Note 157 — THE FIRST POETIC PERIOD
Reading edition
The text is from the edition of 1786, which contains the only complete version. The poem was first published in the August number of The United States Magazine, 1779, which also contained the following note: "'The House of Night', a poem in the present number of the Magazine, is from a young gentleman who has favoured us with several original pieces in the course of this work; and readers of taste will no doubt be pleased with it, as perfectly original both in the design and manner of it." It bore the title "The House of Night; or, Six Hours Lodging with Death, A Vision," and the quotation:
"Felix qui potiut rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes et inexorable Fatum Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari. Virg. Georg. II., v. 490."
As printed in the magazine it consisted of seventy-three stanzas, which coincide with the following numbers of the 1786 edition: 3, 4, 6-10, 12, 14, 18, 20-26, 28, 29, 31, 32, 47-54, 58, 59, 65, 66, 68, 69, 72, 74, 75, 78, 79, 86, 87, 94, 96-100, 102-106, 111, 113-115, 117, 118, 125-127, 130, 131. Following are the variations:
Line 10, "eternal light"; 11, "a deeper scene"; 21, "the mind cannot recall"; 23, "where Chesapeque's deep rivers upward flow"; 25, "Though then the woods, in fairest vernal bloom"; 28, "childless tree"; 29, "a friendly star"; 35, "Hoarse roaring wolves, and nightly roving bears"; 37, "Fierce from the loudly sounding Chesapeque"; 45, 46, "When to my view a pile of buildings stood, And near, a garden of autumnal hue"; 55, "The yew, the willow"; 69, "Peace to those buildings; when at once I heard"; 70, "in a remoter dome"; 77, "a superior chamber"; 78, "Confused murmurs, scarce distinguish'd sounds"; 81, "Long were their feuds, for they design'd to talk"; 95, "And from a bed behind a curtain veil"; 97, "Turning to view from whence the murmur came"; 99, "Death, dreary death, upon the gloomy couch"; 100, "in rueful form"; 101, "High o'er his head"; 109, 110, "Sad was his aspect, if we so can call, That aspect where but skin and bones were seen"; 111, "deep and low"; 121, 122, "Then at my hand I saw a comely youth, Of port majestic, who began to tell"; 126, "The monarch"; 127, "melancholy reign"; 185, "the man"; 186, "with frightful tone"; 188, "To answer, and"; 192, "their sickly stores"; 194, "the placid main"; 195, "fine groves"; 196, "Beckoning his footsteps"; 198, "The summer winds, and of the church-yard hoar"; 202, "Of fevers and contagions"; 206, "Arise, make search"; 229, 230, "But now refresh'd, the phantoms rais'd his head, And writhing, seem'd to aim once more to talk"; 232, "expiring death"; 234, "the monstrous spectre"; 257, "Now to the anxious youth his speech he turn'd"; 274, "inspired page"; 275, "harden'd breast"; 285, "Wicked old man"; 295, 296, "nor dost thou now deserve To have 'here lies' engrav'd"; 299, 300, "Might dwell unmov'd amidst November's glooms, And laugh the dullest of his shades away"; 309, "thy savage rage"; 310, "a bloody army"; 315, "The Caledonian with the Albion join'd." Here in the 1779 version occur the following stanzas:
"Why runs thy stream dejected to the main, O Hudson, Hudson, dreary, dull and slow? Seek me no more along that mountain stream, For on his banks is heard the sound of woe. Sword, famine, thirst, and pining sickness there, Shall people half the realms this monster owns; He like the cruel foe, accursed he, Laughs at our pains, rejoices in our groans. Now wilt you tremble if you hear your fate, Out of the dread Apocalypse your doom, That death and hell must perish in the lake Of fire, dispelling half hell's ancient gloom."
341, "black optics"; 348, "And leave the business to some deputy"; 373, "Now thus the drooping victim gave me charge"; 381, "A quivering light"; 383, "by whose far glimmering beams"; 384, "arrayed with ghosts"; 388, "furies snatch the engraving pen"; 390-392,
"Tir'd of his long continued victory: What glory can there be to vanquish those Who all beneath his stroke are sure to die?"
398, "Is borne secure, and rides aloft in state"; 399, "No, the stars"; 410, "Burst from the skies the fury of a blast"; 411, "Round the four eaves"; 414, "Sport with the sands"; 417, "Lights through the air like blazing stars"; 420, "As if afraid the fearful"; 424, "its dreary song"; 441, "Now from within"; 451, "Roar'd like a devil; while the woods around"; 458-460,
"Haste, seize the wretch who my request denies. Tophet receive him to thy lowest pit, Chain'd midst eternal oaths and blasphemies."
470, "And found the cœmetery in the gloom"; 471, "a hell-red waving light"; 472, "horrid circles"; 497, 498, "to the grave"; 499, 500, "A sable chariot drove with wild career, And following close a gloomy cavalcade"; 501, "Whose spectre forms"; 502, "by Pluto's consort wove"; 507, "lanthorn's beam"; 517, "Now deep was plac'd"; 520, "The sable steeds went swifter than the wind"; 523, 524, "Blooming the morn arose, and in the east Stalk'd gallantly in her sun-beam parade." The poem closes in the 1779 version with the following stanzas:
"Waking I found my weary night a dream; Dreams are perhaps forebodings of the soul; Learn'd sages tell why all these whims arose, And from what source such mystic visions roll. Do they portend approaching death, which tells I soon must hence my darksome journey go? Sweet Cherub Hope! Dispel the clouded dream Sweet Cherub Hope, man's guardian god below. Stranger, who'er thou art, who this shall read, Say does thy nightly fancy rove like mine; Transport thee o'er wide lands and wider seas Now underneath the pole and now the burning line? Poet, who thus dost rove, say, shall thou fear New Jordan's stream prefigured by the old? It will but waft thee where thy fathers are The bards with long eternity enroll'd. It will but waft thee where thy Homer shrouds His laurell'd head in some Elysian grove, And on whose skirts perhaps in future years, At awful distance you and I may rove. Enough—when God and nature give the word, I'll tempt the dusky shore and narrow sea: Content to die, just as it be decreed, At four score years, or now at twenty-three."
In the edition of 1795, Freneau used only stanzas 3-17, 119-124 of the poem, giving it the title "The Vision of the Night. A Fragment." In this there are some sixteen variations from the earlier text, nearly all minor verbal changes not always for the better. Several, however, are significant, for instance, line 12 is made to read, "I sing the horrors and the shades of night"; line 32 is changed to "with her ebon spear"; line 478 to "raised by churchmen's hands"; and 480 to "texts from Moses."
The poet used the 1786 edition as a sort of quarry for his later editions. He used thirteen stanzas for "The Sexton's Sermon," q.v.; stanzas 39-43 were reprinted in the 1809 edition in connection with stanzas 35-38 of "Santa Cruz" and entitled "Elegiac Lines"; stanza 79 became stanza one and 55 stanza two of the "Hessian Embarkation," and stanza 49 was inserted after stanza 90 of the 1809 version of "Santa Cruz."