The Liberty Minstrel

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Title: The Liberty Minstrel
Author: George W. Clark
Release Date: July 16, 2007 [EBook #22089]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
LIBERTY MINSTREL ***
Produced by Carlo Traverso, collective PM for music, Linda
Cantoni,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at

http://www.pgdp.net. (This file was produced from images

generously made available by the Library of Congress.)
Music
transcribed by Linda Cantoni and the PGDP Music Team.
THE
LIBERTY MINSTREL.
[Illustration]
"When the striving of surges
Is mad on the main,
Like the charge of
a column
Of plumes on the plain,
When the thunder is up
From
his cloud cradled sleep
And the tempest is treading
The paths of the

deep--
There is beauty. But where is the beauty to see,
Like the
sun-brilliant brow of a nation when free?"
BY
GEO. W. CLARK.
NEW-YORK:
LEAVITT & ALDEN, 7 CORNHILL, BOSTON: SAXTON & MILES,
205
BROADWAY, N.Y.: MYRON FINCH, 120 NASSAU ST.,
N.Y.:
JACKSON & CHAPLIN, 38 DEAN ST., ALBANY, N.Y.:

JACKSON & CHAPLIN, CORNER GENESSEE AND
MAIN ST.,
UTICA, N.Y.
1844.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1844, by
GEORGE W. CLARK,
In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the Southern District of
New York.
S.W. BENEDICT & CO.
MUSIC STEREOTYPERS AND
PRINTERS,
16 _Spruce St._ N.Y.
PREFACE.
All creation is musical--all nature speaks the language of song.
'There's music in the sighing of a reed,
There's music in the gushing
of a rill;
There's music in _all things_, if man had ears;
The _earth_
is but an _echo_ of the spheres.'
And who is not moved by music? "Who ever despises music," says
Martin Luther, "I am displeased with him."

'There is a charm--a power that sways the breast,
Bids every passion
revel, or be still;
Inspires with rage, or all our cares dissolves;
Can
soothe _destruction_, and _almost soothes despair_.'
That music is capable of accomplishing vast good, and that it is a
source of the most elevated and refined enjoyment when rightly
cultivated and practiced, no one who understands its power or has
observed its effects, will for a moment deny.
'Thou, O music! canst assuage the pain and heal the wound That hath
defied the skill of sager comforters;
Thou dost restrain each wild
emotion,
Thou dost the rage of fiercest passions chill,
Or lightest up
the flames of holy fire,
As through the soul thy strains harmonious
thrill.
Who does not desire to see the day when music in this country,
_cultivated and practised by_ ALL--music of a chaste, refined and
elevated style, shall go forth with its angel voice, like a spirit of love
upon the wind, exerting upon all classes of society a rich and healthful
moral influence. When its wonderful power shall be made to subserve
every righteous cause--to aid every humane effort for the promotion of
man's social, civil and religious well-being.
It has been observed by travellers, that after a short residence in almost
any of the cities of the eastern world, one would fancy "every second
person a musician." During the night, the streets of these cities,
particularly Rome, the capitol of Italy, are filled with all sorts of
minstrelsy, and the ear is agreeably greeted with a perpetual confluence
of sweet sounds. A Scotch traveller, in passing through one of the most
delightful villas of Rome, overheard a stonemason chanting something
in a strain of peculiar melancholy; and on inquiry, ascertained it to be
the "_Lament of Tasso_." He soon learned that this celebrated piece
was familiar to all the common people. Torquato Tasso was an Italian
poet of great merit, who was for many years deprived of liberty, and
subjected to severe trials and misfortunes by the jealousy and cruelty of
his patron, the Duke of Ferrara. That master-piece of music, so justly
admired and so much sung by the high and low throughout all Italy,

had its origin in the wrongs of Tasso. An ardent love of humanity--a
deep consciousness of the injustice of slavery--a heart full of sympathy
for the oppressed, and a due appreciation of the blessings of freedom,
has given birth to the poetry comprising this volume. I have long
desired to see these sentiments of love, of sympathy, of justice and
humanity, so beautifully expressed in poetic measure, embalmed in
sweet music; so that _all the people_--the rich, the poor, the young, and
the old, who have hearts to feel, and tongues to move, may sing of the
wrongs of slavery, and the blessings of liberty, until every human being
shall recognise