[Detail] Ships at the Erie Basin, New York.
Nineteenth-Century Poetry
Poems appear several times in this collection. Search on poetry for three items. The first is a poem written by Abiah Marchant, describing her experiences on board the ship Magnolia on a journey to California. The second is a volume of verse kept by William Lord Stevens on board the Trescott, including a poem describing the voyage of a group of New-England men to the California gold fields. He begins:
"One winters morn in a suny bay
A noble ship at anchor lay
Her signal gay now floats on high
Which tells her sailing time is nigh
For from A foreign Land their came
Great tales of welth with none to claim
From month to month the storys told
That California filled with Gold
Now ships and passengers prepare
To go and try their fortunes their"
The third item is a diary in which the writer, James Minor, has transcribed a poem he was given on the occasion of his departure for California. He transcribes a poem that one of his ship mates wrote when they encountered a ship from Richmond, Virginia.
In addition to these three items, Rev. Thomas Douglass's rich descriptions in the Morrison (Ship) Journal, are interspersed with religious and philosophical musings in which he quotes poetry no less than 15 times. Examine these four items, read some of the poems, and consider the status of poetry in the nineteenth-century United States.
- Why do you think that Marchant and Stevens wrote their poems? What purpose did this activity serve? What purpose did their poems serve?
- When and how were poems used in Minor's diary? What purpose did these poems serve?
- What purpose did poetry serve in Rev. Douglass's journal and life?
- How would you characterize the style of the poems appearing in these items?
- Does this style suggest anything about why nineteenth-century Americans valued poetry and how they used it?
