The white Druse, and other poems

Front matter

H . W. Tay)

V

OTHER POEMS

Prefatory Note To The White Druse

For this curious and interesting Romance in verse we are, probably, indebted to those rapid flights of reason or fancy which occupy the thoughts of young people in times of peril, and which seem to inspire both sexes, and society itself, with a spirit of unreason amounting, often, almost to frenzy.

The story deals less with florid passion than with those sudden discoveries of spiritual and intellectual afi&nities, the fervor of which may silence, temporarily, the pleadings of mere passion, and, sometimes carry young people away from what they imagined to be their sure anchorages of character and purpose, and entangle them in strange alliances, which, to the calm beholder, have all the semblances of mad-cap escapades.

The author, very naturally, having been a doctor himself, chose his hero from that generous, ambitious, and consequently, adventurous class of young physicians and surgeons that was so much in evidence in our volunteer armies, during the Civil "War.

The heroine, or more properly the first heroine, for there are two in the story, each of whom displays an indisputable title to the name, appears to have been the girl- wife of a Tennessee mountain outlaw, upon whose head a price had been set, so many dollars for his return, alive or dead.

Though innocent of complicity in, or guilty knowledge of the crime, the young wife had fled with her doomed lord, and wandered with him, here and there, in hidden corners and along strange waterways, to avoid the fate which was pursuing him in the form of men more murderous than he, who were spurred on by the hope of gain.

Vi PREFATORY NOTE

One of these flights had led them far up the Wabash — " Indian River of the North " — where they had found a temporary hiding-place in the old log cabin on the Indian mound.

There the young wife and her child were discovered by the youthful surgeon, while he was on an expedition, with the fisherman's excuse, but in reality to enjoy a revel in the wild life and scenery of wood and stream. The little boy was ill and in need of the medical aid thus accidentally provided by the doctor's arrival.

The mother was but eighteen, golden-haired, beautiful, intelligent, adventurous, and skilled in the use of the slender oar and repeating rifle. More than this, both she and her hunted husband were dispensers of such genuine hospitality as their readiness as anglers and hunters made them the masters, though the husband possessed none of the refinements and graces by which the wife could make even a frugal meal delightful.

This much to the hasty reader, in the way of explanation, seems to be demanded by the rapidity with which the narrative hastens along in the flowing verse. The poem relates more clearly, perhaps, all that followed.

Every event is related with a rapid flow of recital, interspersed with curious reflections, bits of quaint philosophy and unhackneyed descriptions, which hold the reader's attention so closely that it may be, at times, almost difficult for him to retain the thread of the story. In the later cantos or chapters he gives a most peculiar, perhaps because so realistic, description of skirmish and battle in the wooded, mountain regions of the Tennessee, from the observation point of Union prisoners held within the Confederate lines.

The final denouement and the kindly, graceful chapter that follows it, reveal not only the generous soul and impulsive nature of the hero, but that of the regretted author. Dr. Taylor, as well,

TO THE WHITE DRUSE vii

while the songs with which the recital is interspersed are remarkable for their aptness and beauty.

But the reader may inquire : * ' Wherefore the term * White Druse,' as applied to the heroine? " To answer in brief : " The Druses," as we learn from the Encyclopedia Brittanica and other authorities, are a peculiar people of Syria who cherish a strange and picturesque form of religion, which, however, seems to lead to purity of life and great hospitality. On account of this supposed purity of life the chiefs wear the White Turban as its outward sign. They carry the matter of hospitality so far that the French traveler, Volney, declared that he had seen the lowest peasants among them divide their last morsel of bread with the hungry traveler. If charged with imprudence, their only answer was : "God is great and liberal and all men brethren." "Whoever presents himself at the door of a prosperous Druse is sure of being entertained with food and lodging in the most generous manner." They do not practice polygamy and they are so honest that they deem it wicked to accept illgotten money for anything of value, or at all. Then they are said to be self-possessed and to cherish a delicate sense of appreciation of the wishes and feelings of others. But the Druses, like other Orientals, are revengeful of wrongs and relentless towards their enemies. It was doubtless the union of these several characteristics in the character and soul of "The Pallid, Golden Wanderer " that finally determined Doctor Taylor to confer upon this strange child of his genius the name

"White Druse."

B. S. P.

EDITORIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Our thanks are due to The Century Company for the following permission to use "The Rebel Yell," which originally appeared in that magazine :

'* The Century Co.

Union Square, New York,

Sept. I, 1904.

" You have our full permission to reprint * The Rebel Yell ' in the proposed volume."

We are also under obligations to other magazines, newspapers and friends for aid in the preservation of these poems, and other favors.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

The illustrations in this volume are all from drawings by Dr. E. E. Edwards, except "The Aigger" and "Billy in the Low Grounds," which are from hurried pen sketches by Dr. Taylor, while the Wabash at Fort Harrison and the same at Terre Haute are from photographs.

A REVIEW

Dr. H. W. Taylor, of Terre Haute, the popular poet of the Wabash, has a delightful bit of dialect verse in this week's Current, all the more appetizing to our readers because he quaintly compares our Ambraw River with the Wabash. Taylor does in dialect what the old Flemish painters did in color — paints old-time home interiors. His characters are the authentic Hoosiers, and the firelight falls as graphic on his cabin groups as it does on Ruben's peasants around the tiled hearths of Holland — the same rich glow, the same spectral shadows balefully nigh. There is a lusty stress and sweep of speech, with precipitate saber cuts of metaphor that cleave the pith at every stroke. His words fall like Ethan Allen's axe biting an oak to earth with a score of blows. He should be roundly abused for writing so little. His work is irremediably masculine, with a fine disdain of petty tawdriness. With a Hercules grip, he drags shrinking "Pole Beasly " into the light, and we fall roaring at the backwoods sage preaching a homily on "Locusses" or "Terbacker." But hear " Ole Pole" abuse our beloved Embarrass.

Contents

PAGBS

THE "WHITE DRUSE 1 to 222

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.