b92-64-27080949

xt78w950gp59 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt78w950gp59/data/mets.xml Ranck, George Washington, 1841-1900. 1875 books b92-64-27080949 English Turnbull, : Baltimore : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. O'Hara, Theodore, 1820-1867. O'Hara and his elegies / George W. Ranck. text O'Hara and his elegies / George W. Ranck. 1875 2002 true xt78w950gp59 section xt78w950gp59

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

GEORGE W.

RANCK,

B AL TI M ORE:
TURNBULL BROTHERS.
1875-

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by
TURNBULL BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

TO ONE

'Whoot Wift wai a otral

THIS LITTLE BOOK

IS INSCRIrBD.

Lexington, Ky., 1875.

This page in the original text is blank.

EXTRACT FROM LETTER.

NEAR FRANKFORT, Ky., August i5th. 1875.
MR. G. W. RANCK,
Dear Friend:
Avid in conclusion I have one request to make. When you publish your tribute
to my brother Theodore, say that it is accompanied not only by the entire endorse-
ment of his family, but by their warmest gratitude and love; for you have done
more than all others to cause his poems to be properly appreciated, and you of all
the world moved his fellow-citizens to that sacred act-the bringing home of those
dear remains. You will comply with my request, for it is a sacred one, and besides
you would not have us to appear ungrateful.
As ever, your friend,
MARY O'HARA PRICE.

This page in the original text is blank.

INDEX.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD, .

THE OLD PIONEER,

O'HARA AND His ELEGIES,

PAGE.
. 9

' 19

This page in the original text is blank.

THE BIVOUAC OF TH1E DEAD.

T HE muffled drum's sad roll has beat

The soldier's last tattoo;

No more on life's parade shall meet

The brave and daring few.

On Fame's eternal camping-ground

Their silent tents are spread,

And Glory guards with solemn round

The bivouac of the dead.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

No answer of the foe's advance

Now swells upon the wind;

No troubled thought at midnight haunts

Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife

The warrior's dream alarms ;

No braying horn nor screaming fife

At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust;

Their plum-d heads are bowed;

Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,

Is now their martial shroud;

And plenteous funeral-tears have washed

The red stains from each brow,

And their proud forms, in battle gashed,

Are free from anguish now.

I I

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

The neighing steed, the flashing blade,

The trumpet's stirring blast,

The charge, the dreadful cannonade,

The din and shout, are past;

No war's wild note, nor glory's peal,

Shall thrill with fierce delight

Those breasts that nevermore shall feel

The rapture of the fight.

Like the dread northern hurricane

That sweeps his broad plateau,

Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,

Came down the serried foe.

Our heroes felt the shock, and leapt

To meet them on the plain;

And long the pitying sky hath wept

Above our gallant slain.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

Sons of our consecrated ground,

Ye must not slumber there,

Where stranger steps and tongues resound

Along the heedless air.

Your own proud land's heroic soil

Shall be your fitter grave:

She claims from war his richest spoil-

The ashes of her brave.

So 'neath their parent turf they rest,

Far from the gory field;

Borne to a Spartan mother's breast

On many a bloody shield.

The sunshine of their native sky

Smiles sadly on them here,

And kindred hearts and eyes watch by

The heroes' sepulchre.

I 2

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD.

Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead I

Dear as the blood you gave,

No impious footsteps here shall tread

The herbage of your grave;

Nor shall your glory be forgot

While fame her record keeps,

Or honor points the hallowed spot

Where valor proudly sleeps.

Yon marble minstrel's voiceless tone

In deathless songs shall tell,

When many a vanquished age hath flown,

The story how ye fell.

Nor wreck, nor change, or winter's blight,

Nor time's remorseless doom,

Shall dim one ray of holy light

That gilds your glorious tomb.

THE OLD PIONEER.

A DIRGE for the brave old pioneer !

Knight-errant of the wood !

Calmly beneath the green sod here

He rests from field and flood;

The war-whoop and the panther's screams

No more his soul shall rouse,

For well the aged hunter dreams

Beside his good old spouse.

THE OLD PIONEER.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!

Hushed now his rifle's peal;

The dews of many a vanish'd year

Are on his rusted steel;

His horn and pouch lie moldering

Upon the cabin-door;

The elk rests by the salted spring,

Nor flees the fierce wild boar.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!

Old Druid of the West !

His offering was the fleet wild deer,

His shrine the mountain's crest.

Within his wildwood temple's space

An empire's towers nod.

Where erst, alone of all his race,

He knelt to Nature's God.

THE OLD PIONEER.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer I

Columbus of the land!

Who guided freedom's proud career

Beyond the conquer'd strand ;

And gave her pilgrim sons a home

No monarch's step profanes,

Free as the chainless winds that roam

Upon its boundless plains.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!

The muffled drum resound I

A warrior is slumbering here

Beneath his battle-ground.

For not alone with beast of prey

The bloody strife he waged,

Foremost where'er the deadly fray

Of savage combat raged.

THE OLD PIONEER.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!

A dirge for his old spouse I

For her who blest his forest cheer,

And kept his birchen house.

Now soundly by her chieftain may

The brave old dame sleep on,

The red man's step is far away,

The wolf's dread howl is gone.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer I

His pilgrimage is done;

He hunts no more the grizzly bear

About the setting sun.

Weary at last of chase and life,

He laid him here to rest,

Nor recks he now what sport or strife

Would tempt him further west.

THE OLD PIONEER.

A dirge for the brave old pioneer!

The patriarch of his tribe !

He sleeps - no pompous pile marks where,

No lines his deeds describe.

They raised no stone above him here,

Nor carved his deathless name-

An empire is his sepulchre,

His epitaph is Fame.

NOTE.-The last stanza of this ode was written before Boone's
monument had been erected.

I 8

AND HIS ELEGIES.

By GEORGE NY. RANCE.

A MERICA has as yet produced but one elegiac poet

of acknowledged genius, and that poet is Theodore

O'Hara, author of "The Bivouac of the Dead" and the

ode to Daniel Boone. The remarkable merit of these

tender, mournful, but inspiring elegies has never been

disputed. They have always teen most warmly admired

by the scholarly and the cultivated; have grown steadily

in public estimation from the time they were penned, and

will continue to grow in favor with the growth of years.

May we not reasonably hazard the prophecy that the time

O'HARA

0'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

will come when O'Hara will occupy the same place in our

literature that is now held in the field of English letters

by the celebrated author of the "Elegy in a Country

Churchyard " Feeling that Americans should know more

of the gifted man whose poems have reflected honor upon

them, and with the hope of increasing the number of

his admirers, the writer resolved to publish this little

volume. The facts of the life of O'Hara were obtained

from papers and documents placed in the hands of the

writer by the family of the poet, and also from letters re-

ceived from his old comrades and intimate friends.

Theodore O'Hara was born in Danville, Kentucky,

February xith, x820. He was the son of Kane O'Hara,

an Irish political exile, noted for his piety and learning,

who had been invited to Danville to take charge of an

academy about to be established there under the auspices

of Governor Shelby. His ancestors becoming subjected

to the disabilities imposed upon Catholics in their unhappy

land, abandoned home rather than religion, emigrated

O HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

to this country with Lord Baltimore, and aided in founding

that colony which was so long an asylum for victims of

religious intolerance. The family removed from Danville

to Woodford County, where the father himself commenced

the education of his son. They subsequently settled in

Frankfort, where several members of the family still reside.

Theodore O'Hara was remarkable when but a child.

Study was his passion. It engrossed his entire boyhood,

and added fuel to the fires of his genius. Happily, he

was trained and appreciated by one who fully understood

the nature he was moulding. His education was con-

ducted wholly by his father until he was prepared to enter

college, and then that ripe scholar had so thoroughly done

his work that he was at once admitted to the senior class

of St. Joseph's Academy at Bardstown. There, among

the learned clergy of his church, he soon became pre-

eminent as a profound and accomplished scholar, especially

in the ancient classics; and though but a youth, the rare

compliment was paid him of election to the professorship

2 I

O 'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

of the Greek language. He bade farewell to his Alma Mater

on graduating, in a speech so full of eloquence as never

to be forgotten by those who listened enrapture to it.

One has said of it-" It was the most perfect address I

ever heard for elegance of style, depth of thought, truth-

fulness of sentiment, and beauty of composition." After

leaving college he studied law in the office of Judge

Owsley, where he was a fellow-student of Gen. John C.

Breckinridge, and the strong attachment there formed

between the young men lasted through all his subsequent

life. In 1845 he held a position in the Treasury Depart-

ment at Washington, under Gen. John M. McCalla, but

his life from this time till its close was obscured by the

same dark clouds of misfortune and disappointment that

seem so strangely to hang round the pathway of genius-

the pressure of a narrow fortune combined with the aspira-

tion of a noble ambition conspired to make his life erratic.

He was appointed to a captaincy in the " old " United

States Army when such a position was a sure indication of

2 2

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

merit, served with distinction through the Mexican War,

and was breveted Major for gallant and meritorious con-

cluct. Contrary to modern usage, he left the army at the

close of the war, enriched only in reputation, and imme-

diately commenced the practice of law in Washington

City, where he remained until the breaking out of the Cuban

fever, when, with many other gallant Kentuckians, he em-

barked in that ill-fated enterprise. He commanded one

of the regiments in the disastrous battle of Cardenas, and

was badly wounded.

During the absence of the Hon. John Forsythe as min-

ister to Mexico, Col. O'Hara conducted the Afobile Register

as editor-in-chief, with signal ability and success ; in fact

he was peculiarly fitted for an editor, as his knowledge was

varied, deep and comprehensive, and the glowing sentences

flashed like jewels from his gifted pen. He was subse-

quently editor of the LouisvilZe rimes, and afterwards of

the Frankfort Yeoman. He was frequently called on by

the Government to conduct diplomatic negotiations of

O 'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

importance with foreign nations, and his services were

specially valued in the Tehauntepec-Grant business. In

1854, when the remains of the distinguished statesman,

Hon. William T. Barry, arrived from Liverpool and were

re-interred in the State Cemetery at Frankfort, Col. O'Hara

was the orator of the occasion, and delivered an oration

so glowing, so chaste and appropriate, and so full of pure

and lofty eloquence, as to entitle it to a place among the

best specimens of American oratory.

At the beginning of the late war his heart swelled with

sympathy for the people he had always loved so well, and

his sword was at once unsheathed in defence of the South.

He was immediately honored with an important position,

and soon promoted to the colonelcy of the Twelfth Ala-

bama regiment. He subsequently served on the staff of

that lamented hero, Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, stemmed

with him the fiery flood of Shiloh, and received his great

chief in his arms when he fell upon that ensanguined field.

He was also chief of staff to Gen. John C. Breckinridge;

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

and true to the last to his old friend, he shared with him

all the bitterness of the last bitter days, when one of the

grandest dreams of modern times dissolved and ended,

and never left him till he saw him safely embarked for a

foreign shore. The close of this war also found him without

a dollar, but like thousands of his comrades, he went at

once to work to retrieve his fortunes. He went to Columbus,

Georgia, and engaged in the cotton business with a relative;

but misfortune again overtook him, for he and his partner

lost all by fire. Undismayed, he retired to a plantation

on the Alabama side of the Chattahoochie, near a place

called Guerrytown, and there he was laboring successfully

when he was attacked with bilious fever. of which he died

Friday, June 6, 1867. His latest hours were cheered by

the affectionate attentions of devoted relatives and friends.

He received the sacraments of his church from the hands

of a pious clergyman ; and as the soft Southern breeze

bore to him the songs of birds and the odor of sweet

flowers, the soldier-poet fell asleep calmly, hopefully and

O 'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

resigned. His remains were taken from Barbour County,

Alabama, to Columbus, Georgia, and there buried in con-

secrated ground, where he slept until the State upon which

his genius had been reflected proudly claimed his ashes.

In the summer of 1874, in accordance with a resolution

of the Kentucky Legislature, all that was mortal of the

poet was brought to Frankfort; and on the 15th of Septem-

ber of that year, his remains, together with those of Gov-

ernors Greenup and Madison, and several distinguished

officers of the Mexican War, were re-interred with appro-

priate ceremonies in the State Cemetery. The last tribute

was paid by mourning relatives and friends, by old com-

rades and State troops, by the Governor of the Common-

wealth, the heads of departments and a throng of sorrow-

ing admirers. The solemn boom of the minute-gun, and

the " sad roll " of the ' muffled drum," mingled with his

funeral dirge, and the shadow of the tattered banner under

which he had fought on " Angustura's bloody plains "

rested silently and lovingly upon his bier. O'Hara was

O HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

buried in the military lot on the east side of the monu-

ment to the soldiers whose dirge he had so eloquently

sung, and midway between that stately pile and the tomb

of the vanquisher of Tecumseh. His grave was wreathed

with evergreens and strewn with flowers, and over it the

attendant companies of the State Guard fired three volleys

of musketry. After the last sad rites had been performed,

and during the delivery of the funeral oration, Gen.

William Preston, of Lexington, Kentucky, said of O'Hara:

" Having known Col. O'Hara intimately, both in his cam-

paigns in Mexico and in the South; having enjoyed the

pleasures that his cultivated mind and genial temper gave

to the camp-fire or the march; having witnessed his

brilliant courage and quick discernment in battle; having

seen him in the defiles of Mexico, by the side of Sidney.

Johnston in his dying moments at Shiloh, and with Breck-

inridge in his charge at Stone River; I here, in this

solemn moment, can sincerely say that I believe no

braver heart will rest beneath this consecrated sod, and

O 'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

no spirit more knightly or humane ever lingered under

the shadow of yonder monument." The obsequies closed

with the reading of " The Bivouac of the Dead " by

Henry T. Stanton, who prefaced the reading with the

apposite remark that " O'Hara, in giving utterance to this

song, became at once the builder of his own monument

and the author of his own epitaph." It was meet and

well that a Kentucky soldier and a Kentucky poet should

mingle the laurel with the cypress at the grave of the im-

mortal soldier-poet of Kentucky.

O'Hara was never married. In personal appearance he

was strikingly handsome. He was not quite six feet in

height, very graceful and erect in his carriage, and scrupu-

lously neat in his dress. His face beamed with generous

feeling; his dark hazel eyes kindled with soul and ex-

pression, and "were fiiled with a light like that which

comes down to us from the stars." His whole personnel

indicated a refinement that sat upon him like a birthright.

Another has said of him:-" His soul was all chivalry

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

and honor, his heart all aglow with generous impulse, and

his brain trained by discipline and stored with rich and

varied learning. To his friends his society was a con-

tinual feast, where his solid acquirements were garnished

with the graces of true poetry and the delicacy of true wit.

He was indeed a charming companion. True and unsel-

fish, talented and brave; tried by adversity and prosperity,

yet ever found unfaltering in his honor, he is gone crowned

with the commendations of all who knew him." O'Hara

was indeed tried by adversity, and his great heart and re-

fined nature made him doubly susceptible of the pain and

suffering that the vicissitudes of life heaped upon him.

Like Chatterton, he tasted the dregs of a bitter cup; but

unlike that marvellous but ill-fated genius, he met his trials

like a brave man and died with his armor on.

The political essays, public addresses and literary com-

positions of O'Hara would fill a volume, for he was a

ready and prolific writer; but his fame rests upon his

elegies. It is as a poet that O'Hara is known and cele-

O 'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

brated; and who will deny him that exalted name after

reading his inspired verses That one great lyric, " The

Bivouac of the Dead," would alone have made his name

immortal. It is his masterpiece. As " The Raven "

stands apart and above all the writings of Poe, so is

this pcem, compared with all that O'Hara ever wrote. It

was written in August, 1847, for the dedication of the

chaste and beautiful military monument erected in the

State Cemetery at Frankfort, to the memory of the gallant

Kentuckians who fell in the Mexican War. Col. O'Hara

was at that time editor of the Frankfort Yeoman. This

poem has all the mournful melody which belongs to that

sad and beautiful requiem, by the unfortunate William

Collins, entitled " How Sleep the Brave," while as a

martial elegy it even surpasses the famous stanzas by

Charles Wolfe on " The Burial of Sir John Moore." The

artistic execution of this ode is almost faultless; but it is

when we look at it in the light of those higher qualities

which constitute the excellence of all true poetry that we

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

fully comprehend its merit and power. In the perfect

harmony of the spirit and tone of his verse with his theme;

in the perfect adaptation of his style to his subject, and in

the moving and solemn accord of the measure of his own

spirit with that of his verse, these lines of O'Hara are

unsurpassed. The soul of the writer moves and sings

with the soul of his subject. Indeed, he times his verse

not only to the martial measure, but to the solemn spirit-

tread with which we would imagine his fellow-heroes to

march " o'er Fame's eternal camping-ground." The

heroic yet mournful and mysterious beating of the feet of

the song seems the same as that of "glory," as " with

solemn round " she " guards "-

"The bivouac of the dead."

In this perfect harmony of spirit, style and subject, and in

this tuneful accord of the spirit of the writer with that of

his theme, this piece is fully equal to Longfellow's " Psalm

of Life." But there is a second quality in which it far

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

surpasses that moral-heroic production, and it consists in

that power peculiar to some poets of reaching out and

touching the borders of the unseen. This quality is de-

veloped by Longfellow in those more than beautiful lines

` The Footsteps of the Angels ;" but in this O'tara far

transcends him. Longfellow invites the dwellers of the

spirit-realm into our homes and " lays their angel hands in

ours ;" but moved by the breath of eternal song, the blos-

soms of O'Hara's soul not only bend and blow toward that

mystic and shadowy land, but he visits himself the dwell-

ing-place of spirits, lives and moves among their shining

legions, and opens to us the gates of the unseen world, that

we too may look again upon those once familiar " proud

forms " and " plumed heads." This is the difference which

exists between [he heroic and the tender, and this gives to

"The Bivouac of the Dead " its solemn majesty and sub-

lime beauty. This poem possesses a touch of another

quality which gives to poetry its loftiest elevation. It is

not outwardly developed by any word or figure, but in the

O HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

first few stanzas of the ode a sympathetic reader will find

himself inhaling that peculiar, sad and solemn atmosphere

of prophecy which most strangely and mournfully hangs

about the spirits of some of the gifted of earth. The

nature of the soul and song of the writer seems to be

attuned so exactly to that of the departed heroes of whom

he sings, that behind the martial measure of his verse

there seems to move a muffled fate which whispers that

their home will soon be his. The combination which

this production contains of spirit-reach and spirit-pre-

science is the highest, strangest and most solemn gift a

poet may possess. Genius has truly breathed immortal

life into these lines, and they will live when many of the

fading, dying things that now are seen in American liter-

ature shall have passed away forever. If it had no other

claim upon life than the sublimely beautiful metaphor in

the frst stanza, that alone would preserve it through the

ages. Where, in the English language, is there a bolder,

grander or loftier conception than that in which our de-

O 'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

parted heroes are represented as encamped on the vast

and illimitable plains of immortality, while the guardian

spirit of the mighty host watches with ceaseless and un-

tiring vigilance over the shadowy inhabitants of those

silent tents The hold of this elegy upon the popular

heart grows stronger and more enduring. It is creeping

into every scrap-book; it is continually quoted upon public

occasions. Every year or two it makes the round of the

American press, and recently it has excited enthusiastic

admiration in England. One stanza of it was inscribed

upon a rude memorial nailed to a tree upon the battle-

field of Chancellorsville; another was engraved upon a

military monument at Boston, Mass., and still another

adorns a memorial column that marks the place where

occurred one of the most bloody contests of the Crimean

war. It will gain the high place in literature that it merits,

and there it will remain.

Next to his masterpiece comes the simple Lut noble

tribute penned by O'Hara at the grave of Daniel Boone.

0 HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

These are the only verses the writer has ever seen that

did justice to the "old Druid of the West," and we love

the brave hunter more than ever, and appreciate his big

honest heart, his undaunted spirit, and the grandeur of his

mission tenfold more after reading them. In Canto

VIII. of Don 7ugan Byron introduces a number of stanzas

descriptive of Boone and his backwoods life; but with all

his poetic power, even the bard of Newstead Abbey, on this

field at least, must lower his plume to O'Hara. It is true

that both the measure and the style of the stanzas com-

pared are different; but in that which both attemptl- a de-

lineation of the simple rugged nature of the man and

his wildwood home, Lord Byron has not met with the

success of O'Hara. The sad notes of this sweet and

solemn dirge will float and linger with undying cadence for

generations to come, around the name of Daniel Boone,

i'the Columbus of the land,"

"Who guided freedom's proud career
Beyond the conquered strand."

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

His deeds, his frank and honest character, his fearless

heart and romantic and providential life, cannot be for-

gotten while these stanzas live. The children of our

children's children will read them, and see in fancy

"His horn and pouch lie moldering
Upon the cabin door,"

and will realise that the conqueror of the wilderness

"Hunts no more the grizzly bear
About the setting sun."

But this poem is not only a tender dirge, it is an ele-

vated, glowing, and inspiring paean of praise - a grand

anthem to celebrate the glory, the mystery, and the

majesty of Nature. It carries the reader back to the dark-

ling woods which Boone saw in all their solitary and

primeval splendor, when the fleet wild deer was his sacri-

fice, the mountain's crest his altar, and

"Where erst, alone of all his race,
He knelt to Nature's God."

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

No wonder that Byron, with all his genius, failed to

come fully up to this subject. He only could do justice

to " the brave old pioneer " who lived where he had lived;

who breathed the air that he had breathed; whose eyes

and soul had drunk in the natural beauties of Boone's old

Kentucky home, and who had roamed amid the very

scenes where once the war-whoop and the panther's scream

had thrilled the old hunter's heart. It was left to O'Hara,

who was born and reared in the home of Boone, to con-

ceive the lofty imagery, and sing the tender and melan-

choly sentiment, of this poem. Need one apologise for

the State pride which points to it as a poem peculiarly and

absolutely Kentuckian The Marseillaise Hymn is not

more distinctly a French production than is this poem a

child of Kentucky. If it is true - as has been repeatedly

asserted, and as this elegy strongly indicates - that the

growth and quality of the literature of a people are largely

influenced and dependent upon their natural surround-

ings, may we not reasonably hope much from the future

3 7

O'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

of a State so blessed in physical charms and character-

istics as the " Dark and Bloody Ground " Who will say

that the free, fresh air, the rugged scenery, and the inspir-

ing associations of old Scotia had nothing to do with the

development of the genius of Sir Walter Scott Could

Rob Roy and the Heart of Mid Lothian, could Marmion

and the Lay of the Last Minstrel ever have been written

but by a native and lover of the land they depicted No:

their author could only have been one who had roamed

her lonely moors and trod her fragrant heather; who loved

her gray old rocks and beetling crags; who had heard the

roar of the cataract in her romantic glens and the scream

of the eagle in her mountain fastnesses, and whose soul

had been stirred by the weird music of the moaning pines

that stand like sentinels upon the shores of her beautiful

lakes. If scenes like these foster and develop genius, then

we can understand one at least of the elements that have

entered into the creation of the orators and soldiers of

this most picturesque old Commonwealth, and we may

O HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

reasonably expect her to be the cradle of illustrious poets

also. The Highlands of Scotland are not more wildly

beautiful than the mountain regions of Kentucky. Her

Blue Grass lands are as lovely and more fertile than the

Campagna of Italy. Her forests in autumn are galleries

of Nature's own most glorious handiwork. The sublimity

of her vast, silent, and awe-inspiring caves is recognised

the wide world over; and that most picturesque of rivers,

the Kentucky, with its towering cliffs and wooded heights,

its rugged bed, shadowy shores, and miniature cascades,

and its bold and hoary old rocks, crowned with feathery

ferns, decked with beautiful mosses, and wrapped in fan-

tastic vines, needs but ruined castles and crumbling battle-

ments to make it far outvie the vaunted river Rhine. It

was amid these triumphs of Nature's power that Theodore

O'Hara was born; at the shrine of Kentucky scenery he

worshipped like an Eastern idolater, and his ode to Boone

was the natural result. It is more-it is a prophecy of

Kentucky's literary future; and O'Hara is the forerunner

O 'HARA AND HIS ELEGIES.

of a line of poets who are destined to shed unfading lustre

upon her.

Theodore O'Hara sleeps his last sleep by the side of

his old comrades, under the shadow of the monument

erected in their honor, and amid the scenes consecrated

by his genius. It is well: for that beautiful spot was his

favorite haunt, he loved its soothing solitude; it was there

that the harp-strings of his soul first gave forth their sad

but immortal notes, and it seems fitted by Nature for a

poet's tomb. In death as in life, he seems the twin

brother of Gray, the author of that exquisite emanation,

the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard." Both were elegiac

poets of wonderfully similar attainments and habits; both

established their fame upon two or three short but finished

productions, and both sleep at last amid the scenes and

near the objects clothed with the glory of their inspiration.

Gray slumbers in sight of the " antique towers " of Eton

College, whose praises he sung, and in that churchyard

where oft "the curfew tolled the knell of parting day."

0 HARA AND HIS ELEGIES. 41

O'Hara reposes in sight of the tomb of the "brave old

Pioneer " whose deathless dirge he sung, and in that cem-

etery where sleep the warriors whose requiem he chaunted,

and where

" Glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead."

b92-64-27080949

Electronic reproduction. 2002. (Beyond the shelf, serving historic Kentuckiana through virtual access (IMLS LG-03-02-0012-02) ;
These pages may be freely searched and displayed. Permission must be received for subsequent distribution in print or electronically.

O'Hara and his elegies / George W. Ranck.
Ranck, George Washington, 1841-1900.

Turnbull,
Baltimore :
1875.

41 p. ; 19 cm.
Coleman
Contains the text of the poems "The bivouac of the dead" and "The old pioneer."
Microfilm. Atlanta, Ga. : SOLINET, 1992. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. (SOLINET/ASERL Cooperative Microfilming Project (NEH PS-20317) ; SOL MN02788.01 KUK)
Printing Master B92-64.

IMLS

This electronic text file was created by Optical Character Recognition (OCR). No corrections have been made to the OCR-