BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Biographical Sketch of Gen. William O. Butler_, by F. P. Blair, Senior (Washington, 1848), was reprinted in full in _The Kentucky Yeoman_ (Frankfort, June 15, 1848); _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860); Lew Wallace's _Autobiography_ (New York, 1906).
THE BOATMAN'S HORN
[From _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, edited by W. T.
Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860)]
O, boatman! wind that horn again, For never did the list'ning air Upon its lambent bosom bear So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain!
What though thy notes are sad and few, By every simple boatman blown, Yet is each pulse to nature true, And melody in every tone.
How oft, in boyhood's joyous day, Unmindful of the lapsing hours, I've loitered on my homeward way By wild Ohio's bank of flowers; While some lone boatman from the deck Poured his soft numbers to the tide, As if to charm from storm and wreck The boat where all his fortunes ride!
Delighted, Nature drank the sound, Enchanted, Echo bore it round In whispers soft and softer still, From hill to plain and plain to hill, Till e'en the thoughtless frolic boy, Elate with hope and wild with joy, Who gambolled by the river's side And sported with the fretting tide, Feels something new pervade his breast, Change his light steps, repress his jest, Bends o'er the flood his eager ear, To catch the sounds far off, yet dear-- Drinks the sweet draught, but knows not why The tear of rapture fills his eye.
And can he now, to manhood grown, Tell why those notes, simple and lone, As on the ravished ear they fell, Bind every sense in magic spell?
There is a tide of feeling given To all on earth, its fountains, heaven, Beginning with the dewy flower, Just ope'd in Flora's vernal bower, Rising creation's orders through, With louder murmur, brighter hue-- That tide is sympathy! its ebb and flow Give life its hue, its joy, and woe.
Music, the master-spirit that can move Its waves to war, or lull them into love-- Can cheer the sinking sailor 'mid the wave, And bid the warrior on! nor fear the grave, Inspire the fainting pilgrim on the road, And elevate his soul to claim his God.
Then, boatman, wind that horn again!
Though much of sorrow mark its strain, Yet are its notes to sorrow dear; What though they wake fond memory's tear?
Tears are sad memory's sacred feast, And rapture oft her chosen guest.
HEW AINSLIE
Hew Ainslie, the foremost Scottish-Kentucky poet, was born at Bargery Mains, Ayrshire, April 5, 1792. Ill-health cut short Ainslie's education at the Ayr Academy, but some years later he went up to Glasgow to study law. Law and Hew Ainslie were not congenial fellows, and he shortly embarked upon the art of landscape gardening. He was next a clerk in Edinburgh, and also amanuensis for Professor Dugald Stewart. "Gradually the clouds of [Ainslie's] tobacco smoke began to curl into seven letters which looked like America." He was thirty years of age when he arrived at New York. He spent his first years in New York and Indiana as a farmer, but he soon relinquished this work and went, in 1829, to Louisville, Kentucky, where, three years later, an Ohio river flood swept his property away. And two years after this disastrous flood, fire destroyed his property in Indiana. Undismayed by misfortune, Ainslie became a contractor and supervised the erection of many large business structures in Louisville and other cities.
During all these years he was assiduously courting the Muse, and making a great reputation for himself as a poet. Ainslie's first book, _A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns_ (Deptford, 1822), is the English edition of his charming lyrics; and his _Scottish Songs, Ballads, and Poems_ (New York, 1855), is the only American edition of his work. In 1864, forty-two years after his departure, Ainslie revisited the land of his birth, where he was hailed as one of Scotland's finest singers since Robert Burns. Kentucky was in the poet's blood, however, and a year later he returned to his home at Louisville. His American friends were not to be outdone by his home people, and they arranged a great home-coming for him. In 1871, when the Scots of Louisville assembled to celebrate the birthday of Burns, Ainslie, the toastmaster, arose and smilingly confessed to having once kissed "Bonnie Jean," Burns's widow. He died at Louisville, March 11, 1878. A comprehensive Scottish edition of his _A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, and Poems_, was issued in 1892. _The Ingle Side_, a little song of sixteen lines, is Ainslie's masterpiece; but it was as a poet of the sea that he won his great reputation. "As Lloyd Mifflin is America's greatest sonneteer, so Hew Ainslie, the adopted Kentuckian, may perhaps be ranked as America's most ardent singer of the sea."
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i); _Hew Ainslie_, by A. S. Mackenzie (Library of Southern Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, 1909, v. i).
THE BOUROCKS O' BARGENY
[From _A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, and Poems_ (Paisley, Scotland, 1892)]
I left ye, Jeanie, blooming fair, 'Mang the bourocks o' Bargeny; [bowers]
I've found ye on the banks o' Ayr, But sair ye're altered, Jeanie.
I left ye 'mang the woods sae green, In rustic weed befitting; I've found ye buskit like a queen, [attired]
In painted chaumbers sitting. [chambers]
I left ye like the wanton lamb That plays 'mang Hadyed's heather; I've found ye noo a sober dame, A wife and eke a mither.
Ye're fairer, statelier, I can see, Ye're wiser, nae dou't, Jeanie; But ah! I'd rather met wi' thee 'Mang the bourocks o' Bargeny.
THE HAUGHS O' AULD KENTUCK
[From the same]
Welcome, Edie, owre the sea, Welcome to this lan' an' me, Welcome from the warl' whaur we Hae whistled owre the lave o't. [rest]
Come, gie your banes anither hitch, Up Hudson's stream, thro' Clinton's ditch, An' see our watlin meadows rich [cane-brake]
Wi' corn an' a' the lave o't. [all the rest of it]
We've hizzie here baith swank and sweet [maidens agile]
An' birkies here that can stan' a heat [young men]
O' barley bree, or aqua vit [brew; water of life]
Syne whistle owre the lave o't.
Gude kens, I want nae better luck [Goodness knows]
Than just to see ye, like a buck, Spanking the haughs o' auld Kentuck, [speeding over the meadows]
An' whistling owre the lave o't.
THE INGLE SIDE
[From the same]
It's rare to see the morning bleeze, [blaze]
Like a bonfire frae the sea; It's fair to see the burnie kiss [streamlet]
The lip o' the flowery lea; An' fine it is on green hillside, When hums the hinny bee; But rarer, fairer, finer far, Is the ingle side to me.
Glens may be gilt wi' gowans rare [daisies]
The birds may fill the tree, An' haughs hae a' the scented ware [river meadows]
That simmer's growth can gie; But the canty hearth where cronies meet, [cheerful]
An' the darling o' our e'e-- That makes to us a warl' complete, Oh! the ingle side for me.
THE HINT O' HAIRST
[From the same]
It's dowie in the hint o' hairst, [dreary; end; harvest]
At the wa'-gang o' the swallow, [away-going]
When the wind blows cauld an' the burns grow bauld, [bold]
An' the wuds are hingin' yellow; But oh! it's dowier far to see The deid-set o' a shining e'e That darkens the weary warld on thee.
There was muckle love atween us twa-- Oh! twa could ne'er been fonder; An' the thing on yird was never made That could hae gart us sunder.
But the way of Heaven's aboon a' ken, [above all knowing]
And we maun bear what it likes to sen'-- [must]
It's comfort, though, to weary men, That the warst o' this warld's waes maun en'.
There's mony things that come and gae, Just kent and syne forgotten; The flow'rs that busk a bonnie brae [deck; slope]