Chapter XV: Part VI (1)

“Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,--
The last of life, for which the first was made.”

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

“The Voice of Spring,” by Felicia Hemans (1749-1835), becomes attractive as years go on. The line in this poem that captivated my youthful fancy was:

“The larch has hung all his tassels forth,”

The delight with which trees hang out their new little tassels every year is one of the charms of “the pine family.” John Burroughs sent us down a tiny hemlock, that grew in our window-box at school for five years, and every spring it was a new joy on account of the fine, tender tassels. Mrs. Hemans had a vivid imagination backed up by an abundant information.

I come, I come! ye have called me long;
I come o’er the mountains, with light and song.
Ye may trace my step o’er the waking earth
By the winds which tell of the violet’s birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut-flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers,
And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes
Are veiled with wreaths on Italian plains;
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have looked o’er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth;
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,
And the reindeer bounds o’er the pastures free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright, where my step has been.

I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh,
And called out each voice of the deep blue sky,
From the night-bird’s lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan’s wild note by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.

From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o’er the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.

FELICIA HEMANS.

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN.

“The Forsaken Merman,” by Matthew Arnold (1822-88), is a poem that I do not expect children to appreciate fully, even when they care enough for it to learn it. It is too long for most children to commit to memory, and I generally assign one stanza to one pupil and another to another pupil until it is divided up among them. The poem is a masterpiece. Doubtless the poet meant to show that the forsaken merman had a greater soul to save than the woman who sought to save her soul by deserting natural duty. Salvation does not come through the faith that builds itself at the expense of love.

Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go--
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
“Margaret! Margaret!”
Children’s voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother’s ear;
Children’s voices, wild with pain--
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
“Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret.”
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-wall’d town,
And the little gray church on the windy shore;
Then come down!
She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world forever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb’d its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sigh’d, she look’d up through the clear green sea;
She said: “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little gray church on the shore to-day.
’Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.”
I said: “Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!”
She smil’d, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, were we long alone?
“The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers,” I said, “in the world they say;
Come!” I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall’d town;
Through the narrow pav’d streets, where all was still,
To the little gray church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb’d on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gaz’d up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
“Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart,” I said, “we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.”
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal’d to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest: shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!

Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: “O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessèd light of the sun!”
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children;
Come, children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing: “Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell forever
The kings of the sea.”

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr’d with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch’d sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side--
And then come back down.
Singing: “There dwells a lov’d one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely forever
The kings of the sea.”

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

THE BANKS O’ DOON.

“The Banks o’ Doon,” by Robert Burns (1759-96). Bonnie Doon is in the southwestern part of Scotland. Robert Burns’s old home it close to it. The house has low walls, a thatched roof, and only two rooms. Alloway Kirk and the two bridges so famous in Robert Burns’s verse are near by. This is an enchanted land, and the Scotch people for miles around Ayr speak of the poet with sincere affection. Burns, more than any other poet, has thrown the enchantment of poetry over his own locality.

Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu’ o’ care.

Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o’ the happy days
When my fause luve was true.

Thou’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o’ my fate.

Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o’ its love,
And sae did I o’ mine.

Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose
Frae off its thorny tree;
And my fause luver staw the rose,
But left the thorn wi’ me.

ROBERT BURNS.

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS.

Oft in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of other days around me:
The smiles, the tears
Of boyhood’s years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

When I remember all
The friends so link’d together
I’ve seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed!
Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

THOMAS MOORE.

MY OWN SHALL COME TO ME.

If John Burroughs (1837-) had never written any other poem than “My Own Shall Come to Me,” he would have stood to all ages as one of the greatest of American poets. The poem is most characteristic of the tall, majestic, slow-going poet and naturalist. There is no greater line in Greek or English literature than

“I stand amid the eternal ways.”

Serene I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea.
I rave no more ’gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.

I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways,
And what is mine shall know my face.

Asleep, awake, by night or day
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.

What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap when it has sown,
And gather up its fruit of tears.

The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave comes to the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.

The waters know their own and draw
The brook that springs in yonder heights;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delights.

JOHN BURROUGHS.

ODE TO A SKYLARK.

“Ode to a Skylark,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), is usually assigned to “grammar grades” of schools. It is included here out of respect to a boy of eleven years who was more impressed with these lines than with any other lines in any poem:

“Like a poet hidden,
In the light of thought
Singing songs unbidden
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.”

Hail to thee, blithe spirit--
Bird thou never wert--
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow-clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:--

Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought;
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal
Or triumphal chaunt,
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt--
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

THE SANDS OF DEE.

I have often had the pleasure of riding across the coast from Chester, England, to Rhyl, on the north coast of Wales, where stretch “The Sands of Dee” (Charles Kingsley, 1819-75). These purple sands at low tide stretch off into the sea miles away, and are said to be full of quicksands.

“O Mary, go and call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
And call the cattle home,
Across the sands of Dee.”
The western wind was wild and dark with foam
And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,
And o’er and o’er the sand,
And round and round the sand,
As far as eye could see.
The rolling mist came down and hid the land;
And never home came she.
Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,--
A tress of golden hair,
A drownèd maiden’s hair,
Above the nets at sea?
Was never salmon yet that shone so fair
Among the stakes on Dee.

They rowed her in across the rolling foam,
The cruel crawling foam,
The cruel hungry foam,
To her grave beside the sea.
But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home
Across the sands of Dee.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

A WISH.

“A Wish” (by Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855) and “Lucy” (by Wordsworth, 1770-1850) are two gems that can be valued only for the spirit of quiet and modesty diffused by them.

Mine be a cot beside the hill;
A bee-hive’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.

S. ROGERS.

LUCY.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

SOLITUDE.

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern’dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixt, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.

Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

ALEXANDER POPE.

JOHN ANDERSON

“John Anderson,” by Robert Burns (1759-96). This poem is included to please several teachers.

John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is bald, John,
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.

John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither,
And mony a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither;
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we’ll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.

ROBERT BURNS.

THE GOD OF MUSIC.

“The God of Music,” by Edith M. Thomas, an Ohio poetess now living. In this sonnet the poetess has touched the power of Wordsworth or Keats and placed herself among the immortals.

The God of Music dwelleth out of doors.
All seasons through his minstrelsy we meet,
Breathing by field and covert haunting-sweet
From organ-lofts in forests old he pours:
A solemn harmony: on leafy floors
To smooth autumnal pipes he moves his feet,
Or with the tingling plectrum of the sleet
In winter keen beats out his thrilling scores.
Leave me the reed unplucked beside the stream.
And he will stoop and fill it with the breeze;
Leave me the viol’s frame in secret trees,
Unwrought, and it shall wake a druid theme;
Leave me the whispering shell on Nereid shores.
The God of Music dwelleth out of doors.

EDITH M. THOMAS.

A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

“A Musical Instrument” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61). This poem is the supreme masterpiece of Mrs. Browning. The prime thought in it is the sacrifice and pain that must go to make a poet of any genius.

“The great god sighed for the cost and the pain.”

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flow’d the river;
And hack’d and hew’d as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan
(How tall it stood in the river!),
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river.

“This is the way,” laugh’d the great god Pan
(Laugh’d while he sat by the river),
“The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.”
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed
He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies reviv’d, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,--
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

THE BRIDES OF ENDERBY.

“The Brides of Enderby,” by Jean Ingelow (1830-97). This poem is very dramatic, and the music of the refrain has done much to make it popular. But the pathos is that which endears it.

The old mayor climb’d the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two, by three;
“Pull, if ye never pull’d before;
Good ringers, pull your best,” quoth he.
“Play uppe, play uppe, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells,
Play uppe, ‘The Brides of Enderby.’”

Men say it was a stolen tyde--
The Lord that sent it, He knows all;
But in myne ears doth still abide
The message that the bells let fall:
And there was naught of strange, beside
The flight of mews and peewits pied
By millions crouch’d on the old sea wall.

I sat and spun within the doore,
My thread brake off, I raised myne eyes;
The level sun, like ruddy ore,
Lay sinking in the barren skies;
And dark against day’s golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,
My sonne’s faire wife, Elizabeth.

“Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!” calling,
Ere the early dews were falling,
Farre away I heard her song,
“Cusha! Cusha!” all along;
Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
Floweth, floweth,
From the meads where melick groweth
Faintly came her milking song--

“Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!” calling,
“For the dews will soone be falling;
Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot;
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,
From the clovers lift your head;
Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot,
Come uppe, Jetty, rise and follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed.”

If it be long ay, long ago,
When I beginne to think howe long,
Againe I hear the Lindis flow,
Swift as an arrowe, sharpe and strong;
And all the aire, it seemeth mee,
Bin full of floating bells (sayth shee),
That ring the tune of Enderby.

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,
And not a shadowe mote be seene,
Save where full fyve good miles away
The steeple tower’d from out the greene;
And lo! the great bell farre and wide
Was heard in all the country side
That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where their sedges are
Mov’d on in sunset’s golden breath,
The shepherde lads I heard afarre,
And my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth;
Till floating o’er the grassy sea
Came downe that kyndly message free,
The “Brides of Mavis Enderby.”

Then some look’d uppe into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows
To where the goodly vessels lie,
And where the lordly steeple shows.
They sayde, “And why should this thing be?
What danger lowers by land or sea?
They ring the tune of Enderby!

“For evil news from Mablethorpe,
Of pyrate galleys warping down;
For shippes ashore beyond the scorpe,
They have not spar’d to wake the towne:
But while the west bin red to see,
And storms be none, and pyrates flee,
Why ring ‘The Brides of Enderby’?”

I look’d without, and lo! my sonne
Came riding downe with might and main;
He rais’d a shout as he drew on,
Till all the welkin rang again,
“Elizabeth! Elizabeth!”
(A sweeter woman ne’er drew breath
Than my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth.)

“The olde sea wall,” he cried, “is downe,
The rising tide comes on apace,
And boats adrift in yonder towne
Go sailing uppe the market-place.”
He shook as one that looks on death:
“God save you, mother!” straight he saith
“Where is my wife, Elizabeth?”

“Good sonne, where Lindis winds her way
With her two bairns I marked her long;
And ere yon bells beganne to play
Afar I heard her milking song.”
He looked across the grassy lea,
To right, to left, “Ho, Enderby!”
They rang “The Brides of Enderby!”

With that he cried and beat his breast;
For, lo! along the river’s bed
A mighty eygre rear’d his crest,
And uppe the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud;
Shap’d like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis backward press’d
Shook all her trembling bankes amaine;
Then madly at the eygre’s breast
Flung uppe her weltering walls again.
Then bankes came downe with ruin and rout--
Then beaten foam flew round about--
Then all the mighty floods were out.

So farre, so fast the eygre drave,
The heart had hardly time to beat
Before a shallow seething wave
Sobb’d in the grasses at oure feet:
The feet had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.

Upon the roofe we sate that night,
The noise of bells went sweeping by;
I mark’d the lofty beacon light
Stream from the church tower, red and high--
A lurid mark and dread to see;
And awsome bells they were to mee,
That in the dark rang “Enderby.”

They rang the sailor lads to guide
From roofe to roofe who fearless row’d;
And I--my sonne was at my side,
And yet the ruddy beacon glow’d:
And yet he moan’d beneath his breath,
“O come in life, or come in death!
O lost! my love, Elizabeth.”

And didst thou visit him no more?
Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter deare
The waters laid thee at his doore,
Ere yet the early dawn was clear.
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,
The lifted sun shone on thy face,
Downe drifted to thy dwelling-place.

That flow strew’d wrecks about the grass,
That ebbe swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebbe and flow, alas!
To manye more than myne and mee;
But each will mourn his own (she saith);
And sweeter woman ne’er drew breath
Than my sonne’s wife, Elizabeth.

I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
“Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!” calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
“Cusha! Cusha!” all along
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth;
From the meads where melick groweth,
When the water winding down,
Onward floweth to the town.

I shall never see her more
Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
Shiver, quiver;
Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling
To the sandy lonesome shore;
I shall never hear her calling,
“Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;

“Come uppe, Whitefoot, come uppe, Lightfoot;
Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come uppe, Lightfoot, rise and follow;
Lightfoot, Whitefoot,
From your clovers lift the head;
Come uppe, Jetty, follow, follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed.”

JEAN INGELOW.

THE LYE.

“The Lye,” by Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), is one of the strongest and most appealing poems a teacher can read to her pupils when teaching early American history. The poem is full of magnificent lines, such as “Go, soul, the body’s guest.” The poem never lacks an attentive audience of young people when correlated with the study of North Carolina and Sir Walter Raleigh. The solitary, majestic character of Sir Walter Raleigh, his intrepidity while undergoing tortures inflicted by a cowardly king, the ring of indignation--- all these make a weapon for him stronger than the ax that beheaded him. In this poem he “has the last word.”

Goe, soule, the bodie’s guest,
Upon a thanklesse arrant;
Feare not to touche the best--
The truth shall be thy warrant!
Goe, since I needs must dye,
And give the world the lye.

Goe tell the court it glowes
And shines like rotten wood;
Goe tell the church it showes
What’s good, and doth no good;
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lye.

Tell potentates they live
Acting by others’ actions--
Not loved unlesse they give,
Not strong but by their factions;
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lye.

Tell men of high condition,
That rule affairs of state,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate;
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lye.

Tell zeale it lacks devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust;
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lye.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of nicenesse;
Tell wisdome she entangles
Herselfe in over-wisenesse;
And if they do reply,
Straight give them both the lye.

Tell physicke of her boldnesse;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldnesse;
Tell law it is contention;
And as they yield reply,
So give them still the lye.

Tell fortune of her blindnesse;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindnesse;
Tell justice of delay;
And if they dare reply,
Then give them all the lye.

Tell arts they have no soundnesse,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schooles they want profoundnesse,
And stand too much on seeming;
If arts and schooles reply,
Give arts and schooles the lye.

So, when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing--
Although to give the lye
Deserves no less than stabbing--
Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the soule can kill.

SIR WALTER RALEIGH.

L’ENVOI.

“L’Envoi,” by Rudyard Kipling, is a favourite on account of its sweeping assertion of the individual’s right to self-development.

When Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are
twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it--lie down
for an æon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!

And those who were good shall be happy: they shall sit
in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet’s hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from--Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!

RUDYARD KIPLING

CONTENTMENT

“Contentment,” by Edward Dyer (1545-1607). This poem holds much to comfort and control people who are shut up to the joys of meditation--people to whom the world of activity is closed. To be independent of things material--this is the soul’s pleasure.

My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
As far excels all earthly bliss
That God or Nature hath assigned;
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.

Content I live; this is my stay,--
I seek no more than may suffice.
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies.
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.

I laugh not at another’s loss,
I grudge not at another’s gain;
No worldly wave my mind can toss;
I brook that is another’s bane.
I fear no foe, nor fawn on friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread mine end.

My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defense;
I never seek by bribes to please
Nor by desert to give offense.
Thus do I live, thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I!

EDWARD DYER.

THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA’S HALLS.

The harp that once through Tara’s halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory’s thrill is o’er,
And hearts, that once beat high for praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.

No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone, that breaks at night,
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.

THOMAS MOORE.

THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET

“The Old Oaken Bucket,” by Samuel Woodworth (1785-1848), is a poem we love because it is an elegant expression of something very dear and homely.

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!

SAMUEL WOODWORTH.

THE RAVEN.

“The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49), is placed here because so many college men speak of it at once as the great poem of their boyhood. The poem caught me when a child by its refrain and weird picturesqueness. It has never outgrown its mechanical charm.

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 for evermore.

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 my chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a rapping, something 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 above 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 blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door--
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door
With such a name as “Nevermore.”

But the Raven, sitting lonely on that 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 by 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 this melancholy burden bore--
Of ‘Never, nevermore,’”

But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul 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 into fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore--
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

Thus 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 lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining, with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by seraphim, whose footfalls twinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee--by these angels He
hath sent thee
Respite--respite and nepenthe from my 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 Aiden
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 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 lamp-light 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!

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

ARNOLD VON WINKLERIED.

“Make way for liberty!” he cried,
Make way for liberty, and died.
In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood,--
A wall, where every conscious stone
Seemed to its kindred thousands grown.
A rampart all assaults to bear,
Till time to dust their frames should wear;
So still, so dense the Austrians stood,
A living wall, a human wood.

Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears.
Whose polished points before them shine,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Bright as the breakers’ splendours run
Along the billows to the sun.

Opposed to these a hovering band
Contended for their fatherland;
Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke,
And beat their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords;
And what insurgent rage had gained,
In many a mortal fray maintained;
Marshalled, once more, at Freedom’s call,
They came to conquer or to fall,
Where he who conquered, he who fell,
Was deemed a dead or living Tell,
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe’er his arrows flew,
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod,
Which his awakening footstep trod.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burned within,
The battle trembled to begin;
Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for attack was nowhere found;
Where’er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line ’twere suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrant’s feet;
How could they rest within their graves,
And leave their homes, the homes of slaves!
Would not they feel their children tread,
With clanging chains, above their head?

It must not be; this day, this hour,
Annihilates the invader’s power;
All Switzerland is in the field;
She will not fly,--she cannot yield,--
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.
Few were the numbers she could boast,
But every freeman was a host,
And felt as ’twere a secret known
That one should turn the scale alone,
While each unto himself was he
On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one indeed;
Behold him,--Arnold Winkelried;
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.
Unmarked he stood amid the throng,
In rumination deep and long,
Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o’er his face;
And, by the motion of his form,
Anticipate the bursting storm,
And, by the uplifting of his brow,
Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But ’twas no sooner thought than done!
The field was in a moment won;
“Make way for liberty!” he cried,
Then ran, with arms extended wide,
As if his dearest friend to clasp;
Ten spears he swept within his grasp.
“Make way for liberty!” he cried.
Their keen points crossed from side to side;
He bowed amidst them like a tree,
And thus made way for liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly,
“Make way for liberty!” they cry,
And through the Austrian phalanx dart,
As rushed the spears through Arnold’s heart.
While instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic, seized them all;
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free;
Thus Death made way for Liberty!

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

LIFE, I KNOW NOT WHAT THOU ART.

Life! I know not what thou art.
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met,
I own to me’s a secret yet.
Life! we’ve been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
Tis hard to part when friends are dear--
Perhaps ’twill cost a sigh, a tear;
--Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;
Say not Good Night,--but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good Morning.

A.L. BARBAULD.

MERCY.

“Mercy,” an excerpt from “The Merchant of Venice,” “Polonius’ Advice,” from “Hamlet,” and “Antony’s Speech,” from “Julius Cæsar” (all fragments from Shakespeare, 1564-1616), find a place in this book because a well-known New York teacher--one who is unremitting in his efforts to raise the good taste and character of his pupils--says: “A book of poetry could not be complete without these extracts.”

The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes:
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above his sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

SHAKESPEARE (“Merchant of Venice”).

POLONIUS’ ADVICE.

See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar:
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but, being in,
Bear ’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true;
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

SHAKESPEARE (“Hamlet”).

A FRAGMENT FROM MARK ANTONY’S SPEECH.

This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle; and the elements
So mix’d in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, “This was a man!”

SHAKESPEARE (“Julius Cæsar”).

THE SKYLARK.

Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place--
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!

Wild is thy lay and loud,
Far in the downy cloud,
Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
Where, on thy dewy wing,
Where art thou journeying?
Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.

O’er fell and fountain sheen,
O’er moor and mountain green,
O’er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,
Over the rainbow’s rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!

Then, when the gloaming comes,
Low in the heather blooms
Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place--
Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!

THOMAS HOGG.

THE CHOIR INVISIBLE.

“The Choir Invisible” (by George Eliot, 1819-80) is a fitting exposition in poetry of this “Shakespeare of prose.”

O, may I join the choir invisible
Of those immortal dead who live again
In minds made better by their presence; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
Of miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men’s minds
To vaster issues.
May I reach
That purest heaven,--be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

GEORGE ELIOT.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US.

“The World Is Too Much With Us,” by Wordsworth (1770-1850), is perhaps the greatest sonnet ever written. It is true that “the eyes of the soul” are blinded by a surfeit of worldly “goods.” “I went to the Lake District” (England), said John Burroughs, “to see what kind of a country could produce a Wordsworth.” Of course he found simple houses, simple people, barren moors, heather-clad mountains, wild flowers, calm lakes, plain, rugged simplicity.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours.
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea, that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers--
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus, rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

“Sonnet on His Blindness” (by John Milton, 1608-74). This is the most stately and pathetic sonnet in existence. The soul enduring enforced idleness and loss of power without repining. Inactivity made to serve a higher end.

“All service ranks the same with God!
There is no first or last.”

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He, returning, chide;
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

JOHN MILTON.

SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT.

“She Was a Phantom of Delight” (by William Wordsworth, 1770-1850) is included here because it is a picture of woman as she should be, not made dainty by finery, but by fine ideals--

“And not too good
For human nature’s daily food.”

She was a Phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair:
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful Dawn.
A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A Traveller between life and death:
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a Spirit still, and bright,
With something of angelic light.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD.