I was listening to the radio and heard Humoresque No. 7 by Antonín Dvořák. I hadn't heard that in ages and my immediate thought was kindergarten and kiddie music classes and enforced nap time. Man, I hated that stupid piece of music. Aaaah! It began rattling around in my head till I had to go "Lalalalalalalala!" until I could chase it out. Ugh.
Something similar happened with the once legendary poem "Casabianca" by Felicia Hemans. At one time just a reference to the opening line, "The boy stood on the burning deck," brought to the minds of millions the whole poem and its powerful demonstration of courage, duty and sacrifice, to stand fast in the face of death. It taught generations of youth the ideals of manhood. It was a symbol of all that 19th century civilization stood for.
But then people got tired of it. The glory days of conquest and empire, the times of striving, seeking and refusing to yield (to reference another poem of the era) drifted into the past. It began to be the butt of jokes, the lines rewritten into parodies. By the fifties of the twentieth century, the opening line was something to roll your eyes at. The Stan Freberg radio show mocked it along with once revered poems like "Barbara Frietchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier about the Civil War Union heroine and its first line, "Up from the meadows rich with corn" or, especially, the most famous "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag." Every [Yankee] school child once memorized that poem, but by the 1930s it was a joke, ridiculed by popular radio comedians; Jack Benny wondering if he can get a date with Barbara Stanwyck is told he couldn't even get a date with Barbara Frietchie. Actually, it seems like all of the old sacred beliefs were being made objects of laughter by then. By whom? you ask. Cough. No statement for the press.
And now? Have you, has anyone, even heard of Barbara Frietchie? Or John Greenleaf Whittier, for that matter, never mind "Casabianca" and Felicia Hemans. They're just gone, vanished from what remains of our so-called civilization.
I'm teaching my children these poems and many others from the great days of the past. But it's probably pointless. Who else of their generation, let alone mine, will understand even a reference to these poems they might make at some time in the future. It will be as futile as making a reference to Macauley's "Horatius." Huh? My boys love that poem and even re-enact it in their play, but in days to come only they alone will know it or it's most famous lines:
''Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
‘To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods''
How unwoke can you get, whitey? Lord preserve them should they dare speak those lines in a college classroom. But they will know them in their hearts. Maybe, should fate place them in such circumstances, the lines will come to them and give them the courage to face what they must.
Oh, well.
What's all this got to do with Humoresque? I don't know. It's just the direction my mind wandered. Humoresque is a fun bit of fluff from an era when even popular music was sophisticated in its fun. But today I'll bet you dollars to donuts that not that many people know it, could hum it if you mentioned it, or even, for that matter, have heard of Antonín Dvořák unless they are music students. Man....
Oh, well, again.
Listening to this version of Humoresque, I gotta admit it ain't bad. But still....
A bit of "Barbara Friechie"
She took up the flag the men hauled down;
In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced: the old flag met his sight.
“Halt!”— the dust-brown ranks stood fast.
“Fire!”— out blazed the rifle-blast.
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner with seam and gash.
Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;
She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman’s deed and word:
“Who touches a hair of yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.
And here's "Casabianca." Go ahead, laugh.
The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck,
Shone round him o'er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though childlike form.
The flames rolled on -- he would not go,
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He called aloud -- 'Say, father, say
If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
'If I may yet be gone!'
-- And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath
And in his waving hair;
And look’d from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair.
And shouted but once more aloud,
'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapped the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound --
The boy -- oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea!
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part,
But the noblest thing which perished there,
Was that young faithful heart.
