Peregrine White [1620] and Virginia Dare [1587]
by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet
Peregrine White
And Virginia Dare
Were the first real Americans
Anywhere.
Others might find it
Strange to come
Over the ocean
To make a home.
England and memory
Left behind - -
But Virginia and Peregrine
Didn't mind.
One of them born
On Roanoke,
And the other cradled
In Pilgrim oak.
Rogues might bicker
And good men pray.
Did they pay attention?
No, not they.
Men might grumble
And women weep
But Virginia and Peregrine
Went to sleep.
They had their dinner
And napped and then
When they woke up
It was dinner again.
They didn't worry,
They didn't wish,
They didn't farm
And they didn't fish.
There was lots of work
But they didn't do it.
They were pioneers
But they never knew it.
Wolves in the forest
And Indian drums!
Virginia and Peregrine
Sucked their thumbs.
They were only babies.
They didn't care.
Peregrine White
And Virginia Dare.
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Pocohontas [1595? - 1617]
by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet
Princess Pocahontas,
Powhatan's daughter,
Stared at the white men
Come across the water.
She was like a wild deer
Or a bright, plumed bird,
Ready then to flash away
At one harsh word.
When the faces answered hers,
Paler yet, but smiling,
Pocahontas looked and looked,
Found them quite beguiling.
Likes the whites and trusted them,
Spite of kin and kith,
Fed and protected
Captain John Smith.
Pocahontas was revered
By each and every one.
She married John Rolfe
She had a Rolfe son.
She crossed the sea to London Town
And must have found it queer,
To be Lady Rebecca
And the toast of the year.
"La Belle Sauvage! La Belle Sauvage!
Our nonpareil is she!"
But Princess Pochahontas
Gazed sadly toward the sea.
They gave her silk and furbelows.
She pined, as wild things do
And, when she died at Gravesend
She was only twenty-two.
Poor wild bird - -
No one can be blamed.
But gentle Pocahontas
Was a wild thing tamed.
And everywhere the lesson runs,
All through the ages:
Wild things die
In the very finest cages.
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The Pilgrims and the Puritans
by Traditional
The Pilgrims and the Puritan
Were English to the bone
But didn't like the English Church
And wished to have their own
And so, at last, they sailed away
To settle Massachusetts Bay.
And there they found New England rocks
And Indians with bows on
But didn't mind them half as much
(Though they were nearly frozen)
As being harried, mocked and spurned in
Old England for the faith they burned in.
The stony fields, the cruel sea
They met with resolution
And so developed, finally,
An iron constitution
And, as a punishment for sinners,
Invented boiled New England dinners.
They worked and traded, fished and farmed
And made New England mighty
On codfish, conscience, self-respect
And smuggled aqua-vitae.
They hated fun. They hated fools.
They liked plain manners and good schools.
They fought and suffered, starved and died
For their own way of thinking
But people who had different views
They popped, as quick as winking,
Within the roomy local jail
Or whipped through town at the cart's rail.
They didn't care for Quakers but
They loathed gay cavaliers
And what they thought of clowns and plays
Would simply burn your ears
While merry tunes and Christmas revels
They deemed contraptions of the Devil's.
But Sunday was a gala day
When, in their best attire,
They'd listen, with rejoicing hearts,
To sermons on Hell Fire,
Demons I've Met, Grim Satan's Prey,
And other topics just as gay.
And so they lived and so they died,
A stern but hardy people,
And so their memory goes on
In school house, green and steeple,
In elms and turkeys and Thanksgiving
And much that still is very living.
For, every time we think, "Aha!"
I'm better than Bill Jinks,
So he must do just as I say
No matter what he thinks
Or else I'm going to whack him hard!"
The Puritan's in our backyard.
But when we face a bitter task
With resolute defiance,
And cope with it, and never ask
To fight with less than giants
And win or lose, but seldom yell
- - Why, that's the Puritan, as well.
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Peter Stuyvesant [1592 - 1682]
by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet
What, never seen Nieuw Amsterdam?
That grieves me to the core!
You should have visited the place
In sixteen-sixty-four,
A tidy, little, red-roofed town
With tulip-pots aglow,
And ruled by Peter Stuyvesant
With his famous timber toe.
'Twas all as Dutch as Dutch could be,
Except for dykes and ditches.
The plump Dutch chickens laid Dutch eggs
Among the Dutchman's-breeches,
Even the babies talked in Dutch,
For Dutch was all they knew,
And there walked Peter Stuyvesant
(One leg was wooden, too).
His farm was called the Bouwerie
And there he kept his cow,
Because he was the Governor
(He couldn't do it now).
And he was proud as anything
Of his New Netherlands.
(He had, it's true a wooden limb
But it had silver bands.)
And all the ruddy-faced mijnheers,
And all the neat mevrouws
Would greet their peppery overlord
With genuine Dutch bows.
They liked him for his sturdy pith,
Although he had his whims.
(And then, they liked a governor
With two such different limbs.)
So, when the English fleet sailed in,
One bright September day,
And said "We've come with fife and drum
To take your town away."
He stamped and jumped and swore and thumped
But could not make them run.
(You cannot pit a wooden leg
Against a naval gun.)
But still he kept his Bouwerie
And would his schnapps uncork,
Although they took Nieuw Amsterdam
And changed it to New York,
And, to the last, his wooden leg
Would hurt him very much
When he would think about the day
That really beat the Dutch.
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The Days of Forty-nine
by Traditional
Oh, I'll sing you a song of a mountain town as it was in the good old days
When every man has his sack filled with dust and never a debt to pay.
But the good old days have passed away and the boys have crossed the line,
When in their bloom they went up the flume in the days of forty-nine.
In the days of old, in the days of gold, in the days of forty-nine.
There was Buffalo Bill, he could outroar a buffalo bull you bet,
He'd roar all day and he'd roar all night and I guess he's roaring yet.
One day he fell in a prospect hole, 'twas a roaring bad design,
And in that hole Bill roared out his soul in the days of forty-nine.
Now there was Jess, that good old cuss, he always was content,
He never was known for to miss a meal and he never put up a cent,
But poor old Jess like all the rest, at last he did repine,
And in his bloom he went up the flume in the days of forty-nine.
There was Monte Pete I'll ne'er forget, he was always full of tricks,
He was always there in a poker game and heavy as a load of bricks.
He would ante a slug, bet a hundred to one, or go a hat full blind,
But in a game with death Pete lost his breath in the days of forty-nine.
There was New York Jake, the butcher's boy, he often did get tight,
And when he did get on a spree he was spoiling for a fight.
One night he ran against a knife in the hands of old Bob Cline,
And over Jake we held a wake in the days of forty-nine.
And now kind friends my song is done and there's no one here to toast.
I wander about from town to town just like a travelling ghost.
The ladies they all look at me and they say I'm a wandering sign,
They say, "There goes Tom Moore, he's a bummer sure from the days of forty-nine."
In the days of old, in the days of gold, in the days of forty-nine.
Philip, Neil. Singing America: Poems that Define a Nation. NY: Viking, 1995.
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And this is good old Boston
by Anonymous
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to the Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.
Philip, Neil. Singing America: Poems that Define a Nation. NY: Viking, 1995.
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Nat Love: Black Cowboy [1854-1921]
by Lee Bennett Hopkins
Whoever heard of a black cowboy?
You rarely see one in the movies.
But rarely see one on TV.
But I can tell you of one black cowboy.
A slave born down in Tennessee.
His name?
Occupation:
(and he's known to have worked cattle from
the Texas border to Montana.)
That Nat Love - -
who could handle a rifle
like no other man could.
He could shoot a running buffalo
He was fast.
He had a good eye
He was sharp shootin'
He was double-quick.
(At one Western-town contest, he earned the name
DEADWOOD DICK).
You may never've heard of a black cowboy.
You may never've seen one in the movies.
Or on TV.
But now you've heard toll of one black cowboy.
Nat Love - -
A slave born down in Tennessee.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Hand in Hand: An American History Through Poetry. NY: Simon and Shuster, 1994.
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Depression
by Isabel Joshlin Glaser
We heard people were standing
In bread lines in town.
Everywhere people were begging for work
And nothing much to be found,
That much we knew.
There on our grandmother's place.
Living in the tenant's house,
Three rooms on a pasture hill,
We had the grass, the trees,
We had a father who liked to farm
And a mother who built a bookcase,
Then filled it with books and dreams.
People were begging for work . . .
Were standing in line for food.
It was a terrible time for many,
But we had everything, my sister and I.
We were growing up rich.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Hand in Hand: An American History Through Poetry. NY: Simon and Shuster, 1994.
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Trail Breakers
by James Daugherty
Pack train, stage coach, pony express, climb over the mountain passes;
The Iron Horse roars west, spouting smoke and cinders,
The continental express streaks on, faster, faster, faster.
On the six-lane highways the sleek speedsters are streaming west;
The airline drones across the sky, six hours from coast to coast.
The jet plane, the supersonic rocket, trail a white line across the blue.
The mushroom blast of the H bomb announces
The error and the splendor of the
Atomic Age.
Hopkins, Lee Bennett. Hand in Hand: An American History Through Poetry. NY: Simon and Shuster, 1994
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In Response to Execute Order 9066
by
In Response to Executive Order 9066
All American of Japanese Descent
Must Report to Relocation Centers
Dear Sirs:
Of course I'll come. I've packed my galoshes
and three packets of tomato seeds. Denise calls them
love apples. My father says where we're going
they won't grow.
I am a fourteen-year-old girl with bad spelling
and a messy room. If it helps any, I will tell you I have always felt funny
using chopsticks
and my favorite food is hot dogs.
My best friend is a white girl named Denise - -
we look at boys together. She sat in front of me
all through grade school because of our name:
O'Connor, Ozawa. I know the back of Denise's head
I tell her she's going bald. She tells me I copy on tests.
We are best friends.
I saw Denise today in Geography class.
She was sitting on the other side of the room.
"You're trying to start a war," she said, "giving secrets
away to the Enemy, Why can't you keep your big
mouth shut?"
I didn't know what to say.
I gave her a packet of tomato seeds
and asked her to plant them for me, told her
when the first tomato ripened
she'd miss me.
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