Addressed to my Friends at Yale College, on my Leaving them to join the army (1776)
by David Humphreys, 1776
David Humphreys (1752-1818) entered Yale at the age of 15 in 1767. Brought up in Derby, Connecticut, he was the youngest of Reverend Daniel and Sarah Riggs Bowers Humphreys’ five children and he grew up surrounded by wealth. During his freshman year at Yale, David Humphreys is credited with establishing “Brothers in Unity,” a literary and debate club that became popular in the 19th century. Humphreys made Boston his home when he returned to America in 1801. However, Humphreys still visited Hartford and introduced Spanish merino sheep to Connecticut, building a successful woolen mill near Derby.
David Humphreys was a student at Yale College when the alarm of Lexington & Concord – the “shot heard ‘round the world” – occurred on April 19, 1775. The same month the Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, Humphreys enlisted in the Continental Army. This poem, believed to be the first American sonnet, was written at the time he left his classmates to fight for his country. In it, Humphreys describes a hesitancy to leave the community of poets, but the “starling clarion” had broken “the sleeper’s dream.” Though he knows that joining the army may result in his death, he questions whether death can ever actually “subdue th’ unconquerable mind.”
“ Addressed to my Friends at Yale College, on my Leaving them to join the army”
Adieu! thou Yale! where youthful poets dwell,
No more I linger by thy classic stream.
Inglorious ease and sportive songs farewell!
Thou startling clarion! break the sleeper’s dream!
And sing, ye bards! the war-inspiring theme.
Heard ye the din of battle? clang of arms?
Saw ye the steel ‘mid starry banners beam?
Quick throbs my breast at war’s untried alarms,
Unknown pulsations stirr’d by glory’s charms.
While dear Columbia calls, no danger awes,
Though certain death to threaten’d chains be join’d.
Though fails this flesh devote to freedom’s cause,
Can death subdue th’ unconquerable mind?
Or adamantine chains ethereal substance bind?
Public domain. Source: https://allpoetry.com/Sonnet-I:-Addressed-to-my-Friends-at-Yale-College,-on-my-Leaving-them-to-join-the-army