Chapter II: Part 2

And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes,

The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadow shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.

SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, LIKE THE NIGHT. BY LORD BYRON.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes,
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT ON HIGH. BY JOSEPH ADDISON.

Joseph Addison was born at Milston in 1672. He went to Queen’s College, Oxford; after he finished his course he traveled on the continent, studying for the diplomatic service. Returning, he held the position of Secretary of State, 1706–’8, and until a year of his death held different political positions. He wrote, besides his famous contributions to the Tatler, and Spectator, “The Campaign,” a treatise on Medals, a “Letter from Italy,” and one play worthy the name, “Cato.” He died at London in 1719.

The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.

Soon as the evening shades prevail
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball;
What though no real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found;
In reason’s ear they all rejoice
And utter forth a glorious voice;
Forever singing, as they shine,
“The hand that made us is divine.”

LUCY. BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

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, O,
The difference to me!

AN EMPEROR’S DAUGHTER STANDS ALONE. BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

Geoffrey Chaucer, often called the father of English verse, was born some time after 1340, served with Edward III. in the French campaigns and was imprisoned in France. He was on an embassy to Genoa in 1372, met Petrarch, and got from him the tale of Griselda and other Italian legends. On his return he occupied various positions of trust, principally of a diplomatic nature. His last days were spent in obscurity. He died in London in 1400, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His “Canterbury Tales,” founded for the most part upon the same stories that Boccaccio and other writers had made famous in prose, are almost the first evidence of the influence of the Italian Renaissance upon English literature. He wrote many detached pieces as well, although his reputation rests largely upon the “Tales.” He had not only the true poetic instinct, but a deep knowledge and intense love of nature, and he gave a great inspiration to the writers of the golden age which followed his own. As Tennyson says of him in “A Dream of Fair Women:”

“_Dan Chaucer_, _the first warbler whose sweet breath_
_Preluded those melodious bursts that fill_
_The spacious times of great Elizabeth_
_With sounds that echo still_.”

Have ye nat seyn som tyme a pale face
Among a press, of hym that hath be lad
Toward his deeth, where as hym gat no grace?
And swich a colour in his face hath had,
Men myghte knowe his face that was bistad,
Amonges alle the faces in that route;
So stant Custance, and looketh hire aboute.
O, queenes, lyvynge in prosperitee!
Duchesses, and ladyes everichone!
Haveth som routhe on hire adversitee.
An Emperoures doghter stant allone;
She hath no wight to whom to make hir mone!
O, blood roial, that stondest in this drede,
Fer been thy freendes at thy grete nede!
This Alla, kyng, hath swich compassioun,
As gentil herte is fulfild of pitee,
That from hise eyen ran the water doun.
“Now hastily do fecche a book,” quod he,
“And if this knyght wol sweren how that she
This womman slow, yet wol we us avyse
Whom that we wole that shall been our justise.”
A Briton book written with Evaungiles
Was fet, and on this book he swore anoon
She gilty was, and in the meene whiles
An hand hym smoot upon the nekke boon,
That doun he fil atones as a stoon;
And bothe hise eyen broste out of his face
In sighte of every body in that place!
A voys was herd in general audience
And seyde, “Thou has desclaundred, giltlees,
The doghter of hooly chirche in heigh presence;
Thus hastou doon, and yet holde I my pees.”
Of this mervaille agast was al the prees;
As mazed folk they stoden everichone,
For drede of wreche, save Custance allone.
Greet was the drede, and eek the repentance,
Of hem that hadden wronge suspecioun
Upon this sely, innocent Custance;
And for this miracle, in conclusion,
And by Custance’s mediacioun,
The Kyng, and many another in that place
Converted was—thanked be Christes grace!

DELIGHT IN DISORDER. BY ROBERT HERRICK.

It is in such poems as the following one that Herrick is at his best; his religious, or, as he called them, his “noble numbers,” being for the most part inferior. But in his lyrics, as Austin Dobson says, his “numbers are of gold.”

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown,
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglected, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;
Doth more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT. BY THOMAS MOORE.

Oft in the stilly night,
E’re slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of another day 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.

When I remember all
The friends so linked 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,
E’re slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.

JIM BLUDSO. JOHN HAY.

John Hay, Secretary of State, was born at Salem, Ind., on Oct. 8, 1838, and he was graduated at Brown twenty years later. He studied law in Springfield, Ill., and in 1861 became assistant secretary to President Lincoln. He saw some of the civil war as an aid-de-camp under Generals Hunter and Gilmore, with rank of Major and Assistant Adjutant General, Brevet Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel. He was First Assistant Secretary of Legation in Paris and in charge several times from 1865 to 1867, was diplomat in charge at Vienna 1867–’68, Secretary of Legation at Madrid 1868–’70, editorial writer for five years of the New York Tribune, First Assistant Secretary of State, and Ambassador to England. He is the author of “Pike County Ballads,” “Castillian Days,” and part author of a life of Lincoln, written in conjunction with John G. Nicolay.

Wall no! I can’t tell where he lives
Because he don’t live, you see;
Leastways he’s got out of the habit
Of livin’ like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three years,
That you haven’t heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?

He weren’t no saint—them engineers
Is all pretty much alike—
One wife in Natchez-Under-the-Hill
And another one here in Pike;
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward man in a row,
But he never flunked and he never lied—
I reckon he never knowed how.

And this was all the religion he had—
To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot’s bell;
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire—
A thousand times he swore
He’d hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.

All boats has their day on the Mississipp,
And her day come at last—
The Movastar was a better boat,
But the Belle she wouldn’t be passed,
And so she come tearin’ along that night—
The oldest craft on the line—
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer bank on the right.
There was runnin’ and cursin’, but Jim yelled out,
Over all the infernal roar,
“I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot’s ashore.”

Through the hot, black breath of the burnin’ boat
Jim Bludso’s voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And know’d he would keep his word,
And, sure’s you’re born they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell—
And Bludso’s ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.

He weren’t no saint—but at jedgment
I’d run my chance with Jim,
’Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn’t shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing—
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain’t a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.

MORAL. BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair.
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?

But any man that walks the mead,
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humors lead,
A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie
In Art like Nature, dearest friend;
So ’twere to cramp its use, if I
Should hook it to some useful end.

BEDOUIN LOVE SONG. BY BAYARD TAYLOR.

From the desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire,
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

SALLY IN OUR ALLEY. BY HENRY CAREY.

Little is known of this English poet and musical composer except that he was born near the end of the seventeenth century—about 1693—and that he is supposed to have committed suicide at London in 1743. He wrote several burlesques and farces, but is chiefly noted as the author of “God Save the King” and “Sally in Our Alley.”

Of all the girls that are so smart
There’s none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

Her father he makes cabbage nets,
And through the streets does cry ’em;
Her mother she sells laces long
To such as please to buy ’em;
But sure such folks could ne’er beget
So sweet a girl as Sally!
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

Of all the days that’s in the week
I dearly love but one day—
And that’s the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I’m drest all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

My master carries me to church,
And often am I blamed
Because I leave him in the lurch
As soon as text is named;
I leave the church in sermon time
And slink away to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.

ELIA. BY E. J. McPHELIM.

Edward J. McPhelim, a singer of many sweet songs, became mute in 1896 at an age all too young. For several years he was dramatic and literary critic for “The Tribune,” departments in which his rare critical ability and wonderful command of language found full scope. His poems, which have never been collected, contain fancies as poetic and delicate as any in the English tongue. The following, on Lamb and his sister, is significant, considering where McPhelim’s last days were spent:

Across the English meadows sweet,
Across the smiling sunset land,
I see them walk with faltering feet,
Brother and sister, hand in hand.

They know the hour of parting nigh,
They pass into the dying day,
And, lo! against the sunset sky
Looms up the madhouse gaunt and gray.

He keeps the lonely lamp aglow,
While old loves whisper in the air
Of unforgotten long ago
Before his heart had known despair.

He waits till she may come once more
From out the darkness to his side,
To share the changeless love of yore
When all the old, old loves have died.

Between me and this gentle book,
Shining with humor rich and quaint,
The sad scene rises, and I look
Upon a jester—or a saint.

I lift my eyes, still brimming o’er
With love and laughter—and there falls
Across the page forever more,
The shadow of the madhouse walls!

SONG. BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.

Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise,
Arise, arise.

LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT. BY CARDINAL NEWMAN.

Cardinal Newman was born in London in 1801 and died in 1890. He graduated from Oxford, and was ordained in 1824. He was the recognized leader of the high church party in England until 1845, when he united with the Roman Catholic Church. He was appointed rector of the Catholic university at Dublin in 1854, and was made a Cardinal by the Pope in 1879.

Lead, kindly Light amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet! I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Should’st lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day; and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.

So long Thy power has blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.

AN UNTIMELY THOUGHT. BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.

I wonder what day of the week,
I wonder what month of the year—
Will it be midnight, or morning,
And who will bend over my bier?

What a hideous fancy to come
As I wait at the foot of the stair,
While she gives the last touch to her robe
Or sets the white rose in her hair.

As the carriage rolls down the dark street
The little wife laughs and makes cheer—
But. . . I wonder what day of the week,
I wonder what month of the year.

PSALM XIX.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handiwork.

Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.

There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.

Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the
end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.

Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a
strong man to run a race.

His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto
the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of
the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether.

More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

Moreover, by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there
is great reward.

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have
dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent
from the great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable
in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.

THE POMPADOUR’S FAN. BY AUSTIN DOBSON.

Austin Dobson is today, as he has been for years, one of the leading English critics and writers of light verse. He is an authority on the literature and society of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and he excels in verse of the sort here printed.

Chicken-skin, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light
Roses and vaporous blue;
Hark to the dainty frou-frou!
Picture above, if you can,
Eyes that could melt as the dew—
This was the Pompadour’s fan

See how they rise at the sight,
Thronging the Oeil de Boeuf through;
Courtiers as butterflies bright,
Beauties that Fragonard drew,
Talon-rouge, falbala, queue,
Cardinal, Duke—to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

Ah, but things more than polite
Hung on this toy, voyez-vous!
Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do;
Things that, may be, overthrew
Those in whose brains they began;
Here was the sigh and the cue—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

ENVOY

Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
But where is the Pompadour, too?
This was the Pompadour’s fan!

THE BANKS O’ DOON. BY ROBERT BURNS.

Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu’ o’ care!
Thou’lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn;
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed—never to return!

Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And fondly sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Fu’ sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause luver stole my rose,
But, ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.

BALLADE OF NICOLETE. BY GRAHAM R. TOMSON.

This ballad by a poet of our own time finds its way into the hearts of those who have read and loved the song-story of Aucassin and Nicolete. It has about it the fragrance and naïveté of that “good lay,” it contains the “force and freshness of young passion, the troubadour’s sweetness of literary manner,” as Mr. Le Gallienne says of another poem on the same subject written by Edmund Clarence Stedman.

All bathed in pearl and amber light
She rose to fling the lattice wide,
And leaned into the fragrant night,
Where brown birds sang of summertide;
(’Twas Love’s own voice that called and cried).
“Ah Sweet!” she said, “I’ll seek thee yet,
Though thorniest pathways should betide
The fair white feet of Nicolete.”

They slept, who would have staid her flight;
(Full fain were they the maid had died);
She dropped adown her prison’s height
On strands of linen featly tied.
And so she passed the garden side
With loose leaved roses sweetly set,
And dainty daisies, dark beside
The fair white feet of Nicolete!

Her lover lay in evil plight
(So many lovers yet abide!)
I would my tongue could praise aright
Her name, that should be glorified.
Those lovers now, whom foes divide
A little weep—and soon forget.
How far from these faint lovers glide
The fair white feet of Nicolete.

ENVOY.

My princess, doff thy frozen pride,
Nor scorn to pay Love’s golden debt,
Through his dim woodland take for guide
The fair white feet of Nicolete.

NIGHT. BY JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE.

Joseph Blanco White was born of Irish parents in Seville, Spain, July 11, 1775, and was put in training for a mercantile career, but he left his father’s counting house and was ordained a priest in 1796, and continued in the priesthood until 1810, when, because of the political crisis in Spain, he went to England, residing in London as a man of letters, where he contributed largely to the leading reviews and periodicals, and produced several books, treating mostly of Spain and its affairs. He died in May, 1841. His “Sonnet to Night” was pronounced by Coleridge the finest in the English language.

Mysterious Night when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue;
Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent hue,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And, lo! creation widened in man’s view.
Who would have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst flower and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind?
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife—
If light can thus deceive us, wherefore not life?

THE SHEPHERD’S RESOLUTION. BY GEORGE WITHER.

George Wither was born at Brentworth, 1588. He went to Magdalene College, Oxford. He led a troop of Royalist horse against the Covenanters, but three years later he became a Puritan and held command in Cromwell’s army. He was imprisoned during the Restoration for a time. He died in 1667. Wither wrote, besides his poems, a volume of church hymns, several satires, and a translation of the Psalms.

Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman’s fair?
Or make pale my cheek with care
’Cause another’s rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flow’ry meads in May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?

Shall a woman’s virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her well-deservings known
Make me quite forget my own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may merit name of best,
If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be?

Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
I will ne’er the more despair;
If she love me, this believe.
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo
I can scorn and let her go,
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?

THE SONG OF THE MYSTIC. BY FATHER RYAN.

Father Abram Ryan was born about 1834 some say, in Limerick, Ireland, and others, Norfolk, Va., while still others say, Hagerstown, Md. He lived nearly all his life in the South. He was educated at a seminary at Niagara, N. Y., was ordained to the priesthood and labored in many Southern cities. He established a Catholic newspaper at Augusta, Ga. He died in 1883. He was devoted to the cause of the South, and, aside from his devotional poems, none of his writings have more passion or sincerity than those commemorating the deeds of the Confederate army and the cause for which it fought.

I walk down the Valley of Silence—
Down the dim, voiceless valley—alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God’s and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago I was weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago I was weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago I was weary of places
Where I met but the human—and sin.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence
I dream all the songs that I sing;
And the music floats down the dim Valley,
Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the Dove of the Deluge
A message of Peace they may bring.

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by Care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there;
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow
And one the bright mountain of Prayer.

GO, LOVELY ROSE. BY EDMUND WALLER.

Edmund Waller was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1605. He went to King’s College, Cambridge. Later he entered parliament and took an active part in the long parliament. In 1664 he was exiled on account of participating in royalist plots. He returned to England under Cromwell’s administration. He died at Beaconsfield in 1687. Waller’s poems were first published in 1645.

Go, lovely rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

Tell her that’s young
And shuns to have her graces spied
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.

Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.

Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!

THE LAST LEAF. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.

They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.

But now he walks the streets
And he looks at all he meets
So forlorn;
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
“They are gone.”

The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.

And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.

THE SONG OF THE SHIRT. BY THOMAS HOOD.

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt!”

Work! work! work
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work—work—work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It’s oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where a woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!

Work—work—work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work—work—work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam and gusset, and band,
Band and gusset and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

Oh, men, with sisters dear!
Oh, men, with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out
But human creature’s lives!
Stitch—stitch—stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.

THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET. BY SAMUEL WOODWORTH.

Samuel Woodworth was born at Scituate, Mass., in 1785, and was the son of a farmer and revolutionary soldier. He had no educational advantages until taken up by a clergyman, who had read some of his poetical writings and who gave him instruction in the classics. Woodworth was apprenticed to a printer, and later published a paper of his own, of which he was editor, printer, and carrier. Later he removed to New York, where he edited magazines and wrote a number of volumes. His patriotic songs of the war of 1812 were widely popular. His “Old Oaken Bucket” will always hold its place among the choicest songs of America. Woodworth died in New York in 1842.

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 wildwood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which 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 which 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 hail 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,
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
And, now far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father’s plantation,
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturesome bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim, dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—

Build thee more stately mansions, O, my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!

“ONE TOUCH OF NATURE.” WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. (“From Troilus and Cressida.”)

For time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
Grasps—in the corner; welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin—
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and molded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er dusted.

A REQUIEM. BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

Robert Louis Stevenson, the son of a lighthouse engineer, was born at Edinburgh in 1850. He studied in the university of that city and became a lawyer, though he never practiced. On account of his ill-health he went to Samoa, where he lived with his family and wrote his books. He died in 1894. A few of his stories are: “Treasure island,” “Kidnapped,” “New Arabian Nights,” “St. Ives”; his essays are, “Virginibus Puerisque,” “Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes,” and “Familiar Studies on Men and Books.”

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea
And the hunter home from the hill.

REQUIESCAT. BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Matthew Arnold, son of the famous head master of Rugby, was born at Laleham, Middlesex, 1822. He studied at Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol College, Oxford, and was a fellow of Oriel. In 1851 he was made lay inspector of schools, and in ’57 received the appointment of professor of poetry at Oxford. He died at Liverpool in 1888. He wrote “Empedocles on Etna,” “Essays in Criticism,” “Study of Celtic Literature,” “Culture and Anarchy,” and other books of essays.

Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah! would that I did, too,

Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee,
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound;
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.

Her cabin’d ample spirit,
It flutter’d and fail’d for breath;
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.

AT THE CHURCH GATE. BY W. M. THACKERAY.

William Makepeace Thackeray was horn at Calcutta in 1811. He was brought up in England, where he went to Charterhouse School and later to Trinity College, Cambridge. He left college after one year’s study and went to Paris, where he studied with the hope of becoming an artist. His first contributions in the way of writing were to Frazer’s Magazine, and among them were his famous “Yellowplush Papers.” He wrote other satires and humorous ballads for Punch. Thackeray was the first editor of the Cornhill Magazine, which is still in publication. He died in London in 1863.

Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover;
And near the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.

My lady comes at last,
Timid and stepping fast,
And hastening hither
With modest eyes downcast;
She comes—she’s here, she’s past!
May heaven go with her!

Kneel undisturbed, fair saint!
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly;
I will not enter there,
To sully your pure prayer
With thoughts unruly.

But suffer me to pace
Round the forbidden place,
Lingering a minute,
Like outcast spirits who wait,
And see, through heaven’s gate,
Angels within it.

HE’D HAD NO SHOW. BY SAM WALTER FOSS.

Joe Beall ’ud set upon a keg
Down to the groc’ry store, an’ throw
One leg right over t’other leg
An’ swear he’d never had no show,
“O, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show,”
Then shif his quid to t’other jaw,
An’ chaw, an’ chaw, an’ chaw, an’ chaw.

He said he got no start in life,
Didn’t get no money from his dad,
The washin’ took in by his wife
Earned all the funds he ever had.
“O, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show,”
An’ then he’d look up at the clock
An’ talk, an’ talk, an’ talk, an’ talk.

“I’ve waited twenty year—let’s see—
Yes, twenty-four, an’ never struck,
Altho’ I’ve sot roun’ patiently,
The fust tarnation streak er luck,
O, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show,”
Then stuck like mucilage to the spot,
An’ sot, an’ sot, an’ sot, an’ sot.

“I’ve come down regerler every day
For twenty years to Piper’s store.
I’ve sot here in a patient way,
Say, hain’t I, Piper?” Piper swore.
“I tell ye, Joe,
Yer hain’t no show;
Yer too dern patient”—ther hull raft
Jest laffed, an’ laffed, an’ laffed, an’ laffed.

TO THE CUCKOO. BY JOHN LOGAN.

John Logan was born in Scotland in 1748. He wrote lyric poems and published his poems in collaboration with Michael Bruce in 1770. This double volume of poems led probably to the confusion of the authorship of the “Ode to the Cuckoo.” The question is still debated, but the poem is generally attributed to Logan. He died in 1788 at London.

Hail beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of Spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome ring.

What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?

Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.

* * *

Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!

O, could I fly, I’d fly with thee!
We’d make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit oe’r the globe,
Companions of the Spring.

HER MORAL. BY THOMAS HOOD.

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

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Good or bad a thousandfold!
How widely its agencies vary—
To save—to ruin—to curse—to bless—
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamp’d with the image of Good Queen Bess
And now of a bloody Mary.

SERENADE. BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

Stars of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch, while in slumbers light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!

ODE ON A GRECIAN URN. BY JOHN KEATS.

John Keats was born at London in 1795. He studied medicine, but after passing his examinations he never practiced. About this time he became acquainted with Shelley, Leigh Hunt, and Haydon. In 1820 he went to Naples on account of his health, and from there to Rome, where he died in 1821. His longer poems are; “Endymion” (which poem was most severely criticised at the time of its publication), “Lamia,” “Isabella,” and “The Eve of Saint Agnes.”

Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme;
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady:
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggles to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet do not grieve,
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

O, Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all
Ye know on earth, truth, and all ye need to know.

TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON. BY RICHARD LOVELACE.

This lyric of Richard Lovelace’s is, with the “Lucasta,” the best known and most often quoted of his poems.

When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses crowned,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free—
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When linnet-like confined,
With shriller throat shall sing
Thy mercy, sweetness, majesty
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
The enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

SONG. BY JOHN BUNYAN.

John Bunyan was born at Elstow in 1628. He was a tinker, as his father was before him, but he finally became a soldier in the parliamentary army. In 1653 he became a nonconformist and went about the country preaching until he was arrested under the statutes against that doctrine. While in prison Bunyan began his well-known allegory—“Pilgrim’s Progress.” Under Charles II. he was released and made pastor at Bedford. He died at London in 1688.

He that is down need fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much;
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest such.

Fullness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage;
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.

BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS. BY THOMAS MOORE.

In the early part of the last century, when the star of Moore was at its zenith, no song was more popular than this, perhaps as much for the charming air to which it is set as for the beauty and rhythm of its words.

Believe me, if all those endearing charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be ador’d, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as surely loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look that she turned when he rose.

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US. BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

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!

ODE ON SOLITUDE. BY ALEXANDER POPE.

Pope was born at London in 1688. He had no school education, as he was always sickly, but he learned Latin and Greek from several friends. By the time he was 17 he was an acknowledged wit and critic. His first published poem was “The Pastorals,” 1709; then followed “The Rape of the Lock,” his best satirical poem, and the next year (1713) he began his translation of the “Iliad.” He died at Twickenham in 1744.

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 doth 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.

PATRIOTISM. BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Sir Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh in 1771. He first began his writing by translating Burger and Goethe, but he left this work to take up the Border Minstrelsy of his own country. In 1814 he published the first of the well-known “Waverley” novels. He sold his copyrights to the firm of Constable, and as the house failed a few years later Scott was heavily involved. As he had also recently bought and repaired the estate of Abbotsford, he was in debt for that also. In spite of ill health he wrote incessantly in order to meet his bills, and gave to the world the novels and poems with which all are so familiar. He died in 1832.

Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
“This is my own, my native land!”
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim—
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP. BY EMMA WILLARD.

Emma Willard, the American educator and author, was one of a family of seventeen children. Her maiden name was Hart. She was born at Berlin, Conn., in 1787. She began teaching in the village school and later became principal of a girls’ college at Westfield, Conn., and after her marriage to Dr. John Willard in 1814, opened a boarding school at Middlebury, Conn, into which she introduced new methods and new studies. The school was removed to Troy, N. Y., and became the Troy Female Academy. Retiring from the school in 1858, Mrs. Willard spent the remaining years of her life in revising her text books and writing a volume of poems. She died in 1876.

Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
I lay me down in peace to sleep;
Secure I rest upon the wave,
For Thou, O Lord, hast power to save.

I know Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.

And such the trust that still were mine,
Though stormy winds swept o’er the brine,
Or though the tempest’s fiery breath
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.

In ocean’s caves still safe with Thee,
The germ of immortality;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN. BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

The influence of poetry is greater than is generally realized, and many find inspiration to action in reading it. Mrs. Browning in this pathetic poem did much to rouse England to the evil of child labor and to perceive the wrongs done the little ones toiling in its factories and coal mines far beyond their strength.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O, my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.

But the young, young children, O, my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down from its mark;
And the children’s souls which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.

ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL. BY LEIGH HUNT.

James Henry Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate in 1784. He was an essayist, an author, and a poet, chief among his poems being “The Story of Rimini.” He died at Putney in 1859.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight of his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold—
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” The vision raised its head,
And with a look made all of sweet accord,
Answer’d, “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerily still, and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one who loves his fellowmen.”
The angel wrote and vanish’d. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And show’d the names whom love of God had bless’d,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.

BUGLE SONG. BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

This poem is one of the lyrics from the “Princess,” yet there is so little connection between the story and these five or six charming songs embedded within the mock heroic poem that one does not think of them as part of the medley.

The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story:
The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, farther going!
O sweet and far from cliff and scar
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying;
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.