Even the sentiment of union was more adequately voiced in
editorials and sermons and orations, even in a short
story--Edward Everett Hale's "Man Without a Country"--than by
most
of the poets who attempted to glorify that theme.
Nevertheless the verse of these thirty years is rich in
provincial and sectional loyalties. It has earnestness and
pathos. We have, indeed, no adequate national anthem, even yet,
for neither the words nor the music of "The Star-Spangled Banner"
fully express what we feel while we are trying to sing it, as the
"Marseillaise," for example, does express the very spirit of
revolutionary republicanism. But in true pioneer fashion we get
along with a makeshift until something better turns up. The lyric
and narrative verse of the Civil War itself was great in
quantity, and not more inferior in quality than the war verse of
other nations has often proved to be when read after the
immediate occasion for it has passed. Single lyrics by Timrod and
Paul Hayne, Boker, H. H. Brownell, Read, Stedman, and other men
are still full of fire.
Pages:
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260