An Explication of "Hail to the Chief"
“Hail to the Chief” was originally titled “Boat Song” and was a part of Sir Walter Scott’s longer narrative poem The Lady of the Lake. “Boat Song” was put to music by James Sanderson in 1812 and became a part of American culture in 1815 when it was played to honor George Washington (“Hail to the Chief.”). Scott used form, meter, punctation, and rhyme to highlight the poem’s perceived orality, to imbue the poem with ever-increasing energy, and to advance the narrative of the longer ballad. Furthermore, Scott uses a metaphor of a tree to imbue the poem with meaning.
“Boat Song” is a ballad within a ballad. Ballads are uniquely rooted in the oral traditions of the time and place of their creation. “Boat Song” is no exception. Originally written for a Scottish audience, “Boat Song” is rife with Scottish history and language. It is firmly rooted in Scotland and invokes place names like “Beltane” (misspelled as “Beltante” by Virginia Lucas), “Menteith”, and “Breadalbane”. These names mean little to the average American reader, but a Scot could conjure imagery from these places and imagine the surrounding countryside. Furthermore, the ballad tells a story worth preserving through oral narrative. The Lady of the Lake tells a tale of Scottish pride and politics, and “Boat Song” recounts the journey of Clan Alpine chief Roderick (Roderigh) Dhu. “Boat Song” is a celebration of Clan Alpine and their fearless chief. The narrative ballad is used successfully in this poem to immortalize a cultural epic and cement it in an oral tradition. The other ballads in The Lady of the Lake are not as explicitly oral; after all, “Boat Song”, by virtue of its title, is clearly meant to be sung.
“Hail to the Chief” is primarily written in dactylic tetrameter. Mary Oliver writes that “tetrameter is well suited to ‘story’ poems — poems in which there is movement, confrontation, action” (31). Most 19th century poems were written in pentameter. The shorter meter imbues the poem with an energy that renews itself with every line. It drives the poem forward and provides a steady, never-ending rhythm. The meter also moves the plot forward rapidly. A long narrative ballad like The Lady of the Lake covers many events, and the shorter meter allows it to move from topic to topic with pace and ease. The speakers within “Hail to the Chief” are the clansmen and boatmen of Clan Alpine. They row as they sing their boat song. The predictable and even pulse of tetrameter guides their oar strokes.
“Hail to the Chief,” like other ballads, includes instances of varied meter. However, even when the meter is modified, the pulse remains tangible and constant. In the first four lines of every stanza, Sir Walter Scott employs dactylic tetrameter while modifying the ending of every line. The first and third lines end in a trochee, and the second and fourth lines end in an even shorter mono-syllabic catalexis. Scott intentionally left space at the end of every line. A complete and ceaseless deluge of dactylic tetrameter would have been difficult for a boatman to recite while rowing. The space left at the end of each line gives the speakers time to breathe between lines and oar strokes. The variation occurs in a constant pattern, which makes it easy for the speakers to memorize. Furthermore, the stresses occur on the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth syllables of the first four lines of every stanza. This way, the beat necessary for rowing in time is never lost.
In lines six and seven of the first stanza, the poem switches to trochaic tetrameter. During this shift, the lines still contain four stresses, but the pace of the poem increases. Scott also modified the meter of the sixth and seventh lines in the second and third stanzas. In those stanzas he uses dactylic dimeter. When Scott changes meter, he does so to change the pace of the poem, but he never varies far from dactylic tetrameter. Either the tetrameter or the dactylic division remains the same in the sixth and seventh lines of each stanza. Metrical variation is often employed to accompany a change in subject or an emotional shift. Scott, however, uses a constrained variation to quicken the pace of the poem while staying true to the overall form. This middle section of variation always precedes the return of dactylic tetrameter and dactylic dimeter, which further exemplifies Scott’s commitment to the form that unifies the recitation of the poem and the exertion of the boatmen.
Exclamation marks first appear in the refrain. This punctation serves two purposes. First, it ensures that the speakers’ directions to “shout” and otherwise exalt the refrain are followed. Second, it allows Scott to continually build energy as the poem progresses. As Chief Roderick approaches his destination, the boatmen become more excited. In the third stanza, it feels as if the destination is around the next bend in the river. Scott achieves this effect by placing this stanza at the conclusion of the poem and the journey. The boatmen chant “row, vassals row” as they anticipate their arrival. Also, Scott employs the exclamation point three times in non-refrain lines in the third stanza. The first one ensures that the command to row is shouted with urgency and the second and third reinforce and conclude the ongoing comparison of Clan Alpine to a tree with roots in the Scottish countryside. The poem concludes with a final exaltation of Chief Roderick. Scott uses punctuation to increase the energy and excitement of Clan Alpine as they near their destination.
The rhyme scheme is a constant ABABCCDEEFF. The rhyme scheme is predictable, and all of the rhymes are true rhymes. This makes the poem easy to memorize and learn, both of which are important qualities in oral ballads. The poem also praises the bravery of Clan Alpine, and they commemorate themselves with perfect rhymes that are pleasing to the ear.
The tree is an important metaphor in the poem. It is the symbol of Clan Alpine: “long may the tree in his banner that glances, flourish the shelter and grace of our line” (3,4). However, it becomes not just a physical symbol, but a representation of the clan’s longevity, strength and resilience. In the first stanza, the clan calls for the tree to be happy and healthy. When they say
heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,
Gayly to bourgeon and broadly to grow (5-7),
they are not speaking about a real tree, but the longevity of their clan. They essentially ask for good fortune for their entire clan when they invoke ways that nature could grant good fortune to a tree.
Scott uses the tree metaphor in the second stanza as well. Clan Alpine contrasts their own mighty tree with a smaller, less resilient sapling. The first point of contrast lies in how each tree came to be. The sapling was “chance-sown by the fountain” (12) and the Clan Alpine tree is “moored in the rifted rock” (16). This metaphor indicates that the sapling just happens to be in the Scottish Highlands, while Clan Alpine has been there for longer. The tree lies firmly in the rock, which indicates that Clan Alpine is both resilient and old. Clan Alpine’s longevity is further explored in this metaphor. Clan Alpine’s tree is unlike the sapling that fades in winter. The Clan Alpine tree is weather resistant and is unaffected by the seasons. The following two lines further exemplify this concept:
When the whirlwind has stript every leaf on the mountain,
The more shall Clan Alpine exult in her shade (14,15)
When weather clears away every other tree, Clan Alpine’s will still stand. They take pride in the tree’s exceptional resilience and “exult” underneath it. This a metaphor for how Clan Alpine is itself resilient, and catastrophes that would purge other highland clans would not necessarily affect Clan Alpine. The strength of Clan Alpine is so remarkable that people from other regions, “Menteith and Breadalbane” (19), “[e]cho his praise again” (20).
Clan Alpine has territorial interests that are explored through the tree metaphor in the third stanza. The first indication lies in the first line of the third stanza: “Row, vassals row, for the pride of the Highlands!” (23). The word “pride” is key to the metaphor, and Scott puts a metrical stress on that word. Pride of the “Highlands” is also different from a general pride of Clan Alpine. Clan Alpine is interested in a unification of multiple tribes, including the aforementioned people of “Menteith and Breadalbane” (19). Clan Alpine wishes that a rosebud from other islands were woven into a garland that would wrap around their tree: “Oh that the rosebud that graces yon islands, Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine!” (25,26). This line demonstrates how Clan Alpine extends their tree metaphor to justify their expansionist interests. They wish that
some seedling gem,
Worthy such noble stem,
Honored and blest in their shadow might grow! (27-29)
These lines indicate that Clan Alpine thinks that the younger generation of Highland people would prosper under a unification of many tribes. The key word in this line is “their” (29). The Clan Alpine tree is referred to as “her” (15) in previous lines, but the word “their” in line twenty-nine indicates another entity joining Clan Alpine. Once together, they could offer protection to the next generation as the tree would provide a “shadow” under which “some seedling gem” “might grow” (29).
In sum, the tree metaphor serves a handful of purposes. First of all, by praising the tree, they are essentially praising themselves. Also, these are boatmen with purpose. Not only do they have their immediate task in mind (rowing the boat), but they also have a larger purpose of spreading Clan Alpine in Scotland. One possible reading is that they remind themselves of their larger goals through song to invigorate their rowing.
Scott makes use of form, meter, rhyme, and metaphor to demonstrate the vigor and purpose of the Clan Alpine boatmen. The boatmen row as they sing, and they do so with gusto as they proudly advance the agenda of Clan Alpine.
Works Cited
“Hail to the Chief.” The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200000009. Accessed 27 Apr. 2022.
Oliver, Mary. Rules For The Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse. First Edition, Ecco, 1998.