For the fish in the twinkling foam,
Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
'Twas all so pretty a sail, it seemed
As if it could not be;
And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea;
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one's trundle-bed;
So shut your eyes while Mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock on the misty sea
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,--
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
E. FIELD.
[14] From "A Little Book of Western Verse," copyright, 1889, by Eugene
Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
The Maryland Yellow-throat.[15]
While May bedecks the naked trees
With tassels and embroideries,
And many blue-eyed violets beam
Along the edges of the stream,
I hear a voice that seems to say,
Now near at hand, now far away,
"_Witchery--witchery--witchery_."
An incantation so serene,
So innocent, befits the scene:
There's magic in that small bird's note--
See, there he flits--the yellow-throat:
A living sunbeam, tipped with wings,
A spark of light that shines and sings
"_Witchery--witchery--witchery_."
You prophet with a pleasant name,
If out of Mary-land you came,
You know the way that thither goes
Where Mary's lovely garden grows:
Fly swiftly back to her, I pray,
And try, to call her down this way,
"_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
Tell her to leave her cockleshells,
And all her little silver bells
That blossom into melody,
And all her maids less fair than she.
She does not need these pretty things,
For everywhere she comes, she brings
"_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
The woods are greening overhead,
And flowers adorn each mossy bed;
The waters babble as they run--
One thing is lacking, only one:
If Mary were but here to-day,
I would believe your charming lay,
"_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
Along the shady road I look--
Who's coming now across the brook?
A woodland maid, all robed in white--
The leaves dance round her with delight,
The stream laughs out beneath her feet--
Sing, merry bird, the charm's complete,
"_Witchery--witchery--witchery_!"
H. VAN DYKE.
[15] From "The Builders and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles
Scribner's Sons.
The Silence of Love.
Oh, inexpressible as sweet,
Love takes my voice away;
I cannot tell thee, when we meet,
What most I long to say.
But hadst thou hearing in thy heart
To know what beats in mine,
Then shouldst thou walk, where'er thou art,
In melodies divine.
So warbling birds lift higher notes
Than to our ears belong;
The music fills their throbbing throats,
But silence steals the song.
G.E. WOODBERRY.
The Secret.
Nightingales warble about it,
All night under blossom and star;
The wild swan is dying without it,
And the eagle cryeth afar;
The sun he doth mount but to find it,
Searching the green earth o'er;
But more doth a man's heart mind it,
Oh, more, more, more!
Over the gray leagues of ocean
The infinite yearneth alone;
The forests with wandering emotion
The thing they know not intone;
Creation arose but to see it,
A million lamps in the blue;
But a lover he shall be it
If one sweet maid is true.
G.E. WOODBERRY.
The Whip-poor-will.[16]
Do you remember, father,--
It seems so long ago,--
The day we fished together
Along the Pocono?
At dusk I waited for you,
Beside the lumber-mill,
And there I heard a hidden bird
That chanted, "whip-poor-will,"
"_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
The place was all deserted;
The mill-wheel hung at rest;
The lonely star of evening
Was quivering in the west;
The veil of night was falling;
The winds were folded still;
And everywhere the trembling air
Re-echoed "whip-poor-will!"
"_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
You seemed so long in coming,
I felt so much alone;
The wide, dark world was round me,
And life was all unknown;
The hand of sorrow touched me,
And made my senses thrill
With all the pain that haunts the strain
Of mournful whip-poor-will.
"_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
What did I know of trouble?
An idle little lad;
I had not learned the lessons
That make men wise and sad,
I dreamed of grief and parting,
And something seemed to fill
My heart with tears, while in my ears
Resounded "whip-poor-will."
"_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
'Twas but a shadowy sadness,
That lightly passed away;
But I have known the substance
Of sorrow, since that day.
For nevermore at twilight,
Beside the silent mill,
I'll wait for you, in the falling dew,
And hear the whip-poor-will.
"_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
Sad and shrill,--"_whippoorwill!_"
But if you still remember,
In that fair land of light,
The pains and fears that touch us
Along this edge of night,
I think all earthly grieving,
And all our mortal ill,
To you must seem like a boy's sad dream,
Who hears the whip-poor-will.
"_Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!_"
A passing thrill--"_whippoorwill!_"
H. VAN DYKE.
[16] From "The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, Charles
Scribner's Sons.
Fertility.
Spirit that moves the sap in spring,
When lusty male birds fight and sing,
Inform my words, and make my lines
As sweet as flowers, as strong as vines,
Let mine be the freshening power
Of rain on grass, of dew on flower;
The fertilizing song be mine,
Nut-flavored, racy, keen as wine.
Let some procreant truth exhale
From me, before my forces fail;
Or ere the ecstatic impulse go,
Let all my buds to blossoms blow.
If quick, sound seed be wanting where
The virgin soil feels sun and air,
And longs to fill a higher state,
There let my meanings germinate.
Let not my strength be spilled for naught,
But, in some fresher vessel caught,
Be blended into sweeter forms,
And fraught with purer aims and charms.
Let bloom-dust of my life be blown
To quicken hearts that flower alone;
Around my knees let scions rise
With heavenward-pointed destinies.
And when I fall, like some old tree,
And subtile change makes mould of me,
There let earth show a fertile line
Whence perfect wild-flowers leap and shine!
M. THOMPSON.
The Veery.[17]
The moonbeams over Arno's vale in silver flood were pouring,
When first I heard the nightingale a long-lost love deploring.
So passionate, so full of pain, it sounded strange and eerie,
I longed to hear a simpler strain,--the wood notes of the veery.
The laverock sings a bonny lay above the Scottish heather;
It sprinkles down from far away like light and love together;
He drops the golden notes to greet his brooding mate, his dearie;
I only know one song more sweet,--the vespers of the veery.
In English gardens, green and bright and full of fruity treasure,
I heard the blackbird with delight repeat his merry measure:
The ballad was a pleasant one, the tune was loud and cheery,
And yet, with every setting sun, I listened for the veery.
But far away, and far away, the tawny thrush is singing;
New England woods, at close of day, with that clear chant are ringing:
And when my light of life is low, and heart and flesh are weary,
I fain would hear, before I go, the wood notes of the veery.
H. VAN DYKE.
[17] From "The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles
Scribner's Sons.
The Eavesdropper.
In a still room at hush of dawn,
My Love and I lay side by side
And heard the roaming forest wind
Stir in the paling autumn-tide.
I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
Because the round day was so fair;
While memories of reluctant night
Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
Outside, a yellow maple-tree,
Shifting upon the silvery blue
With small innumerable sound,
Rustled to let the sunlight through.
The livelong day the elvish leaves
Danced with their shadows on the floor;
And the lost children of the wind
Went straying homeward by our door.
And all the swarthy afternoon
We watched the great deliberate sun
Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
Counting his hilltops one by one.
Then as the purple twilight came
And touched the vines along our eaves,
Another Shadow stood without
And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.
The silence fell on my Love's lips;
Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
With pondering some maze of dream,
Though all the splendid year was glad.
Restless and vague as a gray wind
Her heart had grown, she knew not why.
But hurrying to the open door,
Against the verge of western sky
I saw retreating on the hills,
Looming and sinister and black,
The stealthy figure swift and huge
Of One who strode and looked not back.
B. CARMAN.
Sesostris.
Sole Lord of Lords and very King of Kings,
He sits within the desert, carved in stone;
Inscrutable, colossal, and alone,
And ancienter than memory of things.
Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings;
Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown
Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown.
The affrighted ostrich dare not dust her wings
Anear this Presence. The long caravan's
Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare.
This symbol of past power more than man's
Presages doom. Kings look--and Kings despair:
Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands
And dark thrones totter in the baleful air!
L. MIFFLIN.
NOTES.
American poetry before Bryant was considerable in amount, but, with few
exceptions, it must be looked for by the curious student in the
graveyard of old anthologies. Who now reads "The Simple Cobbler of
Agawam in America," "The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in America," "The
Day of Doom," "M'Fingal," or "The Columbiad?" Skipping a generation from
Barlow's death, who reads with much seriousness any one of the group of
poets of which Bryant in his earliest period was the centre: Halleck,
Pierpont, Sprague, Drake, Dana, Percival, Allston, Brainard, Mrs.
Osgood, and Miss Brooks? A few of them, to be sure, are remembered by an
occasional lyric,--Halleck by "Marco Bozzaris," a spirited ode in the
manner of Campbell; Pierpont by his ringing lines, "Warren's Address to
the American Soldiers;" Drake by "The American Flag," conventional but
not commonplace, and marked by one very imaginative line; and Allston by
two rather excellent lyrics, "Rosalie" and "America to Great Britain."
The first poet to accomplish work of high sustained excellence was
Bryant. His poetry, though never impassioned, is uniformly elegant. It
is often as chaste as Landor at his best. But it never surprises; it is
not emotional, personal, suggestively imaginative. In fact, Bryant's
muse is not lyrical. With the exception of Pinkney and Hoffman, whose
"Sparkling and Bright," if technically defective, is a true song, we
must wait for our lyric poet till we reach Edgar Allan Poe, the
greatest--one inclines to say the only--master of musical quality in
verse whom America has produced.
_The Wild Honeysuckle._--Philip Freneau, born in 1752, was a soldier in
the American Revolution. Though never rising quite into the highest
class of poets, he is our first genuine singer. "The Indian
Burying-ground" and "To a Honey-bee" are only less successful than the
graceful lines quoted.
_A Health._--Poe was an enthusiastic admirer of this poem. He pronounced
it, in his essay entitled "The Poetic Principle," "full of brilliancy
and spirit," and added: "It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have
been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable
that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that
magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American
Letters, in conducting the thing called _The North American Review_."
This passage, very characteristic of Poe's criticisms, illustrates both
his championship of favorites, and unmerciful scourging of foes.
_Unseen Spirits._--The earnest sincerity, evident in every line of this
poem, removes it at once from the company of those gay society verses
sparkling with conceits which won for Willis the satiric comment of
Lowell in "A Fable for Critics:"
"There is Willis, all natty, and jaunty, and gay,
Who says his best things in so foppish a way,
With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o'erlaying 'em,
That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying 'em;
Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose,--
Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her nose!"
Had Willis written more such lyrics as "Unseen Spirits," his fame could
hardly have proved so ephemeral. Poe considered this poem Willis's best,
and I see no ground for calling the critic's judgment in question.
_To Helen._--This brief lyric, written in the poet's youth, is not only
among the most exquisite from his pen, but it furnishes one of the most
famous among current quotations:
"The glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome."
_On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake._--These manly lines have yielded
another phrase to the world's memory. Hardly any quotation is more
hackneyed than the last two verses of the first stanza. Drake was a
young poet, the intimate friend and literary co-laborer of Halleck, who
died September, 1820, in his twenty-fifth year.
_To the Fringed Gentian._--This lyric well illustrates what Mr. Stedman
has aptly termed Bryant's "Doric simplicity." Nothing of Wordsworth's is
freer from ornament or from the least trace of affectation.
_The Raven._--Though not belonging to the highest order of poetry, "The
Raven" still maintains its position at the head of its class. No more
astonishing _tour de force_ can be found in English literature.
_Nature._--Generally regarded, I think, the finest of Longfellow's, if
not of American, sonnets.
_Ichabod._--Occasioned by the defection and fall of Daniel Webster. It
is worthy a place by the side of Browning's "Lost Leader." In later
years, Whittier wrote a poem on the theme, which, while not a retraction
of his former position, is penned in a tenderer, more tolerant mood,
"The Lost Occasion" is its title, and it is only just to the poet to
read this second lyric, hardly less successful, in connection with the
first.
_Old Ironsides._--"Old Ironsides" was the popular name for the frigate
_Constitution_. Dr. Holmes's poem appeared in the Boston _Advertiser_
"at the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for
service."
_Bedouin Song._--One of the most spirited, most genuinely lyrical of
American poems.
_Skipper Ireson's Ride._--These lines have an easy, swinging quality
that is quite inimitable. One inclines to agree with Mr. Stedman: "Of
all our poets he (Whittier) is the most natural balladist."
_The Village Blacksmith._--The directness and homely strength of "The
Village Blacksmith" have made it deservedly popular. One questions
whether the last stanza might not have been omitted with advantage both
to the unity and force of the poem.
_The Last Leaf._--This masterpiece of mingled humor and pathos was a
favorite poem of Abraham Lincoln.
_The Old Kentucky Home._--The sincere and tender sentiment of this
song, no less than its popular melody, has made it for many years a
favorite. Even better known is Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which is
said to have had a larger sale than any other American song.
_Carolina._--The concluding lines of this lyric have an imaginative
vigor rare in American poetry. Four stanzas are omitted.
_Dirge for a Soldier._--Boker's Dirge was written in memory of General
Philip Kearney.
_Battle-hymn of the Republic._--Written in December, 1861, while Mrs.
Howe was on a visit to Washington. Soon after the writer's return to
Boston the lines were accepted for publication in the _Atlantic Monthly_
by James T. Fields, who suggested the title of the poem. The song did
not at first receive much notice, but before the Civil War was over had
become very popular.
_My Maryland._--A poem of great strength and beauty, though of uneven
merit. It is unfortunately marred by a few rather intemperate
expressions. The sincerity of feeling is everywhere so evident, however,
that these must be forgiven. The lines were written by a native of
Baltimore, Prof. James Randall, and were first published in April, 1861.
The author of the famous song was teaching in a Louisiana college when
he read in a New Orleans paper the news of the attack on the
Massachusetts troops as they passed through Baltimore. This newspaper
account inspired the verses.
_In the Hospital._--This poem, which has enjoyed at best a newspaper
immortality, deserves to be more widely known. Its simplicity,
directness, and truth of feeling are quite beyond praise. According to a
story which one dislikes to believe apocryphal, these lines were found
under the pillow of a wounded soldier near Port Royal, South Carolina,
in 1864.
_Days._--Regarded from the point of view of artistic form, perhaps
nothing of Emerson's is quite so flawless as "Days," a poem which for
conciseness and polish is worthy to be called classic.
_A Death-bed._--This is a worthy companion-piece to that other miniature
classic, Thomas Hood's song, beginning, "We watched her breathing
through the night."
_Telling the Bees._--"A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country,
formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death
of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event,
and their hives dressed in mourning. The ceremonial was supposed to be
necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a
new home." This poem of Whittier's is almost his highest achievement.
Lowell said, in writing of the Quaker poet (Appleton's Cyclopedia of
American Biography, VI.): "Many of his poems (such for example as
'Telling the Bees'), in which description and sentiment mutually inspire
each other, are as fine as any in the language." I often think, however,
that Whittier will live longest by his hymns and poems of purely
religious devotion. I know of nothing similar in English that surpasses
"The Eternal Goodness," and perhaps half a dozen other poems.
_Katie._--About one-third of Timrod's graceful poem which bears this
title. This is one of the few cases where I have ventured to make
omissions.
_Thalatta._--Regarding this poem, Thomas Wentworth Higginson says, in
"The New World and the New Book:" "Who knows but that, when all else of
American literature has vanished in forgetfulness, some single little
masterpiece like this may remain to show the high-water mark, not merely
of a single poet, but of a nation and a generation?" The author of
"Thalatta" was a Dartmouth graduate, a teacher, and a disciple of
Emerson.
_The Fall of the Leaf._--Thoreau's prose is known universally; his verse
has not won as yet the recognition it deserves. It has little lyrical
quality, but for unconventionality, charming turns of phrase, and the
intimate knowledge of Nature it reveals, it is almost alone in American
poetry.
_The Rhodora._--"The Rhodora" has a conciseness and unity too rare in
Emerson's poetry, which, beautiful in details, is strangely uneven. We
sigh as we think what an unrivalled lyric poet Emerson would have been
had he been sustained at the heights he was capable of reaching. No one
surpasses Emerson at his best; he is almost a great poet.
_The Chambered Nautilus._--Many think this Holmes's finest poem. It is
taken from "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 1858.
_Thought._--Helen Jackson is, perhaps, the most gifted of American women
poets. Emily Dickinson is more imaginative, but her utter scorn of form
in composition makes her work, unique as it is, less satisfying. Mrs.
Jackson was a favorite with Emerson, and he is said to have liked best
among her poems this sonnet, "Thought."
_On a Bust of Dante._--Parsons, one of the best of American poets, is
one of the most neglected. Stedman is inclined to think "On a Bust of
Dante" the finest of American lyrics (see "The Nature of Poetry," 254).
_The Port of Skips._--In a recent review of American Literature in the
London _Athæneum_ occurs this sentence: "In point of power, workmanship,
and feeling, among all poems written by Americans, we are inclined to
give first place to the 'Port of Ships,' of Joaquin Miller."
_Evening Song._--No poem of Lanier is more free from his characteristic
faults. One regrets that so much of his work, highly imaginative as it
is, is marred by over-elaboration and artificiality.
_A Woman's Thought._--The striking reality and directness of this lyric,
its immense emotional undercurrent, and its abrupt, almost gasping
metre, admirably suited to the impassioned mood of the speaker,--these
are a few of the qualities that combine to make "A Woman's Thought" one
of the most remarkable poems in the book.
_The White Jessamine._--One of the most charming of Father Tabb's
lyrics. The verse of this poet is uneven in merit. He is too prone to
merely fanciful conceits. But at his best Tabb is imaginative, as, for
example, in the lines where he says of Angelo that he--
"From the sterile womb of stone,
Raised children unto God."
Always artistic, Tabb's verse usually suggests workmanship; it is more
thoughtful than spontaneous. His religious poetry presents, in the main,
a rather striking similarity to the work of George Herbert.
_The Battle-field._--Miss Dickinson has much of the witchcraft and
subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr.
Higginson so happily has introduced to the world, are not only daring
and unconventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor
has well said, "When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on
grammar seems an impertinence." Emily Dickinson had more than a message,
more than the charm of unexpectedness, more than the gift of
phrase,--she had (and of how many Americans can this be said?) an
intense imagination.
_Fertility._--This selection appears in the collected poems of Maurice
Thompson (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892), under the title of "A
Prelude."
_Sesostris._--Of this poem Mr. Stoddard has the high praise that in
imaginative quality it is unequalled in nineteenth century literature,
unless by Leigh Hunt's sonnet on the Nile. The same critic does not
scruple to declare of Mr. Mifflin that he has a "glorious imagination,"
and to prophesy for him a distinguished future. Seldom indeed has a
first book of verse won such instant and universal appreciation as Mr.
Mifflin's volume of sonnets, just issued as the "American Treasury" goes
to press.
INDEX TO FIRST LINES.
A blight, a gloom, I know not what; 242
All that thou art not, makes not up the sum; 267
All the long August afternoon; 223
A man said unto his angel; 211
Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold; 266
Around the rocky headlands, far and near; 271
As a fond mother, when the day is o'er; 63
As a twig trembles, which a bird; 145
At midnight, in the month of June; 57
At sea are tossing ships; 149
At the king's gate the subtle noon; 183
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down; 76
Be thou a bird, my soul, and mount and soar; 282
Because I could not stop for Death; 264
Bedtime's come fu' little boys; 225
Behind him lay the gray Azores; 199
Beneath the warrior's helm, behold; 248
Birds are singing round my window; 193
Burly, dozing bumble-bee; 169
By the rude bridge that arched the flood; 74
Chaos, of old, was God's dominion; 256
Close his eyes; his work is done; 106
Dark as the clouds of even; 100
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days; 126
Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way; 175
Dear yesterday, glide not so fast; 155
Do you remember, father; 291
England, I stand on thy imperial ground; 273
Fair flower that dost so comely grow; 1
Farragut, Farragut; 110
From the Desert I come to thee; 85
"Give us a song!" the soldiers cried; 119
Green be the turf above thee; 36
Helen, thy beauty is to me; 31
Her hands are cold; her face is white; 124
Here is the place; right over the hill; 137
Her suffering ended with the day; 136
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood; 8
I am a woman--therefore I may not; 227
I fill this cup to one made up; 12
I have a little kinsman; 150
I knew she lay above me; 235
I lay me down to sleep; 122
I saw him once before; 95