The mountains swim;
While on Vesuvius’ misty brim,
With outstretched hands,
The gray smoke stands
O’erlooking the volcanic lands.
Here Ischia smiles
O’er liquid miles;
And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Calm Capri waits,
Her sapphire gates
Beguiling to her bright estates.
I heed not, if
My rippling skiff
Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff;—
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise.
Under the walls
Where swells and falls
The Bay’s deep breast at intervals
At peace I lie,
Blown softly by,
A cloud upon this liquid sky.
The day, so mild,
Is Heaven’s own child,
With Earth and Ocean reconciled;—
The airs I feel
Around me steal
Are murmuring to the murmuring keel.
Over the rail
My hand I trail
Within the shadow of the sail,
A joy intense,
The cooling sense
Glides down my drowsy indolence.
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Where Summer sings and never dies,—
O’erveiled with vines,
She glows and shines
Among her future oil and wines.
Her children, hid
The cliffs amid,
Are gamboling with the gamboling kid;
Or down the walls,
With tipsy calls,
Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls.
The fisher’s child,
With tresses wild,
Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled,
With glowing lips
Sings as she skips,
Or gazes at the far-off ships.
Yon deep bark goes
Where traffic blows,
From lands of sun to lands of snows;—
This happier one,
Its course is run
From lands of snow to lands of sun.
O happy ship,
To rise and dip,
With the blue crystal at your lip!
O happy crew,
My heart with you
Sails, and sails, and sings anew!
No more, no more
The worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar;
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise!
JOHN ANDERSON, MY JO
BY ROBERT BURNS
John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessing on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill together;
And monie a canty day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither;
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we’ll go;
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
RECESSIONAL
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies—
The captains and the kings depart,
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire;
Lo! all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds, without the law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts its trust
In reeking tube, and iron shard—
All valiant dust, that builds on dust,
And guarding call not Thee to guard—
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!
MY COUNTRY
BY ROBERT WHITAKER
My country is the world; I count
No son of man my foe,
Whether the warm life-currents mount
And mantle brows like snow
Or red or yellow, brown or black,
The face that into mine looks back.
My native land is Mother Earth,
And all men are my kin,
Whether of rude or gentle birth,
However steeped in sin;
Or rich, or poor, or great, or small,
I count them brothers, one and all.
My birthplace is no spot apart,
I claim no town nor State;
Love hath a shrine in every heart,
And wheresoe’er men mate
To do the right and say the truth,
Love evermore renews her youth.
My flag is the star-spangled sky,
Woven without a seam,
Where dawn and sunset colors lie,
Fair as an angel’s dream;
The flag that still, unstained, untorn,
Floats over all of mortal born.
My party is all human-kind,
My platform brotherhood;
I count all men of honest mind
Who work for human good,
And for the hope that gleams afar,
My comrades in this holy war.
My heroes are the great and good
Of every age and clime,
Too often mocked, misunderstood,
And murdered in their time;
But spite of ignorance and hate
Known and exalted soon or late.
My country is the world; I scorn
No lesser love than mine,
But calmly wait that happy morn
When all shall own this sign,
And love of country as of clan,
Shall yield to world-wide love of man.
SOMEWHERE ADOWN THE YEARS
BY ROBERT WHITAKER
Somewhere adown the years there waits a man
Who shall give wings to what my soul has said:
Shall speak for me when I am mute and dead;
And shall perfect the work I but began.
What matter, therefore, if my word to-day
Falls on unwilling ears, finds few to praise?
Since some mere child, in his incipient days,
That word may win to walk a prophet’s way?
And he, of greater gift, more favored state,
Shall speak to thousands where I speak to one:
Shall do the work that I would fain have done;
Helped to that fortune at my lonely gate.
Perchance some Saul of Tarsus, hating me,
And hating mine while yet misunderstood,
Stung by my word shall some day find it good,
And bear it broadcast over land and sea.
Or some Saint Augustine, of careless mien,
Giving himself to sensuous pleasures now,
Shall catch the glory from his mother’s brow
That in some word of mine her soul hath seen.
Nay, but I claim no honor as my own
That is not equally the goal for all
Who run with truth, and care not though it fall
That they must sometimes run with her alone.
God will not suffer any word to fail
That is not uttered for the hour’s success:
No word that has in it the power to bless
Shall lack the means to make it of avail.
Who speaks the people’s weal shall some day find
Voices to bear it to the people’s will.
However potent be the present ill
They who assail it are to-morrow’s kind.
And that to-morrow shall uphold their cause
Who fell not for the plaudits of to-day:
Those who are reckoned rebels in their day
Are always makers of to-morrow’s laws.
Our present skeptics voice to-morrow’s faith;
To-day’s disturbers bring to-morrow’s peace:
’Tis they who dare to die who win release
For all their fellows from the fear of death.
SERENADE
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Stars of the summer night!
Far in your azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch, while in slumbers light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
THE BROOKSIDE
BY RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES
I wandered by the brookside,
I wandered by the mill;
I could not hear the brook flow,—
The noisy wheel was still.
There was no burr of grasshopper,
No chirp of any bird,
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
I sat beneath the elm-tree:
I watched the long, long shade,
And, as it grew longer,
I did not feel afraid;
For I listened for a footfall,
I listened for a word,—
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
He came not,—no, he came not,—
The night came on alone,—
The little stars sat one by one,
Each on his golden throne;
The evening wind passed by my cheek,
The leaves above were stirred,—
But the beating of my own heart
Was all the sound I heard.
Fast, silent tears were flowing,
When something stood behind:
A hand was on my shoulder,—
I knew its touch was kind:
It drew me nearer—nearer—
We did not speak one word,
For the beating of our own hearts
Was all the sound we heard.
THE SPINNING-WHEEL SONG
BY JOHN FRANCIS WALLER
Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Bent o’er the fire, her blind grandmother, sitting,
Is groaning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting,—
“Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping.”
“’Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping.”
“Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing.”
“’Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying.”
Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot’s stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
“What’s that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?”
“’Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under.”
“What makes you be shoving and moving your stool in,
And singing all wrong that old song of ‘The Coolin’?’”
There’s a form at the casement,—the form of her true love,—
And he whispers, with face bent, “I’m waiting for you, love;
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly,
We’ll rove in the grove while the moon’s shining brightly.”
Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot’s stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers,
Steals up from her seat,—longs to go, and yet lingers;
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,
Puts one foot on the stool, and spins the wheel with the other.
Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel’s sound;
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid steps,—then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower—and slower—and slower the wheel swings;
Lower—and lower—and lower the reel rings;
Ere the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving,
Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.
DOWN THE LANE
BY CLINTON SCOLLARD
Down the lane, as I went humming, humming,
Who should I see coming
But May Marjory!
“What was that I heard you humming, humming,
As you saw me coming?
Prithee, tell!” said she.
“Oh,” I smiled, “I was just humming, humming,
As I saw you coming
Where boughs met above,—
And the crickets kept on thrumming, thrumming,
As I saw you coming,—
Something about love!”
Ah, her blush it was becoming—coming,
As I kept on humming
While we walked along,
And the crickets still were strumming, strumming,
As I kept on humming
That low strain of song.
Drooped her eyes as I continued humming;
Ah, ’twas so becoming
To May Marjory!
Then she raised them, and my heart went thrumming,
Though I kept on humming;
“You’re a dear!” said she.
—From _Judge_.
THE MOUNTAIN MIST
BY HESPER LE GALLIENNE
I am the mist and the lover of mountains,
I, like a scarf, waft and wave in the breeze;
I am the sister of streams and of fountains,
Born ’neath the roots of the flowers and the trees.
Wayward and free
Listen to me—
I am the Now and the Never-to-Be!
Slowly I rise in the cool of the gloaming,
Softly I creep through the grass and the leaves,
Over the river, on past the men homing,
Men living lives midst the fruit and the sheaves,
Airy and light,
Filmy and white,
I come when Daytime is kissing the Night.
I am the Question, so luring, so cunning,
Yet, when you answer, the Answer is—none!
For, when you watch me skipping and running
Yet, when you catch me, you find I am—gone!
Catch if you can!
Never there ran
Any so fast, be they maiden or man.
THE LOOM OF LIFE
ANONYMOUS
All day, all night, I can hear the jar
Of the loom of life; and near and far
It thrills with its deep and muffled sound,
As the tireless wheels go always round.
Busily, ceaselessly goes the loom
In the light of day and the midnight’s gloom.
The wheels are turning early and late,
And the woof is wound in the warp of fate.
Click! Clack! there’s a thread of love wove in!
Click! Clack! and another of wrong and sin!
What a checkered thing this life will be,
When we see it unrolled in eternity!
Time, with a face like a mystery,
And hands as busy as hands can be,
Sits at the loom with its warp outspread,
To catch in its meshes each glancing thread.
When shall this wonderful web be done?
In a thousand years, perhaps, or one,
Or to-morrow, who knoweth? Not you nor I,
But the wheels turn on, and the shuttles fly.
Ah, sad-eyed weaver, the years are slow,
But each one is nearer the end, I know.
And some day the last thread shall be wove in,
God grant it be love instead of sin.
Are we spinners of woof for this life web, say?
Do we furnish the weavers a thread each day?
It were better then, O my friend, to spin
A beautiful thread, than a thread of sin.
THE FORTUNATE ISLES
BY JOAQUIN MILLER
You sail and you seek for the Fortunate Isles,
The old Greek Isles of the yellow bird’s song?
Then steer straight on through the watery miles,
Straight on, straight on and you can’t go wrong.
Nay not to the left, nay not to the right,
But on, straight on, and the Isles are in sight,
The Fortunate Isles where the yellow birds sing
And life lies girt with a golden ring.
These Fortunate Isles they are not so far,
They lie within reach of the lowliest door;
You can see them gleam by the twilight star;
You can hear them sing by the moon’s white shore—
Nay, never look back! Those leveled grave stones
They were landing steps; they were steps unto thrones
Of glory for souls that have sailed before,
And have set white feet on the fortunate shore.
And what are the names of the Fortunate Isles?
Why, Duty and Love and a large Content.
Lo! these are the Isles of the watery miles,
That God let down from the firmament.
Lo! Duty, and Love, and a true man’s Trust;
Your forehead to God though your feet in the dust;
Lo! Duty, and Love, and a sweet Babe’s Smiles,
And these, O friend, are the Fortunate Isles.
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
YOSEMITE
BY JOAQUIN MILLER
Sound! sound! sound!
O colossal walls and crown’d
In one eternal thunder!
Sound! sound! sound!
O ye oceans overhead,
While we walk, subdued in wonder,
In the ferns and grasses, under
And beside the swift Merced!
Fret! fret! fret!
Streaming, sounding banners, set
On the giant granite castles
In the clouds and in the snow!
But the foe he comes not yet,—
We are loyal, valiant vassals,
And we touch the trailing tassels
Of the banners far below.
Surge! surge! surge!
From the white Sierra’s verge,
To the very valley blossom.
Surge! surge! surge!
Yet the song-bird builds a home,
And the mossy branches cross them,
And the tasseled tree-tops toss them,
In the clouds of falling foam.
Sweep! sweep! sweep!
O ye heaven-born and deep,
In one dread, unbroken chorus!
We may wonder or may weep,—
We may wait on God before us;
We may shout or lift a hand,—
We may bow down and deplore us,
But may never understand.
Beat! beat! beat!
We advance, but would retreat
From this restless, broken breast
Of the earth in a convulsion.
We would rest, but dare not rest,
For the angel of expulsion
From this Paradise below
Waves us onward and ... we go.
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
THE DEAD MILLIONAIRE
BY JOAQUIN MILLER
The gold that with the sunlight lies
In bursting heaps at dawn,
The silver spilling from the skies
At night to walk upon,
The diamonds gleaming in the dew
He never saw, he never knew.
He got some gold, dug from the mud,
Some silver, crushed from stones.
The gold was red with dead man’s blood,
The silver black with groans;
And when he died he moaned aloud,
“There’ll be no pocket in my shroud.”
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
PETER COOPER
(_Died 1883_)
BY JOAQUIN MILLER
Give honor and love forevermore
To this great man gone to rest;
Peace on the dim Plutonian shore,
Rest in the land of the blest.
I reckon him greater than any man
That ever drew sword in war;
I reckon him nobler than king or khan,
Braver and better by far.
And wisest he in this whole wide land
Of hoarding till bent and gray;
For all you can hold in your cold dead hand
Is what you have given away.
So whether to wander the stars or to rest
Forever hushed and dumb,
He gave with a zest and he gave his best—
Give him the best to come.
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
THE VOICE OF THE DOVE
BY JOAQUIN MILLER
Come, listen, O Love, to the voice of the dove,
Come, hearken and hear him say:
“There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,
There is only one To-day.”
And all day long you can hear him say
This day in purple is rolled
And the baby stars of the milky-way
They are cradled in cradles of gold.
Now what is thy secret serene, gray dove,
Of singing so sweetly alway?
“There are many To-morrows, my Love, my Love,
There is only one To-day.”
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
WHERE THE WEST BEGINS
BY ARTHUR CHAPMAN
Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger,
Out where a smile dwells a little longer,
That’s where the West begins.
Out where the sun’s a little brighter,
Where the snow that falls is a trifle whiter,
Where the bonds of home are a wee bit tighter,
That’s where the West begins.
Out where the skies are a trifle bluer,
Out where friendship’s a little truer,
That’s where the West begins.
Out where a fresher breeze is blowing,
Where there is laughter in each streamlet flowing,
Where there’s more of reaping and less of sowing,
That’s where the West begins.
Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts with despair are aching,
That’s where the West begins.
Where there is more of singing and less of sighing,
Where there is more of giving and less of buying,
And a man makes friends without half trying—
That’s where the West begins.
AS I CAME DOWN FROM LEBANON
BY CLINTON SCOLLARD
As I came down from Lebanon,
Came winding, wandering slowly down
Through mountain passes bleak and brown,
The cloudless day was well nigh done.
The city like an opal set
In emerald, showed each minaret
Afire with radiant beams of sun,
And glistened orange, fig, and lime,
Where song-birds made melodious chime,
As I came down from Lebanon.
As I came down from Lebanon,
Like lava in the dying glow,
Through olive orchards far below
I saw the murmuring river run;
And ’neath the wall upon the sand
Swart sheiks from distant Samarcand,
With precious spices they had won,
Lay long and languidly in wait
Till they might pass the guarded gate,
As I came down from Lebanon.
As I came down from Lebanon,
I saw strange men from lands afar,
In mosque and square and gay bazar,
The magi that the Moslem shun,
And grave effendi from Stamboul,
Who sherbet sipped in corners cool;
And, from the balconies o’errun
With roses, gleamed the eyes of those
Who dwell in still seraglios,
As I came down from Lebanon.
As I came down from Lebanon,
The flaming flower of daytime died,
And Night, arrayed as is a bride
Of some great king, in garment spun
Of purple and the finest gold,
Outbloomed in glories manifold,
Until the moon, above the dun
And darkening desert, void of shade,
Shone like a keen Damascus blade,
As I came down from Lebanon.
APPLE BLOSSOMS
BY WILLIAM WESLEY MARTIN
Have you seen an apple orchard in the spring? in the spring?
An English apple orchard in the spring?
When the spreading trees are hoary
With their wealth of promised glory,
And the mavis pipes his story
In the spring?
Have you plucked the apple blossoms in the spring? in the spring?
And caught their subtle odors in the spring?
Pink buds bursting at the light,
Crumpled petals baby-white,
Just to touch them a delight!
In the spring!
Have you walked beneath the blossoms in the spring? in the spring?
Beneath the apple blossoms in the spring?
When the pink cascades were falling,
And the silver brooklets brawling,
And the cuckoo-bird is calling
In the spring?
Have you seen a merry bridal in the spring? in the spring?
In an English apple country in the spring?
When the brides and maidens wear
Apple blossoms in their hair:
Apple blossoms everywhere,
In the spring!
If you have not, then you know not, in the spring, in the spring,
Half the color, beauty, wonder of the spring.
No sight can I remember,
Half so precious, half so tender,
As the apple blossoms render
In the spring!
A MATCH
BY A. C. SWINBURNE
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pastures or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.
If you were queen of Pleasure,
And I were king of Pain,
We’d hunt down Love together,
Pluck out his flying-feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein;
If you were queen of Pleasure;
And I were king of Pain.
THE BROOK AND THE WAVE
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The brooklet came from the mountain,
As sang the bard of old,
Running with feet of silver
Over the sands of gold!
Far away in the briny ocean
There rolled a turbulent wave
Now singing along the sea-beach,
Now howling along the cave.
And the brooklet has found the billow
Though they flowed so far apart,
And has filled with its freshness and sweetness
That turbulent bitter heart!
INDIRECTION
BY RICHARD REALF
Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is
fairer;
Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer;
Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter;
And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning out-mastered the meter.
Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing;
Never a river that flows, but a majesty scepters the flowing;
Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did enfold him,
Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath foretold him.
Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and hidden;
Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is bidden;
Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling;
Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the revealing.
Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater;
Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator;
Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving;
Back of the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving.
Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing;
The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing;
And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where
those shine,
Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine.
—Copyright by _Funk & Wagnalls Co_., New York, and used by kind
permission.
LIFE AND LOVE
BY RICHARD REALF
There is something to live for and something to love
Wherever we linger, wherever we rove,
There are thousands of sad ones to cheer and sustain
Till hopes that were hidden beam o’er them again.
There is something to live for and something to love,
For the spirit of Man is like garden or grove,
It will yield a sweet fragrance, but still you must toil,
And cherish the blossoms, and culture the soil.
There is something to live for and something to love,
’Tis a truth which the misanthrope ne’er can disprove,
For tho’ thorns and thistles may choke up the flower,
Some beauty will grace the most desolate bower.
Then think on, brother, wherever thou art,
Let the life be for men and the love for the heart,
For know that the pathway which leads us above
Is something to live for and something to love.
—Copyright by _Funk & Wagnalls Co._, New York, and used by kind
permission.
SONG OF SPRING
BY RICHARD REALF
My heart goes forth to meet the Spring
With the step of a bounding roe,
For it seems like the touch of a seraph’s wing
When the pleasant south winds blow.
O, I love the loveliness that lies
In the smiling heart of May,
The beauty throbbing in violet eyes,
The breath of the fragrant hay.
There’s a great calm joy in the song of birds,
And in the voice of the streams,
In the lowly peace of flocks and herds,
And our own soul’s quiet dreams.
So my heart goes forth to meet the Spring
As a lover to his bride;
And over us both there broods the wing
Of the angel at her side.
—Copyright by _Funk & Wagnalls Co._, New York, and used by kind
permission.
SONG OF THE SEAMSTRESS
BY RICHARD REALF
It is twelve o’clock by the city’s chime,
And my task is not yet done;
Through two more weary hours of time
Must my heavy eyes ache on.
I may not suffer my tears to come,
And I dare not stop to feel;
For each idle moment steals a crumb
From my sad to-morrow’s meal.
It is very cold in this cheerless room,
And my limbs are strangely chill;
My pulses beat with a sense of doom,
And my very heart seems still;
But I shall not care for this so much,
If my fingers hold their power,
And the hand of sleep forbears to touch
My eyes for another hour.
I wish I could earn a little more,
And live in another street,
Where I need not tremble to pass the door,
And shudder at all I meet.
’Tis a fearful thing that a friendless girl
Forever alone should dwell
In the midst of scenes enough to hurl
A universe to hell.
God knows that I do not wish to sink
In the pit that yawns around;
But I cannot stand on its very brink,
As I could on purer ground;
I do not think that my strength is gone,
Nor fear for my shortening breath;
But the terrible winter is coming on,
And I must not starve to death.
I wish I had died with sister Rose,
Ere hunger and I were mates;
Ere I felt the grip of the thought that grows
The hotter the more it waits.
I am sure that He whom they curse to me,
The Father of all our race,
Did not mean the world He made to be
Such a dark and dreary place.
I would not mind if they’d only give
A little less meager pay,
And spare me a moment’s time to grieve,
With a little while to pray.
But until these far-off blessings come,
I may neither weep nor kneel;
For, alas! ’twould cost me a precious crumb
Of my sad to-morrow’s meal.
—Copyright by _Funk & Wagnalls Co._, New York, and used by kind
permission.
SONG OF THE INDIAN MOTHER
BY JAMES GOWDY CLARK
Gently dream, my darling child,
Sleeping in the lonely wild;
Would thy dreams might never know
Clouds that darken mine with woe;
Oh! to smile as thou art smiling,
All my hopeless hours beguiling
With the hope that thou mightst see
Blessings that are hid from me.
CHORUS
Lullaby, my gentle boy,
Sleeping in the wilderness,
Dreaming in thy childish joy
Of a mother’s fond caress,—
Lullaby, lullaby.
Sleep, while gleams the council fire,
Kindled by thy hunted sire:
Guarded by thy God above,
Sleep and dream of peace and love:
Dream not of the band that perished
From the sacred soil they cherished,
Nor the ruthless race that roams
O’er our ancient shrines and homes.
Sleep, while autumn glories fly,
’Neath the melancholy sky,
From the trees before the storm,
Chased by winter’s tyrant form:
Oh! ’tis thus our warriors, wasted,
From their altars torn and blasted,
Followed by the storm of death,
Fly before Oppression’s breath.
Sleep, while night hides home and grave,
Rest, while mourn the suff’ring brave,
Mourning as thou, too, wilt mourn,
Through the future, wild and worn;
Bruised in heart, in spirit shaken,
Scourged by man, by God forsaken,
Wandering on in war and strife,
Living still, yet cursing life.
Could thy tender fancy feel
All that manhood will reveal,
Couldst thou dream thy breast would share
All the ills thy fathers bear,
Thou wouldst weep as I am weeping,
Tearful watches wildly keeping,
By the silver-beaming light
Of the long and lonely night.
(_Repeat Chorus_)
OLD TIMES
BY GERALD GRIFFIN
Old times! old times! the gay old times!
When I was young and free,
And heard the merry Easter chimes
Under the sally tree.
My Sunday palm beside me placed,
My cross upon my hand;
A heart at rest within my breast,
And sunshine on the land!
Old times! old times!
It is not that my fortunes flee,
Nor that my cheek is pale;
I mourn whene’er I think of thee,
My darling native vale!
A wiser head I have, I know,
Than when I loitered there;
But in my wisdom there is woe,
And in my knowledge care.
Old times! old times!
I’ve lived to know my share of joy,
To feel my share of pain;
To learn that friendship’s self can cloy,
To love and love in vain;
To feel a pang and wear a smile,
To tire of other climes;
To love my own unhappy Isle,
And sing the gay old times!
Old times! old times!
And sure the land is nothing changed;
The birds are singing still,
The flowers are springing where we ranged,
There’s sunshine on the hill.
The sally waving o’er my head
Still sweetly shades my frame;
But oh! those happy days are fled,
And I am not the same.
Old times! old times!
Oh, come again, ye merry times!
Sweet, sunny, fresh and calm;
And let me hear those Easter chimes,
And wear my Sunday palm.
If I could cry away mine eyes,
My tears would flow in vain;
If I could waste my heart in sighs,
They’ll never come again!
Old times! old times!
TWILIGHT FANCIES
BY ELIZA A. PITTSINGER
Softly flit the fairy fancies
Through the sunlight of my brain,
Weaving webs of weird romances
In a laughing, joyous strain—
Gently creeping,
Gaily leaping,
Twilight revels strangely keeping
In my brain.
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
While my soul is wrapt in thought,
Wait they not to be invited,
Quite unwelcome and unsought—
Never sitting,
Ever flitting,
All the earnestness outwitting
Of my thought.
Thus to have my being haunted
By these fairies, all astray,
By these elfin-sprites enchanted,
Is a spell upon my way,
That shall borrow
For the morrow,
All the pleasure and the sorrow
Of to-day.
In my hours of quiet musing,
By these phantoms thus caressed,
I have lost the right of choosing
As I ought, my favored guest—
Uninvited,
Often slighted,
Come they when the lamps are lighted
For a guest.
Thus they come, the fairy fancies,
Laughing, flitting through my brain,
Weaving webs of weird romances,
In a wayward, joyous strain—
Gaily creeping,
Madly leaping,
Even now their revels keeping
In my brain.
THE SONG OF THE FLUME[16]
BY ANNA M. FITCH
Awake, awake! for my track is red,
With the glow of the coming day;
And with tinkling tread, from my dusky bed,
I haste o’er hill away,
Up from the valley, up from the plain,
Up from the river’s side;
For I come with a gush, and a torrent’s rush,
And there’s wealth in my swelling tide.
I am fed by the melting rills that start
Where the sparkling snow-peaks gleam,
My voice is free, and with fiercest glee
I leap in the sun’s broad beam;
Tho’ torn from the channels deep and old,
I have worn through the craggy hill,
Yet I flow in pride, as my waters glide,
And there’s mirth in my music still.
I sought the shore of the sounding sea,
From the far Sierra’s height,
With a starry breast, and a snow-capped crest
I foamed in a path of light;
But they bore me thence in a winding way,
They’ve fettered me like a slave,
And as scarfs of old were exchanged for gold,
So they barter my soil-stained wave.
Thro’ the deep tunnel, down the dark shaft,
I search for the shining ore;
Hoist it away to the light of day,
Which it never has seen before.
Spade and shovel, mattock and pick,
Ply them with eager haste;
For my golden shower is sold by the hour,
And the drops are too dear to waste.
Lift me aloft to the mountain’s brow,
Fathom the deep “blue vein,”
And I’ll sift the soil for the shining spoil,
As I sink to the valley again.
The swell of my swarthy breast shall bear
Pebble and rock away,
Though they brave my strength, they shall yield at length,
But the glittering gold shall stay.
Mine is no stern and warrior march,
No stormy trump and drum;
No banners gleam in my darkened stream,
As with conquering step I come;
But I touch the tributary earth
Till it owns a monarch’s sway,
And with eager hand, from a conquered land,
I bear its wealth away.
Awake, awake! there are loving hearts
In the lands you’ve left afar;
There are tearful eyes in the homes you prize
As they gaze on the western star;
Then up from the valley, up from the hill,
Up from the river’s side;
For I come with a gush, and a torrent’s rush,
And there’s wealth in my swelling tide.
THE WEST
BY ANNIE ELIZABETH CHENEY
Wings that are glancing, wings of my soul,
That speeding like arrows fly to their goal;
Wings that have cut the keen ethers above,
O carry me on to the West of my love!
The West it is magic, perspective and fire,
Its peaks are like daggers thrust up by desire;
It is Tyre, it is Sidon and Ophir in one,
This land by the waters, this land of the sun.
—From “Dreams of Hellas.”
THE MOON-CRADLE
BY KATE WISNER M’CLUSKEY
The little, the yellow moon-cradle
Is swaying, is swinging slow;
And the tiny white star-tapers burning
Have flickered their lights down low;
The night has the cloud-curtains ready,
She is holding them draped on her breast,
For the dear little, queer little babe in the moon
Will have sunk to rest in the west.
Hush, baby, hush!
Mother’s heart aches for the joy that she takes
In holding you close to her breast!
Perhaps in the yellow moon-cradle
A little cold baby may be;
And the tiny white star-tapers burning
May be sad for some mother to see;—
O night-angel! drop the cloud-curtain
While the gleaming bed’s caught in that tree,
For not even to the rest in the beautiful west
Will I let my babe go from me!
Sleep, sleep, my sweet!
Are you warm, little feet?
Close to my heart you will be!
GREEN THINGS GROWING
BY DINAH MARIA MULOCK
Oh, the green things growing, the green things growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.
Oh, the fluttering and the pattering of those green things growing.
How they talk each to each, when none of us are knowing
In the wonderful white of the weird moonlight
Or the dim, dreary dawn when the cocks are crowing.
I love, I love them so,—my green things growing;
And I think that they love me, without false showing;
For by many a tender touch, they comfort me so much,
With the soft, mute comfort of green things growing.
DAFFODILS
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
MAMMY’S LULLABY
BY STRICKLAND W. GILLILAN
Sleep, mah li’l pigeon, don’ yo’ heah yo’ mammy coo?
Sunset still a-shinin’ in de wes’;
Sky am full o’ windehs an’ de stahs am peepin’ froo—
Eb’ryt’ing but mammy’s lamb at res’.
Swing ’im to’ds de Eas’lan’,
Swing ’im to’ds de Souf—
See dat dove a-comin’ wif a olive in ’is mouf!
Angel hahps a-hummin’,
Angel banjos strummin’—
Sleep, mah li’l pigeon, don’ yo’ heah yo’ mammy coo?
Cricket fiddleh scrapin’ off de rozzum f’um ’is bow,
Whippo’will a-mo’nin’ on a lawg;
Moon ez pale ez hit kin be a-risin’ mighty slow—
Stahtled at de bahkin’ ob de dawg;
Swing de baby Eas’way,
Swing de baby Wes’,
Swing ’im to’ds de Souflan’ whah de melon grow de bes’!
Angel singers singin’,
Angel bells a-ringin’,
Sleep, mah li’l pigeon, don’ yo’ heah yo’ mammy coo?
Eyelids des a-droopin’ li’l loweh all de w’ile,
Undeh lip a-saggin’ des a mite;
Li’l baby toofies showin’ so’t o’ lak a smile,
Whiteh dan de snow, or des ez white.
Swing ’im to’ds de No’flan’,
Swing ’im to’ds de Eas’—
Woolly cloud a-comin’ fo’ t’ wrap ’im in ’is fleece!
Angel ban’ a-playin’—
Whut dat music sayin’?
“Sleep, mah li’l pigeon, don’ yo’ heah yo’ mammy coo?”
SONG OF THE BROOK
BY ALFRED TENNYSON
I come from haunts of coot and hern:
I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down the valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Phillip’s farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I wind about and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel.
I draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots;
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
MEADOW-LARKS
BY INA COOLBRITH
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy that I am!
(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing!)
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm,
O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the spring!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O skies, serene and blue,
That shut the velvet pastures in, that fold the mountain’s crest!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! What of the clouds ye knew?
The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea at rest.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain?
Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet!
Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain,
The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is!
Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss,—
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!
—Copyright by _Houghton, Mifflin & Co._, Boston, Mass., and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
OWNERSHIP
BY INA COOLBRITH
In a garden that I know,
Only palest blossoms blow.
There the lily, purest nun,
Hides her white face from the sun,
And the maiden rose-bud stirs
In a garment fair as hers.
One shy bird, with folded wings
Sits within the leaves and sings:
Sits and sings the daylight long,
Just a patient, plaintive song.
Other gardens greet the spring
With a blaze of blossoming;
Other song-birds, piping clear,
Chorus from the branches near;
But my blossoms, palest known,
Bloom for me and me alone,
And my bird, though sad and lonely,
Sings for me, and for me only.
—Copyright by _Houghton, Mifflin & Co._, Boston, Mass., and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
CALIFORNIA
BY ANNIE ELIZABETH CHENEY
There are lands where the poppies are golden,
Where the skies are a rapture in blue,
Where the breezes on roses are stealing,
But land of my love, what of you?
There are lands where the birds warble ever,
Where the air is a-thrill in the sun,
Where the singer and song sever never,
And beauty and passion are one.
There are lands where the pine and the palm-tree,
The rose and the lily are fair,
Where color is married to music,
But magic—thy magic—O where?
There are lands where the hills silver-crested
Flash far on a foam-glitt’ring sea,
Where Winter weds amorous Summer,
But land of my love, what of thee?
Thy heart like thy poppy is golden,
Thy story is writ in a gleam,
Thy magic like wine it is olden,
And hid in the web of a dream.
When the padre and poet had found thee,
Thy bells with a prophecy tolled,
For duty loved beauty, and round thee
The fabric of romance was rolled.
The vale with the snow-peak above her
Through ages in sunlight has lain,
Here art fondles nature, a lover
Forever in shine or rain.
There is fire where the poppy is dreaming,
And romance in woman’s large eyes,
There is splendor where sunbeams are streaming
From the far, lucid vault of thy skies.
And the stars and the moon look in wonder
On thy mountains and ocean and vale,
From azures too tender for thunder,
Too clear for the lightning of gale.
There are lands drunk with summer and beauty,
But none, magic country, like thee!
Where the palm and the pine—love and duty—
Are friends from the hills to the sea.
—From “Dreams of Hellas.”
IN BLOSSOM TIME
BY INA COOLBRITH
It’s O my heart, my heart,
To be out in the sun and sing—
To sing and shout in the fields about,
In the balm and the blossoming!
Sing loud, O bird in the tree;
O bird, sing loud in the sky,
And honey-bees, blacken the clover beds—
There is none of you glad as I.
The leaves laugh low in the wind,
Laugh low, with the wind at play;
And the odorous call of the flowers all
Entices my soul away!
For O but the world is fair, is fair—
And O but the world is sweet!
I will out in the gold of the blossoming mould,
And sit at the Master’s feet.
And the love my heart would speak,
I will fold in the lily’s rim,
That th’ lips of the blossom, more pure and meek,
May offer it up to Him.
Then sing in the hedgerow green, O thrush,
O skylark, sing in the blue;
Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear,
And my soul shall sing with you!
—From “Songs from the Golden Gate.”
—Copyright by _Houghton, Mifflin & Co._, and used by kind permission of
author and publisher.
WHY?
BY MADGE MORRIS WAGNER
Why is it we grasp at the shadow
That flits from us swift as thought,
While the real that maketh the shadow
Stands in our way unsought?
And why do we wonder, and wonder,
What’s beyond the hill-tops of thought?
Why is it the things that we sigh for
Are the things that we never can reach?
Why, only the sternest experience
A lesson of patience can teach?
And why hold we so careless and lightly
The treasures that are in our reach?
Why is it we wait for the future,
Or dwell on the scenes of the past,
Rather than live in the present
Hastening from us so fast?
Why is it the prizes we toil for,
So tempting in fancy’s mould cast,
Prove, when to our lips we have pressed them,
Only apples of Sodom at last?
And why are the crowns, and the crosses,
So wondrous unequally classed?
Ask it, ye, over and over,
Let the winds waft your question on high,
Till memory wanes with the ages,
Till the stars in eternity die.
And out from the bloom and the sunshine,
From the rainbow o’er-arching the sky,
From the night and the gloom and the tempest,
Echo will answer you, “Why?”
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
PICTURES OF MEMORY
BY ALICE CARY
Among the beautiful pictures
That hang on memory’s wall
Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all;
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,
Dark with the mistletoe;
Not for the violets golden,
That sprinkle the vale below;
Not for the milk-white lilies
That lean from the fragrant ledge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge;
Not for the vines on the upland,
Where the bright red-berries rest,
Nor the pinks, nor the pale sweet cowslip,
It seemeth to me the best.
I once had a little brother,
With eyes that were dark and deep;
In the lap of that dim old forest
He lieth in peace asleep:
Light as the down of the thistle,
Free as the winds that blow,
We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;
But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,
I made for my little brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.
Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty,
Silently covered his face;
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures
That hang on memory’s wall,
The one of the dim old forest
Seemeth the best of all.
THE JOY OF THE HILLS
BY EDWIN MARKHAM
I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride in the blowing oats,
Checking the field-lark’s rippling notes—
Lightly I sweep
From steep to steep:
Over my head through the branches high
Come glimpses of a rushing sky;
The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks;
Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;
A bee booms out of the scented grass;
A jay laughs with me as I pass.
I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life’s hoard of regret—
All the terror and pain
Of the chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind:
I leave you a blur behind.
I am lifted elate—the skies expand:
Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them worry and work in their narrow walls:
I ride with the voices of waterfalls!
I swing on as one in a dream—I swing
Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!
The world is gone like an empty word:
My body’s a bough in the wind, my heart a bird!
—Copyright by _Doubleday, Page & Co._, New York, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
TREES
BY JOYCE KILMER
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree who looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon her bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
THE DERELICT
BY HERBERT BASHFORD
I am rolled and swung, I am rocked and flung,
I am hammered and heaved and hurled,
I am tossed and wheeled, I am blown and reeled
And battered about the world.
On the pushing tide I ride and ride
Or loiter and loaf at ease.
With never a care, through foul or fair,
I follow the foaming seas.
Men come not nigh when they pass me by
For they fear me, every one,
As I cleave the gray of the dawning day
Or drowse in the summer sun.
Past unknown isles, for miles and miles
I wander away to where
The iceberg lifts and the salt spray drifts
In the freezing arctic air.
I steal by the bars when the flame-winged stars
Have swarmed in the upper blue
And the glow and shine of the drenching brine
Like white fire burns me through.
I haunt as a ghost the rock-girt coast
Where the bell-buoy loudly rings
And the breakers leap to the mighty sweep
Of the night-wind’s sable wings.
I shake and moan, I creak and groan,
In the wrathful tempest when
The old sea raves and digs deep graves
For the jolly sailor men.
What matters time or what the clime
To a vagrant of the sea?
To live or die, oh, naught care I,
There is no port for me!
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
CHILD OF MY HEART
BY EDWIN MARKHAM
Child-heart!
Wild heart!
What can I bring you,
What can I sing you,
You who have come from a glory afar,
Called into Time from a secret star?
Fleet one!
Sweet one!
Whose was the wild hand
Shaped you in child-land,
Framing the flesh with a flash of desire,
Pouring the soul as a fearful fire?
Strong child!
Song child!
Who can unravel
All your long travel
Out of the Mystery, birth after birth—
Out of the dim worlds deeper than Earth?
Mad thing!
Glad thing!
How will Life time you?
How will God name you?
All that I know is that you are to me
Wind over water, star on the sea.
Dear heart!
Near heart!
Long is the journey,
Hard is the tourney:
Would I could be by your side when you fall—
Would that my own heart could suffer it all!
—Copyright by _Doubleday, Page & Co._, New York, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
MANDALAY
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea,
There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, an’ I know she thinks o’ me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, an’ the temple bells they say,
“Come you back, you British soldier, come you back to Mandalay!”
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay;
Can’t you hear the paddles chunkin’ from
Rangoon to Mandalay?
O the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’ fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer
China ’crost the Bay!
’Er petticut was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green,
An’ ’er name was Supi-yaw-lat—jest the same as Theebaw’s Queen,
An’ I seed ’er fust a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot,
An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot:
Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud—
Wot they called the great Gawd Budd—
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ’er where she stood!
On the road to Mandalay—
When the mist was on the rice-fields an’ the sun was droppin’ slow,
She’d git ’er little banjo an’ she’d sing “kulla-lo-lo!”
With ’er arm upon my shoulder an’ ’er cheek ag’in my cheek
We uster watch the steamers an’ the Hathis pilin’ teak.
Elephints a-pilin’ teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence ’ung that ’eavy you was ’arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay—
But that all shove behind me—long ago an’ fur away,
An’ there ain’t no busses runnin’ from the Benk to Mandalay;
An’ I’m learnin’ ’ere in London what the ten-year sodger tells:
“If you’ve ’eard the East a-callin’, why, you won’t ’eed nothin’ else.”
No! you won’t ’eed nothin’ else
But them spicy garlic smells
An’ the sunshine and the palm-trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells!
On the road to Mandalay—
I am sick o’ wastin’ leather on these gutty pavin’ stones,
An’ the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes a fever in my bones;
Tho’ I walk with fifty ’ouse-maids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An’ they talk a lot o’ lovin’, but what do they understand?
Beefy face an’ grubby hand—
Law! wot do they understand?
I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay—
Ship me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments, an’ a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin’, an’ it’s there that I would be—
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ lazy at the sea—
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
Oh, the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’ fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay.
GOLD
BY ARTHUR GUITERMAN
“Meed of the Toiler,” “Flame of the Sea”—
Such were the names of your poets for me.
“Metal of Mammon,” “Curse of the world”—
These are the libels your preachers have hurled,
Dug from the mountain-side, washed in the glen,
Servant am I or the master of men.
Steal me, I curse you; earn me, I bless you;
Grasp me and hoard me, a fiend shall possess you.
Lie for me, die for me, covet me, take me—
Angel or Devil, I am what you make me.
Falsely alluring, I shimmer and shine
Over the millions that hold me divine.
Trampling each other, they rush to adore me,
Heaping the dearest of treasure before me—
Love and its blessedness, Youth and its wealth,
Honor, Tranquillity, Innocence, Health—
Buying my favor with evil and pain;
Huge is the sacrifice, poor is the gain,
Naught but my effigy, passionless, cold,
God of a frenzied idolatry—Gold!
GOLD
BY THOMAS HOOD
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mold;
Price of many a crime untold—
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
—From “Miss Kilmansegg.”
AN OLD WOMAN OF THE ROADS
BY PADRAIC COLUM
Oh, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped-up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains,
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delf,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night,
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed, and loath to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delf!
Och! but I’m weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there’s never a house or bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house—a house of my own—
Out of the wind’s and the rain’s way.
MY LOVE’S LIKE A RED ROSE
BY ROBERT BURNS
Oh, my love’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
Oh, my love’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I:
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry;
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only love!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my love,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.
Oh, my love’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
Oh, my love’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind,
In the primal sympathy
Which having been, must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And O ye fountains, meadows, hills and groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished on delight,
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the brooks, which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they:
The innocent brightness of a new-born day
Is lovely yet;
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality!
Another race hath been, and other palms are won,
Thanks to the human heart by which we live.
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
L’ALLEGRO
BY JOHN MILTON
Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
Quips and cranks and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks and wreathèd smiles
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek,
And love to live in dimples sleek,—
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it, as ye go,
On the light fantastic toe;
And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain nymph, sweet Liberty:
And, if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free.
FROM IL PENSEROSO
BY JOHN MILTON
Oft, on a plat of rising ground,
I hear the far-off curfew sound
Over some wide watered shore,
Swinging slow with sullen roar;
Or, if the air will not permit,
Some still removed place will fit,
Where glowing embers through the room
Teach light to counterfeit a gloom.
THE LOTOS-EATERS
BY ALFRED TENNYSON
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Through every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotus-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge was seething
free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotus-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurled
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world;
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps, and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centered in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine, and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer—some, ’tis whispered—down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labor in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
HOME, WOUNDED
BY SYDNEY DOBELL
Blare the trumpet, and boom the gun,
But, O, to sit here thus in the sun,
To sit here, feeling my work is done,
While the sands of life so golden run,
And I watch the children’s posies,
And my idle heart is whispering,
“Bring whatever the years may bring,
The flowers will blossom, the birds will sing,
And there’ll always be primroses.”
THE MINARET BELLS
BY WILLIAM M. THACKERAY
Tink a tink, tink a tink,
By the light of the star,
On the blue river’s brink,
I heard a guitar.
I heard a guitar
On the blue waters clear,
And knew by its music
That Selim was near!
Tink a tink, tink a tink,
How the soft music swells,
And I hear the soft clink
Of the minaret bells!
SPRINGTIME
BY LEONARD G. NATTKEMPER
May-time’s Spring-time,
O let us steal away.
Spring-time’s love-time,
So let us go to-day.
Oh! the dawn, while dew is on,
Awakes a fragrant breeze;
It fills my room with rich perfume
From snow-white locust trees.
Across the grain there floats a strain
Of ancient witchery;
A robin’s throat hath freed a note
Of rarest ecstasy.
And while he sings, within me springs
An echo to his lay—
But how can words e’er match this bird’s
Sweet song of Spring, I pray!
Such noon-day dreams by babbling streams,
There’s nothing to compare;
Soft zephyrs blow where waters flow,
Entangling my hair.
In shady nooks, fond lover looks
In eyes as blue as skies;
And her reply, though quaint and shy,
Is what true love implies.
So May-time’s Spring-time,
Now let us steal away;
Spring-time’s love-time,
And let us go to-day.
A SINGING LESSON
BY JEAN INGELOW
A nightingale made a mistake—
She sang a few notes out of tune—
Her heart was ready to break,
And she hid away from the moon.
She wrung her claws, poor thing,
But was far too proud to weep;
She tucked her head under her wing,
And pretended to be asleep.
A lark, arm-in-arm with a thrush,
Came sauntering up to the place;
The nightingale felt herself blush,
Though feathers hid her face.
She knew they had heard her song,
She felt them snicker and sneer;
She thought this life was too long,
And wished she could skip a year.
“Oh, nightingale,” cooed a dove,
“Oh, nightingale, what’s the use?
You bird of beauty and love,
Why behave like a goose?
Don’t skulk away from our sight
Like a common contemptible fowl;
You bird of joy and delight,
Why behave like an owl?
“Only think of all you have done—
Only think of all you can do;
A false note is really fun
From such a bird as you!
Lift up your proud little crest;
Open your musical beak;
Other birds have to do their best,
But you need only speak.”
The nightingale shyly took
Her head from under her wing,
And giving the dove a look
Straightway began to sing.
There was never a bird could pass—
The night was divinely calm—
And the people stood on the grass
To hear that wonderful psalm.
The nightingale did not care—
She only sang to the skies;
Her song ascended there,
And there she fixed her eyes.
The people who listened below
She knew but little about—
And this tale has a moral, I know,
If you’ll try to find it out.
MORAL
Never give up, always look up.
Cheer the discouraged.
Strive for heavenly applause.
Care not for the praise of men, but for the praise of God.
THE WOLVES OF THE SEA
BY HERBERT BASHFORD
From dusk until dawn they are hurrying on,
Unfettered and fearless they flee;
From morn until eve they plunder and thieve—
The hungry, white wolves of the Sea!
With never a rest, they race to the west,
To the Orient’s rim do they run;
By the berg and the floe of the northland they go
And away to the isles of the sun.
They wail at the moon from the desolate dune
Till the air has grown dank with their breath;
They snarl at the stars from the treacherous bars
Of the coasts that are haunted by Death.
They grapple and bite in a keen, mad delight
As they feed on the bosom of Grief;
And one steals away to a cave with his prey,
And one to the rocks of the reef.
With the froth on their lips they follow the ships,
Each striving to lead in the chase;
Since loosed by the hand of the King of their band
They have known but the rush of the race.
They are shaggy and old, yet as mighty and bold
As when God’s freshest gale set them free;
Not a sail is unfurled in a part of the world
But is prey for the wolves of the Sea!
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
OLD IRONSIDES
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar;—
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
Her deck, once red with hero’s blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee;
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
COLUMBUS
BY JOAQUIN MILLER
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores;
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm’r’l, speak; what shall I say?”
“Why, say: ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!’”
“My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Adm’r’l, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”
“Why, you shall say at break of day:
‘Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!’”
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
“Why, now, not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way;
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Adm’r’l; speak and say—”
He said: “Sail on! sail on! and on!”
They sailed: they sailed. Then spake the mate:
“This mad sea shows his teeth to-night,
He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Adm’r’l, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
“Sail on! Sail on! Sail on! and on!”
Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck—
A light! A light? A light! A light!
It grew; a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”
—Copyright by _Harr Wagner Co._, San Francisco, and used by kind
permission of author and publisher.
DAYBREAK
BY ROBERT BROWNING
Day!
Faster and more fast,
O’er night’s brim, day boils at last:
Boils pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay,
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.
Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,
A mite of my twelve hours’ treasure,
The least of thy gazes or glances,
(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure)
One of thy choices or one of thy chances,
(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy pleasure)
—My Day, if I squander such labor or leisure,
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me!
Thy long, blue, solemn hours serenely flowing,
Whence earth, we feel, gets steady help and good—
Thy fitful sunshine-minutes, coming, going,
As if earth turned from work in gamesome mood—
All shall be mine! But thou must treat me not
As prosperous ones are treated, those who live
At hand here, and enjoy the higher lot,
In readiness to take what thou wilt give,
And free to let alone what thou refusest;
For, Day, my holiday, if thou ill-usest
Me, who am only Pippa,—old-year’s sorrow,
Cast off last night, will come again to-morrow:
Whereas, if thou prove gentle, I shall borrow.
Sufficient strength of thee for new-year’s sorrow.
All other men and women that this earth
Belongs to, who all days alike possess,
Make general plenty cure particular dearth,
Get more joy one way, if another, less:
Thou art my single day, God lends to leaven
What were all earth else, with a feel of heaven.
—From “Pippa Passes.”
MY SWORD SONG
BY RICHARD REALF
Day in, day out, through the long campaign,
I march in my place in the ranks;
And whether it shine or whether it rain,
My good sword cheerily clanks;
It clanks and clanks in a knightly way
Like the ring of an armored heel;
And this is the song which day by day,
It sings with its lips of steel:
“O friend, from whom a hundred times,
I have felt the strenuous grip
Of the all-renouncing love that climbs
To the heights of fellowship;
Are you tired of all the weary miles?
Are you faint with your swooning limbs?
Do you hunger back for the olden smiles,
And the lilt of olden hymns?
“Has your heart grown weak since that rapt hour
When you leapt, with a single bound,
From dreaming ease to sovereign power
Of a living soul world-crowned?
Behold! the aloes of sacrifice
Are better than radiant wine,
And the bloody sweat of a cause like this
Is an agony divine.
“Under the wail of the shuddering world
Amoan for its fallen sons;
Over the volleying thunders hurled
From the throats of the wrathful guns;
Above the roar of the plunging line
That rocks with the fury of hell,
Runs the absolute voice: O Earth of mine,
Be patient, for all is well!”
Thus sings my sword to my soul, and I,
Albeit the way is long,
As soiled clouds darken athwart the sky—
Still keep my spirit strong:
Whether I live, or whether I lie
On the stained ground, ghastly and stark,
Beyond the carnage I shall descry
God’s love shines across the dark.
—Copyright by _Funk & Wagnalls Co._, New York, and used by their kind
permission.
LABOR
ANONYMOUS
Toil swings the ax, and forests bow;
The seeds break out in radiant bloom,
Rich harvests smile behind the plow,
And cities cluster round the loom;
Where towering domes and tapering spires
Adorn the vale and crown the hill,
Stout labor lights its beacon-fires,
And plumes with smoke the forge and mill.
The monarch oak, the woodland’s pride,
Whose trunk is seamed with lightning scars,
Toil launches on the restless tide,
And there unrolls the flag of stars;
The engine with its lungs of flame,
And ribs of brass and joints of steel,
From Labor’s plastic fingers came,
With sobbing valve and whirling wheel.
’Tis Labor works the magic press,
And turns the crank in hives of toil,
And beckons angels down to bless
Industrious hands on sea and soil.
Here sun-brown Toil, with shining spade,
Links lake to lake with silver ties
Strung thick with palaces of trade,
And temples towering to the skies.
THE ARROW AND THE SONG[17]
BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
THE BELLS OF SAN GABRIEL
BY CHARLES WARREN STODDARD
[Particularly note the possibility of onomatopoesy in the following
refrain. What answer do the bells give to the questions of the poet?
There is no other answer than their steady, monotonous toll. The answer
must be found in your own heart, viz., that no good work, done with high
zeal and enthusiasm, with self-sacrifice, ever can be in vain. Then read
the refrain as a bell would sound, if it were struck at the end of each
line, prolonging the sound to correspond with the continued resonance of
the bell.]
Thine was the corn and the wine,
The blood of the grape that nourished;
The blossom and fruit of the vine
That was heralded far away.
These were thy gifts; and thine,
When the vine and the fig-tree flourished,
The promise of peace and of glad increase
Forever and ever and aye.
What then wert thou, and what art now?
Answer me, O, I pray!
And every note of every bell
Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel, the Archangel.
Oil of the olive was thine;
Flood of the wine-press flowing;
Blood o’ the Christ was the wine—
Blood o’ the Lamb that was slain.
Thy gifts were fat o’ the kine
Forever coming and going
Over the hills, the thousand hills,
Their lowing a soft refrain.
What then wert thou, and what art now?
Answer me, once again!
And every note of every bell
Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel, the Archangel.
Seed o’ the corn was thine—
Body of Him thus broken
And mingled with blood o’ the vine—
The bread and the wine of life;
Out of the good sunshine
They were given to thee as a token—
The body of Him, and the blood of Him,
When the gifts of God were rife.
What then wert thou, and what art now,
After the weary strife?
And every note of every bell
Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel, the Archangel.
Where are they now, O bells?
Where are the fruits o’ the Mission?
Garnered, where no one dwells.
Shepherd and flock are fled.
O’er the Lord’s vineyard swells
The tide that with fell perdition
Sounded their doom and fashioned their tomb
And buried them with the dead.
What then wert thou, and what art now?—
The answer is still unsaid.
And every note of every bell
Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel, the Archangel.
Where are they now, O tower!
The locusts and wild honey?
Where is the sacred dower
That the bride of Christ was given?
Gone to the builders of power,
The misers and minters of money;
Gone for the greed that is their creed—
And these in the land have thriven.
What then wert thou, and what art now,
And wherefore hast thou striven?
And every note of every bell
Sang Gabriel! rang Gabriel!
In the tower that is left the tale to tell
Of Gabriel, the Archangel.
—Copyright by _John Lane_, New York, and used by kind permission.
A WELCOME TO ALEXANDRA
MARCH 7, 1863
BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Sea-kings’ daughter from over the sea, Alexandra!
Saxon and Norman and Dane are we,
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!
Welcome her, thunders of fort and of fleet!
Welcome her, thundering cheer of the street!
Welcome her, all things youthful and sweet,
Scatter the blossoms under her feet!
Break, happy land, into earlier flowers!
Make music, O bird, in the new-budded bowers!
Blazon your mottoes of blessing and prayer!
Welcome her, welcome her, all that is ours!
Warble, O bugle, and trumpet, blare!
Flags, flutter out upon turrets and towers!
Flames, on the windy headland flare!
Utter your jubilee, steeple and spire!
Clash, ye bells, in the merry March air!
Flash, ye cities, in rivers of fire!
Rush to the roof, sudden rocket, and higher
Melt into stars for the land’s desire!
Roll and rejoice, jubilant voice,
Roll as a ground-swell dash’d on the strand,
Roar as the sea when he welcomes the land,
And welcome her, welcome the land’s desire.
The sea-kings’ daughter is happy as fair,
Blissful bride of a blissful heir,
Bride of the sire of the kings of the sea—
O joy to the people and joy to the throne,
Come to us, love us and make us your own;
For Saxon or Dane or Norman we,
Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be,
We are each all Dane in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!
CHRISTMAS IN INDIA
BY RUDYARD KIPLING
Dim dusk behind the tamarisks—the sky is saffron yellow—
As the women in the village grind the corn,
And the parrots seek the river-side, each calling to his fellow
That the Day, the staring Eastern Day is born.
Oh, the white on the highway! Oh, the stenches in the byway!
Oh, the clammy fog that hovers over earth!
And at home they’re making merry ’neath the white and scarlet berry—
What part have India’s exiles in their mirth?
Full day behind the tamarisks—the sky is blue and staring—
As the cattle crawl afield beneath the yoke,
And they bear one o’er the field path, who is past all hope or caring,
To the ghat below the curling wreaths of smoke.
Call on Rama, going slowly, as ye bear a brother slowly—
Call on Rama—he may hear, perhaps, your voice!
With our hymn-books and our psalters we appeal to other altars,
And to-day we bid good Christian men rejoice!
High noon behind the tamarisks—the sun is hot above us—
As at home the Christmas Day is breaking wan,
They will drink our healths at dinner—those who tell us how they love us,
And forget us till another year be gone!
Oh, the toil that knows no breaking! Oh, the Heimweh, ceaseless, aching!
Oh, the black dividing sea and alien plain.
Youth was cheap, wherefore we sold it.
Gold was good—we hoped to hold it,
And to-day we know the fullness of our gain.
Gray dusk behind the tamarisks—the parrots fly together—
As the sun is sinking slowly over Home;
And the last ray seems to mock us shackled in a lifelong tether
That drags us back howe’er so far we roam.
Hard her service, poor her payment—she in ancient, tattered raiment—
India, she the grim stepmother of our kind.
If a year of life be lent her, if her temple’s shrine we enter,
The door is shut—we may not look behind.
Black night behind the tamarisks—the owls begin their chorus—
As the conches from the temple scream and bray.
With fruitless years behind us, and the hopeless years before us,
Let us honor, O my brothers, Christmas Day!
Call a truce, then, to our labors—let us feast with friends and
neighbors,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if “faint and forced the laughter,” and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.
THE BELLS OF SHANDON
BY FRANCIS MAHONY
With deep affection
And recollection
I often think of
Those Shandon bells,
Whose sound so wild would,
In the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle
Their magic spells.
On this I ponder
Where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder,
Sweet Cork, of thee—
With thy bells of Shandon
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.
I’ve heard bells chiming
Full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in
Cathedral shrine;
While at a glib rate
Brass tongues would vibrate;
But all their music
Spoke naught like thine.
For memory, dwelling
On each proud swelling
Of thy belfry, knelling
Its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand, on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.
I’ve heard bells tolling
Old Adrian’s Mole in
Their thunder rolling
From the Vatican;
And cymbals glorious
Swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets
Of Notre Dame;
But thy sounds were sweeter
Than the dome of Peter
Flings o’er the Tiber,
Pealing solemnly.
O, the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand, on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.
There’s a bell in Moscow
Where on tower and kiosko
In Saint Sophia
The Turkman gets,
And loud in air
Calls men to prayer,
From the tapering summits
Of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom
I freely grant them;
But there’s an anthem
More dear to me;
’Tis the bells of Shandon
That sounds so grand, on
The pleasant waters
Of the River Lee.
THE DAY AND THE WORK
BY EDWIN MARKHAM
To each man is given a day and his work for the day;
And once, and no more, he is given to travel this way.
And woe if he flies from the task, whatever the odds;
For the task is appointed to him on the scroll of the gods.
There is waiting a work where only your hands can avail;
And so if you falter, a chord in the music will fail.
We may laugh to the sky, we may lie for an hour in the sun;
But we dare not go hence till the labor appointed is done.
To each man is given a marble to carve for the wall,
A stone that is needed to heighten the beauty of all;
And only his soul has the magic to give it a grace,
And only his hands have the cunning to put it in place.
We are given one hour to parley and struggle with Fate,
Our wild hearts filled with the dream, our brains with the high debate.
It is given to look on life once, and once only to die:
One testing, and then at a sign we go out of this sky.
And the task that is given to each man no other can do;
So the work is awaiting: it has waited through ages for you.
And now you appear; and the Hushed Ones are turning their gaze
To see what you do with your chance in the chamber of days.
THE LAND OF HEART’S REGRET
W. T. P.
[This exquisite threnody was written by the “gardener poet” of
California, Samuel J. Alexander, of San Mateo. The local geographical
references will be understood only by those familiar with the country,
but the cry of the bereaved heart and life will find immediate response
from the universal heart. As a poem of deep, tender emotion, its study
and rendition orally will be more than well repaid.]
Dawn on the hill tops flushes red
In the Day’s embrace, and her blush is spread
A benediction above the dead.
Dawn, and I stand again with Dawn
On the jeweled turf of Cypress Lawn.
Grief led my feet, by Reverence shod,
Into the presence of the God,
The gentle God, Who, compassionate,
Welcome’s Life’s Beggars within His gate.
So I went soft shod, with eyes grown dim,
Through His House Beautiful with Him.
And with hushed heart I sought and found
A Grave more dear than the graves around.
Did I think to find thee shut in and hid
In a man-made box, ’neath a man-made lid?
Thou, from the sunlight hidden away,
Who wert dew of the dawn and flame of day!
Thou fettered by Silence? Why, thy voice
Called up the Dawn and bade Day rejoice.
Thou circled by shadows? Why, thine eyes
Were forest pools beneath starry skies.
And Day might have claimed, to illume his crown,
Their starlight tangled in deeps of brown.
With what reluctance, and with what dread,
I, who loved thee living, have sought thee dead.
And all unwilling, my feet were drawn
By a will compelling that led them on.
I have come to seek thee; the way was long,
For the years between us rose high and strong.
I have come to seek thee, who held thee dear,
But I may not find thee, who art not here.
Life was a song; and sun and moon
Wove all color into the tune.
Life was a jewel; we laughed and pressed
The glowing ruby against our breast.
Life was a bubble; we tossed it high,
Up to the rainbow that spanned our sky.
Life was a magic mantle, wove
By fairy hands, in a charmèd grove,
Wherewith we wrapped ourselves around
In wide, free spaces, where God is found.
Life was a torrent, that overflowed
San Bruno’s mountains and Mission Road;
Canyons, gashed in a mountain wall,
With the wound healed over by chapparal;
Mist-clad hollows, and gusty plains,
Curbed by the wind with galling reins.
Colma, cradled green hills between;
Belmont, tossed upon waves of green;
Woodside mountains and Alma’s woods,
La Honda’s Altar of Solitudes;
World’s Edge hills, where the road goes down
In a tangle of curves to Spanishtown;
Ocean View and San Pedro beach,
These are the heart’s red throbs of speech.
These are the holy names that stand
Guide Posts of God into Holy Land.
And these are the Calvary Stations, set
On my way through The Land of Heart’s Regret.
Life no longer imperious calls
With a silver trumpet from golden walls.
My ears grow dull and my eyes grow dim,
He wearies of me, as I of him.
I will rise; I will go my ways and pass
From that I am unto that I was.
I will drug my senses and drown my soul
Where the incense clouds from the altar roll,
In the golden shrine, with the golden key,
Where dwells our Lady of Memory.
Though new grief grow with the old heart hurt,
Here shall I see thee as thou wert.
Still companion on lonely hill,
In forest solitude, comrade still.
And Memory led me by the hand
From God’s Field, back into Holy Land,
Lit by the wonderful afterglow
Of a day that withered long ago.
And the gum trees moved their lips and spoke
In the alien language of the oak.
And there grew up tall before my eyes
Pillared redwoods, that prop the skies.
And we stood again where the lilies stand,
Torches, lighting a twilight land;
Lamps of the forest, flashing red,
While the darkness gathered overhead.
For, robed in her purple, the Night came down,
Weaving the starlight into her gown;
And the moon arose, like a bubble, blown
By the children playing about Christ’s Throne;
And the iridescent gem was set
As an opal in her coronet.
And our souls flashed up above the night,
And clung together and made one light.
And the brook swept by, and as it went
Sang us the song of heart’s content.
And our campfire set its smoke unfurled
A flag on the roof of the fair, green world.
Now, La Honda’s sacred solitudes
Vainly call me from hills and woods;
These for me shall remain untrod,
Sacred to Memory and to God.
But these and thee I shall not forget
Till Grief wed Joy and divorce Regret.
And by all that was and by all that is,
And for all that we were, I ask thee this,
Friend of my Past, grow not too high,
That I may reach unto thee, even I,
When, with eyes grown clearer, I see thine eyes
As the Dawn of Remembered Days arise,
Or as Stars of Home, in the alien skies.
VENGEANCE IS THINE
BY S. J. ALEXANDER
Vengeance is Mine, saith the Lord;
But there cometh the Hour and the Man,
And the tangled red knots of His Plan
Cry out for the Hand on His Sword.
And these are the Words that He saith,
And the Will of the Words of His Mouth,
To the men of His Lands of the South
In the Halls of His City of Death:
“I am slow to repay,” saith the Lord:
“My Patience and Mercy endure;
But the day of My Vengeance is sure,
And This is My Will and My Word:
“Ye shall draw My Sword out from its sheath;
Ye shall strike at the bosom of Guilt;
Ye shall stab the red blade to its hilt
In the black heart that lieth beneath.
“With My Name on your lips ye shall draw;
And the Name which your lips may not speak
Ye shall bear in your soul, as ye wreak
The ultimate end of My Law.
“My Anger encompassed them still
When they took the Black Vow, nothing loath;
My Oath rose up over their oath,
And broke it and bent to My Will.
“I have waited, withheld and withstood,
But I weary of all,” saith the Lord,
“And the Cup of My Anger, long stored,
Ye shall spill on the Spillers of Blood.”
TO A FEBRUARY BUTTERFLY
BY S. J. ALEXANDER
Rainbow that flasheth by,
Flower that flieth,
Sunshine from summer sky,
Jewel that dieth;
Winter still lingers near,
Ruthlessly cruel,
Why hast thou entered here,
Flower and jewel?
Out of what tropic sky,
Camest thou, gleaming,
Thrilled with a purpose high,
Psyche-like dreaming?
Now, in thy poverty
Dost thou inherit
Orchids of memory,
Palms of the spirit.
Wings of the butterfly,
Soul of the Poet,
Drenched from a dripping sky,
Scorned from below it;
Broke on Fate’s torture wheel,
Shattered asunder,
We, who are wingèd, feel
God’s lightest thunder.
Soul of the butterfly,
Bravely wayfaring,
Teach me, that even I
Reach to thy daring.
Now with our wings unfurled
Go we together
Out of this sodden world,
Into fair weather.
THE GOD’S CUP
BY S. J. ALEXANDER
The Sun God gave his radiant Gift
In a clay cup, whose flaw and rift
With many a blur and many a stain
Cried out to him, and cried in vain,
For a fair vase of porcelain.
Men looked at it before they quaffed
The God’s wine in its depths, and laughed.
“The thing’s old-fashioned, quite antique,”
—The cup, in truth, was Attic Greek—
“A cup, one could not say a vase,
Made for base uses of the base.”
But if they pressed their lips to drink,
All heaven trembled on the brink
Like molten jewels, welling up
From the deep measure of the cup;
And in the glamor of the spell
God’s Silence became audible;
The soundless music of the spheres
Rang through the ringing in their ears.
They heard the hum of Attic bees
Upon Hymettus; and the seas
Rose up, white lipped, with dripping hair
To teach the secret of Despair;
Yet more. Their ravished vision saw
All Glory flash above the flaw
That men esteem as Nature’s law;
While Fancy, wiser, sees the Fates
Sit spinning at the Ivory Gates,
From whence Divine Illusion gives
The evanescent gift that lives.
So, swept on swelling waves of sound,
In seas of rapturous music drowned,
So, tossed from height to upper height
Of the God’s mountain peaks of light,
With trembling lip and gasping breath
They drank His Radiant Life and Death;
And deemed a jewel half divine
The cup that held the Sacred Wine.
The wine, in its too potent strength,
Ate through the fragile clay at length;
The cup fell broken to the ground;
The God laughed at the ruin ’round;
His wine was spilt on every side,
And men, men said, “The Poet Died.”
THE SONG OF THE BULLETS
BY JOHN MILTON SCOTT
I
I cut the air and it sang to me
Like a serpent’s hiss with its fangèd kiss,
And the leaping leagues upsprang to me;
But I passed them all with the battle’s call,
As with maddening joy I scream, I screamed
The death which the wrathful warrior dreamed.
The mad red death which the warrior dreamed.
_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._
I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.
Home among vines and green fields,
Cattle and horses and sheep,
Husband and wife in the joy of their life,
Children that play, children that pray,
On the bosom a babe and its lullabied sleep.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds.
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.
’Neath a Belgian sky sang this lullaby.
_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_
_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life_
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._
_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._
II
I tear the air, and its fine silk rips
As my kill-song sings from the rifle’s lips,
I destroy air-joy which the glad birds sing
When in love and life the winds they wing;
Theirs is a song of love and life!
Mine is a snarl of hate and strife!
The mad red snarl of hate and strife.
_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._
I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.
A school, a teacher and pupils bright,
Lessons and laughter and play,
Girls and boys in their school-day joys,
Maid and youth in their search for truth;
Then home in the shades of the rounded day.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.
In the German tongue this sleep-song sung.
_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the women and children weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_
_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._
_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._
III
I murder the peace of summer winds;
I startle the kine and make dogs whine;
I’m the fury of fight, I’m hell’s delight;
I’m the black of death with its stiffening breath;
I’m insanity’s shriek as I try to speak;
I am agony’s glare and its wild despair;
I’m the hiss elate of the warrior’s hate,
The mad, red hiss of the warrior’s hate.
_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._
I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.
A hammer and anvil and lowly cot,
Blossoms ashine and the fruitful vine,
The flying of sparks, the singing of larks
And the rapturing stir of the voice of her,
Outsinging the larks in her joys divine.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.
In joy-hearted France sings this love’s romance.
_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_
_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._
_This, this is why sweet children cry._
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._
IV
I am rifle-sent, and the air is rent
In tatters and rags and stains;
I burn my path of the warrior’s wrath
Too hot to be cooled by rains;
I murder the song of the rapturing thrush
As I chant war’s wrath with its ripping rush.
The mad red wrath with its ripping rush.
His is a song of love and life,
Mine is a screech of hate and strife.
_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._
I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.
A meadow alined by English lanes;
And Shelley’s lark is in the sky,
And Shakespeare’s sheep, in clover deep;
A house by the spring and a grapevine swing,
A mother’s song and a babe’s reply.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.
Child hearts rejoice in this English voice.
_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_
_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._
_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._
V
I’m a blighting swift, outflying storms,
I ruin and run as I shriek my fun;
With a screech of fear in the startled ear,
I crush the hope and distill the tear,
The tear of love, the hope of hearts;
I blight and blast with Destruction’s arts.
With the mad, red blight of Destruction’s arts.
_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._
I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in the heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.
The Danube blue, the Alsatian heights,
And a lover who sings to his maiden true,
The song and the kiss, the troth and its bliss,
Two hearts abeat in the love complete,
And the brown eyes marry the eyes of blue.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.
An Austrian sings these rapturings.
_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_
_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife,_
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._
_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._
VI
I cut the air with growls of wrath;
I am black woe’s bite as I bark and fight,
I’m the mad dog’s fang, and I lead the gang
As we wolf together on war’s red path;
We rend the flesh, and we wreck the mind;
We’re the war-wrath’s lust, and we’re wild and blind,—
The red wrath’s lust that is wild and blind.
_I sing! sing! sing! the wrathful warrior’s song._
_Then ping! ping! ping! ’tis the wrathful warrior’s wrong._
I red in the heart of the foe,
Fulfilling the warrior’s woe.
But this I see before I go—
A beauty blackening battle’s show;
Pictures of home in heart and brain
That blot and blank in my war’s refrain.
A bearded peasant and Tolstoy’s book,
Fulfilling the Christ’s great way of peace,
His neighbors, dear as the ripened year;
’Twas a neighbor’s girl with laugh and curl
Who mothered his flock of the sweet increase.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep!
Christ is the shepherd of His sheep,
And lambs like you to His heart he folds,
And safely holds, all safely holds,
Till the dark night dies in the arms of day,
When He kisses my lamb awake to play.
Sleep! sleep! sleep! my baby, sleep.
Like a Russian dove croons this song of love.
_But why; why do the children cry,_
_As the husband true bids a brave good-by?_
_O why do the children and women weep_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep?_
_O this red! red! red!_
_O this blood I have shed_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap;_
_And the pictures grow dim, and the pictures grow blank,_
_But the weeds on this field will grow poison and rank._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_The blood runs apace, and gone is the face_
_Of baby and wife._
_Of love and of life._
_Siep! siep! siep!_
_When from rifles of warriors I leap._
_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep._
VII
’Twas wild wrath-riot, ’twas riot of death,
This bacchanal black making war’s red wrack,
This blood debauch and delirium,
Love’s hand palsied, truth’s tongue dumb,—
Blotting brave brains of mothers’ refrains,
Voices of children, enchantments of home,
The-Cathedral-of-man’s earth-rounding dome
Which visioning together might well have wrought,
Out of the heart of brothering thought.
And now that our screaming wrath is done,
And our place in the sky is filled with birds
Whose songs seem the voice of the gracious sun,
Behind us the wrath and the ruin left,
We are bruised and broken in fields bereft
Of their gentle flocks and peaceful herds;
We know, we know in our black war-woe,
There’s not a grace of gain for it all,
There’s not a spear of grain from it all.
O woe are we in this rusted red,
And woe the hearts which we’ve pierced and bled;
No honor is here, no glory bright,
But shame that is deeper than speech can tell,
But shame that is blacker than pits of hell,
The shame of a night unblessed by light,
The shame of a brain with its murder stain,
And a heart in the grime of war’s red crime.
Woe! woe! woe, is the end of the path
That blackens and blights from war’s red wrath.
_This, this is why sweet children cry_
_And wives and mothers vainly weep—_
_As the war-woes over their gladness creep._
—Copyright, 1914, by John Milton Scott, and used by the author’s kind
permission.