_THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY_
_I Home: Friendship
II Love
III Sorrow and Consolation
IV The Higher Life
V Nature
VI Fancy: Sentiment
VII Descriptive: Narrative
VIII National Spirit
IX Tragedy: Humor
X Poetical Quotations_
THE WORLD'S BEST POETRY
IN TEN VOLUMES, ILLUSTRATED
Editor-in-Chief
BLISS CARMAN
Associate Editors
John Vance Cheney
Charles G.D. Roberts
Charles F. Richardson
Francis H. Stoddard
Managing Editor
John R. Howard
1904.
_The World's Best Poetry
Vol. VIII
NATIONAL SPIRIT_
THE STUDY OF POETRY.
BY FRANCIS HOVEY STODDARD.
Clever men of action, according to Bacon, despise studies, ignorant
men too much admire them, wise men make use of them. "Yet," he says,
"they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them
and above them won by observation." These are the words of a man who
had been taught by years of studiousness the emptiness of mere study.
It does not teach its own usefulness, and gives its most important
lesson if through it we learn that beyond lies a region from which may
come a truer wisdom won by observation. This, when all is said, is the
one great defect of any system of study, in that it teaches not its
own use. No amount of study of the principles of barter will make a
man a great merchant. One can study painting and learn all the
characteristics and methods and schools of the art and yet not be able
to paint a picture. No amount of study of poetry will make a man a
poet. So the crafty men of action "contemn studies," and the wise men
who use them look beyond them for their value. "English literature,"
said a noted professor not long ago, "cannot be taught"; and certain
it is that even with the most advanced analytical text-book one cannot
get a final satisfaction from "doing a sum" in English literature as
one would work a problem in arithmetic. When applied to the higher
arts, study, deep and true as one can make it, leaves one the surer
that there is a wisdom beyond, which cometh not by study alone.
Least of all can the deepest things in poetry be learned by mere
study. Poetry deals with feeling, which study excludes. Study, indeed,
seems to belong exclusively to the prose habit; it seems to be of the
intellect and not of the emotions; to be of the mind and not of the
spirit. We cannot write a text-book in poetry, nor can we ever in a
text-book written in prose put all the secret of poetry. Beyond the
text-book always lies the higher wisdom born of that which Bacon
called observation, which most of us now call insight, that immediate
apprehension of the highest relations which comes as a revelation in
our inspired moments.
In spite of all this the study of poetry has an important function,
and it is the purpose of this article to show how to use it most
effectively. Poetry is one of the most difficult of all arts to study,
so difficult that it has had few text-books and no complete
exposition. The inquirer searching for help will find only a few
hand-books, the most useful of which are these: Gummere: "Beginnings
of Poetry" and "Hand-book of Poetry"; Schipper: "Metrik"; Lanier:
"Science of English Verse"; Guest: "English Rhythms"; Stedman: "The
Nature and Elements of Poetry." Excellent as these are, he may lament
when he has read them that he has found the history of poetic forms,
and the technique of poetic method, where he hoped to find the secret
of poetry. He will be likely to get as much help from writings on
poetry that are not text-books, such as Matthew Arnold's Essays: "On
Translating Homer," "Last Words on Translating Homer," "Celtic
Poetry," "Introduction to the Poetry of Wordsworth," and the
"Introduction to Humphry Ward's English Poets"; Emerson's Essays: "The
Poet" and "Poetry and Imagination"; Wordsworth's Introduction to the
"Lyrical Ballads"; Poe's striking little essays on the art of poetry;
Aristotle's "Rhetoric"; Macaulay's "Essay on Milton"; Lowell's "Essay
on Dryden"; and many a passage of illuminative comment from Milton,
from Pope, from Dryden, from Coleridge and from many another. For one
who has not known and read much poetry the best introduction to its
study may well be the pleasurable reading of some, or of all, of these
works, though remembering that such reading is not study, but only the
reviewing of records of work done by others, useful mainly as a
preparation for the real study which is to follow.
From all these works the student will not be likely to get a
definition of poetry which will satisfy him. One may say indeed with
truth that poetry is such expression as parallels the real and the
ideal by means of some rhythmic form. But this is not a complete
definition. Poetry is not to be bounded with a measuring line or
sounded with a plummet. The student must feel after its limits as
these authors have done, and find for himself its satisfactions. One
can feel more of its power than the mind can define; for definitions
are prose-forms of mind action, while poetry in its higher
manifestations is pure emotion, outpassing prose limits. Yet one can
know poetry if he cannot completely define it. The one essential
element which distinguishes it from prose is rhythm. In its primal
expressions this is mainly a rhythm of stresses and sounds--of accents
and measures, of alliterations and rhymes. Poetry began when man,
swaying his body, first sang or moaned to give expression to his joy
or sorrow. Its earliest forms are the songs which accompany the
simplest emotions. When rowers were in a boat the swinging oars became
rhythmic, and the oarsman's chant naturally followed. When the savage
overcame his enemy, he danced his war dance, and sang his war song
around his campfire at night, tone and words and gestures all fitting
into harmony with the movement of his body. So came the chants and
songs of work and of triumph. For the dead warrior the moan of
lamentation fitted itself to the slower moving to and fro of the
mourner, and hence came the elegy. In its first expression this was
but inarticulate, half action, half music, dumbly voicing the emotion
through the senses; its rhythms were all for the ear and it had little
meaning beyond the crude representation of some simple human desire
and grief.
It became poetry when it put a thrill of exultation in work, of
delight in victory, or of grief at loss by death, into some rhythmic
form tangible to the senses. There grew up thereafter a body of
rhythmic forms--lines, stanzas, accents, rhythms, verbal harmonies.
These forms are the outward dress of poetry, and may rightly be the
first subject of the student's study. We properly give the name of
poetry to verses such as Southey's "Lodore," Poe's "Bells," or
Lanier's "Song of the Chattahoochee," which do little more than sing
to our ears the harmonies of sound, the ultimate rhythms of nature.
Yet it is not merely the brook or the bell or the river, that we hear
in the poem, but the echoing of that large harmony of nature of which
the sound of the brook or the bell is only the single strain. Through
the particular it suggests the universal, as does all poetry, leading
through nature up to something greater, far beyond. This rhythm is
best studied in poems that were written to be sung or chanted. If one
could read Greek, or Anglo-Saxon, or Old High German, or the English
of Chaucer's day, he could quickly train his ear to be independent of
the hand-books on versification, by reading aloud, or listening as one
read aloud, the "Odyssey" or the "Beowulf," or the "Nibelungen Lied"
or the "Canterbury Tales." These would be better for this purpose than
any modern verses, for the reason that they were intended to be sung
or chanted, and so all the rhythms are real to the senses. Since the
barrier of language bars out for most of us this older verse, we can
read the early ballads, the lyrics of the Elizabethan time, when as
yet verses spoke mainly to the ear, or some modern poems of the
simpler type, such as "Evangeline" or "Hiawatha."
Such poetry, which is mainly to delight and charm the ear, is really a
primal form of verse and we may properly call it the poetry of the
Senses. In studying it Lanier's "Science of English Verse" is a
delightful companion, and many minor hand-books besides those named
above, such as are found in most schools, and some of the shorter
accounts of versification such as are found in works on rhetoric, will
give assistance.
Yet the pathway to the mastery of the problems of metre is for each
student to tread alone. The best plan is to read aloud a considerable
quantity. Then the technical language of the books will lose its
terrors and the simplicity of construction of good poetry will become
apparent. If the student will read so much of this poetry that his
senses become responsive to its music, he will no longer need a
hand-book. For this purpose let him read such poems as can be sung,
chanted, or spoken to the ear; such as Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient
Rome," Scott's "Marmion," Browning's "Pied Piper" and "How They
Brought the Good News," Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade." Let
him read mainly for the senses rather than for the mind, getting the
reward in the quickening of life through the throbbing rhythms; then
the metrical system of poetry will become as real to him as the
rhythmic movements of the planets are to an astronomer. There is no
other way to get a feeling for the pulsations of poetry than through
this intimate acquaintance. Without this, months of reading of
amphibrachs and trochees and dactyls will not avail. It should be read
aloud as much as possible to make the swing of its verses perfectly
clear. When it sings to us as we read, it has begun to teach the
message of its rhythms.
Thus far the text-books have been pleasant companions, even when
unable to give as much aid to the student as he could wish; but the
fact will come to him at length that there is something more in poetry
than the hand-books permit him to consider. These books deal with the
forms, and most of them with the forms only. They analyze the methods,
work out the metre, show how the parts are woven together, explain how
the chords produce the harmonies. But just in proportion as the
student becomes learned in these rhythms, and can distinguish minute
or subtle variations of metrical structure, does he realize that this
study teaches not its own use and that there is something beyond which
must be won by his own observation. He finds in his search for
rhythmical perfection that there are poems which make little appeal to
his senses, whose lines do not sing themselves through his day-dreams,
which yet affect his imagination even more powerfully than the musical
strains thrilled his senses. He finds that there is much more in
poetry than its rhymes and jingles, that there is a rhythm greater
than that of the senses. In its more complex forms poetry is rhythm of
thought, leading the mind to find relations which prose may describe,
but which poetry alone can recreate. There is such a thing as a prose
thought and such a thing as a poetic thought. The one gives with
exactness the fact as it exists, clearly, honestly, directly, and for
all completed and tangible things is the natural medium of expression.
The other parallels the actual with a suggestion of an ideal
rhythmically consonant with the motive underlying the fact. Justice,
for example, deals in prose fashion with a crime and awards the
punishment which the law allows; poetic justice suggests such
recompense as would come of itself in a community perfectly organized.
The prose of life is honest living, a worthy endeavor to do the best
one can in the world as it is; the poetry of life is the feeling for,
and the striving after, the bringing of this life into harmony with a
nobler living. So we rightly give the name of poetry to such verse as
Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," Johnson's "London," Gray's "Elegy,"
Wordsworth's "Excursion," Milton's "Paradise Lost," Chaucer's
"Knight's Tale," Browning's "King and the Book," Tennyson's "In
Memoriam," which do not much stir our senses. They parallel the real
with the ideal, suggesting the eternal rhythms of infinite mind as the
poetry of the senses suggests the eternal rhythms of omnipotent
nature.
This poetry of the Intellect is the second great division of the
poetic realm. Beyond it lies still another; for there are spiritual
harmonies which the mind alone cannot compass, and which the senses
alone cannot interpret. The hand-books know little of spiritual
harmonies, and do not go beyond their academic classifications of
lyric and epic, and their catalogues of pentameters, hexameters, or
alexandrines. But the student can for himself push his observation
beyond, and come to the poetry of the higher imagination, where he can
be forgetful of the mere form and disdainful of the merely logical
relations, where his spirit can as it were see face to face the truth
beyond the seeming. This is the poetry of the spirit, and ought to
come as a revelation to the searcher. He may first find it in some
pure lyric such as Shelley's "Skylark," or in some mystical fantasy
such as Moore's "Lallah Rookh" or Coleridge's "Christabel," or in some
story of human abnegation such as Tennyson's "Enoch Arden," or some
wail of a soul in pain, as in Shelley's "Adonais," or in some outburst
of exultant grief such as Whitman's "Captain, My Captain," or in some
revelation of the unseen potencies close about us, as in Browning's
"Saul," or in some vision of the mystery of this our earthly struggle
such as "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," or in some answer of
the spirit to a never stilled question such as Wordsworth's "Ode:
Intimations of Immortality." When he thus finds it he has come to
poetry in its highest use. In his "Alexander's Feast" Dryden hints at
two great functions of poetry in the lines:
"He raised a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down."
The office of poetry is to parallel the actual with the ideal, to cast
upon an earthly landscape something of a heavenly glow, to interpret
earthly things in terms of the spirit. The poetry of the Senses lifts
a mortal to the skies, thinking the thought of one higher than itself
as the poet muses, singing the songs of an angelic choir in harmony
with the rhythm of the verse. The poetry of the Spirit brings the
message of the angels down to men and makes the harmonies they speak
the music of this earthly life.
The highest type of poetry lends itself perfectly to earnest and
profound study. In class work it is usually better to study poets as
well as poems, and to study thoroughly a few works of a great master.
Poetry is essentially a synthetic art; it unites the wandering desires
of our hearts and spirits to make one single and enduring impression.
Poetry speaks also the mood, the aspiration, and the deepest intent of
its author; so that the great poet is the one who brings us most
directly to understand its art. For most student classes it is best to
take a single poet for interpretation, and to study in succession a
small number--say six to ten--of his works, making one, or at least
two or three, the subject of the conferences for each week. The choice
of author will be dependent on many considerations and cannot here be
positively advised, but one will not go astray in choosing Wordsworth,
Tennyson, Browning, Longfellow, or Whittier, or three of them, for a
season's work. Intelligent direction is of great assistance in making
the study definite and progressive. Choose first of all the poems
which seem to have influenced men, for to move men is the final test
of poetry. If there is no class, and no leader, let the student make
his choice by a preliminary examination. Let him read rapidly, and for
the single impression, the poems of Wordsworth whose titles seem most
familiar to him as he scans them over; such as "Tintern Abbey,"
"Yarrow Unvisited," "Solitary Reaper," "Lucy," "We are Seven," "The
Intimations of Immortality," "She was a Phantom of Delight," and a few
of the lyrical ballads; then let him read Tennyson's "Locksley Hall,"
"Maud," "The Idylls of the King," and a few of the shorter poems; let
him read Browning's "Saul," "Abt Vogler," "The Grammarian's Funeral,"
"Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," "Pippa Passes," one or two
dramas, and a few of the brief poems in the volume "Men and Women."
Then let him make his own list for study, taking those poems which
have most stirred him, those which he remembers vividly after his
reading, those which have become a part of himself. If the student
makes his choice frankly and sincerely, he has, in making it, begun
his study. Then let him frame for himself or get from his leader, if
he has one, a list of the questions which each poem is to answer for
him. If the work be really poetry, its study ought to give a help
toward the solution of the first great problems: "What is poetry?" and
"What is its revelation to the life of our senses, our hearts, and our
souls?" We have a right to ask of each poem three questions: "How does
it charm our senses?"; "How does it make the meaning of things clearer
for us?"; "How does it bring to us a renewal of life?" The first
question is better fitted for private study than for class
investigation, the senses being delicate organs and shy in company.
Let the minute matters of form and structure be gone over at home. Let
the student work out the metre, the typical line, and the variations
by which the poet gets his effects, the metaphors, the alliterations,
the consonant and vowel harmonies. It will aid if this work be made as
definite and as exact as an investigation in a scientific laboratory.
But all this should be the student's home work. In the class the large
divisions of the poem should be sympathetically shown, so that each
student will comprehend the poem as a whole as the poet must have
conceived it. Then as some one reads aloud the lines the music of the
rhythms will come by assimilation rather than by analysis. Poetry
parallels the real with the ideal to make a harmony before undreamed
of. So in the lines sound re-echoes sound, and a subtle music but half
perceived sings itself out of the moving notes.
What burden this music bears is the second question. Poetry differs
from prose in that it lifts the thought so that its highest relations
and suggestions are made known. We have a right therefore to parallel
the prose sight with the poetic visions and to find in what the one
transcends the other. If we are studying the "Idylls of the King," for
instance, we may fitly ask what was the story as the poet took it, and
into what has he transformed it for us. This study of the thought of
the poem is an excellent subject for class work. The questions should
be made definite and so grouped that sections of the class can choose
one or another phase of the problem; the conferences should be so
directed that a few clearly worked-out and thoroughly unified poetic
thoughts will be left in the mind of each student.
In all things practice may fitly supplement precept. In a reading
circle of which one of the editors of this series was a member the
poems of Tennyson were studied by a method closely resembling that
advocated in this article. As a suggestion the topics and questions
for one of the poems are here given. One of the members acted as
leader. A brief essay reciting the history of the poem was read. The
entire poem was read aloud by one of the members of the class. Then
the topics given below were discussed as presented in turn by groups
of students who had given especial attention to one of the topics. In
the discussions the entire class joined, and at the close a very brief
summing up by the leader gathered up the threads of thought.
Topic: "Locksley Hall" and "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After."
Required Readings: "Locksley Hall"; "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After";
"Lady Clara Vere de Vere"; "Sir Galahad."
Suggested Readings: In connection with the earlier poem, "Ulysses" and
"The Two Voices"; in connection with the later poem, "Maud," "Memoir
of Tennyson," by Lord Hallam Tennyson.
Suggestions for Study: (A) The physical basis of the poem.
Study the metre. Why called Trochaic Octameter? In what way does this
metre resemble and in what way differ from Lowell's "Present Crisis,"
Swinburne's "Triumph of Time," Browning's "There 's a woman like a
dewdrop" (from "The Blot i' the Scutcheon"), and Mrs. Browning's
"Rhyme of the Duchess May"? Why is this metre peculiarly adapted to
the sentiment of "Locksley Hall"? How does the metre differ in effect
from that of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and
Bryant's "The Death of the Flowers" and Tennyson's "May Queen"? Is the
effect of the rhythm optimistic as opposed to the pessimism of the
"Triumph of Time," and why? Why are the lines of this poem so easily
carried in the memory? What is there in the use of the words which
gives such sweetness to the verses as one reads them aloud. Has the
poem for you a music of its own which haunts you like a remembered
vision? Find out, if you can, something of the secret of this music.
(B) The intellectual interest of the poem.
(1) Consider the meaning of difficult passages, such as "Fairy tales
of science." Explain the meaning of stanzas containing the following
quotations: "Smote the chord of self"; "Cursed be social wants"; "That
a sorrow's crown of sorrow"; "But the jingling of the guinea"; "Slowly
comes a hungry people"; "Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."
(2) How long an interval elapsed between the writing of the above two
poems? Does any change in style or trend of thought indicate the lapse
of time? The earlier poem was and is immensely popular. Why? Why is
the later one less popular?
(3) What is the story in the poem, and in what manner is it told? How
is the story continued in "Sixty Years After"? Was Locksley Hall an
inland or a seashore residence, and why? Describe the surroundings
from suggestions in the poems. Sum up what the hero tells of himself
and his love-story. What suggestions are there regarding the
characters of Amy and Edith? Is the emotional side of the hero as
finely balanced as the intellectual side? What light is thrown on the
character of his love by his outbursts against Amy? Would it be fair
to judge of Amy and her husband by what he says of them in his first
anguish? Does he ever admit that he judged them harshly? If so, do you
agree with him altogether? Was it well for Amy to marry as she did?
When obedience to parental wishes and love are in conflict, which
should be followed? Did the hero's evil prophecies come true? Whose
love do you think was the greatest, Amy's, or his, or the Squire's?
(4) How does Tennyson all through the poem make it a parable of human
life?
(C) The emotional influence of the poem. How has this poem influenced
you? For many persons, Tennyson, out of a simple love-story, has made
a prophecy of ideal love. Has he for you? For many persons Tennyson
made poetry out of this simple story when he paralleled the tale of
earthly passion with a vision of completer life, so vivid that the
pain and tragedy of this present life come to be for us but the
preparation for the better life to come, as the poet sings to us that
"Through the ages one increasing purpose runs And the thoughts of men
are widened with the process of the suns."
Has he to you in like manner through his poem given a truer conception
of the nature and use of poetry?
Systematic study such as that suggested above will help in answering
the questions, "What charm has this poem for us?" and "How does it put
a deeper meaning into the events it records?" But it is difficult to
frame formal questions the answers to which will show how a poem
quickens life. The influence of a poem is so much a matter of
temperament and of emotion, both of the author and of the reader, that
one has to feel its power rather than to work it out logically. Poetry
passes beyond prose in that it quickens life by moving us to feel its
nobler emotions. It will teach its own lesson to the appreciative
reader, and the student who gets fully into sympathy with a great poem
will have his whole life made brighter. Class work, done
sympathetically and sincerely, will aid in finding the truest
interpretations. Yet studies teach not their own use. The higher
blessings come to us unbidden if we as little children hope for them.
We shall find the highest uses of poetry in remembering always that it
may at its best come to us as an
"Angel of light
Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night."
[Signature: Francis Hovey Stoddard]
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:
"THE STUDY OF POETRY."
By _Francis Hovey Stoddard_
POEMS OF NATIONAL SPIRIT:
PATRIOTISM
FREEDOM
WAR
PEACE
INDEX: AUTHORS AND TITLES
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
_Photogravure from a life-photograph by Notman, Boston_.
QUEEN ELIZABETH KNIGHTING FRANCIS DRAKE
"When our Drake has the luck to make their pride duck.
And stoop to the lads of the Island!"
_From engraving after the drawing by Sir John Gilbert, R.A_.
WILLIAM WATSON
_After a life-photograph by Elliott and Fry, London_.
SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH
_After a life-photograph by Notman, Boston_.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
_From an engraving after the portrait by James Lonsdale._
WILLIAM COWPER
_From an engraving_.
THE AUTHOR'S FIRST SINGING OF THE MARSEILLAISE
"To arms! to arms! ye brave!
The avenging sword unsheathe."
_From a photogravure after the painting by J.A.A. Pils_.
A CAVALRY CHARGE
"My darling! ah, the glass is out!
The bullets ring, the riders shout--
No time for wine or sighing!
There! bring my love the shattered glass--
Charge! On the foe! No joys surpass
Such dying!"
_From photogravure by Goupil, after a painting
by Édouard Détaille_.
NATHAN HALE
"'Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn,
He dies upon the tree,
And he mourns that he can lose
But one life for liberty."
_From photograph of the Statue by Frederick
Macmonnies, in New York City Hall Park_.
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
_After a photograph from life_.
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ
_After a photograph from life_.
POEMS OF NATIONAL SPIRIT.
* * * * *
I.
PATRIOTISM.
* * * * *
WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE?
What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlement or labored mound,
Thick wall or moated gate;
Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned;
Not bays and broad-armed ports,
Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride;
Not starred and spangled courts,
Where low-browed baseness wafts perfume to pride.
No:--men, high-minded men,
With powers as far above dull brutes endued
In forest, brake, or den,
As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude,--
Men who their duties know,
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain,
Prevent the long-aimed blow,
And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain;
These constitute a State;
And sovereign law, that State's collected will,
O'er thrones and globes elate
Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Smit by her sacred frown,
The fiend, Dissension, like a vapor sinks;
And e'en the all-dazzling crown
Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks.
Such was this heaven-loved isle,
Than Lesbos fairer and the Cretan shore!
No more shall freedom smile?
Shall Britons languish, and be men no more?
Since all must life resign,
Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave
'Tis folly to decline,
And steal inglorious to the silent grave.
SIR WILLIAM JONES.
* * * * *
BREATHES THERE THE MAN?
FROM "THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL," CANTO VI.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart has 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, concentred 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.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
* * * * *
MY COUNTRY.
There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside,
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons imparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth:
The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air.
In every clime, the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of Heaven's peculiar race,
The heritage of nature's noblest grace,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.
Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life:
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye
An angel-guard of love and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
"Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?"
Art thou a man?--a patriot?--look around;
O, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land _thy_ country, and that spot _thy_ home!
Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime,
Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er the world beside;
His home the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
JAMES MONTGOMERY.
* * * * *
FATHER AND MOTHER TONGUE.
Our Father Land! and wouldst thou know
Why we should call it Father Land?
It is that Adam here below
Was made of earth by Nature's hand;
And he our father, made of earth,
Hath peopled earth on every hand;
And we, in memory of his birth,
Do call our country Father Land.
At first, in Eden's bowers, they say,
No sound of speech had Adam caught,
But whistled like a bird all day,--
And maybe 'twas for want of thought:
But Nature, with resistless laws,
Made Adam soon surpass the birds;
She gave him lovely Eve because
If he'd a wife they must _have words_.
And so the native land, I hold,
By male descent is proudly mine;
The language, as the tale hath told,
Was given in the female line.
And thus we see on either hand
We name our blessings whence they've sprung;
We call our country Father Land,
We call our language Mother Tongue.
SAMUEL LOVER.
* * * * *
EAST, WEST, HOME'S BEST.
FROM "THE TRAVELLER."
As some lone miser visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er;
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
Pleased with each good that heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the sum of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene to find
Some spot to real happiness consigned,
Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,
May gather bliss to see my fellows blest.
But where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shuddering tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own,
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease;
The naked negro, planting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gave.
Such is the patriot's boast where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind,
As different good, by art or nature given,
To different nations, makes their blessings even.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH.
* * * * *
GIFTS.
"O World-God, give me Wealth!" the Egyptian cried.
His prayer was granted. High as heaven behold
Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tide
Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.
Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet,
World-circling traffic roared through mart and street,
His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined
Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep.
Seek Pharaoh's race to-day, and ye shall find
Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep.
"O World-God, give me Beauty!" cried the Greek.
His prayer was granted. All the earth became
Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak,
Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame,
Peopled the world with imaged grace and light.
The lyre was his, and his the breathing might
Of the immortal marble, his the play
Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue.
Go seek the sunshine race. Ye find to-day
A broken column and a lute unstrung.
"O World-God, give me Power!" the Roman cried.
His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained
A captive to the chariot of his pride,
The blood of myriad provinces was drained
To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart--
Invulnerably bulwarked every part
With serried legions and with close-meshed Code.
Within, the burrowing worm had gnawed its home:
A roofless ruin stands where once abode
The imperial race of everlasting Rome.
"O God-head, give me Truth!" the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted. He became the slave
Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide,
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to save.
The Pharaohs knew him, and when Greece beheld,
His wisdom wore the hoary crown of Eld.
Beauty he hath forsworn, and wealth and power.
Seek him to-day, and find in every land.
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour;
Immortal through the lamp within his hand.
EMMA LAZARUS.
* * * * *
ENGLAND.
FROM "THE TIMEPIECE": "THE TASK," BK. II.
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still,--
My country! and, while yet a nook is left
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deformed
With dripping rains, or withered by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage and her myrtle bowers.
To shake thy senate, and from height sublime
Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire
Upon thy foes, was never meant my task:
But I can feel thy fortunes, and partake
Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart
As any thunderer there. And I can feel
Thy follies too; and with a just disdain
Frown at effeminates whose very looks
Reflect dishonor on the land I love.
How, in the name of soldiership and sense,
Should England prosper, when such things, as smooth
And tender as a girl, all essenced o'er
With odors, and as profligate as sweet,
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight,--when such as these
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In every clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children. Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
WILLIAM COWPER.
* * * * *
RULE, BRITANNIA.
FROM "ALFRED," ACT II. SC. 5.
When Britain first, at Heaven's command,
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sung the strain:
_Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!
For Britons never will be slaves._
The nations not so blest as thee
Must in their turns to tyrants fall;
Whilst thou shalt flourish, great and free,
The dread and envy of them all.
_Rule, Britannia!_ etc.
Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the loud blasts that tear the skies
Serve but to root thy native oak.
_Rule, Britannia!_ etc.
Thee haughty tyrants ne'er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
And work their woe--but thy renown.
_Rule, Britannia!_ etc.
To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine.
_Rule, Britannia!_ etc.
The Muses, still with Freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle! with matchless beauty crowned,
And manly hearts to guard the fair.
_Rule, Britannia, rule the leaves!
For Britons never will be slaves._
JAMES THOMSON.
* * * * *
THE BOWMAN'S SONG.
FROM "THE WHITE COMPANY."
What of the bow?
The bow was made in England:
Of true wood, of yew wood,
The wood of English bows;
So men who are free
Love the old yew-tree
And the land where the yew-tree grows.
What of the cord?
The cord was made in England:
A rough cord, a tough cord,
A cord that bowmen love;
So we'll drain our jacks
To the English flax
And the land where the hemp was wove.
What of the shaft?
The shaft was cut in England:
A long shaft, a strong shaft,
Barbed and trim and true;
So we'll drink all together
To the gray goose feather,
And the land where the gray goose flew.
What of the men?
The men were bred in England:
The bowman--the yeoman--
The lads of dale and fell.
Here's to you--and to you!
To the hearts that are true
And the land where the true hearts dwell.
SIR A. CONAN DOYLE.
* * * * *
THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND.
When mighty roast beef was the Englishman's food,
It ennobled our hearts, and enriched our blood;
Our soldiers were brave, and our courtiers were good.
_O, the Roast Beef of old England,
And O, the old English Roast Beef_!
But since we have learned from effeminate France
To eat their ragouts, as well as to dance,
We are fed up with nothing but vain complaisance.
_O, the Roast Beef_, etc.
HENRY FIELDING.
* * * * *
Our fathers of old were robust, stout, and strong,
And kept open house with good cheer all day long,
Which made their plump tenants rejoice in this song.
_O, the Roast Beef_, etc.
When good Queen Elizabeth sat on the throne,
Ere coffee and tea, and such slip-slops, were known,
The world was in terror, if e'en she did frown.
_O, the Roast Beef_, etc.
In those days, if fleets did presume on the main,
They seldom or never returned back again;
As witness the vaunting Armada of Spain.
_O, the Roast Beef_, etc.
O, then we had stomachs to eat and to fight,
And when wrongs were cooking, to set ourselves right;
But now we're--hum?--I could, but--good night;
_O, the Roast Beef of old England,
And O, the old English Roast Beef_!
_The last four stanzas added by_ RICHARD LOVERIDGE.
* * * * *
THE SNUG LITTLE ISLAND.
Daddy Neptune, one day, to Freedom did say,
If ever I lived upon dry land,
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain!
Says Freedom, "Why, that's my own island!"
O, it's a snug little island!
A right little, tight little island!
Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island.
Julius Cæsar, the Roman, who yielded to no man,
Came by water,--he couldn't come by land;
And Dane, Pict, and Saxon, their homes turned their backs on,
And all for the sake of our island.
O, what a snug little island!
They'd all have a touch at the island!
Some were shot dead, some of them fled,
And some stayed to live on the island.
Then a very great war-man, called Billy the Norman,
Cried, "Drat it, I never liked my land.
It would be much more handy to leave this Normandy,
And live on your beautiful island."
Says he, "'Tis a snug little island;
Sha'n't us go visit the island?"
Hop, skip, and jump, there he was plump,
And he kicked up a dust in the island.
But party deceit helped the Normans to beat;
Of traitors they managed to buy land;
By Dane, Saxon, or Pict, Britons ne'er had been licked,
Had they stuck to the king of their island.
Poor Harold, the king of our island!
He lost both his life and his island!
That's all very true: what more could he do?
Like a Briton he died for his island!
The Spanish armada set out to invade--a,
'Twill sure, if they ever come nigh land.
They couldn't do less than tuck up Queen Bess,
And take their full swing on the island.
O the poor queen of the island!
The Dons came to plunder the island;
But snug in her hive the queen was alive,
And "buzz" was the word of the island.
These proud puffed-up cakes thought to make ducks and drakes
Of our wealth; but they hardly could spy land,
When our Drake had the luck to make their pride duck
And stoop to the lads of the island!
O, for the ships of the island!
The good wooden walls of the island;
Devil or Don, let them come on;
And see how they'd come off the island!
Since Freedom and Neptune have hitherto kept time,
In each saying, "This shall be my land";
Should the "Army of England," or all it could bring, land,
We'd show 'em some play for the island.
We'd fight for our right to the island;
We'd give them enough of the island;
Invaders should just--bite once at the dust,
But not a bit more of the island.
THOMAS DIBDIN.
* * * * *
THE JACOBITE ON TOWER HILL.
He tripped up the steps with a bow and a smile,
Offering snuff to the chaplain the while,
A rose at his button-hole that afternoon--
'Twas the tenth of the month, and the month it was June.
Then shrugging his shoulders, he looked at the man
With the mask and the axe, and a murmuring ran
Through the crowd, who below, were all pushing to see
The gaoler kneel down, and receiving his fee.
He looked at the mob, as they roared, with a stare,
And took snuff again with a cynical air.
"I'm happy to give but a moment's delight
To the flower of my country agog for a sight."
Then he looked at the block, and with scented cravat
Dusted room for his neck, gayly doffing his hat,
Kissed his hand to a lady, bent low to the crowd,
Then smiling, turned round to the headsman and bowed.
"God save King James!" he cried bravely and shrill,
And the cry reached the houses at foot of the hill,
"My friend with the axe, _à votre service_," he said;
And ran his white thumb 'long the edge of the blade.
When the multitude hissed he stood firm as a rock;
Then kneeling, laid down his gay head on the block;
He kissed a white rose,--in a moment 'twas red
With the life of the bravest of any that bled.
GEORGE WALTER THORNBURY.
* * * * *
GOD SAVE THE KING.
God save our gracious king!
Long live our noble king!
God save the king!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us--
God save the king!
O Lord our God, arise!
Scatter his enemies,
And make them fall;
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks;
On him our hopes we fix,
God save us all!
Thy choicest gifts in store
On him be pleased to pour;
Long may he reign.
May he defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice--
God save the king!
HENRY CAREY.
* * * * *
VETERAN AND RECRUIT.
He filled the crystal goblet
With golden-beaded wine:
"Come, comrades, now, I bid ye--
'To the true love of mine!'
"Her forehead's pure and holy,
Her hair is tangled gold,
Her heart to me so tender,
To others' love is cold.
"So drain your glasses empty
And fill me another yet;
Two glasses at least for the dearest
And sweetest girl, Lisette."
Up rose a grizzled sergeant--
"My true love I give thee,
Three true loves blent in one love,
A soldier's trinity.
"Here's to the flag we follow,
Here's to the land we serve,
And here's to holy honor
That doth the two preserve."
Then rose they up around him,
And raised their eyes above,
And drank in solemn silence
Unto the sergeant's love.
EDWARD WENTWORTH HAZEWELL.
* * * * *
THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS;[A] OR,
THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN CHINA.
["Some Seiks, and a private of the Buffs, having remained behind with
the grog carts, fell into the hands of the Chinese. On the next day
they were brought before the authorities and ordered to perform
_Kotou_. The Seiks obeyed, but Moyse, the English soldier, declared he
would not prostrate himself before any Chinaman alive, and was
immediately knocked upon the head, and his body thrown upon a
dunghill."--_China Correspondent of the London Times.]_
Last night, among his fellow roughs,
He jested, quaffed, and swore;
A drunken private of the Buffs,
Who never looked before.
To-day, beneath the foeman's frown,
He stands in Elgin's place,
Ambassador from Britain's crown,
And type of all her race.
Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewildered, and alone,
A heart, with English instinct fraught,
He yet can call his own.
Ay, tear his body limb from limb,
Bring cord or axe or flame,
He only knows that not through him
Shall England come to shame.
Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed,
Like dreams, to come and go;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed,
One sheet of living snow;
The smoke above his father's door
In gray soft eddyings hung;
Must he then watch it rise no more,
Doomed by himself so young?
Yes, honor calls!--with strength like steel
He put the vision by;
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel,
An English lad must die.
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink,
With knee to man unbent,
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink,
To his red grave he went.
Vain mightiest fleets of iron framed,
Vain those all-shattering guns,
Unless proud England keep untamed
The strong heart of her sons;
So let his name through Europe ring,--
A man of mean estate,
Who died, as firm as Sparta's king,
Because his soul was great.
[Footnote A: The "Buffs" are the East Kent Regiment.]
SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE.
THE TURK IN ARMENIA.
FROM "THE PURPLE EAST."
What profits it, O England, to prevail
In camp and mart and council, and bestrew
With argosies thy oceans, and renew
With tribute levied on each golden gale
Thy treasuries, if thou canst hear the wail
Of women martyred by the turbaned crew,
Whose tenderest mercy was the sword that slew,
And lift no hand to wield the purging flail?
We deemed of old thou held'st a charge from Him
Who watches girdled by his seraphim,
To smite the wronger with thy destined rod.
Wait'st thou his sign? Enough, the unanswered cry
Of virgin souls for vengeance, and on high
The gathering blackness of the frown of God!
WILLIAM WATSON.
* * * * *
AVE IMPERATRIX.
Set in this stormy Northern sea,
Queen of these restless fields of tide,
England! what shall men say of thee,
Before whose feet the worlds divide?
The earth, a brittle globe of glass,
Lies in the hollow of thy hand,
And through its heart of crystal pass,
Like shadows through a twilight land,
The spears of crimson-suited war,
The long white-crested waves of fight,
And all the deadly fires which are
The torches of the lords of Night.
The yellow leopards, strained and lean,
The treacherous Russian knows so well,
With gaping blackened jaws are seen
To leap through hail of screaming shell.
The strong sea-lion of England's wars
Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,
To battle with the storm that mars
The star of England's chivalry.
The brazen-throated clarion blows
Across the Pathan's reedy fen,
And the high steeps of Indian snows
Shake to the tread of armèd men.
And many an Afghan chief, who lies
Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,
Clutches his sword in fierce surmise
When on the mountain-side he sees
The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes
To tell how he hath heard afar
The measured roll of English drums
Beat at the gates of Kandahar.
For southern wind and east wind meet
Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire,
England with bare and bloody feet
Climbs the steep road of wide empire.
O lonely Himalayan height,
Gray pillar of the Indian sky,
Where saw'st thou last in clanging fight
Our wingèd dogs of Victory?
The almond groves of Samarcand,
Bokhara, where red lilies blow,
And Oxus, by whose yellow sand
The grave white-turbaned merchants go;
And on from thence to Ispahan,
The gilded garden of the sun,
Whence the long dusty caravan
Brings cedar and vermilion;
And that dread city of Cabool
Set at the mountain's scarpèd feet,
Whose marble tanks are ever full
With water for the noonday heat,
Where through the narrow straight Bazaar
A little maid Circasian
Is led, a present from the Czar
Unto some old and bearded khan,--
Here have our wild war-eagles flown,
And flapped wide wings in fiery flight;
But the sad dove, that sits alone
In England--she hath no delight.
In vain the laughing girl will lean
To greet her love with love-lit eyes:
Down in some treacherous black ravine,
Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies.
And many a moon and sun will see
The lingering wistful children wait
To climb upon their father's knee;
And in each house made desolate
Pale women who have lost their lord
Will kiss the relics of the slain--
Some tarnished epaulette--some sword--
Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain.
For not in quiet English fields
Are these, our brothers, lain to rest,
Where we might deck their broken shields
With all the flowers the dead love best.