John Pierpont was born in Litchfield, Conn., April 6, 1785. He was graduated at Yale College in 1804, and went to South Carolina as a private tutor. He returned in 1809, studied law at Litchfield, and settled in Newburyport, Mass. A few years later he was in business in Baltimore with John Neal, and they became bankrupt in 1816. Mr. Pierpont then studied theology, completing his course at Harvard, and in 1819 was ordained pastor of the Hollis Street Congregational Church in Boston. In 1845 he accepted a call to the Unitarian Church in Troy, N. Y., and in 1849 to Medford, Mass., which last pastorate he resigned in 1856. He was chaplain of a Massachusetts regiment in 1861, but in the same year was appointed to a clerkship in the Treasury Department, which he held till his death. This took place in Medford, Mass., August 27, 1866. Mr. Pierpont published “Airs of Palestine” in 1816, and reissued it with additions, under the title “Airs of Palestine, and other Poems,” in 1840. He read a long poem at the Litchfield Centennial in 1851, and published several sermons and addresses.

Personal

  He was tall, straight, and spare—six feet, I should say, and rather ungraceful, in fact, though called by the women of his parish not only the most graceful but the most finished of gentlemen. That he was dignified, courteous, and prepossessing, very pleasant in conversation, a capital story-teller, and a tolerable—no, intolerable—punster, exceedingly impressive both in the pulpit and elsewhere, when much in earnest, and in after life a great lecturer and platform speaker, I am ready to acknowledge; but he wanted ease of manner—the readiness and quiet self-possession of a high-bred man, who cannot be taken by surprise, and is neither afraid of being misunderstood nor afraid of letting himself down—till after he had passed the age of threescore. The first impression he made on me was that of a country schoolmaster, or of a professor, on his good behavior, who had got his notions of the polite world from Chesterfield; though, when I knew him better, and learned that he had been a tutor in the Alston family of South Carolina, I detected the original type of his perpendicularity, serious composure, and stateliness,—the archetype.

  Mr. Pierpont united within himself the characteristics of two very distinct persons. One was graceful, cultivated, delicate, fastidious to the last degree, careful of etiquette, studious, dignified; with a certain loftiness of dignity, indeed, which strangers were apt to find somewhat frigid, but genial and expansive with his friends, and beautifully tender and loving with children. This was the clergyman and the poet. The other was an ardent knight, armed for battle, and seeking it far and near,—battle to the death with everything that was foul and mean; and the ancient oath of chivalry, by which the young knight vowed to “protect the distressed, maintain right against might, and never by word or deed to stain his character as a knight and a Christian,” was no unfit or exaggerated expression of the spirit in which this modern champion took on his armor. Quick to discover injustice, he no sooner unearthed a new wrong than he attacked it with the fiery ardor of a nature whose enthusiasm was but the hotter for the restraint which the habits and tastes of the scholar ordinarily imposed upon it. He used all his weapons at once,—logic, sarcasm, invective, poetry, pathos,—and sharpened them all with a stern “Thus saith the Lord.” This was John Pierpont the Reformer; and twenty-five years ago, few names rang wider throughout the careless, prosperous land than this.

  He was tall, strong-limbed and energetic, possessing a very original mind and a directness of purpose which was never turned aside by questions of self-interest. Even to the verge of offence, and finally beyond it, he preached the duty of men to God and to each other, fearless of personal consequences…. As an honest and fearless preacher, he was an honour to the pulpit; as a poet, his verses will always be included in any collection that fairly represents the lyrical talent of the period; as a promoter of education, his school-books were in use in every New England academy; and as a practical inventor, the “Pierpont stove,” and even a very serviceable razor-strop attested his claims to the title of “universal genius.”

Airs of Palestine, 1816

  Had it been an indifferent poem, we should have noticed it in a more summary way, and passed over faults we despaired of correcting; but it has too much taste and beauty to be made the mere basis of an essay and dismissed without scrutiny; and if this superiority has given a proportionate prominence to its defects, Mr. Pierpont must be content to suffer the common penalty of eminence. Yet though we have endeavored to speak of it with perfect impartiality, we fear, on looking back on our remarks, we have not said so much in its praise as it deserves; we have passed without notice many of its beauties, and if our censures have in any instance done injustice to Mr. Pierpont, our readers who may be induced to purchase the book will at least acquit us of disappointing them by unmerited praise.

  It is tame, badly arranged, incomplete—and worse than all—afflicted with plagiarism, imitation, and alliteration. Yet, is it, nevertheless, full of beauty—with a few eloquent—a few good—and a few great, passages in it.

  The “Airs of Palestine” have been favorably known to the literary community for many years. On a subject—the effects of music—often enough handled by the poets, from Pindar down to Gray, Mr. Pierpont, nothing daunted by the mighty names who have preceded him, has certainly given us one of the most pleasing poems which yet adorn our literature. The beauty of the language, the finish of the versification, the harmony of the numbers, secure it an undisputed place among the few American classical works.

  For beauty of language, finish of versification, richness of classical and sacred allusions, and harmony of numbers, we consider that it takes rank among the very first of American poems and will be among those that will survive their century. But Mr. Pierpont has aimed at something more than gratifying his own scholarly tastes and charming his readers with the love of the beautiful. He is a reformer, a whole-hearted and a fearless one; and a large number of his fugitive pieces have been written to promote the holy causes of temperance and freedom.

General

  His rhythm is at least equal in strength and modulation to that of any poet in America. Here he resembles Milman and Croly.

  The religious sublimity of the sentiments, the beauty of the language, and the finish of the versification, placed it [“Airs of Palestine”] at once, in the judgment of all competent to form an opinion on the subject, before any poem at that time produced in America. As a work of art, it would be nearly faultless, but for the occasional introduction of double rhymes, a violation of the simple dignity of the ten-syllable verse, induced by the intention of the author to recite it in a public assembly…. Mr. Pierpont has written in almost every metre, and many of his hymns, odes, and other brief poems are remarkably spirited and melodious. Several of them, distinguished alike for energy of thought and language, were educed by events connected with the moral and religious enterprises of the time, nearly all of which are indebted to his constant and earnest advocacy for much of their prosperity.

  Wrote numerous hymns and odes for religious and national occasions, remarkable for their variety of difficult metres, and for the felicity both of the rhythm, sentiment, and expression. His “Airs of Palestine,” a long poem of heroic verse, has many eloquent passages; and several of his minor pieces, especially those entitled “Passing Away” and “My Child,” are striking examples of effective versification. The most popular of his occasional poems is “The Pilgrim Fathers,” an ode written for the anniversary of the landing at Plymouth, and embodying in truly musical verse the sentiment of the memorable day.

  A complete collection of Mr. Pierpont’s verses would contain much that was not poetry, but only measured prose. But it would also contain a dozen pieces in which the thought is wholly divorced from any moral or political motive, and in which the imagination is so bright and pure, and the expression so graceful and happy, as to entitle their author to a very high place among the poets of the century. First among these is, of course, the little dream called “Passing Away.” We have no desire to exaggerate, but we are strongly of the opinion, that no poem has yet been written by any American author which possesses in so high a degree as this the qualities of true imaginative poetry. The poetry, we grant, is not of the highest order. The thought is but commonplace. But the succession of pictures is painted in colors at once so vivid and so harmonious, that we must go back to Keats for a parallel; and with a tenderness and purity of feeling which Wordsworth could not surpass.

  Mr. Pierpont was one of the best hymn-writers of America. He was a genuine poet, as well as a powerful preacher and stern reformer. His imagination took a bold, strong wing, and his fine lyric verse was inspired with the ardor and nobleness of his own great soul. Fiery as some of his pieces are in their rebuke and denunciation of injustice and cruelty, yet there are others which are remarkable for their tenderness and pathos, and betray the sweetness and love that lay hidden beneath his rugged face, and imperial, war-like manner. His songs as well as his sermons throb with intense devotion to truth and goodness, to country and humanity, and to that better church of God, that is yet to be.

  Whatever else may have been his qualifications, he was a real poet, and also a wit. I have always thought that some parts of his “Airs of Palestine” were among the best specimens of American poetry.

  A most zealous reformer. Pierpont powerfully advocated the anti-slavery and temperance causes…. In addition to his numerous poems, Pierpont published many addresses and discourses, and edited a popular series of school readers. A short time before his death, at Medford, in his native state, the writer spent an evening with the well-preserved old poet and his second wife, and found him at fourscore still in the enjoyment of vigorous health and strength. When I asked Pierpont which he preferred among his many poems, he replied, “The one called ‘Passing Away,’”—which is certainly among the sweetest in American literature; I once heard it read by the elder Vandenhoff, the “passing away” sounding like the echoes of a distant bell.

  His “Airs of Palestine,” 1816, gave him a wide popularity. He wrote very voluminously both in prose and verse, his poems being chiefly hymns and odes written for various occasions, but his fame, like the refrain of his best-known poem, is “passing away.”

  His patriotic lyrics are among the best and most spirited in our literature. His hymns and odes for anniversary and other celebrations are all in clear, vigorous, Saxon English. “The Fugitive Slave’s Apostrophe to the North Star,” “The Gag” and “The Tocsin” are among the best of our anti-slavery lyrics. “A Word from a Petitioner” is memorable as containing one of our “familiar quotations.” He has given at least one beautiful lyric, which, as a creation of pure fancy as distinguished from imagination, is unsurpassed in American poetry. His “Passing Away,” in its fanciful conception and melodious diction, suggests what its author was capable of doing in the direction of pure literature.