BY THOMAS MOORE.
’Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh,
I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o’er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.
So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from love’s shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh, who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
MUSIC, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE.
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heapt for the belovèd bed;
And so thy thoughts when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
A SEA SONG.
BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
“And who shall sing the glory of the deep” better than Allan Cunningham
has done in this song of a sailor’s love, a poet’s love, for the sea?
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
And a wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast;
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
Oh, for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;
But give to me the snoring breeze
And white waves heaving high;
And white waves heaving high, my boys,
The good ship tight and free;
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.
There’s tempest in yon horned moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
And hark the music, mariners!
The wind is piping loud;
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
The lightning flashing free—
While the hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.
SONG FROM “PIPPA PASSES.”
BY ROBERT BROWNING.
Robert Browning was born at Camberwell in 1812. He was educated at the
London University. While his wife lived Browning spent most of his time
in Florence—later he divided his time between London and Venice. He died
at Venice in 1889. His poems have been collected into several volumes
under the titles of “Men and Women,” “Dramatis Personae,” “The Ring and
the Book,” “Dramatic Idylls,” and “Sordello.”
The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled.
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world!
THE WAITING.
BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.
John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Massachusetts in 1807. He was
successively the editor of the “American Manufacturer,” the “Haverhill
Gazette,” and the “New England Weekly Review.” In 1836 he went to
Philadelphia to edit the “Pennsylvania Freeman,” for he was an
abolitionist of strong principle. He died in 1892.
I wait and watch; before my eyes
Methinks the night grows thin and gray;
I wait and watch the eastern skies
To see the golden spears uprise
Beneath the oriflamme of day!
Like one whose limbs are bound in trance
I hear the day-sounds swell and grow,
And see across the twilight glance,
Troop after troop, in swift advance,
The shining ones with plumes of snow!
I know the errand of their feet,
I know what mighty work is theirs;
I can but lift up hands unmeet
The thrashing floors of God to beat,
And speed them with unworthy prayers.
I will not dream in vain despair,
The steps of progress wait for me;
The puny leverage of a hair
The planet’s impulse well may spare,
A drop of dew the tided sea.
The loss, if loss there be, is mine;
And yet not mine if understood;
For one shall grasp and one resign,
One drink life’s rue, and one its wine,
And God shall make the balance good.
O, power to do! O, baffled will!
O, prayer and action! ye are one.
Who may not strive may yet fulfill
The harder task of standing still,
And good but wished with God is done!
A MATCH.
BY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
This poem is an excellent example of Swinburne’s wonderful inventiveness
in the meter of his verses.
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 pleasure or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy,
We’d play for lives and seasons
With loving looks and treasons
And tears of night and morrow
And laughs of maid and boy;
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.
If you were April’s lady,
And I were lord in May,
We’d throw with leaves for hours
And draw for days with flowers,
Till day, like night, were shady,
And night were bright like day;
If you were April’s lady,
And I were lord in May.
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.
COUNSEL TO VIRGINS.
BY ROBERT HERRICK.
The advice contained in this poem is not given so subtly nor so
gracefully as it is in the other two poems of the trio—Ronsard’s and
Waller’s—but the writer is neither a sweet singer like Ronsard nor a poet
of nicer instincts like Waller. He was a man who did not scruple to
“sully the purity of his style with impurity of sentiment.”
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of Heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
The age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
WHY SO PALE AND WAN?
BY SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
Sir John Suckling was born in Whitton in 1609. He went to Trinity
College, Cambridge, and afterwards entered the service of the King,
Charles I. He fought in the army of Gustavus Adolphus in 1631–32; while
in 1639 he levied a troop of horse against the Covenanters. He was a
member of the long parliament in 1640. The next year he was charged with
high treason and fled to Paris, where he was supposed to have committed
suicide in 1642. Though he wrote several plays, he is chiefly noted for
his poems.
Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
Saying nothing do’t?
Prithee, why so mute?
Quit, quit, for shame; this will not move;
This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her;
The devil take her!
THALASSA! THALASSA!
BY BROWNLEE BROWN.
Of this poem Thomas Wentworth Higginson says (in the Outlook, February,
1890): “It is so magnificent that it cheapens most of its contemporary
literature, and is alone worth a life otherwise obscure. When all else
of American literature has vanished, who knows but that some single
masterpiece like this may remain to show the high water mark not merely
of a poet but of a nation and a civilization?”
I stand upon the summit of my life,
Behind, the camp, the court, the field, the grove,
The battle, and the burden: vast, afar
Beyond these weary ways, behold, the Sea!
The sea, o’erswept by clouds, and winds, and wings;
By thoughts and wishes manifold; whose breath
Is freshness, and whose mighty pulse is peace.
Palter no question of the horizon dim—
Cut loose the bark! Such voyage itself is rest;
Majestic motion, unimpeded scope,
A widening heaven, a current without care,
Eternity! Deliverance, promise, course,
Time tired souls salute thee from the shore.
AN INDIAN SERENADE.
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Sussex, England, in 1792. He was
educated at Eton and later at University College, Oxford. When he was 19
Shelley married Harriet Westbrook, but after meeting Mary Wollstonecraft
he left Harriet and went to Switzerland with Mary. Harriet drowned
herself in 1816, and Shelley married Mary. In 1818 they went to Italy,
where they lived, for the rest of Shelley’s life, with Byron, Trelawney,
Edward Williams, and Hunt. Shelley and Williams were drowned in the bay
of Spezzia in 1822, and their bodies were burned on a funeral pyre.
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how?
To thy chamber window, Sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
In the dark, the silent stream—
And the champak odors pine
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
Oh, belovèd as thou art!
Oh, lift me from the grass!
I die! I faint! I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh, press it to thine own again,
Where it will break at last!
THE FOUNT OF CASTALY.
BY JOSEPH O’CONNOR.
Joseph O’Connor was born at Tribes Hill, N. Y., in 1841. He is a
graduate of Rochester University, and was admitted to the bar, but never
practiced. He taught for a while at the Rochester Free Academy, but soon
left this work for journalism and became editor of the Rochester Post and
Express. His poems were published in 1895.
I would the fount of Castaly,
Had never wet my lips;
For woe to him that hastily
Its sacred water sips.
Apollo’s laurel flourishes
Above that stream divine;
Its secret virtue nourishes
The leaves of love and wine.
* * *
Its joyous tide leaps crystally
Up ’neath the crystal moon,
And falling ever mistily
The sparkling drops keep tune.
The wavelets circle gleamingly,
With lilies keeping trysts;
The emeralds glisten dreamily
Below, and amethysts.
Once taste that fountain’s witchery
On old Parnassus’ crown,
And to this world of treachery
O, never more come down!
Your joy will be to think of it,
’Twill ever haunt your dreams;
You’ll thirst again to drink of it,
Among a thousand streams.
THE ROSE.
BY PIERRE RONSARD.
This poem of Pierre Ronsard (1542) is given a place here, as it is an
example of that theme which is as old as love or life—the decay of youth
and beauty—a subject which has been a favorite with poets in all times.
The motive of this little lyric is that of Waller’s “Go, Lovely Rose,”
and of Herrick’s “Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May.”
Come, my Mignonne, let us go—
Let us see if yonder rose,
That this morning did disclose
Robes of crimson to the sun,
Now that evening has begun,
Still with tints like yours does glow.
Ah, my Mignonne, look and see—
Look there, underneath the bough;
Short the space from then till now,
But its beauties all are past!
Scarce from morn till eve they last—
Such is nature’s harsh decree.
Ah, my Mignonne, trust to me;
While your youth as yet is seen
In its freshest, fairest green,
Seize the moments to enjoy;
Old age hastens to destroy
Roses, beauty, youth, and thee.
FAITH.
BY THOMAS CHATTERTON.
Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol, England, Nov. 20, 1752. He ended
his life by taking arsenic in a lodging room in London, Aug. 24, 1770.
He received a meager education at a charity school in his native city,
began to write verses when he was 12 years old, and at 15 was apprenticed
to a Bristol attorney. He went to London in April, 1770. He tried to
make a living by writing for the newspapers, but failed, and, reduced to
extreme destitution, committed suicide. His Rowley poems, which he said
were translations from the writings of a monk of the fifteenth century,
have been the subject of much discussion. Besides those he wrote “The
Tragedy of Aella,” “The Battle of Hastings,” “The Tournament,” and
several shorter poems. His correspondence with Horace Walpole proved a
bitter experience for the precocious poet, who wrote some savage lines on
that nobleman author.
O God, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in thy justice praise.
The mystic mazes of thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the power of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.
Oh, teach me in the trying hour,
When anguish swells the dewy tear,
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.
If in this bosom aught but thee
Encroaching sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.
Then why, my soul, dost thou complain,
Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain,
For God created all to bless.
But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals’ feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.
But yet, with fortitude resigned,
I’ll thank the inflicter of the blow;
Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,
Nor let the gush of misery flow.
The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my east, my sun, reveals.
THE SONG OF THE CAMP.
BY BAYARD TAYLOR.
Bayard Taylor was born in Pennsylvania in 1825. He was connected with
the New York Tribune 1849–’50. Most of his life was spent in travel. In
1853 he joined Perry’s expedition to Japan. He corresponded with the
American papers, and on his return to this country he lectured. From
1862–’63 he lived at St. Petersburg as Secretary of the Legation there.
He died in Berlin, where he was United States Minister, in 1878. He has
written of his travels, has translated Goethe’s “Faust,” and was besides
a poet and novelist.
“Give us a song!” the soldiers cried,
The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
Grew weary of bombarding.
The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
Lay grim and threatening under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
No longer belch’d its thunder.
There was a pause. A guardsman said:
“We storm the forts tomorrow;
Sing while we may, another day
Will bring enough of sorrow.”
They lay along the battery’s side,
Below the smoking cannon;
Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde
And from the banks of Shannon.
They sang of love and not of fame;
Forgot was Britain’s glory;
Each heart recalled a different name,
But all sang “Annie Laurie.”
Voice after voice caught up the song,
Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong—
Their battle-eve confession.
Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
But as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier’s cheek
Washed off the stains of powder.
Beyond the darkening ocean burned
The bloody sunset’s embers,
While the Crimean valleys learn’d
How English love remembers.
And once again a fire of hell
Rain’d on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot and burst of shell,
And bellowing of the mortars!
An Irish Nora’s eyes are dim
For a singer dumb and gory;
An English Mary mourns for him
Who sang of “Annie Laurie.”
Sleep, soldiers! still in honor’d rest
Your truth and valor wearing;
The bravest are the tenderest—
The loving are the daring.
UPHILL.
BY CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI.
Christina Rossetti was born at London in 1828. She came of that
versatile family, in which the father and sons as well as the daughter
were writers, artists, critics and poets. While still in her teens, Miss
Rossetti published a little volume called “Maud, Prose and Verse,” and
crude and morbid as the work was it gave promise of better things. She
wrote later, “Goblin Market” (which Dante Gabriel Rossetti illustrated),
“A Pageant and Other Poems,” and several religious studies. She died in
1894.
Does the road wind uphill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.
DOUGLAS, DOUGLAS, TENDER AND TRUE.
BY MISS MULOCK.
Mrs. Craik, better known as Dinah Maria Mulock, was born at
Stoke-Upon-Trent, England, 1828, and died at Shortlands, Kent, October
12, 1887. She was the author of many popular novels. She published a
volume of poems in 1859, and “Thirty Years’ Poems” in 1881, besides many
children’s books, fairy tales, etc. She married George Lillie Craik,
Jr., in 1865.
Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
In the old likeness that I knew,
I would be so faithful, so loving, Douglas,
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.
Never a scornful word should grieve ye,
I’d smile on ye sweet as the angels do—
Sweet as your smile on me shone ever,
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.
O, to call back the days that are not!
My eyes were blinded, your words were few;
Do you know the truth now, up in heaven?
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true?
I never was worthy of you, Douglas,
Not half worthy the like of you;
Now, all men beside seem to me like shadows—
I love you, Douglas, tender and true.
Stretch out your hand to me, Douglas, Douglas.
Drop forgiveness from heaven like dew,
As I lay my heart on your dead heart, Douglas,
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.
TEARS, IDLE TEARS.
BY ALFRED TENNYSON.
This song is found in the “Princess.” It was sung on the memorable
occasion when the three disguised youths are discovered.
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
To dying ears when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O, death in life, the days that are no more.
HIGHLAND MARY.
BY ROBERT BURNS.
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o’ Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfauld her robes,
And there the langest tarry!
For there I took the last fareweel
O’ my sweet Highland Mary.
How sweetly bloomed the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn’s blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasped her to my bosom!
The golden hours on angel wings
Flew o’er me and my dearie;
For dear to me as light and life
Was my sweet Highland Mary.
Wi’ monie a vow and locked embrace
Our parting was fu’ tender;
And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore ourselves asunder;
But O! fell death’s untimely frost,
That nipped my flower sae early!
Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary.
O pale, pale now those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mould’ring now in silent dust
That heart that lo’ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom’s core
Shall live my Highland Mary.
THE LAMB.
BY WILLIAM BLAKE.
In speaking of William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence,” Swinburne says:
“These poems are really unequaled of their kind. Such verse was never
written for children since verse writing began.”
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee,
Gave thee life and bade thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a lamb.
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!
PSALM XXIV.
The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof;
The world and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands,
And a pure heart;
Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek him,
That seek thy face, O Jacob.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall
come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall
come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.
SELF-DEPENDENCE.
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At the vessel’s prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o’er the starlit sea.
And a look of passionate desire
O’er the sea and to the stars I send;
“Ye, who from my childhood up have claimed me,
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!
“Ah, once more,” I cried, “ye stars, ye waters,
On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!”
From the intense, clear, star sown vault of heaven,
O’er the lit sea’s unquiet way,
In the rustling night air came the answer—
“Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.
“Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.
“And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon silver’d roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.
“Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God’s other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.”
O, air born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear—
“Resolve to be thyself; and know that he
Who finds himself loses his misery!”
THE ARSENAL AT SPRINGFIELD.
BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
Mr. Longfellow and his second wife, during their honeymoon, visited the
United States arsenal at Springfield, Mass., about half a century ago.
The figure of speech in which the poet speaks of the burnished arms
rising like a huge organ was suggested by Mrs. Longfellow. The poem was
inspired by Charles Sumner’s oration, “The True Grandeur of Nations,”
which was an argument for peace and against war.
This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling,
Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
Startles the villages with strange alarms.
Ah, what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
When the death angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere
Will mingle with their awful symphonies!
I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,
The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
In long reverberations reach our own.
On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,
Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman’s song,
And loud, amid the universal clamor,
O’er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.
I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
Wheels out his battle bell with dreadful din,
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
Beat the wild war drums made of serpent’s skin.
The tumult of each sacked and burning village;
The shout that every prayer for mercy drowns;
The soldiers’ revels in the midst of pillage;
The wail of famine in beleaguered towns;
The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,
The diapason of the cannonade.