Beckon and nod, a melodrama through,
I would not turn abstractedly away, sir,
If I were you!
FRANK.
If I were you, when persons I affected,
Wait for three hours to take me down to Kew,
I would, at least, pretend I recollected,
If I were you!
NELLIE.
If I were you, when ladies are so lavish,
Sir, as to keep me every waltz but two,
I would not dance with odious Miss McTavish,
If I were you!
FRANK.
If I were you, who vow you cannot suffer
Whiff of the best—the mildest “honey-dew,”
I would not dance with smoke-consuming Puffer,
If I were you!
NELLIE.
If I were you, I would not, sir, be bitter,
Even to write the “Cynical Review”—
FRANK.
No, I should doubtless find flirtation fitter,
If I were you!
NELLIE.
Really! You would? Why, Frank, you’re quite delightful—
Hot as Othello, and as black of hue;
Borrow my fan. I would not look so frightful,
If I were you!
FRANK.
“It is the cause.” I mean your chaperon is
Bringing some well-curled juvenile. Adieu!
I shall retire. I’d spare that poor Adonis,
If I were you!
NELLIE.
Go, if you will. At once! And by express, sir!
Where shall it be? to China—or Peru?
Go. I should leave inquirers my address, sir,
If I were you!
FRANK.
No—I remain. To stay and fight a duel
Seems on the whole, the proper thing to do—,
Ah, you are strong—I would not then be cruel,
If I were you!
NELLIE.
One does not like one’s feelings to be doubted—
FRANK.
One does not like one’s friends to misconstrue—
NELLIE.
If I confess that I a wee-bit pouted?
FRANK.
I should admit that I was piqued, too.
NELLIE.
Ask me to dance! I’d say no more about it,
If I were you!
(_Waltz—Exeunt_.)
KUBLA KHAN.
BY SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire 1772. He
studied at Cambridge, but left without taking his degree. In 1795 he
married Sara Fricker, Southey’s sister-in-law; in the same year he moved
to Bristol. Here he published, in collaboration with Wordsworth, the
“Lyrical Ballads.” In 1798 he went to Germany on an annuity from the
Wedgewood brothers, but he soon returned to England and lived at Keswick.
Later he went to London, where he lived at the house of Dr. Gilman and
lectured on Shakespeare and the fine arts. He died at London in 1834.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw;
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song
To such deep delight ’twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air—
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING.
BY SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
Her finger was so small, the ring
Would not stay on, which they did bring,
It was too wide a peck;
And to say truth (for out it must),
It looked like the great collar (just)
About our young colt’s neck.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they fear’d the light;
But oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fine a sight.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison,
(Who sees them is undone),
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Catherine pear.
(The side that’s next the sun).
Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compar’d to that was next her chin
(Some bee had stung it newly);
But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face
I durst no more upon them gaze
Than on the sun in July.
CROSSING THE BAR.
BY ALFRED TENNYSON.
Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
JUNE.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings
He sings to the wide world and she to her nest—
In the nice ear of nature, which song is the best?
THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA’S HALLS.
BY THOMAS MOORE.
The harp that once through Tara’s halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory’s thrill is o’er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone that breaks at night
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives,
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives
THE BELLS OF SHANDON.
BY FRANCIS MAHONY.
Francis Sylvester Mahony, better known as Father Prout, was born in Cork
in 1804. Though he was a Jesuit priest, he was more of a literatus than
a man of God. He is the author of the famous “Reliques of Father Prout,”
which he wrote for Frazer’s Magazine. Later he was the Rome
correspondent for the Daily News and the Paris correspondent of the
Globe. He died in Paris in 1866. Among his poems the following is the
only one worth mention:
With deep affection and recollection
I often think of those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds 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 have 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 have 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, while on tower and kiosko
In St. Sophia the Turkman gets,
And loud in air calls men to prayer
From the tapering summit of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom I freely grant ’em,
But there’s an anthem more dear to me;
’Tis the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
THE GARRET.
BY W. M. THACKERAY.
The many theater-goers who were pleased with Mr. Esmond’s comedy, “When
We Were Twenty-One,” as played by the Goodwins, may like to see the
Thackeray song from which the play took its name. It is an imitation of
a poem by Beranger.
With pensive eyes the little room I view,
Where in my youth I weathered it so long,
With a wild mistress, a stanch friend or two,
And a light heart still breaking into song;
Making a mock of life and all its cares,
Rich in the glory of my rising sun,
Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Yes, ’tis a garret, let him know’t who will;
There was my bed—full hard it was and small;
My table there—and I decipher still
Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall.
Ye joys that Time hath swept with him away,
Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun
For you I pawned my watch how many a day,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
* * *
One jolly evening, when my friends and I
Made happy music with our songs and cheers,
A shout of triumph mounted up thus high,
And distant cannon opened on our ears;
We rise—we join in the triumphant strain—
Napoleon conquers—Austerlitz is won—
Tyrants shall never tread us down again,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Let us begone—the place is sad and strange;
How far, far off those happy times appear;
All that I have to live I’d gladly change
For one such month as I have wasted here—
To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power
From founts of hope that never will return,
And drink all life’s quintessence in an hour—
Give me the days when I was twenty-one!
ON A GIRDLE.
BY EDMUND WALLER.
That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind:
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this hath done.
It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that’s good, and all that’s fair:
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.
SOLILOQUY FROM MACBETH.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
THE DAY IS DONE.
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist;
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart
As showers from the clouds of summer
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who through long days of labor
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
LITTLE BREECHES.
BY JOHN HAY.
I don’t go much on religion,
I never ain’t had no show;
But I’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir,
On the handful o’ things I know.
I don’t pan out on the prophets,
And free-will, and that sort of thing—
But I b’lieve in God and the angels
Ever sence one night last spring.
I come into town with some turnips,
And my little Gabe come along—
No four-year-old in the county
Could beat him for pretty and strong,
Peart, and chippy, and sassy,
Always ready to swear and fight—
And I’d larnt him to chaw terbacker
Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.
The snow come down like a blanket
As I passed by Taggart’s store;
I went in for a jug of molasses
And left the team at the door.
They scared at something and started—
I heard one little squall
And hell-to-split over the prairie
Went team, Little Breeches and all.
Hell-to-split over the prairie!
I was almost froze with skeer;
But we rousted up some torches
And sarched for ’em far and near.
At last we struck hosses and wagon
Snowed under a soft, white mound,
Upsot, dead beat—but of little Gabe
No hide nor hair was found.
And here all hope soured on me,
Of my fellow-critter’s aid—
I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones,
Crotch deep in the snow and prayed.
* * *
By this, the torches was played out,
And me and Isrul Parr
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold
That he said was somewhar thar.
We found it at last, and a little shed
Where they shut up the lambs at night.
We looked in and seen them huddled thar,
So warm, and sleepy, and white,
And thar sot Little Breeches and chirped,
As peart as ever you see,
“I want a chaw of terbacker,
And that’s what the matter of me.”
How did he git thar? Angels.
He could never have walked in that storm;
They jest stooped down and toted him
To whar it was safe and warm.
And I think that saving a little child,
And fotching him to his own,
Is a durned sight better business
Than loafing around the Throne.
FLYNN OF VIRGINIA.
BY BRET HARTE.
Didn’t know Flynn—
Flynn of Virginia—
Long as he’s been ’yar?
Look’ee here, stranger
Whar hev you been?
Here in this tunnel
He was my pardner,
That same Tom Flynn—
Working together,
In wind and weather,
Day out and in.
Didn’t know Flynn!
Well, that is queer.
Why, it’s a sin,
To think of Tom Flynn—
Tom, with his cheer;
Tom, without fear—
Stranger, look ’yar!
Thar in the drift,
Back to the wall,
He held the timbers
Ready to fall;
Then in the darkness
I heard him call:
“Run for your life, Jake!
Run for your wife’s sake!
Don’t wait for me.”
And that was all
Heard in the din,
Heard of Tom Flynn—
Flynn of Virginia.
That lets me out
Here in the damp—
Out of the sun—
That ’ar derned lamp
Makes my eyes run.
Well, there—I’m done.
But, sir, when you’ll
Hear the next fool
Asking of Flynn—
Flynn of Virginia—
Just you chip in,
Say you knew Flynn;
Say that you’ve been ’yar.
WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME.
BY WALT WHITMAN.
Warble me now for joy of lilac-time,
Sort me, O tongue and lips for nature’s sake, souvenirs of earliest
summer,
Gather the welcome signs (as children with pebbles of stringing
shells),
Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic
air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Bluebird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his
golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above.
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar making,
The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise and again at sunset.
Or flitting among the trees of the apple orchard, building the nest of
his mate,
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green
sprouts,
For springtime is here! The summer is here, and what is this in it
and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
O, if one could fly like a bird!
O, to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the
waters;
Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the
morning drops of dew,
The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocent
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere
To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of lilac-time.
PORTIA’S SPEECH ON MERCY.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
THE PARADOX OF TIME.
BY AUSTIN DOBSON.
Time goes, you say? Ah, no!
Alas! Time stays, we go;
Or else, were this not so,
What need to chain the hours,
For youth were always ours?
Time goes, you say?—ah, no!
Ours is the eyes’ deceit
Of men whose flying feet
Lead through some landscape low;
We pass, and think we see
The earth’s fixed surface flee;
Alas! Time stays—we go!
Once, in the days of old,
Your locks were curling gold,
And mine had shamed the crow;
Now, in the self-same stage,
We’ve reached the silver age;
Time goes, you say?—ah, no!
Once, when my voice was strong,
I filled the woods with song
To praise your “rose” and “snow”;
My bird that sung is dead;
Where are your roses fled?
Alas! Time stays—we go!
See in what traversed ways,
What backward fate delays
The hopes we used to know;
Where are our old desires—
Ah! where those vanished fires?
Time goes, you say?—ah, no!
How far, how far, O sweet,
The past behind our feet
Lies in the even-glow!
Now, on the forward way,
Let us fold hands and pray;
Alas! Time stays—we go!
NOCTURNE.
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
Up to her chamber window,
A slight wire trellis goes,
And up this Romeo ladder
Clambers a bold white rose.
I lounge in the ilex shadows,
I see the lady lean,
Unclasping her silken girdle,
The curtain’s folds between.
She smiles on her white-rose lover,
She reaches out her hand
And helps him in at the window—
I see it where I stand!
To her scarlet lip she holds him,
And kisses him many a time—
Ah me! It was he that won her
Because he dared to climb.
THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS.
BY BRET HARTE.
I reside at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James;
I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I’ll tell in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our society upon the Stanislow.
But first I would remark that it is not a proper plan
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow man,
And if a member don’t agree with his peculiar whim
To lay for that same member for to “put a head” on him.
Now nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see
Than the first six months’ proceedings of that same society,
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.
Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,
From those same bones an animal that was extremely rare;
And Jones then asked the chair for a suspension of the rules
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.
Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault,
It seems he had been trespassing on Jones’ family vault;
He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown,
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.
Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass—at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.
Then Abner Dean of Angel’s raised a point of order, when—
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage
In a warfare with the remnants of a paleozoic age;
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.
And this is all I have to say of these improper games,
For I live at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James;
And I’ve told in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our society upon the Stanislow.
NATHAN HALE.
BY FRANCIS MILES FINCH.
These verses were written by the author of “The Blue and the Gray.”
Nathan Hale, great-uncle of Edward Everett Hale, was born at Coventry,
Conn., June 6, 1755. He was sent to New York by Washington to get
information about the British, and was arrested while on that mission.
He was hanged as a spy by order of Sir William Howe, Sept. 22, 1776. By
his executioner he was denied the use of a Bible, and his family letters
were burned.
To drum beat and heart beat,
A soldier marches by;
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,
Yet to drum beat and heart beat
In a moment he must die.
By the starlight and moonlight,
He seeks the Briton’s camp;
He hears the rustling flag
And the armed sentry’s tramp;
And the starlight and the moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.
With slow tread and still tread,
He scans the tented line;
And he counts the battery guns,
By the gaunt and shadowy pine;
And his slow tread and still tread
Gives no warning sign.
The dark wave, the plumed wave,
It meets his eager glance;
And it sparkles ’neath the stars,
Like the glimmer of a lance—
A dark wave, a plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.
A sharp clang, a still clang,
And terror in the sound!
For the sentry, falcon eyed,
In the camp a spy hath found;
With a sharp clang, a steel clang,
The patriot is bound.
With a calm brow and a steady brow,
He listens to his doom;
In his look there is no fear,
Nor a shadowy trace of gloom;
But with calm brow and steady brow,
He robes him for the tomb.
In the long night, the still night,
He kneels upon the sod;
And the brutal guards withhold
E’en the solemn word of God!
In the long night, the still night,
He walks where Christ hath trod.
’Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn,
He dies upon the tree;
And he mourns that he can lose
But one life for liberty;
And in the blue morn, the sunny morn,
His spent wings are free.
But his last words, his message words,
They burn, lest friendly eye
Should read how proud and calm
A patriot could die.
With his last words, his dying words,
A soldier’s battle cry.
From fame leaf and angel leaf,
From monument and urn,
The sad earth, the glad of heaven,
His tragic fate shall learn;
And on fame leaf and angel leaf
The name of HALE shall burn!
THE SONG OF CALLICLES.
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts
Thick breaks the red flame.
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed flame.
Not here, O, Apollo,
Are haunts meet for thee,
But where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.
Where the moon-silver’d inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O, speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft-lull’d by the rills,
Lie wrapped in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.
What forms are those coming,
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower’d broom?
What sweet-breathing Presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night’s balmy prime?
’Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine—
The Leader is fairest,
But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollow,
They stream up again.
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?
They bathe in this mountain,
In the spring by their road.
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode.
Whose praise do they mention?
Of what is it told,
What will be forever,
What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then,
The rest of Immortals,
The action of men.
The Day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The Night in her silence,
The Stars in their calm.
SONG FROM “MARMION.”
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.