Elm Corbin
Middletown, 'twixt the Bays half way,
Took its growth at a later day
Than the port on Lord Herman's ridge
Famed two centuries, “Cantwell's Bridge.”
There the ships loaded staves and spars
For the Navy in Marlborough's wars,
And the best wheat put hatches upon
In the campaigns of Napoleon.
Russian wheat gave it Russian aim
And to Odessa it switched its name.
Long the Quakers held their perch,
Spite of the Synod and Drawyer's Church,
Sullenly falling back in the lists,
Episcopalians or Methodists;
But if you age them by their teeth,
Penn men and Foxes they were beneath.
Mark you a house on the southern side,
Where the old brick lines the ivies hide,
And the big open doorway calls
Breezes to the wide stairway and halls?
There, when the coasts and isles he toured,
Cromwell Corbin, the captain, moored.
He was a Quaker skipper then,
Plain as the scion of Admiral Penn,
And in his speaking trumpet spoke
“Thee” and “Thou” to his sailor folk,
“Thee” and “Thou” he spoke to his dog,
And to his crew when he gave them grog;
Never his fist to a man he put,
But had a terrible way, to butt,
And when they flew to shrouds and stays,
Saying: “Now, friend, thee may go thy ways.”
Yet in his eye was a man of war,
Daunting ruffians near and far,
Under his brown tarpaulin hides
Lineage of Cromwell's Ironsides.
One fair daughter was Corbin's all,
She would preach when she had a “call,”
And she was ever brave and good,
Blooming into her womanhood:
Elm was her name, as from elms they come,
Puritans banished her people from;
She could steady a vessel's helm
With branching arms like the village elm,
Trumpet in hand and shouting high
To her father, “yea” and “aye, aye.”
Corbin spoke, on an April day:
“Daughter, I'll be all summer away;
To the Indies my trade is blown,
Thee is too tender to live alone;
I have sent for an old friend's son,
Over the Bayhead to Darlington;
When I return some young Quaker I'll find
Fit to marry thy sober mind;
Then, with thy children old age to charm,
I will live with thee, daughter, and farm;
Few of us left; let it never be said
Out of our Meeting my daughter wed.”
When, like a moon by day, his sail
Sank down o'er the marshes and left her as pale,
Turning, she saw a man with a beast—
“Maiden,” quoth he, “thee beholds Jonas Priest!
My last apple has Betsy got—
Without apples she's hard on the trot.”
“Stable thy baggage along with the nags,”
“Nothing have I but my saddle bags.”
So he lived with his mare apart,
Soberly practiced his home-drawn art,
Gardened and carpentered and restored
Beautiful panels and wainscots of board;
Clad in the captain's old fisher suits,
Shaved himself and polished his boots;
Elm could see, as he curried his nag,
Hands refined and limbs like a stag.
Lord's Day she called him in where she spoke
Spirit-moved, to the Quaker folk;
Once she asked: “Does the Spirit move
Thee, Friend Jonas, to tell God's love?”
Modest he rose as became his years,
Moved on his tears all her people to tears,
Mifflin or Chalkley to overwhelm,
More like our Master he looked to Elm.
She made him groom when she rode to take air,
Feeding of apples to Betsy, his mare.
He was her mate when, with catboat out,
She went crabbing or trolling for trout.
People together grow like at best,
There came a tenderer interest;
It was plain all his weakness above
Jonas was hiding from Elm his love;
Elm, like her mother, the elm, never stayed
Far from where Jonas had moved to her shade.
Spring and summer were over and past
When Cromwell Corbin made harbor at last;
Kisses and presents and ventures said o'er,
He took his evening smoke at the door.
“Father,” spoke Elm, “let the truth be short!
Unto Friend Jonas I've given my heart!”
“Captain,” spoke Jonas, “I ask with my life
Elm, thy daughter, to give me for wife!”
“Before I give thee my child for a rib
I think I must study the cut of thy jib;
Get me two horses at dawn, my son,
And ride with me to Darlington!”
There was a storm in the captain's greet
Till they strolled up the great wide street.
“Here is a sawed-off steeple house,
Come inside and hear them carouse!”
As they went in, the lovers before,
Captain Corbin stayed by the door.
It was Protracted Meeting night,
Freeborn Garrettson at his height—
Chancellor Livingstone's brother-in-law—
Swung at the sinner his terrible jaw.
Hell and he had no room for each other,
“Come, my sister! Repent, my brother!
Come and be washed in the lamb's blood white,
Hear the trumpet! Tonight's the night!”
“Glory! my soul!” spoke a voice they had heard,
Jonas Priest had his feelings stirred;
“Come and exhort, thou sheep we have missed!”
Shouted to him the Revivalist.
Love of earth and the gospel call
Thrilled like the trumpets at Jericho's fall.
“Come, ye sinners! your hard hearts melt!”
Elm went up to the altar and knelt;
Captain Corbin clenched his fist—
“Guessed him right well for a Methodist!”
Silent, unsociable, Corbin and Priest
Rode past the Elk and the river Northeast;
The sailor's hull was galled like a pot,
Betsy, the preacher's mare, struck a trot,
Apples she needed; he needed a splint,
Elm had given her lover a hint.
Day the second the ferry was won,
At the Bald Friars to Darlington;
Yearly Meeting of Friends was there,
Corbin went in more for vengeance than prayer.
O, what blisters and sores were his hide
Two days after that violent ride.
Turning tow'rd home, they entered at will
Through the green walls of a ruined mill.
“Here we drop anchor!” the captain's tip,
Took from his saddlebags pistol and whip;
“This is Deer Creek and the Quaker's last stand
From many Meetings in Maryland;
“Thou wast indentured to ship with me,
Wooing my daughter was mutiny.
Yearly Meeting, where once thou stood clear,
Gives me thy fate as a mutineer;
Strip off thy coat and stand my foe,
From thy heart my daughter must go!”
“God,” said Jonas, “has chastening love;
Father, thy chastenings would not me move
But that one dearer than is thy ship
Bade me never be marked by a whip!”
Each his muscles to tension put;
Jonas saw Corbin preparing to butt;
Down dropped his head like a goring bull
Charging the matador, beautiful,
Sore was his length every point of his hide;
Jonas, the nimble, stepped him aside,
Tripped with his foot the old sailor's charge;
Lengthwise he lay, like a grounded barge.
Blacks from somewhere rushed in and tied
Feet together and hands by his side,
Betsy, the mare, eating apples sedate,
Struck with the captain her penitent gait.
Over the hills did the cortege pass,
Down to smooth water at Havre de Grace.
There stood a ship with a maid at the helm,
“Father, come home!” spoke the deep voice of Elm
Out they pointed, making no stay,
Three of them only to cross the Bay.
Well had they waited, for on, ahead,
The long Elk Mountain was blazing red;
Over the Bay Pool's pasture awrack
Scared the flocks of the Canvasback;
Thunderbolts from Spesutie's isle
Zig-zagged to Turkey Point the while;
There was a pause ere the storm could whelm,
The truce of the quarrel, the voice of Elm:
“Father, Jonas with sailors shipped—
Rogers's tars at the port we have slipped—
Quaker boy on a ship of war,
He was taken prisoner afar,
Doomed to fire and lingering pain,
Chained in a jail on the Spanish Main.
There he vowed if God would release
Him from death he would preach his peace.
Indian's love then opened his door;
Landing, ragged, in Baltimore,
A church's floor for warmth he trod.
Freeborn Garrettson brought him to God,
Started him out in the traveling lists,
Roving preacher of Methodists;
Thy invitation came to him to be
Thy sailor apprentice and steward to me.”
Now the voice of Jonas was heard:
“Father—my father knew not a word
Of my conversion when cheerful to send
His absent son from a Friend to a Friend.
I recalled how a Quaker child
Melted my heart in the days I was wild
Preaching at Darlington Meeting House,
She was the guiding star of my vows;
Her to convert or be convert to her,
Silent I answered thy call, I aver.
Elm was that child, still in blossom of May;
Jesus never ruled Love from His way.
Still, I was Quaker in language and dress,
Waiting the time I could to thee confess;
When the time came I spoke out, nothing loath,
Methodist man to the men of my cloth.
Father, thy bonds are loose; take command!
We are near Heaven here as on land!”
Now came the storm in its terrible wrath,
But the particulars tell not in Gath!
Corbin, the captain, and Jonas, the mate,
Elm at the tiller and shipwreck their fate;
Canvas blown off by a thunderbolt ripped,
Bow staven in and the rudder unshipped,
Both of the men would with Elm swim abreast—
Jonas she took and her father she blessed.
Up the Elk River they went with a tide
And came to life on Bohemia's side,
Dried them and cried them at Herman's demesne,
Sent for store clothing to Saint Augustine.
Cantwell's Bridge saw them like Joseph's flight pass:
Which was the Joseph and which was the ass?
Counsel of war in the morning they took,
Jonas his pay for his preaching forsook;
Corbin gave seafaring up to the pair,
Betsy had apples and Elm had the heir.
Took its growth at a later day
Than the port on Lord Herman's ridge
Famed two centuries, “Cantwell's Bridge.”
There the ships loaded staves and spars
For the Navy in Marlborough's wars,
And the best wheat put hatches upon
In the campaigns of Napoleon.
Russian wheat gave it Russian aim
And to Odessa it switched its name.
Long the Quakers held their perch,
Spite of the Synod and Drawyer's Church,
Sullenly falling back in the lists,
Episcopalians or Methodists;
But if you age them by their teeth,
Penn men and Foxes they were beneath.
Mark you a house on the southern side,
Where the old brick lines the ivies hide,
And the big open doorway calls
Breezes to the wide stairway and halls?
There, when the coasts and isles he toured,
Cromwell Corbin, the captain, moored.
He was a Quaker skipper then,
Plain as the scion of Admiral Penn,
And in his speaking trumpet spoke
“Thee” and “Thou” to his sailor folk,
“Thee” and “Thou” he spoke to his dog,
And to his crew when he gave them grog;
Never his fist to a man he put,
But had a terrible way, to butt,
And when they flew to shrouds and stays,
Saying: “Now, friend, thee may go thy ways.”
Yet in his eye was a man of war,
Daunting ruffians near and far,
Under his brown tarpaulin hides
Lineage of Cromwell's Ironsides.
One fair daughter was Corbin's all,
She would preach when she had a “call,”
And she was ever brave and good,
Blooming into her womanhood:
Elm was her name, as from elms they come,
Puritans banished her people from;
She could steady a vessel's helm
With branching arms like the village elm,
Trumpet in hand and shouting high
To her father, “yea” and “aye, aye.”
Corbin spoke, on an April day:
“Daughter, I'll be all summer away;
To the Indies my trade is blown,
Thee is too tender to live alone;
I have sent for an old friend's son,
Over the Bayhead to Darlington;
When I return some young Quaker I'll find
Fit to marry thy sober mind;
Then, with thy children old age to charm,
I will live with thee, daughter, and farm;
Few of us left; let it never be said
Out of our Meeting my daughter wed.”
When, like a moon by day, his sail
Sank down o'er the marshes and left her as pale,
Turning, she saw a man with a beast—
“Maiden,” quoth he, “thee beholds Jonas Priest!
My last apple has Betsy got—
Without apples she's hard on the trot.”
“Stable thy baggage along with the nags,”
“Nothing have I but my saddle bags.”
So he lived with his mare apart,
Soberly practiced his home-drawn art,
Gardened and carpentered and restored
Beautiful panels and wainscots of board;
Clad in the captain's old fisher suits,
Shaved himself and polished his boots;
Elm could see, as he curried his nag,
Hands refined and limbs like a stag.
Lord's Day she called him in where she spoke
Spirit-moved, to the Quaker folk;
Once she asked: “Does the Spirit move
Thee, Friend Jonas, to tell God's love?”
Modest he rose as became his years,
Moved on his tears all her people to tears,
Mifflin or Chalkley to overwhelm,
More like our Master he looked to Elm.
She made him groom when she rode to take air,
Feeding of apples to Betsy, his mare.
He was her mate when, with catboat out,
She went crabbing or trolling for trout.
People together grow like at best,
There came a tenderer interest;
It was plain all his weakness above
Jonas was hiding from Elm his love;
Elm, like her mother, the elm, never stayed
Far from where Jonas had moved to her shade.
Spring and summer were over and past
When Cromwell Corbin made harbor at last;
Kisses and presents and ventures said o'er,
He took his evening smoke at the door.
“Father,” spoke Elm, “let the truth be short!
Unto Friend Jonas I've given my heart!”
“Captain,” spoke Jonas, “I ask with my life
Elm, thy daughter, to give me for wife!”
“Before I give thee my child for a rib
I think I must study the cut of thy jib;
Get me two horses at dawn, my son,
And ride with me to Darlington!”
There was a storm in the captain's greet
Till they strolled up the great wide street.
“Here is a sawed-off steeple house,
Come inside and hear them carouse!”
As they went in, the lovers before,
Captain Corbin stayed by the door.
It was Protracted Meeting night,
Freeborn Garrettson at his height—
Chancellor Livingstone's brother-in-law—
Swung at the sinner his terrible jaw.
Hell and he had no room for each other,
“Come, my sister! Repent, my brother!
Come and be washed in the lamb's blood white,
Hear the trumpet! Tonight's the night!”
“Glory! my soul!” spoke a voice they had heard,
Jonas Priest had his feelings stirred;
“Come and exhort, thou sheep we have missed!”
Shouted to him the Revivalist.
Love of earth and the gospel call
Thrilled like the trumpets at Jericho's fall.
“Come, ye sinners! your hard hearts melt!”
Elm went up to the altar and knelt;
Captain Corbin clenched his fist—
“Guessed him right well for a Methodist!”
Silent, unsociable, Corbin and Priest
Rode past the Elk and the river Northeast;
The sailor's hull was galled like a pot,
Betsy, the preacher's mare, struck a trot,
Apples she needed; he needed a splint,
Elm had given her lover a hint.
Day the second the ferry was won,
At the Bald Friars to Darlington;
Yearly Meeting of Friends was there,
Corbin went in more for vengeance than prayer.
O, what blisters and sores were his hide
Two days after that violent ride.
Turning tow'rd home, they entered at will
Through the green walls of a ruined mill.
“Here we drop anchor!” the captain's tip,
Took from his saddlebags pistol and whip;
“This is Deer Creek and the Quaker's last stand
From many Meetings in Maryland;
“Thou wast indentured to ship with me,
Wooing my daughter was mutiny.
Yearly Meeting, where once thou stood clear,
Gives me thy fate as a mutineer;
Strip off thy coat and stand my foe,
From thy heart my daughter must go!”
“God,” said Jonas, “has chastening love;
Father, thy chastenings would not me move
But that one dearer than is thy ship
Bade me never be marked by a whip!”
Each his muscles to tension put;
Jonas saw Corbin preparing to butt;
Down dropped his head like a goring bull
Charging the matador, beautiful,
Sore was his length every point of his hide;
Jonas, the nimble, stepped him aside,
Tripped with his foot the old sailor's charge;
Lengthwise he lay, like a grounded barge.
Blacks from somewhere rushed in and tied
Feet together and hands by his side,
Betsy, the mare, eating apples sedate,
Struck with the captain her penitent gait.
Over the hills did the cortege pass,
Down to smooth water at Havre de Grace.
There stood a ship with a maid at the helm,
“Father, come home!” spoke the deep voice of Elm
Out they pointed, making no stay,
Three of them only to cross the Bay.
Well had they waited, for on, ahead,
The long Elk Mountain was blazing red;
Over the Bay Pool's pasture awrack
Scared the flocks of the Canvasback;
Thunderbolts from Spesutie's isle
Zig-zagged to Turkey Point the while;
There was a pause ere the storm could whelm,
The truce of the quarrel, the voice of Elm:
“Father, Jonas with sailors shipped—
Rogers's tars at the port we have slipped—
Quaker boy on a ship of war,
He was taken prisoner afar,
Doomed to fire and lingering pain,
Chained in a jail on the Spanish Main.
There he vowed if God would release
Him from death he would preach his peace.
Indian's love then opened his door;
Landing, ragged, in Baltimore,
A church's floor for warmth he trod.
Freeborn Garrettson brought him to God,
Started him out in the traveling lists,
Roving preacher of Methodists;
Thy invitation came to him to be
Thy sailor apprentice and steward to me.”
Now the voice of Jonas was heard:
“Father—my father knew not a word
Of my conversion when cheerful to send
His absent son from a Friend to a Friend.
I recalled how a Quaker child
Melted my heart in the days I was wild
Preaching at Darlington Meeting House,
She was the guiding star of my vows;
Her to convert or be convert to her,
Silent I answered thy call, I aver.
Elm was that child, still in blossom of May;
Jesus never ruled Love from His way.
Still, I was Quaker in language and dress,
Waiting the time I could to thee confess;
When the time came I spoke out, nothing loath,
Methodist man to the men of my cloth.
Father, thy bonds are loose; take command!
We are near Heaven here as on land!”
Now came the storm in its terrible wrath,
But the particulars tell not in Gath!
Corbin, the captain, and Jonas, the mate,
Elm at the tiller and shipwreck their fate;
Canvas blown off by a thunderbolt ripped,
Bow staven in and the rudder unshipped,
Both of the men would with Elm swim abreast—
Jonas she took and her father she blessed.
Up the Elk River they went with a tide
And came to life on Bohemia's side,
Dried them and cried them at Herman's demesne,
Sent for store clothing to Saint Augustine.
Cantwell's Bridge saw them like Joseph's flight pass:
Which was the Joseph and which was the ass?
Counsel of war in the morning they took,
Jonas his pay for his preaching forsook;
Corbin gave seafaring up to the pair,
Betsy had apples and Elm had the heir.
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