"
Although _The Culprit Fay_ shows the influence of Coleridge's _Christabel_,
yet this American poem could not have been written by an English poet.
Drake did not sing the praises of the English lark and the nightingale; but
chose instead an American bird, the whippoorwill, and a native insect, the
katydid, and in writing of them showed the enjoyment of a true poet.
Drake's best known poem, _The American Flag_, which was signed "Croaker &
Co.," because Halleck wrote the last four lines, is a good specimen of
rhetorical verse, but lacks the poetic feeling of _The Culprit Fay_.
Fitz-Greene Halleck's best known poem is _Marco Bozzaris_ (1827), an elegy
on the death of a Grecian leader, killed in 1823. America's sympathies went
out to Greece in her struggles for independence against the Turks. In
celebrating the heroic death of Bozzaris, Halleck chose a subject that was
naturally fitted to appeal to all whose liberties were threatened. This
poem has been honored with a place in almost all American anthologies.
Middle-aged people can still remember the frequency with which the poem was
declaimed. At one time these lines were perhaps as often heard as any in
American verse:--
"Strike--till the last armed foe expires;
Strike--for your altars and your fires;
Strike--for the green graves of your sires;
God--and your native land!"
Fifty years ago the readers of this poem would have been surprised to be
told that interest in it would ever wane, but it was fitted to arouse the
enthusiasm, not of all time, but of an age,--an age that knew from
first-hand experience the meaning of a struggle for hearth fires and
freedom.
Pages:
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147