Poems You Ought to Know

Charles James Lever was born at Dublin in 1806.  He was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards became a physician, as well as a journalist, and the editor of the Dublin University Magazine.  He was consul at Spezzia in 1858, and later at Trieste, where he died in 1872.  His poems, when he did not try to be serious, are full of humor and rhythm.  He wrote, among other novels, “Harry Lorrequer,” “Charles O’Malley,” and “Tom Burke of Ours.”

Did you hear of the Widow Malone,
   Ohone!
Who lived in the town of Athlone,
   Alone?
Oh! she melted the hearts
Of the swains in them parts—
So lovely the Widow Malone,
   Ohone!
So lovely the Widow Malone.

Of lovers she had a full score
   Or more;
And fortunes they all had galore,
   In store;
From the minister down
To the clerk of the crown,
All were courting the Widow Malone,
   Ohone!
All were courting the Widow Malone.

Till one Misther O’Brien from Clare—
   How quare!
It’s little for blushing they care
   Down there—
Put his arm round her waist,
Gave ten kisses at laste—
“Oh,” says he, “you’re my Molly Malone—
   My own!”
“Oh,” says he, “you’re my Molly Malone!”

And the widow they all thought so shy,
   My eye!
Ne’er thought of a simper or sigh—
   For why?
But, “Lucius,” says she,
“Since you’ve now made so free,
You may marry your Mary Malone,
   Ohone!
You may marry your Mary Malone.”

There’s a moral contained in my song,
   Not wrong,
And, one comfort, it’s not very long,
   But strong;
If for widows you die
Learn to kiss, not to sigh,
For they’re all like sweet Mistress Malone!
   Ohone!
Oh! they’re all like sweet Mistress Malone!

This poem, which has often been attributed to General “Stonewall” Jackson, was written by General Henry R. Jackson, a lawyer and diplomat, of Savannah, Ga.

The tattoo beats—the lights are gone,
   The camp around in slumber lies;
The night with solemn pace moves on,
   The shadows thicken o’er the skies;
But sleep my weary eyes hath flown,
   And sad, uneasy thoughts arise.

I think of thee, Oh, dearest one,
   Whose love my early life hath blest—
Of thee and him—our baby son—
   Who slumbers on thy gentle breast.
God of the tender, frail and lone,
   Oh, guard the tender sleeper’s rest.

And hover gently, hover near,
   To her, whose watchful eye is wet—
To mother, wife—the doubly dear,
   In whose young heart have freshly met
Two streams of love so deep and clear
   And clear her drooping spirits yet.

Whatever fate those forms may show,
   Loved with a passion almost wild—
By day—by night—in joy or woe—
   By fears oppressed, or hopes beguiled,
From every danger, every foe,
   O God! protect my wife and child!

That Thou can’st stay the ruthless hands
   Of dark disease, and soothe its pain;
That only by Thy stern command
   The battle’s lost, the soldier’s slain—
That from the distant sea or land
   Thou bring’st the wanderer home again.

And when upon her pillow lone
   Her tear-wet cheek is sadly prest,
May happier visions beam upon
   The brightening current of her breast,
No frowning look nor angry tone
   Disturb the Sabbath of her rest.

Lowell was born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1819.  He went to Harvard college and was Longfellow’s successor as professor of modern languages at the same college.  From 1857–’62 he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly; in 1863–’72 he was editor of the North American Review.  He held the office of United States minister, first to Spain–1877–’80—and later to Great Britain–1880–’85.  Lowell died at Cambridge in 1891.  Among his poems are the “Biglow Papers,” the “Vision of Sir Launfal,” “A Tale for Critics.”  Some of his prose works are “Among My Books,” “My Study Windows,” and “Political Essays.”

It don’t seem hardly right, John,
   When both my hands was full,
To stump me to a fight, John—
   Your cousin, tu, John Bull!
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
   We know it now,” sez he;
“The lion’s paw is all the law,
   According to J. B.,
   Thet’s fit for you an’ me!”

You wonder why we’re hot, John?
   Your mark wuz on the guns—
The neutral guns, thet shot, John,
   Our brothers an’ our sons.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
   There’s human blood,” sez he,
“By fits an’ starts, in Yankee hearts,
   Though’t may surprise J. B.
   More ’n it would you an’ me.”

When your rights was our wrongs, John,
   You didn’t stop for fuss—
Britanny’s trident prongs, John,
   Was good ’nough law for us.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess,
   Though physic’s good,” sez he,
“It doesn’t foller thet he can swaller
   Prescriptions signed ‘J. B.’,
   Put up by you an’ me!”

We know we’ve got a cause, John,
   Thet’s honest, just, an’ true;
We thought ’twould win applause, John,
   Ef nowheres else, from you.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
   His love of right,” sez he,
“Hangs by a rotten fibre o’ cotton;
   There’s natur’ in J. B.,
   Ez wal ez you an’ me!”

God means to make this land, John,
   Clear thru, from sea to sea,
Believe an’ understand, John,
   The wuth o’ being free.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
   God’s price is high,” sez he;
“But nothin’ else than wut he sells
   Wears long, an’ thet J. B.
   May larn, like you an’ me.”

To be, or not to be; that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?  To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished.  To die; to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?  Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death—
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveler returns—puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turns awry
And lose the name of action.

Whither, ’midst falling dew,
   While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
   Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler’s eye
   Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
   Thy figure floats along.

*          *          *

There is a power whose care
   Teaches thy way along that pathless coast—
The desert and illimitable air—
   Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
   At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere.
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
   Though the dark night is near.

*          *          *

Thou’rt gone; the abyss of heaven
   Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
   And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,
   Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone
   Will lead my steps aright.

William Haines Lytle was born at Cincinnati, O., in 1826, and died a hero’s death at Chickamauga in 1863.  He enlisted in the Mexican war in 1846, and served with distinction.  Afterwards he attained prominence as a lawyer and politician.  When the civil war broke out he was appointed major general of volunteers.  At Carnifex ferry he was desperately wounded, but recovered and took charge of a brigade.  He was again wounded at Perryville and captured.  Being exchanged, he was promoted to brigadier general and fought in many engagements till Sept. 29, 1863.  His poems were never collected in book form.  This one was written in 1857.

I am dying, Egypt, dying!
   Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
   Gather on the evening blast.
Let thine arms, O queen, enfold me;
   Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear.
Listen to the great heart secrets
   Thou, and thou alone, must hear.

Though my scarred and veteran legions
   Bear their eagles high no more,
And my wrecked and scattered galleys
   Strew dark Actium’s fatal shore;
Though no glittering guards surround me,
   Prompt to do their master’s will,
I must perish like a Roman—
   Die the great Triumvir still!

Let no Cesar’s servile minions
   Mock the lion thus laid low;
’Twas no foeman’s arm that felled him;
   ’Twas his own that struck the blow—
His who, pillowed on thy bosom,
   Turned aside from glory’s ray—
His who, drunk with thy caresses,
   Madly threw a world away.

As for thee, star-eyed Egyptian!
   Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
Light the path to Stygian horrors
   With the splendors of thy smile.
Give to Cæsar crowns and arches,
   Let his brow the laurel twine;
I can scorn the senate’s triumphs,
   Triumphing in love like thine.

I am dying, Egypt, dying;
   Hark! the insulting foeman’s cry.
They are coming—quick, my falchion!
   Let me front them ere I die.
Ah! no more amid the battle
   Shall my heart exulting swell;
Isis and Osiris guard thee!
   Cleopatra—Rome—farewell!

The following poem was a particular favorite with Abraham Lincoln.  It was first shown to him when a young man by a friend, and afterwards he cut it from a newspaper and learned it by heart.  He said to a friend: “I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but have never been able to ascertain.”  He did afterwards learn the name of the author.

William Knox was a Scottish poet who was born in 1789 at Firth and died in 1825 at Edinburgh.  His “Lonely Hearth and Other Poems” was published in 1818, and “The Songs of Israel,” from which “O, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud” is taken, in 1824.  Sir Walter Scott was an admirer of Knox’s poems, and befriended the author when his habits brought him into need.

O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
As the young and the old, the low and the high,
Shall crumble to dust and together shall lie.

The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant’s affection who proved,
The father that mother and infant who blest—
Each, all, are away to that dwelling of rest.

The maid on whose brow, on whose cheek, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by;
And alike from the minds of the living erased
Are the memories of mortals who loved her and praised.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread—
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, we see the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers did think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers did shrink;
To the life we are clinging our fathers did cling,
But it speeds from us all like the bird on the wing.

They loved—but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned—but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved—but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed—but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died—ah! they died—we, things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain,
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

THE THREE FISHERS.
BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Charles Kingsley was born in Devonshire in 1819; he died in 1875.  His poetical works consist of “The Saint’s Tragedy” and “Andromeda and Other Poems.”

Three fishers went sailing out into the West,
   Out into the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best;
   And the children stood watching them out of the town;
      For men must work and women must weep,
      And there’s little to earn, and many to keep;
         Though the harbor bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
   And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall and they looked at the shower,
   And the rack it came rolling up ragged and brown!
      But men must work and women must weep,
      Though storms be sudden and waters deep,
         And the harbor bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
   In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
   For those who will never come back to the town;
      For men must work and women must weep,
      And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep—
         And good-by to the bar and its moaning.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
In the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness,
Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.
God is known in her palaces for a refuge,
For, lo, the kings were assembled,
They passed by together.
They saw it and so they marveled;
They were troubled, and hasted away.
Fear took hold upon them there,
And pain, as of a woman in travail.
Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind,
As we have heard, so have we seen
In the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God;
God will establish it forever.
We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God,
In the midst of thy temple.
According to thy name, O God,
So is thy praise unto the ends of the earth;
Thy right hand is full of righteousness.
Let Mount Zion rejoice,
Let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.
Walk about Zion, and go round about her;
Tell the towers thereof.
Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces;
That ye may tell it to the generation following.
For this God is our God for ever and ever;
He will be our guide even unto death.

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
   Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace—
   Where Delos rose and Phœbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun, is set.

The mountains look on Marathon—
   And Marathon looks on the sea;
And, musing there an hour alone,
   I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave
I could not deem myself a slave.

A King sate on the rocky brow
   Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
   And men in nations—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,
   My country?  On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
   The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?

Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
   Must we but blush?  Our father’s bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
   A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
   Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
   The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
   Our virgins dance beneath the shade—
I see their glorious black eyes shine!
   But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep
   Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
   There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!