Ohio History Journal

Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.               21     REV. L. B. GURLEY, D. D., Pioneer, Poet and Preacher.   BY N. B. C. LOVE, D. D. Rev. L. B. Gurley was born in Norwich Conn. He lived there seven and a half years, and learned his A B C's in the school

house where Lydia Sigourney, the poetess, conned her earliest lessons. His father was a silversmith and a Meth- odist local preacher. He worked in his fath- ear's shop and on the farm until he entered the ministry. During this time he had the advantages of winter schools, and a compre- hensive library of books of the very best Eng- lish literature, embracing history, biography, travels, romance, poetry and theology. He practiced a great deal in composition, both in prose and verse. He was the author of the

first poem published in northwestern Ohio, in the fourth number of the "Sandusky Clarion." Dr. Gurley was a born poet. His talent evinced itself early. We do not know what his early advantages were. It is not the purpose of this article to narrate the incidents of his life. He was born of Irish parents. They came from Wexford county, Ireland, and were intelligent and possessed of considerable means. Of Mr. Gurley, as a poet, I write. Before me is a collection of his poems in manuscript, eighty in number. Only a few have been published. These are found in the "Ladies' Reposi- tory" of forty years ago, the "Western Christian Advocate," "Delaware Gazette" and other secular papers. They were writ- ten beginning in his early youth and the last one when over seventy years old. Several of the poems are epics of considerable length. There is continuity of thought in all his productions. His imagery is so true to nature that one continually recognizes it as something

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22        Ohio Arch. and His. Society Publications.

 

seen, heard, felt in the observations and experiences of life. I

do not claim that his poems are perfect, or that he is a great

poet, but a poet. I heard Bishop E. Thompson speak of him

as the poet of nature, and regret that he had given so little time

to the claims of the goddess of the muses.

Judged by the arbitrary rules of English versification he

may be open to adverse criticism, but by the emotions awakened

in the soul as one reads his poems, he will be honored as a

true poet of nature.

Had he given his life to literature he would have been to

American poetry what William Wordsworth was to the English,

bringing the infinite in nature within the range of the vision of

the ordinary mind's grasp, and revealing the ever varying beau-

ties of the visible world.

There is much real poetry not in verse, and a vast deal

of verse that is not poetry. Indeed many great poets have been

indifferent versifiers. There are beautiful gems in his poems,

which awaken in the mind pleasing emotions, and having read

them once, one wishes to read them again.

He should rank with the poets who clothe the common and

familiar with grace and beauty, and who see the truth and

grandeur of things, although manifested in common forms. Filled

with charity, benevolence and love, he saw these continually in

his environment.

"His present mind was under fascination, he beheld a vision

and adorned the thing he saw."

He was reared in northern Ohio, on the Sandusky Bay,

and his eyes and ears were familiar with the sights and sounds

of the lakes, rivers, forests and prairies. The following, from

the poem, "To Sandusky Plains," in pentameter, is full of truth

and beauty. We quote only a few lines. It was the first poem

published in northwestern Ohio.

 

"Thy plains, Sandusky, and thy green retreats,

Thy perfumed flowers and their opening sweets;

How bright the scene to fancy's richest glow,

As years shall roll and ages onward flow,

And lofty groves in sweet suffusion grow."

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.                    23

 

Then he described the "Winding Stream Beneath the Leafy

Shade," on the bay:

"Thy Bay, Sandusky, lovely murmuring deep,

Whose midnight rolling rocks thy sons to sleep,

Thy waters pure our rock bound waters lave,

And mingling join proud Erie's swelling wave."

In the next stanza he speaks of the proud steamers, and com-

pares them with the Indian's barque:

"Once was the light canoe thy only pride,

Smoothe on the surface did it swiftly glide,

Once did thy waves in heathen darkness roar,

And thundering dash thy solitary shore."

The concluding stanzas of the poem is a prophecy of the

civilization that shall come to these plains when men of a supe-

rior race shall "Improve these wilds." His little poem entitled

"Erie" is very pretty:

"Bright lake roll on thy silvery tide,

Thy voice is sweet to me,

How oft we've wandered by thy side,

And heard thy minstrelsy.

I love thy loudest thunderings,

When deepest tones are given,

Thou mighty harp of thousand strings,

Swept by the hand of Heaven.

Thy breezes fanned my youthful cheek,

Thy waters cooled my brow,

I've heard thee in anger speak,

And in thy murmurs low."

 

After describing the lake of a calm summer evening he says:

"Thou mind'st me of that peaceful rest,

The stormless scene of Heaven.

Here where my earliest prayers and vows,

First rose at evening,"

"I'll ne'er forget thy wave-worn shore,

Where'er my feet may roam;

Thy sheltering rocks and midnight roar,

Close by my childhood home."

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The spring he portrays with an artist's hand.

He speaks of by-gone ages, of the "Proud nations born and

passed away," over whom time "has spread its pall of silence

o'er their fate, and left them wrapped in mystery." Then he

tells of the Indians who were their successors:

"Here plumed warriors from the strife returned

Have gathered oft to cool their massive brows;

Here wildwood maids in whose pure bosom burned

Love's holy fire, have pledged their solemn vows."

The following stanza is used preparatory to a prophecy of

the future:

"MISSION OF THE SPRING."

Written by the side of the White Sulphur Spring, Delaware, Ohio.

"The stars that watched thee in the long ago,

Are nightly mirrored on thy bosom still,

Thus constantly thy pearly waters flow,

Thy heavenly appointed mission to fulfill.

That mission now is linked with work sublime

Of mental and moral culture high,

For faith and science here through coming time

Shall light the lamp of true philosophy.

Full many a youth in manhood's early prime,

Shall quaff delicious coolness from thy breast,

And maidens fair at summer evening time,

Shall gather here in robes of beauty dressed."

"Indian Summer on the Sandusky Plains" is graphically

ortrayed; Tho. Buchanan Reed's "Closing Scene" is not more

eautiful and true. I give only a few lines:

"Now the Indian Summer reigns; that autumn air

Is fanned by lazy winds. The yellow sun

Sheds soft and mellow light. The forest now

Is draped in gorgeous robes of thousand hues,

And wrapped in misty veils, and waves in the breeze.

The noise of clattering blackbirds now on wing

Is heard. The whirring pheasant echoes from the grove.

The fattened squirrel leaps from limb to limb,

And chatters saucily to passers-by;

While the proud woodcock with his crest of flame,

Drums on the blasted tree; and deep and far

The rattling echoes of the wood resound."

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.                    25

He then tells of the "Graceful swan" and the "Wild geese

which wedge-like cut the air," in their southern flight, and the

wild pigeons which follow, "In long and shadowy lines, for far

off climes."

Also of the various wild beasts, and especially "The antlered

deer which leaps from the tangled grass." As night comes over

this fine picture the pioneers are startled; they see

"A sight terrific, beautiful and sublime,

High towering smoke in darkened columns whirle,

The flickering flashes of the fitful flame,

Gild their black spirits with floods of golden light."

He continues in this same strain, delineating the prairie

fires, until one can see the

"Broad sheets of flame, borne on the winged breeze,

Send forth their glazing rockets far and wide around."

All hands are set to work firing the prairie just outside the

fields where far out the

"Encountering billows meet in conflict fierce-

As maddened by resistless height, they leap,

And clash and tower and rush and wave on high

Their fiery banners to the fitful breeze."

After all is over the

"Field of conflict shows the naked earth,

Like city sacked and burned, its glory gone,

And not a withered blade or flower,

To wave the requiem of the pillaged land."

"The Fair Fugitive" is a poem of thirty-four stanzas. The

first verse is suggestive:

"Minnie was the lovely daughter,

Of a mother doomed to toil;

Where the white magnolia blossoms,

And the orange shades the soil."

Minnie was favored with a home in the planter's family

where she was reared in luxury, and a mind finely cultured re-

ceived all that art and science could bestow. She had

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"Auburn hair and lips of coral.

Afric's blood no eye could trace.

Sixteen summers had passed o'er her,

Girlhood's ripening charms were seen,

Passing lovely was the maiden,

Graceful form and gentle mien."

"Minnie's master was her father." A lordly slaveholder with

plenty of money bought her, and when the bill of her purchase

was given her, she for the first time realized her sad fate. That

she was a slave

"As she read, a deathlike pallor,

Blanched her fair and virgin cheek,

Then one mighty soul-born struggle,

And she smiled submissive meek."

When the night came she sought the fields and river, and

on its brink she left her jewels and her best clothing, and hast-

ened on northward. The father, seeing her clothes next day

supposed she was drowned, and filled with remorse, threw the

money at the rich lordling's feet. For many nights she traveled

onward and rested through the day,

"Till her weary limbs had borne her

From her native home afar."

"As she lay concealed one morning

A young sportsman passed that way,

And he spied the tall reeds waving

Where the trembling Minnie lay."

He fired into the "Wild Beasts' lair" and wounded the

maiden. He carried her to his father's house and after weeks

of careful nursing by mother and sisters of the young man,

Minnie was well again, and became his bride. Her father, hear-

ing of her, and of her marriage, sent her freedom, and made

her his only heir. She was with him in his dying hour, and

all her father's slaves were given her, and then she freed them.

Afterward

"Happy Horace and his Minnie

Far from slavery, in their home;

Blest with children, wealth and honor,

Brightening joys around them bloom."

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D. 27

 

No doubt during the first half of the century Dr. Gurley

had seen and aided many slaves onward to the land of freedom,

on the "underground railroad."

Perhaps the best descriptive poem    is "Wapayana."    This

maiden was the daughter of a chieftain who dwelt on the San-

dusky. She was

 

"The fairest of the forest maidens,

With her tresses dark and long,

Peerless in her maiden beauty,

Child of genius and of song."

She would

"Sing the wild strains by minstrels taught her,

Sing of deeds brave warriors wrought,

Sing of prairie flowers and forests,

Sing as whispering fancy taught,

And her tones were wild and witching,

Such as in sweet dreams we hear,

From the fairy isles of fancy

Softly floating on the ear."

 

A pioneer, formerly a man of wealth, with his wife and only

daughter moved to the Sandusky. The daughter was of rare

culture and excelled in singing and playing the guitar. The

music of the guitar and singing of Orpha attracted the atten-

tion of the Indian maiden as she wandered along the Sandusky.

The two met and became fast friends, and

 

"Orpha taught the Indian maiden

How to touch the light guitar,

How to strike its sounding wires,

To sing of love and war."

 

After a while the Indian maiden, Wapayana, became the

wife of a western chieftain. He took her to his far off home,

in his bark canoe, to

 

"Rugged peaks where hemlocks tower,

Caverns vast and forests wild,

Where the eagle feeds his nestlings,

Where calm beauty never smiled."

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Two or three years had passed, and Orpha, alone on a

summer evening with her guitar,

 

"Sought a lonely vineclad hawthorn,

Such as might have made the bower,

When the sinless pair of Eden

Lived their first and happiest hour."

 

Then she sang the pioneer song:

 

"What though I have left the sweet home of my childhood

Yet dear to my heart is its memory still."

 

Ere she had completed this song there sprang upon her

two warriors, and took her captive. They captured her father

also, while her mother, left behind, died of grief.

Reaching the far Indian settlement, the father was doomed

to die, and as he laid his head on the log, the daughter, wild

with despair, fell on her father's neck and wept. Her father

asked her not to weep but to play and sing once again for him.

This she did, the Indians meanwhile gathering around:

 

"While she sang a grand procession

Came to join the sacred dance,

Came to see the pale face tortured-

All with solemn step advance."

 

The chieftain and his fair bride were in the company, when

the latter recognized Orpha and her father, and sprang to the

rescue. With tears she pleaded for the pale faces, but the chief-

tains urged that they die. They rehearsed the wrongs the In-

dians had suffered. While the council was proceeding, the In-

dian bride took the guitar from Orpha, and

 

"Sang of deed renowned in story

When the tribe triumphant stood;

Sang of trophies won and glory,

Rousing all their martial blood."

 

Then she sang of the "Great Spirit" who "Loves the braves

whose hearts can pity helpless captives doomed to die."

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.                     29

The braves were moved. They were filled with wonder,

they thought that the "Great Spirit" had inspired her. A par-

don was granted;

 

"So the tones of Wapayana,

Hushed man's raging wrath to rest."

 

 

"Thus Orpha's death-doomed father,

Rescued by her light guitar."

Perhaps we have given enough of Dr. Gurley's descriptive

poetry to indicate something of his pictorial power in portraying

natural phenomena.

At a later period in his life, while standing under Niagara

Falls, he wrote a poem on "Music":

 

"When from the golden urn above,

God bid his richest blessings flow,

He sought one peerless gift of love,

To bless the new-born world below.

Then from her angel home on high,

He called the fairest goddess down,

And music came, child of the sky,

And bliss of Paradise to crown.

 

Sweet goddess of the harp and lyre,

The winding vale and sylvan grove

Have echoed to thy strains of fire

Stirring the pulse of war or love.

Where shines the sun or beams a star,

Thy voice is heard o'er the sad and free,

On Alpine mountains bleak and bare,

And emerald islands of the sea.

She stands where mighty waters pour

Their paeans to the listening sky,

Niagara's eternal roar

Lifts up its deep-toned bass on high."

Then he speaks of the music of the ocean "roused by tempest

wrath," "while the echoing thunder sings" in response.

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The next verse tells us of the music soft and low,

"Where streamlets flow in forests deep

Where plumed birds and insects rove,

Where naiads dwell and wood nymphs sleep,

She pours her cheery notes of love."

From the forest he enters the home where

"She breathes her gentlest lullaby,

Her childhood sinks to rosy rest,

And cheers with softest harmony,

The care-worn mother's anxious breast."

Even on the battle field he sees the goddess Music,

"Where Freedom's banners wave she stands,"

 

 

"But richer still her notes of praise,

In churches of the living God."

And

"When death's pale angel shakes his dart,

She waits beside the sufferer's bed,

And smooths with lofty strains the heart,

As gently sinks the dying head."

The climax of the poem is reached

"When the eternal gates of light

Unfold to greet the rising soul,

Songs burst through all those regions bright,

And loud the angel anthems roll."

Nor shall there be one silent tongue

In all the white-robed beings there;

But strains by saints and seraphs sung

Shall fill and sweeten all the air."

A man who could in an hour write a poem like this, when

under the exhilirating power of one of nature's wonders could,

had he traveled abroad, and given his time to poetical composi-

tion have added largely to the best literature of the age in which

he lived. He had his admirers, and had he listened to them,

he would even after he was fifty years old have devoted his

talents to writing.

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.                    31

 

Bishop Ed. Thompson was one of these admirers and inti-

mate friends, and after he was bishop, and before his last mar-

riage, he was an inmate of Mr. Gurley's home.

I quote two stanzas from a poem on the death of Rev.

Uriah Heath, one of the pioneer preachers of central and southern

Ohio:

"We know him when summer flowers shall fade,

Or ripening harvests greet the sight,

When yellow leaves shall strew the glade,

Or day decline to coming night.

 

But who can tell when at the door,

The noiseless step of death shall fall;

Or voices from the shining shore

The viewless spirit hence shall call?"

 

He wrote many short poems. From some of these I quote.

"To My Portrait" was written no doubt in his declining years.

The portrait, an oil painting by the brother of his first wife, is

the one he addresses. The same artist executed the statue of

Commodore Perry in Cleveland.

 

"Thou image of my manhood years,

I gaze upon thee now;

And think how faded years have left

Their traces on my brow.

 

Art wrought thy form while one looked on,

Who smiles on me no more;

Companion of my early toils -

She walks the shining shore.

 

Thou mind'st me of a thousand joys-

What precious memories rise!

The echoes of departed years

Like voices from the skies."

 

One of his best short poems, "Come Sit Upon this Chair,

My Love," was written probably in the vigor of his middle life:

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"Come sit upon this chair, my love,

The hallowed past review,

And call to mind the happy hours

When this old chair was new.

For many a cherished hope has fled,

And heart friends dear and true

Like summer flowers have passed away,

Since this old chair was new.

When this old chair was new, my love,

Another was my bride,

Proudly swelled my throbbing heart,

As she stood by my side.

For me, she left her city home

So trustingly and true,

To bless with joy my wildwood cot

When this old chair was new.

The tangled grass now wraps the grave

Where sleeps her mouldering form,

And buried deep in silence now,

The heart that once was warm.

Thou art in her place, O my love,

As trustingly and true,

Thou art loved as loved was she,

When this old chair was new.

When this old chair was new, my love,

The stars in yonder sky

Shone brightly, and they still shine on,

As rolling years pass by.

So let the love that lingers in our hearts

Gild all life's journey through;

And both be happy, as was I

When this old chair was new."

Dr. Gurley was always a happy man. I never saw him

respondent. He always looked on the bright side. This poem,

which I give here in part, is suggestive of this trait in his charac-

ter. When he was an old man, and after he had from choice retired

from  the active ministry, when in attendance at a session of

Central Ohio Conference, I met him one day in the vestibule

alone and as I shook his hand, said to him:

"Dr. Gurley, since you have left the pastorate, how does it

look on the shady side?"

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.                    33

He replied: "My dear Brother Love, you are mistaken, I

am on the bright side now, and you and the younger brethren

are on the shady side. To me the evening time is bright. It is

radiant all about me. I am in the land of singing birds, bloom-

ing flowers and bright anticipations. My sunset is golden, my

hope is for the morning, the night cometh, a star-lit night, and

the morning of the eternal day. I am on the bright side."

I give his thought and words as nearly as possible. When

he was fifty-four years old, he wrote:

"The years flow on and the snowflakes fall

Though silently upon my head,

But still my heart beats free and warm

Though many a cherished hope is dead."

On his sixty-fourth birthday, he was still the same hopeful,

cheerful Christian:

"Soft is the silent tread of time,

And noiseless are his restless wings;

Yet deep his footprints and sublime

His impress on all earthly things."

He then speaks of time's devastations among the empires

of the world:

"His touch the hoary empires shake," and he fills the ty-

rant's heart with dread, breaks off chains, encourages Freedom

in her work, gives light to lands in darkness while "Eternal

truth with potent sway has ushered in a glorious morn."

In this poem he refers to himself only in one stanza:

"Be hushed, my soul, nor start to think

How far my weary feet have trod,

Away from life's bright rosy brink

Toward eternity and God."

"The Cottage Girl" is a little gem of poetic description:

"Her form is free, her step is light,

Her lucient eyes are soft and bright

And rich clustering curls that deck

Her glowing cheek and snowy neck;

And sweetly floats her silvery song

At morn the dewy flowers among.

Vol. X-3

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The cottage girl, a stranger she

To pomp and pride and coquetry,

As free from care, as free from guile,

For grief a tear; for love a smile.

Ah, who could trade that humble home

For countly hall or castle dome?

 

These two stanzas are suggestive of the tone of the others.

The last stanza of the poem, "The Setting Stars," sounds famil-

iar, but it is original with Dr Gurley:

 

"For every golden star which sets

Beyond our view at even

Descends to rise on other worlds,

And gild a brighter heaven."

 

During the dark days of the Rebellion he wrote "The De-

cisive Battle":

 

"A nation waits, and waits to shout

The long wild notes of victory won;

Or waits to hear with bated breath

The sad, sad wail of Freedom gone."

 

The whole poem is good, and portrays well the uncertain

feeling that existed for a time all over the north, when the best

and most helpful felt like saying:

 

"0, who can tell a nation's fate

Hanging in the balance; who can say

For glory or shame, we wait -

Our darkest or brightest day."

 

"Old John Brown" was written during the time appointed for

his execution, December 2, 1859.

In his mind Mr. Gurley saw the soldiers waving plumes,

he heard the martial strains of music, and saw the cavalcade

bearing the "Old honored veteran to his fate," but casting a

glance over the whole land he saw "Millions of sad hearts

weeping," and "Fair Freedom gathering up his ashes for her

keeping." Then as years rolled by he saw another sight, de-

scribed in the last stanza:

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.                     35

 

"And when o'er Afric's fettered sons

Fair Freedom's Flag shall tower;

On its torn page thy name shall be

Illustrious in that hour."

 

There were not many at that time who expected to live

to see such a prophecy fulfilled, and yet how bitterly fulfilled

in a half a decade of years, and from that date and to-day,

 

"While John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave,

His soul goes marching on."

 

"Dream Visits" contains some beautiful thoughts. He was

permitted to see into the borderland, and in company:

 

"Is one among the shining band

Whose image lies within my breast."

 

'Oh she was pure and true and good,

With spirit kind and trusting

Through years of toil and care she stood

Heaven's richest, fairest gift to me."

 

She was now among the angels, but in his dream once again

 

"We walk beside the murmuring rill,

Or sit beneath our favorite tree,

Recalling precious memories still

Of those earth never more shall see."

 

But it was a dream, and are not the pleasures of earth that

are past only as dreams that vanish ever more?

 

"Then come my dear departed love,

Come as I seek my nightly rest,

Not robed as those who shine above,

But in thy earthly beauty dressed.

The ruby lips bewitching smile

Thy silken tresses floating fair,

Thy gentle tones that knew no guile,

And every charm that lustered there.

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But when is loosed the silken chord,

And broken is the golden bowl,

And at the Master's welcome word

I yield in death my trusting soul;

Then meet me on the shining shore

With robes as bright as God has given,

When earthly scenes are mine no more

My eyes can bear the light of heaven."

 

Two patriotic poems, "Independence Ode" and "A Free West,"

are full of loyalty and piety; for a more patriotic citizen than

Mr. Gurley did not live during the rebellion.

His poems to his daughter and wife are fraught with poetic

beauty and feeling. The former commences with:

 

"Be as the star whose steady light

Guides wanderers through the gloomy night;

Or like the fragrant gale which brings

Ambrosial odor on its wings."

 

And latter ends:

 

"And when we heave the parting sigh,

To seek a fairer home on high,

O may that hour of victory

Be evening's tranquil hour."

 

His poem on the death of "Dred Scott" would bear record-

ing entire. His story is a history. The victim of the odious

fugitive slave law and the cruel decision of Judge Taney by

which slavery was made national.

 

"Thou art free at last, thy name is known,

Child of the sable ones;

Where'er our flag in mockery waves

O'er Afric's fettered sons.

 

Though earthly courts man's dearest rights,

May trample in the dust,

And perjured lips to justice sworn,

Pronounce decrees accursed.

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Rev. L. B. Gurley, D. D.                     37

 

No power above shall rectify

Such cruel Tyranny,

When man pronounces man a slave,

God writes that man is free.

Terrific thought that gifted minds

On earnest honored seat

Should cringe to power and basely seek

Man's sense of right to cheat.

Decrees by earthly senates passed,

Opposed to truth and love

Are stamped with God's veto seal

In Heaven's courts above.

If measure meeted out to man

Such measure brings again

What doom awaits the reckless hand,

That rivets slavery's chain.

Death placed his signet on thy brow,

Heaven called thy spirit home,

And thou canst well await the hour,

Till thy oppressors come."

 

The third and last lines are not as good in thought as

the other parts of the poem.

The last short poem is on "Life":

 

"My life has been a sunny stream

O'r beds of golden sand

Still flowing onward through the vale

Amid the flowering land.

The friends of youth were fair and true

Their names to memory dear,

Still linger far adown life's stream

And still thy spirit cheer.

To sow the golden grain of truth

And wait the sun and shower,

Has been the labor of my life

Through many a weary hour.

To reap the ever whitening fields

And shout the harvest home

Have filled with joy my manhood's prime

And shall for time to come."

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