Chapter V: A Wish60

Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A beehive's hum shall soothe my ear;
A willowy brook that turns a mill
With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
In russet gown and apron blue.

The village church among the trees,
Where first our marriage vows were given,
With merry peals shall swell the breeze
And point with taper spire to Heaven.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 60: By Samuel Rogers (1763-1855).]

EXPRESSION: Which of these poems do you like best? Give reasons for
your preference. What sentiment is emphasized by all of them? What
other pleasant ideas of life are expressed? What mental pictures
are called up by reading the fourth poem? the fifth? What traits of
character are alluded to in the first poem? the second? Now read
each poem aloud, giving to each line and each stanza the thought
which was in the author's mind when he wrote it.

HOW KING ARTHUR GOT HIS NAME[61]

One day at sunset, Snowbird, the young son of a king, came over the brow of a hill that stepped forward from a dark company of mountains and leaned over the shoreless sea which fills the West and drowns the North. All day he had been wandering alone, his mind heavy with wonder over many things. He had heard strange tales of late, tales about his heroic father and the royal clan, and how they were not like other men, but half divine. He had heard, too, of his own destiny,--that he also was to be a great king. What was Destiny, he wondered....

Then, as he wondered, he turned over and over in his mind all the names he could think of that he might choose for his own; for the time was come for him to put away the name of his childhood and to take on that by which he should be known among men.

He came over the brow of the hill, and out of the way of the mountain wind, and, being tired, lay down among the heather and stared across the gray wilderness of the sea. The sun set, and the invisible throwers of the nets trailed darkness across the waves and up the wild shores and over the faces of the cliffs. Stars climbed out of shadowy abysses, and the great chariots of the constellations rode from the West to the East and from the North to the South.

His eyes closed, ... but when he opened them again, he saw a great and kingly figure standing beside him. So great in stature, so splendid in kingly beauty, was the mysterious one who had so silently joined him, that he thought this must be one of the gods.

"Do you know me, my son?" said the kingly stranger.

The boy looked at him in awe and wonder, but unrecognizingly.

"Do you not know me, my son?" he heard again ... "for I am your father, Pendragon. But my home is yonder, and that is why I have come to you as a vision in a dream ..." and, as he spoke, he pointed to the constellation of the _Arth_, or Bear, which nightly prowls through the vast abysses of the polar sky.

When the boy turned his gaze from the great constellation which hung in the dark wilderness overhead, he saw that he was alone again. While he yet wondered in great awe at what he had seen and heard, he felt himself float like a mist and become like a cloud, rise beyond the brows of the hills, and ascend the invisible stairways of the sky....

It seemed to him thereafter that a swoon came over him, in which he passed beyond the far-off blazing fires of strange stars. At last, suddenly, he stood on the verge of _Arth_, _Arth Uthyr_, the Great Bear. There he saw, with the vision of immortal, not of mortal, eyes, a company of most noble and majestic figures seated at what he thought a circular abyss, but which had the semblance of a vast table. Each of these seven great knights or lordly kings had a star upon his forehead, and these were stars of the mighty constellation of the Bear which the boy had seen night after night from his home among the mountains by the sea.

It was with a burning throb at his heart that he recognized in the King of all these kings no other than himself.

While he looked, in amazement so great that he could hear the pulse of his heart, as in the silence of a wood one hears the tapping of a woodpecker, he saw this mighty phantom self rise till he stood towering over all there, and heard a voice as though an ocean rose and fell through the eternal silences.

"Comrades in God," it said, "the time is come when that which is great shall become small."

And when the voice was ended, the mighty figure faded in the blue darkness, and only a great star shone where the uplifted dragon helm had brushed the roof of heaven. One by one the white lords of the sky followed in his mysterious way, till once more were to be seen only the stars of the Bear.

The boy dreamed that he fell as a falling meteor, and that he floated over land and sea as a cloud, and then that he sank as mist upon the hills of his own land.

A noise of wind stirred in his ears. He rose stumblingly, and stood, staring around him. He glanced upward and saw the stars of the Great Bear in their slow march round the Pole.... Then he remembered.

He went slowly down the hill, his mind heavy with thought. When he was come to his own place, lo! all the fierce chivalry of the land came out to meet him; for the archdruid had foretold that the great King to be had received his mystic initiation among the holy silences of the hills.

"I am no more Snowbird, the child," the boy said, looking at them fearless and as though already King. "Henceforth I am Arth-Urthyr,[62] for my place is in the Great Bear which we see yonder in the north."

So all there acclaimed him as Arthur, the wondrous one of the stars, the Great Bear.

"I am old," said his father, "and soon you shall be King, Arthur, my son. So ask now a great boon of me and it shall be granted to you."

Then Arthur remembered his dream.

"Father and King," he said, "when I am King after you, I shall make a new order of knights, who shall be pure as the Immortal Ones, and be tender as women, and simple as little children. But first I ask of you seven flawless knights to be of my chosen company. To-morrow let the wood wrights make for me a round table, such as that where we eat our roasted meats, but round and of a size whereat I and my chosen knights may sit at ease."

The king listened, and all there.

"So be it," said the king.

Then Arthur chose the seven flawless knights, and called them to him. "Ye are now Children of the Great Bear," he said, "and comrades and liegemen to me, Arthur, who shall be King of the West.

"And ye shall be known as the Knights of the Round Table. But no man shall make a mock of that name and live: and in the end that name shall be so great in the mouths and minds of men that they shall consider no glory of the world to be so great as to be the youngest and frailest of that knighthood."

And that is how Arthur, who three years later became King of the West, read the rune of the stars that are called the Great Bear, and took their name upon him, and from the strongest and purest and noblest of the land made Knighthood, such as the world had not seen, such as the world since has not seen.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: A Gaelic legend, by Fiona Macleod.]

[Footnote 62: Pronounced _Arth-Ur_. In the ancient British language, _Arth_ means Bear, and _Urthyr_, great, wondrous.]

EXPRESSION: Read this selection very carefully to get at the true
meaning of each sentence and each thought. What peculiarities do
you notice in the style of the language employed? Talk about King
Arthur, and tell what you have learned elsewhere about him and his
knights of the Round Table. In what respects does this legend
differ from some other accounts of his boyhood? Now reread the
selection, picturing in your mind the peculiarities of place and
time.

ANTONY'S ORATION OVER CAESAR'S DEAD BODY[63]

_Antony._ Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me;
But Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill;
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see, that on the Lupercal,
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause;
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.--Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Caesar might
Have stood against the world; now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.
O masters! If I were disposed to stir
Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,
I should do Brutus wrong and Cassius wrong,
Who, you all know, are honorable men.
I will not do them wrong; I rather choose
To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,
Than I will wrong such honorable men.

But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar,
I found it in his closet; 'tis his will.
Let but the commons hear this testament,--
Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,--
And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds,
And dip their napkins in his sacred blood;
Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,
And, dying, mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy
Unto their issue.

_Citizen._ We'll hear the will: read it, Mark Antony.

_All._ The will, the will! we will hear Caesar's will.

_Ant._ Have patience, gentle friends, I must not read it;
It is not meet you know how Caesar loved you.
You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;
And, being men, hearing the will of Caesar,
It will inflame you, it will make you mad.
'Tis good you know not that you are his heirs;
For, if you should, oh, what would come of it!

_Cit._ Read the will! we'll hear it, Antony!
You shall read the will! Caesar's will!

_Ant._ Will you be patient? Will you stay awhile?
I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it.
I fear I wrong the honorable men
Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar. I do fear it.

_Cit._ They were traitors! honorable men!

_All._ The will! the testament!

_Ant._ You will compel me, then, to read the will?
Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar,
And let me show you him that made the will.
Shall I descend? And will you give me leave?

_All._ Come down.

_2 Citizen._ Descend. You shall have leave.

(_Antony comes down from the pulpit._)

_Ant._ If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
You all do know this mantle; I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on.
'Twas on a summer's evening, in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look! in this place, ran Cassius's dagger through;
See what a rent the envious Casca made;
Through this, the well-beloved Brutus stabbed;
And, as he plucked his cursed steel away,
Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it,
As rushing out of doors, to be resolved
If Brutus so unkindly knocked, or no;
For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.--
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!--

This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For, when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquished him. Then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Even at the base of Pompey's statua,
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell.

Oh, what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourished over us.
Oh, now you weep, and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls, What! weep you when you but behold
Our Caesar's vesture wounded? Look you here,
Here is himself, marred, as you see, with traitors.

Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To such a sudden flood of mutiny.
They that have done this deed are honorable.
What private griefs they have, alas! I know not,
That made them do it; they are wise and honorable,
And will, no doubt, with reasons answer you.

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts.
I am no orator, as Brutus is,
But, as you know me all, a plain blunt man,
That love my friend; and that they know full well
That gave me public leave to speak of him.
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth,
Action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech,
To stir men's blood: I only speak right on;
I tell you that which you yourselves do know;
Show you sweet Caesar's wounds, poor, poor dumb mouths,
And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,
And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony
Would ruffle up your spirits, and put a tongue
In every wound of Caesar that should move
The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 63: From "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare (1564-1616).]

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