WHEN VERNAL SUNS FORBEAR TO ROLL: 
BELIEF AND UNBELIEF, DOUBT AND RESOLUTION 
IN THE POETRY OF PHILIP FRENEAU 
by 
Joseph Jeffrey Griffith 
Dis sertatio b . d ~ tte Faculty of the Graduate School 
oc~  the un  s, u mi.t te f_ o M r? ?rland in parti? a 1 f u_l fi' ll ment 
niversi.ty o.  a ,.  - ? ~or the d egree o f 
of the requiremen~s ~ 
ooctor of Philosophy 
197i 
APPROVAL SHEZT 
Title of Dissertation: When Vernal Suns Forbear To Ro ll: 
Belief and Unbelief, Doubt and Re solution 
in the Poetry of Ph i lip F=eneau 
Name of Candidate: Joseph Jeffrey Griffith 
Doctor of Philosophy, 1 977 
Di ssertation and Abstract Approved: ~ '/4/Vl If {/;, 
::-t'-::'-'-1-~~=~~---=~~~~~~ =---
R. C. Vitzthum, Ph. 
Associate Professor 
Depart~ent of English Language 
and Literature 
Da+.:e Approved: I ~ I 
7 
ABSTRACT 
Title of Dissertation: When Vernal Suns Forbear to Roll: 
Belief and Unbelief, Doubt and 
Resolution in the Poetry of Philip 
Freneau 
Joseph Jeffrey Griffith, Doctor of Philosophy, 1977 
Dissertation directed by: R. C. Vitzthum 
Associate Professor 
Department of English Language and 
Literature 
This study analyzes and evaluates the pre-1790 lyric poet-
ry of Philip Freneau through close examination of representative 
Poems. Freneau should be taken more seriously as an artist and 
th inker than he now is: the notions that Freneau was "dwarfed 
and transformed" or "thwarted" by his environment and that he 
"entirely congruent" to the literary and philosphic conven-
tions of his day are contradicted by the poetry but have influenced 
th e general critical estimate of the poet. Freneau was a careful 
Poetic craftsman who not only sometimes reversed the poetic and 
Philosophical conventions but also often used his poetry to 
examine his own philosophical relationship with the universe . 
The central issue for Freneau was not simply the essential tran-
sience of all life, as most critics have argued, but rather the 
lack of a phenomenological reality which could be reliably known. 
Thus Freneau was concerned with the development of a meaningful 
'w'a Y to live in a world which he speculated might be void of 
tneaning. 
The introduction reviews past a11d present critical assess-
ments and summarizes the standard critical views--Pattee's, 
Clark's, Leary's, Adkins', Bowden's; explains th e editorial 
difficulties in dealing with Freneau's works; and outlines the 
dissertation's purpose, method, and organization. The body of 
the study consists of an examination of key lyrics from the 
editions of 1786 and 1788 which reveal the themes and form a l 
artistic techniques characteristic of Freneau's serious earlier 
poetry. Each poem is subjected to three kinds of study. First 
the central thematic concerns of each poem and the patterns 
of symbol and image with which the poet conveys them are 
examined. Second the formal structure of each poem, showing 
how Freneau's manipulation of rime, rhythm, and spatial organi-
zation either underscores or undercuts his meaning is considered. 
Third ? the extensive revisions which Freneau made of these poems 
and their purpose and effect are analyzed. In each case, the 
first collected edition of the poem is used as the basis for 
discussion, following the chronology of the poem's publicati o n 
as closely as possible. 
The study is divided into six chapters. Chapter one is 
the introduction; chapters two and three discuss the 1786 
edition; chapters four and five the 1788 edition. Chapter six, 
the conclusion, recapitulates the major po i nts made in the 
preceding chapters; briefly considers selected poems from the 
1795, 1809, and 1815 editions; and assesses Freneau's achieve-
ment. 
ii 
TO 
MARIA 
AND TO 
LEZA and LYNNE 
iii 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
Completing a project of the dimensions of this one necessarily 
requires the help and support of a great many people, both friends 
and family. I would, however, like to offer special thanks to 
several individuals. First, thanks to Professor R. c . Vitzthum for 
his guidance and encouragement. Second, thanks to Dr. Richard Leete 
Eldridge for his con-.ments on the draft of this paper . Finally, and 
most especially , thanks to Ann Cusic for he~ patience, determination, 
and dedication in preparing the many drafts of this paper and her 
many encouragements. 
iv 
WHEN VERNAL SUNS FOREBEAR TO ROLL 
CONTENTS 
CHAPTER I: 
"On the Folly of Writing Poetry": Introduction. 
.Page 
CHAPTER II: "Freedom of The Mind": The Early Poetry . .... .Page 31 
CHAPTER III: "Without a Partner al"ld Without a Guide": 
The Poems of Philip Freneau, 1786 ? ? ? ? ? ....P age 56 
CHAPTER IV: "We Press to One Abode": Introducing 
The Miscellaneous Works of Philip Freneau, 1788 ..??P age lO( 
"Nature Owns the Aid of Art " :Five Lyrics of 
The Miscellaneous Works ? ? ? ? ? ? .Page ll'f 
CHAPTER VI: "Belief and Unbelief": Poems Beycnd the Eighties. .Page 179 
. . . 
.Page 228 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
.? Page 24J 
WHEN VERNAL SUNS FOREBEA R TO R OL L 
CHAPTER I - "On the Folly of Writing Poetry" 
Of all the fools that haunt our coast 
The scribbling tribe I pity most. 
Philip Freneau in 
"On The Folly of Writi?ng p oetry 
To Sylvius" 1788 
The varied and conflicting views re g arding Philip Freneau 
and his art are the result, perhaps, o~ his long and complex 
career as a man of letters. For example, IL H. Cla~k has called 
F.:=-eneau "The Father of A'll.erican Poetry" yet Lewis Leary 8 alls 
. . 2 
nim "a literary failure." Roy Harvey Pearce states that Fr e neau 
3 
is " the only revolutionary (era] poHt of any merit" bet be-
lieves that his poetry is "just [his] drive to exhaust himself 
4 
of his bitterness and rage." Robert S . Spiller n otes tha~ 
Freneau ' s contemporaries regarded him as "not quite respec:ta-
ble. 5 .a radical" and explains that his poetry is "the most 
6 
or? 1i gi? nal ' of his generation. Duri ng his varied fifty year 
carE: er, Freneau produced much ver.-se which is, frankl'i, crude i:.ews-
PaJJer h-a,._.. k?w??,~~ ~?- k , i,n tenct-e d mai;,.2.y as politi!;al commentary or as 
copy filler . He is therefor~ often considered to be no more 
than a b a nal satirist or a gross po litical hireling. Evec 
his considerable skills as an edito~ and as an essayist are 
o-
:r: ten overlooked. 
avid partisan 0f a political 
Freneau's involveme nt as th e 
d 0 with the failure of his rParty has no doubt had much to 8
ad -
e h as also a skill e d poetic craftsman wh c 
-rs to recognize that e w ? 
PJ.g e 1 
Page 2 
shaped a small but important corpus of lyric poems that are 
remarkable for their structural and rhetorical virtuosity, 
th . 
eir emerging symbolic and imagistic tendencies, their sophis-
ticated manipulation of point of view, and their consistent 
thematic concern with the perplexities of the human condition. 
The assumption of many of those who have studied Freneau seems 
to be that his work is largely a simple extension of the British 
Nee-clas sica l tradition which may exhibit some tendency towards 
Pre-:Romanticism but which represen-ts, in the last analysis, 
noth?i ng unusual or highly original. This assumption has not 
be en supported and, in fact , is not supported by the close 
reading of his lyric poems. That these works have lain un-
examined is perhaps the major reason for the miscellany of 
7 
Critical impressions of his works. 
During this century five critics have undertaken major 
studies of Freneau's works. The first of these is Fred Lewis 
Pattee, whose three volume Poems of Philip Freneau contains an 
extended " Life of Philip Freneau " which was for years the stand -
ara b i? ography and cri-tical assessment. Harry Hayden Clark cul-
tninated his studies of Freneau with the publication of Po~ 
The "Critical Introduction" of this volume contains 
a n assessment of Freneau , s a rt which builds upon previous stud-
ies Which had appeared 1.?n published articles by Professor Clark. 
Le~? is now the standard biography, 
is Leary's That Rascal Frenea u 
hav;ng the most influential current 
~ s up erseded Pattee , a nd is 
crit ? Nelson F. Adkins' Philip ical assessment of the po et ? 
~~u the study of the re ligious and the Cosmic Eni g ma is 
age 
and Philosophical influences on, and speculat1? on o f , F reneau. 
Finally, Mary W. Bowden's Philjp Freneau, published while this 
study was in progress, is the most recent critical appraisal 
of the poet and offers a somewhat different perspective on the 
Poet than that of any of the preceeding studies. In order to 
acquaint the reader with the purposes and premises of the pre-
sent essay, I will discuss the positions of each of these stu-
dents of Freneau and suggest their cumulative effect on my own 
approach and perspective. 
While Professor Pattee's biography has been displaced, his 
attitude toward Freneau has not. Perhaps the most famous state-
ment in Pattee's introduction is his remark that since Freneau's 
"temperament was eeltic. .he had not the feutonic stability" 8 
to weather the vicissitudes of his unpoetic age and to achieve 
artistic fulfillment. This attitude, allied with the notion 
h,~ 
that Freneau was "dwarfed and silenced by his times and;1environ-
ment, 119 colors Pattee's pioneer commentary on the poet. While 
Pattee is personally sympathetic towards Freneau, he is intent 
0 n showing "how the young dreamer was gradually disi llusione d . 1110 
As P attee rightly points ou t , Freneau had "the poet's creative 
? 1 1 
J.magination," and he attemp t s t 0 Show that "Freneau was the 
most conspicuous pioneer 1?n the dim romantic world that was to 
be explored by Coleridge an d p ? e (and] a pioneer in the movement 
12 
that succeeded in throwing off the chain forged by Pope." 
What Pattee fails to point out, however, is that Frenea~ 's 
long and careful study of Pope is very much a part of the equip-
ment which he uses to "throw off the chains." 
Pattee is attuned to Freneau's personal struggle as a 
poet: 
He fitted himself by wide reading and 
classic . culture; he received the full 
inspiration of a great movement in human 
society; he lifted up his voice to sing, 
but was smothered and silenced by his 
contemporaries. He was all alone; he had 
about him no circle. .. to encourage and assist; 
he had no traditions, religious or other-
wise, that would compel silence. He was 
out of step with the theology of his gen -
eration; he was out of tun e with the music 
of his day; he was beating time a half 1 
century ahead of the chorus about him. 1 
Freneau was quite alone, but what Pattee fails to see is tha t 
the poet was not unstable, that he was not "dwarfed and trans-
formed by his environment" but that he strove diligently over 
a Period of more than fifty years to transform that environment 
into the stuff of his art. While Pattee recognizes that Freneau 
strenuously desired a break from the influence of British lit-
erature as well as British politics, he fails to see that Freneau 
Was not crushed by hi s failure to accompl ish these ends for 
himself--or even that the poet did accomplish these ends for 
himsel f . Close examination of Freneau's lyrics reveals that 
the poet worked cons ciously to disassociate himself from the 
control of British literary influence, and that he adap ted the 
skills he acquired from the study of British Neo-Classicists 
and Pre-Romantics to his own us e . Moreover, he used his poetry 
as a means of clarifying his und ers tanding of himsel f and of 
his Personal relationship with th e un i verse, and he consistent -
l y maintained the attitude that an individual must actively 
Page 5 
seek to discover the nature of that relationship in order 
meaningfully to exist. The notion that Freneau was over-
whe l med by the world which he inhabited is contradicted by 
the poetry he produced . Instead we find in the poetry the 
record of the education of the artist and the man. 
Cl osing his introduction, Pattee opines that "true merit 
in the end is sure to receive its deserts" and predicts 
1 4 
that "Freneau may even yet be given the place that is his:" 
That this recognition has not yet occurred is due at least 
in part to the fact that Pattee's successors have fastened 
upon a subjective analysis of Freneau's character rather than 
on Pattee ' s critical evaluation of the poet's literary stature, 
superficia l though that evaluation may be. Pattee's empha s is 
is, of course, editorial, and though his introduction remains 
in some aspects valuable, it attempts no close analysis of any 
of Freneau ' s poems . Further, Pattee's edition is not a sati s -
factory base for further scholarship because its dating of the 
poems is unreliable and beca~se it does not include the va~i-
ants of the many carefully revised works. 
Professor Clark ' s several studies of Freneau are also 
notable for their perepective. Clark recognizes that Freneau 
"In an age of generality and abstraction . . was a pione e r .. ,i n 
1 5 
turning, as a poet, to the cor,crete and particular" and claims 
that his simple , natural, concrete language contrasts with the 
1 6 
" inane phraseology" of Pope. -P.ccording to Clark, Frer:eai;' s 
"naturalism. .heralded our literary independence, s o far as 
) Page 6 
themes are concerned, by bringing into poetry for the first 
time truly indigenous American nature. .roses, daisies, 
daffodils, the honey-suckle, pumpkins. . the 'loquacious 
,. 1 7 
whipporwill'. .the caty-did. Up to Freneau's time, 
according to Clark, American poetry "had been mainly .versi-
1 8 
fied homiletics" such as Michael Wiggleworth's "Day of Doom." 
However, while Clark argues that Freneau had solved "what 
Pater regarded as the greatest technical problem of the artist, 
'the transmutation o f i.  d eas i. nto i. mages?, " 1 9 he, too, tends to 
regard the poet as a noble failure. Freneau's genius, he says, 
was "thwarted by an age and associates indifferent to 'pure 
poetry '. " Thus he believes that the poet was "unable to select 
and focus with concentrated intensity truly significant experience 
in such a way as to stir the reader's imagination, to suggest 
a symbolic quality . 1120 I would suggest, however, that Freneau 
was challenged, rather than thwarted, by the "indifference" 
of his age . One important purpose of this study is to illustrate 
how effectively Freneau did what Clark eays he could not do--
focus with concentrated intensity truly significant experience. 
Clark, like Pattee before him and Leary after, attempts no 
close reading of a particular poem. Instead, although he recog -
nizes some aspects of the poet ' s uniqueness , he emphasizes 
Freneau's supposed reliance on past poetry. "In all important 
, :spects, " he says, Freneau "was entirely congruent to the 
tendencies of the time . " Clark then outlines the influence 
on Freneau of the didactic and satiric poetry of Pope, Young, 
and Blair, as well as the influence of the revival of the 
classical study of Vergil and Horace, whose int2r~sted 
Page 7 
student Freneau unquestionably was. Clark also alludes to 
Freneau's study of the "whole course" of English poetry--
Sackville, Shakespeare, Milton--and to his interest in the 
2 1 
past, his "ruminations on tombs of antiquity.'.' Clark assumes, 
however, that Freneau's having steeped himself in this art 
required that he slavishly imitate it. Ye t Freneau was not 
subjugated by traditional forms but rather picked and chose 
among them in order to forge somehow the tools by which he 
might practice his craft, as would any serious poet. F o r 
example , as we shall see , his "The Vanity of Existence" is a 
masterful ironic reversal of the shallow piety of the conven -
tional "life is vain" theme of the eighteenth century. This 
poem not on ly illustrates his rejection of the conventional 
notions of af t erlife and salvation but also reveals one way in 
which he extends the range of h is models. Furthermore, as 
Professor Bowden notes, Freneau often employ e d the forms and 
tones of the conventional in order to mock them. 
Clark insists that the important theme in Freneau is "th e 
br e v i ty of human existence" and that th i s i s " t he indwellin g 
master-tho ught which tends to dominate and shape his cor.cept i on s 
regarding every subject." But he also argue s that "this is an 
22 
id e a which is pr a ctic a lly a c o nventi o n in En g lish lit e rature . " 
Ir. advancing this notion, Clark disregards Fren e au ' s i nsistence 
on America ' s breaking all ties with En g land and h e r influence. 
Transier.ce is but on e c hara c t e r i stic of lif e i n a me c hani st i c 
Page 8 
universe, the implications of which Frenea~ examines throughout 
his works. The central issues in Freneau are not, "Why is life 
so short?" anc , ''Why is life so frail?" but rather, " What is the 
nature of reality?"- - if the question may be posed quite that 
simplistically, and I am not convinced that it can be -- and 
"Given that natu::::-e, how does one live?" Freneau's art is net 
the naive verse of a derivative Neo-Classical or pre-Romantic 
poetaster but the controlled development of a poetry which is 
both an expression of and a buffer against his view of an un -
graspable and inchoate universe. 
Lewis Leary 's That Rascal Freneau, like Pattee's and 
C lark ' s studies, is dominated by the image of the poet as a 
noble failure, a man both admirable and somehow pitifu l. The 
,, 
Preface opens, "Philip Freneau failed in everything- he did. 
Leary believes that Freneau "w as never quite to escape from 
23 
conventional forms" and that "probing into the p hil osophical 
basi s of Freneau's writings is an . ,. 24 unprofitable occupation. 
But, also like his predecessors, Leary generally deals super-
ficially with the poetry. For example, " The Invitation" is 
for him simply '' a plea to all brave men who would seek honor 
or wealth in the service of their country." 25 
Close examination, however, reveals that "The Invitation" 
may contain the key to Freneau's vision; it is an exhortation 
actively to sally forth and confront the basic essentials of 
life, symbolized in the impenetrable sea. It is a plea to aban-
don the security of land--boldly to seek to encounter the dyna-
Page 9 
mic, the fluid, the vital, and to escape the fixed, the passive, 
the dead. However, although he is personall y sympathetic to-
wards the poet, Leary seems to regard him as a pathetic dreamer, 
one whose "dream" is shattered into "a thousand pieces" by 
" reality." 2 6 
Leary's value to the student of Freneau is unquestionable; 
th ough, of course, one might sometimes decline to concur with 
hJ' .s conclusions. No serious study of the poet may be undertaken 
wJ? .thout close study of the variations through whi c h ~any of 
Freneau's key lyrics pass. Without Leary's exhaustive and 
accurate bibliography, the job of tracking down all of the 
variants would be virtually impossible. Moreover, Leary points 
0 ut some of the direct literary influences on Freneau, although 
again, like Clark, his emphasis is directed toward Freneau's 
conformity to the poetic traditions of his da y rather than to 
a consideration of the manner in which Freneau used and manipu-
lated what he learned from his English models. For example, 
Leary carefully documents Freneau's debt to Pope; indeed he 
Points out that the verbal similarity between "Windsor Forest" 
and ''The American Village" suggests that the y o ung Fren e au 
.,2 7 
"very word tracks- "So the poets gf followed the master's 
2 8 
England spoke. .through young Philip Freneau," he sa y s. 
Yet While later desire that America recognizing Freneau's fr e ~ 
?herself from the literary influence of England, he shows 
th - on Freneau by such poets 
roughout the biography influences 
as Po Gray, Goldsmith, and Milton without clearl y 
Pe, Thomson, 
ernPhasizing au does 
turn the lessons l ea rned 
the fact that Frene 
Page 10 
from these poets to his own devices in his mature work. 'rh e re 
can be no doubt that these writers influenced Freneau--he had 
no American models--but what is significant is not the ways 
in which Freneau's juvenile works resemble their works, but 
the ways in which his later works employ the techniques which 
he had acquired. Ironically, throughout That Rascal Freneau, 
Leary stresses the theme of freedom in Freneau. For example, 
Leary suggests that Freneau must have wondered if America 
would ever be free from the influence of Britain and points 
out that in Freneau's view America "was settling back into an 
easy reliance upon the methods an d institutions of England. 
instead of rising steadfastly toward greatness in pursuit of 
. 29 
the ideals which had inspired her during the Revolut io n ." 
However, while attributing to the poet the patriotic desire 
to liberate his nation, Leary does not sufficiently reco g nize 
that Fr e neau's desire to be independ e nt of things British 
extends also, in some degree, to his own poetry . 
Freneau was thoroughly acquainted with the Deism of his 
age , and it may well be true that when ''he was older, Freneau 
seemed to center all his conviction on the certainty tha t the 
God of Nature would somehow work all things together toward 
his own unchangeable ends, and that the ideal of human perfec -
tion might yet be realized, man yet knew not how, as human 
1130 
reason plumbed the mysteri? es w h.i c h Nature sprea d before hi' m,
as Leary argues. While I be lieve that ambiguit y is central 
Page 11 
in Freneau, Leary feels that Freneau ultimately concluded 
that "his own failures. .were the results of man's 
failure ... to adjust himself to the great and harmonious scheme 
of which he was a part. 1131 Leary assumes that Freneau had 
convinced himself that man could discover that scheme and 
adjust to it, but even in his old age, when the poet undoubt-
edly longed to believe that such a discovery could occur, his 
poetry carries in it the implicit awareness that such a dis-
c ove ry is not possible. Furthermore, the poetry of the 1780's 
clearly denies the notion that man can discover what Leary 
calls a ''great and harmonious scheme" and, in fact, q uesti o ns 
whether there is one. 
Leary argues elsewhere in the same vein: 
Too much must not be made of Freneau. As 
a talented man he responded to the impulses 
of his time .. . borrowing whatever was founc 
useful in content or form . . . . [He was] a 
transitional figureJ grounded securely in 
the past and reaching tentatively toward 
the rewakening of a sensibility called 
romanticism. Read carefully he ma y be 
discovered a poet who wrote a single p oem 
i. n a vari. ety o f c~ arms. 3 2 
This is, bluntly, a narrow view. Not only does F reneau go well 
beyo!:.d simple borrowing; not onJ.y does he effectively utilize 
his grounding in the past as an integral part of his forward 
movement; but he progresses in the core of h i s lyric a chie ve-
ment, varied, rich, and complex, toward a resolution o f wha t 
he sees as the essential human dilemma. Since there is n o 
p henomenological reality wh ich may reliably be kn o wn, h ow d o 
we meanin g full y exist? 
Page 12 
Ne lson F. Adkins succeeds in illuminating Freneau for us 
b y doing what Leary says is unprofitable. Adkins proves the 
philosophical basis of Freneau's thought and identifies a cen-
tral tenet in Freneau's philosophy of being: 
If living was to Freneau's pragmatic mind 
the essence of life, the rejection of much 
that Christianity embodied lay in its fail-
ure to_meet fu}~Y the conditions of every-
day existence. 
Because Freneau is a seeker and Adkins recognizes this fact, 
Adkins understands that Fr ene au came to reject all the conven-
tional and even the unconventional beliefs of his time. Yet 
he seems not to see that the poet had worked out a kind of 
solution to the problem of belief through th e dynamic process 
of his art. Says Adkins: 
The reason for Freneau's exploration of 
the philosophies of the ancients may 
certainly be traced i n part to a. 
desire to meet life square l y and honest-
ly .??. If Freneau came finally to reject 
the life to come, it was to see with 
clearer eye J2e life which lay directly 
in his path. 
This attempt to deal honestl y with life is clearly reflected 
in the lyric FOetry of Freneau, but Adkins ' help ?u l Ey nthesis 
0? Freneau's thought fixes on the conclusion that the poet ' s 
quest for a basis of belief was speculative and eclectic, when, 
in fact, it was reasoned and consistent, as the poetry shows. 
Central in Adkins' argument is the undeniable fact that 
JS 
Freneau was "a :nan in search of a philosophical creed." 
Ad~ins cresents considerable detailed evidence that Freneau 
Page 13 
was much influenced by Lucretius, in whom the American apparent-
ly discovered a kindred . . ,_ 3 6 spiri .... "I n so far as F re n ea u was prone 
to accept the hypothesis that God. .best reveals himself to 
man through nature and that 'man's inhumanity to man' has been 
mainly the result of his deviation from the true course of 
nature," says Adkins, he"may be considered . 3 7 a De is t." But, 
since Lucretius ''insisted upon a universe capable of function-
ing without divine creation or guidance" and had "discovered 
a lack of cosmic design which further precluded the possibility 
of God's exi? stence, II 38 Adkins believes that the Lucretian 
i n f 1 u e n c e " 1 e d [ F re n e au J away from th e e s s en ti a 1 pr i n c i pl e s O f 
d eism 1139 and resulted in an "unqualified rationalism and. 
opposition to conventi. ona 1 r e 1 i? gi. ous beli. ef." 40 
It seems contradictory, then, that Adkins would state 
that "what in Lucretius had been a tragic sense of man's help-
l essness in the hands of an inexorabl e universe was often to 
Freneau but the familiar romantic melancholy of his age. 1141 
Freneau's "unqualified rationalism" would rather, as Adkins 
elsewhere states, enable him clear l y to perceive a "nature 
cap ricio us and unstab 1 e ,, 42 an d t o recogni. ze t.h at man may be 
"at the mercy of nature's fluctuating moods. 1143 Instead of 
succumbing to "romantic melancholy," Freneau finally found a 
measure of hope , I believe, in his vision of what Adkins de-
scribes as the '\'nora l heights [that might] be reached in a world 
where all is flux, where every manifestation of life, physical 
4 4 
and mental, is but a fresh arr a ngement of ato ms " --the world 
of the Lucretian atomic theory. 
Page 14 
Adkins' observation that "with all Freneau's denial of immor-
tality and his rationalization of death--with a ll his desir e 
to snatch from the moment whatever of happiness it might give, 
he still clung,Qchild of his age, to the doctrine of perfect 1 -
45 
bility , " points to the poet's characteristic conce r n with the 
potential effects on man of a universe "where all is flux." 
If the po e t's perc e ption of the world we r e su c h, th e develop -
ment of his thought and of his craft would necessarily be 
fluid, often uneven, and alw a ys affected b y the influence of 
each new experience and i d ea--and his attitud e would be essen-
tially stoic and ultimatel y hopeful, not melancholy. Therefore 
i t is not surprising that we find in Frene3u t h e development 
o f a "philosophical cree d " which posits man's potential per-
fectLbility while freely recognizing his weaknesses, which 
r e cognizes the necessit y that man constantly strive to achie v e 
his highest potential while realizing that that goal is un-
attainable, and which takes great satisfaction in the bitter-
sweet rewards of continuing always to seek that goal nonetheless. 
Mary W. Bowden argues th a t Freneau "made it clear, in 
[ h i s J 1 a t e r y e a rs , th at he w i shed to be remembered as a po e t , 
q . 4 6 
p ot as an essayist or11 par1:y newspaper editor." and raises 
an issue largely overlooked by the earlier critics. "More of-
ten than not," she says, "he satirized the genre in which some 
47 
of his most famous poems are included." In fact, she goes 
so far as to state that he often manages "to mock the conven-
. ..48 
tions by extending them so far that they become c o mic. 
Page 15 
F r eneau's ability to "mock the conventions" becomes one of the 
central concerns of Bowden's sweeping overview of Freneau's 
works. However, while sh e admits t h at "the unusualness of his 
~ocking his own well expressed the ~es strikes us again and 
1149 
again, Bowden does not examine the extent to which this 
"mo cking " may go. As an example, she points out the effect of 
the surpri s e ending of "Th e Modern Miracle , 11 50 which reverses 
the expectations generated by the sentime n tal tastes of its 
audience by showing how the physician, Sir Gilbert , 
.by passion l ed, 
Exp lor'd the? kin g doms of the dead 
Rel iev'd the fainting maid so fair,--
Ou t-docto r'd death--and got an heir! 
" On A Honey Bee. " is also c ited as a poem which mocks "the 
5 1 
c urr e nt tast e fo r melancholy" . Bowde n stress e s t he comic 
aspect s of thes e works but she does not discu ss the manner in 
wh ich Freneau manipulates the conventions witho ut holdin g them 
up to the r e l ativel y obvious mockery of humorous satire . Poerns 
such as "The Vanity of Existence," "The Vernal Ague ," and " The. 
Wi ld Honey Suckle'' are representative of those whi c h go beyond 
mere "mockery" of "current tastes " and challenge the philoso -
phical and religious tenets of the age. 
On one han d , th e n, Bowden glimpses a significant aspect 
of Freneau ' s art , his consc ious attempts to reverse and control 
the poet ic conventions; but on th e other hand, she fai l s to see 
that this reversal penet r ate s ultimately to the core of conven -
t i onal religious belief. " The Vanity of Ex is tence" is Freneau ' s 
" most famous poem," Bowden says, and adds that 
here t he poe t foll'.:>ws th e conventions ''i n order to p:!'."esent the 
Page 16 
52 
glories of the life to come. In fact, the poet only 
a ppears to follow the conventions while he subtly manipulat e s 
t hem in order to show ironicall y that the afterlife is just 
a delusion . The concluding stanzas of "The Vanity of Existence" 
d o not, according to Bowden, "put the reader in an exalted 
53 
frame of mind." Freneau's "bank of mud" is not intended to 
do so . Bo th " The Ver nal Ag u e " and "The Wild Honey Suckle" 
are seen as being well within the melancholy genre and essen-
tially conventional. " Freneau's early poetry contains a number 
o f verses that evoke melancholy by discussing death and 
the vanity of existence; usuall y , as in the popular English 
v e rse of the era, the subject is expressed by moralizing about 
54 
the seasons," Bowden declares. Again, however, Freneau cool'lY 
e mploys the conventions in order to state the unconventional, 
perhaps the radical, that " end less winter" is inevitable and 
that there is no rationally acceptable evidence to support the 
notion that there is an afterlife. 
The precise relationship between Freneau and th e British 
tradition with which he is s o often associated is not a simpl e 
o ne to define . However , the American differs in both form an d 
substance from his models . That is, both his attitude toward 
the nature of poetry and his attitude toward the nature of t h e 
uni v erse are q uite his own. Freneau ' s view of poetry seems to 
g row out of his view of nature, as perhaps did the respective 
v iews of diverse poets such as the Nee - Classicists Pope and 
Johnson, the " pre - ~omantic" Thomson, and the many others with 
Page 17 
whom Freneau was familiar . Bonamy Dobree recognizes th e com-
plex ity of eighteenth-century religious belief but generalizes 
that "all that need be noted is the strong pull toward s 
De ism. . . Those who tried to reconcile natural philosophy 
with religion arrived, as Thomson did, at a kind of 'natural? 
Deism which invo l ved the finding of a moral pattern in Nature, 
55 
and attempting to mold oneself by it." Geoffrey Till o tson 
points out that "external nature was not much regarded for its 
own sake, [but] was often regarded for the sake of a straight-
forward theology and an everyday science. The creatures wer e 
a continual proof of the wisdom and variety of the mind of the 
C reator. II 56 Similarly , "the belief that the universe was order-
ed, both physically and morn l ly , by a benign and sagacious plan-
ner was at the bottom of much eighteenth century deism, " says 
David Da.i c h es. 57 But, though this belief may have been general-
ly held , it was not universally held . As Daiches explains, 
Hume had shown that "the analogy between the universe (which 
i s u n i q u e ) and human 1 y d e s i g n e d ob j e c t s" i s a f a 1 s e o n e , and 
that "even if we were to accept [the analogy] and infer from 
the natural world the existence of a designer, such an inferen ce 
would tell nothing about his attributes and might well suggest 
58 
that he was a novice or a blunderer . " This i s a position 
similar to that taken by Paine, who concluded that a l though 
reason can discover the existence of God, II i t falls infinitely 
59 
short in discovering the whole of [his attributes)." 
Freneau may ultimately arrive at a position somethin g like 
Pai ne ' s ; but, as we shall see, by no means was th e poet 's move-
Page 18 
ment toward that position easy, nor is his arrival a matter of 
any great certainty. In the poetry of the 1780's, Freneau 
questions the beliefs that there is a "mora l pattern in nature" 
and that "the universe [is] ordered by a benign and sagacious 
planner." The ab s ence of such a planner is conspicious in the 
lyrics of the Eighties: Nature is not, for the Freneau of 
t his period, proof of God's handiwork. 
All of this is not to say that Freneau was a radical in 
revolt against 11 Eighteenth Century T hought'.' Indeed, "Eighteenth 
Century Thought" is too varied for neat labeling or facile 
division into schools. However , there is little que stion that 
Freneau stands outside of the frame of reference attributed 
to the poets who are generally regarded as his mode ls . Yet 
pe rhaps the critical view that Freneau was "entirely congruent" 
with his times may be sustained if one argues that his times 
were so intellectu ally misce l laneous that any and every philo -
sophical stance was " en tirel y congruent ." 
Although Freneau appear s, by the time of the poems of 1809 
and 1815, to have decided that belief in the existence of God 
is rational l y valid , he did not accept the corollary view that 
there is an afterlife of the soul, a view which even Pai ne 
60 
seems to have held and one which was common among eighteenth 
c entu r y poets such as Pope, Johnson, and Thomson . Freneau 
v i gorously denies this view i n the poems of the eighties , and 
remains ambiguous until the e nd of his writing career . 
Freneau ' s handling of nature is in direct contrast with 
Page 1 9 
that which Tillotson attributes to th e Augustans. They "were 
c oncerned with seeing [nature] not so much as they knew it 
deserved to be seen but as they wanted to see it. They super -
imposed on nature what they considered at certain times to be 
esirable. They are interested in nature as it is controlled 
by man," he says. Pope, argues Tillotson, "superimpose[d) on 
nature some of [his] own humanity. .intellectual and sophis-
61 
ticated." I n the same way, Augustan pastoralists 
.controlled (the landscape's] appearance 
in their verse with the same rigid hand th at King 
Charles's gardeners had used on the configuration 
of St. James's park. They 'methodized'it b y tamin g 
it in diction . .The landscape, always limited 
in pastoral, was further limited b y being robbed 
of all its characteristics except thos e which proved 
its gentleness, its 'tamedness: The brook could 
be there but should be a stream. . There would 
be woods,but not so near you could see any ' knotty, 
knarry barren trees old .' The woods would[be dis-
tant) and seen as a whole. .T~~~ is how they com-
posed their sylvan scenes .? 
Freneau, in contrast, deals with nature not as a distant, 
harmonious whole, but rather as a complex system of inter-
related, sometimes discordant, elements . Sometimes gazing 
intent ly at specific natural objects or proces ses, as in 
" The Wild Haney Suckle" and "The Vanity of Existence, " at 
other times describing dynamic settings, as in "The Lost 
sa ilor," Freneau moves among the phenomena he writes about, 
a ttempting to see them as they are. Indeed, poems such as 
"The Dying Elm" and "The Vernal Ague " reveal Freneau's aware-
ness that superimposing one's "humanity " on nature is a delu-
sive and self-defeating activity. For the American poet, th e 
Page 20 
surface of the natural universe--the forest, the sea--is f ar 
less important than the reality it envelops. 
On one hand, then, Freneau's view of the universe, partic-
ularly his view of God, nature and the afterlife, is rather 
different from the views most t y pically held b y British poets 
of the early and middle eighteenth centur y On th e other 
hand, Freneau seems to have had a different sens e of the n a ture 
of poetry as well. As Ian Jack has suggested, Augustan poetry 
"was written by men living in the last age of the Renaissance, 
63 
who still had ? ? , critical theory to afford them guidance." 
Thus, while Pope and Johnson, and even Thomson , might employ 
what Jack calls "sublime and lofty di c tion" or "abs tract 
64 
generality of idiom," Freneau, in a new world where the 
tradition was crumbling, used a more common, direct speech. 
Jack rightly points out the falsehood of the fami l iar misco n -
ception that these British poets were "unwilling to 'call a 
spade a spade' II No "reputable" Augustan poet "ha d the sli g ht-
est hesitation in using familiar words in his verse, so long 
65 
as decorum was not violated," he sa y s. Granted that remarks 
such as H. H. Clark's reference to the "inane phraseolog y " o f 
Pope are likely to be overstatements, Freneau's diction in his 
lyrics / ._, quite unlike the "lo f t y and sublime." He was w r i t i :1 g 
for a very different audience than that of the Augustans. 
And, of course, Freneau's relationship with his audience 
is also different. Eighteenth-century British critic John 
Dennis argued that the greater(poetry~is a n art by which a 
Page 21 
poet justly and reasonably excites great passion in order to 
66 
please and instruct and make mankind better and happier." 
The didactic purpose of much eighteenth century has been 
67 
thoroughly documented . Conversely, Freneau, in his ly~ics, 
seems to have no didactic intent. The purpose of these lyrics 
is simply to examine the nature of certain phenomena and to 
report the findings. 
Perhaps the best specific example of the manner in which 
Freneau departs from the Neo-Classical tradition lies in his 
handling of nature. In The Mirror and The Lamp , M.H. Abrams 
d e fines the Meo- c:! lassical tenets regarding "that nature which 
is to be ir:iitated by art" : 
1. pleasant or beautiful objects or aspects of 
things; 
2 . objects which are synthesized from parts 
found separately in nature; 
3. the central tendency, or s tatis t ical average, 
of the form of each biological species; 
4 . the generic human type rather than the 
individual ; 
5 . the prominent, u n iform, and familiar aspects 
of the inner and outer world. 68 
Freneau instead fixes on the bank of mud, the hurricane, the 
o ak , the w i 1 d honey s u ck 1 e , the " Nevers ink ,. hi 11 s , the cat y -
did . In his poems we find Shalum, the dying Indian; Ralph, 
the l ost sailor; Celia, the scornful lady. However, Freneau 
does take great care to employ the word choice, the timin g 
e ffect, or the rythmic variation which will produce a specific 
effect on his audience. Jack describes a like concern of the 
Augustans as '' the deliberateness with which they set out to 
.. 
Page 22 
g ain their effects,and their skillful adaptation of means to 
69 
the end desired." Freneau's ability to adapt his means to 
his end is evident in the lyrics of the 1780's: obviously 
Freneau learned much from the numerous British poets whose 
work he studied. Although Freneau's debt to British poetic 
tradition has been amply shown, and although the purpose of 
this essay is not to contend that in this or that spe c ific 
manner Freneau was a rebel against Nee-Classicism or some 
o~her literary mode, the American poet's originality must be 
recognized. 
Thus we must raise the basic question one asks of a poet: 
How do his poems function? How and what do they mean? What 
is the poet's relationship t o his materials and to his craft? 
co nsequently, the concern of this study is closely to examine 
a series of ?reneau 's characteristic short lyric s. These 
lyrics will be considered, in the chronological order of their 
pub lication, so that the development of the poet 's involvement 
with certain themes may be ana l yzed. Further, revisions made 
as these poems were collected from newspapers, or as the y 
were reprinted from edition to edition, will be examined s o 
tha t the poet's changing relationship to his materials ma y be / 
considered. Five large scale editions of Freneau's poe ms were 
co llected during his l ifetime , in 1786, 178 8 , 1795, 1809, and 
1815 . The ' 86 and '88 editions collect materials published in 
the current periodicals. Poems collected in ' 86 are not re-
printed in ' 88 . The ' 95 edit~on is regarded as the most autho-
Page 23 
ritative of the five because it was personally edited and 
printed by the poet at his own press. In this edition, most 
of the poems of the '86 and '88 volumes are reprinted along 
with pieces printed periodically in the interim. The 1809 
is a similar compilation, including works published in '86, 
' 88, '95, and a smattering of more recent . works since published 
in the papers. The 1815 edition contains nearly all new 
materials, some of which antedate but were not collected in 
the 180 e i. ti.9 d o n. 69 
The examination of these editions is often a difficult 
task because the individual poems often go through a compli-
cated process of emendation and revision. For example, "The 
Dying Elm" was first printed in three stanzas but was later 
published in a revised four stanza form which is a substantial-
ly changed and strengthened work of art. "A Moral Thought" 
becomes "The Vanity of Existence", a poem which through the 
alteration of a pronoun and the change of title is entirely 
transformed. Thus, if the student of Freneau is to render an 
adequate reading, the major variants must be considered,and 
the reasons for the revisions must be accounted for. In short, 
a kind of variorum text of each poem must be compiled, since 
no modern edition does so. Thus, the original newspaper or 
collected edition of each poem has been consulted and the sub-
sequent editions have been compared. 
The approach I will follow in presenting my findings is 
a s follows. Generally, key poems will . be considered in the 
c ontext of the major works with which they are contemporary. 
Page 24 
Each poem will be treated in t ne order of its original publi-
cat i on in the case of poems initially published in the press, 
and in the order of pagination in the case of those first pub-
lished in the collections. Variants will then be discussed 
in the order of their respective publication. When this method 
is used, the development of the poet's thought may be traced, 
a pattern of the poet's attempts to distance himself from the 
poems develops, and an attempt, generally , to heighten the 
metaphoric le vels of the poems is revealed. Moreover, the re-
visions often t end to illustrat e the poet's handling of the 
conventions of his century. Why the poet chose to alter the 
poems in this manner is a question which this study will seek 
to answer. 
Freneau's public poems, his satires and occasional verse, 
are generally outside the scope of this study. Instead, 
th~ 
?reneau 's private poems are~ main concern. These are the brief, 
inten sel y personal, symbolic works in which the poet employs 
the immediate experience of natural phenomena --pla n ts, trees, 
mountains, the sea, even other people --&s the touchstone by 
which to examine his relationship with the universe and with 
himse lf. Freneau probes the nature of death, and the nature 
of time, flux, and transience, and through that probing attempts 
to discover how to live. 
A cluster of interrelated themes tend to emerge as central 
to Freneau's thought. The poet again and again explores the 
nature of the dichotomy between appearance and reality and early 
reaches the conclusion that there is no phenomenological reali-
Page 25 
ty which may be reliably known. Unlike contemporary deists, 
some of whom were subjects of Freneau's deep admiration--
Jefferson and Paine, for example--Freneau found no evidence 
in natural phenomena which could lead him rationally to the 
conclusion that there is a benevolent creator. Mo reover, he 
found no evidence by which to support the notion of an after-
life . In the poems of the 1780's, his disillusionment is par-
ticularly evident and seems to have led him to a crisis of 
per sonal belief. As I have suggested, the question which 
Frenea u faced may be posed thusly: if there is no God and if 
there is no eternal life of the soul, is not our present life 
essentia lly meaningless? At least in the beginning Freneau's 
a nswer to this question may have been "yes." However, his 
sense of the value of the individual human being was so strong-
ly rooted that he could not long accept such an answer. There-
fore ,I believe that Freneau began to develop a practical humani-
tarian creed which stresses the necessity that the individual 
co nstantly strive to understand himself and his changing rela-
tio nship to the universe as fully as possible. To the extent 
that one strives ,his life is meaningful . The ~esponsibility 
i s placed squarely on the individual . 
Gradually Freneau seems to have realized that the lack of 
c o ncrete evidence affirming the existence of God or the existence 
o f eternal spiritual life is balanced by the corollary lack of 
evidence denying their respecti ve existences: the evidenc e 
c ons trains neither affirmatior. no:. denial. Therefore the hope 
Page 26 
that a benevolent creator exists and that the soul is eternal 
is tempered in Freneau's later poetry by his awareness that 
s uch hope is as likely to be false as it is to be true. 
The tension between doubt and belief is one which was 
characteristic of Freneau's poetry during the 1780's. This 
tension, growing out of the poet's perception of the cleavage 
betwee n appearance and reality, generates intense concern with 
several sets of dichotomies: flux and stability, activity and 
passivity, and life and death. One method through which the 
poet attempted to examine the nature of these opposites is 
through their symbolic association with sea and land; Freneau 
often juxtaposed land and sea in order to explore the effects 
on the individual of the security of land and the danger of 
the sea. The land frequently comes to represent stability; 
the sea?,flux. However, the safety of the land could be destruc-
tive to that individual who might be lulled into a life of 
passivity. The individual who goes to sea, who confronts 
there actively the elemental chaos of nature, grasps more fully 
the nature of the world he inhabits. Thus land is associated 
with stability and passivit y ,and sea is associated with flux 
and activity. The passive quality often attributed to life on 
land comes to represent a kind of death in life, in that it is 
e mptyh while the activity of life at sea, perhaps because it 
constant l y tests the individual, becomes a type of that life 
which the poet re g ards as most meaningful. 
There is, unfortunately, no neat pattern of events in 
Freneau's life which lends itself to the formulation o f "periods " 
Page 27 
with which to label the poet's development. Therefore, the 
o r ganizati on of a discussion which attempts a chronological 
examina tion of the development of the poet's thought is not 
easily divided into sections. However, the following organi-
zation, though far from symmetrical, seems sensible. Chapter 
Two will provide biographical background and will examine those 
poems published in the 1770's and early 1780's which establish 
the context within which the major lyrics of 17 85 must be read . 
chapte r Three will then focus closely on fiv e key lyrics which 
reveal Freneau's artistic and philosophical concerns in the ' 85 
edition . Chapter Four will provide additional biographical 
material and will likewise examine certain poems of the mid-
80 ' s which provide the context for understanding the lyrics of 
the edition of 1788 and which illustrate the continuing develop -
ment of Freneau's control over his vision. Chapter Five will 
analyze five key lyrics which reveal Freneau's stance at the 
height of his creative powers. Chapter Six will survey the 
edi tions of 1795, 1809, and 1815; summarize the major themes 
and developments in Freneau's work; and draw conclusions. 
The focus of this study is, then, the poems of the 1780's. 
such a focus is sensible for several reasons. First, the early 
poems, particularly those published before 1780, are less impor-
tant in themselves than as avenues by which to reach an under-
standing of the more mature work. Second, the major lyrics of 
1785 and 178 8 are revised and reprinted in 17 95 and in 1809. 
Freneau produced man y more poems than these, of c ours e, but 
Page 28 
his continued involvement with them suggests that he considered 
m 
them to be at the core of his achievement. Third, the poems of 
the 1780's most effectively illustrate the poet's crises of be-
lief, his attempts to reorganize his world view, and his gradual 
success in gaining control over both is vision and his artistic 
ability to express it . These poems are the most concrete, the 
richest metaphorically, and the most personally intense which 
he produced . They are the culmination toward which his early 
works build, and the watershed from which his later works flow. 
I have tried not to approach Freneau's work with any pre-
conceived notions of what he is trying to do . Indeed, it seems 
to me that a weakness of some of the prior criticism has been 
that it has approached the poet through the filter of previous 
7J 
assessments. Instead, I have attempted t o examine ths indi-
vidual poems closely, in order tc discover i? they contain, 
individually or as a group, characteristics which suggest the 
criteria by which they should be judged. In other words, I 
have attempted to examine the poems inductively , on their own 
terms . For example, if we find that a poem is structured in 
a specific way , that its sound patterns are particularly 
c rafted, that it relies on the impact of a specific concrete 
image, or on the associations generated by a certain symbol, 
then we must evaluate the poem in those terms. I would argue 
that the his t orica l and biographical approaches generally taken 
to Freneau's work deal too superficially with the poetry and 
c onsequently with the poet . The problem is that these criti ca l 
approaches have been largely d eductive. That is, evidence 
Page 29 
external to the poems has been imposed upon them: Freneau's 
study of Nee - Classical poetry, Freneau's supposed love affair 
in Jamaica, Freneau's religious training. In short, a variety 
of assumptions have been made but cannot be supported by in-
ductive analysis of the poems. For example, only a close 
linguistic and s tructural analysis reveals the complexity of 
" The Hurricane," a poem which Bowden says she is "tempted" t o 
read on " metaphysical levels" but of which she says finally 
that the last three sf tln~as "somewha t obscurely suggest. .a 
. 7 2 
metaphysical lack of safety." This statement comes in 
spite of the fact t~at Bowden gets c l oser to the poetry than 
some of her predecessors and seems to result from the general 
assumption, neve r verbalized, that Freneau need not be taken 
seriously as a conscious artisan. "The Hurricane" is a meta -
phoric representation of that very " metaphysical lack of safety" 
which Bowden i s " tempted " to discern. My own first contact 
with Freneau occurred in something of a vacuum--having been 
unaware of the views of Pattee, Clark, Leary, or Adkins, I was 
forced to attempt my own personal interpretations . Testing my 
own individual responses against theirs later, I concluded that 
a real need existed for sustained critical reading of the indi-
vidual poems . 
While I do not reject all that has been written about 
Freneau, I believe tha t er.ough has been deduced about Freneau's 
a rt from the external facts . The time has come to examine 
the internal life of the poetry. 
Page 30 
I believe that the picture of Philip Freneau which will 
emerge will be that of a careful craftsman, one who cons c ious-
ly controlled the devices and techniques of his medium in order 
to make concrete and deciph e rable the chaos he felt surrounded 
him. His attempt to develop a pragmQtic poetry which embodies 
a philosophy of how meaningfully to . live deserves, a hundred 
and fifty y ea r s after his death, the r e co g nition it has ne ver 
received. 
Page 31 
CHAPTER II: "Freedom Of The Mind": The Early Poetry 
When, in 1786, the first collected edition of his works 
was published, Philip Freneau had returned to the sea, as the 
thirty-four-year-old master of a coastal trader. Since his 
graduation from Princeton in 1771, the poet had occupied him-
self variously as teacher , student o= theology, sailor, militia-
man, editor, translator, printer, and postal clerk. In 1776, 
Freneau had left the rebellious colonies to spend about two 
years in the Carribbean, chiefly on Santa Cruz and Bermuda. 
After returning to the States and dutifully serving his tour 
in the New Jersey Militia, Freneau shipped on board of the 
Aurora and in May, 1780, was captured by the British and impri-
soned first on the prison ship Scorpion and later on the hospi-
tal ship Hunter. 
Freneau nonetheless managed to write and publish as well. 
In 1772 , two slim volumes, A Poem on the Rising Glory of 
America and The American Village, appeared; these were followed 
in 1775 by American Liberty and a number of broadsides . During 
1779 , "The Beauties of Santa Cruz," "The Dying Elm," and "The 
House of Night " appeared in United States Magazine as did several 
political pieces . In 1781, the year following his experience 
as a prisoner of war, The British Prison Ship was published; 
and shortly thereafter Freneau began editing the Freeman's 
Journal, to which he contributed "A Mo:::-al Thought," the poem 
which was later to become "The Vanity of Existence." Freneau 
Page 32 
remained as editor of Freeman's Journal only about a year , 
but he continued to contribute poems, including "The Dying 
Indian" in 1784 and "Verses Made at Sea in a Heavy Gale" in 
1785. The latter poem, which was later retitled "The Hurri-
ca ne," appears to have grown out of the poet's experience in 
a fierce storm off Jamaica in 1784 while he served as super-
c a rgo aboard the trader Drom e ll y . 
Perhaps the remark a ble variety of Freneau's e xperiences 
exp l ains th e remarkable variety found in his WQrk s. Yet perhaps 
this variety of poetic styles and sub jects --occasional, poli-
ti c al, philosophica1--people, places, phenomena--is simply 
the reflection of the poet's intellectual curiosity and h is 
interest in all manner of human experience. At any rate, the 
17 8 6 edition embodies the poet's diversity. The volume contains 
translations from the French such as "Humanity and Ingratitude" 
the much discussed "Graveyard" poem, "T he House of Night"; the 
lush "The Beauties of Santa Cruz"; the bitter product of his 
wartime imprisonment, "The Br itish Prison Ship" ; the philoso-
ph i ca l "Plato. .to. .Theon"; and a variety of political 
a n d occasional pieces. In addition, the v o lume contains seve ral 
of the poet's major lyrics, such as "The Dyin g Indian," "Verse s 
. , "and "The Vern a l Ague II Made At Sea. Also included are a 
thoroughly revised version of "The Dying Elm" and the as yet 
unaltered "A Moral Thought," 
The earliest poem which Frene a u produced on his own, how- / 
eve r, is not reprinted in the ' 86 ed ition. While "Th e American 
Page 33 
Village," 1772, is 1 apparently a highly derivative work, it 
nevertheless introduces concerns upon which the poet lat e r 
focused intensely. Superficially, the poem develops th e 
eighteenth century ~eo-6lassical theme lamenting the passin g 
of the ideal pastoral world. Nevertheless, the poem denies 
the central assumptions of the pastoral tradition: the past 
natural idyll is not regainable, and th e po s sibilit y c f h a rmony 
between man and nature is unlikely. "Envious time conspiring 
2 
with the sea" destroys the "lovely isle" (1. 87) which would 
have been the natural paradise where man could have lived in 
"happy ignorance divinely blest" (1. 141). Decay, then, is 
inevitable, and flux cannot be forestalled. Transience pre-
eludes the ideal P.Xistence, so "The American Village" celebrates 
America as a useful alternative. 
The story of Caffraro and Colma , an idealized Indian coupl e , 
forms the central narrative of "The American Village." With 
their son, the two lovers are transporting furs in their canoe 
when the craft springs a "large leak, the messenger of fate" 
( 1. 271). In order to save his wife and child, Caffraro tries 
to sacrifice himself, but Colma stops him, and, arguin g that 
they will finally be together again in another worl~ plun g e s 
to her death despite Caffraro's efforts to save her. Of course, 
c affraro remains true to the memory of his Colma, awaiting t he 
day when "in some strange fanc y ' d land" he may again shar e "the 
fragrant grove / Its vernal blessings, and the bliss of love "{.RP. 373 -s-) 
with her. However , the narrator of "The American Village" 
Page 34 
undercuts the possibilities of this imagery of renewed life in 
the apostrophe which closes the tale: 
Farewell lamente d pair, and whate'er state 
Now clasps you round, and sinks you deep in fate; 
Whether the fiery kingdom of the sun, 
Or the slow wa ve of silent Acheron, 
Or eh ristian 's heaven, or planetary sphere, 
Or the third, region of the cloudless air; 
Or if returned to dread nihility, 
You'll still be happy, for you will not be. 
(11. 376-383) 
While the noble savages Caffraro and Colma believe that they 
will meet again, the narrator does not. We are thus introduced 
to the poet's consideration of the nature of the afterlife and 
his realization that we cannot know what awaits us in death. 
Perhaps his rhetorical arrangement of the alternatives su ggests 
his own feelings on the matter . Thematically, then, the tal e 
of Caffraro and Colma is consistent with the poem's concern 
with transience, decay, and flux, since, for man, the end of 
the process is inexorable death. As William L. Andrews points 
out: 
In the mind of Freneau, the happiness of 
country life is dependent not only on the 
ideals of contentment and simple rural vir-
tues but on a spiritual calm that comes only 
from a primitivistic ignorance of the entire 
q u e s t i o n o f e t e r n i t y . F r en e au,. ,d i d no t po s s e s s 
such ignorance. 3 
Andrews goes on to argue that 11 The American Village" i s " a 
4 
declaration . .of [Freneau ' s] imaginative independence." 
Indeed, " The American Village" reveals that. as early as 177 2 
Freneau had begun to employ the cor.ventions of Neo-Classical 
poe try in order to ques ti o n the assumptions ur.derpinning thern. 
Page 35 
5 
"The House of Night" is one of the most massively revised 
of Freneau's poems. The original is a work of 73 quatrains, 
while the ' 86 version is expanded to 136 quatrains. In 1795, 
the poem becomes "The Visior. of Night. ." a "fragment" of a 
mere 21 quatrains. The standard view oi "The i-louse of Night" 
is that it is a remarkable precursor of the gothicisrn of cer-
tain ~omantic writ ers . For example , F. L. Pattee says that 
the poem's "weird supernaturalism. .anticipated Scott and . 
its unearthly atmosphere. . clea:::ly anticipated Coleridge, 116 
He further contends that Freneau was "the most conspicuous 
p ioneer in that dim romantic world that was to be explored by 
7 
Coleridge and Poe." Actually, "The House of Night" may very 
. 8 
we ll be something of an elaborate satire . Freneau ' s intent 
may be suggested subtly in the tone of the "advertis ement" 
which preceeds the poem in the ' 86 version . The reader who is 
9 
familiar with the poet's attitude toward conventio nal religion 
and who has considered the poet's questioning of the nature of 
the afterlife is st ruck by the incongruity of the pious stance 
of the advertisement: 
This P oem is f ounde d upon the authority of 
Scripture, in asmuch as these sacred bocks 
~ssert, that the last enemy that shall b e ~~ 
quered is Dea th . .. . It concludes with a few 
reflexi6ns on the impropriety of a too great 
attachment to the present life, and incentives 
to such moral virtue as ma y assist in conducting 
us to a better. 
As we have seen, Freneau was not at all sure that there is a 
"better" world to which " moral virtue" c;an assure us entry . 
Page 36 
The body of the advertisement also briefly outlines the plot 
of "The House of Night." Death "personified" is discovered 
by the narrator on his dying bed in a solitary palace, "the 
time midnight." The palace owner, Cleon, "an amiable, majes-
tic you th, who had lately lost a be loved con sort;' is tending 
to Death, according to "that divine precept, I f thine enemy 
hunge r, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." The youth 
warns Death of the "certainty of his doom;' and Death prepares 
himself by composing his own epitaph and ordering that it be 
inscribed on his tombstone, "hinting to us thereby, that even 
Death and Distress have vanity." Freneau may seriously be 
attempting to create a didactic tone here, but that he is 
playing a satiric trick is strongly suggested by the extent to 
which the advertisemen t exaggerates the characteristic gothic 
elements popularly associated with melancholy "graveyard" 
verse: midnight, the solitary palace, the recent death of the 
beloved, the certainty of doom, the personification of death . 
These details are further emphasized by the poem's internal 
trappings: the opening lines of the poem feature death, ~ight, 
gloom, and horror . 
Trembling I write my dream, and recollect 
A fearful vision at the midnight hour; 
So late, Death o ' er me spread his sable wingsJ 
p ainted with fancies of malignant power ! 
(St . 1) 
Let others draw from smiling skies their t.heme, 
And tell of climes that boast unfading light, 
I draw a darker scene, replete with gloom, 
r sing the horrors of the House of Might . 
(St. 3) 
Page 37 
Later in the poem we encounter Death's g r oans and howls, 
tombstones, a storm, a graveyard, and a coal black chariot . 
Mo reover , the emphasis on the visionary quality of the experience 
which the poem rel ates and the speaker's admission that he 
operates under the influenc e of fancy--"Fancy, I own th y 
power" --tend also to exaggerate the gothicism of "The House 
o f Night." (S'r.S-) 
However, while one is reminded of the macabre q u a lit y of 
such works as Blair's " The Grave " or Youn g 's " Night Thoughts," 
"The House of Night" is neither as restrained, as rationally 
dis cursive, nor as sincerely didactic as those works. Rather, 
Freneau 's poem is fanciful and dramatic yet tinged with realis-
tic irony . " The House of Night " is neither the interna l musing 
of its narrator . nor a chronicle of the interior of the min d 
but is rather a confrontation among Death, his host, a n d the 
narrator, who is at first only an observer of the action but 
who quickly becomes involved in it when Cleon asks to be t empe r a -
rily relieved of his death watch . The r o mantic melanchol y 
evoked by Cleon's story o f Aspasia, his lover who was so beaut i -
ful that " even in death [sheJ/ "'4ay seize thy hea :::- t" (S;-:. . 44), 
is undercut by the realism of ?the bi cker in g of the unde rtaker 
with Death over the price of the funeral . 
"Yes , said th e master wo rkman , o ble Death , 
" Your coffi:1 shall be strong--that leave to me --
" But who shall these your funeral dues discharge? 
" Nor friendsnor pence you have, that I can see." 
(St. 91) 
Page 38 
The effect of the poem's dramatic quality is to make death more 
ludicrous : he dies bewailing his fate as some wretch might, 
groaning "in horror and despair" (St. 11 7). The realistic 
element introduced by the undertaker reminds us that death 
should not be considered always only in philosophical or medi-
tative terms but rather must be dealt with in a crudely practi-
cal way. The poem is shorn, then, of the melancholy brooding 
popularly associated with the graveyard verse which it super-
1 0 
ficially imitates. 
That Freneau is subtly satirizing is further suggested by 
the names which he chooses for the poem's bereaved lover and 
his departed lady. Cleon and Aspasia sound like the typical 
euphonious, Neo-Classical names of tragic lovers. Actually, 
Cleon was a powerful Athenian politician of the ~ifth century, 
B.C ., and Aspasia was the courtesan mistress of his arch - rival, 
Pericles. "The House of Night" depicts Cleon as being the 
noblest of men in tending to Death "as though [he were] a brother" 
(st . 35) even though Death has cruelly snatched his consort away. 
Yet Thucydides reveals Cleon to be a stern , vindictive man. 
When the Mytilene revolt against Athens was put down in 427 B . C ., 
Cleon proposed that all its citizens be executed and its women 
and children sold into slavery in the belief that "where ve::-1 g eance 
follows most closely upon ~he wrong it best equals it and most 
1 1 
amp l y requites it." Freneau's Cleon forebears to seek re-
venge . Likewise, Aspa sia hardly seems a likely model for the 
ideal lover. Althoug~ she was the mother of Pericles' illegiti-
mate son and had been tried f o r impiety shortl y before the out-
Page 39 
break of the Peloponnesian war, Freneau's Cleon describes her 
thusly: 
.The loveliest of her kind, 
Lucretia's virtue, with a Helen's charms 
Charms of the face and beauties of the mind . 
. Each future age her virtues shall extol, 
Nor the just tribute to her worth refuse." 
(Sts.3 9 , 41) 
Finally, despite the purported supremacy of fancy through-
out "The House of Night," its final five stanzas close the poem 
on a markedly rational note. Unlike the conventional poets of 
the graveyard, Freneau refuses to extol the faith of those 
who believe that 
The illustrious deliverer of manki~~ 
The Son of God [the grave] foiled. 
Rather , Freneau posits the Lucretian notion of a natural 
immortality. According to Nelson Adkins, Freneau grafts 
"8hristian doctrine on an essentially pagan metaphysic" in 
1 3 
"The House of Night." Actually, the poet goes further than 
that. His conclusion makes no reference to God or to a Christian 
notion of afterlife for the soul. Lucretius held that the soul 
d isintegrates into its constituent elements even more readily 
1 4 
tha n does the body; Freneau captures just that sense of f lux: 
1 3 2 
What is this Beath, ye deep read sophists, say?-
Death is no more than one unceasing chang e; 
New forms arise, while other forms decay, 
Yet all is T,1FI:: throughout creation's range. 
Page 40 
1 3 3 
The towering Alps, the haughty Appenine 
The A n d es wrapt i. n ever 1 ast1. ng snow, ) 
The Ap alachian and the Ararat 
Sooner or later must to ruin go. 
134 
Hills sink to plains, and man returns to dust, 
That dust supports a reptile or a flower; 
Each changeful atom by some other nurs'd 
Takes some new form, to perish in an hour. 
13 5 
Too nearly join'd to sickness, toils and pains, 
(Perhaps for former crimes imprison'd here) 
True to itself the immortal soul remains, 
And seeks new mansions in the starry sphere. 
136 
When Nature bids thee from the world retire, 
With joy thy lodging leave, u fated guest) 
In Paradise, the land of thy desire, 
Existing always, always to be blest. 
For Freneau, as for Lucretius, death is simply "a fresh arrange-
ment of atoms 1115 which may result in the soul's discovery of 
the "new mansions" it s eeks . "The House of Night " teaches us 
that death is the "paradise" of the soul's release from "sick-
ness, toils, and pain"; we need not fear death because we shall 
exist "always" in "each c hangeful atom" as it "takes sorr.e new 
1 6 
form." While the final two stanzas of " The House of Night" 
appear to assert the so ul 's immortality--"P aradise " ar,d "ne w 
mansions" for the "immortal soul "--the context of the poem 
suggest s that these closing lines are inte n ded to be ironic. 
Stan zas 132 through 134 present a materialist position which 
con tradicts the possibility of any acceptanc e of the traditi o nal 
Page 41 
Christian afterlife which stanzas 135 and 136 appear openly 
to avow. I believe that ~reneau has put on t he mask of con -
ve ntiona~ religious didacticism in order to create a subtle 
ironic reversal. While the meaning of these five sta~zas, 
taken even in the context of the satiric tone of the revi 3 ea 
poem, is ambiguous, Freneau's intent may be suggested b y the 
fact that although he chooses stock terms, lodging and mansions, 
to describe the bo dy before and after death, he chooses terms 
which are denotatively materi al istic. Moreover, he emphasizes 
that " Nature bids [us] from the world retir e ." God is notabl y 
absent, as we have seen. 
While both "The American Village" and "The House of Night " 
are concerned with the nature of death, "Th e Beauties of Santa 
1 7 
Cruz " begins to move toward a conception of how to live and 
introduces the tension between land and sea. Santa Cruz is a 
type of Eden: 
But,shepherd, haste , and leave behind thee far 
Thy bloody plains, and iron glooms above, 
Quit the cold northern star, and here enjoy, 
Beneath the smil ing skies, this land of love. 
(St. 99) 
But, significantl y , though the island is beautiful and 
though it offers escape from the "darksome forests" (St . 1 07) 
of the north where liberty and tyranny vie for supremacy, this 
parad ise is imperfect. Amidst "sweet orange groves," "cooling 
acid limes," and "juicy lemons" (St. 34) grows the "poisonous 
mach ineel" which bears a tempting "fragrant apple" (St . 3 1) 
Thus, even "in Eden's ground" one must guard against that 
which is not what it appears to be, for though the machineel 
--
Page 42 
i s "alluring to the smell, fair to the eye," yet "deadliest 
poisor. in [its] taste is found" (St. 32). Furthermore, Santa 
C ruz ha _r bors "cruel slavery" (St . 79) , th e mur d erous concomi-
tant of its sugar trade. "Yonder slave" (St. 72) stands as a 
mute reminder that the greed of "proud misers" and "lordl y 
despots" (St. 71) for "gold accurst" is a "madness" which has 
" d a r k e n ' d " th e mi n d to re a so n and comp a s s i o n ( S t b-7 6) e v e n i n 
what is apparently a natural paradise. Moreover, the tempta-
tions of the flesh may seduce the unwary here: 
To sensual souls the clime may fatal prove, 
Anguish and death attend,and pain severe, 
The midnight revel, and licentious lov e. 
Full many a swain, in y outh's serenest blo o m 
Is borne UMtimely to this alien clay. 
(Sts. 25-26) 
we are thus subtly made aware that in beautiful Santa Cruz 
lurk elements which may be both physically and spiritually 
d e structive to man. 
Life on the island paradise is juxtaposed with life on 
the "inhospitable main" (St. 89). In spite of its edenic 
q ualities, Santa Cruz is still a part of "Nature": 
These isles, lest t ature should have prov'd t oo k in d , 
Or rnan have sought his happiest heaven below, 
Are torn with mighty winds, fierce hurricanes, 
Nature convuls'd in every shape of woe. 
(St. 8 0) 
The power o'f the hurricane is so g reat that the " p lantan e 
grove. . is no more a refuge" (St. 86) but is sundered b y 
wind and sea, as had been the "lovely isle" o f "The American 
Villag e." Nothing is permanent; there is no "he av e n" h ere 
be low. The speaker of "The Beauti e s of Sant a Cruz" th e: r efore 
Page 43 
realizes that he must go forth to sea and confront the experi-
ences he finds there: 
For I must go where the mad pirate roves 
Led by false hope, and expectations vain. 
There endless p lain s deject the wearied eye, 
And hostile winds incessant toil prepare; 
An d should loud bellowing storms all art defy, 
The manly heart alone must conquer there.--
(Sts. 89 - 90) 
The 17 86 version of "The Beauties of Santa Cruz" f o reshadow s 
such poems as "The Lost Adventurer" which su ggest the potential 
destructive qualities of the land and contrast land and sea in 
order to establish the necessity to go to sea in order to strip 
one's self of "false hope and expectation vain." These themes, 
only dimly suggested in the ori gina l version, are developed in 
17 86 . 
Nonetheless, in "The Beauties of Santa Cruz," the poet 
paints a verbal picture which is lush and sensuous, concrete 
and particular. Critics have praised the poem for the original i-
. . 1 8 
ty of its description, and, in fact, the poem is remarkable 
in the extent to which it departs from the Neo-elassi cal tenet 
. ,. 1 9 
exto lling "the grande ur of generality. 
Yo~ cot ton shrubs with bursting knobs behold, 
Their snow white locks these humble g roves array; 
On slender trees the blushing coffee hangs 
Like thy fair cherry. 
The spicy berry, they guava call, 
Swells in the mountains on a stripling tree. 
The smooth white cedar, here, delights th e eye , 
The bay-tre~ with its aromatic green . 
Here mingled vines their downward shadows cast) 
Here, cluster'd grapes from load ed boughs depend . 
(Sts . 43-47) 
Page 44 
. . 20 
Contrary to previous interpretations, I would argue that 
th e effect of the rich descriptive passages of "The Beau ties of 
Sa nta Cruz" is to create a physical lushness which is meant to 
be seen as containing within itself the seeds of its own destruc-
tion . The poisonous fruit and the chaotic hurricanes are the 
dark underside of visible forms. Likewise, man's nature contains 
the self-destructive elements of greed and debauchery. Man ' s 
nature becomes here a reflection of the nature which is his 
en vironment. Ultima tel y, the comfcrts of the island, not the 
least of which is rum, "enchanting juice" an d "delicious nectar" 
(S t. 61) of the sugar cane, may rob man of his strength and 
lead him to destruction. Santa Cruz is as alluring and as 
po tentially destructive as "that shore/Where lotos grew" (St. 62) , 
a nd from which Ulysses rescued his sailors. Thus, though the 
speaker of "The Beauties of Santa Cruz" invites the shepherd 
to join him in these "southern groves" (St. 107), the invitation 
is tinged with an ambivalence generated by the speaker's aware-
ness that, though Santa Cr.1..a:z displays " Nature's charms in varied 
beauty ," the island is still ruled by a "tyrannic crown" (St. 97) 
and her charms may well entice man to acquiesce in that rule. 
The closing stanza of the poem contrasts the shepherd who re-
mains in the colonies to fight the tyrant and the bard who has, 
physically at least, escaped th e struggle: 
Still there remain--thy native air enjoy, 
Repell the ~ yrant, who . thy peace invades, 
While,pleas'd, I trace the va les of Santa Cruz, 
And sing with rapture her inspiring shades. 
(St . 108) 
Page 45 
This final stanza suggests not only Freneau's personal sense 
of guilt at having sat out part of the Revolution while loll-
ing in the West Indies but, more importantly, his sense that 
life on land may be cloying and illusive and therefore destruc-
tive, since the "tyrannic crown" is worn by both Nature and 
King George. 
Freneau returns to the consideration of the nature of 
death and explores the relationship between man and nature in 
2 1 
"Plato, The Philosopher, To His Friend, Theon." The central 
issue of the poem is stated in its opening stanza: 
Why, Theon, wouldst thou longer groan 
Beneath a weight of years and woe, 
Thy youth is lost, thy pleasures flown, 
And time proclaims, "Tis time to go . " 
(11. 1 - 4) 
The poem is a monologue directed, as the title states, to Theon 
by Plato, who functions here simply as a persona which Freneau 
uses to mask himself . The characters of Plato and Theon are 
not interwoven into the monologue, and the poet drops the mask 
in the later editions, titling the poem simply "To An Old Man " 
. 22 
and leaving the body of the poem virtually untouched. The 
speaker's attitude towards death is influenced by his attitude 
towards old age and towards life in geueral: 
Constrain ' d to dwell with pain and care, 
These dregs of life are bought too dear, 
'Tis better far to die than bear 
The torments of another year. 
(11. 17-20) 
Death, then, is preferable to the torments of the "dregs of 
life." The speaker ' s attitude is underscored by his description 
Page 46 
of the inevitable decay of physical nature and leads to his 
conclusion that "to live is nothing but to grieve" (1. 44): 
A thousand deaths around us grow, 
The frost the tender blossom kills, 
And roses wither as they blow. 
Cold nipping winds thy fruits assail, 
The infant apple seeks the ground, 
The peaches fall, the cherries fail, 
The grape receives a fatal wound . 
The mountains waste, the shores decay, 
Once purling streams are dead and dry--
' Twas nature's work--' t is nature ' s play, 
And nature says, that all must die . 
Yon' flaming lamp, the source of light, 
In chaos dark shall shrou. d his beam 
And leave the world to ,..other night, 
A farce, a phantom, or a dream. 
(11. 22-28 and 33-40) 
The stark closing evocation of nihility, the insistence 
on the inevitability of decay in the natural cycle, and, in-
deed , the very vivid n es s o f '' co 1 d nipping winds " and "dead. 
dry" streams, constitute a powerful illustration of the "mere 
emptiness and vanity " (1. 60) with which the poet ironically 
equates "the grandeur of this earthly round " (1. 56). Conse-
quently, the speaker goes on to suggest his belief that death 
offers the soul a kind of transformation. If we expect a 
cransformation of the traditional Christian type, however, we 
are mistaken. "Give me the stars, give !Tie the skies," he cries; 
"Give me the h eaven's remotest sphere" (11. 6 1-62). Because 
the human body ~snot yearly renewed in the same way that 
"green eternal crowns the year" (1. 78) , the soul seeks release 
from the body, having grown "weary of [its) mansion here" ( 1. 80 ) 
Page 47 
Ultimately, the speaker states that we must prepare to resi g n 
ourselves to Jove, for "his we are" and he "made us mortal" 
(1 . 88) Death, he believes, is "but the freedom of the mind" 
(1 . 86). Death, therefore, is part of the natural process 
which we are by living forced to undergo, and death is rel e ase 
from the imprisonment of the body. The tone of "Plato. 
to. .Theon" is pessimistic, and once ag a in we di scover th e 
poet ' s radical departure from the conventional belief that 
though life is vain and empty, the world to come is better. 
For the speaker here, the afterlife is hardly the Christian 
heaven; instead, his desperate "Give me the stars. " sug-
gests the conclusion of "The House of Night " that the soul's 
release from "sickness, toils, and pains" simply frees it to 
" take some new form. " Moreover, the allusion to Jove and the 
p o et's use of the pagan _philosopher as a persona remov e th e 
speaker's words entirely from the Christian context. 
23 
"The Dy i ng E l m, " which had appeared three years before 
" Plato To Theon," is the first of a series of short, intense 
lyrics in which the poet employs natural p henomena as s y mbol. 
Here concerns which will occupy him for the rest of his li fe 
are introduced in the lyric mode. Freneau ' s awareness of th e 
trans i ence of all nat u ral phenomena, man or plant, is embodi e d 
in the elm. By probing the relationship between the el~ a nd 
the deluded speaker of the poem, he both focuses on man's 
desire to ignore his own mortality and recognizes the impo ssi-
bility of so doing. In addition, Freneau raises another q u es t io n 
Page 48 
which he will continue to raise: What is th e relationship 
between appearance and reality? May we allow ourselves to 
be deluded by the superficial when the truth refuses to re-
main submerged beneath the surface? The transience of the 
elm reminds us of something which we would prefer not to know. 
"The Dying Elm" is significant also due to the manner in 
which Freneau revised it. The 1779 poem is a three stanza 
poem, which becomes lines 1 - 12 and 19 - 24 in the 1786 
edition. The '86 edition is a 24 line poem containing no 
stanza breaks, lines 13 - 1 8 having been added. Th us, "The 
Dying Elm" provides an example of the manner in which Freneau 
revised his lyrics throughout his career and consistently 
distanced himself from the experiences of the speakers of the 
respective poems. 
Sweet, lovely Elm, who here dost grow 
Companion of unsocial care, 
Lo! thy dejected branches die 
Amidst this torrid air--
Smit by the sun or sickly moon, 
Like fainting flowers, that die at noon. 
Thy withering leaves, that drooping hang, 
Presage thine end approaching nigh, 
And lo! thy amber tears distill, 
Attended with that parting sigh--
0 charming tree! no more decline, 
But be thy shades and love-sick whispers mine. 
Forbear to die -- tnis weeping eve 
Shall shed her little drops on you, 
Shall o'er thy sad disaster grieve, 
And wash thy wounds with pearly dew, 
Sha ll pity you, and pity me, 
And heal the lang~cr of my tree! 
Short is thy life , if tho u so soon must fade 
Like angry Jonah's gourd at Nineveh, 
That in a night its bloomy branches spread 
And p~ri sh'd with the day.--
COME , then, revive, sweet lovely Elm, lest I, 
Thro' vehemence of heat, like Jonah, wish to die. 
Page 49 
Perhaps the lamentation of the speaker of this poem 
results from his unwilling realization that he shares the elm's 
destiny. "Sweet, lovely Elm, who here dost grow," he apostro-
phizes, establishing the nature of his relationship with the 
tree by speaking to it and by projecting upon it his own 
emotional state. The tree is the "companion" of his "unsocial 
care" and is, like hi m, "d e jected." Apparently, the "torrid 
air" is the cause--the heat with which the "sun" or the "sick-
ly moon" has "smit" the elm. Like "fainting flowers," the elm's 
branches may "die at noon," the hottest and brightest time of 
the day. 
In the next six lines of the poem, the speaker's relation-
ship with, and attitude towards, the elm are further clarified: 
he fears that the tree will die because its "withering leaves, 
that drooping hang/Presage its end approaching nigh." So in-
tense is the withering heat that the elm's very sap begins to 
so 1 idi fy: "Thy amber tears dis ti 11/ At tended with that parting 
Sigh? II 
Yet the elm is not simply a shade tree which literally 
protects the speaker from the intense heat of the sun. The 
24 
elm is also the classical tree of "false dreams." The tree 
does not--it cannot--utter a "parting sigh." Only the speak-
er can. "O charming tree!" he says, "no more decline,/But be 
thy shades and love-sick whispers mine" (11. 11-12). Charming 
suggests that, like Vergil's elm near the gates of Hades, this 
tree harbors delusion. Charmin g is not used simply to sug-
gest "lovely" or "attractive," but to convey, subtly, th e sense 
========---------------
Page 50 
of "bewitching." Thus, the speaker asks for "love sick whis-
pers" which the tree cannot produce. Instead he must delude 
himself with the rustling of the wind through the "dejected" 
branches and "withering," "drooping" leaves. Note that the 
poet skillfully suggests the rustling of the wind by employing 
in line 12 a series of sibilant and near-sibilant sounds: "thy 
shad e s and love-sick whispers." 
The speaker asks also for the elm's "shades." Like charm-
ing, shades is double-edged, implying not only protection from 
the sun's ray--and symbolicall y from the glaring light of 
reality--but also the illusory quality of "false dreams" and 
the visual dimness and obscurity of darkness. These connota-
tions are further underscored by the elm's association, as an 
underworld tree, with death. Shades thus takes on the meaning 
linked to the elm's "charms." As we shall see, shades is a 
loaded word in Freneau's vocabulary--he will employ the word 
to suggest multiple meanings in such poems as "The Dying Indian," 
"The Lost Adventurer," and "The Wild Honey Suckle." The shade 
of the elm protects the speaker not only from heat, but also, 
significantly, from light. 
The speaker continues, his maudlin self-consciousness most 
obvious in lines 13 through 18. The evening's "pearly dew," 
like manna from heaven, will allay the desperate condition con-
veyed here by the medical language employed: the elm's "wounds" 
will be washed; its "lanquor" thus "heal[ed] II The "eve" is 
"weeping"; its tears, unlike the elm's own, will preserve life 
Page 51 
because "this weeping eve" will "pity" both the elm and the 
speaker and provide life-giving moisture. However, the "wounds" 
of the elm and its debilitated condition are caused by natural 
processes. Thus the degree to which the speaker projects his 
own emotional state is emphasized. The impulse to deceive 
does not reside in the elm because the speaker is the wounded 
and languid one. This passage, added, as we have noted, in 
the ' 86 version, shifts the poem's focus from the tree to the 
speaker and underscores his selfish concern. 
The tree can no more "forebear to die" than it can fore-
bear to live. Yet the speaker wishes to cling to the illusive 
hope that his tree will survive. "Short is? thy life, if thou 
so soon must fade ," he says, his emphasis on is. Clearl y the 
speaker wishes for the elm's revival. Nevertheless , he knows 
that the tree "must fade" even though he apparently does not 
want to accept the fact. The allusion which fo llo ws illustrates 
both the speaker's awareness and his lack of awareness. The 
Old Testament book of Jon ah recounts that prophet's sojourn 
in the whale and his subsequent prophecies at Nineveh . Having 
been warned by Jonah of their approaching damnation, the Nine-
vites repent of their iniquities and don sackcloth (3:5). 
Jehovah, seeing this, is pleased and relents. Now he will not 
destroy the once wicked city (3:10). Jonah, however, becomes 
"hot with anger" (4:1) and prays to God to take his soul, for 
now he feels he would be better off dead, having been contra-
dicted, he says, "in an affair of mine, and on my own ground " 
Page 52 
( 4: 2) . Of course, Jehovah rightly counters by asking Jonah 
to cons ider the justness of his plaint. When Jonah sulks off 
into the desert, Jehovah causes a bottle gourd plant to grow 
up over him "to become a shade over his head, to deliver him 
from his calamitous state" (4:6). Like the speaker of the 
present poem, Jonah is greatly pleased to have the shade, but 
t he next morning Jehovah sends a "worm" to destroy the plant, 
and it quickly "drie [s] up" (4: 7) A parching east wind comes, 
and the sun beats down on Jonah until he begins to "sw oon" and 
to ask again that he might die (4: 8 ). Finally, Jehovah asks 
Jo nah ii he has "r igh tly become hot with anger" over the 
dea th of the gourd, and Jonah stubbornly replies, "I have right -
ly become hot with anger, to the point of death" (4:9). But 
Je hovah responds: 
Yau, for your part, felt sorry for the. 
g ourd. .which you did not toil upon er 
~ake get big, which proved to be a mere 
g rowth of a night and perished. .And for 
my part, ought I not feel sorry for Nineveh 
in which there exist one hundred and tw en ty 
thousand men . . ? 
( 4: 11) 
The point here may be that Jonah is willing his ow n death 
in o rder not to have to face his own limitations. The heat of 
the searing east wind and the torrid sun are unnecessary, and 
even without Jehovah's chiding, Jonah's own internal heat is 
enough to destroy him: so, too, the speaker of the poem, since 
the "vehemence of heat" to which he refers likewise burns two 
way s. The "shades" of the elm cannot shield him from the light 
of truth. He must accept his own nature as well as th e elm ' s. 
-----
Page 53 
Both shall, at last, die, like the bottle gourd tree. The 
final apostrophe of "The Dying Elm" is, then, but one more 
wishful thought . Were the "sweet, lovely Elm" to revive, 
the speaker's hopes might be momentarily fed, but he would 
nonetheless ultimately be forced to face his own death. 
Well versed in the classics, Freneau was unquestionably 
aware of the ancient symbolic association of the tree with 
26 
life . The oak, the cypress, the pine, as well as the elm, 
have embodied for different cultures the strength .and endurance 
and fertility which we desire for ourselves. The allusions 
to Vergil and to the Bible demonstrate that the poet has 
effectively separated himself from the speaker of the poem and 
that, therefore, the speaker is a persona whose attitude is 
being examined by the poet, and hence by the reader, in pre-
cisely the same way that the attitude of the prophet is examined 
by the author of the Book of Jonah as well as by his readers. 
Indeed, it is arguable that the Bible story exists solely for 
this purpose, and I submit that the examination of the persona's 
attitude is a primary concern of the poet as well. 
Characteristically, "The Dying Elm" employs language which 
emphasizes the artist's profound awareness of the dichotomy 
between that which seems and that which is. Charming, shades, 
fade imply the illusory quality of the superficial . Moreover, 
the poem ' s dominant imagery juxtaposes night, darkness, and 
shade with the day, light, and heat in order to concretize the 
clash between the security of ignorant illusion and the diffi-
culty of facing and accepting reality. Shade, evening, and 
Page 54 
night contend with heat, noon, and day. Hiding in the out-
stretched arms of the dying elm, Freneau's persona can no 
longer hide from himself. Indeed, "The Dying Elm" is so care-
fully made that even its dominant sounds underscore it s theme: 
the repetition of the sounds of co (who, moon, drooping, dew, 
you, bloomy, thro') and~ (glow, unsocial, approaching, lo, 
O , no, Jonah) creates the mournful undertone of moaning, keen-
ing sounds which is aptly fitting to the persona's pre-occupa-
tion with death . Freneau subtitles the poem "An Irregular 
Ode , " alluding to the Nee-Classical form often used to convey 
strong emotion . 
Su0sequent poems in which Freneau focuses on specific 
natural phenomena and plumbs their symbolic implications are 
the thematic progeny of "The Dying Elm." The poem is signifi-
cant as the first of the intense, highly personal lyrics which 
Freneau was to produce, and illustrates the development 0f the 
poet's ability to control the emotional stuff of which his 
poetry is often made and to shape it into controlled imagina-
tive statement. The poe t's attention to the poem is evident 
not only in the careful wa y he has revised it but also in the 
craftsmanlike way he has structured it. "The Dying Elm" cails 
our attention effectively to Freneau's consistent concern with 
transience and decay, his awareness of the dichotomy between 
appearance and reality, and his acceptance of the fact that 
death is both natural and inevitable. 
In sum, the effect of the early "The American Village" 
and of the four later works of the 1786 editi o n here dis c uss e d 
Page 55 
is to prepare the reader for the l y ri c poetry ' s in tens e focu s 
o n the nature of death, t he relationship between ma n and 
nature , and the question of how most meanin g full y t o li ve . 
Page 56 
,~H I\ 
'- JPTER I.II: "Without A Partner And Withcut A Guide": 
The Poems of Phi dJ? Erenea11, J 7S6 
We will now turn our attention to the close analysis of 
F? 
'l. Ve 
lyric poems which are first collected in the 17 S 6 
E,dit ion.. 
Thes 
e Poems span the years 1782 to 1786 and illust=ite both 
the d 
evelcpment of the poet's thought concerning the issues 
With Which he was deeply involved and the development of cer -
tain artistic techniques such as the poet's use of the pers o na 
as a mask, the poet's use of concrete specific images, and the 
PO-"t I 
"' S i..;.SG of structural devices such as rime and metr e in 
o.::-der to emp h asi. ze the point he wishes to convey. The five 
Poems , in order of their first publication, a.::-e: "A Moral 
Tho Ugh t, " "The Dying I ndian," "Verses, Made: at Sea in a Heavy 
G-.clle " 
} "'."L h e Vernal Ague, " a.n d " Cct-ptain Jones' Invitatj_ 011 ? 11 
1. 
.!.b_~ Scene Fantastic: "A Mo.::-al Thought" / "The Vanity o f 
Existence" 
F.  i?  rs t published i? n l 7 8 l , " .~??  Mor al Thou c_r h t " ,Dr o vi ,w;;  e 5 ;~..  h =~-  
key to the reconsideration of the standarci critical v i e w oi 
Philip F ren e al! . Fir.st , the poem exeI'lpli fi e s Frenea11 ' 3 .:ibi l.i. t y 
to en1.-1-? 1 o y con c re t e i . ir, a g e s a.-n? d poetic structure s effe ctivel_v . 
Q 
.... econa .. Freneau's revisi.o ns reveal not onl y hi~ ,;rowin g 
to d istance hirnselI~  b Uw~  - ls o a c o nscious r e ver ~~-. .L? d " - ~ of 
c e rtain Neo-Classical tra d itions. th 2 po e m f ocuses o r:: 
a central afterlife, cheme, the nature cf the b y examin i n g th e 
Page 57 
appearance and reality. 
dichotomy between 
In youth, gay scenes attract o ur eyes, 
And not suspecting their decay 
Life's flow'ry fields before us rise, 
Regardless of its winter day. 
But vain pursuits, and joys as vain, 
Convince us life is but a dream. 
Death is to wake to rise again 
To that true life I best esteem. 
So nightly on the flowing tide , 
Oft have I seen a raree-show; 
Reflected stars on either side, 
And glittering moons were seen below. 
But when the tide had ebb'd away, 
The scene fantastic with it fled. 
A bank of mud around me lay, 
And sea-weed on the river's bed. 
Having often watched the ebbing evening tide, the speaker 
He emphasiz e s 
0 f A Moral Thought" 1 ponders its significance. II 
are 
endency to accept appearances as the truth when we 
our t 
youth gay scenes attract our eyes"--but ha s 
Young--" In 
r y reached a point of tater maturity which has changed 
clea 1 
"Not suspecting" is characteris"C.ic of youth, for 
hi' s vis1' .on. 
nen we are young and inexperienced we ha?? no inkling that 
W' I n lang u ag e 
thos r_- "gay scenes" are not ,,Mt t.h  ey a p pear co b e. 
Which reveals it? superficialitY? the speaker of "A Mora l Thought " 
recalling it in o rde~ to 
rec l lects his earlier perspective, 0 bright appearances--conve ys 
" ~ ... e 
una "Gay scenes ---..,, ercut J?. t ? 
through its theatrical connotations th? sense of artifi c i a lity 
as well as that of shallowness. 
Though highlY conventio nal, and at this stage a general i -
zation as anY sp e ci f ic illustra ti o n of its 
yet unsupported bY ten -introduc es the r e ader t o the 
rnean ? initial stan z a Win te r is j u xt a po s ed ing, this 
Sions which " A Moral 
Page 58 
with the delicate picture of spring--"life's flow'ry fields"--
perhaps in order to emphasi z e the cold barrenness of reality. 
Further, the transience of these scenes is exposed: they "de-
cay" even as our eyes are attracted to them. And even winter 
lasts only a "day." "Life's flow'ry fields"--the warm, burst-
ing sprin<:Jtime of youth--and "winter day"--the cold, dead 
terminus of th e cyc l e--establish in their relation s hip a 
sense of the flux which characterizes tne process which the 
speaker has undergone as gradually he has apprehended the 
difference between appearance and reality. Thus the perspective 
of the speaker is one of detachment: the I narrator has lived 
and now reflects back upon what life has taught him. His 
experience of change has markedly changed him. The narrator 
is now convinced, as he suggests all of "us" must be, that 
"li fe is but a dream." " Vain pursuits and joys as vain" teach 
us that we are surrounded by shams and delusions. Death is 
the sole avenue t o a glimpse of reality, for " death is to wake 
to rise again," thereby allowing us to shatter the dream and 
to apprehend "true li fe. " 
Stanza two reinforces the tension introduced in st a nza on e . 
" Vain pursuits" --hollow, perhaps even foolish--echoes the 
connotations of " gay scenes," both phrases suggesting the 
vacuity of life. Ye t both impl y that we seek som e meaning . 
We are attracted to certain scenes; we pursue some goal, the 
cleavage between the sought and the realized sharpens our 
awareness that in the dream of life we attain n o thin g . 
Page 59 
Do we seek, then, the release of death both feared and 
desired by the persona of "The Dying Elm"? If death is "that 
true life I best esteem,'.' do I "wish to die"? The narrator 
blunts this implicit question by choosing to live. He seems 
to accept the situation and simply provides, in stanzas thr ee 
and four, a concretization of these abstract issues, a met a -
pho r i c illustration of his mature vision. Stanza three em-
bodies, thro u gh its light image ry, the very superficiality of 
the "gay s:::enes" and "flowery fields" of st a n z a one, while 
stanza four re-presents the grim i n sight whic h actualizes the 
disillusionment of stanza two. The realization that "life is 
but a dream" leads to the app e rception of a dark reality. 
On the "flowing tide," the narrator sees a "raree-show," 
a superficially theatrical and therefore false portrayal of 
reality, the "gay scenes" from a sleazy peep-show. "Reflected 
stars" and "glittering moons" are the substance of the illusory 
pe rformance, but they are immediately revealed as insubstantial 
and inherently gross . For when the "flowing tide" recedes, 
the " scene fantastic" disappears and the shimmerin g light gives 
way to the "bank of mud" and the "sea-weed." Ag a in the shallow 
is juxtaposed with the d e pths bene a th: the fantasy images a r e 
merely distortions, as are all reflected lights, by their actual ~ 
op tic qualities, of the literal sources of the li ght , the stars 
and the moon. ~2pending on the restless tide for its very 
exis tence, the shimmerin g show exists onl y on the surfa:::e. 
sea -weed and mud are th e substance underpinning "reflected 
stars" and "glitterin<; moons." 
Page 60 
"A Moral Thought" is a system of balances: its ver y ma::::-
row lies in the tension between two modes of seeing. First, 
the poet produces his ge~eral proposition, then he supports it 
through specific illustration. The scene is no longer what is 
being seen. Freneau's control of this dialectic of vision is 
generated in no small sense by the neat pun he makes on seen~ 
and s ee n. Th e se two word s are among the few which are repeated 
in the poem, -sc-en-e in lines 1 and 14 and seen in lines 10 and 
12. The poet consciously employs the past participle ~ with 
the auxiliaries have and were not only to create the homonym 
which is linked with scene, but also to create anew and to under-
score the sense of process and activity which the perfect tense 
and the progressive mode respectively convey. Because, finall y , 
we have seen that "life is but a dream, 11 our eyes are no longer 
attracted to "gay scenes" and we see the mud of reality. The 
two-stanza statement is balanced by the two-stanza illustration. 
They are linked by the transitional connective so, which estab-
lishes their cause and effect relationship. The poet moves 
from general to specific, from abstract to concrete, from cause 
to effect in a tightly logical progression. 
While this rhetorical arrangement develops in the manner 
of a formal argument, the clash of symbols reinforces the ten-
sion between scene and seen, appearance and reality. Opposites, 
again, are balanced: spring and winter represent youth and a g e, 
and , by extension, innocence and experience, one unsuspectin g , 
the other quite awar e . This conflict is supported by the li ght 
Page 61 
motif which suffuses the poem and illuminates o~r awareness of 
the two modes of seeing : "Gay scenes," "flowery fields," "raree-
show[s] ," appear before "our eyes," their empty brightness 
implicit in the trivial "reflec-ted stars" and "glittering moons." 
But "vain pursuits" have convinced us that these are mirages, 
for the tide has ebbed and we see, oozing through our bright 
false dr e ams, the dull, dark, eternal mud. 
Innocence and experience, appearance and reality are fur-
ther dichotomized through the poet's manipulation of point of 
view. The narrator, as noted, is looking back and commenting 
from the vantage point of experien8e. The "scene fantastic" 
is not immediate but distant enough to be clearly understood. 
Embodied in the "flowing tide" and in the implicit seasonal 
cycle, the poem's sense of gradual change accentuates the poet's 
changed awareness and reinforces the reflective tone which is 
consistent with the speaker's perspective. 
"A Moral Thought" closes on a strikingly pessimistic note 
which the poem's narrator seems willing to accept since death 
would provide, on8 assumes, the consolation of true life. How-
ever, I believe that the impact of the final vision is to under-
cut this sense of consolation , and that the revisions which 
Freneau makes in the 1795 edition suggest a clarification of 
the narrator's position. Lines 1 through 7 in '95 are unchanged 
from the original; in line 8 the most significant alteration is 
made . "That true life I best esteem" becomes "That true life 
you best esteem." I implies the speaker's belief in some mean-
Page 62 
ingful life after death, one which will perhaps provide an 
understanding of the nature of that reality which underlies 
the "gay scenes." On the other hand, you suggests that the 
speaker himself does not "esteem" the "true life" of death. 
He may expect the apparently purposeless annihilation which 
befalls the bottle gourd. Unlike the speaker of "The Dying 
Elm ," however, he seems not to fear that end. At ar,y rate, 
Freneau clearly intends that us in line 6 be set off against 
another pronoun. otherwise he would use we here in line 8. I 
focuses attention on the speaker, singling him out as the pro -
ponent of "true life." You conversely removes the speaker 
from the reader's scrutiny and places the rest of us in the 
rather conventional position of believing that death is "to 
rise again," just as "life's flowery fields rise" before us 
each spring. 
Obviously, a shift in attitude has occurred here, one 
which is further emphasized by the change of title. The origi-
nal title appears in both the Freeman's Journal and in the ' 8 6 
poems and seems consistent with the l in line 8, for the speak-
er's thought that a true life is gained when we "rise again" 
in death would certainly be "moral" in a conventional religious 
sense. On the other hand, the final title, "The Vanity of 
Existence'' achieves a broader, more specific, and more pess i mis-
tic effect. For the final, stark reality of the poem is the 
enigmatic mud: the revised title states un a mbi g uously that 
existence is vain --not life but existence. Thus, while the 
Page 63 
second version of the poem is perhaps a bolder statement, the 
poet has effectively removed himself from the reader's c o nscious-
ness through the shift from? to you. 
A comparison of this poem to the conventional "life is 
v ain" poems of the eighteenth century supports the i d ea that 
the poet has consciously chosen in the revised version to speak 
cl e arly. When Professor Bowden claims that "these stanz as of 
realistic description [stanzas 3 and 4] strengthen the originali-
ty of the poem but not the poet's moral, 112 she fails to recog-
nize that the poet advances no conventional "moral." "The 
Vanity of Existence" has been called Freneau's "most famous 
3 
'life is vain' poem" because critics have failed to note 
Freneau's subtle revisions and to compare the poem to its sup-
posed models. For example, Leary ignores the original poem 
entirely and reproduces only the 1793 version, identifying 
it as ''A Moral Thought," and noting that it first appears in 
Freeman ' s Journal. 4 Despite this inaccuracy, Leary does recog-
nize that "the particularized realism in the last stanza. 
marks Freneau's break with conventionalized literary tradition," 
but he insists on reading the poem only as an "intense expres-
s 
sion of disillusionment" rather than as a remarkably calm and 
detached representation of the actual experience of that dis-
illusionment. "The Vanity of Existence " is a poem resonant 
with the acceptance of that experience and constitutes an 
explicit denial of conventional religious belief. On the other 
hand, the conventional "life is -,7ain" mode holds out t he h op e 
of salvation--"That true li f e you best esteem." For example, 
Page 64 
in his famous "Vanity of Human Wishe s" Samuel Johnson argues 
that, 
.petitions yet remain 
Which heav'n ma y hear, nor deem religion vain, 
Still raise for good the supplicating voice, 
But leave to heav'n the measure and the choice, 
Safe in his power. 
Implore his aide, in his decisions rest, 
Secure whatever he gives, he gives the best. 6 
On the other hand, Freneau is arguing that prayer can hardly 
avail when all rationally acceptable evidence denies the possi-
bility of such a thing as Dr. Johnson's "heav'n ." 
Freneau's attempts to exercise control over point of view 
exemplify, I believe, the careful, artisan-like approach he 
takes toward his craft. His lyrics often seem intensely per-
sonal, yet the reader must wonder whether the speaker of the 
poem is a persona rather than the poet himself. In searching 
for a mode of expression which would allow him to achieve dis-
tance from his art, Freneau seeks not to abandon the thought-
fulness and introspection which are evident in this poem, but 
rather to place the conflict, the tension inherent in the clash 
of appea rance a nd reality, outside of himself that he may better 
co me to grips with it and render his insights the more compre-
hensible . Therefore, in "The Vanity of Existence," he do e s 
not ? reveal what "I" thinks or believes, but simply reports what 
" I" has seen. This attitude of calm reporting seems to charac-
terize much cf his best work. 
The calm attitude of the speaker is conveyed also in the 
smooth flo~ of the poem's regular, but not cloying, iambic 
/ 
tetrametre . Flow is achieve d , but sing-song averted, through 
Page 65 
the poet's sparing use and careful placement of multi-syllabic 
words like reflected, glitterin~, fantastic, and b y his re-
liance overall on simple one- and two-syllable terms. The 
poem is set in four 4-line stanzas which are related to each 
other by interconnecting words. Stanzas one and two are linked 
by the co-ordinating conjunction but, which establishes a gram-
matical contrast reinforcing the discord between un s us pecting 
innocence and disillusioned experience. The transitional so, 
as already indicated, establishes the cause and effect relation-
ship between the two halves of the poem and forms the bridge 
between abstract and concrete. Bracketed by~ in stanzas 
two and four, the unifying quality of~ is underscored. But 
introduc es stanza four, and as in stanza two, emphasizes the 
d ichotomy between appearance and reality. However, while the 
poem's sentence structure emphasizes the conflicting elements 
of its theme, the tone and metre stress the narrator's calm 
awareness of that conflict. 
Rime scheme is also used to create a sense of balance in 
the poem, and to underscore its final image. "The Vanity of 
E x i s t e n c e " i s c o rr, po s e d i n an a l t e r n a t e 1 ~ n e rim j_ n g s e q u e n c e --
AB AB - - in which new end rime sounds appear in each stanza--CDCD/ 
EFEF --until. the last . Here the poet re v erts to the lon g a 
sound of the first stanza--BGBG--thus drawing the aural struc-
ture of the poem into a cir c le and emphasizing the finality of 
the terminal stanza. Moreover, linking these sounds, their 
decay and winter day in stanza one, with ebb'd aw ay and ~nd 
Page 66 
- Zin stanza four, connects the significant thematic co n-
me la 
The passage of time and the resultant onse t 
ce,o t s of the poem. 
.lay" around the "decay. 
of d eterioration are associated: 
or once the "tide [has] ebb'd away" and he has been 
narrat 
forced to recognize the mud's ugliness. of 
tend to sharpen our awareness 
Two additional revisions i.. .+: .s sense . 
the poet 's att e mpts to relate the poem's sound to 
he replaces "the flowing tide" with "some shallow 
In 1i? ne 9 
and in line 10, he makes the "raree-show" a "splendid 
tide" 
Apparently preneau intends that the alliterate d sibi-
show." 
s create an impression of the hissing motion of the water, 
lant 
e use of shallow further underscores the superficiality 
and th 
appearances. Splendi~ accentuates the light images of the 
Of 
nza by its reference to~; though it does not con-
Sta 
the sordid quality of~' ';)?lendid does suggest the 
vey 
empt?l .ness of the reflected light- a carefull y 
"The Vanity of Existence" achi? eves, then, An har-
or ganized representation of a complex human truth, 
>ous blending of for? and image und1rscores that harsh truth . 
Inon? 
Furthe ?stent with and expa nds upon the 
rmore, the poem is consi 
- s d that the accepted beliefs of his 
Poet-? eveloping awareness 
age are somehow empty ones -
J 
Pag e 6 7 
2 . But When did Ghost Return His State to Show? " "The 
Dy ing Indian " 
"The Dy ing Indian, Or The Last Word s of Sha::.um " first 
appeared in 17 84 , mo r e th an two year s after t he initial pub -
lication of "A Moral Thought." Here Freneau continues his 
consideration of the n ature of the afterl if e , once again using 
a n approach which i s apparently conventional. Freneau puts 
7 
the poem in the wo r ds of Shalum , a type of noble savage, ar.d 
8 
in the form of an ir regular ode . 
" On l ander l ake I spread th e sail n o more! 
Vigour, and youth, anJ a c tive days are pa st--
Re l en tl ess demons urge me t o that sh o re 
On whose bla ck fo~ests all the dead are cast: 
Ye so lenn trai n, prepare the funer al sons , 
For I mus t go t o shades below, 
Where all is strange, and all is ne?,1; 
Co mp a ni. on toT"n~(:.a. i. ry tn. r ong , 
What so lit ary st reams, 
:n dull and d rear y dreams, 
All melancholy, mus t 1 r ove a l ong ! 
To what strange la nds mu st Sha lum tak e his way ! 
Gr ove s of the d ead depar ted mortals trace; 
No deer along th ese gloomy forests stray, 
No huntsmen t he r e t ake pleasurA in th e chace, 
Bu t all are empty unsubstant i a l shades 
That r am bl e t h rou gh t hose visionary glades ; 
No spo ngy fru~ts from verdant trees depend, 
But sickly orchards there 
Do fruits as s ickl y bear, 
And apples a consurapti visage shew, 
And wither'd hangs th e hurtle-berry blue, 
Ah me ! ~a t mischiefs on the dead a tt end. 
,... . 
Page 6B 
Wandering a stranger to the shores below, 
Where shall I brook or real fo~ nta in find? 
Lazy and sad deluding waters flow--
Such is the picture in m~ boding mind! 
Fine tales, indeed , they tell 
Of shades and purling rills, 
Where our dead fathers dwell 
Beyond the western hills, 
But when did ghost retu~n his state to shew; 
Or who can promise half the tale is true? 
I too must be a fleeti1:g ghost-no more - -
None, none but shadows to those mansions g~; 
I leave my woo ds, I !eave the Huron shore , 
For emptier groves below! 
Ye charming solitudes, 
Ye tall ascending woods, 
Ye glassy lakes and prattling streams, 
N~ose aspect still was sweet, 
Whether the sun did greet, 
Or the pa le moon embrac~d you with his beams--
Adieu -co al:'..! 
To all that charm'd me where I stray'd, 
The winding stream, the dark sesuester'd shade; 
Adieu all triumphs here! 
Adieu the mountain's lofty swell, 
Adieu, thou little verdant hill, 
And seas, and gtars, and skies--farewall , 
For some remoter sphere! 
Perplex'd with doubts, and tortur ' d with despai~, 
Why so dejected at this hop~less sleep? 
Nature at least these ruins may reFa~r; 
When death's long dream is o'er, and she forgets to weep; 
Some real world once more may be assign'd, 
Some new born ~ansion ior the i mmortal ~ind!- -
Farewell, sweet lake; farewell surrounding wo ~ds, 
To other groves thro ~gh midnight glooms I stcay , 
Beyond t:ie mountal ?1s , and beyond t:,e flo0ds, 
Beyond the Huron bayi 
Prepare the hollow to~b, and place me low, 
My tr u sty bow, and arrows by my side, 
The cheerful bottl e , and the ven'son store; 
For locg the journey is that I must go, 
~?lithou.; a partn0::-., a:1d without a g uice." 
He spoke, and bid the attending mou~ners weep; c 
Then clos'd his eyes, an~ sunk co endless sleep.~ 
Page 69 
and tortur ' d with despair , " Shal um, 
"P erplex'd with doubts, 
His doubt and 
the d yi? ng Indian, lies patiently awaiting death. 
air are products not only of his regret at having lo st 
desp ? 
" v1. .gourq,n1d1 youth, and active days" but also of his realization 
no knowledge of what awaits him on "that shore/On 
th at he has ? 
Whose black forests all the dead are cast,." There, for him, 
stra nge , and all is new," and he will be quite alone to 
II q_ll is 
. solitary streams." "To what strange lands 
" rove along. To him, 
mus.._'- Shalum take his way!" he 1aments in stanza two . 
"groves of the dead" which "departed mortals trace" are 
the 
complete opposite of "yonder lake," which is real to him 
the 
On the other hand, the l and of the " airy throng" 
and tangible. 
populated by "unsubstantial shades" and its "gloomy forests" 
is 
sickl Y orchards" produce the 
11
are bu-t" visionary glades." 
consumptive" visaged apple and the "wither' d. ?. hurtle-be rry blue . " 
" 
fruit of "verdant trees" which Shalum fears will 
The "spon?;ry" 
juxtaposed with the withere d and the consump-
be l ost to him is 
thus to stress the barrenness of these stxange lands . 
tive 
' huntsmen " take pleasure 
Indeed in "these gloomy forests" no 
' these dead groves harbor "no deer." 
in the chace" for shalum prefers his own real 
As we learn in stanza three, As usual, 
& ls he knows what to expect. 
he .. ee 
th one in which ? f1.' cant He has, by the first 
.e poet's choice of ward s 1.?s signi . 
line d strange twi c e { 11. 7 and 12) , 
of stanza three, employe ~mean s for him, I believe, 
The t e rm?  
and h ere uses strange_E_? 
--
Page 70 
n ot merely unusual or unfamiliar, but rather alien or foreign . 
Shalum seems therefore to fear not simply death but, more 
importantly, the alienation and separation from the known world 
which death will bring. This sense of the expected al ienati on 
is emphasized further by his asking "where shall. .a real 
fountain" be found. For Shalum, the phenomenological world of 
the living is the real world. The afterlife he expects is on e 
in which "lazy and sad deluding waters flow." "The y " tell 
" fine tales" of that nether world, he knows, "But. II 
And of course this but is the puzzlement. "They" do "t e ll," 
but who can "promise" that even "half" of what they tell is true? 
Iro nically, any liar or wishful thinker who so desires can make 
that promise, but Shalum is skeptical. In the criginal, Free-
man's Journal, version, line 33 reads II .who can shew that 
half the tale is true"1 a reading which stresses the Indian's 
rationa listic desire to see some concrete .proof of the facts 
regard ing those "strange l ands." He see ks , recall, a "real" 
fountain. Promise suggests his desire in a different way since 
it obviates the need for a scientific demonstration and simply 
implies on ly an assurance that something is, or will be, fac~. 
So a promise is merely one more tale "they" tell. No ghost 
can "return his state to shew" and thus we cannot in life know 
the "black forests" of death. And if a ghost were to return, 
he would be only an "empty unsubstantial shade" of equally 
unsubstantial credibility. Such pictures fill th e "bodin g mind" 
o f the dying Indian. 
Page 71 
Finally, in stanza four, Shalure verbalizes what he has 
known all along, that in order to learn what awaits him in the 
groves of the dead, he must die: "I too must be a fleeting 
ghost," he says. This stanza presents the most forceful illu-
stration of Shalum's allegiance to the phenomenologi cal unive r se; 
the "unsubstantial" character of the "visionary glades" and 
"deluding waters" of the "groves of the dead" i s contrast ed to 
the exuberant concreteness and solidity of the world he must 
leave. The woods are "tall" and "ascending," the lakes " glassy, " 
the streams "prattling" and "winding"; the shade is "dark" and 
"sequester'd," the hill "little" and "verdant"; the mountain 
is a "lofty swell." These are not the qualities of th e "emp-
tier groves below"; the "aspect" of Shalum's world is "sweet" 
whether it is embraced by the "pale moon[s)" beams or lit by 
the sun. 
Nonetheless, while Shalum clearly feels secure among the 
(l.,,n.d 
"seas,11stars, and skies " of his own sphere, the language which 
the poet puts in his mouth suggests his close similarity to 
perso nae whom we have already met. First, it must be understood 
that in "The Dying Indian" Freneau is using the character o f 
Shalum as a kind of mask . This rather conventional device 
allows the poet to raise questions about the nature of the 
afterlife without openly acknowledging them as his own. He 
asks, as before, "what lies beyond the surface?" Here he speaks 
more plainly in posing the dilemma than perhaps he does in "The 
Dying Elm , " for example, yet here he speaks far less openly. 
The honesty of his questioning may be in inverse p roportion 
Page 72 
to the opacity of his mask. An Indian can wonder about things 
that even a nominal Christi a n cannot. 
Therefore, ~hen Shalum alludes to shades in the sense of 
spirits, and later to shade in the sense of an area where 
light is diminished by its interception by some opaque object, 
we recall the persona of "The Dying Elm"--he is also con-
cerned about his i"1!pending loss of the "real" world. Like th e 
elm, the "aspect" of this world is "charming," suggesting that 
it too is delusive. Shalum implies that "all" of the pheno-
mena he lists have "charm'd" him. Freneau causes him to use 
the term twice in 8 lines, thus emphasizing its implications. 
Although this world is more "real" than ~:ie "strange world, " 
it too is unreal. The sense of its superficiality is felt in 
the adjectives which qualify the concrete objects in Shalum's 
catalogue: "glassy" lakes suggests the reflected li ght which 
the tides in "The Vanity of Existence" have shown us i$ ill u -
sory; "prattling" streams implies a meaningless, empty chatter 
of sound; the "shade" is "dark" and "sequester'd," thus pro-
ducing dimness and obscurity; even the embracing moon's beams 
eman ate from a "pale" source. Considerably vivid though these 
pa ssages are in conveying the literal sense of a real, objective 
world, they are nonetheless connotatively ambiguous. On the 
o ne hand, Freneau seems to be working toward a control of con-
crete visual and aural images, while on the other, he undercuts 
their solidity by stating them ambiguously. He seems to q ues-
tion the existence of any kind of reality. Shalum's "rea l" 
world is at best a superficial one. 
Page 73 
That Freneau is masking himself becomes more clear ~hen, 
he eliminates 
in the 1809 edition, 
th e poem's e~tire sub~itle 
the title as "The Dying Indian, Torno Cheequi ?." 
and recasts 
." was the mas k he had used in a series of escays 
"Torno Chee k i ~ ' 
. The creek Indian in Philadelphia" in 1795. In 
"Torno Chee k i, 
Torno cheeki is an Indian loner--sober, solitary, 
the series, 
He is restrained and insightful--espGcially into the 
aloof . 
th white man. Amo ng other things, he marvels at foibles of e 
. , egoi s m in thinkin g that he understands the laws 
the white mans 
1 0 Torno Cheequi ' s presence here sharpens our aware-
of nature. 
that the poet is attempting to attain detachment from the 
ness 
emotional context of the poem. 
While "Tomo-cheeki" 
is a clear-eyed commonsensical com-
men ta tor an d Observer, " Tomo -Chequ..;.. " .;... s "perpl ex 'd wi? th 
. , tortured with despair. . , [and] dejected at [the] doubts . 
hopeless sleep" . he faces . Yet he clings to a hope of ressurec-
tion, as we see 
in the final stanza. 
Perhaps the dying Indian half-believes that nature will 
"repair" his "rui' ns" and "assi?gn" "some new born mansion for 
the immortal mind," but his language reveals the profundity of 
his doubt. Per haps the mind is immortal, and perhaps the body 
I I I I 
will be reborn. Nature "may" repair, and some real world may 
once more be provided. Yet the use of these conditionals 
undercuts the possibilities for which Sha lun -C hequi hopes. He 
seems aware that t~e chan9e is slim because his last words re-
iterate his understanding of the difference between the world 
Page 74 
he l eaves and the world he will enter: He will "stray" to 
"other groves, throu g h midnight glooms. .beyond the moun-
tains and beycnd the flo ods." Moreover, he realizes that he 
will go a long way alone: " / ong the journey is that I must 
go/Without a partner, and without a guide." 
So ends Shalum-Chequi's monologue. The warrior warily 
faces the unknown, his "trusty bow, and arrows by [his] side," 
// 
and a cheerful bottle and the ven'son store, " but nothin g and 
no one else. However, the Indian's faint hope i s not shared 
by the narrator, wh o closes the poem with an h eroic couplet 
which both heightens the Indian's stoic and cou rageous atti-
tude and seals his fate: 
He spoke, and bid the attending mourners weep; 
Then clos'd his eyes and s ,?nk to endless sleep. 
Neither death's nor fate's "long dream" will end for Shalum-
Chequi: his sleep is "endless." Any wishful thought of "n ew 
born mansions" is effectively quashed b y this closing couplet. 
The relationship between the Indian and the poet is fur-
ther clarified by this conclusion. The five stanzas of the 
poem are enclosed by quotation marks, indicatin g that the 
Indian speaks directly to the "sol emn train" attending him, and 
to us. We f ind, when we reach the end of th e poem, that the 
words of Shalum-Chequi are being reported to us by an observe r 
who seems to stand apart, since he does not include himself 
among the "at tending mourners." The effect of this layerin g 
of points of view is further to detach the poet from the dying 
Indian. Shalum/Tomo Chequi emerges as a created c ha racter 
Page 75 
addressing the entourage bearing his bier. In him, th e poet 
may raise and examine issues through th e filter of an inter-
vening consciousness and thereby deal with them both obj ec tively 
and anonymously. Furthermore, the Indian is himself d etach e d, 
and talks about himself, at times, as though he is t a lkin g 
about someone else. For example, at line 12 he refers to him-
self in th e third per s o n. At lin e 52 h e asks himself a q u e stion 
and at line 53 refers to his body as "these ruins," as thou g h 
it were someone's old house. In sum, the effect is that o f 
calm consideration of the problem. 
On the other h a nd, Freneau seems to have ha d little n o tion 
of achieving a sense of v erisimilitude in this poem. What 
Indian could be expected to intone such a line as "Ah me! ivhat 
mischiefs on the dead attend? '' Or "Adieu, thou little v erdant 
hill , ?" Still, even though Shalum-Che q ui wouldn't reall y ha v e 
sounded like this, the poem does achieve something of a con-
versational tone through its varied metre and its stanza s t r uc -
ture . " The Dying Indian" seems to be mo d e l ed on t h e irregul a r 
ode form which was popular during th e ei g ht e enth c e ntur y . Lik e 
the irregular ode, this poem empl oy s irr e gular lin e s a nd metre 
in order to convey emotional intensity . For example, stan za v 
one is composed of 11 lin e s, th e first 5 containing 10 s y lla-
bles; the next 3 containing 8 syllables; the next 2 cont a inin g 
6 syllables; the last containing 10 s y llables a g ain. The 
shortest lines ar e indented. The metr e is ge nerall y i a mbi c , 
the rhythm of natural speech, but since th e lin es va r y in 
length, the metre d oes n o t be co me mo n o ton o us. The sho rt es t 
Page 76 
fact, 
and to pick 
up the tempo: in 
lines tend to flow quickly 
stanza th ree ( 11. 28-31) lines in 
the syllable series of four 6 stanza, 
leads with great effect into the closing couplet of that 
e couplet which specifically raises the central question in 
th
Of the five stanzas of the warrior's speech, only 
the poem. Stanza five contains 15 
th e last is metrically very regular. 
, 3 of which are iambic pentameter varied only by the 
lines l . 
This pattern has the effect 
op eni. ng troches of lines 53 and 54. so that 
of retarding the pattern of the poem's final movement 
its measure, though still appropr?i ate to speec h , becomes state-
ly and dirge-like. 
"The Dying Indian" does not employ a rigid end-rime system 
An insistent repetitive pattern would detract as much 
either. 
from the effect of the dying warrior's words as would an 
The semblance of natural speech is maintained. 
obtr usi. ve metre. 
However, ce rtain sounds are repeated from stanza to stanza in 
For example, the long 
er to interconnect certain concepts. 
0rd
oo so d . d . ew (1 7), shew/blue ( 11. 21-22), and 
- un is repeate in E;_.- ? -- -
~/true I 11. 3 2-3 3 I ' thus connecting stanzas one ' two, and 
three, and relating specific concepts, Shalum-chequi believes 
that all 1.? s d ew" in the " groves of the dead" where 
"strange an n "wither ' d hangs the 
ha pples "a k when did "ghost return his 
urtle-berry blue," but, he as?s , half the tale is true?" 
who can promise 
( 11. 6 , 2 4 , 3 7) , state to shew/or f 10 ng _o in below O
the repetition 
Rimes tend also to such as 64)' and~ (1. 61) 
3 5, 
~ ( 1. 26), 2.,9.. (11-
Page 77 
unify the poem aurally, and to underscore its mournful tone. 
Again, the ode model is appropriate here, in that the irregu-
lar ode did not employ regularized rime scheme. 
Like "The Dying Elm,'" another of Freneau's "irregular 
odes," "The Dying Indian" is filled with the sounds of o and 
oo, which here convey the keening of the dying Indian's 
weeping train. Another interestin g rime is the repetition of 
sleep/weep, which are paired t?,1 i ce (11. 52-SL\ and 6S-67 . 
respectively) a nd emphasize, like the repetition of below, 
the nature of Shalum-Chequi's trip. 
"The Dying Indian," in its varied, conversational metre, 
and reticent yet significant rimes, is ef fective l y unified. 
The situation which the poem creates seems actual enough, even 
though we realize that an Indian would hardly have spoken as 
this one does. If Shalum-Chequi sometimes sounds lik e a 
Shaf tesburyan Deist sufferin g from second thou g hts, he is 
nevertheless on the whole convincing. He simply wants concret e 
ev idence as underpinning for his belief. Furthermore, the 
poet's control of point of view distinguishes the poem. Note 
that, throughout, the dying warrior calls attention to himself. 
I is repeated no fewer than ten times in the poem, three times 
in the first stanza alone. Yet the speaker of the poem does 
not seem sel f -conscious . He is simply wondering out loud, and, 
because he is an Indian, we expect him to be the stoical, noble 
savage. By contrast, the speake r of "The Dying Elm" seems very 
self-conscious, despite the fact that the poet allows him to 
Page 78 
refer to himself onl y four times, and only once as!, in the 
poem's next to last line. In ef fec t, Freneau has achieved 
the distance here that he st ruggled to achie ve in the earlier 
poem. 
If "The vanity of Existence" illustrates one aspect of 
Freneau ' s developing craftsmanship, his ability to employ 
direct yet allusive language in the creatio n of direct yet 
allusive images, "The Dying I nd ian;' illustrates his ability to 
remove himself apart from emotionally charged issues. The 
shift embodied in the revision of "The Dying Elm" and the 
recasting of "A Moral Thought" to "The Vanity of Exister.ce" 
seems to me to be implicit in th e attitude of the narr a tor 
of "The Dying Indian," who reports only what h e sees and hears. 
The poet ' s only comment on the issue raised in th e poem is 
the poem itself. 
We are left , finally, with th e awareness that neith er the 
"seas . .stars, and skies" of the land of the "Huro n Bay" nor 
the "unsubstantial shades" of the "groves of the dead" are 
real . Both are i l lusive. If neither dimension of existence 
is a "true life ,' " what is? 
3. And Ruin Is the Lot Of All: "Verses Made At Sea In a Heavy 
GaleJ"The Hurricane" 
Since "ghost " cannot "return " the "state" of the invisible 
world "to shew ,' " and the "bank of mud" and "seawe ed " are the 
unde r pinnings of the visible world, Freneau in the 17 85 
Page 79 
11 
"Verses Made At sea, In A Heavy Gale" continues to examine 
is perplexity by employing the sea in a sophisticated symbol-
th ' 
Th e opening stanzas establish a contrast which 
ic context. 
. implied by' but not crystalized in, the earlier "Vanity of 
is ? 
The shore is a haven, while the sea is "the dark 
E xi. stence." The speaker 
abys s, " an "unsettled ocean" where c h aos r ei?  g ns. 
if he could ) 
of the poem is at the mercy of th e storm: he would, 
reach the safety of shore and ho??? but forces quite beyond his 
control buffet him about. 
Juxtaposed against the sailor's wretchedness is the securi-
the squirrels ) 
ty not only of the landsman but also of the birds, 
and the wolves of th? forests, who are "blest" with the safety 
of land and the "tufted groves. " Th? speaker's danger is 
heightened by the "feeble" condition of the barque, by the fact 
and by the 
"roar" falls "doubly" upon it, 
that the tempest 's 
concern that the sun maY hav e set for the la st time. 
fe on shore, 
Happy the man wh  o, sa ?s eveni. ng fi. re; h
Now trims at home, i 
Unmov'd ' ~e hears the tempexstp~i rero? ar, 
That on the tufted groves e 11 ? 
Alas! on us theY doublY fa ~hem 
our feebl? barque must bear all . 
. h ts the birds retreat, 
Now to their aun his hollow tree, 
The squirrel seek . ssh aded cave rns meet ' 
Wolves in theirl  t but wre tched we--
All, all are b es to repose , 
Foredoom'd a st ranie~ ocean knows. 
No rest the unsett e 
While o'er th? dark hea bpysislo wtse  rsoaaYm, , 
Perhaps, whate'er t d . gloom, 
We saw the sun de. scernis inign  raY, 
No more to see h 15 far too deep, 
But bury'd lo\'T, bY_ . d 1 sleep! 
o n coral beds, unpitie 
Page 80 
But what a strange, uncoasted strand 
Is that, where death permits no day--
No charts have we to mark that land, 
No compass to direct that way--
What pilot shall explore that realm, 
What new Columbus take the helm. 
While death and darkness both surround, 
And tempests rage with lawless power, 
Of friendship's voice I hear no sound, 
No comfort in this dreadful hour--
What friendship can in tempes t.,r be, 
What comfort on this angry s ea ? 
The barque, acc~stom'd to obey, 
No more the trerriiil.ing pilot's guide, 
Alone she gropes her trackless way, 
While mountains burst on either side--
Thus, skill and science both must fall, 
And ruin is the lot of all. 
Stanzas one through three not only establish the symbolic 
contrast between land and sea but also suggest the ambiguous 
relationship between the speaker and the sea. For example, 
the "unsettled ocean" is "foredoom'd a stranger to repose," 
but the participle fo=edoom'd follows~ and appears to modify 
the pronoun until the reader arrives at its object, a st=an g er, 
which is singular. We is linked by the dash to foredoom'd, 
so that by implication we, too, are foredoomed: both sailors 
and the sea are fated never to rest. A more obvious ambi g uity 
exists in the relationship of "we saw the sun descend" to 
"bur 1d low. .unpitied, sleep." The participial phrases 
modify we, but, again, are positioned more closely to another 
substantive, sun, so that by implication both the sailors and 
the sun will be buried on "coral beds." 
The ambiguity of these syntactical relati o nships is un de r-
scored by a subtle undercutting of the sense of securit y es tab-
Page 81 
lished in stanza one and developed in stanza two. The man 
"trims, at home, his evening fire" and hears "unmoved" the 
blasts of roar[ing]" wind as they "expire" on the "tufted 
groves." These closely packed trees surrounding his house 
seem to provide additional shelter as the man's home becomes 
a warm, well lit, sanctuary. Even the animals are blest. 
Yet their sanctuaries are not warm and well lit. The birds 
"retreat" to "haunts"--wny not to "nests?" The "s qu irrel seeks " 
a hollow tree --hollow receives the penultimate stress of 
the line but would seem innocent of any connotations without 
the context of haunts and its own suggestion of emptiness . 
No te that the two words are linked alliteratively. The wolves 
meet in "shaded caverns." Taken singularly, these ter~s are 
innocuous, but in that their connotations of darkness and 
emp tiness are contrasted with the secure warmth and light of 
home and linked with the "dark abyss," the reader must surely 
wonder if the man on shore is necessarily happy. Indeed, he 
may well be happy simply because he is deluded by his own 
i gno rance. Protected by the "tufted groves" where beast s seek 
ou t "haunts," "shaded caverns;? and "hollow trees," he is not 
forced to confront the elemental ch aos of the gale. His home 
is his own shaded haunt. His happiness is his own hollow tree. 
The first three stanzas of "Verses Made At Sea. 
II then, 
through the density of their syntactical relatio n ships, an d 
their connotative ambiguit y , convey a sense of the complexity 
of the problem they attempt to prob e . Is man "safe on shore?" 
Page 82 
From what is he safe? Are "all. .blest but wretched we?" 
Understood in all of this is the central issue: what, in fact, 
does the sea hide? Wh&t can man discover by penetrating its 
surface? Is he safe and happy if he is unable or unwilling to 
attempt this penetration? 
These implicit questions become explicit in stanza four 
when we realize that the poet is using man's struggles on th e 
enigmatic seas to represent his attempts to und erstand death. 
Death is "a strange uncoasted strand," never explored; no 
cha rts or compass can lead us there. Note that the perspective 
here is consistent with that of "The Dying Indian"--the foreign 
land is strange, and we go there alone. Only the incomprehen-
sible tossings of the sea of experience can take us there, and 
once there we can never return our "state to shew." The ques-
tio nable security o f the land, the safe haven, is juxtaposed, 
then, not only with the chaos of the awesome sea, but with the 
peril of the dark, mysterious land to which the hurricane could 
drive us. "Safe" men do not risk the perils of exploration and 
are therefore unlikely to experience the chilling insights of 
"The Vanity of Existence" or of this poem. However, those who 
go to sea, that is , those who venture out and seek to confront 
life, storms or no, will find that they are forced to face the 
unknown, whether or not they want to do so. 
And they must face the enigma without charts or compass. 
For "when did ghost return?" There is no pilot, no "new 
Columbus" who can lead us there. We go "without a partner and 
without a guide." Significantly, the poet shifts in stanza 
Page 83 
five to the singular first person pronoun~ in order to empna-
size the isolation of his speaker. Previously,~ has been 
used to indicate that men face a common problem. The shift 
here underscores Freneau's awareness that the ultimate tempest 
must and will be faced alone. "While death and darkness. 
surround" us, and "tempests rage," we will not hear "frie!1cl-
ship ' s voice" or receive its "comfort." I believe that this 
shift of voice has two meanings. It suggests,in a crisis 
situation, both that the individual human being must face the 
trial alone to prove his individual worth, and that he may be 
forced to face it alone because he may find himself deserted 
or betrayed. In either case, no comforts or friendship will 
be found. Isolation, whether ? the product of our own need to 
be independent, or that of the defection of our comrades, is 
inevitable. This is a major reason why the personae of "The 
Dyir.g Elm," "The Vanity of Existence," and "The Dying Indian," 
and indeed, of all of Freneau's lyrics, are so alone. "Friend-
ship's voice" is mute. 
In the final stanza, the persona's vision degenerates to 
one of horror. Now the issue is out of control; the "trembling 
pilot" no longer "guides" the barque. "Trackless," she gropes 
as " mountains burst . " Facing his fate alone, ignorant man 
must reconcile himself to losing everything . "While mountains 
burst, " for example, conveys far more strongly the total loss 
of the physical world than does the dying Indian's stoical 
commentary. The pilot-less barque suggests the la c k of . c ontrol 
Page 84 
we experience. This final stanza is stated strongly in terms 
of specific example and general statement--just as the barque 
gropes alone and no longer obeys the pilot's hand, "thus" must 
"skill and scienc e both. .faJl. 11 
Yet these final lines are conditional. "Ruin is the lot 
of all" if the barque refuses to obey the "tr embling pilot's 
guide." Were the barqu e under control, ruin could possibly 
be averted. Here Freneau suggests several levels of meaning. 
On one, he examines the contrasting safety of the land and 
danger of the sea; on another, he suggests that we must seek 
the danger and confront it in order to be able to function in 
its presence. 
Freneau calls our attention to his grim vision not only 
b y the foreboding quality of his imagery, but also by his 
manipulation of structure. In this work he maintains a 
rigorously regular riming and metrical pattern throughout and 
employs the repetition of key rimes and the variation of 
syllabic patterns to create the desired effect. The final 
stanza, of course, receives our fullest attention. All six 
stanzas contain six octo-syllabic lines, the first four rimed 
alternately, the last two in couplets--ABA BCC. In stanza four, 
Freneau initiates an incremental repetition of end rime sounds 
which builds through stanza five and crescendoes in stanza six. 
Stanzas three and four are linked by the repetition of long~ 
in -sa-y/r-a-y and -da-y / -wa-y (11. 14-16 and 20-22 ). Stanzas two and 
Page 85 
five are next linked by the repetition of long~ in tree/~ 
and be/sea (11. 8-10 and 29-3Q), the latter rimes being the 
first couplet rimes that are repetitions. Stanzas three, 
four, and six are linked by a second repetition o f long~: 
obey/way (11. 31-33), the latter the first exact repetition 
of a specific rime word. Stanzas one and six are linked by 
th e prec is e repetition in the closing couplet of the opening 
couplet rime, fall/all (11. 5-6 and 35-36). The effect pro-
duced is a kind of cumulative interlocking pattern which 
interweaves the poem 's sound structure progressively from the 
centre: stanzas three and four are linked; stanzas two and five 
are linked; stanzas six, four, and three are linked; stanzas 
six and one are linked. Thus the poem is unified aurally and 
central concepts are linked while a sense of finality is 
achieved most effectively in the final couplet. Death "permits 
no day"--death is at the end of the "t rackless way- Tempests 
on us "doubly fall/our feeble barque must bear them all" or 
else "skil l and science both must fall/ and ruin is the lot of 
all. " 
We should note, too, that the last line of the poem is 
rythmically its most abrupt. Each stanza ends with an indented 
couplet, so that each stanza ends emphatically. The last lines 
in the first five stanzas of "Verses Made At Sea. ." however, 
tend to be cluttered. For example, the alliteration in line 6 
retards its movement--"our feeble barque must bear them all"--
as does the punctuation in line 18, " On coral beds, un p itied, 
sleep." Line 12 is interrupted by the intrusion of an anapest 
Page 86 
into the mid s t of a line of iambs, and requires elision in 
order to be read smoothly: "No rest [th' unsettled] ocean knows." 
Lines 24 and 30 are relatively uncluttered but the former con-
tains one 3-syllable word (Columbus), and the latter two 2-syl-
lable words (comfort, angry). Line 36 flows smoothly, crisply, 
and swiftly, its initial and final consonants and vowels blend-
ing easily and strengthening its impact--"And ruin is the lot 
of all." 
"Verses Made At Sea In A Heavy Gale," which is retitled 
"The Hurricane" for the edition of 1795, is notable among the 
poems we have examined so far because Freneau leaves it vir-
tually untouched after having first published it in the Freeman's 
Journal. The ' 86 version is identical, in fact, with the 
original except for minor punctuation emendations. The '95 and 
'09 editions use the new title and make only a few minor verbal 
changes . For example, line 30 is revised, "angry sea" becoming 
first "troubled sea" in '95 and then "raging sea" in '09. All 
three adjectives tend to personify the sea's chaotic state, but 
the final one seems to do so most emphatically. Moreover, 
raging refers to "raging tempests" earlier in the stanza, givi.;:1g 
stanza five a neatly balanced couplet which reiterates friend-
ships, comfort, and raging for emphasis. While the revisions 
made here seem minor, they reveal the poet's implicit conception 
of the poem as a dynamic process of attempting to understand 
rather than simply a static frieze of some situation or another. 
Once more the poet has wrought a striking vision through 
his control both of imagery and metaphor and of structure. 
?age 87 
The central issue of appearance and r~ality i3 being probed, 
dn~ the focus of this probing centers on the nature of de a t~ 
rather than simply the nature of external phenomena. The 
speaker does not lament his loss of security, or the loss of 
his youthful vision, or even his impending death, but seems 
to accept the inevitability of these losses and to seek a 
touchstone by which to deal with th a uncertain t y aroun~ him . 
Literally, going to sea is the activity that gives meaning 
to l i fe of th e persona of "The Hnrri.::ane ." Figurative::.y , 
goin g to sea becomes th e activity of seeking to understa~d 
which infus~s ~ne poet's bei~ g with significanc~. auin i s 
the lot only of thos~ w?ho suppose t:iemsi::?lves to b8 "sa::e on 
sbore." 
4 . When Vernal Suns Forbear to Roll: "1'he Vernal Ague" 
1 ., 
First published in the 1786 edition , " ':'he Vern a l c\que" " 
examines the theme of the nature of appearance and r eality 
-_..,:-iich is central in "The Vanity of Ex istence ." Like the narrator 
of " The Dying- E lm," t:i.e narrator of " 1'he Vernal l\gue " wr.::,uld ui:-::fer 
Page 88 
not to know what he knows. Like the narrator of "The Vanity 
of Existence," he has gli:npsed the void. 
Where the Blackbird roosts at night, 
In groves of half distinguish'd light, 
Where the evening breezes sigh 
Solitary, there stay I. 
Close along the shaded stream, 
Source of many a golden dream, 
Where branchy cedars dim the day--
Th ere I muse, and there I stray. 
Yet what can please amid this bower, 
That charm'd my eyes for many an hour! 
Th budding leaf is lost to me, 
And dead the blo om on every tree, 
The winding stre am that glides along, 
The lark that tunes her early song, 
The mountain's brow, the sloping vale, 
The murmuring of the western gale, 
Have lost their charms!--the blooms are gone! 
Trees put a darker aspect on, 
The stream disgusts that wanders by, 
And every zephyr brings a sigh. 
Great guardian of our feeble kind, 
Res toring Nature, lend thine aid, 
And o'er .. the features of the mind 
Re new these colours, that must fade, 
When vernal suns forbear to roll, 
And endless winter chills the soul. 
Alone, the victim of the vernal ague wanders a landscap e 
"where the Bla ckbird roosts at night" and "wher e the evening 
breezes sigh." His isolation and the degree to which his vision 
is obscured are emphasized by the phrase which locates both th e 
blackbird and himself: "in groves of half-distinguish' d light." 
In the 1809 edition, this lin e becomes "lon e ly, drowsy, out of 
sight," emphasizing the: speaker's isolation and lethargy. The 
grammatical ambiguity of these dangling modifiers seems to under-
Page 89 
score the speaker's own confusion. Though he "stays" where 
"evening breezes sigh," he "strays" the landscape in a seem-
ingly aimless manner . We notice too that the time of day, the 
sighing of the evening breeze, and the presence of the ominous 
blackbird generate a sense of melancholy which is juxtaposed 
with the time of year. Spring is normally the season of joy 
in new life. The sense of ambivalence thus achieved is the 
product not only of the speaker's behavior and choice of words 
but also of the syntactical ambiguity of those words. 
Significant also in the opening stanzas of "The Vernal 
Ague" is the insistent imagery of darkness and obscurity. 
The time is evening; the local bird is black; the stream is 
"shaded"; indeed, this is a place which is "dim" even during 
the day, due to "branchy cedars." The almost total absence of 
light creates a setting in which the narrator wanders, aimless 
and listless, because he can see neither literally nor figura-
tively. 
He strays "close along the shaded stream" that was once 
the "sourc e of many a go lden dream." Now, however, the musing 
speaker is incapable of regaining that golden vision. Golden 
suggests, of course, a brightness in contrast with the dim 
surroundings. In 1809, Freneau replaces "golden" with "youthful," 
in order to establish the sense of time and change on which the 
significance of the poem depends. As we grow older we realize 
that the youthful dream is merely the innocent's illusion. 
Now, later, "What can please amid this bower ? " asks the speaker, 
for he is finally aware that what had once " charm, 'd [his] eyes 
Page 90 
for many an hour" is not what it seemed. In this grove, "the 
budding leaf is lost" to him and "the bloom on every tree" is 
dead. In short, the speaker is no longer deceived by super-
ficial appearances . He has penetrated the surface of phenomena 
and recognized the transience of natural beauty, and, indeed, 
of natural existence. 
Yet one would expect that the proper setting for me lan-
choly musing would be colourless and motionless, fixed and 
dead. Looking around himself, the speaker catalogues his 
surroundings: "The. .stream. . the lark. .the mountain's 
brow, the sloping vale. .the western gale"--and asserts that 
all of these "have lost their charms." Although the settin g 
lot c,-. 
is less vivid than that presented11in "The Argonaut," it is far 
from dead. For example, the poet employs verbals to 
co nvey the dynamism of the scene: the stream is "winding," 
the v a 1 e " s 1 op i n g , " the g a 1 e " mu rm ~r in g . " Moreover, the verbs 
in this stanza are active: glides and tunes. The setting is 
fixed and dead only to the narrator ; the fact that it lacks 
co lour for him only, because he projects his own melanchol y 
upon it, heightens our awareness of his projection. Charms 
and charm'd emphasize by their recurrence the concept intro-
duced by dreams that which we see is not necessarily that which 
is real. But whence the powers which delude? We wonder whether 
they are in the perceiver or the perceived . That the speaker 
is aware of the dichotomy between appearance and reality is 
further suggested by his next observation. "Trees put a darker 
Page 91 
aspect on," he says, the word aspect underscoring the super-
ficiality of appearan ce s. That this "aspect" is darker is 
not, however, the result of some volition on the part of the 
trees, but rather of the speaker's self-conscious projection. 
He states that the stream "disgusts" and that "every zephyr 
brings a sigh" and thereby implicitly establishes his own 
interaction with the scene. The stream is not itself disgust-
ing nor disgusted, but rather it disgusts him. So too with 
the zephyr, which may sound to him like a sigh but does not 
itself sigh. 
Yet he believes that there is an impu:se in nature which 
can alter his perceptions of the world. The final stanza opens 
with an apostrophe, 
Great guardian of our feeble kind, 
Restoring Nature, lend thine aid, 
calling on nature to "renew [those] colours. .o'er the 
features of the mind " whose loss the speaker laments. He seeks 
this renewal fully aware that these colours will again "fade" 
When vernal suns forbear to roll, 
And endless ?winter chills the soul. 
Freneau calls attention to the grim insight of this final stan-
za not only through its stark imagery but also by his manipula-
tion of the stanzaic structure and rime scheme of the poem. 
The first five stanzas of the poem each contain four lines, 
rimed in c0uplets. This pattern is consistent throughout, 
each third line introducing a new rime until we reach the final 
two lines of stanza five where the BB rime of stanza one is 
repeated, sigh / !, by / si g h, signalling the shift which occurs 
Page 9 2 
in st a nza six. Here the poet utilizes alternat e lin e rimes in 
th e first four lines and then reverts to the c oup let rime for 
the two final lines of th e poem. Thus stanza si x is the only 
six-line stanza in "The Vernal Ague" and is further set off b y 
its interruption of the established rime pattern o f the poem. 
The return to the couplet rime not only gives the last t wo 
line s, which are the only two indented lin e s o f th e po e m, a 
sense of harsh finalit y but also heightens th e effect of their 
imagery of cold and dark. "Vernal suns" are juxtaposed with 
"endless winter" to th e melancholy toll of the lon g ~ rime, 
roll/soul. These lines, like endless winter, chill the soul 
indeed. 
Freneau calls attention to the concluding stanza b e caus e 
it contains the key to the poem. The point is th a t the agu e 
victim would prefer to b e deluded and to retain his youth f ul 
dream. Unlike the narrator of " The Vanit y of Existence, ?? he 
is unable, or at least unwilling, to accept the r e ality of his 
world. The " shaded str e am. .where branchy cedars d im th e 
day" is an illusory world, one where vision is bedimme d , b u t 
it is preferable to his present v ision of "dead the bl oo m en 
every tree , '' for this percep t ion generates the spe a ker's awf ul 
awareness of endless winter's chill. The final stanza, then, 
is the speaker's p l ea to natur e that he be delude d . Th e terri-
ble irony here is that the youthful view is gone--"the buc.idi ng 
leaf is lost to me," sa y s he--and can ne v er b e r egai n e d. 
The painting imagery of the final stanza un de rsc o r e s our 
awareness that the ague v i c tim consciousl y seeks t o be deluded . 
Page 93 
he calls upon "Restoring nat ure" to "re-
As we have seen, 
.these colours that 
.o'er the features of the mind. 
new. 
muS fade," disregarding his awareness that they must eventual-
t 
Paradoxically, he asks that Nature alter his percep-
ly fade. He indicates that delusion 
t?i ons rather than her own appearance. 
? ? subject's ability to appre en phenomena rather 
lies w;th;n the h d That is, 
an within the existence of objects themselves. 
th
appearances are not deceiving because natural phenomena desire 
, 
but rather because men do not always understand 
to deceive, Nature does not cau se 
understand, what t eY see. 
or want to h 
melancholy; the speaker's psychic condition is the result of 
Nature simply 
his understanding of the nature of rea 1i? tY? That 
exists; yet Nature can restore him somehow, he thinks. 
is thought is a misconception is stresse by the poem's sub-
th " d 
The onlY repeated end rimes in the poem 
tle motif of sight. The keY rime among these is I in 
share the sound of long l ? Then in line 10 t he 
I is repeated twice in lines. 
1?i ne four. This term is revised to "the eye" i n 
Pthher asf e"  "my eyes" occurs. perhaps to link it more strongly 
inal version of the poem?a, tion suggests the interrelation-
With The resultant associ 
The eye and the I, the 
I. 
ship between perception and the self. ? a " determine what o ne 
h 
p e r c ,, f e at u re s o f t e m1  n , 
eption and the 
h the juxtapositions which create 
sees . 
The paradox deepens throu9E ven the fact that spring has 
The chill 
the poem's central tensi.o ns- . cause for joy. 
come does not give the ague victim 
Page 94 
he feels seems to have been occasioned by the arrival of spri?n c;, 
a nd warmth. His vision of death--"endless winter"--is 
sharpened for us b y its proximity to the new life o f spring. 
The ague, of course, is a kind of premonition of that endless 
chill. Ironically, we may infer that the onset of spring has 
caused the speaker's dreadful vision. Perhaps th e sudden 
fecundity of th e world around him reminds him of it s in escap-
able brevity. Now things bloom; later they die. Of course, 
the speaker is made aware of his own transience t y that of the 
pheno mena he moves among. "Dead the bloom on every tree" con-
vey s forcefully the paradoxical sense of death in life which 
the victim of the vernal ague longs to shake off with the aid 
of " Restoring Nature." Nature restores, however, only s ome of 
her children, he knows, and among them no men: time mo ves 
inexorably on. Indeed, the petitioner recognizes th e futility 
o f his request: those "colours must fade" in the end. Th e 
speaker is fooling only himself. Once we recognize that what 
we see is not what it appears to be, we can never again ac cept 
appearances as realities. Perhaps the speak e r's chill is the 
resul t of his inability to accept this fact or the possibility 
that there may be no knowable realit y . 
The tone and stance of "The Vernal Ague" sug ge st its kin-
sh ip with "The Vanity of Existence." The similarities of theme 
are clear, and both narrators seem to understand their percep -
tions well and to have their emotions under restraint. However, 
the crucial difference may lie in their respective distances 
Page 95 
from the experiences they report. Not only is the ague suf-
ferer among the phenomena he describes, but he is experiencing 
them in the present time. While this poem is in the present 
tense, "The Vanity of Existence" recreates past experience 
now recollected and comprehended, and its narrator stands out-
side of the phenomenon he describes. Both recognize implicitly 
the impossibility of regaining that lost vision; the sp eaker 
of "The Vernal Ague," however, seeks paradoxically to do just 
that. The revision of golden to youthful perhaps best suggests 
"Ague's" similarity to "Vanity." Both poems are about the 
development of experience out of innocence through the gradua l 
apprehension of the cleavage between appearance and reality. 
One laments the loss of the youthful "golden dream," while the 
other does not . Both vividly concretize the experience of 
disillusionment and vividly realize a stark reality. 
"The Vernal Ague" holds out no hope for the future; 
there is no sense here that the budding season is explicit 
proof of God's goodness and wisdom revealed in his handiwork, 
such as we might find in Thomson's Spring. '' Renewing Nature" 
renews only certain phenomena, and these die quickly enough. 
Perhaps the conventional wisdom is to extrapolate belief in 
an afterlife, a rebirth, from the seasonal cycle. Frene a u does 
no such thing: rather he conveys a sense of annihilation--
endless winter follows spring and the poem is charged with that 
grim reality. 
Page 96 
6 ? Lear n What I t Is J'o C:?__To_ Sea : "Captain Jon~,s' Invitation '' 
The narrator of " The Hurricane" goes tc sea aware of t h e 
potential for destruction he? will face: he gropes 3. "trackless 
way/While mo unta i ns burst e n either side . " Perhaps some part 
of the reason why he does so ma y be discovered in " Th e Invit.a -
1 3 
tion," wh i ch was first published in the 17 86 edition. The 
narrator of " The Hu rricane" appears to need to "learn what it 
is to 'JO to sea ," ar...  opportunity which " 'The Invitation'' offers . 
The origina l title o: this pie ce is "Capt a in Jones ' Invitation , " 
so the poem may appea r to be s i mpl y "a p le a to all brave men 
1 4 
who seek honor o r wealth in the se rv ice of t heir country." 
Fre neau was aK3.re in 178 6 that his reputation AS ??roet of The 
Revolution"was ~axing, and, of course , t~e popularity of h is 
fir st co llected volume might be enhanced b y the addition of 
titl e s related to the recent war. More significantly 1 ~owe v er, 
the title defi nes the speaker of t he poem as Jones rather than 
as the poet, who is once again maski ng himse l f. 
The effect of the o r igina l titl e is t o obscure the poem's 
metaphor ic levels, which again deal with the nec essity of 
leaving th e security of land and lear~ing " ~liha.t it is to go to 
sea, " the nec e ssity t o seek t o confront t he meaning o r the 
ur.iverse . Signif i cantl y , Freneau intro ducos here a n e w element 
into the metaphoric nGcessity in that here we are invit8d , as 
hi s aud i ence , to part i cipa te in seeking. ':'his element is 
Page 9 7 
particularly present in the 1795 version, in which Freneau 
drops the mask and retitles the poem simply "The Invitation." 
Thou, who on some dark mountain's brow 
Hast toil'd thy life away till now, 
And often from that rugged steep 
Beheld the vast extended deep, 
Corne from thy forest, and with me 
Learn what it is to go to sea. 
There endless plains the eye surveys 
As far from land the vessel strays; 
No longer hill nor dale is seen, 
The realms of death intrude between, 
But fear no ill; resolve, with me 
To share the dangers of the sea. 
But look not there for verdant fields-
Far different prospects Neptune yields; 
Green seas shall only greet the eye, 
Those seas encircled by the sky, 
Immense and deep--corne then with me 
And view the wonders of the sea. 
Yet sometimes groves and meadows gay 
Delight the seamen on their way; 
From the deep seas that round us swell 
With rocks the surges to repel 
Some verdant isle, by waves ernbrac'd, 
Swells, to adorn the wat'ry waste. 
Though now this vast expanse appear 
With glassy surface, calm and clear; 
Be not deceiv'd--'tis but a show, 
For many a corpse is laid below--
Even Britain ' s lads--it cannot be--
They were the masters of the sea! 
Now combating upon the brine, 
Where ships in flaming squadrons join, 
At every blast the brave expire 
'Midst clouds of smoke, and streams of fire; 
But scorn all fear advance with rne--
'Tis but the custom of the sea. 
Page 9 8 
Now we the peaceful wave divide, 
On broken surges now we ride, 
Now every eye dissolves with woe 
As on some lee-ward coast we go--
Half lost, half buried in the main 
Hope scarcely beams on life again. 
Above us storms distract the sky, 
Beneath us depths unfathom'd lie, 
Too near we see, a ghastly sight, 
The realms of everlasting night, 
A wat'ry tomb of ocean-green 
And only one frail plank between! 
But winds must cease, and storms decay, 
Not always lasts the gloomy day, 
Again the skies are warm and clear, 
Again soft zephyrs fan the a~r, 
Ag ain we find the long lost shore, 
The winds oppose our wish no more. 
If thou hast courage to despise 
The various changes of the skies, 
To disregard the ocean's rage, 
Unmov'd when hostile ships engage, 
Come from thy forest, and with me 
Learn what it is to go to sea. 
"The Invitation " is directed literall y to the landsman--
" Tho u who on some dark mountain ' s b r cw /Ha s t to i l ' d thy l i f e 
1 
away ." The speaker says nothing, however, about "seeking 
honor or wealth" or even about serving country, referring 
directly to war only twice. In stanza six he paints a brief 
but vivid picture of battle "upon the brine / Where ships in 
flaming squadrons join." There "at every blast the brave 
expire/'.Midst clouds of smoke, and streams of fire. " This 
description is not intended to entice anyone to sea, but rather 
to illustrat e the dangers that might be found there and further 
to establish the premise of the stanza's couplet: 
But scorn all fear; advance with me--
'Tis but the custom of the sea. 
Page 99 
One should g o to sea onl y with full awareness of what might be 
met there. The emphasis is on the mystery and danger of the 
sea , not on the honor and glory of war, thou gh the horror of 
th e war at sea is part of the sea's danger. 
In stanza ten, the speaker again refers, this time oblique-
ly, to war. Here the participial phrase "Unmov d when hostile 
ships en ga ge" modifies either " ocean's rage " or "thou" under-
stood. The syntactical ambiguity of th e phr ase is more signi-
ficant than its allusion t o warfar e . If " Captain Jones' 
Invitation" is a simple plea to Freneau's countrymen to ship 
upon American men of war t h en it is so only at the most super-
fic ial l eve l and only to those who in fe r so f r om its original 
t i tle. The poem is also several year s t oo late in its initial 
publication to achieve the desired effect. 
The fi rst stanza of " The Invitation" qui c }c l y est:.ablishes 
the t ension between land and sea: "often from that rugged steep " 
has the landsman "beheld the vast e xte nded. deep ." He is ex horted 
to "Come f rom [his] forest" with the speaker to lear.i "what it 
is to go to sea." The emphasis in this couplet is fo c used not 
only, as one would expect , o n its riming words, me and sea, but 
also on its verbs, come and learn. In lines 2 tr1ro 1.1gh 4 , the 
poet has established an iambic pattern which in lines 5 and 6 
is shifted so that c ome and learn rather than from and what are 
stressed . The couplet emphasizes that we may come and l ear n 
both from the speaker and f rom the sea . Both are actively 
teachers but we must make th e effor t t o come and be taught . 
Page 1 00 
Stanza one introduces us to the speaker's exhortation. 
Part of the function of stanzas two through nine is to show 
us what we can expect to confront if we accept that exhortation. 
We have often beheld the "vast, extended deep" from the shore, 
but now we will venture out to sea . "There endless plains the 
eye surveys/As far from land the vessel strays," says the 
speaker . Between the vess e l and the "hill[or) dale" of land 
intrude "the realms of death." Like death, the sea is impene-
trable and undecipherable. Moreover, the sea can be deadly. 
Yet the speaker calls on us to "resolve. .to share the dan-
gers of the sea" with him . Together, he implies, we need "fear 
no ill." The effect of his direct address to us is to establish 
a kind of partnership with us and to suggest that the poet has 
accepted the responsibility to reveal the truth to us. 
The complexity of that which we must learn is conveyed in 
the association of sea, sky, and eye i n stanza three. No 
"verdant fields" are found at sea: we need not look for them. 
"Far different prospects Neptune yie l ds, " green seas, "those 
seas encircled by the sky." The green of verdan t fields is 
juxtaposed here with the green of the sea , whic~ is describe d 
as a vast "plain, " and the resultant contrast is heightened 
by the association of sea and sky . In '95, Freneau chan q es 
green to blue in order to strengthen that association. First, 
as noted, the sky encircles the sea . Secondly, both the sea 
and the sky are "immense and deep." This adjective phrase 
follows sky and would appear to be its modifier; however, 
Page 1 01 
"immense and deep" also modifies "those sea.s"--we would asso-
ciate the sea rather than the sky with~- Furthermore, line 
16 may be in apposition with green seas, since it is set off 
from the rest of the sentence in which it appears by commas; 
therefore, "immense and deep" may even modify eye ir, line 15. 
Sky and eye are associated by rime, sea and eye by the pun on 
seeing, s ea and sky by the fact that one encircl e s the other; 
all three are associated b y the fact that they are all implicit-
ly "immense and deep." The sea's immensity and depth are en-
hanced by their comparison to the depth and immensit y of the 
sky. Conversely, the eye must be able to see comprahensively 
and profoundly--immensely and deeply--in order to "view the 
wonders o f the sea." 
"Yet sometimes groves and meadows gay" decorate the surface 
of the sea. These compose the "verdant isle" which "by waves 
embrac'd/Swells, to adorn the wat'ry waste." Stanza four, like 
its predecessor, is also syntactic al ly complex. "Groves and 
meadows gay/Delight the seamen," yet these gay scenes ar e apparent-
ly surrounded b y rocks which repel the ocean's surges and would 
therefore destroy any ship hurled upon them. On one hand, the 
rocks protect the isle from the sea's crashing waves; on the 
other hand, they bristle up out of the s ea , or lurk dangerously 
beneath its surface. We wonder whether the sea "s well[sJ/\Vi.th 
rocks" or whether "with rocks. .some verdant isle by waves 
embrac'd/Swells." Both the sea and the isle "swell" with 
rocks apparently, so that both harbor a destructive element. 
Page 1 02 
Moreover, the isle "adorns" the "deep sea" as though it were 
some bauble floating superficially. Swelling, like the sea 
and its waves, the isle seems to bob along the surface as 
though it has little to do with the sea's depth. Additionally 
this isle is associated with the fiel ds of the mainland by its 
verdure. The suggestion here is one with which we are familiar: 
life on land is life which i s shallow. Life at s e a a nd life 
on land equally swell with rocks, but the former allows the 
experience of the immense and deep while the latter does not. 
Groves and meadows may appear to be gay, but they are not 
necessarily so. Stanza five shows us that the sea, likewise, 
may not be what i t appears to be . "Though now this vast 
expanse appear/With glassy surface, ca lm and c lear," warns the 
speaker, "Be not deceiv'd -- 'tis but a show," The sea is an 
immense tomb to the speaker--"for many a corpse is laid below ?." 
The sheen inferred from the "glassy surface" seems suggestive 
of a visual splendour similar to that presented in "Th e Vanity 
of Existence." Certainly, we are here quite aware that a 
similar kind of corruption is below this surface of the tide. 
The "bank of mud " here couches "man y a corpse ." "Even Britain's 
lads," once ''masters of the sea," are "laid below" this "glassy 
surfa ce. " No one, not even the most experienced and adept 
sailor, can be secure on th e bosom of the main. 
In stanza six, the poem appears simply to depict the 
martial struggle which had so recently occurr9d. " Combating 
upon the brine,'' ships "in flaming squadrons join" in battle. 
At every cannon's blast, "th e brave expire/Midst clouds of 
Page 1 03 
smoke, and streams of fire". This frightful pro spect notwith-
standing, we should "sc orn ?all fear" and "advance" with the 
sp eaker, for such combats are onl y "the custom of the sea." 
The clouds of smoke, like the glassy surface of the sea, hide 
something; as corp ses lie beneath the surfa ce of the sea, so 
the brave expire beneath the smoke . Death and decay see m 
a lw ays to l ie below the surface of all we survey. Sti ll, ad-
v ance we must and scorn all fears as the speaker does. He 
dis misses his grim insi gh t with the off-handed comm ent "'Ti s 
but the custom of the se a ." No te that the core of the poem ' s 
meaning lies at its structural center, in stanzas five and s i x , 
and that the tone of this last comment sug ges ts calm acceptance 
of the nature of the sea and of the nature of the smoke and 
fire which at once obscure and illuminate our percept ions and 
may either destroy or instruct us. 
calm, even detached, the speaker further describes in 
stanzas seven and eight s om e of th e varieties of experience we 
may taste at sea, capturing here vividly a sense of th e fluidity 
of the natural world. Now we "di v ide . .peaceful" waves; next 
we ride "broken surges"; then upon "s om e l ee -war d coast" we 
are woefully driven . Above us is a stormy sky; " Beneath us 
depths unfathom'd lie . " Our eyes "dissol ve with woe" as we 
sink "half lost, half buried" in th e sea. But this condit ion 
of dissolution does not last long; none of the eve nts of these 
stanzas can, since they are in flux . Soon again we see "too 
near . . a ghastly sight / The r ealms of everlasting ni ght ." 
That i s , we a c hi e -., e the i n s i g h t that th e " o c e an - g re en " i s a 
Page 1 04 
"wa t' ry tomb. " H ere th e green o f th e ocean i? s i? roni? cally 
juxtaposed with the green of the verdant fields and the ver-
dant isle, both of which are supposedly green with fecundity 
and life. The sea, however, is green with death and corrup-
tion. "Hope scarcely beams on life again" as we sail "half 
lost" over "depths unfathom'd," perhaps because we cannot 
penetrate and thus "fathom" .the nature of "everlasting night." 
Yet hope does beam, even though scarcely, for that "one frail 
plank" is between us and the watery tomb to sustain us. Ref-
erence to "realms of everlasting night" may suggest Freneau's 
sense of the void underpinning surface reality. In the or:i,gi-
nal version of "The Invitation" he calls them a "ghastly sight." 
In 1795 he calls them "disheartening sight," a revision which 
suggests the kinship between this poem and "The Argonaut. " 15 
What is significant about the realms of night, then, is not 
that they are observably ghastly, but that our vision of them 
affects us strongly. Nonetheless, we must scorn all fear, have 
fortitude, and cling to our "one frail plank." 
Stanza nine captures the sense of flux present throughout 
the poem. Winds "cease"; storms "decay"; the gloomy day ends; 
again skies clear and warm; again zephyrs fan the air. Through-
out the poem we are shown that the phenomenological universe 
is not fixed and static but fluid and dynamic. If, therefore, 
we have "courage to despise/T.he various changes of the skies"--
that is, if we can be flexible enough to accept th e constantly 
shifting realities of the "immense and deep" universe we inh a bit-:--
Page 1 05 
e may leave our forest and the "dark mountain's brow" 
then w 
"Learn what it is to go to sea." 
a nd heed our poet's refrain: 
so we may discover that the truth may in fact be 
If we do security to 
but that we must leave safety and 
u n aiscoverable, 
seek, nonetheless. 
Close examination of the 1786 edition of Philip Freneau's 
several significant components 0 f the 
poems reveals, I believe, First, Freneau 
development of the poet's thought and technique. 
seriously questions the concept of the spiritual afterlife of 
is 
the soul and at least grants the possibility that the soul 
Freneau can find little rationally acceptable evi -
material. 
dence to support the notions of heaven or the resurrection of 
However, he realizes that doubt is hardly knowledge; 
th e dead. 
he cannot ' there fare' be sure' "for when did ghost return?" 
Lacking concrete support for belief, and knowing full well that 
appearances maY be deceiving, he seeks to probe the axis of 
reality and to discover the significance of his existence. 
. ? embodied in various ways in the 
The poet's probing is 
"The American Village, " "The House of 
Poetry. For example, . Theon" denY traditional Christian 
. tO. 
Night, " and "Plato. 6 support this denial and expand 
Of 1 78
beliefs. The 1yriCS "The oying Elm" examines its speaker ' s 
us pon~  and illuminate it- to accept the truths that the poet him-
e 1 .-centered inabilitY "A Moral Thought" probes the di c hot-
os elf has begun to accept? d realitY an d finally re jects "tha t 
my between appearanc. e . an th t beneath the surfac e li e s t h e 
recognizin g a 
true life" in 
Page 106 
eternal mud of decay. "The :Jying Ino.ian" continues to examine 
"that" life from the perspect i ve of thif, one and conclucles 
rationally that one c~nnot know what to expect. "Verses .Made 
,, 
At Sea. however, seems to be the initial a tt empt to work 
out a solution to the dilemma, to spurn the life "safe on 
shore" and to seek actively. "The Vernal Ague " :::-et.urns t:o an 
examination of the superfici ality of appearance and re-establish-
es the impossibility of recapturing youthful illusions. Perhaps 
"Captain Jones' Invitation" tc, '' lea~:n what it is t:o gc to sea" 
provides metaphorically the most clear-cut statement of the 
poet's position in 178 6 : all we know is that we clo not, and, 
pos sibly, cannot know; therefore , we must seek. Thus th8 3:oet 
seems to have reached at least a temporary working solutior1 
to his problem of belief, a solution foreshadowing the develop-
ment of p ~agrnatic ph ilosophy in 19th-ce~tary A~eric i . On e 
seeks truth for its own value in a universe i n whi c h reality is 
evanescent and life is transient. 
Thus in 1786 Freneau had deve l oped a st y le which i s in 
many ways revolutionary . E~p loying th e concrete and parti c u-
lar to co nv ey vividly the nat t re o f p h ~ nom e na, h e utili~es 
riming and metric techniques to undersco r e hi~ them e s a n d mask s 
himself so as to achieve a detached stance wh i c h will a llow h i ~ 
to co~sider the meaning of his exp~riences objectiv e ly. Th e s e 
elements, in part i cu l ar , fuse in Freneau 's art a s y nthesis o f 
Page 1 07 
sound, structure, and sense which examines the central tensions 
in the poet's vision: The cleavage between belief and doubt is 
embodied in the dichotomy between appearance and reality and 
in the respective tensions between land and sea, passivity and 
activity, security and the dangers of seeking. Perhaps the 
fact that the personae of the poems of 1786 are typically quite 
alone suggests the poet's implicit a wareness th a t his own seek~ 
ing, both poetic and philosophic, leads him in unexplored 
directions which may only be traveled alone: 
Long the journey is that I must go, 
Without a partner and without a guide. 
Page 108 
CHAP TER IV: " We Press to One Aboc.e": introducing The Miscel-
laneous Works of Philip Freneau, 1 788 
The twenty-two months between the publication of the first 
and second volumes of Philip Freneau's poetry appear t o h ave 
been uneventful . The poe t remained at sea, perhaps for fin a n-
cial reasons, and was to continue as master of coasta l traders 
such as Monmouth, Industry , and Columbia until late in 1789. 
Although he was busily employed in this pursuit, Freneau was 
regularly able to contribute poems to newspapers in the ports 
at which he traded, primarily The Freeman's Journal in Phila-
de lphia and The Columbian Herald in Charleston. Freneau was 
1 
beginnin g his most profitable period as a sea captain, but, 
though his output of poems necessarily slackened somewhat 
during th e latter part of 1787 and thro ugh 17 88 and ' 89, the 
continuing publication of his works in periodicals such as these 
illust r ates his continuing concern with th e issues which he had 
been exploring in his poetry. For example, " The Wild Honey 
s uckle," pe rhaps his best known poem , appeared in July, 1786 
in The Columbian Herald. " The Departure " and " May to April" 
both appeared in the same issue of Th e Freeman's J ournal in 
Ap r i l of 1787 , followed in August by "The Scornful Lady . " 
Matthew Carey inc luded "Lines Occas ioned by a Vi s it to an Old 
Indian Burying Ground," which, like "The Wild Honey Suckle", 
was destined to b e widely ~eprinted, in the just-founded 
American Mu seum in November , 1 787 . 
Pa.ge 109 
The Miscellaneous Works app2ared in April of 1788. Con-
sisting of approximately equal parts of prose and poetry, this 
collection, says Lewis Leary, is "perhaps the ~ost representa-
. 2 
tive volume that Freneau ever published." In this edition, 
Freneau focuses on the dichotomy between appearance and realit y 
and on the tension between land and sea as he had in 17 86 . 
However, he begins here to explore the relatio:ishi.ps betv.?eer: 
reason and fancy and between art and nature more fully than he 
ha d before. Frenea 11 seems to be developing more control over 
his dark vision and over his ~ode of ex p ression, a co ntrol 
which is perhaps reflected in the detachment which he is able 
t o achieve through the various voices he employs in these poems . 
Th ro ug h his exploration of reason and fan cy and nat u r e and art, 
the poet seems to come to understand himself and t ~e artist 
within him more fally. This understanding seems to be r efl0ct-
ed in th e poet's concern, in the 178 8 poems, with self-knowledge. 
F r e neau's exploration of self is, of course, related to the 
continuing exploratioc o f the universe he inhabits. The poe,:ns 
of 1788 que stion the craditional belief in th e afterlife through 
a:1 exami nation of t.i1 ,2 seasonal cycle, which r.ad t:cadi1-.i.onal_y 
been us ed to support man's hope i~ a resurrection . cr.arac-c.er::..s-
tically, Freneau employs the conventional approach to another 
purpose. These themes are introduced b y such poems as th e 
p reviously unpublished "The Pictures of CoL1mbu.s ," and in " The 
D e par tu r e " and " '!' h e S co r n f u l Lady " 2.. n d d eve 1 op e d rn o r e f u 11 v i. n 
the major lyrics o f the 1783 edi tion. " P i C t \!re I X " 0 f " T :1 e p -~ r, -
tu r es of Columbus " had first a ppeared as "'I'homas and Susan, .?'.n 
Page 1~ 9 
Irish-Town Dialogue" in February, 1787. Leary believes that 
3 
"The Pictur?es. " had been written in 1774, but Freneau d id 
not date the poem until it appeared, much altered, in the 1795 
edition of his works. Freneau may have affixed the date to 
the 1795 version in order to give the impression that his pro-
duction antedates Joel Barlow's popular The Columbiad, which 
4 
had first appeared as The Vision of Columbu s in 1782. 
Freneau may have begun the poem in 1774, as his date claims, 
but he did not publish it then and the version which appears 
in 1788 is unique to The Miscellaneous Works. At any rate, 
"The Pictures of Columbus" provides the context within which 
the edition as a whole should be considered. 
"The Pictures of Columbus" consists in 1788 of eighteen 
"Pictures" of varying length and structure. The poem has no 
explicit narrator but is rather presented dramatically, as a 
series of monologues or dialogues. Each "Picture" is framed 
by a title which establishes its context, while transition 
from picture to picture is achieved largely through the develop-
ment of the plot . "The Pictures of Columbus" raises a variety 
of issues, the most obvious of which is that greed corrupts. 
Columbus, in his desire to discover the new world, appeals to 
the pride, vanity, and greed of Ferdinand and Isabella. Address -
ing Ferdinand, Columbus says: 
Prince and pride of Spain! while meaner crowns, 
Pleas'd with the shadow of onarchial sway, 
Exact obedience from some paltry tract 
Scarce worth the pain and toil of governing, 
Be thine the generous care to send thy fame 
Beyond the knowledg~ or the guess of man. 
This gulphy deep. 
Page 111 
Must be the passage to some other shore 
Where nations dwell, children of early time. 
Who some false deity, no doubt, adore 
Owning no virtue in the potent cross: 
What honour, sire, to plant your standards there, 
And souls recover to our holy faith 
That now in paths of dark perdition stray 
Wa r p'd to his worship by the evil one! 6 
In a footnote to line 14, Freneau explains that "most historians" 
allow that Ferdinand was "an implicit believe:r:; and one of the 
most super stitious bigots of his age " and Freneau's Columbus 
seeks to tempt his pride through this appeal to the monarch's 
blind religious faith . Moreover, Columbus offers Isabella the 
chance to attain a "happier lot" (VI, 6) than thos e "dejected . 
Turkish queens" who have been taught only one virtue, "to 
.some eastern tyrant" (VI, 1-4). Because she "share [s ) 
the rich Ca s tilian throne" (VI, 8), s he may now extend her 
reign "to the wide world's remotest end" (VI , 12) In addition , 
the explorer promises " abounding wealth" (VI, 20), including 
"fine pearls. . diamonds bright and coral green. . yel low 
shells, and virgin gold,and silver" (VI, 26-30) . Finally, 
Columbus offers Isabella the opportunity to undo the mischief 
done by Eve: 
As men were forc ' d from Eden's shade 
By errors that a woman mad~ 
Permit me at a woman ' s cost 
To find the climates that we lost . 
(XI, 33-36) 
The effect of these exaggerated compliments and promises of 
bounty is s h own in "Picture VII, " "Queen Isabella's Page of 
Honour Writing A Reply to Columbus." Says the page: 
Page 11 2 
Your yellow shells and coral green, 
And gold and silver-not yet seen, 
Have made such mischief in a woman's mi nd 
The queen could almost pillage from th e crown 
And add some costly jewels of her own 
Thus sending you that charming coast to find 
Where all these heavenly things abound. 
(VII, 1-7) 
Columbus also appeals to greed in his search for a cre w. 
I n "Picture VIII," "Columbus at the Harbor of Palos, in Anda-
lusia," Columbus exhorts the sailors: 
Ye that would rise beyond the rags of fortune 
Coasting your native shores on shallow seas. 
Now meditate with me a bolder plan, 
Catching at fortune in her plenitude! 
.He that sails with me 
Shall reap a harvest of immortal honour: 
Wealthier he shall return than they that now 
Lounge in the lap of principalities, 
Hoarding the gorgeous treasures of the east. 
(VIII, 2 6-50) 
But they turn their backs on him. At last Columbus resorts t o 
seducing unemployed sailors in their cups: 
When desperate plans are most acceptable, 
Impossibilities are possible, 
And all the spring and vigour of the mind 
Is strained to madness and audacity. 
(XII, 26-29) 
This tactic proves disastrous: no soo ner has Co lumbus l a n ded 
in the new world than one of his men murders a n a tive for his 
earrings, "which would not have weigh' d /O ne po o r p iastre" (XIV , 
34-35), and, ultimately, the explorer is supersede d as a dm i ral 
and viceroy and sent in chains back to Cas t il e ( XVII). He dies 
knowing that "those chains that sullied all [his] glory/No t 
mine but the i r's " ( XV I I I , 2 3 - 2 4 ) we r e the ch a i n s o f pride and 
a v arice which imprisoned Ferdinand an d I sab e ll a a n d wou l d 
Page 1 13 
corrupt the new world which had once been "uns ullied by the 
hands of men" (XIV, 47). 
Freneau simultaneously considers themes which, though 
corollary here, are central in other works. First, he develops 
the tensions between reason and fancy and between land and sea; 
second, he considers the nature of the afterlife. Columbus 
is "persuaded" of the existence of the "new worlds" by "reason," 
he tells .the Inchantress (II, 68-69). In studyin g his charts, 
Co lumbus has seen "such disproportion" (I, 2 ) that he has con -
clu ded that all the land mass on Earth could not possibly be 
pla ced "in one p oor corner" ( I, 5) . This conclusion leads 
him to draw a new world on his charts, after "Impl or in g Fancy 
to [his] aid" (I, 21). However, though reason tells him that 
his belief is valid, he see k s the a dvice of the Inchantress as 
reinforcement. She predicts what Columbus co uld have reasoned 
out for hi~self were he to reason clearly: 
For this the ungrateful shall combine, 
And hard misfortune shall be thine;--
For this the base reward remains 
Of cold neglect and ga ilin g chains! 
( II, 100-104) 
Co lumbus already realizes that avarice is the motivation which 
7 
prompts Isabella, and Freneau e mploys the mirror in "Picture 
III" to point this out. After all, what one s ees when one looks 
into a mirror is one's self. "Strange things I see, bright 
mirror , in thy breast--" says Columbus (III, 1), a phrase that 
suggests that he peers into his own breast, though he calls 
the mirror "the witch's glass " (III, 15). What, therefore, 
Co lumbus' reason has assured him must exis t--"Fine islands ? 
Page 11 4 
cover'd with trees, an d b ea s ts , a n d yellow men " (II I, 53 - 54)~ -
his fanc y r e inforces. When Columbus seeks th e aid of Kin g 
F e rdinand , he argues ration a l ly that th e kin g should becom e 
his patron: 
Think not that Europe and the Asian wast e , 
Or Africa, where barren s a nds abound, 
Are the sole gems in Neptune's bosom laid: 
Think not the world a vast extended p lain: 
See yond ' bright orbs , that throu g h the eth e r-mo v e , 
All globu l ar; this earth a g l obe lik e t hem 
Walks her own rounds . 
If all the surfac e of this mighty round 
Be one wide ocean of unfathom'd depth 
Bounding the little space already kn o wn, 
Nature must have for got her wonted wit 
And made a monstrous havock of p roportio n . 
(IV, 19- 3 0) 
Columb us concludes that b o th " P laton i c dr e ams an d reaso n's 
1
plainer p age" ( IV, 40) point to the existence o f the new wor l d. 
Thus, agai n, fancy supports reason. 
Yet Columbus knows not o n l y th a t fanc y unbri d l ed may l ead 
h im to disast e r , if he g o es f orth "trusting onl y to a ma gi c 
g lass . . "(VIII, ) , but also, on the oth e r h a nd, t h at 
"false learning " (VIII, 2 0) may lead to f a ult y "r e as o nin g like 
s choolboys " (V I II, 22) . Thus both f aculties h ave the ir l imits. 
F reneau develops - the fanc y -r e ason r e lati o nsh ip f ur th~r t hro u gh 
t h e monol o gues of Bernardo , a Sp a ni sh f riar, and Orosio , a 
mathema t ician, in their respective monologu es , " Pic tur e X" and 
"Picture XI . " Bernardo ' s reason is false, an d Orosio scoffs 
at fancy. Asks the former, "~nd d id not Reas o n a dd conv inc i n g 
proofs / That this huge world is o ne c ontinu e d p l a in. II (X , 3 - 4) 
while the latter considers Columb u s ' v oy a g e to be " bui l d in g o n 
f ables . .visi o ns of Pl a t o , mix ' d wit h i d l e ta l e s /O f l a ter 
Page 11 5 
date. II (XI, 14-16). In the end, Columbus too questions 
whether he has been dece i ved by fancy: 
How sweet is sleep, when gained by length of toil! 
No dreams disturb the slumbe:i::,of the dead--
To snatch existence from this scanty soil, 
Were these the hopes deceitful fancy bred; 
And were her painted pageants nothing more 
Than this life's phantoms by delusion led?(XVIII, J-C.) 
However, the dying explorer finds some solace in the "golden 
fancy" that his "woes [will be] repaid;/When empires rise where 
lonely forests grew" (XVIII, 15-17). Had he not gone boldly 
forth, the "new worlds. .had still been empty visions" (XVII, 
23-24) Thus the position regarding the relationship between 
reason and fancy appears to be consistent in "The Pictures of 
Columbus" with that taken in "The Indian Burying Ground." 
Although fancy and reason both may be misled, both must also 
be used, prudently and in balance. 
While reason and fancy are being balanced, land and sea 
are being juxtaposed. The seas are "the realms of ruin. 
the boiling deep" (III, 47 and 50). On land, however, 
Eternal summer through the vallies smiles 
And fragrant gales o'er golden meadows play!--
(vr I H -$",) 
Even though the sea is a "mad element" (XIIr, 2), Columbus is 
drawn to discover what it is that 
.we ought to see 
Buried behind the waters of the west, 
Clouded with the shadows of uncertainty. 
In the dark bosom of the fertile main, 
Unfa t hom'd, unattempted, unexplor'd. 
(IV, 41-48) 
What is there in the "unfathom'd, unattempted, unex p lor ' d," 
II 
he wonders. Though "clouded with the shadows of un c ertainty , 
Page 11 6 
the "waters of the west" strongly attract the explorer. He is 
drawn, perhaps compelled, to seek, and perhaps the force which 
moves him is his own need to know--his need to fathom, to 
attempt, to explore. Thus, though the land represents "sweet 
sylvan scenes of innocence and ease" (XIV, 40) to Columbus, he 
has chosen, nonetheless, "to forfeit ease and that domestic 
(1<1/IIj ra, 111) 
bliss/Whi c h i s th e lot of happy ignorance" and has sallied forth, 
I\ 
leaving the land behind. Ultimately, even in the face of death, 
he seems content with his choice. "How sweet is sleep, when 
gain'd by length of toil!" he exclaims, anticipating his impend-
ing death. What sense of satisfaction Columbus attains grows 
out of his having toiled, his having gone to sea; had he remaine d 
on shore, he would have been easy and blissful, but ignorant. 
Freneau subtly associates Columbus' need to explore the 
unknown in this world with the awareness that there is yet 
another unknown world, "unfathom'd, unattempted, unexplor'd," 
the world of the dead. Reflects Columbus, 
The wind] blow high: one other world remains; 
Once more without a guide I find my way. 
(XVIII, 7-8) 
Dying becomes but another mode of exploration, and, as always, 
one goes alone to learn what exists there in that "other wo rld . " 
Note that Columbus realizes, as had Shalum, the dying Indian, 
that when we go, we go "without a guide." However, Col u mbus 
seems to have some notion of what he will discover in the regions 
of death: "Joyless gloom. .sha dowy forms, and ghosts, and 
sleepy things" (XVIII, 13 and 19), await, but "no dr e ams d is-
Page 1 1 7 
turb the slumber of the dead" (XVIII, 2), so perhaps the gloom 
will not matter. As we have seen, Columbus realizes that only 
"deceitful fancy" offers the hope that "some comfort will attend 
[his] pensive shade" (XVIII, 14). Thus the effect of the allu-
sion to the af t erlife in "The Pictures of Columbus" is to rein-
force the position that Freneau has consistently taken, that 
th e r e is no rationally acceptable evidence of an afterlife. 
Perhaps the reason why Freneau was drawn to Columbus may 
be found in the reaction of Ferdir.and to the explorer: 
.him I honour. 
Who has a soul of so much constancy. 
(V, 39 and 40) 
That ''constancy" is high in Freneau's system of values is sup-
ported by the exclamation in Columbus' final solilo q uy--"nov.-
sweet is sleep, when gain'd by len gth of toil!"-- which sug-
gests that striving is its own reward. Columbus comes to repr e -
sent , then, the man who questions the existing dogma and finds 
it wanting, both rationally and imaginatively, and who therefo re 
seeks his own answers in spite of the obstacles and the s e lf-
isolation that results. Freneau's Columbus is idealized--the 
historical Columbus was no doubt moved, at least to s o me e xtent, 
by the same greed and pride which move Freneau's Fer d in a nd and 
Isabella~-yet he is believable in his failures and in his ef-
forts. Freneau's Columbus embodies the qualities wh i ch th e 
poe t mos t va l ue d , a n d , as I have Sal. d , "The Pi? ctures o f- Columbus" 
provide s a framework in which to consider the other p oems in 
the edition which it introduces. 
Page 1 1 8 
8 
"The Departure" seems to be a significant measure of 
Freneau's attitude during the middle of the 1780's. Here 
Freneau develops the land/sea dichotomy with particular empha-
sis on the delusive quality of the land. The speaker's departure 
from land to sea may be seen as the representation of his de-
parture from land's delusion. As he takes his way "from Hudson's 
cold congealing streams" (1. 1) to the ocean, winter has come. 
Although "good natur'd Neptune" is "now so mild" (1. 8), the 
speaker likens this state to "rage asleep, or madness chain'd" 
(1. 9) because he is well aware of the sea's power. 
The body of "The Departure" consists of two parts: stanzas 
3, 4, and 5 (11. 20-52) explore the delusive quality of the 
land; stanzas 6, 7, and 8 (11. 53-76) reflect on the signifi-
cance of that delusiveness. Setting the scene, the speaker 
evokes the presence of death. The sun has "sunk"; the day is 
"past"; the breeze "decays"; and "all is still/As all shall be 
at last" (11. 29-23). The speaker emphasizes the quietness of 
the scene by noting that "the murmuring. . [of] the dying wave" 
(11. 24-25) is all he hears. Enveloped in a shroud devoid of 
light, motion, sound, and warmth, the speaker is awar e that his 
illusions have been stripped away: 
The yellow fields now disappear 
No painted butterflies are near, 
And laughing folly plagues no more. 
(11. 26-28) 
Winter's coming has brought with it the speaker's awareness 
of the transience of life. "How smit with frost the pride of 
June!" he laments, "How lost to me! how very soon / The fair y 
prospects die!" (11. 33-35). All that surrounded him on l and 
Page 11 9 
stress e d the falseness of those " y ellow field s " a nd "painted 
but t e r f 1 i e s . 11 These " f airy prospects" are "lost" t o t h e s pea k-
er as we r e the "buddin g leaf" a nd the "ch a rms" o f th e fo r es ':: 
"lost" to the speaker of "The Vernal Ague." This l a n g ua g e 
stresses the superficial quality of what the sp e ak e r has se e n: 
"fairy prospects" are vacuous, the scenes of "deceitful fanc y ." 
Now the forests "seem. .desolate. .th e i r sho r t li v ' d ve r-
dure at an end" (11. 39-40) Yet these were onc e forests 
Beneath whose shade 
The enamour 1 d maid 
Was once so fond to dream. 
(11. 41-43) 
Note that the "shade" of these trees, like the shade o f th e 
d y ing elm, encourages "dreams''-- dreams which impli ci t ly r emain 
unfulfilled. 
Now, having grasped the reality beneath thes e fle e tin g 
ap p earances, the speaker realizes that 
The sport is past, the song is done; 
And nature's nake d forms declare , 
The rifled groves, the vallies bare, 
Persuasively, tho' silent, tell, 
That at the best they were but drest 
Sad mourners for the funeral bell. 
(11. 47- 52 ) 
Thus in stanza six the sp e aker asks himsel f , " S a y , wh a t does 
all this folly mean?"--and answers himsel f with a c hall e n ge : 
Is fortitude to he a ven confin'd--? 
No - planted also in the mind, 
She smooths the ocean when she will. 
The fortitude of the mind is a necessity, the sp eaker r ea l ize s, 
because "life is pain" (1. 6 0), and he g o es on t o cata l ogue 
some of the causes of that pain, th e "ills" that "t ry " ma n 
( 1. 60) : " al ice dark a n d c alumny. indiffere n ce. 
Page 1 2 0 
cowardice. pride and 
slander. bold ignorance. I 
cold disgust," and "servility that licks the dust" (11. 61-70). 
The speaker regards these human faults as "harpies that dis-
. ummer day" that 
grace the mind" ( 1 71), and notes that "the s 
rest " 1? s now "lost 1? n 
g 1 oom," just 
once "charrn'd the soul to 
"Shade" has 
as the "shade so gay" has "vanish'd" (11. 74-76) 
given way to "gloom;" as illusion has given way to awareness 
of reality. 
The final stanza of "The Departure" sums up the speaker's 
Once the "golden age" (1. 79) is stripped away, it 
thoughts. 
cannot be regained by 
.those on life's uncertain road; 
Where lost in folly's i dl e round, 
And seeking what shall ne'er be found, 
We press to one abode. (11, 82-85) 
Certainly, that which we seek but shall never find exists only 
in the fact that we do, indeed, "press to one abode," the grave. 
Perha . . ?s that death is the ultimate reali'ty; 
ps the imp 1 ication 1 
What is clear is that "The Departure" expresses a very dark 
though "The Departure" is stated strong-
View of life. However, 
ly, 1.'ts gical reality is consistent with 
view of phenomeno 1 o 
that of both "The vernal Ague" and that of "The vanity of 
E xi. stence." 
"The Departure" that the ills that try 
Freneau states in 
m the human breast /Whe n pleasure her 
al'! were "Unknown to haunt The implication is the 
(11. 72-73) ? 
f'l .rst garden dress'd" . . . original state, in the "golde n 
f ?1? t n in hJ.S am? l. 1.ar notion tha ma . weaknesses but that these 
5 
age," was not plagued b y hi own 
? 
Page 1 2 1 
weaknesses developed later as he was gradually socialized. 
Note that the ills Freneau lists are social. Yet, though he 
touches the theme of man's moral degeneration, he seems more 
interested in the opposite theme, the concept that man can 
regenerate himself. The key element in this regeneration seems 
to be for the individual to attempt to understand his own nature 
a nd his relationship with the world around him. "The Scornful 
9 
Lady" explores the subject of self-awareness humorously, em-
ploying an abrupt ending to emphasize the fact that all our 
vanities end in the grave, the one abode. The scornful nymph, 
decked out "in all her gay attire" (1. 1) ,is likened to a car-
sair "bound on a cruise to capture hearts" (1. 4). Freneau 
employs the war-ship metaphor throughout the poem, suggesting 
the aggressiveness of the girl's coquetry. She is more elusive 
than a ''privateer" (1 . 11), and, "Proud of the artillery of her 
eyes" (1. 13), she disdains to claim "so poor a prize" (1. 14) 
as the "Young Jockey from. .Kent" (1. 9) who pursues but can-
not catch her. Instead, "she struck him dumb , and left him there" 
( 1 . 16) like huntsmen who slaughter deer and leave their corp s es 
"to languish on the plain" (1. 20) . Of course, the speaker has 
also been her victim: 
When first this heav'nly form I pass ' d, 
She back'd her topsails to the mast--
I saw there was no chance to fly, 
At once she ba de me yield or die. 
Amaz'd at such a strange attack 
I chang'd my course and hurried back, 
But such a fatal arrow met 
As pierc'd me deep , and pains me yet. 
Page 122 
Ah, Celia, what a strange mistake 
To ruin just for ruin's sake, 
Thus to delude us in distress, 
And quit the prize you should p(1o1s.s e2ss1.- 32) 
Freneau reveals, 
"to ruin for ruin'~sakej," 
Celia's pride is -
this insight into Celia, a portrait of an individual 
through 
an 
se lack of self-regard leads her to manipulate others in 
Who 
She has no respect for men; 
attempt to establish her own worth. 
captures them simply to prove her own value, while she re-
She 
The speaker puts this behavior into 
gards th em as valueless. 
Perspective in the final stanza: 
Years may advance with silent pace 
And rob that form of every grace, 
And all your conquests be repaid--
With Teague o 'Murphy, and his s(p1a1d. e.3 3-36) 
and, ironically, the 
Thus Cel1.'a's "conquests" count f or n aught , 
--perhaps the only--man to possess her will be the lowly 
last 
perhaps th e jockey could not 
graved igger, Teague O ' MurphY? In order to 
catch her--but the grave digger catches us all. 
we must seek actively to understand our -
live meaningfully, 
Selves, but Celia is a ship 1ost on a sea of misconception; 
she is the victim of her own inability--or unwillingn ess- -to 
exam1? .ne her course. "The Departure 11 
"Pictures of Columbus," ' 
These three poems, 
?nd "The Scornful 1adY" not onlY suggest the themes with which 
? ?? 1788 but also illustrate the 
F reneau is most concerne 
d in ' 
Variety of h mploys in convey in g those themes 
approaches e e e? ither 
1.ct ,, . ser.J.' es cf dramatic encounters 
"p. ures of Columbus i s a 
in m ?Th? oeparture" is elegiac in 
onologue or dialogue form; 
Page 1 23 
tone ' and discursive and philosophic; "The Scornful Lady" is 
iron? 
ic and satirical. Taken together, these poems illustrate 
F.reneau's awareness of the necessity to see k to grasp the 
.rea1i ?t y underlying not only the surface o f the world we inhabit 
but also that underlying our own outward appearances. 
?a9e 12 4 
? r;. AP 'C' E R V : " Na tu re Owns T~e ?I.id of Art '' 
Miscella-neous -?W--o-r-k--s 
Se lE knowledge is of central importance in The Miscella~eou ~ 
-?.....-1- o :::- '.-:.s . Freneau is g x ow i ng more fully in control of h is abili t y 
to co n front artistically the questions which are raised by his 
perc eptions of th e world. In working out a bal~nce between r ea-
so n and fancy, he is measuring himse lf and the use a nd exte nt of 
':-d. . s own powers. Likewise, in exploring the in ter3ction of art 
a 1 d na ture, he i s gau g i n g the relat ive powers o f a rt : he s eems 
t.o need to know himself and his raedium in order to proceed ~1~tn 
h is probing and questioning. The lyrics which we will discuos 
he r e are examples not only of h is develo pi n g craftsmanshi~ but 
also of his devel o ping thought. '"The Lo!':'t Sai lor" ::::-e ? . ews Fre:neau' 
exp loration of the s y nbolic tetsion between lan~ and se a, an~ als0 
p r ovi d e s an exce ll e nt exampl e of ?reneau 's use af conc r ete, sp ec i-
ric descrip tion.. 
" Th e Wild Hon8y Suc~ .i.. e" and " Ha y ',: c, ,\pri l '' rel ::i.t ~ the ir?? 
res istib l e n a t u r~l cycle of d ec a7 and rEbir~h t o m~n'c sit~ation, 
?,q ;, i 1 e " '.:.' r, e I ::. d :L a n B u r y i r. c; G r o u n d " and " The ~'1 a n o f t~ i !He t y ?? e z: i:, j _o  r c~ 
t ~n. e iT.plicat.:..ons t_he re.la.ticnship s :.i et?,1e":\ n reaso'- and f ancy 
and natur2 and ar t . 
l . ~':'he F'-1:~nteJ ~~ ~ - ?c:12. _'~ "::'he TJ)St. Sai1or"/"The A~ 1?;0 naut" 
1 
"'rhe Lost Sailor," whicr1 nad first a?pe a.re3. iE t h <:: t-1a rc ",1 
6 , 178 6 i:,Qlul".lb; f'D l~e,~~ is s imil a. r tc "Th e Dy.i.ng !ndi an?? :i.n 
that i~ is a monol o gue f r amed b7 n arrative . However, the narra-
t o r here is no t the detache~ c bs erve r of the 8 ~rli e r wo rk b,1t i~ 
i nvalvetl directl y i n the e x perience of t h a poem . The secur.it"] c 
1. and. '?" :; . d ':: h E: d an g e Y. o i t h e s e ,, a r e e mph as i :::. e d by t;,. e. c :: n tr ,1 s t b ' 
cha ra.ct2r . 
Page 1 2 5 
True to his trade--the slave of fortune still--
In a sweet isle, where never winter reigns, 
I found him at the foot of a tall hill, 
Mending old sails, and chewing sugar canes: 
Pale ivy round him grew, and mingled vines, 
Plantains, bananas ripe, and yellow pines, 
And floweting night-shade with its dismal green, 
Ash-colour'd iris painted by the sun, 
And fair-hair'd hyacinth was near him seen, 
And China pinks by marygolds o'er-run:--
"But what (said Ralph) have I, that sail the seas, 
"Ah, what have I to do with things like these! 
"I did not wish to leave those shades, not I, 
"Where Amoranda turns her spinning wheel; 
"Charm'd with the shallow stream, that murmur'd by, 
"I felt as blest as any swain could feel, 
"Who, seeking nothing that the world admires, 
"To one poor valley fix ' d his whole desires. 
"With masts so trim, and sails as white as snow, 
"The painted barque deceiv'd me from the land: 
"Pleas'd, on her sea-beat decks I wish'd to go, 
"Mingling my labours with her hardy band; 
"The captain bade me for the voyage prepare, 
"And said--12.Y Jasus, 'ti_? sL grand affair! 
"To combat with the winds who first essay'd, 
"Had these gay groves his lightsome heart beguil'd, 
"His heart attracted by the charming shade 
"Had chang'd the deep sea for the woody wild; 
"And slighted all the gain that Neptune yields 
"For Damon's cottage, or Palemon's fields. 
"His barque, the bearer of a feeble crew, 
"How could he trust when none had been to prove her; 
"Courage might sink when lands and shores withdrew , 
"And sickly whe l ps might spoil the best manoeuvre~ 
"But Fortitude, tho' woes and death await, 
"Still views bright skies, and leaves the dark to fate . 
"From monkey climes where limes and lemons grow, 
"And the sweet orange swells her fruit so fair, 
"To wintry worlds with heavy heart I go 
"To face the cold glance of the northern bear, 
"Where lonely waves, far distant from the sun, 
"And gulphs, of mighty strength, their circuits run . 
Page 1 26 
"But how disheartening is the wanderer's fat 
"When conquer'd by the loud tempestuous ma? e.1  
II On hi' m, no mourners i?n  procession wait ? in, 
"Nor do the si. sters of the harp complain'  
"Nor can I think on coral beds they s{ 
"Who si. n k i. ns t orms, and mingle with the ep d 
e eep. 
"~is folly all--for who can truly tell 
"What streams disturb the bosom of that ma ? 
"What ugly fi. sh i. n those dark climates dwe linl ' 
"That feast on men--then stay, my gentle swain! 
"Br ed in yond' happy shades, be happy there, 
" And let these quiet groves claim all thy care." 
So spoke poor Ralph , and with a smooth sea gale 
Fled from the magic of the inchanting shore, 
But whether winds or waters did prevail 
I saw the black ship ne'er returning more, 
Though long I walk'd the margin of the main 
And long ha ve l oo k l d, and still must look in' vain! 
Ralph , we are told, is "true to his trade" and "slave of fortune ,. 
' 
a remark the meaning of which is illustrated by Ra lph's speech. 
The "sweet isle., where never winter reigns" and where the narra-
tor and Ralph once met is a farrago of vegeta tion, a lush, 
prol ific, paradise: the sailor chews sugar ca ne; around him grow 
"pale ivy " and "mingled vines. .plantains, bananas ripe, and 
yel low pines"; "dismal green" flowering nightshade; "ash-
colour'd iris painted by th e sun"; the "fair-hair'd" hyacinth; 
and china pinks over-run by "marygolds." The profusion of this 
vege tation is exceeded only by its var iety. In fact, this cata-
logue of plants is so miscellaneous that it establishes both 
a sense of concrete reality and, at the same time, a subtle 
ambig uity vividly rendered. Sugar cane, plantains, and bananas 
are all varieties of tropical vegetation appropriate to a tropi-
cal island where "never winter" reigns . But ivy and y ellow 
Page 1 27 
of the more temperate zones, ivy, in particu-
Pines are plants 
"Ash-
lar, being unable to endure severe heat and li gh t. 
mea ns rainbow. 
coloured" i.r.is  is a contradiction in terms--iris 
One wonders where such a garden might be found. 
Real, yet simultaneousl y unreal, the setting of Ralph's 
Ivy, after 
monol ogue conveys somehow a sense of foreboding. 
The flowers 
taking over a host tree, can choke it to death. 
"dismal green" nightshade are succeeded by temp ting 
of the 
The china pinks are being 
ber r1? .es--which are poisonous. 
"Ash-coloured" may be the color 
strangled by the marigolds. 
Though beautiful, the "sweet isle" with its mingled 
of death. 
1.plicity of plants, presents a picture of nature run wild, 
muit. 
and balanced natur e 
controlled, 
the a n t i. thesis of the static, 
Instead, the 
Panoramas which typify the ~ea-classical mode. 
Poet manages to convey th e vitality and dynamism of the scene: 
e ivy is growing; the vines, plantains, bananas, and pines 
th
mingle?, the nightshade flowers; t h e sun pai? n t s th e i? ri? s; ?. the 
preneau creates a fluid environ-
mar1? .golds overrun the pinks-
rne nt i? n part by employing several par t i? ci?p  1 es as mo d i?  f iers, 
The isle is in-
~' flowering, colour '_i, _painted.,2.. hair' d. 
is drawn 
to the senses--because one 
deed "sweet"--gratifying 
into participation in its concreteness inspite of its strangeness. 
The . hosen rather for th 
varieties of vegetation seem c e sounds 
of their names than for the possibilitY that they might all 
!vz, vines, bananas ripe, 
actually be found growing together. 
? -. a nd hYv~a-c~inth are all linke d by th e ~Pine?s  nightshade, iris, ~ 
Page 1 28 
assonance of long~- The poet employs consonance in canes, 
plantains, and painted; repeats the short i of mingled, hya-
c inth, iris, "flowering. .with its dismal. . , " and alliterates 
the h of hair'd and hyacinth and the N of mingled vines, plan-
tains, bananas, and pines in order to create a resonant, lush, 
sound quality which functions with the suggested activity of 
the modifiers to emphas i ze the vitality of the setting. 
Later, in lines 37-38, a similar sound density is ach~eved: 
"From monkey climes where lime and lemons grow, 
"And the sweet orange swells her fruit so fair. " 
He re Ralph himself is describing the latitudes he will be leaving 
in terms which rime profusely. Note the echoing short and long 
0 sounds; the alliterated~, sw, ~, and f; the consonance of 
long i and ~- These are not simple verbal felicities, but, 
since these and lines 5-10 contain the poem's only closely 
packed alliterative, assonant, and consonant rimes, are intend-
ed to emphasize the lush richness and concreteness of the 
"sweet isle?" 
The extent to which Freneau is departing from the Neo-
Classic tradition is revealed by a comparison of the first 10 
lines of "The Lost Sailor" to the guidelines laid down by Imlac 
in Samuel Johnson's Ra sselas: 
The business of a poet. .is to examine, not 
the individual, but the species; to remark general 
properties and large appearances; he does not 
number the streaks of the tulip, or describe th e 
different shades i~ the verdure of the forest. 
He is to exhibit in his portraits of nature such 
prominent and striking features,as recal the 
original to every mind~ and ~ust neglect the 
minuter discriminations, which one may have 
remarkedJ and another neglected, for those chara-
cteristickswhich are alike obvious to vigi l ance 
and carelessness? 
Page 1 29 
Not only does Freneau refuse to "neglect the minuter discrimi-
n a tions," but his descri p tion of the sweet isle is so concrete 
and particular that, as we have seen, one wonders if such a 
specific place could actually exist. At any rate, these lines 
"recall" no "original" and their characteristics would hardly 
be obvious alike''to both vigilance and carelessness." 
Freneau's revision of "The Lost Sailor" supports th e notion 
that he is working toward the subtle establishment of the poem's 
metaphoric level and that he is conscious of his departure fr o m 
Nee-classic tenets. Significantly, lines 5 through 10, the 
entire lush island setting, are added in the '86 edition. The 
original, Columbian Herald, edition simply places Ralph, chew-
ing cane and mending sails, "at the foot of a tall hill" (11. 3-
4). In that it both establishes the ambiguous quality of the 
land and embodies the break with the kind of nature description 
typical of Freneau's assumed precedents, the added description 
is crucial to the poem. On one level, then, the poet has 
created a remarkably sensual and concrete setting, while on 
another level he has tinged that setting with ambi g uity. Thus 
we are prepared when, in the last stanza, the narrator refers 
to "the magic of the inchanting shore" (1. 56) and we are made 
aware that both the land and the sea may deceive and destroy. 
When Ralph first speaks, he rejects the edenic isle: 
"But what (said Ralph) have I , that sail the seas, 
"Ah, what have I to do with things like these!" 
Yet Ralph is the "slave of fortune" and we learn that he "did 
not wish to leave." Implicit in his story f~om its beginning 
Page 1 30 
Even though 
is th e question of why he leaves the shore. 
name which is obviously constructed to suggest 
Amoranda--.:i. 
These 
her wheel there, Ralph must leave. 
a lover-- spins 
"shades" which harbor her harbor also the "shallow" stream 
"felt as blest as any swain 
Which II c h arm'd" Ralph so that he 
But, though his "whole desires" were fixed in 
could feel." 
one poor valley," Ralph is lured to sea by the painted 
that II 
barque "wi? th masts so trim, and sai.  1 s as w h i.  t e as snow" because 
The charm of the painted barque is as strong 
it "pleas'd" hi' m. 
sun-
as the charm of the shades and the shallow stream and 
as Ralph has learned. 
substantial, 
Painted i? ri? s but no more 
The shift in person which occurs in stanzas five and six, 
mid-point of the poem, underscores the choice which Ralph 
the ? 
Up to this point, Ralph has spoken of himself; here 
makes. 
he "who first essay'd" to 
he a?i rects his attention to another, 
combat with the winds" and who would readily have exchanged 
" 
e "deep sea for the woody wild" if his "lightsome heart" 
th
had been "beguil'd" and "attracted by the charming shade." 
However ld not slight~all the gain 
, this first wanderer wou 
Ralph 
that N th r to try his barque. 
eptune yields ," opting ra e 
emulat d even though the wanderer's 
es this earlier wan erer, 
But Ralph does not, as 
43
fate may be "disheartening" (1. ) ? The 
ch emulation on his listener. 
We shall Susee, urge a ny ice either actively to seek or 
Po Cho1' .nt seems to be that 
the 
Pass? seclusi?on of " charming shades" should 
1.vely to retire to the 
Although Ralph seems to be enslaved by 
be entirely one's own. 
Som , actual l y driven by the force 
e force beyond his ken, he is 
--
Page 1 3 1 
own fortitude, like he whom he emulates, to continue 
of his 
esp1.te his awareness that "none ha ve been to prove" 
to sea d ? 
a courage 
h ' that her crew 1.?s a "feeble" one, and th t is barque, 
One who. is in-
out of sight of land. 
II m' ight sink" when once 
the poet shows, both land and sea 
s?1 .ghtful is aware that, as 
Ra ph chooses th e "d eep sea " rat h er than the 
may be delusive. 1 
t e 1.mpl1.cat1.on ein a e experience at 
II s h allow stream ," h ? ? ? b ? g th t th 
sea, though dangerous, is the more meaningful. 
Freneau continues to work toward the implicit articulation 
poem's metaphoric significance in subsequent editions. 
Of the 
'95 version, the captain and his comments are deleted 
In the 
ana replaced with: 
"To reef the sail, to guide the foaming prow, 
"As far as winds can waft, or e ceans flo(w11.".  22-24) 
Freneau eliminates all reference to the captain in order 
He will himself "reef the 
Clearly to define Ralph's role-
to catch most efficientlY the winds an d be wafted as far 
Sail" The 
he will himself "guide the foaming prow:" 
as he can: 
that each individual must seek his 
sug gestion l? 
of course, 
. s ' 
Line 25 is changed in '09 from "To combat with 
own d estiny. 
" This revision removes 
the "To combat with the waves? winds" to 
contradition of being wafted bY and at the same time battling 
the 
the winds and helps set up the tension established in stanza 
Furthermore, in the '09 edition, 
ten between winds and waves. Lost Adven-
"The Argonaut, or, 
the t?1 .tle has been amended to 
turer," an allusion which tends to hei ghten the sense that Ralph, 
1?H e the poet, seeks to understand himself and his world. 
Page 1 3 2 
also eliminates in 1795 Ralph's direct reference to 
Freneau 
"But what (said Ralph) have I" becomes 
himself in line 11. 
The I in line 12 b ecomes the y . 
"But what (said he) have men." 
serves fur-
The a?i stinction thus introduced between I and the~ 
"I did not wish. .not I"I  
ther t 0 i. solate Ralph--line 
13, 
Ralph will 
sing the two pronouns and their referents. 
juxtapo . 
e ore trust his own individual fortitude and will s e e k to 
ther f 
attempting to discover the light of truth 
II 
View bri? ght skies", 
The "dark" 
Which may be glimpsed only by striving to do so. 
0 f i? gnorance and security is left "to fate." 
Both the sailor and the poet are aware of the challenge 
Here a new tension 
8, and 9 reveal. 
they face as stanzas 7, 
1 
created, that between the warm tropics and the cold north, 
is 
ich further underscores the tension already explicit between 
Wh' 
Ralph must quit the "monkey climes" and go "wi:th 
land and sea. 
nds" the "cold glance of the . 
hea in "wintry 
Wl
vy heart" to face 
and "mighty" gulfs flow there, 
north "Lonely" waves ern bear." reigns on Ralph's 
"Never winter" 
"far di' stant from the sun?" is not that 
e security he leaves 
II th
sweet isle," implying that the warmth of human 
0 n1 y of land but also of Amoranda's iove, 
orth are "lonely" ones,? the 
h n
relat? The waves o 
f t e 
ionships . Indeed, if the sailor 
II cold and 1onelY too. 
Wand will 
is " erer's fate" is main," no mourners 
conquer'd by the 1oud tempestuous 
" will complain. Of course, 
h P
att "sisters of the ar end hi' m. No suggesting the complexity 
the syntax of these lines is complex, con-
articipial phrase "when 
P
Of the Note that the 
%er 'd problem. main" modifies mourners, the 
by the loud tempestuous 
Page 1 3 3 
subject of the sentence, rather than him, which is the object 
of the preposition. The phrase also refers to "sisters of the 
harp," since the subject of the sentence's second independent 
clause is parallel with that of the first. The meaning of the 
passage is expanded, then, to suggest that the "mourners" and 
the "sisters of the harp," who are perhaps those who remain 
secure on land, are those who are overcome by the "loud t empes -
tuous main" in spite of the assumption that this phrase de -
scribes the wanderer's fate. 
Alone, the sailor seeks. "For who can truly tell" what 
he will discover--what "streams" or "ugl y fish?" Again, the 
language is suggestive. The streams that "disturb the bosom 
of that main"--the "loud tempestuous main"--may be related 
to the "lonely waves" and "gulphs of mighty strength" which 
give the sea its awesome power. Yet these streams lie below 
the surface of "that main" and are not easily discernible, 
though they disturb. Implicit is the sense that the sailor 
confronts profound and mysterious depths. The "ugly fish" may 
suggest the powerful and destructive forces whic h lurk seneath 
the surface to "feast on men" who are unprepared in "those 
dark climates" to dea l with t hem . "Ugly" becomes in 1795 
"ravenous," a modifier which strengthens the destructive conno -
tations of these forces. 
Moreover, the emphasi s on coldness ? and darkness functi ons, 
I believe, to stress the ignorance with which we face the un-
known and fear that whi ch we do not understand. Many men have 
sunk in s t o rms and now "mingle with the deep." We do not know 
Page 134 
Yet, 
the f orces they have confronted,"for who can trul y tell? " 
Ralph is compelled to face these enigmatic powers be c ause he 
He will not acquiesce in the security 
is a doer and a seeker. 
of the " inchanting shore." 
However, Ralph does not exhort his listener to join in 
"Stay, my gentle swain," he says, 
his questing to understand. 
IIi' n y o n d ' happy shades, b e happy ther e " in "quiet groves." 
"' Tis folly all" 
the dangers all too clearly. 
Ralph recognizes 
He does not wish to con-
he knows, "for who can truly tell?" 
nor does his tale provide any induce-
Vince anyone to join him, 
did not wish to leave. how 
ment. His wistful tone--"I 
fate"--emphasizes his internal 
dish eartening is the wanderer's 
? ll d to go but the forces which move hi' m 
tension. H.e  is compe e , 
not unlike the forces of the deep s e a's winds 
are in conflict, 
and waves. 
Although the narrator heeds Ralph's advice and r e mains 
ashore , he is evidently moved by Ralph's compulsion, for he 
"margin of the main" searching for Ralph's ship and 
the that is 
"winds or waters did prevail," 
'Wond eri.n g whether the 
Whether the sailor's adventure has carried him to a new aware-
To the narrator, Ralph 
has destroyed him. 
ness or the ocean of the inchanting shore," so we know 
has "fled. . the magic Still, he 
that he i's h 's charming quality. 
aware of the sore 
To him, Ralph's barque is a "black 
Opts not to follow Ralph- " p ainte d 
and the antithesis of th e 
Ship II foreboding, 
) fearsome, Though he p ee rs ou t 
" 
b "sails as white as snow. arque" with 
Page 1 3 5 
e sea searching for Ralph, he does not leave the land 
over th 
but stride s the "margin" be tween land and sea. He appears to 
in a transitional area, a neutral zone--somewhat like the 
be ? 
"The vanity of Existence"--an cl 1 5 not ? 
observer of the tide in 
But he "has looked and 
ready to venture to sea or t o see. 
We recall here 
Still must look in vain" for Ralph's return. 
ying Indian's question: "When did ghost return, his state 
the d . 
though it is not the departure 
to shew?" Ralph's departure, 
is a parting so radical that it may well absolutely 
of death , 
since he may never return to tell his 
Preclude his return. 
tale ' his land-locked auditor maY always 1 ook i? n vain and won -
Because the truth one discovers 
der , "who can truly tell , " 
abo ut himself or herself is unique, i? t may b e uncommunicable 
anyway. 
In sum, then, the poem achieves its effect throu gh the 
security and dan -
1and and sea, 
ba1 ancing of several tensions: These tensions are e m-
cold and warmth, 
dark and light, Obvio usly, 
the dialogue between Ralph and the narrator . 
bodied 
1 i
. n for he 
the ff ted by Ralph's words, 
atter has been greatlY a ec " I found 
remembers and recites them for us out of his past. 
him" don? t know exactly how long sine 
says the narrator, and we e , 
tlY substantial time has pass ed 
appare n ? 
but We do know that an long have looked," says the narrator . 
. and 
"Long h ave I walked. constructed in such a way that the 
Mor is eover "The Argonaut" Contrast 1?stener is emphasized: one acts; 
nd 1 
between speaker a
the Other does not , There is therefore an implicit ten sion 
------- - Page 136 
active and the passive, a tension which Freneau 
bet ween the 
w. par 1.cu ar Y 1.n e 1. Honey-Suckle." 1.ll develop further, t' l l ? "Th W'ld 
there is a subtle irony in this structure: the 
Furt11 ermore 
or, in telling us Ralph's story, reveals, perhaps inad-
narrat 
Y, much about himself, and each of these men reveals 
Vertentl 
someth1' .ng of the poet. 
Ralph is conscious of the stress generated by the clash 
and his awareness is expressed in the 
Of conflicting elements, 
Talking about the first wanderer and 
hea rt motif of the poem. 
Ralph says in stanza five, 
ind?1 .rectly about himself, 
those gay groves his lightsome heart beguil'd, 
"Had heart attracted by the charming shade, II 
"His changed the deep sea for the woody wild. 
"Had 
on lightsome, which contrasts with the shades 
Note the pun 
. " The wanderer's heart 
is 
'Whl' .ch Ralph realizes are "charming? 
n carefree and full of light and is neither beguiled nor 
bot? 
"And feeble hearts a thousand 
fooled '95 becomes Line 34 in 
s discover," a reference which heightens the impact of 
death 
following line, ?sut Fortitude. . still views bright skies.? 
the 
courageous heart seeks th? light even though "disheartening 
The 
Because of his fortitude, 
is th e wanderer's fate" (1. 43) 
(1. 39), Ralph is ultimately 
and 1?.  n(s pite of his "heavy heart" 
able to face the realization that 
d delug'd sands theY sleep 11 
be s an ? h th d 
" On Coral . d and mingle wit e eep. in storms (11. 47-48) 
"Who sink 
' 95 
this couplet is altered in 
Of 
Sign l? .ficantly, the first line think on coral beds the y sle ep ," 
from th e original, "Nor can I 
Page 137 
. ? _ ? e poe 1 s c1ange view. He h~s fo~-
a revision whi'ch re??eals th t l d ? 
saken th e conventi? onal acceptance~ f an a~terlife, and li k ~ $: 
Ralp h, he faces what he sees, 
The narrator, himse lf, is not quite ready to face th~sc 
He has not yet the heart--the fortitude --
st ern realities. 
Ralph counsels him and perhaps this counsel dis-
to do so. 
Yet the reader is likely to find both characters 
heartens him. 
sympa th etic : Ra lph, the sailor who must see k the unknown, 
and the n:1.rra tor, 
fortune and fortitude; 
"slave" of his own 
is "slave" of fortune, b- l! t 
land-bound because he too, perhaps, 
the sea and half desiring to experience what 
Stil l drawn to 
underlying the interplay of 
Ralph is somewhere experiencing, 
the metaphor which informs 
these many stresses and pulls is 
Given ? the poet's consistent use of charged lar. guase, 
the p o em. 
and ca re ful re v ision , I 
his contro l of th e poem's conflicts, 
~ r: 
believe the metaphoric levels may be argued and sustained. 
"The Argonaut" :.:,ec.:omes the poe t ' s dialogu-:.:! wi t.h l-:im-
a sense 
?elf, one part of him wanting to b e bath physicall y and poetic?l-
th;:? other J) C.X"t 
but doub tin g the pcssibility 1 
ly safe and secure, 
. . ?,. b .. ,. k . ,.., ,,. .~:   ,.., ,~.,  t he dang e .:- f u 11 we 11 n e e c. i n g t. o s e e .~ u ,_ . ? ,, ?" ? ? 
1 
;,.:.. ,1_,,C.. K"I J.e " 
2. 
r22.lity, on e must tak e a g r eat 
Actively s eek ing to confront 
?. f one does n o~ seek--if one siu,, -
t J
risk. Yet something is 1 as "The Invitation" 
He who offers 
J.:,ly sits bacl< and vegeta t es . 
is aw- . iost , perhaps insi g ht is g ained. 
are that i? security i s 
- - - -- Page 138 
tat insight, t e cost of ignorance and 
Wh a t ever the cost of h . . h 
"The 
The hurricane must be confronted. 
Passivity is greater. 
ap-
w? ucl<le," which first appeared in July, ild Honeys 
issue from rather a different perspective, but 
Proaches the . 
same basic point, by considering the result of 
suggests the . 
the i? nability actively to seek: 
Fair flower, that dost so co~ely grow, 
Hid in this silent dull ret rea t, 
Untouch'd thy honey'd blossoms blow, 
Unseen thy little branches greet: 
No roving foot shall find thee here, 
No busy hand provoke a tear. 
By Nature's self in white array'd, 
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 
And planted here the guardian shade, 
And sent soft waters murmuring by; 
Thus quietly thy summer goes, 
Thy days declining to repose. 
Smit with these charms, that must decay, 
I grieve to see thY future doom; 
They died -- nor were those flowers less gay, 
(The flowers that did in Eden bloom} 
Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power 
Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 
From morning suns and evening dews 
At first J thY little being ? cam1e : 
If nothing once, you nothing ose, 
For when you die you are the same; 
The space between is but an hour, 
The mere idea of a flower-
II 
dull retreat"; un-
The h oney suckle grows "hid" in a "silent the honey sucl<le's 
ch'd" ? bl O w"? "comely," 
tau its "honey'd blossoms , In short, this 
"little branches" are nonetheless " unseen. " 
ir flower" exists in a state of perfect safety and security. 
"fa. 
o roving foot shall find thee here/NO busy hand provoke a 
"N 
tear." 
Page 139 
Consider the nature of this mode of existence. The wild 
flower simply marks time waiting to die: "plantedfiri} the g uard-
ian shade," with "soft waters murmuring by,. .quietly" the 
honeysuckle's " summer goes," its "days declining to repose." 
Unseen, untouched, this flower neither sees nor touches; in 
repose , it awaits the repose of death . One wonders if death 
will be any different th a n lif e . I mp li c i t h e re is a clear sense 
of the startling abruptness of the flower's existence. In the 
first line of the poem, the honey suckle grows, and by the 
twelfth line it has alr e ady begun "declining to repose." The 
seasonal progression embodied in the flower's cycle suggests 
both the naturalness and the inevitability of its brevity. The 
flower grows in stanza one as spring has come. By stanza t wo, 
we learn that already "summer goes ". In stanza three, "Autumn's 
power " is unleashed. Finally, we are forced to consider, in 
the last stanza, the season "w b.en [the flower will] die," the 
coming of its "endless winter." By explicitly mentioning s um-
mer and autumn, the poet establishes, through grow and die, the 
rest of the sequence. This sense of natural cycle is also c o n-
veyed in the reference to "mornin g suns and evening de ws" whi c h 
provide the warmth and moisture necessary to sustain the "littl e 
being." 
Meanwhile, the speaker " grieve[s] to see [the flow e r's] 
future doom, for he is "sm i t wi th [ i ts] charms, that must d ec a y ." 
He realizes the transience of all beauty and laments that s u ch 
"charms" must decay inspite o f his recogniti o n that th ey a re 
merely charms and th u s lack solidity . Dea th is ce rtai n. Au t u mn 
Page 140 
must always follow summer. Even the flowers that once bloomed 
in Eden "died--nor were those flowers less gay," says the 
speaker, emphasizing that there are no exceptions to the rule. 
Just as ebb tide follows flood leav ing the bank of mud, autumn 
is followed by the endless winter that chills the soul. In-
exorable time, expressed in tide or season, or in mornin g and 
evening, brings decay and death. 
Facing this dilemma, the hone y suckle can do nothing: "If 
nothing once, you nothing lose, /For when you die you are the 
same." Between the nothingness preceding its existence and 
the nothingness following, the honey suckle has "but an hour," 
and this hour is unused. A "mere idea" because its existence 
consists in passive fixity, rather than in dynamic activity, 
the plant's lifetime is merely that stretch of nothingness 
between ante-nothing and post-nothing. Annihilation is no 
threat when there is "nothing once" and therefore nothing to 
annihilate. The phrase "mere idea" suggests that a thin g must 
be translated into concretettess by action in order to have 
significance, a concept which is supported by the attitudes of 
many of the narrators of Freneau's poems. Further, the phrase 
sug g ests the fact that what is comprehensib le is what one does 
rather than what one thinks, since an idea exists, whether 
actually or potentially, only in th e mind. 
So while the speaker laments the flower's doom, he laments 
also the flower's insignificance. He has established t he plant ' s 
triviality in saying that it is unseen, untouched , anci hidden 
Page 141 
in a "silent, dull retreat" and that it shuns "the vulgar eye" 
in its umbra "of guardian shade." If the flower began as 
nothing and returns to nothing, there is no great loss. The 
tragedy is that the hour has been wasted, for the honey suckle 
has accomplished nothing. Even its frail beauty has been 
wasted--no one sees but the speaker and he knows that this 
beauty is hollow and worthless. The very color of the honey 
suckle--"By Nature's self in white array'd"--reveals its 
insignificance . In reflecting all colors and absorbing none, 
white embodies the honeysuckle's innocence of all experience. 
White has traditionally been linked not only with purity but 
also with death. 
The choice of honey suckle may be significant also. The 
honey suckle is lovely and fragrant, but, uncultivated, it may 
flou r ish to choke and kill the shrubs around it. Freneau em-
phasizes in his title that this is wild honey suckle, and cer-
tainly h is choice of this instead of some other white flower 
is suggestive . Perhaps this particular plant is not only worth-
less but also potentially dangerous. We may, therefore, infer 
that passivity can be destructive to that which surrounds it. 
Implicit in the speaker ' s consideration of the flower's situa-
tion , at any rate, is his awareness that the flower is controlled 
by Nature, and that the flower is capable of being nothing other 
than what it is . If no one but the speaker enjoys the flower's 
beauty , the honeysuckle ' s isolation is dictated by the laws 
of Nat u re and the laws of chance. The honey suckle is at the 
mercy of forces beyond the ken of even sentient beings; thus 
Page 142 
peaker does not blame the flower for its inability to 
the s 
escape the "guardian shade" but rather seems to questio n the 
no intelligible 
Nature which creates and destroys flowers to 
Man, too, may be at the mercy of forces be y ond his 
Purpose. 
at least, has the power to strive to understand 
ken, but he, 
his own relationship with those forces. 
Whatever Freneau's conscious symbolic intent may h ave been 
choosing honey suckle as his subject, his formal stru c tural 
in 
Here again the poet employs a departure from 
inte n t 1? .s clear. 
established rime scheme which calls attention unobtrusively 
an 
itself in order subtly to emphasize the poem's final state-
to ? 
Composed of four stanzas of six lines each, "The Wild 
ment. 
Honey Suckle" is rimed similarlY to "The Hurricane," that is, 
a ternate line rimes in the first four lines of each stanza 
in 1 
In addition, each 
ana 1. .n couplets in the last two-ABABCC. 
The first 22 lines of the poem progress 
coup1 et is indented. However, the last 
'With a as exp_ ected. 
new sounds being introduce 
the couplet rime of the previous 
two 11? .ne s of the poem 
repeat 
Several factors 
stanza J a sense of finality. 
- J-and there0y create First, of cours e, 
combine to lend emphasis to the final statement. 
Then, 
the couplet of each stanza receives the stanza's emphasis. 
too d and the last couplet contains 
' each couplet is indente , 
the d . me sounds. Finally, those re-
Poem's only repeated en ri 
Peatea bl words which must b e pronounced 
sounds are all two sylla e 
as one i?n order not to disrupt the poem's metre: 
syllable words all of which must be pronounced 
P~owe/ flower and hour / flower, 
-----=~ - ~
Page 143 
On the other hand,~ is positioned so 
to rime with flahr. 
the saying: 
that its syllables mu st be carefully separated in 
e rical stress falls on the second syllable, as it should: 
the rn t . 
l/de/a; but i/de falls in one iamb and~ falls in the next. 
As one of the few three syllable words in the poem, idea is 
The combination of these effects, of 
even more emphatic. 
is to stress the fact that the passive flower is a 
course , 
II 
mere idea." 
Freneau's revisions of this final line suggest his a wa re -
and 
ness of the necessity to co ntrol the poem's point of view 
may also suggest a final decision to so f tent h e i mp act of the 
In the ~ 1umbian ~rald the lin e reads "The 
Clo si? 
0
nJ couplet. 
in 1788 "The mere idea. ? , " and in 
~_emn1-u i. mage of a flower"; 
. "This progress.ion 
1795 and 1809 "The frail duration-
seems to dull the initial edge of the line and sugges ts that 
the poet's attitude toward this poem, like his attitude towards 
e Vanity of Existence'" altered slightl y and that here he 
"Th The conso-
intended to tone down or even obscure his message. 
nance of " tY 1.?mage" calls attention to itself 
the original emP 
and 1.? pi'cture, which like the "mere 1'.dea" 
1 
mplies a vacuous menta 
has no reality of its own, but exists onlY in the mind of the 
attention, as we have noted, 
Idea" also ca 11 s 
Perce1.? 
to th ver. "Mere r to the wild honey suckle, and 
e reaction of the observe 
stresses essential solidity and concrete-
the flower's 1ack of version, "frail duration,, . 
ness ' and thus significance. observer 
Puts the tside of the mind of the 
flower's existence au 
Page 144 
by removing image and idea . The effect is both to stress that 
the flower's independent existence is transient and to remove 
reference to the flower's existence as a function of the speak ? 
er's consciousness. In fact, in this last version, the speake : 
refers to himself only in lines 17 and 1 8 , where he states his 
reaction to the impending doom of the honey suckle and associa 
his o wn fate with that of th e flower. Notice, however, that 
he keeps himself at a distance. Unlike the narrator of "The 
Dying Elm," who ultimately becomes most concerned with his own 
transience, the narrator of this poem is an outside observer 
who is interested in the flower's transience and in its impli-
cations for himself, but who is emotionally detached. Althoug 
he says he grieves, his grief does not overwhelm him and he 
reports his impressions of the experience in a controlled, eve 
way. The speaker seems to have accepted the brevity of his ow 
existence as an immutable aspect of his own nature. If he 
"grieves to see [the flower's] future doom," perhaps h e does 
so because he recognizes the flcwer's inability to do anything 
meaningful before its annihilation. 
While " The Wild Honey Suckle" is clearly outside of the 
melancholy tradition to which it has been assigned,~ Freneau's 
departure from received tradition is based more in his philo -
sophic rejection of the afterlife than in his reje ction of a 
particular poetic convention . "Autumn's power/Shall leav e no 
vestige of this flower. " No vestige, nothing shall remain. 
"If nothing once you nothing lose/For when you die you are th '2 
Page 145 
same," nothing. Believing that death is the end of all exis-
tence, the poet offers no consolation in a divine plan. 
Objectively considered, the questions of the specific 
intent of Freneau's choice of honey suckle and the more broadly 
pertinent questions of his attempts to distance himself, in 
this case by modulating the impact of a key passage, are debat-
able. However, given the poet's obs e rvabl e t e n d en ci es , o ne 
may, I think, support the contention that he does these things 
consciously. His control of the poem is observable even in 
its sound structure. The dominant vowel sounds are again the 
mournful long~ and~ sounds of grow, ~low, goes, repose, and 
gloo~, ~' dews, lose, and these sounds support the 
speaker's grief. The poem is packed, moreover, with sibilants 
and near-sibilants such as these: "fair flower that dost so. II 
"This silent,"; " nature'~ ~elf"; "she bade thee shun the shade''; 
and "shall leave no ~e~tige of thi~ flower." The effect is a 
calming, lulling hush appropriate to the setting and to the tone 
of the speaker. We are in a "silent, dull retreat," hushe d ii: 
the isolation of "~oft water~," and are contemplating calmly. 
Even the poet's diction suggests his careful attempt to 
emphasize the final stanza. Un t il line 21, the flower is re-
ferred to !Jy thee or thy: "Thy little branches"; "She bade thee 
shun. . ?;" for example. In line 21 the poet forsakes this 
artificial formality anc shifts to the more natural you, II 
you nothing lose/For when~ die~ are the same," a tactic 
that effectively stresses th e p o em's conclusion and its l e vels 
Page l.46 
of meaning. The artifice of "fair flower, that dost so comely 
grow" has become, by the end of the poem, the straight-forward 
"The space between is but an hcur/The mere idea of a flower." 
Thus the brief chance to become a meaningful something is 
lost, and the flower remains a void. Of course the implication 
is that the space between must not be wasted. In a universe 
governed by forces beyond our ken and where we are empty 
images, or mere ideas whose duration is frail and brief, we 
must act; we must strive; and we must seek--if we would avoid 
nothingness. Conversely, the doom of the wild honey suckle 
represents the plight of those of us who are consigned to the 
guardian shade, where repose is the death in life of those who 
are unable or unwilling to accept the invitation to face realit y . 
Hence this repose is not a recreation of self but a denial of 
s el f. Faced with the prospect of the honey suckle, the poet 
chooses to sally forth and confront, realizing that his own 
nature makes this choice possible. 
.a . And Summer Frolics O 'er Her Tomb - "May to April" 
Freneau often employs the seasonal c y cle as a metaphor 
for the life of man, as he does in "The Wild Honey Suckle?" 
However, the poet does not use the device as a means of sug-
gesting that man, like the seasons, can expect new life to 
follow death. First published on the same day as "The Departure;" 
to April" S' April 18, 1787, "May reli
.e s on a b as1.. c irony for its 
impact. May, a month which represents for us the new life of 
spring, depends on the death of April for its own fecundity. 
April showers bring May flowers; April's death brin gs th e 
seen in 
brief life of May. The situation is not unlike that 
fullY 
"The Vernal Ague," except that here the poet is more 
April" 
detached from the poem's persona. The speaker of "MaY to 
of 
is the sardonic and clear-seeing May, whereas the speaker 
In "M aY 
"The Vernal Ague" is the aguish seeker of delusion. 
to April," life and death are juxtapose d and death's 
bility is thereby underscored. 
Without your showers 
I breed no flowers, 
Each field a barren waste appe a rs; 
If you don't weep 
My blossoms sleep, 
They take such pleasure in your tears . 
As your ? decay 
Made room for May, 
So I must part with all that's mine; 
My balmy breeze, 
My blooming trees, 
To torrid suns their sweets resign. 
For April dead 
My shades I spread, 
To her I owe my dress so gay; 
Of daughters three 
It falls on me 
To close our triumphs on one day . 
Thus to repose 
All Nature goes; 
Month after month must f ind its doom : 
Time on the wing 
May ends the Spring, 
And Summer frolics o ' er her tomb. 
May speaks to April, acknowled g in g the debt she owes. 
"Without your showers/I breed no flowers" is turn ed ironicall y 
into "If you don't weei::; /My flowers sleep ." Ma y emphasizes her 
relianc e on April: April's tears give May life. The mel a nch o l y 
Page 148 
destiny of April is May's necessity; thus her blossoms "take 
such pleasure" in April's tears. One's pleasure ?is the result 
of the other's pain since the eternal sleep of May is fore-
stalled by the weeping of April. 
Just as April must die in order to prepare for Ma y , so too 
must May end. "As your decay/Made room for MaY,,/ So I must part 
with all that's mine," Ma y say s . Th e processes of life and 
death continue unabated. The "torrid suns" of summer, ironi-
cally a time of fruition, will finally steal the "balmy breeze" 
and "blooming trees" of May. Just as May would offer nothing 
but "barren waste" without April's tears, June requires May's 
"sweets." May is not, in this poem, therefore, so much the 
expected representation of life as the representation of death. 
The tension between life and death is embodied in May's reli-
ance for its existence on April's death and in summer's sub-
sequent reliance likewise on Ma y 's death . Life is implicitly 
the product of death in that the last day of May "closes" the 
"triumphs" of Spring. 
And the end of all life is death: "Thus to repose / All nature 
goes." These lines recall the fate of the honey su c kle, who s e 
days decline "to repose" quickly. Each month will inevitably 
find its doom: 
Time on the Wing 
May ends the Spring, 
And Summer frolics o'er her tomb. 
The radical irony of this final line underscores that of the 
rest of the poem. May gaily g ives tha nks to Ap r i l's tears--
now summer will likewise "frolic" on the "tomb" of MaY? 
?on 
The incongruity of life with death and the juxtapositi 
o f our expectations of life in spring with the poe t 's insis~ 
s are 
tence that we acknowledge the role of death in the proces 
m rhetori-
strengthened by the poem's structure. First, the poe 
cally is part of a dialogue between May and April. MaY 0 penlY 
are 
acknowledges her d ebt to April. Note that the very names 
of 
ironic: ~ is taken from the Roman deity Maia, a goddess 
pleiades; 
fertility associated with spring, and one of the seven 
Apri l refers to Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, who is also 
associated with f er tility. Both life and beauty, like MaY and 
April, are transient. 
A more solemn tone might be expected in a poem which is 
so preoccupied with death, yet the six line stanzas Of " May to 
Apr il" each contain, alternately, two sets of two 4 syllable 
lines and one 8 syllable line. The two short lines rime coup-
let style, and the lon ge r lines also rime: AABCCB. The effects 
of this structure are several. First, the resultant metre is 
rather more rollicking than solemn, as might befit the poem's 
subject matter. A jarring tone results from this incongruity, 
a tone which reinforces the clash between spring and dea th ? 
Second, the metrical quickness of the short lines is ab-
sorbed in the longer lines; that is, the sh o rt lines tend to 
lead into the longer lines, thereby emphasizing their l e ng th 
and causing them to be r ead slowly. These lines are further 
emphasized by being set several spaces closer to the left mar -
gin than the shorter lines . Thir d, the rime scheme tends to 
Page 150 
turn the last line of each stanza back into the stanza, 
thus 
Each stanza is one sen-
creating a subtle sense of finality. 
tence, the main point of which lies in the closing line. The 
final line of the poem, linked with the rest of the poem by 
which emphasizes its relationship with the over a process, 11 
receives the greatest stress, because of its position, of the 
summer frolics 
r etar d ed me t re and th e inwa rd turning rime--"And 
In its personification of May, April , and Sum-
o'er her tomb . " 
May is consciously aware 
mer, the poem's irony is almost acid . 
yet 
that she relies for her existence on the sorrow of April, 
For her, they 
she acknowledges her pleasure in April's tears. 
Likewise, because Summer realizes that 
are the waters of life. 
she relies on May's death, selfishly she frolics on May 's tomb. 
May clearly places her priority on her own needs--April be 
As we 
summer regards May in exactly the same way. 
damned. 
have noted, even the names tend to reinforce the poem's sense 
The effect of the rime and metre 
of the ironically incongruous. 
is to reinforce the bizarre concept of Summer's cruelly dancing 
on May's tomb. 
the later editio ns, 
Freneau tones the poem down somewhat in 
Or iginally the final 
but its edge is dulled onlY somewhat. 
o'er her tomb!" The dash 
line read "And summer--triumphs 
empha . . h and the exclamation point suggests summer 's 
sizes triump s, The ' 88 version drops 
excitement and delight at her triumph. 
which, as we have seen, 
th e punctuation and substitutes yolics, 
h ? l ' tY o f the poem's tone . The exc lama-
1 
eightens the sardoni c qua 
Page 151 
tion is unnecessary since Summer is no longer merely triumphant 
but is now rather transported with delight at May's death. This 
t ransport is now effectively understated. In the final versions, 
1 95 and '09, frolics becomes dances, which still conveys the 
sense of delight, but not so strongly as before. 
This softening of the poem's tone is also evident in the 
poe t's rearrangement of the stanzaic structure of the fin a l ver-
sions. The dimetre lines are combined into tetrametre lines 
which rime internally, SG: 
Without your shower~ I breed no flowers, 
Each field a barren waste appears; 
If you don't weep, my blossoms sleep, 
They take such pleasure in your tears 
The effect of the internal rime is still to quicken the first 
a nd third lines, and perhaps to accentuate the slowness and 
evenness of the second and fourth lines of each stanza. How-
ever, if such is the case, the stress is less marked. Moreover, 
while the internally rimed lines tend to read quickly, the 
rollicking quality of the metre is somewhat subdued when com-
pared to that of the original version. Note, too, that the 
revised version spaces all four lines of each stanza e q ui d istant 
from the left margin. Overall, the tone of the revised poem 
is not as strongly reinforced by its structure as was the origi-
nal version's. The poet seems to have chosen to soften the 
poem's impact, perhaps deciding that the original tone is too 
strident. As does "The Wild Honey Suckle;" "May to .1\pril" 
examines a natural process but this time through the v oice of 
a component of that process. Freneau's handlin g of the po e m 
Page 152 
re v eals that, though he still questions the cruelty inherent 
in the natural cycle, he h a s begun to understand anci tc accept 
h i s inability to change thin gs . The processes of li ving and 
dying are , after all, "bu t the customa of Nature . 
4 . and Del-usi-on-s - "The India,1 3ury in9 Ground" 
In his commen ts on " ?1' he I n di'  a n Bury i'  n g Gr o u n d , '' 6 Lew i s 
LP.ary asserts that Freneau "was a poet.>not a thinker."''  
Nevertheles s , the poet ' s th o u g ht has been the focus of rr: uch 
of the considerable amount of critical attention che poem ha5 
received . H. M. Campbell ar g ues that in "The In d i an Bury i ng 
Ground'' Freneau is indicating his bel i ef that the sitt in g 
pos t ur e in whic h the Indian corpse is placed is more appro-
p:ciate. than the recl.inir: g "pc,, s t,\\.f~ we give the dead" because 
it suggests the soul ' s activity, a n act iv i ty in which both 
8 
cultures belie v e . Nelson Adki~s argues , o n t he o t he r hand, 
that the poem is an example that "F r..=:n:=au's doubt s regard :~n g 
th e future life" we.re persistent, and c ites the open in g lines 
9 
of the poem as "veiled ex;:i res s i on s of doubt ." George 
wa  s s e r r:i an no t s s f i r s t th a t th e p o ~} m s tr i k e s a " J:, a 1 an c e ;:, e t we e n 
ration.:,.l.ism a n d anti - ratic,n a li :;;m" b ut ends by c~.a :..m i r~g that 
F renea~ is saying tha t "reaso n alone is un.:ible to e xplain tl:. e 
1 0 
life of th .e soul after death." However , Mar t i n E . Itz kowi t z 
argues a radi c al po s iti on for the poet : "Freneau's locus o f 
valces must necessaril.y li e in the realm of present exi3tence . 
1 1 
for F rene au , tl1e de:a.d remain s tati c , " he says. 
o f t he s e f o ' l r v .i. e w s o f " The I n di an Bury .i ::-i 9 Ground , " t h e 
Page 153 
last seems the most persuasive and may explain why the poet 
attempts to identify a mode of living that may give our brief 
duration meaning. We learn here that both reason and fancy 
are necessary to our perception of the nature of life and 
death, but that even art cannot be expected to endure. How-
ever, "The Indian Burying Ground" may offer an implicit state-
ment of what we may do in order to understand our situation 
and live purposefully nonetheless. 
In spite of all the learn'd have said 
I still my old opinion keep; 
The posture that we give the dead 
Points out the soul's eternal sleep. 
Not so the ancients of these lands; --
The Indian, when from life releas'd, 
Again is seated with his friend~ 
And shares again the joyous feast. 
His imag 'd birds, and painted bowl, 
And ven'son, for a journey drest, 
Bespeak the nature of the soul, 
Activity, that wants no rest. 
His bow for action ready ben~ 
And arrows, with a head of bone, 
Can only mean that life is spent, 
And not the finer essence gone. 
Thou, stranger, that shalt come this way, 
No fraud upon the dead commit, 
Yet, mark the swelling turf, and say, 
They do not lie, but here they sit. 
Here, still a lofty rock remains, 
on which the curious eye may trace 
(Now wasted half by wearing rains) 
The fancies of a ruder race. 
Here, still an aged elm aspire~ 
Beneath whose far projecting shade 
(And which the shepherd still admires) 
The ch ildren of the forest play'd. 
Page 154 
There o ft a restless Indian queen 
(Pale Marian with her braided hair) 
And many a barbarous form is seen 
To chide the man that lingers there. 
By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews, 
In vestments for the chaee array'd, 
The hunter still the deer pursues, 
The hunter and the deer -- a shade. 
And long shall timorous Fancy see 
The painted chief, and pointed spear, 
And reason's self shall bow the knee 
To shadows and delusions here. 
The opening stanza of the poem establishes the ground of 
conflict. The "learn'd have said," of course, that the soul 
is reborn into a new, spiritual, mode of existence through the 
death of the body. The speaker of the poem, however, holds his 
own "old opinion" that the"posture that WP. give the dead"--
~ being westerners and Christians=--"Points out the soul's 
eternal sleep." Note that this is an old opinion of the spEak-
er's, not some sudden conclusion to which he has lightly leapt. 
We may infer that the speaker's belief, therefore, is a con-
sidered one, one which has been mulled over and tested. For 
him the reclining posture given the corpse is entirely apropos. 
He knows that the corpse will sleep eternall y . 
However, he recognizes that, aside from th e "learn'd," 
there are others with whom he differs. "The ancients of these 
lai.nds" when they die are "again. .seated with. . friend8'.,/ 
And share again the joyous feast." Indeed the Indian goes com-
pletely outfitted with "his imag'd birds, and painted bowl. 
ven'son for a journey drest [and] his bow for action ready 
bent/And arrows. II These articles "bespeak the ~~~-
Page 155 
of the soul," in the belief of the Indian, "Activity, that 
wants no rest." The bow, bent ready for action, symbolizes 
for the Indian that only "life is spentyAnd not the finer 
essence gone." The soul then, if the soul is the "finer 
essence," passes to another mode of existence, one which, for 
the Indian, is much like that of this life. The speaker, 
though, choos es not to concur with the Indian Sagamores, or 
with the "learn'd" either. The poet's choice of words, of 
course, suggests this disagreement. First, the corpse is placed 
in a posture--the word is italicized for emphasis and may 
connote pose, its root. Such a connotation wou ld suggest the 
essential meaninglessness of the position in which the corpse 
is placed, since, for the speaker, once the body is dead, we 
may as well bury it standing up. Second, the dead Indian h as 
been "releas'd "' from life, a phrase which suggests that he has 
been held a kind of prisoner in this life. Yet he takes with 
him all the paraphernalia of his present existence. Since the 
future life is a release, the gear of this life is unneeded. 
Third, the poet revises "finer essence" in line 16 to read " old 
ideas" in 1809. The speaker's reference to a "finer essence" 
implies, plainly, his belief that such a thing exists. Apparent-
ly the poet decided not to suggest that such a belief be asso-
ciated with the speaker--the revision instead associates the 
pract ice of packing the dead brave's bow and arrows, and bowl, 
off with him with " old" ways of thinkin g. These are not " old 
opinions," the beliefs of a!'l individual, but "old ideas," th e 
....... 
Page 156 
inherited beliefs of the culture. The "ancients" and the 
"learn ' d" cling to their respective traditional notions of the 
soul's life after death, but these are notions which will 
neither withstand the analysis of reason nor be verified by 
the productions of fancy. Finally, the speaker has already 
clearly stated his position anyway : death is "the soul's 
eternal sleep." 
Still, the speaker, while choosing not so to believe, 
chooses to respect the beliefs of the "ancients of this land." 
To us he directs an injunction, "T h ou, stranger. .no fraud 
upon the dead commit." Instead, he urges, recognize their 
point of view for what it is and when you "mark the swelling 
turf . . say/They do not lie, but here they sit . " The speak-
er ' s attitude, though detached and ironic, is flexible. Al-
though he disagrees, he will not blindly criticize even an idea 
which for him is untenable. He goes so far, moreover, as to 
remind us to be open minded too . Lie is an ironic pun in 
stanza five linked with fraud . Indeed, the Indians do not lie. 
They sit there as proof that they have acted so as t o support 
their belief i n what they practice. Somehow the truth o f an 
assertion may be tested by its being acted upon. The irony, 
of course, is that, though the corpses sit, no one here can 
know if elsewhere they are active. Their sitting p ostur e ~ay 
be a lie to which they themselves are oblivious . 
Yet here in the burying ground stands a reminder that 
beli e f in immortality is a delusion. On a "lofty r o c k " are 
Page 157 
painted "the fancies of a ruder race." The scene on the rock 
seems to include "pale Marian. .a restless Indian queen. 
and many a barbarous form." Across the rock's face "by mid-
night moons, o'er moistening dews/In vestments for the chase 
array'd/The hunter still the deer pursues." If the painting 
could survive to represent the stories of the pale queen and 
the hunt er and the deer, then perhaps our belief in their 
existence in some future life could be sustained. Art imrnor-
talizes, we think, yet already the "fancies" on the rock are 
"wasted half by wearing rains." They do not endure, but are 
as transient as those whose lives they depict. The artistic 
productions of man seem to be no more permanent than he is. 
"Here" the "lofty rock" stands under "an aged elm. 
beneath whose far projecting shade" the forest children, the 
Indians, once played. The elm, of course, is the tree of 
dreams; its shade is the dimness of illusion, "far projecting" 
because it is so difficult to elude. The painting on the rock 
is part of the elm's projected illusions, "the hunter and the 
deer--a shade." Perhaps their playing in the elm's shade had 
deluded the forest children into thinking that they would live 
on after dying. 
Even ''the shepherd still admires" the aged elm and its 
shade. We wonder who this shepherd is and why he admires the 
elm . First, the term admire seems to connote its root," to 
wonder at," rather than the usual modern usage "to have a high 
opinion of." The shepherd marvels and wonders at the powers 
of illusion which the elm possesses, perhaps because he realizes 
Page 158 
that fantasy is a necessary part of our existence. Even rea-
son, as we shall see, must "bow the knee" to delusions at 
certain times. The shepherd's identity is still a puzzle. 
He is not one of the Indi ans, nor i s he one of the learn'd. 
He is one who recognizes the elm's remarkable powers--note 
that "which. II is a dangling modifier referring ambiguously 
to both elm and shade. Whoever h e is, he ob serves , with th e 
poem's speaker, the powers of the elm. 
"Still" the elm "aspires," and the " fancies" are only 
"half wasted?" Their charms are thus likel y to continue to 
work. Therefore the speaker closes with the observation that 
"long shall timorous Fancy see /T he painted hief, and pointed 
spear." The power of the elm is so great, its shade so "far-
projecting," and our de3ire to believe in immortality is so 
strong, that "reason's self" itself will~bow the knee/To 
shadows and delusions here." 
Several elements are at work in "The Indian Burying Ground" 
interwoven with each other and with the poem's dis8ussion of 
the afterlife: the dichotomy between appearance and reality is 
exami ned in the motif of shades; the nature of art is explored 
in the painting motif; and the nature of the imagination and 
its relationship to reason is considered in the juxtaposition 
of "Fancy" and "reason's self." 
The only repeated end rime sound in the poem is the lon g 
a and d sound of shade /p lay'd; array'd / shade, and shade is there-
fore the only end rime word repeated. Shade is emphasized in 
Page 159 
order to call the deluding powers of the elm to our attention. 
What appears to be may not be when we play under the shade of 
the branches where we find the picture of "pale Marian" and 
of the "chase." The ''restless Indian queen" is as much a shade, 
a ghost--delusion, as are the hunter and the deer, who, for 
the time being anyway, plunge on through their imaginary 
forest. Yet even in the shade, time passes as "midnight moons 
and moistening dews " come and go. Appearances--shadows and 
delusions--are fleeting. Shadows links, in their root rel a -
tionship, shades explicitly with delusions . Under the painting 
ironically, is a rock, something we would associate with perma-
nence. However, like a bank of mud, it can be worn away by 
the action of erosion . "Wearing Rains," we must realize, 
will eventually eat away even the rock itself. 
The poet clarifies the relative positions of the elements 
described in stanzas six through ten by locating them with the 
adverbs here and there . Here seems to indicate the present 
location of all the elements in the poem; here in the burying 
ground are the rock, the elm, the speaker. There seems to indi-
cate the elements included in the painting on the rock, including 
the Indian queen, "many a barbarous form," and the hunter and 
the deer . Here introduces stanzas six and seven and closes 
stanza ten, the poem ' s last, while there opens and closes stanza 
eight. The juxtaposition of the terms not o~ly locates the 
physical position of the elements described but may also su gg est 
the relative functions of reason and fancy. Here is the physi-
Page 160 
cal world, the world of reason and there is the world of de-
lusion, the world of fancy. 
The dead brave is accompanied at his "joyous feast" by 
"imag'd birds" and his "painted bowl." The burial ground where 
he is set to rest has as its central feature a "lofty rock" 
which bears the pairitirig? of the queen and the chase. By night 
and day the chase continu e s and the queen is restles s , but 
the key to the painting's meaning lies in the fact that already 
it is half "wasted." The "imag'd birds" and "painted bowl," 
too, if left to the elements,, would fade. Although art may 
simulate reality, reality is not absolute and stable. As time 
changes all things, so, perhaps, time changes what is real. 
The "imag'd birds" are not permanent and neither is the rock 
painting of the chase because both are products of the fancy. 
Even though the elm "as pires" and the rock is "lofty," that 
is, even though the purpose and intent of art are noble, the 
images will fade. 
Implicit in this realization must be, for the poet, the 
awareness that if the painted images are not permanent, neither 
then are his poems. They, too, are painted images of a sort, 
ideas brought forth out of the mind and made concrete. But 
they too, in attempting to simulate reality, capture a moment 
which is transient. The honey suckle will last only a "frail 
du ration. 11 That which the pain tings "bespeak,'' that which they 
attempt to capture but cannot, is that which is ultimately 
meaningful: "Activity, that wants no rest." Onl y the striving 
--
Page 161 
to create and thereby to understand seems to have value. This 
sense that somehow the apprehension of reality lies in the pro-
cess of creative striving seems to be supported in the poet's 
practice of his continual revisions of his poems so that they 
do not become static , and in "The Indian Burying Ground" in 
the tension between fancy and reason. Unfortunately, the terms 
are not clearly defined within the framework of the poem, so 
that any meani n gs wh i ch the reader would assign to them would 
perhaps be arbitrary . However, " Fancy" is associated, through 
"fancies " (1 . 24) 1 with the creative process and with delusion: 
II 
the "imag'd birds, the "painted bowl" indirectly,and the scene 
on the rock directly. Fancy tells us that the soul exists in 
some future life . Fancy is " timorous" perhaps because of its 
abili t y to grasp realiza t ions which are beyond the reach of 
reason. Perhaps fancy is fearful because of the breadth of its 
power to imagine the varieties of experience which death may 
offer . Without fancy , perceptions of the reality which defies 
reason are impossible . 
Re ason, on the other hand, is what f ancy is not . Rea so n 
appears to be attached to the e mpiric a l e xp e r ie nc es r ath er than 
to the apprehens i on of dream or illusion. Reason tells us that 
there is no evidence of an afterlife; hcwever--"reason's self 
shall bow the knee/To shadows and delusions here," under the 
tree of dreams . The " far - projecting" shades of the tree of 
illusion so pervade our existence that perhaps reason need l e arn 
to accomodate itself to fancy. 
Page 162 
Both reason and fancy are capable of being deluded, as we 
have seen in "Pictures of Columbus." Yet both faculties appear 
to have an important function for the speaker. Rationally, he 
rejects any significance for the sitting posture of the corpse, 
and points out that art is not immortal and must "wear away," 
but he admits, n evertheless, that here, in this physical world, 
"r e ason's self shall bow the kn ee ." P er h a ps th ere a re si t ua -
tions in which reason is inadequate, situations in which "shadows 
and delusions" are recognizable by reason but comprehensible 
only through the power of fancy. Yet reason is still necessary, 
for the speaker does not reject it--"reason's self" does not 
flee before delusion--but rather seems to attempt to come into 
balance with fancy. In attempting to understand death--in 
attempting, in fact, to grasp the human condition--reason may 
be able to penetrate the delusions, but perhaps fanc y is neces-
sary to allow us to understand them. In the '95 edition of the 
poem Freneau deletes the capital letter on "Fancy" and the 
italics on "reason's self" perhaps to suggest that the two 
should be in bala nce. 
Over -simplifying, we might exemplify the process of balanc-
ing reason and fancy as follows. Reason tells us, throu g h our 
empirical exper ien ce with phenomena, that we , like April and 
May , are transient. Of this we have ample co n crete evidence, 
but none to support the notion of a life after death. F a ncy 
enables us to organize the elements of our rational apprehensi o n 
into a medium--a poem, a painting--throug h which we ma y ex a min e 
Page 163 
the nature of our resultant existence. Fancy seems to be, for 
Freneau, the mythopoei c power that creates the deluiion of 
"golden age" and afterlife, but fancy also seems to be essen-
tial to him. Once we apprehend rationally the fact that we 
are doomed to "eternal sleep," we must find a way to give mean-
ing to our brief existence, as the honey suckle cannot. This 
significance may be achieved throu gh th e creat ive striving of 
art, even though art, too, is transient, and reason ma y expose 
its illusory essence. The " activity, that wants no rest" is 
its own value, not the product of that activity. In other words, 
the end does not justify the means; the means justifies itself. 
S. Learn Wisdom From The Falling Leaf - "The Man of Ninety" 
Having lived a long time, the man of 90 has observed that 
he and the oak have much in common. Yet , though both are 
" native s o f one verdant p 1 a in," one w i 11 1 iv e on after the 
other has died. Though the man's life is long, the tree's is 
longer, and the old man looks upon the tree as both the symbol 
of lif e and the symbol of his own frustration and doom. 
sir James Frazier did the pioneer work on the connection 
between dying heroes and fertility, and Carl Jung after him 
recognized the prominence of the tree. For example, Osiris is 
buried in a tree; Adonis born of one; Attis, Odin, and Jesus 
are hanged on trees. Balder is killed by the mistletoe from 
a tree, and Oionysos, who carves a phallus out of a fig tree, 
11 1
was called in Boeti? a ''h e i? n th e t ree. g,. "J ung saw i? n the 
association of hero and tree the sacred burial of the hero in 
Page 164 
the great mother--the tree being the world tree with its roots 
in the depths of man's unconscious mind," according t o '.) avid 
Leeming . , .3 
Alan Watts interprets the tree similarly: 
The symbolism of the tree is quite clearl y the 
world. Li fe itself having its stem rooted in the 
unknown. Its branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit 
form t he multiplicity of creatures-- ' I . am the 
vine, ye are the branches' --which blossom from 
the ever-fertile source of life . The wood of the 
tree is matter, ?rima materia, out of which all 
things are made. ' 
Whether the conscious or unconscious significance of this 
particu l ar white oak can be so verbalized is uncertain. How-
ever, we do know that for the man of ninety the oak represents 
strength, longevity, and security. This tree is, the narrator 
says, " His tree." The poet ' s interest in tree symbolism, seen 
before in " The Dying Elm" and "The Indian Burying Ground" and 
1.S-
again in " On The Fall of An Ancient Oak Tree, " is well estab -
lished . 1 ' Clearly the oak is here a symbol of strength and en-
durance : its roots spreading into the ground come perhaps to 
represent our own grip o n life . 
. 1,, 
"The Man of Ninety," which first app e ared in the 178 8 
edition, uses the tree in a traditional symbolic context. In-
deed, the belief that spirits dwell in trees is worldwide, and 
among primitive tribes even today trees are regarded as tribal 
ancestors or as the abode of spirits or souls which enter the 
womb to become babies . The life of the newborn is sometimes 
supposed to be bound to that of a newly planted tree, much 
like the man of ninety associates his own life with that o f the 
Page 165 
oak. 
Conversely, this poem uses motifs of water and burial in 
ways which are ironic reversals of the ways in which they are 
traditionally used. Water is traditionally a symbol of life, 
a life-giving agent, the source of life and rebirth, while 
burial in the earth, of course, is associated with death--ashes 
to ashes , dust to dust. Indeed, the imagery functions here in 
ways which are consistent with the association which Freneau 
establishes elsewhere. Water is destructive and threatening , 
while land is secure and safe. Mo reover, the poet introduces 
into this tension between two primal elements--water and earth 
--a concern with the tension between nature and art. 
"To yonder boughs that spread so wide, 
Beneath whose shade soft waters glide, 
Once more I take the well known way; 
With feeble step and tottering knee 
I sigh to reach my WHITE-OAK tree, 
Where rosy health was wont to play. 
If to the grave, consuming slow, 
The shadow o f myself, I go, 
When I am gone wilt thou remain!--
From dust you rose, and grew like me; 
I man became, and you a tree, 
Both nati ves of one verdant plain. 
How much alike; yet n ot the same ! 
You could no kind protector claim; 
Alone you stood to chance resign'd; 
When winter came, with blustering sky, 
You fear'd its blasts--and so did I, 
And for warm suns in secret pin'd. 
Page 156 
When vernal suns began to glow 
You felt returning vigour flow, 
Which once a year new leaves supply'd; 
Like you, fine days I wish'd to see, 
And May was a sweet month to me, 
But when November came--I sigh'd! 
If through your bark some rustic arm 
A mark impress'd, you took the alarm, 
And tears awhile I saw descend; 
Till Nature's kind maternal aid 
A plaister on your bruises laid, 
And bade your trickling sorrows end. 
Like you, I fear'd the lightning's stroke 
Whose flame dissolve~ the strength of oak, 
And ends at once this mortal dream;--
You saw with grief the soil decay 
That from your roots was torn away; 
You sigh'd--and curs'd the stream. 
With borrow'd earth, and busy spade, 
Around your roots new life I laid, 
While joy reviv'd in every vein; 
Once more that stream shall death impart! 
Though Nature owns the aid of art, 
No art, immortal, makes her reign. 
How much alike our fortune--say--
Yet, why must I so soon decay 
When thou hast scarcely reach'd thy prime--
Erect and tall you joyous stand; 
The staff of age has found my hand, 
That guides me to the grave of time. 
Could I, fair tree, like you, resign, 
And banish all these fears of mine, 
Grey hairs would be no cause of grief: 
Your blossoms die, but you remain, 
Your fruit lies scatter'd o'er the plain--
Learn wisdom from the falling leaf. 
As you survive, by heaven's decree, 
Let wither'd flowers be thrown on me, 
Sad compensation for my doom, 
While Christmas greens and gloomy pines, 
And cedars dark, and barren vines, 
Point out the lonely tomb. 
Page 167 
The enlivening sun, that burns so brigh t, 
Ne'er had a noon without a night, 
So LIFE and DEATH agree; 
The joys of man b y years are bro ke --" 
'Twas thus the man of ninety spok e, 
Then rose, and left his tree. 
The opening stanzas establish the relationship between the 
man and the oak. The old man's visit to the oak is a customary 
one; he takes "the well known way" to its wide spreading bou ghs. 
His "feeble steps. . ' tottering knee," and his "sighs" now 
succeed the rosy health of former times. Now he dwells on the 
contrast between himself and the tree. Both rose "from dust. 
and grew" yet one became man and one became tree and one goes 
to the grave while the other will remain yet awhile. "How much 
a like, yet not the same" they are. Neither had a "kind pro-
tector"; both stood alone "to chance resigned"; both feared 
the "blasts" of winter's "blustering sky" and both "for warm 
suns in secret pin'd." Passing years have brought the man's 
gradual deterioration, yet each spring the tree has been re-
newed. This renewal is emphasized by being illustrated in two 
ways in the poem. After winter's blasts, the season of "vernal 
suns" always brings the "returning vi gour" which supplies "new 
leaves." Moreover, if "some rustic arm" should scar the oak, 
"Nature's kind maternal aid" lays "a plaister" on the oak's 
"bruises" to end its "trickling sorrows." Man's own regenera-
tive powers are not mentioned: the man of ninety feels too sorry 
for r himself, in his old age, to recall that his own body has no 
doubt felt the healing touch of nature, too. He forgets also 
that he is himself unusually long-lived. 
Page 168 
the "light-
But other forces as well threaten the tree, 
s rake whose flame dissolves the strength of oak" and 
ning's t / 
are beyond 
The elemental forces of fire and water 
th e stream. 
Being struck by lightning 
the t ree's power to defend itself. 
would end this mortal dream" for either the tree or the old 
II 
sheds 
The speaker consistently personifies the oak--it 
man. order to 
it fears the lightning, for example--in 
tears?, This association is 
st rengthen his association with it- Erosion could 
strengthened by the old man's care of the oak. 
, 
and would have, had not the man intervened 
deS t roy the tree, th
but with "borrowed earth and buSY spade" e aged one "laid 
replacing that soil 
roots" of the tree, 
new life around [the] 
Which the tree had seen "decay," and which bad been "torn away" 
He projects his own self-centered reaction on-
by the stream. "You sigh'a-and cursed the stream," 
to the tree when he says, "Once 
but we will recall that it is he whO sighs (stanza one). 
more that stream shall death impart!" the man of riinety asserts 
. that his efforts will ultimately 
in seven, suggesting stanza 
be in vain. 
Still, he has saved the tree bY reburying its exposed roots. 
borrowed 
is "borrowed," since 
th 
One wonders, however, whY the ear
not that the soil is appropriated for 
only conveys the sense the sense that the soil will 
but also conveys 
thi' s specific use, ThUS the protection it 
at some time return whence it came- The stream of time inces-
. ternporarY? 
affords the oak's roots is , ? h men attempt to root. 
santl earth in wnic 
Y carries away the 
Page 169 
However, the poet softens the implicit transience of "bor-
rowed earth" by revising line 40 in the '95 edition to read, 
"The care of man shall life impart." So the ministrations of 
man can have an effect, though brief, in allaying those awesome 
powers of nature which are eventually destructive. 
The final sentence of stanza seven is a conclusion based 
upon the previous series of illustrations: 
Though Nature owns the aid of art 1 
No art, immortal, makes her reign. 
This statement, though rhetorically conclusive, is syntactically 
ambiguous. Does nature own in the sense of possessing, the aid 
of art, or does nature own, in the sense of acknowledging, the 
aid of art? If the former is the case, then art is part of 
nature; if the latter, then art functions independentl y of 
nature . Since commas set off immortal, the term may be an 
adjective modifying art, a noun in apposition with art, or a 
term of direct address referring to the oak. Of course the 
latter seems unlikely, but all three possibilities would be 
grammatically correct. Make is also used ambiguously. Does 
art fashion or create "her reign?" Does art compel "her reign? " 
Further, it is unclear to whom her refers, whether to nature 
or to art . We know that nature has been described as maternal, 
justifying the feminine pronoun, but the nearest noun to her 
is art, the subject of the main clause in which her occurs. 
Syntactically, the sentence is dense, and there is little 
in the poem outside of this statement to supply a clue as to 
how it should be interpreted. Again, I would suggest that 
Page 170 
is the 
syntactical complexity suggests an ambiguity which 
result of the problem itself. Whatever the relationship be-
nature and the art is, that relationship hardl y seems 
tween 
Nature is associated here 
unam 1.guous one. 
to be an absolute, b' 
not absolute stasis, of course, but 
wi th a kind of permanence, The existence 
permanence of the cycle of death and renewal. 
the 
but th e cycle which renews 
of n atura l ph e nomena is transien t, Nature, 
a replaces these phenomena is stable and reliable. 
nd 
Art, on the other hand, 
unlike art, is, in a way, immortal. 
whose individual transience is not 
is associated with man, 
The speaker, like many of 
redeemed by the natural cycle . 
sees no evidence in the cycle that he will 
Freneau's personae, 
No art is immortai--the effects of borrowed earth 
be renewed. 
a busy spade, like the painting of pale Marian, the hunter 
nd Yet art does 
a the deer, will ultimatelY be washed away. 
nd the 
help to fend off the ultimate doom, to postpone, somehow , 
"aid of 
nature owns--controls--the 
.;._--
inevitable. In effect, 
art" in that ultimatelY art aoes not change nature's course ; 
power of art to intercede for 
Yet nature -owns--admits--the Art becomes, the-n, a mediato r between man and death, but 
rnan. its creator must seek constantly 
itself transient, 
since art is perhaps thiS need for renewal explains why Freneau 
to renew it. Through art we ma y continue 
continuously revised his poems. 
to earth which sustains us--"Th e care 
sink our roots into the 
of rnan shall life impart." 
Page 171 
Stanzas eight, nine, and ten reiterate the old man's 
consciousness of his similarity to the tree and suggest that 
he may realize his own selfishness. "How much alike our 
fortune," he cries; "Yet I must so soon decay ~" While the 
oak "joyous stands," "erect and tall," he laments, "The staff 
of age has found [his] hand . " However, if he could "resign" 
himself, like the tree "and banish all these fears;? perhaps he 
could "learn wisdom from the falling leaf." Through all of 
this the tree stands unmoved, detached; the man's ultimate 
problem is the curse of hi s own consciousness and his inabili-
ty to accept his own nature. While he is aware of his own 
doom, the tree is not. Perhaps , on one hand, the wisdom of 
the falling leaf is to scatter "fruit. .o'er the plain" and 
to hope that some lives on. The tree is productive, awaiting 
the day when its acorns will themselves become oaks. Yet the 
tree itself will ultimately die, as has each fallen leaf. On 
the other hand, perhaps the wisdom of the falling leaf is that 
we all die alone and separated. The old man's reason tells 
him that he too must die, but his self-pity renders him in cap -
ab le of accepting that plight and he closes with a maudlin 
outburst: "Let wither ' d flowers be thrown on me. .the joys 
of man by years are broke- " Ironically, the plants with which 
he would "point out the lonely tomb" are traditional symbols 
of life--"Christmas greens," "pines," and "cedars." His pro-
jection makes them '' g l .oomy " and " dark " an d makes the vines he 
mentions "barren. " Thus he is aware that he is mortal, but 
Page 172 
consumed by his awareness and unable rationally t o accept his 
mortality. 
Ironically, his last words implicitly recognize the c y cle 
of life and death which he refuses steadfastly to accept. 
The enlivening sun, that burns so bright, 
Ne'er had a noon without a night. 
His concern is with " th e joys of man" and hardly with a r e ason-
able acceptance of the natural processes. The poet subtly 
stresses this self-centered attitude by causing the man of 
ninety to refer to himself in the first person in every stanza 
of the poem except the last. The speaker refers to himself in 
the nominative no fewer than 13 times, in the objective no 
fewer than 5 times, and in the possessive no fewer than 3 times. 
In this poem of 66 lines, the speaker refers to himself in the 
first person on an average of once every three lines. In crd er 
to gauge the degree to which this self-concern permeates the 
poem, compare the number of times the speaker of "The Wild 
Honey Suckle " refers to himself--only once. In the earlier 
poem, of course, the concern is with the object and its si gni-
ficance. Here, as the title suggests, the speaker's conc e rn 
is only secondary with the tree; the s ubtitle is "Or, A Visit 
To the Oak." 
Moreover, the poem's dominant rime sounds further empha-
size the degree to which the speaker is self-oriented. The end 
rime sound of long e occurs in stanzas 1, 2, 4, 10, and 11. 
The only repeated end rime wor d s in the poem are tree, in s tanza 
Page 173 
1, 2, and 11; and me, in stanzas 2, 4, and 10. While the ef-
feet of the repeated end rimes is to unify the poem and to 
associate~ and me, the effect is more strongly to stress 
the speaker's maudlin self consciousness. 
The final two lines of the poem provide its frame. A 
detached narrator now ends the poem in a manner reminiscent 
of th e closing of "The Dying Indian." Like Shalum, the man of 
ninety is a persona created to allow the poet to probe the 
character of a particular type of human being. Nonetheless, 
the contrast between the two personae is stark: whereas the 
Indian is stoic and accepting, the man of ninety seems bitter 
and self-pitying. He is not so self-concerned, perhaps, as the 
speaker of "The Dying Elm," but he is more like that individual 
than he is like Shalum. By closing the old man's monologue 
with this narrator, the poet makes clear that he is detache d 
from the poem's persona. We must consider, then, that our 
attention is called to the examination of the behavior of a 
created character, not to the self-conscious theatricality 
of a melancholy poet. 
The man of ninety would benefit if he could accept "the 
wisdom of the falling leaf?" Another of Freneau' s narrators 
puts it thusly: 
While onward moves each circling year 
Thy mandates, Nature, all obey, 
As with this moving changeful sphere 
The seasons change and never stay. 1& 
Page 174 
These lines imply that the key to a meaningful existence lies 
in the recognition that there are forces beyond our ken aDd 
that we should concern ourselves with what we can influence. 
I believe that th e poet suggests that we can control the 
quality of our own lives. The "activity, that wants no rest" 
may be, for the poet, the creation of his poetry, a creation 
which , in its striving to grasp the ungraspable, is of value 
in itself. Though that which we create with borrowed earth 
and busy spade is impermanent, the act of its creation is none-
theless worthwhile. 
"Nature Owns The Aid of Art" - Conclusion 
Since ?' The Miscellaneous Works of 1788 was published so 
close on the heels of Freneau's Poems of 17 86, one is not sur-
prised that the poetry of the later work bears many sirnilari-
/ 
ties , both technical and philo s ophic , to that of the earlier 
work. As we have noted, the poet employs a variety of approach-
es in conveying his themes. Moreover, he continues tc focus 
effectively on the concrete and the particular, as in "The Wild 
Honey Suckle," and to choose the effective image, as in "The 
Indian Burying Ground," in order to make concrete the situations 
he examines. In addition, we see that he took careful pains 
in the revisions of these poems in order to hone their meanings 
as sharply as possible and that he has distanced himself effec-
tively as well. However, the distance which the poet achieves 
and his grow ing concern for the tensions between reason and 
Page 175 
fancy and between nature and art probably signal the difference 
between the poems of 1786 and those of 1788. E'reneau seems to 
have achieved control over his vision of life through a clearer 
understanding of himself and his art. 
"The Pictures of Columbus" opens the 1788 edition aptly 
in that it introduces, through its subthemes, the major con-
cerns of the rest of the volume. Examination of th e dichotomy 
between reason and fancy is initiated here and developed in 
"The Indian Burying Ground." In both, fancy is shown to be 
delusive and less than reliable, yet both the explorer and th e 
visitor to the burying ground realize that reason alone is in-
sufficient. Re ason tells Columbus that his belief in the exis-
tence of the new world is sound; nevertheless, he implores 
fancy to his aid and seeks out the Inchantress. Reason tells 
the visitor that--lie, sit, or stand--the dead experience 
only oblivion, yet he acknowledges that even reason must some-
times "bend the knee" to the "shadows and delusions" of fancy. 
Clearly, the imaginative faculty must be exercised, under con-
trol and in cooperation with the rational faculty, if we are 
to achieve an understanding of ourselves and our world. The 
relationship between art and nature explored in "The Man of 
Ninety" seems to support this concept. Note that art, th e pro-
duct of controlled imagination, may serve to temper the harsh 
impact of the natural processes of decay and degeneration. 
Perhaps the relationship between reason and fancy which is 
suggested in these poems suggests the function of the creative 
Page 176 
process in mediating Freneau's dark cosmic view. He seems to 
control the productions of his imagination in order to inter-
pret that which he rationally construes. However, art yields 
to nature: the painting on the rock is gradually worn away by 
"wearing rains"; the soil artfully laid about the roots of the 
oak can easily be eroded. The elemental waters which provide 
the experiences of reality seem to brook no artifice; hcw e ver, 
Freneau appears to attempt to balance rational resignati on 
with imaginative hope . Both "The Indian Burying Ground " and 
"The Man of Ninety" express views which are consistent with 
the one at which Columbus arrives, that, though fancy may 
deceive, one must strive both rationally and imaginatively to 
seek "new worlds." Both Columbus and the visitor to the bury -
ing ground must step outside of their native grounds in order 
to perceive reality. One sails the alien sea; the other t reads 
upon alien soil, a stranger . Unlike them, the man of ninety 
learns nothing, though his tale is subtitled "A Visit to the 
Oak , ,, suggesting that he, too, may seek to understand. ?rhe 
difference appears to be that the old man is unawar e of his 
own essential nature. 
The emphasis which Columbus places on the value of his 
striving is conveyed also in the tension developed between land 
and sea, the former representing passivity and delusion, the 
latter representing activity and clarity of perception. 
Co lumbus leaves the land behind, as do Ra l p h a n d the speaker of " The 
Departure , 11 recognizing that, though the sea is "unfathom' d " 
he must attempt to fathom it. Columbus forsakes " sweet sylvan 
Page 177 
scenes" which to the speaker of "The Departure" are delusive 
"fairy prospects," but both go to sea with fortitude. ?rhe 
dangers of being passively land-locked are suggested also ~y 
the fate of the wild honey suckle, which, lacking sentience, 
is doomed to repose in the "guardian shade" of delusion, un-
aware that it is unaware, not knowing that it does not know. 
Columbus, on the other hand, realizes that he must seek, as 
does the narrator of "The Departure." Freneau's concern with 
self-awareness is revealed not only through these personae--
the explorer, in particular, being a fitting type to represent 
those who probe the worlds within and without themselves--but 
also through the scornful lady. The fair Celia, though ironi-
cally associated with the sea through the ship metaphor, has 
no conception of the significance of her own course. Celia 
knows herself not. All her "conquests [will) be repaid," says 
the poem's narrator, by death; yet she is oblivious to this 
fact. 
The need for self - knowledge is emphasized then, by the 
inevitability of death, since by recognizing that we face this 
end, we may strive to live more meaningfully. Death's ineluct a -
bility is heightened in The Miscellaneous Works by Freneau's 
examination of the daily and seasonal cycles as well as by the 
awareness that there is that "other world . " In both the "morning 
suns and evening dews" of "The Wild Honey Suckle" and in the 
Spring and summer o f "May to April," the poet recognizes that 
the natural cvcle wheels away inexorably. Yet, as we have seen, 
Page 178 
he perceives no evidence in the renewal of certain natural 
phenome na that man will be renewed. On the contrary, the 
death of the old is the necessity of the new; thus "Summer. 
fro 1 i c s o ' e r [ the ] tomb " o f Sp r in g . 
Embodied in the tensions between reason and fancy, between 
l and and sea, between passivity and activity, between appearance 
and reality, is, of course, the c entra l t en ion between faith 
and doubt, belief and unbelief. Fancy can create heaven and 
the elysian afterlife, and the poet could passively accept the 
delusion of the land, the superficial appearances. Like his 
Columbus, he reasons that he should do otherwise, though, and 
he goes to sea actively to seek reality. Nonetheless,he recog-
ni zes the proper role of the imagination and realizes that th e 
method of his attempts to probe the axis of reality should not 
be imposed on anyone else. Indeed, the examination of these 
selections from The Miscellaneous Work s would s eem to indicate 
that Freneau had reached the conclusion that each of us can 
discover the most apropos approach to d iscoverin g his or her 
o wn nature, that of the universe in which we live, and the 
relationship between the two. He reminds us that "we press 
to one abode" and warns, "If nothing once you nothing lose / For 
when you die you are the same." We must, therefore, ~se o u r 
"f rai l duration" to the fullest, lest we remain each an " e mpty 
image." 
Page 179 
CHAPTER VI: "Belief c>.nd Unbelief": Poems Beyond 'The Eighties 
? sometime between the publication of the 1788 and 1795 
editions of Philip Freneau's poetry, a change seems to occur, 
and the controlled bitterness of the poet seems to begin to 
dissipate. When , precisely, this change happens is unclear; 
moreover, it could result from Freneau'i political activities, 
from his financial insecurity, from his marriage, from his 
simply having grown older, or from any number and combination 
1 
of unknown causes. I believe that the poet had realized that 
he had found a working solution to his problem--not suddenly, 
but as a result of his consistent examination of the problem. 
At any rate, the poems of the 1795 and later editions tend to 
be less intense, less structuall y complex, and more philoso-
phically mellow than those of the 1786 and 1788 editions. 
Rep resentative selections from the last three editions of 
Freneau 's poems illustrate clearly the extent to which the poet 
was able to grapple effectively with his re alization that he 
must continue to strive to understand his own nature, that of 
the universe, and the relationship between the two. 
1. No Quiet Harbor Poems of 1795 
Perhaps the crucial element i n the development of the 
poet 's position is embodied in the subtle revision of "A Moral 
Thought," which becomes, in 1795, "The Vanity of Existence" 
with the striking reversal of nee-classical formal and philo-
Page 180 
sophical tenets which is embodied in its vivid rejection of 
" Tha t true life you best esteem." In short, the poet has 
clearly resigned himself to what he believes is the situation 
and has decided to get on with living, a decision implicit in 
the artistic strivings of '8 6 and '88. Other noteworthy revi-
sions in the '95 edition would include the elimination of the 
capta in fr o m the barque on which Ralph, the lost adventurer, 
will sail, thus emphasizing the individual quality of his quest ; 
the de 1 e ti on o f " Cap ta i n Jo n e s " from the ti t 1 e o f " The I n '' i ta -
tion," underscoring the poet's desire to encourage his readers 
to participate in the quest; and the revision of li ne 40 of 
"The Man of Ninety Years" to read "the care of man shall life 
impar t," suggesting the power of art to aid man in comprehending 
what he might discover on that quest. The final line of "The 
Wild Honey Suckle" is amended in 1795, "the mere idea. " 
becoming "the frail duration of a flower," and the narrator 
having effectively removed himself from the phenomenon he 
de scribes. Likewise, Freneau' s restructuring of "May to P.p ril" 
f or the '95 edition appears to be intended to soften the impact 
of the poem's sardonic irony and to create a tone which is l ess 
striden t and perhaps more appropriate to the revision of " f;um-
mer frolics. II to "Bummer dances o'er her tomb." The summary 
effec t of these revisions seems to be to suggest that the poet 
has g rown in his understanding of his own nature and that of 
the universe and is softening his tone. Such an attitude seems 
to be implicit in certain of the lyrics first collected in the 
Page 181 
1795 edition, among them "Hatteras" and "Neversink. 11 
2 
Like so many of Freneau's poems, "Hatteras" juxt3.poses 
the security of land with the dangers of the sea. Life on 
land is safe and secure while life at sea is dangerous and 
capricious in Freneau's view. Moreover, "Hatteras" examines 
an aspect of human behavior which has not been directly touched 
upon in the works we have considered thus far. The speaker of 
this poem expresses rather openly his contempt for the pilot 
of Hatteras, a man who seems somehow landlocked yet who is 
trapped in the transitional zone between land and sea. This 
contempt is based not only on the pilot's status as part-time 
landsman, part-time seaman, but also on his relationship with 
his clinging wife . The attitude of the poem's speaker towar d 
the "sallow" Catherine is condescending at best: much of the 
force which binds the pilot to his fate is embodied in the wife 
in her fear for his safety and her grief at his temporary 
departures. 
"Hatteras" becomes, in one regard, an examination of a 
man torn between two worlds; one tranquil in its domesticity and 
alluring in its security, the other chaotic in its savagery 
and alluring in its danger. The setting of the poem is nicel y 
suited and well chosen for this subject: Hatteras is in the 
limbo between land and sea; it is neither mainland nor island. 
Instead Hatteras is a low peninsula, a narrow strand of earth, 
an outer, leading, edge of land bounded on the west by th e 
Pamlico sound and on the east by the Atlantic. 
Page 182 
Stanzas two, four, and eight are added in the '95 edition 
of the poem. Stanza two functions along with the initial stan-
za to establish the land-sea conflict and to convey an ominous 
sense of impending doom which hangs implicitly over the entire 
poem. The poet takes some liberties with the actual landscape 
in order to heighten the juxtaposition of land and sea. Having 
reached these outer banks while fighting th e strong "w este rn 
gale" (1. 4), the speaker surveys the "bare and barren" 
cliffs (1. 5) of a forsaken, forbidding piece of real estate. 
In fact, Hatteras has no cliffs, but is a low lying sandspit; 
however, the poet often employs cliffs and mountains in con-
trast with the sea in order to suggest stability and permanence, 
as he will do in "Neversink." These cliffs are themselves 
foreboding in their bareness and barrenness and are set against 
the "shallow grounds and broken reefs" (1. 7) and the "dangerous 
shoal" (1. 9), all of which are low-lying and potentially 
destructive. Waves broken "in columns to the sky" (1. 10) are 
also juxtaposed with the sterile cliffs to heighten our sense 
of the dangers of the outer banks. The settin g is augmented 
by "black" tempests "hourly" raving (1. 11): small wonder that 
the speaker's dreams are "sad" as he rides on the "ocean's 
verge" (1. 13) Flowing around him is the Atlantic, chaotic 
and powerful; "no traveller fin ds repose ''on her ( 1. 16). 
Ironically, the land and its outcroppings are equally dan-
gerous, a fact which characterizes the poet's handling of the 
relationship between land and sea. Neithe r place, really, is 
a place of safety. 
Page 183 
"Hatteras" opens, then, with a rugged, fully realized, 
stark description of barren land, dangerous shoals, and surging 
se a s where the s p e aker pauses as his craft coasts the mainland. 
Th e re i s no th i n g he re to " c on so 1 e [hi sJ s ta y " ( 1 . 8 ) . He se n s es 
"all danger nigh" (1 . 16) in an ironic variation on the pattern 
we have come to expect. He re "all danger" is the quality o f 
land and sea in their c onfli cting relati o nship with each other, 
rather than solely the condition of the sea as in "The Hurri-
c an e . " There have been, in other poems, to be sure, consistent 
intimation s that land may be dangerous, but here those dangers 
are implicit in its very nature. 
The pilot of Hatteras is firmly rooted to this wild spot, 
yet he seems constantly to seek temporarily to escape it. But 
his barque ' is "frail" (1. 18); its sails are "tottering" (1. 42) 
they cannot carry him far. He is "condemn'd to pass his years" 
(1. 21) here: "no other shores delight his eye" (1. 23), but 
he is safe here and secure. Yet one supposes that the speaker 
of "Hatteras" would deem any man condemned who is not free to 
sail to sea. Of course, the pilot's condemnation consists in 
more than simply the fact that his hut is built here in deep 
woods (1.25). He is "devoted to repose" (1. 26), our narrator 
tells us, and deep woods are the ideal place for repose. How-
ever, though his garden blooms here in the otherwise "barren 
wilds" (J.. 27), his wife does not . She is a sickly "sall ow hue" 
(1.29) yet for her he "toils" and to her is "true" (1. 31), for 
he is "the captive of her face" (1. 32). He is thus condemned 
prisoner to his land and to his woman, though his occupation 
Page 184 
frequently allows his temporary escape. 
Stanza four introduces mention of deep woods a nd repose, 
concepts linked in Freneau's works with sterile passivity. 
Like the "bare and barren cliffs," the "depths of woods" (1.25) 
are the poet's invention: Hatteras has none. The creation of 
the non-existent features perhaps suggests the poet's artistic 
intent. He is clearly out to differentiate the l a n d and se a 
symbolically, and also to heighten the sterility and passivity 
of life on land. Also stressed in stanza four is the tint of 
Catharine's skin: perhaps the dullness of the pilot's life is 
conveyed in the sallowness of his wife's face. The sickly 
c olor and the bareness and barrenness of the cliffs are comple-
mentary and render the presence of the "little garden" blooming 
rather incongruous . One wonders that anything could grow here, 
but perhaps the garden suggests the productive potential of 
the pilot. However, "no mingled colours" (1. 30) relieve the 
unbroken penury of his existence: he seems impoverished spintual-
l y as well as economically. Clearly his only relief is the 
sight of "some gliding barque. .bound for Ocracock," (11. 3 9-
4 0 ) . For then he may momentarily escape th e captivity o f his 
"wedded nymphr s)" (1. 29) face and for a short time free himself 
from the land. 
As the final stanza reveals, the captain-poet sympathizes 
with the pilot, wishing to send him ashore safely before the 
"eastern gales once more awake" (1. 65). Theyshare a g lass, 
and the speaker's identification with the pilot is cruci a l to 
Page .185 
the poem 's significance. Actually, the speaker himself rea-
lizes the danger of the sea--"Alack! I see the billows break " 
(1. 67)--and would also seek safety from the sea were land and 
wife not somehow equally threatening. The captain-poet's mis-
sion is to travel elsewhere, so " go, pilot, go," he says (1 . 
71), realizing full well that they will be in a very dangerous 
fix once "the bellowing seas begin/'fheir conflict with the land" 
(11. 69-70). Thus, though the speaker's attitude toward the 
pilot is on one hand disdain for his captive existence, his 
attitude on the other hand is sympathetic. Like the pilot, he 
too is somehow torn between two worlds, land and sea, security 
and danger. The pilot becomes, then, the emblem of the captain -
poet's duality. 
However, the sense that he is somehow like the pilot is 
not achieved in the first version of the poem. Here is the 
final stanza of that first version: 
' Till east e rn gales once more awake, 
No danger shall be near; 
On yonder shoals the , billows break, 
But leave us quiet here-
With gills of rum and pints of gin, 
Again your lad shall land, 
And drink-till he and all his kin 
CAN NE I TH r: ,~ S I T: W ?R, T AND . 
This stanza is deleted from the '95 poem, and stanza ei g ht is 
added, thus totally recasting the ending. Stanza eight intro-
duces the subtle fellowship and sympathy of the cactain for the 
pilot, and stanza nine reveals the captain's full realization 
of the sea's danger while eliminati~g entirely the boister o us-
ness of the original. In the ori g inal, escape i s in the b o ttl e ; 
in the revision, escape is at sea, away fr o m dangerous sho a ls 
Page 186 
or a sallow face. 
"Hatteras" realizes, out of a deeply felt personal tur-
moil, the study of a complex pattern of human behavior. Once 
again, the careful control of structure--Freneau employs 
alternating lines of iambic tetrametre and trimetre and an 
ABABCDCD rime scheme throughout--suggests that the poet has 
subjugate d his feelings. Yet the straight forward, unclutter ed 
language and sentence structure reveal that he has not artifi-
cialized or melodramatized them. Finally, the revisions sug-
ge st that the poet has considered carefully the meaning of the 
feelings which motivate this poem and has attempted to express 
them as effectively as possible. 
"Hatteras" captures, I believe, the ambivalence of the 
c aptain-poet, but in a controlled, restrained manner. While 
the symbolic significances of the land and the sea may be rather 
apparent to the student of Freneau, here these symboli c values 
are augmented by the significance of the pilot, his wife, and 
the shoals and reefs of the outer banks. The captain seems a 
conscious projection of the captain-poet: b oth are tempted by 
the lure of the sea and by the security of the land; both go 
out to sea to escape the bondage of land and because they need 
3 
money; both, in short, seem to vacillate between land and sea. 
I believe that this vacilla~ion is expressed in the titl e the 
speaker gives himself: he is a "wande r ing bard," a seeker like 
Ra lph. However, the pilot goes beyond simple unc on troll ed pro-
jection to generate a sense of a real, representative human 
be ing. Moreover, the shoals and reefs may be seen to represent 
Page 18 7 
the hidden dangers, not only of land and sea, but also of 
simple day to day existence. Were the captain-poet to travel 
ac ross them he would need the pilot's expert guidance; however, 
he goes his own way, and goes on his own. 
Though the allure of the sea is great and the need to seek 
co nfrontation with elements is great, the land reminds the 
sa ilor c o nstantly of the security he has left behind. In 
4 
"Neversink, " Freneau uses New Jersey's Navesink hills to repre-
sent the solidity, permanence, and security of land. In this 
poem all of the poet's wistful consciousness of what he sacri-
fices in order to quest seems to surface. Life in the "Never-
sink'' hills would not be, somehow, the debilitating, destructive 
experience which life on land is generally seen to be. 
The s peaker immediately puts "these hills" (1. 1) into 
their relationship with the sea. They are "heights, for soli-
tude design'd" (1. 5 ) , a " rude, resounding shore" (1. 6) which 
is both "bold :i.nd rugged" (1. 3). They are, significantl y, 
"the pride of all the coasy'To mighty distance seen" (1 1. 1-2), 
and much of their appeal for the speaker lies in the fact tha~ 
they can be seen from ships standing far out to sea. This quali-
ty of mountains is one to which Freneau regularly alludes in 
5 
characterizing them . 
The speaker values these proud heights not only for their 
aspect, but also for their stability and permanence and th e safe 
harbors among them, the "vales impervious to the wind" and the 
"tall oaks, tha+: to the tempest bend" (11. 7-8). These moun tains 
hav e been here to greet '' a thousa:1d sails" (1. 10). They were 
Page 188 
here before the "angry Briton came" (1. 12) and remained when 
he had gone. Their "towering crest" (1.13) is the first news 
of the approach to land and co~versely the last sight of land 
when parting--approach brings "fresh joys" to the sailor's 
heart; departure brings "a heavy heart" (11. 15-16), as does 
"the lover's long farewell" (1. 17), a line which evokes strong-
ly the wistfulness of departure. 
The speaker ' s adoration of these hills is the result of 
his being "Half Druid" (1. 9), for he thus holds the oak that 
grows here sacred. His identification with the Druids suggests 
the rever~nce in which he holds the land and implies further 
a priestly adoration, the adoration of awe and respect, as 
though the hills and their vales and oaks were sacred in f act. 
We should note too, that here the half-Druid speaker will be 
safe from the storm. The :vales of Neversink are "impervious 
to the wind" ; the oaks " bend. . to the tempest" (11. 7-8). 
Here one is not driven willy-nilly by the winds of chance, but 
is secure. The oak, unlike the feeble barque, simply bends 
with the breeze and is thus relati v ely unaffected by its power. 
However, the wind imagery of the poem may also suggest the 
limitations of life on land. Though secure, it lacks the adven-
ture of being wafted on th e winds and may thus preclude the 
p oetic inspiration which life at sea has provided the poet. 
Stanza three, the poem's center, establishes the contrast 
between land and sea: th e "sailor bold" who continues to sea 
is "of persevering mind " (11. 19-20). His perseverance, is, 
of course , what causes him to continue to seek. The speaker 
.. 
Page .189 
characterizes his quest as roving "in search of care" and 
leav ing "true bliss behind" (11. 21-22) His road is "tire-
some"; he hastens over the ocean "chac'd" by "wintry seas and 
tempests" (11. 24-25). The vast ocean is a "comfortless abode" 
(1. 26) ,yet the bold sailor endures in the pursuit of his goals. 
Significantly, stanza three is the most thoroughly revised 
of the po e m. Wh ile the revised stanza alludes to the "sailo r 
bold" as though he and the narrator were two separate persons, 
the original stanza focuses on the first person narrator. 
In the original, it is the speaker who roves "in search of care"; 
he "rigs his barque so trim" to seek the sea . The revision 
separates the speaker from the activity described and seems 
also to distance the poet somewhat. Apparently, the poet wishes 
to remove himself in order to control the intensity of his own 
involvement in the poem. Though still clear l y associated with 
the poet, the first person narrator seems less so in the second 
version than in the first. However, the fac~ that the poet did 
not republish the poem in the editions after 1795 may perhaps 
suggest that he felt that the relationship was too c lose and 
too obvious. 
Stanza four returns to the description of the land and con-
firms t~e speaker's strong desire to continue there undisturbed. 
The blue waters of Neversink's "thousand springs" (1. 28) are 
juxtaposed with the wintry seas and the tempests of the previous 
stanza. These waters are a "luxury to sip" (1. 29) and seem 
part of a~ idyllic pastoral setting. Deer h erd in these " vast 
retirements" where in "dark groves" they abound (11. J0 - 34) ? 
Page 190 
Yet, as always, there is something threatening here: the gro v es 
are dark, and we recall here that, in line 4, the "aspect" an d 
"brow" of the mountains shade the ocean. As we know, these 
words are suggestive in Freneau that all is not as it shoul d 
be, and we learn that "the trembling rustic flies" (11. 35-
36) these dark groves because they are "haunted still by Hud dy's 
ghost." In spite of his Druidic adorati o n of the oaks, hi s 
awe and respect for the solidity and permanence of the hills 
of Neversink, the speaker reco g nizes implicitly the potentiall y 
destructive influences of the shore. These are the dark groves 
of vast retirement wherein we may destroy ourselves through our 
own inactivity. Though the danger of the land is only implied 
here, one senses the destructive qualities of life on land 
which are explicit in poems such as " Hatteras." 
The final stanza of "Neversink" is a rejection of the se a : 
these final comments include even a condemnation of those wh o 
continue to sea: "Let those who pant for wealth or fame/Purs u e 
the watery road " (11. 41-42). Yet surely the sailor bold of 
stanza three does not so " p ant"; we ar e told he sails "in 
search of care" (1. 22). Apparently either the se are t wo t ype s 
of men who go to sea or the speaker is simply over-reacting in 
attempting to justify his choice to stay ashore. I f the lat-
ter is the case, then the sp e aker may be condemning the li f e 
at sea as a combination of greed and pride simply to justify 
his own decision. If the former, the speaker ma y be su ggesting 
that only those who do "pant f or we a lth and fa me " wi ll a c hi eve 
Page 191 
any concrete goal at sea. Since his seeking is continuous by 
its very nature, the bold sailor will never achieve any concrete 
goal . 
The speaker, "tenacious of th e shore" (1. 40), is juxta-
posed with the bold sailor, of persevering mind, in a manner 
which emphasizes the juxtaposition of the ocean--"a comfortless 
abode" (1. 27) and the shore--"retirement's blest abode" (1. 45 ) 
The repetition of "abode" is stressed by the echoing of "tire-
some road" (1. 24) and "watery road" (1. 42). The sailor and 
the speaker are linked by their common steadfastness-one is 
"p ers evering," the other "tenacious"--but they are, of course, 
opposites in that one quits the sea to accept the blessings of 
retirement: "Soft sleep and ease, blest days and nights..,/And 
health" (11. 43-44). 
I would argue that the two are, again, the two hal ves of 
a personality torn by the equally strong attraction of two ways 
of life. Like the pilot of Hatteras in his complex relationship 
with the captain-poet, the sailor bold and the speaker of this 
poem represent the poet's split self. As always, the poet is 
implic itly aware of the relative value of the two experiences: 
one leaves the true bliss to seek cares; the other finds health 
in the oblivion of soft sleep. 
"Neversink" seems to be similar to "The Vanity of Existence," 
in that here the poet achieves a kind of stoic resignation and 
choos es to accept th e fact that lif e on land may become steri l e , 
but that its security in nonetheless appealing. Yet , like 
" Ha tteras," "Ne v ersink" seems t o capture the wistful ambivalence 
of a man torn b e tw ee n tw o worlds. 
Page 192 
published only a short while after Freneau's retirement 
in late 1789 as a sea captain and his marriage in April, 17 90, 
"Neversi nk" may perhaps be read as the poet's attempt to recon-
c ile himself to life on land. The poem seems related in this 
r eg ard to "Hatteras" with the obvious difference that this poem 
extols life on land while the other condemns that life. Both 
poems seem closely based on the psy ch ic experiences of specific 
p erio d so f the poet's life, yet both, though intensely personal, 
avoid the mawkish self-consciousness which mars the original 
o f "The Dying? Elm." By 1795, Freneau's work, it seems to me, 
is marked by the restraint and control which suggest that the 
p oet's striving to understand has continued to bear fruit. 
2 . Perch'd on Eagle's Wing - Poems of 1809 
As does the 1795 edition, the 1809 edition reveals not 
only the care which Freneau characteristically takes in revisin g 
his poems, but also the continued development of his thought. 
For example, Freneau revises line 16 of "The Indian Burying 
Ground" in '09, "finer essences" becoming "old ideas," thus 
disass ociating the speaker from any belief that there is such 
a thing as a "finer essence" which lives on after death and 
ins tead suggesting that such a belief is in fact only an "old 
idea " which the speaker rejects. Furthermore, the poet made 
unobtrusive but significant changes in such poems .::i.s "The Dying 
Elm ," "The Dying Indian," "The Hurricane>" and "The Vernal 6 Ague" 
which seem consistently to distance the narrator / poet and to 
r einfo rce his rational awareness that the belief in an afterlife 
is simply an "ol d idea." "Science, favor able to Virtue 7 and 
Page 193 
"Reflections on the Constitution, or Frame of Nature," 8 both 
first published in the 1809 edition, illustrate the poet's 
philosophical stance at the time. 
"Science, Favorable to Virtue" recognizes the mind's inabili-
ty to grasp "the secrets of all nature" (1. 8), but argues that 
the striving to grasp is nonetheless valuable. 
Vain wish, to fathom all we s e e, 
For nature is all mystery; 
The ~ ind, though perch~ d on eagle's wings, 
With pain surmounts the scum of things. 
Her knowledge on the surface floats, 
Of things supreme she dreams or do a, .s; 
Fluttering awhile, she soon descends 
I 
And all in disappointment ends. 
And yet this proud, this strong desire, 
Such ardent longings to .qspire, 
Prove that this weakness in the mind . 
For some wise purpose was designed. 
From efforts and attempts, like these, 
Virtue is gained by slow degrees; 
And science, which from the truth she draws, 
Stands firm T Reason and her cause. 
(11. 9-24) 
The eagle wing'd mind aspires because its nature, the poet be-
lieves, is to do so: the mind was "designed" for this wise pur-
pose. 'l'he mind's "activity that wants no rest" lies, a s we ha v e 
seen, in the inaividual's constant attempts to understand. By 
1809, the poet was able to express this perception of truth 
directly in a contemplative poem; previously he ha~ chosen to 
express himself metaphorically, perhaps because he had been 
unable clearly to realize and fully t o grasp the position t owar d 
which he had been groping, ur p er~aps because h e h ad n o t b ~e n 
ready to express himself op e nly. At any rate, "Science, Favo r a -
Page 194 
ble to Virt ue" seems to me to be a succinct statement of Freneau' s 
credo . Since ultimately we will sink to oblivion, we can endow 
our lives with value now through "efforts and attempts, like 
these." 
By 1809, Freneau also appears to have been ready to posit 
that the existence of a creator is a rationally vali d inference. 
However , though " Reflections on the Constitution, or Frame of 
Nature" states that the individual may deduce the existence o f 
this creator by his or her observation of nature, we should re-
call also that the poet seemed likewise to have deduced that 
there is no afterlife in the traditional religious sense. 
Freneau's position rernains ? ambiguous, however, so it should not 
be argued that Freneau had wholly adopted even so unconventional 
9 
a religious position as Deism, as some critics have done. The 
Deist 's insistence on the existence of God is often based on 
the very argument from design which the poet advances here: 
Great Frame! What wonders we survey , 
In part alone, from day to day! 
And hence the reasoning, human soul 
Infers an author of the whole: 
A power, that every blessing gives, 
Who through eternal ages lives, 
All space inhabits, space his throne, 
Spreads through all worlds, confin'd to none; 
Infers, through skies, o'er seas, o 'er lands 
A power throughout the whole commands; 
In all extent its dwelling place, 
Whose mansion is unbounded space. 
Where ends this world, or when began 
This spheric point displayed to man?--
No limit has the work divine, 
Nor owns a circumscribin g line . 
Page 19 5 
Beyond what mind er t ho ught 80nceives, 
Ou r efforts it i n darkn2ss leaves; 
(11. 17-34 ) 
However, while Freneau migh~, like Themas Pai~e, conclude that 
there is a God, he claarly could not join with Paine in saying 
"I'n ope f- or h appi' ness beyond tn''i s l 1'. f e . ,.,o Paine goes on to 
say: 
I trouble myself not about the l"'.lanner of 
future existence. I content myself with be-
lieving , even to positive conviction, that 
the Power that gave me existence is abl~ to 
continue it. .And it appears more probabl e 
to me that I shall continue to exist . 
hereafter than that I should have had existf?ce, 
as I now have, before that existence bega n . 
Paine admit s that he may or may not be rejoined with "t1 is body 
in the '' future existence ," but seems, nonetheless, fairly 
sec ure in the probabi lity of that future exiscence. Paine's 
well kn ow:i argument for the existence of God asks, "Canst thot.: 
by s e a r c 11 i n 9 f i n d o u t God ? " And answers, "Yes. .hecaFse I 
kno ?,,- 1 2 I did not :nake myself . " Moreover, P aine asks, "C ar,s:: t:1 ou 
find out the almighty to perfection?" and answers: 
No ; not only because the power and wisdom 
He has manifested in the structure of the 
Cr e ation that I behold is to me inc omprehen-
sible, but because even this manifestation, 
great as it is, is probably b u t a small dis-
play of that immensity of po ,er and wisdom 
by which millions of other worlds, to me in-
visi~le by the~r dt~tance, were created and 
continue to exist. 
Pai ne thus concludes that "reason can discover [t:he exist~r.ce 
o f: Go d ] , bu t i t fa 11 s i n f i n i t: e 1 y s h o r t in d i s c o v e r i g t be ,v h o 1 e 
1 4 
of (his attributes ]." I n these two positions, Fre n eau co ncurs 
Page 196 
1 5 
with Paine, whom he admired greatly. Indeed, "Reflections 
On the Constitution, or Frame of Nature" might easily be read 
as Freneau's interpretation of Paine's position. However, the 
poet could not conclude even that there is evidence to believe 
that an afterlife is "probable" as Paine was able to do. Thus 
the necessity to fill the present life with value is of primary 
i mpor tance. Freneau had achieved then, by 1809, a philosophi-
cal and contemplative stance--he had mellowed: yet to argue 
that he had slipped comfortably into Deism is grossly to ov e r-
simplify both his beliefs and those of American Deists, who 
held various views on the question of "future life." Freneau's 
rejection of the afterlife and his insistence on the value of 
striving constant l y to gra s p the unknowable became his personal 
variation on the main theme. Deists, appalled as they were at 
the imposition of any religious dogma on any individual, would 
no more have denied Freneau his private belief than would the 
poet attempt to impose his personal belief on his reader. 
The extent to which the poet has reconciled himself to 
his private vision is illustrated not only by the open and 
accepting tone of these contemplati v e poems, but also b y th e 
fact that he has achieved the ability to deal with his dark 
perception humorously . Freneau's lack of humor is e v ident in 
the earlier poetry; even his "satires" are generally strident 
and bitter rather than broadly funny, and the lyrics can hardly 
be seen as anything other than deadly serious. Now, however, 
the poet is capable of being wryly witty. " On a Hone y Bee, 
1 6 
Drinking from a Glass of Wine, and Drowned Therein," demon-
Page 197 
strates this tone, and also the poet's continued ability to 
craft a metaphoric statement effectively. 
Thou, born to sip the lake or spring 
Or quaff the waters of the stream, 
Why hither come on vagrant wing?--
Does Bacchus tempting seem--
Did he for you, this glass prepare?--
Will I admit you to a share? 
Did storms harass or foes perplex, 
Did wasps or king-birds bring dismay--
Did wars distres~ or l abou rs vex, 
Or did you miss your way?--
A better seat you could not take 
Then on the margin of this lake . 
Welcome l ? ? I hail you to my glass: 
All welcom~ her~ you find; 
Here, let the cloud of trouble pass, 
Here, be all care resigned.--
This fluid never fails to please, 
And drown the griefs of men or bees. 
What forced you here, we cannot know, 
And you will scarcely tell--
But cheery we would have to go 
And bid a glad farewell: 
On lighter wings we bid you fly, 
Your dart will now all foes defy. 
Yet take not, oh! too de~p a drink, 
And in this ocean die; ? 
Here bigger bees than you might sink, 
Even bees full six feet high. 
Like Pharoah, then, you would be said 
To perish in a sea of red . 
Do as you please, your will is mine; 
Enjoy it without fear--
And your grave will be this glass of wine, 
Your epitaph--a tear--
Go , take your seat i n Charon's boat, 
We' 11 tell the hive, you died afloat. 
The speaker playfully personifies the bee by ascribing incon-
g~ou sly to him various motivati ons which mi ght lead a human to 
seek a glass of wine: the simple pleasure of a sip; the escape 
fro m trials and frustrations; the confusion of having "miss[ed 
Pgge 198 
th e ] way." But none of these reasons brings the bee to the 
g lass: he simply seeks the sweetness of the wine. However, the 
poem functions at its most basic level by relating the bee 
metaphorically to man; his behavior becomes representative, and 
the poem's effect is enhanced b y its ironically facetious tone. 
Good humoredly, the speaker welcomes his minute guest, 
a ttributing to him perhaps the same motivations whi c h bro u ght 
him to the glass himself: 
This fluid never fails to pleas~ 
And drown the griefs of men or bees. 
The irony of these lines is that wine will drown more than th e 
bee's "griefs"--it will drown him, as this statement fore-
shadows. This is the danger which the honey-bee cannot compre-
hend. The speaker realizes that the bee, like many men who see k 
solace in the bottle, can "scarcely tell" what "forc ed" him 
there. Whether forces within himself--his own instinct to 
taste the sweetness of the wine - -or forces outside himself--
wars, wasps, or kin~-birds--the forces which brin g the bee to 
t he lip of the glass are beyond his power to articulate. In 
the same way, the forces whi c h drive men either t o seek new 
experiences or to seek escape ar e often b e y ond their p ower t o 
articulate. Thus the responsibility for examining these f orces 
falls to the poet . 
A sip of the wine, like the taste o f a n e w experience, c an 
rejuvenate. The speaker hopes that this wil l be the c ase a n d 
that the bee will fl y away on "light e r win g s-" l-i owever , t h e 
pe ril of "too deep a drin k " c emains. The r ed win e is a s da n-
ge rous an ocean a s t h e Red Sea : here "e ve n b e e s fu ll si x f e et 
Page 199 
While the reference to Pharaoh and the "sea 
high.. . m.i ght sink." 
obviously intended to heighten the poem's humo r 
of red" is 
incongruity of the comparison of insect and king 
through the . 
on the Red sea, and while this humor heightens the 
and the pun 
poem's lightness of tone, the allusion and the 
effect of the A the poem's central metaphor. 
tone conversely underscore 
ex commentary is achieved wherein the activities of men 
compl are 
even thOugh theY be "full six feet high" 
who seek escape, as 
irized through the classic satiric mode of diminution, 
sat? . Moreover, Pharaoh's pride , his lack 
is the folly of Pharaoh-
self-knowledge and inability to accept his own limitations 
of is attributed to 
attempting to defy his own natural limits, 
in 
Neither bee nor Pharaoh poss es ses the wisdom to com-
the bee. Both court a destruction 
Prehend the limits of his own kind? 
of which the tone of the poem ironicallY makes light, 
Nonetheless, the speaker, though he perceives the danger 
"Do 
makes no effort to prevent the drowning. 
The speak-
to the honey bee, and "EnjoY it without fear." 
as you please" he says, 
er's attitude seems to be that th? bee must be allowed to dis-
cover for himself what the results of hiS actions will be, It 
would be easy enough for the speaker simply to shoo the small 
one is tempted to draw an analo gy 
binestw eecetn  away, yet he does not- rand the g od often posited as the 
c this detached observe both know exactly what to 
e reator of a mechanistic universeg:o d who drowns Pharaoh, neither 
1 'l'hat is, 
~ xpect, but unlike th e bibli ca t t o change anything, 
. ,akes any comprehensible atternP to the bee are no more corn 
Perhaps the warnings of th? s peaker -
Page 200 
p r e h e nsible to the insect than would be the warning of the god 
of the mechanistic uni v erse to men. At any rate, it seems clear 
tha t the bee must be allowed to be responsible for his own ac-
tion s even though he lacks the ability to discern the possible 
r e sults of his actions. 
" On A Honey Bee" becomes, then, more than a simple ditty 
or a mere cautionary tale warning of the dangers of the grape. 
Light patter though it seems, its tone is merely an ironic air 
sur rounding a unique restatement of the poet's central credo. 
Thu s the bee's situation generates a sense of the dilemma of 
man: he cannot know what the results of his action will be. 
Ho wever, the poet believes that actively to seek to understand 
our selves and our universe through our experiences is better 
t ha n to acquiesce in ignorance or to take the easy way out. 
Be tter to taste the wine of experience than to deny one's self 
the chance, even if one drowns in that heady wine. 
The poet's attitude is embodied in the speaker's admiration 
for the bee : "We ' 11 t e 11 the hi v e1 You died a f 1 oat " suggests a 
repo rt that the bee died actively striving to taste the wine 
a n d c reate his honey from it, not that he passively allowed him-
sel f to be overwhelmed by it, and "down he went." The speaker 
s ay s "We'll tell the hive." At first glance, it appears that 
th e report to the hive will be made by more than one observer, 
that the speaker has companions who will also tell the bee's 
sto r y , or that the speaker is simply using the editorial we to 
he ighten his ironic tone. However, while~ in lines 21 and 23 
see ms to refer to the speaker and his companions, there is no 
Page 201 
other indication that anyone other than the bee and the speaker 
is present, so that syntactically~ refers to them. The associa-
tion of the two is stressed by the speaker's assurance to the 
bee that "Your will is mine" and suggests that the speaker iden-
tifies with the insect and understands his motivations clearly. 
The speaker's report to the hive and to us is the poem; the bee's 
report is the example he sets by his mingled courage and fol ly. 
The honey bee is destroyed by a force which is somehow be yond 
his ability to grasp and of which he is, in fact, only dimly 
aware. His instinct compels him to seek the nectar from which 
to produce his honey. The implication is that man is ccmpelled 
to seek truth, though it may overwhelm him, just as the poet 
is compelled to seek the stuff of his art. The lightly humour-
ous tone of the poem suggests a kind o= understated awareness 
that disaster occurs when the seeker is unable consciously to 
u nderstand his own abilities and limitations: A honey bee can 
f ly but he cannot swim. 
" On A Honey Bee," then, deals with the self-destruction 
whic h may result from the individual's inability to unders~and 
himse lf. This lack of understanding precludes an understanding 
of the universe in which the individual finds himself and thus 
makes his ultimate destruction inevitable. The key to avoiding 
self-destruction seems to lie in a kind of measured self-examina-
tion which would both give us insight into our instinctive 
drives and apprise us of our natural talents. The subject of 
this poem understands neither those instincts ncr those talents. 
Page 20~ 
The honey bee is doomed by his unconscious instincts to destroy 
himself and is juxtaposed with the consciousness of the narra-
tor of the poem who has examined the situation in which he finds 
himse lf and attempts, through the analogy he draws, to under-
stand both the nature of the reality he inhabits and the nature 
of the reality which inhabits him. That he accepts what he is 
able to understand is obvious from the d etached , drily play fu l 
t o ne of the poem. 
Thus, though the poems of the 1809 edition are less intense-
ly personal, less powerfully complex, less artistically vir-
t uo us than those of the '80's, they are important in their 
qua lity of resolution. This is not to argue that the poet now 
sees all things clearly , but rather that he sees the essential 
ambiquity of all things clearly. 
3. The Insect of An Hour - The Poems of 1815 
Outstanding, of course, were the songs and 
ballads of the War of 1812, but perhaps equally 
important was the series of contemplative poems-
"Belief and Unbelief," " On the Uniformity and 
Perfection of Nature," and " On the Religion of 
Nature" - in which Freneau pre sents a summation 
of his mature deliberation on the "ways of God 
to man ." Though there was much that c o uld n ever 
be understood of her plan, Nature, benign, per-
fect, and pervading all things, moved steadily 
along her predestined way, in spite of, even 
making a place for man's chicanery, his super-
stition~ and his irrational hypocrisies. Freneau 
strugg led co longer agai nst discrepancies between 
things as they were and things as they should be. 
He was now satisfied that 
'All, 1ature made, in reason's sight 
Is order al l , and all is right". 1? 1 7 
Page 203 
There is no question that, in the nearly thirty years be-
twe en the publication of the first volume of his poetry and the 
l a st, Philip Freneau underwent a profound change. Certainly 
th e poems themselves seem more the products of calm contempla-
t io n than of intense personal exp2rience and this characteristic 
may be the result of the fact that the poet was now 63 years 
o l d and no longer active as a sailor or as an editor-political 
wr i ter; although he was still quite active both physically and 
me n tally, his activity was removed from the dangers of both 
mar itime and political storms. Further, the poems of 1815, 
p erhaps because they are not as intensely personal, are not as 
co ndensed and tightly structured as the poems of the BO's; 
these are not emotionally charged works: the poet is not as 
likely now to weld sound and sense, for example, to underscore 
a p articular image, nor is he likely to employ dense, arnbi-
g uous syntax to suggest the complexity of a problem. On the 
whole, the poems of 1815 state their meanings more openly than 
t h o se of the 'BO's , though of course, they implicitly suggest 
mor e than they explicitly say. 
However, while the poet's attitude--one of acceptance and 
re signation, the quality of resolution in the later poetry--is 
now calmer and more measured, and while the tone of the poetry 
i s more serene and thoughtful, certain concepts have not really 
ch anged. Freneau's early lyric poetry seems to be the product 
of an active attempt to gain through probing experience the 
ma terials through which to grasp the significance of an incom-
p r e hensible universe. The later poetry , that of both 1809 and 
1 8 15, seems to represent the sifting of those materials, the 
Page 204 
reaffirmation that the universe remains unknowable, and a con-
tinued examination of the central question in all the poet 's 
work: Given the enigma, how does one live? Thus, though the 
po et may have reached a position of resolution, he was hardly 
"satisfied." 
1 8 
"On the Uniformity and Perfection of Nature," " On The 
19 20 
Re ligio n of Nature," and "B elief and Unbelief" review the 
situation and state one aspect of the present status of the 
poe t's personal philosophy. " On the Uniformity and Perfection 
of Nature" confirms the poet's acceptance of the essentially 
Deistical concept of a mechanistic universe and states that 
perfec tion may be discovered in the constancy and stability of 
nature. Nature moves "on one fix'd point. .nor deviates from 
the track she loves" (11. 1-2): 
Her system, drawn from reason's source, 
She scorns to change her wonted course . 
(11. 3-4 ) 
Nature 's "system," however, is inexorable as well as constant. 
She cannot alter "her wonted course": 
Could she descend from that great plan 
To work unusual things for man 
To suit the insect of an hour--
This would betray a want of power, 
-Unsettled in its first desig;-
And erring, when it did combine 
The parts that form the vast machine, 
The figures sketch'd on nature's scene. 
(11. 5-12) 
Man , in the "design" of things, is unfortunately, merely "the 
2 1 
insect of an hour." The " va st machi!"l.e" rolls on, regardless 
of him . However, desp i te her potential for unconscious h ostil i-
Page 205 -
t. y t O w a r d man , " tio imp e r f e c t ion c an b e found/ I n a 11 th a t i s " 
in nature (11. 21-22). For all nature "in reason's sight/Is 
order all, and all is right" (1 1. 23-24). 
Reason , of course, is the key. The poet has reached a 
position of rational acceptance: he sees that nature is "con-
stant, still the same/In all her laws, through all her frame" 
(11 . 1 9 -20), and his reason tells him that he must ther efore 
resig n himself to being what he is, "the ins ect of an hour." 
Ho wever , the problem which remains, that of how to live , is not 
ha ndled in a purely rational way, despite the emphasis here on 
the faculty of reason: the poet must still rely to some extent 
on his creative ability in order to make the best possible 
use of the "frail duration" of his hour. 
All, Nature made, in reason's sight 
Is order all, and all is right. 
(11. 23 - 24) 
is a valid conclusion only because reason must admit that it 
ca nnot see in its entirity "the scheme of heaven" (1. 1 8) . 
" On The Religion of Nature" reiterates the notion implici t 
i n " On th e Uniformity. ." that nature's system is a perfect 
one and goes beyond . this assertion to state that man's abili ty 
t o perfect himself depends on whether or not he can discover 
the elusive religion of nature. 
Religion , such as nature taught , 
With all divine perfection suits 
Had all mankind this system sought 
Sophists would cease their vain dispute s, 
And from this source would nati o ns know 
All that can make their heaven belo w. 
(1 1. 13-18) 
Page 206 
P e ace is po s sible; all wran g lings wo uld cease, if men 
cou ld bu t discover the reli g ion of natur e . Nature's religion 
wou ld allow men to "make their heaven below" for nature pro-
vi des us with no evidence which may be rationally constru e d to 
sugge st that a heaven exists elsewhere. Even so, the reli g i o n 
of nature does not require that all accept its tenets: 
Thi s dea l s not c urs es fb ma nkin d , 
Or dooms them to perpetual grief, 
If from its aid no joys they find, 
It damns them not for unbelief; 
Upon a more exalted plan 
Creatress nature dealt with man--
Joy to the day, when all agree 
On such grand systems to proceed, 
From fraud,design, and error free, 
And which to truth and goodness lead : 
Then persecution will retreat 
And man ' s religion be complete. 
(11. 19-30) 
Man 's is used here both as a generic term and as an indi v i d ual 
one so as to stress the ind i vidual quality of the search for 
tru t h . The tendency of established religions to condemn tho s e 
who c hoose not to accept their positions is itself c ondemn ed . 
Bec ause the "exalted plan" is not yet even understood, the d a y 
of man's perfectibility remains far off in th e future . Man 
can n o t achieve the "joy" of the day "when all a g ree" until h e 
is able not only to comprehend the "grand system" but to co nc ur 
on its substance with other men . As Paine says: 
. If ever a universal religion should 
prevail, it will not be by believin g anythin g 
new, but in getting rid of redundancies. 
in the meantime, let every man follo~ 1 
the religion and worship he prefers. 
Page 207 
"Belief and Unbelief" argues that "en me r e b el ief no rner i t 
rests / As unbelief no guilt attests" (II. 9-10) an d casti g a t es 
the "creed makers " who " extort belief from man" (I. 21) Th e 
poet advances the view that conviction cannot "bin d the h eart" 
Till evidence has done its part: 
An~ when the evidence is clear, 
Belief is just, and truth is near . 
In evidence, beli e f is found; 
Without it none are fair l y bo u nd 
To yield assent , or h omage pay 
To what confederate worlds might say. 
(II. 13-20) 
And, indeed, he recognizes the fact that even sh o uld "they wh o 
extort" 
Exhibit, like the mid - day sun 
An evidence denied by none, 
(II. 23-24) 
"unbelievers " will still exist ( I . 26), for the undeniable e v i-
1
dence will inevitably be " o 'erlook d" by s ome and ju s t p la i n 
"miss'd" b y others (l. 25) Their decision not t o b e l i e v e wi l l 
be " just, " says the poet, 
. for how absurd 
For evidence to take y ou r word ! 
(ll. 2 7- 28 ) 
"Not to believe " (l. 29) the poet therefore h o lds t o b e " t he 
ri g ht of ma.n" (l . 30) nc matter " what kin q s h ave done, or sages 
Writ. " (l. 32) The choic e not to beli eve is 
Not crimina l i n any view 
Nor-- mn~ -to be avenged b y y ou, 
Till evidence of s t rougest kind 
Constrai n s assent, and c l ea r s the mi n d . 
( ll. 3 3 - 36 ) 
Co n s i s t en t wi  t h e a r l i e r wo r Jc s s 11 c h a s " Th e A r go n a u t " and 
" The Invitation, " "Belief and Unbe l i ef " impli ci tl y recogniz e s 
t he ne cessity that the individ ual, th rou gh h i s o wn expe r ienc e , c an 
Page 208 
come to his own decisions regarding what to believe and what 
not to believe. These decisio~s cannot be made for him by 
others , nor can others impose their ready made ideas on the 
individual who has discovered his own truth. Furthermore, by 
this emphasis on the primacy of individual choice, the poet 
reinforces the concept that the truth is not absolute, which 
concept is implicit in the r ecognition of the early poetry that 
reality is fluid and dynamic rather than fixed and static. In 
1815 as in 1786, the individual must strive to discover truth 
fo r himself. 
Perhaps Freneau's thinking is utopian; man, he suggests, 
ca n somehow understand the system and plan of nature and pat-
tern his life after it. However, he has not yet been able to 
do so and the poet does not seem to think that he will do so 
any time soon. Implicit in these works is a tacit rejection 
of the~Christian conceptiom of a divine plan for man's purifi-
. 23 
ca tion, resurrection, and immortality." Instead, they assume, 
like " On A Honey Bee. . , " an impersonal creator of the un iverse 
--one who is ~eneficent, perhaps, but one who is no more concerned 
about man than about any other part of creation. The: poet seems 
to insist that man can "find a sufficient happiness in acce pt ing 
24 
his incidental place in the grand design of nature" if only 
that grand design is discoverable. And there is the rub. ?er-
haps the most basic cleavage between Freneau and Deism lies in 
Fre neau ' s conclusion that understanding of the grand des i g n mu st 
be sought constantly. His position is quite unlike that expou sed 
by Paine: 
Page 209 
The true Deist has but one Deity, and 
his religion consists in contemplating the 
power, wisdom, and benignity of the Deity 
in his works, and in endeavoring to imitate 
him in ever~thing moral, scientific, and 
mechanical. 5 
F r e neau, though his mind is "perch' d on eagle's wings," does 
n o t pretend to be able so to contemplate. 
Instead, Freneau returns, in "Translated From th e Third 
26 
Bo ok of Lucretius de natura rerum, or, On the Nature of Things" 
to the possibility that the soul is essentially material. 
Fre neau's awareness of Lucretian atomic theory was revealed as 
ear ly as "The House of Night," as we have seen; certainly the 
se nse of flux implicit in that theory is implicit also in Freneau's 
u s e of the seasonal cycle throughout his poetry both as a repre-
se ntation of man's transience and as a denial of the possibility 
o f his spiritual rebirth. "Translated from. .de natura rerum" 
spe cifically interprets Lucretius on Freneau's own terms. The 
poe t quickly establishes the sources of our existence: 
Long before our natal day 
In secure repose we lay, 
In the elements immersed, 
In the moistening clouds dispersed; 
Scatter'd through the mighty v oid, 
With the winds we were employ'd; 
In the sedds of plants we stay'd, 
In the ocean's depths we stray'd; 
With the elements combined, 
To the elements confined, 
Scatter'd through our mother earth 
Till their union gav~ us birth. 
(11. 5-16) 
The "union" of the elements of which we are composed seems 
ra ndom and casual here, as though no creator is involved: 
Freneau is able safely to take this position since he is ma s ked 
Page 210 
a s a translator. Next, he raises the central question: 
Then we knew nor suffer'd pain--
Will it be the case again?--
Does the soul, indeed, revive 
In some future state to live?--
(11. 17-20) 
The answer, of course , is not long in coming: 
When our bodies are disjoin'd, 
Once uncoupl e d fro m th e mind , 
Grief, o r pa in, we shall not k now , 
All must to oblivion go! 
With the elements again 
Is our prospect to remain! 
In oblivion's passive state,--
So decreed the words of fate. 
(11. 35-42) 
No te that "oblivion" is passive for Freneau. Thus, once dead 
"\Me shall not feel, we shall not see / Merely since we shall not 
be " (11. 45-46). The atoms which join to constitute the body 
and soul of the individual are "scatter 1 d. ? to S S Id II ( 1 ? 4 3) ' 
bu t though "disunited" they are "never lost" (1. 44). However, 
acco rdin g to the "translation," these atoms are incapable of 
rec ombining and reconstituting the individual who once was: 
When the dream of life is done, 
Animation lost and gone, 
Should these atoms, now we claim, 
Le a p once more into one frame, 
Ranged precisely as before 
Tr.ey would not the self restore, 
The same being, would not bring; 
ALL WOULD BE AN OTHER THING. 
(11. 55-62) 
Th e poi? n t her e i's , of cou~- se , to deny the tr a di?~_i?onal Christ i an 
belief in the resurrection of the body and its reunion with the 
sou l after the final judgement. 
Page 21 ?1 
Therefore, as it h a s been, "Freneau's locus of values mus t 
27 
[co ntinu e to] lie in the realm of present existence," and t h e 
poet ' s q uest for truth has evolved into the quest to disco v er 
t he " g rand design of nature" which will reveal to him how most 
of the 1 8 15 edition, 
mea nin g full y to live. The lyric poetry 
29 
28 
Millenium, "The Brook of the Valle y ," charac t e riz e d by "The 
II 3 0 
and "T o A Caty-Di d , co n t inues th e po e t' s examination of the 
iss u e in the light of his inability wholly to grasp the full 
esse nce of the "exalted plan." 
" The Millenium" shows that the orthodox Christi .an belie f 
th a t ma n's salvation lies in some post-second coming paradise 
is a "superficial view" ( 1. 7) and that, to the contrary, man's 
ul t imate perfection is attainable only through his transfor~ a-
t io n of his own nature--"He must assume a different heart" ( 1. 
3 6 ) ? The poem is addressed ''to a ranting field orator" and 
take s him to task as a "creed maker" and as one who "extort[s] 
be lief!" 
The poet's conception of " dame nature's plan" (1. 8) con-
stitutes the core o f the poem and is rationally based on the 
ev i d ence that is available to him. Nature has ma d e " v arious 
form s of being" as well as "the common tyrant-man" (11. 9-10) 
All are "form'd with wise design" but all are individually "dis-
ti n g u i sh'd " : between each form o f being and every other form 
of b eing nature " drew the line" (11. 11-12), and therefore 
eac h form possesses its o wn unique, individual , nature. 
Symbol o f this uni q ueness is t h e lion. He is fo rmed wi th 
Page 212 
"visage bold. .iron tooth. . [and] murderous claw." His 
"aspect" is "cast in anger's mould" and the '1s  tr en gt h o f s tee 1 
is in his paw" (11. 13-16). The notion that he could lie down 
with the lamb is to the poet an absurd one--here I take the 
narrator to be the poet, finally unmasked. When the lion 
qu its "war," the "trade" (1. 20) for which he is designed, h e 
will n o lon ge r be a lion, but will "be changed to something 
new" (1. 23). The verb phrase which describes the lion's 
transformation, will be changed, is in the passive voice be-
ca use the lion cannot change himself; rather, if change is to 
occ ur, the impetus must originate in some force outside of him. 
" Apparent discord" then, is the system seen "through all 
this frame." Stanza five, the middle stanza of the poem, 
charac teristically contains the poem's central metaphor. 
One system see through all this frame, 
Apparent discord still prevails; 
The forest yields to active flame, 
The ocean swells with stormy gales; 
No season did the God decree 
When leagued in friendship these should be. 
(11. 25-30) 
The primal elements have been set into conflict by the god who 
crea ted them and who decreed "no season. .when leagued in 
fr iendship" they should be: the forest, representing the fruits 
of the earth, is destroyed by fire; the waters of the ocean are 
swelled to chaos by "stormy gales" of air. Such is the nature 
of the world we inhabit, and that nature is mirrored in our 
own. 
For man likewise is made: hu~an kind cannot shun the "all 
pervad ing law" (1. 32). Before "discord can from man depart" 
page ?212 
"must assume a 
remake himself, be 
hde'  must transf orm himself ur nature, just 
oiscord is part of o 
l. ff erent heart" ( 1. 36). the respon-J 
nature of our universe; however 
as . 
l.t is part of the 
nl? rom our passions is our own. 
Sibill'.  ty f or freeing ourselves f . to some 
who cannot change himself, man is, 
U i.ke the 1?1.  on, 
exert control over his own nature? note that 
ext ent , able to 
as character izing man's change is active and 
th e verb phrase The poet courageouslY places the bur-
~ Se.rti? ve-- mu st assumWe. ~en _....;....:;.....__:::.=...:::.:~~ e are responsible and no power outSide 
squarely on man. 
Of may be held responsible for us. oursel ves 
th can come onlY slowly, bUt may gradually occur 
The change 
evolution in man's nature: 
rough a kind of 
Yet in the slow advance of things 
1.me may come our race maY rise, 
By Ar eat.s on's aid to stretch their wings, 
And see the light with other eyes; 
And when the ancient mist is pass'd; 
To find their nature change(dS t?a t 71; a1s1t.?  37-42) 
"13 Y reason's aid 
may rise," th? poet theorizes, The 
" o ur race . 
,, retch their wings / And see th? li ght with other eyes." 
to St of man's own present nature. 
ea gle " wings of reason are a part 
e continued excercise of these wings will ult imatel Y 
Perh aps 
1.mth to rise above the "ancient mist" and fi nd that hiS 
a.11 o w h' 
na.t Ur e 1.hzaes  t,, hceh anged at 1ast?" tr of man's gradual change: 
>etan Pn?h as? evolutionarY charac e on l Y 
" $ II advance" is "slow," 
a.nc ? 
'' ? l.ent tn i 5 t i s p a s s ' d . " 
l.n the paS t " but also " iS 
Page 214 
owing 
of stanza seven and the two foll ? 
The 1i? ght imagery 
evo utionary development and suggests that 
Under scores this 1 
comprehend and understand himself 
rnan? s ability to see ?? -tO Man, 
a crucial facet of his evolution. 
and hl'.  s world--is "other eyes" will 
th the light"--hiS rough reason , will "see and which will 
ncient mist will not obscure, 
be eyes which the a ? Indeed, as he changes, his 
be typical of his changed nature-
World also changes: 
s n imself, the powers ordain, 
THeh e hSUo uldh ' in no perfect circle stray; 
;huns the equatorial plane, 
refers an odd serpentine way, 
A~d lessens yearlY, sophists prove, 
His angle in the voids above. 
When oving in his ancient line, m . . 
. And no oblique ecliptic near, 43-51) 
ome new influence he m(SaYt S?s h8in-e9-
11. 
; 
With s 
is not static, 
E:v sun, whose behavior the sun moves en the Like man, 
course-
itself dynamically alters its 
but "prefers an odd serpentine way" 
in " no circle" above." 
There-
perfect 
"'h l' .ch "l essens yearly. 
a quality of the light th? sun sheds will be different, 
fo ......  e, the 
day may s omeday shine "with some new i? n fl uence." Wh en that 
nd he 
our ability to see ourselves clearlY will be enhanced, 
"oblique eclip-
comes 
be ultimately the sun will move out of his <::au Se 
tic" 
and shi' ne directlY upon us-
the poet reminds us that 
this time is afar off: 
How ever 
,, 
Ou anc. I will not be here" 
To see the lion shed his teet 
th
h (11? sz-54) 
Or kings forget the tr ade of dea --
Page 215 
The closing dash su g gests t h e poem's open-ended, tentative 
qual it y . We hear no not e of finalit y here, but rather the 
se nse that change~ gradually come, just as the sun "mav 
--<-
shine" f rom some new angle. The transformation is by no means 
gu ar an teed. The r e sponsibility is on man; even thou g h nature, 
e mbo d ied in the sun, seems willing to co-operate with us, we 
mu s t strive ourselves, through reason, to p i e rce th e a n cient 
mi st which obscures our eyes. The note of affirmation here is 
characteristic o f t he later poetry, but should by no means b e 
co nsidered a note of satis f action. Perhaps the new angle of 
t h e sun will burn off the mist, but we must first see the light 
"w i th other eyes." I believe Freneau means that those other 
e yes will be ones which harness the light of both reason and 
ima g ination as well, for to stretch our wings and to transform 
o urselves will require an act of self creation--an act of 
im ag ination, for reason may be balanced by imagination in the 
"a p p a rent discord" which is our very nature. 
" The Bro o k o f the Valley" uses the brook as a metaphor 
t hro ugh wh ich to e xamine man's nature, an d therefore, implicit-
ly , to stress the difficult y of the transformation prescribe d 
i n " The Millenium." The poet explicitly states that the stre a m 
is the "emblem '' of 11 restless man" (1. 49)? , and perhaps the key 
to their symbolic relationship lies in the very dynamism of 
tha t restlessness. Man's existence, like the stream ' s, is some-
how d e p endent on his changefulness: if the pacific seemin g stream 
wer e always "at rest" (1. 7), the valle y through whi c h it f lows 
Page 216 
would not, in fact, "be blest" (1. 8) but would instead be left 
"parch'd and dry" (1.12) by stagnant waters. So too would man 
find his world "parch' d and dry" were he to allow himself to 
stagnate. Man's nature, and the nature of the stream, is to 
be "now at peace, and now at war" (1. 51). 
Perhaps this poem seems rather too obvious and public; 
after all, the "stream of life" metaphor is a tired one. But 
the symbolic relationship between the brook and the man is more 
pro f ound than this. Both are integral parts of the natural 
universe. Like the stream, man's life flows "to the gulph that 
swallows all" (1. 16), the ocean of death. Like the stream, 
man constantly changes--"Though the same you may appea~/You're 
n ot the same we saw last year" (11. 19-20). Each new experience, 
l ike each rainfall or the influx of a new tributary, changes 
man. What existed last year is now gone, but may return in a 
new form: The sun "can exhale" vapors supplied by the brook's 
" was t e " and " turn I d " to ?'rain in yonder sky . ?1 These vapors become 
the lifegiving moisture which revives the brook's "margin" (11. 
2 8 -32). In the same way, man, after joining his "ocean floods" 
(1. 24), returns in another form to mix with the elements of 
hi s universe and perhaps provide nourishment. He is no more 
and no less a part of the scheme of things than the brook is; 
the brook exists no more for his benefit than does he for its. 
Both are part of a fluid, dynamic, atomic universe. 
However, as the emphasis on flux implies,the relationship 
between man and his universe and between the brook and its val-
Page217 
ley is not always harmonious, and the suggestion is that that 
is as it should be. The fertility of the valley seems to depend 
on the restlessness of the stream; so,perhaps, does the ultimate 
harmony of the universe depend on the dissonance of its inter-
related elements, and so does the evolution of man's nature de-
pend on the tension inherent in his passions and in the tension 
between his rational and imaginative fa c ulties. The "app arent 
discord" in man's nature becomes, then, not the cause of his 
damna tion but a component of his innate desire to strive 
rdently , and an integral part of the dynamics of his ultimate 
wholeness , miraculously possible. 
So the stream, though sometimes a "quiet flow," occasional-
ly experiences some "quarrels" and runs ' "angry. . a 11 at war" 
( 11 . 33-36) . Sometimes the stream is quite out of phase with 
the rest of nature--battling with the rock and cutting the 
soil away from th e willow's roots (11. 41-44). Yet, again, the 
willow can only grow where, along the brook's banks, there is 
sufficient water, and so, too, man, when his "passions. 
cease " (11 . 46 -47) will be in balance. Thus the brook becomes 
for Freneau "a sketch of nature's plan": 
Now at peace, and now at war> 
Now you murmur, now yo u roar: 
(11. 51-52) 
and "what a picture of mankind" (1. 56). 
In presenting another "pictur e of mankind," "To A Caty-Did, " 
somewhat in the manner of "On A Honey Bee," employs a light 
tone in examini n g the si g nificance of the instinctive behavior 
of a small insect. 
Page 213 
In a branch of willow hid 
Sings the evening Caty-did: 
From the lofty locust bough 
Feeding on a drop of dew, 
In her suit of green array'd 
Hear her singing in the shade 
Caty-did, Caty -did, Caty-did! 
While upon a leaf you tread, 
Or repose your little head, 
On your sheet of shadows laid, 
All the day you nothing said: 
Half the night your cheery tongue 
Reve ll'd out its little so ng, 
Nothing else but Caty-did. 
From your lodgings on the leaf 
Did you utter joy or grief--? 
Did you only mean to say, 
-~---1: ~ -v e_ -~ a ~---~-y --~-urt1~ ~!_.'..-.?_.9.~_y_, 
~nd_ __a m assinq, soon,, away: 
To _th e --~ave o f Ca t_y_.=,gj,_g_;_- -
Poor, unhappy Caty-did! 
But you would have utter'd more 
Had you known of nature's power--
From the world when you r etrea t, 
And a leaf's your winding sheet, 
Long before your spirit fled, 
Who can tell but nature said, 
Live again, my Caty-did! 
Live, and chatter Caty-did. 
Tell me, what did Caty do? 
Did she mean to trouble you?--
Why was Caty not forbid 
To trouble little Caty-did?--
Wrong, indeed at you to fling, 
Hurting no one while you sing 
Caty-did! Caty-did! Caty-did! 
Why continue to complain? 
Caty tells me, she again 
Will not give you plague or pain:--
Caty says you may be hid 
Caty will not go to bed 
While you sing us Caty-did. 
Caty-did! Caty-did! Caty-did! 
Page 219 
But, while singing, you forgot 
To tell us what did Caty not: 
Caty-did not think of cold, 
Flocks retiring to the fold, 
Winter, with his wrinkles old; 
Winter, that yourself foretold 
When you gave us Caty-did. 
Stay securely in your nest; 
Caty now, will do her best, 
All she can, to make you blest; 
But, you want no human aid--
Na ture, wh e n she form'd you, said, 
"Independent you are made, 
My dear little Caty-did: 
Soon yourself must disappear 
With the verdure of the year,"--
And to go, we know not where, 
With your song of Caty-did. 
The caty-did, as the poet reminds us in a note to the poem, is 
a grasshopper like creature which may be heard chirping its song 
in the autumn evenings; Caty-did is, therefore, since she will 
be readily associated with death and transience, an appropriate 
symbol of man. Silent all day, the small creature "sings [in] 
the evening" and "half the night" hid in the willow, in the 
shade, where she is unseen. Her song is "revell'd out" with 
"cheery tongue," probably because she is unaware that winter 
is corning. 
The narrator asks whether she utters "joy or grief" and 
wonders if her song is not the expression of her realization 
that she has had her "summer's day" and is "passing, soon, 
away II Of course, the caty-did, like the honey bee, has no 
idea that it soon will die. Only the poet and his audience are 
aware of that. So it is not caty-did who is "poor, unhappy, ." 
but the speaker, who sees his own fate in that of the insect . 
c a ty-did's unconsciousness is ironically juxtaposed with the 
Page 220 
speaker's awareness of her fate and his own. Were she aware, 
the speaker believes, her song would utter more, for she would 
know that she might, through "nature's power," "live again. 
live> and chatter Caty-did." "Who can tell" what nature said, 
is the speaker 's implicit question; perhaps the caty-did's 
l eaving is only a "retreat." Her shroud, a leaf for a "wind-
in g sheet " may be only temporary , a kind of cocoon. But the 
speaker knows that Caty-did will no more "live again" than he 
will. 
The shift in stanza five from Caty-did to Caty, apparently 
the child of the narrator, is signalled by the intrusion of an 
eighth line into stanza four and tends to heighten the personi-
fication of caty-did, as does the habitual capitalization of 
the term caty-did, treating it as a proper name. Stanzas one 
through three had been 7 line stanzas. Here, also, the poet 
utilizes the potential of caty-did for puns on forms of the 
verb to do and shifts from "Caty-did" to "What did Caty do?" 
Much of the light-humored tone of the poem is ge nerated by 
the puns on Caty-did . What did Caty do? Ca ty, mischievously, 
has "trouble [d]" Caty- did: it seems that the chirping of Caty-
d i d is more than Caty can bear at night; Caty refuses to go to 
bed while Caty-did sings. Yet the narrator admits that Caty 
was "wrong, indeed at [Caty-did] to fling" and has exacted a 
p romise from Caty no more to give Caty-did "plague or pain" 
for Caty-did's mindless chatter is "hurting no one" and is only 
the tiny insect's instinctive behavior. 
Page 221 
A second shift occurs at stanza seven and is signalled by 
a variation of the rime scheme used in stanza six. The 7 line 
stanzas generally rime in couplets in their first 6 lines and 
close with a repetition of the refrain of "Caty-did " as in 
stanzas one through three and stanza five; for example, the 
pattern of stanza two is DDEEFFA. In stanzas one and five, the 
A rim e s ou nd, hid/Ca ty-did, is repeated in order to emphasize 
the refrain and a lso to lighten the tone. In stanza six however, 
the poet employs similar end sounds in lines 1, 2 , and 3--NNN--
and then shifts back to the poem's initial end sounds for the 
stanza's final four lines--AAAA. This variation creates an 
insistent onomatopoetic phrase which suggests the actual "song" 
o f t he insect, especially in the repetition of "Caty-did" four 
times at the end of the stanza, and leads us into the next pun 
on caty-did: 
But>while singing, you forgot 
To tell us what did Caty not. 
The word play here introduces us explicitly to the insect's lack 
of awareness of its impending doom: "Caty did not think of cold 
" Even though the song of the caty-did foretells, like the 
vernal ague, of the coming of "endless winter's chill," th e sing-
er itself is unaware of winter's approach. Thus the little creat-
ure is unprepared for the encroachment of cold and ultimately 
death . 
And Caty-did's fate is man's fate: "Independent" in that no 
o ther creature can forestall her doom; Caty -did must die . Nothing 
t hat Caty could do, no "human aid," would avail. Caty - did "must 
Page 222 
disappear/With the verdure of the year" as part of the inexora-
b l e natural cycle. The speaker understands that the cycle will 
go on , but a mystery nonetheless remains: Caty-did goes "we 
k . ow not where," for as always the enigma of death remains im-
p ene tr able. The poet calls attention to these suggestions by 
p l acing them at the end of the poem in an 11 line stanza which 
is the longest of the poem. 
"To A Caty-did" is reminiscent in both form and theme of 
the poems of the Bo's. Again the poet focuses on a natural 
o bject and employs its fraility as a metaphor for man's. 
Ag ain, this metaphoric relationship generates a sense of the 
mystery of death. Moreover, Freneau uses rythmic and riming 
t ec hniques, though freely and not as rigourously as we have 
s ee n them used, to emphasize various aspects of the poem's 
significance. However , the structural and tonal characteris-
ti c s of "To A Caty-did" tend to place it in the context of the 
po ems of 1815, for the relaxed rythms and h~~orous rimes tend 
t o reinforce the sense of relaxed acceptance characterizing 
th e speaker's tone, while the /,.y, thms and rimes of the early 
poems tend to stress the tensions developing in him. For exam-
p le, the metre of "To A Caty-did" is various and re l axed, a 
mixed bag of iambs , troches, anapests; and the term caty -did 
i s a ready-made dactyl. The resultant easy flowing verse and 
catchy refrain lend themselves effectively to the poem's good 
tone--the t ype of tone which is conspicuously absent 
i n the early lyrics--without seeming incongruous to the p o em 's 
Page 223 
subject matter. Some measure of tonal incongruity, as in "On 
A Honey Bee," seems necessary in order to juxtapose the atti-
tude of the speaker--a kind of casual but considered acceptance 
-- with the unconscious mini-tragedy of the caty-did. "To A 
Caty-did" captures once more the pervasive transience of life 
in its appropriate perspective . We are but the insects of an 
hour. 
" When Vernal Suns Forbear to Roll " - Afterward 
Philip Freneau's achievement as a poet clearly merits 
thoughtful reassessment. The body of poetry which he created 
contains a significant number of important works of art and 
p resents a remarkable chronicle of the development of an indi-
vidual philosophy . This achievement remains inspite of the 
notion, held by some, that "he wrote too much, too rapidl y, and 
3 1 
too long." Certainly , one mu st grant that there is some truth 
i n this assertion, but half-truth is misleading and some truth 
is no truth. Freneau's career as a partisan editor should not 
be allowed to over-shadow his accomplishments as a poet, nor 
s h o uld the fact that he was often reduced to pot-boiling. Lewis 
Leary has claimed that "it can be doubted whether the direction 
of literature in the United States would be in any important 
32 
re spect different without him." Nonetheless, Freneau fore-
shadows in several striking ways issues which will be central in 
American literature. For example, Freneau's attempts to pene-
t rat e the surface of phenomena to probe their more profound 
s ignifican ces is echoed in Melville's attempts to penetrate the 
Page 224 
whiteness of the whale. Freneau's development of a practical 
perso nal philosophy results in a posture not unlike that of the 
pragmatism of William James: that which we accomplish--that 
which works in practice--is of value. Freneau's insistence 
o n activity, often as a mode of refusing to succumb to his 
perception of the void, is later conveyed in the fishing and 
b u llfight i n g and drinkin g of He mingway's char ac ters who lack 
Fre neau's se nse of purpose, and perhaps his courage. Like 
Hemingway 's Santiago, the poet has learned that striving is its 
33 
own reward. 
Ultimately, Freneau becomes a . type of the American Adam: 
he examines the traditions of the past--artistic, religious, 
ph ilosophical--and decides to strike out on his own. Freneau's 
ind i vi dualism, his insistence on the value of his personal view 
and his unwillingness to impose it on anyone else, is similar 
to the individualism of Thoreau and Whitman. However, to recog-
nize that such relationships exists is not to say that Freneau 
inf luenced the artists who follow him, and I can provide no 
e vid ence that he did. Yet Freneau breathed the same air, im-
bibe d the same waters, and cultivated the same soil as his 
succ essors. 
Freneau's poetry was, in fact, revolutionary. He conscious-
ly employed traditional forms in the creation of his own; he 
fo llowed no one else's credo but developed his own. He sue-
ce e d ed in achieving the delicate balance between reason and 
imag ination and thus was able to discover and sp e ak his own 
p r iva te truth. And as personal as that truth is, he was able 
Page -22 5 
to detach himself from it and examine it cooly and calmly. 
Yet, unaccountably, critics have satisfied themselves with 
asserting that Freneau was "thwarted" or "dwarfed" by his 
tim es or that "reality" shattered his "dream," and so a rich 
lode of poetry has lain unassayed. 
This study makes no pretense of considering every facet 
of Frene a u's art; however, if one were to consider only the 
handful of poems discussed here, one would surely have reason 
to reassess Freneau's reputation and achievement. First the 
poet looks the central enigma squarely in the eye: Is there, 
he asks, life after death? He finds no evidence that there 
l. s . Is life meaningless then? No, it is not, he replies. 
We may endow our lives with meaning through our actions. 
The poems of the 80's wrestle strenuous l y with Freneau's 
grim awareness, and the lyrics of '86 and '88 crystalize the 
issue. The '86 poems seem to concentrate on expressing the 
situation as clearly and concretely as possible. I llusion 
is stripped away in "A Moral Thought" and the folly of 
wallowing in delusion is revealed in "The Vernal Ague ." 
A working solution to the problem created by this stark world 
view begins to emerge in "The Lost Sailor" when we begin to see 
that striving to understand one's self and the unknowable 
universe is in itself valuable. The poems of the '88 edition 
work out the respective roles of the imagination, of art, and 
of reason in th is process, particularly in "The Indian Burying 
Ground" and "The Man of Ninety." 
Page 226 
The later poems reveal, I belie v e, that the poet had 
reconciled himself to his vision an d had come to take great 
s ati sfaction in his art. A sense of artistic fulfillment 
may be extrapolated from the Reason/Fancy and Art/Nature 
co ncerns of the '80's and from the craftmanlike controlled 
int e nsity of the early lyrics. In the poems of the 1809 and 
1 815 editions , the ironic sense of humor l?evealed i n "On A 
Honey-Bee" and "To A Caty-did" suggests Freneau's detached, 
pe rhaps wary , acceptance of his perception. However, I must 
emphas ize that I find little evidence of the comfortable 
acq ui e s ce n ce in a mode of conventional Deism which some 
comme ntators profess to see. The contemplative-philosophical 
poe ms of the '0 9 and '15 edition, like the lyrics with which 
they a re contemporary,reveal that the tensions between doubt 
nd bel ief continue in Freneau. I believe that Philip Freneuu 
saw an ambiguous universe until the end, and I admire his 
cou rage in continuing to gaze closely upon it and to report 
his f inding s. If that striving to understand is valuable--as 
the poet clearly believed it was--then Freneau lived a 
satisfying life of ceaseless striving. 
Du ring his lifetime, Freneau frequently alluded to his 
r ea lization that his poetry was unappreciated and misunderstood . 
Two hu ndred years on, little has changed. Because I doubt that 
he would be surprised or disturbed, I feel sure that he would 
not long complain. For Philip Freneau, the act of creating poetry 
was an act of self-creation. Thus, he would continue probing 
Page 227 
the axis of reality, for his poetry is dynamic process, poetry 
which develops as it penetrates the shifting, fluid reality 
it explores. 
Page 228 
NO TES 
chap t e r One 
1 
H. H . Clark, "What Made Freneau the Father of American 
:P o etry?" Studies in Philology, XXVI (January, 19 ) , 
1 - 2 2 . 
2 
Lewis Leary, That Rascal Freneau, A Study in Literary 
Fai lure (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1941; Repri nted, New 
'{ or k , 1964). 
3 
Roy Harve y P e a rce , The Continuity of American Poetry 
( Princeton, 1961), p. 56. 
4 
Ibid. p. 2 0 0. 
5 
Robert E. Spiller, et al, ed. Literary History of the 
United States (New York, 1948), I, 174. 
6 
Ibid. p. 169. 
7 
Contradictory opinions regarding Freneau are also illu-
s t ra t e d in Clark, ed. Transitions in American Literary 
His tory (Durham, North Carolina, 1953). In "The Decline of 
eo - Classicism ," p. 96, M. F. Heiser argues that Freneau was 
,, n e o -classic in form and thought," while Leon Howard, in "The 
La te Eighteenth Century, An Age of Contradictions," p. 85, says 
th a t Freneau's poetry is "by most of the common criteria. 
r o ma ntic." 
8 
Frederick L. Pattee, ed. The Poems of Philip Freneau 
(P rinceton, 1902), I. xcvi. 
9 
Pattee, The First Century of American Literature (New 
Yo rk , 1935), p. 39. Pattee here reiterates remarks first made 
i n the introduction to Poems, I, cviii: He 0 was a man equipped 
b y nature for a~Aup~ oet, a man w. it h a message, yet dwarfed and 
t r an sformed by his environment." 
1 0 
I b i d . fb~ I C i i i . 
- " 
1 1 
Ibid. p. xcviii. 
1 2 
Ibid p. cix. 
1 3 
Ibid. p. cxi. 
1 4 
Ibid. p cxii 
1 5 
Clark , "Father," p. 3 . 
Page 229 
1 6 
Ibid . p. 4 
1 7 
Ibid. p . 3; reiterated in Poems of Philip Freneau (New 
York , 1 929 ), p. xlviii. 
1 8 
Ibid . 
1 9 
Clark, Poems, p. li; also "Father," p. 5. 
20
Ibid . p. lilt. 
21 
Clark , "The Literary Influences of Philip Freneau," SP 
XXII ( Janua ry, 1925), 19-20. 
22
Ibid. pp. 1~ and 16. 
23 
Leary, Rascal, p. 26. 
24 . 
Ibid. p. 29. 
25
I bid. p. 96. 
26
rbid. p. 10 0. 
27 . 
Ibid . pp. 41-42. 
28
Ibid. p. 2 5. 
29
rbid. p. 140. 
30
Ibid . p. 345. 
31
Ibid. 
32 
Leary, Soundings (Athens, Georgia, 1975), p. 158. 
33 
Nelson F. Adkins , Freneau and the Cosmic Enigma (New York, 
1949 ), p. 77. 
34 
Ibid. pp. 77-78. 
35 
Ibid. p. 81. 
36 
Ibid. pp. 61 -68. 
37 
Ibid. p. 3 3. 
38 
Ibid. p. 6 3 ..,61. 
39 
Ibid . p. 61. 
40 
Ibid . p. 6 2 . 
Page 230 
41 
Ibid . p. 6 6 . 
42 
Ibid. p. 5 0 . 
4 3 
Ibid. p. 49. 
44 
Ibid. p . 7 5. 
45 
Ibi d . 
46 
Mary K. Bowden, Philip Freneau (Boston, 1976), p. 127. 
47 
Ibid. p. 141. 
4 8 
Ibid. p. 142. As an example Bowden cites "On a Man 
illed b y a Buffaloe," Poems Written and Published During 
the American Revolutionary War (Philade lphia, 1809), I, 251. 
Be reafter this edition will be referred to as '09. 
49 
Ibid . p. 149. 
50 
Ibid. pp. 137-138. " The Modern Miracle" is contained 
i n Th e Miscellaneous Works (Philadelphia, 1788), pp. 168-70. 
He r eafter ' 88. 
5 1 
Ibid. p. 141. 
52 
Ibid. p. 146. 
53 
Ibid. 
54 
Ibid. p. 145. 
5 5 Bonamy Dobree , Eng 1i. s h L.i terature i. n the Early Eighteenth 
ce ntury, 1700-1740 (London, 1959), p. 258. 
56 Geoffrey Tillotson, Augustan Poetic ?Diction (London, 
l 9 6 4 ) , p . 4 2 ... 43 . 
5 7 
David Daiches, A Critical History of English Literature 
ew York , 1970), p. 766. 
58 
Ibid. p. 774. 
59 Thomas Pa.i ne, T,n. e Age o f Reason, p ar t I, Alburey Castelle, 
e (New York, 1957), p. 28. 
6 0 
Ibid. p. 58. Paine's views will be more fully discussed 
i n Chapter Six . 
6 1 
Tillotson, p. 17. 
Page 231 
62 
Ibid. p. 18; s.a. Daiches, p. 624. Dobree, p. 136, 
.:..scusses "the excesses of inanity" of second rate poets 
of the genre. 
62 
Ian Jack, Augustan Satire, Intention and Idiom in English 
Poetry , 1660-1750 (London, 1945), p. 156. 
64 
Ibid. p . 139. 
65 
Ibid. p . 148. 
66 
John Dennis, "The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry," in 
Scott Elledge, ed. Eighteenth Century Critical Essays 
( Ithaca, New York, 1961), I, 105. 
6 7 
See , fo r example, Jack, p. 135, and Dobree, p. 484. 
68 
M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and The Lamp (New York, 1953), 
p p . 37ff. 
69 
Jack, pp. 3-4 . 
70 
Th e 1815 edition collects poems which had been published 
s ea rly as 1797, but reprints only one piece from the 1809 
e dition, a much altered version of " The American Demos thenes," 
and none from the earlier editions. 
7 1 
Leary, in "The Dream Visions of Philip Freneau," Early 
American Literature, XI, (Fall 1976), reprinted in EAL's 
pecia l Bicentennial Issue: The Literature of The American 
Revolution, (Winter 1976), 54-80, points out that "much of 
co ntemporary commentary on [Freneau] or his writings seems to 
de rive from repetition of what some previous commentator has 
said. .w ith few indications that Freneau's writings have 
b een read complete or with ca re " p. 57 . 
72 
Bowden, p . 5 3 . 
Chapter Two 
1 
Leary, in Rascal , catalogues echoes of Goldsmith, Milton, 
h o mson , Pope, and others in "The American Village". 
2 
The American Village," 1. 156, from Freneau, The American 
v illa g e, A Poem (New York, 1772) Reprinted in facsimile, 
Ha rry Lyman Koopman and Victor Hugo Paltsits, eds. (New 
York , 1962) . Line and stanza references will be given (1. #), 
(S t . #) , respectively, throughout this essay. 
Page 232 
3 
William L. Andrews, "Goldsmith and Freneau in 'The Ameri-
C n Village'," EAL, V, (Fall 1970), 20. 
4
rbid . p. 23. 
5
First published in United States Magazine, I, (August 1779), 
3 55 - 62. Reprinted in The Poems of Philip Freneau (Philadelphia, 
17 8 6), hereafter ' 86, pp. 101-123; As "The Vision of Night (A 
Fr a g ment)" in Poems Written Between the Years 1768 and 1794 
(Monmouth, New Jersey, 1795), hereafter '95, pp. 92-94; and '09, 
I , 145-47 . Line and stanza references, unless otherwise noted, 
refer to th e first collected version of each poem throughout 
thi s essay. That is, h e r e I refer to th e '86 edition. 
6 
Pattee , p. cv. 
7
Ibid . p . cix. 
8 Leary, in " Dream Visions," p. 59, argues that the original 
,ers i on of "The House of Night" is "in no sense a nonserious 
p oem, nor a burlesque of anything at all." Leary believes 
t h t the 1779 poem is "the most personal that Freneau ever 
wr o te, revealing tensions not yet resolved between what was 
re q uired and what poetry demanded." The '86 version is much 
lter e d , as Leary observes. Edwin H. Cc2.dy, in "Philip Freneau 
a s Archetypal American Poet," in Literature and Ideas in 
rnerica: Essays in Memory of Harry Hayden Clark, Robert Falk, 
e d . (Athens, Georgia , 1975), pp. 12-1~, referring to the ' 86 , 
c l aims that the poem is "essentially nonserious" and is laced 
with " Halloweenish" and graveyard touches . The difference in 
t o ne between the '7 9 and ' 86 versions suggests , among other 
~hings, that the poet is seeking a detached perspective . 
9 Adkins , pp. 7ff., points out, for example, that Freneau's 
i sillusionment with the ? study of divinity, "which is, in fact, 
t e ti tu d y o f No th i n g , " i n th e po e t ' s own wo  rd s , had 1 e d him 
~ o abandon thoughts of entering the ministry by spring, 1775. 
Leary , Ra s c al, p . 207, discusses the poet's later attitude 
to ward clergymen: Freneau leagued them with kings as tyrants 
wh o abridge human rights . 
I ? Page 233 
1 0 
Clark, in Literary Influences, p. 21, discusses the rela-
ion shi p of " Th e House of Nig ht" to Young and Blair, emphasizing 
the didactic purpose and sentimental tone of their works. 
0ouis I. Bredvold in The Literature of the Restoration and the 
s i ghteenth Century (New York, 1962), pp. 112-113, points out 
th at , although Young was popularly assumed to be a "melancholy 
poseur .. ~riting in the lonely hours with a lighted candle 
5 e ~ in a human skull," the poet was, in "Night Thoughts," 
ac t ua lly '' preach ing a severe sermon on the theme that death is 
in evitab le to us all>and that its ghastly reality should sober 
0 oth th e rec kless libertine and the complacent 4eistic philoso-
ph r ." Bredvold further comments that Blair ' s "The Grave " is 
"a more macabr e poem , though similar to ' Night Thoughts' in its 
s t e rn reli gi ous tone." The purpose of neither minister-poet 
v1as simply to " cultivate melancholy for its pleasures," but, 
as Bredvold arg ues, their "real attitude and purpose" have 
, een misunders tood. Freneau seems to me to have been to ying 
, 1ith the popular taste in the 1786 version of "The House of 
i gh t" as well as satirizing the serious practitioners of 
d i acticism in religious "graveyard" verse . 
1 1 
see Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, R. 
Liv in gs ton, trans . (New York, 1960), p. 160 . 
1 2 
Ro bert Blair, "The Grave" (1743), 11 . 668-69 . 
1 3 
Adk ins, p. 68 . Adkins also discusses the influence of 
'' Night Though ts" on the poem. 
1 4 
See Lucretius, On The Nature of Things, H. A. J . Munro, 
tra ns . (Chicago , 1952), Book III, pp . 30-44. 
1 5 
Adkins, p. 75. 
1 6 
Fr eneau's "Translated from the Third Book of Lucretius 
atura Rerum," in A Collection of Poems on American Affairs 
(l,Jew Yo rk, 1 8 15), II, 126-28, specifically develops the poet's 
o nception of Lucretian theory and will be discussed in Chapter 
s ix of this study. Hereafter, this edition will be referr ed 
o as ' 15 . 
1 7 
F irst published in United States Magazine , I, (February 
1779) , 84 -88, as part of "Account of the Island of Santa Cruz: 
Co n taining an Ori ginal Poem on The Beauties of That Island." 
~eprin ted: ' 86, pp. 136-152; and as "Santa Cruz," '95, pp. 124-39; 
and ' 09 , I , 207-219 . The '86 version is much altered from the 
o rigi nal and was in all probability written at about the same 
t ? me a s "The Lost Adventurer " and " The Hurricane." 
Page 234 
1 8 
See Leary, Rascal, pp. 70-71, for example: "In 'The 
Beauties of Santa Cruz [Freneau] strode manfully along 
ntravelled paths of poetic description." Clark, in "Father," 
p . 4, says that the poem makes a "Keatsian appeal to the 
senses of touch, taste, and smell ." 
1 9 
S amuel Johnso n uses the term in Life of Cowley (1779), 
in M. H. Abrams, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Litera-
t re (New York, 1968)-;I;;--,-,1~9~4~2:;-,--;t~o=-~e~x::-::p~r~e=-=s~s=-~t~h~e--v-i~?-e-w-7t~h-a-,.:t..:..,'~'-a~l--=-l 
the power of description is des troyed by a scrupulous enumera-
tion ." See also, Ab rams, Mirror , p. 3 7ff . 
2 0
L ea ry, in Rascal , p. 7 1 , argues that t he poem is based on 
t e assumption that "al l nature was bound together in a close 
kni t skein of logic--its beaut y , its harmony, its amazing 
p ropor tion. Only man r e mained outside the orderly plan; and 
m n need not remain ou tsi de ." 
21
Fi rst published in Freeman's Journal, January 2, 1782; 
reprinted ' 86 , pp . 13 2-34; an d as "To An Old Man," '95, pp. 
193-95; and ' 09 , II, 71-74. 
22
The ? few r ev isions are nearl y all in punctuation, but 
Fren e au also mak es minor linguisti c changes, such as your 
f o r t hy , 1. 2 5 , and swells for waves, 1. 79. 
23 
Fi? rst pu bl i. s h e d i. n Un.i te d St a t es M agazi. ne, I, June 
( 1779) , 280-81; reprinted in ' 86, p. 38; '95, p. 51; '09, 
90 . 
24 
Vergi' l , Aene ~' d , L . R. Li. n d , t rans. (Bl oom. ington, Indiana, 
1 968 ) , Book 6, p. 112, 11. 295 -29 9 . Vergil describes the 
elm as "huge and shady " and says that it 
Spread out its arms in branches, here 
False dreams, they say, reside and cling beneath 
All o f its leaves. 
25 rn the '79 ve rsion, l i nes 11-12 are 
O gentle tree, no more declinej 
But be your shade and lovesick whispers mine. 
T he amended terms charming and shades crystalize the theme of 
e lusion and l e ad to the association with Vergil's tree of 
fa lse dreams . 
26
Adkin s , Leary in Rascal, and Clark in "Literary Influences," 
h ave examine d Freneau's classical training. See also Ruth W. 
Br o wn , " Clas s ical Echoes~,.in the Poetry of Philip Freneau, " 
C 1 a s s i c a 1 Jo urn a 1 , X L V l,_l 9 4 9 ) , 2 9 - 3 4 . 
?- ~ ~, , 11 r bll 11-"ln :i ? 
Page 235 
C a pter Three 
1 
First published in Freeman's Jourr.al (Oct. 24, 1781}; 
reprinted: '86, p. 221; as "The Vanity of [Human] Existence 
to Thyrsis," '95, pp. 95-96 and '09, I, 148-49. Human is 
in c luded in the tables of contents of both volumes but is 
o mi tted from the actual texts of the poem. 
2 
Bowden, p. 146. 
3 . 
IbJ.d. 
4 
Leary, Rascal, p. 100. 
5 
Ibid. 
6 
Samuel Johnson, "The Vanity of Human Wishes," in Bredvold 
e t al . eds. Eighteenth Century Poetry and Prose, 2nd ed. (New 
York, 1956), pp. 680-687, 11. 348-56. Note the ironic similari-
ty between this title and the full title of Freneau's poem. 
7 
Leary, Rascal, pp. 260-61, discusses Freneau's familiarity 
with the eighteenth century's use of the Indian as persona. 
8 
The irregular or "Pindaric" ode was a widely imitated 
verse form during the early eighteenth century, following its 
p opularization by Cowley. William Congreve, in "A Discourse 
On The Pindaric Ode," 1706, in Elledge, ed. Critical Essays, 
p p . 143-147, points out that Pindar's odes were not irregular 
in the sense that many of the odes of his imitators were. See 
also M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (New York, 1975}, 
p p . 63-64. Abrams mentions that eulogy was a frequent use of 
the ode. 
9 First published in Freeman's Journal (March 17, 1784} 
re?rinted: '86, pp. 350-52; '95, pp. 59-60; and '09, I, 
1 00 -102 as "The Dying Indian, Torno Chequi." The editions 
be f ore '09 are inscribed with the date March, 1784, and the 
Ho ratian motto, Debemur Marti Nos, nostra_que, which translates 
freely " Ourselves and all we own, we owe to death." 
1 0 . 
Leary, Rascal, pp. 261-63, notes that "Torno CheekJ., The 
Cre e k Indian in Philadelphia" appeared in The Jersey Chronicle 
a s a series of essays from May 23 to October 31, 1795. The 
' 9 5 poems had been advertised in New York beginning on April 
17, 1795, and so must have been in set form when Freneau began 
t h e series. Thus the '95 version of "The Dying Indian" retains 
th e original subtitle. 
Page 236 
1 1 
First published in .E.E..~~;i ' U"~.!L~ (April 1 3 , ? l 7 8 5 ) 
reprinted.? ' 86 ) 'o  p. 36 5- 66; '95, pp. 270-71; and, as " T:ie 
Hurricane," '09, r, 168. 
1 2 
'8 6 , pp. 86 ?? 87; 1:e print2:J: ' 93, p . 58; and '09, .:., 96 . 
1 3 
'86 , pp. 169-171 as "Ca.ptain Jones' s Invitation", reprint-
ed: '95, 151-53, as " The Invitation," but given as "The S eaman ' s 
Invitation" :_in the tab.le of contents; and ' 09, 230?31, as 
nc 
apt, J. P. Jones's Invitcttion." The short titl e wi l l be used . 
1 4 
Leary, ~ asc al , p. 96 . See also Lea r y's note 38, p . 3 77, 
and P a t t e e , ,E_o e rn ~ I , 2 9 0 . 
1 5 
"The Lost Sailor," '88, pp. 74 -75, later " The Argonaut," 
is discussed in Ch . 5 . 
Chapter Four 
1 
Leary, Rasca l, p . 153. 
2 
Ibid . p. 15 4. 
') 
1
" Il.1id. p . 15 5 . See also note 43 , p . 3 7 2 . 
4. 
Ve rnon L. Parrington, ed . The Con n ecticut Wits (New 
Yc.?rk, 1969), p. 288 . 
5 
The poem first appears in '88, pp . l-30. Pictures II 
and III are omitted in '95, pp . 63 - 87, and ' 09, ,. , 105-129. 
6 _ . 
Picture Iv, 11. 1-1 7 . Further references to "Pictures" 
,vi ll be g i ven (Pi cture #, l. # ) . 
7 
Columbus speaks , at I - r, l. 12, of " Bright Isc!bella. 
Whom avarice p r o mp ts to aid my pu-cposes." 
8 . 
Fi rst cublished in Freem a n's Journal, Ap ~il 1 8 , 1.7 87; 
rept?inted: ?,8 ,~, pp. 163-65, with the dat~ 1 7 8 5, ar:.6 ' 9 5 , 
Pp. 314-16, much altered, a -:c? "The Wintry Prospec t. " The 
r evis e d ti t le typ ifies the changed tone c f the wo ~k. 
9 
r-'irst published in ?2::~~l ' .s Journal, August 29, 17 8 7.: 
rep rinted: ' 88, pp. 6 6-67: ' 95 , pp . 91 ?-9 2 ; ' 09 , I , ...\4-45 . 
c1a apter Five 
1 
Fir s t published as "The Lost .n.dven tur e r" in ~_y_mi:J.i a n 
.l!_~r a l d ( Mar ch 6 , 1 7 B 6 ) ; reprinted : '88, pp . 74--iS , a s "Th e 
~os t Sailor"; ' 9.5, p p . 29 9 -30 .l , a.S "Argonauta, er '.:'h c< Lost 
dvent u re r"; and ' 09 , II, 201 - 202 , as " The .n.rgor.aut; o r., Los t 
Adve nturer." 
2 
Samuel Johns o n, ."<-a-sse l ?a-.s? , 5. H. Bro ns on, ed . (N c; W Yor }';, 1952 ), pp. 527?? 28 . 
?----
Pa?;e 237 
_ 1786; 3 ?olumbia_n_ __H_..e,,,r_a._l.-d- , July 6 , 
te Prl' nFti:erd.""'t:?   p, ubl ished in '95, P? 95 ; ' 09J I, 148. 
4 88 , p . 152; that the poem is "well within 
the "tone is conventional)" and i ts mBe oL1:1v ?nd ~~  ~ 1 4 J p P ? 7 ?? 4 8 , c 1 aims 
II I. :.1..i. eme- s, Q a1  y ge nre , " that its 
5 re con -_r entional." April 18 , 1787; 
,.. Fi--t , ,.e in F ree man 's J ournal, 
"epr , ... "' publis-.... a . 
149 , 
1
88 - -~ 
,.nted : ' P ? 78; '9 5 , p. 96; 09, I, 
~p I6 c1a ndian p u blished as "Lines o ccasioned b'.f a v isit to an au;/lFs'-i1rst . Burying Ground," Am e rican Museum (November 17871, 
sh ? >ng G6r' reprinted, '88 pp. iiia-89T"and, as "The Indian Orter tiotulned ' I.I  i? n r 9 5, pp' . gg -90; '09, I, 14? 1 - 4.?, ? m1 t, e 
will be used . 
7 
Lear 151, 8 y, .?gundings , p . 
Campbell, " A No te on pre neau' s 'The Indian suryin9 
Grau H. M. Modern Lang ua ge No tes, LXVIII (December 195 31, 
Pp ? n5 d? " J 
51- 52 
9 
Adkins p . 59. 
1 0 ' 
11 Geor ge Wasserman, 
~ea ts? .~. Itzkowi tz , "freneau's ?Indian sury ing Groun 
a ..,~  1? 11 , Ha::c4".?' n G- recian .u rn, . " EAL VI (\,inter 19 72 I , P ? 260 ? a ~ ~e vo a e o f the Hero (New 
t D =-' _, , . ~
al:'k ' al9v7ia )A. Leeming, 
7
13 ~ J p . 218. 
Ibid ~n christiani_tY (B oston, 
1 4 . 
1ci Al- ~h a nd Ritual ... - 6 8'1  , o.n Watts , 
p ? 1 60 . 
, "0 9 n,  e ?r ? , " 'q 5 PP? -
15 ... ? 2 58 . 
!~?7c  aFsl.:',e  au . ? "Neversin<, : ' _ "3 86 
~ ?1e .ll"'-\ 'O Half Dre fers to his speaker hi n "adores. ? ? t a il oak?? 
~il::'i tet was r~id" and notes that e th , . die bel i ef th>t 
s i evidently familiar with e aru? 
17 nhPa bbi t . tr e es, . 66 ' ,,-epd.nted: ,95, 
F?l. r.,,..,_ .. u lished in ? 88 , pP? 
64 - ' 9- r 202 - 03 , 
2 9 .,  an 1 "' ... Th " '0 , 
c as e Man of NinetY years, ' 
?o9, !, 2 58, 
" 
1 8 ,, ,., a 11 - . t O a 1~,  Tr e e , On t ?n e ? ? ot an Ancien 
Page 238 
Chapter Six 
1 
On November 18, 1789, the 37 year old Philip Freneau left 
both the schooner Columbia and--temporarily--his career as a 
sea captain in the harbor at Charleston . He was finally to 
return to New Jersey and marry Eleanor Forman, 27, a neighbor 
in Monmouth. Her family is thought to have "looked with small 
favor upon the impecunious poet," (Leary, Rascal, p. 160) but 
they were married on April 15, 1790. Meanwhile, Freneau had 
ventured to New York where he had entered the employ of the 
Daily Advertiser, published by Francis Childs and John Swaine. 
As newspaperman, Freneau's concerns would turn more and mor e 
to the growing tension between the Republicanism of Thomas 
Jefferson and the Federalism of Alexander Hamilton. Naturally, 
Freneau, whose personal philosophy ardently embraces the primacy 
of the individual, aligned himself with the Jeffersonians. By 
February, 1791, Freneau had determined to return to New Jersey 
and initiate a paper there, the proposed Monmouth Gazette. 
Thus when a letter arrived from Jefferson himself offering 
Freneau a State Department clerkship for foreign languages, 
the poet declined the offer. However, the activity of the 
new capitol city, Philadelphia, apparently att~acted Freneau, 
for finally, in July, 1791, he agreed to edit a paper there in 
association with Childs and Swaine and, in August, accepted 
Jefferson's offer of the clerkship. The salary of the clerk 
of foreign languages in the office of Secretary of State was 
$250 a year. 
Freneau arrived in Philadelphia in Oc tober, 1791. Soon the 
National Gazette was born and began to attack the apparent 
desire of the Federalists to wrest control of the political 
processes of the new nation from the hands of the common people 
and place it in those of the aristocratic and the wealthy. 
The story of Freneau's career as editor of the National Gazette 
is well known (See Leary, Rascal, Ch. 8, and Jacob Axelrad, 
Philip Freneau Champion of De mocracy, [Austin, 1 967] , Chs. 
21-23): ultimately he was accused by Secretary of the Treasury 
Hamilton of acting in collusion with Jefferson "to vilify 
those to whom the voice of the people has committed the admini-
stration o f our public affairs,~-to oppose th e measures of 
government, and. .to disturb the public peace." (Gazette 
of ~he United States, June 5, 1793, quoted by Leary, Rascal, 
p. 208) This accusation was vigourously denied by Freneau, 
but led to increasingly bitter controversy between the National 
Gazette and the Gazette of the United States, the Federalist 
partyorgan, edited by Freneau's archrival, John Fenno. In June, 
1793, Freneau, who was both an ardent Francophile and an out-
spoken anglo-phobe, even went so far as to criticize President 
Washington's decision to issue a proclamation of neutrality in 
the festering hostilities between England and the revolutionary 
Page 239 
government of France. The poet/editor could not understand 
what he construed to be the Federalist desire to cleave to 
England, the former oppressor, a nd to reject France, the 
former benefactor. Freneau had already had the unparalleled 
audacity to wonder aloud whether Washington was "so much 
baoyed up by official importance as to think it beneath his 
dignity to mix occasionally with the people" (National Gazette, 
June 5, 1793; quoted by Leary, Rascal, p. 233). The criticism 
was too much for the father of our country to bear: he requested 
that Jefferson interpose and that he withdraw Freneau's appoint-
ment. Jefferson refused, saying, "His paper has saved our 
constitution which was galloping fast into monarchy .. , .That 
paper . .has checked the career of the Monocr a ts" ( Wr itings 
of Jefferson, I, 231; quoted by Leary, Rascal, p. 233; see 
also Axelrad, p. 227). 
Freneau continued to publish the National Gazette inspite of 
the opposition of the politically powerful--and even thpugh 
the yellow fever epidemic of late summer, 1793--but by October 
of that year, his partners having declined to continue to 
underwrite a paper which was losing money, financial problems 
shut the Gazette down. His clerkship required more and more 
translations of Russian, Dutch, and German, which Freneau had 
to sub-contract at high rates, so even that position had be-
come unremunerative. Thus Freneau determined to resign and 
return to New Jersey. 
Once back in Mount Pleasant, Freneau established himself in 
the printing business, produced The Monmouth Almanac for 1795, 
began publication of The Jersey Chronicle, and collected and 
edited the materials for a new edition of his poems, Poems 
Written Between The Years 1768 and 1794. Fewer than thirty 
previously uncollected poems appeared in the new edition, yet 
the poet within the partisan editor had not been entirely quiet 
since 1788. However, from this point on, the poet's public 
life was serene. The Jersey Chronicle survived only into 1796, 
and the new edition of poems caused no great stirrings of 
interest. In March, 1797, Freneau accepted the editorship of 
the Time Piece in New York, a position which he held for about 
a year. In 1799, Freneau began contributing the letters of the 
"Robert Slender" series to the Aurora, and in December a 
collected volume, Letters on Various and Important Subjects, 
appeared. Finally, in the fall of 1801, Freneau, hard pressed 
to provide decently for his family, returned to the sea to 
sail as master of such vessels as the John, the Fanny, and the 
Washington until once more retiring in---rscf7. All the while he 
was writing poems and letters and contributing them to such 
periodicals as the New York Weekly Museum, City Gazette, and 
Aurora, an activity which continued regularly until at least 
1824 (Leary, Rascal, p. 361). In 1809, Lyd ia Bailey, widow 
of the son of Freneau's original publisher, proposed to issue 
Page 240 
a new edition and Freneau supervised its printing, at least 
partly out of loyalty to his deceased friend since the widow, 
h aving inherited the business, needed funds, as undoubtedly 
d id the poet. The 1809 edition, Poems Written and Published 
During the American Revolutionary War, consists largely of -
ma terials which had been collected in 1795; fewer than forty 
previously uncollected poems appear. However, as always, 
Fr eneau carefully revised certain poems for this edition just 
as he had done for previous ones. Finally, in 1815, A Collection 
of Poems on American Affairs. .Written Between the Years 
1797 and The Present Time appeared. This edition is of particu-
l a r interest in that it is composed almost entirely of previous-
ly uncollected or original poems and seems to represent the 
po et's mature vision. 
E v en after the publication of the 1815 edition, Freneau continued 
t o write. Unfortunately, a fire in October, 1818, destroyed 
hi s home and, presumably, any manuscripts which might illuminate 
present studies. "Winter," a manuscript discovered in one of 
Freneau 's personal books, is thought to be the last poem he 
composed; it is dated November 28, 1827 (Leary, ed. The Last 
P o e ms of Philip Freneau [New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1945], p. 
12 3 ). Freneau's old age was spent in a poverty which is marked 
by the intermittent sale of family lands in order to raise 
money (Leary, Rascal, p. 362). In August, 1832, he applied 
f o r a government pension which he did not live to collect. 
Ap p ropriately, Philip Freneau died not passively, in bed, but 
was caught in a snowstorm while returning from a visit to a 
t a vern and died of exposure on December 18, 1832, only two 
weeks short of his eighty-first birthday. 
2 "Hatteras" was first published as "The Pilot of Hatteras" 
in the Daily Advertiser on November 14, 1789, at about the same 
time that Freneau arrived in Charleston and "retired" from the 
sea. In February, 1790, he returned to New York and by March 
h a d begun editing the Daily Advertiser. On April 15, he married 
El e anor Forman at Middletown Point, New Jersey. "Hatteras" was 
revised and reprinted in the '95 poems, pp. 308-310, and was 
not again reprinted in the poet's collected works. The speaker 
here refers to himself as a "wandering bard" (1. 56); hence 
my reference to the speaker as "the captain-poet" in the 
fol l owing discussion. 
3 Throughout Rascal, Leary emphasizes Freneau's financial 
troubles. Freneau went to sea as a supercargo in 1784, but by 
17 8 5 was working as a printer; from 1786 to 1789, he served as 
c a ptain of various traders, but in '89 left the sea again. In 
1 8 01, largely due to pressing financial difficulties, he returned 
o n c e more to the sea. In 1807, the 55 year old poet left the 
s ea for good. Ultimately, his poetic and editorial efforts 
b e ing unremunerative as well, he was reduced to selling off 
his " sandy patrimony," the family lands in New Jersey and New 
Page 241 
York. "Hatteras" may seem oddly prophetic but, by the time 
of its publication, the poet seems to have realized that 
financial problems would be continuously with him. 
4
First published in the Daily Advertiser, January 26, 1791; 
reprinted: '95, pp. 386-87. 
5 
See, for example, "On The Peak of Pico." '15, I, 167-68; 
or "On The Peak at Teneriffe," '15, I, 177-78. 
6
These revisions have been discussed in chapters 3 and 
5 of this study. Leary, in Soundings, p. 143, characterizes 
Freneau's revisions as puttering. 
71 09, I, 261-,J. 
81 09, I, 262-63. 
9 
See Axelrad, p. 52. 
1 0 . 
Paine, p. 3 . The Age of Reason was first published in 
1794. 
1 1 I b.J.  d ? p. 58. 
12 I b J'.d  ? p. 28. 
13 I bJ'. d ? 
14
Ibid. 
15
see, for example, "Stanzas on the Decease of Thomas Paine " 
'15, II, 28-29, or "Mr. Paine's Right of Man," '09, II, 294- ' 
95, which had originally been published in 1792, 2 years before 
the publication of The Age of Reason. 
16
Firs-:: published as "On a Bee Drinking from A Glass of 
Wine," Time Piece, September 6, 1797; reprinted as " On a 
Honey Bee, Drinking from a Glass of Wine, and Drowned Therein," 
'09, II, 97-98. 
1 7 
Leary, Rascal, p. 339. 
18'15, I ' 94-95. 
19'15, I ' 105. 
20'15, I ' 119. 
21 Paine, p. 12, refers to the "vast machinery of the 
universe." 
Page 242 
22 
Ibid. p. 59. 
23 
Darrel Abel, American Literature (Woodbury, New York, 
1963), I, 223 . 
24 
Ibid. 
25 
Paine, p. 42. 
26 
'15, II, 126-28. 
27 
Itzkowitz, p. 260. 
28 
'15, I, 32-34; first published as "The Book of Odes, 
No. XX . To Santone Samuel, the Millenial Prophet." Time 
Piece (November 10, 1797) . 
29 
'15, II, 81. 
30 
' 15 , I I , 8 4 .,, 16, 
3 1 
Leary, Soundings, p. 136. 
32 . 
Ibid. p. 159. 
33 
Leary, in "Dream Visions," seems to alter his position 
on Freneau's relation to later writers by reviewing some of 
the ways in which Freneau foreshadows them. 
Page 243 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
I. PRIMARY SOURCES 
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Reprinted in facsimile; H. L. Coopman and v. H. 
Paltsits, eds. New York, 1962. 
A Collection of Poems on American Affairs, 2 vols. 
New York, 1815. Reprinted in facsimile; Lewis Leary, 
ed. Delmar, New York, 1976. 
The Miscellaneous Works of Philip Freneau. 
Philadelphia, 1788. Reprinted in facsimile; Lewis 
Leary, ed. Delmar, New York, 1975 (with Poems, 1786) 
Poems of Philip Freneau Written Chiefly During 
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Lewis Leary, ed. Delmar, New York, 1975 (with Miscellaneous 
Works, 1 788). 
Poems Written and Published During the American 
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Poems Written Between the Years 1768 and 1794. 
Mt. Pleasant, New Jersey, 1795. Reprinted in facsimile; 
Lewis Leary, ed. Delmar, New York, 1976. 
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Rasselas, B. H. Bronson, ed. New York, 1952. 
"The Vanity of Human Wishes." In L. Bredvold, 
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2nd ed. New York, 1956. 
Lucretius. On The Nature of Things, Book III, H. A. J. 
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Page 244 
Paine, Thomas. The Age of Reason, Alburey Castelle, ed . 
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Abel, Darrel. American Literature. 4 vols. Woodbury, New 
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Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and The Lamp. New York, 1953. 
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Clark, Harry Hayden. "The Literary Influences of Philip 
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,, 
ed. Poems of Philip Freneau. New York, 1929. 
"What Made Freneau the Father of American Poetry" 
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Congreve, William. "A Discourse on the Pindaric Ode," in 
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Page 245 
Daiches, David. A Critical History of English Literature. 
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Itzkowitz, Martin E. "Freneau's 'Indian Burying Ground ' and 
Keats' 'Grecian Urn'." EAL, VI (Winter 1972), 258-262. 
Jack, Ian. Augustan Satire, Intention and Idiom in English 
Poetry, 1660-1750. London, 1945. 
Leary, Lewis. "The Dream Visions of Philip Freneau," ~, 
XI (Fall 1976). Reprinted (Winter 1 976), 54 - 80 . 
The Last Poems of Philip Freneau. New Brunswick , 
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Soundings. Athens, Georgia, 1975. 
That Rascal Freneau. New York, 1 964 . 
Leeming, David Adams. Mythology, The Voyage of The Hero . 
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Pattee, Frederick L. The First Century of American Litera-
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ed. Th e Poems of Philip Freneau. 3 vols. Princeton, 
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Parrington, Ve rnon L. ed. The Co nnecticut Wits. New York, 
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Pearce, Roy Harvey. The Continuity of American Poetry . 
Princeton, 1961. 
Page 246 
Spiller, Robert, Willard Thorp e, T. H. Johnson, and H. s. 
Colby, eds . The Literary History of the Unit e d States. 
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Tillotson, Geoffrey. Augustan Poetic Diction . London, 
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Wasserman, George. "Item 43 ," Explicator, XX (1962). 
Watts, Alan. Myth and Ritual in Christianity. Boston, 
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Campbell, H. M. "A Note on Freneau's 'The Indian Burying 
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