Two Addresses Before Congress
But I have passed over two or three important events. During the autumn of 1843, as I have said, I was ill; and when a party from the school was going to Washington to appear before Congress, in the following January, I had not yet fully recovered. Dr. Clements said that I would fret myself into a serious sickness, if they left me at home; besides the trip South night do me some good. It was finally decided by the Eoard of Managers that he should go and take charge of ire, to which arrangement I joyfully assented; yet, when I learned that I was expected to deliver a poem before a joint session of both houses of Congress, my heart sank within me. Indeed I think I would not have agreed to the arrangement, were it not for the fact that our party were trying to impress upon the legislators in “Washington the absolute need of schools for the blind in every state of the Union. Any chance of doing a little for them I, of course, would not let pass; and so there I was a timid mortal not in the best of health, to deliver an address before the most distinguished body I have ever seen. Some of the skeptical managers said that I would fail in the raids. of my recitation, and that thought, I must confess, was in my own mind. But the inspiration of the hour was sufficient to fortify me against the dreaded failure. At any rate I tried to do my level best; and when I finished my poem there was a dreadful silence which I interpreted to mean that the audience was not pleased. With mingled emotions, alternating between hope and fear, I waited, it seemed to me, as long as five minutes; in reality I suppose, not more than thirty seconds passed before there was such a tremendous applause that I was actually frightened. At length they began to call for me, and then there was a hasty consultation in the ante-room between Dr. Clements and the managers.
“Don’t let her try it,” they said; “tell them that she is not strong enough.”
But the good doctor asked that the whole matter be referred to me.
“Yes,” I answered, “I will recite another poem, for never may I get a chance to address such a famous audience again.”
Then, I went out upon the platform, and repeated some lines that had been written and published the summer before in memory of the Hon. Hugh S. Legard, the lamented Secretary of State, who died quite suddenly while going, with President Tyler, to attend the exercises at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill monument. I will quote three stanzas of my tribute:
“Farewell, esteemed departed one, farewell, Deep solemn tones have pealed thy funeral knell, — Thou to the grave art gone. Sweet be thy rest! For angels guard the relics of the blest.
“Hark, hark, thy requiem floats upon the ear, So deeply sad. We pause; we weep to hear. Ye patriot sons of fair Columbia’s shore, A brilliant star has set, to shine no more.
“Weep, oh, Columbia, o’er his lonely grave, Then let the cypress, sorrow’s emblem, wave, The mournful breezes sigh, wild flowerets bloom, And breathe their fragrance o’er his hallowed tomb.”
My lines of tribute evidently took the senators by surprise, and I was told that many of them wept. But the occasion was doubly sad for me, because the sister of Secretary Legare* was in the audience, having come all the way from Georgia to see our pupils, and to meet the writer of the poem, for she had already seen it in the papers. When I came out of the Senate chamber she met me at the door and placed a beautiful ring on my finger. The following year she came to New York to visit us and I had the pleasure of presenting her with the first copy of “The Blind Girl and Other Poems” that came from the press. In April, 1847, we again appeared before Congress, with delegations from Boston and Philadelphia institutions, and Laura Bridgman was a member of the party. I shall never forget her gentle manners and her faculty of remembering people. On the night of our Washington concert she shook hands with six congressmen, whose names were written on her palm. In a few minutes they again passed before her, though in different order, and she was able to tell the name of each without any difficulty.
During our stay in Washington we had the privilege of hearing the last speech of John Quincy Adams. The audience was so still that the faintest noise in any part of the room seemed to be very loud, and we waited breathlessly to hear what the aged statesman would say to the rising generation. His voice had lost much of its original sweetness and power but it fell upon our ears with a strange cadence that echoed in my memory for many years after the voice itself had ceased to be a great and commanding force in the councils of our nation.
James K. Polk was then president; and the members of our party felt somewhat acquainted with him inasmuch as he had made us a visit during the summer of 1845. On that former occasion I welcomed him with a poem, only the first two lines of which I now remember:
“We welcome not a monarch with a crown upon his brow, Before no haughty tyrant as suppliants we bow.”
A friend has recently sent me another little impromptu poem which I composed on being given a poke-weed by a friend:
“A thousand thanks to thee, good Mr. Chase,
This poke-weed garland on my brow I’ll place.
If I this moment Mr. Polk could see
Quickly an office I’d obtain for thee.
Once more a thousand thanks from me,
But, Mr. Chase, a Whig thou must not be.
Then, change at once thy politics, I pray,
And I’ll send word to Polk without delay.”
While we were in Washington, in 1847, President Polk invited us to the White House, and during the course of the conversation, he said,
“Well, Miss Crosby, have you made any poetry since I saw you last year?”
“Yes sir,” I promptly replied, “I have composed a song and dedicated it to you.”
My announcement was as much of a surprise to my friends as to Mr. Polk himself; for I had kept my own counsel; but he appeared to be much gratified and asked me to take his arm and proceed to the music room, where we held an impromptu recital.
During this appearance before Congress they requested me to recite a poem; and I gladly consented. Some of my friends have maintained that I am the only woman who has appeared before the joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives to present a petition.
On our return trip from Washington, Mr. J. F. Chamberlain, already mentioned as the genial superintendent of our Institution, and I happened to be conversing about the infinite possibilities of development in the Western part of our country. “Have you heard my poem, ‘Away to the Prairie’?” asked Mr. Chamberlain. I had not; and he therefore recited the beautiful stanzas which here follow:
“Away to the prairie, up, up and away, Where the bison are roaming, the deer are at play; From the wrongs that surround us, the home of our rest, Let us seek on the wide, rolling plains of the West.
“Away to the prairie, where the pioneer’s lay Is echoed afar on the breezes; away!
“To the wide, rolling plains of the West let us hie, Where the clear river’s bosom immirrors the sky, On whose banks stands the warrior so brave, Whose bark hath alone left a curl on the wave.
“Yes, away to the prairie, whose bosom, though wild, Is unstained by oppression, by fraud undented; From the wrongs that surround us, the home of our rest, Let us seek on the wide, rolling plains of the West.”
I asked him to hum the melody to these words. Mr. Chamberlain replied that there was no melody yet composed. “But why can’t you write one?” said he. The suggestion was opportune; for there was already an air singing itself in my mind; and before New York was reached the music was completed. Though our song was popular in the Institution for a number of years it never was made public. In those days I used to play the guitar, the piano and sometimes for our choruses the chapel organ. Special occasions required some original words and music, some of which were a New Year serenade for Mr. Chamberlain; a Thanksgiving chorus; a farewell song to Mr. George F. Root, on his departure for Europe; a quartet, entitled, “Dream of Tomorrow”; a hymn for an infant class, words and music, for Mr. Bradbury in 1867, “Jesus, Dear, I Come to Thee”; a “Welcome to Springtime,” 1901, and others.