Titians and Raphaels three or four,
I love so much their style and tone,--
One Turner, and no more,
(A landscape,--foreground golden dirt,--
The sunshine painted with a 'squirt.)
Of books but few,--some fifty score
For daily use, and bound for wear;
The rest upon an upper floor;--
Some little luxury there
Of red morocco's gilded gleam,
And vellum rich as country cream.
Busts, cameos, gems,--such things as these,
Which others often show for pride,
I value for their power to please,
And selfish churls deride;--
One Stradivarius, I confess,
Two Meerschaums, I would fain possess.
Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool;
Shall not carved tables serve my turn,
But all must be of buhl?
Give grasping pomp its double share,--
I ask but one recumbent chair.
Thus humble let me live and die,
Nor long for Midas' golden touch;
If Heaven more generous gifts deny,
I shall not miss them much,--
Too grateful for the blessing lent
Of simple tastes and mind content!
THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE;
or
THE WONDERFUL "ONE-HOSS SHAY"
A LOGICAL STORY
Have you heard of the wonderful one-horse shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it--ah but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits,
Have you ever heard of that, I say?
Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,
Georgius Secundus was then alive,
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.
Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot,--
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will,--
Above or below, or within or without,--
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
That a chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.
But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn' break daown,
"Fur," said the Deacon, "It's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' Stan' the strain;
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."
So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thins;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees.
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"--
Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"
Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren--where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten;--
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came;--
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.
Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it.--You're welcome.--No extra charge.)
FIRST of NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day--
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thins,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floors
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!
First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson.--Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text,--
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the--Moses--was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill,--
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n'-house clock--
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once,
All at once, and nothing first,
Just as bubbles do when they burst.
End of the wonderful one-boss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ
STORM ON ST. BERNARD
Oh, Heaven, it is a fearful thing
Beneath the tempest's beating wing
To struggle, like a stricken hare
When swoops the monarch bird of air;
To breast the loud winds' fitful spasms,
To brave the cloud and shun the chasms,
Tossed like a fretted shallop-sail
Between the ocean and the gale.
Along the valley, loud and fleet,
The rising tempest leapt and roared,
And scaled the Alp, till from his seat
The throned Eternity of Snow
His frequent avalanches poured
In thunder to the storm below.
And now, to crown their fears, a roar
Like ocean battling with the shore,
Or like that sound which night and day
Breaks through Niagara's veil of spray,
From some great height within the cloud,
To some unmeasured valley driven,
Swept down, and with a voice so loud
It seemed as it would shatter heaven!
The bravest quailed; it swept so near,
It made the ruddiest cheek to blanch,
While look replied to look in fear,
"The avalanche! The avalanche!"
It forced the foremost to recoil,
Before its sideward billows thrown,--
Who cried, "O God! Here ends our toil!
The path is overswept and gone!"
The night came down. The ghostly dark,
Made ghostlier by its sheet of snow,
Wailed round them its tempestuous wo,
Like Death's announcing courier! "Hark
There, heard you not the alp-hound's bark?
And there again! and there! Ah, no,
'Tis but the blast that mocks us so!"
Then through the thick and blackening mist
Death glared on them, and breathed so near,
Some felt his breath grow almost warm,
The while he whispered in their ear
Of sleep that should out-dream the storm.
Then lower drooped their lids,--when, "List!
Now, heard you not the storm-bell ring?
And there again, and twice and thrice!
Ah, no, 'tis but the thundering
Of tempests on a crag of ice!"
Death smiled on them, and it seemed good
On such a mellow bed to lie
The storm was like a lullaby,
And drowsy pleasure soothed their blood.
But still the sturdy, practised guide
His unremitting labour plied;
Now this one shook until he woke,
And closer wrapt the other's cloak,--
Still shouting with his utmost breath,
To startle back the hand of Death,
Brave words of cheer! "But, hark again,--
Between the blasts the sound is plain;
The storm, inhaling, lulls,--and hark!
It is--it is! the alp-dog's bark
And on the tempest's passing swell--
The voice of cheer so long debarred--
There swings the Convent's guiding-bell,
The sacred bell of Saint Bernard!"
DRIFTING
My soul to-day
Is far away,
Sailing the Vesuvian Bay;
My winged boat
A bird afloat,
Swings round the purple peaks remote:--
Round purple peaks
It sails, and seeks
Blue inlets and their crystal creeks,
Where high rocks throw,
Through deeps below,
A duplicated golden glow.
Far, vague, and dim,
The mountains swim;
While an Vesuvius' misty brim,
With outstretched hands,
The gray smoke stands
O'erlooking the volcanic lands.
Here Ischia smiles
O'er liquid miles;
And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Calm Capri waits,
Her sapphire gates
Beguiling to her bright estates.
I heed not, if
My rippling skiff
Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff;
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise.
Under the walls
Where swells and falls
The Bay's deep breast at intervals
At peace I lie,
Blown softly by,
A cloud upon this liquid sky.
The day, so mild,
Is Heaven's own child,
With Earth and Ocean reconciled;
The airs I feel
Around me steal
Are murmuring to the murmuring keel.
Over the rail
My hand I trail
Within the shadow of the sail,
A joy intense,
The cooling sense
Glides down my drowsy indolence.
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Where Summer sings and never dies,
O'erveiled with vines
She glows and shines
Among her future oil and wines.
Her children, hid
The cliffs amid,
Are gambolling with the gambolling kid;
Or down the walls,
With tipsy calls,
Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls.
The fisher's child,
With tresses wild,
Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled,
With glowing lips
Sings as she skips,
Or gazes at the far-off ships.
Yon deep bark goes
Where traffic blows,
From lands of sun to lands of snows;
This happier one,--
Its course is run
From lands of snow to lands of sun.
O happy ship,
To rise and dip,
With the blue crystal at your lip!
O happy crew,
My heart with you
Sails, and sails, and sings anew!
No more, no more
The worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise!
WALT WHITMAN
PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!
(Selection)
Come, my tan-faced children,
Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;
Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes?
Pioneers! O pioneers!
For we cannot tarry here;
We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of
danger,
We the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend,
Pioneers! O pioneers
O you youths, Western youths,
So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and
friendship,
Plain I see you, Western youths, see you tramping with the
foremost,
Pioneers! O pioneers
Have the elder races halted?
Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there
beyond the seas?
We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the
lesson,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
All the past we leave behind,
We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world;
Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and
the march,
Pioneers! O pioneers
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains
steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the
unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
We primeval forests felling,
We the rivers stemming, vexing and piercing deep the mines
within,
We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil
upheaving,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Colorado men are we;
From the peaks gigantic, from the great Sierras and the
high plateaus,
From the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail,
we come,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
From Nebraska, from Arkansas,
Central inland race are we, from Missouri, with the
continental blood intervein'd;
All the hands of comrades clasping, all the Southern, all
the Northern,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O resistless restless race!
O beloved race in all! O my-breast aches with tender love
for all!
O I mourn and yet exult, I am rapt with love for all,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Raise the mighty mother mistress,
Waving high the delicate mistress, over all the starry
mistress (bend your heads all),
Raise the fang'd and warlike mistress, stern, impassive,
weapon'd mistress,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
See, my children, resolute children,
By those swarms upon our rear we must never yield or
falter,
Ages back in ghostly millions frowning there behind us
urging,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
On and on the compact ranks,
With accessions ever waiting, with the places of the dead
quickly fill'd,
Through the battle, through defeat, moving yet and never
stopping,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Minstrels latent on the prairies
(Shrouded bards of other lands, you may rest, you have
done your work),
Soon I hear you coming warbling, soon you rise and tramp
amid us,
Pioneers! 0 pioneers!
Not for delectations sweet,
Not the cushion and the slipper, not the peaceful, and the
studious,
Not the riches safe and palling, not for us the tame
enjoyment,
Pioneers! O Pioneers!
Do the feasters gluttonous feast?
Do the corpulent sleepers sleep? have they lock'd and
bolted doors?
Still be ours the diet hard, and the blanket on the
ground,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
Has the night descended?
Was the road of late so toilsome? did we stop discouraged
nodding on our way?
Yet a passing hour I yield you in your tracks to pause
oblivious,
Pioneers! 0 pioneers
Till with sound of trumpet,
Far, far off the daybreak call--hark! how loud and clear I
hear it wind!
Swift! to the head of the army!--swift! Spring to your
places,
Pioneers! O pioneers!
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done
The ship has weather'd every rack; the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills--
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.
Here, Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won.
Exult, O shores! and ring, O bells!
But I with mournful tread
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
NOTES
ANNE DUDLEY BRADSTREET
"One wishes she were more winning: yet there is no gainsaying that she
was clever; wonderfully well instructed for those days; a keen and close
observer; often dexterous in her verse--catching betimes upon epithets
that are very picturesque: But--the Tenth Muse is too rash."
--DONALD G. MITCHELL.
Born in England, she married at sixteen and came to Boston, where she
always considered herself an exile. In 1644 her husband moved deeper
into the wilderness and there "the first professional poet of New
England" wrote her poems and brought up a family of eight children.
Her English publisher called her the "Tenth Muse, lately sprung up
in America."
CONTEMPLATION
2. Phoebus: Apollo, the Greek sun god, hence in poetry the sun.
7. delectable giving pleasure.
13. Dight: adorned.
MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631-1705)
"He was, himself, in nearly all respects, the embodiment of what was
great earnest, and sad, in Colonial New England.... In spite, however,
of all offences, of all defects, there are in his poetry an irresistible
sincerity, a reality, a vividness, reminding one of similar qualities in
the prose of John Bunyan."
M. C. TYLER.
Born in England, he was brought to America at the age of seven. He
graduated from Harvard College and then became a preacher. He later
added the profession of medicine and practiced both professions.
THE DAY of DOOM
There seems to be no doubt that this poem was the most popular piece of
literature, aside from the Bible, in the New England Puritan colonies.
Children memorized it, and its considerable length made it sufficient for
many Sunday afternoons. Notice the double attempt at rhyme; the first,
third, fifth, and seventh lines rhyme within themselves; the second line
rhymes with the fourth, the sixth with the eighth. The pronunciation in
such lines as 35, 77, 79, 93, 99, 105, and 107 requires adaptation to
rhyme, as does the grammar in line 81, for example.
3. carnal: belonging merely to this world as opposed to spiritual.
11-15. See Matthew 25: 1-13.
40. wonted steads: customary places
PHILIP FRENEAU (1752-1832)
"The greatest poet born in America before the Revolutionary War.... His
best poems are a few short lyrics, remarkable for their simplicity,
sincerity, and love of nature."
-REUBEN P. HALLECK.
Born in New York, he graduated from Princeton at the age of nineteen and
became school teacher, sea captain, interpreter, editor, and poet. He
lost his way in a severe storm and was found dead the next day.
TO A HONEY BEE
29-30. Pharaoh: King of Egypt in the time of Joseph, who perished in the
Red Sea. See Exodus, Chapter xiv.
34. epitaph: an inscription in memory of the dead.
36. Charon: the Greek mythical boatman on the River Styx.
EUTAW SPRINGS
Eutaw Springs. Sept. 8th 1781, the Americans under General Greene fought
a battle which was successful for the Americans, since Georgia and the
Carolinas were freed from English invasion.
21. Greene: Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island was one of the men who
became a leader early in the war and who in spite of opposition and
failure stood by the American cause through all the hard days of the war.
25. Parthian: the soldiers of Parthia were celebrated as horse-archers.
Their mail-clad horseman spread like a cloud round the hostile army and
poured in a shower of darts. Then they evaded any closer conflict by a
rapid flight, during which they still shot their arrows backwards upon
the enemy. See Smith, Classical Dictionary.
FRANCIS HOPKINSON (1737-1791)
He was "a mathematician, a chemist, a physicist, a mechanician, an
inventor, a musician and a composer of music, a man of literary knowledge
and practice, a writer of airy and dainty songs, a clever artist with
pencil and brush, and a humorist of unmistakable power."
--MOSES COLT TYLER.
Born in Philadelphia, he graduated from the College of Philadelphia and
began the practice of law. He signed the Declaration of Independence and
held various offices under the federal government. "The Battle of the
Kegs" is his best-known production.
THE BATTLE of THE KEGS
59. Stomach: courage.
JOSEPH HOPKINSON (1770-1842)
"His legal essays and decisions were long accepted as authoritative; but
he will be longest remembered for his national song, 'Hail Columbia,'
written in 1798, which attained immediate popularity and did much to
fortify wavering patriotism."
--NEW INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
THE BALLAD of NATHAN HALE
For the story of Nathan Hale see any good history of the American
Revolution. He is honored by the students of Yale as one of its noblest
graduates, and the building in which he lived has been remodeled and
marked with a memorial tablet, while a bronze statue stands before it.
This is the last of Yale's old buildings and will now remain for many
years.
31. minions: servile favorites.
48. presage: foretell.
TIMOTHY DWIGHT (1752-1817)
"He was in many ways the first of the great modern college presidents; if
his was the day of small things, he nevertheless did so many of them and
did them so well that he deserves admiration."
--WILLIAM P. TRENT.
Born in Northampton, Mass., he graduated from Yale and was then made a
tutor there. He became an army chaplain in 1777, but his father's death
made his return home necessary. He became a preacher later and finally
president of Yale. His hymn, "Love to the Church," is the one thing we
most want to keep of all his several volumes.
SAMUEL WOODWORTH (1785-1842)
"Our best patriotic ballads and popular lyrics are, of course, based upon
sentiment, aptly expressed by the poet and instinctively felt by the
reader. Hence just is the fame and true is the love bestowed upon the
choicest songs of our 'single-poem poets': upon Samuel Woodworth's 'Old
Oaken Bucket,' etc."
--CHARLES F. RICHARDSON.
Born at Scituate, Mass., he had very little education. His father
apprenticed him to a Boston printer while he was a young boy. He
remained in the newspaper business all his life, and wrote numerous
poems, and several operas which were produced.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878)
"A moralist, dealing chiefly with death and the more sombre phases of
life, a lover and interpreter of nature, a champion of democracy and
human freedom, in each of these capacities he was destined to do
effective service for his countrymen, and this work was, as it were, cut
out for him in his youth, when he was laboring in the fields, attending
corn-huskings and cabin-raisings, or musing beside forest streams."
--W. P. TRENT.
Born in a mill-town village in western Massachusetts, he passed his
boyhood on the farm. Unable to complete his college course, he practiced
law until 1824, when he became editor of the New York Review. He
continued all his life to be a man of letters.
The poems by Bryant are used by permission of D. Appleton and Company,
authorized publishers of his works.
THANATOPSIS
34. patriarchs of the infant world: the leaders of the Hebrews before
the days of history.
61. Barcan wilderness: waste of North Africa.
54. Why does Bryant suggest "the wings of the morning" to begin such a
survey of the world? Would he choose the Oregon now?
28. ape: mimic.
This poem is very simple in its form and is typical of Bryant's nature
poems. First, is his observation of the waterfowl's flight and his
question about it. Secondly, the answer is given. Thirdly, the
application is made to human nature. Do you find such a comparison of
nature and human nature in any other poems by Bryant?
9. plashy: swampy.
15. illimitable: boundless.
GREEN RIVER
Green River, flows near Great Barrington where Bryant practised law.
33. simpler: a collector of herbs for medicinal use.
58. This reference to Bryant's profession is noteworthy. His ambition
for a thorough literary training was abandoned on account of poverty. He
then took up the study of law and practiced it in Great Barrington,
Mass., for nine years. His dislike of this profession is here very
plainly shown. He abandoned it entirely in 1824 and gave himself to
literature. "I Broke the Spell That Held Me Long" also throws a light on
his choice of a life work.
THE WEST WIND
With this may be compared with profit Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind"
and Kingsley's "Ode to the Northeast Wind." State the contrast between
the ideas of the west wind held by Shelley and by Bryant.
A FOREST HYMN
2. architrave: the beam resting on the top of the column and supporting
the frieze.
5. From these details can you form a picture of this temple in its
exterior and interior? Is it like a modern church?
darkling: dimly seen; a poetic word. Do you find any other adjectives in
this poem which are poetic words?
23. Why is the poem divided here? Is the thought divided? Connected?
Can you account in the same way for the divisions at lines 68 and 89?
34. vaults: arched ceilings.
44. instinct: alive, animated by.
66. emanation: that which proceeds from a source, as fragrance is an
emanation from flowers.
89. This idea that death is the source of other life everywhere in
nature is a favorite one with Bryant. It is the fundamental thought in
his first poem, "Thanatopsis" (A View of Death), which may be read in
connection with "The Forest Hymn."
96. Emerson discusses this question in "The Problem," See selections
from Emerson.
THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS
26. Bryant's favorite sister, Mrs. Sarah Bryant Shaw, died shortly
after her marriage, of tuberculosis. This poem alludes to her and is in
its early lines the saddest poem Bryant ever wrote. Notice the change of
tone near the end.