Cushman's "Lines" about Shakers (1853)
Dublin Core
Title
Cushman's "Lines" about Shakers (1853)
Subject
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876
Religion
Arts--Literature
Rumors
Description
Charlotte Cushman's lines introduce the book about Shakers which is supposed to reveal the truth about them in contrast to all the rumors that have been spread.
Credit
Creator
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876
Source
Elkins, Hervey. Fifteen Years in the Senior Order of Shakers: a Narration of Facts, Concerning that Singular People. Dartmouth Press, 1853, pp. 5-6.
Publisher
Dartmouth Press
Type
Reference
Poem Item Type Metadata
Text
ADVERTISEMENT.
The following recapitulation of facts was written at the suggestion of friends, who were desirous of obtaining, from a reliable source an information which has been stifled by vague and contradictory rumors. It is a recital, which will divulge many local and moral truths, concerning a secluded and occult people ; — will lift, sufficiently high, that veil of mysticism which hides them from the mental gaze of man ; and resolve, by the sure processes of mental and physical experience in the labyrinth of
Shakerism, the enigma of the affections, the purposes, and the lives of its votaries. . Some things have been written about them ; highly colored and exaggerated statements corroborated by witnesses and oaths, — fevered denunciations issuing from credulous and rash minds have been vociferated against them ; and on the other hand, the Shakers have endeavored to show, to the world, the seductive harmony of the New Heavens and New Earth where in dwelleth righteousness ; the one surmising, and perhaps sincerely believing, that they indulge in practices too gross for civilized humanity ; the other wishing to exhibit a life too abstract and angelic for terrestrial practicability. I would trim between the two extremes. I would exhibit them as they are ; — a singular class of people, and rendered so by their dogmas and formulary injunctions. In their creed, there is more ingenuity and candor than the world generally suppose. It is predicated upon the declarations of the Bible, philosophically, but not literally construed. Therefore, the inculcations their creed war not with the inculcations of physical science, or any other science yet made definite or complete to the understanding and demonstration of men.
I have inserted, at the beginning of the work, the terse interrogatories propounded by the talented Charlotte Cushman, on her visit to the Shakers
of Niskeyuna, N. Y., and the pertinent replies of a Shaker Girl, which those interrogatories evoked. H. E.
______________________________________
LINES
BY CHARLOTTE OUSHMAN.
Suggested by a visit to the Shaker settlement, near Albany, N.Y.
Mysterious Worshippers I
Are you indeed the things you seem to be,
Of earth — yet of its iron influence free
From all that stirs
Our being's pulse, and gives to fleeting life
What well the Hun has termed, " the rapture of the strife?"
Are the gay visions gone,
Those day-dreams of the mind, by fate there flung,
And the fair hopes to which the soul once clung,
And battled on ;
Have ye outlived them ? All that must have sprung,
And quicken'd into life, when ye were young ?
Does memory never roam
To ties that, grown with years, ye idly^ever,
To the old haunts that ye have left forever —
Your early homes ?
Your ancient creed, once faith's sustaining lever,
The loved who erst prayed with you — now may never ?
Has not ambition's pean
Some power within your hearts to wake anew
To deeds of higher enterprise — worthier you,
Ye monkish men,
Than may be reaped from fields ? Do ye not rue
The drone-like course of life ye now pursue ?
The camp — the council — all
That woes the soldier to the field of fame —
That gives the sage his meed — the bard his name
And coronal —
Bidding a people's voice their praise proclaim ;
Can ye forego the strife, nor own your shame ?
Have ye forgot your youth
When expectation soared on pinions high
And hope shone out on boyhood's cloudless sky
Seeming all truth —
When all looked fair to fancy's ardent eye,
And pleasure wore an air of sorcery ?
You, too 1 What early blight
Has withered your fond hopes, that ye thus stand
A group of sisters, 'mong this monkish band ?
Ye creatures bright !
Has sorrow scored your brows with demon hand,
Or o'er your hopes passed treachery's burning brand ?
Ye would have graced right well
The bridal scene, the banquet, or the bowers
Where mirth and revelry usurp the hours —
Where, like a spell,
Beauty is sovereign — where man owns it's powers,
And woman's tread is o'er a path of flowers.
Yet seem ye not as those
Within whose bosoms memories vigils keep ;
Beneath your drooping lids no passions sleep ;
And your pale brows
Bear not the tracery of emotion deep —
Ye seem too cold and passionless to weep !
The following recapitulation of facts was written at the suggestion of friends, who were desirous of obtaining, from a reliable source an information which has been stifled by vague and contradictory rumors. It is a recital, which will divulge many local and moral truths, concerning a secluded and occult people ; — will lift, sufficiently high, that veil of mysticism which hides them from the mental gaze of man ; and resolve, by the sure processes of mental and physical experience in the labyrinth of
Shakerism, the enigma of the affections, the purposes, and the lives of its votaries. . Some things have been written about them ; highly colored and exaggerated statements corroborated by witnesses and oaths, — fevered denunciations issuing from credulous and rash minds have been vociferated against them ; and on the other hand, the Shakers have endeavored to show, to the world, the seductive harmony of the New Heavens and New Earth where in dwelleth righteousness ; the one surmising, and perhaps sincerely believing, that they indulge in practices too gross for civilized humanity ; the other wishing to exhibit a life too abstract and angelic for terrestrial practicability. I would trim between the two extremes. I would exhibit them as they are ; — a singular class of people, and rendered so by their dogmas and formulary injunctions. In their creed, there is more ingenuity and candor than the world generally suppose. It is predicated upon the declarations of the Bible, philosophically, but not literally construed. Therefore, the inculcations their creed war not with the inculcations of physical science, or any other science yet made definite or complete to the understanding and demonstration of men.
I have inserted, at the beginning of the work, the terse interrogatories propounded by the talented Charlotte Cushman, on her visit to the Shakers
of Niskeyuna, N. Y., and the pertinent replies of a Shaker Girl, which those interrogatories evoked. H. E.
______________________________________
LINES
BY CHARLOTTE OUSHMAN.
Suggested by a visit to the Shaker settlement, near Albany, N.Y.
Mysterious Worshippers I
Are you indeed the things you seem to be,
Of earth — yet of its iron influence free
From all that stirs
Our being's pulse, and gives to fleeting life
What well the Hun has termed, " the rapture of the strife?"
Are the gay visions gone,
Those day-dreams of the mind, by fate there flung,
And the fair hopes to which the soul once clung,
And battled on ;
Have ye outlived them ? All that must have sprung,
And quicken'd into life, when ye were young ?
Does memory never roam
To ties that, grown with years, ye idly^ever,
To the old haunts that ye have left forever —
Your early homes ?
Your ancient creed, once faith's sustaining lever,
The loved who erst prayed with you — now may never ?
Has not ambition's pean
Some power within your hearts to wake anew
To deeds of higher enterprise — worthier you,
Ye monkish men,
Than may be reaped from fields ? Do ye not rue
The drone-like course of life ye now pursue ?
The camp — the council — all
That woes the soldier to the field of fame —
That gives the sage his meed — the bard his name
And coronal —
Bidding a people's voice their praise proclaim ;
Can ye forego the strife, nor own your shame ?
Have ye forgot your youth
When expectation soared on pinions high
And hope shone out on boyhood's cloudless sky
Seeming all truth —
When all looked fair to fancy's ardent eye,
And pleasure wore an air of sorcery ?
You, too 1 What early blight
Has withered your fond hopes, that ye thus stand
A group of sisters, 'mong this monkish band ?
Ye creatures bright !
Has sorrow scored your brows with demon hand,
Or o'er your hopes passed treachery's burning brand ?
Ye would have graced right well
The bridal scene, the banquet, or the bowers
Where mirth and revelry usurp the hours —
Where, like a spell,
Beauty is sovereign — where man owns it's powers,
And woman's tread is o'er a path of flowers.
Yet seem ye not as those
Within whose bosoms memories vigils keep ;
Beneath your drooping lids no passions sleep ;
And your pale brows
Bear not the tracery of emotion deep —
Ye seem too cold and passionless to weep !
URL
Hathi Trust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433082158761. Accessed 2 April, 2020.
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Citation
Cushman, Charlotte Saunders, 1816-1876, “Cushman's "Lines" about Shakers (1853),” Archival Gossip Collection, accessed April 16, 2024, https://www.archivalgossip.com/collection/items/show/274.