The citizen poets of Boston : a collection of forgotten poems, 1789-1820 / Paul Lewis, editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Lewis, Paul, 1949- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry--Massachusetts--Boston.

American poetry.

American poetry--18th century.

American poetry--19th century.

Massachusetts--Boston.

Physical Description:

xv, 234 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Hanover : University Press of New England, [2016]

Summary:

Uncovers the vibrant, lost world of Boston's post-revolutionary poetry, Welcome to Boston in the early years of the republic. Prepare to journey by stagecoach with a young man moving to the "bustling city"; stop by a tavern for food, drink, and conversation; eavesdrop on clerks and customers in a dry-goods shop; get stuck in what might have been Boston's first traffic jam; and enjoy arch comments about spouses, doctors, lawyers, politicians, and poets. As Paul Lewis and his students at Boston College reveal, regional vernacular poetry-largely overlooked or deemed of little or no artistic value-provides access to the culture and daily life of the city. Selected from over 4,500 poems published during the early national period, the works presented here, mostly anonymous, will carry you back to Old Boston to hear the voices of its long-forgotten citizen poets. Book jacket.

Contents:

Coming to Boston 23

The Stage Coach, Inscribed to Mira 29

Epigram [As two Divines] 33

An Intended Inscription, Written for the Monument on Beacon-Hill, in Boston, and Addressed to the Passenger 33

On the Licentiousness of the Manners of the Present Day 35

Lines on the Elm Tree 36

Anacreon Imitated 39

Fragment. [As I walk'd on the banks of Charles' briny flood] 40

A Letter to Tom, in the Country 41

[Dear Jack, I am no more the clown] 43

Jonathan's Journey to Boston 45

[In Boston once did A with B contend] 48

Men and Women 49

A Recipe for the Ladies, Or, Advice How to Get a Husband 55

Advice to the Young Ladies of Boston 55

On the Choice of a Husband 56

The Modest Wish of Susan, the Breeches Maker 57

Lines Written by a Lady, Who Was Questioned Respecting Her Inclination to Marry 58

Lines Spoken Extempore to a Lady, on Being Asked What This World Is Like 59

Simile [Passion is like the base narcotic flower] 59

Epitaph [Here lies the quintessence of noise and strife] 59

[Oh, envy'd happiness! said Isabel] 60

The Old-Maid [from "The Ruling Passion"] 61

Crosses 63

[Thy manly face I strove to hit] 63

Enquiry 64

The Wish 64

Impromptu on the Marriage of Capt. Foot, with Miss Patten 64

The Man to My Mind 65

A Parody 65

Epigram [That ladies are the softer sex] 66

A Hint to a Friend 66

To My Friend 67

Song [I courted a girl that I long wished to marry] 68

Look before You Leap. A True Story 69

Single Blessedness 69

Matrimony 71

Woman 71

Answer to the Lines Entitled "Woman," Signed, Ned Megrims 72

A Tale 73

[What's become of Ned Megrims would any one know] 75

Woman 76

Ladies' Dress 76

Politics 79

The War Horse 85

The Man of Feeling 85

Stanzas to Maria Antonietta 86

To the President 87

The Dying Indian 87

Epigram [In the reign of Democracy, dead to all shame] 90

Epigram [When a Partizan dies of true Jacobin leaven] 91

[Arduous the task in which we would engage] 91

Democrats in Office 91

Hymn, Sung at Cambridge, at the Celebration of Peace 92

Lines Composed on Hearing the News of Peace 92

Buonaparte 93

Extracts from Fawcett's Contrast 96

Canning's Speech 98

Epitaph on a Tomb-Stone 98

Spare Injur'd Africa! The Negro Spare! 99

New Year's Address of the Sweepers 100

Tribute to Foreign Missions 101

Slave-Holder and Yankee 102

The Family 103

On the Domestic Education of Children 109

Verses on a Sleeping Daughter 109

Lines Written by an Old Planter, in the Country, to His Daughter 110

[Julia, to Anna Maria, Sends Greeting] 111

Thanksgiving 113

The Hopeful Youth 114

The Retrospect; or-All for the Best 115

Eliza ... A Poem 115

Lord Dyring... A Ballad 117

Jephthah's Vow 119

The Consolation 122

The Effects of Intemperance 122

To the American Goldfinch 123

The Orphan 124

Stanzas Addressed by a Lady in Vermont to Her Brother in the Army 126

A Grandmother to Her Infant Grandchild 127

A Mother's Love 127

Jobs, Shops, and the Professions 129

Mechanics Song 137

On the Multitude of Lawyers 138

Epigram [Since the fulness of blessing the gospel contains] 138

The When, the Why, the Where, the What, the How. Epitaph on an Hermit 139

Ations 139

[Here comes Miss Lighthead and her tasty sister] 141

Epigram [The young spendthrift detests the old covetous miser] 142

Epigram. [With folded arms and uplift eyes] 142

Epigram-To a Physician 142

Lines Written on the Front Page of a Doctor's Account Book 142

The Mechanick Preferred 143

The Poet 143

Epigram, [Boston stage] 144

Author-ity 145

Examination 146

[Good folks, the Carrier-fill'd with fear] 148

The Truant 150

Imitation of Martial 152

Advertisement, [fabric shop] 152

Advertisement, For Anybody That Wants It [bookshop] 153

An Epistle to the Editor 155

Pleasure and the Good Life 157

To the Editor of the Town and Country Magazine 163

Bacchus's Shrine 163

Human Inconsistency, or, the Universal Portrait 164

Epigram [Last Thursday, I met with a sweet smiling sister] 165

The Grumbler 165

Life and Friendship 166

Parody 167

Heigh-ho! By a Lady 168

The Sine Qua Non 169

Time and Pleasure 170

God Is There 172

Hope 173

Time 174

Pleasure 175

Rebuses, Riddles, Anagrams, Acrostics, and Enigmas 177

A Rebus [Take the sixth] 183

Answer to the First [Take the sixth] 183

Another [Rebus: Take three fourth] 183

Answer to the Third [Rebus: Take three fourth] 183

Acrostick [Born for a Curse] 184

A Rebus [Take two sevenths] 184

Solution [Take two sevenths] 185

An Enigmatical Bill of Fare 185

Solution [An Enigmatical Bill of Fare] 186

Acrostic [Great George's praise] 187

A Rebus [What increases the sea] 187

Another [Rebus: The name of that earth] 187

A Rebus [The crimson rose] 187

A Solution of the Rebus in the Magazine for March 188

Acrostical Rebus 189

Solution to Alonzo's Rebus 190

A Rebus [An Animal vain] 190

A Rebus, of Which a Solution Is Requested [Take one half] 191

Out of the Twelve Solutions to the Rebus in Our Last 191

Rebus [The isle where] 191

Answer to ******'s Rebus in Last Saturday's Magazine 192

A Rebus [I am both man and woman too] 193

The Riddle-A New Song 193

A Rebus [That part of the day] 194

Answer to the Rebus, in our last number 194

Enigma [Relentless foe] 195

An Acrostic [Blessed news] 195

Enigma [For knowledge I go] 196

Acrostic-In Answer to the Enigma in our Last 196

Origin of Life and Death 196

Anecdote [Old Harvard long hath stood] 196

Death 199

Reflections in a Burying-Ground 205

Written on the Author's Natal Day 205

On a Canary Bird 207

Elegy on Perceiving a Rent in My Old Shoe 207

The Old Man and Death 208

Hymn for the Commencement of the Year 210

To the Memory of William Henry Moulton 210

Thanatopsis 212

Solitude 214

Written in the Burial Ground, on Plymouth Heights, in Nov. 1818 215

Epitaph on a Tomb Stone in a Church Yard Near Boston 216

On the Death of an Infant 216

The Ruins of an Old Mansion 216

The Maniac's Last Ray of Reason 218

On the Death of Twins 218.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Other Format:

Online version: Citizen poets of Boston.

ISBN:

9781611688870

1611688876

9781611688887

1611688884

OCLC:

921926549