Robert Collyer

Robert Collyer Poems

Robert Collyer Biography

Robert Collyer (1823–1912) was an English-born American Unitarian clergyman. Collyer was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, England, on December 8, 1823; the family moved to Blubberhouses within a month of his birth. At the age of eight he was compelled to leave school and support himself by work in a linen factory. He was naturally studious, however, and supplemented his scant schooling by night study. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a blacksmith, Jacky Birch—who had taught the trade to Samuel Collyer, Robert's father, in Blubberhouses–and for several years worked at this trade at Ilkley. In 1849 he became a local Methodist minister. In the same year, his wife Harriet died on 1 February, and his infant daughter Jane on 4 February. In the following year emigrated to the United States, where he obtained employment as a hammer maker at Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. Here he soon began to preach on Sundays while still employed in the factory on weekdays. His earnest, rugged, simple style of oratory made him extremely popular, and at once secured for him a wide reputation. His advocacy of anti-slavery principles, then frowned upon by the Methodist authorities, aroused opposition, and eventually resulted in his trial for heresy and the revocation of his licence. He continued, however, as an independent preacher and lecturer, and in 1859, having joined the Unitarian Church, became a missionary of that church in Chicago, Illinois. In 1860 he organized and became pastor of the Unity Church, the second Unitarian church in Chicago. Under his guidance the church grew to be one of the strongest of that denomination in the West, and Collyer himself came to be looked upon as one of the foremost pulpit orators in the country. During the American Civil War he was active in the work of the Sanitary Commission. In 1879 he left Chicago and became pastor of the Church of the Messiah, now renamed the Community Church in New York City. Later he brought his old friend, the popular writer and hymnodist, Minot Judson Savage, to assist him in his ministry. In 1883, when he visited Birmingham in England, he engaged Marie Bethell Beauclerc to report and edit his sermons and prayers which were published during the same year. In 1903 Collyer became pastor emeritus. He died in 1912.)

The Best Poem Of Robert Collyer

Saxon Grit

Worn with the battle, by Stamford town,
Fighting the Norman by Hastings Bay,
Harold, the Saxon's sun went down,
While the acorns were falling one Autumn day.
Then the Norman said, 'I am Lord of the land;
By tenure of conquest here I sit;
I will rule you now with the iron hand'--
But he had not thought of the Saxon grit.

He took the land, and he took the men,
And burnt the homesteads from Trent to Tyne,
Made the freemen serfs by the stroke of the pen,
Eat up the corn, and drank the wine,
And said to the maiden pure and fair,
'Thou shalt be my leman, as is most fit;
Your Saxon churl may rot in his lair'--
But he had not measured the Saxon grit.

To the merry green wood went bold Robin Hood,
With his strong-hearted yeomanry ripe for the fray,
Driving the arrow into the marrow
Of all the proud Normans who came in his way;
Scorning the fetter, fearless and free,
Winning by valour or foiling by wit,
Dear to our Saxon folk ever is he,
This merry old rogue with the Saxon grit.

And Kent the tanner whipt out his knife,
And Watt the smith his hammer brought down
For ruth of the maid he loved better than life,
And by breaking a head made a hole in the Crown.
From the Saxon heart rose a mighty roar,
'Our life shall not be by the King's permit;
We will fight for the right; we want no more!'--
Then the Norman found out the Saxon grit.

For slow and sure as the oaks had grown
From the acorns falling that Autumn day,
So the Saxon manhood in thorpe and town
To a nobler stature grew alway.
Winning by inches, holding by clinches,
Standing by law and the human right,
Many times failing, never once quailing,
So the new day came out of the night.

Then rising afar in the Western sea
A new world stood in the morn of the day,
Ready to welcome the brave and the free
Who could wrench out the heart, and march away
From the narrow, contracted, dear old land,
Where the poor are held by a cruel bit,
To ampler spaces for heart and hand--
And here was a chance for the Saxon grit.

Steadily steering, eagerly peering,
Trusting in God, your fathers came,
Pilgrims and strangers, fronting all dangers,
Cool-headed Saxons with hearts aflame.
Bound by the letter, but free from the fetter,
And hiding their freedom in Holy Writ,
They gave Deuteronomy hints in economy,
And made a new Moses of Saxon grit.

They whittled, and waded, through forest and fen,
Fearless as ever of what might befall;
Pouring out life for the nature of men;
In the faith that by manhood the world wins all.
Inventing baked beans, and no end of machines;
Great with the rifle and great with the axe--
Sending their notions over the oceans,
To fill empty stomachs and straighten bent backs.

Swift to take chances that end in the dollar,
Yet open of hand when the dollar is made;
Maintaining the meet'n, exalting the scholar,
But a little too anxious about a good trade;
This is young Jonathan, son of old John,
Positive, peaceable, firm in the right;
Saxon men all of us, may we be one,
Steady for freedom, and strong in her might.

Then, slow and sure, as the oaks have grown
From the acorns that fell on that old dim day,
So this new manhood, in city and town,
To a nobler stature will grow alway;
Winning by inches, holding by clinches,
Slow to contention, and slower to quit,
Now and then failing, but never once quailing,
Let us thank God for the Saxon grit.

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