Instructor's note: For biographical information regarding Freneau, see "The Indian Burying-Ground."

Of relevance here: Freneau's career spanned the Enlightenment / Age of Reason period of the USA's Founding, with its emphasis on reason, satire, and political action, but his work anticipated and continued into the era of Romanticism.

Discussion questions: 1. Identify elements of the gothic.

2. Identify elements of Romanticism, particularly the validation of imagination or fancy. Compare Freneau's contemporary Phillis Wheatley, "On Imagination."

3. How does the poem's speaker defend the value of poetry, imagination, and dreams over fact, reason, and history?

from The House of Night

Trembling I write my dream, and recollect
A fearful vision at the midnight hour;
So late, Death over me spread his sable wings,
Painted with fancies of malignant power!                           4

Such was the dream the sage Chaldean* saw
Disclosed to him that felt heaven's vengeful rod,
Such was the ghost, who through deep silence cried,
Shall mortal man—be juster than his God?                        8

[*sage Chaldean: reference to early Babylonian mystery poem advising soul how to free itself from material bonds]

Let others draw from smiling skies their theme,
And tell of climes that boast unfading light,
I draw a darker scene, replete with gloom,
I sing the horrors of the House of Night.                            12

Stranger, believe the truth experience tells,
Poetic dreams are of a finer cast
Than those which over the sober brain diffused,
Are but a repetition of some action past.                           16

Fancy, I own thy power—when sunk in sleep                          [fancy = imagination; mental association rather than logic]
Thou playest thy wild delusive part so well
You lift me into immortality,
Depict new heavens, or draw the scenes of hell.              20

By some sad means, when Reason holds no sway,
Lonely I roved at midnight o'er a plain
Where murmuring streams and mingling rivers flow
Far to their springs, or seek the sea again.                        24

Sweet vernal May! though then thy woods in bloom
Flourished, yet nought of this could Fancy see,                    [fancy = imagination; mental association rather than logic]
No wild pinks blessed the meads, no green the fields,
And naked seemed to stand each lifeless tree:                28

Dark was the sky, and not one friendly star
Shone from the zenith or horizon, clear,
Mist sate upon the woods, and darkness rode
In her black chariot, with a wild career.                               32

And from the woods the late resounding note
Issued of the loquacious Whip-poor-will*
Hoarse, howling dogs, and nightly roving wolves
Clamored from far off cliffs invisible.                                 36

[*Freneau's note: "A Bird peculiar to America, of a solitary nature, who never sings but in the night. Her note resembles the name given to her by the country people.]

Rude, from the wide extended Chesapeake                      [Chesapeake = mid-Atlantic estuary or inlet]
I heard the winds the dashing waves assail,
And saw from far, by picturing fancy formed,                     [fancy = imagination; mental association rather than logic]
The black ship travelling through the noisy gale.               40

At last, by chance and guardian fancy led,                         
I reached a noble dome, raised fair and high,
And saw the light from upper windows flame,
Presage of mirth and hospitality.                                        44   [presage = foreshadowing; mirth = laughter]

And by that light around the dome appeared
A mournful garden of autumnal hue,
Its lately pleasing flowers all drooping stood
Amidst high weeds that in rank plenty grew.                      48

The Primrose there, the violet darkly blue,
Daisies and fair Narcissus ceased to rise,
Gay spotted pinks their charming bloom withdrew,
And Polyanthus quenched its thousand dyes.                   52    [Polyanthus = primrose and related flowering plants]

No pleasant fruit or blossom gaily smiled,
Nought but unhappy plants or trees were seen,
The yew, the myrtle, and the church-yard elm,                          [church-yard = graveyard]
The cypress, with its melancholy green.                            56

There cedars dark, the osier, and the pine,                              [osier = willow]
Shorn tamarisks, and weeping willows grew,
The poplar tall, the lotus, and the lime,
And pyracantha did her leaves renew.                               60

The poppy there, companion to repose,
Displayed her blossoms that began to fall,
And here the purple amaranthus rose
With mint strong-scented, for the funeral.                         64

And here and there with laurel shrubs between
A tombstone lay, inscribed with strains of woe,
And stanzas sad, throughout the dismal green,
Lamented for the dead that slept below.                           68

Peace to this awful dome!—when strait I heard
The voice of men in a secluded room,
Much did they talk of death, and much of life,
Of coffins, shrouds, and horrors of a tomb. . . .                72

[Instructor's note: Thus end the first 18 stanzas of poem, which continues for a total of 136 stanzas. In passages immediately following, the dreamer-narrator enters the House of Night, climbs three storeys of winding stairs,  and encounters the personification of Death as a grinning skeleton on a couch whose head is encircled by “ghosts, imps” and “phantoms” of “jealousies and cares.”]

gothic interior