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Title: The Land of Song, Book II
For lower grammar grades
Author: Various
Editor: Larkin Dunton
Release Date: February 14, 2012 [EBook #38880]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF SONG, BOOK II ***
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THE LAND OF SONG
BOOK II.
_FOR LOWER GRAMMAR GRADES_
SELECTED BY
KATHARINE H. SHUTE
EDITED BY
LARKIN DUNTON, LL.D.
HEAD MASTER OF THE BOSTON NORMAL SCHOOL
[Illustration]
SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY.
BOSTON:
C. J. PETERS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS.
Plimpton Press
H. M. PLIMPTON & CO., PRINTERS & BINDERS,
NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A.
_COMPILERS' PREFACE._
The inestimable value of literature in supplying healthful recreation,
in opening the mind to larger views of life, and in creating ideals that
shall mold the spiritual nature, is conceded now by every one who has
intelligently considered the problems of education. But the basis upon
which literature shall be selected and arranged is still a matter of
discussion.
Chronology, race-correspondence, correlation, and ethical training
should all be recognized incidentally; but the main purpose of the
teacher of literature is to send children on into life with a genuine
love for good reading. To accomplish this, three things should be true
of the reading offered: first, it should be _literature_; second, it
should be literature of some scope, not merely some small phase of
literature, such as the fables or the poetry of one of the less eminent
poets; and third, it should appeal to children's natural interests.
Children's interests, varied as they seem, center in the marvelous and
the preternatural; in the natural world; and in human life, especially
child life and the romantic and heroic aspects of mature life. In the
selections made for each grade, we have recognized these different
interests.
To grade poetry perfectly for different ages is an impossibility; much
of the greatest verse is for all ages--that is one reason why it _is_
great. A child of five will lisp the numbers of Horatius with delight;
and Scott's _Lullaby of an Infant Chief_, with its romantic color and
its exquisite human tenderness, is dear to childhood, to manhood, and to
old age. But the Land of Song is a great undiscovered country to the
little child; by some road or other he must find his way into it; and
these volumes simply attempt to point out a path through which he may be
led into its happy fields.
Our earnest thanks are due to the following publishers for permission
to use copyrighted poems: to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for poems by
Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, Aldrich, Bayard Taylor,
James T. Fields, Phoebe Cary, Lucy Larcom, Celia Thaxter, and Sarah Orne
Jewett; to D. Appleton & Co. for a large number of Bryant's poems; to
Charles Scribner's Sons for two poems by Stevenson, from _Underwoods_,
and _A Child's Garden of Verse_; to J. B. Lippincott & Co. for two poems
by Thomas Buchanan Read; and to Henry T. Coates & Co. for a poem by
Charles Fenno Hoffman.
The present volume is intended for the fourth, fifth, and sixth school
years, or lower grammar grades. It is the second of three books prepared
for use in the grades below the high school. As no collection of this
size can supply as much poetry as may be used to advantage, and as many
desirable poems by American writers have necessarily been omitted, we
have noted at the end of this volume lists of poems which it would be
well to add to the material given here, that our children may realize
the scope and beauty of the poetry of their own land.
CONTENTS
PAGE
ALICE BRAND 64
AT SEA 60
BANKS O' DOON, THE 217
BATTLE OF BLENHEIM, THE 141
BATTLE OF THE BALTIC, THE 103
BELEAGUERED CITY, THE 133
BELSHAZZAR 221
BOY AND THE ANGEL, THE 118
BRIGHTEST AND BEST OF THE SONS OF THE MORNING 157
BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE 22
BY COOL SILOAM'S SHADY RILL 30
CALM ON THE LISTENING EAR OF NIGHT 93
CA' THE YOWES 81
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE, THE 89
CHILDREN IN THE WOOD, THE 71
CHORAL SONG OF ILLYRIAN PEASANTS 125
COMPANIONSHIP WITH NATURE 227
CONCORD HYMN 161
CORAL GROVE, THE 63
COUNCIL OF HORSES, THE 114
CORONACH 200
CRICKET, THE 193
DAFFODILS 15
DAFFODILS, THE 13
DEATH OF NELSON, THE 164
DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB 18
DEWDROP, THE 207
ELIXIR, THE 117
ENGLAND 170
EPITAPH ON A HARE 112
EVENING (John Fletcher) 150
EVENING (John Keble) 206
EVENING WIND, THE 123
EXILE OF ERIN 215
FAREWELL, A 152
FIDELITY 108
FINE DAY, A 35
FISHERMAN, THE 211
FOR A' THAT, AND A' THAT 69
GLADIATOR, THE 228
GOOD-NIGHT 207
GRASSHOPPER, THE 192
GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD, THE 121
GREEN CORNFIELD, A 41
HALLOWED GROUND 145
HERITAGE, THE 208
HOHENLINDEN 21
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY 19
HOME THEY BROUGHT HER WARRIOR DEAD 27
HONEY-BEE, THE 15
HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE 104
"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX" 229
HYMN OF THE NATIVITY 234
HURRICANE, THE 175
INCHCAPE ROCK, THE 43
INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP 147
INGRATITUDE 57
JOCK OF HAZELDEAN 213
JERUSALEM, THE GOLDEN 204
KINGDOM OF GOD, THE 178
KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT OF CANTERBURY 126
LADY CLARE 218
LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 28
LIFE'S "GOOD-MORNING" 201
LLEWELLYN AND HIS DOG 105
LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER 211
LOVE OF GOD, THE 31
MARCH 42
MONTEREY 162
MOONRISE, A SELECTION 201
MORNING 149
MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD 37
NEW YEAR, THE 237
NIGHT 101
NOBLE NATURE, THE 179
NORTHERN SEAS, THE 61
ODE TO THE NORTH-EAST WIND 167
OH! WEEP FOR THOSE 17
O MOTHER DEAR, JERUSALEM 205
ON A FAVORITE CAT DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLDFISHES 197
ON A SPANIEL CALLED "BEAU" KILLING A YOUNG BIRD 78
ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET (Leigh Hunt) 111
ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET (John Keats) 110
O WAD SOME POWER 37
PIBROCH OF DONUIL DHU 24
PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN, THE 46
PILGRIM FATHERS, THE 84
PIPES AT LUCKNOW, THE 224
PLANTING OF THE APPLE TREE 32
QUIET, LORD, MY FROWARD HEART 149
REBECCA'S HYMN 20
REST 191
REVENGE, THE 143
RHYMED LESSON, A 82
ROYAL GEORGE, THE 91
RUTH 116
SAILOR'S WIFE, THE 135
SANDALPHON 231
SELECTION FROM CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE, A 155
SELKIRK GRACE, THE 31
SHEPHERD'S HOME, THE 77
SHERIDAN'S RIDE 172
SKYLARK, THE 39
SOLDIER AND SAILOR 137
SOLDIER'S DREAM, THE 26
SOLITARY REAPER, THE 199
SONG FROM THE LADY OF THE LAKE 216
SONG OF MARION'S MEN 99
SONG OF THE GREEKS 170
SONG OF THE SEA, A 58
SONG: "ORPHEUS WITH HIS LUTE MADE TREES" 151
SOUND THE LOUD TIMBREL 125
SPRING 38
STARS 101
STORM, THE 190
SUMMER SHOWER, THE 36
SWEET PEAS 80
THY VOICE IS HEARD THROUGH ROLLING DRUMS 148
TO A MOUSE 153
TO A WATERFOWL 202
TO DAFFODILS 14
TO THE CUCKOO 40
TO THE SMALL CELANDINE 131
UNION AND LIBERTY 97
UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD 16
VIRTUE 208
WHEN ALL THY MERCIES, O MY GOD 177
WHEN WILT THOU SAVE THE PEOPLE? 94
WINSTANLEY 180
WIVES OF BRIXHAM, THE 86
WREN'S NEST, A 194
YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND 163
_Index of Authors._
ADDISON, JOSEPH.
When all thy Mercies, O my God 177
ANONYMOUS.
O Mother Dear, Jerusalem 205
The Children in the Wood 71
The Wives of Brixham 86
ARNOLD.
The Death of Nelson 164
BARBAULD, ANNA LETITIA.
Life's "Good-Morning" 201
BLAKE, WILLIAM.
Night 101
BROWNING, ROBERT.
An Incident of the French Camp 147
"How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" 229
The Boy and the Angel 118
The Pied Piper of Hamelin 46
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN.
March 42
Song of Marion's Men 99
The Evening Wind 123
The Hurricane 175
The Love of God 31
The Planting of the Apple Tree 32
To a Waterfowl 202
Upon the Mountain's Distant Head 16
BURNS, ROBERT.
Ca' the Yowes 81
For A' That, and A' That 69
Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots 28
O wad some Power 37
The Banks o' Doon 217
The Selkirk Grace 31
To a Mouse 153
BYRON, LORD (GEORGE NOEL GORDON).
A Selection from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 155
Companionship with Nature, A Selection 227
Moonrise, A Selection 201
Oh! weep for Those 17
The Destruction of Sennacherib 18
The Gladiator, A Selection 228
CAMPBELL, THOMAS.
Exile of Erin 215
Hallowed Ground 145
Hohenlinden 21
Lord Ullin's Daughter 211
Soldier and Sailor 137
Song of the Greeks 170
The Battle of the Baltic 103
The Soldier's Dream 26
Ye Mariners of England 163
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR.
Choral Song of Illyrian Peasants 125
COLLINS, WILLIAM.
How Sleep the Brave 104
CORNWALL, BARRY. (See PROCTER.)
COWLEY, ABRAHAM.
The Grasshopper 192
COWPER, WILLIAM.
Epitaph on a Hare 112
On a Spaniel called "Beau" killing a Young Bird 78
The Cricket 193
The Royal George 91
CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN.
At Sea 60
DRAYTON, MICHAEL.
A Fine Day 35
ELLIOTT, EBENEZER.
When Wilt Thou save the People 94
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO.
Concord Hymn 161
FLETCHER, JOHN.
Evening 150
GAY, JOHN.
The Council of Horses 114
GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG.
Rest 191
GRAY, THOMAS.
On a Favorite Cat, drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes 197
HEBER, REGINALD.
Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning 157
By Cool Siloam's Shady Rill 30
Holy, Holy, Holy 19
HEMANS, FELICIA.
The Graves of a Household 121
The Pilgrim Fathers 84
HERBERT, GEORGE.
The Elixir 117
Virtue 208
HERRICK, ROBERT.
To Daffodils 14
HOFFMAN, CHARLES FENNO.
Monterey 162
HOGG, JAMES.
The Skylark 39
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL.
A Rhymed Lesson, Selections 82
Union and Liberty 97
HOOD, THOMAS.
Ruth 116
HOWITT, MARY.
The Northern Seas 61
HUNT, LEIGH.
On the Grasshopper and Cricket 111
INGELOW, JEAN.
Winstanley 180
JONSON, BEN.
The Noble Nature 179
KEATS, JOHN.
On the Grasshopper and Cricket 110
Sweet Peas, A Selection 80
KEBLE, JOHN.
Evening 206
Morning 149
KINGSLEY, CHARLES.
Ode to the North-East Wind 167
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH.
Sandalphon 231
The Beleaguered City 133
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL.
The Heritage 208
MICKLE, WILLIAM J.
The Sailor's Wife 135
MILTON, JOHN.
Hymn of the Nativity, A Selection 234
MOORE, THOMAS.
Sound the Loud Timbrel 125
NASH, THOMAS.
Spring 38
NEWTON, JOHN.
Quiet, Lord, my Froward Heart 149
PERCIVAL, JAMES G.
The Coral Grove 63
PERCY, THOMAS.
King John and the Abbot of Canterbury 126
PROCTER, ADELAIDE.
The Storm 190
PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER (BARRY CORNWALL).
A Song of the Sea 58
Belshazzar 221
Stars 101
The Fisherman 211
QUARLES, FRANCIS.
Good-Night 207
READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN.
Sheridan's Ride 172
The Summer Shower 36
ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA G.
A Green Cornfield 41
ST. BERNARD.
Jerusalem, the Golden 204
SCOTT, SIR WALTER.
Alice Brand 64
Coronach 200
Jock of Hazeldean 213
Pibroch of Donald Dhu 24
Rebecca's Hymn 20
Song From "The Lady of the Lake" 216
SEARS, EDMUND H.
Calm on the Listening Ear of Night 93
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM.
Daffodils, A Selection 15
England, A Selection 170
Ingratitude, A Selection 57
Song: "Orpheus with his lute made trees" 151
The Honey-bee, A Selection 15
SHENSTONE, WILLIAM.
The Shepherd's Home 77
SOUTHEY, ROBERT.
Llewellyn and his Dog 105
The Battle of Blenheim 141
The Inchcape Rock 43
TENNYSON, ALFRED.
A Farewell 152
Home they brought her Warrior dead 27
Lady Clare 218
The Charge of the Light Brigade 89
The New Year 237
The Revenge, A Selection 143
Thy Voice is heard through Rolling Drums 148
TRENCH, RICHARD C.
The Dewdrop 207
The Kingdom of God 178
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF.
The Pipes at Lucknow 224
WOLFE, CHARLES.
The Burial of Sir John Moore 22
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM.
A Wren's Nest 194
Fidelity 108
My heart leaps up when I behold 37
The Daffodils 13
The Solitary Reaper 199
To the Cuckoo 40
To the Small Celandine 131
THE LAND OF SONG: BOOK II.
_PART I._
[Illustration: AUTUMN.
E. SEMENOWSKY.]
_THE LAND OF SONG: BOOK II._
PART ONE.
[Illustration]
THE DAFFODILS.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company;
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
TO DAFFODILS.
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising Sun
Has not attained his noon;
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you;
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you, or anything:
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
ROBERT HERRICK.
DAFFODILS.
Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.
"_A Winter's Tale._"
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
THE HONEY-BEE.
For so work the honey-bees,
Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
The act of order to a peopled kingdom.
They have a king and officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home,
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad,
Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds,
Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons building roofs of gold,
The civil citizens, kneading up the honey,
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate.
"_King Henry V._"
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
[Illustration]
UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD.
Upon the mountain's distant head,
With trackless snows forever white,
Where all is still, and cold, and dead,
Late shines the day's departing light.
But far below those icy rocks,
The vales in summer bloom arrayed,
Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks,
Are dim with mist and dark with shade.
'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts,
And eyes whose generous meanings burn,
Earliest the light of life departs,
But lingers with the cold and stern.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
[Illustration: LORD BYRON.]
OH! WEEP FOR THOSE.
Oh! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream,
Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream;
Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell;
Mourn--where their God hath dwelt, the godless dwell!
And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet?
And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet?
And Judah's melody once more rejoice
The hearts that leaped before its heavenly voice?
Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,
How shall ye flee away and be at rest!
The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind their country--Israel but the grave.
LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON.
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY.
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy name in earth and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and Seraphim falling down before Thee,
Which wert and art and evermore shalt be!
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see,
Only Thou art holy, there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity!
_Altered from_ REGINALD HEBER.
REBECCA'S HYMN.
When Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out of the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen,
And Zion's daughters poured their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.
But, present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.
And oh, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute our timbrel, trump, and horn.
But Thou hast said, the blood of goat,
The flesh of rams I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.
_From "Ivanhoe."_
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
HOHENLINDEN.
On Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow;
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet fast arrayed
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neighed
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills, with thunder riven
Then rushed the steed, to battle driven;
And louder than the bolts of Heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.
But redder yet that light shall glow
On Linden's hills of stainèd snow;
And bloodier yet the torrent flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
'Tis morn, but scarce yon level sun
Can pierce the war clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank and fiery Hun
Shout in their sulphurous canopy.
The combat deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave!
And charge with all thy chivalry!
Few, few shall part, where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding sheet;
And every turf beneath their feet
Shall be a soldier's sepulcher.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin inclosed his breast,
Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow!
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him,--
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame, fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone--
But we left him alone with his glory!
CHARLES WOLFE.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT.]
PIBROCH OF DONUIL DHU.
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu,
Pibroch of Donuil,
Wake thy wild voice anew,
Summon Clan Conuil.
Come away, come away,
Hark to the summons!
Come in your war array,
Gentles and commons.
Come from deep glen, and
From mountains so rocky;
The war pipe and pennon
Are at Inverlocky.
Come every hill plaid, and
True heart that wears one,
Come every steel blade, and
Strong hand that bears one.
Leave untended the herd,
The flock without shelter;
Leave the corpse uninterred,
The bride at the altar;
Leave the deer, leave the steer,
Leave nets and barges;
Come with your fighting gear,
Broadswords and targes.
Come as the winds come, when
Forests are rended;
Come as the waves come, when
Navies are stranded;
Faster come, faster come,
Faster and faster,
Chief, vassal, page, and groom,
Tenant and master.
Fast they come, fast they come;
See how they gather!
Wide waves the eagle plume
Blended with heather.
Cast your plaids, draw your blades,
Forward each man set!
Pibroch of Donuil Dhu
Knell for the onset!
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
THE SOLDIER'S DREAM.
Our bugles sang truce, for the night cloud had lowered,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.
When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw;
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.
Methought from the battlefield's dreadful array
Far, far, I had roamed on a desolate track;
'Twas autumn,--and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.
I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life's morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn reapers sung.
Then pledged we the wine cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kissed me a thousand times o'er,
And my wife sobbed aloud in her fullness of heart.
"Stay, stay with us!--rest! thou art weary and worn!"
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;--
But sorrow returned with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
HOME THEY BROUGHT HER WARRIOR DEAD.
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry;
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee--
Like summer tempest came her tears--
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."
ALFRED TENNYSON.
[Illustration]
LAMENT OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS.
ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING.
Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merlè, in his noon-tide bower,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild wi' mony a note
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorne's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang!
I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en:
And I'm the sov'reign o' Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands,
And never-ending care.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And, where thou meet'st thy mother's friend,
Remember him for me!
Oh! soon, to me, may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!
ROBERT BURNS.
[Illustration]
BY COOL SILOAM'S SHADY RILL.
By cool Siloam's shady rill
How sweet the lily grows!
How sweet the breath beneath the hill
Of Sharon's dewy rose!
Lo, such the child whose early feet
The paths of peace have trod;
Whose secret heart, with influence sweet,
Is upward drawn to God.
By cool Siloam's shady rill
The lily must decay;
The rose that blooms beneath the hill
Must shortly fade away.
REGINALD HEBER.
THE SELKIRK GRACE.
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thankit.
ROBERT BURNS.
THE LOVE OF GOD.
All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.
The forms of men shall be as they had never been;
The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green;
The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song,
And the nightingale shall cease to chant the evening long.
The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills,
And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills.
The goat and antlered stag, the wolf and the fox,
The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks,
And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie;
And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die.
And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more,
And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore;
And the great globe itself, so the holy writings tell,
With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies dwell,
Shall melt with fervent heat--they shall all pass away,
Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
_From the Provençal of Bernard Rascas._
[Illustration]
THE PLANTING OF THE APPLE TREE.
Come, let us plant the apple tree.
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mold with kindly care,
And press it o'er them tenderly,
As, round the sleeping infant's feet
We softly fold the cradle sheet;
So plant we the apple tree.
What plant we in this apple tree?
Buds, which the breath of summer days
Shall lengthen into leafy sprays;
Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,
Shall haunt and sing and hide her nest;
We plant, upon the sunny lea,
A shadow for the noontide hour,
A shelter from the summer shower,
When we plant the apple tree.
What plant we in this apple tree?
Sweets for a hundred flowery springs
To load the May wind's restless wings,
When, from the orchard row, he pours
Its fragrance through our open doors;
A world of blossoms for the bee,
Flowers for the sick girl's silent room,
For the glad infant sprigs of bloom,
We plant with the apple tree.
What plant we in this apple tree?
Fruits that shall swell in sunny June,
And redden in the August noon,
And drop, when gentle airs come by,
That fan the blue September sky,
While children come, with cries of glee,
And seek them where the fragrant grass
Betrays their bed to those who pass,
At the foot of the apple tree.
And when, above this apple tree,
The winter stars are quivering bright,
And winds go howling through the night,
Girls, whose young eyes overflow with mirth,
Shall peel its fruit by cottage hearth,
And guests in prouder homes shall see,
Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine
And golden orange of the line,
The fruit of the apple tree.
The fruitage of this apple tree
Winds, and our flag of stripe and star,
Shall bear to coasts that lie afar,
Where men shall wonder at the view,
And ask in what fair groves they grew;
And sojourners beyond the sea
Shall think of childhood's careless day
And long, long hours of summer play,
In the shade of the apple tree.
Each year shall give this apple tree
A broader flush of roseate bloom,
A deeper maze of verdurous gloom,
And loosen, when the frost clouds lower,
The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.
The years shall come and pass, but we
Shall hear no longer, where we lie,
The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh,
In the boughs of the apple tree.
And time shall waste this apple tree.
Oh, when its aged branches throw
Thin shadows on the ground below,
Shall fraud and force and iron will
Oppress the weak and helpless still?
What shall the tasks of mercy be,
Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears,
Of those who live when length of years
Is wasting this apple tree?
"Who planted this old apple tree?"
The children of that distant day
Thus to some aged man shall say;
And, gazing on its mossy stem,
The gray-haired man shall answer them:
"A poet of the land was he,
Born in the rude but good old times;
'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes
On planting the apple tree."
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
[Illustration]
A FINE DAY.
Clear had the day been from the dawn,
All chequer'd was the sky,
Thin clouds like scarfs of cobweb lawn
Veiled heaven's most glorious eye.
The wind had no more strength than this,
That leisurely it blew,
To make one leaf the next to kiss,
That closely by it grew.
MICHAEL DRAYTON.
[Illustration]
THE SUMMER SHOWER.
Before the stout harvesters falleth the grain,
As when the strong storm wind is reaping the plain;
And loiters the boy in the briery lane;
But yonder aslant comes the silvery rain,
Like a long line of spears brightly burnished and tall.
Adown the white highway like cavalry fleet,
It dashes the dust with its numberless feet.
Like a murmurless school, in their leafy retreat,
The wild birds sit listening, the drops round them beat;
And the boy crouches close to the blackberry wall.
The swallows alone take the storm on their wing,
And, taunting the tree-sheltered laborers, sing;
Like pebbles the rain breaks the face of the spring,
While a bubble darts up from each widening ring;
And the boy in dismay hears the loud shower fall.
But soon are the harvesters tossing their sheaves;
The robin darts out from his bower of leaves;
The wren peereth forth from the moss-covered eaves;
And the rain-spattered urchin now gladly perceives
That the beautiful bow bendeth over them all.
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD.
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
O WAD SOME POWER.
O Wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us
An' foolish notion;
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion!
ROBERT BURNS.
[Illustration]
SPRING.
Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's pleasant king;
Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring;
Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day;
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo.
The fields breathe sweet, the daisies kiss our feet,
Young lovers meet, old wives a sunning sit;
In every street these tunes our ears do greet,
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
Spring! the sweet spring!
THOMAS NASH.
[Illustration]
THE SKYLARK.
Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place--
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud,
Far in the downy cloud,
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O'er fell and fountain sheen,
O'er moor and mountain green,
O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow's rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Best is thy dwelling-place--
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
JAMES HOGG.
TO THE CUCKOO.
O Blithe newcomer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?
While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near!
Though babbling only to the vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.
Thrice welcome, darling of the spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;
The same whom in my schoolboy days
I listened to; that cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.
To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.
And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.
O blessèd bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, fairy place:
That is fit home for thee!
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
A GREEN CORNFIELD.
"And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest."
The earth was green, the sky was blue:
I saw and heard one sunny morn
A skylark hang between the two,
A singing speck above the corn;
A stage below, in gay accord,
White butterflies danced on the wing,
And still the singing skylark soared
And silent sank, and soared to sing.
The cornfield stretched a tender green
To right and left beside my walks;
I knew he had a nest unseen
Somewhere among the million stalks:
And as I paused to hear his song
While swift the sunny moments slid,
Perhaps his mate sat listening long,
And listened longer than I did.
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.
[Illustration]
MARCH.
The stormy March is come at last
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies;
I hear the rushing of the blast,
That through the snowy valley flies.
Ah, passing few are those who speak,
Wild, stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.
For thou, to northern lands, again
The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast joined the gentle train
And wear'st the gentle name of spring.
And, in thy reign of blast and storm,
Smiles many a long, bright, sunny day,
When the changed winds are soft and warm,
And Heaven puts on the blue of May.
Then sing aloud the gushing rills
In joy that they again are free,
And, brightly leaping down the hills,
Begin their journey to the sea.
The year's departing beauty hides
Of wintry storms the sullen threat;
But in thy sternest frown abides
A look of kindly promise yet.
Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies,
And that soft time of sunny showers,
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,
Seems of a brighter world than ours.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
THE INCHCAPE ROCK.
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock
The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape bell.
The good old Abbot of Aberbrothok
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung,
And over the waves its warning rung.
When the Rock was hid by the surges' swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous Rock,
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
The sun in heaven was shining gay,
All things were joyful on that day;
The seabirds screamed as they wheeled around,
And there was joyance in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcape bell was seen
A darker speck on the ocean green;
Sir Ralph the Rover walked his deck,
And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
He felt the cheering power of spring,
It made him whistle, it made him sing;
His heart was mirthful to excess,
But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape float;
Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock,
And I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothok."
The boat is lowered, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go;
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat,
And he cut the bell from the Inchcape float.
Down sunk the bell, with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles rose and burst around;
Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."
Sir Ralph the Rover sailed away;
He scoured the seas for many a day;
And now grown rich with plunder's store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.
So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky,
They cannot see the sun on high;
The wind hath blown a gale all day,
At evening it hath died away.
On the deck the Rover takes his stand;
So dark it is they see no land.
Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon,
For there is the dawn of the rising moon."
"Can'st hear," said one, "the breakers roar?
For methinks we should be near the shore;
Now where we are I cannot tell,
But I wish I could hear the Inchcape bell."
They hear no sound, the swell is strong;
Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock;
Cried they, "It is the Inchcape Rock!"
Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
And curst himself in his despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But even in his dying fear
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear,
A sound as if with the Inchcape bell
The fiends below were ringing his knell.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN.
Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser deep and wide
Washes its walls on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin, was a pity.
Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in their cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats,
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.
[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING.]
At last the people in a body
To the town hall came flocking:
"'Tis clear," cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy:
And as for our Corporation--shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease!
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.
An hour they sat in council;
At length the Mayor broke silence:
"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell;
I wish I were a mile hence!
It's easy to bid one rack one's brain--
I'm sure my poor head aches again,
I've scratched it so, and all in vain.
Oh, for a trap, a trap, a trap!"
Just as he said this, what should hap
At the chamber door but a gentle tap?
"Bless us," cried the Mayor, "what's that?
Anything like the sound of a rat
Makes my heart go pitapat!
"Come in!" the Mayor cried, looking bigger;
And in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin,
No tuft on cheek, nor beard on chin,
But lips where smiles went out and in--
There was no guessing his kith and kin!
And nobody could enough admire
The tall man and his quaint attire:
Quoth one, "It's as my great-grandsire,
Starting up at the trump of Doom's tone,
Had walked this way from his painted tombstone!"
He advanced to the council table:
And, "Please your honors," said he, "I'm able,
By means of a secret charm, to draw
All creatures living beneath the sun,
That creep, or swim, or fly, or run,
After me so as you never saw!
And I chiefly use my charm
On creatures that do people harm,
The mole, the toad, the newt, the viper;
And people call me the Pied Piper."
And here they noticed round his neck
A scarf of red and yellow stripe,
To match with his coat of the selfsame check;
And at the scarf's end hung a pipe;
And his fingers, they noticed, were ever straying,
As if impatient to be playing
Upon this pipe, as low it dangled
Over his vesture so old fangled.
"Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am,
In Tartary I freed the Cham,
Last June, from his huge swarm of gnats;
I eased in Asia the Nizam
Of a monstrous brood of vampire bats:
And as for what your brain bewilders,
If I can rid your town of rats
Will you give me a thousand guilders?"
"One? fifty thousand!" was the exclamation
Of the astonished Mayor and Corporation.
Into the street the Piper stept,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while;
Then like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And green and blue his sharp eyes twinkled,
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled;
And ere three shrill notes the pipe had uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew into a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling--
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, gray rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Curling tails, and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives,--
Followed the Piper for their lives.
From street to street he piped, advancing,
And step for step they followed, dancing,
Until they came to the river Weser
Wherein all plunged and perished,
Save one, who stout as Julius Cæsar,
Swam across, and lived to carry
(As he the manuscript he cherished)
To Rat-land home his commentary,
Which was, "At the first shrill notes of the pipe,
I heard a sound as of scraping tripe,
And putting apples wondrous ripe
Into a cider press's gripe;
And a moving away of pickle-tub boards,
And a leaving ajar of conserve cupboards,
And a drawing the corks of train-oil flasks,
And a breaking the hoops of butter casks;
And it seemed as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) called out, O rats, rejoice!
The world is grown to one vast drysaltery!
So munch on, crunch on, take your nuncheon,
Breakfast, dinner, supper, luncheon!
And just as a bulky sugar puncheon,
All ready staved, like a great sun shone
Glorious, scarce an inch before me,
Just as methought it said, 'Come, bore me!'
--I found the Weser rolling o'er me."
You should have heard the Hamelin people
Ringing the bells till they rocked the steeple;
"Go," cried the Mayor, "and get long poles!
Poke out the nests, and block up the holes!
Consult with carpenters and builders,
And leave in town not even a trace
Of the rats!" When suddenly up the face
Of the Piper perked in the market place,
With a "First, if you please, my thousand guilders!"
A thousand guilders! The Mayor looked blue;
So did the Corporation too.
For council dinners made rare havoc
With Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock;
And half the money would replenish
Their cellar's biggest butt with Rhenish.
To pay this sum to a wandering fellow
With a gypsy coat of red and yellow!
"Besides," quoth the Mayor, with a knowing wink,
"Our business was done at the river's brink;
We saw with our eyes the vermin sink,
And what's dead can't come to life, I think.
So, friend, we're not the folks to shrink
From the duty of giving you something for drink,
And a matter of money to put in your poke;
But, as for the guilders, what we spoke
Of them, as you very well know, was in joke--
Beside, our losses have made us thrifty:
A thousand guilders! Come, take fifty!"
The Piper's face fell, and he cried,
"No trifling! I can't wait; beside
I've promised to visit by dinner time
Bagdat, and accept the prime
Of the head cook's pottage, all he's rich in,
For having left in the Caliph's kitchen,
Of a nest of scorpions no survivor.
With him I proved no bargain-driver;
With you, don't think I'll bate a stiver!
And folks who put me in a passion
May find me pipe to another fashion."
"How?" cried the Mayor, "d'ye think I'll brook
Being worse treated than a cook?
Insulted by a lazy ribald
With idle pipe and vesture piebald?
You threaten us, fellow? Do your worst,
Blow your pipe there till you burst!"
Once more he stept into the street,
And to his lips again
Laid his long pipe of smooth, straight cane;
And ere he blew three notes (such sweet
Soft notes as yet musician's cunning
Never gave the enraptured air),
There was a rustling that seemed like a bustling,
Of merry crowds justling at pitching and hustling,
Small feet were pattering, wooden shoes clattering,
Little hands clapping and little tongues chattering,
And, like fowls in a farmyard when barley is scattering,
Out came the children running:
All the little boys and girls,
With rosy cheeks and flaxen curls,
And sparkling eyes and teeth like pearls,
Tripping and skipping, ran merrily after
The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.
The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood
As if they were changed into blocks of wood,
Unable to move a step, or cry
To the children merrily skipping by,--
And could only follow with the eye
That joyous crowd at the Piper's back.
And now the Mayor was on the rack,
And the wretched Council's bosoms beat,
As the Piper turned from the High Street
To where the Weser rolled its waters
Right in the way of their sons and daughters!
However, he turned from south to west,
And to Koppelberg Hill his steps addressed,
And after him the children pressed;
Great was the joy in every breast.
"He never can cross that mighty top!
He's forced to let the piping drop,
And we shall see our children stop!"
When, lo! as they reached the mountain's side,
A wondrous portal opened wide,
As if a cavern was suddenly hollowed;
And the Piper advanced, and the children followed;
And when all were in to the very last,
The door in the mountain side shut fast.
Did I say, all? No! one was lame,
And could not dance the whole of the way;
And in after years, if you would blame
His sadness, he was used to say,--
"It's dull in our town since my playmates left!
I can't forget that I'm bereft
Of all the pleasant sights they see,
Which the Piper also promised me:
For he led us, he said, to a joyous land,
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new;
The sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,
And their dogs outran our fallow deer,
And honeybees had lost their stings,
And horses were born with eagles' wings;
And just as I became assured
My lame foot would be speedily cured,
The music stopped and I stood still,
And found myself outside the hill,
Left alone against my will,
To go now limping as before,
And never hear of that country more!"
[Illustration: THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN.
H. KAULBACH.]
The Mayor sent east, west, north, and south,
To offer the Piper by word of mouth,
Wherever it was man's lot to find him,
Silver and gold to his heart's content,
If he'd only return the way he went,
And bring the children behind him.
But when they saw 'twas a lost endeavor,
And Piper and dancers were gone forever,
They made a decree that lawyers never
Should think their records dated duly,
If after the day of the month and year
These words did not as well appear,
"And so long after what happened here
On the twenty-second of July,
Thirteen hundred and seventy-six."
And the better in memory to fix
The place of the children's last retreat,
They called it the Pied Piper's Street--
Where any one playing on pipe or tabor,
Was sure for the future to lose his labor.
Nor suffered they hostelry or tavern
To shock with mirth a street so solemn;
But opposite the place of the cavern
They wrote the story on a column,
And on the great church window painted
The same, to make the world acquainted
How their children were stolen away;
And there it stands to this very day.
And I must not omit to say
That in Transylvania there's a tribe
Of alien people, that ascribe
The outlandish ways and dress
On which their neighbors lay such stress,
To their fathers and mothers having risen
Out of some subterraneous prison,
Into which they were trepanned
Long ago in a mighty band,
Out of Hamelin town in Brunswick land;
But how or why, they don't understand.
So, Willy, let you and me be wipers
Of scores out with all men,--especially pipers;
And whether they pipe us free from rats or from mice,
If we've promised them aught, let us keep our promise.
ROBERT BROWNING.
INGRATITUDE.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
_From "As You Like It."_
[Illustration]
A SONG OF THE SEA.
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round;
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be;
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go;
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love (O! how I love) to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me;
For I was born on the open sea!
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean child!
I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought, nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he come to me,
Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (_Barry Cornwall_).
AT SEA.
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast
And fills the white and rustling sail
And bends the gallant mast;
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While like the eagle free
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
"Oh for a soft and gentle wind!"
I heard a fair one cry;
But give to me the snoring breeze
And white waves heaving high;
And white waves heaving high, my lads,
The good ship tight and free:--
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.
There's tempest in yon hornèd moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
But hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud;
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashes free:--
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
[Illustration]
THE NORTHERN SEAS.
Up! up! let us a voyage take;
Why sit we here at ease?
Find us a vessel tight and snug,
Bound for the northern seas.
I long to see the northern lights
With their rushing splendors fly,
Like living things with flaming wings,
Wide o'er the wondrous sky.
I long to see those icebergs vast,
With heads all crowned with snow,
Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep,
Two hundred fathoms low.
I long to hear the thundering crash
Of their terrific fall,
And the echoes from a thousand cliffs
Like lonely voices call.
There shall we see the fierce white bear,
The sleepy seals aground,
And the spouting whales that to and fro
Sail with a dreary sound.
There may we tread on depths of ice,
That the hairy mammoth hide;
Perfect as when, in times of old,
The mighty creature died.
And while the unsetting sun shines on
Through the still heaven's deep blue,
We'll traverse the azure waves, the herds
Of the dread sea horse to view.
We'll pass the shores of solemn pine,
Where wolves and black bears prowl;
And away to the rocky isles of mist,
To rouse the northern fowl.
Up there shall start ten thousand wings
With a rustling, whistling din;
Up shall the auk and fulmar start,
All but the fat penguin.
And there in the wastes of the silent sky,
With the silent earth below,
We shall see far off to his lonely rock
The lonely eagle go.
Then softly, softly will we tread
By inland streams, to see
Where the pelican of the silent North
Sits there all silently.
MARY HOWITT.
THE CORAL GROVE.
Deep in the wave is a coral grove,
Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove;
Where the sea flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with the falling dew;
But in bright and changeful beauty shine,
Far down in the green and glassy brine.
The floor is of sand, like the mountain's drift,
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral rocks the sea plants lift
Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow.
The water is calm and still below,
For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air.
There, with its waving blade of green,
The sea flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter;
There, with a light and easy motion,
The fan coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea:
And life in rare and beautiful forms
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the waves his own:
And when the ship from his fury flies,
When the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore,
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet and goldfish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly
Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL.
[Illustration]
ALICE BRAND.
Merry it is in the good greenwood,
When the mavis and merle are singing,
When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry,
And the hunter's horn is ringing.
"O Alice Brand, my native land
Is lost for love of you;
And we must hold by wood and wold,
As outlaws wont to do!
"O Alice, 'twas all for thy locks so bright,
And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue,
That on the night of our luckless flight,
Thy brother bold I slew.
"Now I must teach to hew the beech
The hand that held the glaive,
For leaves to spread our lowly bed,
And stakes to fence our cave.
"And for vest of pall, thy fingers small,
That wont on harp to stray,
A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer,
To keep the cold away."
"O Richard! if my brother died,
'Twas but a fatal chance:
For darkling was the battle tried,
And fortune sped the lance.
"If pall and vair no more I wear,
Nor thou the crimson sheen,
As warm, we'll say, is the russet gray;
As gay the forest green.
"And, Richard, if our lot be hard,
And lost thy native land,
Still Alice has her own Richàrd,
And he his Alice Brand."
II.
'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood,
So blithe Lady Alice is singing;
On the beech's pride and oak's brown side,
Lord Richard's ax is ringing.
Up spoke the moody Elfin King,
Who wonn'd within the hill,--
Like wind in the porch of a ruined church,
His voice was ghostly shrill.
"Why sounds yon stroke on beach and oak,
Our moonlight circle's screen?
Or who comes here to chase the deer,
Beloved of our Elfin Queen?
Or who may dare on wold to wear
The fairies' fatal green?
"Up, Urgan, up! to yon mortal hie,
For thou wert christened man:
For cross or sign thou wilt not fly,
For muttered word or ban.
"Lay on him the curse of the withered heart,
The curse of the sleepless eye;
Till he wish and pray that his life would part,
Nor yet find leave to die!"
III.
'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good greenwood,
Though the birds have stilled their singing;
The evening blaze doth Alice raise,
And Richard is fagots bringing.
Up Urgan starts, that hideous dwarf,
Before Lord Richard stands,
And as he crossed and blessed himself,
"I fear not sign," quoth the grisly elf,
"That is made with bloody hands."
But out then spoke she, Alice Brand,
That woman void of fear,--
"And if there's blood upon his hand,
'Tis but the blood of deer."
"Now loud thou liest, thou bold of mood!
It cleaves unto his hand,
The stain of thine own kindly blood,
The blood of Ethert Brand."
Then forward stepped she, Alice Brand,
And made the holy sign,--
"And if there's blood on Richard's hand,
A spotless hand is mine.
"And I conjure thee, Demon elf,
By Him whom Demons fear,
To show us whence thou art thyself,
And what thine errand here?"
IV.
"'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in Fairyland,
When fairy birds are singing,
When the court doth ride by their monarch's side,
With bit and bridle ringing:
"And gayly shines the Fairyland--
But all is glistening show,
Like the idle gleam that December's beam
Can dart on ice and snow.
"And fading, like that varied gleam,
Is our inconstant shape,
Who now like knight and lady seem,
And now like dwarf and ape.
"It was between the night and day,
When the Fairy King has power,
That I sunk down in a sinful fray,
And 'twixt life and death, was snatched away,
To the joyless Elfin bower.
"But wist I of a woman bold,
Who thrice my brow durst sign,
I might regain my mortal mold,
As fair a form as thine."
She crossed him once--she crossed him twice--
That lady was so brave;
The fouler grew his goblin hue,
The darker grew the cave.
She crossed him thrice, that lady bold!
He rose beneath her hand
The fairest knight on Scottish mold,
Her brother, Ethert Brand!
Merry it is in good greenwood,
When the mavis and merle are singing;
But merrier were they in Dumfermline gray
When all the bells were ringing.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
FOR A' THAT, AND A' THAT.
Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that!
What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man, for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that!
Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that:
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
His riband, star, and a' that;
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that.
[Illustration: ROBERT BURNS.]
A king can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might!
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that;
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
Are higher ranks than a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may--
As come it will, for a' that--
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, and a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that;
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that!
ROBERT BURNS.
THE CHILDREN IN THE WOOD.
Now ponder well, you parents dear,
These words which I shall write;
A doleful story you shall hear,
In time brought forth to light.
A gentleman of good account
In Norfolk dwelt of late,
Who did in honor far surmount
Most men of his estate.
Sore sick he was, and like to die,
No help his life could save;
His wife by him as sick did lie,
And both possessed one grave.
No love between these two was lost,
Each was to other kind;
In love they lived, in love they died,
And left two babes behind.
The one, a fine and pretty boy,
Not passing three years old;
The other, a girl more young than he,
And framed in beauty's mold.
The father left his little son,
As plainly doth appear,
When he to perfect age should come,
Three hundred pounds a year.
And to his little daughter Jane,
Five hundred pounds in gold,
To be paid down on her marriage day,
Which might not be controlled:
But if the children chanced to die
Ere they to age should come,
Their uncle should possess their wealth;
For so the will did run.
"Now, brother," said the dying man,
"Look to my children dear;
Be good unto my boy and girl,
No friends else have they here:
To God and you I recommend
My children dear this day;
But little while be sure we have
Within this world to stay.
"You must be father and mother both,
And uncle all in one;
God knows what will become of them
When I am dead and gone."
With that bespake their mother dear,
"O brother kind," quoth she,
"You are the man must bring our babes
To wealth or misery.
"And if you keep them carefully,
Then God will you reward;
But if you otherwise should deal,
God will your deeds regard."
With lips as cold as any stone,
They kissed their children small:
"God bless you both, my children dear;"
With that their tears did fall.
These speeches then their brother spake
To this sick couple there:
"The keeping of your little ones,
Sweet sister, do not fear.
God never prosper me or mine,
Nor aught else that I have,
If I do wrong your children dear
When you are laid in grave."
The parents being dead and gone,
The children home he takes,
And brings them straight unto his house,
Where much of them he makes.
He had not kept these pretty babes
A twelvemonth and a day,
But, for their wealth, he did devise
To make them both away.
He bargained with two ruffians strong
Which were of furious mood,
That they should take these children young
And slay them in a wood.
He told his wife an artful tale:
He would the children send
To be brought up in fair London,
With one that was his friend.
Away then went those pretty babes,
Rejoicing at that tide,
Rejoicing with a merry mind,
They should on cockhorse ride.
They prate and prattle pleasantly,
As they rode on the way,
To those that should their butchers be
And work their lives' decay.
So that the pretty speech they had,
Made murder's heart relent;
And they that undertook the deed
Full sore did now repent.
Yet one of them, more hard of heart,
Did vow to do his charge,
Because the wretch that hired him
Had paid him very large.
The other won't agree thereto,
So here they fall to strife;
With one another they did fight
About the children's life:
And he that was of mildest mood,
Did slay the other there,
Within an unfrequented wood:
The babes did quake for fear!
He took the children by the hand,
Tears standing in their eye,
And bade them straightway follow him,
And look they did not cry;
And two long miles he led them on,
While they for food complain:
"Stay here," quoth he, "I'll bring you bread,
When I come back again."
These pretty babes, with hand in hand,
Went wandering up and down;
But never more could see the man
Approaching from the town:
Their pretty lips with blackberries
Were all besmeared and dyed,
And when they saw the darksome night,
They sat them down and cried.
Thus wandered these poor innocents
Till death did end their grief,
In one another's arms they died,
As wanting due relief.
No burial this pretty pair
Of any man received,
Till Robin Redbreast piously
Did cover them with leaves.
And now the heavy wrath of God
Upon their uncle fell;
Yea, fearful fiends did haunt his house,
His conscience felt an hell:
His barns were fired, his goods consumed,
His lands were barren made,
His cattle died within the field,
And nothing with him stayed.
And in the voyage to Portugal
Two of his sons did die;
And to conclude, himself was brought
To want and misery.
He pawned and mortgaged all his land
Ere seven years came about.
And now at length this wicked act
Did by this means come out:
The fellow that did take in hand
These children for to kill,
Was for a robbery judged to die,
Such was God's blessèd will.
Who did confess the very truth,
As here hath been displayed:
Their uncle having died in gaol,
Where he for debt was laid.
You that executors be made,
And overseers eke
Of children that be fatherless,
And infants mild and meek;
Take you example by this thing,
And yield to each his right,
Lest God with such like misery
Your wicked minds requite.
_Old Ballad._
[Illustration]
THE SHEPHERD'S HOME.
My banks they are furnished with bees,
Whose murmur invites one to sleep;
My grottoes are shaded with trees,
And my hills are white over with sheep.
I seldom have met with a loss,
Such health do my fountains bestow;
My fountains all bordered with moss,
Where the harebells and violets blow.
Not a pine in the grove is there seen,
But with tendrils of woodbine is bound;
Not a beech's more beautiful green,
But a sweetbrier entwines it around.
Not my fields in the prime of the year,
More charms than my cattle unfold;
Not a brook that is limpid and clear,
But it glitters with fishes of gold.
I have found out a gift for my fair,
I have found where the wood pigeons breed,
But let me such plunder forbear,
She will say 'twas a barbarous deed;
For he ne'er could be true, she averred,
Who would rob a poor bird of its young;
And I loved her the more when I heard
Such tenderness fall from her tongue.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE.
ON A SPANIEL CALLED "BEAU" KILLING A YOUNG BIRD.
A spaniel, Beau, that fares like you,
Well fed, and at his ease,--
Should wiser be than to pursue
Each trifle that he sees.
But you have killed a tiny bird,
Which flew not till to-day,
Against my orders, whom you heard
Forbidding you the prey.
Nor did you kill that you might eat,
And ease a doggish pain;
For him, though chased with furious heat,
You left where he was slain.
Nor was he of the thievish sort,
Or one whom blood allures;
But innocent was all his sport
Whom you have torn for yours.
My dog! what remedy remains,
Since, teach you all I can,
I see you, after all my pains,
So much resemble man?
BEAU'S REPLY.
Sir, when I flew to seize the bird
In spite of your command,
A louder voice than yours I heard,
And harder to withstand.
You cried--"Forbear!" but in my breast
A mightier cried--"Proceed!"--
'Twas Nature, sir, whose strong behest
Impelled me to the deed.
Yet much as Nature I respect,
I ventured once to break
(As you perhaps may recollect)
Her precept for your sake;
And when your linnet on a day,
Passing his prison door,
Had fluttered all his strength away,
And panting pressed the floor:
Well knowing him a sacred thing,
Not destined to my tooth,
I only kissed his ruffled wing,
And licked the feathers smooth.
Let my obedience then excuse
My disobedience now,
Nor some reproof yourself refuse
From your aggrieved Bow-wow;
If killing birds be such a crime,
(Which I can hardly see),
What think you, sir, of killing Time
With verse addressed to me!
WILLIAM COWPER.
SWEET PEAS.
A SELECTION.
Here are sweet peas, on tiptoe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things,
To bind them all about with tiny rings.
Linger awhile upon some bending planks
That lean against a streamlet's rushy banks,
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings:
They will be found softer than ringdove's cooings.
How silent comes the water round that bend!
Not the minutest whisper does it send
To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass
Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pass.
JOHN KEATS.
CA' THE YOWES.
Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them where the heather grows,
Ca' them where the burnie rowes--
My bonnie dearie!
Hark the mavis' evening sang
Sounding Cluden's woods amang!
Then a faulding let us gang,
My bonnie dearie!
We'll gae down by Cluden side,
Thro' the hazels spreading wide,
O'er the waves that sweetly glide
To the moon sae clearly.
Yonder Cluden's silent towers,
Where at moonshine midnight hours,
O'er the dewy bending flowers,
Fairies dance so cheery.
Ghaist nor bogie shalt thou fear;
Thou'rt to love and heaven sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
My bonnie dearie!
Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die--but canna part--
My bonnie dearie!
Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them where the heather grows;
Ca' them where the burnie rowes--
My bonnie dearie!
ROBERT BURNS.
SELECTIONS FROM A RHYMED LESSON.
Shalt thou be honest? Ask the worldly schools,
And all will tell thee knaves are busier fools;
Prudent? Industrious? Let not modern pens
Instruct "Poor Richard's" fellow citizens.
Be firm! one constant element in luck
Is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck;
See yon tall shaft; it felt the earthquake's thrill,
Clung to its base, and greets the sunrise still.
* * * * *
Yet in opinions look not always back;
Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;
Leave what you've done for what you have to do;
Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.
* * * * *
Once more; speak clearly, if you speak at all;
Carve every word before you let it fall;
Don't, like a lecturer or dramatic star,
Try over hard to roll the British R;
Do put your accents in the proper spot;
Don't,--let me beg you,--don't say "How?" for "What?"
And, when you stick on conversation's burrs,
Don't strew your pathway with those dreadful _urs_.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
[Illustration: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.]
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear;--
They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!
The ocean eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave's foam;
And the rocking pines of the forest roared--
This was their welcome home!
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there
Away from their childhood's land?
There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;
There was manhood's brow, serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?
They sought a faith's pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They have left unstained what there they found--
Freedom to worship God.
FELICIA HEMANS.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
THE WIVES OF BRIXHAM.
A TRUE STORY.
The merry boats of Brixham
Go out to search the seas;
A stanch and sturdy fleet are they,
Who love a swinging breeze;
And before the woods of Devon,
And the silver cliffs of Wales,
You may see, when summer evenings fall,
The light upon their sails.
But when the year grows darker,
And gray winds hunt the foam,
They go back to Little Brixham,
And ply their toil at home.
And thus it chanced one winter's night,
When a storm began to roar,
That all the men were out at sea,
And all the wives on shore.
Then as the wind grew fiercer,
The women's cheeks grew white,--
It was fiercer in the twilight,
And fiercest in the night.
The strong clouds set themselves like ice,
Without a star to melt;
The blackness of the darkness
Was darkness to be felt.
The old men they were anxious,
They dreaded what they knew;
What do you think the women did?
Love taught them what to do!
Out spake a wife, "We've beds at home,
We'll burn them for a light,--
Give us the men and the bare ground,
We want no more to-night."
They took the grandame's blanket,
Who shivered and bade them go;
They took the baby's pillow,
Who could not say them no;
And they heaped a great fire on the pier,
And knew not all the while
If they were heaping a bonfire,
Or only a funeral pile.
And fed with precious food, the flame
Shone bravely on the black,
Till a cry rang through the people,
"A boat is coming back!"
Staggering dimly through the fog
Come shapes of fear and doubt,
But when the first prow strikes the pier,
Cannot you hear them shout?
Then all along the breath of flame,
Dark figures shrieked and ran,
With "Child, here comes your father!"
Or, "Wife, is this your man?"
And faint feet touch the welcome shore,
And wait a little while;
And kisses drop from frozen lips,
Too tired to speak or smile.
So, one by one, they struggled in
All that the sea would spare;
We will not reckon through our tears
The names that were not there;
But some went home without a bed,
When all the tale was told,
Who were too cold with sorrow
To know the night was cold.
And this is what the men must do
Who work in wind and foam;
And this is what the women bear
Who watch for them at home.
So when you see a Brixham boat
Go out to face the gales,
Think of the love that travels
Like light upon her sails.
_Selected._
[Illustration: ALFRED TENNYSON.]
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabers bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sab'ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery smoke,
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the saber stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
ALFRED TENNYSON.
[Illustration]
THE ROYAL GEORGE.
Toll for the brave!
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave
Fast by their native shore!
Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel
And laid her on her side.
A land breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset;
Down went the Royal George
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea fight is fought,
His work of glory done.
It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock;
She sprang no fatal leak,
She ran upon no rock.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.
Weigh the vessel up,
Once dreaded by our foes!
And mingle with our cup
The tear that England owes.
Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again
Full charged with England's thunder,
And plow the distant main:
But Kempenfelt is gone,
His victories are o'er;
And he and his eight hundred
Shall plow the wave no more.
WILLIAM COWPER.
CALM ON THE LISTENING EAR OF NIGHT.
Calm on the listening ear of night
Come heaven's melodious strains,
Where wild Judea stretches far
Her silver-mantled plains.
Celestial choirs from courts above
Shed sacred glories there;
And angels, with their sparkling lyres,
Make music on the air.
The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply;
And greet, from all their holy heights,
The Dayspring from on high.
O'er the blue depths of Galilee
There comes a holier calm,
And Sharon waves in solemn praise
Her silent groves of palm.
"Glory to God!" the sounding skies
Loud with their anthems ring,
"Peace to the earth, good-will to men,
From heaven's eternal King!"
Light on thy hills, Jerusalem!
The Savior now is born!
And bright on Bethlehem's joyous plains
Breaks the first Christmas morn.
EDMUND H. SEARS.
WHEN WILT THOU SAVE THE PEOPLE?
When wilt Thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
Not kings and lords, but nations!
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
Flowers of Thy heart, O God, are they;
Let them not pass, like weeds, away,
Their heritage, a sunless day.
God, save the people!
Shall crime bring crime forever,
Strength aiding still the strong?
Is it Thy will, O Father,
That man shall toil for wrong?
No, say Thy mountains; No, Thy skies;
Man's clouded sun shall brightly rise,
And songs ascend, instead of sighs.
God, save the people!
When wilt Thou save the people?
O God of mercy, when?
The people, Lord, the people,
Not thrones and crowns, but men!
God save the people; Thine they are,
Thy children, as Thine angels fair.
From vice, oppression, and despair,
God, save the people!
EBENEZER ELLIOTT.
THE LAND OF SONG: BOOK II.
_PART II._
[Illustration: DANIEL C. FRENCH.
THE MINUTE MAN.]
PART TWO.
[Illustration]
UNION AND LIBERTY.
Flag of the heroes who left us their glory,
Borne through their battlefields' thunder and flame,
Blazoned in song and illumined in story,
Wave o'er us all who inherit their fame!
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry,--
UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!
Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation,
Pride of her children, and honored afar,
Let the wide beams of thy full constellation
Scatter each cloud that would darken a star!
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry,--
UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!
Empire unsceptered! what foe shall assail thee,
Bearing the standard of Liberty's van?
Think not the God of thy fathers shall fail thee,
Striving with men for the birthright of man!
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry,--
UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!
Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted,
Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw,
Then with the arms of thy millions united,
Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law!
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry,--
UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!
Lord of the Universe! shield us and guide us,
Trusting Thee always, through shadow and sun!
Thou hast united us, who shall divide us?
Keep us, O keep us, the MANY IN ONE!
Up with our banner bright,
Sprinkled with starry light,
Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore,
While through the sounding sky
Loud rings the Nation's cry,--
UNION AND LIBERTY! ONE EVERMORE!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
SONG OF MARION'S MEN.
Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress tree;
We know the forest round us,
As seamen know the sea.
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.
Woe to the English soldiery
That little dread us near,
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear:
When, waking to their tents on fire,
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,
And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.
Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil:
We talk the battle over,
And share the battle's spoil.
The woodland rings with laugh and shout,
As if a hunt were up,
And woodland flowers are gathered
To crown the soldier's cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
On beds of oaken leaves.
Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The band that Marion leads--
The glitter of their rifles,
The scampering of their steeds.
'Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlight plain;
'Tis life to feel the night wind
That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp--
A moment--and away
Back to the pathless forest,
Before the peep of day.
Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs,
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton,
Forever, from our shore.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
STARS.
They glide upon their endless way,
Forever calm, forever bright;
No blind hurry, no delay,
Mark the Daughters of the Night;
They follow in the track of Day,
In divine delight.
Shine on, sweet-orbèd Souls for aye,
Forever calm, forever bright;
We ask not whither lies your way,
Nor whence ye came, nor what your light.
Be--still a dream throughout the day,
A blessing through the night.
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (BARRY CORNWALL).
NIGHT.
The sun descendeth in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon, like a flower,
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.
Farewell, green fields and happy groves,
Where flocks have ta'en delight;
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen, they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.
They look in every thoughtless nest,
Where birds are covered warm,
They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm.
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.
WILLIAM BLAKE.
[Illustration]
THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC.
Of Nelson and the North
Sing the glorious day's renown,
When to battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark's crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
By each gun the lighted brand
In a bold determined hand,
And the Prince of all the land
Led them on.--
Like leviathans afloat,
Lay their bulwarks on the brine;
While the sign of battle flew
On the lofty British line:
It was ten of April morn by the chime:
As they drifted on their path,
There was silence deep as death;
And the boldest held his breath,
For a time.--
But the might of England flushed
To anticipate the scene;
And her van the fleeter rushed
O'er the deadly space between.
"Hearts of oak!" our captains cried; when each gun
From its adamantine lips
Spread a death shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse
Of the sun.
Again! again! again!
And the havoc did not slack,
Till a feeble cheer the Dane,
To our cheering sent us back;--
Their shots along the deep slowly boom:--
Then cease--and all is wail,
As they strike the shattered sail;
Or, in conflagration pale,
Light the gloom.--
Now joy, Old England, raise
For the tidings of thy might,
By the festal cities' blaze,
Whilst the wine cup shines in light;
And yet amidst that joy and uproar,
Let us think of them that sleep
Full many a fathom deep
By thy wild and stormy steep,
Elsinore.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE.
How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their Country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung:
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there!
WILLIAM COLLINS.
LLEWELLYN AND HIS DOG.
The spearmen heard the bugle sound,
And cheer'ly smiled the morn;
And many a dog, and many a hound,
Attend Llewellyn's horn.
And still he blew a louder blast,
And gave a louder cheer;
"Come, Gelert! why art thou the last
Llewellyn's horn to hear?
"Oh, where does faithful Gelert roam,
The flower of all his race?
So true, so brave--a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase."
That day Llewellyn little loved
The chase of hart or hare,
And scant and small the booty proved,
For Gelert was not there.
Unpleased, Llewellyn homeward hied,
When, near the portal seat,
His truant Gelert he espied,
Bounding his lord to greet.
But when he gained the castle door,
Aghast the chieftain stood;
The hound was smeared with gouts of gore,
His lips and fangs ran blood!
Llewellyn gazed with wild surprise;
Unused such looks to meet,
His fav'rite checked his joyful guise,
And crouched, and licked his feet.
Onward in haste Llewellyn passed
(And on went Gelert too),
And still, where'er his eyes were cast,
Fresh blood gouts shocked his view.
O'erturned his infant's bed he found,
The bloodstained cover rent;
And all around the walls and ground
With recent blood besprent.
He called his child--no voice replied;
He searched with terror wild;
Blood! blood! he found on every side,
But nowhere found his child!
"Hell-hound! by thee my child's devoured!"
The frantic father cried;
And to the hilt his vengeful sword
He plunged in Gelert's side.
His suppliant, as to earth he fell,
No pity could impart;
But still his Gelert's dying yell
Passed heavy o'er his heart.
Aroused by Gelert's dying yell,
Some slumberer wakened nigh;
What words the parent's joy can tell,
To hear his infant cry!
Concealed beneath a mangled heap,
His hurried search had missed,
All glowing from his rosy sleep,
His cherub boy he kissed!
Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread,
But the same couch beneath
Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead,--
Tremendous still in death!
Ah, what was then Llewellyn's pain!
For now the truth was clear;
The gallant hound the wolf had slain,
To save Llewellyn's heir.
Vain, vain was all Llewellyn's woe;
"Best of thy kind, adieu!
The frantic deed which laid thee low
This heart shall ever rue!"
And now a gallant tomb they raised,
With costly sculpture decked;
And marbles storied with his praise
Poor Gelert's bones protect.
Here never could the spearman pass,
Or forester, unmoved,
Here oft the tear-besprinkled grass
Llewellyn's sorrow proved.
And here he hung his horn and spear,
And oft, as evening fell,
In fancy's piercing sounds would hear,
Poor Gelert's dying yell.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
FIDELITY.
A barking sound the shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;
He halts--and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.
The dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:
Nor is there anyone in sight
All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?
It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps, till June, December's snow;
A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below!
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;
From trace of human foot or hand.
There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven's croak,
In symphony austere;
Thither the rainbow comes--the cloud--
And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past;
But that enormous barrier holds it fast.
Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The shepherd stood; then makes his way
O'er rocks and stones, following the dog
As quickly as he may;
Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recalled the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day
On which the traveler passed this way.
But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!
A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.
The dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,
This dog, had been through three months' space
A dweller in that savage place.
Yes, proof was plain that, since the day
When this ill-fated traveler died,
The dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master's side:
How nourished here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime;
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate!
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
[Illustration]
ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the grasshopper's--he takes the lead
In summer luxury,--he has never done
With his delights, for when tired out with fun,
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The cricket's song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
The grasshopper's among some grassy hills.
JOHN KEATS.
ON THE GRASSHOPPER AND CRICKET.
Green little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When ev'n the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;
Oh sweet and tiny cousins, that belong,
One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine; both, though small are strong
At your dear hearts; and both were sent on earth
To sing in thoughtful ears this natural song,--
Indoors and out, summer and winter, mirth!
LEIGH HUNT.
[Illustration]
EPITAPH ON A HARE.
Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue,
Nor swifter greyhound follow,
Whose foot ne'er tainted morning dew,
Nor ear heard huntsman's hallo!
Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,
Who, nursed with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confined,
Was still a wild Jack hare.
Though duly from my hand he took
His pittance every night,
He did it with a jealous look,
And, when he could, would bite.
His diet was of wheaten bread,
And milk, and oats, and straw;
Thistles, or lettuces instead,
With sand to scour his maw.
On twigs of hawthorn he regaled,
On pippin's russet peel,
And when his juicy salads failed,
Sliced carrot pleased him well.
A Turkey carpet was his lawn,
Whereon he loved to bound,
To skip and gambol like a fawn,
And swing himself around.
His frisking was at evening hours,
For then he lost his fear,
But most before approaching showers,
Or when a storm drew near.
Eight years and five round-rolling moons
He thus saw steal away,
Dozing out all his idle noons,
And every night at play.
I kept him for his humor's sake,
For he would oft beguile
My heart of thoughts that made it ache,
And force me to a smile.
But now, beneath this walnut shade,
He finds his long last home,
And waits, in snug concealment laid,
Till gentler Puss shall come.
He, still more aged, feels the shocks
From which no care can save,
And, partner once of Tiney's box,
Must soon partake his grave.
WILLIAM COWPER.
THE COUNCIL OF HORSES.
Upon a time a neighing steed,
Who grazed among a numerous breed,
With mutiny had fired the train,
And spread dissension through the plain.
On matters that concerned the state,
The council met in grand debate.
A colt whose eyeballs flamed with ire,
Elate with strength and youthful fire,
In haste stept forth before the rest,
And thus the listening throng addressed:
"Goodness, how abject is our race,
Condemned to slavery and disgrace!
Shall we our servitude retain,
Because our sires have borne the chain?
Consider, friends! your strength and might;
'Tis conquest to assert your right.
How cumbrous is the gilded coach!
The pride of man is our reproach.
Were we designed for daily toil,
To drag the plowshare through the soil,
To sweat in harness through the road,
To groan beneath the carrier's load?
How feeble are the two-legg'd kind!
What force is in our nerves combined!
Shall then our nobler jaws submit
To foam and champ the galling bit?
Shall haughty man my back bestride?
Shall the sharp spur provoke my side?
Forbid it, heavens! reject the rein;
Your shame, your infamy, disdain.
Let him the lion first control,
And still the tiger's famished growl.
Let us, like them, our freedom claim,
And make him tremble at our name."
A general nod approved the cause,
And all the circle neighed applause.
When, lo! with grave and solemn pace,
A steed advanced before the race,
With age and long experience wise;
Around he cast his thoughtful eyes,
And, to the murmurs of the train,
Thus spoke the Nestor of the plain.
"When I had health and strength like you
The toils of servitude I knew;
Now grateful man rewards my pains,
And gives me all these wide domains.
At will I crop the year's increase;
My latter life is rest and peace.
I grant, to man we lend our pains,
And aid him to correct the plains;
But doth he not divide the care,
Through all the labors of the year?
How many thousand structures rise,
To fence us from inclement skies!
For us he bears the sultry day,
And stores up all our winter's hay.
He sows, he reaps the harvest's gain;
We share the toil and share the grain.
Since every creature was decreed
To aid each other's mutual need,
Appease your discontented mind,
And act the part by heaven assigned."
The tumult ceased, the colt submitted,
And, like his ancestors, was bitted.
JOHN GAY.
[Illustration]
RUTH.
She stood breast high amid the corn,
Clasped by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.
On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripened;--such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.
Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veiled a light,
That had else been all too bright.
And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;--
Thus she stood amid the stocks,
Praising God with sweetest looks:--
Sure, I said, heav'n did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.
THOMAS HOOD.
THE ELIXIR.
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee.
All may of Thee partake:
Nothing can be so mean
Which with this tincture, for Thy sake,
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine;
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
Makes that and the action fine.
This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.
GEORGE HERBERT.
THE BOY AND THE ANGEL.
Morning, evening, noon, and night,
"Praise God!" sang Theocrite.
Then to his poor trade he turned,
Whereby the daily meal was earned.
Hard he labored, long and well;
O'er his work the boy's curls fell.
But ever, at each period,
He stopped and sang, "Praise God!"
Then back again his curls he threw,
And cheerful turned to work anew.
Said Blaise, the listening monk, "Well done;
I doubt not thou art heard, my son:
"As well as if thy voice to-day
Were praising God, the Pope's great way.
"This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome
Praises God from Peter's dome."
Said Theocrite, "Would God that I
Might praise Him that great way, and die!"
Night passed, day shone,
And Theocrite was gone.
With God a day endures alway,
A thousand years are but a day.
God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night
Now brings the voice of my delight."
Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth,
Spread his wings and sank to earth;
Entered, in flesh, the empty cell,
Lived there, and played the craftsman well;
And morning, evening, noon, and night,
Praised God in place of Theocrite.
And from a boy, to youth he grew:
The man put off the stripling's hue:
The man matured and fell away
Into the season of decay:
And ever o'er the trade he bent,
And ever lived on earth content.
(He lived God's will; to him, all one
If on the earth or in the sun.)
God said, "A praise is in mine ear;
There is no doubt in it, no fear:
"So sing old worlds, and so
New worlds that from my footstool go.
"Clearer loves sound other ways:
I miss my little human praise."
Then forth sprang Gabriel's wings, off fell
The flesh disguise, remained the cell.
'Twas Easter Day: he flew to Rome,
And paused above Saint Peter's dome.
In the tiring-room close by
The great outer gallery,
With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new Pope Theocrite:
And all his past career
Came back upon him clear,
Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;
And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:
And, rising from the sickness drear,
He grew a priest, and now stood here.
To the East with praise he turned,
And on his sight the angel burned.
"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell,
And set thee here; I did not well.
"Vainly I left my angel sphere,
Vain was thy dream of many a year.
"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped--
Creation's chorus stopped!
"Go back and praise again
The early way, while I remain.
"With that weak voice of our disdain,
Take up creation's pausing strain.
"Back to the cell and poor employ:
Resume the craftsman and the boy!"
Theocrite grew old at home;
A new Pope dwelt in Peter's dome.
One vanished as the other died:
They sought God side by side.
ROBERT BROWNING.
THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.
They grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.
The same fond mother bent at night
O'er each fair, sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight:
Where are those sleepers now?
One, midst the forest of the West,
By a dark stream is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.
The sea, the blue, lone sea, hath one;
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.
One sleeps where southern vines are dressed
Above the noble slain;
He wrapped the colors round his breast
On a blood-red field of Spain.
And one--o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves by soft winds fanned;
She faded midst Italian flowers--
The last of that fair band.
And parted thus, they rest who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee.
They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheered with song the hearth;
Alas for love! if thou wert all,
And nought beyond, O earth!
FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.]
THE EVENING WIND.
Spirit that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day,
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow:
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their spray,
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorched land, thou wanderer of the sea!
Nor I alone--a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fullness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound,
Lies the vast inland stretched beyond the sight.
Go forth into the gathering shade; go forth,
God's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!
Go, rock the little wood bird in his nest,
Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse
The wide old wood from his majestic rest,
Summoning from the innumerable boughs
The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast:
Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows
The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass,
And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass.
The faint old man shall lean his silver head
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep;
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow.
Go--but the circle of eternal change,
Which is the life of nature, shall restore,
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more;
Sweet odors in the sea air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the homesick mariner of the shore;
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
SOUND THE LOUD TIMBREL
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed,--His people are free!
Sing,--for the pride of the tyrant is broken,
His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave,--
How vain was their boasting! the Lord hath but spoken,
And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed,--His people are free!
Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord!
His word was our arrow, His breath was our sword.
Who shall return to tell Egypt the story
Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride?
For the Lord hath looked out from His pillar of glory,
And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah hath triumphed,--His people are free!
THOMAS MOORE.
CHORAL SONG OF ILLYRIAN PEASANTS.
Up! up! ye dames, ye lasses gay!
To the meadows trip away,
'Tis you must tend the flocks this morn,
And scare the small birds from the corn.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
Leave the hearth and leave the house
To the cricket and the mouse:
Find grannam out a sunny seat,
With babe and lambkin at her feet.
Not a soul at home may stay:
For the shepherds must go
With lance and bow
To hunt the wolf in the woods to-day.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.
KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT OF CANTERBURY.
An ancient story I'll tell you anon
Of a notable prince, that was called King John;
And he ruled England with main and with might,
For he did great wrong and maintained little right.
And I'll tell you a story, a story so merry,
Concerning the Abbot of Canterbury;
How for his housekeeping and high renown,
They rode post for him to fair London town.
An hundred men, the king did hear say,
The Abbot kept in his house every day;
And fifty gold chains, without any doubt,
In velvet coats waited the Abbot about.
"How now, father Abbot, I hear it of thee,
Thou keepest a far better house than me;
And for thy housekeeping and high renown,
I fear thou work'st treason against my crown."
"My liege," quoth the Abbot, "I would it were known
I never spend nothing but what is my own;
And I trust your Grace will do me no deere
For spending of my own true gotten geere."
[Illustration: KING JOHN AND THE ABBOT OF CANTERBURY.]
"Yes, yes, father Abbot, thy fault it is high,
And now for the same thou needest must die;
For except thou canst answer me questions three,
Thy head shall be smitten from thy bodie.
"And first," quoth the king, "when I'm in this stead,
With my crown of gold so fair on my head,
Among all my liegemen so noble of birth,
Thou must tell me to one penny what I am worth.
"Secondly tell me, without any doubt,
How soon I may ride the whole world about;
And at the third question thou must not shrink,
But tell me here truly what I do think."
"O these are hard questions for my shallow wit,
Nor I cannot answer your Grace as yet;
But if you will give me but three weeks' space,
I'll do my endeavor to answer your Grace."
"Now three weeks' space to thee will I give,
And that is the longest time thou hast to live;
For if thou dost not answer my questions three,
Thy land and thy livings are forfeit to me."
Away rode the Abbot all sad at that word,
And he rode to Cambridge and Oxenford;
But never a doctor there was so wise,
That could with his learning an answer devise.
Then home rode the Abbot of comfort so cold,
And he met his shepherd a-going to fold:
"How now, my lord Abbot, you are welcome home;
What news do you bring us from good King John?"
"Sad news, sad news, shepherd, I must give,
That I have but three days more to live;
For if I do not answer him questions three,
My head will be smitten from my bodie.
"The first is to tell him there in that stead,
With his crown of gold so fair on his head,
Among all his liegemen so noble of birth,
To within one penny of what he is worth.
"The second to tell him without any doubt,
How soon he may ride this whole world about;
And at the third question I must not shrink,
But tell him there truly what he does think."
"Now cheer up, sir Abbot, did you never hear yet
That a fool he may learn a wise man wit?
Lend me horse, and serving men, and your apparel,
And I'll ride to London to answer your quarrel.
"Nay, frown not, if it hath been told unto me,
I am like your lordship as ever may be;
And if you will but lend me your gown
There is none shall know us in fair London town."
"Now horses and serving men thou shalt have,
With sumptuous array most gallant and brave,
With crozier, and miter, and rochet, and cope,
Fit to appear 'fore our father the Pope."
"Now welcome, sir Abbot," the king he did say,
"'Tis well thou'rt come back to keep thy day:
For and if thou canst answer my questions three,
Thy life and thy living both saved shall be.
"And first, when thou seest me here in this stead,
With my crown of gold so fair on my head,
Among all my liegemen so noble of birth,
Tell me to one penny what I am worth."
"For thirty pence our Savior was sold
Among the false Jews, as I have been told:
And twenty-nine is the worth of thee,
For I think thou art one penny worser than he."
The King he laughed, and swore by St. Bittel,
"I did not think I had been worth so little!
Now secondly tell me, without any doubt,
How soon I may ride this whole world about."
"You must rise with the sun, and ride with the same,
Until the next morning he riseth again;
And then your Grace need not make any doubt
But in twenty-four hours you'll ride it about."
The King he laughed, and swore by St. Jone,
"I did not think it could be gone so soon.
Now from the third question thou must not shrink,
But tell me here truly what do I think."
"Yea, that I shall do and make your Grace merry;
You think I'm the Abbot of Canterbury;
But I'm his poor shepherd, as plain you may see,
That am come to beg pardon for him and for me."
The King he laughed, and swore by the mass,
"I'll make thee lord abbot this day in his place!"
"Nay, nay, my liege, be not in such speed,
For alack, I can neither write nor read."
"Four nobles a week, then, I will give thee,
For this merry jest thou hast shown unto me;
And tell the old Abbot, when thou com'st home,
Thou hast brought him a pardon from good King John."
THOMAS PERCY.
TO THE SMALL CELANDINE.
Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies,
Let them live upon their praises;
Long as there's a sun that sets,
Primroses will have their glory;
Long as there are violets,
They will have a place in story:
There's a flower that shall be mine,
'Tis the little Celandine.
Eyes of some men travel far
For the finding of a star;
Up and down the heavens they go,
Men that keep a mighty rout!
I'm as great as they, I trow,
Since the day I found thee out,
Little flower!--I'll make a stir,
Like a sage astronomer.
Modest, yet withal an elf
Bold, and lavish of thyself;
Since we needs must first have met
I have seen thee, high and low,
Thirty years or more, and yet
'Twas a face I did not know;
Thou hast now, go where I may,
Fifty greetings in a day.
Ere a leaf is on a bush,
In the time before the thrush
Has a thought about her nest,
Thou wilt come with half a call,
Spreading out thy glossy breast
Like a careless prodigal;
Telling tales about the sun,
When we've little warmth, or none.
Poets, vain men in their mood!
Travel with the multitude:
Never heed them; I aver
That they are all wanton wooers;
But the thrifty cottager,
Who stirs little out of doors,
Joys to spy thee near her home;
Spring is coming, thou art come!
Comfort have thou of thy merit,
Kindly, unassuming spirit!
Careless of thy neighborhood,
Thou dost show thy pleasant face
On the moor, and in the wood,
In the lane;--there's not a place,
Howsoever mean it be,
But 'tis good enough for thee.
Ill befall the yellow flowers,
Children of the flaring hours!
Buttercups, that will be seen,
Whether we will see or no;
Others, too, of lofty mien;
They have done as worldlings do,
Taken praise that should be thine,
Little, humble Celandine!
Prophet of delight and mirth,
Ill requited upon earth;
Herald of a mighty band,
Of a joyous train ensuing,
Serving at my heart's command,
Tasks that are no tasks renewing,
I will sing, as doth behove,
Hymns in praise, of what I love!
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
THE BELEAGUERED CITY.
I have read, in some old, marvelous tale,
Some legend strange and vague,
That a midnight host of specters pale
Beleaguered the walls of Prague.
Beside the Moldau's rushing stream,
With the wan moon overhead,
There stood, as in an awful dream,
The army of the dead.
White as a sea fog, landward bound,
The spectral camp was seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
The river flowed between.
No other voice nor sound was there,
No drum, nor sentry's pace;
The mistlike banners clasped the air,
As clouds with clouds embrace.
But, when the old cathedral bell
Proclaimed the morning prayer,
The white pavilions rose and fell
On the alarmèd air.
[Illustration: HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.]
Down the broad valley, fast and far
The troubled army fled;
Up rose the glorious morning star,
The ghastly host was dead.
I have read, in the marvelous heart of man,
That strange and mystic scroll,
That an army of phantoms vast and wan
Beleaguer the human soul.
Encamped beside Life's rushing stream,
In Fancy's misty light,
Gigantic shapes and shadows gleam
Portentous through the night.
Upon its midnight battle ground
The spectral camp is seen,
And, with a sorrowful, deep sound,
Flows the River of Life between.
No other voice, nor sound is there,
In the army of the grave;
No other challenge breaks the air,
But the rushing of Life's wave.
And, when the solemn and deep church bell
Entreats the soul to pray,
The midnight phantoms feel the spell,
The shadows sweep away.
Down the broad Vale of Tears afar
The spectral camp is fled;
Faith shineth as a morning star,
Our ghastly fears are dead.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
THE SAILOR'S WIFE.
And are ye sure the news is true?
And are ye sure he's weel?
Is this a time to think o' wark?
Ye jades, lay by your wheel;
Is this the time to spin a thread,
When Colin's at the door?
Reach down my cloak, I'll to the quay,
And see him come ashore.
For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck at a';
There's little pleasure in the house
When our gudeman's awa.
And gie to me my bigonet,
My bishop's satin gown;
For I maun tell the baillie's wife
That Colin's in the town.
My Turkey slippers maun gae on,
My stockins pearly blue;
It's a' to pleasure our gudeman,
For he's baith leal and true.
Rise, lass, and mak a clean fireside,
Put on the muckle pot;
Gie little Kate her button gown
And Jock his Sunday coat;
And mak their shoon as black as slaes,
Their hose as white as snaw;
It's a' to please my ain gudeman,
For he's been long awa.
There's twa fat hens upo' the coop
Benn fed this month and mair;
Mak haste and thraw their necks about,
That Colin weel may fare;
And spread the table neat and clean,
Gar ilka thing look braw,
For wha can tell how Colin fared
When he was far awa?
Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech,
His breath like caller air;
His very foot has music in't
As he comes up the stair.
And will I see his face again?
And will I hear him speak?
I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought,
In troth I'm like to greet!
If Colin's well, and weel content,
I hae nae mair to crave;
And gin I live to keep him sae,
I'm blest aboon the lave:
And will I see his face again?
And will I hear him speak?
I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought,
In troth I'm like to greet.
For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck at a';
There's little pleasure in the house
When our gudeman's awa.
WILLIAM J. MICKLE.
[Illustration]
SOLDIER AND SAILOR.
I love contemplating, apart
From all his homicidal glory,
The traits that soften to our heart
Napoleon's story!
'Twas when his banners at Boulogne
Armed in our island every freeman,
His navy chanced to capture one
Poor British seaman.
They suffered him, I know not how,
Unprisoned on the shore to roam;
And aye was bent his longing brow
On England's home.
His eye, methinks, pursued the flight
Of birds to Britain halfway over
With envy; _they_ could reach the white
Dear cliffs of Dover.
A stormy midnight watch, he thought,
Than this sojourn would have been dearer,
If but the storm his vessel brought
To England nearer.
At last, when care had banished sleep,
He saw one morning--dreaming--doating,
An empty hogshead from the deep
Come shoreward floating;
He hid it in a cave, and wrought
The livelong day laborious; lurking
Until he launched a tiny boat
By mighty working.
Heaven help us! 'Twas a thing beyond
Description, wretched: such a wherry
Perhaps ne'er ventured on a pond,
Or crossed a ferry.
For plowing in the salt sea field,
It would have made the boldest shudder;
Untarred, uncompassed, and unkeeled,
No sail--no rudder.
From neighb'ring woods he interlaced
His sorry skiff with wattled willows;
And thus equipped he would have passed
The foaming billows--
But Frenchmen caught him on the beach,
His little Argo sorely jeering;
Till tidings of him chanced to reach
Napoleon's hearing.
With folded arms Napoleon stood,
Serene alike in peace and danger;
And, in his wonted attitude,
Addressed the stranger:--
"Rash man, that wouldst yon Channel pass
On twigs and staves so rudely fashioned;
Thy heart with some sweet British lass
Must be impassioned."
"I have no sweetheart," said the lad;
"But--absent long from one another--
Great was the longing that I had
To see my mother."
"And so thou shalt," Napoleon said,
"Ye've both my favor fairly won;
A noble mother must have bred
So brave a son."
He gave the tar a piece of gold,
And, with a flag of truce, commanded
He should be shipped to England Old,
And safely landed.
Our sailor oft could scantly shift
To find a dinner, plain and hearty;
But _never_ changed the coin and gift
Of Bonaparté.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
THE BATTLE OF BLENHEIM.
It was a summer's evening,
Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun;
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet,
In playing there, had found.
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And, with a natural sigh,
"'Tis some poor fellow's skull," said he,
"Who fell in the great victory!
"I find them in the garden,
For there's many here about;
And often when I go to plow,
The plowshare turns them out;
For many thousand men," said he,
"Were slain in that great victory!"
"Now, tell us what 'twas all about,"
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
"Now tell us all about the war,
And what they killed each other for."
"It was the English," Kaspar cried,
"Who put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for
I could not well make out.
But everybody said," quoth he,
"That 'twas a famous victory!
"My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by;
They burned his dwelling to the ground,
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.
"With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide;
And many a childing mother then
And new-born baby died.
But things, like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.
"They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun.
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.
"Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene."
"Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!"
Said little Wilhelmine.
"Nay, nay, my little girl," quoth he,
"It was a famous victory!
"And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win."
"But what good came of it at last?"
Quoth little Peterkin.
"Why, that I cannot tell," said he,
"But 'twas a famous victory!"
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
THE REVENGE.
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer
sea,
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they feared that we still
could sting;
So they watched what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maimed for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it
spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die--does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner--sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!"
And the gunner said, "Ay, ay," but the seamen made reply:
"We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again, and to strike another blow."
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do:
With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die!"
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
_From "The Revenge."_
HALLOWED GROUND.
What's hallowed ground? Has earth a clod
Its maker meant not should be trod
By man, the image of his God,
Erect and free,
Unscourged by Superstition's rod
To bow the knee?
That's hallowed ground--where, mourned and missed,
The lips repose our love has kissed:--
But where's their memory's mansion? Is't
Yon churchyard's bowers?
No! in ourselves their souls exist,
A part of ours.
What hallows ground where heroes sleep?
'Tis not the sculptured piles you heap!
In dews that heavens far distant weep
Their turf may bloom;
Or Genii twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb:
But strew his ashes to the wind
Whose sword or voice has served mankind--
And is he dead, whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?--
To live in hearts we leave behind,
Is not to die.
Is't death to fall for Freedom's right?
He's dead alone that lacks her light!
And murder sullies in Heaven's sight
The sword he draws:--
What can alone ennoble fight?
A noble cause!
What's hallowed ground? 'Tis what gives birth
To sacred thoughts in souls of worth!--
Peace! Independence! Truth! go forth
Earth's compass round;
And your high priesthood shall make earth
_All hallowed ground_.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
[Illustration]
INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP.
You know we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.
Just as perhaps he mused, "My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall,--"
Out 'twixt the battery smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.
Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse's mane, a boy:
You hardly could suspect--
(So tight he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through),
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.
"Well," cried he, "Emperor, by God's grace
We've got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal's in the market place,
And you'll be there anon
To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart's desire,
Perched him!" The chief's eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.
The chief's eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother eagle's eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes.
"You're wounded!" "Nay," the soldier's pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
"I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside,
Smiling, the boy fell dead.
ROBERT BROWNING.
THY VOICE IS HEARD THRO' ROLLING DRUMS.
Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
QUIET, LORD, MY FROWARD HEART.
Quiet, Lord, my froward heart:
Make me teachable and mild,
Upright, simple, free from art,--
Make me as a weanèd child:
From distrust and envy free,
Pleased with all that pleaseth Thee.
What Thou shalt to-day provide,
Let me as a child receive;
What to-morrow may betide,
Calmly to Thy wisdom leave;
'Tis enough that Thou wilt care:
Why should I the burden bear?
As a little child relies
On a care beyond his own,
Knows he's neither strong nor wise,
Fears to stir a step alone;
Let me thus with Thee abide,
As my Father, Guard, and Guide.
JOHN NEWTON.
MORNING.
Oh! timely happy, timely wise,
Hearts that with rising morn arise!
Eyes that the beam celestial view,
Which evermore makes all things new!
New every morning is the love
Our wakening and uprising prove;
Through sleep and darkness safely brought,
Restored to life, and power, and thought.
New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new sins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of Heaven.
JOHN KEBLE.
EVENING.
Shepherds all, and maidens fair,
Fold your flocks up, for the air
'Gins to thicken, and the sun
Already his great course has run.
See the dewdrops how they kiss
Every little flower that is,
Hanging on their velvet heads,
Like a rope of crystal beads.
See the heavy clouds low falling,
And bright Hesperus down calling
The dead night from underground,
At whose rising, mists unsound,
Damps and vapors fly apace,
Hovering o'er the wanton face
Of these pastures, where they come
Striking dead both bud and bloom.
Therefore from such danger lock
Every one of his loved flock;
And let your dogs lie loose without,
Lest the wolf come, as a scout
From the mountain, and ere day
Bear a kid or lamb away;
Or the crafty thievish fox
Break upon your simple flocks.
To secure yourselves from these,
Be not too secure in ease.
So shall you good shepherds prove,
And deserve your master's love.
Now, good night! may sweetest slumbers
And soft silence fall in numbers
On your eyelids; so, farewell;
Thus I end my evening knell.
JOHN FLETCHER.
SONG.
Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing:
To his music, plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
There had made a lasting spring.
Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
Fall asleep, or, hearing, die.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
[Illustration]
A FAREWELL.
Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet, then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee.
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
[Illustration]
TO A MOUSE.
ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOW.
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earthborn companion,
An' fellow mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave,
And never miss't!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin;
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin',
Baith snell and keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin' fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till, crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain,
For promis'd joy.
Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear.
ROBERT BURNS.
[Illustration]
A SELECTION FROM CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;--
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee--
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts:--not so thou,
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play--
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow--
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time
Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime--
The image of Eternity--the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror--'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.
LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON.
BRIGHTEST AND BEST OF THE SONS OF THE MORNING.
Brightest and best of the Sons of the morning!
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid!
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our Infant Redeemer is laid!
Cold on His cradle the dewdrops are shining,
Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall;
Angels adore Him in slumber reclining,
Maker and Monarch and Savior of all!
Say, shall we yield Him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?
Vainly we offer each ample oblation;
Vainly with gifts would His favor secure:
Richer by far is the heart's adoration;
Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.
Brightest and best of the Sons of the morning!
Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid!
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,
Guide where our Infant Redeemer is laid!
REGINALD HEBER.
THE LAND OF SONG: BOOK II.
_PART III._
[Illustration: CONCORD BRIDGE.]
PART THREE.
CONCORD HYMN.
SUNG AT THE COMPLETION OF THE BATTLE MONUMENT, APRIL 19, 1836.
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
MONTEREY.
We were not many--we who stood
Before the iron sleet that day--
Yet many a gallant spirit would
Give half his years if he but could
Have been with us at Monterey.
Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed
In deadly drifts of fiery spray,
Yet not a single soldier quailed
When wounded comrades round them wailed
Their dying shout at Monterey.
And on--still on our column kept
Through walls of flame its withering way;
Where fell the dead, the living stept,
Still charging on the guns that swept
The slippery streets of Monterey.
The foe himself recoiled aghast,
When, striking where he strongest lay,
We swooped his flanking batteries past
And braving full their murderous blast
Stormed home the towers of Monterey.
Our banners on those turrets wave,
And there our evening bugles play;
Where orange boughs above their grave
Keep green the memory of the brave
Who fought and fell at Monterey.
We are not many--we who pressed
Beside the brave who fell that day;
But who of us has not confessed
He'd rather share their warrior rest,
Than not have been at Monterey?
CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN.
YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND.
Ye mariners of England
That guard our native seas!
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe:
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.
The spirits of your fathers
Shall start from every wave--
For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:
Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.
Britannia needs no bulwarks
No towers along the steep;
Her march is o'er the mountain waves,
Her home is on the deep.
With thunders from her native oak
She quells the floods below--
As they roar on the shore,
When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;
Till danger's troubled night depart
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean warriors!
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,
When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more,
And the storm has ceased to blow.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
[Illustration: ADMIRAL HORATIO NELSON.]
THE DEATH OF NELSON.
'Twas in Trafalgar's bay
We saw the Frenchmen lay;
Each heart was bounding then.
We scorned the foreign yoke,
Our ships were British oak,
And hearts of oak our men.
Our Nelson marked them on the wave,
Three cheers our gallant seamen gave,
Nor thought of home and beauty.
Along the line this signal ran,--
"England expects that every man
This day will do his duty."
And now the cannons roar
Along the affrighted shore;
Brave Nelson led the way:
His ship the Victory named;
Long be that victory famed!
For victory crowned the day.
But dearly was that conquest bought,
Too well the gallant hero fought
For England, home, and beauty.
He cried, as 'midst the fire he ran,--
"England shall find that every man
This day will do his duty!"
At last the fatal wound
Which shed dismay around,
The hero's breast received.
"Heaven fights on our side;
The day's our own!" he cried;
"Now long enough I've lived.
In honor's cause my life was passed,
In honor's cause I fall at last,
For England, home, and beauty!"
Thus ending life as he began;
England confessed that every man
That day had done his duty.
ARNOLD.
[Illustration: CHARLES KINGSLEY.]
ODE TO THE NORTHEAST WIND.
Welcome, wild Northeaster!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black Northeaster!
O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.
Tired we are of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day;
Jovial wind of winter
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed beds;
Crisp the lazy dike;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild fowl;
Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir forest
Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snowflakes
Off the curdled sky.
Hark! the brave Northeaster!
Breast high lies the scent,
On by bolt and headland,
Over heath and bent.
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Through the sleet and snow,
Who can override you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast;
You shall see a fox die
Ere an hour be past.
Go! and rest to-morrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O'er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious South wind
Breathe in lovers' sighs,
While the lazy gallants
Bask in ladies' eyes.
What does he but soften
Heart alike and pen?
'Tis the hard gray weather
Breeds hard English men.
What's the soft Southwester?
'Tis the ladies' breeze,
Bringing home their true loves
Out of all the seas;
But the black Northeaster,
Through the snowstorm hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak
Seaward round the world!
Come! as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come! and strong within us
Stir the Vikings' blood;
Bracing brain and sinew;
Blow, thou wind of God!
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
ENGLAND.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
_From "Richard II."_
SONG OF THE GREEKS.
Again to the battle, Achaians!
Our hearts bid the tyrants defiance!
Our land, the first garden of Liberty's tree--
It has been, and shall yet be, the land of the free.
For the cross of our faith is replanted,
The pale dying crescent is daunted,
And we march that the footprints of Mahomet's slaves
May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves.
Their spirits are hovering o'er us,
And the sword shall to glory restore us.
Ah! what though no succor advances,
Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances
Are stretched in our aid--be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone;
For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,
By the virgins they've dragged from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,
That, living, we shall be victorious,
Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious.
A breath of submission we breathe not;
The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not!
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.
Earth may hide--waves engulf--fire consume us,
But they shall not to slavery doom us:
If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves;
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,
And new triumphs on the land are before us,
To the charge!--Heaven's banner is o'er us.
This day shall ye blush for its story,
Or brighten your lives with its glory.
Our women, oh, say, shall they shriek in despair,
Or embrace us from conquest with wreaths in their hair?
Accursed may his memory blacken,
If a coward there be that would slacken
Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth
Being sprung from and named for the godlike of earth.
Strike home, and the world shall revere us
As heroes descended from heroes.
Old Greece lightens up with emotion
Her inlands, her isles of the Ocean;
Fanes rebuilt and fair towns shall with jubilee ring,
And the Nine shall new hallow their Helicon's spring:
Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness,
That were cold and extinguished in sadness;
Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms,
Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms,
When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens
Shall have purpled the beaks of our ravens.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
SHERIDAN'S RIDE.
OCTOBER 19, 1864.
Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain's door,
The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold,
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good broad highway leading down;
And there, through the flash of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight;
As if he knew the terrible need,
He stretched away with the utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell--but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.
Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering South,
The dust, like smoke from the cannon's mouth;
On the tail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Forboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape flowed away behind,
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on with his wild eyes full of fire;
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire,
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the General saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done--what to do--a glance told him both,
Then, striking his spurs, with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the lines 'mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray,
By the flash of his eye and the red nostril's play
He seemed to the whole great army to say:
"I've brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day!"
Hurrah! hurrah! for Sheridan!
Hurrah! hurrah! for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky--
The American soldier's temple of fame--
There with the glorious General's name,
Be it said, in letters both bold and bright:
"Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight
From Winchester, twenty miles away!"
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
[Illustration]
THE HURRICANE.
Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere,
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
They darken fast; and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray--
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard
Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the winds unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!--
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale:
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain the visible space.
Darker--still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air:
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thundercloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
What roar is that?--'tis the rain that breaks
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror round.
Ah! well-known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds!--ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
[Illustration: JOSEPH ADDISON.]
WHEN ALL THY MERCIES, O MY GOD.
When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys;
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love, and praise.
O how shall words with equal warmth
The gratitude declare
That glows within my ravished heart!
But Thou canst read it there.
Unnumbered comforts on my soul
Thy tender care bestowed,
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom these comforts flowed.
Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart,
That tastes those gifts with joy.
Through every period of my life,
Thy goodness I'll pursue;
And after death in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.
Through all eternity, to Thee
A joyful song I'll raise;
For, oh! eternity's too short
To utter all Thy praise.
JOSEPH ADDISON.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
I say to thee, do thou repeat
To the first man thou mayest meet
In lane, highway, or open street--
That he and we and all men move
Under a canopy of love,
As broad as the blue sky above;
That doubt and trouble, fear and pain
And anguish, all are shadows vain,
That death itself shall not remain;
That weary deserts we may tread,
A dreary labyrinth may thread,
Through dark ways underground be led;
Yet, if we will one Guide obey,
The dreariest path, the darkest way,
Shall issue out in heavenly day;
And we, on divers shores now cast,
Shall meet, our perilous voyage past,
All in our Father's house at last.
RICHARD C. TRENCH.
THE NOBLE NATURE.
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be;
Or standing long an oak three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere;
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night--
It was the plant and flower of Light.
In small proportions we just beauty see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.
BEN JONSON.
WINSTANLEY.
Winstanley's deed, you kindly folk,
With it I fill my lay,
And a nobler man ne'er walked the world,
Let his name be what it may.
The good ship Snowdrop tarried long;
Up at the vane looked he;
"Belike," he said, for the wind had dropped,
"She lieth becalmed at sea."
The lovely ladies flocked within,
And still would each one say,
"Good mercer, be the ships come up?"--
But still he answered, "Nay."
Then stepped two mariners down the street,
With looks of grief and fear:
"Now, if Winstanley be your name,
We bring you evil cheer!
"For the good ship Snowdrop struck,--she struck
On the rock,--the Eddystone,
And down she went with threescore men,
We two being left alone.
"Down in the deep with freight and crew,
Past any help she lies,
And never a bale has come to shore
Of all thy merchandise."
"For cloth o' gold and comely frieze,"
Winstanley said and sighed,
"For velvet coif, or costly coat,
They fathoms deep may bide.
"O thou brave skipper, blithe and kind,
O mariners, bold and true,
Sorry at heart, right sorry am I,
A-thinking of yours and you.
"Many long days Winstanley's breast
Shall feel a weight within,
For a waft of wind he shall be 'feared,
And trading count but sin.
"To him no more it shall be joy
To pace the cheerful town,
And see the lovely ladies gay
Step on in velvet gown."
The Snowdrop sank at Lammas tide,
All under the yeasty spray;
On Christmas Eve the brig Content
Was also cast away.
He little thought o' New Year's night,
So jolly as he sat then,
While drank the toast and praised the roast
The round-faced Aldermen,--
He little thought on Plymouth Hoe,
With every rising tide,
How the wave washed in his sailor lads,
And laid them by his side.
There stepped a stranger to the board:
"Now, stranger, who be ye?"
He looked to the right, he looked to the left,
And "Rest you merry," quoth he;
"For you did not see the brig go down,
Or ever a storm had blown;
For you did not see the white wave rear
At the rock,--the Eddystone.
"She drave at the rock with stern sails set;
Crash went the masts in twain;
She staggered back with her mortal blow,
Then leaped at it again.
"There rose a great cry, bitter and strong;
The misty moon looked out!
And the water swarmed with seamen's heads,
And the wreck was strewed about.
"I saw her mainsail lash the sea,
As I clung to the rock alone;
Then she heeled over, and down she went,
And sank like any stone.
"She was a fair ship, but all's one!
For naught could bide the shock."--
"I will take horse," Winstanley said,
"And see this deadly rock.
"For never again shall bark o' mine
Sail o'er the windy sea,
Unless, by the blessing of God, for this
Be found a remedy."
Winstanley rode to Plymouth town
All in the sleet and the snow;
And he looked around on shore and sound,
As he stood on Plymouth Hoe.
Till a pillar of spray rose far away,
And shot up its stately head,
Reared, and fell over, and reared again:
"'Tis the rock! the rock!" he said.
Straight to the Mayor he took his way:
"Good Master Mayor," quoth he,
"I am a mercer of London town,
And owner of vessels three.
"But for your rock of dark renown,
I had five to track the main."--
"You are one of many," the old Mayor said,
"That of the rock complain.
"An ill rock, mercer! your words ring right,
Well with my thoughts they chime,
For my two sons to the world to come
It sent before their time."
"Lend me a lighter, good Master Mayor,
And a score of shipwrights free;
For I think to raise a lantern tower
On this rock o' destiny."
The old Mayor laughed, but sighed also:
"Ah, youth," quoth he, "is rash;
Sooner, young man, thou'lt root it out
From the sea that doth it lash.
"Who sails too near its jagged teeth,
He shall have evil lot;
For the calmest seas that tumble there
Froth like a boiling pot.
"And the heavier seas few look on nigh,
But straight they lay him dead;
A seventy-gun-ship, sir!--they'll shoot
Higher than her masthead.
"Oh, beacons sighted in the dark,
They are right welcome things,
And pitch pots flaming on the shore
Show fair as angel wings.
"Hast gold in hand? then light the land,
It 'longs to thee and me;
But let alone the deadly rock
In God Almighty's sea."
Yet said he, "Nay,--I must away,
On the rock to set my feet;
My debts are paid, my will I made,
Or ever I did thee greet.
"If I must die, then let me die
By the rock and not elsewhere;
If I may live, Oh let me live
To mount my lighthouse stair."
The old Mayor looked him in the face,
And answered, "Have thy way;
Thy heart is stout, as if round about
It was braced with an iron stay:
"Have thy will, mercer! choose thy men,
Put off from the storm-rid shore;
God with thee be, or I shall see
Thy face and theirs no more."
Heavily plunged the breaking wave,
And foam flew up the lea;
Morning and even the drifted snow
Fell into the dark gray sea.
Winstanley chose him men and gear;
He said, "My time I waste,"
For the seas ran seething up the shore,
And the wrack drave on in haste.
But twenty days he waited and more,
Pacing the strand alone,
Or ever he sat his manly foot
On the rock,--the Eddystone.
Then he and the sea began their strife,
And worked with power and might;
Whatever the man reared up by day
The sea broke down by night.
He wrought at ebb with bar and beam,
He sailed to shore at flow;
And at his side, by that same tide,
Came bar and beam also.
"Give in, give in," the old Mayor cried,
"Or thou wilt rue the day."--
"Yonder he goes," the townsfolk sighed,
"But the rock will have its way.
"For all his looks that are so stout,
And his speeches brave and fair,
He may wait on the wind, wait on the wave,
But he'll build no lighthouse there."
In fine weather and foul weather
The rock his arts did flout,
Through the long days and the short days,
Till all that year ran out.
With fine weather and foul weather
Another year came in;
"To take his wage," the workmen said,
"We almost count a sin."
Now March was gone, came April in,
And a sea fog settled down,
And forth sailed he on a glassy sea,
He sailed from Plymouth town.
With men and stores he put to sea,
As he was wont to do:
They showed in the fog like ghosts full faint,--
A ghostly craft and crew.
And the sea fog lay and waxed alway,
For a long eight days and more;
"God help our men," quoth the women then
"For they bide long from shore."
They paced the Hoe in doubt and dread;
"Where may our mariners be?"
But the brooding fog lay soft as down
Over the quiet sea.
A Scottish schooner made the port,
The thirteenth day at e'en;
"As I am a man," the captain cried,
"A strange sight I have seen:
"And a strange sound heard, my masters all,
At sea, in the fog and the rain,
Like shipwrights' hammers tapping low,
Then loud, then low again.
"And a stately house one instant showed,
Through a rift on the vessel's lea;
What manner of creatures may be those
That build upon the sea."
Then sighed the folk, "The Lord be praised!"
And they flocked to the shore amain:
All over the Hoe that livelong night,
Many stood out in the rain.
It ceased; and the red sun reared his head,
And the rolling fog did flee;
And, lo! in the offing faint and far
Winstanley's house at sea!
In fair weather with mirth and cheer
The stately tower uprose;
In foul weather with hunger and cold
They were content to close;
Till up the stair Winstanley went,
To fire the wick afar;
And Plymouth in the silent night
Looked out and saw her star.
Winstanley set his foot ashore;
Said he, "My work is done;
I hold it strong to last as long
As aught beneath the sun.
"But if it fail, as fail it may,
Borne down with ruin and rout,
Another than I shall rear it high,
And brace the girders stout.
"A better than I shall rear it high,
For now the way is plain;
And though I were dead," Winstanley said,
"The light would shine again.
"Yet were I fain still to remain,
Watch in my tower to keep,
And tend my light in the stormiest night
That ever did move the deep;
"And if it stood, why then 'twere good,
Amid their tremulous stirs,
To count each stroke when the mad waves broke,
For cheers of mariners.
"But if it fell, then this were well,
That I should with it fall;
Since, for my part, I have built my heart
In the courses of its wall.
"Ay! I were fain, long to remain,
Watch in my tower to keep,
And tend my light in the stormiest night
That ever did move the deep."
With that Winstanley went his way,
And left the rock renowned,
And summer and winter his pilot star
Hung bright o'er Plymouth Sound.
But it fell out, fell out at last,
That he would put to sea,
To scan once more his lighthouse tower
On the rock o' destiny.
And the winds broke, and the storm broke,
And wrecks came plunging in;
None in the town that night lay down
Or sleep or rest to win.
The great mad waves were rolling graves,
And each flung up its dead;
The seething flow was white below,
And black the sky o'erhead.
And when the dawn, the dull, gray dawn,
Broke on the trembling town,
And men looked south to the harbor mouth,
The lighthouse tower was down.
Down in the deep, where he doth sleep
Who made it shine afar,
And then in the night that drowned its light,
Set, with his pilot star.
Many fair tombs in the glorious glooms
At Westminster they show;
The brave and the great lie there in state;
Winstanley lieth low.
JEAN INGELOW.
[Illustration]
THE STORM.
The tempest rages wild and high,
The waves lift up their voice and cry
Fierce answers to the angry sky,--
_Miserere Domine._
Through the black night and driving rain,
A ship is struggling, all in vain,
To live upon the stormy main;--
_Miserere Domine._
The thunders roar, the lightnings glare,
Vain is it now to strive or dare;
A cry goes up of great despair,--
_Miserere Domine._
The stormy voices of the main,
The moaning wind and pelting rain
Beat on the nursery window pane:--
_Miserere Domine._
Warm curtained was the little bed,
Soft pillowed was the little head;
"The storm will wake the child," they said:--
_Miserere Domine._
Cowering among his pillows white
He prays, his blue eyes dim with fright,
"Father, save those at sea to-night!"--
_Miserere Domine._
The morning shone all clear and gay,
On a ship at anchor in the bay,
And on a little child at play,--
_Gloria tibi Domine!_
ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER.
REST.
Rest is not quitting
The busy career;
Rest is the fitting
Of self to one's sphere:
'Tis the brook's motion,
Clear without strife;
Fleeting to ocean,
After its life:
'Tis loving and serving
The highest and best;
'Tis onward, unswerving,
And this is true rest.
GOETHE.
[Illustration]
THE GRASSHOPPER.
Happy insect! what can be
In happiness compared to thee?
Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy morning's gentle wine!
Nature waits upon thee still,
And thy verdant cup does fill;
'Tis fill'd wherever thou dost tread,
Nature's self thy Ganymede.
Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing,
Happier than the happiest king!
All the fields which thou dost see,
All the plants belong to thee,
All that summer hours produce,
Fertile made with early juice:
Man for thee does sow and plow;
Farmer he and landlord thou!
Thou dost innocently joy,
Nor does thy luxury destroy.
The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious than he.
Thee, country minds with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripened year:
Thee Phoebus loves and does inspire;
Phoebus is himself thy sire.
To thee of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer than thy mirth.
Happy insect! happy thou,
Dost neither age nor winter know:
But when thou'st drunk, and danced, and sung
Thy fill, the flowery leaves among,
(Voluptuous and wise withal,
Epicurean animal,)
Sated with the summer feast
Thou retir'st to endless rest.
ABRAHAM COWLEY.
THE CRICKET.
Little inmate, full of mirth,
Chirping on my kitchen hearth,
Wheresoe'er be thine abode,
Always harbinger of good,
Pay me for thy warm retreat
With a song more soft and sweet;
In return thou shalt receive
Such a strain as I can give.
Thus thy praise shall be expressed,
Inoffensive, welcome guest!
While the rat is on the scout,
And the mouse with curious snout,
With what vermin else infest
Ev'ry dish, and spoil the best;
Frisking thus before the fire,
Thou hast all thine heart's desire.
Though in voice and shape they be
Formed as if akin to thee,
Thou surpassest, happier far,
Happiest grasshoppers that are;
Theirs is but a summer's song,
Thine endures the winter long,
Unimpaired, and shrill, and clear,
Melody throughout the year.
Neither night, nor dawn of day,
Puts a period to thy play:
Sing then--and extend thy span
Far beyond the date of man.
Wretched man, whose years are spent
In repining discontent,
Lives not, aged though he be,
Half a span, compared with thee.
WILLIAM COWPER.
A WREN'S NEST.
Among the dwellings framed by birds
In field or forest with nice care,
Is none that with the little wren's
In snugness may compare.
No door the tenement requires,
And seldom needs a labored roof;
Yet is it to the fiercest sun
Impervious, and stormproof.
So warm, so beautiful withal,
In perfect fitness for its aim,
That to the kind by special grace
Their instinct surely came.
And when for their abodes they seek
An opportune recess,
The hermit has no finer eye
For shadowy quietness.
These find, 'mid ivied abbey walls,
A canopy in some still nook;
Others are penthoused by a brae
That overhangs a brook.
There to the brooding bird her mate
Warbles by fits his low clear song;
And by the busy streamlet both
Are sung to all day long.
Or in sequestered lanes they build,
Where, till the flitting bird's return,
Her eggs within the nest repose,
Like relics in an urn.
But still, where general choice is good,
There is a better and a best;
And, among fairest objects, some
Are fairer than the rest;
This, one of those small builders proved
In a green covert, where, from out
The forehead of a pollard oak,
The leafy antlers sprout;
For she who planned the mossy lodge,
Mistrusting her evasive skill,
Had to a primrose looked for aid
Her wishes to fulfill.
High on the trunk's projecting brow,
And fixed an infant's span above
The budding flowers, peeped forth the nest,
The prettiest of the grove!
The treasure proudly did I show
To some whose minds without disdain
Can turn to little things; but once
Looked up for it in vain:
'Tis gone--a ruthless spoiler's prey,
Who heeds not beauty, love, or song,
'Tis gone! (so seemed it) and we grieved
Indignant at the wrong.
Just three days after, passing by
In clearer light the moss-built cell
I saw, espied its shaded mouth;
And felt that all was well.
The primrose for a veil had spread
The largest of her upright leaves;
And thus, for purposes benign,
A simple flower deceives.
Concealed from friends who might disturb
Thy quiet with no ill intent,
Secure from evil eyes and hands
On barbarous plunder bent,
Rest, mother bird! and when thy young
Take flight, and thou art free to roam,
When withered is the guardian flower,
And empty thy late home,
Think how ye prospered, thou and thine,
Amid the unviolated grove,
Housed near the growing primrose tuft
In foresight, or in love.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
[Illustration]
ON A FAVORITE CAT, DROWNED IN A TUB OF GOLDFISHES.
'Twas on a lofty vase's side
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow,
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima, reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared:
The fair, round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,--
She saw, and purred applause.
Still had she gazed, but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armor's Tyrian hue,
Through richest purple, to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.
The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first, and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched, in vain, to reach the prize,--
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent,
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between,--
Malignant Fate sat by and smiled,--
The slippery verge her feet beguiled;
She tumbled headlong in!
Eight times emerging from the flood,
She mewed to every watery god
Some speedy aid to send:
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirred,
Nor cruel Tom nor Susan heard,--
A favorite has no friend!
From hence, ye Beauties! undeceived,
Know one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold:
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts is lawful prize,
Nor all that glitters gold!
THOMAS GRAY.
THE SOLITARY REAPER.
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands;
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard,
In springtime from the cuckoo bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;--
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
CORONACH.
He is gone on the mountain,
He is lost to the forest,
Like a summer-dried fountain,
When our need was the sorest.
The fount reappearing
From the raindrops shall borrow;
But to us comes no cheering,
To Duncan no morrow!
The hand of the reaper
Takes the ears that are hoary,
But the voice of the weeper
Wails manhood in glory.
The autumn winds, rushing,
Waft the leaves that are searest,
But our flower was in flushing
When blighting was nearest.
Fleet foot on the correi,
Sage counsel in cumber,
Red hand in the foray,
How sound is thy slumber!
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
LIFE'S "GOOD-MORNING."
Life! we have been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather.
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not "Good-night," but in some brighter clime
Bid me "Good-morning."
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD.
MOONRISE.
The moon is up, and yet it is not night--
Sunset divides the sky with her--a sea
Of glory streams along the Alpine height
Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free
From clouds, but of all colors seems to be--
Melted to one vast Iris of the West,
Where the Day joins the past Eternity;
While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest
Floats through the azure air--an island of the blest.
A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
Yon sunny lea heaves brightly, and remains
Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill,
As Day and Night contending were, until
Nature reclaim'd her order:--gently flows
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instill
The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows.
LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON.
_From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."_
[Illustration]
TO A WATERFOWL.
Whither, midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
JERUSALEM, THE GOLDEN.
Jerusalem, the golden!
With milk and honey blest;
Beneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice opprest.
I know not, O I know not
What joys await us there;
What radiancy of glory,
What bliss beyond compare.
They stand, those halls of Zion,
All jubilant with song,
And bright with many an angel,
And all the martyr throng.
The Prince is ever in them,
The daylight is serene;
The pastures of the blessèd
Are decked in glorious sheen.
There is the throne of David;
And there, from care released,
The shout of them that triumph,
The song of them that feast.
And they, who with their Leader,
Have conquered in the fight,
Forever and forever
Are clad in robes of white.
ST. BERNARD (translated by John M. Neale).
O MOTHER DEAR, JERUSALEM.
O Mother dear, Jerusalem!
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
Thy joys when shall I see?
O happy harbor of God's saints!
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In thee no sorrow can be found,
Nor grief, nor care, nor toil.
No murky cloud o'ershadows thee,
Nor gloom, nor darksome night;
But every soul shines as the sun;
For God Himself gives light.
O my sweet home, Jerusalem!
Thy joys when shall I see?
The King that sitteth on thy throne
In His felicity?
Thy gardens and thy goodly walks
Continually are green,
Where grow such sweet and pleasant flowers
As nowhere else are seen.
Right through thy streets, with pleasing sound
The living waters flow,
And on the banks, on either side,
The trees of life do grow.
Those trees each month yield ripened fruit;
For evermore they spring,
And all the nations of the earth
To thee their honors bring.
O Mother dear, Jerusalem!
When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end?
Thy joys when shall I see?
ANONYMOUS.
EVENING.
Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live:
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.
Thou Framer of the light and dark,
Steer through the tempest Thine own ark:
Amid the howling wintry sea
We are in port if we have Thee.
If some poor wandering child of Thine
Have spurned, to-day, the voice divine,
Now, Lord, the gracious work begin;
Let him no more lie down in sin.
Watch by the sick: enrich the poor
With blessings from Thy boundless store:
Be every mourner's sleep to-night
Like infants' slumbers, pure and light.
Come near and bless us when we wake,
Ere through the world our way we take;
Till in the ocean of Thy love
We lose ourselves in Heaven above.
JOHN KEBLE.
GOOD-NIGHT.
Close now thine eyes, and rest secure;
Thy soul is safe enough; thy body sure;
He that loves thee, He that keeps
And guards thee, never slumbers, never sleeps.
The smiling Conscience in a sleeping breast
Has only peace, has only rest:
The music and the mirth of kings
Are all but very discords, when she sings:
Then close thine eyes and rest secure;
No sleep so sweet as thine, no rest so sure.
FRANCIS QUARLES.
THE DEWDROP.
A dewdrop, falling on the ocean wave,
Exclaimed, in fear, "I perish in this grave!"
But, in a shell received, that drop of dew
Unto a pearl of marvelous beauty grew;
And, happy now, the grace did magnify
Which thrust it forth--as it had feared--to die;
Until again, "I perish quite!" it said
Torn by rude diver from its ocean bed:
O, unbelieving!--So it came to gleam
Chief jewel in a monarch's diadem.
RICHARD C. TRENCH.
VIRTUE.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright--
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye,
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie,
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turns to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
GEORGE HERBERT.
THE HERITAGE.
The rich man's son inherits lands,
And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man's son inherits cares;
The bank may break, the factory burn,
A breath may burst his bubble shares,
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
The rich man's son inherits wants,
His stomach craves for dainty fare;
With sated heart, he hears the pants
Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare,
And wearies in his easy-chair;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man's son inherit?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man's son inherit?
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,
Content that from employment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
What doth the poor man's son inherit?
A patience learned of being poor,
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,
A fellow-feeling that is sure
To make the outcast bless his door;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
O rich man's son! there is a toil
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whiten, soft white hands,--
This is the best crop from thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.
O poor man's son! scorn not thy state;
There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great;
Toil only gives the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.
Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;
Both, children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
THE FISHERMAN.
A perilous life, and sad as life may be,
Hath the lone fisher, on the lonely sea,
O'er the wild waters laboring far from home,
For some bleak pittance e'er compelled to roam:
Few hearts to cheer him through his dangerous life,
And none to aid him in the stormy strife:
Companion of the sea and silent air,
The lonely fisher thus must ever fare:
Without the comfort, hope,--with scarce a friend,
He looks through life and only sees its end!
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (_Barry Cornwall_).
[Illustration]
LORD ULLIN'S DAUGHTER.
A chieftain, to the Highlands bound,
Cries, "Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound,
To row us o'er the ferry."
"Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy water?"
"O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle,
And this Lord Ullin's daughter.
"And fast before her father's men
Three days we've fled together,
For should he find us in the glen,
My blood would stain the heather.
"His horsemen hard behind us ride;
Should they our steps discover,
Then who will cheer my bonny bride
When they have slain her lover?"
Out spoke the hardy Highland wight,
"I'll go, my chief--I'm ready:
It is not for your silver bright;
But for your winsome lady:
"And by my word! the bonny bird
In danger shall not tarry:
So though the waves are raging white,
I'll row you o'er the ferry."
By this the storm grew loud apace,
The water wraith was shrieking;
And in the scowl of heaven each face
Grew dark as they were speaking.
But still as wilder blew the wind,
And as the night grew drearer,
Adown the glen rode armèd men,
Their trampling sounded nearer.
"Oh haste thee, haste!" the lady cries,
"Though tempests round us gather;
I'll meet the raging of the skies,
But not an angry father."
The boat has left a stormy land,
A stormy sea before her,--
When, Oh! too strong for human hand,
The tempest gathered o'er her.
And still they rowed amidst the roar
Of waters fast prevailing:
Lord Ullin reached that fatal shore,
His wrath was changed to wailing.
For sore dismayed, through storm and shade,
His child he did discover:
One lovely hand she stretched for aid,
And one was round her lover.
"Come back! come back!" he cried in grief,
"Across this stormy water:
And I'll forgive your Highland chief,
My daughter!--oh my daughter!"
'Twas vain: the loud waves lashed the shore,
Return or aid preventing:
The waters wild went o'er his child,
And he was left lamenting.
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
JOCK OF HAZELDEAN.
"Why weep ye by the tide, ladie?
Why weep ye by the tide?
I'll wed ye to my youngest son,
And ye sall be his bride:
And ye sall be his bride, ladie,
Sae comely to be seen"--
But aye she loot the tears down fa'
For Jock of Hazeldean.
"Now let this wilfu' grief be done,
And dry that cheek so pale;
Young Frank is chief of Errington,
And lord of Langley-dale;
His step is first in peaceful ha',
His sword in battle keen"--
But aye she loot the tears down fa'
For Jock of Hazeldean.
"A chain of gold ye sall not lack,
Nor braid to bind your hair;
Nor mettled hound, nor managed hawk,
Nor palfrey fresh and fair;
And you, the foremost o' them a',
Shall ride our forest queen"--
But aye she loot the tears down fa'
For Jock of Hazeldean.
The kirk was decked at morningtide,
The tapers glimmered fair;
The priest and bridegroom wait the bride,
And dame and knight are there.
They sought her baith by bower and ha',
The ladie was not seen!
She's o'er the Border, and awa'
Wi' Jock of Hazeldean.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
EXILE OF ERIN.
There came to the beach a poor Exile of Erin,
The dew on his thin robe was heavy and chill;
For his country he sighed, when at twilight repairing
To wander alone by the wind-beaten hill:
But the day-star attracted his eye's sad devotion,
For it rose o'er his own native isle of the ocean,
Where once, in the fire of his youthful emotion,
He sang the bold anthem of Erin go bragh.
Sad is my fate! said the heartbroken stranger;
The wild deer and wolf to a covert can flee,
But I have no refuge from famine and danger,
A home and a country remain not to me.
Never again, in the green sunny bowers,
Where my forefathers lived, shall I spend the sweet hours,
Or cover my harp with the wild woven flowers,
And strike to the numbers of Erin go bragh!
Erin, my country! though sad and forsaken,
In dreams I revisit thy sea-beaten shore;
But, alas! in a far foreign land I awaken,
And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more!
Oh cruel fate! wilt thou never replace me
In a mansion of peace--where no perils can chase me?
Never again shall my brothers embrace me?
They died to defend me or live to deplore!
Where is my cabin door, fast by the wild wood?
Sisters and sire! did ye weep for its fall?
Where is the mother that looked on my childhood?
And where is the bosom friend clearer than all?
Oh! my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure,
Why did it dote on a fast-fading treasure?
Tears, like the raindrop, may fall without measure,
But rapture and beauty they cannot recall.
Yet all its sad recollections suppressing,
One dying wish my lone bosom can draw;
Erin! an exile bequeathes thee his blessing!
Land of my forefathers! Erin go bragh!
Buried and cold, when my heart stills her motion,
Green be thy field,--sweetest isle of the ocean!
And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion,--
Erin mavournin--Erin go bragh!
THOMAS CAMPBELL.
SONG.
The heath this night must be my bed,
The bracken curtain for my head,
My lullaby the warder's tread,
Far, far from love and thee, Mary;
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,
My couch may be my bloody plaid,
My vesper song thy wail, sweet maid!
It will not waken me, Mary!
I may not, dare not, fancy now
The grief that clouds thy lovely brow;
I dare not think upon thy vow,
And all it promised me, Mary.
No fond regret must Norman know;
When bursts Clan-Alpine on the foe,
His heart must be like bended bow,
His foot like arrow free, Mary.
A time will come with feeling fraught!
For, if I fall in battle fought,
Thy hapless lover's dying thought
Shall be a thought on thee, Mary:
And if returned from conquered foes,
How blithely will the evening close,
How sweet the linnet sing repose
To my young bride and me, Mary.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
_From "The Lady of The Lake."_
THE BANKS O' DOON.
(SECOND VERSION.)
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu' o' care!
Thou'll break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed--never to return!
Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o' its luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause lover stole my rose,
But, ah! he left the thorn wi' me.
ROBERT BURNS.
[Illustration]
LADY CLARE.
It was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in air,
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.
I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long betrothed were they:
They two will wed the morrow morn:
God's blessing on the day!
"He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well," said Lady Clare.
In there came old Alice the nurse,
Said, "Who was this that went from thee?"
"It was my cousin," said Lady Clare,
"To-morrow he weds with me."
"O God be thanked!" said Alice the nurse,
"That all comes round so just and fair:
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
And you are not the Lady Clare."
"Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse?"
Said Lady Clare, "that ye speak so wild?"
"As God is above," said Alice the nurse,
"I speak the truth: you are my child.
"The old Earl's daughter died at my breast;
I speak the truth, as I live by bread!
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead."
"Falsely, falsely have ye done,
O mother," she said, "if this be true,
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due."
"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ronald's,
When you are man and wife."
"If I'm a beggar born," she said,
"I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold,
And fling the diamond necklace by."
"Nay now, my child," said Alice the nurse,
"But keep the secret all ye can."
She said, "Not so: but I will know
If there be any faith in man."
"Nay now, what faith?" said Alice the nurse,
"The man will cleave unto his right."
"And he shall have it," the lady replied,
"Tho' I should die to-night."
"Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!
Alas, my child, I sinned for thee."
"O mother, mother, mother," she said,
"So strange it seems to me.
"Yet here's a kiss for my mother dear,
My mother dear, if this be so,
And lay your hand upon my head,
And bless me, mother, ere I go."
She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare:
She went by dale, and she went by town,
With a single rose in her hair.
The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay,
Dropt her head in the maiden's hand,
And followed her all the way.
Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower:
"O Lady Clare, you shame your worth!
Why come you drest like a village maid,
That are the flower of the earth?"
"If I come drest like a village maid,
I am but as my fortunes are:
I am a beggar born," she said,
"And not the Lady Clare."
"Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
"For I am yours in word and deed.
Play me no tricks," said Lord Ronald,
"Your riddle is hard to read."
O and proudly stood she up!
Her heart within her did not fail:
She looked into Lord Ronald's eyes,
And told him all her nurse's tale.
He laughed a laugh of merry scorn:
He turned and kissed her where she stood:
"If you are not the heiress born,
And I," said he, "the next in blood--
"If you are not the heiress born,
And I," said he, "the lawful heir,
We two will wed to-morrow morn,
And you shall still be Lady Clare."
ALFRED TENNYSON.
BELSHAZZAR.
Belshazzar is king! Belshazzar is lord!
And a thousand dark nobles all bend at his board:
Fruits glisten, flowers blossom, meats steam, and a flood
Of the wine that man loveth, runs redder than blood;
Wild dancers are there, and a riot of mirth,
And the beauty that maddens the passions of earth;
And the crowds all shout,
Till the vast roofs ring,--
"All praise to Belshazzar, Belshazzar the king!"
"Bring forth," cries the Monarch, "the vessels of gold,
Which my father tore down from the temples of old;--
Bring forth, and we'll drink, while the trumpets are blown,
To the gods of bright silver, of gold, and of stone;
Bring forth!" and before him the vessels all shine,
And he bows unto Baal, and drinks the dark wine;
Whilst the trumpets bray,
And the cymbals ring,--
"Praise, praise to Belshazzar, Belshazzar the king!"
Now what cometh--look, look!--without menace, or call?
Who writes, with the lightning's bright hand, on the wall?
What pierceth the king like the point of a dart?
What drives the bold blood from his cheek to his heart?
"Chaldeans! Magicians! the letters expound!"
They are read--and Belshazzar is dead on the ground!
Hark!--the Persian is come
On a conqueror's wing;
And a Mede's on the throne of Belshazzar the king.
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (_Barry Cornwall_).
[Illustration: BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST.
J. MARTIN.]
[Illustration]
THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.
AN INCIDENT OF THE SEPOY MUTINY.
Pipes of the misty moorlands,
Voice of the glens and hills;
The droning of the torrents,
The treble of the rills!
Not the braes of broom and heather,
Nor the mountains dark with rain,
Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,
Have heard your sweetest strain!
Dear to the Lowland reaper,
And plaided mountaineer,--
To the cottage and the castle
The Scottish pipes are dear;--
Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch
O'er mountain, loch, and glade;
But the sweetest of all music
The pipes at Lucknow played.
Day by day the Indian tiger
Louder yelled, and nearer crept;
Round and round, the jungle serpent
Near and nearer circles swept.
"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,--
Pray to-day!" the soldier said,
"To-morrow, death's between us
And the wrong and shame we dread,"
Oh, they listened, looked, and waited,
Till their hope became despair;
And the sobs of low bewailing
Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden,
With her ear unto the ground:
"Dinna ye hear it?--dinna ye hear it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound!"
Hushed the wounded man his groaning;
Hushed the wife her little ones;
Alone they heard the drum-roll
And the roar of Sepoy guns.
But to sounds of home and childhood
The Highland ear was true;--
As her mother's cradle crooning
The mountain pipes she knew.
Like the march of soundless music
Through the vision of the seer,
More of feeling than of hearing,
Of the heart than of the ear,
She knew the droning pibroch,
She knew the Campbell's call:
"Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's,
The grandest o' them all!"
Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless,
And they caught the sound at last;
Faint and far beyond the Goomtee
Rose and fell the piper's blast!
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving
Mingled woman's voice and man's;
"God be praised!--the march of Havelock!
The piping of the clans!"
Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,
Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,
Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,
Stinging all the air to life.
But when the far-off dust cloud
To plaided legions grew,
Full tenderly and blithesomely
The pipes of rescue blew!
Round the silver domes of Lucknow,
Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,
Breathed the air to Britons dearest,
The air of Auld Lang Syne.
O'er the cruel roll of war drums
Rose that sweet and homelike strain;
And the tartan clove the turban,
As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.
Dear to the corn-land reaper
And plaided mountaineer,--
To the cottage and the castle
The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch
O'er mountain, glen, and glade;
But the sweetest of all music
The pipes at Lucknow played!
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
[Illustration: THE RESIDENCY, LUCKNOW, INDIA.]
COMPANIONSHIP WITH NATURE.
Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;
Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home;
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,
He had the passion and the power to roam;
The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam,
Were unto him companionship; they spake
A mutual language, clearer than the tome
Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake
For Nature's pages glassed by sunbeams on the lake.
LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON.
_From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."_
THE GLADIATOR.
I see before me the Gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand--his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low--
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder shower; and now
The arena swims around him--he is gone,
Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not--his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother--he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday--
All this rushed with his blood--Shall he expire,
And unavenged?--Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire.
LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON.
_From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage."_
"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX."
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate bolts undrew;
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffield, 'twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church steeple we heard half the chime,
So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"
At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:
And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence,--ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.
By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,
We'll remember at Aix"--for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.
So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughs a pitiless laugh,
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome spire sprang white,
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight.
"How they'll greet us!"--and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye sockets' rim.
Then I cast loose my buff coat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.
And all I remember is, friends flocking round
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.
ROBERT BROWNING.
[Illustration]
SANDALPHON.
Have you read in the Talmud of old,
In the Legends the Rabbins have told
Of the limitless realms of the air,
Have you read it,--the marvelous story
Of Sandalphon, the Angel of Glory,
Sandalphon, the Angel of Prayer?
How, erect, at the outermost gates
Of the City Celestial he waits,
With his feet on the ladder of light,
That, crowded with angels unnumbered,
By Jacob was seen, as he slumbered
Alone in the desert at night?
The Angels of Wind and of Fire
Chant only one hymn, and expire
With the song's irresistible stress;
Expire in their rapture and wonder,
As harp strings are broken asunder
By music they throb to express.
But serene in the rapturous throng,
Unmoved by the rush of the song,
With eyes unimpassioned and slow,
Among the dead angels, the deathless
Sandalphon stands listening breathless
To sounds that ascend from below;--
From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore
In the fervor and passion of prayer;
From the hearts that are broken with losses,
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear.
And he gathers the prayers as he stands,
And they change into flowers in his hands,
Into garlands of purple and red;
And beneath the great arch of the portal,
Through the streets of the City Immortal
Is wafted the fragrance they shed.
It is but a legend, I know,--
A fable, a phantom, a show,
Of the ancient Rabbinical lore;
Yet the old mediæval tradition,
The beautiful, strange superstition,
But haunts me and holds me the more.
When I look from my window at night,
And the welkin above is all white,
All throbbing and panting with stars,
Among them majestic is standing
Sandalphon, the angel, expanding
His pinions in nebulous bars.
And the legend, I feel, is a part
Of the hunger and thirst of the heart,
The frenzy and fire of the brain,
That grasps at the fruitage forbidden,
The golden pomegranates of Eden,
To quiet its fever and pain.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
[Illustration: JOHN MILTON.]
HYMN.
ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.
It was the winter wild
While the heaven-born child
All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to him
Has doffed her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
No war, or battle's sound
Was heard the world around;
The idle spear and shield were high up hung;
The hookèd chariot stood
Unstained with hostile blood;
The trumpet spake not to the armèd throng;
And kings sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
But peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the earth began;
The winds with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kissed
Whispering new joys to the mild ocean--
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmèd wave.
The stars with deep amaze,
Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence;
And will not take their flight
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow
Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing,
Mercy will sit between
Throned in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering
And Heaven, as at some festival
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.
[Illustration: HOLY NIGHT.
H. GRASS.]
But wisest Fate says no;
This must not yet be so;
The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both himself and us to glorify;
Yet first, to those ychained in sleep,
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep.
But see, the Virgin blest
Hath laid her Babe to rest;
Time is, our tedious song should here have ending;
Heaven's youngest-teemèd star
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending:
And all about the courtly stable
Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.
JOHN MILTON.
_A Selection._
[Illustration]
THE NEW YEAR.
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out, my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
[Illustration]
_RECOMMENDED POEMS._
As it has been impossible to include in this collection as many poems by
American authors as we desired, we recommend the following, all of which
are published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., with the exception of Bryant's
poems, which are published by D. Appleton & Co.
ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY.
After the Rain.
Barberries.
Before the Rain.
The Bluebells of New England.
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN.
A Northern Legend.
The Gladness of Nature.
CARY, ALICE.
The Gray Swan.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO.
The Humblebee.
HARTE, BRET.
The Reveillé.
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL.
A Sunday Hymn.
Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill.
The Chambered Nautilus.
The Height of the Ridiculous.
The Music Grinders.
The One Hoss Shay.
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH.
A Psalm of Life.
Burial of the Minnisink.
Christmas Bells.
Enceladus.
Paul Revere's Ride.
Santa Filomena.
Snowflakes.
Song of the Silent Land.
The Bell of Atri.
The Builders.
The Day is Done.
The Old Clock on the Stairs.
The Open Window.
The Ropewalk.
The Two Angels.
Victor Galbraith.
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL.
Stanzas on Freedom.
The Fatherland.
The Shepherd of King Admetus.
WHITTIER, JOHN GREENLEAF.
Abraham Davenport.
Laus Deus.
My Psalm.
Nanhaught, the Deacon.
The Corn Song.
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