The Monday After: Lines from the 'Poetical Department'

Gary Brown
·6 min read
It was in January 1816, less than a year after he founded The Ohio Repository in Canton, that the newspaper's editor, John Saxton, moved the traditional poetry that he published in each of his weekly editions to the paper's front page. The first front-page poem, part of a decades-long tradition, was called "On Time."
It was in January 1816, less than a year after he founded The Ohio Repository in Canton, that the newspaper's editor, John Saxton, moved the traditional poetry that he published in each of his weekly editions to the paper's front page. The first front-page poem, part of a decades-long tradition, was called "On Time."

At thy approach enchanting Spring,

The meadows laugh, the valleys sing,

And Nature all looks gay;

The sun shines out with friendly beams,

And dancing in the chrystal streams,

Adds beauty to the day.

– From "On the Approach of Spring"

The title above the lines of words in the first issue of The Ohio Repository were printed with a more lyrical than journalistic tone.

"On The Approach Of Spring," was the title of the poem published by Repository founder John Saxton on Thursday March 30, 1815. Four stanzas were printed on Page 4 of the inaugural issue of the weekly newspaper, along with a second poem on a related topic – spring love.

In the next issue, on the evening of April 5, 1815, the newspaper carried a pair of poems – "The Happy Man" and "Liberality" – on the same-number page, but soon the poems Saxton picked – "To The Bible" and "Twilight" followed in the next two issues – made their way forward in his newspapers.

By the beginning of the next year, the printer was publishing his poems on Page 1.

That first front-page poem printed by Saxton was "On Time," by Selleck Osburn, a poet and fellow editor of a Connecticut paper. It greeted Repository readers on the top left-hand corner of The Ohio Repository – prime space in a newspaper – on Jan. 4, 1816.

With April being National Poetry Month, it seems an appropriate time to travel back in time, to review some of the rhymes that the Repository editor chose worthy of being brought to the eyes and minds of his weekly readers.

So, let us return for a time to John Saxton's "Poetical Department," the initial headline printed over the stanzas he published. Ever the editor, Saxton quickly shortened that headline, changing it to simply identify the words as "Poetry."

Since beauty then to Time must bow,

And age deform the fairest brow,

Let brighter charms be yours--

The Female mind, embalm'd in truth,

Shall bloom in everlasting youth,

While TIME himself endures.

– From "On Time"

A poetry lover and a printer

It would be difficult to discern if editor Saxton published the poetry because he was a connoisseur of the lyrical style or if he simply used it filled up empy space at a hurried time when he had newspapers to put together and print. Perhaps it was a little of both, and Saxton wisely chose to solve a problem with his passion.

What is easier to determine is Saxton's taste in poetry, which the history of his newspaper shows leaned heavily toward moral and historical and patriotic themes.

On July 4, 1816, for example, Saxton published a poem by English poet William Roscoe, lines which had been penned after the writer had received from former Continental Congress member Dr. Benjamin Rush an ink stand made from what Saxton explained was "a piece of the tree under which William Penn made his treaty with the Indians, and which was blown down in 1812."

That poem, untitled when published in the Repository, paid tribute to the peace that followed the treaty and decried the war with the native Americans that had preceded it.

The most patriotic of poems published early in Repository history no doubt was “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” which John Saxton explained was written by a man who was aboard a vessel to witness the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British during the War of 1812.

“These lines have been already published in several of our newspapers,” said Saxton in publishing the poem — set to the tune of “Anacreon in Heaven” — on Dec. 14, 1815. “They may still, however, be new to many of our readers.”

The verses began with the words, “O! Say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,” and, yes, what followed is the rest of what we know as the “Star Spangled Banner,” by Francis Scott Key, which was made our national anthem in 1931.

From clime to clime, from shore to shore,

The war fiend rais'd his hateful yell;

And 'midst the storm that realms deplore,

Penn's honoured tree of concord fell.

– From William Roscoe's untitled poem

Watched ever-changing scenery

Nature also served as a topic for many of the poems that Saxton saw fit to reprint in his Repository.

More than 200 years ago, in his issue of May 18, 1822, Saxton deigned to publish an "Ode To May," which included poetic lines about new life in spring. The "waving forest" was clad in "native green," his poem observed, while "variegated lawns and flowery vales, bear fragrant odors thro' they gentle gales."

These lines, of course, as is the case with much poetry, were meant to describe not only the blooming of spring, but also the blossoming and growth and fading of life itself, as the final stanza of the poem reveals. All that remains at the end of our life is the "virtue" that we fostered while we were living it.

But ahh, how soon thy vernal beauties fade.

Emblem of youth, in all thy charms portrayed

Tho' youth and beauty wither and decay--

Virtue hath charms that never fade away.

– From "Ode To May"

Poems of a religious nature

Religion also served as fodder for the devout Saxton as he searched for stanzas and rhymes with which to make his newspaper serve as a weekly sermon, of sorts, for his readers.

A little more than 200 years ago, on March 14, 1822, Saxton published a poem in tribute to the God who was the answer to the questions the journalist posed to his readers.

"Who built the heav'ns, who fram'd the stars?" the poem appreciated by Saxton asked. "Who led the Comet on his way? Who gave yon Moon her silver rays? Who lighted up the orb of day?"

Fifty years later, almost a year after John Saxton died at age 79 on April 16, 1871, his son, Thomas Saxton, who had taken up the reins as the publisher of the Repository and continued the tradition of printing poetry on the front page of his family's newspaper, showed a similar interest in poems that pointed his readers toward heaven above.

In "Father Take My Hand," published in the Repository on April 5, 1872, the younger Saxton offered a poem that made a plea for salvation in two parts – "The Prayer" and "The Answer."

"The Way is dark, my Father!" said the "prayer" part of the poem . "Father, take my hand, and through the gloom, lead me safely home, thy child," additional lines prayed.

The reassuring answer?

Indeed, the way was "dark," the day went "fast," the path was "long" and the earthly terrain was "rough," the rest of the poem admitted.

I meant it so; but I will take thy hand,

And through the gloom

Lead safely home

My child!

– From "Father Take My Hand"

Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP.

This article originally appeared on The Repository: The Monday After: Lines from the 'Poetical Department'