SOME SOUTHERN WRITERSJAMES RYDER RANDALLBy Kate Alma Orgain
By Kate Alma Orgain
As a rule all national airs have been composed rapidly, under the strong inspiration of some moment of intense and enthusiastic feeling, and their writers little dreamed at the time of the power and influence their passionate appeals would have. National lyrics play an important part in every country’s history. What has moved and held the army of France like “The Marseillaise Hymn?” Nothing rouses the Southern soldier like our glorious “Dixie,” and since the hour when the notes and words of “Maryland, My Maryland” first sounded on the air, the noble song has always started the pulse-beat higher and faster in every Southern heart.
It is a pleasant fact for all Southern people, of Irish descent, to remember that the four grand lyric poems of the South were written by Irishmen, or men of Irish parentage. “Dixie” was the work of Dan Emmet, “The Bonnie Blue Flag” that of Harry McCarthy, “The Conquered Banner” came from Father Ryan, and “Maryland, My Maryland,” whose beauty has thrilled the souls of thousands, was, as we know, written by James Ryder Randall. In a letter received by the writer not long ago, Mr. Randall says that on his father’s side he is of Irish descent, thus giving us in our Southern airs a quartette of Irish talent. Mr. Randall was born in Baltimore in 1839, received the principal part of his education at Georgetown, D. C., where he went to school from his tenth to his seventeenth year. Here he obtained a fine classical education, but owing to delicate health could not entirely finish his course. His work in life has been chiefly editorial, and at different times he has been connected with the newspapers of Augusta, New Orleans and Baltimore, and has never devoted himself exclusively to literature. In 1861 James Ryder Randall was, though very young, a professor at Poydras College upon the Fausse Rivière of Louisiana. Only a stripling, just from school, with a soul full of poetry and romance, the condition of the South, the first gun at Fort Sumter, the scent of the battle afar, thrilled his ardent heart, and “one sleepless night in April, in a second story room of Poydras College, seated at a little oldwooden desk,” he wrote the lyric poem that has been called the “Marseillaise of the Confederacy.” The song, set to music of an old college melody, “Lauringer Horatius,” by its passionate appeal, caught the attention of the Southern heart, and was sung in field and camp, in cottage and palace. It was first set in print in theNew Orleans Delta.
JAMES RYDER RANDALL
JAMES RYDER RANDALL
JAMES RYDER RANDALL
Mr. Randall wrote also a number of other beautiful poems, among them being “The Sole Sentry,” “Arlington,” “John Pelham,” and “The Cameo Bracelet.” “The Unconquered Banner” was written in reply to Father Ryan’s “Conquered Banner,” and its beauty and spirit can be seen by even a few lines:
“Men die, but principles can know no death,No last extinguishment of mortal breath.We fought for what our fathers held in trust;It did not fall forever in the dust.”
“Men die, but principles can know no death,No last extinguishment of mortal breath.We fought for what our fathers held in trust;It did not fall forever in the dust.”
“Men die, but principles can know no death,No last extinguishment of mortal breath.We fought for what our fathers held in trust;It did not fall forever in the dust.”
“Men die, but principles can know no death,
No last extinguishment of mortal breath.
We fought for what our fathers held in trust;
It did not fall forever in the dust.”
Hardly less noted at the time of publication than “Maryland, My Maryland,” was the poem “There’s Life in the Old Land Yet.”
In a late paper from Columbus, Ohio, we find the following from Atherton Hastings:
“It was my good fortune to meet recently in New Orleans Mr. James Ryder Randall, the author of ‘Maryland, My Maryland.’ He is an old man now, but vigorous in mind and body. He talked freely and without prejudice of the one-time sectional differences. Individually, he had no apologies for the part he played in the great conflict. His sentiments on the basic principles that once divided the South from the North were perhaps mellowed by age, but not materially changed. I could scarcely realize that this mild-mannered old man, with the soft Southern voice, was the same who, nearly half a century ago, lighted and held aloft the wildly flaming torch of Southern patriotism.”
Modestly and with quiet dignity Mr. Randall still pursues his editorial work, publishing in New Orleans,The Morning Star, a paper of great purity and strong high purpose. Shall we wait, holding silently our alabaster boxes of love and praise till the green sod covers the author of “Maryland, My Maryland,” the song which, Atherton Hastings says, “did more to unite the Confederate States than any other one force?”
The state of Maryland is thinking of having a homecoming of her sons and daughters, and will ask James Ryder Randall to be her guest of honor. Why should not the writer of “Maryland, My Maryland” be thus honored by all our Southern states at various reunions? Colonel J. Frank Supplee, of Baltimore, says he has “never found any section of this country in which this noble song is unknown.” We can in no better way instill love of country into the hearts of our young people than through our national songs, and we should see to it that “Maryland, My Maryland” be sung, and that the memory of its author be kept fresh and green in the heart of every child.