The Liberty Minstrel

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Title: The Liberty Minstrel
Author: George W. Clark
Release Date: July 16, 2007 [EBook #22089]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIBERTY MINSTREL ***
Produced by Carlo Traverso, collective PM for music, Linda?Cantoni, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at?http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images?generously made available by the Library of Congress.)?Music transcribed by Linda Cantoni and the PGDP Music Team.
THE
LIBERTY MINSTREL.
[Illustration]
"When the striving of surges?Is mad on the main,?Like the charge of a column?Of plumes on the plain,?When the thunder is up?From his cloud cradled sleep?And the tempest is treading?The paths of the deep--?There is beauty. But where is the beauty to see,?Like the sun-brilliant brow of a nation when free?"
BY
GEO. W. CLARK.
NEW-YORK:
LEAVITT & ALDEN, 7 CORNHILL, BOSTON: SAXTON & MILES, 205?BROADWAY, N.Y.: MYRON FINCH, 120 NASSAU ST., N.Y.:?JACKSON & CHAPLIN, 38 DEAN ST., ALBANY, N.Y.:?JACKSON & CHAPLIN, CORNER GENESSEE AND?MAIN ST., UTICA, N.Y.
1844.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1844, by
GEORGE W. CLARK,
In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.
S.W. BENEDICT & CO.?MUSIC STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS,?16 _Spruce St._ N.Y.
PREFACE.
All creation is musical--all nature speaks the language of song.
'There's music in the sighing of a reed,?There's music in the gushing of a rill;?There's music in _all things_, if man had ears;?The _earth_ is but an _echo_ of the spheres.'
And who is not moved by music? "Who ever despises music," says Martin Luther, "I am displeased with him."
'There is a charm--a power that sways the breast,?Bids every passion revel, or be still;?Inspires with rage, or all our cares dissolves;?Can soothe _destruction_, and _almost soothes despair_.'
That music is capable of accomplishing vast good, and that it is a source of the most elevated and refined enjoyment when rightly cultivated and practiced, no one who understands its power or has observed its effects, will for a moment deny.
'Thou, O music! canst assuage the pain and heal the wound That hath defied the skill of sager comforters;?Thou dost restrain each wild emotion,?Thou dost the rage of fiercest passions chill,?Or lightest up the flames of holy fire,?As through the soul thy strains harmonious thrill.
Who does not desire to see the day when music in this country, _cultivated and practised by_ ALL--music of a chaste, refined and elevated style, shall go forth with its angel voice, like a spirit of love upon the wind, exerting upon all classes of society a rich and healthful moral influence. When its wonderful power shall be made to subserve every righteous cause--to aid every humane effort for the promotion of man's social, civil and religious well-being.
It has been observed by travellers, that after a short residence in almost any of the cities of the eastern world, one would fancy "every second person a musician." During the night, the streets of these cities, particularly Rome, the capitol of Italy, are filled with all sorts of minstrelsy, and the ear is agreeably greeted with a perpetual confluence of sweet sounds. A Scotch traveller, in passing through one of the most delightful villas of Rome, overheard a stonemason chanting something in a strain of peculiar melancholy; and on inquiry, ascertained it to be the "_Lament of Tasso_." He soon learned that this celebrated piece was familiar to all the common people. Torquato Tasso was an Italian poet of great merit, who was for many years deprived of liberty, and subjected to severe trials and misfortunes by the jealousy and cruelty of his patron, the Duke of Ferrara. That master-piece of music, so justly admired and so much sung by the high and low throughout all Italy, had its origin in the wrongs of Tasso. An ardent love of humanity--a deep consciousness of the injustice of slavery--a heart full of sympathy for the oppressed, and a due appreciation of the blessings of freedom, has given birth to the poetry comprising this volume. I have long desired to see these sentiments of love, of sympathy, of justice and humanity, so beautifully expressed in poetic measure, embalmed in sweet music; so that _all the people_--the rich, the poor, the young, and the old, who have hearts to feel, and tongues to move, may sing of the wrongs of slavery, and the blessings of liberty, until every human being shall recognise in his fellow an _equal_;--"a MAN and a BROTHER." Until by familiarity with these sentiments, and their influence upon their _hearts_, _the people_, whose _duty it is_, shall "undo the heavy burdens and