Make not thy prayer to Heaven, lest perchance,

O troubler of the world, the heavens hear!

But trust in Uhlan and in cannoneer,

And, ere the Russian hough thee, set thy lance

Against the dear and blameless breast of France!

Put on thy mail tremendous and austere,

And let the squadrons of thy wrath appear,

And bid the standards and the guns advance!

Those as an evil mist shall pass away,

As once the Assyrian before the Lord:

Thou standest between mortals and the day,

Ere God, grown weary of thine armored reign,

Lift from the world the shadow of thy sword

And bid the stars of morning sing again.

—Copyright by _A. M. Robertson_, publisher, San Francisco, and used by

kind permission of author and publisher.

TO THE WAR-LORDS

BY GEORGE STERLING

I

Be yours the doom Isaiah’s voice foretold,

Lifted on Babylon, O ye whose hands

Cast the sword’s shadow upon weaker lands,

And for whose pride a million hearths grow cold!

Ye reap but with the cannon, and do hold

Your plowing to the murder-god’s commands;

And at your altars Desolation stands,

And in your hearts is conquest, as of old.

The legions perish and the warships drown;

The fish and vulture batten on the slain;

And it is ye whose word hath shaken down

The dykes that hold the chartless sea of pain.

Your prayers deceive not men, nor shall a crown

Hide on the brow the murder-mark of Cain.

II

Now glut yourselves with conflict, nor refrain,

But let your famished provinces be fed

From bursting granaries of steel and lead!

Decree the sowing of that deadly grain

Where the great war-horse, maddened with his pain,

Stamps on the mangled living and the dead,

And from the entreated heavens overhead

Falls from a brother’s hand a fiery rain.

Lift not your voices to the gentle Christ:

Your god is of the shambles! Let the moan

Of nations be your psalter, and their youth

To Moloch and to Bel be sacrificed!

A world to which ye proffered lies alone

Learns now from Death the horror of your truth.

III

How have you fed your people upon lies,

And cried “Peace! peace!” and knew it would not be!

For now the iron dragons take the sea,

And in the new-found fortress of the skies,

Alert and fierce a deadly eagle flies.

Ten thousand cannon echo your decree,

To whose profound refrain ye bend the knee.

And lift into the Lord of Love your eyes.

This is Hell’s work: why raise your hands to Him,

And those hands mailed, and holding up the sword?

There stands another altar, stained with red,

At whose basalt the infernal seraphim

Uplift to Satan, your conspirant lord,

The blood of nations, at your mandate shed.

—Copyright by _A. M. Robertson_, publisher, San Francisco, and used by

kind permission of author and publisher.

PAULINE PAVLOVNA

BY T. B. ALDRICH

(_Scene: Petrograd. Period: The present time. A ballroom in the winter

palace of the prince. The ladies in character costumes and masks. The

gentlemen in official dress and unmasked, with the exception of six tall

figures in scarlet kaftans, who are treated with marked distinction as

they move here and there among the promenaders._

_Quadrille music throughout the dialogue. Count Sergius Pavlovich

Panshine, who has just arrived, is standing anxiously in the doorway

of an antechamber with his eyes fixed upon a lady in the costume of a

maid of honor in the time of Catherine II. The lady presently disengages

herself from the crowd, and passes near Count Panshine, who impulsively

takes her by the hand and leads her across the threshold of the inner

apartment, which is unoccupied._)

_He._ Pauline!

_She._ You knew me?

_He._ How could I have failed? A mask may hide your features, not your

soul. There’s an air about you like the air that folds a star. A blind

man knows the night, and feels the constellations. No coarse sense of eye

or ear had made you plain to me. Through these I had not found you; for

your eyes, as blue as violets of our Novgorod, look black behind your

mask there, and your voice—I had not known that either. My heart said,

“Pauline Pavlovna.”

_She._ Ah, your heart said that? You trust your heart then! ’Tis a

serious risk! How is it you and others wear no mask?

_He._ The Emperor’s orders.

_She._ Is the Emperor here? I have not seen him.

_He._ He is one of the six in scarlet kaftans and all masked alike.

Watch—you will note how every one bows down

Before those figures; thinking each by chance

May be the Tsar; yet none know which is he.

Even his counterparts are left in doubt.

Unhappy Russia! No serf ever wore such chains

As gall our Emperor these sad days.

He dare trust no man.

_She._ All men are so false.

_He._ Spare one, Pauline Pavlovna.

_She._ No! all, all!

I think there is no truth left in the world,

In man or woman.

Once were noble souls.—

Count Sergius, is Nastasia here to-night?

_He._ Ah! then you know! I thought to tell you first.

Not here, beneath these hundred curious eyes,

In all this glare of light; but in some place

Where I could throw me at your feet and weep.

In what shape came the story to your ears?

Decked in the teller’s colors, I’ll be sworn;

The truth, but in the livery of a lie,

And so must wrong me. Only this is true:—

The Tsar, because I risked my wretched life

To shield a life as wretched as my own,

Bestows upon me, as supreme reward—

O irony!—the hand of this poor girl.

Says, “Here I have the pearl of pearls for you,

Such as was never plucked from out the deep

By Indian diver, for a Sultan’s crown.

Your joy’s decreed,” and stabs me with a smile.

_She._ And she—she loves you.

_He._ I know not, indeed. Likes me perhaps.

What matters it?—her love?

Sidor Yurievich, the guardian, consents, and she consents.

No love in it at all, a mere caprice,

A young girl’s spring-tide dream.

Sick of her ear-rings, weary of her mare,

She’ll have a lover—something ready made,

Or improvised between two cups of tea—

A lover by imperial ukase!

Fate said the word—I chanced to be the man!

If that grenade the crazy student threw

Had not spared me, as well as spared the Tsar,

All this would not have happened. I’d have been a hero,

But quite safe from her romance.

She takes me for a hero—think of that!

Now by our holy Lady of Kazan,

When I have finished pitying myself, I’ll pity her.

_She._ Oh, no;—begin with her; she needs it most.

_He._ At her door lies the blame, whatever falls.

She, with a single word, with half a tear,

Had stopt it at the first,

This cruel juggling with poor human hearts.

_She._ The Tsar commanded it—you said the Tsar.

_He._ The Tsar does what she wills—God fathoms why.

Were she his mistress, now! but there’s no snow

Whiter within the bosom of a cloud,

No colder either. She is very haughty,

For all her fragile air of gentleness;

With something vital in her, like those flowers

That on our desolate steppes outlast the year.

Resembles you in some things. It was that

First made us friends. I do her justice, see!

For we were friends in that smooth surface way

We Russians have imported out of France.

Alas! from what a blue and tranquil heaven

This bolt fell on me! After these two years,

My suit with Ossip Leminoff at end,

The old wrong righted, the estates restored,

And my promotion, with the ink not dry!

For those fairies which neglected me at birth

Seemed now to lavish all good gifts on me—

Gold roubles, office, sudden dearest friends.

The whole world smiled; then, as I stooped to taste

The sweetest cup, freak dashed it from my lips.

This very night—just think, this very night—

I planned to come and beg of you the alms

I dared not ask for in my poverty.

I thought me poor then. How stript am I now!

There’s not a ragged mendicant one meets

Along the Nevski Prospekt but has leave to tell his love,

And I have not that right!

Pauline Pavlovna, why do you stand there

Stark as a statue, with no word to say?

_She._ Because this thing has frozen up my heart.

I think that there is something killed in me,

A dream that would have mocked all other bliss.

What shall I say? What would you have me say?

_He._ If it be possible, the word of words!

_She_ (_very slowly_). Well, then—I love you. I may tell you so

This once, ... and then forever hold my peace.

We cannot stay here longer unobserved.

No—do not touch me! but stand further off, and

Seem to laugh, as if we jested—eyes,

Eyes, everywhere! Now turn your face away....

I love you.

_He._ With such music in my ears I would death found me.

It were sweet to die listening! you love me—prove it.

_She._ Prove it—how? I prove it saying it. How else?

_He._ Pauline, I have three things to choose from; you shall choose.

This marriage, or Siberia, or France.

The first means hell; the second, purgatory;

The third—with you—were nothing less than heaven!

_She_ (_starting_). How dared you even dream it!

_He._ I was mad. This business has touched me in the brain.

Have patience! the calamity’s so new.

(_Pauses._) There is a fourth way, but the gate is shut

To brave men who hold life a thing of God.

_She._ Yourself spake there; the rest was not of you.

_He._ Oh, lift me to your level! So I’m safe.

What’s to be done?

_She._ There must be some path out. Perhaps the Emperor—

_He._ Not a ray of hope! His mind is set on this with that insistence

Which seems to seize on all match-making folk—

The fancy bites them, and they straight go mad.

_She._ Your father’s friend, the metropolitan—

A word from him....

_He._ Alas, he too is bitten!

Gray-haired, gray-hearted, worldly-wise, he sees

This marriage makes me the Tsar’s protégé

And opens every door to preference.

_She._ Think while I think. There surely is some key

Unlocks the labyrinth, could we but find it.

Nastasia!

_He._ What, beg life of her? Not I.

_She._ Beg love. She is a woman, young, perhaps

Untouched as yet of this too poisonous air.

Were she told all, would she not pity us?

For if she love you, as I think she must,

Would not some generous impulse stir in her,

Some latent, unsuspected spark illume?

How love thrills even commonest girl-clay,

Ennobling it an instant if no more!

You said that she is proud; then touch her pride,

And turn her into marble with the touch.

But yet the gentler passion is the stronger.

Go to her, tell her in some tenderest phrase

That will not hurt too much—ah, but ’twill hurt!

Just how your happiness lies in her hand

To make or mar for all time; hint, not say,

Your heart is gone from you, and you may find—

_He._ A casement in St. Peter and St. Paul

For, say, a month; then some Siberian town.

Not this way lies escape. At my first word

That sluggish Tartar blood would turn to fire

In every vein.

_She._ How blindly you read her,

Or any woman! Yes, I know, I grant

How small we often seem to our small world

Of trivial cares and narrow precedents—

Lacking that wide horizon stretched for men—

Capricious, spiteful, frightened at a mouse;

But when it comes to suffering mortal pangs,

The weakest of us measures pulse with you.

_He._ Yes, you, not she. If she were at your height!

But there’s no martyr wrapt in her rose flesh.

There should have been; for Nature gave you both

The self-same purple for your eyes and hair,

The self-same Southern music to your lips,

Fashioned you both, as ’twere, in the same mold,

Yet failed to put the soul in one of you!

I know her willful—her light head quite turned

In this court atmosphere of flatteries;

A Moscow beauty, petted and spoiled there,

And since, spoiled here; as soft as swan’s down, now,

With words like honey melting from the comb,

But being crossed, vindictive, cruel, cold.

I fancy her between two rosy smiles,

Saying, “Poor fellow, in the Nertchinsk mines!”

_She._ You know her not.

Count Sergius Pavlovich, you said no mask

Could hide the soul, yet how you have mistaken

The soul these two months—and the face to-night. (_She removes mask._)

_He._ You!—it was you.

_She._ Count Sergius Pavlovich, go find Pauline Pavlovna—she is here—

And tell her that the Tsar has set you free. (_Goes out hurriedly._)

GUNGA DIN

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

You may talk o’ gin and beer

When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,

An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot;

But when it comes to slaughter

You will do your work on water,

An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it.

Now in Injia’s sunny clime,

Where I used to spend my time

A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,

Of all them blackfaced crew

The finest man I knew

Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din!

It was “Din! Din! Din!

You limping lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!

Hi! slippery hitherao!

Water, get it! Pannee lao!

You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.”

The uniform ’e wore

Was nothin’ much before,

An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind,

For a piece o’ twisty rag

An’ a goatskin water-bag

Was all the field equipment ’e could find.

When the sweatin’ troop-train lay

In a sidin’ through the day,

Where the ’eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,

We shouted “Harry By!”

Till our throats were bricky-dry,

Then we wopped ’im cause ’e couldn’t serve us all.

It was “Din! Din! Din!

You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?

You put some juldee in it

Or I’ll marrow you this minute;

If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!”

’E would dot an’ carry one

Till the longest day was done;

An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.

If we charged or if we cut,

You could bet your bloomin’ nut,

’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.

With ’is mussick on ’is back,

’E would skip with our attack,

An’ watch us till the bugles made “Retire,”

An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide

’E was white, clear white, inside

When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire!

It was “Din! Din! Din!”

With the bullets kickin’ dust spots on the green,

When the cartridges ran out,

You could hear the front lines shout,

“Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!”

I sha’n’t forgit the night

When I dropped be’ind the fight

With a bullet where my belt-plate should ’a’ been.

I was chokin’ mad with thirst,

An’ the man that spied me first

Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.

’E lifted up my head,

An’ ’e plugged me where I bled,

An’ ’e guv me ’arf-a-pint o’ water green:

It was crawlin’ and it stunk,

But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,

I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.

It was “Din! Din! Din!

’Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through his spleen;

’E’s chawin’ up the ground,

An’ ’e’s kickin’ all around:

For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!”

’E carried me away

To where a dooli lay,

An’ a bullet came and drilled the beggar clean.

’E put me safe inside,

An’ just before ’e died:

“I ’ope you like your drink,” sez Gunga Din.

So I’ll meet ’im later on

At the place where ’e is gone—

Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;

’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals,

Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,

An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!

Yes, Din! Din! Din!

You Lazarushian-leathern Gunga Din!

Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,

By the livin’ God that made you,

You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

THE TRUE BALLAD OF THE KING’S SINGER

BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON

The king rode fast, the king rode well,

The royal hunt went loud and gay,

A thousand bleeding chamois fell

For royal sport that day.

When sunset turned the hill all red,

The royal hunt went still and slow;

The king’s great horse with weary tread

Plunged ankle-deep in snow.

Sudden a strain of music sweet,

Unearthly sweet, came through the wood;

Up sprang the king, and on both feet

Straight in his saddle stood.

“Now, by our lady, be it bird,

Or be it man or elf that plays,

Never before my ears have heard

A music fit for praise!”

Sullen and tired, the royal hunt

Followed the king, who tracked the song,

Unthinking, as is royal wont,

How hard the way and long.

Stretched on a rock the shepherd lay

And dreamed and piped, and dreamed and sang,

And careless heard the shout and bay

With which the echoes rang.

“Up, man! the king!” the hunters cried.

He slowly stood, and, wondering,

Turned honest eyes from side to side:

To him, each looked like king.

Strange shyness seized the king’s bold tongue;

He saw how easy to displease

This savage man who stood among

His courtiers, so at ease.

But kings have silver speech to use

When on their pleasure they are bent;

The simple shepherd could not choose;

Like one in dream he went.

O hear! O hear! The ringing sound

Of twenty trumpets swept the street,

The king a minstrel now has found,

For royal music meet.

With cloth of gold, and cloth of red,

And woman’s eyes the place is bright.

“Now, shepherd, sing,” the king has said,

“The song you sang last night!”

One faint sound stirs the perfumed air,

The courtiers scornfully look down;

The shepherd kneels in dumb despair,

Seeing the king’s dark frown.

The king is just; the king will wait.

“Ho, guards! let him be gently led,

Let him grow used to royal state,—

To being housed and fed.”

All night the king unquiet lay,

Racked by his dream’s presentiment;

Then rose in haste at break of day,

And for the shepherd sent.

“Ho, now, thou beast, thou savage man,

How sound thou sleepest, not to hear!”

They jeering laughed, but soon began

To louder call in fear.

They wrenched the bolts; unrumpled stood

The princely bed all silken fine,

Untouched the plates of royal food,

The flask of royal wine!

The costly robes strewn on the floor,

The chamber empty, ghastly still;

The guards stood trembling at the door,

And dared not cross the sill.

All night the sentinels their round

Had kept. No man could pass that way.

The window dizzy high from ground;

Below, the deep moat lay.

They crossed themselves. “The foul fiend lurks

In this,” they said. They did not know

The miracles sweet Freedom works,

To let her children go.

It was the fiend himself who took

That shepherd’s shape to pipe and sing;

And every man with terror shook,

For who would tell the king!

The heads of men all innocent

Rolled in the dust that day;

And east and west the bloodhounds went,

Baying their dreadful bay;

Safe on a snow too far, too high,

For scent of dogs or feet of men,

The shepherd watched the clouds sail by,

And dreamed and sang again;

And crossed himself, and knelt and cried,

And kissed the holy Edelweiss,

Believing that the fiends had tried

To buy him with a price.

The king rides fast, the king rides well;

The summer hunts go loud and gay;

The courtiers, who this tale can tell,

Are getting old and gray.

But still they say it was a fiend

That took a shepherd’s shape to sing,

For still the king’s heart is not weaned

To care for other thing.

Great minstrels come from far and near,

He will not let them sing or play,

But waits and listens still to hear

The song he heard that day.

—Copyright by _Little, Brown & Co._, Boston, and used by kind permission.

THE DREAM OF CLARENCE

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, I have passed a miserable night,

So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,

That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such night,

Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,

So full of dismal terror was the time!

Methought that I had broken from the tower,

And was embark’d to cross to Burgundy;

And, in my company, my brother Gloucester;

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches: thence we looked toward England,

And cited up a thousand fearful times,

During the wars of York and Lancaster,

That had befallen us.

As we paced along

Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,

Methought the Gloucester stumbled; and, in falling,

Struck me, that thought to stay him, overboard,

Into the tumbling billows of the main.

Lord! Lord! methought, what pain it was to drown!

What dreadful noise of waters in mine ears!

What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!

Methought I saw a thousand fearful wrecks;

Ten thousand men that fishes gnawed upon;

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea:

Some lay in dead men’s skulls; and in those holes

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,

As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,

Which woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mock’d the dead bones that lay scattered by.

Methought I had, and often did I strive

To yield the ghost: but the envious flood

Kept in my soul, and would not let it forth

To seek the empty, vast and wandering air;

But smothered it within my panting bulk,

Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

My dream was lengthened after life;

O, then began the tempest of my soul,

Who pass’d, methought, the melancholy flood,

With that grim ferry-man which poets write of,

Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.

The first that did greet my stranger soul,

Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick;

Who cried aloud, “What scourge for perjury

Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence?”

And so he vanished: then came wandering by

A shadow like an angel, with bright hair

Dabbled in blood; and he squeaked aloud,

“Clarence is come; false, fleeting, perjured Clarence,

That stabb’d me in the field by Tewksbury:

Seize on him, Furies, take him to your torments!”

With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends

Environ’d me about, and howled in mine ears

Such hideous cries, that with the very noise

I trembling waked, and for a season after

Could not believe but that I was in hell,

Such terrible impression made the dream.

THE BLACKSMITH OF LIMERICK

BY ROBERT DWYER JOYCE

He grasped the ponderous hammer, he could not stand it more,

To hear the bomb-shells bursting, and thundering battle’s roar;

He said, “The breach they’re mounting, the Dutchman’s murdering crew—

I’ll try my hammer on their heads, and see what that can do!

“Now, swarthy Ned and Moran, make up that iron well;

’Tis Sarsfield’s horse that wants the shoes, so mind not shot or shell;”

“Ah, sure,” cried both, “the horse can wait, for Sarsfield’s on the wall

And where you go we’ll follow, with you to stand or fall!”

The blacksmith raised his hammer, and rushed into the street,

His ’prentice boys behind him, the ruthless foe to meet;—

High on the breach of Limerick with dauntless hearts they stood,

Where bomb-shells burst, and shot fell thick, and redly ran the blood.

“Now look you, brown-haired Moran; and mark you, swarthy Ned,

This day we’ll prove the thickness of many a Dutchman’s head!

Hurrah! upon their bloody path, they’re mounting gallantly;

And now the first that tops the breach, leave him to this and me.”

The first that gained the rampart, he was a captain brave,—

A captain of the grenadiers, with blood-stained dirk and glaive;

He pointed and he parried, but it was all in vain!

For fast through skull and helmet the hammer found his brain!

The next that topped the rampart, he was a colonel bold;

Bright, through the dust of battle, his helmet flashed with gold—

“Gold is no match for iron,” the doughty blacksmith said,

And with that ponderous hammer he cracked his foeman’s head.

“Hurrah for gallant Limerick!” black Ned and Moran cried,

As on the Dutchmen’s leaden heads their hammers well they plied;

A bomb-shell burst between them—one fell without a groan,

One leaped into the lurid air, and down the breach was thrown.

“Brave smith! brave smith!” cried Sarsfield, “beware the treacherous

mine!

Brave smith! brave smith! fall backward, or surely death is thine!”

The smith sprang up the rampart and leaped the blood-stained wall,

As high into the shuddering air went foeman, breach and all!

Up, like a red volcano, they thundered wild and high,—

Spear, gun, and shattered standard, and foeman through the sky;

And dark and bloody was the shower that round the blacksmith fell;—

He thought upon his ’prentice boys,—they were avengèd well.

On foeman and defenders a silence gathered down;

’Twas broken by a triumph shout that shook the ancient town,

As out its heroes sallied, and bravely charged and slew,

And taught King William and his men what Irish hearts could do.

Down rushed the swarthy blacksmith unto the river’s side,

He hammered on the foe’s pontoon, to sink it in the tide;

The timber, it was tough and strong, it took no crack or strain;

“Mavrone! t’won’t break!” the blacksmith roared; “I’ll try their heads

again!”

He rushed upon the flying ranks; his hammer ne’er was slack,

For in thro’ blood and bone it crashed, thro’ helmet and thro’ jack;

He’s ta’en a Holland captain beside the red pontoon,

And “Wait you here,” he boldly cries; “I’ll send you back full soon!

“Dost see this gory hammer? It cracked some skulls to-day,

And yours ’twill crack, if you don’t stand and list to what I say;—

Here! take it to your cursèd King, and tell him, softly, too,

’Twould be acquainted with his skull if he were here, not you!”

The blacksmith sought his smithy and blew his bellows strong;

He shod the steed of Sarsfield, but o’er it sang no song;

“Ochone! my boys are dead!” he cried; “their loss I’ll long deplore,

But comfort’s in my heart, their graves are red with foreign gore.”

HYMN OF THE IMPERIAL GUARD

BY BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING

Up, comrades, up, the bugle peals the note of war’s alarms,

And the cry is ringing sternly round, that calls the land to arms;

Adieu, adieu, fair land of France, where the vine of Brennus reigns;

We go where the blooming laurels grow, on the bright Italian plains.

Advance! advance! brave sons of France, before the startled world;

For France, once more, her tricolor in triumph hath unfurled.

Our eagles shall fly ’neath many a sky, with a halo round their way

Where History flings, on their flashing wings, the light of Glory’s ray;

And we shall bear them proudly on, through many a mighty fray,

That shall win old nations back to life, in the glorious coming day.

Then advance, advance, ye sons of France, before the startled world,

For France, once more, her tricolor in triumph hath unfurled.

The glowing heart of the land of Art, throbbing for Liberty,

Our swords invoke, to erase the yoke from beauteous Italy.

And the Magyar waits, with kindling hope, the aid of the Gallic hand,

To drive the hated Austrians forth, from the old Hungarian land.

Then advance, advance, ye sons of France, before the startled world,

For France, once more, her tricolor in triumph hath unfurled.

See the Briton, pale, as he dons his mail, for the coming conflict shock,

And before his eyes, see the phantom rise, of the Chief on Helena’s rock;

In foreboding fears, already he hears through palace and mart anew,

Our avenging shout, o’er the battle rout—remember Waterloo!

Then advance, advance, ye sons of France, before the startled world,

For France, once more, her tricolor in triumph hath unfurled.

And, hark, a wail from our kindred Gael, comes floating from the West—

That gallant race, whose chosen place was ever our battle’s crest;

Now is the day we can repay the generous debt we owe

To Irish blood, that freely flowed to conquer France’s foe.

Then advance, advance, ye sons of France, before the startled world,

For France, once more, her tricolor in triumph hath unfurled.

Old Tricolor, as in days of yore, you shall wave o’er vanquished kings,

And your folds shall fly ’neath an English sky, on Victory’s crimson

wings;

And Europe’s shout shall in joy ring out, hailing freedom in thy track,

When our task is done, and we bear thee on, to France with glory back.

Then advance, advance, ye sons of France, before the startled world,

For France, once more, her tricolor in triumph hath unfurled.

THE DEATH-SONG OF THE VIKING[15]

BY BARTHOLOMEW DOWLING

My race is run, my errand done, the pulse of life beats low;

My heart is chill, and the conquering will has lost its fiery glow:

Launch once again on the northern main my battleship of old:

I would die on the deck, ’mid storm and wreck, as befits a Viking bold.

I know no fears, but the mist of years that has gathered round my track

For a moment clears, and my youth’s compeers again to my side come back;

And the tall ships reel o’er their iron keel, as we sweep down on the

foe,

Like a giant’s form amid the storm, where the mighty tempests blow.

Again I gaze on the leaping blaze o’er a conquered city rise,

As in those days, when the Skald’s wild lays, sang the fame of our high

emprise;

When our ships went forth from the stormy North with the Scandinavian

bands

Who backward bore to the Baltic’s shore the spoil of the Western lands.

But my race is run, my errand done; so bear me to my ship.

Place my battle-brand in this dying hand, and the wine-cup to my lip;

Then loose each sail to the rising gale and lash the helm a-lee.

Alone, alone, on my drifting throne, I would view my realm, the sea.

My realm and grave the northern wave, where the tempest’s voice will sing

My death-song loud, where flame shall shroud the ocean’s warrior-king,

Whilst heroes wait at Valhalla’s gate to proudly welcome me.

For my race is run, my errand done. Receive thy Chief, O Sea!

THE RIDE OF JENNIE McNEAL

BY WILL CARLETON

Paul Revere was a rider bold—

Well has his valorous deed been told;

Sheridan’s ride was a glorious one—

Often it has been dwelt upon.

But why should men do all the deeds

On which the love of a patriot feeds?

Hearken to me, while I reveal

The dashing ride of Jennie McNeal.

On a spot as pretty as might be found

In the dangerous length of the Neutral Ground,

In a cottage cosy, and all their own,

She and her mother lived alone.

Safe were the two, with their frugal store,

From all of the many who passed their door;

For Jennie’s mother was strange to fears,

And Jennie was large for fifteen years.

One night, when the sun had crept to bed,

And rain-clouds lingered overhead,

And sent their surly drops for proof

To drum a tune on the cottage roof,

Close after a knock at the outer door,

There entered a dozen dragoons or more.

Their red coats, stained by the muddy road,

That they were British soldiers showed;

The captain his hostess bent to greet,

Saying, “Madam, please give us a bit to eat;

We will pay you well, and, if may be,

This bright-eyed girl for pouring our tea;

Then we must dash ten miles ahead,

To catch a rebel colonel abed.

He is visiting home, as doth appear;

We will make his pleasure cost him dear.”

And they fell on the hasty supper with zeal,

Close-watched the while by Jennie McNeal.

For the gray-haired colonel they hovered near,

Had been her true friend, kind and dear;

So sorrow for him she could but feel,

Brave, grateful-hearted Jennie McNeal.

With never a thought or a moment more,

Bare-headed she slipped from the cottage door,

Ran out where the horses were left to feed,

Unhitched and mounted the captain’s steed,

And down the hilly and rock-strewn way

She urged the fiery horse of gray.

Around her slender and cloakless form

Pattered and moaned the ceaseless storm;

Secure and tight, a gloveless hand

Grasped the reins with stern command;

And full and black her long hair streamed,

Whenever the ragged lightning gleamed;

And on she rushed for the colonel’s weal,

Brave, lioness-hearted Jennie McNeal.

Hark! from the hills, a moment mute,

Came a clatter of hoofs in hot pursuit;

And a cry from the foremost trooper said,

“Halt! or your blood be on your head!”

She heeded it not, and not in vain

She lashed the horse with the bridle-rein.

So into the night the gray horse strode;

His shoes hewed fire from the rocky road;

And the high-born courage that never dies

Flashed from his rider’s coal-black eyes.

The pebbles flew from the fearful race;

The rain-drops grasped at her glowing face.

“On, on, brave beast!” with loud appeal,

Cried eager, resolute Jennie McNeal.

“Halt!” once more came the voice of dread;

“Halt! or your blood be on your head!”

Then, no one answering to the calls,

Sped after her a volley of balls.

They passed her in her rapid flight,

They screamed to her left, they screamed to her right;

But, rushing still o’er the slippery track,

She sent no token of answer back,

Except a silvery laughter-peal,

Brave, merry-hearted Jennie McNeal.

So on she rushed, at her own good will,

Through wood and valley, o’er plain and hill;

The gray horse did his duty well,

Till all at once he stumbled and fell,

Himself escaping the nets of harm,

But flinging the girl with a broken arm.

Still undismayed by the numbing pain,

She clung to the horse’s bridle-rein,

And gently bidding him to stand,

Petted him with her able hand;

Then sprang again to the saddle-bow,

And shouted, “One more trial now!”

As if ashamed of the heedless fall,

He gathered his strength once more for all,

And, galloping down a hillside steep,

Gained on the troopers at every leap.

No more the high-bred steed did reel,

But ran his best for Jennie McNeal.

They were a furlong behind, or more,

When the girl burst through the colonel’s door,

Her poor arm helpless, hanging with pain,

And she all drabbled and drenched with rain,

But her cheeks as red as fire-brands are,

And her eyes as bright as a blazing star,

And shouted, “Quick! be quick, I say!

They come! they come! Away! away!”

Then sank on the rude white floor of deal,

Poor, brave, exhausted Jennie McNeal.

The startled colonel sprang, and pressed

His wife and children to his breast,

And turned away from his fireside bright;

And glided into the stormy night;

Then soon and safely made his way

To where the patriot army lay.

But first he bent, in the dim firelight,

And kissed the forehead broad and white,

And blessed the girl who had ridden so well

To keep him out of a prison-cell.

The girl roused up at the martial din,

Just as the troopers came rushing in,

And laughed, e’en in the midst of a moan,

Saying, “Good sirs, your bird has flown.

’Tis I who have scared him from his nest;

So deal with me now as you think best.”

But the grand captain bowed, and said,

“Never you hold a moment’s dread.

Of womankind I must crown you queen;

So brave a girl I have never seen.

Wear this gold ring as your valor’s due;

And when peace comes I will come for you.”

But Jennie’s face an arch smile wore,

As she said, “There’s a lad in Putnam’s Corps,

Who told me the same, long time ago;

You two would never agree, I know.

I promised my love to be true as steel,”

Said good, sure-hearted Jennie McNeal.

—From “Centennial Rhymes.”

CHRISTMAS AT SEA

BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;

The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;

The wind was a nor’wester, blowing squally off the sea;

And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;

But ’twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.

We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,

And we gave her the maintops’l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;

All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;

All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,

For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared;

But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:

So’s we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,

And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;

The good red fires were burning bright in every ’longshore home;

The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;

And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;

For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)

This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,

And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,

My mother’s silver spectacles, my father’s silver hair;

And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,

Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,

Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;

And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,

To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.

“All hands to loose topgallant sails,” I heard the captain call.

“By the Lord, she’ll never stand it,” our first mate, Jackson, cried,

... “It’s the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,” he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,

And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.

As the winter’s day was ending, in the entry of the night,

We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,

As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;

But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,

Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

THE _REVENGE_

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,

And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away:

“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!”

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: “’Fore God I am no coward;

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.

We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?”

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: “I know you are no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.

But I’ve ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.”

So Lord Howard pass’d away with five ships of war that day,

Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;

But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land

Very carefully and slow,

Men of Bideford in Devon,

And we laid them on the ballast down below;

For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,

To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,

And he sailed away from Flores ’til the Spaniard came in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.

“Shall we fight or shall we fly?

Good Sir Richard, tell us now,

For to fight is but to die!

There’ll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.”

And Sir Richard said again: “We be all good Englishmen.

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,

For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.”

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh’d and we roar’d a hurrah, and so

The little _Revenge_ ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;

For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,

And the little _Revenge_ ran on through the long sea-lane between.

Thousands of their soldiers look’d down from their decks and laugh’d.

Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft

Running on and on, till delay’d

By their mountain-like _San Philip_ that, of fifteen hundred tons,

And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,

Took the breath from our sails, and we stay’d.

And while now the great _San Philip_ hung above us like a cloud,

Whence the thunderbolt will fall

Long and loud,

Four galleons drew away

From the Spanish fleet that day,

And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,

And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

But anon the great _San Philip_, she bethought herself and went,

Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;

And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,

For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,

And a dozen times we shook ’em off as a dog that shakes his ears

When he leaps from the water to the land.

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,

But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.

Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;

Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and shame.

For some were sunk and many were shatter’d, and so could fight us no

more—

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

For he said, “Fight on! fight on!”

Tho’ his vessel was all but a wreck;

And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone,

With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,

But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,

And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,

And he said, “Fight on! fight on!”

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,

And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;

But they dared not touch us again, for they fear’d that we still could

sting,

So they watch’d what the end would be.

And we had not fought them in vain,

But in perilous plight we were,

Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,

And the half of the rest of us maim’d for life

In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;

And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,

And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it

spent;

And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;

But Sir Richard cried in his English pride:

“We have fought such a fight for a day and a night

As may never be fought again!

We have won great glory, my men!

And a day less or more

At sea or ashore,

We die—does it matter when?

Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!

Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!”

And the gunner said, “Ay, ay,” but the seamen made reply:

“We have children, we have wives,

And the Lord hath spared our lives,

We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;

We shall live to fight again, and to strike another blow.”

And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,

Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,

And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;

But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:

“I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;

I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do.

With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die!”

And he fell upon their decks, and he died.

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true,

And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap

That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;

Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,

But they sank his body with honor down into the deep,

And they mann’d the _Revenge_ with a swarthier alien crew,

And away she sailed with her loss and long’d for her own;

When a wind from the lands they had ruin’d awoke from sleep,

And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,

And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,

And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,

Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their

flags,

And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter’d navy of Spain,

And the little _Revenge_ herself went down by the island crags

To be lost evermore in the main.

THE BALLAD OF THE EAST AND WEST

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends

of the earth.

Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border-side,

And he has lifted the Colonel’s mare that is the Colonel’s pride.

He has lifted her out of the stable door between the dawn and the day,

And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.

Then up and spoke the Colonel’s son that led a troop of the Guides:

“Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?”

Then up and spoke Mahommed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar:

“If ye know the track of the morning mist, ye know where his pickets are.

At dusk he harries the Abazai—at dawn he is into Bonair;

But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare.

So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,

By the favor of God, ye may cut him off ere he win the tongue of Jagai.

But if he be passed the tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then—

For the length and breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal’s men.

There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn

between,

And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen.”

The Colonel’s son has taken a horse, and a raw rough dun was he,

With the mouth of a bell, and the heart of hell, and the head of a

gallows-tree.

The Colonel’s son to the Fort has won; they bid him stay to eat—

Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat.

He’s up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly,

Till he was aware of his father’s mare, with Kamal upon her back,

And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the pistol crack.

He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide.

“Ye shoot like a soldier,” Kamal said. “Show now if ye can ride.”

It’s up and over the tongue of Jagai, as blown dust-devils go—

The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.

The dun he leaned against the bit, and slugged his head above,

But the red mare played with the snaffle bars like a maiden plays with

her love.

There was rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn

between,

And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick, though never a man was seen.

They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the

dawn—

The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new roused fawn.

The dun he fell at a water-course—in a woeful heap fell he,

And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free.

He has knocked the pistol out of his hand—small room was there to strive—

“’Twas only by favor of mine,” quoth he, “ye rode so long alive:

There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree,

But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.

If I had raised my bridle-hand as I have carried it low,

The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row:

If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high,

The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly.”

Lightly answered the Colonel’s son: “Do good to bird and beast,

But count who comes for the broken meats before thou makest a feast.

If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away,

Belike the price of a jackal’s meal were more than a thief could pay.

They will feed their horse on the standing crop, their men on the

garnered grain;

The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are

slain.

But if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack,

Give me my father’s mare again, and I’ll fight my own way back!”

Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.

“No talk shall be of dogs,” said he, “when wolf and gray wolf meet.

May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath;

What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?”

Lightly answered the Colonel’s son: “I hold by the blood of my clan:

Take up the mare for my father’s gift—by God she has carried a man!”

The red mare ran to the Colonel’s son, and nuzzled against his breast.

“We be two strong men,” said Kamal then, “but she loveth the younger

best.

So shall she go with a lifter’s dower, my turquoise-studded rein,

My broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrups twain.”

The Colonel’s son a pistol drew and held it muzzle-end.

“Ye have taken the one from a foe,” said he; “will ye take the mate from

a friend?”

“A gift for a gift,” said Kamal straight; “a limb for the risk of a limb.

Thy father hath sent his son to me—I’ll send my son to him!”

With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a mountain crest—

He trod the links like a buck in Spring, and he looked a lance in rest.

“Now here is thy master,” Kamal said, “who leads a troop of the Guides,

And thou must ride at his left side, as shield on shoulder rides.

Till death or I cut loose the tie at camp, and board and bed,

Thy life is his—thy fate to guard him with thy head.

So thou must eat the White Queen’s meat, and all her foes are thine,

And thou must harry thy father’s hold for the peace at the Borderline;

And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power—

Belike they will raise thee to Rassaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur.”

They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no

fault;

They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut

sod.

On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the wond’rous Names

of God.

The Colonel’s son he rides the mare, and Kamal’s boy the dun,

And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one.

And when they drew to the quarter-guard, full twenty swords flew clear—

There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the

mountaineer.

“Ha’ done! ha’ done!” said the Colonel’s son. “Put up the steel at your

sides!

Last night ye had struck at a Border thief—to-night ’tis a man of the

Guides.”

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,

Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;

But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,

When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends

of the Earth.

THE BRAVEST BATTLE

BY JOAQUIN MILLER

The bravest battle that ever was fought;

Shall I tell you where and when?

On the maps of the world you will find it not;

It was fought by the mothers of men.

Nay, not with cannon or battle shot,

With sword or nobler pen;

Nay, not with eloquent word or thought,

From mouths of wonderful men,

But deep in a walled-up woman’s heart—

Of woman that would not yield,

But patiently, silently bore her part—

Lo! there in that battlefield.

No marshaling troop, no bivouac song;

No banner to gleam and wave;

And oh! these battles they last so long—

From babyhood to the grave!

Yet, faithful still as a bridge of stars,

She fights in her walled-up town—

Fights on and on in the endless wars,

Then silent, unseen—goes down.

O ye with banners and battle shot

And soldiers to shout and praise,

I tell you the kingliest victories fought

Are fought in these silent ways.

O spotless woman in a world of shame!

With splendid and silent scorn,

Go back to God as white as you came,

The kingliest warrior born.

—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind

permission.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN WALKS AT MIDNIGHT

[IN SPRINGFIELD, ILL.]

BY NICHOLAS VACHEL LINDSAY

It is portentous, and a thing of state

That here at midnight, in our little town

A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,

Near the old courthouse pacing up and down.

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards

He lingers where his children used to play,

Or through the market, on the well-worn stones

He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,

A famous high-top hat and plain worn shawl

Make him the quaint great figure that men love,

The prairie lawyer, master of us all.

He can not sleep upon his hillside now,

He is among us—as in times before!

And we who toss and lie awake for long

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings,

Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?

Too many peasants fight, they know not why,

Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart,

He sees the dreadnoughts scouring every main.

He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now

The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He can not rest until a spirit-dawn

Shall come—the shining hope of Europe free;

The league of sober folk, the Workers’ Earth,

Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,

That all his hours of travail here for men

Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace

That he may sleep upon his hill again?

CORONATION

BY HELEN HUNT JACKSON

At the king’s gate the subtle noon

Wove filmy yellow nets of sun;

Into the drowsy snare too soon

The guards fell one by one.

Through the king’s gate unquestioned then,

A beggar went, and laughed, “This brings

Me chance, at last, to see if men

Fare better, being kings.”

The king sat bowed beneath his crown,

Propping his face with listless hand;

Watching the hour glass sifting down

Too slow its shining sand.

“Poor man, what wouldst thou have of me?”

The beggar turned, and pitying,

Replied, like one in dream, “Of thee,

Nothing. I want the king.”

Up rose the king, and from his head

Shook off the crown, and threw it by.

“O man, thou must have known,” he said,

“A greater king than I.”

Through all the gates, unquestioned then,

Went king and beggar hand in hand.

Whispered the king, “Shall I know when

Before his throne I stand?”

The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste

Were wiping from the king’s hot brow

The crimson lines the crown had traced.

“This is his presence now.”

At the king’s gate, the crafty noon

Unwove its yellow nets of sun;

Out of their sleep in terror soon

The guards waked one by one.

“Ho here! Ho there! Has no man seen

The king?” The cry ran to and fro;

Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween,

The laugh that free men know.

On the king’s gate the moss grew gray;

The king came not. They called him dead;

And made his eldest son one day

Slave in his father’s stead.

—Copyright by _Little, Brown & Co._, Boston, Mass., and used by kind

permission.

A PRAYER IN KHAKI

BY ROBERT GARLAND

O Lord, my God, accept my prayer of thanks

That Thou hast placed me humbly in the ranks

Where I can do my part, all unafraid—

A simple soldier in Thy great crusade.

I pray thee, Lord, let others take command;

Enough for me, a rifle in my hand;

Thy blood-red banner ever leading me

Where I can fight for liberty and Thee.

Give others, God, the glory; mine the right

To stand beside my comrades in the fight,

To die, if need be, in some foreign land—

Absolved and solaced by a soldier’s hand.

O Lord, my God, pray harken to my prayer

And keep me ever humble, keep me where

The fight is thickest, where, ’midst steel and flame

Thy sons give battle, calling on Thy name.

—From the _Outlook_.

THE YANKEE MAN OF WAR

ANONYMOUS

’Tis of a gallant Yankee ship that flew the stripes and stars,

And the whistling wind from the west-nor’-west blew through the

pitch-pine spars;

With her starboard tacks aboard, my boys, she hung upon the gale;

On an autumn night we raised the light on the old Head of Kinsale.

It was a clear and cloudless night, and the wind blew, steady and strong,

As gayly over the sparkling deep our good ship bowled along;

With the foaming seas beneath her bow the fiery waves she spread,

And bending low her bosom of snow, she buried her lee cat-head.

There was no talk of short’ning sail by him who walked the poop,

And under the press of her pond’ring jib, the boom bent like a hoop!

And the groaning water-ways told the strain that held her stout

main-tack,

But he only laughed as he glanced aloft at a white and silvery track.

The mid-tide meets in the Channel waves that flow from shore to shore,

And the mist hung heavy upon the land from Featherstone to Dunmore,

And that sterling light in Tusker Rock where the old bell tolls each

hour,

And the beacon light that shone so bright was quench’d on Waterford

Tower.

What looms upon our starboard bow? What hangs upon the breeze?

’Tis time our good ship hauled her wind abreast the old Saltees,

For by her ponderous press of sail and by her consorts four

We saw our morning visitor was a British man-of-war.

Up spake our noble Captain then, as a shot ahead of us past—

“Haul snug your flowing courses! lay your topsail to the mast!”

Those Englishmen gave three loud hurrahs from the deck of their covered

ark

And we answered back by a solid broadside from the decks of our patriot

bark.

“Out booms! out booms!” our skipper cried, “out booms and give her

sheet,”

And the swiftest keel that was ever launched shot ahead of the British

fleet,

And amidst a thundering shower of shot, with stun’sails hoisting away,

Down the North Channel Paul Jones did steer just at the break of day.

WARREN’S ADDRESS

BY JOHN PIERPONT

Stand! The ground’s your own, my braves!

Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What’s the mercy despots feel?

Hear it in that battle peal!

Read it on yon bristling steel!

Ask it—ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?

Will ye to your homes retire?

Look behind you!—they’re afire!

And, before you, see

Who have done it! From the vale

On they come!—and will ye quail?

Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!

Die we may—and die we must;

But, oh, where can dust to dust

Be consign’d so well

As where heaven its dews shall shed

On the martyr’d patriot’s bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head

Of his deeds to tell?

THE FLAG GOES BY

BY HENRY HOLCOMB BENNETT

Hats off!

Along the street there comes

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums,

A flash of color beneath the sky:

Hats off!

The flag is passing by!

Blue and crimson and white it shines,

Over the steel-tipped ordered lines.

Hats off!

The colors before us fly;

But more than the flag is passing by:

Sea fights and land fights, grim and great,

Fought to make and to save the state;

Weary marches and sinking ships;

Cheers of victory on dying lips;

Days of plenty and years of peace;

March of a strong land’s swift increase;

Equal justice, right and law,

Stately honor and reverend awe;

Sign of a nation, great and strong,

To ward her people from foreign wrong;

Pride and glory and honor—all

Live in the colors to stand or fall.

Hats off!

Along the street there comes

A blare of bugles, a ruffle of drums;

And loyal hearts are beating high:

Hats off!

The flag is passing by!

“HE LIFTETH THEM ALL TO HIS LAP”

BY ROBERT MCINTYRE

Dago and Sheeny and Chink,

Greaser and Nigger and Jap.

The Devil invented these terms, I think,

To hurl at each hopeful chap

Who comes so far o’er the foam

To this land of his heart’s desire,

To rear his brood, to build his home,

And to kindle his hearthstone fire.

While the eyes with joy are blurred,

Lo! we make the strong man shrink

And stab the soul with the hateful word—

Dago and Sheeny and Chink.

Dago and Sheeny and Chink,

These are the vipers that swarm

Up from the edge of Perdition’s brink

To hurt, and dishearten, and harm.

O shame! when their Roman forbears walked

Where the first of the Cæsars trod.

O shame; where their Hebrew fathers talked

With Moses and he with God.

These swarthy sons of Life’s sweet drink

To the thirsty world, which now gives them

Dago and Sheeny and Chink.

Dago and Sheeny and Chink,

Greaser and Nigger and Jap.

From none of them doth Jehovah shrink;

He lifteth them all to His lap;

And the Christ, in His kingly grace,

When their sad, low sob he hears

Puts His tender embrace around our race

As He kisses away its tears,

Saying, “O least of these, I link

Thee to Me for whatever mayhap:”

Dago and Sheeny and Chink,

Greaser and Nigger and Jap.

UNDER THE TAN

BY LEWIS WORTHINGTON SMITH

Italians, Magyars, aliens all—

Human under the tan—

Eyes that can smile when their fellows call,

A spike-driver each, but a man.

Rumble and roar! On the tracks they lay,

We ride in our parlor car.

Spades on their shoulders, they give us way,

Lords of the near and the far.

Polack and Slav and dark-browed Greek—

Human under the tan—

Up go their hands, and their faces speak,

Saluting us, man and man.

Cushioned seats and our souls at ease,

Dainty in food and fare,

We are the masters their toil must please,

Or face gaunt-cheeked despair.

Russian and Irishman, Croat and Swede—

Human under the tan—

Giving us homage while making us speed,

As only the generous can.

Riding and riding, hats in our hands,

Something warm in the eye.

Fellows, in spite of your skins and lands,

We greet you, rushing by.

—In the _New York Evening Post_.

MY LOST YOUTH

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Often I think of the beautiful town

That is seated by the sea;

Often in thought go up and down

The pleasant streets of that dear old town,

And my youth comes back to me.

And a verse of a Lapland song

Is haunting my memory still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,

And catch, in sudden gleams,

The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,

And islands that were the Hesperides

Of all my boyish dreams.

And the burden of that old song,

It murmurs and whispers still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

I remember the black wharves and the slips,

And the sea-tides tossing free;

And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,

And the beauty and mystery of the ships,

And the magic of the sea.

And the voice of that wayward song

Is singing and saying still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,

And the fort upon the hill;

The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,

The drum-beat repeated o’er and o’er,

And the bugle wild and shrill.

And the music of that old song

Throbs in my memory still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

I remember the sea-fight far away,

How it thundered o’er the tide!

And the dead captains, as they lay

In their graves, o’erlooking the tranquil bay,

Where they in battle died.

And the sound of that mournful song

Goes through me with a thrill:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

I can see the breezy dome of groves,

The shadows of Deering’s Woods;

And the friendships old and the early loves

Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves

In quiet neighborhoods.

And the verse of that sweet old song,

It flutters and murmurs still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart

Across the school-boy’s brain;

The song and the silence in the heart,

That in part are prophecies, and in part

Are longings wild and vain.

And the voice of that fitful song

Sings on, and is never still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

There are things of which I may not speak;

There are dreams that cannot die;

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

And a mist before the eye.

And the words of that fatal song

Come over me like a chill:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

Strange to me now are the forms I meet

When I visit the dear old town;

But the native air is pure and sweet,

And the trees that o’ershadow each well-known street,

As they balance up and down,

Are singing the beautiful song,

Are sighing and whispering still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

And Deering’s Woods are fresh and fair,

And with joy that is almost pain

My heart goes back to wander there,

And among the dreams of the days that were

I find my lost youth again.

And the strange and beautiful song,

The groves are repeating it still:

“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”

SUBLIME SELECTIONS IN POETRY

SONG OF THE MYSTIC

BY ABRAM J. RYAN

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 was I weary of voices

Whose music my heart could not win;

Long ago was I weary of noises

That fretted my soul with their din;

Long ago was I weary of places

Where I met but the human—and sin.

I walked in the world with the worldly;

I craved what the world never gave;

And I said: “In the world each Ideal,

That shines like a star on life’s wave,

Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,

And sleeps like a dream in a grave.”

And still did I pine for the Perfect,

And still found the False with the True;

I sought ’mid the Human for Heaven,

But caught a mere glimpse of its Blue:

And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal

Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human,

And I moaned ’mid the mazes of men,

Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar

And I heard a voice call me. Since then

I walk down the Valley of Silence

That lies far beyond mortal ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley?

’Tis my Trysting-Place with the Divine.

And I fell at the feet of the Holy,

And above me a voice said: “Be mine.”

And there rose from the depths of my spirit

An echo—“My heart shall be thine.”

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?

I weep—and I dream—and I pray.

But my tears are as sweet as the dew-drops

That fall on the roses in May;

And my prayer, like a perfume from Censers,

Ascendeth to God night and day.

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.

But far on the deep there are billows

That never shall break on the beach;

And I have heard songs in the Silence

That never shall float into speech;

And I have had dreams in the Valley

Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley—

Ah me! how my spirit was stirred!

And they wear holy veils on their faces,

Their footsteps can scarcely be heard;

They pass through the Valley like Virgins,

Too pure for the touch of a word!

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.

THE SEA

BY BARRY CORNWALL

The sea! the sea! the open sea!

The blue, the fresh, the ever free!

Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth’s wide regions round;

It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,

Or like a cradled creature lies.

I’m on the sea, I’m on the sea,

I am where I would ever be,

With the blue above and the blue below,

And silence wheresoe’er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep,

What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh! how I love to ride

On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,

Where every mad wave drowns the moon,

And whistles aloft its tempest tune,

And tells how goeth the world below,

And why the southwest wind doth blow!

I never was on the dull, tame shore

But I loved the great sea more and more,

And backward flew to her billowy breast,

Like a bird that seeketh her mother’s nest,—

And a mother she was and is to me,

For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn,

In the noisy hour when I was born;

The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,

And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;

And never was heard such an outcry wild,

As welcomed to life the ocean child.

I have lived since then, in calm and strife,

Full fifty summers a rover’s life,

With wealth to spend, and a power to range,

But never have sought or sighed for change,

And death, whenever he comes to me,

Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!

THE GREAT ADVANCE

BY THOMAS WALSH

In my heart is the sound of drums

And the sweep of the bugles calling;

The day of the Great Adventure comes,

And the tramp of feet is falling, falling,

Ominous falling, everywhere,

By street and lane, by field and square—

To answer the Voice appealing!

One by one they have put down

The tool, the pen, and the racquet;

One by one they have donned the brown

And the blue, the knapsack and jacket;

With a smile for the friend of a happier day,

With a kiss for the love that would bid them stay—

They are off by the train and packet.

What fate, what star, what sun, what field,

What sea shall know their daring?

Shall the battle reek or the dead calm yield

Their wreaths that are preparing?

Shall they merely stand and wait the call?

Shall they hear it, rush and slay and fall?—

What matter?—their swords are baring!

We stand in the crowds that see them go—

We who are old and weak, unready;

We see the red blood destined to flow

Flushing their cheeks, as with footstep steady

With a tramp and a tramp, they file along,

Our brave, our true, our young, our strong—

And the fever burns us fierce and heady.

With God, then forth, by sea and land,

To your Adventure beyond story,

No Argonaut, no Crusader band

Ere passed with such exceeding glory!

Though ye seek fields both strange and far,

Ye are at home where heroes are!

Such is the prayer we send your star—

We who are weak and old and hoary.

WHEN THE GRASS SHALL COVER ME

BY INA COOLBRITH

When the grass shall cover me,

Head to foot where I am lying,—

When not any wind that blows,

Summer-blooms nor winter-snows,

Shall awake me to your sighing:

Close above me as you pass,

You will say, “How kind she was,”

You will say, “How true she was,”

When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me,

Holden close to earth’s warm bosom,—

While I laugh, or weep, or sing,

Nevermore for anything,

You will find in blade and blossom,

Sweet small voices, odorous,

Tender pleaders in my cause,

That shall speak me as I was—

When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me!

Ah, beloved, in my sorrow

Very patient, I can wait,

Knowing that, or soon or late,

There will dawn a clearer morrow:

When your heart will moan: “Alas!

Now I know how true she was;

Now I know how dear she was”—

When the grass grows over me!

—Copyright by _Houghton, Mifflin & Co._, Boston, Mass., and used by kind

permission of author and publisher.

RIGHTEOUS WRATH

BY HENRY VAN DYKE

There are many kinds of hate, as many kinds of fire;

And some are fierce and fatal with murderous desire;

And some are mean and craven, revengeful, selfish, slow,

They hurt the man that holds them more than they hurt his foe.

And yet there is a hatred that purifies the heart.

The anger of the better against the baser part,

Against the false and wicked, against the tyrant’s sword,

Against the enemies of love, and all that hate the Lord.

O cleansing indignation, O flame of righteous wrath,

Give me a soul to see thee and follow in thy path!

Save me from selfish virtue, arm me for fearless fight,

And give me strength to carry on, a soldier of the Right!

—_Outlook._

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN

BY LORD BYRON

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control

Stops with the shore: upon the watery plain,

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,

When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown.

TO THE SIERRAS

BY J. J. OWEN

Ye snow-capped mountains, basking in the sun,

Like fleecy clouds that deck the summer skies,

On you I gaze, when day’s dull task is done,

Till night shuts out your glories from my eyes.

For stormy turmoil, and ambition’s strife,

I find in you a solace and a balm,—

Derive a higher purpose, truer life,

From your pale splendor, passionless and calm.

Mellowed by distance, all your rugged cliffs,

And deep ravines, in graceful outlines lie;

Each giant form in silent grandeur lifts

Its hoary summit to the evening sky.

I reck not of the wealth untold, concealed

Beneath your glorious coronal of snows,

Whose budding treasure yet but scarce revealed,

Shall blossom into trade—a golden rose.

A mighty realm is waking at your feet

To life and beauty, from the lap of Time,

With cities vast, where millions yet shall meet,

And Peace shall reign in majesty sublime.

Rock-ribbed Sierras, with your crests of snow,

A type of manhood, ever strong and true,

Whose heart with golden wealth should ever glow,

Whose thoughts in purity should symbol you.

SUNSET

BY INA COOLBRITH

Along yon purple rim of hills,

How bright the sunset glory lies!

Its radiance spans the western skies,

And all the slumbrous valley fills:

Broad shafts of lurid crimson, blent

With lustrous pearl in massed white;

And one great spear of amber light

That flames o’er half the firmament!

Vague, murmurous sounds the breezes bear;

A thousand subtle breaths of balm,

From some far isle of tropic calm,

Are borne upon the tranced air.

And, muffling all its giant-roar,

The restless waste of waters, rolled

To one broad sea of liquid gold,

Goes singing up the shining shore!

SOMETHING TO LOVE

BY WILLIAM BANSMAN

There are beautiful thoughts in the day-dreams of life,

When youth and ambition join hands for the strife;

There are joys for the gay, which come crowding apace,

And hang out the rainbow of hope for the race;

There are prizes to gain, which ascend as we climb,

But the struggle to win them makes effort sublime.

Each cloud that arises has fingers of gold,

Inviting the timid and nerving the bold;

Each sorrow is tempered with something of sweet,

And the crag, while it frowns, shows a niche for the feet.

There are charms in the verdure which nature has spread,

And the sky shows a glory of stars overhead,

And the zephyrs of summer have voices to woo,

As well as to bear the perfumes from the dew;

There are gushes of transport in dreams of the night,

When memory garners its thoughts of delight,

And the soul seeks its kindred, and noiselessly speaks,

In the smiles and the blushes of health-blooming cheeks.

There are rapturous melodies filling the heart,

With emotions which nothing beside could impart;

And yet, though this cumulous picture may show

The brightest of joys which ambition would know—

Though the heaven it opens is one of surprise,

All gorgeous with hope, and prismatic with dyes,

Satiety follows these transports of bliss,

And the heart asks a lodgment more real than this;

Like the dove, it will wander, and still, like the dove,

Come back, till it rests upon something to love.

OUT IN THE FIELDS WITH GOD

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

The little cares that fretted me,

I lost them yesterday

Among the fields above the sea,

Among the winds at play,

Among the lowing of the herds,

The rustling of the trees,

Among the singing of the birds,

The humming of the bees.

The foolish fears of what may happen,

I cast them all away

Among the clover-scented grass,

Among the new-mown hay,

Among the husking of the corn

Where drowsy poppies nod,

Where ill thoughts die and good are born,

Out in the fields with God.

BROTHERHOOD

BY EDWIN MARKHAM

The crest and crowning of all good,

Life’s final star, is Brotherhood;

For it will bring again to Earth

Her long-lost Poesy and Mirth;

Will send new light on every face,

A kingly power upon the race.

And till it come, we men are slaves,

And travel downward to the dust of graves.

Come, clear the way, then, clear the way:

Blind creeds and kings have had their day.

Break the dead branches from the path:

Our hope is in the aftermath—

Our hope is in heroic men,

Star-led to build the world again.

To this Event the ages ran:

Make way for Brotherhood—make way for Man.

—Copyright by _Doubleday, Page & Co._, New York, and used by kind

permission of author and publisher.

MORNING

BY EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

I entered once, at break of day,

A chapel, lichen-stained and gray,

Where a congregation dozed and heard

An old monk read from a written Word.

No light through the window-panes could pass,

For shutters were closed on the rich stained glass,

And in a gloom like the nether night,

The monk read on by a taper’s light,

Ghostly with shadows that shrunk and grew

As the dim light flared on aisle and pew;

And the congregation that dozed around

Listened without a stir or sound—

Save one, who rose with wistful face,

And shifted a shutter from its place.

Then light flashed in like a flashing gem—

For dawn had come unknown to them—

And a slender beam, like a lance of gold,

Shot to the crimson curtain-fold,

Over the bended head of him

Who pored and pored by the taper dim;

And I wondered that, under the morning ray,

When night and shadow were scattered away,

The monk should bow his locks of white

By a taper’s feebly flickering light—

Should pore and pore, and never seem

To notice the golden morning beam.

THE PETRIFIED FERN

ANONYMOUS

In a valley, centuries ago,

Grew a little fern leaf, green and slender,

Veining delicate and fibers tender;

Waving when the wind crept down so low.

Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew ’round it,

Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,

Drops of dew stole in by night, and crown’d it;

But no foot of man e’er trod that way;

Earth was young and keeping holiday.

Monster fishes swam the silent main,

Stately forests waved their giant branches,

Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches,

Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain;

Nature reveled in grand mysteries:

But the little fern was not of these,

Did not number with the hills and trees;

Only grew and waved its wild sweet way,

None ever came to note it day by day.

Earth one time put on a frolic mood,

Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty motion

Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean,

Moved the plain and shook the haughty wood,

Crushed the little fern in soft moist clay,—

Covered it, and hid it safe away.

Oh, the long, long centuries since that day!

Oh, the agony! Oh, life’s bitter cost,

Since that useless little fern was lost!

Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man,

Searching Nature’s secrets, far and deep;

From a fissure in a rocky steep

He withdrew a stone, o’er which there ran

Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,

Veinings, leafage, fibers clear and fine!

So, I think God hides some souls away,

Sweetly to surprise us, the last day.

SLEEP

BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

Of all the thoughts of God that are

Borne inward unto souls afar,

Among the Psalmist’s music deep,

Now tell me if that any is

For gift or grace surpassing this,—

“He giveth his beloved sleep”?

What would we give to our beloved?

The hero’s heart, to be unmoved,—

The poet’s star-tuned harp, to sweep,—

The patriot’s voice, to teach and rouse,—

The monarch’s crown, to light the brows?

“He giveth his beloved sleep.”

What do we give to our beloved?

A little faith, all undisproved,—

A little dust to over weep,—

And bitter memories, to make

The whole earth blasted for our sake,

“He giveth his beloved sleep.”

“Sleep soft, beloved!” we sometimes say,

But have no tune to charm away

Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep;

But never doleful dream again

Shall break the happy slumber when

“He giveth his beloved sleep.”

O earth so full of dreary noises!

O men with wailing in your voices!

O delved gold the wailers heap!

O strife, O curse, that o’er it fall!

God strikes a silence through you all,

And “giveth his beloved sleep.”

His dews drop mutely on the hill,

His cloud above it saileth still,

Though on its slope men sow and reap;

More softly than the dew is shed,

Or cloud is floated over head,

“He giveth his beloved sleep.”

For me, my heart, that erst did go

Most like a tired child at a show,

That sees through tears the mummers leap,

Would now its wearied vision close,

Would child-like on His love repose

Who “giveth his beloved sleep.”

LABOR

BY FRANK SOULE

Despise not labor! God did not despise

The handicraft which wrought this gorgeous globe,

That crowned its glories with yon jeweled skies,

And clad the earth in nature’s queenly robe.

He dug the first canal—the river’s bed,

Built the first fountain in the gushing spring,

Wove the first carpet for man’s haughty tread,

The warp and woof of his first covering.

He made the pictures painters imitate,

The statuary’s first grand model made,

Taught human intellect to re-create,

And human ingenuity its trade.

Ere great Daguerre had harnessed up the sun,

Apprenticeship at his new art to serve,

A greater artist greater things had done,

The wondrous pictures of the optic nerve.

There is no deed of honest labor born

That is not Godlike; in the toiling limbs

Howe’er the lazy scoff, the brainless scorn,

God labored first; toil likens us to Him.

Ashamed of work! mechanic, with thy tools,

The tree thy ax cut from its native sod,

And turns to useful things—go tell to fools,

Was fashioned in the factory of God.

Go build your ships, go build your lofty dome,

Your granite temple, that through time endures,

Your humble cot, or that proud pile of Rome,

His arm has toiled there in advance of yours.

He made the flowers your learned florists scan,

And crystallized the atoms of each gem,

Ennobled labor in great nature’s plan,

And made it virtue’s brightest diadem.

Whatever thing is worthy to be had,

Is worthy of the toil by which ’tis won,

Just as the grain by which the field is clad

Pays back the warming labor of the sun.

’Tis not profession that ennobles men,

’Tis not the calling that can e’er degrade,

The trowel is as worthy as the pen,

The pen more mighty than the hero’s blade.

The merchant, with his ledger and his wares,

The lawyer with his cases and his books,

The toiling farmer, with his wheat and tares,

The poet by the shaded streams and nooks,

The man, whate’er his work, wherever done,

If intellect and honor guide his hand,

Is peer to him who greatest state has won,

And rich as any Rothschild of the land.

All mere distinctions based upon pretense,

Are merely laughing themes for manly hearts.

The miner’s cradle claims from men of sense

More honor than the youngling Bonaparte’s.

Let fops and fools the sons of toil deride,

On false pretensions brainless dunces live;

Let carpet heroes strut with parlor pride,

Supreme in all that indolence can give,

But be not like them, and pray envy not

These fancy tom-tit burlesques of mankind,

The witless snobs in idleness who rot,

Hermaphrodite ’twixt vanity and mind.

O son of toil, be proud, look up, arise,

And disregard opinion’s hollow test,

A false society’s decrees despise,

He is most worthy who has labored best.

The scepter is less royal than the hoe,

The sword, beneath whose rule whole nations writhe,

And curse the wearer, while they fear the blow,

Is far less noble than the plow and scythe.

There’s more true honor on one tan-browned hand,

Rough with the honest work of busy men,

Than all the soft-skinned punies of the land,

The nice, white-kiddery of upper ten.

Blow bright the forge—the sturdy anvil ring,

It sings the anthem of king Labor’s courts,

And sweeter sounds the clattering hammers bring,

Than half a thousand thumped piano-fortes.

Fair are the ribbons from the rabbet-plane,

As those which grace my lady’s hat or cape,

Nor does the joiner’s honor blush or wane

Beside the lawyer, with his brief and tape.

Pride thee, mechanic, on thine honest trade,

’Tis nobler than the snob’s much vaunted pelf.

Man’s soulless pride his test of worth has made,

But thine is based on that of God himself.

LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE

BY EDWIN MARKHAM

When the Norn-Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour,

Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,

She bent the strenuous Heavens and came down

To make a man to meet the mortal need.

She took the tried clay of the common road—

Clay warm yet with the genial heat of Earth,

Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy;

Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff.

It was a stuff to wear for centuries,

A man that matched the mountains, and compelled

The stars to look our way and honor us.

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;

The tang and odor of the primal things—

The rectitude and patience of the rocks;

The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;

The courage of the bird that dares the sea;

The justice of the rain that loves all leaves;

The pity of the snow that hides all scars;

The loving-kindness of the wayside well;

The tolerance and equity of light

That gives as freely to the shrinking weed

As to the great oak flaring to the wind—

To the grave’s low hill as to the Matterhorn

That shoulders out the sky.

And so he came.

From prairie cabin up to Capitol,

One fair Ideal led our chieftain on.

Forevermore he burned to do his deed

With the fine stroke and gesture of a king.

He built the rail-pile as he built the State,

Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,

The conscience of him testing every stroke,

To make his deed the measure of a man.

So came the Captain with the mighty heart:

And when the step of Earthquake shook the house,

Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold,

He held the ridgepole up, and spiked again

The rafters of the Home. He held his place—

Held the long purpose like a growing tree—

Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.

And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down

As when a kingly cedar green with boughs

Goes down with a great shout upon the hills,

And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.

—Copyright by _Doubleday, Page & Co._, New York, and used by kind

permission of author and publisher.

HONEST POVERTY

BY ROBERT BURNS

Is there for honest poverty

That hings his head, an’ a’ that?

The coward slave, we pass him by—

We dare be poor for a’ that,

The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,

The man’s the gowd for a’ that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,

Wear hoodin’ gray, an’ a’ that?

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine—

A man’s a man for a’ that.

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,

Their tinsel show, an’ a’ that,

The honest man, tho’ e’er sae poor,

Is king o’ men for a’ that.

Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,

Wha’ struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that?

Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,

He’s but a cuif for a’ that.

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,

His riband, star an’ a’ that,

The man of independent mind,

He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,

A marquis, duke, an’ a’ that!

But an honest man’s aboon his might—

Guid faith, he mauna fa’ that!

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,

Their dignities, an’ a’ that,

The pith o’ sense an’ pride o’ worth

Are higher rank than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may

(As come it will for a’ that)

That sense and worth o’er a’ the earth

Shall bear the gree an’ a’ that!

For a’ that, an’ a’ that,

It’s comin’ yet for a’ that,

That man to man the world o’er

Shall brithers be for a’ that.

AN INCIDENT OF THE FRENCH CAMP

BY ROBERT BROWNING

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:

A mile or so away,

On a little mound, Napoleon

Stood on our storming-day;

With neck outthrust, you fancy how,

Legs wide, arms locked behind,

As if to balance the prone brow,

Oppressive with its mind.

Just as perhaps he mused, “My plans

That soar, to earth may fall,

Let once my army-leader Lannes

Waver at yonder wall,”—

Out ’twixt the battery-smokes there flew

A rider, bound on bound

Full-galloping; nor bridle drew

Until he reached the mound.

Then off there flung in smiling joy,

And held himself erect

By just his horse’s mane, a boy:

You hardly could suspect—

(So tight he kept his lips compressed,

Scarce any blood came through)

You looked twice ere you saw his breast

Was all but shot in two.

“Well,” cried he, “Emperor, by God’s grace

We’ve got you Ratisbon!

The marshal’s in the market-place,

And you’ll be there anon

To see your flag-bird flap his vans

Where I, to heart’s desire,

Perched him!” The chief’s eye flashed; his plans

Soared up again like fire.

The chief’s eye flashed; but presently

Softened itself, as sheathes

A film the mother-eagle’s eye

When her bruised eaglet breathes;

“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” his soldier’s pride

Touched to the quick, he said:

“I’m killed, sire!” And his chief beside,

Smiling the boy fell dead.

THE FOOL’S PRAYER

BY EDWARD ROLAND SILL

The royal feast was done. The King

Sought some new sport to banish care,

And to his jester cried: “Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!”

He bowed his head, and bent his knee

Upon the monarch’s silken stool;

His pleading voice arose: “O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

“No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool;

The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!

“’Tis not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;

’Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

“These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;

These hard, well-meaning hands are thrust

Among the heart-strings of a friend.

“The ill-timed truth we might have kept—

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?

The word we had not sense to say—

Who knows how grandly it had rung?

“Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders—oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

“Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave and scourge the tool

That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!”

The room was hushed; in silence rose

The King, and sought his gardens cool,

And walked apart, and murmured low,

“Be merciful to me, a fool!”

IKE WALTON’S PRAYER

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

I crave, dear Lord,

No boundless hoard

Of gold and gear,

Nor jewels fine,

No lands, nor kine,

Nor treasure-heaps of anything.—

Let but a little hut be mine

Where at the hearthstone I may hear

The cricket sing,

And have the shine

Of one glad woman’s eyes to make,

For my poor sake,

Our simple home a place divine;—

Just the wee cot—the cricket’s chirr—

Love, and the smiling face of her.

I pray not for

Great riches, nor

For vast estates, and castle-halls,—

Give me to hear the bare foot-falls

Of children o’er

An oaken floor,

New-rinsed with sunshine, or bespread

With but the tiny coverlet

And pillow for the baby’s head;

And pray Thou, may

The door stand open and the day

Send ever in a gentle breeze,

With fragrance from the locust-trees,

And drowsy moan of doves, and blur

Of robin-chirps, and drone of bees,

With after hushes of the stir

Of intermingling sounds, and then

The good-wife and the smile of her

Filling the silences again—

The cricket’s call,

And the wee cot,

Dear Lord of all,

Deny me not!

I pray not that

Men tremble at

My power of place,

And lordly sway,—

I only pray for simple grace

To look my neighbor in the face

Full honestly from day to day—

Yield me his horny palm to hold,

And I’ll not pray

For gold;—

The tanned face, garlanded with mirth,

It hath the kingliest smile on earth—

The swart brow, diamonded with sweat,

Hath never need of coronet.

And so I reach,

Dear Lord, to Thee,

And do beseech

Thou givest me

The wee cot, and the cricket’s chirr,

Love, and the glad sweet face of her.

THE LAST TATTOO

(DEDICATED TO THE REMAINING MEMBERS OF THE G. A. R.)

BY JOHN MILTON SCOTT

Blow soft and low, O fife, to-day,

For thinner grow our ranks of blue;

The years our priceless heroes slay

Until the fewer grow more few

And dear familiar voices still

As patriot graves with patriots fill.

Beat soft and low, O drum, to-day

As tho’ you were a trembling sigh;

Dear, paling lips their last prayer say

While more and more dear comrades die,

Their feet across the dark door’s sill

As patriot graves with patriots fill.

Float gently, flag, and droop to-day

As droop the grasses o’er the brook;

They few and fewer grow each May;

For those we love we vainly look,

So many sunny smiles grow chill

As patriot graves with patriots fill.

O hush, exultant sounds, to-day!

For they are gone, these ranks on ranks

Who loved to hear the shrill fife play

And with their comrades render thanks,—

O Time, how many brave you kill

And patriot graves with patriots fill!

O, silken every sound to-day

And soften every bugle brave!

We can not bid our vision stay

From seeing our last comrade’s grave,—

O dear, last-billowed comrade hill!

Lone, last of graves our patriots fill!

O angel choir, wing low that day

And silken sing a Bethlehem strain

And all your pipes of welcome play!

Altho’ their brothers they have slain,

In brother love their hands grow white,

For what they did they thought was right.

Not into graves, but into skies,

Where love and life eternal are!

God’s reveille has bid them rise

Beyond earth’s sun and morning star

Where all men just love-brothers be

As One once said in Galilee.

LYRIC SELECTIONS IN POETRY

L’ENVOI

BY RUDYARD KIPLING

When Earth’s last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dry,

When the oldest colors 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 put us to work anew!

And those that 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 working, and each, in his separate star,

Shall draw the thing as he sees it for the God of Things as They Are!

OUR FLAG

BY JOHN MILTON SCOTT

(_Written expressly for this work_)

’Tis homes make a country and children make homes

Where the heart is held true and the truth never roams,

Where joy is abounding and life overflows,

And love is the rapture which every one knows,

Where the pride of all hearts is the boy at his play,

His eyes like the sun overshining the day,

His cheeks like the roses his grandmother grew,

Shot through with a dimple the size of a dew

Which gives to his smile irresistible grace

As his sister looks down in his uplifted face;

In such bright-shining faces our true eyes may see

The love which shall honor our Flag of the Free.

Whatever they say, however they brag,

’Tis these put the red in our flag,

Not our patriot deaths,

Not our gold nor our lands,

Not our fifes nor our drums,

Not our captains’ commands;

But the homes and the children,

Our country’s true worth,

The grace and the greatness,

The glory of earth,—

The children, the children,

Light-hearted and free

Who play in the sunshine

And pray at our knee,—

O ’tis homes and the children

Where joys never lag,—

’Tis these keep the red in our flag,

Our flag of the red, white and blue

To which home-hearts and child-hearts are true.

’Tis the mothers of men who give us our lives,

Who give us our children, who give us our wives,—

O ’tis woman’s great heart which hallows and trues

And makes the straight line to which our ax hews;

’Tis our wives and our daughters who keep our feet straight

In the paths where God’s honor and man’s honor mate;

Where woman is honored as mother and wife

The war drum throbs never nor screams the shrill fife;

There freedom and justice with honor and truth

Keep our nation alive in the vigor of youth,—

There smile the bright heavens which never wax old,

And there a free flag will forever unfold.

Whatever they say, however they brag,

’Tis these put the white in our flag.

Not our patriot deaths,

Not our gold nor our lands,

Not our fifes nor our drums,

Not our captains’ commands;

But the women, the women,

Our country’s true worth,

The grace and the greatness,

The glory of earth,—

The women, the women

With hands free to do

Will build a great state

As tender, as true,—

O the free hearts of women,

Unchoked by hate’s slag,

’Tis these keep the white in our flag,

Our flag of the red, white and blue

To which our love-honor is true.

’Tis city and country where good neighbors live

And their love and their labors so joyously give,

That bodies be clothed and hungers be fed,

That with love in our heart and truth in our head,

Great thoughts and great dreams together we share

As we meet at the market or kneel at our prayer;

When our feet at one fireside make mellow our speech

As together we plan our ideals to reach,

What visions together we wisely may find

To make our earth friendlier, truer, more kind,

That our flag tell the beauty of man to the world

Wherever in freedom and justice unfurled.

Whatever they say, however they brag,

’Tis these put the blue in our flag,—

Not our patriot deaths,

Not our gold nor our lands,

Not our fifes nor our drums,

Not our captains’ commands;

But our neighbors, good neighbors,

Our country’s true worth,

The grace and the greatness,

The glory of earth,—

Our neighbors, good neighbors,

Without hurt or hate,

Whose love and whose labors

Have builded our state,—

O, ’tis neighbors, good neighbors

Whose hearts never sag,—

’Tis these keep the blue in our flag,

Our flag of the red, white and blue

Which good neighbors ever renew.

“Where the vision is not the people will die,”

Said the word of truth sounding God’s voice from the sky;

As trees draw their vigor from the sun-quickened air,

That they grow globing fruits which make the year fair,

So the dreams and the visions of young men and maids

Show heavens of glory through which our flag wades

Where dreams come awake and visions fulfill

In a world that’s so human no hatreds can kill,—

There the noble ideal forever leads on;

There are stars for our nights and suns for our dawn,

The dreamers and lovers by God justified

In a love-world Christ visioned and for which He died.

Whatever they say, however they brag,

’Tis these put the stars in our flag;

Not our patriot deaths,

Not our gold nor our lands,

Not our fifes nor our drums,

Not our captains’ commands;

But our visions and dreams,

Our country’s true worth,

The grace and the greatness,

The glory of earth,—

The dreamers, the dreamers,

Love-visioned by God,

Bring the stars to our earth,

To the stars lift our sod;

’Tis the visions and dreams,

Scaling mountain and crag,—

’Tis these keep the stars in our flag,

Our flag of the red, white and blue

Which from dream hearts unfolded and flew.

Without a free earth there’s no sky for our flag,

And vainly of rights and of freedom we brag;

There Tyranny still is exploiting its slaves,

And we buy rights to live, and, then, buy our graves;

Such flag of the free our poverty mocks

As the ways of progression the privileged Greed blocks;

But free land and free men make our flag’s holy sky,

And our winds never weary with Poverty’s cry.

Here man to his fellow is never for sale,

And free men to free men give good neighbor hail,

In whose cheery words we ever shall hear

The flap of our flag and our patriots’ cheer.

Whatever they say, however they brag,

’Tis these make a sky for our flag.

Not our patriot deaths,

Not our gold nor our lands,

Not our fifes nor our drums,

Not our captains’ commands;

But free land and free men,

Our country’s true worth,

The grace and the greatness,

The glory of earth,—

The freemen, the freemen

With brothering palms

Who love one another

And praise God in psalms,—

O ’tis free land and free men,

And no poverty’s rag,—

’Tis these make a sky for our flag,

Our flag of the red, white and blue

To which freemen forever are true.

THANKS FOR AMERICA AND ITS FLAG!

BY JOHN MILTON SCOTT

Dear God, whose Heart is Freedom’s home,

Whose joy is that Thine earth be free,

We thank Thee for our native land

And for its growing liberty;

We praise Thee for its holy Flag

By precious blood so consecrate,

A banner born of patriot love

And weaving in its folds no hate.

Its glory shines anear, afar

On murk and midnight tyranny,

A streak of Freedom’s blessed dawn

Which tyrant-hating eyes do see,

And, taking heart, they braver toil

Their country’s liberties to gain,

Till some bright day no land is found

But sings great Freedom’s glad refrain.

Our banner’s red speaks patriots’ blood,

Its white a noble faithfulness,

Its blue of truth, and all its stars

Are hopes for grander days to bless;

For it, for all who made it great,

The living ones or sacred dead,

We thank Thee through our smiles and tears

Who love its white and blue and red.

We’ll take it as their sacred trust,

And, as they, keep it true and tried,

To pass it stainless when we die,

That all its love and truth abide.

O may it deeper meanings gain

Through all the changing, growing years,

Fulfilling every liberty,

The rainbow of each captive’s tears.

And may it brother other flags,

Behold in each some human worth,

Till peace divine whites each and all,

A fellowship that fills our earth;

O then no enemy is found

Upon the wide world’s mother-breast,

In every heart Christ-gentleness,

And every flag with Christ-love blest.

THERE WAS A MAN

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN

There was a man who saw God face to face;

His countenance and vestments evermore

Glowed with a light that never shone before,

Saving from him who saw God face to face.

And men, anear him for a little space,

Were sorely vexed at the unwonted light.

Those whom the light did blind rose angrily;

They bore his body to a mountain height

And nailed it to a tree; then went their way,

And he resisted not nor said them nay,

Because that he had seen God face to face.

There was a man who saw Life face to face;

And ever as he walked from day to day,

The deathless mystery of being lay

Plain as the path he trod in loneliness;

And each deep-hid inscription could he trace;

How men have fought and loved and fought again;

How in lone darkness souls cried out for pain;

How each green foot of sod from sea to sea

Was red with blood of men slain wantonly;

How tears of pity warm as summer rain

Again and ever washed the stains away,

Leaving to Love, at last, the victory.

Above the strife and hate and fever pain,

The squalid talk and walk of sordid men,

He saw the vision changeless as the stars

That shone through temple gates or prison bars,

Or to the body nailed upon the tree,

Through each mean action of the life that is,

The marvel of the Life that yet shall be.

TO A MOCKING-BIRD IN CALIFORNIA

BY JOHN MILTON SCOTT

(_Written expressly for this Reader_)

“Gertie! Gertie! Gertie!” “Peter! Peter! Peter!”

In the morn when wings are fleeter,

In the noon when skies are bright

You call these names in wild delight.

Who is this “Gertie,” who this “Peter”

Who go rapturing through your meter?

Did you hear beneath your tree

These names called in ecstasy,

When your heart caught fire, and flames

In love—calling these dear names?

Did Gertie’s heart go twitter, tweeter

When she heard the call of Peter?

Did Peter’s heart beat wild and hurty

When he heard the call of Gertie?

And who this “Gertie,” who this “Peter”

Teaching you such silk-toned meter?

Mocking-birds have thuswise sang

Since Time’s song of joy upsprang,

And to each your lyric brought

Something that his spirit sought;

Some perfect which the heart still dreams,

Though Sorrow’s sands fill all the streams,

No waters in their olden place,

Nor in your eyes the olden face;

Nor in your ears that olden voice;

Yet something makes us still rejoice

And rapture dreams with mating birds

As if our hearts filled with their words.

“Gertie! Gertie! Gertie!” “Peter! Peter! Peter!”

Who set the mock-bird’s throat to meter?

Maybe Eve called Adam so

In dark days when shadowed woe;

Thus called Adam in the dark

When Eve’s heart in fear called “Hark!”

Or might it be in Abram’s time

Love taught you this sweetheart rhyme,—

Some trembling tones in Haran’s tongue

Ere the world-famed march begun?

Or when Ruth gleaned th’ alien corn,

Maybe, then, your song was born,

’Neath the whisp’ring palms one hour

Where you refuged from a shower?

Or some youth in David’s band

Taught your throat in Israel’s land,—

Maybe David’s self, before

His song-heart the king-cares wore,

When his boy-heart whistled true

As wildly free as now are you?

His psalm of joy you often heard

Which now you sing without his word?

With his maiden, were you there

When his first kiss was like a prayer?

You heard his son, the song-wise king,

In heart-beat, song-beat rapturing

So fine, his songs are scriptures now

In which true lover hearts may bow,

Learning how to rapture speech,

That heart to heart through words may reach?

Maybe Greek, when Helen’s charm

Made old Homer’s heroes arm?

Or some dark-eyed odalisque

When Egyptian lips were kist?

Or did some Roman maiden sigh

When Cæsar’s soldier said Good-by?

Spake some shepherd on that night

Just before the Christmas light

Burst upon the flocks so still,

And the winds with angels fill,—

Spake some shepherd in a tryst

Just before he saw Babe-Christ?

Maybe she, the Magdalene,

Ere the ways of shame were seen,

Heard and said ’neath purpling vine

These sweet, holy words of thine?

Did she find, Christ-cleansed and pure,

Him whose words were thy throat’s lure,

And did they both together then

Tell the Christ’s love for all men?

Or some Christian’s true heart-call

Ere the martyr’s cup of gall

Pressed the lips by love caressed

Which unto death the Christ confessed?

Or later, with the centuries gone,

Your song, in a Castilian dawn,

Raptures to a red, red rose,

And Columbus stronger grows

For his journey far away

Within his heart your brave, bright lay?

Wept black eyes in sun-bright Spain

When dared his crew the unknown main?

Those sorrow-tones you’re calling now,

Your rippling wave-sounds from his prow;

We almost hear the whistling sails

In your wild song which never fails

Of courage which can travel far

To bring a joy back from a star,

Or bring the moon’s remotest beam

To build in joy a Jacob’s dream

O’er which the song-glad angels go

To bring the smiles of heaven below,

That hearts which pillow on hard stone

May have a song for every moan.

Did they hear you in that breeze

Blowing o’er uncharted seas,

Remembering, then, the night-eyed maid

In whose smile all fears were laid?

Perhaps your lure was on the wave,

The first call that the New World gave,

As Fate urged him on and on,

Into that splendid glory drawn

Wherein a New World was his gift

In which our starry flag can lift,

Proclaiming all men equal, free,

A world of brothers,—yet to be?

O ’twere fine, if we but knew

’Twas your song hailed that brave crew,—

Columbus’ ears enraptured by

Your song-flights in this new sky,

By your welcome to this shore

Which welcomes exiles ever more,—

All song-tongues your singings span,

You a true American

With welcome for all alien feet

Who with Freedom here would meet.

Did doe-eyes in joyous France

To such words in rapture dance,

Giving that charmèd land its grace

Where each face, a lover’s face,

Sets the heart to music’s notes

As they thrill from bird-sweet throats?

Did Lafayette from your free wings

Catch the song which Freedom sings;

As he hearkened to your cheer,

Growing dearer and more dear,

Till upon our country’s soil

He nobly wrought in battle-toil,

That our flag might float as free

As your song-flights in his tree?

But my questions lose their way,—

You sing what tender lovers say,—

Not of wars and wars’ alarms,

Yours the songs of woman’s charms,

Your tones silk-fitting rosy lips

From which the kissing lyric slips.

When he limped along the trail

That his wild men might not fail

Of the sacrament which saves

And lights the shadowed way of graves

Did the halt monk, thinking how

His Saint Francis on the bough

Gathered all the gracious birds,

Preached to them the gospel’s words,

Still his earnest heart to hear

Your lover-calls sing out their cheer,

And for one heart-beat clean forgot

The Christ-fervor of his thought,

Hearing words that thrilled his soul

Ere he wore the hallowed stole,

Among red roses there in Spain

Where he’ll never walk again?

But these tongues you cannot speak,

Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, Greek;

’Tis in Anglo-Saxon tongue

Your name-calls are sweetly sung.

If from Saxon land you hail,

Not the Mayflower was your sail;

But some daring Cavalier

Loved your song and brought you here,—

Fervid, knightly, militant,

Still his heart your raptures chant;

And from his sorrows maybe came

Your minors, wavering like flame

Which marked the ashes that remain

When wild men have burned and slain;

In your tones the Southern tongue,

Chivalry forever young,

Love the only noble theme

When we’re waking, when we dream?

But your secret still allures,

Whence came those sweetheart names of yours?

You, the American of birds,

You are singing English words;

So where Shakespeare’s tongue we speak

There your secret we must seek.

But your name? that tells it all;

Changes to your tongue befall,

And you can speak each language new

Or sing the last light wind that blew;

You hearken, and new gossipings

Are music-scattered by your wings;

You overhear and feel no shames;

And call out loud the lovers’ names.

In some dear later days you heard

This you sing in true love’s word.

I think that in our war’s some year

Your throat was taught these words so dear;

When Grant’s and Lee’s were names of dread,

Where billowed fields with sweetheart dead.

Your “Peter! Peter,” there you learned

As “Gertie! Gertie” to him yearned.

It was a time when sorrow rent

Full many a heart of sweet content.

’Twas beneath sweet Southern pines;

They walked softly on the spines,

While you, silent, on your nest

Heard these names, and all the rest

Which passioned from their lips that time

You caught their name-calls in your rhyme;

E’en that night ’neath star-bright skies

Your joy-song sang their sweet Good-bys.

You’re an emigrant, as we;

Other states our birth-states be,

And we bring out memories here,

Bright with smile, or darked with tear;

So in California’s sun

Sings your song, back there begun.

But do you know, O song-heart brave,

That Peter’s in an unknown grave,

Where the Rappahannock flows;

No more fearing war’s dread blows?

And not a mound to mark the place

Where went out his sweetheart face;

And not a bough where some song-mate

Might his hero deeds relate,

And recall in bird-sweet lay

How called he Gertie’s name that day?

And Gertie grieved where the lagoons

Sluggish gulfward with their tunes,

And with breaking heart grew old

Waiting for her soldier bold,—

Dying lonely, lonely past,

Calling “Peter” to the last.

Where she’s resting no one notes,

Save your song-mates with sweet throats.

Do you know? Is that the note

Which sometimes saddens from your throat,

And makes my heart slow down a throb,

And my words hush in a sob?

That’s the Gertie, that’s the Peter

Who go rapturing through your meter!

Since within your song they live

Where skies such sunny brightness give,

Maybe in the Sky of skies

Love calls, hearing love’s replies;

Through some angel-mocking bird

All the earth-old sweetness heard,—

Gertie! Peter! still as dear

As when called their love-names here?

So our thoughts, as your fleet wings

Above the dark earth lightly springs,

Think that skies of brightness say,

“Love is love for aye and aye!”

And this Gertie and this Peter

Gentles love through angel-meter,

Which the grace of God outrhymes,

Calling, calling endless times!

When “Gertie,” “Peter” you so lift

As if the very stars you’d sift,

Down to their souls to voice their bliss,

O mocking-birds, do you know this?

A JOLLY GOOD FRIENDSHIP IS BETTER THAN ALL

(A BALLADE)

BY HENRY MEADE BLAND

You may travel in China, Luzon, or Japan;

Or lodge on the plains of the Ultimate West;

You may lounge at your ease on a rich divan;

And drink of red wine at a king’s behest,

Then lie by the hour in slumberous rest,

And be of deep joy a subservient thrall,

Yet awake with a feel that is clearly confessed,

That a jolly good friendship is better than all!

You may sail from your home-port a half-a-world span,

And touch the Sweet Isle with joy in your breast;

You may sing as you sail, and shout as you scan

The white airy foam-flakes that ride the fair crest

Of orient wave: but, truly the test

Of laughters and pleasures that come at a call

Is fellowship rising in full easy zest—

A jolly good friendship is better than all!

You may listen to Melba or Sembrich and plan

With a five-dollar note to corner the best

Of Caruso’s high-piping; and be in the van

Of those who would fain with great Patti be blest:

But you’ll learn when you come to the end of your quest,

And find that the sweetest in cabin or hall,

No matter what note or what harmony stressed,

The lilt of good friendship is better than all!

ENVOI

Aye, rarer than any rare vintage e’er pressed

For banqueter merry or bold bacchanal;

Aye, better than nectar e’er dream of or guessed—

A jolly good fellowship is better than all.

THE TRAILMAN

(_Lines written in 1909 in honor of John Muir_)

BY HENRY MEADE BLAND

A spirit that pulses forever like the fiery heart of a boy;

A forehead that lifts to the sunlight and is wreathed forever in joy;

A muscle that holds like the iron that binds in the prisoner steam;

Yea, these are the Trailman’s glory; Yea, these are the Trailman’s dream!

An eye that catches the splendor as it shines from mountain and sky;

And an ear that awakes to the song of the storm as it surges on high;

A sense that garners the beauty of sun, moon, or starry gleam;

Lo, these are the Trailman’s glory; Lo, these are the Trailman’s dream!

The wild, high climb o’er the mountain, the lodge by the river’s brim;

The glance at the great cloud-horses, as they plunge o’er the range’s

rim;

The juniper’s balm for the nostril, the dash in the cool trout stream;

Yea, these are the Trailman’s glory; Yea, these are the Trailman’s dream!

The ride up the wild river-canyon where the wild oats grow breast high;

The shout of the quail on the hillside; the turtle dove flashing by;

An eve round the fragrant fire, and the tales of heroic theme;

Lo, these are the Trailman’s glory; Lo, these are the Trailman’s dream!

THE HYMN OF THE WIND

BY HOWARD V. SUTHERLAND

I am the Wind, whom none can ever conquer;

I am the Wind, whom none may ever bind.

The One who fashion’d ye,

He, too, has fashion’d me—

He gave to me dominion o’er the air.

Go where ye will, and ye shall ever find

Me singing, ever free,

Over land and over sea,

From the fire-belted Tropics to the Poles.

I am the Wind. I sing the glad Spring’s coming;

I bid the leaves burst forth and greet the sun.

I lure the modest bloom

From out the soil-sweet gloom;

I bid the wild-bird leave the drowsy South.

My loves are violets. By my pure kisses won,

They spring from earth, and smile,

All-innocent, the while

I woo them in the aisles of pensive woods.

I am the Wind. From dew-pearl’d heights of wonder

I fall like music on the listening wheat.

My hands disturb its calm

Till, like a joyous psalm,

Its swaying benediction greets the sky.

I kiss the pines that brood where seldom falls

The solace of the light,

And the hush’d voice of Night

Soothes the awed mountains in their somber dreams.

I am the Wind. I see enorme creations

Starring the vault above ye, and below.

Where bide the Seraphim

In silent places dim

I pass, and tell your coming in the end.

Omniscient I, eternal; and I know

The gleaming destiny

That waits ye, being free,

When ye have pass’d the border-line of Death.

I am the Wind—the Lord God’s faithful servant;

’Twixt earth and sky I wander, and I know

His Sign is ever found

The blue-veil’d earth around,

As on the furthest spheres that whirl in space,

All things are His; and all things slowly go

Through manifold degrees

Of marvelous mysteries,

From life to highest life, from highest life to Him.

I am the Wind. I know that all is tending

To that bright end; and ye, through years of toil

Shall reach at last the height

Where Freedom is, and Light;

And ye shall find new paths that still lead up.

Be free as I; be patient and have faith;

And when your scroll is writ

And God shall pass on it,

Ye need not fear to face Him—He is Love.

DRIFTING

BY THOMAS BUCHANAN READ

My soul to-day

Is far away,

Sailing the Vesuvian Bay;

My wingèd boat,

A bird afloat,

Swims 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.