Saturday, March 12, 2016

Letter for Herman Melville

The "List of Letters Remaining in the N. Y. Post Office, / December 13" published in the New York Tribune on December 13, 1845 includes uncalled-for mail addressed to Herman Melville.

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Found on Newspapers.com
Did he ever pick it up, or was it destined for the Dead Letter Office? If Melville did peruse this list in the New York Tribune, he would also have seen Whittier's poem "The Lumbermen" on the same page.
...
Cheerly, on the axe of labor,
Let the sunbeams dance,
Better than the flash of sabre
Or the gleam of lance!
Strike! With every blow is given
Freer sun and sky,
And the long-hid earth to heaven
Looks, with wondering eye!  --Whittier's The Lumbermen via American Verse Project

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