JAMES H. MULLIGAN
Reading edition
James Hilary Mulligan, the author of In Kentucky, was born at Lexington, Kentucky, November 21, 1844. He was graduated at St. Mary's College, Montreal, Canada, in 1864; and five years later Kentucky (Transylvania) University granted him his degree in law. For forty years Judge Mulligan has been known in Kentucky as a lawyer, orator, and maker of clever, humorous verse. He was editor of the old Lexington Morning Transcript for a year; and for six years he was judge of the Recorder's Court of Lexington, from which work he won his title of "judge." From 1881 to 1888 Judge Mulligan was a member of the Kentucky House of Representatives; and from 1890 to 1894 he was in the State Senate. In 1894 President Cleveland appointed Judge Mulligan Consul-General at Samoa, and this post he held for two years. While in Samoa he saw much of Robert Louis Stevenson, who was working upon Weir of Hermiston, and well upon his way to the undiscovered country when the Kentucky diplomat met him. When Stevenson died, December 4, 1894, the first authoritative news of his passing came in a now rare and precious little booklet of thirty-seven pages which Lloyd Osbourne, Judge Mulligan, Bazett Haggard, brother of the English novelist, and another writer, sent out to the world, entitled A Letter to Mr. Stevenson's Friends (Apia, Samoa, 1894). It contained a detailed account of the writer's last days, his death, and funeral. Mr. Osbourne "ventured also to reprint Mr. Gosse's beautiful lines, To Tusitala in Vailima, which reached Mr. Stevenson but three days before his death." President Cleveland offered to send Judge Mulligan to Cape Town, Africa, but he declined the appointment, and came home. For the past fifteen years he has devoted his attention to the law and to the writing of verse and prose. His Samoa, the Government, Commerce, and People (Washington, 1896), is said to be the most exhaustive account of that island ever published. Judge Mulligan's little humorous poem, In Kentucky, has made him famous. First read at a banquet in the old Phoenix Hotel, Lexington, in 1902, it has been declaimed in the halls of Congress and gotten into the Congressional Record. It has been parodied a thousand times, reproduced in almost every newspaper in English, illustrated, and at least one Kentuckian has heard it chanted by an Englishman in the shadow of the Pyramids in Egypt! More than a million souvenir postal cards have been sold with the verses printed upon them; and had the author had In Kentucky copyrighted, he would have reaped a harvest of golden coins. As poetry Judge Mulligan's Over the Hills to Hustonville, or The Bells of Old St. Joseph's, are superior to In Kentucky, but they are both comparatively unknown to the general public. Judge Mulligan's home, "Maxwell Place," on the outskirts of Lexington, was the birthplace of In Kentucky.
Bibliography. Lexington Leader (April 4, 1909); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1910, v. xiv).
IN KENTUCKY
[From The Lexington Herald (February 12, 1902)]
The moonlight falls the softest In Kentucky; The summer days come oftest In Kentucky; Friendship is the strongest, Love's light glows the longest, Yet, wrong is always wrongest In Kentucky. Life's burdens bear the lightest In Kentucky; The home fires burn the brightest In Kentucky; While players are the keenest, Cards come out the meanest, The pocket empties cleanest In Kentucky. The sun shines ever brightest In Kentucky; The breezes whisper lightest In Kentucky; Plain girls are the fewest, Their little hearts the truest, Maiden's eyes the bluest In Kentucky. Orators are the grandest In Kentucky; Officials are the blandest In Kentucky; Boys are all the fliest, Danger ever nighest, Taxes are the highest In Kentucky. The bluegrass waves the bluest In Kentucky; Yet, bluebloods are the fewest(?) In Kentucky; Moonshine is the clearest, By no means the dearest, And, yet, it acts the queerest In Kentucky. The dovenotes are the saddest In Kentucky; The streams dance on the gladdest In Kentucky; Hip pockets are the thickest, Pistol hands the slickest, The cylinder turns quickest In Kentucky. The song birds are the sweetest In Kentucky; The thoroughbreds are fleetest In Kentucky; Mountains tower proudest, Thunder peals the loudest, The landscape is the grandest— And politics—the damnedest In Kentucky.
OVER THE HILL TO HUSTONVILLE
[From The Lexington Leader (April 4, 1909)]
Over the hill to Hustonville, Past mead and vale and waving grain With fleecy clouds and glad sunshine And the balm of the coming rain; On where hidden beneath the hill, In the widening vale below— Chime and smith and distant herd Sing a song of the long ago. Over the hill to Hustonville Where silent fields are sad and brown, And the crow's lone call is blended With the anvil beat of the town; Where sweet the hamlet life flows on, And the doors ever open wide, Welcome the worn and wandering To the ingle and cheer inside. Over the hill to Hustonville I knew and loved as a child, A scene that yet lights up to me With a radiant glow and mild; With drowsy lane and quiet street, Gables quaint and the houses gray, Ancient inn with battered sign, And an air of the far-away. Over the hill to Hustonville Where men are yet sturdy and strong As were their sires in days long past— As true as their flint-locks long. And maids are shy and soft of speech— As the wild-rose, lithsome and true, Eyes alight as the coming dawn, Softly blue, as their skies are blue. Some—sometime—in the bye and bye, With all my life-won riches rare— Dead hopes and faded memories— A silken floss of baby hair; Fast locked close within my heart— Worn of strife and the empty quest— I'll over the hill to Hustonville, To dream ever—and rest—and rest.