Poems You Ought to Know

Francis William Bourdillon was born in Woolbeding in 1852.  Re received his education at Worcester College, Oxford, and was afterwards a private tutor to the sons of the Prince and Princess Christian.  A few of his published works are, “Among the Flowers and Other Poems,” 1874; “Ailes d’Alouette,” 1891; “A Lost God,” 1892; and “Sursum Corda,” 1893.

The night has a thousand eyes,
   And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
   With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
   And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
   When love is done.

The rich man’s son inherits lands,
   And piles of brick, and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft, white hands,
   And tender flesh that fears the cold,
   Nor dares to wear a garment old;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man’s son inherits cares;
   The bank may break, the factory burn,
A breath may burst his bubble shares;
   And soft, white hands could scarcely earn
   A living that would serve his turn;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

The rich man’s son inherits wants,
   His stomach craves for dainty fare;
With sated heart he hears the pants
   Of toiling hinds with brown arms bare,
   And wearies in his easy chair;
A heritage, it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
   Wishes o’erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit,
   Content that from employment springs.
   A heart that in his labor sings;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
   A patience learned of being poor;
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it.
   A fellow-feeling that is sure
   To make the outcast bless his door;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.

O, rich man’s son! there is a toil
   That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,
   But only whiten, soft white hands—
   This is the best crop from thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.

O, poor man’s son! scorn not thy state;
   There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great;
   Toil only gives the soul to shine,
   And makes rest fragrant and benign—
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.

A DITTY.
BY SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
   By just exchange one to the other given;
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
   There never was a better bargain driven;
My true love hath my heart and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
   My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
   I cherish his because in me it bides:
My true love hath my heart and I have his.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.

He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.

The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul.

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth and even for evermore.

Francis Scott Key was born in Frederick County, Maryland, in 1780.  He was the author of a volume of poems published in 1857, but the poem that will keep him alive in the memory of the nation is his “Star Spangled Banner.”  This poem was written on shipboard during the war of 1812, while the English were bombarding Fort McHenry.  Mr. Key died at Baltimore in 1843.

O! say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
   What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thro’ the perilous fight,
   O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming!
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro’ the night that our flag was still there;
O! say, does that star spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On that shore, dimly seen thro’ the mists of the deep,
   Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
   As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream;
’Tis the star spangled banner, O, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
   That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
   Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution;
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.
And the star spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

FROM “IN MEMORIAM.”
BY ALFRED TENNYSON.

O, yet we trust that somehow good
   Will be the final goal of ill,
   To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
   That not one life shall be destroyed,
   Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain,
   That not a moth with vain desire
   Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another’s gain.

*          *          *

The wish that of the living whole
   No life may fail beyond the grave,
   Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,
   That Nature lends such evil dreams
   So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere
   Her secret meaning in her deeds,
   And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear

I falter where I firmly trod,
   And falling with my weight of cares
   Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
That slope thro’ darkness up to God

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
   And gather dust and chaff, and call
   To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.

I remember, I remember
   The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
   Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
   Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
   Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
   The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
   Were close against the sky;
It was a childish ignorance,
   But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heaven
   Than when I was a boy.

MARY’S DREAM.
BY JOHN LOWE.

John Lowe, the author of this poem, was born at Kenmure, parish of Kells, Kircudbrightshire, Scotland, in 1750.  His father was a gardener, and at the age of 14 John was apprenticed to a weaver, but in 1771 he was enabled to go to the University of Edinburgh.  Later he entered the family of Mr. McGhie of Airds, whose house was located on an elevated piece of ground washed by the Dee and Ken, a spot reverenced by Lowe for its beauty.  Within the grounds he erected a rural seat environed with honeysuckle, woodbine, and other shrubs, which is known to this day as “Lowe’s Seat,” and there he composed many of his most beautiful verses.

The moon had climbed the highest hill
   That rises o’er the source of Dee,
And from the eastern summit shed
   Her silver light on tower and tree;
When Mary laid her down to sleep,
   Her thoughts on Sandy far at sea;
When, soft and low, a voice was heard,
   Saying, “Mary, weep no more for me.”

She from her pillow gently raised
   Her head to ask who there might be,
And saw young Sandy shivering stand,
   With visage pale and hollow e’e.
“O, Mary dear, cold is my clay,
   It lies beneath a stormy sea;
Far, far from thee I sleep in death,
   So, Mary, weep no more for me.

“O, maiden dear, thyself prepare!
   We soon shall meet upon that shore
Where love is free from doubt and care,
   And thou and I shall part no more!”
Loud crowed the cock, the shadow fled;
   No more of Sandy could she see,
But soft the passing spirit said,
   “Sweet Mary, weep no more for me!”

Thomas William Parsons was born at Boston in 1818.  He spent the greater part of his life in Europe.  In 1867 he translated Dante’s “Inferno.”  In 1854 he published, under the title “Ghetto di Roma,” a collection of his poems.  He died at Scituate, Mass., in 1892.

See, from his counterfeit of him
   Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim,
   The father was of Tuscan song!
There but the burning sense of wrong,
   Perpetual care and scorn abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
   Distrust of all the world beside.

The lips as Cumæ’s cavern close,
   The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin,
The rigid front, almost morose,
   But for the patient hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
   Unsullied still, though still severe;
Which, through the wavering days of sin,
   Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.

Peace dwells not here—this rugged face
   Betrays no spirit of repose;
The sullen warrior sole we trace,
   The marble man of many woes.
Such was his mien when first arose
   The thought of that strange tale divine,
When hell he peopled with his foes,
   The scourge of many a guilty line.

This ballad, of which we give Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s translation, was written by Villon in 1450.  There are many translations of the poems of that beggar, poet, thief—that first lucid poet of France.  Andrew Lang has interpreted him in one way, John Payne in another.  The following translation is, perhaps, the happiest of this particular poem, though the ballad cannot but lose some of its spirit in an English rendering.

Tell me, now, in what hidden way is
   Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where’s Hipparchia, and where is Thais—
   Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
   Only heard on river and mere—
She whose beauty was more than human?
   But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Where’s Heloise, the learned nun,
   For whose sake Abeillard, I ween,
Lost manhood and put priesthood on?
   (From love he won such dule and teen!)
And where, I pray you, is the Queen
   Who willed that Buridan should steer,
Sewed in a sack’s mouth, down the Seine?
   But where are the snows of yesteryear?

White Queen Blanche, like a queen of lilies
   With a voice like any mermaiden—
Bertha Broadfoot, Beatrice, Alice,
   And Ermengarde, the lady of the Maine—
And that good Joan, whom Englishmen
   At Rouen doomed, and burned her there—
Mother of God, where are they, then?
   But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Nay, never ask this week, fair lord,
   Where they are gone, nor yet this year,
Except with this for an overword—
   But where are the snows of yesteryear?

Mr. Hawker was a clergyman, born at Plymouth, England, in 1804, and died there in 1875.  He was educated at Oxford and became a noted figure in the church.  He was a stalwart and heroic character.  In 1834 he became vicar of a lonely parish on the Cornwall coast.  His “Echoes From Old Cornwall” appeared in 1845; “Cornish Ballads” in 1869.  Shortly before his death he joined the Roman Catholic Church.

A good sword and a trusty hand!
   And merry heart and true!
King James’ men shall understand
   What Cornish lads can do.

And have they fixed the where and when?
   And shall Trelawney die?
Here’s twenty thousand Cornish men
   Will know the reason why!

Out spake their Captain brave and bold,
   A merry wight was he;
“If London Tower were Michael’s hold,
   We’ll set Trelawney free!

“We’ll cross the Tamar, land to land,
   The Severn is no stay;
With ‘one and all’ and hand in hand,
   And who shall bid us nay?

“And when we come to London Wall,
   A pleasant sight to view,
Come forth!  Come forth, ye cowards all,
   Here’s men as good as you!

“Trelawney he’s in keep and hold,
   Trelawney he may die;
But here’s twenty thousand Cornish bold,
   Will know the reason why!”

Mrs. Meynell is considered by many critics as the most elegant poet in England at this present time.  She has written, besides several volumes of verse, two or three books of essays: “The Color of Life,” “The Rhythm of Life,” and “The Children.”

She walks—the lady of my delight—
   A shepherdess of sheep.
Her flocks are thoughts.  She keeps them white;
   She guards them from the steep.
She feeds them on the fragrant height,
   And folds them in for sleep.

She roams maternal hills and bright,
   Dark valleys safe and deep.
Into her tender breast at night
   The chastest stars may peep.
She walks—the lady of my delight—
   A shepherdess of sheep.

INVICTUS.
BY W. E. HENLEY.

William Ernest Henley was born in England about 1850.  In 1888 he became editor of the Scots Observer, and in the same year published his first volume of poems—“A Book of Verses.”  He is a writer and a critic as well as a poet.

Out of the night that covers me,
   Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
   For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
   I have not winced nor cried aloud;
Under the bludgeonings of chance
   My head is bloody, but unbow’d.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
   Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
   Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
   How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
   I am the captain of my soul.

’Tis the last rose of summer
   Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
   Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
   No rosebud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
   Or give sigh for sigh,

So soon may I follow,
   When friendships decay,
And from love’s shining circle
   The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
   And fond ones are flown,
Oh, who would inhabit
   This bleak world alone?

MUSIC, WHEN SOFT VOICES DIE.
BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory;
Odors, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heapt for the belovèd bed;
And so thy thoughts when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

“And who shall sing the glory of the deep” better than Allan Cunningham has done in this song of a sailor’s love, a poet’s love, for the sea?

A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
   And a wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
   And bends the gallant mast;
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
   While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
   Old England on the lee.

There’s tempest in yon horned moon,
   And lightning in yon cloud;
And hark the music, mariners!
   The wind is piping loud;
The wind is piping loud, my boys,
   The lightning flashing free—
While the hollow oak our palace is,
   Our heritage the sea.

SONG FROM “PIPPA PASSES.”
BY ROBERT BROWNING.

Robert Browning was born at Camberwell in 1812.  He was educated at the London University.  While his wife lived Browning spent most of his time in Florence—later he divided his time between London and Venice.  He died at Venice in 1889.  His poems have been collected into several volumes under the titles of “Men and Women,” “Dramatis Personae,” “The Ring and the Book,” “Dramatic Idylls,” and “Sordello.”

The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled.
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn;
God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world!

John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Massachusetts in 1807.  He was successively the editor of the “American Manufacturer,” the “Haverhill Gazette,” and the “New England Weekly Review.”  In 1836 he went to Philadelphia to edit the “Pennsylvania Freeman,” for he was an abolitionist of strong principle.  He died in 1892.

I wait and watch; before my eyes
   Methinks the night grows thin and gray;
I wait and watch the eastern skies
To see the golden spears uprise
   Beneath the oriflamme of day!

Like one whose limbs are bound in trance
   I hear the day-sounds swell and grow,
And see across the twilight glance,
Troop after troop, in swift advance,
   The shining ones with plumes of snow!

I know the errand of their feet,
   I know what mighty work is theirs;
I can but lift up hands unmeet
The thrashing floors of God to beat,
   And speed them with unworthy prayers.

I will not dream in vain despair,
   The steps of progress wait for me;
The puny leverage of a hair
The planet’s impulse well may spare,
   A drop of dew the tided sea.

The loss, if loss there be, is mine;
   And yet not mine if understood;
For one shall grasp and one resign,
One drink life’s rue, and one its wine,
   And God shall make the balance good.

O, power to do!  O, baffled will!
   O, prayer and action! ye are one.
Who may not strive may yet fulfill
The harder task of standing still,
   And good but wished with God is done!

This poem is an excellent example of Swinburne’s wonderful inventiveness in the meter of his verses.

If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.

If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy,
We’d play for lives and seasons
With loving looks and treasons
And tears of night and morrow
And laughs of maid and boy;
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.

If you were April’s lady,
And I were lord in May,
We’d throw with leaves for hours
And draw for days with flowers,
Till day, like night, were shady,
And night were bright like day;
If you were April’s lady,
And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,
And I were king of pain,
We’d hunt down love together,
Pluck out his flying feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein;
If you were queen of pleasure,
And I were king of pain.

The advice contained in this poem is not given so subtly nor so gracefully as it is in the other two poems of the trio—Ronsard’s and Waller’s—but the writer is neither a sweet singer like Ronsard nor a poet of nicer instincts like Waller.  He was a man who did not scruple to “sully the purity of his style with impurity of sentiment.”

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
   Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles to-day
   To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of Heaven, the sun,
   The higher he’s a-getting
The sooner will his race be run,
   And nearer he’s to setting.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
   And, while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
   You may forever tarry.

WHY SO PALE AND WAN?
BY SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

Sir John Suckling was born in Whitton in 1609.  He went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and afterwards entered the service of the King, Charles I.  He fought in the army of Gustavus Adolphus in 1631–32; while in 1639 he levied a troop of horse against the Covenanters.  He was a member of the long parliament in 1640.  The next year he was charged with high treason and fled to Paris, where he was supposed to have committed suicide in 1642.  Though he wrote several plays, he is chiefly noted for his poems.

Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
   Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
   Looking ill prevail?
   Prithee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
   Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
   Saying nothing do’t?
   Prithee, why so mute?

Quit, quit, for shame; this will not move;
   This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
   Nothing can make her;
   The devil take her!

Of this poem Thomas Wentworth Higginson says (in the Outlook, February, 1890): “It is so magnificent that it cheapens most of its contemporary literature, and is alone worth a life otherwise obscure.  When all else of American literature has vanished, who knows but that some single masterpiece like this may remain to show the high water mark not merely of a poet but of a nation and a civilization?”

I stand upon the summit of my life,
Behind, the camp, the court, the field, the grove,
The battle, and the burden: vast, afar
Beyond these weary ways, behold, the Sea!
The sea, o’erswept by clouds, and winds, and wings;
By thoughts and wishes manifold; whose breath
Is freshness, and whose mighty pulse is peace.

Palter no question of the horizon dim—
Cut loose the bark!  Such voyage itself is rest;
Majestic motion, unimpeded scope,
A widening heaven, a current without care,
Eternity!  Deliverance, promise, course,
Time tired souls salute thee from the shore.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Sussex, England, in 1792.  He was educated at Eton and later at University College, Oxford.  When he was 19 Shelley married Harriet Westbrook, but after meeting Mary Wollstonecraft he left Harriet and went to Switzerland with Mary.  Harriet drowned herself in 1816, and Shelley married Mary.  In 1818 they went to Italy, where they lived, for the rest of Shelley’s life, with Byron, Trelawney, Edward Williams, and Hunt.  Shelley and Williams were drowned in the bay of Spezzia in 1822, and their bodies were burned on a funeral pyre.

I arise from dreams of thee
   In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low
   And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
   And a spirit in my feet
Hath led me—who knows how?
   To thy chamber window, Sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
   In the dark, the silent stream—
And the champak odors pine
   Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint
   It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
   Oh, belovèd as thou art!

Oh, lift me from the grass!
   I die!  I faint!  I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
   On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
   My heart beats loud and fast;
Oh, press it to thine own again,
   Where it will break at last!

Joseph O’Connor was born at Tribes Hill, N. Y., in 1841.  He is a graduate of Rochester University, and was admitted to the bar, but never practiced.  He taught for a while at the Rochester Free Academy, but soon left this work for journalism and became editor of the Rochester Post and Express.  His poems were published in 1895.

I would the fount of Castaly,
   Had never wet my lips;
For woe to him that hastily
   Its sacred water sips.

Apollo’s laurel flourishes
   Above that stream divine;
Its secret virtue nourishes
   The leaves of love and wine.

*          *          *

Its joyous tide leaps crystally
   Up ’neath the crystal moon,
And falling ever mistily
   The sparkling drops keep tune.

The wavelets circle gleamingly,
   With lilies keeping trysts;
The emeralds glisten dreamily
   Below, and amethysts.

Once taste that fountain’s witchery
   On old Parnassus’ crown,
And to this world of treachery
   O, never more come down!

Your joy will be to think of it,
   ’Twill ever haunt your dreams;
You’ll thirst again to drink of it,
   Among a thousand streams.

This poem of Pierre Ronsard (1542) is given a place here, as it is an example of that theme which is as old as love or life—the decay of youth and beauty—a subject which has been a favorite with poets in all times.  The motive of this little lyric is that of Waller’s “Go, Lovely Rose,” and of Herrick’s “Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May.”

Come, my Mignonne, let us go—
   Let us see if yonder rose,
   That this morning did disclose
   Robes of crimson to the sun,
   Now that evening has begun,
Still with tints like yours does glow.

Ah, my Mignonne, look and see—
   Look there, underneath the bough;
   Short the space from then till now,
   But its beauties all are past!
   Scarce from morn till eve they last—
Such is nature’s harsh decree.

Ah, my Mignonne, trust to me;
   While your youth as yet is seen
   In its freshest, fairest green,
   Seize the moments to enjoy;
   Old age hastens to destroy
Roses, beauty, youth, and thee.

Thomas Chatterton was born in Bristol, England, Nov. 20, 1752.  He ended his life by taking arsenic in a lodging room in London, Aug. 24, 1770.  He received a meager education at a charity school in his native city, began to write verses when he was 12 years old, and at 15 was apprenticed to a Bristol attorney.  He went to London in April, 1770.  He tried to make a living by writing for the newspapers, but failed, and, reduced to extreme destitution, committed suicide.  His Rowley poems, which he said were translations from the writings of a monk of the fifteenth century, have been the subject of much discussion.  Besides those he wrote “The Tragedy of Aella,” “The Battle of Hastings,” “The Tournament,” and several shorter poems.  His correspondence with Horace Walpole proved a bitter experience for the precocious poet, who wrote some savage lines on that nobleman author.

O God, whose thunder shakes the sky,
   Whose eye this atom globe surveys,
To thee, my only rock, I fly,
   Thy mercy in thy justice praise.

The mystic mazes of thy will,
   The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the power of human skill;
   But what the Eternal acts is right.

Oh, teach me in the trying hour,
   When anguish swells the dewy tear,
To still my sorrows, own thy power,
   Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.

If in this bosom aught but thee
   Encroaching sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
   And Mercy look the cause away.

Then why, my soul, dost thou complain,
   Why drooping seek the dark recess?
Shake off the melancholy chain,
   For God created all to bless.

But ah! my breast is human still;
   The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals’ feeble rill,
   The sickness of my soul declare.

The gloomy mantle of the night,
   Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
   Which God, my east, my sun, reveals.

Bayard Taylor was born in Pennsylvania in 1825.  He was connected with the New York Tribune 1849–’50.  Most of his life was spent in travel.  In 1853 he joined Perry’s expedition to Japan.  He corresponded with the American papers, and on his return to this country he lectured.  From 1862–’63 he lived at St. Petersburg as Secretary of the Legation there.  He died in Berlin, where he was United States Minister, in 1878.  He has written of his travels, has translated Goethe’s “Faust,” and was besides a poet and novelist.

“Give us a song!” the soldiers cried,
   The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
   Grew weary of bombarding.

The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
   Lay grim and threatening under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
   No longer belch’d its thunder.

There was a pause.  A guardsman said:
   “We storm the forts tomorrow;
Sing while we may, another day
   Will bring enough of sorrow.”

They lay along the battery’s side,
   Below the smoking cannon;
Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde
   And from the banks of Shannon.

They sang of love and not of fame;
   Forgot was Britain’s glory;
Each heart recalled a different name,
   But all sang “Annie Laurie.”

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
   But as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier’s cheek
   Washed off the stains of powder.

Beyond the darkening ocean burned
   The bloody sunset’s embers,
While the Crimean valleys learn’d
   How English love remembers.

And once again a fire of hell
   Rain’d on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot and burst of shell,
   And bellowing of the mortars!

An Irish Nora’s eyes are dim
   For a singer dumb and gory;
An English Mary mourns for him
   Who sang of “Annie Laurie.”

Sleep, soldiers! still in honor’d rest
   Your truth and valor wearing;
The bravest are the tenderest—
   The loving are the daring.

Christina Rossetti was born at London in 1828.  She came of that versatile family, in which the father and sons as well as the daughter were writers, artists, critics and poets.  While still in her teens, Miss Rossetti published a little volume called “Maud, Prose and Verse,” and crude and morbid as the work was it gave promise of better things.  She wrote later, “Goblin Market” (which Dante Gabriel Rossetti illustrated), “A Pageant and Other Poems,” and several religious studies.  She died in 1894.

Does the road wind uphill all the way?
   Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
   From morn to night, my friend.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
   Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
   They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
   Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
   Yea, beds for all who come.

DOUGLAS, DOUGLAS, TENDER AND TRUE.
BY MISS MULOCK.

Mrs. Craik, better known as Dinah Maria Mulock, was born at Stoke-Upon-Trent, England, 1828, and died at Shortlands, Kent, October 12, 1887.  She was the author of many popular novels.  She published a volume of poems in 1859, and “Thirty Years’ Poems” in 1881, besides many children’s books, fairy tales, etc.  She married George Lillie Craik, Jr., in 1865.

Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
   In the old likeness that I knew,
I would be so faithful, so loving, Douglas,
   Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.

Never a scornful word should grieve ye,
   I’d smile on ye sweet as the angels do—
Sweet as your smile on me shone ever,
   Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.

I never was worthy of you, Douglas,
   Not half worthy the like of you;
Now, all men beside seem to me like shadows—
   I love you, Douglas, tender and true.

Stretch out your hand to me, Douglas, Douglas.
   Drop forgiveness from heaven like dew,
As I lay my heart on your dead heart, Douglas,
   Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.

This song is found in the “Princess.”  It was sung on the memorable occasion when the three disguised youths are discovered.

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
To dying ears when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O, death in life, the days that are no more.

Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
   The castle o’ Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
   Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfauld her robes,
   And there the langest tarry!
For there I took the last fareweel
   O’ my sweet Highland Mary.

Wi’ monie a vow and locked embrace
   Our parting was fu’ tender;
And, pledging aft to meet again,
   We tore ourselves asunder;
But O! fell death’s untimely frost,
   That nipped my flower sae early!
Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay,
   That wraps my Highland Mary.

O pale, pale now those rosy lips
   I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
   That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mould’ring now in silent dust
   That heart that lo’ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom’s core
   Shall live my Highland Mary.

THE LAMB.
BY WILLIAM BLAKE.

In speaking of William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence,” Swinburne says: “These poems are really unequaled of their kind.  Such verse was never written for children since verse writing began.”

Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a lamb.
He is meek and he is mild,
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little lamb, God bless thee!
Little lamb, God bless thee!

The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof;
The world and they that dwell therein.
For he hath founded it upon the seas,
And established it upon the floods.
Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?
Or who shall stand in his holy place?
He that hath clean hands,
And a pure heart;
Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity,
Nor sworn deceitfully.
He shall receive the blessing from the Lord,
And righteousness from the God of his salvation.
This is the generation of them that seek him,
That seek thy face, O Jacob.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, O ye gates;
Even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory.

Weary of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At the vessel’s prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o’er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire
O’er the sea and to the stars I send;
“Ye, who from my childhood up have claimed me,
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

“Ah, once more,” I cried, “ye stars, ye waters,
On my heart your mighty charm renew;
Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,
Feel my soul becoming vast like you!”

From the intense, clear, star sown vault of heaven,
O’er the lit sea’s unquiet way,
In the rustling night air came the answer—
“Wouldst thou be as these are?  Live as they.

“And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long moon silver’d roll;
For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

“Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God’s other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.”

O, air born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear—
“Resolve to be thyself; and know that he
Who finds himself loses his misery!”

Mr. Longfellow and his second wife, during their honeymoon, visited the United States arsenal at Springfield, Mass., about half a century ago.  The figure of speech in which the poet speaks of the burnished arms rising like a huge organ was suggested by Mrs. Longfellow.  The poem was inspired by Charles Sumner’s oration, “The True Grandeur of Nations,” which was an argument for peace and against war.

This is the Arsenal.  From floor to ceiling,
   Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms;
But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing
   Startles the villages with strange alarms.

Ah, what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary,
   When the death angel touches those swift keys!
What loud lament and dismal Miserere
   Will mingle with their awful symphonies!

I hear even now the infinite fierce chorus,
   The cries of agony, the endless groan,
Which, through the ages that have gone before us,
   In long reverberations reach our own.

On helm and harness rings the Saxon hammer,
   Through Cimbric forest roars the Norseman’s song,
And loud, amid the universal clamor,
   O’er distant deserts sounds the Tartar gong.

I hear the Florentine, who from his palace
   Wheels out his battle bell with dreadful din,
And Aztec priests upon their teocallis
   Beat the wild war drums made of serpent’s skin.

The bursting shell, the gateway wrenched asunder,
   The rattling musketry, the clashing blade;
And ever and anon, in tones of thunder,
   The diapason of the cannonade.

Is it, O man, with such discordant noises,
   With such accursed instruments as these,
Thou drownest nature’s sweet and kindly voices,
   And jarrest the celestial harmonies?

Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
   Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
   There were no need of arsenals or forts.

The warrior’s name would be a name abhorred
   And every nation, that should lift again
Its hand against a brother, on its forehead
   Would wear for evermore the curse of Cain!

Down the dark future, through long generations,
   The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease;
And, like a bell, with solemn, sweet vibrations,
   I hear once more the voice of Christ say “Peace!”

Peace!  And no longer from its brazen portals
   The blast of war’s great organ shakes the skies!
But beautiful as songs of the immortals
   The holy melodies of love arise.

Francis A. Durivage was born at Boston in 1814 and engaged early in journalistic work, writing for the magazines as well.  He won considerable reputation with a series of humorous articles signed “Old Un.”  He wrote a great many poems of serious as well as of light character, and several plays.  He published “Cyclopedia of Biography,” “The Fatal Casket,” “Life Scenes from the World Around Us,” was part translator of Lamartine’s “History of the Revolution of 1848,” and co-author of “Stray Subjects.”  He died in New York city in 1881.

[“I know of no finer poem of its length.”—Bayard Taylor.]

There hangs a saber, and there a rein,
With a rusty buckle and green curb chain;
A pair of spurs on the old gray wall,
And a mouldy saddle—well, that is all.

Come out to the stable—it is not far;
The moss grown door is hanging ajar.
Look within!  There’s an empty stall,
Where once stood a charger, and that is all.

The good black horse came riderless home,
Flecked with blood drops as well as foam;
See yonder hillock where dead leaves fall;
The good black horse pined to death—that’s all.

All?  O, God! it is all I can speak.
Question me not—I am old and weak;
His saber and his saddle hang on the wall,
And his horse pined to death—I have told you all.

Anna Letitia Barbauld, the daughter of the Rev. John Aiken, was born at Kilworth-Harcourt, in Leicestershire, 1743.  She married the Rev. Rochemond Barbauld.  A poet as well as an essayist, she wrote “Poems,” “Hymns in Prose for Children,” “The Female Spectator,” and “Eighteen Hundred and Eleven.”  She died at Stoke Newington in 1825.

Life!  I know not what thou art,
But know that thou and I must part;
And when, or how, or where we met
I own to me ’s a secret yet.

Life! we’ve been long together
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
’Tis hard to part when friends are dear—
Perhaps ’t will cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
      Choose thine own time;
      Say not “Good night,” but in some brighter clime
Bid me “Good morning.”

I wandered, lonely as a cloud
   That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
   A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
   And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
   Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
   Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
   In such jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth to me the show had brought;

For oft, when on my couch I lie
   In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
   Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

John Milton was born at London in 1608.  At 16 he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, and there wrote his “Ode on the Nativity” (1629).  During the Long Parliament Milton wrote many political pamphlets attacking the Episcopacy, and later, when Charles I. had been executed, he answered the “Eikon Basilike” of Gauden with his famous “Eikonoclastes.”  At home Milton suffered through the neglect and impatience of his daughters, who, on account of his blindness, were the unwilling amanuenses, of “Paradise Lost,” and “Paradise Regained.”  Besides these epic poems are “L’Allegro,” “Il Penseroso,” “Comus,” and “Lycidas,” all of which were written between 1634–’37.  He died in 1674.

Now the bright morning star, day’s harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow cowslip and the pale primrose.
Hail, bounteous May, that doth inspire
Mirth and youth and warm desire;
Woods and groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale doth boast thy blessing;
Thus we salute thee with our early song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

The death is announced of First Class Petty Officer Grounds of H. M. S. Terrible, the best shot with a heavy gun in the British navy.  Grounds’ wages were 3 shillings per day, and for the unparalleled achievement of making eight shots in one minute in 1901 with the six-inch gun, and seven hits out of eight rounds in one minute under most unfavorable weather conditions in 1902, he received in all the magnificent remuneration of 1 shilling 9 pence, and 6 shillings 3 pence in the two years, “his proper share of prize money.”

The statesman at the council, and the gunner at the breech:
   The hand upon the parchment and the eye along the sight:
O, the cry is on the waters: Have ye weighed the worth of each?
   Have ye shown a mandate stronger than ability to smite?

He was the best with a heavy gun in the whole o’ the British fleet,
And the run of his pay?  Three shillin’s a day, with biscuit and salted meat.
He was the man who could pitch his shell on a mark that was never still
Eight times true while a minute flew, and parliament whittled the bill;
He was a man who could soothe a gun in the race of a swirling tide,
Who could chime his shots with the charging knots of a ship with a dripping side,
Who could get to his mark from a dancing deck that never a moment stood,
Content to hear, for a Bisley cheer, a midshipman’s muttered “Good!”

Gladder, I think, would the gunner’s soul have passed thro’ the closing dark
Had he known that ye cared with patriot joy when the navy hit the mark;
Gladder, I think, would the gunner’s soul have passed to the farther shore
Had the Mother Land once gripped his hand, and uttered the pride she bore.
Gold is the prize that all men seek, tho’ the mark be honor and fame;
Declare: Have ye spurned by a gift or a word the Terrible gunners’ aim?
Will ye care to know what the men can do when the hosts of hate embark?
What of your sons at the old sea guns?—have ye cared if they hit the mark?