THE RECLUSE
Caught by the luster of her neck,
Or kindred softness of her song;
They sing and bill from bush to tree;
Love fills their throats,
Love swells their notes,—
Their song is love and liberty.
Some airy songster’s feathered shape,
O, could my love and I assume:—
The ring-dove’s glossy neck he take,
And I the modest turtle’s plume—
O, then we'd sing from bush to tree—
Love fill our throats,
Love swell our notes,
Our song be love and liberty.
Of the very few persons who may properly be denominated “major poets” of Vermont, Royall Tyler must certainly be included as one—the first in time and first in influence, although, owing to the fragmentary character of his surviving verse, there are several others who outrank him in the excellence of extant lyrics. He was, as has been truly said, “one of the fathers of American literature”. His “Memoirs”, consisting of some 300 MSS. pages, and written by his son, Thomas P. Tyler, have never been published except in the form of excerpts, as in Hemenway’s Gazetteer, Vol. 5; but he left an enduring record on the ideals, culture and institutions of his state which will endure as long as our literature. Tyler wrote, in The Farmers’ Weekly Museum, under the pseudonym of “Spondee”. In T. Buckingham’s Palyanthus,. (Boston, 1806) he wrote under the heading “Trash”. In Joseph Dennie’s Portfolio (Philadelphia, 1801–12) he wrote “An Author’s Evenings” and “Original Poetry”. He contributed also to The Federal Orrery and the Columbia Centinel, Boston; to the Boston Eagle, the Dartmouth Centinel, the New England Galaxy, the Brattleboro Reporter and Yeoman. Unpublished MSS. left by Tyler include three sacred dramas, an “Oration on the Death of Washington”, 1800; “The Mantle of Washington”, 1800; “Ode to Night”, 1792. Other plays, written for the Boston Theatre, include “The Dualists”, a farce in three acts; “Barataria, or the Governor of a day”, and others.
See Duyckink’s “Encycl. of Amer. Lit.,” 1853; Stedman & Hutchinson’s “Libr. of Amer. Lit”; Hem. Vt. His. Gaz., Vol. 5; and Brown & Tupper’s “Grandmother Tyler’s Book,” 1925.
With the passing of the Guilford School the Early National Period of Vermont Poetry really came to an end; but it remains to mention several singers of the state who stood somewhat apart from this movement. These are Josias Lyndon Arnold, Thomas Green Fessenden, Anthony Haswell and Selleck Osborn.
Arnold was born in Providence, R. I., in 1765, was a graduate of Dartmouth College, and undertook the study of law; but soon abandoning this, he became a tutor at Brown University. His father, having become settled in Vermont (one of the original settlers of St. Johnsbury), and having acquired a large estate there, died in 1792. Young Arnold, though fond of literary pursuits and already interested in the production of verse, repaired to the north and made his home there, applying himself to the care of the family estates. Here he continued his literary activities, giving his main energies to the problems of a settler. He married in 1795, but the following year was taken sick with enteric fever and died. His widow issued his collected poems in book Island College, Providence, 1797,”—this beArnold, Esq’r, of St. Johnsbury, Vt., formerly of Providence, and a tutor in Rhode Island College, Providence, 1797,—this being the first book of poetry, so far as we know ever published by a Vermont poet. Specially noteworthy among these lyrics are his “Odes” written on the banks respectively
