THE RECLUSE
If all things are decreed,
As some good people say,
Why should I spend my time
Or make attempts to pray?
Ref.: For Rowley’s verse see J. C. Williams’ “The History and Map of Danby”, 1869, pp. 240–53. Also Pliny White’s “Early Poets of Vermont”, 1860.
While Rowley was stirring the minds and imaginations of western Vermont, the eastern part of the state was not without its inspiring singer. For what Rowley did for song in the south and west of the state, Nathaniel Niles did for those who lived east, in the valley of the Connecticut. He wrote one poem, or song, that attained even wider recognition, and exerted a more extended influence, than anything that Rowley ever composed. His choral chant, “The American Hero”, was set to music and was very generally sung throughout all New England during the stirring times of the Revolutionary War.
Niles was born at South Kingston, R. I., April 3, 1741, attended Harvard College for a while, but, before graduating, left for Princeton College in New Jersey, where he graduated in 1766. He entered the Congregational ministry and for some time lived at Norwich, Conn. Toward the close of the Revolution he moved to West Fairlee, Vermont, becoming one of the first settlers of that town. He was an exceptionally able and intelligent man, exerting a wide and powerful influence upon the people of that region for many years. He served several terms in the State Legislature from Fairlee (1784–5; 1801–3; and 1812–14); was first Member of Congress elected from Vermont; and, in 1784–8, was a Judge of the Vermont Supreme Court. He died in 1828.
Though we cannot claim for Vermont poesy that Niles’ greatest lyric was produced in the state; still we can justly consider him as a true Green Mountain Bard and put him alongside Rowley and Tyler as one of the formative personalities of Vermont poetry. His magnum opus, “The American Hero”, a Sapphic ode, was composed directly after the battle of Bunker Hill, before he moved to Vermont, and immediately became immensely popular. It was published first in the Connecticut Gazette, February, 1776, (having been printed in broadside form at Norwich, Ct., in 1775), and was at once copied by other papers, set to music, and sung by the American people, as before stated. The ode, as first published, contains 15 verses, of which the following, are specimens:—
Why should vain mortals tremble at the sight of
Death and destruction in the field of battle,
Where blood and carnage clothe the ground in crimson,
Sounding in death-groans!
Death will invade us by the means appointed,
And we must all bow to the King of Terrors;
Nor am I anxious, if I am prepared,
What shape he comes in.
*******
Up the black heavens let the spreading flame rise,
Breaking, like Ætna, through the smoky columns,
Lowering like Egypt o’er the falling city,
Wantonly burnt down.
While all their hearts quick palpitate for havoc,
Let slip your blood-hounds, named the British Lions,
Dauntless Death stares, nimble as the whirlwind,
Dreadful as demons!
