Showing posts with label Poems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poems. Show all posts

Saturday, October 7, 2017

The Pennsylvania Line




Title: Southwestern Pennsylvania in song and story: with notes and illustrations
Author: Cowan, Frank, 1844-1905
Collection: Historic Pittsburgh Text Collection


Sunday, April 26, 2015

Drama At Toronto Bay


Source

An excerpt from The battle of York; ...:


The Parliament had but recently completed its sittings and festivities were still being maintained. A little girl of six narrated that her mother, Mrs. Grant Powell, had issued invitations for a party on the evening of the 26th, the supper table had been laid and she had been dressed to see the company arrive. Only one lady and no gentlemen came, when later on her father hurried in saying the American fleet had been sighted, and he and the other volunteers had been ordered under arms. Then may have come the scene so graphically told by our poet, Charles Mair, in the stirring lines in his Drama of Tecumseh.


"What news afoot? Why every one's afoot and coming here 
York's citizens are turned to warriors 
The learned professions go a-soldiering 
And gentle hearts beat high for Canada. 
For, as you pass, on every hand you see 
Through the neglected openings of each house 
Through doorways, windows, our Canadian maids 
Strained by their parting lovers to their breasts, 
And loyal matrons busy round their lords 
Buckling their arms on, or, with tearful eyes 
Kissing them to the war." 



Thursday, February 5, 2015

Poem Fredoniad



The Fredoniad:





Invocation

...In consequence of the calamities at Raisin, offensive operations are deferred until the return of Spring....

The scene is laid at the above-mentioned place.

The time is about ten months: from the commencement of the War, June 18th, 1812, until the Spring of 1813. From the time the Essex enters Valparaiso, till the day of Battle, is forty-six hours.


A sample of verses:
On the same morn of the disastrous day,
Which wrapp'd the martyrs in their robes of clay,
Shelby commanded Croghan from his rest,
And him, like father to a son, address'd:

Thy youthful warriors marshal, and proceed
To strengthen Lewis at his pressing need.
His heart, all anxious, palpitates with pain
To meet the foe, progressing on the plain. 

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Wrote A Song About It



The identity of a soldier in an unknown soldier grave on Route 5 in Caledonia, Livingston County, New York, is actually not a mystery.  As noted at FindAGrave:

Although officially an "Unknown Soldier", this is generally believed to be the burial site of one Private John Alexander, murdered by a fellow soldier, Private William Comfit. The site is believed to be the encampment site of a troop of American soldiers on their way from Buffalo to Sackett's Harbor.

A poem put to song, "The Faded Coat of Blue," was appropriate for the Civil War era, but was written as a tribute to Livingston County's unknown soldier.  Four verses of the poem, written by a Caledonia poet, is inscribed on the grave marker.


However, there is a mystery surrounding the grave.  As noted in a newspaper article, it's the mystery of a plant growing on the grave.

The flower, called the Blue Gentian, is said to be commonly found in areas where soldiers’ bodies are buried, and only along the Atlantic coast. The Blue Gentian no longer blooms at the gravesite, but the story still intrigues all those who read of it. [Source]