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- Edited the journal of Henry Blake McLellan (from Boston, and Harvard class of 1829; b. 1810-d. 4 Sept. 1833). The volume is Journal of a residence in Scotland, and tour through England, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy with a Memoir of the author and Extracts from his Religious Papers Compiled from the Manuscripts of the Late Henry B. McLellan (Boston: Allen and Ticknor, 1834).
Henry B. McLellan his is brother.
He was a well-known poet; you can see volumes of his poetry for sale on Amazon (The Avalanche of the White Hills, August 28th, 1826; Poems of the rod and gun;: Or, Sports by flood and field; etc.). He seems to have spent most of his life in Boston, where his mother had come from, and later in Long Island. Also known as an avid outdoors sportsman.
Here are two poems:
The Slain Officer (1834)
by I. McLellan
The last fierce cry of war had died
Along the dreary mountain side;
The battle-drum had ceased to beat;
The martial trumpet ceased to sound
And, save the measured tramp of feet
Upon the frozen ground,
And save the harsh-resounding jar
Of the big cannon's cumbrous car,
No warlike sounds disturbed the rest
Of the lone hills o'er which we pressed.
__________
New England's Dead
By Isaac Mclellan
NEW ENGLAND'S dead! New England's dead!
On every hill they lie;
On every field New of strife, made red
By bloody victory.
Each valley, where the battle poured
Its red and awful tide,
Beheld the brave New England sword
With slaughter deeply dyed.
Their bones are on the northern hill,
And on the southern plain,
By brook and river, lake and rill,
And by the roaring main.
The land is holy where they fought,
And holy where they fell;
For by their blood that land was bought,
The land they loved so well.
Then glory to that valiant band,
The honored saviours of the land!
O, few and weak their numbers were,—
A handful of brave men;
But to their God they gave their prayer,
And rushed to battle then.
The God of battles heard their cry,
And sent to them the victory.
They left the ploughshare in the mould,
Their flocks and herds without a fold,
The sickle in the unshorn grain,
The corn, half-garnered, on the plain,
And mustered, in their simple dress,
For wrongs to seek a stern redress,
To right those wrongs, come weal, come woe,
To perish, or o'ercome their foe.
And where are ye, O fearless men?
And where are ye to-day?
I call:—the hills reply again
That ye have passed away;
That on old Bunker's lonely height,
In Trenton, and in Monmouth ground,
The grass grows green, the harvest bright
Above each soldier's mound.
The bugle's wild and warlike blast
Shall muster them no more;
An army now might thunder past,
And they heed not its roar.
The starry flag, 'neath which they fought
In many a bloody day,
From their old graves shall rouse them not,
For they have passed away.
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