Chapter I: Part 1

ENGLISH NARRATIVE POEMS

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Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley.
Andersen's Fairy Tales.
Arabian Nights' Entertainments.
Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum.
Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Bacon's Essays.
Bible (Memorable Passages from).
Blackmore's Lorna Doone.
Browning's Shorter Poems.
Browning, Mrs., Poems (Selected).
Bryant's Thanatopsis, etc.
Bulwer's Last Days of Pompeii.
Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.
Burke's Speech on Conciliation.
Burns' Poems (Selections from).
Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
Byron's Shorter Poems.
Carlyle's Essay on Burns.
Carlyle's Heroes and Hero Worship.
Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Illustrated).
Chaucer's Prologue and Knight's Tale.
Church's The Story of the Iliad.
Church's The Story of the Odyssey.
Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner.
Cooper's The Deerslayer.
Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans.
Cooper's The Spy.
Dana's Two Years Before the Mast.
Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.
De Quincey's Joan of Arc, and The English Mail-Coach.
Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and The Cricket on the Hearth.
Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities.
Dryden's Palamon and Arcite.
Early American Orations, 1760-1824.
Edwards' (Jonathan) Sermons.
Eliot's Silas Marner.
Emerson's Essays.
Emerson's Early Poems.
Emerson's Representative Men.
English Narrative Poems.
Epoch-making Papers in U. S. History.
Franklin's Autobiography.
Gaskell's Cranford.
Goldsmith's The Deserted Village,
She Stoops to Conquer, and
The Good-natured Man.
Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield.
Gray's Elegy, etc., and Cowper's John Gilpin, etc.
Grimm's Fairy Tales.
Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair.
Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse.
Hawthorne's Tanglewood Tales.
Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables.
Hawthorne's Twice-told Tales (Selections from).
Hawthorne's Wonder-Book.
Holmes' Poems.
Homer's Iliad (Translated).
Homer's Odyssey (Translated).
Hughes' Tom Brown's School Days.
Huxley's Autobiography and Lay Sermons.
Irving's Life of Goldsmith.
Irving's Knickerbocker.
Irving's The Alhambra.
Irving's Sketch Book.
Irving's Tales of a Traveller.
Keary's Heroes of Asgard.
Kingsley's The Heroes.
Lamb's The Essays of Elia.
Lincoln's Inaugurals and Speeches.
Longfellow's Evangeline.
Longfellow's Hiawatha.
Longfellow's Miles Standish.
Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn.
Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal.
Macaulay's Essay on Addison.
Macaulay's Essay on Hastings.
Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive.
Macaulay's Essay on Milton.
Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome.
Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson.
Milton's Comus and Other Poems.
Malory's Le Morte Darthur.
Milton's Paradise Lost, Books I. and II.
Old English Ballads.
Old Testament (Selections from).
Out of the Northland.
Palgrave's Golden Treasury.
Parkman's Oregon Trail.
Plutarch's Lives (Cæsar, Brutus, and Mark Antony).
Poe's Poems.
Poe's Prose Tales (Selections from).
Pope's Homer's Iliad.
Pope's The Rape of the Lock.
Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies.
Ruskin's The Crown of Wild Olive and Queen of the Air.
Scott's Ivanhoe.
Scott's Kenilworth.
Scott's Lady of the Lake.
Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Scott's Marmion.
Scott's Quentin Durward.
Scott's The Talisman.
Shakespeare's As You Like It.
Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Shakespeare's Henry V.
Shakespeare's Julius Cæsar.
Shakespeare's King Lear.
Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice.
Shakespeare's Richard II.
Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
Shelley and Keats: Poems.
Sheridan's The Rivals and The School for Scandal.
Southern Poets: Selections.
Southern Orators: Selections.
Spenser's Faerie Queene, Book I.
Stevenson's Kidnapped.
Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae.
Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey, and An Inland Voyage.
Stevenson's Treasure Island.
Swift's Gulliver's Travels.
Tennyson's Idylls of the King.
Tennyson's The Princess.
Tennyson's Shorter Poems.
Thackeray's English Humourists.
Thackeray's Henry Esmond.
Thoreau's Walden.
Virgil's Æneid.
Washington's Farewell Address, and
Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration.
Whittier's Snow-Bound and Other Early Poems.
Woolman's Journal.
Wordsworth's Shorter Poems.

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ENGLISH NARRATIVE POEMS

SELECTED AND EDITED
BY
CLAUDE M. FUESS
AND
HENRY N. SANBORN

INSTRUCTORS IN ENGLISH IN PHILLIPS ACADEMY
ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1911

_All rights reserved_

COPYRIGHT, 1909,

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1909.
Reprinted June, 1910; June, 1911.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

PAGE
INTRODUCTION. ix

COWPER.
The Diverting History of John Gilpin 1

BURNS.
Tam o' Shanter 11

SCOTT.
Lochinvar 19

WORDSWORTH.
Michael 21
Lucy Gray 36

CAMPBELL.
Hohenlinden 39
Battle of the Baltic 40

WOLFE.
The Burial of Sir John Moore 43

BYRON.
The Prisoner of Chillon 45
Mazeppa 58
The Destruction of Sennacherib 86

KEATS.
The Eve of St. Agnes 88

TENNYSON.
Dora 103
Oenone 108
Enoch Arden 117
The Revenge 146

BROWNING.
"How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix" 154
Incident of the French Camp 156
The Pied Piper of Hamelin 158
Hervé Riel 168

ROSSETTI.
The White Ship 175

MORRIS.
Atalanta's Race 187

LONGFELLOW.
The Wreck of the Hesperus 211
Paul Revere's Ride 214

WHITTIER.
Skipper Ireson's Ride 219
Barclay of Ury 222
Barbara Frietchie 226

HOLMES.
Grandmother's Story of Bunker Hill Battle 230

NOTES 241

INTRODUCTION

Narrative poetry is distinguished from other types of verse in that it aims to relate a connected series of events and, therefore, deals primarily with actions, rather than with thoughts or emotions. This definition, however, simple as it appears to be in theory, is often difficult to apply as a test because other matter is blended with the pure narrative. In any story where the situation is made prominent, description may be required to make clear the scene and explain movements to the reader; thus _Enoch Arden_ begins with a word picture of a sea-coast town. Again it is often necessary to analyze the motives which actuate certain characters, and so it becomes necessary to introduce exposition of some sort into the plot. The poems in this collection serve to enforce the lesson that the four standard rhetorical forms--narration, description, exposition, and argumentation--are constantly being combined and welded in a complicated way. In cases where these various literary elements are apparently in a tangle, a classification, if it be made at all, must be based on the design of the poem as a whole, and the emphasis and proportion given to the respective elements by the author. If the stress is laid on the recounting of the events which make up a unified action, and if the other factors are made subordinate and subsidiary to this end, then the poem in question belongs to the narrative group.

The antiquity of the narrative as a form of literature is undisputed. Indeed it has been established with a reasonable degree of certainty that poetry in its very beginnings was narrative and in its primitive state must have been a sort of rude, rhythmical chant, originated and participated in by the tribe as a whole, and telling of the exploits of gods or legendary heroes. In the course of time there arose the _minstrel_, who, acting first as chorus leader, became eventually the representative of the tribe and its own special singer. When we reach a somewhat more advanced stage of civilization, we find regularly appointed bards reciting their lays in the hall of the chieftain or urging on the warriors to battle with rehearsals of past victories. Originally these bards simply repeated the old oral traditions handed down as common property, but the opportunity for the display of individual genius soon induced them to try variations on the current themes and to compose versions of their own. With this advance of individualism, poetry became gradually more complex. Various elements, lyrical, descriptive, and dramatic, assumed some prominence and tended to develop separate forms. This differentiation, however, did not impair the vigor of the story-telling spirit, and a constant succession of narrative poems down to the present day evidences how productive and characteristic a feature of our literature this form has been.

Obviously it is impracticable to undertake here even a brief summary of the history of English narrative poetry and of the influences to which it has been responsive. Something may, nevertheless, be done to map out roughly a few divisions which may be of assistance in bringing this material into orderly shape for the student. Many efforts at systematic classification have been made, and a few fairly well-marked types have been defined. In spite of this fact, the task still presents insuperable obstacles over which there has been futile controversy. One type is likely to run into another in a way which is uncomfortably baffling. Then there are numerous nondescript works whose proper place seems determinable by no law of poetics. The fact is that, here at least, narrow distinctions are bound to be unsatisfactory. The critic finds it imperative to avoid dogmatism lest he lay himself open to attack; his only refuge is in the general statement which may be suggestive even if it is not exact.

Of the fixed types, two of the best known, the _Epic_ and the _Ballad_, were among the earliest to be created. The Epic in its original form was a long poem of uniform metre, serious in tone and elevated in style, introducing supernatural or heroic characters and usually dealing with some significant event in racial or national history. In its first or primitive shape it was anonymous, a spontaneous outgrowth of popular feeling, though perhaps arranged and revised at a later date by some conscious artistic hand. Such a primitive Epic is the old English _Beowulf_: it is thoroughly objective; in it no clew to definite authorship can be detected; in it personality is buried in the rush of incident and the clash of action. When, with the broadening of the scope of poetry, the individual writer displaced the tribe as the preserver of folk-lore, the new order of things evolved the so-called artificial Epic as represented by Milton's _Paradise Lost_. Here the conventional Epic style and material is kept; the universe is the stage, and the figures upon it are imposing and grand; but behind the poem is a single personality whose mood colors and modifies the whole. The Epic is no longer entirely racial or national, but individual; and we have the introduction of such passages as Milton's reference to his own blindness in Book Three.

Akin to the Epic is the Mock Epic, which appropriates the Epic machinery and Epic style to use them in dealing with trivialities. In Pope's _The Rape of the Lock_, the most artistic Mock Epic in English, the theft of a single lock of hair becomes an act of national and supernatural interest and a game of cards is described as if it were a mighty battle.

Almost parallel with and closely resembling the development of the Epic is that of the _Ballad_. Like the primitive Epic in anonymity and impersonality, the Ballad was much shorter, had rime and stanzas, and dealt, as a rule, with incidents of less importance. Not so formal or pretentious as the Epic, it was easily memorized even by the peasant, and handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. Favorite subjects were the legends of Robin Hood, the misfortunes of nobles, and the incidents of Border warfare. Mixed in many of them was a tendency toward superstition, a survival of the belief in ghosts, magicians, and talking animals. Numerous examples gathered by antiquaries may be found in the edition of old English Ballads in this series; among the better known are _The Wife of Usher's Well_ and _Chevy Chase_. Later poets naturally adapted the Ballad form to their own uses, and so we have the artificial Ballad, illustrated by Cowper's _The History of John_ _Gilpin_, Longfellow's _The Wreck of the Hesperus_, and Swinburne's _May Janet_. In these poems many of the trite expressions so peculiar to the primitive Ballad are retained; but, like the artificial Epic, the work is no longer communal, but individual, in origin and bears the stamp of one mind animated by an artistic purpose.

In discussing the Epic and the Ballad one is on fairly safe ground, but between these types one finds a vast amount of poetry, evidently narrative, which suggests perplexing problems. Much of it may be made to come under what we term loosely the _Metrical Romance_. This title is often narrowed by scholars to apply strictly to a poetical _genre_, arising in the Middle Ages and brought into England by the Norman-French, which deals in a rambling way with the marvellous adventures of wandering knights or heroes. Its plot, in which love and combat are conspicuous features, is enveloped in a kind of glamour, an atmosphere of unreality. It drew its material from many diverse sources: from the legends of Troy and the stories of classical and Oriental antiquity; from the tales of the Frankish Emperor Charlemagne and his paladins; from the Celtic accounts of King Arthur and the Table Round. Since its characters, sometimes not without anachronism, embodied the chivalric ideals of courtesy and loyalty to ladies, hatred of paganism, and general conduct according to a prescribed but unwritten code, its appeal was made for the most part to the courtier and the aristocrat,--though it must be added that many of the robuster Charlemagne romances acquired currency with the humbler classes and were sung in the cottage of the peasant. The fact that the greater number of these Metrical Romances were mere redactions, taken from foreign models, makes them seem deficient in English interest. Still, several of the best were of native composition, an excellent example being the well-known _Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight_.

But even in spite of a few slight advantages to be gained, it seems unwise to restrict the Metrical Romance too closely. What we are accustomed to call, rather vaguely, romance is a persistent quality in narrative poetry, and is not limited to the literature of any particular age or rank of society. A cursory examination will disclose many evidences of the romantic spirit in both the Epic and the Ballad. And certainly Scott's _The Lay of the Last Minstrel_, Keats's _The Eve of St. Agnes_, Longfellow's _Evangeline_, and many other poems on similar themes must remain unclassified unless we designate them broadly as Metrical Romances. Of course, it is not essential that they should be pigeon-holed and put away with the right label affixed. However, one or two observations on the subject-matter with which works of this nature deal may assist us in avoiding embarrassing confusion. Sometimes the Metrical Romance (using the term in its broader sense) deals with authenticated incidents of history. In such cases, the narrative, founded as it is on matters of fact, is compelled to preserve substantial accuracy with regard to the events which it uses for a structure. The fancy is thus partly curbed through the necessity of not departing radically from the truth. This restraint, logically enough, does not prevent the introduction of fictitious characters or episodes; but in the strict historical poem, as in the historical novel, it does require adherence to chronology and a just representation of the period in which the action takes place. Occasionally this form approaches a poetical paraphrase, as in Rossetti's _The White Ship_. The nineteenth century was singularly prolific in works of this sort; notable among such works are Scott's _Marmion_, Tennyson's _The Revenge_, and Longfellow's _Paul Revere's Ride_. If the basis of the poem is mythological, we have a further species of the Metrical Romance. The stories clustered around the gods and goddesses of unsophisticated peoples are perennially attractive and offer a fruitful field to the poet. In the setting there is frequent opportunity for elaborate description, and there is often, as in Tennyson's _Oenone_ and William Morris's _Atalanta's Race_, ornamentation used by the author that is more than ordinarily remarkable. For such poetry the Greek and Latin writers furnish a wealth of material for imitation. Nor have the myths of other races been neglected in recent years. Matthew Arnold's _Balder Dead_ has its inspiration in the Norse _Eddas_ and has its opening scene in Valhalla where Odin, father of the gods, presides over the immortals. William Morris's _Sigurd the Volsing_ is an adaptation of the myths of the early Germans.

It is not aside from the point to refer here to the few poems in which the subject-matter of the Metrical Romance is used, strangely enough, as a means of teaching moral ideas. Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ presents such an anomaly. In it conventional chivalric heroes undergo surprising and impossible adventures, battling and loving as in the legends of Charlemagne and Arthur. Indeed, in the _Faerie Queene_, Arthur himself appears as the protagonist. But these knights and ladies are, we learn, merely animated vices and virtues and are such, because, as Spenser takes pains to tell us, the poem, though romantic in mood, is allegorical in intention, its aim being "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline." The author in using his characters as agents of moral instruction creates a type as much by itself as _Pilgrim's Progress_ is in prose. Modern examples less conspicuous for visible allegorical intention are Tennyson's _Idylls of the King_, in which Arthurian material is once more revived with something of an ethical purpose.

There is still to be taken up a large body of poems, usually, though not always, shorter than the Metrical Romances, which deal with the situations of common life and with the humbler members of society. By some authorities the term Metrical Tale has been applied to such compositions; though it is hardly exact or specific, since the word "tale" is usually made synonymous with "story" and therefore does not connote a limited subject-matter. We may accept it in a provisional way as a convenient technical term for our purposes. The Metrical Tale, then, as contrasted with the Metrical Romance, attempts a realistic portrayal of the natural sorrows, losses, or pains which belong to our everyday experience. The emotions of which it treats are fundamentally strong and keep the style and versification from becoming overelaborated. The Metrical Tale may be humorous as in Chaucer's _The Miller's Tale_, or may be pathetic and tragic as in Tennyson's _Enoch Arden_ or Wordsworth's _Michael_. In these poems it will be observed that the diction and phraseology are exceedingly simple. But here, too, candor requires the admission that the alleged difference between the Romance and the Tale is likely to bring on a charge of inconsistency. _Enoch Arden_, just now mentioned, abounds in romantic episodes, though Enoch and Philip and Annie dwell in a little fishing village. Why, if Chaucer chose to call his masterpiece the _Canterbury Tales_, should any one take the liberty of questioning his nomenclature? The query is well founded; and yet the reader must recognize a wide gulf in tone and spirit between _The Knight's Tale_ and _The Reeve's Tale_. Call it, if you will, the distinction between idealism and realism; at any rate it exists, and ought to be made plain even at the risk of confronting dilemmas of another sort.

Having a kind of relationship to what we call arbitrarily the Metrical Tale is the Beast Fable in verse, in which animals and birds are endowed with reason and speech. The excuse for the Beast Fable is an ethical one, and the story, often humorous, is merely a vehicle for instruction,--a fact evident enough from the so-called moral appended to most Beast Fables. The best Beast Fables in English are those of John Gay.

It is beyond the scope of this introduction to make any but a passing reference to the forms of versification which have been used in narrative poetry. In general, the range of metres is wide and varied, though a few common lines and stanzas occur with much frequency. Blank Verse, a favorite Epic measure used by Milton in _Paradise Lost_, has also been effective in the Metrical Romance (Arnold's _Sohrab and Rustum_) and the Metrical Tale (Wordsworth's _Michael_). It is peculiarly fitting to longer poems of a serious character. The Heroic Couplet, made up of two rimed iambic pentameters, was invented by Chaucer and tried in many of the _Canterbury Tales_. It has since become very common, being the measure of such widely different poems as Marlowe's _Hero and Leander_, Pope's _The Rape of the Lock_, and Keats's _Lamia_. Octosyllabic verse is frequently found,--sometimes in rimed couplets as in Scott's _Marmion_, less often unrimed as in Longfellow's _Hiawatha_. In the couplet form it is especially suited to war poetry where a rapid movement is desirable. The standard four-lined ballad stanza with rimed alternate lines has continued in popularity with the artificial ballad writers and has been used in such poems as Wordsworth's _Lucy Gray_ and Longfellow's _The Wreck of the Hesperus_. Most complicated of all the narrative stanzaic forms is the Spenserian stanza, devised by Spenser for his _Faerie Queene_ and imitated by Keats in _The Eve of St. Agnes_. It has a stateliness which makes it well adapted to dignified themes. In some few examples there is a metre wholly irregular and following the movement of the story, as in Tennyson's _The Revenge_ and Browning's _Hervé Riel_.

The discussion of narrative methods may be left to the will and discretion of the teacher. A study of the separate poems here presented will show that while the four almost indispensable elements of narration--plot, setting, characters, and motive--may usually be found, their use and emphasis vary greatly according to the theories and personalities of the authors. The employment of such arts of construction as suspense and climax may be discovered by the individual student, who should also test each poem for its unity, coherence, and proportion. In a collection such as this there is ample room for instructive criticism and comparison. But narrative poems may well be read for the interest they excite. If a narrative poem fails in this respect, it is all but condemned from the start. It is hoped that these examples may show the student that _poetry_ is not always dull and lifeless; that it may possess at times all the features which make literature attractive as well as inspiring.

The editors are grateful for assistance rendered them by Mr. A. W. Leonard and Mr. Archibald Freeman, both instructors in Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.

WILLIAM COWPER

THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN

SHOWING HOW HE WENT FARTHER THAN HE INTENDED, AND CAME HOME SAFE AGAIN

John Gilpin was a citizen
Of credit and renown,
A trainband captain eke[1] was he
Of famous London town.

John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, 5
"Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years, yet we
No holiday have seen.

"To-morrow is our wedding day,
And we will then repair 10
Unto the Bell at Edmonton[2]
All in a chaise and pair.

"My sister, and my sister's child,
Myself, and children three,
Will fill the chaise; so you must ride 15
On horseback after we.[3]"

He soon replied, "I do admire
Of womankind but one,
And you are she, my dearest dear,
Therefore it shall be done. 20

"I am a linendraper bold,
As all the world doth know,
And my good friend the calender[4]
Will lend his horse to go."

Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, "That's well said; 25
And for that wine is dear,
We will be furnished with our own,
Which is both bright and clear."

John Gilpin kiss'd his loving wife;
O'erjoyed was he to find, 30
That, though on pleasure she was bent,
She had a frugal mind.

The morning came, the chaise was brought,
But yet was not allow'd
To drive up to the door, lest all 35
Should say that she was proud.

So three doors off the chaise was stay'd,
Where they did all get in;
Six precious souls, and all agog[5]
To dash through thick and thin. 40

Smack went the whip, round went the wheels,
Were never folks so glad,
The stones did rattle underneath,
As if Cheapside[6] were mad.

John Gilpin at his horse's side 45
Seized fast the flowing mane,
And up he got, in haste to ride,
But soon came down again;

For saddletree[7] scarce reach'd had he
His journey to begin, 50
When, turning round his head, he saw
Three customers come in.

So down he came; for loss of time,
Although it grieved him sore,
Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, 55
Would trouble him much more.

'Twas long before the customers
Were suited to their mind,
When Betty screaming came down stairs,
"The wine is left behind!" 60

"Good lack!" quoth he--"yet bring it me,
My leathern belt likewise,
In which I bear my trusty sword
When I do exercise."

Now Mistress Gilpin (careful soul!) 65
Had two stone bottles found,
To hold the liquor that she loved,
And keep it safe and sound.

Each bottle had a curling ear,
Through which the belt he drew, 70
And hung a bottle on each side,
To make his balance true.

Then over all, that he might be
Equipp'd from top to toe,
His long red cloak, well brush'd and neat, 75
He manfully did throw.

Now see him mounted once again
Upon his nimble steed,
Full slowly pacing o'er the stones,
With caution and good heed. 80

But finding soon a smoother road
Beneath his well shod feet,
The snorting beast began to trot,
Which gall'd him in his seat.

So, "fair and softly," John he cried, 85
But John he cried in vain;
That trot became a gallop soon,
In spite of curb and rein.

So stooping down, as needs he must
Who cannot sit upright, 90
He grasp'd the mane with both his hands,
And eke with all his might.

His horse, who never in that sort
Had handled been before,
What thing upon his back had got 95
Did wonder more and more.

Away went Gilpin, neck or nought;
Away went hat and wig;
He little dreamt, when he set out,
Of running such a rig. 100

The wind did blow, the cloak did fly,
Like streamer long and gay,
Till, loop and button failing both,
At last it flew away.

Then might all people well discern 105
The bottles he had slung;
A bottle swinging at each side,
As hath been said or sung.

The dogs did bark, the children scream'd,
Up flew the windows all; 110
And every soul cried out, "Well done!"
As loud as he could bawl.

Away went Gilpin--who but he?
His fame soon spread around,
"He carries weight! he rides a race[8]! 115
'Tis for a thousand pound!"

And still as fast as he drew near,
'Twas wonderful to view,
How in a trice the turnpike men
Their gates wide open threw. 120

And now, as he went bowing down
His reeking head full low,
The bottles twain behind his back
Were shatter'd at a blow.

Down ran the wine into the road, 125
Most piteous to be seen,
Which made his horse's flanks to smoke
As they had basted been.

But still he seem'd to carry weight,
With leathern girdle braced; 130
For all might see the bottle necks
Still dangling at his waist.

Thus all through merry Islington[9]
These gambols did he play,
Until he came unto the Wash 135
Of Edmonton so gay;

And there he threw the wash about
On both sides of the way,
Just like unto a trundling mop,
Or a wild goose at play. 140

At Edmonton his loving wife
From the balcony spied
Her tender husband, wondering much
To see how he did ride.

"Stop, stop, John Gilpin!--Here's the house," 145
They all at once did cry;
"The dinner waits, and we are tired:"
Said Gilpin--"So am I!"

But yet his horse was not a whit
Inclined to tarry there; 150
For why?--his owner had a house
Full ten miles off, at Ware.[10]

So like an arrow swift he flew,
Shot by an archer strong;
So did he fly--which brings me to 155
The middle of my song.

Away went Gilpin out of breath,
And sore against his will,
Till at his friend the calender's
His horse at last stood still. 160

The calender, amazed to see
His neighbor in such trim,
Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate,
And thus accosted him:

"What news? what news? your tidings tell; 165
Tell me you must and shall--
Say why bareheaded you are come,
Or why you come at all?"

Now Gilpin had a pleasant wit,
And loved a timely joke; 170
And thus unto the calender
In merry guise he spoke:

"I came because your horse would come;
And, if I well forbode,
My hat and wig will soon be here, 175
They are upon the road."

The calender, right glad to find
His friend in merry pin,[11]
Return'd him not a single word,
But to the house went in; 180

Whence straight he came with hat and wig;
A wig that flow'd behind,
A hat not much the worse for wear,
Each comely in its kind.

He held them up, and in his turn 185
Thus show'd his ready wit,
"My head is twice as big as yours,
They therefore needs must fit.

"But let me scrape the dirt away
That hangs upon your face; 190
And stop and eat, for well you may
Be in a hungry case."

Said John, "It is my wedding day,
And all the world would stare,
If wife should dine at Edmonton, 195
And I should dine at Ware."

So turning to his horse, he said,
"I am in haste to dine;
'Twas for your pleasure you came here,
You shall go back for mine." 200

Ah luckless speech, and bootless boast!
For which he paid full dear;
For, while he spake, a braying ass
Did sing most loud and clear;

Whereat his horse did snort, as he 205
Had heard a lion roar,
And gallop'd off with all his might,
As he had done before.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went Gilpin's hat and wig: 210
He lost them sooner than at first,
For why?--they were too big.

Now mistress Gilpin, when she saw
Her husband posting down
Into the country far away, 215
She pull'd out half a crown;

And thus unto the youth she said,
That drove them to the Bell,
"This shall be yours, when you bring back
My husband safe and well." 220

The youth did ride, and soon did meet
John coming back amain[12];
Whom in a trice he tried to stop,
By catching at his rein;

But not performing what he meant, 225
And gladly would have done,
The frighted steed he frighted more,
And made him faster run.

Away went Gilpin, and away
Went postboy at his heels, 230
The postboy's horse right glad to miss
The lumbering of the wheels.

Six gentlemen upon the road,
Thus seeing Gilpin fly,
With postboy scampering in the rear, 235
They raised the hue and cry[13]:--

"Stop thief! stop thief!--a highwayman!"
Not one of them was mute;
And all and each that passed that way
Did join in the pursuit. 240

And now the turnpike gates again
Flew open in short space;
The toll-men thinking as before,
That Gilpin rode a race.

And so he did, and won it too, 245
For he got first to town;
Nor stopp'd till where he had got up
He did again get down.

Now let us sing, "Long live the king,
And Gilpin, long live he;" 250
And when he next doth ride abroad,
May I be there to see!

ROBERT BURNS

TAM O' SHANTER

"Of brownyis and of bogilis full is this buke."
GAWIN DOUGLAS.

A TALE

When chapman billies[14] leave the street,
And drouty[15] neebors, neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
And folk begin to tak the gate[16];
While we sit bousing at the nappy,[17] 5
And gettin' fou[18] and unco[19] happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles.
The mosses, waters, slaps[20] and styles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky sullen dame, 10
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae[21] Ayr[22] ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses 15
For honest men and bonny lasses.)

O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou wast a skellum,[23]
A blethering,[24] blustering, drunken blellum[25]; 20
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou wasna sober;
That ilka[26] melder,[27] wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That every naig was ca'd[28] a shoe on, 25
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
That at the Lord's house, even on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirkton Jean till Monday.
She prophesied that, late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drowned in Doon,[29] 30
Or catched wi' warlocks[30] in the mirk,[31]
By Alloway's[32] auld haunted kirk.[33]

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,[34]
To think how monie counsels sweet,
How monie lengthened sage advices, 35
The husband frae the wife despises!

But to our tale:--Ae market-night,
Tam had got planted[35] unco right,
Fast by an ingle,[36] bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats,[37] that drank divinely; 40
And at his elbow, Souter[38] Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither--
They had been fou for weeks thegither!
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter, 45
And aye the ale was growing better;
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious;
The souter tauld his queerest stories,
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus; 50
The storm without might rair and rustle--
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.

Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drowned himself amang the nappy!
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 55
The minutes winged their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.

But pleasures are like poppies spread,--
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; 60
Or like the snowfall in the river,--
A moment white--then melts forever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form, 65
Evanishing amid the storm.
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun[39] ride:
That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; 70
And sic a night he taks the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling showers rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallowed; 75
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellowed:
That night, a child might understand,
The Deil[40] had business on his hand.

Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg,
(A better never lifted leg,) 80
Tam skelpit[41] on through dub[42] and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet,
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glowering round wi' prudent cares, 85
Lest bogles[43] catch him unawares:--
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Where ghaists and houlets[44] nightly cry.

By this time he was cross the ford,
Where in the snaw the chapman smoored[45]; 90
And past the birks[46] and meikle stane,[47]
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane;
And through the whins,[48] and by the cairn,[49]
Where hunters fand the murdered bairn[50];
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 95
Where Mungo's mither hanged hersel'.
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars through the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll; 100
When, glimmering through the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seemed in a bleeze[51];
Through ilka bore[52] the beams were glancing,
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,[53] 105
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae,[54] we'll face the devil!--
The swats sae reamed in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle.[55] 110
But Maggie stood right sair astonished,
Till, by the heel and hand admonished,
She ventured forward on the light;
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance; 115
Nae cotillion brent[56] new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys,[57] and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker[58] in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast; 120
A towzie tyke,[59] black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge;
He screwed the pipes and gart them skirl,[60]
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.[61]
Coffins stood round, like open presses, 125
That shawed the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip slight[62]
Each in its cauld hand held a light:
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table, 130
A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;
Twa span-lang, wee unchristened bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae the rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab[63] did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted; 135
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft,--
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft: 140
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which even to name wad be unlawfu'!

As Tammie glow'red, amazed and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious;
The piper loud and louder blew; 145
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reeled, they set, they crossed, they cleekit,[64]
Till ilka carlin[65] swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies[66] to the wark,
And linket[67] at it in her sark[68]! 150

Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans,[69]
A' plump and strappin' in their teens;
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,[70]
Been snaw-white seventeen-hunder linen[71]!
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 155
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair,
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,[72]
For ae blink o' the bonny burdies[73]!
But withered beldams,[74] auld and droll
Rigwooddie[75] hags wad spean[76] a foal, 160
Louping and flinging on a cummock,[77]
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.

But Tam kenned what was what fu' brawlie[78];
There was ae winsome wench and walie,[79]
That night enlisted in the core,[80] 165
(Lang after kenned on Carrick shore;
For monie a beast to dead she shot,
And perished monie a bonny boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,[81]
And kept the country-side in fear.) 170
Her cutty-sark,[82] o' Paisley harn,[83]
That while a lassie she had won,
In longitude though sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie.[84]
Ah! little kenned thy reverend grannie 175
That sark she coft[85] for her wee Nannie,
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches),
Wad ever graced a dance o' witches!

But here my Muse her wing maun cour;
Sic flights are far beyond her power;-- 180
To sing how Nannie lap and flang[86]
(A souple jade she was, and strang),
And how Tam stood like ane bewitched,
And thought his very e'en[87] enriched:
Even Satan glow'red and fidged fu' fain,[88] 185
And hotched[89] and blew wi' might and main:
Till first ae caper, syne[90] anither,
Tam tint[91] his reason a' thegither,
And roars out: "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"
And in an instant all was dark: 190
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,[92]
When plundering herds assail their byke[93];
As open poussie's mortal foes, 195
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi' monie an eldritch[94] screech and hollow. 200

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get they fairin'[95]!
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin';
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 205
And win the keystane o' the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running-stream they darena cross[96]!
But ere the keystane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake! 210
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle,[97]--
But little wist she Maggie's mettle!
Ae spring brought off her master hale, 215
But left behind her ain gray tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed! 220
Whene'er to drink you are inclined,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think ye may buy the joys o'er dear,--
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.

WALTER SCOTT

LOCHINVAR

O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border[98] his steed was the best;
And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none,
He rode all unarm'd, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, 5
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

He staid not for brake, and he stopp'd not for stone,
He swam the Esk river[99] where ford there was none;
But ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented, the gallant came late: 10
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he enter'd the Netherby Hall,
Among bride's-men, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all:
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword, 15
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word,)
"O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"--

"I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied;--
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like the tide-- 20
And now I am come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kiss'd the goblet: the knight took it up, 25
He quaff'd off the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar,--
"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar. 30

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
There never a hall such a galliard[100] did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bride-maidens whisper'd, "'Twere better by far, 35
To have match'd our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reach'd the hall-door, and the charger stood near;
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung! 40
"She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur[101];
They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
There was racing and chasing, on Cannobie Lee, 45
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war.
Have ye e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

MICHAEL

A PASTORAL POEM