I've assisted dear papa in cutting up a little lad,
I've planned a little burglary and forged a little cheque,
And slain a little baby for the coral on its neck!"
The worthy pastor heaved a sigh, and dropped a silent tear,
And said, "You mustn't judge yourself too heavily, my dear:
It's wrong to murder babies, little corals for to fleece;
But sins like these one expiates at half-a-crown apiece.
"Girls will be girls--you're very young, and flighty in your mind;
Old heads upon young shoulders we must not expect to find;
We mustn't be too hard upon these little girlish tricks--
Let's see--five crimes at half-a-crown--exactly twelve-and-six."
"O father," little Alice cried, "your kindness makes me weep,
You do these little things for me so singularly cheap;
Your thoughtful liberality I never can forget;
But oh! there is another crime I haven't mentioned yet!
"A pleasant-looking gentleman, with pretty purple eyes,
I've noticed at my window, as I've sat a-catching flies;
He passes by it every day as certain as can be--
I blush to say I've winked at him and he has winked at me!"
"For shame!" said Father Paul, "my erring daughter! On my word,
This is the most distressing news that I have ever heard.
Why, naughty girl, your excellent papa has pledged your hand
To a promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band!
"This dreadful piece of news will pain your worthy parents so!
They are the most remunerative customers I know;
For many, many years they've kept starvation from my doors:
I never knew so criminal a family as yours!
"The common country folk in this insipid neighborhood
Have nothing to confess, they're so ridiculously good;
And if you marry any one respectable at all,
Why, you'll reform, and what will then become of Father Paul?"
The worthy priest, he up and drew his cowl upon his crown,
And started off in haste to tell the news to Robber Brown--
To tell him how his daughter, who was now for marriage fit,
Had winked upon a sorter, who reciprocated it.
Good Robber Brown he muffled up his anger pretty well;
He said, "I have a notion, and that notion I will tell:
I will nab this gay young sorter, terrify him into fits,
And get my gentle wife to chop him into little bits.
"I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two:
Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do--
A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall
When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small."
He traced that gallant sorter to a still suburban square;
He watched his opportunity, and seized him unaware;
He took a life-preserver and he hit him on the head,
And Mrs. Brown dissected him before she went to bed.
And pretty little Alice grew more settled in her mind;
She never more was guilty of a weakness of the kind;
Until at length good Robber Brown bestowed her pretty hand
On the promising young robber, the lieutenant of his band.
THE CAPTAIN AND THE MERMAIDS
I sing a legend of the sea,
So hard-a-port upon your lee!
A ship on starboard tack!
She's bound upon a private cruise--
(This is the kind of spice I use
To give a salt-sea smack).
Behold, on every afternoon
(Save in a gale or strong monsoon)
Great Captain Capel Cleggs
(Great morally, though rather short)
Sat at an open weather-port
And aired his shapely legs.
And mermaids hung around in flocks,
On cable chains and distant rocks,
To gaze upon those limbs;
For legs like those, of flesh and bone,
Are things "not generally known"
To any merman timbs.
But mermen didn't seem to care
Much time (as far as I'm aware)
With Cleggs's legs to spend;
Though mermaids swam around all day
And gazed, exclaiming, "_That's_ the way
A gentleman should end!
"A pair of legs with well-cut knees,
And calves and ankles such as these
Which we in rapture hail,
Are far more eloquent, it's clear
(When clothed in silk and kerseymere),
Than any nasty tail."
And Cleggs--a worthy, kind old boy--
Rejoiced to add to others' joy,
And when the day was dry,
Because it pleased the lookers-on,
He sat from morn till night--though con-
Stitutionally shy.
At first the mermen laughed, "Pooh! pooh!"
But finally they jealous grew,
And sounded loud recalls;
But vainly. So these fishy males
Declared they too would clothe their tails
In silken hose and smalls.
They set to work, these watermen,
And made their nether robes--but when
They drew with dainty touch
The kerseymere upon their tails,
They found it scraped against their scales,
And hurt them very much.
The silk, besides, with which they chose
To deck their tails by way of hose
(They never thought of shoon)
For such a use was much too thin,--
It tore against the caudal fin,
And "went in ladders" soon.
So they designed another plan:
They sent their most seductive man,
This note to him to show:--
"Our Monarch sends to Captain Cleggs
His humble compliments, and begs
He'll join him down below;
"We've pleasant homes below the sea--
Besides, if Captain Cleggs should be
(As our advices say)
A judge of mermaids, he will find
Our lady fish of every kind
Inspection will repay."
Good Capel sent a kind reply,
For Capel thought he could descry
An admirable plan
To study all their ways and laws--
(But not their lady fish, because
He was a married man).
The merman sank--the captain too
Jumped overboard, and dropped from view
Like stone from catapult;
And when he reached the merman's lair,
He certainly was welcomed there,
But ah! with what result!
They didn't let him learn their law,
Or make a note of what he saw,
Or interesting mem.;
The lady fish he couldn't find,
But that, of course, he didn't mind--
He didn't come for them.
For though when Captain Capel sank,
The mermen drawn in double rank
Gave him a hearty hail,
Yet when secure of Captain Cleggs,
They cut off both his lovely legs,
And gave him _such_ a tail!
When Captain Cleggs returned aboard,
His blithesome crew convulsive roar'd,
To see him altered so.
The admiralty did insist
That he upon the half-pay list
Immediately should go.
In vain declared the poor old salt,
"It's my misfortune--not my fault,"
With tear and trembling lip--
In vain poor Capel begged and begged.
"A man must be completely legged
Who rules a British ship."
So spake the stern First Lord aloud,--
He was a wag, though very proud,--
And much rejoiced to say,
"You're only half a captain now--
And so, my worthy friend, I vow
You'll only get half-pay!"
All the above selections are made from 'Fifty Bab Ballads.'
RICHARD WATSON GILDER
(1844-)
[Illustration: RICHARD W. GILDER]
Richard Watson Gilder is the son of a clergyman, the Rev. William H.
Gilder, who published two literary reviews in Philadelphia. He was born
in Bordentown, New Jersey, February 8th, 1844, and with such ancestry
and home influence came easily to journalism and literary work. He got
his schooling in the Bellevue Seminary, which was founded by his father.
As with so many young Americans of the time, the war came to interrupt
his studies; and in 1863 he served in the "Emergency Corps," in the
defense of Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Mr. Gilder is one of the American
writers who have successfully combined journalism and literature. He
began by doing newspaper work, and then by a natural transition became
in 1869 editor of Hours at Home, and shortly thereafter associate editor
of Scribner's Magazine with Dr. J. G. Holland. This representative
monthly was changed in name to The Century, and upon the death of Dr.
Holland in 1881 Mr. Gilder became its editor-in-chief. His influence in
this conspicuous position has been wholesome and helpful in the
encouraging of literature, and in the discussion of current questions of
importance through a popular medium which reaches great numbers of the
American people. The Century under his direction has been receptive to
young writers and artists of ability, and many since known to fame made
their maiden appearance in its pages.
In addition to his influence on the literary movement, Mr. Gilder has
been active in philanthropic and political work. He has secured
legislation for the improvement of tenements in cities; he has taken
interest in the formation of public kindergartens; and given of his time
and strength to further other reforms. His influence in New York City,
too, has been a factor in developing the social aspects of literary and
art life there. From Dickinson College he has received the degree of
LL.D., and from Princeton that of L.H.D.
Mr. Gilder's reputation as a writer is based upon his verse. Only very
occasionally does he publish an essay, though thoughtful, strongly
written editorials from his pen in his magazine are frequent. But it is
his verse-writing that has given him his place--a distinct and honorable
one--in American letters. The fine quality and promise of his work was
recognized upon the publication of 'The New Day' in 1875, a first volume
which was warmly received. It showed the influence of Italian studies,
and contained lyric work of much imaginative beauty. The musicalness of
it and the delicately ideal treatment of the love passion were
noticeable characteristics. In his subsequent books--'The Celestial
Passion,' 1887; 'Lyrics,' 1885 and 1887; 'Two Worlds, and Other Poems,'
1891; 'The Great Remembrance, and Other Poems,' 1893: the contents of
these being gathered finally into the one volume 'Five Books of Song,'
1894--he has given further proof of his genuine lyric gift, his work in
later years having a wider range of themes, a broadening vision and
deepening purpose. He remains nevertheless essentially a lyrist, a maker
of songs; a thorough artist who has seriousness, dignity, and charm. His
is an earnest nature, sensitive alike to vital contemporaneous problems
and to the honey-sweet voice of the Ideal.
[All the following citations from Mr. Gilder's poems are
copyrighted, and are reprinted here by special permission
of the author and his publishers.]
TWO SONGS FROM 'THE NEW DAY'
I
Not from the whole wide world I chose thee,
Sweetheart, light of the land and the sea!
The wide, wide world could not inclose thee--
For thou art the whole wide world to me.
II
Years have flown since I knew thee first,
And I know thee as water is known of thirst;
Yet I knew thee of old at the first sweet sight,
And thou art strange to me, Love, to-night.
"ROSE-DARK THE SOLEMN SUNSET"
Rose-dark the solemn sunset
That holds my thought of thee;
With one star in the heavens
And one star in the sea.
On high no lamp is lighted,
Nor where the long waves flow.
Save the one star of evening
And the shadow star below.
Light of my life, the darkness
Comes with the twilight dream;
Thou art the bright star shining,
And I but the shadowy gleam.
NON SINE DOLORE
What, then, is Life,--what Death?
Thus the Answerer saith;
O faithless mortal, bend thy head and listen:
Down o'er the vibrant strings,
That thrill, and moan, and mourn, and glisten,
The Master draws his bow.
A voiceless pause: then upward, see, it springs,
Free as a bird with unimprisoned wings!
In twain the chord was cloven,
While, shaken with woe,
With breaks of instant joy all interwoven,
Piercing the heart with lyric knife,
On, on the ceaseless music sings,
Restless, intense, serene;--
Life is the downward stroke; the upward, Life;
Death but the pause between.
Then spake the Questioner: If 't were only this,
Ah, who could face the abyss
That plunges steep athwart each human breath?
If the new birth of Death
Meant only more of Life as mortals know it,
What priestly balm, what song of highest poet,
Could heal one sentient soul's immitigable pain?
All, all were vain!
If, having soared pure spirit at the last,
Free from the impertinence and warp of flesh
We find half joy, half pain, on every blast;
Are caught again in closer-woven mesh--
Ah! who would care to die
From out these fields and hills, and this familiar sky;
These firm, sure hands that compass us, this dear humanity?
Again the Answerer saith:--
O ye of little faith,
Shall then the spirit prove craven,
And Death's divine deliverance but give
A summer rest and haven?
By all most noble in us, by the light that streams
Into our waking dreams,
Ah, we who know what Life is, let us live!
Clearer and freer, who shall doubt?
Something of dust and darkness cast forever out;
But Life, still Life, that leads to higher Life,
Even though the highest be not free from immortal strife.
The highest! Soul of man, oh be thou bold,
And to the brink of thought draw near, behold!
Where, on the earth's green sod,
Where, where in all the universe of God,
Hath strife forever ceased?
When hath not some great orb flashed into space
The terror of its doom? When hath no human face
Turned earthward in despair,
For that some horrid sin had stamped its image there?
If at our passing Life be Life increased,
And we ourselves flame pure unfettered soul,
Like the Eternal Power that made the whole
And lives in all he made
From shore of matter to the unknown spirit shore;
If, sire to son, and tree to limb,
Cycle on countless cycle more and more
We grow to be like him;
If he lives on, serene and unafraid,
Through all his light, his love, his living thought,
One with the sufferer, be it soul or star;
If he escape not pain, what beings that are
Can e'er escape while Life leads on and up the unseen way and far?
If he escape not, by whom all was wrought,
Then shall not we,
Whate'er of godlike solace still may be,--
For in all worlds there is no Life without a pang, and can be naught.
No Life without a pang! It were not Life,
If ended were the strife--
Man were not man, nor God were truly God!
See from the sod
The lark thrill skyward in an arrow of song:
Even so from pain and wrong
Upsprings the exultant spirit, wild and free.
He knows not all the joy of liberty
Who never yet was crushed 'neath heavy woe.
He doth not know,
Nor can, the bliss of being brave
Who never hath faced death, nor with unquailing eye
Hath measured his own grave.
Courage, and pity, and divinest scorn--
Self-scorn, self-pity, and high courage of the soul;
The passion for the goal;
The strength to never yield though all be lost--
All these are born
Of endless strife; this is the eternal cost
Of every lovely thought that through the portal
Of human minds doth pass with following light.
Blanch not, O trembling mortal!
But with extreme and terrible delight
Know thou the truth,
Nor let thy heart be heavy with false ruth.
No passing burden is our earthly sorrow,
That shall depart in some mysterious morrow.
'Tis His one universe where'er we are--
One changeless law from sun to viewless star.
Were sorrow evil here, evil it were forever,
Beyond the scope and help of our most keen endeavor
God doth not dote,
His everlasting purpose shall not fail.
Here where our ears are weary with the wail
And weeping of the sufferers; there where the Pleiads float--
Here, there, forever, pain most dread and dire
Doth bring the intensest bliss, the dearest and most sure.
'Tis not from Life aside, it doth endure
Deep in the secret heart of all existence.
It is the inward fire,
The heavenly urge, and the divine insistence.
Uplift thine eyes, O Questioner, from the sod!
It were no longer Life,
If ended were the strife;
Man were not man, God were not truly God.
"HOW PADEREWSKI PLAYS"
I
If songs were perfume, color, wild desire;
If poets' words were fire
That burned to blood in purple-pulsing veins;
If with a bird-like thrill the moments throbbed to hours;
If summer's rains
Turned drop by drop to shy, sweet, maiden flowers;
If God made flowers with light and music in them,
And saddened hearts could win them;
If loosened petals touched the ground
With a caressing sound;
If love's eyes uttered word
No listening lover e'er before had heard;
If silent thoughts spake with a bugle's voice;
If flame passed into song and cried, "Rejoice! Rejoice!"
If words could picture life's, hope's, heaven's eclipse
When the last kiss has fallen on dying eyes and lips;
If all of mortal woe
Struck on one heart with breathless blow on blow;
If melody were tears, and tears were starry gleams
That shone in evening's amethystine dreams;
Ah yes, if notes were stars, each star a different hue,
Trembling to earth in dew;
Or if the boreal pulsings, rose and white,
Made a majestic music in the night;
If all the orbs lost in the light of day
In the deep, silent blue began their harps to play;
And when in frightening skies the lightnings flashed
And storm-clouds crashed,
If every stroke of light and sound were but excess of beauty;
If human syllables could e'er refashion
That fierce electric passion;
If other art could match (as were the poet's duty)
The grieving, and the rapture, and the thunder
Of that keen hour of wonder,--
That light as if of heaven, that blackness as of hell,--
How Paderewski plays then might I dare to tell.
II
How Paderewski plays! And was it he
Or some disbodied spirit which had rushed
From silence into singing; and had crushed
Into one startled hour a life's felicity,
And highest bliss of knowledge--that all life, grief, wrong,
Turn at the last to beauty and to song!
THE SONNET
What is a sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell
That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously;
It is a little picture painted well.
What is a sonnet? 'Tis the tear that fell
From a great poet's hidden ecstasy;
A two-edged sword, a star, a song--ah me!
Sometimes a heavy-tolling funeral bell.
This was the flame that shook with Dante's breath;
The solemn organ whereon Milton played,
And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow falls:
A sea this is--beware who ventureth!
For like a fiord the narrow floor is laid
Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls.
AMERICA
From 'The Great Remembrance'
Land that we love! Thou Future of the World!
Thou refuge of the noble heart oppressed!
Oh, never be thy shining image hurled
From its high place in the adoring breast
Of him who worships thee with jealous love!
Keep thou thy starry forehead as the dove
All white, and to the eternal Dawn inclined!
Thou art not for thyself, but for mankind,
And to despair of thee were to despair
Of man, of man's high destiny, of God!
Of thee should man despair, the journey trod
Upward, through unknown eons, stair on stair,
By this our race, with bleeding feet and slow,
Were but the pathway to a darker woe
Than yet was visioned by the heavy heart
Of prophet. To despair of thee! Ah no!
For thou thyself art Hope; Hope of the World thou art!
ON THE LIFE-MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
This bronze doth keep the very form and mold
Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he:
That brow all wisdom, all benignity;
That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold
Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold;
That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea
For storms to beat on; the lone agony
Those silent, patient lips too well foretold.
Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men
As might some prophet of the elder day--
Brooding above the tempest and the fray
With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken.
A power was his beyond the touch of art
Or armed strength--his pure and mighty heart.
"CALL ME NOT DEAD"
Call me not dead when I, indeed, have gone
Into the company of the ever-living
High and most glorious poets! Let thanksgiving
Rather be made. Say:--"He at last hath won
Rest and release, converse supreme and wise,
Music and song and light of immortal faces;
To-day, perhaps, wandering in starry places,
He hath met Keats, and known him by his eyes.
To-morrow (who can say?) Shakespeare may pass,
And our lost friend just catch one syllable
Of that three-centuried wit that kept so well;
Or Milton; or Dante, looking on the grass
Thinking of Beatrice, and listening still
To chanted hymns that sound from the heavenly hill."
AFTER-SONG
From 'The New Day'
Through love to light! Oh, wonderful the way
That leads from darkness to the perfect day!
From darkness and from sorrow of the night
To morning that comes singing o'er the sea.
Through love to light! Through light, O God, to thee,
Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light!
GIUSEPPE GIUSTI
(1809-1850)
[Illustration: GIUSEPPE GIUSTI]
Giuseppe Giusti, an Italian satirical poet, was born of an influential
family, May 12th, 1809, in the little village of Monsummano, which lies
between Pistoja and Pescia, and was in every fibre of his nature a
Tuscan. As a child he imbibed the healthful, sunny atmosphere of that
Campagna, and grew up loving the world and his comrades, but with a
dislike of study which convinced himself and his friends that he was
born to no purpose. He was early destined to the bar, and began his law
studies in Pistoja and Lucca, completing them a number of years later at
Pisa, where he obtained his degree of doctor.
In 1834 he went to Florence, under pretence of practicing with the
advocate Capoquadri; but here as elsewhere he spent his time in the
world of gayety, whose fascination and whose absurdity he seems to have
felt with equal keenness. His dislike of study found its exception in
his love of Dante, of whom he was a reverent student. He was himself
continually versifying, and his early romantic lyrics are inspired by
lofty thought. His penetrating humor, however, and his instinctive
sarcasm, whose expression was never unkind, led him soon to abandon
idealism and to distinguish himself in the field of satire, which has no
purer representative than he. His compositions are short and terse, and
are seldom blemished by personalities. He was wont to say that absurd
persons did not merit even the fame of infamy. He leveled his wit
against the lethargy and immoralities of the times, and revealed them
clear-cut in the light of his own stern principles and patriotism.
The admiration and confidence which he now began to receive from the
public was to him a matter almost of consternation, wont as he was to
consider himself a good-for-nothing. He confesses somewhat bashfully
however that there was always within him, half afraid of itself, an
instinct of power which led him to say in his heart, Who knows what I
may be with time? His frail constitution and almost incessant physical
suffering account for a natural indolence against which he constantly
inveighs, but above which he was powerless to rise except at vehement
intervals. No carelessness, however, marks his work. He was a tireless
reviser, and possessed the rare power of cutting, polishing, and
finishing his work with exquisite nicety, without robbing it of vigor.
His writings exerted a distinct political and moral influence. His is
not alone the voice of pitiless and mocking irony, but it is that of the
humanitarian, who in overthrow and destruction sees only the first step
toward the creation of something better. When war broke out he laid
aside his pen, saying that this was no time for a poet to pull down, and
that his was not the power to build up. His health forbade his entering
the army, which was a cause of poignant sorrow to him. His faith in
Italy and her people and in the final triumph of unity remained unshaken
and sublime in the midst of every reverse.
His mastery of the Tuscan dialect and his elegance of idiom won him
membership in the Accademia della Crusca; but his love for Tuscany was
always subservient to his love for Italy. To those who favored the
division of the peninsula, he used to reply that he had but one
fatherland, and that was a unit. He died in Florence, March 31, 1850, at
the home of his devoted friend the Marquis Gino Capponi. In the teeth of
Austrian prohibition, a throng of grateful and loving citizens followed
his body to the church of San Miniato al Monte, remembering that at a
time when freedom of thought was deemed treason, this man had fearlessly
raised the battle-cry and prepared the way for the insurrection of 1848.
Besides his satires, Giusti has left us a life of the poet Giuseppe
Parini, a collection of Tuscan proverbs, and an unedited essay on the
'Divine Comedy.'
LULLABY
From 'Gingillino'
[The poem of 'Gingillino,' one of Giusti's finest satires, is
full of personal hits, greatly enjoyed by the author's
countrymen. The 'Lullaby' is sung by a number of personified
Vices round the cradle of the infant Gingillino, who, having
come into the world naked and possessed of nothing, is
admonished how to behave if he would go out of it well dressed
and rich. A few verses only are given out of the many. The
whole poem was one of the most popular of all Giusti's
satires.]