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Cape Cod ballads, and other verse
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206 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1902
About the author
Joseph Crosby Lincoln
103 books23 followersJoseph Crosby Lincoln (a.k.a Joseph C. Lincoln) was an American author of novels, poems, and short stories, many set in a fictionalized Cape Cod. Lincoln's work frequently appeared in popular magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post and The Delineator.
Lincoln was aware of contemporary naturalist writers, such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, who used American literature to plumb the depths of human nature, but he rejected this literary exercise. Lincoln claimed that he was satisfied "spinning yarns" that made readers feel good about themselves and their neighbors. Two of his stories have been adapted to film.
Lincoln was born in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, but his mother moved the family to Chelsea, Massachusetts, a manufacturing city outside of Boston, after the death of his father. Lincoln's literary career celebrating "old Cape Cod" can partly be seen as an attempt to return to an Eden from which he had been driven by family tragedy. His literary portrayal of Cape Cod can also be understood as a pre-modern haven occupied by individuals of old Yankee stock which was offered to readers as an antidote to an America that was undergoing rapid modernization, urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. Lincoln was a Republican and a Universalist.
Upon becoming successful, Lincoln spent his winters in northern New Jersey, near the center of the publishing world in Manhattan, but summered in Chatham, Massachusetts. In Chatham, he lived in a shingle-style house named "Crosstrees" that was located on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Lincoln died in 1944, at the age of 73, in Winter Park, Florida.
Lincoln was aware of contemporary naturalist writers, such as Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser, who used American literature to plumb the depths of human nature, but he rejected this literary exercise. Lincoln claimed that he was satisfied "spinning yarns" that made readers feel good about themselves and their neighbors. Two of his stories have been adapted to film.
Lincoln was born in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, but his mother moved the family to Chelsea, Massachusetts, a manufacturing city outside of Boston, after the death of his father. Lincoln's literary career celebrating "old Cape Cod" can partly be seen as an attempt to return to an Eden from which he had been driven by family tragedy. His literary portrayal of Cape Cod can also be understood as a pre-modern haven occupied by individuals of old Yankee stock which was offered to readers as an antidote to an America that was undergoing rapid modernization, urbanization, immigration, and industrialization. Lincoln was a Republican and a Universalist.
Upon becoming successful, Lincoln spent his winters in northern New Jersey, near the center of the publishing world in Manhattan, but summered in Chatham, Massachusetts. In Chatham, he lived in a shingle-style house named "Crosstrees" that was located on a bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
Lincoln died in 1944, at the age of 73, in Winter Park, Florida.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 15, 2015
When I was still living in Arizona, I used to buy used books by mail from a place in Maine. One list had a book called Galusha the Magnificent: A Novel by Joseph Crosby Lincoln, and I couldn't keep from ordering it, just because I was tickled by the title. This led to a few other works of Lincoln's, which I also enjoyed for their old-fashioned simplicity and interesting characters.
So when I saw this volume of poetry by Lincoln on Gutenberg, I thought it would be fun to see if his ballads were as entertaining as the novels I had read. I also expected verse about the ocean and the sea-going life, since many of his novels feature fishermen and others who are 'old salts'. And there were such poems, about various individuals Lincoln remembered from his childhood in Cape Cod: The Cod-Fisher and The Life-Saver, for example. And there was The Wind's Song, which was the most dramatic poem in the collection.
He wrote about life on land also, but I found most of these a little too...old-fashioned I guess is the right word. I didn't like the thumpety thump rhythm they got me into while reading. I couldn't seem to avoid it even when I read them aloud. That is very distracting.
The book was arranged to progress from boyhood to elder. Some of the boyhood verses were cute, such as His New Brother, where in the final two stanzas, our young man reveals his true feelings:
Why, he isn't worth a dollar!
All he does is cry and holler
More and more;
Won't sit up—you can't arrange him,—
I don't see why Pa do'n't change him
At the store.
Now we've got to dress and feed him,
And we really didn't need him
More 'n a frog;
Why'd they buy a baby brother,
When they know I'd good deal ruther
Have a dog?
When our hero is a bit older, he goes off on a bit of a rant about his Sister's Best Feller and swears he will never act that way when he grows up. And yet just a few poems later here he is hitching up My Old Gray Nag, who knows the way to the girlfriend's house and knows he is allowed to walk as slow as he wants to after she gets into the buggy. My, how a man's thinking can change!
And so we progress through the adult years, until such poems as Through The Fog, which deals with the pressures of life; and Little Bare Feet where our hero is a Grandpa. Overall this was a sweet collection, even with the thumpety thumps. But I did like Lincoln's novels better.
The Wind's Song
Oh, the wild November wind,
How it blew!
How the dead leaves rasped and rustled,
Soared and sank and buzzed and bustled
As they flew;
While above the empty square,
Seeming skeletons in air,
Battered branches, brown and bare,
Gauntly grinned;
And the frightened dust-clouds, flying.
Heard the calling and the crying
Of the wind,—
The wild November wind.
Oh, the wild November wind,
How it screamed!
How it moaned and mocked and muttered
At the cottage window, shuttered,
Whence there streamed
Fitful flecks of firelight mild:
And within, a mother smiled,
Singing softly to her child
As there dinned
Round the gabled roof and rafter
Long and loud the shout and laughter
Of the wind,—
The wild November wind.
Oh, the wild November wind,
How it rang
Through the rigging of a vessel
Rocking where the great waves wrestle!
And it sang,
Light and low, that mother's song;
And the master, staunch and strong,
Heard the sweet strain drift along—
Softened, thinned,—
Heard the tightened cordage ringing
Till it seemed a loved voice singing
In the wind,—
The wild November wind.
So when I saw this volume of poetry by Lincoln on Gutenberg, I thought it would be fun to see if his ballads were as entertaining as the novels I had read. I also expected verse about the ocean and the sea-going life, since many of his novels feature fishermen and others who are 'old salts'. And there were such poems, about various individuals Lincoln remembered from his childhood in Cape Cod: The Cod-Fisher and The Life-Saver, for example. And there was The Wind's Song, which was the most dramatic poem in the collection.
He wrote about life on land also, but I found most of these a little too...old-fashioned I guess is the right word. I didn't like the thumpety thump rhythm they got me into while reading. I couldn't seem to avoid it even when I read them aloud. That is very distracting.
The book was arranged to progress from boyhood to elder. Some of the boyhood verses were cute, such as His New Brother, where in the final two stanzas, our young man reveals his true feelings:
Why, he isn't worth a dollar!
All he does is cry and holler
More and more;
Won't sit up—you can't arrange him,—
I don't see why Pa do'n't change him
At the store.
Now we've got to dress and feed him,
And we really didn't need him
More 'n a frog;
Why'd they buy a baby brother,
When they know I'd good deal ruther
Have a dog?
When our hero is a bit older, he goes off on a bit of a rant about his Sister's Best Feller and swears he will never act that way when he grows up. And yet just a few poems later here he is hitching up My Old Gray Nag, who knows the way to the girlfriend's house and knows he is allowed to walk as slow as he wants to after she gets into the buggy. My, how a man's thinking can change!
And so we progress through the adult years, until such poems as Through The Fog, which deals with the pressures of life; and Little Bare Feet where our hero is a Grandpa. Overall this was a sweet collection, even with the thumpety thumps. But I did like Lincoln's novels better.
The Wind's Song
Oh, the wild November wind,
How it blew!
How the dead leaves rasped and rustled,
Soared and sank and buzzed and bustled
As they flew;
While above the empty square,
Seeming skeletons in air,
Battered branches, brown and bare,
Gauntly grinned;
And the frightened dust-clouds, flying.
Heard the calling and the crying
Of the wind,—
The wild November wind.
Oh, the wild November wind,
How it screamed!
How it moaned and mocked and muttered
At the cottage window, shuttered,
Whence there streamed
Fitful flecks of firelight mild:
And within, a mother smiled,
Singing softly to her child
As there dinned
Round the gabled roof and rafter
Long and loud the shout and laughter
Of the wind,—
The wild November wind.
Oh, the wild November wind,
How it rang
Through the rigging of a vessel
Rocking where the great waves wrestle!
And it sang,
Light and low, that mother's song;
And the master, staunch and strong,
Heard the sweet strain drift along—
Softened, thinned,—
Heard the tightened cordage ringing
Till it seemed a loved voice singing
In the wind,—
The wild November wind.
August 10, 2023
Really 3.5 stars rounded up. There are a lot of childish poems in here, and I'm not claiming it's high literature, but some of the poems have stuck with me. "Jim" is heartbreaking; it's about a man playing with his child's cat that had me in tears. The vernacular is a bit much, but I forgive it as it's over a century old. There's a lot of small town New England, the generation of grandchildren of Civil War veterans. If you like that, this is a nice collection.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews