Sam. L. Simpson

Sam. L. Simpson was born October 10, 1845, in the State of Missouri. His parents, Hon. Ben. Simpson and Nancy Cooper Simpson, started soon thereafter for Oregon, where they arrived in the spring of 1846. Omitting the earlier period of Simpson's eventful life, we note the first lessons in his educational career, when his mother taught him, at the age of four years, his letters, by making them in the ashes upon the broad hearthstone of their pioneer home on the Clackamas River.

His childhood passed through the usual humdrum of pioneer life, which he has commemorated by one short poem entitled the "Winding Path to the Country School." During his earlier "teens" he was clerk for his father in the sutler's store, on the Grande Ronde Reservation, where he met and became the flattered and petted companion of Grant, Sheridan, and other lesser personages of a frontier military post. The latter gentleman presented him with a copy of Byron's poems, which he esteemed very highly, and to which, no doubt, is attributable the similarity of style so noticeable in many of Simpson's poems to those of Byron.

Indeed, the complaining moods of Byron are very conspicuous in Simpson's verses. It is probable that the contact of this brilliant boy with the careless ways of a frontier garrison was the initiative of a life, subsequently, so fraught with grief and disappointment. From the Reservation he went to the Willamette University, at Salem, where he graduated with honors in the class of '65. He was noted for versifying among his college associates, and began about this time to contribute to newspapers of the state.

In 1866 he was prepared to be admitted to the bar, but owing to his age he was not admitted to practice until '67. This year was a noted epoch in Simpson's life. He wrote "Ad Willametam, now known as "The Beautiful

Willamette," in the spring of 1867, and the Democrat, of Albany, upon publishing the poem, remarked that the young author might be expected to do something meritorious.

In the fall of '67 Simpson was married to Miss Julia Humphrey, a lady noted for her beauty and accomplishments, not the least of which was her enrapturing voice for song. She was Simpson's "Sweet Throated Thrush,' his "Lurlina" of whom he writes:

Heaven flies not

From souls it once hath blessed.
First love may fade but dies not
Though wounded and distressed.

To the end of his life he was constant in his adoration of his "First Love."

After his marriage he associated with the late Judge R. S. Strahan in the practice of law, and these years were the happiest that mortals ever experience. He soon, however, from that uncontrollable impulse, betook himself to journalism, which he pursued until he died, in 1900.

Judge John Burnett, who read law with him, said, "Simpson is the Burns of Oregon. What Poe was to the beginning, Simpson was to the close of the century. The first singer of Oregon-the preparer of the way." Truly it may be said, he added to his ideal beauty of conception of nature, ever true, a classical expression and descriptive power seldom equalled, if ever excelled. His soul was set to music. The morning stars sang to him as sublime a hymn of adoration of the Creator as to the seers of ages past. The sea had for him a voice enrapturing beyond the appreciation of less inspired beings. Flowing waters had to him "Many things to sing and say." "The Beautiful Willamette" is full of that melancholy music of flowing waters, so aptly descriptive of the same stream in another poem, where he says:

It gives vou back the minor key

That thrills in music's sweetest lines
The mystery of minstrelsy.

His imagination interpreted the deep and mournful music of the forest

"I hear sweet music over there,

The mountain nymphs are calling me,"

He murmured "How divine an air

O soul of mine is wooing thee."

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Or swept by winter's storm these forests had a different voice for him

The Gothic minstrel of the woods,
He sings the lightest lullaby,

Or. swept by winter's fitful moods

The battle chants, and loud and high
The Pyrrhic numbers rise and roll

To midnight stars, and Earth's great soul
Wails in the solemn interludes

Of death and woe that never die.

The shriek of ships, the war of waves.
The fury of the blanching surge-
The desolation of lone graves-

The shouts that still the onset urge

The sobs of maidens in despair

All saddest sounds of earth and air-
The harp of Thor o'er peaks and caves,
Blend in the paean and the dirge.

Maybe it was an inherent quality of his soul, or maybe environment. but in all Simpson's work we note the sad undertone-"The wail in mirth's mad lav," "The Sad Refrain" of love. "The thorn beneath the rose" that seemed to have pierced his heart. This thought is forcibly expressed in the following lines:

The breath of immortality

But withers human thought, we love
The summer smouldering on the lea,
The mournful deathsong of the dove.

This idea seems to have become such as passion that he exclaims

The divinest pleasures arise and soar
On wings that are sorrow laden.

Simpson's nature was the essence of love of all things good and beautiful, gloomed by a sorrow-laden life, but with an abiding faith in the great hereafter. Hear the conclusion:

O when the angel of silence has brushed
Me with his wings and this pining is hushed;
Tenderly, graciously light as the snow
Fall the kind mention of all that I know;
Words that will cover and whiten the sod,
Folding the life that was given of God;
Wayward, maybe, and persistent to rove,
Restful, at last, in the glamour of love.

THE BEAUTIFUL WILLAMETTE.

Of the origin of "The Beautiful Willamette," Mr. C. H. Sox, of Albany, Oregon, has written:

It was during Sam. L. Simpson's residence at Albany, Oregon, that he wrote "Ad Willametam" ("Beautiful Willamette"), the grandest and prettiest of his poems, and it was my good fortune to first put this poem into type from the original manuscript. It was printed in the Democrat, April 18 1868. The editor had this to say of it: "The original poetry, under the title of 'Ad Willametam,' to be found elsewhere in today's Democrat, signed by S. L. S., we consider a very beautiful poem. and we trust the author will not let this be the last time he will favor us with his literary productions."

After the appearance of this poem in the Democrat, the entire press of the state printed it; the leading California papers then took it up, and shortly afterwards it appeared in many Eastern publications, and was highly praised everywhere.

Simpson was a young man at that time, temperate, unmarried, in fact just out of college. and the poem was written in the seclusion of his own private apartments. I kept the manuscript of the poem for several years, but it became misplaced and lost.

From the Cascades' frozen gorges,
Leaping like a child at play,
Winding, widening through the valley
Bright Willamette glides away;

Onward ever,
Lovely river,

Softly calling to the sea;

Time, that scars us,

Maims and mars us,

Leaves no track or trench on thee.

Spring's green witchery is weaving
Braid and border for thy side;
Grace forever haunts thy journey,
Beauty dimples on thy tide;
Through the purple gates of morning,
Now thy roseate ripples dance,
Golden then, when day, departing,
On thy waters trails his lance.
(Notice the music of the old song.)
Waltzing, flashing,

Tinkling, splashing,
Limid, volatile, and free-
Always hurried

To be buried

In the bitter, moon-mad sea.

In thy crystal deeps inverted
Swings a picture of the sky.
Like those wavering hopes of Aidenn,
Dimly in our dreams that lie;
Clouded often, drowned in turmoil,
Faint and lovely, far away-
Wreathing sunshine on the morrow,
Breathing fragrance round today.
Love would wander

Here and ponder,
Hither poetry would dream;

Life's old questions,

Sad suggestions,

"Whence and whither?" throng thy streams.

On the roaring waste of ocean

Soon thy scattered waves shall toss,

'Mid the surges' rhythmic thunder

Shall thy silver tongues be lost.