Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

584 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
Later Payne rewrote the poem. But in order to secure brevity he
sacrificed poetic charm. The lines with which the public are today
familiar hardly measure up to the original; but they are doubtless bet
ter adapted to the air. Here is the poem as rewritten:
'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,
Which, seek through the world, is ne 'er met with elsewhere.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home!
• There's no place like home!
There's no place like home!
An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain,
0, give me my lo«wly thatched cottage again!
The birds singing gaily that came at my call—
Give me them—and the peace of mind dearer than all.
Home, home, sweet, sweet home! : « .
There's no place like home!
There's no place like home!
In 1832 Payne returned to New York. The question agitating the
public mind at this time was the removal of the Cherokee Indians to a
trans-Mississippi region. To one of Payne's fine poetic temperament,
the idea of using force to drive these primitive inhabitants of the soil—
these native Americans—into an unwilling exile was most repugnant.
He thought of himself as an outcast and a wanderer; and it was only-
natural for the man who wrote "Home, Sweet Home," to espouse the
cause of those who were soon to be homeless, even though they were
savage tribes of the forest.
To ascertain the real'facts in regard to the Cherokees, Mr. Payne
came to Georgia in J8S6",""on the eve of the famous deportation. It so
happened that, at this time, Georgia was in a turmoil of excitement.
Events were rapidly approaching a climax; and, in order to deal, on
the one hand, with meddlesome interlopers whose purpose was to inflame
the Red Men, and, on the other, with lawless characters escaping across
the state line into Indian Territory, it was necessary for .Georgia to
extend her jurisdiction, with a rod of iron, over the domain of the
Cherokees,
There were, at this time, among the Indians, two distinct parties,
one of which, under Major Ridge, strongly favored removal as the
wisest course for the nation to adopt. The other, headed by John Ross,
strenuously opposed removal; and these were regarded as the sworn
enemies of the state. Between the two factions there was war to the
knife, deadly and bitter. When John Howard Payne came to Georgia
he visited the Cherokee nation as the guest of John Ross, then as after
wards, the principal chief. His object in making this visit was un
known to the civil authorities; but his affiliation with John Ross put
him at once under suspicion. He contemplated nothing sinister. His
purpose was merely to gather information. But Tray was in bad com
pany, at least, to Georgia's way of thinking; and, while visiting John