View source for The Song of the Vermonters, 1779

{{short description|Poem written by John Greenleaf Whittier}}
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|name                = The Song of the Vermonters, 1779
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|author              = [[John Greenleaf Whittier]]
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|country             = USA
|language            = English
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|publication_date    = {{Start date|df=y|1833}}
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"'''The Song of the Vermonters, 1779'''" Also known as "'''The Green Mountaineer'''" is a poem by the American [[Quaker]] poet [[John Greenleaf Whittier]] (December 17, 1807 &ndash; September 7, 1892) about the U.S. state of [[Vermont]] during its years of independence (1777–1791), sometimes called the [[Vermont Republic]].<ref>{{Cite book|author1=Van DeWater |author2=Frederic F. |title=The Reluctant Republic, Vermont 1724–1791 |origyear=1941|year=1974 |publisher=The Countryman Press |pages=195, 218–219 |isbn=0-914378-02-3}}</ref>
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==Overview==
The ballad describes a period when Vermont deflected land claims from the British colonies of New Hampshire and New York.
Whittier originally wrote the poem in 1828. It was published anonymously by ''[[The New-England Magazine]]'' in 1833.<ref name=Duffy79>Duffy, John J. and H. Nicholas Muller III. ''Inventing Ethan Allen''. Hanover, NH: The University Press of New England, 2014: 79. {{ISBN|978-1-61168-553-4}}</ref> Similarities in the last stanza with prose by [[Ethan Allen]] caused many to believe the entire work to be by Allen. For nearly sixty years the poem was republished with credit going to Ethan Allen.<ref name="The New York Times">{{cite news|url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9D06E4D7163EE73BBC4E53DFBE66838C669FDE|title=Song of the Vermonters; the ode attributed to Ethan Allen. Its authorship finally settled–John G. Whittier Acknowledges it as His, but Only as "a Boy's Practical Joke." |accessdate= 2008-04-02|newspaper=The New York Times|date= 1877-08-06}}</ref> The confusion was perpetuated in part by [[Henry Stevens (bibliographer)|Henry Stevens]], a co-founder of the [[Vermont Historical Society]]. In 1843, Stevens presented the poem to the Society as one by Allen which he had "discovered". The discovery was also reported in the ''[[Vermont Chronicle]]''.<ref name=Duffy79/> The poem was republished anonymously in England by the ''[[Northern Star (chartist newspaper)|Northern Star]]'' in July 1847 in an issue which included two other poems by Whittier.<ref>Sanders, Mike. ''The Poetry of Chartism: Aesthetics, Politics, History''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009: 269. {{ISBN|978-0-521-89918-5}}</ref>
Whittier, however, had acknowledged his authorship in an obscure Massachusetts magazine in 1858.<ref name=Duffy80>Duffy, John J. and H. Nicholas Muller III. ''Inventing Ethan Allen''. Hanover, NH: The University Press of New England, 2014: 80. {{ISBN|978-1-61168-553-4}}</ref> In preparing for an address at a centennial celebration in 1877, a resident of [[Bennington, Vermont|Bennington]] named Daniel Roberts asked Whittier to confirm his authorship.<ref name=Duffy80/> In July of that year, Whittier acknowledged authorship as "a boy's practical joke."<ref name="The New York Times"/> As Whittier wrote in the Boston ''Transcript'' in March 1887:
{{blockquote|'The Song of the Vermonters, by Ethan Allen,' was a piece of boyish mystification, written sixty years ago and printed anonymously. The only person who knew its authorship was my old friend [[Joseph T. Buckingham]], and I supposed the secret died with him. We were both amused to find it regarded by antiquarian authorities as a genuine relic of the old times. How the secret was discovered, a few years ago, I have never known. I have never intentionally written anything in favor of war, but a great deal against it.<ref>Pickard, Samuel Thomas (ed). ''Life and Letters of John Greenleaf Whittier''. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1894: Vol. I, p. 67-68.</ref>}}
The poem was included in the 1904 Oxford Complete Edition of Whittier's poetry, ''The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. Oxford Complete Edition''.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Whittier, John Greenleaf and W. Garrett Horder, Editor |title=The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier. Oxford Complete Edition |year=1904 |publisher=Henry Frowde |pages=558–560 |isbn=}}</ref>
==Full text==
Ho–all to the borders! Vermonters, come down, <br/>
With your breeches of deerskin and jackets of brown; <br/>
With your red woollen caps and your moccasins come, <br/>
To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum.
Come down with your rifles! <br/>
Let gray wolf and fox <br/>
Howl on in the shade of their primitive rocks; <br/>
Let the bear feed securely from pig-pen and stall; <br/>
Here's two-legged game for your powder and ball.
On our south came the Dutchmen, enveloped in grease; <br/>
And arming for battle while canting of peace; <br/>
On our east crafty Meshech has gathered his band <br/>
To hang up our leaders and eat up our land.
Ho–all to the rescue! For Satan shall work <br/>
No gain for his legions of Hampshire and York! <br/>
They claim our possessions–the pitiful knaves– <br/>
The tribute we pay shall be prisons and graves!
Let Clinton and Ten Broek with bribes in their hands, <br/>
Still seek to divide and parcel our lands; <br/>
We've coats for our traitors, whoever they are; <br/>
The warp is of feathers–the filling of tar:
Does the 'old Bay State' threaten?<br/>
Does Congress complain? <br/>
Swarms Hampshire in arms on our borders again? <br/>
Bark the war dogs of Britain aloud on the lake– <br/>
Let 'em come; what they can they are welcome to take.
What seek they among us? <br/>
The pride of our wealth <br/>
Is comfort, contentment, and labor, and health, <br/>
And lands which, as Freemen we only have trod, <br/>
Independent of all, save the mercies of God.
Yet we owe no allegiance, we bow to no throne, <br/>
Our ruler is law and the law is our own; <br/>
Our leaders themselves are our own fellow-men,<br/>
Who can handle the sword, or the scythe, or the pen.
Our wives are all true, and our daughters are fair, <br/>
With their blue eyes of smiles and their light flowing hair, <br/>
All brisk at their wheels till the dark even-fall, <br/>
Then blithe at the sleigh-ride the husking and ball!
We've sheep on the hillsides, we've cows on the plain, <br/>
There are deer on the mountains, and wood-pigeons fly <br/>
From the crack of our muskets, like clouds on the sky.
And there's fish in our streamlets and rivers which take <br/>
Their course from the hills to our broad bosomed lake; <br/>
Through rock-arched Winooski the salmon leaps free, <br/>
And the portly shad follows all fresh from the sea.
Like a sunbeam the pickerel glides through the pool, <br/>
And the spotted trout sleeps where the water is cool, <br/>
Or darts from his shelter of rock and of root, <br/>
At the beaver's quick plunge, or the angler's pursuit.
And ours are the mountains, which awfully rise, <br/>
Till they rest their green heads on the blue of the skies; <br/>
And ours are the forests unwasted, unshorn, <br/>
Save where the wild path of the tempest is torn.
And though savage and wild be this climate of ours, <br/>
And brief be our season of fruits and of flowers, <br/>
Far dearer the blast round our mountains which raves,<br/>
Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves!
Hurrah for Vermont! For the land which we till <br/>
Must have sons to defend her from valley and hill; <br/>
Leave the harvest to rot on the fields where it grows, <br/>
And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes
From far Michiscom's wild valley, to where <br/>
Poosoonsuck steals down from his wood-circled lair, <br/>
From Shocticook River to Lutterlock town <br/>
Ho–all to the rescue! Vermonters come down!
Come York or come Hampshire, come traitors or knaves, <br/>
If ye rule o'er our land ye shall rule o'er our graves; <br/>
Our vow is recorded–our banner unfurled, <br/>
In the name of Vermont we defy all the world!
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Song Of The Vermonters, 1779}}
[[Category:1828 poems]]
[[Category:American poems]]
[[Category:Poetry and hymns by John Greenleaf Whittier]]
[[Category:Pre-statehood history of Vermont]]
[[Category:Vermont Republic]]
[[Category:Vermont culture]]
[[Category:History of New England]]
[[Category:Works originally published in The New-England Magazine]]