Chapter XI: How to Read Poetry (9)

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Thy heart like thy poppy is golden,
Thy story is writ in a gleam,
Thy magic like wine it is olden,
And hid in the web of a dream.

When the padre and poet had found thee,
Thy bells with a prophecy tolled,
For duty loved beauty, and round thee
The fabric of romance was rolled.

The vale with the snow-peak above her
Through ages in sunlight has lain,
Here art fondles nature, a lover
Forever in shine or rain.

There is fire where the poppy is dreaming,
And romance in woman’s large eyes,
There is splendor where sunbeams are streaming
From the far, lucid vault of thy skies.

And the stars and the moon look in wonder
On thy mountains and ocean and vale,
From azures too tender for thunder,
Too clear for the lightning of gale.

There are lands drunk with summer and beauty,
But none, magic country, like thee!
Where the palm and the pine—love and duty—
Are friends from the hills to the sea.

—From “Dreams of Hellas.”

IN BLOSSOM TIME

BY INA COOLBRITH

It’s O my heart, my heart,
To be out in the sun and sing—
To sing and shout in the fields about,
In the balm and the blossoming!

Sing loud, O bird in the tree;
O bird, sing loud in the sky,
And honey-bees, blacken the clover beds—
There is none of you glad as I.

The leaves laugh low in the wind,
Laugh low, with the wind at play;
And the odorous call of the flowers all
Entices my soul away!

For O but the world is fair, is fair—
And O but the world is sweet!
I will out in the gold of the blossoming mould,
And sit at the Master’s feet.

And the love my heart would speak,
I will fold in the lily’s rim,
That th’ lips of the blossom, more pure and meek,
May offer it up to Him.

Then sing in the hedgerow green, O thrush,
O skylark, sing in the blue;
Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear,
And my soul shall sing with you!

—From “Songs from the Golden Gate.”

—Copyright by _Houghton, Mifflin & Co._, and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

WHY?

BY MADGE MORRIS WAGNER

Why is it we grasp at the shadow
That flits from us swift as thought,
While the real that maketh the shadow
Stands in our way unsought?
And why do we wonder, and wonder,
What’s beyond the hill-tops of thought?

Why is it the things that we sigh for
Are the things that we never can reach?
Why, only the sternest experience
A lesson of patience can teach?
And why hold we so careless and lightly
The treasures that are in our reach?

Why is it we wait for the future,
Or dwell on the scenes of the past,
Rather than live in the present
Hastening from us so fast?

Why is it the prizes we toil for,
So tempting in fancy’s mould cast,
Prove, when to our lips we have pressed them,
Only apples of Sodom at last?
And why are the crowns, and the crosses,
So wondrous unequally classed?

Ask it, ye, over and over,
Let the winds waft your question on high,
Till memory wanes with the ages,
Till the stars in eternity die.
And out from the bloom and the sunshine,
From the rainbow o’er-arching the sky,
From the night and the gloom and the tempest,
Echo will answer you, “Why?”

—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

PICTURES OF MEMORY

BY ALICE CARY

Among the beautiful pictures
That hang on memory’s wall
Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all;
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,
Dark with the mistletoe;
Not for the violets golden,
That sprinkle the vale below;
Not for the milk-white lilies
That lean from the fragrant ledge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland,
Where the bright red-berries rest,
Nor the pinks, nor the pale sweet cowslip,
It seemeth to me the best.
I once had a little brother,
With eyes that were dark and deep;
In the lap of that dim old forest
He lieth in peace asleep:
Light as the down of the thistle,
Free as the winds that blow,
We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;
But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,
I made for my little brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.
Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty,
Silently covered his face;
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures
That hang on memory’s wall,
The one of the dim old forest
Seemeth the best of all.

THE JOY OF THE HILLS

BY EDWIN MARKHAM

I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride in the blowing oats,
Checking the field-lark’s rippling notes—
Lightly I sweep
From steep to steep:
Over my head through the branches high
Come glimpses of a rushing sky;
The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks;
Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;
A bee booms out of the scented grass;
A jay laughs with me as I pass.

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life’s hoard of regret—
All the terror and pain
Of the chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind:
I leave you a blur behind.
I am lifted elate—the skies expand:
Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them worry and work in their narrow walls:
I ride with the voices of waterfalls!

I swing on as one in a dream—I swing
Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!
The world is gone like an empty word:
My body’s a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!

—Copyright by _Doubleday, Page & Co._, New York, and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

TREES

BY JOYCE KILMER

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree who looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon her bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

THE DERELICT

BY HERBERT BASHFORD

I am rolled and swung, I am rocked and flung,
I am hammered and heaved and hurled,
I am tossed and wheeled, I am blown and reeled
And battered about the world.

On the pushing tide I ride and ride
Or loiter and loaf at ease.
With never a care, through foul or fair,
I follow the foaming seas.

Men come not nigh when they pass me by
For they fear me, every one,
As I cleave the gray of the dawning day
Or drowse in the summer sun.

Past unknown isles, for miles and miles
I wander away to where
The iceberg lifts and the salt spray drifts
In the freezing arctic air.

I steal by the bars when the flame-winged stars
Have swarmed in the upper blue
And the glow and shine of the drenching brine
Like white fire burns me through.

I haunt as a ghost the rock-girt coast
Where the bell-buoy loudly rings
And the breakers leap to the mighty sweep
Of the night-wind’s sable wings.

I shake and moan, I creak and groan,
In the wrathful tempest when
The old sea raves and digs deep graves
For the jolly sailor men.

What matters time or what the clime
To a vagrant of the sea?
To live or die, oh, naught care I,
There is no port for me!

—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

CHILD OF MY HEART

BY EDWIN MARKHAM

Child-heart!
Wild heart!
What can I bring you,
What can I sing you,
You who have come from a glory afar,
Called into Time from a secret star?

Fleet one!
Sweet one!
Whose was the wild hand
Shaped you in child-land,
Framing the flesh with a flash of desire,
Pouring the soul as a fearful fire?

Strong child!
Song child!
Who can unravel
All your long travel
Out of the Mystery, birth after birth—
Out of the dim worlds deeper than Earth?

Mad thing!
Glad thing!
How will Life time you?
How will God name you?
All that I know is that you are to me
Wind over water, star on the sea.

Dear heart!
Near heart!
Long is the journey,
Hard is the tourney:
Would I could be by your side when you fall—
Would that my own heart could suffer it all!

—Copyright by _Doubleday, Page & Co._, New York, and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

MANDALAY

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,
There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, an’ I know she thinks o’ me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, an’ the temple bells they say,
“Come you back, you British soldier, come you back to Mandalay!”
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay;
Can’t you hear the paddles chunkin’ from
Rangoon to Mandalay?
O the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’ fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer
China ’crost the Bay!

’Er petticut was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green,
An’ ’er name was Supi-yaw-lat—jest the same as Theebaw’s Queen,
An’ I seed ’er fust a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot,
An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot:
Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud—
Wot they called the great Gawd Budd—
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ’er where she stood!
On the road to Mandalay—

When the mist was on the rice-fields an’ the sun was droppin’ slow,
She’d git ’er little banjo an’ she’d sing “kulla-lo-lo!”
With ’er arm upon my shoulder an’ ’er cheek ag’in my cheek
We uster watch the steamers an’ the Hathis pilin’ teak.
Elephints a-pilin’ teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence ’ung that ’eavy you was ’arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay—

But that all shove behind me—long ago an’ fur away,
An’ there ain’t no busses runnin’ from the Benk to Mandalay;
An’ I’m learnin’ ’ere in London what the ten-year sodger tells:
“If you’ve ’eard the East a-callin’, why, you won’t ’eed nothin’ else.”
No! you won’t ’eed nothin’ else
But them spicy garlic smells
An’ the sunshine and the palm-trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells!
On the road to Mandalay—

I am sick o’ wastin’ leather on these gutty pavin’ stones,
An’ the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes a fever in my bones;
Tho’ I walk with fifty ’ouse-maids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An’ they talk a lot o’ lovin’, but what do they understand?
Beefy face an’ grubby hand—
Law! wot do they understand?
I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay—

Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments, an’ a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin’, an’ it’s there that I would be—
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea—
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
Oh, the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’ fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay.

GOLD

BY ARTHUR GUITERMAN

“Meed of the Toiler,” “Flame of the Sea”—
Such were the names of your poets for me.
“Metal of Mammon,” “Curse of the world”—
These are the libels your preachers have hurled,
Dug from the mountain-side, washed in the glen,
Servant am I or the master of men.
Steal me, I curse you; earn me, I bless you;
Grasp me and hoard me, a fiend shall possess you.
Lie for me, die for me, covet me, take me—
Angel or Devil, I am what you make me.

Falsely alluring, I shimmer and shine
Over the millions that hold me divine.
Trampling each other, they rush to adore me,
Heaping the dearest of treasure before me—
Love and its blessedness, Youth and its wealth,
Honor, Tranquillity, Innocence, Health—
Buying my favor with evil and pain;
Huge is the sacrifice, poor is the gain,
Naught but my effigy, passionless, cold,
God of a frenzied idolatry—Gold!

GOLD

BY THOMAS HOOD

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mold;
Price of many a crime untold—
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!

—From “Miss Kilmansegg.”

AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS

BY PADRAIC COLUM

Oh, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped-up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!

To have a clock with weights and chains,
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delf,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!

I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!

I could be quiet there at night,
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed, and loath to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delf!

Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there’s never a house or bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!

And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house—a house of my own—
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.

MY LOVE’S LIKE A RED ROSE

BY ROBERT BURNS

Oh, my love’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
Oh, my love’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry;

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

Oh, my love’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
Oh, my love’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy
Which having been, must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O ye fountains, meadows, hills and groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished on delight,
To live beneath your more habitual sway.

I love the brooks, which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they:
The innocent brightness of a new-born day
Is lovely yet;
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality!
Another race hath been, and other palms are won,
Thanks to the human heart by which we live.
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

L’ALLEGRO

BY JOHN MILTON

Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to live in dimples sleek,—
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as ye go,
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty:
And, if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free.

FROM IL PENSEROSO

BY JOHN MILTON

Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom.

THE LOTOS-EATERS

BY ALFRED TENNYSON

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Through every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotus-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething
free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotus-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world;
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps, and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centered in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whispered—down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

HOME, WOUNDED

BY SYDNEY DOBELL

Blare the trumpet, and boom the gun,
But, O, to sit here thus in the sun,
To sit here, feeling my work is done,
While the sands of life so golden run,
And I watch the children’s posies,
And my idle heart is whispering,
“Bring whatever the years may bring,
The flowers will blossom, the birds will sing,
And there’ll always be primroses.”

THE MINARET BELLS

BY WILLIAM M. THACKERAY

Tink a tink, tink a tink,
By the light of the star,
On the blue river’s brink,
I heard a guitar.

I heard a guitar
On the blue waters clear,
And knew by its music
That Selim was near!

Tink a tink, tink a tink,
How the soft music swells,
And I hear the soft clink
Of the minaret bells!

SPRINGTIME

BY LEONARD G. NATTKEMPER

May-time’s Spring-time,
O let us steal away.
Spring-time’s love-time,
So let us go to-day.

Oh! the dawn, while dew is on,
Awakes a fragrant breeze;
It fills my room with rich perfume
From snow-white locust trees.

Across the grain there floats a strain
Of ancient witchery;
A robin’s throat hath freed a note
Of rarest ecstasy.

And while he sings, within me springs
An echo to his lay—
But how can words e’er match this bird’s
Sweet song of Spring, I pray!

Such noon-day dreams by babbling streams,
There’s nothing to compare;
Soft zephyrs blow where waters flow,
Entangling my hair.

In shady nooks, fond lover looks
In eyes as blue as skies;
And her reply, though quaint and shy,
Is what true love implies.

So May-time’s Spring-time,
Now let us steal away;
Spring-time’s love-time,
And let us go to-day.

A SINGING LESSON

BY JEAN INGELOW

A nightingale made a mistake—
She sang a few notes out of tune—
Her heart was ready to break,
And she hid away from the moon.
She wrung her claws, poor thing,
But was far too proud to weep;
She tucked her head under her wing,
And pretended to be asleep.

A lark, arm-in-arm with a thrush,
Came sauntering up to the place;
The nightingale felt herself blush,
Though feathers hid her face.
She knew they had heard her song,
She felt them snicker and sneer;
She thought this life was too long,
And wished she could skip a year.

“Oh, nightingale,” cooed a dove,
“Oh, nightingale, what’s the use?
You bird of beauty and love,
Why behave like a goose?
Don’t skulk away from our sight
Like a common contemptible fowl;
You bird of joy and delight,
Why behave like an owl?

“Only think of all you have done—
Only think of all you can do;
A false note is really fun
From such a bird as you!
Lift up your proud little crest;
Open your musical beak;
Other birds have to do their best,
But you need only speak.”

The nightingale shyly took
Her head from under her wing,
And giving the dove a look
Straightway began to sing.
There was never a bird could pass—
The night was divinely calm—
And the people stood on the grass
To hear that wonderful psalm.

The nightingale did not care—
She only sang to the skies;
Her song ascended there,
And there she fixed her eyes.
The people who listened below
She knew but little about—
And this tale has a moral, I know,
If you’ll try to find it out.

MORAL

Never give up, always look up.

Cheer the discouraged.

Strive for heavenly applause.

Care not for the praise of men, but for the praise of God.

THE WOLVES OF THE SEA

BY HERBERT BASHFORD

From dusk until dawn they are hurrying on,
Unfettered and fearless they flee;
From morn until eve they plunder and thieve—
The hungry, white wolves of the Sea!

With never a rest, they race to the west,
To the Orient’s rim do they run;
By the berg and the floe of the northland they go
And away to the isles of the sun.

They wail at the moon from the desolate dune
Till the air has grown dank with their breath;
They snarl at the stars from the treacherous bars
Of the coasts that are haunted by Death.

They grapple and bite in a keen, mad delight
As they feed on the bosom of Grief;
And one steals away to a cave with his prey,
And one to the rocks of the reef.

With the froth on their lips they follow the ships,
Each striving to lead in the chase;
Since loosed by the hand of the King of their band
They have known but the rush of the race.

They are shaggy and old, yet as mighty and bold
As when God’s freshest gale set them free;
Not a sail is unfurled in a part of the world
But is prey for the wolves of the Sea!

—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

OLD IRONSIDES

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

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 hero’s 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!

COLUMBUS

BY JOAQUIN MILLER

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’r’l, 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’r’l, 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’r’l; speak and say—”
He said: “Sail on! sail on! and on!”

They sailed: they sailed. Then spake the mate:
“This mad sea shows his teeth to-night,
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Adm’r’l, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
“Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!”

Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck—
A light! A light? A light! A light!
It grew; a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”

—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind permission of author and publisher.

DAYBREAK

BY ROBERT BROWNING

Day!
Faster and more fast,
O’er night’s brim, day boils at last:
Boils pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,
A mite of my twelve hours’ treasure,
The least of thy gazes or glances,
(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure)
One of thy choices or one of thy chances,
(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy pleasure)
—My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure,
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me!

Thy long, blue, solemn hours serenely flowing,
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good—
Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going,
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood—
All shall be mine! But thou must treat me not
As prosperous ones are treated, those who live
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot,
In readiness to take what thou wilt give,
And free to let alone what thou refusest;
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest
Me, who am only Pippa,—old-year’s sorrow,
Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow:
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow.
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year’s sorrow.
All other men and women that this earth
Belongs to, who all days alike possess,
Make general plenty cure particular dearth,
Get more joy one way, if another, less:
Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven
What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven.

—From “Pippa Passes.”

MY SWORD SONG

BY RICHARD REALF

Day in, day out, through the long campaign,
I march in my place in the ranks;
And whether it shine or whether it rain,
My good sword cheerily clanks;
It clanks and clanks in a knightly way
Like the ring of an armored heel;
And this is the song which day by day,
It sings with its lips of steel:

“O friend, from whom a hundred times,
I have felt the strenuous grip
Of the all-renouncing love that climbs
To the heights of fellowship;
Are you tired of all the weary miles?
Are you faint with your swooning limbs?
Do you hunger back for the olden smiles,
And the lilt of olden hymns?

“Has your heart grown weak since that rapt hour
When you leapt, with a single bound,
From dreaming ease to sovereign power
Of a living soul world-crowned?
Behold! the aloes of sacrifice
Are better than radiant wine,
And the bloody sweat of a cause like this
Is an agony divine.

“Under the wail of the shuddering world
Amoan for its fallen sons;
Over the volleying thunders hurled
From the throats of the wrathful guns;
Above the roar of the plunging line
That rocks with the fury of hell,
Runs the absolute voice: O Earth of mine,
Be patient, for all is well!”

Thus sings my sword to my soul, and I,
Albeit the way is long,
As soiled clouds darken athwart the sky—
Still keep my spirit strong:
Whether I live, or whether I lie
On the stained ground, ghastly and stark,
Beyond the carnage I shall descry
God’s love shines across the dark.

—Copyright by _Funk & Wagnalls Co._, New York, and used by their kind permission.

LABOR

ANONYMOUS

Toil swings the ax, and forests bow;
The seeds break out in radiant bloom,
Rich harvests smile behind the plow,
And cities cluster round the loom;
Where towering domes and tapering spires
Adorn the vale and crown the hill,
Stout labor lights its beacon-fires,
And plumes with smoke the forge and mill.

The monarch oak, the woodland’s pride,
Whose trunk is seamed with lightning scars,
Toil launches on the restless tide,
And there unrolls the flag of stars;
The engine with its lungs of flame,
And ribs of brass and joints of steel,
From Labor’s plastic fingers came,
With sobbing valve and whirling wheel.

’Tis Labor works the magic press,
And turns the crank in hives of toil,
And beckons angels down to bless
Industrious hands on sea and soil.
Here sun-brown Toil, with shining spade,
Links lake to lake with silver ties
Strung thick with palaces of trade,
And temples towering to the skies.

THE ARROW AND THE SONG[17]

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

THE BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL

BY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD

[Particularly note the possibility of onomatopoesy in the following refrain. What answer do the bells give to the questions of the poet? There is no other answer than their steady, monotonous toll. The answer must be found in your own heart, viz., that no good work, done with high zeal and enthusiasm, with self-sacrifice, ever can be in vain. Then read the refrain as a bell would sound, if it were struck at the end of each line, prolonging the sound to correspond with the continued resonance of the bell.]

Thine was the corn and the wine,
The blood of the grape that nourished;
The blossom and fruit of the vine
That was heralded far away.
These were thy gifts; and thine,
When the vine and the fig-tree flourished,
The promise of peace and of glad increase
Forever and ever and aye.
What then wert thou, and what art now?
Answer me, O, I pray!