Sherry Chandler

William Orlando Butler

You live and learn. I spent my entire youth in the environs of the General Butler State Resort Park, have read the historical signs and visited the mansion, and not once did it register with me that General William Orlando Butler was a poet.

According the William Ward in A Literary History of Kentucky (The University of Tennessee Press, 1988), Butler was born in Nicholasville in 1791, educated at Transylvania, served in the War of 1812 (a hero of the Battle of New Orleans) and was chief commander of the U.S. forces in the Mexican War. He married and moved to Carrollton in 1817, served in the Kentucky legislature, ran unsuccessfully for governor and as the Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States in 1851. After that defeat, he retired to Carroll County and spent the rest of his life as a “poet, lawyer, and citizen.” He published one small volume of poems, The Boatsman’s Horn and Other Poems, but I haven’t been able to locate a copy. Also according to Ward, Butler’s entire reputation as a poet now rests on “The Boatsman’s Horn,” reproduced below. It refers to a ferryman’s habit of hanging a tin horn on a tree near the landing so that travelers could call the ferry if it happened to be on the opposite side of the river.

I can’t resist adding this bit of litotes I found at the Lawyers and Poetry site, which seems to be from John Townsend’s Kentucky in American Letters: “Though famous as a soldier and politician, The Boatman’s Horn is the work that will keep his name green for many years; and several of his other poems are not to be utterly despised.”

The Boatsman’s Horn

0, boatman! wind that horn again,
For never did the listening air
Upon its lambent bosom bear
So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain!
What though thy notes are sad and few,
By every simple boatman blown,
Yet is each pulse to Nature true,
And melody in every tone.
How oft, in boyhood’s joyous day,
Unmindful of the lapsing hours
Have loitered on my homeward way
By wild Ohio’s bank of flowers;
While some lone boatman from the deck
Poured his soft numbers to that tide,
As if to charm from storm and wreck
The boat-where all his fortunes rise!
Delighted Nature drank the sound,
Enchanted, Echo bore it round
In whispers soft and softer still,
From hill to plain and plain to hill,
till e’en the thoughtless frolic boy,
Elate with hope and wild with joy,
Who gamboled by the river’s side,
And sported by the fretting tide,
Feels something new pervade his breast,
Change his light steps, repress his jest,
Bends o’er the flood his eager ear
To catch the sounds far off, yet dear-
Drinks the sweet draught, but knows not why
The tear of rapture fills his eye.
And can he now, to manhood grown,
Tell why those notes, simple and lone,
As on the ravished ear they fell,
Bind every sense in magic spell?
To all on earth, its fountain heaven,
Beginning with the dewy flower,
Just ope’d in Flora’s vernal bower-
Rising creation’s orders through,
With louder murmur, brighter hue-
That tide is sympathy! Its ebb and flow
Gives life its hues, its joy and woe.
Music, the master spirit that can move
Its waves to war, or lull them into love,
Can cheer the sinking sailor mid the wave,
And bid the warrior on! Nor fear the grave;
Inspire the fainting pilgrim on his road,
And elevate his soul to claim his God!
Then, boatman, wind that horn again!
Though much of sorrow mark its strain,
Yet are its notes to sorrow dear!
What though they wake fond memory’s tear!
Tears are sad memory’s sacred feast,
And rapture oft her chosen guest.

— William Orlando Butler from Kentucky Eloquence Past and Present: Library of Orations, After-Dinner Speeches, Popular and Classic Lectures, Addresses and Poetry, editor-in-chief Col Bennett H. Young

Possibly related posts:

William Littell

William Stafford

William Stafford

William Stafford

William Stafford

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.