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SO/1L PAGES TEO Pl PIT SCEAP BOOK THEODORE O’HARA’S IMMOR TAL POEM. Mrs. Susan Bullitt Dixon, of Louis ville, Ky., enters protest against cer tain mutilations of the text of “The Bivouac of the Dead.” (Original Text.) The muffled drum’s sad roll has beat The soldier’s last tattoo; No more on Life’p parade shall meet That brave and fallen few. On Fame’s eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, , And. Glory guards, with solemn Mund, The bivouac of the dead. .No rumor of the foe’s advance Now swells upon the wind; No troubled thought at midnight haunts Os loved ones left behind; No vision of the morrow’s strife The warrior’s dream alarms; No braying horn, no screaming fife, At dawn shall call to arms. Their shivered swords are red with rust, Their plumed heads are bowed; Their haughty banner traile din dust Is now their martial shroud— And plenteous funeral tears have „ washed The red stains from each brow, And the proud forms by battle gashed Are free from anguish now. The neighing troop, the flashing blade, The bugle’s stirring blast, The charge, the dreadful cannonade, The din and shout are past— Nor War’s wild note nor Glory’s peal, Shall thrill with fierce delight Those breasts that nevermore may feel The rapture of the fight. Like the fierce northern hurricane That sweeps his great plateau Flushed with the triumph yet to gain, Came down , the serried so Who heard the thunder of the fray Break o’er the field beneath, Knew well the watchword-of that day Was “Victory or Death!” ***** Full many a norther’s breath has swept O’er Angustura’s plain, And long the pitying sky has wept Above its moldered slain. The raven’s scream or eagle’s flight, Or shepherd’s pensive lay, Alone now wake each solemn height That frowned o’er that dread fray. Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground! Ye must not slumber there, Where stranger steps and tongues re sound 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. Thus ’neath their parent turf they rest, Far from the gory field; Borne to a Spartan mother’s breast WATSON’S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN. On many a bloody shield. The sunshine of their native sky Smiles sadly on them here, And kindred eyes and hearts watch by The heroes’ sepulchre. I Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead! Dear as the blood you gave! No impious footstep here shall tread t 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 stone In deathless song shall tell, When many a vanished year hath flown The story how ye fell. Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter’s blight Nor Time’s remorseless doom, Can dim one ray of holy light That gilds your glorious tomb. —THEODORE O’HARA. In the issue of The New York Times Saturday Review, of August 11th last, Mrs. Susan Bullitt Dixon, of Louisville, Ky., warmly protests against certain changes which George • W. Rauch, of Laxington, Ky., has re cently seen fit to make in the text of Theodore O’Hara’s famous poem, “The Bivouac of the Dead.” About a year ago Mr. Rauch edited a vol ume of O’Hara’s poems; and when “The Bivouac of the Dead” was read it was observed to differ in many respects from the original as given above. Says Mrs. Dixon: Mr. Rauch claims that Colonel O’Hara himself authorized these al terations, which statement to one fa miliar with the poem as it first ap peared seems incredible. If it were so, then O’Hara acted under a deci sion, and did what no man has a right to do —deface the beauty of his own work or mar its perfection. The “Bivouac of the Dead” was a God given inspiration; it was the inspir ation of a lifetime, a perfect crea tion, a complete harmony—as when ‘ ‘ the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.” It was first published in The Frankfort Yeoman in 1850, and was inscribed: “Lines Written at the Tomb of the Kentuckians Who Fell at Buena Vista, Buried in the Cem etery at Frankfort.” Since tha? time it has been published and re published in parts or in whole— sometimes called “Kentucky’s Dead” —but has now acquired the perma nent and beautiful title of “The Biv ouac of the Dead.” Its fame is world wide, and it has been appropriated by the whole world wherever the English language is spoken. Many different versions of it have appeared, but not one so unjust as the one given in Mr. Rauch’s book. The ivorst of it is, that this motley version, in which the sublime and strong verses of the poet have been displaced by the weak and even lu dicrous substitutes of Mr. Rauch’s choosing, the connection between the parts broken and the harmony en- tirely destroyed, has been accepted by many as the true one. Various au thors and poets of note have com mended Mr. Rauch’s work, a publi cation in the Southern History Asso ciation even stating of it that “ the most widely quoted martial elegy in the English language has at last re ceived fitting treatment, and been au thoritatively fixed in form and word for future readers.” Which reminds one of Caesar Borgia’s exclamation: “Defend me from my friends, and I will take care of my enemies myself.” Mr. Hall Caine is accused of “na tional bias,” because he “will not ad mit that ‘The Bivouac’ is the equal of British lyrics of a like kind, though he warmly applauds the work of Mr. Rauch.” Having seen only Mr. Rauch’s version. Mr. Hall Caine re quired no “national bias” to influence his decision. In truth, there is no British or American lyric equal to O’Hara’s, nor is there onejike it. It stands out alone, perfect in its beauty, its gran deur, its harmony, its sublime pathos, its exquisite and mournful tenderness, its glory of immortal light. It is in words what the great “Siegfried” funeral march is in music. The version given below is copied from The Louisville Courier-Journal, which paper published it as a pan of the funeral ceremonies of the day, when Colonel O’Hara, General Cary W. Fry, and Adjutant George M. Cardwell, whose bodies had been brought home for burial by order of the legislature, were re-interred in the beautiful cemetery at Frankfort, in the autumn of 1874. The*poem was read by Major Henry L. Stanton, himself a poet, and there can be no doubt as to its being the true version of this noble lyric. Mr. Rauch’s first desecration of it occurs in that exquisite fourth line of the first verse, which has a special significance and peculiar beauty, not only as denoting those noble and gal lant-spirits whom the poet knew and loved, but conveying in its full mean ing both the sadness and the gran deus of thei rdeath. The substitute for this noble and touching line, ac cording to Mr. Rauch’s version, is: “The brave and daring few.” What destruction of the pathos, the sublimity, the tragedy, which be long to the original! There are many other changes which mar not ‘only the melody, but the meaning, of the verse, such as “steed” for “troop,” “trumpet” in place of “bugle,” both of which are untrue to the reality of a cavalry charge, which is usually made with a “troop” of horse, while the bugle call is the one used, as I am informed, for cavalry. • But Mr. Rauch seems to have re served the fifth, sixth and seventh verses for the extremest exercise of his extraordinary talent and taste in amending that which was already per fect; lighting his little lamp the bet ter tc show’ the light of the sun to an admiring world. It would seem not enough that ha should characterize as “dread” only, that fiercest of all nature’s forces, the “northern hurricane,” but he must stigmatize the “great plateau” as merely “broad”—which would in dicate only width—while “great plat eau” expresses all the illimitable grandeur of those vast plains where earth and sky seem to meet — you realize infinity and eternity— like tiie ocean in immensity, like the sky in infinity, like the desert in sol emn grandeur. But Mr. Rauch says he objects to “descriptive parts.” So he chooses to make these lines as non-descriptive as possible of what they Are obvi ously intended to describe. His gen ius, however, reaches its climax in the suppression of the four last lines of this same verse (than which noth ing finer was ever conceived by poet), and the substitution of the following, which, by comparison, is the merest doggerel: Our heroes felt the shock and leapt To meet it on the plain, A*nd long the pitying sky hath wept Above our gallant slain. Shade of O’Hara! “Our heroes felt the shock and leapt!” ‘ ‘ Leapt! ’ ’ And this is to be called poetry! And such a desecration is to be permitted! And this travesty of the grandest lyric of all ages is to be accepted as O’Hara’s work, “author itatively fixed in form and word for future readers.” “Fixed,” indeed! This poor, weak, ludicrous absurdity, this libel which smacks of the rhyming dic tionary, is enough to make Theodore O’Hara rise from his grave and his sheeted corpse pursue w’ith avenging wrath the iconoclast who would so deface his great work and elevate this wretched absurdity upon its ruins. Ten thousand Rauches could never make me (nor any other friend of O’Hara) believe that he would, in his right mind, have ever author ized such stuff as this to take the place of his own beautiful inspira tion. Had he, in a moment of delir ium, done- this thing—and he could never have done it otherwise —it would have become the duty of his friends to protect his great creation and preserve it intact, in all its in tegrity and perfection. As O’Hara wrote them, those first four lines of the fifth verse give the most vivid impression of the foe as they sweep down the mountain pass in all the fierce grandeur of battle array, marching with proud step to the martial music, sure of conquest, eager for the fight, burning with hat red and revenge; while the last four express with equal vividness the stern resolve of the handful of men await ing them to conquer or tc die. Is there anything “weak” in these lines'! And shall they be banished at Mr. Rauch’s dictum and because he has not enough vim to affireciate their strength and nobility when they so forcibly describe one of the grand est phases of that hard-won victory! Next, this great expunger sup presses the sixth verse entirely. In (Continued on Page Seven.) PAGE THREE