Household Verses :: :: University of Virginia Library

“There are few books one can read through and through so,
With new delight, either on wet or dry day,
As that which chronicles the acts of Crusoe,
Or the good faith and deeds of his man Friday.”

Classic of boyhood's bright and balmy hour!
Be thine the tribute I have owed thee long;
Though round life's later years some clouds may lower,
And thoughts of worldly care at seasons throng,
I would not so its happier morning wrong,
Or those who woke its earlier tear or smile,
As find no meed for manhood's grateful song
In legends wont my childhood to beguile
Of Crusoe's lonely life upon his desert isle.

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I still remember the intense delight,
The thrilling interest, wonder strange and dread,
Which in those blissful moments, brief and bright,
On that familiar fiction fondly fed;
When o'er the volume with me, borne to bed,
I hung enraptured at morn's earliest beam,
Until the eventful pages, as I read,
Appeared no longer fancy's vivid dream,
But wore the form of truth, and history's sober theme.

For of the tomes which thus, in early youth,
Were most especial favourites of mine,
Perused with willing credence of their truth,
None might surpass, and few could equal thine,
Daniel Defoe! In memory's cherished shrine
The adventures it relates are graven still;
Nor, till remembrance shall her power resign,
Or worldly cares each glow of fancy chill,
Can scenes recorded there my bosom fail to thrill.

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They rise before me now! with fancy's eye
I mark the wilful truant's vagrant flight;
The storm comes on, the sea runs mountains high,
And penitence succeeds to brief delight,
Itself, alas! as brief. The skies are bright
Again, and he a wanderer as before;
Till chastisement recalls a sense of right,
Compelling him his folly to deplore,
An exile far from home, a captive to the Moor!

Once more at liberty: and Fortune smiles,
As oft she will, the brighter for her frown,
Upon the planter in Brazilian isles;
He has a home that he might call his own,
But restless still, and soon as weary grown
Of sober life, and patient industry,
Again the venturous mariner is gone,
Like one who had not known captivity!
Poor slaves to till his ground on Guinea's coast to buy.

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Again the tempest rises in its ire;
Ill may his bark such hurricane withstand;
Two hands are drowned; and in the panic dire
A third proclaims the joyful news of land!
Delusive hope! the ship strikes on the sand;
They man the boat, and strive to reach the shore;
One, only one! hath gained that lonely strand,
To dwell in solitude unknown before,
Than anchorite's more strict, however stern and hoar.

A less inventive genius than thine own
Had left our shipwrecked hero to his lot;
But thou, Defoe, o'er that lone isle hast thrown
A spell so potent—who hath felt it not?
Unto my boyhood 'twas a fairy spot;
Yet to my fancy so familiar made,
I seemed as well to know creek, cave, and grot,
Its open beach, its tangled green-wood shade,
As if I there had dwelt, and Crusoe's part had played.

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Fain would I dwell, did not my limits check
The fond desire, and chide the loved delay,
Upon thy daily visits to the wreck,
And all the varied stores thou brought'st away,
Needful resource of many an after day:
Fain would I paint the home thy hands upreared;
Thy household goods and chattels, too, portray,
Whose rude contrivance many a sad hour cheered,
Which if to idlesse given more wretched had appeared.

Nor is thy story useless, if it serve
To point this moral to the stripling's heart,
That nothing like necessity can nerve
The man to play a truly manly part!
The mother of invention, nurse of art,
What is there, needful, which we do not owe
To her compulsion? Steersman's guiding chart,
His trembling needle, pointing where to go;
The anchor which he casts, the lead he drops below!

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The beacon's warning light, whose star-like beam
Flings out its friendly lustre o'er the wave;
The philanthropic chemist's lamp, whose gleam
In safety lights the miner's darkest cave,
Which noxious damps might render else his grave!
All medicine's triumphs, and mechanics' power,
Philosophy's research, when Franklin gave
The electric rod to guard the loftiest tower;
These are thy trophies all, and glorious is thy dower.

But, not to moralize too long, I turn,
Crusoe, to thy delightful page once more;
And from thy homely journal gladly learn
A less ambitious, more attractive lore.
With thee I now thy loneliness deplore,
And share thy griefs, a hapless cast-away;
Anon, with humble hopes, from Scripture's store,
Culled in adversity's instructive day,
With thee, in thy lone isle, I meditate and pray.

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I may not pause o'er each attractive scene
Or object in thy varied record traced,
Which, like a brighter spot of livelier green,
Shines an oasis in the desert waste
Of thy existence; yet some such are graced
With so much simple beauty, they must dwell
In vivid hues and forms yet uneffaced
On Memory's tablet, while her magic spell
Can render records there by time indelible.

Witness thy clusters of ripe grapes, uphung,
With prudent forethought, in the sun to dry;
For them my mouth has watered oft, when young,
As fruit with which no grocer's stores could vie.
The grains of barley, thrown unthinking by,
Awakening in thy heart such glad surprise
When bearing ears of corn! a mystery
That well might fill with thankful tears thine eyes,
Tears with which childhood's heart could freely sympathize.

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Next came thy live-stock: what a group was thine!
Thy cats, I scarcely thought them like our own:
Thy goats, how often have I wished them mine!
But most of all was childhood's fancy prone
To envy thee thy parrot! how its tone,
When thou hadst taught it speech, must strike thine ear,
In that unspeaking solitude alone!
Though but an echo of thy voice, 'twas dear,
Recalling thoughts of sounds thou never more mightst hear!

And then thy cumbrous, over-sized canoe!
Would all projectors learn that tale by rote,
Many, I ween, would make far less ado
With schemes that, like thine own, can never float:
Let those who now thy want of foresight quote,
Learn to correct their error too, like thee;
For thou didst build thyself a smaller boat,
Nor could thy hopes surpass my boyish glee,
What time thy bark was launched, thyself once more at sea!

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But what were these, or all the produce rich
Of thy tobacco, lemons, grapes, and canes,
Compared with him, whose name hath found a niche
In childhood's heart? whose memory still retains
Its greenness there, 'mid losses, cares, or gains
Of later life: I scarce need write his name;
Partner of all thy pleasures and thy pains,
His was a servant's, friend's, and brother's claim,
And peerless in all three shines faithful Friday's fame!

How much in him to love, and to admire,
Erst charmed my boyhood, cheers my manhood still!
His touching meeting with his aged sire,
Whom cruel cannibals brought there to kill,
Both then, as now, my eyes with tears could fill.
His simple awe, and wonder ever new;
His broken English! when did author's skill
Hold up a lovelier portraiture to view?
Or king a subject boast more loyal, warm, and true?

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Nor less of sympathy, and interest deep,
Thy fears and perils wakened in my breast;
When watchful vigils thou wert wont to keep,
And barbarous Indians threatened to molest;
Or when dire sickness robbed thy couch of rest:
But, most of all, I held my breath with awe,
At that strange foot-mark on the shore imprest;
More fearful than if traced by lion's paw:
Thy panic at that sight let Cruikshank's pencil draw!

What need to dwell on all of dark or bright,
With which thy varied pages richly teem?
Now faint and dim, like visions of the night,
To Memory's glance; now fair as morning's dream.
Or glowing, like the west, in sunset's gleam,
When gorgeous clouds are tinged with burnished gold:
Enough is said to prove how much my theme
Possesses of attractions manifold,
The love it early won in after life to hold.

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But I must bid my pleasant theme adieu!
Though lingering thought upon it fain would dwell.
Grateful I feel for what can thus renew
A sense of youth's once bright and joyous spell;
And call back from the dim and shadowy cell
Of Memory visions of departed days;
Yet, ere I take a long, a last farewell,
Forgive me, reader! if my Muse essays
To take her leave of thee in fitting minstrel phrase.

Art thou a stripling—in the bloom of youth
Feasting on fiction in a garb so fair?
Yet may these pages teach thee useful truth,
If they inculcate wisdom, forethought, care;
And show thee how to suffer, and to bear
With patient hope and fortitude, the ill,
Which all who live or more or less must share:
So shalt thou best the author's aim fulfil,
Avoid his hero's harms, partake his pleasures still.

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Art thou a worldling—in life's thoughtful noon,
Toiling in traffic's ceaseless strife and din?
Or seeking, as thy being's proudest boon,
Ambition's heights, or Fashion's fame to win?
Turn from each glittering bait and specious gin;
Let a mere school-boy's tale this lesson teach,
All that ennobles man is found within;
And no bad moral doth our hero preach,
Making the best he can of good within his reach.

Art thou a veteran—in the vale of years,
Yet looking back, at times, with wistful gaze,
Upon the pains and pleasures, hopes and fears,
Shadow and sunshine, of thy by-gone days?
Here, if no guilt upon thy conscience weighs,
And generous feelings in thy heart still glow,
Some of the brightness which so fondly plays
Around the past, the present shall bestow,
And thou in hoary age a child's enjoyment know!

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But now—Farewell to Crusoe, and his isle!
Farewell to his man Friday! best of men,
His toils, his cares, his sorrows to beguile;
“We ne'er shall look upon their like again!”
Unless another, with as deep a ken
As thine, Defoe! into these hearts of our's,
Should come once more on earth, and wield his pen
To call up mental sunshine, mixt with showers,
For childhood, youth, and age, by his creative powers!