Down the dim, voiceless valley—alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God’s and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!
Long ago I was weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago I was weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago I was weary of places
Where I met but the human—and sin.
In the hush of the Valley of Silence
I dream all the songs that I sing;
And the music floats down the dim Valley,
Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to hearts, like the Dove of the Deluge
A message of Peace they may bring.
Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by Care?
It lieth afar between mountains,
And God and His angels are there;
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow
And one the bright mountain of Prayer.
GO, LOVELY ROSE.
BY EDMUND WALLER.
Edmund Waller was born in Hertfordshire, England, in 1605. He went to
King’s College, Cambridge. Later he entered parliament and took an
active part in the long parliament. In 1664 he was exiled on account of
participating in royalist plots. He returned to England under Cromwell’s
administration. He died at Beaconsfield in 1687. Waller’s poems were
first published in 1645.
Go, lovely rose!
Tell her, that wastes her time and me,
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that’s young
And shuns to have her graces spied
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.
Then die, that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
THE LAST LEAF.
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
I saw him once before,
As he passed by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound,
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets
And he looks at all he meets
So forlorn;
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
“They are gone.”
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
THE SONG OF THE SHIRT.
BY THOMAS HOOD.
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt!”
Work! work! work
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work—work—work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It’s oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where a woman has never a soul to save,
If this is Christian work!
Work—work—work
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work—work—work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam and gusset, and band,
Band and gusset and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!
Oh, men, with sisters dear!
Oh, men, with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out
But human creature’s lives!
Stitch—stitch—stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A shroud as well as a shirt.
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.
BY SAMUEL WOODWORTH.
Samuel Woodworth was born at Scituate, Mass., in 1785, and was the son of
a farmer and revolutionary soldier. He had no educational advantages
until taken up by a clergyman, who had read some of his poetical writings
and who gave him instruction in the classics. Woodworth was apprenticed
to a printer, and later published a paper of his own, of which he was
editor, printer, and carrier. Later he removed to New York, where he
edited magazines and wrote a number of volumes. His patriotic songs of
the war of 1812 were widely popular. His “Old Oaken Bucket” will always
hold its place among the choicest songs of America. Woodworth died in
New York in 1842.
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew;
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it
The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
And e’en the rude bucket which hung in the well—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.
That moss-covered vessel I hail as a treasure;
For often, at noon, when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing!
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.
How sweet from the green, mossy brim to receive it,
As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips!
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
And, now far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father’s plantation,
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well.
THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.
BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,—
The venturesome bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim, dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:—
Build thee more stately mansions, O, my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
“ONE TOUCH OF NATURE.”
WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
(“From Troilus and Cressida.”)
For time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretched, as he would fly,
Grasps—in the corner; welcome ever smiles,
And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigor of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating time.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin—
That all, with one consent, praise new-born gauds,
Though they are made and molded of things past,
And give to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o’er dusted.
A REQUIEM.
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
Robert Louis Stevenson, the son of a lighthouse engineer, was born at
Edinburgh in 1850. He studied in the university of that city and became
a lawyer, though he never practiced. On account of his ill-health he
went to Samoa, where he lived with his family and wrote his books. He
died in 1894. A few of his stories are: “Treasure island,” “Kidnapped,”
“New Arabian Nights,” “St. Ives”; his essays are, “Virginibus Puerisque,”
“Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes,” and “Familiar Studies on Men and
Books.”
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me;
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea
And the hunter home from the hill.
REQUIESCAT.
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Matthew Arnold, son of the famous head master of Rugby, was born at
Laleham, Middlesex, 1822. He studied at Winchester, Rugby, and Balliol
College, Oxford, and was a fellow of Oriel. In 1851 he was made lay
inspector of schools, and in ’57 received the appointment of professor of
poetry at Oxford. He died at Liverpool in 1888. He wrote “Empedocles on
Etna,” “Essays in Criticism,” “Study of Celtic Literature,” “Culture and
Anarchy,” and other books of essays.
Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah! would that I did, too,
Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee,
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound;
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.
Her cabin’d ample spirit,
It flutter’d and fail’d for breath;
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.
AT THE CHURCH GATE.
BY W. M. THACKERAY.
William Makepeace Thackeray was horn at Calcutta in 1811. He was brought
up in England, where he went to Charterhouse School and later to Trinity
College, Cambridge. He left college after one year’s study and went to
Paris, where he studied with the hope of becoming an artist. His first
contributions in the way of writing were to Frazer’s Magazine, and among
them were his famous “Yellowplush Papers.” He wrote other satires and
humorous ballads for Punch. Thackeray was the first editor of the
Cornhill Magazine, which is still in publication. He died in London in
1863.
Although I enter not,
Yet round about the spot
Ofttimes I hover;
And near the sacred gate,
With longing eyes I wait,
Expectant of her.
My lady comes at last,
Timid and stepping fast,
And hastening hither
With modest eyes downcast;
She comes—she’s here, she’s past!
May heaven go with her!
Kneel undisturbed, fair saint!
Pour out your praise or plaint
Meekly and duly;
I will not enter there,
To sully your pure prayer
With thoughts unruly.
But suffer me to pace
Round the forbidden place,
Lingering a minute,
Like outcast spirits who wait,
And see, through heaven’s gate,
Angels within it.
HE’D HAD NO SHOW.
BY SAM WALTER FOSS.
Joe Beall ’ud set upon a keg
Down to the groc’ry store, an’ throw
One leg right over t’other leg
An’ swear he’d never had no show,
“O, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show,”
Then shif his quid to t’other jaw,
An’ chaw, an’ chaw, an’ chaw, an’ chaw.
He said he got no start in life,
Didn’t get no money from his dad,
The washin’ took in by his wife
Earned all the funds he ever had.
“O, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show,”
An’ then he’d look up at the clock
An’ talk, an’ talk, an’ talk, an’ talk.
“I’ve waited twenty year—let’s see—
Yes, twenty-four, an’ never struck,
Altho’ I’ve sot roun’ patiently,
The fust tarnation streak er luck,
O, no,” said Joe,
“Hain’t hed no show,”
Then stuck like mucilage to the spot,
An’ sot, an’ sot, an’ sot, an’ sot.
“I’ve come down regerler every day
For twenty years to Piper’s store.
I’ve sot here in a patient way,
Say, hain’t I, Piper?” Piper swore.
“I tell ye, Joe,
Yer hain’t no show;
Yer too dern patient”—ther hull raft
Jest laffed, an’ laffed, an’ laffed, an’ laffed.
TO THE CUCKOO.
BY JOHN LOGAN.
John Logan was born in Scotland in 1748. He wrote lyric poems and
published his poems in collaboration with Michael Bruce in 1770. This
double volume of poems led probably to the confusion of the authorship of
the “Ode to the Cuckoo.” The question is still debated, but the poem is
generally attributed to Logan. He died in 1788 at London.
Hail beauteous stranger of the grove!
Thou messenger of Spring!
Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat,
And woods thy welcome ring.
What time the daisy decks the green,
Thy certain voice we hear;
Hast thou a star to guide thy path,
Or mark the rolling year?
Delightful visitant! with thee
I hail the time of flowers,
And hear the sound of music sweet
From birds among the bowers.
* * *
Sweet bird! thy bower is ever green,
Thy sky is ever clear;
Thou hast no sorrow in thy song,
No winter in thy year!
O, could I fly, I’d fly with thee!
We’d make, with joyful wing,
Our annual visit oe’r the globe,
Companions of the Spring.
HER MORAL.
BY THOMAS HOOD.
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled;
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould;
Price of many a crime untold.
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Good or bad a thousandfold!
How widely its agencies vary—
To save—to ruin—to curse—to bless—
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamp’d with the image of Good Queen Bess
And now of a bloody Mary.
SERENADE.
BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
Stars of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Moon of the summer night!
Far down yon western steeps,
Sink, sink in silver light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Wind of the summer night!
Where yonder woodbine creeps,
Fold, fold thy pinions light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her, her lover keeps
Watch, while in slumbers light
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.
BY JOHN KEATS.
John Keats was born at London in 1795. He studied medicine, but after
passing his examinations he never practiced. About this time he became
acquainted with Shelley, Leigh Hunt, and Haydon. In 1820 he went to
Naples on account of his health, and from there to Rome, where he died in
1821. His longer poems are; “Endymion” (which poem was most severely
criticised at the time of its publication), “Lamia,” “Isabella,” and “The
Eve of Saint Agnes.”
Thou still unravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme;
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady:
What men or gods are these? What maidens loath?
What mad pursuit? What struggles to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet do not grieve,
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
O, Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all
Ye know on earth, truth, and all ye need to know.
TO ALTHEA FROM PRISON.
BY RICHARD LOVELACE.
This lyric of Richard Lovelace’s is, with the “Lucasta,” the best known
and most often quoted of his poems.
When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at my grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fettered with her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses crowned,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free—
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.
When linnet-like confined,
With shriller throat shall sing
Thy mercy, sweetness, majesty
And glories of my king;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
The enlarged winds that curl the flood
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
SONG.
BY JOHN BUNYAN.
John Bunyan was born at Elstow in 1628. He was a tinker, as his father
was before him, but he finally became a soldier in the parliamentary
army. In 1653 he became a nonconformist and went about the country
preaching until he was arrested under the statutes against that doctrine.
While in prison Bunyan began his well-known allegory—“Pilgrim’s
Progress.” Under Charles II. he was released and made pastor at Bedford.
He died at London in 1688.
He that is down need fear no fall;
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.
I am content with what I have,
Little be it or much;
And, Lord, contentment still I crave,
Because thou savest such.
Fullness to such a burden is
That go on pilgrimage;
Here little, and hereafter bliss,
Is best from age to age.
BELIEVE ME, IF ALL THOSE ENDEARING YOUNG CHARMS.
BY THOMAS MOORE.
In the early part of the last century, when the star of Moore was at its
zenith, no song was more popular than this, perhaps as much for the
charming air to which it is set as for the beauty and rhythm of its
words.
Believe me, if all those endearing charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be ador’d, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,
That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,
But as surely loves on to the close,
As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look that she turned when he rose.
THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US.
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn!
ODE ON SOLITUDE.
BY ALEXANDER POPE.
Pope was born at London in 1688. He had no school education, as he was
always sickly, but he learned Latin and Greek from several friends. By
the time he was 17 he was an acknowledged wit and critic. His first
published poem was “The Pastorals,” 1709; then followed “The Rape of the
Lock,” his best satirical poem, and the next year (1713) he began his
translation of the “Iliad.” He died at Twickenham in 1744.
Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest, who can unconcern’dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away;
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night, study and ease,
Together mixt, sweet recreation;
And innocence, which most doth please,
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus, unlamented, let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
PATRIOTISM.
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Sir Walter Scott was born at Edinburgh in 1771. He first began his
writing by translating Burger and Goethe, but he left this work to take
up the Border Minstrelsy of his own country. In 1814 he published the
first of the well-known “Waverley” novels. He sold his copyrights to the
firm of Constable, and as the house failed a few years later Scott was
heavily involved. As he had also recently bought and repaired the estate
of Abbotsford, he was in debt for that also. In spite of ill health he
wrote incessantly in order to meet his bills, and gave to the world the
novels and poems with which all are so familiar. He died in 1832.
Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
“This is my own, my native land!”
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well!
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim—
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentered all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.
BY EMMA WILLARD.
Emma Willard, the American educator and author, was one of a family of
seventeen children. Her maiden name was Hart. She was born at Berlin,
Conn., in 1787. She began teaching in the village school and later
became principal of a girls’ college at Westfield, Conn., and after her
marriage to Dr. John Willard in 1814, opened a boarding school at
Middlebury, Conn, into which she introduced new methods and new studies.
The school was removed to Troy, N. Y., and became the Troy Female
Academy. Retiring from the school in 1858, Mrs. Willard spent the
remaining years of her life in revising her text books and writing a
volume of poems. She died in 1876.
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
I lay me down in peace to sleep;
Secure I rest upon the wave,
For Thou, O Lord, hast power to save.
I know Thou wilt not slight my call,
For Thou dost mark the sparrow’s fall;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And such the trust that still were mine,
Though stormy winds swept o’er the brine,
Or though the tempest’s fiery breath
Roused me from sleep to wreck and death.
In ocean’s caves still safe with Thee,
The germ of immortality;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep,
Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
The influence of poetry is greater than is generally realized, and many
find inspiration to action in reading it. Mrs. Browning in this pathetic
poem did much to rouse England to the evil of child labor and to perceive
the wrongs done the little ones toiling in its factories and coal mines
far beyond their strength.
Do ye hear the children weeping, O, my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
But the young, young children, O, my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,
Grinding life down from its mark;
And the children’s souls which God is calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.
ABOU BEN ADHEM AND THE ANGEL.
BY LEIGH HUNT.
James Henry Leigh Hunt was born at Southgate in 1784. He was an
essayist, an author, and a poet, chief among his poems being “The Story
of Rimini.” He died at Putney in 1859.