Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[Rachel Hall]

I'm researching the texts of Carrell's Songs of Zion, and noticed that the "Hail, ye sighing sons of sorrow" text appears on p. 54 with THE MOULDERING VINE tune (a relative of SONS OF SORROW).  It seems that this text, called "The Gloom of Autumn" is quite a bit older than was reported previously - I've found it in the Boston Gazette of 1796 and the NJ & PA Almanac for 1797, also published in 1796.  The poem also appears in other newspapers and almanacs before its first publication in a book, which may be Songs of Zion (1821).  It was popular enough as a song that another poem was written to the "The Gloom of Autumn tune" in 1815.  Can anyone find an earlier printing? 

Also, is there any reason to doubt the attribution to Selah Gridley?  The poem is always printed anonymously, at least where I have found it.  The attribution comes from The Mill of the Muses, published posthumously in 1828.  There is also a 1863 account of Gridley's life here: http://books.google.com/books?id=vJUbAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22gloom%20of%20autumn%22%20vermont&pg=PA535#v=onepage&q=%22gloom%20of%20autumn%22%20vermont&f=false

Has anyone run across other tunes published with this text? 

best,

Rachel

ps:  Here's Warren's transcription of the full text: http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/texts/Gloom.txt

[Rachel Hall]

Thanks, Wade.  BTW, for those who haven't seen it, the 1815 poem is an account of a laboratory accident that killed two young boys. 

I'm guessing that SONS OF SORROW and MOULDERING VINE are both examples of the "Gloom of Autumn" tune family.  Given that Hauser knew two related but not identical versions of the same melody, it seems that the tune had a strong presence in oral tradition.  Also, the text is is only tangentially sacred, so I expect that the tune wouldn't have changed when the song started to be printed in tunebooks containing sacred songs (it usually goes the other way - secular songs like FEW HAPPY MATCHES and ROSE TREE acquire sacred words). 

It would be interesting to know what other melodies, if any, have been published with that text.  (BTW, the pairing of the text with PRINCETON in the Shenandoah is not original - Steffy's text for that tune is "Come thou fount.")

best,

Rachel

[Wade Kotter]

Just found a reference to "tune, The Gloom of Autumn" on a broadside including the narrative of the  Dec 27, 1813 murder of a young girl followed by a 11 verse poem:

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/80363383

Obviously, whatever tune this was, it was pretty well known.

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

---

From: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 9:34 PM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

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[Wade Kotter]

Rachel et al:

A few months ago I did some research on this and came up with basically the same results, including the 1796 printings. It seems that this poem did not enter the sacred repertoire prior to 1821; at least all of the occurrences I found prior to 1821 were in secular sources. Not surprisingly, it seems to have been quite popular on headstones and was adopted in a variant version by the Masons as early as 1843:

http://books.google.com/books?id=E5xLAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA174

I also failed in my search for a printing of "The Gloom of Autumn tune" mentioned in 1815; in fact, I haven't found this text printed with any other tune. Regarding the attribution to Gridley, I think it's pretty secure, especially if the account of him collecting his poems for publication prior to his death and their publication two years after his death by his brother is accepted. I guess it's possible that Gridley claimed what was originally an anonymous poem, but it seems unlikely to me. I did spend time trying to track down almanacs from New England predating 1796 but had no luck. However, I have noticed that author attributions are quite rare in these early almanacs as well as both secular and camp meeting songsters from the period. You probably also know that it appeared, unattributed of course, in the 1822 4th edition of "Social and Campmeeting Songs for the Pious" (Baltimore, Armstrong and Plaskitt):

http://www.hymnary.org/hymn/SCSF1828/143

So 1821/1822 may be close to the time when this poem entered the camp meeting repertoire, perhaps even influenced by Carrell's publication of his THE MOULDERING VINE in 1821 and its inclusion shortly thereafter by Davisson in A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony.

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

---

From: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, August 19, 2013 9:34 PM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[Warren Steel]

>I'm researching the texts of Carrell's Songs of Zion, and noticed that the "Hail, ye sighing sons of sorrow" text appears on p. 54 with THE MOULDERING VINE tune (a relative of SONS OF SORROW).  It seems that this text, called "The Gloom of Autumn" is quite a bit older than was reported previously - I've found it in the Boston Gazette of 1796 and the NJ & PA Almanac for 1797, also published in 1796.  The poem also appears in other newspapers and almanacs before its first publication in a book, which may be Songs of Zion (1821).  It was popular enough as a song that another poem was written to the "The Gloom of Autumn tune" in 1815.  Can anyone find an earlier printing? 

>Also, is there any reason to doubt the attribution to Selah Gridley?... 

   I've always suspected that the poem would be found in newspapers from around 1800, and I'm happy that you've identified some earlier publications. In the history of Wolcott, Connecticut, Frederick Marsh associated the poem with the Rev. Alexander Gillet of Torrington (1773-1826, also a composer), writing in 1856 that it was "said to have been composed by Alex. Gillet." I accepted this for some time, but I find Gridley's claim more persuasive and his version more complete than the earlier printings. 

   I believe the poem was modeled on "The Leaf" by George Horne (1730-1792), which is also found set to music as Autumn by Fisher (American Musical Magazine, 1787)--see Missouri Harmony.
That poem begins "See the leaves around us falling/dry and withered to the ground."
http://books.google.com/books?id=5f05AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA225&lpg=PA225&dq=%22see+the+leaves+around+us+falling%22+horne&source=bl&ots=2AeSu0hAH6&sig=cHvqq5AMucJVrMOCUeJV3aBeFgY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fWQTUrL8MMTG2wWZ6oHICA&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22see%20the%20leaves%20around%20us%20falling%22%20horne&f=false This is from Horne's posthumous works (1796), but again, the poem was published earlier in literary magazines or newspapers.
 
   Finally, there's a Masonic contrafact of "The Gloom of Autumn" beginning:
"Come, ye sighing sons of sorrow, view with me your brother's tomb."
In this Scottish Rite source it is set to the tune Greenville, which we know as Sweet Affliction.
http://www.freemason.com/library/baasrf06.htm

--
Warren Steel                     mu...@olemiss.edu
Professor of Music       University of Mississippi
        http://www.mcsr.olemiss.edu/~mudws/

[Rachel Hall]

A partial answer to my own question about other printings of this text and tune - there are more on hymnary.org, including two closely related from New York state (Mattison's Sacred Melodies and Mansfield's American Vocalist) and one from Ohio (Rhinehart's American Church Harp).  This last is a three-part printing of the Carrell/Davisson arrangement.  And of course there's AUTUMN in the Virginia Harmony.  http://www.hymnary.org/text/hail_ye_sighing_sons_of_sorrow

Rachel

[Wade Kotter]

Here's another tune, although relatively late:

http://books.google.com/books?id=dWAJAQAAMAAJ&vq=autumn&pg=PA85#v=snippet&q=autumn&f=false

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

From: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 9:48 AM
Subject: [fasola-discussions] Re: Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[Nikos Pappas]

Rachel et al.  I have only found one source for a tune set to the "Gloom of Autumn" text that predates Carrell.  It is in a 4-shape shape-note manuscript from Lyme, Connecticut by a teenager named Marsena Vinton Miller who drowned in a shipwreck along the Long Island Sound in 1821.  I found the Miller family grave in Ohio with a marker dedicated to Marsena.  It also explains how the manuscript turned up in Ohio.  I'm including an excerpt of a paper I wrote a number of years back to looked at the Miller ms. and its contents.  Interestingly enough, the tune "Gloom of Autumn", alluded to in the broadside publications, is a variant of the tune family most commonly identified with HOLY MANNA.  So, this manuscript is important because it contains not only the earliest musical setting of this text that I've found, and also the earliest source for this tune family, predating that in Moore's Columbian Harmony by almost a decade.  If anyone is interested I can send more details, but I thought this might peak some interest.  I'm also attaching the tune GLOOM OF AUTUMN as it appears in the Miller manuscript to this e-mail.  So, pardon me for including a small attachment.

Between 1817 and 1821, Marsena V. Miller compiled a shaped-note collection of psalmody in Lyme, Connecticut beginning on June 24, 1817.  The manuscript book, measuring 8” by 3” and bound in rag paper without watermarks, is located in the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus[1].  The Miller manuscript reveals that Connecticut musical culture did not change as rapidly as one might assume from the works of musicians Stephen Jenks and Daniel Read.  Not only did Miller incorporate ancient-style tunes in his manuscript collection, but he also employed the four-shape notation system popularized by Little and Smith in New York.  Few if any printed Connecticut tunebooks, regardless of including ancient or scientific style compositions, employed a shaped-note notation after the unsuccessful efforts of Andrew Law around the turn of the nineteenth-century.[2]  Finally, this manuscript documents not only one of the last flowerings of the New England fuging tune, but also the possible origin of the folk-hymn popularly known as “Holy Manna” in southern tunebooks such as The Sacred Harp compiled by Benjamin Franklin White and E.J. King in 1844.

            Marsena Vinton Miller, born in 1804, was the son of Richard Miller (1774-1866)

and Phoebe Beckwith (1780-1878) of Lyme, Connecticut.  The third of four children, his

other siblings included his brother Travis Ayer, and sisters Mary Cordelia and Eliza

Champlin.  Marsena’s parents Richard and Phoebe were married on January 15, 1798 and

the first child Travis was born in 1799.  Richard Miller first earned a living in the nautical trade and sailed throughout the “West Indies and other ports”[3] before retiring to farm work in Lyme.  The family later relocated through the efforts of Travis Ayer, brother of Marsena Vinton, moving to Rome Township in Ashtabula County, Ohio in 1822.  Miller bought a stagecoach inn and became a brigadier general in the state militia, later selling this property in 1849 to operate a general store in Austinburg, Ashtabula County.  The Miller family evidently brought the manuscript with them to Ohio, which explains how it later appeared in Painesville, Ohio in 1944.

            Before the family relocated to Ohio, Marsena began work on his music manuscript book at the age of thirteen and possibly continued this until his premature death at the age of seventeen in 1821.  While hardly any biographical information exists concerning his life, the Ashtabula County Historical and Genealogical Society has information relating his death.  Though unattributed and not documented, the society has a typescript of his obituary, probably originating from Ohio providing a detailed account of his demise.

 

Lines:

 

Written to the memory of Marsena V. Miller, son of Mr. Richard and Mrs. Phebe Miller, and brother of Gen. T.A. Miller of Rome, Ashtabula Co., who was lost on board the Schooner Industry, of Jersey, on the night of April 21, 1821, the vessel being capsized in Long Island Sound on the night after sailing from New London for New York, during a terrible storm.  Mr. Miller, an excellent young man, sunk at once into a watery grave, ---- Capt. Ezra Beckwith, father of Jeremiah Beckwith of rome (sic!), and Mr. Manwaring of Lyme, Ct., perished on board the wreck.  Three of four men barely survived, and were taken from the wreck of the next morning.

 

 

 

Composed by a Young Lady

 

Since death with ever a jealous eye

In youth’s untimely hour,

Has-passed the vile and worthless by,

To pluck the fariest flower! —

 

Friendship may hang her mournful head

O’er dear Marsena’s bier

Nature, may offer to the dead

The tribute of a tear.

 

 

In addition to this obituary, the Miller family plot contains an obelisk listing all of Travis’ immediate family members including his parents, siblings, spouses, and children.  The siblings’ names are inscribed on the northern face of the stone with Marsena V. Miller’s name placed first above his sisters Mary and Eliza.  This monument documents the only surviving knowledge currently known, regarding Marsena’s middle name and age at the time of death.  His middle name Vinton probably originated from his grandfather’s surname on his mother’s side of the family – Phoebe Miller’s father was named Vinton Beckwith.  In light of this information, the Marsena V. Miller manuscript represents a family treasure that the Miller’s brought with them in moving to Ohio.  Because of its small size, the book was easily transported and remained as a unique heirloom of the unfortunate Marsena.  In any case, the manuscript managed to evade destruction through the care of a loving and remembering family.

 

---

[1] Regarding its provenance, Mrs. Percy Smith, who received it from Mrs. H. R. Collacott of Painesville, Ohio in 1944, originally donated this volume to the Campus Martius Museum in Marietta, Ohio.   In 1996, the small collection of musical manuscripts in Marietta was in turn deposited into the Columbus museum and archives.

[2] Crawford, Richard A., Andrew Law, American Psalmodist. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1968, chapter V.

[3] All information concerning the Miller family was obtained through the Ashtabula County Genealogical Society.  Unfortunately, little of this material is documented regarding sources and dates.

Cheers,

Nikos Pappas

Tscls, AL

On Tue, Aug 20, 2013 at 12:15 PM, Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu> wrote:

A partial answer to my own question about other printings of this text and tune - there are more on hymnary.org, including two closely related from New York state (Mattison's Sacred Melodies and Mansfield's American Vocalist) and one from Ohio (Rhinehart's American Church Harp).  This last is a three-part printing of the Carrell/Davisson arrangement.  And of course there's AUTUMN in the Virginia Harmony.  http://www.hymnary.org/text/hail_ye_sighing_sons_of_sorrow

Rachel

--

[Wade Kotter]

It looks like my link doesn't work correctly. The tune in on page 85, with the text printed below. Hopefully this link will work:

http://books.google.com/books?id=dWAJAQAAMAAJ&vq=autumn&pg=PA85#v=onepage&q&f=false

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

---

From: Wade Kotter <wadek...@yahoo.com>
To: "rh...@sju.edu" <rh...@sju.edu>; "fasola-di...@googlegroups.com" <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 12:04 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Re: Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[Wade Kotter]

Very interesting, Nikos! In my searches earlier today, I came across a relatively late reference (but cannot find it now-aargh!) to this text being sung very slowly to HOLY MANNA. Didn't pay much attention because I assumed it was a late matching of this tune and text and there was no mention of a printed source. I'll see later today or tomorrow if I kind find the reference again. And yes, I would be interested in those additional details.

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

---

From: Nikos Pappas <nikos.a...@gmail.com>
To: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
Cc: Fasola-Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 12:30 PM

Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Re: Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[Rachel Hall]

Good find, Wade!  Yet another upstate NY version that confirms the hypothesis that this tune family is "the Gloom of Autumn tune."  And an alternate sacred text.  This one is pretty weird harmonically - it's like the arranger couldn't decide whether the piece was in A minor or D dorian.  The text underlay is odd, too.

I just finished looking through the Old Paths, and, wow, it's an interesting book.  The rhythm of most of the songs arranged by Selby is very strange -- he had his own ideas about the relationship between textual and musical rhythm.  The most interesting song to me is THE GOOD OLD WAY on p.121.  This tune and text pairing was recorded in the 1890s in the Isle of Man and may be familiar from Ted Stokes' harmonization in the Oberlin Harmony, which he has revised in the Shenandoah (or also from the Watersons' recording).  I didn't know that it had been printed in the US previously.  The tune is credited as a "Primitive Methodist Melody." 

http://books.google.com/books?id=dWAJAQAAMAAJ&vq=autumn&pg=PA121#v=onepage&q&f=false 

Rachel

[Warren Steel]

Rachel writes:

>A partial answer to my own question about other printings of this text and tune - there are more on hymnary.org, including two closely related from New York state (Mattison's Sacred Melodies and Mansfield's American Vocalist) and one from Ohio (Rhinehart's American Church Harp).  This last is a three-part printing of the Carrell/Davisson arrangement.  And of course there's AUTUMN in the Virginia Harmony.  http://www.hymnary.org/text/hail_ye_sighing_sons_of_sorrow

It also seems to me that the "Babylon is Fallen" melody, which Carol Medlicott has found in an early Shaker manuscript, is a variant of the "Mouldering Vine" melody, or a member of the "family."

[Wade Kotter]

Rachel, this is the first time I've come across this book; perhaps it was only recently digitized. It is rather strange, sort of like me.... Anyway, perhaps this is another example of a compiler trying to transcribe and harmonize what he heard people sing instead of trying to create "singable" versions.

Wade Kotter

South Ogden

And now my wife and I are off to Salt Lake City for an anniversary lunch and stroll through down town!

---

From: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
To: Wade Kotter <wadek...@yahoo.com>
Cc: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2013 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Re: Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[Warren Steel]

Rachel writes:

I just finished looking through the Old Paths, and, wow, it's an interesting book.  The rhythm of most of the songs arranged by Selby is very strange -- he had his own ideas about the relationship between textual and musical rhythm.  The most interesting song to me is THE GOOD OLD WAY on p.121.  This tune and text pairing was recorded in the 1890s in the Isle of Man and may be familiar from Ted Stokes' harmonization in the Oberlin Harmony, which he has revised in the Shenandoah (or also from the Watersons' recording).  I didn't know that it had been printed in the US previously.  The tune is credited as a "Primitive Methodist Melody." 

http://books.google.com/books?id=dWAJAQAAMAAJ&vq=autumn&pg=PA121#v=onepage&q&f=false 

    This seems to me closely related to the WESLEY tune in Wyeth that Walker recast as JERUSALEM, Sacred Harp p. 53.

[Haruo (Leland)]

On Monday, August 19, 2013 8:34:26 PM UTC-7, Rachel Hall wrote:

Has anyone run across other tunes published with this text? 

And Wade Kotter wrote:
"In my searches earlier today, I came across a relatively late reference (but cannot find it now-aargh!) to this text being sung very slowly to HOLY MANNA. Didn't pay much attention because I assumed it was a late matching of this tune and text and there was no mention of a printed source. I'll see later today or tomorrow if I kind find the reference again."

I think I probably saw the same reference to the (super-)slow singing of it to HOLY MANNA; see the hymn as it appears in my online hymnal, TTT-Himnaro Cigneta, formerly a GeoCities site and now archived by oocities.com:

http://www.oocities.org/cigneto/thctxt/en/hailyesig1.html
MIDI file http://web.archive.org/web/20091026194848/geocities.com/cigneto/thcmid/h/HolyManna1.mid

The reference I (vaguely) recall reading was about hymn performance in Old Regular Baptist Churches, the sort that use the Goble hymnal my hymnal entry refers to. This may have been connected to a discussion I had on the Mudcat Café with Jean Ritchie about the Old Regular Baptist hymnody she recalled from her childhood, i.a. where/when I acquired her tune for "Amazing Grace".

http://web.archive.org/web/20091027115810/http://www.geocities.com/cigneto/thcdiv/partituroj/AG.html

Haruo = Leland

[Rachel Hall]

Thanks, Wade!  You never cease to amaze.  The Journal of American Folk-Lore article you found is actually a collection of treble parts (that's the part I normally sing, so it was immediately clear).  The MOULDERING VINE "tune" you found is none other than Davisson's treble to that song, which first appeared in A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony, ed.2, c.1822.  The same treble was in the Southern Harmony.

The question of transmission of harmony parts, especially trebles, is one that interests me & I'm going to start a new thread about this collection....

best,
Rachel

[Wade Kotter]

Here's an interesting version of THE MOULDERING VINE from the Journal of American Folk-lore, vol 14, 1901:

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000099904900?urlappend=%3Bseq=303

It was apparently collected by Emma M. Backus of Grovetown, GA and is one of seven interesting tunes. Unfortunately, no details are give about the date it was collected, the singer, etc. Here's how Miss Backus prefaces her transcriptions with the following:

"The following songs have been taken by me from the lips of elderly reciters, who have given them as current and popular in Central North Carolina in the days of their your, about the first quarter of the nineteenth century. The religious and sentimental cast reflects the taste of that time; in some cases, no doubt, it will be necessary to seek their origin at a date much earlier." p. 286.

[Wade Kotter]

Yes, I did notice that this seemed like a treble part but forgot to mention it. I wonder if this central North Carolina singer grew up singing treble from the Christian Harmony. THE MOULDERING VINE is also in the Christian Harmony I believe, but I don't have my copy here at work to check.

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

From: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
To: Wade Kotter <wadek...@yahoo.com>

Cc: Fasola Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 7:59 AM

Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Re: Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[Rachel Hall]

More about the Backus article:  I was excited to find what seemed to be a collection of treble parts preserved in oral tradition, but it seems this is not the case....  The fact that the key signatures, time signatures, tempo markings, first and second endings, etc. are identical to trebles in Walker's Southern Harmony tells me that Backus almost certainly copied the songs from a book or manuscript rather than transcribed them from singers.  Perhaps she even didn't know that the tenor line was the melody and just copied the treble.  Either sloppy scholarship or deliberate plagiarism, I'm afraid.

Of the 7 songs notated, 6 are either identical or almost identical to trebles in the Southern Harmony.  They are summarized below.  However, there are still a few questions I have.  I can't identify the first song, Friendship.  The "tune" written also feels like a treble part, but it's not in Southern Harmony.  Does anyone recognize it?  Also, the text of Mrs. Saunders's Experience is not one I recognize.  I tried googling it and didn't get any hits.  Any ideas?  So perhaps Backus had a manuscript rather than a copy of Southern Harmony....

best,
Rachel

2	The Mouldering Vine	Hail ye sighing sons of sorrow	says "from central North Carolina". Identical to MOULDERING VINE treble in Southern Harmony.
3	Peace of Mind	When beauty and youth are in their full prime	similar to treble of MORALITY in Southern Harmony, but key signature should be G major and a few alterations.
4	The Dying Father's Farewell	The time is swiftly rolling on	HICK'S FAREWELL treble as in Southern Harmony. clearly copied from a written source because first and second ending are conflated with the end of the song.
5	Mr. Davis's Experience	Come all ye young people and all my relations	treble to HAREWELL / FAREWELL (Moore, 1825). Same key and tempo markings as Southern Harmony, with MCH Davis' Experience text "Come all ye young people of every relation."
6	Mrs. Saunders's Experience	With faith I trust in Christ the Lord	treble to TRIBULATION as in Southern Harmony, but text is different. Can't find the source of the text.
7	Columbia	Thus down a lone valley with cedars o'erspread	treble to STAR OF COLUMBIA in Southern Harmony

[Wade Kotter]

I believe at this time that the Folk-lore Association solicited contributions from "correspondents" in the field, presumably regular folks who happened to be members of the Association. That doesn't excuse sloppy scholarship like this, but it does raise questions about the quality of other articles from this publication. The lack of dates, locations and names of singers was in hindsight a pretty good indication to take this material with a grain of salt. At least a portion of the blame should go to the editors who allowed this to be published.

Wade Kotter

South Ogden, UT

---

From: "invisibl...@gmail.com" <invisibl...@gmail.com>
To: Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu>
Cc: Fasola Discussions <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>; Wade Kotter <wadek...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 10:37 AM

Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Re: Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

Speaking of sloppy scholarship, what's up with the author's commentary following "Mrs. Saunders' Experience"?  I have no idea what to make of that proposed shape for the "marks of Satan."

Matt Bell

[invisibl...@gmail.com]

Speaking of sloppy scholarship, what's up with the author's commentary following "Mrs. Saunders' Experience"?  I have no idea what to make of that proposed shape for the "marks of Satan."

Matt Bell

On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Rachel Hall <rh...@sju.edu> wrote:

--

[Rachel Hall]

Whatever we think of that article, that text is a remarkable piece of folk poetry!  I assume the "mark of Satan" is the Mark of the Beast, as referred to in the text of Mrs. Saunder's Experience. 

He likewise said that Satan hath
A mark to put upon
The forehead or the hand of those
That he claims for his own.
Marked in the forehead they are bold,
And care not what they do,
They have no fear of God above,
Neither of man below.

The others when with Christians are,
The mark will try to hide,
But when they meet the forehead mark,
Their hand will open wide.
This was a blow severe indeed,
And I condemned did stand,
And told a friend when I came out,
The mark was in my hand.

Rachel

---

From: invisibl...@gmail.com
To: "Rachel Hall" <rh...@sju.edu>
Cc: "Fasola Discussions" <fasola-di...@googlegroups.com>, "Wade Kotter" <wadek...@yahoo.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 12:37:16 PM

Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Re: Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text

[B.E. Swetman]

I'm coming a bit late to this discussion. I've found two October 1795 publications in Readex's America's Historical Newspapers. There are several more later on.

Title pretty consistently
The Gloom of Autumn;
An emblem of Old Age

Paper: Hampshire Gazette; Date: 10-28-1795; Page: 5; Location: Northampton, Massachusetts
This one has S.G. at the end of the last line

Litchfield Monitor; And Agricultural Register; Date: 10-28-1795; Volume: XI; Issue: 534; Page: [4];
This is Litchfield Connecticut. No attribution

A quick scan of 1st lines shows that the version the Warren has posted has 2 more verses than the ones I've found.
The extra verses are:
Lo! I hear the air resounding,
With expiring insect's cries!
Oh! their moans to me are wounding,
Emblem of my aged sighs.

As the annual frosts are cropping 
  Leaves and tendrils from the trees;
 So my friends are yearly dropping,
  Through old age, or dire disease.

Barbara

[Wade Kotter]

Wonderful, Barbara. The initials S.G. at the end of the Hampshire Gazette printing pretty much clinch the Selah Gridley attribution in my opinion. It doesn't surprise me that there would be two extra verses in the posthumous version Warren cites.

Wade

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From: B.E. Swetman <bswe...@hamilton.edu>
To: fasola-di...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2013 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: [fasola-discussions] Gloom of Autumn - SONS OF SORROW text