned by educated guessing and estimation of persons and subjects by region, age, profession, and familial relationships. They have been thoroughly researched by using primary and secondary sources available digitally, and named in each description, or in some cases linked directly to the person tag.
Access:
All series and subseries within this collection are open for research, with the exception of a few files within the Academia series that are restricted. The Academia series contains financial and sensitive institutional records from Wilkes College, and financial report records from Princeton University that will remain restricted for 80 years upon creation.
Extent
1 items
Language of Materials
From the Collection: English
Type of Material:
Poem
Condition:
Fair, fragile.
Measurements:
6 1/16 in. x 9 in.
Title:
Wyoming
Description:
Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1790-1867, was an American poet. Born in Connecticut, Halleck moved to New York at the age of twenty to pursue writing. When he was 42, he worked as the personal secretary and advisor to John Jacob Aster who later appointed Halleck as one of the original trustees of his library. Halleck’s poem, titled, “Wyoming,” describes the conflicting nature of American soil from the view of its citizens. The poem references a poem by Scottish poet Thomas Campbell, titled, “Gertrude of Wyoming” which explores the beauty of America’s landscape, particularly Susquehanna's shore in Pennsylvania. Halleck directly quotes Campbell’s poem in line two: “On Susquehanna's side, fair Wyoming!” (1.2) The poem’s beginning describes the beauty of nature and the natural wonders of the Wyoming Valley. Slowly, other historical figures are introduced along with the idea of war and loss. Halleck writes, “But where are they, the beings of the mud” (5.1) in reference to the people who have become part of the land in death. After the description of ‘Judge Hollenback,’ a patriarchal figure who maintained records, there is a description of a younger woman (16) and an older woman. The younger is described in a “jacket of light green” (8.3) with “thoughts of beauty born” (8.2) as she wanders through a field, this figure “knows no more than Cobbett or Voltaire” (8.9). The older woman is “widowed, pray and old” (9.1) and knows the loss that the land carries due to her age she remembers all of it; her role in the poem is to act as a figure “who tells you where the fools of Battle steps/Upon this day of massacre” (9.2-3). She represents the older generation who knows the trauma of the land and the people who died in establishing it: “When all the land a funeral mourning kept” (9.7). Contrasting with the youthful innocence of the other woman who doesn’t know these hardships, she is not weighed down by them and can, instead, enjoy the beauty of the land for what it is. The final line summarizes the sentiment of the poem; “Has death no triumph-hours, save, on the battle day?” (10.9) death is not something meant to be idolized except given in the name of a cause and with bravery that only battle can facilitate. What’s left, after the battle day is over, is the memories of loss and memories that might best be forgotten so the people can move on.
The Modern Translation is missing three stanzas (6, 7, 8).
Translation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau quote;
“Say if nature has not made this beautiful country for a Julie, for a Claire, and for a St. Oreux; But don't look for them.”
Transcription:
[Page 1]
Wyoming By Halleck
“Dites si la nature n’a pas fait ce beau pays pourune Julie, pour une Claire, et pour un St. Oreux; mais ne les cherchez pas. Rousseau. Thou com’st in beauty on my gaze at last, “On Susquehannah’s side, fair Wyoming,” Image of many a dream in hours long past, When life was in its bud and blossoming, And wasters, pushing from the fountain spring Of poor enthusiash thought, dimmed my young eyes, As by the poet borne, on unseen wing, I breathed, in fancy ‘neath thy cloudless skies, The summer’s air, and heard her echoed harmonies.
I then but dreamed, - then art before me now In life a vision of the brain no more: I’ve stood upon the wooded mountain’s brow, That batles high they lovely valley o’er, And now, where wind thy river’s greenest shore, Within a bower of syca-uores an laid, And winds, as soft, and sweet as ever bore The fragrance of wild showers through sun and shade, And singing in the trees, whose low boughs press my head.
Nature hath made thee lovlier than the power Even of Campbell’s peu hath pictured; he Had woven, had he gazed one sunny hours Upon its smiling vale, its scenery With more of truth, and made each rock and tree Known like old friends, and greeted from afar; And there are tales of sad reality,
[Page 2]
In the dark legends of thy border war, With woes of deeper tint than his own Gertude’s are.
But where are they, the beings of the mud, The bard’s creations, moulded not of clay, Hearts to strange bliss and suffering assigned, Young Gertrude, Albert, Waldergrave, where are they? We need not ask. The people of to-day Appear good, honest quick men enough, And hospitable too - for ready pay-- With manners like their roads, a little rough, And hands whose past is warm and welcoming, tho’ tough.
Judge Hollenback, who keeps the tooll-bridge gate And the town-records, is the Albert now Of Wyoming, like him, in church and state, Her Doric clumn--and upon his brow The thin hairs, white with seventy winters’ snow, Look patriarchal. Waldergrave’t were in vain To point out here, unless in you scare-crow That stands, full-uninformed, upon the plains, To pieghter flocks of crows and blackbirds from the grain.
For he would look particularly droll In his “Iberian boot” and “Spanish plume”, And be the wonder of each Christian soul, As of the birds that scare-crow and his broom. But Gertrude, in her loveliness and bloom, Hath many a model here, for Woman’s eye In court, or cottage, wheresoe’er her home, Hath a heart-spell too holy and too high To be o’erpraised even by her worshipper, Poesy.
[Page 3]
There’s one in the next field - of sweet sixteen - Singing and summoning thoughts of beauty born hi heaven, with her jacket of light green, “Love darling eyes, and tressers like the morn,” Without a shoe or stocking, hoeing corn. Whither, like Gertrude, she oft wanders there With Shakespeare’s volume in her bosom borne I think is doubtful. Of the poet-player The maiden knows no more than Cobbett or Voltaire.
There is a woman, widowed, pray and old, Who tells you where the fools of Battle steps Upon this day of massacre. She told Its tale, and pointed to the spot, and wept, Whereon her father and five brothers slept, Shroudless, the bright-dreamed slumbers of the brave When all the land a funeral mourning kept. And there wild laurels, planted on the grave By Native’s hand, in air pale red blossoms wave.
And on the margin of you orchard hill Are marks where time-worn battlements have been, And in the tall grass traces briger sties, Of “armory fieze and wedged ravelin” Five Hundred of her brave that valley preen Trod on the mour, in soldier-spirit pay. But twenty lived to till the noon-day scene; And where are now the twenty? Passed away. Has death no triumph-hours, save, on the battle day?
[Page 4]
Wyoming Wyoming By [Fitz-Greene] Halleck By [Fitz-Greene] Halleck
- Translation End -
Wyoming By Halleck
“Dites si la nature n’a pas fait ce beau pays pourune Julie, pour une Claire, et pour un St. Oreux; mais ne les cherchez pas. Rousseau. Thou com’st in beauty on my gaze at last, “On Susquehannah’s side, fair Wyoming,” Image of many a dream in hours long past, When life was in its bud and blossoming, And wasters, pushing from the fountain spring Of poor enthusiash thought, dimmed my young eyes, As by the poet borne, on unseen wing, I breathed, in fancy ‘neath thy cloudless skies, The summer’s air, and heard her echoed harmonies.
I then but dreamed, - then art before me now In life a vision of the brain no more: I’ve stood upon the wooded mountain’s brow, That batles high they lovely valley o’er, And now, where wind thy river’s greenest shore, Within a bower of syca-uores an laid, And winds, as soft, and sweet as ever bore The fragrance of wild showers through sun and shade, And singing in the trees, whose low boughs press my head.
Nature hath made thee lovlier than the power Even of Campbell’s peu hath pictured; he Had woven, had he gazed one sunny hours Upon its smiling vale, its scenery With more of truth, and made each rock and tree Known like old friends, and greeted from afar; And there are tales of sad reality,
[Page 2]
In the dark legends of thy border war, With woes of deeper tint than his own Gertude’s are.
But where are they, the beings of the mud, The bard’s creations, moulded not of clay, Hearts to strange bliss and suffering assigned, Young Gertrude, Albert, Waldergrave, where are they? We need not ask. The people of to-day Appear good, honest quick men enough, And hospitable too - for ready pay-- With manners like their roads, a little rough, And hands whose past is warm and welcoming, tho’ tough.
Judge Hollenback, who keeps the tooll-bridge gate And the town-records, is the Albert now Of Wyoming, like him, in church and state, Her Doric clumn--and upon his brow The thin hairs, white with seventy winters’ snow, Look patriarchal. Waldergrave’t were in vain To point out here, unless in you scare-crow That stands, full-uninformed, upon the plains, To pieghter flocks of crows and blackbirds from the grain.
For he would look particularly droll In his “Iberian boot” and “Spanish plume”, And be the wonder of each Christian soul, As of the birds that scare-crow and his broom. But Gertrude, in her loveliness and bloom, Hath many a model here, for Woman’s eye In court, or cottage, wheresoe’er her home, Hath a heart-spell too holy and too high To be o’erpraised even by her worshipper, Poesy.
[Page 3]
There’s one in the next field - of sweet sixteen - Singing and summoning thoughts of beauty born hi heaven, with her jacket of light green, “Love darling eyes, and tressers like the morn,” Without a shoe or stocking, hoeing corn. Whither, like Gertrude, she oft wanders there With Shakespeare’s volume in her bosom borne I think is doubtful. Of the poet-player The maiden knows no more than Cobbett or Voltaire.
There is a woman, widowed, pray and old, Who tells you where the fools of Battle steps Upon this day of massacre. She told Its tale, and pointed to the spot, and wept, Whereon her father and five brothers slept, Shroudless, the bright-dreamed slumbers of the brave When all the land a funeral mourning kept. And there wild laurels, planted on the grave By Native’s hand, in air pale red blossoms wave.
And on the margin of you orchard hill Are marks where time-worn battlements have been, And in the tall grass traces briger sties, Of “armory fieze and wedged ravelin” Five Hundred of her brave that valley preen Trod on the mour, in soldier-spirit pay. But twenty lived to till the noon-day scene; And where are now the twenty? Passed away. Has death no triumph-hours, save, on the battle day?
[Page 4]
Wyoming Wyoming By [Fitz-Greene] Halleck By [Fitz-Greene] Halleck
- Translation End -
Creator
- Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 1790-1867 (Person)
- Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778. (Person)
Repository Details
Part of the Wilkes University Archives Repository
Contact:
84 W South St.
Wilkes-Barre PA 18701 US
570-408-2000
570-408-7823 (Fax)
ask.archives@wilkes.edu
84 W South St.
Wilkes-Barre PA 18701 US
570-408-2000
570-408-7823 (Fax)
ask.archives@wilkes.edu