Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me
That filled my eyes with tears.
How often, O, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
How often, O, how often,
I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
O’er the ocean wild and wide!
For my heart was hot and restless,
And my life was full of care,
And the burden laid upon me
Seemed greater than I could bear.
But now it has fallen from me—
It is buried in the sea;
And only the sorrow of others
Throws its shadow over me.
Yet whenever I cross the river
On its bridge with wooden piers,
Like the odor of brine from the ocean
Comes the thought of other years.
And I think how many thousands
Of care-encumbered men,
Each bearing his burden of sorrow,
Have crossed the bridge since then.
I see the long procession
Still passing to and fro—
The young heart hot and restless,
And the old subdued and slow!
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes,
The moon and its broken reflection
And its shadow shall appear,
As the symbol of love in heaven,
And its wavering image here.
SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY, LIKE THE NIGHT.
BY LORD BYRON.
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes,
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT ON HIGH.
BY JOSEPH ADDISON.
Joseph Addison was born at Milston in 1672. He went to Queen’s College,
Oxford; after he finished his course he traveled on the continent,
studying for the diplomatic service. Returning, he held the position of
Secretary of State, 1706–’8, and until a year of his death held different
political positions. He wrote, besides his famous contributions to the
Tatler, and Spectator, “The Campaign,” a treatise on Medals, a “Letter
from Italy,” and one play worthy the name, “Cato.” He died at London in
1719.
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
The unwearied sun, from day to day,
Does his Creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the listening earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball;
What though no real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found;
In reason’s ear they all rejoice
And utter forth a glorious voice;
Forever singing, as they shine,
“The hand that made us is divine.”
LUCY.
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, O,
The difference to me!
AN EMPEROR’S DAUGHTER STANDS ALONE.
BY GEOFFREY CHAUCER.
Geoffrey Chaucer, often called the father of English verse, was born some
time after 1340, served with Edward III. in the French campaigns and was
imprisoned in France. He was on an embassy to Genoa in 1372, met
Petrarch, and got from him the tale of Griselda and other Italian
legends. On his return he occupied various positions of trust,
principally of a diplomatic nature. His last days were spent in
obscurity. He died in London in 1400, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey. His “Canterbury Tales,” founded for the most part upon the same
stories that Boccaccio and other writers had made famous in prose, are
almost the first evidence of the influence of the Italian Renaissance
upon English literature. He wrote many detached pieces as well, although
his reputation rests largely upon the “Tales.” He had not only the true
poetic instinct, but a deep knowledge and intense love of nature, and he
gave a great inspiration to the writers of the golden age which followed
his own. As Tennyson says of him in “A Dream of Fair Women:”
“_Dan Chaucer_, _the first warbler whose sweet breath_
_Preluded those melodious bursts that fill_
_The spacious times of great Elizabeth_
_With sounds that echo still_.”
Have ye nat seyn som tyme a pale face
Among a press, of hym that hath be lad
Toward his deeth, where as hym gat no grace?
And swich a colour in his face hath had,
Men myghte knowe his face that was bistad,
Amonges alle the faces in that route;
So stant Custance, and looketh hire aboute.
O, queenes, lyvynge in prosperitee!
Duchesses, and ladyes everichone!
Haveth som routhe on hire adversitee.
An Emperoures doghter stant allone;
She hath no wight to whom to make hir mone!
O, blood roial, that stondest in this drede,
Fer been thy freendes at thy grete nede!
This Alla, kyng, hath swich compassioun,
As gentil herte is fulfild of pitee,
That from hise eyen ran the water doun.
“Now hastily do fecche a book,” quod he,
“And if this knyght wol sweren how that she
This womman slow, yet wol we us avyse
Whom that we wole that shall been our justise.”
A Briton book written with Evaungiles
Was fet, and on this book he swore anoon
She gilty was, and in the meene whiles
An hand hym smoot upon the nekke boon,
That doun he fil atones as a stoon;
And bothe hise eyen broste out of his face
In sighte of every body in that place!
A voys was herd in general audience
And seyde, “Thou has desclaundred, giltlees,
The doghter of hooly chirche in heigh presence;
Thus hastou doon, and yet holde I my pees.”
Of this mervaille agast was al the prees;
As mazed folk they stoden everichone,
For drede of wreche, save Custance allone.
Greet was the drede, and eek the repentance,
Of hem that hadden wronge suspecioun
Upon this sely, innocent Custance;
And for this miracle, in conclusion,
And by Custance’s mediacioun,
The Kyng, and many another in that place
Converted was—thanked be Christes grace!
DELIGHT IN DISORDER.
BY ROBERT HERRICK.
It is in such poems as the following one that Herrick is at his best; his
religious, or, as he called them, his “noble numbers,” being for the most
part inferior. But in his lyrics, as Austin Dobson says, his “numbers
are of gold.”
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown,
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglected, and thereby
Ribbands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;
Doth more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.
OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT.
BY THOMAS MOORE.
Oft in the stilly night,
E’re slumber’s chain has bound me,
Fond Memory brings the light
Of another day around me:
The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood’s years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken.
When I remember all
The friends so linked together,
I’ve seen around me fall,
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.
Thus in the stilly night,
E’re slumber’s chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
JIM BLUDSO.
JOHN HAY.
John Hay, Secretary of State, was born at Salem, Ind., on Oct. 8, 1838,
and he was graduated at Brown twenty years later. He studied law in
Springfield, Ill., and in 1861 became assistant secretary to President
Lincoln. He saw some of the civil war as an aid-de-camp under Generals
Hunter and Gilmore, with rank of Major and Assistant Adjutant General,
Brevet Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel. He was First Assistant Secretary
of Legation in Paris and in charge several times from 1865 to 1867, was
diplomat in charge at Vienna 1867–’68, Secretary of Legation at Madrid
1868–’70, editorial writer for five years of the New York Tribune, First
Assistant Secretary of State, and Ambassador to England. He is the
author of “Pike County Ballads,” “Castillian Days,” and part author of a
life of Lincoln, written in conjunction with John G. Nicolay.
Wall no! I can’t tell where he lives
Because he don’t live, you see;
Leastways he’s got out of the habit
Of livin’ like you and me.
Whar have you been for the last three years,
That you haven’t heard folks tell
How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks
The night of the Prairie Belle?
He weren’t no saint—them engineers
Is all pretty much alike—
One wife in Natchez-Under-the-Hill
And another one here in Pike;
A keerless man in his talk was Jim,
And an awkward man in a row,
But he never flunked and he never lied—
I reckon he never knowed how.
And this was all the religion he had—
To treat his engine well;
Never be passed on the river;
To mind the pilot’s bell;
And if ever the Prairie Belle took fire—
A thousand times he swore
He’d hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last soul got ashore.
All boats has their day on the Mississipp,
And her day come at last—
The Movastar was a better boat,
But the Belle she wouldn’t be passed,
And so she come tearin’ along that night—
The oldest craft on the line—
With a nigger squat on her safety-valve
And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.
The fire bust out as she clared the bar,
And burnt a hole in the night,
And quick as a flash she turned, and made
For that willer bank on the right.
There was runnin’ and cursin’, but Jim yelled out,
Over all the infernal roar,
“I’ll hold her nozzle agin the bank
Till the last galoot’s ashore.”
Through the hot, black breath of the burnin’ boat
Jim Bludso’s voice was heard,
And they all had trust in his cussedness,
And know’d he would keep his word,
And, sure’s you’re born they all got off
Afore the smokestacks fell—
And Bludso’s ghost went up alone
In the smoke of the Prairie Belle.
He weren’t no saint—but at jedgment
I’d run my chance with Jim,
’Longside of some pious gentlemen
That wouldn’t shook hands with him.
He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing—
And went for it thar and then;
And Christ ain’t a-going to be too hard
On a man that died for men.
MORAL.
BY ALFRED TENNYSON.
So, Lady Flora, take my lay,
And if you find no moral there,
Go, look in any glass and say,
What moral is in being fair.
Oh, to what uses shall we put
The wildweed-flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?
But any man that walks the mead,
In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,
According as his humors lead,
A meaning suited to his mind.
And liberal applications lie
In Art like Nature, dearest friend;
So ’twere to cramp its use, if I
Should hook it to some useful end.
BEDOUIN LOVE SONG.
BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
From the desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire,
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
SALLY IN OUR ALLEY.
BY HENRY CAREY.
Little is known of this English poet and musical composer except that he
was born near the end of the seventeenth century—about 1693—and that he
is supposed to have committed suicide at London in 1743. He wrote
several burlesques and farces, but is chiefly noted as the author of “God
Save the King” and “Sally in Our Alley.”
Of all the girls that are so smart
There’s none like pretty Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
There is no lady in the land
Is half so sweet as Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Her father he makes cabbage nets,
And through the streets does cry ’em;
Her mother she sells laces long
To such as please to buy ’em;
But sure such folks could ne’er beget
So sweet a girl as Sally!
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
Of all the days that’s in the week
I dearly love but one day—
And that’s the day that comes betwixt
A Saturday and Monday;
For then I’m drest all in my best
To walk abroad with Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
My master carries me to church,
And often am I blamed
Because I leave him in the lurch
As soon as text is named;
I leave the church in sermon time
And slink away to Sally;
She is the darling of my heart,
And she lives in our alley.
ELIA.
BY E. J. McPHELIM.
Edward J. McPhelim, a singer of many sweet songs, became mute in 1896 at
an age all too young. For several years he was dramatic and literary
critic for “The Tribune,” departments in which his rare critical ability
and wonderful command of language found full scope. His poems, which
have never been collected, contain fancies as poetic and delicate as any
in the English tongue. The following, on Lamb and his sister, is
significant, considering where McPhelim’s last days were spent:
Across the English meadows sweet,
Across the smiling sunset land,
I see them walk with faltering feet,
Brother and sister, hand in hand.
They know the hour of parting nigh,
They pass into the dying day,
And, lo! against the sunset sky
Looms up the madhouse gaunt and gray.
He keeps the lonely lamp aglow,
While old loves whisper in the air
Of unforgotten long ago
Before his heart had known despair.
He waits till she may come once more
From out the darkness to his side,
To share the changeless love of yore
When all the old, old loves have died.
Between me and this gentle book,
Shining with humor rich and quaint,
The sad scene rises, and I look
Upon a jester—or a saint.
I lift my eyes, still brimming o’er
With love and laughter—and there falls
Across the page forever more,
The shadow of the madhouse walls!
SONG.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise,
Arise, arise.
LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT.
BY CARDINAL NEWMAN.
Cardinal Newman was born in London in 1801 and died in 1890. He
graduated from Oxford, and was ordained in 1824. He was the recognized
leader of the high church party in England until 1845, when he united
with the Roman Catholic Church. He was appointed rector of the Catholic
university at Dublin in 1854, and was made a Cardinal by the Pope in
1879.
Lead, kindly Light amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet! I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Should’st lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day; and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will; remember not past years.
So long Thy power has blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone;
And with the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile.
AN UNTIMELY THOUGHT.
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
I wonder what day of the week,
I wonder what month of the year—
Will it be midnight, or morning,
And who will bend over my bier?
What a hideous fancy to come
As I wait at the foot of the stair,
While she gives the last touch to her robe
Or sets the white rose in her hair.
As the carriage rolls down the dark street
The little wife laughs and makes cheer—
But. . . I wonder what day of the week,
I wonder what month of the year.
PSALM XIX.
The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his
handiwork.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the
end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun.
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a
strong man to run a race.
His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto
the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of
the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the
commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there
is great reward.
Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults.
Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have
dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent
from the great transgression.
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable
in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
THE POMPADOUR’S FAN.
BY AUSTIN DOBSON.
Austin Dobson is today, as he has been for years, one of the leading
English critics and writers of light verse. He is an authority on the
literature and society of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries, and he excels in verse of the sort here printed.
Chicken-skin, delicate, white,
Painted by Carlo Vanloo,
Loves in a riot of light
Roses and vaporous blue;
Hark to the dainty frou-frou!
Picture above, if you can,
Eyes that could melt as the dew—
This was the Pompadour’s fan
See how they rise at the sight,
Thronging the Oeil de Boeuf through;
Courtiers as butterflies bright,
Beauties that Fragonard drew,
Talon-rouge, falbala, queue,
Cardinal, Duke—to a man,
Eager to sigh or to sue—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!
Ah, but things more than polite
Hung on this toy, voyez-vous!
Matters of state and of might,
Things that great ministers do;
Things that, may be, overthrew
Those in whose brains they began;
Here was the sigh and the cue—
This was the Pompadour’s fan!
ENVOY
Where are the secrets it knew?
Weavings of plot and of plan?
But where is the Pompadour, too?
This was the Pompadour’s fan!
THE BANKS O’ DOON.
BY ROBERT BURNS.
Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu’ o’ care!
Thou’lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro’ the flowering thorn;
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed—never to return!
Aft hae I rov’d by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And fondly sae did I o’ mine.
Wi’ lightsome heart I pu’d a rose,
Fu’ sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause luver stole my rose,
But, ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.
BALLADE OF NICOLETE.
BY GRAHAM R. TOMSON.
This ballad by a poet of our own time finds its way into the hearts of
those who have read and loved the song-story of Aucassin and Nicolete.
It has about it the fragrance and naïveté of that “good lay,” it contains
the “force and freshness of young passion, the troubadour’s sweetness of
literary manner,” as Mr. Le Gallienne says of another poem on the same
subject written by Edmund Clarence Stedman.
All bathed in pearl and amber light
She rose to fling the lattice wide,
And leaned into the fragrant night,
Where brown birds sang of summertide;
(’Twas Love’s own voice that called and cried).
“Ah Sweet!” she said, “I’ll seek thee yet,
Though thorniest pathways should betide
The fair white feet of Nicolete.”
They slept, who would have staid her flight;
(Full fain were they the maid had died);
She dropped adown her prison’s height
On strands of linen featly tied.
And so she passed the garden side
With loose leaved roses sweetly set,
And dainty daisies, dark beside
The fair white feet of Nicolete!
Her lover lay in evil plight
(So many lovers yet abide!)
I would my tongue could praise aright
Her name, that should be glorified.
Those lovers now, whom foes divide
A little weep—and soon forget.
How far from these faint lovers glide
The fair white feet of Nicolete.
ENVOY.
My princess, doff thy frozen pride,
Nor scorn to pay Love’s golden debt,
Through his dim woodland take for guide
The fair white feet of Nicolete.
NIGHT.
BY JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE.
Joseph Blanco White was born of Irish parents in Seville, Spain, July 11,
1775, and was put in training for a mercantile career, but he left his
father’s counting house and was ordained a priest in 1796, and continued
in the priesthood until 1810, when, because of the political crisis in
Spain, he went to England, residing in London as a man of letters, where
he contributed largely to the leading reviews and periodicals, and
produced several books, treating mostly of Spain and its affairs. He
died in May, 1841. His “Sonnet to Night” was pronounced by Coleridge the
finest in the English language.
Mysterious Night when our first parent knew
Thee from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue;
Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent hue,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And, lo! creation widened in man’s view.
Who would have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,
Whilst flower and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind?
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife—
If light can thus deceive us, wherefore not life?
THE SHEPHERD’S RESOLUTION.
BY GEORGE WITHER.
George Wither was born at Brentworth, 1588. He went to Magdalene
College, Oxford. He led a troop of Royalist horse against the
Covenanters, but three years later he became a Puritan and held command
in Cromwell’s army. He was imprisoned during the Restoration for a time.
He died in 1667. Wither wrote, besides his poems, a volume of church
hymns, several satires, and a translation of the Psalms.
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman’s fair?
Or make pale my cheek with care
’Cause another’s rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flow’ry meads in May,
If she be not so to me,
What care I how fair she be?
Shall a woman’s virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her well-deservings known
Make me quite forget my own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may merit name of best,
If she be not such to me,
What care I how good she be?
Great, or good, or kind, or fair,
I will ne’er the more despair;
If she love me, this believe.
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo
I can scorn and let her go,
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?
THE SONG OF THE MYSTIC.
BY FATHER RYAN.
Father Abram Ryan was born about 1834 some say, in Limerick, Ireland, and
others, Norfolk, Va., while still others say, Hagerstown, Md. He lived
nearly all his life in the South. He was educated at a seminary at
Niagara, N. Y., was ordained to the priesthood and labored in many
Southern cities. He established a Catholic newspaper at Augusta, Ga. He
died in 1883. He was devoted to the cause of the South, and, aside from
his devotional poems, none of his writings have more passion or sincerity
than those commemorating the deeds of the Confederate army and the cause
for which it fought.