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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Treasury of American Songs and
+Lyrics, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics
+
+Author: Various
+
+Release Date: April 5, 2005 [EBook #15553]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Kline, Karen Dalrymple and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ To My Mother.
+
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+
+ THE
+ GOLDEN TREASURY
+ OF
+ AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS
+
+
+ EDITED BY
+ FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES
+
+
+ _NEW REVISED EDITION_
+
+
+ [Illustration]
+
+
+ BOSTON
+ L.C. PAGE AND COMPANY
+ (INCORPORATED)
+ MDCCCXCIX
+
+
+ Colonial Press:
+ Electrotyped and Printed by C.H. Simonds & Co.
+ Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The numerous collections of American verse share, I think, one fault in
+common: they include too much. Whether this has been a bid for
+popularity, a concession to Philistia, I cannot say; but the fact
+remains that all anthologies of American poetry are, so far as I know,
+more or less uncritical. The aim of the present book is different. In no
+case has a poem been included because it is widely known. The purpose of
+this compilation is solely that of preserving, in attractive and
+permanent form, about one hundred and fifty of the best lyrics of
+America.
+
+I am quite aware of the danger attending such exacting honor-rolls. At
+best, an editor's judgment is only personal, and the realization of this
+fact gives me no small diffidence in attempting to decide what American
+lyrics are best worthy of preservation. That every reader of the
+"American Treasury" will find some favorite poem omitted, there can be
+little doubt. But the effort made in this book towards a careful
+estimate of our lyrical poetry is at any rate, I feel sure, in a good
+direction.
+
+There appear in the index of Mr. Stedman's "Poets of America" the names
+of over three hundred native writers. American verse in the last half
+century has been extraordinarily prolific. It would seem that the time
+has come, in the course of our national literature, for proving all
+things and holding fast that which is good.
+
+The fact that the title of this compilation instantly calls to mind that
+of Mr. Palgrave's scholarly collection of English lyrics need not prove
+a disadvantage to the book if the purpose which led to the choice of
+name is understood. The verse of a single century produced in a new
+country should not be expected to equal the poetic wealth of an old and
+intellectual nation. But if American poetry cannot hope to rival the
+poetry of the mother country, it may at least be compared with it; and
+the fact of such a comparative point of view will aid rather than hinder
+the student of our native poetry in estimating its value.
+
+American verse has suffered at the hands both of its admirers and its
+enemies. Injudicious praise, no less than supercilious contempt, has
+reacted unfavorably on the fame of our poets. Again and again has some
+minor versifier been hailed as the "American Keats" or the "American
+Burns." Really excellent poets, though distinctly poets of second rank,
+have been elevated amid the blare of critical trumpets to the company of
+Wordsworth and Milton. All this is unprofitable and silly. But not much
+better is the attitude of certain critics who patronize everything in
+the English language which has been written outside of England. Though
+America has added--leaving Poe out of account--no distinctly new notes
+to English poetry, it has added certainly not a few true ones. A nation
+need never apologize for its literature when it has produced such
+lyrics--to go no further--as "On a Bust of Dante," "Ichabod," "The
+Chambered Nautilus," and the "Waterfowl."
+
+My method of arrangement is roughly chronological. The First Book, which
+is shorter than the others, might be called the book of Bryant; the
+Second, of Longfellow; and the Third, of Aldrich. Since the periods must
+of course overlap, this division of the poems can be at most only
+suggestive.
+
+I have made it no part of my design to grant to the better known poets a
+larger number of lyrics than those given later and younger men. I have
+paid no regard to that purely conventional idea of proportion, that
+would assign to five or six writers a dozen selections each, and to
+another set of poets, in proportion to their popular fame, half that
+number. We can safely leave the final adjustment of all rival claims to
+Time, the best critic; in the meanwhile having the more modest aim of
+selecting, irrespective of contemporary judgments, whatever is best
+suited to our purpose.
+
+A word more should be said about the title. I have not interpreted the
+term lyric so rigidly as to exclude sonnets, ballads, elegiac verse, or
+even pieces of almost pure description. If I had held to the strictest
+sense of lyric, this book would never have been compiled; for I suspect
+nothing will strike the reader more forcibly than the fact that, despite
+the excellence of the poems included, there is a notable lack of
+unconsciousness--of pure singing quality. Such things as Pinkney's
+"Health" and Holmes's "Old Ironsides" are the exception. The poems are
+composed cleverly, but they do not quite sing themselves to their own
+music. The best American verse, while not insincere, is seldom wholly
+spontaneous. This is not saying that much spontaneous verse has not been
+written in this country; much has been, but the singer's voice has too
+often been uncultivated, and the product inartistic.
+
+The names of many popular poets are entirely omitted. In no case,
+however, was this probably due to oversight. I have gone over carefully
+a wide field of verse, not without finding much to admire, but never
+quite happening upon that final touch of successful achievement where
+art and inspiration join. I am especially sorry to leave unrepresented
+a writer--more imaginative, possibly, than any American poet except
+Poe--whose utter contempt for technique in the ordinary sense places him
+wholly outside my present purpose.
+
+I wish to acknowledge various favors kindly shown by Professor C.T.
+Winchester, Professor Barrett Wendell, and Mr. H.E. Scudder. Thanks are
+also due Mr. T.B. Aldrich for the privilege of including the six poems
+from his pen, which were kindly selected for the book by the poet
+himself. The following firms deserve thanks for permitting the use of
+copyrighted poems:
+
+_Houghton, Mifflin & Co.:_
+
+ Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Christopher Pearse Cranch, Ralph Waldo
+ Emerson, Annie Adams Fields, Louise Imogen Guiney, Oliver Wendell
+ Holmes, William Dean Howells, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James
+ Russell Lowell, Thomas William Parsons, John James Piatt, Lizette
+ Woodworth Reese, Hiram Rich, Edward Rowland Sill, Harriet
+ Prescott Spofford, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Bayard Taylor, Henry
+ David Thoreau, Maurice Thompson, John Greenleaf Whittier, George
+ Edward Woodberry.
+
+Selections from the works of the foregoing writers are included "by
+permission of and by special arrangement with Houghton, Mifflin & Co.,
+publishers of the works of said authors."
+
+ _D. Appleton & Co.:_ Fitz-Greene Halleck, William Cullen Bryant.
+
+ _Lee & Shepard:_ Julia Ward Howe.
+
+ _Porter & Coates:_ Charles Fenno Hoffman.
+
+ _Roberts Brothers:_ Emily Dickinson, Helen Hunt Jackson, Louise
+ Chandler Moulton.
+
+ _Copeland & Day:_ John Banister Tabb, Richard Hovey.
+
+ _W.A. Pond & Co.:_ Stephen Collins Foster.
+
+ _Clark & Maynard:_ Nathaniel Parker Willis.
+
+ _The Cassell Publishing Co.:_ John Boyle O'Reilly.
+
+ _The Century Co.:_ Richard Watson Gilder, James Whitcomb Riley
+ (Poems in the _Century Magazine_).
+
+ _Estes & Lauriat:_ Lloyd Mifflin.
+
+ _Lamson & Wolffe:_ Bliss Carman.
+
+ _Charles Scribner's Sons:_ Henry Cuyler Bunner, Eugene Field,
+ Sidney Lanier, Richard Henry Stoddard, Henry Van Dyke.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+ PAGE
+
+ Absence of Little Wesley, The _J.W. Riley_ 280
+
+ After All _W. Winter_ 117
+
+ Aladdin _J.R. Lowell_ 128
+
+ Annabel Lee _E.A. Poe_ 10
+
+ Apart _J.J. Piatt_ 149
+
+ At Gibraltar _G.E. Woodberry_ 273
+
+ At Last _R.H. Stoddard_ 153
+
+ At Night _R.W. Gilder_ 217
+
+ Auspex _J.R. Lowell_ 192
+
+
+ Ballad _H.P. Spofford_ 202
+
+ Battle-field, The _W.C. Bryant_ 54
+
+ Battle-hymn of the Republic _I.W. Howe_ 108
+
+ Be Thou a Bird, My Soul _(?)_ 282
+
+ Bedouin Song _B. Taylor_ 85
+
+ Bereaved _J.W. Riley_ 263
+
+ Birds _R.H. Stoddard_ 193
+
+ Black Regiment, The _G.H. Boker_ 100
+
+ Bucket, The _S. Woodworth_ 8
+
+
+ Carolina _H. Timrod_ 104
+
+ Chambered Nautilus, The _O.W. Holmes_ 178
+
+ Chariot, The _E. Dickinson_ 264
+
+ Childhood _J.B. Tabb_ 230
+
+ City in the Sea, The _E.A. Poe_ 15
+
+ Concord Hymn _R.W. Emerson_ 74
+
+ Confided _J.B. Tabb_ 266
+
+ Coronation _H.H. Jackson_ 183
+
+ Crowded Street, The _W.C. Bryant_ 42
+
+
+ Day is Done, The _W. Longfellow_ 66
+
+ Days _R.W. Emerson_ 126
+
+ Death-bed, A _J. Aldrich_ 136
+
+ Destiny _T.B. Aldrich_ 210
+
+ Dirge for a Soldier _G.H. Boker_ 106
+
+ Discoverer, The _E.C. Stedman_ 150
+
+ Dutch Lullaby _E. Field_ 284
+
+
+ Eavesdropper, The _B. Carman_ 298
+
+ Evening Song _S. Lanier_ 215
+
+ Eve's Daughter _E.R. Sill_ 247
+
+
+ Fall of the Leaf, The _H.D. Thoreau_ 162
+
+ Farragut _W.T. Meredith_ 110
+
+ Fertility _M. Thompson_ 294
+
+ Fire of Driftwood, The _H.W. Longfellow_ 133
+
+ Flight, The _L. Mifflin_ 229
+
+ Flight of Youth, The _R.H. Stoddard_ 129
+
+ Fool's Prayer, The _E.R. Sill_ 205
+
+ Four Winds, The _C.H. Lüders_ 258
+
+ Future, The _E.R. Sill_ 219
+
+
+ Gondolieds _H.H. Jackson_ 155
+
+ Gravedigger, The _B. Carman_ 277
+
+
+ Haunted Palace _E.A. Poe_ 26
+
+ Health, A _E.C. Pinkney_ 12
+
+ Hebe _J.R. Lowell_ 64
+
+ He Made the Stars Also _L. Mifflin_ 257
+
+ Her Epitaph _T.W. Parsons_ 147
+
+ House of Death, The _L.C. Moulton_ 236
+
+ Humble-bee, The _R.W. Emerson_ 169
+
+ Hunting Song _R. Hovey_ 251
+
+
+ Ichabod _J.G. Whittier_ 69
+
+ In Absence _J.B. Tabb_ 267
+
+ In August _W.D. Howells_ 223
+
+ Indian Summer _E. Dickinson_ 265
+
+ In the Hospital _M.W. Howland_ 122
+
+ In the Twilight _J.R. Lowell_ 158
+
+ Israfel _E.A. Poe_ 21
+
+
+ Jerry an' Me _H. Rich_ 275
+
+
+ Katie _H. Timrod_ 140
+
+ Kings, The _L.I. Guiney_ 211
+
+
+ Last Leaf, The _O.W. Holmes_ 95
+
+ Little Boy Blue _E. Field_ 231
+
+
+ Maryland Yellow-throat, The _H. Van Dyke_ 287
+
+ Memory _T.B. Aldrich_ 241
+
+ Mood, A _T.B. Aldrich_ 242
+
+ "My Life is Like the Summer Rose" _R.H. Wilde_ 4
+
+ My Love _J.R. Lowell_ 142
+
+ My Maryland _J.R. Randall_ 113
+
+ My Playmate _J.G. Whittier_ 130
+
+ My Strawberry _H.H. Jackson_ 167
+
+
+ Nature _H.W. Longfellow_ 63
+
+ Nature _H.D. Thoreau_ 166
+
+ Negro Lullaby _P.L. Dunbar_ 225
+
+ Night _L. Mifflin_ 256
+
+ No More _B.F. Willson_ 197
+
+
+ "O Fairest of the Rural Maids" _W.C. Bryant_ 6
+
+ Old Ironsides _O.W. Holmes_ 76
+
+ Old Kentucky Home, The _S.C. Foster_ 98
+
+ On a Bust of Dante _T.W. Parsons_ 185
+
+ On an Intaglio Head of Minerva _T.B. Aldrich_ 248
+
+ On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake _F.G. Halleck_ 36
+
+ On the Life-mask of Abraham Lincoln _R.W. Gilder_ 207
+
+ Opportunity _E.R. Sill_ 283
+
+
+ Pan in Wall Street _E.C. Stedman_ 188
+
+ Paradisi Gloria _T.W. Parsons_ 201
+
+ Parting _E. Dickinson_ 252
+
+ Port of Ships, The _C.H. Miller_ 199
+
+ Prescience _T.B. Aldrich_ 221
+
+
+ Raven, The _E.A. Poe_ 45
+
+ Return, The _L.F. Tooker_ 260
+
+ Rhodora, The _R.W. Emerson_ 165
+
+
+ Sea's Voice, The _W.P. Foster_ 271
+
+ Secret, The _G.E. Woodberry_ 290
+
+ Serenade, A _E.C. Pinkney_ 14
+
+ Sesostris _L. Mifflin_ 300
+
+ She Came and Went _J.R. Lowell_ 145
+
+ Sigh, A _H.P. Spofford_ 196
+
+ Silence of Love, The _G.E. Woodberry_ 289
+
+ Sir Humphrey Gilbert _H.W. Longfellow_ 71
+
+ Skipper Ireson's Ride _J.G. Whittier_ 87
+
+ Sleeper, The _E.A. Poe_ 57
+
+ Song _R.W. Gilder_ 208
+
+ Song _J. Shaw_ 3
+
+ Song _R.H. Stoddard_ 127
+
+ Song of the Camp, The _B. Taylor_ 119
+
+ Song of the Chattahoochee _S. Lanier_ 268
+
+ Sparkling and Bright _C.F. Hoffman_ 32
+
+ Stanzas _C.P. Cranch_ 181
+
+ Still in Thy Love I Trust _A.A. Fields_ 218
+
+ Strong as Death _H.C. Bunner_ 233
+
+ Summer Rain, The _H.D. Thoreau_ 172
+
+
+ Telling the Bees _J.G. Whittier_ 137
+
+ "Thalatta" _J.B. Brown_ 154
+
+ That Day You Came _L.W. Reese_ 224
+
+ Thought _H.H. Jackson_ 180
+
+ Tide Rises, the Tide Falls, The _H.W. Longfellow_ 161
+
+ To a Dead Woman _H.C. Bunner_ 209
+
+ To America _G.H. Boker_ 75
+
+ To a Waterfowl _W.C. Bryant_ 29
+
+ To a Young Girl Dying _T.W. Parsons_ 198
+
+ To England _G.H. Boker_ 79
+
+ To Helen _E.A. Poe_ 31
+
+ To One in Paradise _E.A. Poe_ 34
+
+ To the Dandelion _J.R. Lowell_ 175
+
+ To the Fringed Gentian _W.C. Bryant_ 40
+
+ To the Past _W.C. Bryant_ 18
+
+ Toujours Amour _E.C. Stedman_ 194
+
+ Triumph _H.C. Bunner_ 213
+
+ Tropical Morning at Sea, A _E.R. Sill_ 238
+
+
+ Under the Violets _O.W. Holmes_ 124
+
+ Unseen Spirits _N.P. Willis_ 24
+
+
+ Valley of Unrest, The _E.A. Poe_ 38
+
+ Veery, The _H. Van Dyke_ 296
+
+ Village Blacksmith, The _H.W. Longfellow_ 92
+
+
+ Way to Arcady, The _H.C. Bunner_ 243
+
+ When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan _T.B. Aldrich_ 253
+
+ Whip-poor-will, The _H. Van Dyke_ 291
+
+ White Jessamine, The _J.B. Tabb_ 235
+
+ Wild Honeysuckle, The _P. Freneau_ 1
+
+ Woman's Thought, A _R.W. Gilder_ 227
+
+ Woods that Bring the Sunset Near, The _R.W. Gilder_ 216
+
+ Wreck of the Hesperus, The _H.W. Longfellow_ 80
+
+
+
+
+BOOK FIRST.
+
+
+
+
+AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS
+
+
+
+
+The Wild Honeysuckle.
+
+
+ Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
+ Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
+ Untouched thy honey'd blossoms blow,
+ Unseen thy little branches greet;
+ No roving foot shall crush thee here,
+ No busy hand provoke a tear.
+
+ By Nature's self in white arrayed,
+ She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
+ And planted here the guardian shade,
+ And sent soft waters murmuring by;
+ Thus quietly thy summer goes,--
+ Thy days declining to repose.
+
+ Smit with those charms, that must decay,
+ I grieve to see your future doom;
+ They died--nor were those flowers more gay--
+ The flowers that did in Eden bloom;
+ Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power
+ Shall leave no vestige of this flower.
+
+ From morning suns and evening dews
+ At first thy little being came;
+ If nothing once, you nothing lose,
+ For when you die you are the same;
+ The space between is but an hour,
+ The frail duration of a flower.
+
+P. FRENEAU.
+
+
+
+
+Song.
+
+
+ Who has robbed the ocean cave,
+ To tinge thy lips with coral hue?
+ Who from India's distant wave
+ For thee those pearly treasures drew?
+ Who from yonder orient sky
+ Stole the morning of thine eye?
+
+ Thousand charms, thy form to deck,
+ From sea, and earth, and air are torn;
+ Roses bloom upon thy cheek,
+ On thy breath their fragrance borne.
+ Guard thy bosom from the day,
+ Lest thy snows should melt away.
+
+ But one charm remains behind,
+ Which mute earth can ne'er impart;
+ Nor in ocean wilt thou find,
+ Nor in the circling air, a heart.
+ Fairest! wouldst thou perfect be,
+ Take, oh, take that heart from me.
+
+J. SHAW.
+
+
+
+
+"My Life is Like the Summer Rose."
+
+
+ My life is like the summer rose
+ That opens to the morning sky,
+ But ere the shades of evening close,
+ Is scattered on the ground--to die!
+ Yet on the rose's humble bed
+ The sweetest dews of night are shed,
+ As if she wept the waste to see,--
+ But none shall weep a tear for me!
+
+ My life is like the autumn leaf
+ That trembles in the moon's pale ray;
+ Its hold is frail,--its date is brief,
+ Restless,--and soon to pass away!
+ Yet ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
+ The parent tree will mourn its shade,
+ The winds bewail the leafless tree,--
+ But none shall breathe a sigh for me!
+
+ My life is like the prints which feet
+ Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
+ Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
+ All trace will vanish from the sand;
+ Yet, as if grieving to efface
+ All vestige of the human race,
+ On that lone shore loud moans the sea,--
+ But none, alas! shall mourn for me!
+
+R.H. WILDE.
+
+
+
+
+"O Fairest of the Rural Maids!"
+
+
+ O Fairest of the rural maids!
+ Thy birth was in the forest shades;
+ Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,
+ Were all that met thine infant eye.
+
+ Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,
+ Were ever in the sylvan wild;
+ And all the beauty of the place
+ Is in thy heart and on thy face.
+
+ The twilight of the trees and rocks
+ Is in the light shade of thy locks;
+ Thy step is as the wind, that weaves
+ Its playful way among the leaves.
+
+ Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene
+ And silent waters heaven is seen;
+ Their lashes are the herbs that look
+ On their young figures in the brook.
+
+ The forest depths, by foot unpressed,
+ Are not more sinless than thy breast;
+ The holy peace that fills the air
+ Of those calm solitudes is there.
+
+W.C. BRYANT.
+
+
+
+
+The Bucket.
+
+
+ How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
+ When fond recollection presents them to view!--
+ The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
+ And every loved spot which my infancy knew!
+ The wide-spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it;
+ The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell;
+ The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it;
+ And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well,--
+ The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+ The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.
+
+ That moss-covered vessel I hailed as a treasure;
+ For often at noon, when returned from the field,
+ I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,--
+ The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
+ How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,
+ And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell!
+ Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,
+ And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well,
+ The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+ The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.
+
+ How sweet from the green, mossy brim to receive it,
+ As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips!
+ Not a full, blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
+ The brightest that beauty or revelry sips.
+ And now, far removed from the loved habitation,
+ The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
+ As fancy reverts to my father's plantation,
+ And sighs for the bucket that hangs in the well,--
+ The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
+ The moss-covered bucket that hangs in the well.
+
+S. WOODWORTH.
+
+
+
+
+Annabel Lee.
+
+
+ It was many and many a year ago,
+ In a kingdom by the sea,
+ That a maiden there lived whom you may know
+ By the name of Annabel Lee;
+ And this maiden she lived with no other thought
+ Than to love and be loved by me.
+
+ I was a child and she was a child,
+ In this kingdom by the sea,
+ But we loved with a love that was more than love,
+ I and my Annabel Lee;
+ With a love that the wingèd seraphs of heaven
+ Coveted her and me.
+
+ And this was the reason that, long ago,
+ In this kingdom by the sea,
+ A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
+ My beautiful Annabel Lee;
+ So that her highborn kinsmen came
+ And bore her away from me,
+ To shut her up in a sepulchre
+ In this kingdom by the sea.
+
+ The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
+ Went envying her and me;
+ Yes, that was the reason (as all men know,
+ In this kingdom by the sea)
+ That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
+ Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
+
+ But our love it was stronger by far than the love
+ Of those who were older than we,
+ Of many far wiser than we;
+ And neither the angels in heaven above,
+ Nor the demons down under the sea,
+ Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
+ Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
+
+ For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
+ Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
+ And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
+ Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
+ And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
+ Of my darling,--my darling,--my life and my bride,
+ In her sepulchre there by the sea,
+ In her tomb by the sounding sea.
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+A Health.
+
+
+ I fill this cup to one made up
+ Of loveliness alone,--
+ A woman, of her gentle sex
+ The seeming paragon;
+ To whom the better elements
+ And kindly stars have given
+ A form so fair, that, like the air,
+ 'Tis less of earth than heaven.
+
+ Her every tone is music's own,
+ Like those of morning birds;
+ And something more than melody
+ Dwells ever in her words;
+ The coinage of her heart are they,
+ And from her lips each flows
+ As one may see the burden'd bee
+ Forth issue from the rose.
+
+ Affections are as thoughts to her,
+ The measures of her hours;
+ Her feelings have the fragrancy,
+ The freshness of young flowers;
+ And lovely passions, changing oft,
+ So fill her, she appears
+ The image of themselves by turns,--
+ The idol of past years!
+
+ Of her bright face one glance will trace
+ A picture on the brain;
+ And of her voice in echoing hearts
+ A sound must long remain,
+ But memory, such as mine of her,
+ So very much endears,
+ When death is nigh, my latest sigh
+ Will not be life's, but hers.
+
+ I fill this cup to one made up
+ Of loveliness alone,--
+ A woman, of her gentle sex
+ The seeming paragon.
+ Her health! and would on earth there stood
+ Some more of such a frame,
+ That life might be all poetry,
+ And weariness a name.
+
+E.C. PINKNEY.
+
+
+
+
+A Serenade.
+
+
+ Look out upon the stars, my love,
+ And shame them with thine eyes,
+ On which, than on the lights above,
+ There hang more destinies.
+ Night's beauty is the harmony
+ Of blending shades and light:
+ Then, lady, up,--look out, and be
+ A sister to the night!
+
+ Sleep not!--thine image wakes for aye
+ Within my watching breast;
+ Sleep not!--from her soft sleep should fly,
+ Who robs all hearts of rest.
+ Nay, lady, from thy slumbers break,
+ And make this darkness gay,
+ With looks whose brightness well might make
+ Of darker nights a day.
+
+E.C. PINKNEY.
+
+
+
+
+The City in the Sea.
+
+
+ Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
+ In a strange city lying alone
+ Far down within the dim West,
+ Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
+ Have gone to their eternal rest.
+ There shrines and palaces and towers
+ (Time-eaten towers that tremble not)
+ Resemble nothing that is ours.
+ Around, by lifting winds forgot,
+ Resignedly beneath the sky
+ The melancholy waters lie.
+
+ No rays from the holy heaven come down
+ On the long night-time of that town;
+ But light from out the lurid sea
+ Streams up the turrets silently,
+ Gleams up the pinnacles far and free:
+ Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls,
+ Up fanes, up Babylon-like walls,
+ Up shadowy, long-forgotten bowers
+ Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers,
+ Up many and many a marvellous shrine,
+ Whose wreathèd friezes intertwine
+ The viol, the violet, and the vine.
+
+ Resignedly beneath the sky
+ The melancholy waters lie.
+ So blend the turrets and shadows there
+ That all seem pendulous in air,
+ While from a proud tower in the town
+ Death looks gigantically down.
+
+ There open fanes and gaping graves
+ Yawn level with the luminous waves;
+ But not the riches there that lie
+ In each idol's diamond eye,--
+ Not the gaily-jewelled dead
+ Tempt the waters from their bed;
+ For no ripples curl, alas,
+ Along that wilderness of glass;
+ No swellings tell that winds may be
+ Upon some far-off happier sea;
+ No heavings hint that winds have been
+ On seas less hideously serene!
+
+ But lo, a stir is in the air!
+ The wave--there is a movement there!
+ As if the towers had thrust aside,
+ In slightly sinking, the dull tide;
+ As if their tops had feebly given
+ A void within the filmy Heaven!
+ The waves have now a redder glow,
+ The hours are breathing faint and low;
+ And when, amid no earthly moans,
+ Down, down that town shall settle hence,
+ Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
+ Shall do it reverence.
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+To The Past.
+
+
+ Thou unrelenting Past!
+ Strong are the barriers round thy dark domain,
+ And fetters, sure and fast,
+ Hold all that enter thy unbreathing reign.
+
+ Far in thy realm withdrawn,
+ Old empires sit in sullenness and gloom,
+ And glorious ages gone
+ Lie deep within the shadow of thy womb.
+
+ Childhood, with all its mirth,
+ Youth, Manhood, Age that draws us to the ground,
+ And last, Man's Life on earth,
+ Glide to thy dim dominions, and are bound.
+
+ Thou hast my better years;
+ Thou hast my earlier friends, the good, the kind,
+ Yielded to thee with tears,--
+ The venerable form, the exalted mind.
+
+ My spirit yearns to bring
+ The lost ones back,--yearns with desire intense,
+ And struggles hard to wring
+ Thy bolts apart, and pluck thy captives thence.
+
+ In vain; thy gates deny
+ All passage save to those who hence depart;
+ Nor to the streaming eye
+ Thou giv'st them back,--nor to the broken heart.
+
+ In thy abysses hide
+ Beauty and excellence unknown; to thee
+ Earth's wonder and her pride
+ Are gathered, as the waters to the sea;
+
+ Labors of good to man,
+ Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,
+ Love, that midst grief began,
+ And grew with years, and faltered not in death.
+
+ Full many a mighty name
+ Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered;
+ With thee are silent fame,
+ Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared.
+
+ Thine for a space are they,--
+ Yet shalt thou yield thy treasures up at last!
+ Thy gates shall yet give way,
+ Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past!
+
+ All that of good and fair
+ Has gone into thy womb from earliest time,
+ Shall then come forth, to wear
+ The glory and the beauty of its prime.
+
+ They have not perished,--no!
+ Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet,
+ Smiles, radiant long ago,
+ And features, the great soul's apparent seat;
+
+ All shall come back, each tie
+ Of pure affection shall be knit again;
+ Alone shall Evil die,
+ And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign.
+
+ And then shall I behold
+ Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung,
+ And her, who, still and cold,
+ Fills the next grave,--the beautiful and young.
+
+W.C. BRYANT.
+
+
+
+
+Israfel.
+
+ And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lute, and who
+ has the sweetest voice of all God's creatures.
+
+ --_Koran._
+
+
+ In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
+ Whose heart-strings are a lute;
+ None sing so wildly well
+ As the angel Israfel,
+ And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
+ Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
+ Of his voice, all mute.
+
+ Tottering above
+ In her highest noon,
+ The enamored moon
+ Blushes with love,
+ While, to listen, the red levin
+ (With the rapid Pleiads, even,
+ Which were seven)
+ Pauses in Heaven.
+
+ And they say (the starry choir
+ And the other listening things)
+ That Israfeli's fire
+ Is owing to that lyre
+ By which he sits and sings,--
+ The trembling living wire
+ Of those unusual strings.
+
+ But the skies that angel trod,
+ Where deep thoughts are a duty,
+ Where Love's a grown-up God,
+ Where the Houri glances are
+ Imbued with all the beauty
+ Which we worship in a star.
+
+ Therefore thou art not wrong,
+ Israfeli, who despisest
+ An unimpassioned song;
+ To thee the laurels belong,
+ Best bard, because the wisest:
+ Merrily live, and long!
+
+ The ecstasies above
+ With thy burning measures suit:
+ Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
+ With the fervor of thy lute:
+ Well may the stars be mute!
+
+ Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
+ Is a world of sweets and sours;
+ Our flowers are merely--flowers,
+ And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
+ Is the sunshine of ours.
+
+ If I could dwell
+ Where Israfel
+ Hath dwelt, and he where I,
+ He might not sing so wildly well
+ A mortal melody,
+ While a bolder note than this might swell
+ From my lyre within the sky.
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+Unseen Spirits.
+
+
+ The shadows lay along Broadway,--
+ 'Twas near the twilight-tide,--
+ And slowly there a lady fair
+ Was walking in her pride.
+ Alone walked she; but, viewlessly,
+ Walked spirits at her side.
+
+ Peace charmed the street beneath her feet,
+ And Honor charmed the air;
+ And all astir looked kind on her,
+ And called her good as fair--
+ For all God ever gave to her
+ She kept with chary care.
+
+ She kept with care her beauties rare
+ From lovers warm and true,
+ For her heart was cold to all but gold,
+ And the rich came not to woo;
+ But honored well are charms to sell,
+ If priests the selling do.
+
+ Now walking there was one more fair,--
+ A slight girl, lily-pale;
+ And she had unseen company
+ To make the spirit quail,--
+ 'Twixt Want and Scorn she walked forlorn,
+ And nothing could avail.
+
+ No mercy now can clear her brow
+ For this world's peace to pray;
+ For, as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
+ Her woman's heart gave way!
+ But the sin forgiven by Christ in heaven
+ By man is cursed alway.
+
+N.P. WILLIS.
+
+
+
+
+The Haunted Palace.
+
+
+ In the greenest of our valleys
+ By good angels tenanted,
+ Once a fair and stately palace--
+ Radiant palace--reared its head.
+ In the monarch Thought's dominion,
+ It stood there;
+ Never seraph spread a pinion
+ Over fabric half so fair.
+
+ Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
+ On its roof did float and flow
+ (This--all this--was in the olden
+ Time long ago),
+ And every gentle air that dallied,
+ In that sweet day,
+ Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
+ A wingèd odor went away.
+
+ Wanderers in that happy valley
+ Through two luminous windows saw
+ Spirits moving musically,
+ To a lute's well-tunèd law,
+ Round about a throne where, sitting,
+ Porphyrogene,
+ In state his glory well befitting,
+ The ruler of the realm was seen.
+
+ And all with pearl and ruby glowing
+ Was the fair palace door,
+ Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
+ And sparkling evermore,
+ A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
+ Was but to sing,
+ In voices of surpassing beauty,
+ The wit and wisdom of their king.
+
+ But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
+ Assailed the monarch's high estate;
+ (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
+ Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
+ And round about his home the glory
+ That blushed and bloomed
+ Is but a dim-remembered story
+ Of the old time entombed.
+
+ And travellers now within that valley
+ Through the red-litten windows see
+ Vast forms that move fantastically
+ To a discordant melody;
+ While, like a ghastly rapid river,
+ Through the pale door
+ A hideous throng rush out forever,
+ And laugh--but smile no more.
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+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 painted on 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.
+
+W.C. BRYANT.
+
+
+
+
+To Helen.
+
+
+ Helen, thy beauty is to me
+ Like those Nicæan barks of yore,
+ That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
+ The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
+ To his own native shore.
+
+ On desperate seas long wont to roam,
+ Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
+ Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
+ To the glory that was Greece
+ And the grandeur that was Rome.
+
+ Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
+ How statue-like I see thee stand,
+ The agate lamp within thy hand!
+ Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
+ Are Holy Land!
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+Sparkling and Bright.
+
+
+ Sparkling and bright in liquid light
+ Does the wine our goblets gleam in,
+ With hue as red as the rosy bed
+ Which a bee would choose to dream in.
+ Then fill to-night, with hearts as light,
+ To loves as gay and fleeting
+ As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
+ And break on the lips while meeting.
+
+ Oh! if Mirth might arrest the flight
+ Of Time through Life's dominions,
+ We here awhile would now beguile
+ The graybeard of his pinions,
+ To drink to-night, with hearts as light,
+ To loves as gay and fleeting
+ As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
+ And break on the lips while meeting.
+
+ But since Delight can't tempt the wight,
+ Nor fond Regret delay him,
+ Nor Love himself can hold the elf,
+ Nor sober Friendship stay him,
+ We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light,
+ To loves as gay and fleeting
+ As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim,
+ And break on the lips while meeting.
+
+C.F. HOFFMAN.
+
+
+
+
+To One in Paradise.
+
+
+ Thou wast all that to me, love,
+ For which my soul did pine:
+ A green isle in the sea, love,
+ A fountain and a shrine
+ All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
+ And all the flowers were mine.
+
+ Ah, dream too bright to last!
+ Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
+ But to be overcast!
+ A voice from out the Future cries,
+ "On! on!"--but o'er the Past
+ (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
+ Mute, motionless, aghast.
+
+ For, alas! alas! with me
+ The light of Life is o'er!
+ No more--no more--no more--
+ (Such language holds the solemn sea
+ To the sands upon the shore)
+ Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
+ Or the stricken eagle soar.
+
+ And all my days are trances,
+ And all my nightly dreams
+ Are where thy gray eye glances,
+ And where thy footstep gleams,--
+ In what ethereal dances,
+ By what eternal streams.
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake.
+
+
+ Green be the turf above thee,
+ Friend of my better days!
+ None knew thee but to love thee,
+ Nor named thee but to praise.
+
+ Tears fell when thou wert dying,
+ From eyes unused to weep,
+ And long, where thou art lying,
+ Will tears the cold turf steep.
+
+ When hearts, whose truth was proven,
+ Like thine, are laid in earth,
+ There should a wreath be woven
+ To tell the world their worth;
+
+ And I, who woke each morrow
+ To clasp thy hand in mine,
+ Who shared thy joy and sorrow,
+ Whose weal and woe were thine,
+
+ It should be mine to braid it
+ Around thy faded brow,
+ But I've in vain essayed it,
+ And feel I cannot now.
+
+ While memory bids me weep thee,
+ Nor thoughts nor words are free,
+ The grief is fixed too deeply
+ That mourns a man like thee.
+
+F.G. HALLECK.
+
+
+
+
+The Valley of Unrest.
+
+
+ Once it smiled a silent dell
+ Where the people did not dwell;
+ They had gone unto the wars,
+ Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
+ Nightly, from their azure towers,
+ To keep watch above the flowers,
+ In the midst of which all day
+ The red sunlight lazily lay.
+ Now each visitor shall confess
+ The sad valley's restlessness.
+ Nothing there is motionless,
+ Nothing save the airs that brood
+ Over the magic solitude.
+ Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
+ That palpitate like the chill seas
+ Around the misty Hebrides!
+ Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
+ That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
+ Uneasily, from morn to even,
+ Over the violets there that lie
+ In myriad types of the human eye,
+ Over the lilies there that wave
+ And weep above a nameless grave!
+ They wave:--from out their fragrant tops
+ Eternal dews come down in drops.
+ They weep:--from off their delicate stems
+ Perennial tears descend in gems.
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+To the Fringed Gentian.
+
+
+ Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
+ And colored with the heaven's own blue,
+ That openest when the quiet light
+ Succeeds the keen and frosty night:
+
+ Thou comest not when violets lean
+ O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
+ Or columbines, in purple dressed,
+ Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.
+
+ Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
+ When woods are bare and birds are flown,
+ And frosts and shortening days portend
+ The aged year is near his end.
+
+ Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
+ Look through its fringes to the sky,
+ Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall
+ A flower from its cerulean wall.
+
+ I would that thus, when I shall see
+ The hour of death draw near to me,
+ Hope, blossoming within my heart,
+ May look to heaven as I depart.
+
+W.C. BRYANT.
+
+
+
+
+The Crowded Street.
+
+
+ Let me move slowly through the street,
+ Filled with an ever-shifting train,
+ Amid the sound of steps that beat
+ The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
+
+ How fast the flitting figures come!
+ The mild, the fierce, the stony face,--
+ Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
+ Where secret tears have left their trace.
+
+ They pass--to toil, to strife, to rest;
+ To halls in which the feast is spread;
+ To chambers where the funeral guest
+ In silence sits beside the dead.
+
+ And some to happy homes repair,
+ Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,
+ With mute caresses shall declare
+ The tenderness they cannot speak.
+
+ And some, who walk in calmness here,
+ Shall shudder as they reach the door
+ Where one who made their dwelling dear,
+ Its flower, its light, is seen no more.
+
+ Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame,
+ And dreams of greatness in thine eye!
+ Go'st thou to build an early name,
+ Or early in the task to die?
+
+ Keen son of trade, with eager brow!
+ Who is now fluttering in thy snare?
+ Thy golden fortunes, tower they now,
+ Or melt the glittering spires in air?
+
+ Who of this crowd to-night shall tread
+ The dance till daylight gleam again?
+ Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead?
+ Who writhe in throes of mortal pain?
+
+ Some, famine-struck, shall think how long
+ The cold, dark hours, how slow the light;
+ And some, who flaunt amid the throng,
+ Shall hide in dens of shame to-night.
+
+ Each where his tasks or pleasures call,
+ They pass, and heed each other not.
+ There is who heeds, who holds them all
+ In His large love and boundless thought.
+
+ These struggling tides of life, that seem
+ In wayward, aimless course to tend,
+ Are eddies of the mighty stream
+ That rolls to its appointed end.
+
+W.C. BRYANT.
+
+
+
+
+The Raven.
+
+
+ Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
+ Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,--
+ While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
+ As of some one gently rapping--rapping at my chamber door.
+ "'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door,--
+ Only this, and nothing more."
+
+ Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
+ And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
+ Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow
+ From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore,--
+ For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore,--
+ Nameless here forevermore.
+
+ And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
+ Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
+ So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
+ "'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door,
+ --Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;--
+ This it is, and nothing more."
+
+ Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
+ "Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
+ But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
+ And so faintly you came tapping--tapping at my chamber door,
+ That I scarce was sure I heard you;"--here I opened wide the door:--
+ Darkness there, and nothing more.
+
+ Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
+ Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
+ But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
+ And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
+ This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore:"
+ Merely this, and nothing more.
+
+ Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
+ Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
+ "Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
+ Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore,--
+ Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
+ 'Tis the wind, and nothing more."
+
+ Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
+ In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore.
+ Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
+ But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door--
+ Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door--
+ Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
+
+ Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling
+ By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
+ "Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure
+ no craven,
+ Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore,--
+ Tell, me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
+ Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
+
+ Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
+ Though its answer little meaning--little relevancy bore;
+ For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
+ Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door--
+ Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
+ With such name as "Nevermore."
+
+ But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
+ That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
+ Nothing further then he uttered--not a feather then he fluttered--
+ Till I scarcely more than muttered, "Other friends have flown before--
+ On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
+ Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
+
+ Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
+ "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
+ Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
+ Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore,
+ Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
+ Of 'Never--nevermore.'"
+
+ But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
+ Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;
+ Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
+ Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
+ What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
+ Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
+
+ This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
+ To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
+ This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
+ On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
+ But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er
+ _She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!
+
+ Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
+ Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
+ "Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee--by these angels He hath
+ sent thee
+ Respite--respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!
+ Quaff, oh, quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!"
+ Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
+
+ "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!--
+ Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
+ Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted--
+ On this home by Horror haunted--tell me truly, I implore,--
+ Is there,--_is_ there balm in Gilead?--tell me--tell me, I implore!"
+ Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
+
+ "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil!--prophet still, if bird or devil!
+ By that Heaven that bends above us--by that God we both adore--
+ Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
+ It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
+ Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
+ Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
+
+ "Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked,
+ upstarting,--
+ "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
+ Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
+ Leave my loneliness unbroken!--quit the bust above my door!
+ Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
+ Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
+
+ And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
+ On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
+ And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
+ And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
+ And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
+ Shall be lifted,--nevermore!
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+The Battle-field.
+
+
+ Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
+ Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
+ And fiery hearts and armèd hands
+ Encountered in the battle-cloud.
+
+ Ah! never shall the land forget
+ How gushed the life-blood of her brave,--
+ Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet,
+ Upon the soil they fought to save.
+
+ Now all is calm and fresh and still;
+ Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
+ And talk of children on the hill,
+ And bell of wandering kine are heard.
+
+ No solemn host goes trailing by
+ The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;
+ Men start not at the battle-cry;
+ Oh, be it never heard again!
+
+ Soon rested those who fought; but thou
+ Who minglest in the harder strife
+ For truths which men receive not now,
+ Thy warfare only ends with life.
+
+ A friendless warfare! lingering long
+ Through weary day and weary year;
+ A wild and many-weaponed throng
+ Hang on thy front and flank and rear.
+
+ Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
+ And blench not at thy chosen lot;
+ The timid good may stand aloof,
+ The sage may frown,--yet faint thou not!
+
+ Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
+ The foul and hissing bolt of scorn,
+ For with thy side shall dwell, at last,
+ The victory of endurance born.
+
+ Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
+ The eternal years of God are hers;
+ But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
+ And dies among his worshippers.
+
+ Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
+ When they who helped thee flee in fear,
+ Die full of hope and manly trust,
+ Like those who fell in battle here.
+
+ Another hand thy sword shall wield,
+ Another hand the standard wave,
+ Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed
+ The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.
+
+W.C. BRYANT.
+
+
+
+
+The Sleeper.
+
+
+ At midnight, in the month of June,
+ I stand beneath the mystic moon.
+ An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
+ Exhales from out her golden rim,
+ And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
+ Upon the quiet mountain-top,
+ Steals drowsily and musically
+ Into the universal valley.
+ The rosemary nods upon the grave;
+ The lily lolls upon the wave;
+ Wrapping the fog about its breast,
+ The ruin moulders into rest;
+ Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
+ A conscious slumber seems to take,
+ And would not, for the world, awake.
+ All beauty sleeps!--and lo! where lies
+ Irene, with her destinies!
+
+ O lady bright! can it be right,
+ This window open to the night?
+ The wanton airs from the tree-top
+ Laughingly through the lattice drop;
+ The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
+ Flit through thy chamber in and out,
+ And wave the curtain canopy
+ So fitfully, so fearfully,
+ Above the closed and fringed lid
+ 'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid,
+ That, o'er the floor and down the wall,
+ Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall.
+ O lady dear, hast thou no fear?
+ Why and what art thou dreaming here?
+ Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas,
+ A wonder to these garden trees!
+ Strange is thy pallor; strange thy dress;
+ Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
+ And this all solemn silentness!
+
+ The lady sleeps. Oh, may her sleep,
+ Which is enduring, so be deep!
+ Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
+ This chamber changed for one more holy,
+ This bed for one more melancholy,
+ I pray to God that she may lie
+ Forever with unopened eye,
+ While the pale sheeted ghosts go by.
+
+ My love, she sleeps. Oh, may her sleep,
+ As it is lasting, so be deep!
+ Soft may the worms about her creep!
+ Far in the forest, dim and old,
+ For her may some tall vault unfold:
+ Some vault that oft hath flung its black
+ And wingèd panels fluttering back,
+ Triumphant, o'er the crested palls
+ Of her grand family funerals;
+ Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
+ Against whose portal she hath thrown,
+ In childhood, many an idle stone;
+ Some tomb from out whose sounding door
+ She ne'er shall force an echo more,
+ Thrilling to think, poor child of sin,
+ It was the dead who groaned within!
+
+E.A. POE.
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK SECOND.
+
+
+
+
+Nature.
+
+
+ As a fond mother, when the day is o'er,
+ Leads by the hand her little child to bed,
+ Half willing, half reluctant to be led,
+ And leave his broken playthings on the floor,
+ Still gazing at them through the open door,
+ Nor wholly reassured and comforted
+ By promises of others in their stead,
+ Which, though more splendid, may not please him more,--
+ So Nature deals with us, and takes away
+ Our playthings one by one, and by the hand
+ Leads us to rest so gently, that we go
+ Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay,
+ Being too full of sleep to understand
+ How far the unknown transcends the what we know.
+
+H.W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+Hebe.
+
+
+ I saw the twinkle of white feet,
+ I saw the flash of robes descending;
+ Before her ran an influence fleet,
+ That bowed my heart like barley bending.
+
+ As, in bare fields, the searching bees
+ Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,
+ It led me on, by sweet degrees
+ Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.
+
+ Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates;
+ With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;
+ The long-sought Secret's golden gates
+ On musical hinges swung before me.
+
+ I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp
+ Thrilling with godhood; like a lover
+ I sprang the proffered life to clasp;--
+ The beaker fell; the luck was over.
+
+ The Earth has drunk the vintage up;
+ What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?
+ Can Summer fill the icy cup,
+ Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's?
+
+ O spendthrift haste! await the Gods;
+ Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience;
+ Haste scatters on unthankful sods
+ The immortal gift in vain libations.
+
+ Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,
+ And shuns the hands would seize upon her;
+ Follow thy life, and she will sue
+ To pour for thee the cup of honor.
+
+J.R. LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+The Day is Done.
+
+
+ The day is done, and the darkness
+ Falls from the wings of Night,
+ As a feather is wafted downward
+ From an eagle in his flight.
+
+ I see the lights of the village
+ Gleam through the rain and the mist,
+ And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
+ That my soul cannot resist:
+
+ A feeling of sadness and longing,
+ That is not akin to pain,
+ And resembles sorrow only
+ As the mist resembles the rain.
+
+ Come, read to me some poem,
+ Some simple and heartfelt lay,
+ That shall soothe this restless feeling,
+ And banish the thoughts of day.
+
+ Not from the grand old masters,
+ Not from the bards sublime,
+ Whose distant footsteps echo
+ Through the corridors of Time.
+
+ For, like strains of martial music,
+ Their mighty thoughts suggest
+ Life's endless toil and endeavor;
+ And to-night I long for rest.
+
+ Read from some humbler poet,
+ Whose songs gushed from his heart,
+ As showers from the clouds of summer,
+ Or tears from the eyelids start;
+
+ Who, through long days of labor,
+ And nights devoid of ease,
+ Still heard in his soul the music
+ Of wonderful melodies.
+
+ Such songs have power to quiet
+ The restless pulse of care,
+ And come like the benediction
+ That follows after prayer.
+
+ Then read from the treasured volume
+ The poem of thy choice,
+ And lend to the rhyme of the poet
+ The beauty of thy voice.
+
+ And the night shall be filled with music,
+ And the cares that infest the day
+ Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
+ And as silently steal away.
+
+H.W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+Ichabod.
+
+
+ So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
+ Which once he wore!
+ The glory from his gray hairs gone
+ Forevermore!
+
+ Revile him not,--the Tempter hath
+ A snare for all;
+ And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
+ Befit his fall!
+
+ Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage,
+ When he who might
+ Have lighted up and led his age,
+ Falls back in night.
+
+ Scorn! would the angels laugh, to mark
+ A bright soul driven,
+ Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark,
+ From hope and heaven!
+
+ Let not the land once proud of him
+ Insult him now,
+ Nor brand with deeper shame his dim,
+ Dishonored brow.
+
+ But let its humbled sons, instead,
+ From sea to lake,
+ A long lament, as for the dead,
+ In sadness make.
+
+ Of all we loved and honored, naught
+ Save power remains,--
+ A fallen angel's pride of thought,
+ Still strong in chains.
+
+ All else is gone; from those great eyes
+ The soul has fled:
+ When faith is lost, when honor dies.
+ The man is dead!
+
+ Then, pay the reverence of old days
+ To his dead fame;
+ Walk backward, with averted gaze,
+ And hide the shame!
+
+J.G. WHITTIER.
+
+
+
+
+Sir Humphrey Gilbert.
+
+
+ Southward with fleet of ice
+ Sailed the corsair Death;
+ Wild and fast blew the blast,
+ And the east-wind was his breath.
+
+ His lordly ships of ice
+ Glisten in the sun;
+ On each side, like pennons wide,
+ Flashing crystal streamlets run.
+
+ His sails of white sea-mist
+ Dripped with silver rain;
+ But where he passed there were cast
+ Leaden shadows o'er the main.
+
+ Eastward from Campobello
+ Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
+ Three days or more seaward he bore,
+ Then, alas! the land-wind failed.
+
+ Alas! the land-wind failed,
+ And ice-cold grew the night;
+ And nevermore, on sea or shore,
+ Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
+
+ He sat upon the deck,
+ The Book was in his hand;
+ "Do not fear! Heaven is as near,"
+ He said, "by water as by land!"
+
+ In the first watch of the night,
+ Without a signal's sound,
+ Out of the sea, mysteriously,
+ The fleet of Death rose all around.
+
+ The moon and the evening star
+ Were hanging in the shrouds;
+ Every mast, as it passed,
+ Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
+
+ They grappled with their prize,
+ At midnight black and cold!
+ As of a rock was the shock;
+ Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
+
+ Southward through day and dark,
+ They drift in close embrace,
+ With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
+ Yet there seems no change of place.
+
+ Southward, forever southward,
+ They drift through dark and day;
+ And like a dream, in the Gulf Stream
+ Sinking, vanish all away.
+
+H.W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+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.
+
+R.W. EMERSON.
+
+
+
+
+To America.
+
+
+ What, cringe to Europe! Band it all in one,
+ Stilt its decrepit strength, renew its age,
+ Wipe out its debts, contract a loan to wage
+ Its venal battles,--and, by yon bright sun,
+ Our God is false, and liberty undone,
+ If slaves have power to win your heritage!
+ Look on your country, God's appointed stage,
+ Where man's vast mind its boundless course shall run:
+ For that it was your stormy coast He spread--
+ A fear in winter; girded you about
+ With granite hills, and made you strong and dread.
+ Let him who fears before the foemen shout,
+ Or gives an inch before a vein has bled,
+ Turn on himself, and let the traitor out!
+
+G.H. BOKER.
+
+
+
+
+Old Ironsides.
+
+
+ Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
+ Long has it waved on high,
+ And many an eye has danced to see
+ That banner in the sky;
+ Beneath it rung the battle shout,
+ And burst the cannon's roar;--
+ The meteor of the ocean air
+ Shall sweep the clouds no more.
+
+ Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
+ Where knelt the vanquished foe,
+ When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
+ And waves were white below,
+ No more shall feel the victor's tread,
+ Or know the conquered knee;
+ The harpies of the shore shall pluck
+ The eagle of the sea!
+
+ Oh, better that her shattered hulk
+ Should sink beneath the wave!
+ Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
+ And there should be her grave;
+
+ Nail to the mast her holy flag,
+ Set every threadbare sail,
+ And give her to the god of storms,
+ The lightning, and the gale!
+
+O.W. HOLMES.
+
+
+
+
+To England.
+
+
+I.
+
+ Lear and Cordelia! 'twas an ancient tale
+ Before thy Shakespeare gave it deathless fame;
+ The times have changed, the moral is the same.
+ So like an outcast, dowerless and pale,
+ Thy daughter went; and in a foreign gale
+ Spread her young banner, till its sway became
+ A wonder to the nations. Days of shame
+ Are close upon thee; prophets raise their wail.
+ When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand
+ Points his long spear across the narrow sea,--
+ "Lo! there is England!" when thy destiny
+ Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand
+ Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word in the land,--
+ God grant thy daughter a Cordelia be!
+
+ [1852.]
+
+
+II.
+
+ Stand, thou great bulwark of man's liberty!
+ Thou rock of shelter, rising from the wave,
+ Sole refuge to the overwearied brave
+ Who planned, arose, and battled to be free,
+ Fell, undeterred, then sadly turned to thee,
+ Saved the free spirit from their country's grave,
+ To rise again, and animate the slave,
+ When God shall ripen all things. Britons, ye
+ Who guard the sacred outpost, not in vain
+ Hold your proud peril! Freemen undefiled,
+ Keep watch and ward! Let battlements be piled
+ Around your cliffs; fleets marshalled, till the main
+ Sink under them; and if your courage wane,
+ Through force or fraud, look westward to your child!
+
+ [1853.]
+
+G.H. BOKER.
+
+
+
+
+The Wreck of the Hesperus.
+
+
+ It was the schooner Hesperus,
+ That sailed the wintry sea;
+ And the skipper had taken his little daughtèr,
+ To bear him company.
+
+ Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
+ Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
+ And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
+ That ope in the month of May.
+
+ The skipper he stood beside the helm,
+ His pipe was in his mouth,
+ And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
+ The smoke now West, now South.
+
+ Then up and spake an old Sailòr,
+ Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
+ "I pray thee, put into yonder port,
+ For I fear a hurricane.
+
+ "Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
+ And to-night no moon we see!"
+ The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
+ And a scornful laugh laughed he.
+
+ Colder and louder blew the wind,
+ A gale from the Northeast,
+ The snow fell hissing in the brine,
+ And the billows frothed like yeast.
+
+ Down came the storm, and smote amain
+ The vessel in its strength;
+ She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
+ Then leaped her cable's length.
+
+ "Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
+ And do not tremble so;
+ For I can weather the roughest gale
+ That ever wind did blow."
+
+ He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
+ Against the stinging blast;
+ He cut a rope from a broken spar,
+ And bound her to the mast.
+
+ "O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
+ Oh, say, what may it be?"
+ "'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"--
+ And he steered for the open sea.
+
+ "O father! I hear the sound of guns,
+ Oh, say, what may it be?"
+ "Some ship in distress, that cannot live
+ In such an angry sea!"
+
+ "O father! I see a gleaming light,
+ Oh, say, what may it be?"
+ But the father answered never a word,
+ A frozen corpse was he.
+
+ Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
+ With his face turned to the skies,
+ The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
+ On his fixed and glassy eyes.
+
+ Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
+ That savèd she might be;
+ And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
+ On the Lake of Galilee.
+
+ And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
+ Through the whistling sleet and snow,
+ Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
+ Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.
+
+ And ever the fitful gusts between
+ A sound came from the land;
+ It was the sound of the trampling surf
+ On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
+
+ The breakers were right beneath her bows,
+ She drifted a dreary wreck,
+ And a whooping billow swept the crew
+ Like icicles from her deck.
+
+ She struck where the white and fleecy waves
+ Looked soft as carded wool,
+ But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
+ Like the horns of an angry bull.
+
+ Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
+ With the masts went by the board;
+ Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
+ Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
+
+ At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
+ A fisherman stood aghast,
+ To see the form of a maiden fair,
+ Lashed close to a drifting mast.
+
+ The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
+ The salt tears in her eyes;
+ And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
+ On the billows fall and rise.
+
+ Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
+ In the midnight and the snow!
+ Christ save us all from a death like this,
+ On the reef of Norman's Woe!
+
+H.W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+Bedouin Song.
+
+
+ From the Desert I come to thee
+ On a stallion shod with fire,
+ And the winds are left behind
+ In the speed of my desire.
+ Under thy window I stand,
+ And the midnight hears my cry:
+ I love thee, I love but thee,
+ With a love that shall not die
+ _Till the sun grows cold,_
+ _And the stars are old,_
+ _And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!_
+
+ Look from thy window and see
+ My passion and my pain;
+ I lie on the sands below,
+ And I faint in thy disdain.
+ Let the night-winds touch thy brow
+ With the heat of my burning sigh,
+ And melt thee to hear the vow
+ Of a love that shall not die
+ _Till the sun grows cold,_
+ _And the stars are old,_
+ _And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!_
+
+ My steps are nightly driven,
+ By the fever in my breast,
+ To hear from thy lattice breathed
+ The word that shall give me rest.
+ Open the door of thy heart,
+ And open thy chamber door,
+ And my kisses shall teach thy lips
+ The love that shall fade no more
+ _Till the sun grows cold,_
+ _And the stars are old,_
+ _And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!_
+
+B. TAYLOR.
+
+
+
+
+Skipper Ireson's Ride.
+
+
+ Of all the rides since the birth of time,
+ Told in story or sung in rhyme,--
+ On Apuleius's Golden Ass,
+ Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass,
+ Witch astride of a human back,
+ Islam's prophet on Al-Borak,--
+ The strangest ride that ever was sped
+ Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead!
+ Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
+ Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
+ By the women of Marblehead!
+
+ Body of turkey, head of owl,
+ Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl,
+ Feathered and ruffled in every part,
+ Skipper Ireson stood in the cart.
+ Scores of women, old and young,
+ Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue,
+ Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane,
+ Shouting and singing the shrill refrain:
+ "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
+ Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
+ By the women o' Morble'ead!"
+
+ Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips,
+ Girls in bloom of cheek and lips,
+ Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase
+ Bacchus round some antique vase,
+ Brief of skirt, with ankles bare,
+ Loose of kerchief and loose of hair,
+ With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang,
+ Over and over the Mænads sang:
+ "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
+ Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
+ By the women o' Morble'ead!"
+
+ Small pity for him!--He sailed away
+ From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay,--
+ Sailed away from a sinking wreck,
+ With his own town's-people on her deck!
+ "Lay by! lay by!" they called to him.
+ Back he answered, "Sink or swim!
+ Brag of your catch of fish again!"
+ And off he sailed through the fog and rain!
+ Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
+ Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
+ By the women of Marblehead!
+
+ Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur
+ That wreck shall lie forevermore.
+ Mother and sister, wife and maid,
+ Looked from the rocks of Marblehead
+ Over the moaning and rainy sea,--
+ Looked for the coming that might not be!
+ What did the winds and the sea-birds say
+ Of the cruel captain who sailed away?--
+ Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
+ Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
+ By the women of Marblehead!
+
+ Through the street, on either side,
+ Up flew windows, doors swung wide;
+ Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray,
+ Treble lent the fish-horn's bray.
+ Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound,
+ Hulks of old sailors run aground,
+ Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane,
+ And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain:
+ "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
+ Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
+ By the women o' Morble'ead!"
+
+ Sweetly along the Salem road
+ Bloom of orchard and lilac showed.
+ Little the wicked skipper knew
+ Of the fields so green and the sky so blue.
+ Riding there in his sorry trim,
+ Like an Indian idol glum and grim,
+ Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear
+ Of voices shouting, far and near:
+ "Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt,
+ Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt
+ By the women o' Morble'ead!"
+
+ "Hear me, neighbors!" at last he cried,--
+ "What to me is this noisy ride?
+ What is the shame that clothes the skin
+ To the nameless horror that lives within?
+ Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck,
+ And hear a cry from a reeling deck!
+ Hate me and curse me,--I only dread
+ The hand of God and the face of the dead!"
+ Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
+ Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
+ By the women of Marblehead!
+
+ Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea
+ Said, "God has touched him! Why should we?"
+ Said an old wife, mourning her only son:
+ "Cut the rogue's tether and let him run!"
+ So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
+ Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
+ And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
+ And left him alone with his shame and sin.
+ Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
+ Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
+ By the women of Marblehead!
+
+J.G. WHITTIER.
+
+
+
+
+The Village Blacksmith.
+
+
+ Under a spreading chestnut-tree
+ The village smithy stands;
+ The smith, a mighty man is he,
+ With large and sinewy hands;
+ And the muscles of his brawny arms
+ Are strong as iron bands.
+
+ His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
+ His face is like the tan;
+ His brow is wet with honest sweat,
+ He earns whate'er he can,
+ And looks the whole world in the face,
+ For he owes not any man.
+
+ Week in, week out, from morn till night,
+ You can hear his bellows blow;
+ You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
+ With measured beat and slow,
+ Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
+ When the evening sun is low.
+
+ And children coming home from school
+ Look in at the open door;
+ They love to see the flaming forge,
+ And hear the bellows roar,
+ And catch the burning sparks that fly
+ Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
+
+ He goes on Sunday to the church,
+ And sits among his boys;
+ He hears the parson pray and preach,
+ He hears his daughter's voice,
+ Singing in the village choir,
+ And it makes his heart rejoice.
+
+ It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
+ Singing in Paradise!
+ He needs must think of her once more,
+ How in the grave she lies;
+ And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
+ A tear out of his eyes.
+
+ Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,
+ Onward through life he goes;
+ Each morning sees some task begin,
+ Each evening sees it close;
+ Something attempted, something done.
+ Has earned a night's repose.
+
+ Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
+ For the lesson thou hast taught!
+ Thus at the flaming forge of life
+ Our fortunes must be wrought;
+ Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
+ Each burning deed and thought.
+
+H.W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+The Last Leaf.
+
+
+ I saw him once before,
+ As he passed by the door,
+ And again
+ The pavement stones resound,
+ As he totters o'er the ground
+ With his cane.
+
+ They say that in his prime,
+ Ere the pruning-knife of Time
+ Cut him down,
+ Not a better man was found
+ By the crier on his round
+ Through the town.
+
+ But now he walks the streets,
+ And he looks at all he meets
+ Sad and wan,
+ And he shakes his feeble head,
+ That it seems as if he said,
+ "They are gone."
+
+ The mossy marbles rest
+ On the lips that he has pressed
+ In their bloom,
+ And the names he loved to hear
+ Have been carved for many a year
+ On the tomb.
+
+ My grandmamma has said--
+ Poor old lady, she is dead
+ Long ago--
+ That he had a Roman nose,
+ And his cheek was like a rose
+ In the snow.
+
+ But now his nose is thin,
+ And it rests upon his chin
+ Like a staff,
+ And a crook is in his back,
+ And a melancholy crack
+ In his laugh.
+
+ I know it is a sin
+ For me to sit and grin
+ At him here;
+ But the old three-cornered hat,
+ And the breeches, and all that,
+ Are so queer!
+
+ And if I should live to be
+ The last leaf upon the tree
+ In the spring,
+ Let them smile, as I do now,
+ At the old, forsaken bough
+ Where I cling.
+
+O.W. HOLMES.
+
+
+
+
+The Old Kentucky Home.
+
+A NEGRO MELODY.
+
+
+ The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky Home;
+ 'Tis summer, the darkies are gay;
+ The corn-top's ripe, and the meadow's in the bloom,
+ While the birds make music all the day.
+ The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
+ All merry, all happy and bright;
+ By-'n'-by hard times comes a-knocking at the door,--
+ Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!
+
+ Weep no more, my lady,
+ Oh, weep no more to-day!
+ We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
+ For the old Kentucky Home, far away.
+
+ They hunt no more for the possum and the coon,
+ On the meadow, the hill, and the shore;
+ They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
+ On the bench by the old cabin door.
+ The day goes by like a shadow o'er the heart,
+ With sorrow, where all was delight;
+ The time has come when the darkies have to part,--
+ Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!
+
+ The head must bow, and the back will have to bend,
+ Wherever the darkey may go;
+ A few more days, and the trouble all will end,
+ In the field where the sugar-canes grow.
+ A few more days for to tote the weary load,--
+ No matter, 'twill never be light;
+ A few more days till we totter on the road,--
+ Then my old Kentucky Home, good-night!
+
+ Weep no more, my lady,
+ Oh, weep no more to-day!
+ We will sing one song for the old Kentucky Home,
+ For the old Kentucky Home, far away.
+
+S.C. FOSTER.
+
+
+
+
+The Black Regiment.
+
+Port Hudson, May 27, 1863.
+
+
+ Dark as the clouds of even,
+ Ranked in the western heaven,
+ Waiting the breath that lifts
+ All the dread mass, and drifts
+ Tempest and falling brand
+ Over a ruined land;--
+ So still and orderly,
+ Arm to arm, knee to knee,
+ Waiting the great event,
+ Stands the black regiment.
+
+ Down the long, dusky line
+ Teeth gleam, and eyeballs shine;
+ And the bright bayonet,
+ Bristling and firmly set,
+ Flashed with a purpose grand,
+ Long ere the sharp command
+ Of the fierce rolling drum
+ Told them their time had come,
+ Told them what work was sent
+ For the black regiment.
+
+ "Now," the flag-sergeant cried,
+ "Though death and hell betide,
+ Let the whole nation see
+ If we are fit to be
+ Free in this land; or bound
+ Down, like the whining hound,--
+ Bound with red stripes of pain
+ In our old chains again!"
+ Oh, what a shout there went
+ From the black regiment!
+
+ "Charge!" Trump and drum awoke,
+ Onward the bondmen broke;
+ Bayonet and sabre-stroke
+ Vainly opposed their rush.
+ Through the wild battle's crush,
+ With but one thought aflush,
+ Driving their lords like chaff,
+ In the guns' mouths they laugh;
+ Or at the slippery brands
+ Leaping with open hands,
+ Down they tear man and horse,
+ Down in their awful course;
+ Trampling with bloody heel
+ Over the crashing steel,
+ All their eyes forward bent,
+ Rushed the black regiment.
+
+ "Freedom!" their battle-cry,--
+ "Freedom! or leave to die!"
+ Ah! and they meant the word,
+ Not as with us 'tis heard,
+ Not a mere party shout;
+ They gave their spirits out,
+ Trusted the end to God,
+ And on the gory sod
+ Rolled in triumphant blood.
+ Glad to strike one free blow,
+ Whether for weal or woe;
+ Glad to breathe one free breath,
+ Though on the lips of death;
+ Praying--alas! in vain!--
+ That they might fall again,
+ So they could once more see
+ That burst to liberty!
+ This was what "freedom" lent
+ To the black regiment.
+
+ Hundreds on hundreds fell;
+ But they are resting well;
+ Scourges and shackles strong
+ Never shall do them wrong.
+ Oh, to the living few,
+ Soldiers, be just and true!
+ Hail them as comrades tried;
+ Fight with them side by side;
+ Never, in field or tent,
+ Scorn the black regiment.
+
+G.H. BOKER.
+
+
+
+
+Carolina.
+
+
+ The despot treads thy sacred sands,
+ Thy pines give shelter to his bands,
+ Thy sons stand by with idle hands,
+ Carolina!
+ He breathes at ease thy airs of balm,
+ He scorns the lances of thy palm;
+ Oh! who shall break thy craven calm,
+ Carolina!
+ Thy ancient fame is growing dim,
+ A spot is on thy garment's rim;
+ Give to the winds thy battle-hymn,
+ Carolina!
+
+ Call on thy children of the hill,
+ Wake swamp and river, coast and rill,
+ Rouse all thy strength and all thy skill,
+ Carolina!
+ Cite wealth and science, trade and art,
+ Touch with thy fire the cautious mart,
+ And pour thee through the people's heart,
+ Carolina!
+ Till even the coward spurns his fears,
+ And all thy fields, and fens, and meres
+ Shall bristle like thy palm with spears,
+ Carolina!
+
+ I hear a murmur as of waves
+ That grope their way through sunless caves,
+ Like bodies struggling in their graves,
+ Carolina!
+ And now it deepens; slow and grand
+ It swells, as, rolling to the land,
+ An ocean broke upon thy strand,
+ Carolina!
+ Shout! Let it reach the startled Huns!
+ And roar with all thy festal guns!
+ It is the answer of thy sons,
+ Carolina!
+
+H. TIMROD.
+
+
+
+
+Dirge for a Soldier.
+
+
+ Close his eyes; his work is done!
+ What to him is friend or foeman,
+ Rise of moon, or set of sun,
+ Hand of man, or kiss of woman?
+ Lay him low, lay him low,
+ In the clover or the snow!
+ What cares he? He cannot know;
+ Lay him low!
+
+ As man may, he fought his fight,
+ Proved his truth by his endeavor;
+ Let him sleep in solemn night,
+ Sleep forever and forever.
+ Lay him low, lay him low,
+ In the clover or the snow!
+ What cares he? He cannot know;
+ Lay him low!
+
+ Fold him in his country's stars,
+ Roll the drum and fire the volley!
+ What to him are all our wars,
+ What but death bemocking folly?
+ Lay him low, lay him low,
+ In the clover or the snow!
+ What cares he? He cannot know;
+ Lay him low!
+
+ Leave him to God's watching eye;
+ Trust him to the hand that made him.
+ Mortal love weeps idly by;
+ God alone has power to aid him.
+ Lay him low, lay him low,
+ In the clover or the snow!
+ What cares he? He cannot know!
+ Lay him low!
+
+G.H. BOKER.
+
+
+
+
+Battle-hymn of the Republic.
+
+
+ Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
+ He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
+ He hath loosed the fatal lightning of His terrible swift sword:
+ His truth is marching on.
+
+ I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
+ They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
+ I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
+ His day is marching on.
+
+ I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
+ "As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;
+ Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel!
+ Since God is marching on."
+
+ He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
+ He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
+ Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
+ Our God is marching on.
+
+ In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea,
+ With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
+ As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
+ While God is marching on.
+
+J.W. HOWE.
+
+
+
+
+Farragut.
+
+
+ Farragut, Farragut,
+ Old Heart of Oak,
+ Daring Dave Farragut,
+ Thunderbolt stroke,
+ Watches the hoary mist
+ Lift from the bay,
+ Till his flag, glory-kissed,
+ Greets the young day.
+
+ Far, by gray Morgan's walls,
+ Looms the black fleet.
+ Hark, deck to rampart calls
+ With the drums' beat!
+ Buoy your chains overboard,
+ While the steam hums;
+ Men! to the battlement,
+ Farragut comes.
+
+ See, as the hurricane
+ Hurtles in wrath
+ Squadrons of clouds amain
+ Back from its path!
+ Back to the parapet,
+ To the guns' lips,
+ Thunderbolt Farragut
+ Hurls the black ships.
+
+ Now through the battle's roar
+ Clear the boy sings,
+ "By the mark fathoms four,"
+ While his lead swings.
+ Steady the wheelmen five
+ "Nor' by east keep her,"
+ "Steady," but two alive:
+ How the shells sweep her!
+
+ Lashed to the mast that sways
+ Over red decks,
+ Over the flame that plays
+ Round the torn wrecks,
+ Over the dying lips
+ Framed for a cheer,
+ Farragut leads his ships,
+ Guides the line clear.
+
+ On by heights cannon-browed,
+ While the spars quiver;
+ Onward still flames the cloud
+ Where the hulks shiver.
+ See, yon fort's star is set,
+ Storm and fire past.
+ Cheer him, lads,--Farragut,
+ Lashed to the mast!
+
+ Oh! while Atlantic's breast
+ Bears a white sail,
+ While the Gulf's towering crest
+ Tops a green vale;
+ Men thy bold deeds shall tell,
+ Old Heart of Oak,
+ Daring Dave Farragut,
+ Thunderbolt stroke!
+
+W.T. MEREDITH.
+
+
+
+
+My Maryland.
+
+
+ The despot's heel is on thy shore,
+ Maryland!
+ His torch is at thy temple door,
+ Maryland!
+ Avenge the patriotic gore
+ That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
+ And be the battle-queen of yore,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ Hark to an exiled son's appeal,
+ Maryland!
+ My Mother State, to thee I kneel,
+ Maryland!
+ For life and death, for woe and weal,
+ Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
+ And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
+ Maryland!
+ Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
+ Maryland!
+ Remember Carroll's sacred trust,
+ Remember Howard's warlike thrust,
+ And all thy slumberers with the just,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ Come! 'tis the red dawn of the day,
+ Maryland!
+ Come with thy panoplied array,
+ Maryland!
+ With Ringgold's spirit for the fray,
+ With Watson's blood at Monterey,
+ With fearless Lowe and dashing May,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ Dear Mother, burst the tyrant's chain,
+ Maryland!
+ Virginia should not call in vain,
+ Maryland!
+ She meets her sisters on the plain,--
+ _"Sic semper!"_ 'tis the proud refrain
+ That baffles minions back amain,
+ Maryland!
+ Arise in majesty again,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
+ Maryland!
+ Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
+ Maryland!
+ Come to thine own heroic throng
+ Stalking with Liberty along,
+ And chant thy dauntless slogan-song,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ I see the blush upon thy cheek,
+ Maryland!
+ For thou wast ever bravely meek,
+ Maryland!
+ But lo! there surges forth a shriek,
+ From hill to hill, from creek to creek,
+ Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll,
+ Maryland!
+ Thou wilt not crook to his control,
+ Maryland!
+ Better the fire upon thee roll,
+ Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
+ Than crucifixion of the soul,
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+ I hear the distant thunder-hum,
+ Maryland!
+ The old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,
+ Maryland!
+ She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb;
+ Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!
+ She breathes! She burns! She'll come!
+ She'll come!
+ Maryland, my Maryland!
+
+J.R. RANDALL.
+
+
+
+
+After All.[1]
+
+
+ The apples are ripe in the orchard,
+ The work of the reaper is done,
+ And the golden woodlands redden
+ In the blood of the dying sun.
+
+ At the cottage door the grandsire
+ Sits, pale, in his easy-chair,
+ While a gentle wind of twilight
+ Plays with his silver hair.
+
+ A woman is kneeling beside him;
+ A fair young head is prest,
+ In the first wild passion of sorrow,
+ Against his aged breast.
+
+ And far from over the distance
+ The faltering echoes come,
+ Of the flying blast of trumpet,
+ And the rattling roll of drum.
+
+ And the grandsire speaks in a whisper:
+ "The end no man can see;
+ But we give him to his country,
+ And we give our prayers to Thee."
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ The violets star the meadows,
+ The rose-buds fringe the door,
+ And over the grassy orchard
+ The pink-white blossoms pour.
+
+ But the grandsire's chair is empty,
+ The cottage is dark and still,
+ There's a nameless grave in the battle-field,
+ And a new one under the hill.
+
+ And a pallid, tearless woman
+ By the cold hearth sits alone,
+ And the old clock in the corner
+ Ticks on with a steady drone.
+
+WILLIAM WINTER.
+
+
+
+[1] From "Wanderers," copyright, 1892, by Macmillan and Co.
+
+
+
+
+The Song of the Camp.
+
+
+ "Give us a song!" the soldiers cried,
+ The outer trenches guarding,
+ When the heated guns of the camps allied
+ Grew weary of bombarding.
+
+ The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
+ Lay grim and threatening under;
+ And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
+ No longer belch'd its thunder.
+
+ There was a pause. A guardsman said:
+ "We storm the forts to-morrow;
+ Sing while we may, another day
+ Will bring enough of sorrow."
+
+ They lay along the battery's side,
+ Below the smoking cannon:
+ Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde,
+ And from the banks of Shannon.
+
+ They sang of love, and not of fame;
+ Forgot was Britain's glory:
+ Each heart recall'd a different name,
+ But all sang "Annie Laurie."
+
+ Voice after voice caught up the song,
+ Until its tender passion
+ Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,--
+ Their battle-eve confession.
+
+ Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
+ But as the song grew louder,
+ Something upon the soldier's cheek
+ Washed off the stains of powder.
+
+ Beyond the darkening ocean burn'd
+ The bloody sunset's embers,
+ While the Crimean valleys learn'd
+ How English love remembers.
+
+ And once again a fire of hell
+ Rain'd on the Russian quarters,
+ With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
+ And bellowing of the mortars!
+
+ And Irish Nora's eyes are dim
+ For a singer dumb and gory;
+ And English Mary mourns for him
+ Who sang of "Annie Laurie."
+
+ Sleep, soldiers! still in honor'd rest
+ Your truth and valor wearing:
+ The bravest are the tenderest,--
+ The loving are the daring.
+
+B. TAYLOR.
+
+
+
+
+In the Hospital.
+
+
+ I lay me down to sleep,
+ With little thought or care
+ Whether my waking find
+ Me here or there.
+
+ A bowing, burdened head,
+ That only asks to rest,
+ Unquestioning, upon
+ A loving breast.
+
+ My good right hand forgets
+ Its cunning now.
+ To march the weary march
+ I know not how.
+
+ I am not eager, bold,
+ Nor strong--all that is past;
+ I am ready not to do
+ At last, at last.
+
+ My half day's work is done,
+ And this is all my part;
+ I give a patient God
+ My patient heart,
+
+ And grasp His banner still,
+ Though all its blue be dim;
+ These stripes, no less than stars,
+ Lead after Him.
+
+M.W. HOWLAND.
+
+
+
+
+Under the Violets.
+
+
+ Her hands are cold; her face is white;
+ No more her pulses come and go;
+ Her eyes are shut to life and light;--
+ Fold the white vesture, snow on snow,
+ And lay her where the violets blow.
+
+ But not beneath a graven stone,
+ To plead for tears with alien eyes;
+ A slender cross of wood alone
+ Shall say, that here a maiden lies
+ In peace beneath the peaceful skies.
+
+ And gray old trees of hugest limb
+ Shall wheel their circling shadows round
+ To make the scorching sunlight dim
+ That drinks the greenness from the ground,
+ And drop their dead leaves on her mound.
+
+ When o'er their boughs the squirrels run,
+ And through their leaves the robins call,
+ And, ripening in the autumn sun,
+ The acorns and the chestnuts fall,
+ Doubt not that she will heed them all.
+
+ For her the morning choir shall sing
+ Its matins from the branches high,
+ And every minstrel voice of Spring,
+ That trills beneath the April sky,
+ Shall greet her with its earliest cry.
+
+ When, turning round their dial-track,
+ Eastward the lengthening shadows pass,
+ Her little mourners, clad in black,
+ The crickets, sliding through the grass,
+ Shall pipe for her an evening mass.
+
+ At last the rootlets of the trees
+ Shall find the prison where she lies,
+ And bear the buried dust they seize
+ In leaves and blossoms to the skies.
+ So may the soul that warmed it rise!
+
+ If any, born of kindlier blood,
+ Should ask, What maiden lies below?
+ Say only this: A tender bud,
+ That tried to blossom in the snow,
+ Lies withered where the violets blow.
+
+O.W. HOLMES.
+
+
+
+
+Days.
+
+
+ Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
+ Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
+ And marching single in an endless file,
+ Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
+ To each they offer gifts after his will,
+ Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
+ I, in my pleachèd garden, watched the pomp,
+ Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
+ Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
+ Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
+ Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
+
+R.W. EMERSON.
+
+
+
+
+Song.[2]
+
+
+ You know the old Hidalgo
+ (His box is next to ours),
+ Who threw the Prima Donna
+ The wreath of orange-flowers;
+ He owns the half of Aragon,
+ With mines beyond the main;
+ A very ancient nobleman,
+ And gentleman of Spain.
+
+ They swear that I must wed him,
+ In spite of yea or nay,
+ Though uglier than the Scaramouch,
+ The spectre in the play;
+ But I will sooner die a maid
+ Than wear a gilded chain,
+ For all the ancient noblemen
+ And gentlemen of Spain!
+
+R.H. STODDARD.
+
+
+
+[2] From "The Poems of R.H. Stoddard," copyright, 1880, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+Aladdin.
+
+
+ When I was a beggarly boy,
+ And lived in a cellar damp,
+ I had not a friend nor a toy,
+ But I had Aladdin's lamp;
+ When I could not sleep for cold,
+ I had fire enough in my brain,
+ And builded, with roofs of gold,
+ My beautiful castles in Spain!
+
+ Since then I have toiled day and night,
+ I have money and power good store,
+ But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright,
+ For the one that is mine no more;
+ Take, Fortune, whatever you choose,--
+ You gave, and may snatch again;
+ I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose,
+ For I own no more castles in Spain!
+
+J.R. LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+The Flight of Youth.[3]
+
+
+ There are gains for all our losses,
+ There are balms for all our pain;
+ But when youth, the dream, departs,
+ It takes something from our hearts,
+ And it never comes again.
+
+ We are stronger, and are better,
+ Under manhood's sterner reign;
+ Still, we feel that something sweet
+ Followed youth, with flying feet,
+ And will never come again.
+
+ Something beautiful is vanished,
+ And we sigh for it in vain;
+ We behold it everywhere,
+ On the earth, and in the air,
+ But it never comes again.
+
+R.H. STODDARD.
+
+
+
+[3] From "The Poems of R.H. Stoddard," copyright, 1880, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+My Playmate.
+
+
+ The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
+ Their song was soft and low;
+ The blossoms in the sweet May wind
+ Were falling like the snow.
+
+ The blossoms drifted at our feet,
+ The orchard birds sang clear;
+ The sweetest and the saddest day
+ It seemed of all the year.
+
+ For, more to me than birds or flowers,
+ My playmate left her home,
+ And took with her the laughing spring,
+ The music and the bloom.
+
+ She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
+ She laid her hand in mine:
+ What more could ask the bashful boy
+ Who fed her father's kine?
+
+ She left us in the bloom of May:
+ The constant years told o'er
+ Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
+ But she came back no more.
+
+ I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
+ Of uneventful years;
+ Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
+ And reap the autumn ears.
+
+ She lives where all the golden year
+ Her summer roses blow;
+ The dusky children of the sun
+ Before her come and go.
+
+ There haply with her jewelled hands
+ She smooths her silken gown,--
+ No more the homespun lap wherein
+ I shook the walnuts down.
+
+ The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
+ The brown nuts on the hill,
+ And still the May-day flowers make sweet
+ The woods of Follymill.
+
+ The lilies blossom in the pond,
+ The bird builds in the tree,
+ The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
+ The slow song of the sea.
+
+ I wonder if she thinks of them,
+ And how the old time seems,
+ If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
+ Are sounding in her dreams.
+
+ I see her face, I hear her voice:
+ Does she remember mine?
+ And what to her is now the boy
+ Who fed her father's kine?
+
+ What cares she that the orioles build
+ For other eyes than ours,--
+ That other hands with nuts are filled,
+ And other laps with flowers?
+
+ O playmate in the golden time!
+ Our mossy seat is green,
+ Its fringing violets blossom yet,
+ The old trees o'er it lean.
+
+ The winds so sweet with birch and fern
+ A sweeter memory blow;
+ And there in spring the veeries sing
+ The song of long ago.
+
+ And still the pines of Ramoth wood
+ Are moaning like the sea,--
+ The moaning of the sea of change
+ Between myself and thee!
+
+J.G. WHITTIER.
+
+
+
+
+The Fire of Driftwood.
+
+DEVEREUX FARM, NEAR MARBLEHEAD.
+
+
+ We sat within the farmhouse old,
+ Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
+ Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
+ An easy entrance, night and day.
+
+ Not far away we saw the port,
+ The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
+ The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
+ The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
+
+ We sat and talked until the night,
+ Descending, filled the little room;
+ Our faces faded from the sight,
+ Our voices only broke the gloom.
+
+ We spake of many a vanished scene,
+ Of what we once had thought and said,
+ Of what had been, and might have been,
+ And who was changed, and who was dead;
+
+ And all that fills the hearts of friends,
+ When first they feel, with secret pain,
+ Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
+ And never can be one again;
+
+ The first slight swerving of the heart,
+ That words are powerless to express,
+ And leave it still unsaid in part,
+ Or say it in too great excess.
+
+ The very tones in which we spake
+ Had something strange, I could but mark;
+ The leaves of memory seemed to make
+ A mournful rustling in the dark.
+
+ Oft died the words upon our lips,
+ As suddenly, from out the fire
+ Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
+ The flames would leap and then expire.
+
+ And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
+ We thought of wrecks upon the main,
+ Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
+ And sent no answer back again.
+
+ The windows, rattling in their frames,
+ The ocean, roaring up the beach,
+ The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
+ All mingled vaguely in our speech;
+
+ Until they made themselves a part
+ Of fancies floating through the brain,
+ The long-lost ventures of the heart,
+ That send no answers back again.
+
+ O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
+ They were indeed too much akin,
+ The driftwood fire without that burned,
+ The thoughts that burned and glowed within.
+
+H.W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+A Death-bed.
+
+
+ Her suffering ended with the day,
+ Yet lived she at its close,
+ And breathed the long, long night away
+ In statue-like repose.
+
+ But when the sun in all his state
+ Illumed the eastern skies,
+ She passed through Glory's morning gate
+ And walked in Paradise.
+
+J. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+Telling the Bees.
+
+
+ Here is the place; right over the hill
+ Runs the path I took;
+ You can see the gap in the old wall still,
+ And the stepping-stones in the shallow brook.
+
+ There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
+ And the poplars tall;
+ And the barn's brown length, and the cattle-yard,
+ And the white horns tossing above the wall.
+
+ There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
+ And down by the brink
+ Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,--
+ Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
+
+ A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
+ Heavy and slow;
+ And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,
+ And the same brook sings of a year ago.
+
+ There's the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;
+ And the June sun warm
+ Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
+ Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
+
+ I mind me how with a lover's care
+ From my Sunday coat
+ I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,
+ And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.
+
+ Since we parted, a month had passed,--
+ To love, a year;
+ Down through the beeches I looked at last
+ On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.
+
+ I can see it all now,--the slantwise rain
+ Of light through the leaves,
+ The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,
+ The bloom of her roses under the eaves.
+
+ Just the same as a month before,--
+ The house and the trees,
+ The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,--
+ Nothing changed but the hives of bees.
+
+ Before them, under the garden wall,
+ Forward and back,
+ Went, drearily singing, the chore-girl small,
+ Draping each hive with a shred of black.
+
+ Trembling, I listened; the summer sun
+ Had the chill of snow;
+ For I knew she was telling the bees of one
+ Gone on the journey we all must go!
+
+ Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps
+ For the dead to-day;
+ Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps
+ The fret and the pain of his age away."
+
+ But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
+ With his cane to his chin,
+ The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
+ Sung to the bees stealing out and in.
+
+ And the song she was singing ever since
+ In my ear sounds on:
+ "Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
+ Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"
+
+J.G. WHITTIER.
+
+
+
+
+Katie.
+
+
+ It may be through some foreign grace,
+ And unfamiliar charm of face;
+ It may be that across the foam
+ Which bore her from her childhood's home,
+ By some strange spell, my Katie brought
+ Along with English creeds and thought--
+ Entangled in her golden hair--
+ Some English sunshine, warmth, and air!
+ I cannot tell,--but here to-day,
+ A thousand billowy leagues away
+ From that green isle whose twilight skies
+ No darker are than Katie's eyes,
+ She seems to me, go where she will,
+ An English girl in England still!
+
+ I meet her on the dusty street,
+ And daisies spring about her feet;
+ Or, touched to life beneath her tread,
+ An English cowslip lifts its head;
+ And, as to do her grace, rise up
+ The primrose and the buttercup!
+ I roam with her through fields of cane,
+ And seem to stroll an English lane,
+ Which, white with blossoms of the May,
+ Spreads its green carpet in her way!
+ As fancy wills, the path beneath
+ Is golden gorse, or purple heath;
+ And now we hear in woodlands dim
+ Their unarticulated hymn,
+ Now walk through rippling waves of wheat,
+ Now sink in mats of clover sweet,
+ Or see before us from the lawn
+ The lark go up to greet the dawn!
+ All birds that love the English sky
+ Throng round my path when she is by;
+ The blackbird from a neighboring thorn
+ With music brims the cup of morn,
+ And in a thick, melodious rain
+ The mavis pours her mellow strain!
+ But only when my Katie's voice
+ Makes all the listening woods rejoice
+ I hear--with cheeks that flush and pale--
+ The passion of the nightingale!
+
+H. TIMROD.
+
+
+
+
+My Love.
+
+
+ Not as all other women are
+ Is she that to my soul is dear;
+ Her glorious fancies come from far,
+ Beneath the silver evening-star,
+ And yet her heart is ever near.
+
+ Great feelings hath she of her own,
+ Which lesser souls may never know;
+ God giveth them to her alone,
+ And sweet they are as any tone
+ Wherewith the wind may choose to blow.
+
+ Yet in herself she dwelleth not,
+ Although no home were half so fair;
+ No simplest duty is forgot;
+ Life hath no dim and lowly spot
+ That doth not in her sunshine share.
+
+ She doeth little kindnesses,
+ Which most leave undone, or despise;
+ For naught that sets one heart at ease,
+ And giveth happiness or peace,
+ Is low-esteemèd in her eyes.
+
+ She hath no scorn of common things,
+ And, though she seem of other birth,
+ Round us her heart intwines and clings,
+ And patiently she folds her wings
+ To tread the humble paths of earth.
+
+ Blessing she is; God made her so,
+ And deeds of week-day holiness
+ Fall from her noiseless as the snow,
+ Nor hath she ever chanced to know
+ That aught were easier than to bless.
+
+ She is most fair, and thereunto
+ Her life doth rightly harmonize;
+ Feeling or thought that was not true
+ Ne'er made less beautiful the blue
+ Unclouded heaven of her eyes.
+
+ She is a woman; one in whom
+ The spring-time of her childish years
+ Hath never lost its fresh perfume,
+ Though knowing well that life hath room
+ For many blights and many tears.
+
+ I love her with a love as still
+ As a broad river's peaceful might,
+ Which, by high tower and lowly mill,
+ Goes wandering at its own will,
+ And yet doth ever flow aright.
+
+ And, on its full, deep breast serene,
+ Like quiet isles my duties lie;
+ It flows around them and between,
+ And makes them fresh, and fair, and green,
+ Sweet homes wherein to live and die.
+
+J.R. LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+She Came and Went.
+
+
+ As a twig trembles, which a bird
+ Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
+ So is my memory thrilled and stirred;--
+ I only know she came and went.
+
+ As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
+ The blue dome's measureless content,
+ So my soul held that moment's heaven;--
+ I only know she came and went.
+
+ As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps
+ The orchards full of bloom and scent,
+ So clove her May my wintry sleeps;--
+ I only know she came and went.
+
+ An angel stood and met my gaze,
+ Through the low doorway of my tent;
+ The tent is struck, the vision stays;--
+ I only know she came and went.
+
+ Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,
+ And life's last oil is nearly spent,
+ One gush of light these eyes will brim,
+ Only to think she came and went.
+
+J.R. LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+Her Epitaph.
+
+
+ The handful here, that once was Mary's earth,
+ Held, while it breathed, so beautiful a soul,
+ That, when she died, all recognized her birth,
+ And had their sorrow in serene control.
+
+ "Not here! not here!" to every mourner's heart
+ The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier;
+ And when the tomb-door opened, with a start
+ We heard it echoed from within,--"Not here!"
+
+ Shouldst thou, sad pilgrim, who mayst hither pass,
+ Note in these flowers a delicater hue,
+ Should spring come earlier to this hallowed grass,
+ Or the bee later linger on the dew,--
+
+ Know that her spirit to her body lent
+ Such sweetness, grace, as only goodness can;
+ That even her dust, and this her monument,
+ Have yet a spell to stay one lonely man,
+ Lonely through life, but looking for the day
+ When what is mortal of himself shall sleep,
+ When human passion shall have passed away,
+ And Love no longer be a thing to weep.
+
+T.W. PARSONS.
+
+
+
+
+Apart.
+
+
+ At sea are tossing ships;
+ On shore are dreaming shells,
+ And the waiting heart and the loving lips,
+ Blossoms and bridal bells.
+
+ At sea are sails a-gleam;
+ On shore are longing eyes,
+ And the far horizon's haunting dream
+ Of ships that sail the skies.
+
+ At sea are masts that rise
+ Like spectres from the deep;
+ On shore are the ghosts of drowning cries
+ That cross the waves of sleep.
+
+ At sea are wrecks a-strand;
+ On shore are shells that moan,
+ Old anchors buried in barren sand,
+ Sea-mist and dreams alone.
+
+J.J. PIATT.
+
+
+
+
+The Discoverer.
+
+
+ I have a little kinsman
+ Whose earthly summers are but three,
+ And yet a voyager is he
+ Greater than Drake or Frobisher,
+ Than all their peers together!
+ He is a brave discoverer,
+ And, far beyond the tether
+ Of them who seek the frozen Pole,
+ Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll.
+ Ay, he has travelled whither
+ A winged pilot steered his bark
+ Through the portals of the dark,
+ Past hoary Mimir's well and tree,
+ Across the unknown sea.
+
+ Suddenly, in his fair young hour,
+ Came one who bore a flower,
+ And laid it in his dimpled hand
+ With this command:
+ "Henceforth thou art a rover!
+ Thou must make a voyage far,
+ Sail beneath the evening star,
+ And a wondrous land discover."
+ --With his sweet smile innocent
+ Our little kinsman went.
+
+ Since that time no word
+ From the absent has been heard.
+ Who can tell
+ How he fares, or answer well
+ What the little one has found
+ Since he left us, outward bound?
+ Would that he might return!
+ Then should we learn
+ From the pricking of his chart
+ How the skyey roadways part.
+ Hush! does not the baby this way bring,
+ To lay beside this severed curl,
+ Some starry offering
+ Of chrysolite or pearl?
+
+ Ah, no! not so!
+ We may follow on his track,
+ But he comes not back.
+ And yet I dare aver
+ He is a brave discoverer
+ Of climes his elders do not know.
+ He has more learning than appears
+ On the scroll of twice three thousand years,
+ More than in the groves is taught,
+ Or from furthest Indies brought;
+ He knows, perchance, how spirits fare,--
+ What shapes the angels wear,
+ What is their guise and speech
+ In those lands beyond our reach,--
+ And his eyes behold
+ Things that shall never, never be to mortal hearers told.
+
+E.C. STEDMAN.
+
+
+
+
+At Last.[4]
+
+
+ When first the bride and bridegroom wed,
+ They love their single selves the best;
+ A sword is in the marriage bed,
+ Their separate slumbers are not rest.
+ They quarrel, and make up again,
+ They give and suffer worlds of pain.
+ Both right and wrong,
+ They struggle long,
+ Till some good day, when they are old,
+ Some dark day, when the bells are tolled,
+ Death having taken their best of life,
+ They lose themselves, and find each other;
+ They know that they are husband, wife,
+ For, weeping, they are Father, Mother!
+
+R.H. STODDARD.
+
+
+
+[4] From "The Poems of R.H. Stoddard," copyright 1880, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+"Thalatta."
+
+CRY OF THE TEN THOUSAND.
+
+
+ I stand upon the summit of my years.
+ Behind, the toil, the camp, the march, the strife,
+ The wandering and the desert; vast, afar,
+ Beyond this weary way, behold! the Sea!
+ The sea o'erswept by clouds and winds and wings,
+ By thoughts and wishes manifold, whose breath
+ Is freshness and whose mighty pulse is peace.
+ Palter no question of the dim Beyond;
+ Cut loose the bark; such voyage itself is rest;
+ Majestic motion, unimpeded scope,
+ A widening heaven, a current without care.
+ Eternity!--Deliverance, Promise, Course!
+ Time-tired souls salute thee from the shore.
+
+J.B. BROWN.
+
+
+
+
+Gondolieds.
+
+
+I.
+
+YESTERDAY.
+
+
+ Dear yesterday, glide not so fast;
+ Oh, let me cling
+ To thy white garments floating past;
+ Even to shadows which they cast
+ I cling, I cling.
+ Show me thy face
+ Just once, once more; a single night
+ Cannot have brought a loss, a blight
+ Upon its grace.
+
+ Nor are they dead whom thou dost bear,
+ Robed for the grave.
+ See what a smile their red lips wear;
+ To lay them living wilt thou dare
+ Into a grave?
+ I know, I know,
+ I left thee first; now I repent;
+ I listen now; I never meant
+ To have thee go.
+
+ Just once, once more, tell me the word
+ Thou hadst for me!
+ Alas! although my heart was stirred,
+ I never fully knew or heard
+ It was for me.
+ O yesterday,
+ My yesterday, thy sorest pain
+ Were joy couldst thou but come again,--
+ Sweet yesterday.
+
+ _Venice, May 26._
+
+
+II.
+
+TO-MORROW.
+
+ All red with joy the waiting west,
+ O little swallow,
+ Couldst thou tell me which road is best?
+ Cleaving high air with thy soft breast
+ For keel, O swallow,
+ Thou must o'erlook
+ My seas and know if I mistake;
+ I would not the same harbor make
+ Which yesterday forsook.
+
+ I hear the swift blades dip and plash
+ Of unseen rowers;
+ On unknown land the waters dash;
+ Who knows how it be wise or rash
+ To meet the rowers!
+ Premì! Premì!
+ Venetia's boatmen lean and cry;
+ With voiceless lips I drift and lie
+ Upon the twilight sea.
+
+ The swallow sleeps. Her last low call
+ Had sound of warning.
+ Sweet little one, whate'er befall,
+ Thou wilt not know that it was all
+ In vain thy warning.
+ I may not borrow
+ A hope, a help. I close my eyes;
+ Cold wind blows from the Bridge of Sighs;
+ Kneeling I wait to-morrow.
+
+ _Venice, May 30._
+
+H.H. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+
+In the Twilight.
+
+
+ Men say the sullen instrument
+ That, from the Master's bow,
+ With pangs of joy or woe,
+ Feels music's soul through every fibre sent,
+ Whispers the ravished strings
+ More than he knew or meant;
+ Old summers in its memory glow;
+ The secrets of the wind it sings;
+ It hears the April-loosened springs;
+ And mixes with its mood
+ All it dreamed when it stood
+ In the murmurous pine-wood
+ Long ago!
+
+ The magical moonlight then
+ Steeped every bough and cone;
+ The roar of the brook in the glen
+ Came dim from the distance blown;
+ The wind through its glooms sang low,
+ And it swayed to and fro
+ With delight as it stood,
+ In the wonderful wood,
+ Long ago!
+
+ O my life, have we not had seasons
+ That only said, "Live and rejoice?"
+ That asked not for causes and reasons,
+ But made us all feeling and voice?
+ When we went with the winds in their blowing,
+ When Nature and we were peers,
+ And we seemed to share in the flowing
+ Of the inexhaustible years?
+ Have we not from the earth drawn juices
+ Too fine for earth's sordid uses?
+ Have I heard, have I seen
+ All I feel and I know?
+ Doth my heart overween?
+ Or could it have been
+ Long ago?
+
+ Sometimes a breath floats by me,
+ An odor from Dreamland sent,
+ That makes the ghost seem nigh me
+ Of a splendor that came and went,
+ Of a life lived somewhere, I know not
+ In what diviner sphere,
+ Of memories that stay not and go not,
+ Like music heard once by an ear
+ That cannot forget or reclaim it,
+ A something so shy, it would shame it
+ To make it a show,
+ A something too vague, could I name it,
+ For others to know,
+ As if I had lived it or dreamed it,
+ As if I had acted or schemed it,
+ Long ago!
+
+ And yet, could I live it over,
+ This life that stirs in my brain,
+ Could I be both maiden and lover,
+ Moon and tide, bee and clover,
+ As I seem to have been, once again,
+ Could I but speak and show it,
+ This pleasure more sharp than pain,
+ That baffles and lures me so,
+ The world should not lack a poet,
+ Such as it had
+ In the ages glad,
+ Long ago!
+
+J.R. LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls.
+
+
+ The tide rises, the tide falls,
+ The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
+ Along the sea-sands damp and brown
+ The traveller hastens toward the town,
+ And the tide rises, the tide falls.
+
+ Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
+ But the sea in the darkness calls and calls;
+ The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
+ Efface the footprints in the sands,
+ And the tide rises, the tide falls.
+
+ The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
+ Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
+ The day returns, but nevermore
+ Returns the traveller to the shore,
+ And the tide rises, the tide falls.
+
+H.W. LONGFELLOW.
+
+
+
+
+The Fall of the Leaf.
+
+
+ The evening of the year draws on,
+ The fields a later aspect wear;
+ Since Summer's garishness is gone,
+ Some grains of night tincture the noontide air.
+
+ Behold! the shadows of the trees
+ Now circle wider 'bout their stem,
+ Like sentries that by slow degrees
+ Perform their rounds, gently protecting them.
+
+ And as the year doth decline,
+ The sun allows a scantier light;
+ Behind each needle of the pine
+ There lurks a small auxiliar to the night.
+
+ I hear the cricket's slumbrous lay
+ Around, beneath me, and on high;
+ It rocks the night, it soothes the day,
+ And everywhere is Nature's lullaby.
+
+ But most he chirps beneath the sod,
+ When he has made his winter bed;
+ His creak grown fainter but more broad,
+ A film of Autumn o'er the Summer spread.
+
+ Small birds, in fleets migrating by,
+ Now beat across some meadow's bay,
+ And as they tack and veer on high,
+ With faint and hurried click beguile the way.
+
+ Far in the woods, these golden days,
+ Some leaf obeys its Maker's call;
+ And through their hollow aisles it plays
+ With delicate touch the prelude of the Fall.
+
+ Gently withdrawing from its stem,
+ It lightly lays itself along
+ Where the same hand hath pillowed them,
+ Resigned to sleep upon the old year's throng.
+
+ The loneliest birch is brown and sere,
+ The furthest pool is strewn with leaves,
+ Which float upon their watery bier,
+ Where is no eye that sees, no heart that grieves.
+
+ The jay screams through the chestnut wood;
+ The crisped and yellow leaves around
+ Are hue and texture of my mood,--
+ And these rough burrs my heirlooms on the ground.
+
+ The threadbare trees, so poor and thin,--
+ They are no wealthier than I;
+ But with as brave a core within
+ They rear their boughs to the October sky.
+
+ Poor knights they are which bravely wait
+ The charge of Winter's cavalry,
+ Keeping a simple Roman state,
+ Discumbered of their Persian luxury.
+
+H.D. THOREAU.
+
+
+
+
+The Rhodora.
+
+ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER?
+
+
+ In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
+ I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
+ Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
+ To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
+ The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
+ Made the black water with their beauty gay;
+ Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
+ And court the flower that cheapens his array.
+ Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
+ This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
+ Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
+ Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
+ Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
+ I never thought to ask, I never knew:
+ But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
+ The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
+
+R.W. EMERSON.
+
+
+
+
+Nature.
+
+
+ O nature! I do not aspire
+ To be the highest in thy quire,--
+ To be a meteor in the sky,
+ Or comet that may range on high;
+ Only a zephyr that may blow
+ Among the reeds by the river low;
+ Give me thy most privy place
+ Where to run my airy race.
+
+ In some withdrawn, unpublic mead
+ Let me sigh upon a reed,
+ Or in the woods, with leafy din,
+ Whisper the still evening in.
+ Some still work give me to do,--
+ Only--be it near to you!
+ For I'd rather be thy child
+ And pupil, in the forest wild,
+ Than be the king of men elsewhere,
+ And most sovereign slave of care.
+
+H.D. THOREAU.
+
+
+
+
+My Strawberry.
+
+
+ O marvel, fruit of fruits, I pause
+ To reckon thee. I ask what cause
+ Set free so much of red from heats
+ At core of earth, and mixed such sweets
+ With sour and spice: what was that strength
+ Which out of darkness, length by length,
+ Spun all thy shining thread of vine,
+ Netting the fields in bond as thine.
+ I see thy tendrils drink by sips
+ From grass and clover's smiling lips;
+ I hear thy roots dig down for wells,
+ Tapping the meadow's hidden cells;
+ Whole generations of green things,
+ Descended from long lines of springs,
+ I see make room for thee to bide
+ A quiet comrade by their side;
+ I see the creeping peoples go
+ Mysterious journeys to and fro,
+ Treading to right and left of thee,
+ Doing thee homage wonderingly.
+ I see the wild bees as they fare,
+ Thy cups of honey drink, but spare.
+ I mark thee bathe and bathe again
+ In sweet uncalendared spring rain.
+ I watch how all May has of sun
+ Makes haste to have thy ripeness done,
+ While all her nights let dews escape
+ To set and cool thy perfect shape.
+ Ah, fruit of fruits, no more I pause
+ To dream and seek thy hidden laws!
+ I stretch my hand and dare to taste,
+ In instant of delicious waste
+ On single feast, all things that went
+ To make the empire thou hast spent.
+
+H.H. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+
+The Humble-bee.
+
+
+ Burly, dozing humble-bee,
+ Where thou art is clime for me.
+ Let them sail for Porto Rique,
+ Far-off heats through seas to seek;
+ I will follow thee alone,
+ Thou animated torrid-zone!
+ Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer,
+ Let me chase thy waving lines;
+ Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,
+ Singing over shrubs and vines.
+
+ Insect lover of the sun,
+ Joy of thy dominion!
+ Sailor of the atmosphere;
+ Swimmer through the waves of air;
+ Voyager of light and noon;
+ Epicurean of June;
+ Wait, I prithee, till I come
+ Within earshot of thy hum,--
+ All without is martyrdom.
+
+ When the south wind, in May days,
+ With a net of shining haze
+ Silvers the horizon wall,
+ And with softness touching all,
+ Tints the human countenance
+ With a color of romance,
+ And infusing subtle heats,
+ Turns the sod to violets,
+ Thou, in sunny solitudes,
+ Rover of the underwoods,
+ The green silence dost displace
+ With thy mellow, breezy bass.
+
+ Hot midsummer's petted crone,
+ Sweet to me thy drowsy tone
+ Tells of countless sunny hours,
+ Long days, and solid banks of flowers;
+ Of gulfs of sweetness without bound
+ In Indian wildernesses found;
+ Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,
+ Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure.
+
+ Aught unsavory or unclean
+ Hath my insect never seen;
+ But violets and bilberry bells,
+ Maple-sap and daffodels,
+ Grass with green flag half-mast high,
+ Succory to match the sky,
+ Columbine with horn of honey,
+ Scented fern, and agrimony,
+ Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue,
+ And brier-roses, dwelt among;
+ All beside was unknown waste,
+ All was picture as he passed.
+
+ Wiser far than human seer,
+ Yellow-breeched philosopher!
+ Seeing only what is fair,
+ Sipping only what is sweet,
+ Thou dost mock at fate and care,
+ Leave the chaff, and take the wheat.
+ When the fierce northwestern blast
+ Cools sea and land so far and fast,
+ Thou already slumberest deep;
+ Woe and want thou canst outsleep;
+ Want and woe, which torture us,
+ Thy sleep makes ridiculous.
+
+R.W. EMERSON.
+
+
+
+
+The Summer Rain.
+
+
+ My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read.
+ 'Twixt every page my thoughts go stray at large
+ Down in the meadow, where is richer feed,
+ And will not mind to hit their proper targe.
+
+ Plutarch was good, and so was Homer too,
+ Our Shakespeare's life were rich to live again,
+ What Plutarch read, that was not good nor true,
+ Nor Shakespeare's books, unless his books were men.
+
+ Here while I lie beneath this walnut bough,
+ What care I for the Greeks or for Troy town,
+ If juster battles are enacted now
+ Between the ants upon this hummock's crown?
+
+ Bid Homer wait till I the issue learn,
+ If red or black the gods will favor most,
+ Or yonder Ajax will the phalanx turn,
+ Struggling to heave some rock against the host.
+
+ Tell Shakespeare to attend some leisure hour,
+ For now I've business with this drop of dew,
+ And see you not, the clouds prepare a shower,--
+ I'll meet him shortly when the sky is blue.
+
+ This bed of herdsgrass and wild oats was spread
+ Last year with nicer skill than monarchs use;
+ A clover tuft is pillow for my head,
+ And violets quite overtop my shoes.
+
+ And now the cordial clouds have shut all in,
+ And gently swells the wind to say all's well;
+ The scattered drops are falling fast and thin,
+ Some in the pool, some in the flower-bell.
+
+ I am well drenched upon my bed of oats;
+ But see that globe come rolling down its stem,
+ Now like a lonely planet there it floats,
+ And now it sinks into my garment's hem.
+
+ Drip, drip the trees for all the country round,
+ And richness rare distills from every bough;
+ The wind alone it is makes every sound,
+ Shaking down crystals on the leaves below.
+
+ For shame the sun will never show himself,
+ Who could not with his beams e'er melt me so;
+ My dripping locks,--they would become an elf,
+ Who in a beaded coat does gayly go.
+
+H.D. THOREAU.
+
+
+
+
+To the Dandelion.
+
+
+ Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,
+ Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
+ First pledge of blithesome May,
+ Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold,
+ High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
+ An Eldorado in the grass have found,
+ Which not the rich earth's ample round
+ May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
+ Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.
+
+ Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow
+ Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
+ Nor wrinkled the lean brow
+ Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease;
+ 'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now
+ To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand,
+ Though most hearts never understand
+ To take it at God's value, but pass by
+ The offered wealth with unrewarded eye.
+
+ Thou art my tropics and mine Italy;
+ To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime;
+ The eyes thou givest me
+ Are in the heart, and heed not space or time:
+ Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee
+ Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment
+ In the white lily's breezy tent,
+ His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first
+ From the dark green thy yellow circles burst.
+
+ Then think I of deep shadows on the grass,
+ Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze,
+ Where, as the breezes pass,
+ The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways,
+ Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass,
+ Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue
+ That from the distance sparkle through
+ Some woodland gap, and of a sky above,
+ Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move.
+
+ My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee;
+ The sight of thee calls back the robin's song,
+ Who, from the dark old tree
+ Beside the door, sang clearly all day long,
+ And I, secure in childish piety,
+ Listened as if I heard an angel sing
+ With news from heaven, which he could bring
+ Fresh every day to my untainted ears
+ When birds and flowers and I were happy peers.
+
+ How like a prodigal doth Nature seem,
+ When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
+ Thou teachest me to deem
+ More sacredly of every human heart,
+ Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
+ Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
+ Did we but pay the love we owe,
+ And with a child's undoubting wisdom look
+ On all these living pages of God's book.
+
+J.R. LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+The Chambered Nautilus.
+
+
+ This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
+ Sails the unshadowed main,--
+ The venturous bark that flings
+ On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
+ In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
+ And coral reefs lie bare,
+ Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
+
+ Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
+ Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
+ And every chambered cell,
+ Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
+ As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
+ Before thee lies revealed,--
+ Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
+
+ Year after year beheld the silent toil
+ That spread his lustrous coil;
+ Still, as the spiral grew,
+ He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
+ Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
+ Built up its idle door,
+ Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
+
+ Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
+ Child of the wandering sea,
+ Cast from her lap, forlorn!
+ From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
+ Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!
+ While on mine ear it rings,
+ Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:
+
+ Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
+ As the swift seasons roll!
+ Leave thy low-vaulted past!
+ Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
+ Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
+ Till thou at length art free,
+ Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
+
+O.W. HOLMES.
+
+
+
+
+Thought.
+
+
+ O messenger, art thou the king, or I?
+ Thou dalliest outside the palace gate
+ Till on thine idle armor lie the late
+ And heavy dews. The morn's bright scornful eye
+ Reminds thee; then, in subtle mockery,
+ Thou smilest at the window where I wait,
+ Who bade thee ride for life. In empty state
+ My days go on, while false hours prophesy
+ Thy quick return; at last, in sad despair,
+ I cease to bid thee, leave thee free as air;
+ When lo, thou stand'st before me glad and fleet,
+ And lay'st undreamed-of treasures at my feet.
+ Ah! messenger, thy royal blood to buy
+ I am too poor. Thou art the king, not I.
+
+H.H. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+
+Stanzas.
+
+
+ Thought is deeper than all speech,
+ Feeling deeper than all thought;
+ Souls to souls can never teach
+ What unto themselves was taught.
+
+ We are spirits clad in veils:
+ Man by man was never seen;
+ All our deep communing fails
+ To remove the shadowy screen.
+
+ Heart to heart was never known;
+ Mind with mind did never meet;
+ We are columns left alone
+ Of a temple once complete.
+
+ Like the stars that gem the sky,
+ Far apart, though seeming near,
+ In our light we scattered lie;
+ All is thus but starlight here.
+
+ What is social company
+ But a babbling summer stream?
+ What our wise philosophy
+ But the glancing of a dream?
+
+ Only when the sun of love
+ Melts the scattered stars of thought;
+ Only when we live above
+ What the dim-eyed world hath taught;
+
+ Only when our souls are fed
+ By the Fount which gave them birth,
+ And by inspiration led,
+ Which they never drew from earth,
+
+ We, like parted drops of rain
+ Swelling till they meet and run,
+ Shall be all absorbed again,
+ Melting, flowing into one.
+
+C.P. CRANCH.
+
+
+
+
+Coronation.
+
+
+ At the king's gate the subtle noon
+ Wove filmy yellow nets of sun;
+ Into the drowsy snare too soon
+ The guards fell one by one.
+
+ Through the king's gate, unquestioned then,
+ A beggar went, and laughed, "This brings
+ Me chance, at last, to see if men
+ Fare better, being kings."
+
+ The king sat bowed beneath his crown,
+ Propping his face with listless hand;
+ Watching the hour-glass sifting down
+ Too slow its shining sand.
+
+ "Poor man, what wouldst thou have of me?"
+ The beggar turned, and, pitying,
+ Replied, like one in dream, "Of thee,
+ Nothing. I want the king."
+
+ Uprose the king, and from his head
+ Shook off the crown and threw it by.
+ "O man, thou must have known," he said,
+ "A greater king than I."
+
+ Through all the gates, unquestioned then,
+ Went king and beggar hand in hand.
+ Whispered the king, "Shall I know when
+ Before _his_ throne I stand?"
+
+ The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste
+ Were wiping from the king's hot brow
+ The crimson lines the crown had traced.
+ "This is his presence now."
+
+ At the king's gate the crafty noon
+ Unwove its yellow nets of sun;
+ Out of their sleep in terror soon
+ The guards waked one by one.
+
+ "Ho here! Ho there! Has no man seen
+ The king?" The cry ran to and fro;
+ Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween,
+ The laugh that free men know.
+
+ On the king's gate the moss grew gray;
+ The king came not. They called him dead;
+ And made his eldest son one day
+ Slave in his father's stead.
+
+H.H. JACKSON.
+
+
+
+
+On a Bust of Dante.
+
+
+ See, from this counterfeit of him
+ Whom Arno shall remember long,
+ How stern of lineament, how grim,
+ The father was of Tuscan song:
+ There but the burning sense of wrong,
+ Perpetual care and scorn, abide;
+ Small friendship for the lordly throng;
+ Distrust of all the world beside.
+
+ Faithful if this wan image be,
+ No dream his life was,--but a fight;
+ Could any Beatrice see
+ A lover in that anchorite?
+ To that cold Ghibelline's gloomy sight
+ Who could have guessed the visions came
+ Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light,
+ In circles of eternal flame?
+
+ The lips as Cumæ's cavern close,
+ The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin,
+ The rigid front, almost morose,
+ But for the patient hope within,
+ Declare a life whose course hath been
+ Unsullied still, though still severe;
+ Which, through the wavering days of sin,
+ Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.
+
+ Not wholly such his haggard look
+ When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed,
+ With no companion save his book,
+ To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;
+ Where, as the Benedictine laid
+ His palm upon the convent's guest,
+ The single boon for which he prayed
+ Was peace, that pilgrim's one request.
+
+ Peace dwells not here,--this rugged face
+ Betrays no spirit of repose;
+ The sullen warrior sole we trace,
+ The marble man of many woes.
+ Such was his mien when first arose
+ The thought of that strange tale divine,
+ When hell he peopled with his foes,
+ The scourge of many a guilty line.
+
+ War to the last he waged with all
+ The tyrant canker-worms of earth;
+ Baron and duke, in hold and hall,
+ Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth;
+ He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
+ Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;
+ But valiant souls of knightly worth
+ Transmitted to the rolls of Time.
+
+ O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
+ The only righteous judge art thou;
+ That poor old exile, sad and lone,
+ Is Latium's other Virgil now:
+ Before his name the nations bow;
+ His words are parcel of mankind,
+ Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
+ The marks have sunk of Dante's mind.
+
+T.W. PARSONS.
+
+
+
+
+Pan in Wall Street.
+
+A.D. 1867.
+
+
+ Just where the Treasury's marble front
+ Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;
+ Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
+ To throng for trade and last quotations;
+ Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
+ Outrival, in the ears of people,
+ The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
+ From Trinity's undaunted steeple,--
+
+ Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
+ Sound high above the modern clamor,
+ Above the cries of greed and gain,
+ The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;
+ And swift, on Music's misty ways,
+ It led, from all this strife for millions,
+ To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
+ Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.
+
+ And as it stilled the multitude,
+ And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
+ I saw the minstrel, where he stood
+ At ease against a Doric pillar:
+ One hand a droning organ played,
+ The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned
+ Like those of old) to lips that made
+ The reeds give out that strain impassioned.
+
+ 'Twas Pan himself had wandered here
+ A-strolling through this sordid city,
+ And piping to the civic ear
+ The prelude of some pastoral ditty!
+ The demigod had crossed the seas,--
+ From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,
+ And Syracusan times,--to these
+ Far shores and twenty centuries later.
+
+ A ragged cap was on his head;
+ But--hidden thus--there was no doubting
+ That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,
+ His gnarlèd horns were somewhere sprouting;
+ His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,
+ Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,
+ And trousers, patched of divers hues,
+ Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.
+
+ He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
+ And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
+ And with his goat's-eyes looked around
+ Where'er the passing current drifted;
+ And soon, as on Trinacrian hills
+ The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
+ Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
+ With clerks and porters, crowded near him.
+
+ The bulls and bears together drew
+ From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,
+ As erst, if pastorals be true,
+ Came beasts from every wooded valley;
+ The random passers stayed to list,--
+ A boxer Ægon, rough and merry,
+ A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
+ With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.
+
+ A one-eyed Cyclops halted long
+ In tattered cloak of army pattern,
+ And Galatea joined the throng,--
+ A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;
+ While old Silenus staggered out
+ From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,
+ And bade the piper, with a shout,
+ To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!
+
+ A newsboy and a peanut-girl
+ Like little Fauns began to caper:
+ His hair was all in tangled curl,
+ Her tawny legs were bare and taper;
+ And still the gathering larger grew,
+ And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
+ While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
+ His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.
+
+ O heart of Nature, beating still
+ With throbs her vernal passion taught her,--
+ Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,
+ Or by the Arethusan water!
+ New forms may fold the speech, new lands
+ Arise within these ocean-portals,
+ But Music waves eternal wands,--
+ Enchantress of the souls of mortals!
+
+ So thought I,--but among us trod
+ A man in blue, with legal baton,
+ And scoffed the vagrant demigod,
+ And pushed him from the step I sat on.
+ Doubting, I mused upon the cry,
+ "Great Pan is dead!"--and all the people
+ Went on their ways:--and clear and high
+ The quarter sounded from the steeple.
+
+E.C. STEDMAN.
+
+
+
+
+Auspex.
+
+
+ My heart, I cannot still it,
+ Nest that had song-birds in it;
+ And when the last shall go,
+ The dreary days, to fill it,
+ Instead of lark or linnet,
+ Shall whirl dead leaves and snow.
+
+ Had they been swallows only,
+ Without the passion stronger
+ That skyward longs and sings,--
+ Woe's me, I shall be lonely
+ When I can feel no longer
+ The impatience of their wings!
+
+ A moment, sweet delusion,
+ Like birds the brown leaves hover;
+ But it will not be long
+ Before their wild confusion
+ Fall wavering down to cover
+ The poet and his song.
+
+J.R. LOWELL.
+
+
+
+
+Birds.[5]
+
+
+ Birds are singing round my window,
+ Tunes the sweetest ever heard,
+ And I hang my cage there daily,
+ But I never catch a bird.
+
+ So with thoughts my brain is peopled,
+ And they sing there all day long:
+ But they will not fold their pinions
+ In the little cage of Song.
+
+R.H. STODDARD.
+
+
+
+[5] From "The Poems of R.H. Stoddard," copyright, 1880, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+Toujours Amour.
+
+
+ Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin,
+ At what age does Love begin?
+ Your blue eyes have scarcely seen
+ Summers three, my fairy queen,
+ But a miracle of sweets,
+ Soft approaches, sly retreats,
+ Show the little archer there,
+ Hidden in your pretty hair;
+ When didst learn a heart to win?
+ Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin!
+
+ "Oh!" the rosy lips reply,
+ "I can't tell you if I try.
+ 'Tis so long I can't remember:
+ Ask some younger lass than I!"
+
+ Tell, oh, tell me, Grizzled-Face,
+ Do your heart and head keep pace?
+ When does hoary Love expire,
+ When do frosts put out the fire?
+ Can its embers burn below
+ All that chill December snow?
+ Care you still soft hands to press,
+ Bonny heads to smooth and bless?
+ When does Love give up the chase?
+ Tell, oh, tell me, Grizzled-Face!
+
+ "Ah!" the wise old lips reply,
+ "Youth may pass and strength may die;
+ But of Love I can't foretoken:
+ Ask some older sage than I!"
+
+E.C. STEDMAN.
+
+
+
+
+A Sigh.
+
+
+ It was nothing but a rose I gave her,--
+ Nothing but a rose
+ Any wind might rob of half its savor,
+ Any wind that blows.
+
+ When she took it from my trembling fingers
+ With a hand as chill,--
+ Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers,
+ Stays, and thrills them still!
+
+ Withered, faded, pressed between the pages,
+ Crumpled fold on fold,--
+ Once it lay upon her breast, and ages
+ Cannot make it old!
+
+H.P. SPOFFORD.
+
+
+
+
+No More.
+
+
+ This is the Burden of the Heart,
+ The Burden that it always bore:
+ We live to love; we meet to part;
+ And part to meet on earth No More:
+ We clasp each other to the heart,
+ And part to meet on earth No More.
+
+ There is a time for tears to start,--
+ For dews to fall and larks to soar:
+ The Time for Tears, is when we part
+ To meet upon the earth No More:
+ The Time for Tears, is when we part
+ To meet on this wide earth--No More.
+
+B.F. WILLSON.
+
+
+
+
+To a Young Girl Dying.
+
+WITH A GIFT OF FRESH PALM-LEAVES.
+
+
+ This is Palm Sunday: mindful of the day,
+ I bring palm branches, found upon my way:
+ But these will wither; thine shall never die,--
+ The sacred palms thou bearest to the sky!
+ Dear little saint, though but a child in years,
+ Older in wisdom than my gray compeers!
+ _We_ doubt and tremble,--_we_, with bated breath,
+ Talk of this mystery of life and death:
+ Thou, strong in faith, art gifted to conceive
+ Beyond thy years, and teach us to believe!
+
+ Then take my palms, triumphal, to thy home,
+ Gentle white palmer, never more to roam!
+ Only, sweet sister, give me, ere thou go'st,
+ Thy benediction,--for my love thou know'st!
+ We, too, are pilgrims, travelling towards the shrine:
+ Pray that our pilgrimage may end like thine!
+
+T.W. PARSONS.
+
+
+
+
+The Port of Ships.[6]
+
+
+ Behind him lay the gray Azores,
+ Behind the Gates of Hercules;
+ Before him not the ghost of shores,
+ Before him only shoreless seas.
+ The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
+ For lo! the very stars are gone.
+ Brave Adm'ral speak,--what shall I say?"
+ "Why, say, 'Sail on! Sail on! and on!'"
+
+ "My men grow mutinous day by day;
+ My men grow ghastly, wan and weak."
+ The stout mate thought of home; a spray
+ Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
+ "What shall I say, brave Adm'ral, say,
+ If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
+ "Why, you shall say, at break of day,
+ 'Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!'"
+
+ They sailed, and sailed, as winds might blow,
+ Until at last the blanched mate said:
+ "Why, now not even God would know
+ Should I and all my men fall dead.
+ These very winds forget their way,
+ For God from these dread seas is gone.
+ Now speak, brave Adm'ral; speak, and say--"
+ He said: "Sail on! Sail on! and on!"
+
+ They sailed! They sailed! Then spake the mate:
+ "This mad sea shows its teeth to-night;
+ He curls his lip, he lies in wait
+ With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
+ Brave Adm'ral, say but one good word,--
+ What shall we do when hope is gone?"
+ The words leaped as a leaping sword:
+ "Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!"
+
+C.H. MILLER.
+
+
+
+[6] From The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller.
+
+
+
+
+Paradisi Gloria.
+
+
+ There is a city, builded by no hand,
+ And unapproachable by sea or shore,
+ And unassailable by any band
+ Of storming soldiery for evermore.
+
+ There we no longer shall divide our time
+ By acts or pleasures,--doing petty things
+ Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme;
+ But we shall sit beside the silver springs
+
+ That flow from God's own footstool, and behold
+ Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few
+ Who loved us once and were beloved of old,
+ To dwell with them and walk with them anew,
+
+ In alternations of sublime repose,
+ Musical motion, the perpetual play
+ Of every faculty that Heaven bestows
+ Through the bright, busy, and eternal day.
+
+T.W. PARSONS.
+
+
+
+
+Ballad.
+
+
+ In the summer even,
+ While yet the dew was hoar,
+ I went plucking purple pansies,
+ Till my love should come to shore.
+ The fishing-lights their dances
+ Were keeping out at sea,
+ And come, I sung, my true love!
+ Come hasten home to me!
+
+ But the sea, it fell a-moaning,
+ And the white gulls rocked thereon;
+ And the young moon dropped from heaven,
+ And the lights hid one by one.
+ All silently their glances
+ Slipped down the cruel sea,
+ And wait! cried the night and wind and storm,--
+ Wait, till I come to thee!
+
+H.P. SPOFFORD.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK THIRD.
+
+
+
+
+
+The Fool's Prayer.
+
+
+ The royal feast was done; the King
+ Sought some new sport to banish care,
+ And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
+ Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"
+
+ The jester doffed his cap and bells,
+ And stood the mocking court before;
+ They could not see the bitter smile
+ Behind the painted grin he wore.
+
+ He bowed his head, and bent his knee
+ Upon the monarch's silken stool;
+ His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
+ Be merciful to me, a fool!
+
+ "No pity, Lord, could change the heart
+ From red with wrong to white as wool;
+ The rod must heal the sin: but, Lord,
+ Be merciful to me, a fool!
+
+ "'Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
+ Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
+ 'Tis by our follies that so long
+ We hold the earth from heaven away.
+
+ "These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
+ Go crushing blossoms without end;
+ These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
+ Among the heart-strings of a friend.
+
+ "The ill-timed truth we might have kept--
+ Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
+ The word we had not sense to say--
+ Who knows how grandly it had rung?
+
+ "Our faults no tenderness should ask,
+ The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
+ But for our blunders--oh, in shame
+ Before the eyes of heaven we fall.
+
+ "Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
+ Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
+ That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
+ Be merciful to me, a fool!"
+
+ The room was hushed; in silence rose
+ The King, and sought his gardens cool,
+ And walked apart, and murmured low,
+ "Be merciful to me, a fool!"
+
+E.R. SILL.
+
+
+
+
+On The Life-mask Of Abraham Lincoln.
+
+
+ This bronze doth keep the very form and mold
+ Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he:
+ That brow all wisdom, all benignity;
+ That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold
+ Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold;
+ That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea
+ For storms to beat on; the lone agony
+ Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.
+ Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men
+ As might some prophet of the elder day,--
+ Brooding above the tempest and the fray
+ With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.
+ A power was his beyond the touch of art
+ Or armèd strength: his pure and mighty heart.
+
+R.W. GILDER.
+
+
+
+
+Song.
+
+
+ Years have flown since I knew thee first,
+ And I know thee as water is known of thirst:
+ Yet I knew thee of old at the first sweet sight,
+ And thou art strange to me, Love, to-night.
+
+R.W. GILDER.
+
+
+
+
+To A Dead Woman.[7]
+
+
+ Not a kiss in life; but one kiss, at life's end,
+ I have set on the face of Death in trust for thee.
+ Through long years keep it fresh on thy lips, O friend!
+ At the gate of Silence give it back to me.
+
+H.C. BUNNER.
+
+
+
+[7] From "The Poems of H.C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by
+Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+Destiny.
+
+
+ Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down
+ Each with its loveliness as with a crown,
+ Drooped in a florist's window in a town.
+
+ The first a lover bought. It lay at rest,
+ Like flower on flower, that night, on Beauty's breast.
+
+ The second rose, as virginal and fair,
+ Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair.
+
+ The third, a widow, with new grief made wild,
+ Shut in the icy palm of her dead child.
+
+T.B. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+The Kings.
+
+
+ A man said unto his angel:
+ "My spirits are fallen thro',
+ And I cannot carry this battle;
+ O brother! what shall I do?
+
+ "The terrible Kings are on me,
+ With spears that are deadly bright,
+ Against me so from the cradle
+ Do fate and my fathers fight."
+
+ Then said to the man his angel:
+ "Thou wavering, foolish soul,
+ Back to the ranks! What matter
+ To win or to lose the whole,
+
+ "As judged by the little judges
+ Who hearken not well, nor see?
+ Not thus, by the outer issue,
+ The Wise shall interpret thee.
+
+ "Thy will is the very, the only,
+ The solemn event of things;
+ The weakest of hearts defying
+ Is stronger than all these Kings.
+
+ "Tho' out of the past they gather,
+ Mind's Doubt and bodily Pain,
+ And pallid Thirst of the Spirit
+ That is kin to the other twain,
+
+ "And Grief, in a cloud of banners,
+ And ringletted Vain Desires,
+ And Vice with the spoils upon him
+ Of thee and thy beaten sires,
+
+ "While Kings of eternal evil
+ Yet darken the hills about,
+ Thy part is with broken sabre
+ To rise on the last redoubt;
+
+ "To fear not sensible failure,
+ Nor covet the game at all,
+ But fighting, fighting, fighting,
+ Die, driven against the wall!"
+
+L.I. GUINEY.
+
+
+
+
+Triumph.[8]
+
+
+ The dawn came in through the bars of the blind,--
+ And the winter's dawn is gray,--
+ And said, "However you cheat your mind,
+ The hours are flying away."
+
+ A ghost of a dawn, and pale, and weak,--
+ "Has the sun a heart," I said,
+ "To throw a morning flush on the cheek
+ Whence a fairer flush has fled?"
+
+ As a gray rose-leaf that is fading white
+ Was the cheek where I set my kiss;
+ And on that side of the bed all night
+ Death had watched, and I on this.
+
+ I kissed her lips, they were half apart,
+ Yet they made no answering sign;
+ Death's hand was on her failing heart,
+ And his eyes said, "She is mine."
+
+ I set my lips on the blue-veined lid,
+ Half-veiled by her death-damp hair;
+ And oh, for the violet depths it hid
+ And the light I longed for there!
+
+ Faint day and the fainter life awoke,
+ And the night was overpast;
+ And I said, "Though never in life you spoke
+ Oh, speak with a look at last!"
+
+ For the space of a heart-beat fluttered her breath,
+ As a bird's wing spread to flee;
+ She turned her weary arms to Death,
+ And the light of her eyes to me.
+
+H.C. BUNNER.
+
+
+
+[8] From "The Poems of H.C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by
+Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+Evening Song.[9]
+
+
+ Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands,
+ And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea,
+ How long they kiss in sight of all the lands.
+ Ah! longer, longer, we.
+
+ Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun,
+ As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine,
+ And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done,
+ Love, lay thine hand in mine.
+
+ Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart;
+ Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands.
+ O night! divorce our sun and sky apart,
+ Never our lips, our hands.
+
+S. LANIER.
+
+
+
+[9] From "Poems of Sidney Lanier," copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D.
+Lanier, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+"The Woods That Bring the Sunset Near."
+
+
+ The wind from out the west is blowing,
+ The homeward-wandering cows are lowing,
+ Dark grow the pine-woods, dark and drear,--
+ The woods that bring the sunset near.
+
+ When o'er wide seas the sun declines,
+ Far off its fading glory shines,
+ Far off, sublime, and full of fear,--
+ The pine-woods bring the sunset near.
+
+ This house that looks to east, to west,
+ This, dear one, is our home, our rest;
+ Yonder the stormy sea, and here
+ The woods that bring the sunset near.
+
+R.W. GILDER.
+
+
+
+
+At Night.
+
+
+ The sky is dark, and dark the bay below
+ Save where the midnight city's pallid glow
+ Lies like a lily white
+ On the black pool of night.
+
+ O rushing steamer, hurry on thy way
+ Across the swirling Kills and gusty bay,
+ To where the eddying tide
+ Strikes hard the city's side!
+
+ For there, between the river and the sea,
+ Beneath that glow,--the lily's heart to me,--
+ A sleeping mother mild,
+ And by her breast a child.
+
+R.W. GILDER.
+
+
+
+
+"Still in Thy Love I Trust."
+
+
+ Still in thy love I trust,
+ Supreme o'er death, since deathless is thy essence;
+ For, putting off the dust,
+ Thou hast but blest me with a nearer presence.
+
+ And so, for this, for all,
+ I breathe no selfish plaint, no faithless chiding;
+ On me the snowflakes fall,
+ But thou hast gained a summer all-abiding.
+
+ Striking a plaintive string,
+ Like some poor harper at a palace portal,
+ I wait without and sing,
+ While those I love glide in and dwell immortal.
+
+A.A. FIELDS.
+
+
+
+
+The Future.
+
+
+ What may we take into the vast Forever?
+ That marble door
+ Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor,
+ No fame-wreathed crown we wore,
+ No garnered lore.
+
+ What can we bear beyond the unknown portal?
+ No gold, no gains
+ Of all our toiling: in the life immortal
+ No hoarded wealth remains,
+ Nor gilds, nor stains.
+
+ Naked from out that far abyss behind us
+ We entered here:
+ No word came with our coming, to remind us
+ What wondrous world was near,
+ No hope, no fear.
+
+ Into the silent, starless Night before us,
+ Naked we glide:
+ No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us,
+ No comrade at our side,
+ No chart, no guide.
+
+ Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow,
+ Our footsteps fare:
+ The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow--
+ His love alone is there,
+ No curse, no care.
+
+E.R. SILL.
+
+
+
+
+Prescience.
+
+
+ The new moon hung in the sky,
+ The sun was low in the west,
+ And my betrothed and I
+ In the churchyard paused to rest--
+ Happy maiden and lover,
+ Dreaming the old dream over:
+ The light winds wandered by,
+ And robins chirped from the nest.
+
+ And lo! in the meadow-sweet
+ Was the grave of a little child,
+ With a crumbling stone at the feet,
+ And the ivy running wild--
+ Tangled ivy and clover
+ Folding it over and over:
+ Close to my sweetheart's feet
+ Was the little mound up-piled.
+
+ Stricken with nameless fears,
+ She shrank and clung to me,
+ And her eyes were filled with tears
+ For a sorrow I did not see:
+ Lightly the winds were blowing,
+ Softly her tears were flowing--
+ Tears for the unknown years
+ And a sorrow that was to be!
+
+T.B. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+In August.
+
+
+ All the long August afternoon,
+ The little drowsy stream
+ Whispers a melancholy tune,
+ As if it dreamed of June
+ And whispered in its dream.
+
+ The thistles show beyond the brook
+ Dust on their down and bloom,
+ And out of many a weed-grown nook
+ The aster-flowèrs look
+ With eyes of tender gloom.
+
+ The silent orchard aisles are sweet
+ With smell of ripening fruit.
+ Through the sere grass, in shy retreat,
+ Flutter, at coming feet,
+ The robins strange and mute.
+
+ There is no wind to stir the leaves,
+ The harsh leaves overhead;
+ Only the querulous cricket grieves,
+ And shrilling locust weaves
+ A song of Summer dead.
+
+W.D. HOWELLS.
+
+
+
+
+That Day You Came.
+
+
+ Such special sweetness was about
+ That day God sent you here,
+ I knew the lavender was out,
+ And it was mid of year.
+
+ Their common way the great winds blew,
+ The ships sailed out to sea;
+ Yet ere that day was spent I knew
+ Mine own had come to me.
+
+ As after song some snatch of tune
+ Lurks still in grass or bough,
+ So, somewhat of the end o' June
+ Lurks in each weather now.
+
+ The young year sets the buds astir,
+ The old year strips the trees;
+ But ever in my lavender
+ I hear the brawling bees.
+
+L.W. REESE.
+
+
+
+
+Negro Lullaby.
+
+
+ Bedtimes' come fu' little boys,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ Too tiahed out to make a noise,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ You gwine t' have to-morrer sho'?
+ Yes, you tole me dat, befo',
+ Don't you fool me, chile, no mo',
+ Po' little lamb.
+
+ You been bad de livelong day,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ Th'owin' stones an' runnin' 'way,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ My, but you's a-runnin' wild,
+ Look jes' lak some po' folks' chile;
+ Mam' gwine whup you atter while,
+ Po' little lamb.
+
+ Come hyeah! you mos' tiahed to def,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ Played yo'se'f clean out o' bref,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ See dem han's now,--sich a sight!
+ Would you ever b'lieve dey's white!
+ Stan' still 'twell I wash dem right,
+ Po' little lamb.
+
+ Jes' caint hol' yo' haid up straight,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ Hadn't oughter played so late,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ Mammy do' know whut she'd do,
+ Ef de chillun's all lak you;
+ You's a caution now fu' true,
+ Po' little lamb.
+
+ Lay yo' haid down in my lap,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ Y'ought to have a right good slap,
+ Po' little lamb.
+ You been runnin' roun' a heap.
+ Shet dem eyes an' don't you peep,
+ Dah now, dah now, go to sleep,
+ Po' little lamb.
+
+P.L. DUNBAR.
+
+
+
+
+A Woman's Thought.
+
+
+ I am a woman--therefore I may not
+ Call to him, cry to him,
+ Fly to him,
+ Bid him delay not!
+
+ And when he comes to me, I must sit quiet:
+ Still as a stone--
+ All silent and cold.
+ If my heart riot--
+ Crush and defy it!
+ Should I grow bold--
+ Say one dear thing to him,
+ All my life fling to him,
+ Cling to him--
+ What to atone
+ Is enough for my sinning!
+ This were the cost to me,
+ This were my winning--
+ That he were lost to me.
+ Not as a lover
+ At last if he part from me,
+ Tearing my heart from me--
+ Hurt beyond cure,--
+ Calm and demure
+ Then must I hold me--
+ In myself fold me--
+ Lest he discover;
+ Showing no sign to him
+ By look of mine to him
+ What he has been to me--
+ How my heart turns to him,
+ Follows him, yearns to him,
+ Prays him to love me.
+
+ Pity me, lean to me,
+ Thou God above me!
+
+R.W. GILDER.
+
+
+
+
+The Flight.
+
+
+ Upon a cloud among the stars we stood.
+ The angel raised his hand and looked and said,
+ "Which world, of all yon starry myriad
+ Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude
+ Became a harp whereon his voice and mood
+ Made spheral music round his haloed head.
+ I spake--for then I had not long been dead--
+ "Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood
+ A moment on these orbs ere I decide ...
+ What is yon lower star that beauteous shines
+ And with soft splendor now incarnadines
+ Our wings?--_There_ would I go and there abide."
+ He smiled as one who some child's thought divines:
+ "That is the world where yesternight you died."
+
+L. MIFFLIN.
+
+
+
+
+Childhood.
+
+
+ Old Sorrow I shall meet again,
+ And Joy, perchance--but never, never,
+ Happy Childhood, shall we twain
+ See each other's face forever!
+
+ And yet I would not call thee back,
+ Dear Childhood, lest the sight of me,
+ Thine old companion, on the rack
+ Of Age, should sadden even thee.
+
+J.B. TABB.
+
+
+
+
+Little Boy Blue.[10]
+
+
+ The little toy dog is covered with dust,
+ But sturdy and stanch he stands;
+ And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
+ And his musket moulds in his hands.
+ Time was when the little toy dog was new
+ And the soldier was passing fair,
+ And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
+ Kissed them and put them there.
+
+ "Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
+ "And don't you make any noise!"
+ So toddling off to his trundle-bed
+ He dreampt of the pretty toys.
+ And as he was dreaming, an angel song
+ Awakened our Little Boy Blue,--
+ Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
+ But the little toy friends are true.
+
+ Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
+ Each in the same old place,
+ Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
+ The smile of a little face.
+ And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
+ In the dust of that little chair,
+ What has become of our Little Boy Blue
+ Since he kissed them and put them there.
+
+E. FIELD.
+
+
+
+[10] From "A Little Book of Western Verse," copyright, 1889, by Eugene
+Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+Strong as Death.[11]
+
+
+ O death, when thou shalt come to me
+ From out thy dark, where she is now,
+ Come not with graveyard smell on thee,
+ Or withered roses on thy brow.
+
+ Come not, O Death, with hollow tone,
+ And soundless step, and clammy hand--
+ Lo, I am now no less alone
+ Than in thy desolate, doubtful land;
+
+ But with that sweet and subtle scent
+ That ever clung about her (such
+ As with all things she brushed was blent);
+ And with her quick and tender touch.
+
+ With the dim gold that lit her hair,
+ Crown thyself, Death; let fall thy tread
+ So light that I may dream her there,
+ And turn upon my dying bed.
+
+ And through my chilling veins shall flame
+ My love, as though beneath her breath;
+ And in her voice but call my name,
+ And I will follow thee, O Death.
+
+H.C. BUNNER.
+
+
+
+[11] From "The Poems of H.C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896 by
+Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+The White Jessamine.
+
+
+ I knew she lay above me,
+ Where the casement all the night
+ Shone, softened with a phosphor glow
+ Of sympathetic light,
+ And that her fledgling spirit pure
+ Was pluming fast for flight.
+
+ Each tendril throbbed and quickened
+ As I nightly climbed apace,
+ And could scarce restrain the blossoms
+ When, anear the destined place,
+ Her gentle whisper thrilled me
+ Ere I gazed upon her face.
+
+ I waited, darkling, till the dawn
+ Should touch me into bloom,
+ While all my being panted
+ To outpour its first perfume,
+ When, lo! a paler flower than mine
+ Had blossomed in the gloom!
+
+J.B. TABB.
+
+
+
+
+The House of Death.
+
+
+ Not a hand has lifted the latchet
+ Since she went out of the door--
+ No footstep shall cross the threshold,
+ Since she can come in no more.
+
+ There is rust upon locks and hinges,
+ And mold and blight on the walls,
+ And silence faints in the chambers,
+ And darkness waits in the halls--
+
+ Waits as all things have waited
+ Since she went, that day of spring,
+ Borne in her pallid splendor
+ To dwell in the Court of the King:
+
+ With lilies on brow and bosom,
+ With robes of silken sheen,
+ And her wonderful, frozen beauty,
+ The lilies and silk between.
+
+ Red roses she left behind her,
+ But they died long, long ago
+ 'Twas the odorous ghost of a blossom
+ That seemed through the dusk to glow.
+
+ The garments she left mock the shadows
+ With hints of womanly grace,
+ And her image swims in the mirror
+ That was so used to her face.
+
+ The birds make insolent music
+ Where the sunshine riots outside,
+ And the winds are merry and wanton
+ With the summer's pomp and pride.
+
+ But into this desolate mansion,
+ Where Love has closed the door,
+ Nor sunshine nor summer shall enter,
+ Since she can come in no more.
+
+L.C. MOULTON.
+
+
+
+
+A Tropical Morning at Sea.
+
+
+ Sky in its lucent splendor lifted
+ Higher than cloud can be;
+ Air with no breath of earth to stain it,
+ Pure on the perfect sea.
+
+ Crests that touch and tilt each other,
+ Jostling as they comb;
+ Delicate crash of tinkling water,
+ Broken in pearling foam.
+
+ Plashings--or is it the pinewood's whispers,
+ Babble of brooks unseen,
+ Laughter of winds when they find the blossoms,
+ Brushing aside the green?
+
+ Waves that dip, and dash, and sparkle;
+ Foam-wreaths slipping by,
+ Soft as a snow of broken roses
+ Afloat over mirrored sky.
+
+ Off to the east the steady sun-track
+ Golden meshes fill
+ Webs of fire, that lace and tangle,
+ Never a moment still.
+
+ Liquid palms but clap together,
+ Fountains, flower-like, grow--
+ Limpid bells on stems of silver--
+ Out of a slope of snow.
+
+ Sea-depths, blue as the blue of violets--
+ Blue as a summer sky,
+ When you blink at its arch sprung over
+ Where in the grass you lie.
+
+ Dimly an orange bit of rainbow
+ Burns where the low west clears,
+ Broken in air, like a passionate promise
+ Born of a moment's tears.
+
+ Thinned to amber, rimmed with silver,
+ Clouds in the distance dwell,
+ Clouds that are cool, for all their color,
+ Pure as a rose-lipped shell.
+
+ Fleets of wool in the upper heavens
+ Gossamer wings unfurl;
+ Sailing so high they seem but sleeping
+ Over yon bar of pearl.
+
+ What would the great world lose, I wonder--
+ Would it be missed or no--
+ If we stayed in the opal morning,
+ Floating forever so?
+
+ Swung to sleep by the swaying water,
+ Only to dream all day--
+ Blow, salt wind from the north upstarting,
+ Scatter such dreams away!
+
+E.R. SILL.
+
+
+
+
+Memory.
+
+
+ My mind lets go a thousand things,
+ Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
+ And yet recalls the very hour--
+ 'Twas noon by yonder village tower,
+ And on the last blue noon in May--
+ The wind came briskly up this way,
+ Crisping the brook beside the road;
+ Then, pausing here, set down its load
+ Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
+ Two petals from that wild-rose tree.
+
+T.B. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+A Mood.
+
+
+ A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness--
+ Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;
+ A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;
+ A tense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence;
+ A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken--
+ Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.
+
+T.B. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+The Way to Arcady.[12]
+
+
+ _Oh, what's the way to Arcady,_
+ _To Arcady, to Arcady;_
+ _Oh, what's the way to Arcady,_
+ _Where all the leaves are merry?_
+
+ Oh, what's the way to Arcady?
+ The spring is rustling in the tree--
+ The tree the wind is blowing through--
+ It sets the blossoms flickering white.
+ I knew not skies could burn so blue
+ Nor any breezes blow so light.
+ They blow an old-time way for me,
+ Across the world to Arcady.
+
+ Oh, what's the way to Arcady?
+ Sir Poet, with the rusty coat,
+ Quit mocking of the song-bird's note.
+ How have you heart for any tune,
+ You with the wayworn russet shoon?
+ Your scrip, a-swinging by your side,
+ Gapes with a gaunt mouth hungry-wide.
+ I'll brim it well with pieces red,
+ If you will tell the way to tread.
+
+ _Oh, I am bound for Arcady,_
+ _And if you but keep pace with me_
+ _You tread the way to Arcady._
+
+ And where away lies Arcady,
+ And how long yet may the journey be?
+
+ _Ah, that_ (quoth he) _I do not know--_
+ _Across the clover and the snow--_
+ _Across the frost, across the flowers--_
+ _Through summer seconds and winter hours._
+ _I've trod the way my whole life long,_
+ _And know not now where it may be;_
+ _My guide is but the stir to song._
+ _That tells me I can not go wrong,_
+ _Or clear or dark the pathway be_
+ _Upon the road to Arcady._
+
+ But how shall I do who cannot sing?
+ I was wont to sing, once on a time--
+ There is never an echo now to ring
+ Remembrance back to the trick of rhyme.
+
+ _'Tis strange you cannot sing_ (quoth he),
+ _The folk all sing in Arcady._
+
+ But how may he find Arcady
+ Who hath not youth nor melody?
+
+ _What, know you not, old man_ (quoth he)--
+ _Your hair is white, your face is wise--_
+ _That Love must kiss that Mortal's eyes_
+ _Who hopes to see fair Arcady?_
+ _No gold can buy you entrance there;_
+ _But beggared Love may go all bare--_
+ _No wisdom won with weariness;_
+ _But Love goes in with Folly's dress--_
+ _No fame that wit could ever win;_
+ _But only Love may lead Love in_
+ _To Arcady, to Arcady._
+
+ Ah, woe is me, through all my days
+ Wisdom and wealth I both have got,
+ And fame and name, and great men's praise;
+ But Love, ah, Love! I have it not.
+
+ There was a time, when life was new--
+ But far away, and half forgot--
+ I only know her eyes were blue;
+ But Love--I fear I knew it not.
+ We did not wed, for lack of gold,
+ And she is dead, and I am old.
+ All things have come since then to me,
+ Save Love, ah, Love! and Arcady.
+
+ _Ah, then I fear we part_ (quoth he),
+ _My way's for Love and Arcady_.
+
+ But you, you fare alone, like me;
+ The gray is likewise in your hair.
+ What love have you to lead you there,
+ To Arcady, to Arcady?
+
+ _Ah, no, not lonely do I fare;_
+ _My true companion's Memory._
+ _With Love he fills the Spring-time air;_
+ _With Love he clothes the Winter tree._
+ _Oh, past this poor horizon's bound_
+ _My song goes straight to one who stands--_
+ _Her face all gladdening at the sound--_
+ _To lead me to the Spring-green lands,_
+ _To wander with enlacing hands._
+ _The songs within my breast that stir_
+ _Are all of her, are all of her._
+ _My maid is dead long years_ (quoth he),
+ _She waits for me in Arcady._
+
+ _Oh, yon's the way to Arcady,_
+ _To Arcady, to Arcady;_
+ _Oh, yon's the way to Arcady,_
+ _Where all the leaves are merry._
+
+H.C. BUNNER.
+
+
+
+[12] From "The Poems of H.C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by
+Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+Eve's Daughter.
+
+
+ I waited in the little sunny room:
+ The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play,
+ The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,
+ And out upon the bay
+ I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come.
+
+ "Such an old friend,--she would not make me stay
+ While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo,
+ Danaë in her shower! and fit to slay
+ All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow:
+ Gold hair, that streamed away
+ As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow.
+ "She would not make me wait!"--but well I know
+ She took a good half-hour to loose and lay
+ Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so!
+
+E.R. SILL.
+
+
+
+
+On An Intaglio Head Of Minerva.
+
+
+ Beneath the warrior's helm, behold
+ The flowing tresses of the woman!
+ Minerva, Pallas, what you will--
+ A winsome creature, Greek or Roman.
+
+ Minerva? No! 'tis some sly minx
+ In cousin's helmet masquerading;
+ If not--then Wisdom was a dame
+ For sonnets and for serenading!
+
+ I thought the goddess cold, austere,
+ Not made for love's despairs and blisses:
+ Did Pallas wear her hair like that?
+ Was Wisdom's mouth so shaped for kisses?
+
+ The Nightingale should be her bird,
+ And not the Owl, big-eyed and solemn:
+ How very fresh she looks, and yet
+ She's older far than Trajan's Column!
+
+ The magic hand that carved this face,
+ And set this vine-work round it running,
+ Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought
+ Had lost its subtle skill and cunning.
+
+ Who was he? Was he glad or sad,
+ Who knew to carve in such a fashion?
+ Perchance he graved the dainty head
+ For some brown girl that scorned his passion.
+
+ Perchance, in some still garden-place,
+ Where neither fount nor tree to-day is,
+ He flung the jewel at the feet
+ Of Phryne, or perhaps 'twas Laïs.
+
+ But he is dust; we may not know
+ His happy or unhappy story:
+ Nameless, and dead these centuries,
+ His work outlives him--there's his glory!
+
+ Both man and jewel lay in earth
+ Beneath a lava-buried city;
+ The countless summers came and went
+ With neither haste, nor hate, nor pity.
+
+ Years blotted out the man, but left
+ The jewel fresh as any blossom,
+ Till some Visconti dug it up--
+ To rise and fall on Mabel's bosom!
+
+ O nameless brother! see how Time
+ Your gracious handiwork has guarded:
+ See how your loving, patient art
+ Has come, at last, to be rewarded.
+
+ Who would not suffer slights of men,
+ And pangs of hopeless passion also,
+ To have his carven agate-stone
+ On such a bosom rise and fall so!
+
+T.B. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+Hunting-song.
+
+
+ Oh, who would stay indoor, indoor,
+ When the horn is on the hill? (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
+ With the crisp air stinging, and the huntsmen singing,
+ And a ten-tined buck to kill!
+
+ Before the sun goes down, goes down,
+ We shall slay the buck of ten; (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
+ And the priest shall say benison, and we shall ha'e venison,
+ When we come home again.
+
+ Let him that loves his ease, his ease,
+ Keep close and house him fair; (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
+ He'll still be a stranger to the merry thrill of danger
+ And the joy of the open air.
+
+ But he that loves the hills, the hills,
+ Let him come out to-day! (_Bugle_: Tarantara!)
+ For the horses are neighing, and the hounds are baying,
+ And the hunt's up, and away!
+
+R. HOVEY.
+
+
+
+
+Parting.
+
+
+ My life closed twice before its close;
+ It yet remains to see
+ If Immortality unveil
+ A third event to me,
+
+ So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
+ As these that twice befell.
+ Parting is all we know of heaven,
+ And all we need of hell.
+
+E. DICKINSON.
+
+
+
+
+When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan.
+
+
+ _When the Sultan Shah-Zaman_
+ _Goes to the city Ispahan_,
+ Even before he gets so far
+ As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,
+ At the last of the thirty palace-gates,
+ The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,
+ Orders a feast in his favorite room--
+ Glittering squares of colored ice,
+ Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice,
+ Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
+ Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
+ Limes, and citrons, and apricots,
+ And wines that are known to Eastern princes;
+ And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots
+ Of spicèd meats and costliest fish
+ And all that the curious palate could wish,
+ Pass in and out of the cedarn doors;
+ Scattered over mosaic floors
+ Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,
+ And a musical fountain throws its jets
+ Of a hundred colors into the air.
+ The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,
+ And stains with the henna-plant the tips
+ Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips
+ Till they bloom again; but, alas, _that_ rose
+ Not for the Sultan buds and blows!
+ _Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman_
+ _When he goes to the city Ispahan_.
+
+ Then at a wave of her sunny hand
+ The dancing-girls of Samarcand
+ Glide in like shapes from fairy-land,
+ Making a sudden mist in air
+ Of fleecy veils and floating hair
+ And white arms lifted. Orient blood
+ Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes.
+ And there, in this Eastern Paradise,
+ Filled with the breath of sandal-wood,
+ And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
+ Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,
+ Sipping the wines of Astrakhan;
+ And her Arab lover sits with her.
+ _That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman_
+ _Goes to the city Ispahan_.
+
+ Now, when I see an extra light,
+ Flaming, flickering on the night
+ From my neighbor's casement opposite,
+ I know as well as I know to pray,
+ I know as well as a tongue can say,
+ _That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman_
+ _Has gone to the city Isfahan_.
+
+T.B. ALDRICH.
+
+
+
+
+Night.
+
+
+ Chaos, of old, was God's dominion;
+ 'Twas His belovèd child, His own first-born;
+ And He was agèd ere the thought of morn
+ Shook the sheer steeps of black Oblivion.
+ Then all the works of darkness being done
+ Through countless æons hopelessly forlorn,
+ Out to the very utmost verge and bourn,
+ God at the last, reluctant, made the sun.
+ He loved His darkness still, for it was old:
+ He grieved to see His eldest child take flight;
+ And when His _Fiat lux_ the death-knell tolled,
+ As the doomed Darkness backward by Him rolled,
+ He snatched a remnant flying into light
+ And strewed it with the stars, and called it Night.
+
+L. MIFFLIN.
+
+
+
+
+He Made the Stars Also.
+
+
+ Vast hollow voids, beyond the utmost reach
+ Of suns, their legions withering at His nod,
+ Died into day hearing the voice of God;
+ And seas new made, immense and furious, each
+ Plunged and rolled forward, feeling for a beach;
+ He walked the waters with effulgence shod.
+ This being made, He yearned for worlds to make
+ From other chaos out beyond our night--
+ For to create is still God's prime delight.
+ The large moon, all alone, sailed her dark lake,
+ And the first tides were moving to her might;
+ Then Darkness trembled, and began to quake
+ Big with the birth of stars, and when He spake
+ A million worlds leapt into radiant light!
+
+L. MIFFLIN.
+
+
+
+
+The Sour Winds.
+
+
+ Wind of the North,
+ Wind of the Norland snows,
+ Wind of the winnowed skies and sharp, clear stars--
+ Blow cold and keen across the naked hills,
+ And crisp the lowland pools with crystal films,
+ And blur the casement-squares with glittering ice,
+ But go not near my love.
+
+ Wind of the West,
+ Wind of the few, far clouds,
+ Wind of the gold and crimson sunset lands--
+ Blow fresh and pure across the peaks and plains,
+ And broaden the blue spaces of the heavens,
+ And sway the grasses and the mountain pines,
+ But let my dear one rest.
+
+ Wind of the East,
+ Wind of the sunrise seas,
+ Wind of the clinging mists and gray, harsh rains--
+ Blow moist and chill across the wastes of brine,
+ And shut the sun out, and the moon and stars,
+ And lash the boughs against the dripping eaves,
+ Yet keep thou from my love.
+
+ But thou, sweet wind!
+ Wind of the fragrant South,
+ Wind from the bowers of jasmine and of rose--
+ Over magnolia glooms and lilied lakes
+ And flowering forests come with dewy wings,
+ And stir the petals at her feet, and kiss
+ The low mound where she lies.
+
+C.H. LÜDERS.
+
+
+
+
+The Return.
+
+
+ Now at last I am at home--
+ Wind abeam and flooding tide,
+ And the offing white with foam,
+ And an old friend by my side
+ Glad the long, green waves to ride.
+
+ Strange how we've been wandering
+ Through the crowded towns for gain,
+ You and I who loved the sting
+ Of the salt spray and the rain
+ And the gale across the main!
+
+ What world honors could avail
+ Loss of this--the slanted mast,
+ And the roaring round the rail,
+ And the sheeted spray we cast
+ Round us as we seaward passed?
+
+ As the sad land sinks apace,
+ With it sinks each thought of care;
+ Think not now of aging face;
+ Question not the whitening hair:
+ Youth still beckons everywhere.
+
+ And the light we thought had fled
+ From the sky-line glows there now;
+ Bends the same blue overhead;
+ And the waves we used to plow
+ Part in beryl at the bow.
+
+ Hours like this we two have known
+ In the old days, when we sailed
+ Seaward ere the night had flown,
+ Or the morning star had paled
+ Like the shy eyes love has veiled.
+
+ Round our bow the ripples purled,
+ As the swift tide outward streamed
+ Through a hushed and ghostly world,
+ Where our harbor reaches seemed
+ Like a river that we dreamed.
+
+ Then we saw the black hills sway
+ In the waters' crinkled glass,
+ And the village wan and gray,
+ And the startled cattle pass
+ Through the tangled meadow-grass.
+
+ Through the glooming we have run
+ Straight into the gates of day,
+ Seen the crimson-edgèd sun
+ Burn the sea's gray bound away--
+ Leap to universal sway.
+
+ Little cared we where we drove
+ So the wind was strong and keen.
+ Oh, what sun-crowned waves we clove!
+ What cool shadows lurked between
+ Those long combers pale and green!
+
+ Graybeard pleasures are but toys;
+ Sorrow shatters them at last:
+ For this brief hour we are boys;
+ Trim the sheet and face the blast;
+ Sail into the happy past!
+
+L.F. TOOKER.
+
+
+
+
+Bereaved.
+
+
+ Let me come in where you sit weeping,--aye,
+ Let me, who have not any child to die,
+ Weep with you for the little one whose love
+ I have known nothing of.
+
+ The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed
+ Their pressure round your neck; the hands you used
+ To kiss.--Such arms--such hands I never knew.
+ May I not weep with you?
+
+ Fain would I be of service--say some thing,
+ Between the tears, that would be comforting,--
+ But ah! so sadder than yourselves am I,
+ Who have no child to die.
+
+J.W. RILEY.
+
+
+
+
+The Chariot.
+
+
+ Because I could not stop for Death,
+ He kindly stopped for me;
+ The carriage held but just ourselves
+ And Immortality.
+
+ We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
+ And I had put away
+ My labor, and my leisure too,
+ For his civility.
+
+ We passed the school where children played,
+ Their lessons scarcely done;
+ We passed the fields of gazing grain.
+ We passed the setting sun.
+
+ We paused before a house that seemed
+ A swelling of the ground;
+ The roof was scarcely visible,
+ The cornice but a mound.
+
+ Since then 'tis centuries; but each
+ Feels shorter than the day
+ I first surmised the horses' heads
+ Were toward eternity.
+
+E. DICKINSON.
+
+
+
+
+Indian Summer.
+
+
+ These are the days when birds come back,
+ A very few, a bird or two,
+ To take a backward look.
+
+ These are the days when skies put on
+ The old, old sophistries of June,--
+ A blue and gold mistake.
+
+ Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,
+ Almost thy plausibility
+ Induces my belief,
+
+ Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,
+ And softly through the altered air
+ Hurries a timid leaf!
+
+ Oh, sacrament of summer days,
+ Oh, last communion in the haze,
+ Permit a child to join,
+
+ Thy sacred emblems to partake,
+ Thy consecrated bread to break,
+ Taste thine immortal wine!
+
+E. DICKINSON.
+
+
+
+
+Confided.
+
+
+ Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold,
+ Within this quiet fold,
+ Among Thy Father's sheep
+ I lay to sleep!
+ A heart that never for a night did rest
+ Beyond its mother's breast.
+ Lord, keep it close to Thee,
+ Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me!
+
+J.B. TABB.
+
+
+
+
+In Absence.
+
+
+ All that thou art not, makes not up the sum
+ Of what thou art, belovèd, unto me:
+ All other voices, wanting thine, are dumb;
+ All vision, in thine absence, vacancy.
+
+J.B. TABB.
+
+
+
+
+Song of the Chattahoochee.[13]
+
+
+ Out of the hills of Habersham,
+ Down the valleys of Hall,
+ I hurry amain to reach the plain,
+ Run the rapids and leap the fall
+ Split at the rock and together again,
+ Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
+ And flee from folly on every side
+ With a lover's pain to attain the plain
+ Far from the hills of Habersham,
+ Far from the valleys of Hall.
+
+ All down the hills of Habersham,
+ All through the valleys of Hall,
+ The rushes cried _Abide, abide_,
+ The wilful waterweeds held me thrall,
+ The laving laurel turned my tide,
+ The ferns and the fondling grass said _Stay_,
+ The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
+ And the little reeds sighed _Abide, abide_
+ _Here in the hills of Habersham_
+ _Here in the valleys of Hall_.
+
+ High o'er the hills of Habersham,
+ Veiling the valleys of Hall,
+ The hickory told me manifold
+ Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
+ Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
+ The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
+ Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
+ Said, _Pass not, so cold, these manifold_
+ _Deep shades of the hills of Habersham_,
+ _These glades in the valleys of Hall_.
+
+ And oft in the hills of Habersham,
+ And oft in the valleys of Hall,
+ The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
+ Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
+ And many a luminous jewel lone
+ --Crystals clear or acloud with mist,
+ Ruby, garnet and amethyst--
+ Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
+ In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
+ In the beds of the valleys of Hall.
+
+ But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
+ And oh, not the valleys of Hall
+ Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
+ Downward the voices of Duty call--
+ Downward to toil and be mixed with the main.
+ The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
+ And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
+ And the lordly main from beyond the plain
+ Calls o'er the hills of Habersham,
+ Calls through the valleys of Hall.
+
+S. LANIER.
+
+
+
+[13] From "Poems of Sidney Lanier," copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D.
+Lanier, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+The Sea's Voice.
+
+
+I.
+
+ Around the rocky headlands, far and near,
+ The wakened ocean murmured with dull tongue
+ Till all the coast's mysterious caverns rung
+ With the waves' voice, barbaric, hoarse, and drear.
+ Within this distant valley, with rapt ear,
+ I listened, thrilled, as though a spirit sung,
+ Or some gray god, as when the world was young,
+ Moaned to his fellow, mad with rage or fear.
+ Thus in the dark, ere the first dawn, methought
+ The sea's deep roar and sullen surge and shock
+ Broke the long silence of eternity,
+ And echoed from the summits where God wrought,
+ Building the world, and ploughing the steep rock
+ With ploughs of ice-hills harnessed to the sea.
+
+
+II.
+
+ The sea is never quiet: east and west
+ The nations hear it, like the voice of fate;
+ Within vast shores its strife makes desolate,
+ Still murmuring mid storms that to its breast
+ Return, as eagles screaming to their nest.
+ Is it the voice of worlds and isles that wait
+ While old earth crumbles to eternal rest,
+ Or some hoar monster calling to his mate?
+ O ye, that hear it moan about the shore,
+ Be still and listen! that loud voice hath sung
+ Where mountains rise, where desert sands are blown;
+ And when man's voice is dumb, forevermore
+ 'Twill murmur on its craggy shores among,
+ Singing of gods and nations overthrown.
+
+W.P. FOSTER.
+
+
+
+
+At Gibraltar.
+
+
+I.
+
+ England, I stand on thy imperial ground,
+ Not all a stranger; as thy bugles blow,
+ I feel within my blood old battles flow,--
+ The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found.
+ Still surging dark against the Christian bound
+ Wide Islam presses; well its peoples know
+ Thy heights that watch them wandering below;
+ I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound.
+ I turn and meet the cruel turbaned face;
+ England, 'tis sweet to be so much thy son!
+ I feel the conqueror in my blood and race;
+ Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day
+ Gibraltar wakened; hark, thy evening gun
+ Startles the desert over Africa!
+
+
+II.
+
+ Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas
+ Between the East and West, that God has built;
+ Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt,
+ While run thy armies true with His decrees.
+ Law, justice, liberty,--great gifts are these;
+ Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt,
+ Lest, mixt and sullied with his country's guilt,
+ The soldier's life-stream flow and Heaven displease.
+ Two swords there are: one naked, apt to smite,
+ Thy blade of war; and, battled-storied, one
+ Rejoices in the sheath and hides from light
+ American I am; would wars were done!
+ Now westward look, my country bids Good-night,--
+ Peace to the world from ports without a gun!
+
+G.E. WOODBERRY.
+
+
+
+
+Jerry an' Me.
+
+
+ No matter how the chances are,
+ Nor when the winds may blow,
+ My Jerry there has left the sea
+ With all its luck an' woe:
+ For who would try the sea at all,
+ Must try it luck or no.
+
+ They told him--Lor', men take no care
+ How words they speak may fall--
+ They told him blunt, he was too old,
+ Too slow with oar an' trawl,
+ An' this is how he left the sea
+ An' luck an' woe an' all.
+
+ Take any man on sea or land
+ Out of his beaten way,
+ If he is young 'twill do, but then,
+ If he is old an' gray,
+ A month will be a year to him,
+ Be all to him you may.
+
+ He sits by me, but most he walks
+ The door-yard for a deck,
+ An' scans the boat a-goin' out
+ Till she becomes a speck,
+ Then turns away, his face as wet
+ As if she were a wreck.
+
+ I cannot bring him back again,
+ The days when we were wed.
+ But he shall never know--my man--
+ The lack o' love or bread,
+ While I can cast a stitch or fill
+ A needleful o' thread.
+
+ God pity me, I'd most forgot
+ How many yet there be,
+ Whose goodmen full as old as mine
+ Are somewhere on the sea,
+ Who hear the breakin' bar an' think
+ O' Jerry home an'--me.
+
+H. RICH.
+
+
+
+
+The Gravedigger.
+
+
+ Oh, the shambling sea is a sexton old,
+ And well his work is done;
+ With an equal grave for lord and knave,
+ He buries them every one.
+
+ Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip,
+ He makes for the nearest shore;
+ And God, who sent him a thousand ship,
+ Will send him a thousand more;
+ But some he'll save for a bleaching grave,
+ And shoulder them in to shore,--
+ Shoulder them in, shoulder them in,
+ Shoulder them in to shore.
+
+ Oh, the ships of Greece and the ships of Tyre
+ Went out, and where are they?
+ In the port they made, they are delayed
+ With the ships of yesterday.
+
+ He followed the ships of England far
+ As the ships of long ago;
+ And the ships of France they led him a dance,
+ But he laid them all arow.
+
+ Oh, a loafing, idle lubber to him
+ Is the sexton of the town;
+ For sure and swift, with a guiding lift,
+ He shovels the dead men down.
+
+ But though he delves so fierce and grim,
+ His honest graves are wide,
+ As well they know who sleep below
+ The dredge of the deepest tide.
+
+ Oh, he works with a rollicking stave at lip,
+ And loud is the chorus skirled;
+ With the burly note of his rumbling throat
+ He batters it down the world.
+
+ He learned it once in his father's house
+ Where the ballads of eld were sung;
+ And merry enough is the burden rough,
+ But no man knows the tongue.
+
+ Oh, fair, they say, was his bride to see,
+ And wilful she must have been,
+ That she could bide at his gruesome side
+ When the first red dawn came in.
+
+ And sweet, they say, is her kiss to those
+ She greets to his border home;
+ And softer than sleep her hand's first sweep
+ That beckons, and they come.
+
+ Oh, crooked is he, but strong enough
+ To handle the tallest mast;
+ From the royal barque to the slaver dark,
+ He buries them all at last.
+
+ Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip,
+ He makes for the nearest shore;
+ And God, who sent him a thousand ship,
+ Will send him a thousand more;
+ But some he'll save for a bleaching grave,
+ And shoulder them in to shore,--
+ Shoulder them in, shoulder them in,
+ Shoulder them in to shore.
+
+B. CARMAN.
+
+
+
+
+The Absence of Little Wesley.
+
+HOOSIER DIALECT.
+
+
+ Sence little Wesley went, the place seems all so strange and still--
+ W'y, I miss his yell o' "Gran'pap!" as I'd miss the whipperwill!
+ And to think I ust to _scold_ him fer his everlastin' noise,
+ When I on'y rickollect him as the best o' little boys!
+ I wisht a hunderd times a day 'at he'd come trompin' in,
+ And all the noise he ever made was twic't as loud ag'in!--
+ It 'u'd seem like some soft music played on some fine insturment,
+ 'Longside o' this loud lonesomeness, sence little Wesley went!
+
+ Of course the clock don't tick no louder than it ust to do--
+ Yit now they's times it 'pears like it 'u'd bu'st itse'f in two!
+ And let a rooster, suddent-like, crow som'er's clos't around,
+ And seems's ef, mighty nigh it, it 'u'd lift me off the ground!
+ And same with all the cattle when they bawl around the bars,
+ In the red o' airly mornin', er the dusk and dew and stars,
+ When the neighbers' boys 'at passes never stop, but jes' go on,
+ A-whistlin' kind o' to theirse'v's--sence little Wesley's gone!
+
+ And then, o' nights, when Mother's settin' up oncommon late,
+ A-bilin' pears er somepin', and I set and smoke and wait,
+ Tel the moon out through the winder don't look bigger'n a dime,
+ And things keeps gittin' stiller--stiller--stiller all the time,--
+ I've ketched myse'f a-wishin' like--as I dumb on the cheer
+ To wind the clock, as I hev done fer mor'n fifty year,--
+ A-wishin' 'at the time bed come fer us to go to bed,
+ With our last prayers, and our last tears, sence little Wesley's dead!
+
+J.W. RILEY.
+
+
+
+
+Be Thou a Bird, My Soul.
+
+
+ Be thou a bird, my soul, and mount and soar
+ Out of thy wilderness,
+ Till earth grows less and less,
+ Heaven, more and more.
+
+ Be thou a bird, and mount, and soar, and sing,
+ Till all the earth shall be
+ Vibrant with ecstasy
+ Beneath thy wing.
+
+ Be thou a bird, and trust, the autumn come,
+ That through the pathless air
+ Thou shalt find otherwhere
+ Unerring, home.
+
+
+
+
+Opportunity.
+
+
+ This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:--
+ There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;
+ And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
+ A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
+ Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner
+ Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
+ A craven hung along the battle's edge,
+ And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel--
+ That blue blade that the king's son bears,--but this
+ Blunt thing!"--he snapt and flung it from his hand,
+ And lowering crept away and left the field.
+ Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead,
+ And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
+ Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,
+ And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout
+ Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down,
+ And saved a great cause that heroic day.
+
+E.R. SILL.
+
+
+
+
+Dutch Lullaby.[14]
+
+
+ Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
+ Sailed off in a wooden shoe,--
+ Sailed on a river of misty light
+ Into a sea of dew.
+ "Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
+ The old moon asked the three.
+ "We have come to fish for the herring-fish
+ That live in this beautiful sea;
+ Nets of silver and gold have we,"
+ Said Wynken,
+ Blynken,
+ And Nod.
+
+ The old moon laughed and sung a song,
+ As they rocked in the wooden shoe;
+ And the wind that sped them all night long
+ Ruffled the waves of dew;
+ The little stars were the herring-fish
+ That lived in the beautiful sea.
+ "Now cast your nets wherever you wish,
+ But never afeard are we!"
+ So cried the stars to the fishermen three,
+ Wynken,
+ Blynken,
+ And Nod.
+
+ All night long their nets they threw
+ For the fish in the twinkling foam,
+ Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe,
+ Bringing the fishermen home;
+ 'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
+ As if it could not be;
+ And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
+ Of sailing that beautiful sea;
+ But I shall name you the fishermen three:
+ Wynken,
+ Blynken,
+ And Nod.
+
+ Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
+ And Nod is a little head,
+ And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
+ Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
+ So shut your eyes while Mother sings
+ Of wonderful sights that be,
+ And you shall see the beautiful things
+ As you rock on the misty sea
+ Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,--
+ Wynken,
+ Blynken,
+ And Nod.
+
+E. FIELD.
+
+
+
+[14] From "A Little Book of Western Verse," copyright, 1889, by Eugene
+Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+The Maryland Yellow-throat.[15]
+
+ While May bedecks the naked trees
+ With tassels and embroideries,
+ And many blue-eyed violets beam
+ Along the edges of the stream,
+ I hear a voice that seems to say,
+ Now near at hand, now far away,
+ "_Witchery--witchery--witchery_."
+
+ An incantation so serene,
+ So innocent, befits the scene:
+ There's magic in that small bird's note--
+ See, there he flits--the yellow-throat:
+ A living sunbeam, tipped with wings,
+ A spark of light that shines and sings
+ "_Witchery--witchery--witchery_."
+
+ You prophet with a pleasant name,
+ If out of Mary-land you came,
+ You know the way that thither goes
+ Where Mary's lovely garden grows:
+ Fly swiftly back to her, I pray,
+ And try, to call her down this way,
+ "_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
+
+ Tell her to leave her cockleshells,
+ And all her little silver bells
+ That blossom into melody,
+ And all her maids less fair than she.
+ She does not need these pretty things,
+ For everywhere she comes, she brings
+ "_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
+
+ The woods are greening overhead,
+ And flowers adorn each mossy bed;
+ The waters babble as they run--
+ One thing is lacking, only one:
+ If Mary were but here to-day,
+ I would believe your charming lay,
+ "_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
+
+ Along the shady road I look--
+ Who's coming now across the brook?
+ A woodland maid, all robed in white--
+ The leaves dance round her with delight,
+ The stream laughs out beneath her feet--
+ Sing, merry bird, the charm's complete,
+ "_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
+
+H. VAN DYKE.
+
+
+
+[15] From "The Builders and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+The Silence of Love.
+
+
+ Oh, inexpressible as sweet,
+ Love takes my voice away;
+ I cannot tell thee, when we meet,
+ What most I long to say.
+
+ But hadst thou hearing in thy heart
+ To know what beats in mine,
+ Then shouldst thou walk, where'er thou art,
+ In melodies divine.
+
+ So warbling birds lift higher notes
+ Than to our ears belong;
+ The music fills their throbbing throats,
+ But silence steals the song.
+
+G.E. WOODBERRY.
+
+
+
+
+The Secret.
+
+
+ Nightingales warble about it,
+ All night under blossom and star;
+ The wild swan is dying without it,
+ And the eagle cryeth afar;
+ The sun he doth mount but to find it,
+ Searching the green earth o'er;
+ But more doth a man's heart mind it,
+ Oh, more, more, more!
+
+ Over the gray leagues of ocean
+ The infinite yearneth alone;
+ The forests with wandering emotion
+ The thing they know not intone;
+ Creation arose but to see it,
+ A million lamps in the blue;
+ But a lover he shall be it
+ If one sweet maid is true.
+
+G.E. WOODBERRY.
+
+
+
+
+The Whip-poor-will.[16]
+
+
+ Do you remember, father,--
+ It seems so long ago,--
+ The day we fished together
+ Along the Pocono?
+ At dusk I waited for you,
+ Beside the lumber-mill,
+ And there I heard a hidden bird
+ That chanted, "whip-poor-will,"
+ "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
+ Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
+
+ The place was all deserted;
+ The mill-wheel hung at rest;
+ The lonely star of evening
+ Was quivering in the west;
+ The veil of night was falling;
+ The winds were folded still;
+ And everywhere the trembling air
+ Re-echoed "whip-poor-will!"
+ "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
+ Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
+
+ You seemed so long in coming,
+ I felt so much alone;
+ The wide, dark world was round me,
+ And life was all unknown;
+ The hand of sorrow touched me,
+ And made my senses thrill
+ With all the pain that haunts the strain
+ Of mournful whip-poor-will.
+ "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
+ Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
+
+ What did I know of trouble?
+ An idle little lad;
+ I had not learned the lessons
+ That make men wise and sad,
+ I dreamed of grief and parting,
+ And something seemed to fill
+ My heart with tears, while in my ears
+ Resounded "whip-poor-will."
+ "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
+ Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
+
+ 'Twas but a shadowy sadness,
+ That lightly passed away;
+ But I have known the substance
+ Of sorrow, since that day.
+ For nevermore at twilight,
+ Beside the silent mill,
+ I'll wait for you, in the falling dew,
+ And hear the whip-poor-will.
+ "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
+ Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
+
+ But if you still remember,
+ In that fair land of light,
+ The pains and fears that touch us
+ Along this edge of night,
+ I think all earthly grieving,
+ And all our mortal ill,
+ To you must seem like a boy's sad dream,
+ Who hears the whip-poor-will.
+ "_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
+ A passing thrill--"_whippoorwill!_"
+
+H. VAN DYKE.
+
+
+
+[16] From "The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, Charles
+Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+Fertility.
+
+
+ Spirit that moves the sap in spring,
+ When lusty male birds fight and sing,
+ Inform my words, and make my lines
+ As sweet as flowers, as strong as vines,
+
+ Let mine be the freshening power
+ Of rain on grass, of dew on flower;
+ The fertilizing song be mine,
+ Nut-flavored, racy, keen as wine.
+
+ Let some procreant truth exhale
+ From me, before my forces fail;
+ Or ere the ecstatic impulse go,
+ Let all my buds to blossoms blow.
+
+ If quick, sound seed be wanting where
+ The virgin soil feels sun and air,
+ And longs to fill a higher state,
+ There let my meanings germinate.
+
+ Let not my strength be spilled for naught,
+ But, in some fresher vessel caught,
+ Be blended into sweeter forms,
+ And fraught with purer aims and charms.
+
+ Let bloom-dust of my life be blown
+ To quicken hearts that flower alone;
+ Around my knees let scions rise
+ With heavenward-pointed destinies.
+
+ And when I fall, like some old tree,
+ And subtile change makes mould of me,
+ There let earth show a fertile line
+ Whence perfect wild-flowers leap and shine!
+
+M. THOMPSON.
+
+
+
+
+The Veery.[17]
+
+
+ The moonbeams over Arno's vale in silver flood were pouring,
+ When first I heard the nightingale a long-lost love deploring.
+ So passionate, so full of pain, it sounded strange and eerie,
+ I longed to hear a simpler strain,--the wood notes of the veery.
+
+ The laverock sings a bonny lay above the Scottish heather;
+ It sprinkles down from far away like light and love together;
+ He drops the golden notes to greet his brooding mate, his dearie;
+ I only know one song more sweet,--the vespers of the veery.
+
+ In English gardens, green and bright and full of fruity treasure,
+ I heard the blackbird with delight repeat his merry measure:
+ The ballad was a pleasant one, the tune was loud and cheery,
+ And yet, with every setting sun, I listened for the veery.
+
+ But far away, and far away, the tawny thrush is singing;
+ New England woods, at close of day, with that clear chant are ringing:
+ And when my light of life is low, and heart and flesh are weary,
+ I fain would hear, before I go, the wood notes of the veery.
+
+H. VAN DYKE.
+
+
+[17] From "The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles
+Scribner's Sons.
+
+
+
+
+The Eavesdropper.
+
+
+ In a still room at hush of dawn,
+ My Love and I lay side by side
+ And heard the roaming forest wind
+ Stir in the paling autumn-tide.
+
+ I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
+ Because the round day was so fair;
+ While memories of reluctant night
+ Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
+
+ Outside, a yellow maple-tree,
+ Shifting upon the silvery blue
+ With small innumerable sound,
+ Rustled to let the sunlight through.
+
+ The livelong day the elvish leaves
+ Danced with their shadows on the floor;
+ And the lost children of the wind
+ Went straying homeward by our door.
+
+ And all the swarthy afternoon
+ We watched the great deliberate sun
+ Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
+ Counting his hilltops one by one.
+
+ Then as the purple twilight came
+ And touched the vines along our eaves,
+ Another Shadow stood without
+ And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.
+
+ The silence fell on my Love's lips;
+ Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
+ With pondering some maze of dream,
+ Though all the splendid year was glad.
+
+ Restless and vague as a gray wind
+ Her heart had grown, she knew not why.
+ But hurrying to the open door,
+ Against the verge of western sky
+
+ I saw retreating on the hills,
+ Looming and sinister and black,
+ The stealthy figure swift and huge
+ Of One who strode and looked not back.
+
+B. CARMAN.
+
+
+
+
+Sesostris.
+
+
+ Sole Lord of Lords and very King of Kings,
+ He sits within the desert, carved in stone;
+ Inscrutable, colossal, and alone,
+ And ancienter than memory of things.
+ Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings;
+ Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown
+ Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown.
+ The affrighted ostrich dare not dust her wings
+ Anear this Presence. The long caravan's
+ Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare.
+ This symbol of past power more than man's
+ Presages doom. Kings look--and Kings despair:
+ Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands
+ And dark thrones totter in the baleful air!
+
+L. MIFFLIN.
+
+
+
+
+NOTES.
+
+
+American poetry before Bryant was considerable in amount, but, with few
+exceptions, it must be looked for by the curious student in the
+graveyard of old anthologies. Who now reads "The Simple Cobbler of
+Agawam in America," "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America," "The
+Day of Doom," "M'Fingal," or "The Columbiad?" Skipping a generation from
+Barlow's death, who reads with much seriousness any one of the group of
+poets of which Bryant in his earliest period was the centre: Halleck,
+Pierpont, Sprague, Drake, Dana, Percival, Allston, Brainard, Mrs.
+Osgood, and Miss Brooks? A few of them, to be sure, are remembered by an
+occasional lyric,--Halleck by "Marco Bozzaris," a spirited ode in the
+manner of Campbell; Pierpont by his ringing lines, "Warren's Address to
+the American Soldiers;" Drake by "The American Flag," conventional but
+not commonplace, and marked by one very imaginative line; and Allston by
+two rather excellent lyrics, "Rosalie" and "America to Great Britain."
+The first poet to accomplish work of high sustained excellence was
+Bryant. His poetry, though never impassioned, is uniformly elegant. It
+is often as chaste as Landor at his best. But it never surprises; it is
+not emotional, personal, suggestively imaginative. In fact, Bryant's
+muse is not lyrical. With the exception of Pinkney and Hoffman, whose
+"Sparkling and Bright," if technically defective, is a true song, we
+must wait for our lyric poet till we reach Edgar Allan Poe, the
+greatest--one inclines to say the only--master of musical quality in
+verse whom America has produced.
+
+_The Wild Honeysuckle._--Philip Freneau, born in 1752, was a soldier in
+the American Revolution. Though never rising quite into the highest
+class of poets, he is our first genuine singer. "The Indian
+Burying-ground" and "To a Honey-bee" are only less successful than the
+graceful lines quoted.
+
+_A Health._--Poe was an enthusiastic admirer of this poem. He pronounced
+it, in his essay entitled "The Poetic Principle," "full of brilliancy
+and spirit," and added: "It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have
+been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable
+that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that
+magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American
+Letters, in conducting the thing called _The North American Review_."
+This passage, very characteristic of Poe's criticisms, illustrates both
+his championship of favorites, and unmerciful scourging of foes.
+
+_Unseen Spirits._--The earnest sincerity, evident in every line of this
+poem, removes it at once from the company of those gay society verses
+sparkling with conceits which won for Willis the satiric comment of
+Lowell in "A Fable for Critics:"
+
+ "There is Willis, all natty, and jaunty, and gay,
+ Who says his best things in so foppish a way,
+ With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o'erlaying 'em,
+ That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying 'em;
+ Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose,--
+ Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her nose!"
+
+Had Willis written more such lyrics as "Unseen Spirits," his fame could
+hardly have proved so ephemeral. Poe considered this poem Willis's best,
+and I see no ground for calling the critic's judgment in question.
+
+_To Helen._--This brief lyric, written in the poet's youth, is not only
+among the most exquisite from his pen, but it furnishes one of the most
+famous among current quotations:
+
+ "The glory that was Greece,
+ And the grandeur that was Rome."
+
+_On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake._--These manly lines have yielded
+another phrase to the world's memory. Hardly any quotation is more
+hackneyed than the last two verses of the first stanza. Drake was a
+young poet, the intimate friend and literary co-laborer of Halleck, who
+died September, 1820, in his twenty-fifth year.
+
+_To the Fringed Gentian._--This lyric well illustrates what Mr. Stedman
+has aptly termed Bryant's "Doric simplicity." Nothing of Wordsworth's is
+freer from ornament or from the least trace of affectation.
+
+_The Raven._--Though not belonging to the highest order of poetry, "The
+Raven" still maintains its position at the head of its class. No more
+astonishing _tour de force_ can be found in English literature.
+
+_Nature._--Generally regarded, I think, the finest of Longfellow's, if
+not of American, sonnets.
+
+_Ichabod._--Occasioned by the defection and fall of Daniel Webster. It
+is worthy a place by the side of Browning's "Lost Leader." In later
+years, Whittier wrote a poem on the theme, which, while not a retraction
+of his former position, is penned in a tenderer, more tolerant mood,
+"The Lost Occasion" is its title, and it is only just to the poet to
+read this second lyric, hardly less successful, in connection with the
+first.
+
+_Old Ironsides._--"Old Ironsides" was the popular name for the frigate
+_Constitution_. Dr. Holmes's poem appeared in the Boston _Advertiser_
+"at the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for
+service."
+
+_Bedouin Song._--One of the most spirited, most genuinely lyrical of
+American poems.
+
+_Skipper Ireson's Ride._--These lines have an easy, swinging quality
+that is quite inimitable. One inclines to agree with Mr. Stedman: "Of
+all our poets he (Whittier) is the most natural balladist."
+
+_The Village Blacksmith._--The directness and homely strength of "The
+Village Blacksmith" have made it deservedly popular. One questions
+whether the last stanza might not have been omitted with advantage both
+to the unity and force of the poem.
+
+_The Last Leaf._--This masterpiece of mingled humor and pathos was a
+favorite poem of Abraham Lincoln.
+
+_The Old Kentucky Home._--The sincere and tender sentiment of this
+song, no less than its popular melody, has made it for many years a
+favorite. Even better known is Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which is
+said to have had a larger sale than any other American song.
+
+_Carolina._--The concluding lines of this lyric have an imaginative
+vigor rare in American poetry. Four stanzas are omitted.
+
+_Dirge for a Soldier._--Boker's Dirge was written in memory of General
+Philip Kearney.
+
+_Battle-hymn of the Republic._--Written in December, 1861, while Mrs.
+Howe was on a visit to Washington. Soon after the writer's return to
+Boston the lines were accepted for publication in the _Atlantic Monthly_
+by James T. Fields, who suggested the title of the poem. The song did
+not at first receive much notice, but before the Civil War was over had
+become very popular.
+
+_My Maryland._--A poem of great strength and beauty, though of uneven
+merit. It is unfortunately marred by a few rather intemperate
+expressions. The sincerity of feeling is everywhere so evident, however,
+that these must be forgiven. The lines were written by a native of
+Baltimore, Prof. James Randall, and were first published in April, 1861.
+The author of the famous song was teaching in a Louisiana college when
+he read in a New Orleans paper the news of the attack on the
+Massachusetts troops as they passed through Baltimore. This newspaper
+account inspired the verses.
+
+_In the Hospital._--This poem, which has enjoyed at best a newspaper
+immortality, deserves to be more widely known. Its simplicity,
+directness, and truth of feeling are quite beyond praise. According to a
+story which one dislikes to believe apocryphal, these lines were found
+under the pillow of a wounded soldier near Port Royal, South Carolina,
+in 1864.
+
+_Days._--Regarded from the point of view of artistic form, perhaps
+nothing of Emerson's is quite so flawless as "Days," a poem which for
+conciseness and polish is worthy to be called classic.
+
+_A Death-bed._--This is a worthy companion-piece to that other miniature
+classic, Thomas Hood's song, beginning, "We watched her breathing
+through the night."
+
+_Telling the Bees._--"A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country,
+formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death
+of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event,
+and their hives dressed in mourning. The ceremonial was supposed to be
+necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a
+new home." This poem of Whittier's is almost his highest achievement.
+Lowell said, in writing of the Quaker poet (Appleton's Cyclopedia of
+American Biography, VI.): "Many of his poems (such for example as
+'Telling the Bees'), in which description and sentiment mutually inspire
+each other, are as fine as any in the language." I often think, however,
+that Whittier will live longest by his hymns and poems of purely
+religious devotion. I know of nothing similar in English that surpasses
+"The Eternal Goodness," and perhaps half a dozen other poems.
+
+_Katie._--About one-third of Timrod's graceful poem which bears this
+title. This is one of the few cases where I have ventured to make
+omissions.
+
+_Thalatta._--Regarding this poem, Thomas Wentworth Higginson says, in
+"The New World and the New Book:" "Who knows but that, when all else of
+American literature has vanished in forgetfulness, some single little
+masterpiece like this may remain to show the high-water mark, not merely
+of a single poet, but of a nation and a generation?" The author of
+"Thalatta" was a Dartmouth graduate, a teacher, and a disciple of
+Emerson.
+
+_The Fall of the Leaf._--Thoreau's prose is known universally; his verse
+has not won as yet the recognition it deserves. It has little lyrical
+quality, but for unconventionality, charming turns of phrase, and the
+intimate knowledge of Nature it reveals, it is almost alone in American
+poetry.
+
+_The Rhodora._--"The Rhodora" has a conciseness and unity too rare in
+Emerson's poetry, which, beautiful in details, is strangely uneven. We
+sigh as we think what an unrivalled lyric poet Emerson would have been
+had he been sustained at the heights he was capable of reaching. No one
+surpasses Emerson at his best; he is almost a great poet.
+
+_The Chambered Nautilus._--Many think this Holmes's finest poem. It is
+taken from "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 1858.
+
+_Thought._--Helen Jackson is, perhaps, the most gifted of American women
+poets. Emily Dickinson is more imaginative, but her utter scorn of form
+in composition makes her work, unique as it is, less satisfying. Mrs.
+Jackson was a favorite with Emerson, and he is said to have liked best
+among her poems this sonnet, "Thought."
+
+_On a Bust of Dante._--Parsons, one of the best of American poets, is
+one of the most neglected. Stedman is inclined to think "On a Bust of
+Dante" the finest of American lyrics (see "The Nature of Poetry," 254).
+
+_The Port of Skips._--In a recent review of American Literature in the
+London _Athæneum_ occurs this sentence: "In point of power, workmanship,
+and feeling, among all poems written by Americans, we are inclined to
+give first place to the 'Port of Ships,' of Joaquin Miller."
+
+_Evening Song._--No poem of Lanier is more free from his characteristic
+faults. One regrets that so much of his work, highly imaginative as it
+is, is marred by over-elaboration and artificiality.
+
+_A Woman's Thought._--The striking reality and directness of this lyric,
+its immense emotional undercurrent, and its abrupt, almost gasping
+metre, admirably suited to the impassioned mood of the speaker,--these
+are a few of the qualities that combine to make "A Woman's Thought" one
+of the most remarkable poems in the book.
+
+_The White Jessamine._--One of the most charming of Father Tabb's
+lyrics. The verse of this poet is uneven in merit. He is too prone to
+merely fanciful conceits. But at his best Tabb is imaginative, as, for
+example, in the lines where he says of Angelo that he--
+
+ "From the sterile womb of stone,
+ Raised children unto God."
+
+Always artistic, Tabb's verse usually suggests workmanship; it is more
+thoughtful than spontaneous. His religious poetry presents, in the main,
+a rather striking similarity to the work of George Herbert.
+
+_The Battle-field._--Miss Dickinson has much of the witchcraft and
+subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr.
+Higginson so happily has introduced to the world, are not only daring
+and unconventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor
+has well said, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on
+grammar seems an impertinence." Emily Dickinson had more than a message,
+more than the charm of unexpectedness, more than the gift of
+phrase,--she had (and of how many Americans can this be said?) an
+intense imagination.
+
+_Fertility._--This selection appears in the collected poems of Maurice
+Thompson (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892), under the title of "A
+Prelude."
+
+_Sesostris._--Of this poem Mr. Stoddard has the high praise that in
+imaginative quality it is unequalled in nineteenth century literature,
+unless by Leigh Hunt's sonnet on the Nile. The same critic does not
+scruple to declare of Mr. Mifflin that he has a "glorious imagination,"
+and to prophesy for him a distinguished future. Seldom indeed has a
+first book of verse won such instant and universal appreciation as Mr.
+Mifflin's volume of sonnets, just issued as the "American Treasury" goes
+to press.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO FIRST LINES.
+
+
+A blight, a gloom, I know not what; 242
+
+All that thou art not, makes not up the sum; 267
+
+All the long August afternoon; 223
+
+A man said unto his angel; 211
+
+Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold; 266
+
+Around the rocky headlands, far and near; 271
+
+As a fond mother, when the day is o'er; 63
+
+As a twig trembles, which a bird; 145
+
+At midnight, in the month of June; 57
+
+At sea are tossing ships; 149
+
+At the king's gate the subtle noon; 183
+
+Ay, tear her tattered ensign down; 76
+
+
+Be thou a bird, my soul, and mount and soar; 282
+
+Because I could not stop for Death; 264
+
+Bedtime's come fu' little boys; 225
+
+Behind him lay the gray Azores; 199
+
+Beneath the warrior's helm, behold; 248
+
+Birds are singing round my window; 193
+
+Burly, dozing bumble-bee; 169
+
+By the rude bridge that arched the flood; 74
+
+
+Chaos, of old, was God's dominion; 256
+
+Close his eyes; his work is done; 106
+
+
+Dark as the clouds of even; 100
+
+Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days; 126
+
+Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way; 175
+
+Dear yesterday, glide not so fast; 155
+
+Do you remember, father; 291
+
+
+England, I stand on thy imperial ground; 273
+
+
+Fair flower that dost so comely grow; 1
+
+Farragut, Farragut; 110
+
+From the Desert I come to thee; 85
+
+
+"Give us a song!" the soldiers cried; 119
+
+Green be the turf above thee; 36
+
+
+Helen, thy beauty is to me; 31
+
+Her hands are cold; her face is white; 124
+
+Here is the place; right over the hill; 137
+
+Her suffering ended with the day; 136
+
+How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood; 8
+
+
+I am a woman--therefore I may not; 227
+
+I fill this cup to one made up; 12
+
+I have a little kinsman; 150
+
+I knew she lay above me; 235
+
+I lay me down to sleep; 122
+
+I saw him once before; 95
+
+I saw the twinkle of white feet; 64
+
+I stand upon the summit of my years; 154
+
+I waited in the little sunny room; 247
+
+In a still room at hush of dawn; 298
+
+In Heaven a spirit doth dwell; 21
+
+In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes; 165
+
+In the greenest of our valleys; 26
+
+In the summer even; 202
+
+It may be through some foreign grace; 140
+
+It was many and many a year ago; 10
+
+It was nothing but a rose I gave her; 196
+
+It was the schooner Hesperus; 80
+
+
+Just where the Treasury's marble front; 188
+
+
+Lear and Cordelia! 'twas an ancient tale; 78
+
+Let me come in where you sit weeping,--aye; 263
+
+Let me move slowly through the street; 42
+
+Lo! Death has reared himself a throne; 15
+
+Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands; 215
+
+Look out upon the stars, my love; 14
+
+
+Men say the sullen instrument; 158
+
+Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; 108
+
+My books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read; 172
+
+My heart, I cannot still it; 192
+
+My life closed twice before its close; 252
+
+My life is like the summer rose; 4
+
+My mind lets go a thousand things; 241
+
+
+Nightingales warble about it; 290
+
+No matter how the chances are; 275
+
+Not a hand has lifted the latchet; 236
+
+Not a kiss in life; but one kiss, at life's end; 209
+
+Not as all other women are; 142
+
+Now at last I am at home; 260
+
+
+O Death, when thou shalt come to me; 233
+
+O fairest of the rural maids; 6
+
+O marvel, fruit of fruits, I pause; 167
+
+O messenger, art thou the king, or I; 180
+
+O Nature! I do not aspire; 166
+
+Of all the rides since the birth of time; 87
+
+Oh, inexpressible as sweet; 289
+
+Oh, the shambling sea is a sexton old; 277
+
+Oh, who would stay indoor, indoor; 251
+
+_Oh, what's the way to Arcady_; 243
+
+Old Sorrow I shall meet again; 230
+
+Once it smiled a silent dell; 38
+
+Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands; 54
+
+Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary; 45
+
+Out of the hills of Habersham; 268
+
+
+Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin; 194
+
+
+See, from this counterfeit of him; 185
+
+Sence little Wesley went, the place seems all so strange and still; 280
+
+Sky in its lucent splendor lifted; 238
+
+So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn; 69
+
+Sole Lord of Lords and very King of Kings; 300
+
+Southward with fleet of ice; 71
+
+Sparkling and bright in liquid light; 32
+
+Spirit that moves the sap in spring; 294
+
+Still in thy love I trust; 218
+
+Such special sweetness was about; 224
+
+
+The apples are ripe in the orchard; 117
+
+The dawn came in through the bars of the blind; 213
+
+The day is done, and the darkness; 66
+
+The despot treads thy sacred sands; 104
+
+The despot's heel is on thy shore; 113
+
+The evening of the year draws on; 162
+
+The handful here, that once was Mary's earth; 147
+
+The little toy dog is covered with dust; 231
+
+The moonbeams over Arno's vale in silver flood were pouring; 296
+
+The new moon hung in the sky; 221
+
+The pines were dark on Ramoth hill; 130
+
+The royal feast was done; the King; 205
+
+The shadows lay along Broadway; 24
+
+The sky is dark, and dark the bay below; 217
+
+The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky Home; 98
+
+The tide rises, the tide falls; 161
+
+The wind from out the west is blowing; 216
+
+There are gains for all our losses; 129
+
+There is a city, builded by no hand; 201
+
+These are the days when birds come back; 265
+
+This bronze doth keep the very form and mold; 207
+
+This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream; 283
+
+This is Palm Sunday; mindful of the day; 198
+
+This is the Burden of the Heart; 197
+
+This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign; 178
+
+Thou blossom bright with autumn dew; 40
+
+Thou unrelenting Past; 18
+
+Thou wast all that to me, love; 34
+
+Thought is deeper than all speech; 181
+
+Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down; 210
+
+
+Under a spreading chestnut-tree; 92
+
+Upon a cloud among the stars we stood; 229
+
+
+Vast hollow voids, beyond the utmost reach; 257
+
+
+We sat within the farmhouse old; 133
+
+What, cringe to Europe! Band it all in one; 75
+
+What may we take into the vast Forever?; 219
+
+When first the bride and bridegroom wed; 153
+
+When I was a beggarly boy; 128
+
+_When the Sultan Shah-Zaman_; 253
+
+While May bedecks the naked trees; 287
+
+Whither, midst falling dew; 29
+
+Who has robbed the ocean cave; 3
+
+Wind of the North; 258
+
+Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night; 284
+
+
+Years have flown since I knew thee first; 208
+
+You know the old Hidalgo; 127
+
+
+
+
+INDEX TO AUTHORS.
+
+
+James Aldrich, 1810-1856, 136
+
+Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836-; 210, 221, 241, 242, 248, 253
+
+
+George Henry Boker, 1823-1890; 75, 78, 100, 106
+
+Joseph Brownlee Brown, 1824-1888; 154
+
+William Cullen Bryant, 1794-1878; 6, 18, 29, 40, 42, 54
+
+Henry Cuyler Bunner, 1855-1896; 209, 213, 233, 243
+
+
+Bliss Carman, 1861-; 277, 298
+
+Christopher Pearse Cranch, 1813-1892; 181
+
+
+Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886; 252, 264, 265
+
+Paul Lawrence Dunbar, 1872-; 225
+
+
+Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882; 74, 126, 165, 169
+
+
+Eugene Field, 1850-1896; 231, 284
+
+Annie Adams Fields, 1834-; 218
+
+Stephen Collins Foster, 1826-1864; 98
+
+William Prescott Foster, 18-; 271
+
+Philip Freneau, 1752-1832; 1
+
+
+Richard Watson Gilder, 1844-; 207, 208, 216, 217, 227
+
+Louise Imogen Guiney, 1861-; 211
+
+
+Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1790-1867; 36
+
+Charles Fenno Hoffman, 1806-1884; 32
+
+Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809-1894; 76, 95, 124, 178
+
+Richard Hovey, 1864-; 251
+
+Julia Ward Howe, 1819-; 108
+
+William Dean Howells, 1837-; 223
+
+Mary Woolsey Howland, 1832-1864; 122
+
+
+Helen Hunt Jackson, 1831-1885; 155, 167, 180, 183
+
+
+Sidney Lanier, 1842-1881; 215, 268
+
+Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882; 63, 66, 71, 80, 92, 133, 161
+
+James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891; 64, 128, 142, 145, 158, 175, 192
+
+Charles Henry Lüders, 1858-1891; 258
+
+
+William Tuckey Meredith, 1839-; 110
+
+Lloyd Mifflin, 18-; 229, 256, 257, 300
+
+Cincinnatus Hiner (Joaquin) Miller, 1841-; 199
+
+Louise Chandler Moulton, 1835-; 236
+
+
+Thomas William Parsons, 1819-1892; 147, 185, 198, 201
+
+John James Piatt, 1835-; 149
+
+Edward Coate Pinkney, 1802-1828; 12, 14
+
+Edgar Allan Poe, 1809-1849; 10, 15, 21, 26, 31, 34, 38, 45, 57
+
+
+James Ryder Randall, 1839-; 113
+
+Lizette Woodworth Reese, 1860-; 224
+
+Hiram Rich, 1832-; 275
+
+James Whitcomb Riley, 1853-; 263, 280
+
+
+John Shaw, 1778-1809; 3
+
+Edward Rowland Sill, 1841-1887; 205, 219, 238, 247, 283
+
+Harriet Prescott Spofford, 1835-; 196, 202
+
+Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1833-; 150, 188, 194
+
+Richard Henry Stoddard, 1825-; 127, 129, 153, 193
+
+
+John Banister Tabb, 1845-; 230, 235, 266, 267
+
+Bayard Taylor, 1825-1878; 85, 119
+
+Maurice Thompson, 1844-; 294
+
+Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862; 162, 166, 172
+
+Henry Timrod, 1829-1867; 104, 140
+
+L. Frank Tooker, 18-; 260
+
+
+Henry Van Dyke, 1852-; 287, 291, 296
+
+
+John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892; 69, 87, 130, 137
+
+Richard Henry Wilde, 1789-1847; 4
+
+Nathaniel Parker Willis, 1806-1867; 24
+
+Byron Forceythe Willson, 1837-1867; 197
+
+William Winter, 1836-; 117
+
+George Edward Woodberry, 1855-; 273, 289, 290
+
+Samuel Woodworth, 1785-1842; 8
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Golden Treasury of American Songs
+and Lyrics, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF ***
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