Carolina Chansons by DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen
D >>
DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen >> Carolina Chansons
Transcriber's Notes:
Two variations, Sewee and Seewee, are used in this book, and have
been left as in the original.
Where poems cross a page boundary in the original, they have been
left as one stanza except where the structure clearly indicates
otherwise. I have been unable to confirm with another source if
stanza breaks should occur in those places or not. See the html
version of this file (16064-h.htm or 16064-h.zip) to see where
page breaks occur.
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/0/6/16064/16064-h/16064-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/0/6/16064/16064-h.zip)
CAROLINA CHANSONS
Legends of the Low Country
by
DuBOSE HEYWARD AND HERVEY ALLEN
The MacMillan Company
New York Boston Chicago Dallas
Atlanta San Francisco
MacMillan & Co., Limited
London Bombay Calcutta
Melbourne
The MacMillan Co. of Canada, Ltd.
Toronto
1922
TO JOHN BENNETT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The thanks of the authors are due to the editors of _The London
Mercury_, _The North American Review_, _Poetry, A Magazine of Verse_,
_The Reviewer_, _The Book News Monthly_, and _Contemporary Verse_ for
permission to reprint many of the poems in this volume.
Grateful acknowledgment is also made to many friends for first-hand
information and for the loan of letters, diaries, pictures, and old
newspaper clippings.
PREFACE
In a continent but recently settled, many parts of which have as yet
little historical or cultural background, the material for this volume
has been gathered from a section that was one of the first to be
colonized. Here the Frenchman, Spaniard, and Englishman all passed,
leaving each his legend; and a brilliant and more or less feudal
civilization with its aristocracy and slaves has departed with the
economic system upon which it rested.
From this medley of early colonial discovery and romance, from the
memories of war and reconstruction, it has been as difficult to choose
coherently as to maintain restraint in selection among the many
grotesque negro legends and superstitions so rich in imagery and music.
Coupled with this there has been another task; that of keeping these
legends and stories in their natural matrix, the semi-tropical landscape
of the _Low Country_, which somehow lends them all a pensively
melancholy yet fitting background. Not to have so portrayed them, would
have been to sacrifice their essentially local tang. To the reader
unfamiliar with coastal Carolina, the unique aspects of its landscapes
may seem exaggerated in these pages; the observant visitor and the
native will, it is hoped, recognize that neither the colors nor the
shadows are too strong. These poems, however, are not local only, they
are stories and pictures of a chapter of American history little known,
but dramatic and colorful, and in the relation of an important part to
the whole they may carry a decided interest to the country at large.
Local color has a fatal tendency to remain local; but it is also true
that the universal often borders on the void. It has been said, perhaps
wisely, that the immediate future of American Poetry lies rather in the
intimate feeling of local poets who can interpret their own sections to
the rest of the country as Robinson and Frost have done so nobly for New
England, rather than in the effort to _yawp_ universally. Hence there is
no attempt here to say, "O New York, O Pennsylvania," but simply, "O
Carolina."
The South, however, has been "interpreted" so often, either with
condescending pity or nauseous sentimentality, that it is the aim of
this book to speak simply and carefully amid a babel of unauthentic
utterance. Nevertheless, the contents of this volume do not pretend to
exact historical accuracy; this is poetry rather than history, although
the legends and facts upon which it rests have been gathered with much
painstaking research and careful verification. It should be kept in mind
that these poems are impressionistic attempts to present the fleeting
feeling of the moment, landscape moods, and the ephemeral attitudes of
the past. Legends are material to be moulded, and not facts to be
recorded. Above all here is no pretence of propaganda.
As some of the material touched on is not accessible in standard
reference, prose notes have been included giving the historical facts or
background of legend upon which a poem has been based. These notes
together with a bibliography will be found at the back of the volume.
If the only result of this book is to call attention to the literary and
artistic values inherent in the South, and to the essentially unique and
yet nationally interesting qualities of the Carolina Low Country, its
landscapes and legends, the labor bestowed here will have secured its
harvest.
DuBOSE HEYWARD--HERVEY ALLEN.
Charleston, S.C.
December, 1921.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface 9
_Poems_
Seance at Sunrise 17
Silences 20
Presences 23
The Pirates 25
The Sewees of Sewee Bay 34
La Fayette Lands 38
_Legend of Theodosia Burr_
The Priest and the Pirate 42
Palmetto Town 50
Carolina Spring Song 52
_The First Submarine_
The Last Crew 54
Landbound 65
Two Pages from the Book of the Sea Islands 66
1. SHADOWS 66
2. SUNSHINE 69
_Negro Poems_
Modern Philosopher 72
Upstairs-Downstairs 73
Hag-hollerin' Time 74
Macabre in Macaws 75
Gamesters All 76
Eclipse 81
_Poe_
Edgar Allan Poe 83
Alchemy 86
Osceola 88
_Ashley River Gardens_
Magnolia Gardens 89
Middleton Garden 92
_Cooper River Legends_
The Goose Creek Voice 95
The Leaping Poll 98
The Blockade Runner 101
Beyond Debate 111
Marsh Tackies 112
Back River 114
Dusk 117
_Prose Notes and Bibliography_
On the Chimes 121
On the Pirates 122
On the Sewee Indians 124
On La Fayette 125
On Theodosia Burr 126
On "The Last Crew" 127
On Edgar Allan Poe 128
On "Marsh Tackies" 130
Bibliography 131
CAROLINA CHANSONS
LEGENDS OF THE LOW COUNTRY
SEANCE AT SUNRISE
Place the new hands
In the old hands
Of the old generation,
And let us tilt tables
In the high room
Of our imagination.
Let the thick veil glow thin,
At sunrise--at sunrise--
Let the strange eyes peer in,
The red, the black, and the white faces
Of the still living dead
Of the three races.
Let a quaint voice begin:
_Voice of an Indian_
"Gone from the land,
We leave the music of our names,
As pleasant as the sound of waters;
Gone is the log-lodge and the skin tepee,
And moons ago the ghost-canoe brought home
The latest of our sons and daughters--
Yet still we linger in tobacco smoke
And in the rustling fields of maize;
Faint are the tracks our moccasins have left,
But they are there, down all your ways."
_Voice of a Slave_
"We do not talk
Of hours in the rice
When days were long,
Nor of old masters
Who are with us here
Beyond all right or wrong.
Only white afternoons come back,
When in the fields
We reached the Mercy Seat
On wings of song."
_Voice of a Planter_
"Nothing moves there but the night wind,
Blowing the mosses like smoke;
All would be silent as moonlight
But for the owl in the oak--
Stairways that lead up to nothing--
Windows like terrible scars--
Snakes on a log in the cistern
Peering at stars...."
_Spirit of Prophecy_
"Dawn with its childish colors
Stipples the solemn vault of night;
Behind the horizon the sun shakes a bloody fist;
Mysteries stand naked by the lakes of mist;
Spirits take flight,
The medicine man,
The voodoo doctor--
Witches mount brooms.
The day looms.
Faster it comes,
Bringing young giants
Who hate solitude,
And march with drums--
Beat--beat--beat,
Down every ancient street,
The young giants! Minded like boys:
Action for action's sake they love
And noise for noise."
_Voice of a Poet_
"The fire of the sunset
Is remembered at midnight,
But forgotten at dawn.
While the old stars set,
Let us speak of their glory
Before they are gone."
H.A.
SILENCES[1]
You who have known my city for a day
And heard the music of her steepled bells,
Then laughed, and passed along your vagrant way,
Carrying only what the city tells
To those who listen solely with their ears;
You know St. Matthew's swinging harmonies,
And old St. Michael's tale of golden years
Far less like bells than chanted memories.
Yet there is something wanting in the song
Of lyric youth with voice unschooled by pain.
And there are breathing stillnesses that throng
Dim corners, and that only stir again
When bells are dumb. Not even bronze that beats
Our heart-throbs back can tell of old defeats.
But you who take the city for your own,
Come with me when the night flows deep and kind
Along these narrow ways of troubled stone,
And floods the wide savannas of the mind
With tides that cool the fever of the day:
One with the dark, companioned by the stars,
We'll seek St. Philip's, nebulous and gray,
Holding its throbbing beacon to the bars,
A prisoned spirit vibrant in the stone
That knew its empire of forgotten things.
Then will the city know you for her own,
And feel you meet to share her sufferings;
While down a swirl of poignant memories,
Herself shall find you in her silences.
Once coaches waited row on shining row
Before this door; and where the thirsty street
Drank the deep shadow of the portico
The Sunday hush was stirred by happy feet,
Low greetings, and the rustle of brocade,
The organ throb, and warmth of sunny eyes
That flashed and smiled beneath a bonnet shade;
Life with the lure of all its swift disguise.
Then from the soaring lyric of the spire,
Like the composite voice of all the town,
The bells burst swiftly into singing fire
That wrapped the building, and which showered down
Bright cadences to flash along the ways
Loud with the splendid gladness of the days.
War took the city, and the laughter died
From lips that pain had kissed. One after one
All lovely things went down the sanguine tide,
While death made moaning answer to the gun.
Then, as a golden voice dies in the throat
Of one who lives, but whose glad heart is dead,
The bells were taken; and a sterner note
Rang from their bronze where Lee and Jackson led.
The rhythmic seasons chill and burn and chill,
Cooling old angers, warming hearts again.
The ancient building quickens to the thrill
Of lilting feet; but only singing rain
Flutters old echoes in the portico;
Those who can still remember love it so.
D.H.
[1] See the note on the chimes at back of book.
PRESENCES
Despise the garish presences that flaunt
The obvious possession of today,
To wear with me the spectacles that haunt
The optic sense with wraiths of yesterday--
These cobbled shores through which the traffic streams
Have been the stage-set of successive towns,
Where coffined actors postured out their dreams,
And harlot Folly changed her thousand gowns.
This corner-shop was Bull's Head Tavern,
When names now dead on marble lived in clay;
Its rooms were like a sanded cavern,
Where candles made a sallow jest of day,
And drovers' boots came grinding like a quern,
While merchants drank their steaming cups of "tay."
Here pock-marked Black Beard covenanted Bonnet
To slit the Dons' throats at St. Augustine,
And bussed light ladies, unknown to this sonnet,
Whose names, no doubt, would rime with Magdalene.
And English parsons, who had lost their fames,
Sat tippling wine as spicy as their joke,
Larding bald texts with bets on cocking mains,
And whiffing pipes churchwardens used to smoke.
Here _macaronis_, hands a-droop with laces,
Dealt knave to knave in _picquet_ or _ecarte_,
In coats no whit less scarlet than their faces,
While bullies hiccuped healths to King and Party,
And Yankee slavers, in from Barbadoes,
Drove flinty bargains with keen Huguenots.
Then Meeting Street first knew St. Michael's steeple,
When redcoats marched with royal drums a-banging,
Or merchants stopped gowned tutors to inquire
Why school let out to see a pirate hanging;
And gentlemen took supper in the street,
When candle-shine from tables guled the dark,
While others passing by would be discreet
And take the farther side without remark,
Pausing perhaps to snuff the balmy savor
Of turtle-soup mulled with the bay-leaves' flavor:
These walls beheld them, and these lingering trees
That still preempt the middle of the gutter;
They are the backdrops for old comedies--
If leaves were tongues--what stories they might utter!
H.A.
THE PIRATES[2]
I stood once where these rows of deep piazzas
Frown on the harbor from their columned pride,
And saw the gallant youngest of the cities
Lift from the jealous many-fingered tide.
Flanked by the multi-colored sweeping marshes,
Among the little hummocks choked with thorn,
I saw the first, small, dauntless row of buildings
Give back the rose and orange of the dawn.
Above them swayed the shining green palmettoes
Vocal and plaintive at the winds' caress;
While, at the edge of sight, the fluent silver
Of sea and bay framed the wide loneliness.
Out of the East came gaunt razees of commerce
Troubling the dappled azure of the seas;
While sleeping marsh awoke, and vanished under
The thrusting open fingers of the quays.
Ever, and more, came ships, while others followed.
Feeling their way among unsounded bars,
Heaping their freights upon the groaning wharf-heads,
Filling their holds with turpentines and tars,
Until the little twisting streets all vanished
Into a blur of interwoven spars.
II
One with the rest, I saw the commerce dwindle,
High-bosomed, sturdy vessels take the main
And leave us, with the morning in their faces,
Never to come to any port again.
Slowly an ominous and pregnant silence
Grew deep upon the wharves where ships had lain.
Laughter rang hollow in those days of waiting,
And nameless fears came drifting down the night.
The tides swung in from sea, hung, and retreated,
Bearing their secrets back beyond our sight;
Till, like the sudden rending of a curtain,
The East reeled with the lightnings of a fight.
Never was a night so long with waiting.
Never was the dark more prone to stay.
And, in the whispering gloom, taut, listening faces
Hung in a pallid line along the bay.
Slowly at last the mists dissolved, revealing
A fearful silhouette against the day.
Blue on a saffron dawn, a frigate lifted
Out of the fog that veiled her fold on fold,
Taking the early sunlight on her cannon
In running spurts and rings of molten gold;
No flag of any nation at her masthead.
Small wonder that our pulses fluttered cold.
Never a shot she fired on the city,
But, when the night came blowing in from sea,
And our ruddy windows warmed the darkness,
Through the surrounding gloom we heard the free
Strong sweep and clank of rowing in the harbor,
And on the wharves raw jest and revelry.
She was the first, but many others followed;
Insolent, keen, and swift to come-about,
I have seen them go smashing down the harbor,
Loud with the boom of canvas and the shout
Of lusty voices at the crowded bulwarks,
Where tattooed hands were swinging long-boats out.
Up through the streets the roisterers would swagger,
Filling the narrow ways from wall to wall,
Scattering gold like ringing summer showers,
Ready with song and jest and cheery call
For those who passed; buying the little taverns
At any cost; opening wine for all.
There were rare evenings when we used to gather
Down in a coffee-house beside the square.
Morgan knew well our little favored corner;
Black Beard the sinister was often there;
And we have watched the night blur into morning
While Bonnet, quiet-voiced and debonnaire,
Would throw the glamor of the seas about us
In archipelagoes of mad romance;
Pointing a story with a line from Shakespeare,
Quoting a Latin proverb; while his glance,
Flashing across the eager, listening circle,
Fettered--blinded--held us in a trance.
Their bags of Spanish gold bribed our juries,
Bought dignified officials of the Crown;
Money and wine were ours for the asking;
The Orient flamed out in shawl and gown,
Until a sudden and unholy splendor
Irradiated all the quiet town.
Those were the days when there was open gaming,
And roaring song in tongue of every race.
Evil, as colorful as poison weeds,
Bloomed in the market place.
And those who should have known, shared in the revels,
And passed their neighbors with averted face.
Until one day a frigate entered harbor,
And passed the city, with a Spanish prize,
Then insolently came-about, despoiled her,
And fired her before our very eyes,
While the vagrant breezes left the streaming vapor
Like red rust on the clean steel of the skies.
III
All in the sullied hours,
While the pirates stood away
Out of the murk and horror
In a sheer white burst of spray,
Leaving the wreck to settle
Under its winding sheet,
I felt the city shudder
And stir beneath my feet.
Thrilling against the morning,
As audible as song,
I heard the city waken
Out of her night of wrong.
That was a day to cherish
When Rhett and a gallant few
Summoned the best among us;
Called for a daring crew.
New and raw at the business,
To the smithy's roar and clang,
We drove our aching muscles
And as we worked we sang,
Until one blowing morning
With summer on the sea,
The _Henry_ to the windward,
The _Sea Nymph_ down alee,
Flecking the wide Atlantic
With a flaring, lacy track,
We went, as glad as the winds are glad,
To buy our honor back.
IV
Over the wooded shore-line,
Where the hidden rivers stray
Down to the sea like timid girls,
I saw in the first faint gray
A burst of cloudy topsails
Go blowing swiftly by,
With the stars aswirl behind them
Like bright dust down the sky.
Gone were the days of waiting,
And the long, blind search was gone;
With a cheer we swung to meet them
On the forefoot of the dawn.
Out of the screening woodland
Into the open sound
The frigate crashed, then staggered
Careening, fast aground.
White water tugged behind us,
We felt the _Henry_ reel
And spin as the hard impartial sand
Closed on her vibrant keel.
All through the high white morning,
While the lagging tide crawled out,
Fate held us bound and waiting,
While, turn and turn about,
We manned the fuming cannon
And bartered hell for hell,
While the scuppers sang with coursing life
Where the dead and dying fell.
Till, like the break of fever
When life thrills up through pain,
We felt the current stirring
Under the keel again.
Then it was hand to cutlass,
And pistols in the sash.
"All hands stand by for boarding,--
Now, close abeam and lash!"
But the ensign that had mocked us
With its symbol of the dead
Fluttered and dropped to the bloody deck,
And a white square spoke instead.
Home from the kill we thundered
On the tail of the equinox,
To the thrum of straining canvas,
And the whine and groan of blocks.
Leaping clear of the shallows,
Chancing the creaming bars,
We heard the first faint cheering
As the late sun limned our spars.
Safe in the lee of the city
We moored in the afterglow,
The _Sea Nymph_ and the _Henry_
With the buccaneers in tow.
Glad we had been in the going,
But God! it was good to come
Out of the sky-wide loneliness
To the walls and lights of home.
V
Under these shouldering rows of stone
That notch the quiet sky;
Under the asphalt's transient seal
The same old mud-flats lie;
And I have felt them surge and lift
At night as I passed by.
Yes, I have seen them sprawling nude
While an Autumn moon hung chill,
And the tide came shuddering in from sea,
Lift by lift, until
It held them under a silver mesh,
Responsive to its will.
Then slowly out from the crowding walls
I have seen the gibbets grow,
And stand against the empty sky
In a desolate, windblown row,
While their dancers swayed, and turned, and spun,
Tripping it heel and toe;
With a flash of gold where the peering moon
Saw an earring as it swung,
And a silver line that leapt and died
Where the salt-white sea-boots hung,
And the pitiful, nodding, silent heads,
With half of their songs unsung.
D.H.
[2] See the note on the pirates.
THE SEWEES OF SEWEE BAY[3]
_"And these squaws, waiting in vain the return of their husbands,
sought out braves among the other tribes, and so men say the Sewees
have become Wandos."_
"One flask of rum for fifty muskrat skins!
A horn of powder for a bear's is not enough;
A whole winter's hunting for some blanket stuff--
Ugh!" said the Sewee Chief,
"The pale-face is a thief!"
Ever, from the north-north-east,
The great winged canoes
Swept landward from the shining water
Into Bull's Bay,
Where the poor Sewees trapped the otter,
Or took the giant oysters for their feast--
Ever the ships came from the north and east.
Surely, at morning, when they walked the beaches,
Over the smoky-silver, whispering reaches,
Where the ships came from, loomed a land,
Far-off, one mountain-top, away
Where the great camp-fire sun made day:
"There are the pale-face lodges," they would say.
So all one winter
Was great hunting on that shore;
Much maize was pounded,
And of acorn oil great store
Was tried;
And collops of smoked deer meat set aside,
And skins and furs,
And furs and skins,
And bales of furs beside.
And all that winter, too,
The smoke eddied
From many a huge canoe,
Hollowed by flame from cypress trees
That with stone ax and fire
The Sewee shaped to the good shape
Of his desire.