Golden Numbers: A Book of Verse for Youth
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Golden Numbers - Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Golden Numbers, by Various
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
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Title: Golden Numbers
A Book of Verse for Youth
Author: Various
Editor: Kate Douglas Wiggin
Nora Archibald Smith
Release Date: November 8, 2010 [EBook #34237]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN NUMBERS ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Josephine Paolucci and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
McCLURE'S LIBRARY OF CHILDREN'S CLASSICS
EDITED BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
AND NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH
GOLDEN NUMBERS
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH
THE POSY RING
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR CHILDREN
PINAFORE PALACE
A BOOK OF RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY
Library of Fairy Literature
THE FAIRY RING
MAGIC CASEMENTS A SECOND FAIRY BOOK
OTHER VOLUMES TO FOLLOW
Send to the publishers for Complete Descriptive Catalogue
GOLDEN NUMBERS
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH
CHOSEN AND CLASSIFIED BY
Kate Douglas Wiggin
AND
Nora Archibald Smith
WITH INTRODUCTION AND INTERLEAVES BY
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
"To add to golden numbers, golden numbers."
Thomas Dekker.
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1909
Copyright, 1902, by
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.
Published, October, 1902, N
GOLDEN NUMBERS
Then read from the treasured volume the poem of thy choice.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Hark! the numbers soft and clear
Gently steal upon the ear;
Now louder, and yet louder rise,
And fill with spreading sounds the skies;
Exulting in triumph now swell the bold notes,
In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats.
Alexander Pope.
A NOTE
We are indebted to the following firms for permission to use poems mentioned:
Frederick Warne & Co., for poems of George Herbert and Reginald Heber; Small, Maynard & Co., for two poems by Walt Whitman, and The Tax-Gatherer,
by John B. Tabb; George Routledge & Son, for Sir Lark and King Sun,
George Macdonald; Longmans, Green & Co., for Andrew Lang's Scythe Song
; Lee & Shepard, for A Christmas Hymn,
Alfred Dommett,
and Minstrels and Maids,
William Morris; J. B. Lippincott Co., for three poems by Thomas Buchanan Read; John Lane, for The Forsaken Merman,
Matthew Arnold, and Song to April,
William Watson; The Skylark,
Frederick Tennyson; E. P. Dutton & Co., for O Little Town of Bethlehem,
Phillips Brooks; Dana, Estes & Co., for July,
by Susan Hartley Swett; Little, Brown & Co., for poems of Christina G. Rossetti, and for the three poems, The Grass,
The Bee,
and Chartless
by Emily Dickinson; D. Appleton & Co., publishers of Bryant's Complete Poetical Works, for March,
Planting of the Apple Tree,
To the Fringed Gentian,
Death of Flowers,
To a Waterfowl,
and The Twenty-second of December
; Charles Scribner's Sons, for The Wind
and A Visit from the Sea,
both taken from A Child's Garden of Verses
; The Angler's Reveille,
from The Toiling of Felix
; Dear Land of All My Love,
from Poems of Sidney Lanier,
and The Three Kings,
from With Trumpet and Drum,
by Eugene Field; The Churchman, for Tacking Ship Off Shore,
by Walter Mitchell; The Whitaker-Ray Co., for Columbus
and Crossing the Plains,
from The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller; The Macmillan Co., for At Gibraltar,
from North Shore Watch and Other Poems,
by George Edward Woodberry.
The following poems are used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin Co., the authorized publishers:
T. B. Aldrich, A Turkish Legend,
Before the Rain,
Maple Leaves,
and Tiger Lilies
; Christopher P. Cranch, The Bobolinks
; Alice Cary, The Gray Swan
; Margaret Deland, While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night
; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Forbearance,
The Humble-Bee,
Duty,
The Rhodora,
Concord Hymn,
The Snow Storm,
and Ode Sung in the Town Hall, Concord; James T. Fields, Song of the Turtle and the Flamingo
; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Old Ironsides
and The Chambered Nautilus
; John Hay, The Enchanted Shirt
; Julia Ward Howe, Battle Hymn of the Republic
; Bret Harte, The Reveille
and A Greyport Legend
; T. W. Higginson, The Snowing of the Pines
; H. W. Longfellow, The Wreck of the Hesperus,
The Psalm of Life,
Home Song,
The Three Kings,
and The Harvest Moon
; James Russell Lowell, Washington,
extracts from The Vision of Sir Launfal,
The Fatherland,
To the Dandelion,
The Singing Leaves,
and Stanzas on Freedom
; Lucy Larcom, Hannah Binding Shoes
; Edna Dean Proctor, Columbia's Emblem
; T. W. Parsons, Dirge for One Who Fell in Battle
; E. C. Stedman, The Flight of the Birds
and Going A-Nutting
; E. R. Sill, Opportunity
; W. W. Story, The English Language
; Celia Thaxter, The Sandpiper
and Nikolina
; J. T. Trowbridge, Evening at the Farm
and Midwinter
; Bayard Taylor, A Night With a Wolf
and The Song of the Camp
; J. G. Whittier, The Corn Song,
The Barefoot Boy,
Barbara Frietchie,
extracts from Snow-Bound,
Song of the Negro Boatman,
and The Pipes at Lucknow
; W. D. Howells, In August
; J. G. Saxe, Solomon and the Bees.
CONTENTS
A CHANTED CALENDAR Page
Daybreak. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 1
Morning. By John Keats 1
A Morning Song. By William Shakespeare 2
Evening in Paradise. By John Milton 2
Evening Song. By John Fletcher 3
Night. By Robert Southey 4
A Fine Day. By Michael Drayton 5
The Seasons. By Edmund Spenser 5
The Eternal Spring. By John Milton 5
March. By William Cullen Bryant 6
Spring. By Thomas Carew 7
Song to April. By William Watson 7
April in England. By Robert Browning 8
April and May. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 9
May. By Edmund Spenser 9
Song on May Morning. By John Milton 10
Summer. By Edmund Spenser 10
June Weather. By James Russell Lowell 11
July. By Susan Hartley Swett 13
August. By Edmund Spenser 14
In August. By William Dean Howells 14
Autumn. By Edmund Spenser 15
Sweet September. By George Arnold 15
Autumn's Processional. By Dinah M. Mulock 16
October's Bright Blue Weather. By H. H. 16
Maple Leaves. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 17
Down to Sleep. By H. H. 18
Winter. By Edmund Spenser 19
When Icicles Hang by the Wall. By William Shakespeare 19
A Winter Morning. By James Russell Lowell 20
The Snow Storm. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 21
Old Winter. By Thomas Noel 22
Midwinter. By John Townsend Trowbridge 23
Dirge for the Year. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 25
THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL
The World Beautiful. By John Milton 27
The Harvest Moon. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 27
The Cloud. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 28
Before the Rain. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 31
Rain in Summer. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 32
Invocation to Rain in Summer. By William C. Bennett 34
The Latter Rain. By Jones Very 35
The Wind. By Robert Louis Stevenson 35
Ode to the Northeast Wind. By Charles Kingsley 36
The Windy Night. By Thomas Buchanan Read 39
The Brook. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 40
The Brook in Winter. By James Russell Lowell 42
Clear and Cool. By Charles Kingsley 44
Minnows. By John Keats 45
Snow-Bound (Extracts). By John G. Whittier 46
Highland Cattle. By Dinah M. Mulock 50
A Scene in Paradise. By John Milton 52
The Tiger. By William Blake 53
The Spacious Firmament on High. By Joseph Addison 54
GREEN THINGS GROWING
Green Things Growing. By Dinah M. Mulock 57
The Sigh of Silence. By John Keats 58
Under the Greenwood Tree. By William Shakespeare 59
The Planting of the Apple Tree. By William Cullen Bryant 59
The Apple Orchard in the Spring. By William Martin 63
Mine Host of The Golden Apple.
By Thomas Westwood 64
The Tree. By Jones Very 65
A Young Fir-Wood. By Dante G. Rossetti 65
The Snowing of the Pines. By Thomas W. Higginson 66
The Procession of the Flowers. By Sydney Dobell 67
Sweet Peas. By John Keats 68
A Snowdrop. By Harriet Prescott Spofford 69
Almond Blossom. By Sir Edwin Arnold 69
Wild Rose. By William Allingham 70
Tiger-Lilies. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 71
To the Fringed Gentian. By William Cullen Bryant 72
To a Mountain Daisy. By Robert Burns 73
Bind-Weed. By Susan Coolidge 74
The Rhodora. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 76
A Song of Clover. By " Saxe Holm " 76
To the Dandelion (Extract). By James Russell Lowell 77
To Daffodils. By Robert Herrick 78
The Daffodils. By William Wordsworth 79
The White Anemone. By Owen Meredith 80
The Grass. By Emily Dickinson 81
The Corn-Song. By John G. Whittier 82
Columbia's Emblem. By Edna Dean Proctor 84
Scythe Song. By Andrew Lang 86
Time to Go. By Susan Coolidge 86
The Death of the Flowers. By William Cullen Bryant 88
Autumn's Mirth. By Samuel Minturn Peck 90
ON THE WING
Sing On, Blithe Bird. By William Motherwell 93
To a Skylark. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 94
Sir Lark and King Sun: A Parable. By George Macdonald 99
The Skylark. By Frederick Tennyson 101
The Skylark. By James Hogg 102
The Bobolinks. By Christopher P. Cranch 103
To a Waterfowl. By William Cullen Bryant 105
Goldfinches. By John Keats 107
The Sandpiper. By Celia Thaxter 107
The Eagle. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 109
Child's Talk in April. By Christina G. Rossetti 109
The Flight of the Birds. By Edmund Clarence Stedman 111
The Shepherd's Home. By William Shenstone 112
To a Cricket. By William C. Bennett 113
On the Grasshopper and Cricket. By John Keats 114
The Tax-Gatherer. By John B. Tabb 114
To the Grasshopper and the Cricket. By Leigh Hunt 115
The Bee. By Emily Dickinson 116
The Humble-Bee. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 116
All Things Wait Upon Thee. By Christina G. Rossetti 119
Providence. By Reginald Heber 119
THE INGLENOOK
A New Household. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 121
Two Heavens. By Leigh Hunt 121
A Song of Love. By " Lewis Carroll " 122
Mother's Song. Unknown 123
The Bonniest Bairn in a' the Warl'. By Robert Ford 125
Cuddle Doon. By Alexander Anderson 126
I am Lonely. By George Eliot 128
Brother and Sister. By George Eliot 129
Home. By William Ernest Henley 131
Love Will Find Out the Way. Unknown 133
The Sailor's Wife. By William J. Mickle 134
Evening at the Farm. By John Townsend Trowbridge 136
Home Song. By Henry W. Longfellow 138
Étude Réaliste. By Algernon C. Swinburne 139
We Are Seven. By William Wordsworth 141
FAIRY SONGS AND SONGS OF FANCY
Puck and the Fairy. By William Shakespeare 145
Lullaby for Titania. By William Shakespeare 146
Oberon and Titania to the Fairy Train. By William Shakespeare 147
Ariel's Songs. By William Shakespeare 147
Orpheus with His Lute. By William Shakespeare 149
The Arming of Pigwiggen. By Michael Drayton 149
Hesperus' Song. By Ben Jonson 151
L'Allegro (Extracts). By John Milton 152
Sabrina Fair. By John Milton 157
Alexander's Feast. By John Dryden 158
Kubla Khan. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 160
The Magic Car Moved On. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 162
Arethusa. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 165
The Culprit Fay (Extracts). By Joseph Rodman Drake 168
A Myth. By Charles Kingsley 173
The Fairy Folk. By William Allingham 174
The Merman. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 177
The Mermaid. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 178
Bugle Song. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 181
The Raven. By Edgar Allan Poe 182
The Bells. By Edgar Allan Poe 189
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
Blowing Bubbles. By William Allingham 195
Bicycling Song. By Henry C. Beeching 196
Going A Maying. By Robert Herrick 197
Jog On, Jog On. By William Shakespeare 200
A Vagabond Song. By Bliss Carman 201
Swimming. By Algernon C. Swinburne 201
Swimming. By Lord Byron 202
The Angler's Reveille. By Henry van Dyke 203
The Angler's Invitation. By Thomas Tod Stoddart 207
Skating. By William Wordsworth 207
Reading. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 209
On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer. By John Keats 210
Music's Silver Sound. By William Shakespeare 210
The Power of Music. By William Shakespeare 211
Descend, Ye Nine! By Alexander Pope 212
Old Song. By Edward Fitzgerald 213
The Barefoot Boy. By John G. Whittier 214
Leolin and Edith. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 218
Going A-Nutting. By Edmund Clarence Stedman 219
Whittling. By John Pierpont 220
Hunting Song. By Sir Walter Scott 222
The Hunter's Song. By Barry Cornwall 223
The Blood Horse. By Barry Cornwall 225
The Northern Seas. By William Howitt 226
The Needle. By Samuel Woodwork 228
A GARDEN OF GIRLS
A Portrait. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 231
Little Bell. By Thomas Westwood 234
A Child of Twelve. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 237
Chloe. By Robert Burns 238
O, Mally's Meek, Mally's Sweet. By Robert Burns 239
Who Is Silvia? By William Shakespeare 240
To Mistress Margaret Hussey. By John Skelton 240
Ruth. By Thomas Hood 242
My Peggy. By Allan Ramsay 243
Annie Laurie. By William Douglas 243
Lucy. By William Wordsworth 245
Jessie. By Bret Harte 246
Olivia. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 247
Nikolina. By Celia Thaxter 248
The Solitary Reaper. By William Wordsworth 249
Helena and Hermia. By William Shakespeare 250
Phyllis. By William Drummond 251
So Sweet is She. By Ben Jonson 251
I Love My Jean. By Robert Burns 252
My Nannie's Awa'. By Robert Burns 253
THE WORLD OF WATERS
To the Ocean. By Lord Byron 255
A Life on the Ocean Wave. By Epes Sargent 257
The Sea. By Barry Cornwall 258
A Sea-Song. By Allan Cunningham 259
A Visit from the Sea. By Robert Louis Stevenson 261
Drifting. By Thomas Buchanan Read 262
Tacking Ship Off Shore. By Walter Mitchell 265
Windlass Song. By William Allingham 268
The Coral Grove. By James Gates Percival 269
The Shell. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 270
Bermudas. By Andrew Marvell 272
Where Lies the Land? By Arthur Hugh Clough 273
FOR HOME AND COUNTRY
The First, Best Country. By Oliver Goldsmith 275
My Native Land. By Sir Walter Scott 276
Loyalty. By Allan Cunningham 276
My Heart's in the Highlands. By Robert Burns 277
The Minstrel Boy. By Thomas Moore 278
The Harp that Once Through Tara's Halls. By Thomas Moore 279
Fife and Drum. By John Dryden 280
The Cavalier's Song. By William Motherwell 280
The Old Scottish Cavalier. By Wm. Edmondstoune Aytoun 281
The Song of the Camp. By Bayard Taylor 284
Border Ballad. By Sir Walter Scott 286
Gathering Song of Donuil Dhu. By Sir Walter Scott 287
The Reveille. By Bret Harte 288
Ye Mariners of England. By Thomas Campbell 290
The Knight's Tomb. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 292
How Sleep the Brave! By William Collins 292
Dirge. By Thomas William Parsons 293
The Burial of Sir John Moore. By Charles Wolfe 295
Soldier, Rest! By Sir Walter Scott 296
Recessional. By Rudyard Kipling 297
The Fatherland. By James Russell Lowell 298
NEW WORLD AND OLD GLORY
Dear Land of All My Love. By Sidney Lanier 301
Columbus. By Joaquin Miller 301
Pocahontas. By William Makepeace Thackeray 303
Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. By Felicia Hemans 305
The Twenty-second of December. By William Cullen Bryant 306
Washington. By James Russell Lowell 307
Warren's Address. By John Pierpont 308
Carmen Bellicosum. By Guy Humphreys McMaster 309
The American Flag. By Joseph Rodman Drake 311
Old Ironsides. By Oliver Wendell Holmes 312
Indians. By Charles Sprague 313
Crossing the Plains. By Joaquin Miller 314
Concord Hymn. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 315
Ode. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 316
Stanzas on Freedom. By James Russell Lowell 317
Abraham Lincoln. By Richard Henry Stoddard 318
Lincoln, the Great Commoner. By Edwin Markham 319
Abraham Lincoln. By Henry Howard Brownell 321
O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman 323
The Flag Goes By. By Henry Holcomb Bennett 324
The Black Regiment. By George Henry Boker 326
Night Quarters. By Henry Howard Brownell 329
Battle-Hymn of the Republic. By Julia Ward Howe 331
Sheridan's Ride. By Thomas Buchanan Read 332
Song of the Negro Boatman. By John G. Whittier 335
Barbara Frietchie. By John G. Whittier 337
Two Veterans. By Walt Whitman 340
Stand by the Flag! By John Nichols Wilder 342
At Gibraltar. By George Edward Woodberry 343
Faith and Freedom. By William Wordsworth 345
Our Mother Tongue. By Lord Houghton 345
The English Language (Extracts). By William Wetmore Story 346
To America. By Alfred Austin 347
The Name of Old Glory. By James Whitcomb Riley 349
IN MERRY MOOD
On a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes. By Thomas Gray 353
The Priest and the Mulberry Tree. By Thomas Love Peacock 355
The Council of Horses. By John Gay 356
The Diverting History of John Gilpin. By William Cowper 359
To a Child of Quality. By Matthew Prior 369
Charade. By Winthrop M. Praed 370
A Riddle. By Hannah More 371
A Riddle. By Jonathan Swift 372
A Riddle. By Catherine M. Fanshawe 373
Feigned Courage. By Charles and Mary Lamb 374
Baucis and Philemon. By Jonathan Swift 375
The Lion and the Cub. By John Gay 378
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. By Oliver Goldsmith 379
The Walrus and the Carpenter. By " Lewis Carroll " 381
Song of the Turtle and Flamingo. By James T. Fields 385
Captain Reece. By William S. Gilbert 387
The Cataract of Lodore. By Robert Southey 391
The Enchanted Shirt. By John Hay 395
Made in the Hot Weather. By William Ernest Henley 398
The Housekeeper. By Charles Lamb 400
The Monkey. By Mary Howitt 401
November. By Thomas Hood 402
Captain Sword. By Leigh Hunt 403
STORY POEMS: ROMANCE AND REALITY
The Singing Leaves. By James Russell Lowell 407
Seven Times Two. By Jean Ingelow 411
The Long White Seam. By Jean Ingelow 413
Hannah Binding Shoes. By Lucy Larcom 414
Lord Ullin's Daughter. By Thomas Campbell 416
The King of Denmark's Ride. By Caroline E. Norton 418
The Shepherd to His Love. By Christopher Marlowe 420
Ballad. By Charles Kingsley 422
Romance of the Swan's Nest. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 423
Lochinvar. By Sir Walter Scott 427
Jock of Hazeldean. By Sir Walter Scott 430
The Lady of Shalott. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 431
The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire. By Jean Ingelow 438
The Forsaken Merman. By Matthew Arnold 444
The Sands of Dee. By Charles Kingsley 450
The Gray Swan.
By Alice Gary 452
The Wreck of the Hesperus. By Henry W. Longfellow 454
A Greyport Legend. By Bret Harte 458
The Glove and the Lions. By Leigh Hunt 460
How's My Boy? By Sydney Dobell 462
The Child-Musician. By Austin Dobson 463
How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. By Robert Browning 464
The Inchcape Rock. By Robert Southey 468
A Night with a Wolf. By Bayard Taylor 471
The Dove of Dacca. By Rudyard Kipling 472
The Abbot of Inisfalen. By William Allingham 474
The Cavalier's Escape. By George Walter Thornbury 479
The Pied Piper of Hamelin. By Robert Browning 480
Hervé Riel. By Robert Browning 493
Vision of Belshazzar. By Lord Byron 500
Solomon and the Bees. By John G. Saxe 502
The Burial of Moses. By Cecil Frances Alexander 504
WHEN BANNERS ARE WAVING
When Banners Are Waving. Unknown 509
Battle of the Baltic. By Thomas Campbell 511
The Pipes at Lucknow. By John Greenleaf Whittier 514
The Battle of Agincourt. By Michael Drayton 517
The Battle of Blenheim. By Robert Southey 522
The Armada. By Lord Macaulay 524
Ivry. By Lord Macaulay 530
On the Loss of the Royal George. By William Cowper 535
The Charge of the Light Brigade. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 537
Bannockburn. By Robert Burns 539
The Night Before Waterloo. By Lord Byron 540
Hohenlinden. By Thomas Campbell 542
Incident of the French Camp. By Robert Browning 544
Marco Bozzaris. By Fitz-Greene Halleck 545
The Destruction of Sennacherib. By Lord Byron 548
TALES OF THE OLDEN TIME
Sir Patrick Spens. Old Ballad 551
The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington. Old Ballad 555
King John and the Abbot of Canterbury. Old Ballad 558
Lord Beichan and Susie Pye. Old Ballad 563
The Gay Gos-hawk. Old Ballad 569
Earl Mar's Daughter. Old Ballad 576
Chevy-Chace. Old Ballad 582
Hynde Horn. Old Ballad 593
Glenlogie. Old Ballad 597
LIFE LESSONS
Life. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 601
In a Child's Album. By William Wordsworth 602
To-Day. By Thomas Carlyle 602
The Noble Nature. By Ben Jonson 603
Forbearance. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 603
The Chambered Nautilus. By Oliver Wendell Holmes 604
Duty. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 605
On His Blindness. By John Milton 606
Sir Launfal and the Leper. By James Russell Lowell 606
Opportunity. By Edward Rowland Sill 608
Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel. By Leigh Hunt 609
Be True. By Horatio Bonar 610
The Shepherd Boy Sings in the Valley of Humiliation. By John Bunyan 610
A Turkish Legend. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 611
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. By Thomas Gray 612
Polonius to Laertes. By William Shakespeare 618
The Olive-Tree. By S. Baring-Gould 619
Coronation. By H. H. 620
December. By John Keats 622
The End of the Play. By William Makepeace Thackeray 623
A Farewell. By Charles Kingsley 625
A Boy's Prayer. By Henry C. Beeching 626
Chartless. By Emily Dickinson 626
Peace. By Henry Vaughan 627
Consider. By Christina G. Rossetti 628
The Elixir. By George Herbert 629
One by One. By Adelaide A. Procter 629
The Commonwealth of the Bees. By William Shakespeare 631
The Pilgrim. By John Bunyan 632
Be Useful. By George Herbert 633
THE GLAD EVANGEL
A Christmas Carol. By Josiah Gilbert Holland 635
The Angels. By William Drummond 636
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. By Margaret Deland 637
The Star Song. By Robert Herrick 638
Hymn for Christmas. By Felicia Hemans 639
New Prince, New Pomp. By Robert Southwell 640
The Three Kings. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 641
The Three Kings. By Eugene Field 644
A Christmas Hymn. By Alfred Dommett 646
O Little Town of Bethlehem. By Phillips Brooks 648
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. By Nahum Tate 649
Christmas Carol. Old English 650
Old Christmas. By Mary Howitt 652
God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen. By Dinah Maria Mulock 653
Minstrels and Maids. By William Morris 654
An Ode on the Birth of Our Saviour. By Robert Herrick 656
Old Christmas Returned. Old English 657
Ceremonies for Christmas. By Robert Herrick 658
Christmas in England. By Sir Walter Scott 659
The Gracious Time. By William Shakespeare 661
Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning. By Reginald Heber 661
INTRODUCTION
On the Reading of Poetry
There is no doubt, I fear, that certain people are born without, as certain other people are born with, a love of poetry. Any natural gift is a great advantage, of course, be it physical, mental, or spiritual. The dear old tales which suggest the presence of fairies at the cradle of the new-born child, dealing out, not very impartially, talents, charms, graces, are not so far from the real truth. You may have been given a straight nose, a rosy cheek, a courteous manner, a lively wit, a generous disposition; but perhaps the Fairy Fine-Ear, who hears the grass grow, and the leaf-buds throb, had a pressing engagement at somebody else's cradle-side when you most needed her benefactions. There is another elf too, a Dame o' Dreams; she is clad all in color-of-rose, and when she touches your eyelids you see visions forever after; beautiful haunting things hidden from duller eyes, visions made of stars and dew and magic. Never any great poet lived but these two fairies were present at his birth, and it may be that they stole a moment to visit you. If such was the case you love, need, crave poetry, to understand yourself, your neighbor, the world, God; and you will find that nothing else will satisfy you so completely as the years go on. If, on the other hand, these highly mythical but interesting personages were absent when the question of your natural endowment was being settled, do not take it too much to heart, but try to make good the deficiencies.
You must have liked the rhymes and jingles of your nursery-days:
Ride a Cock-horse
To Banbury Cross!
or
Mistress Mary quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
I am certain you remember what pleasure it gave you to make contrary
rhyme with Mary
instead of pronouncing it in the proper and prosy way.
But
you answer, I did indeed like that sort of verse, and am still fond of it when it dances and prances, or trips and patters and tinkles; it is what is termed
sublime poetry that is dull and difficult to understand; the verb is always a long distance from its subject; the punctuation comes in the middle of the lines, so that it reads like prose in spite of one, and it is generally sprinkled with allusions to Calypso, Œdipus, Eurydice, Hesperus, Corydon, Arethusa, and the Acroceraunian Mountains; or at any rate with people and places which one has to look up in the atlas and dictionary.
Of course, all poems are not equally simple in sound and sense. It does not require much intelligence to read or chant Poe's Raven, and if one does not quite understand it, one is so taken captive by the weird, haunting music of the lines, the recurrence of phrases and repetition of words, that one does not think about its meaning:
"While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
''Tis some visitor, I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more.'"
The moment, however, that your eye falls upon the following lines from Paradise Lost
you confess privately that if you were obliged to parse and analyze them the task would cause you a weary half-hour with Lindley Murray or Quackenbos.
"Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons; the fairest of her daughters Eve.
Under a tuft of shade that on a green
Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain-side,
They sat them down;"
Very well then, do not try to parse them; Paradise Lost was not written exclusively for the grammarians; content yourself with enjoying the picture; the frisking of the beasts of the earth, while Adam and Eve watched them from a fountain-side in Paradise.
No one need be ashamed of liking a good deal of rhyme and rhythm, swing and movement and melody in poetry; absolute perfection of form, though all too rarely attained, is one of the chief delights of the verse-lover. "The procession of beautiful sounds that is a poem, says Walter Raleigh. It is quite natural to love the music of verse before you catch the deeper thought, and you feel, in some of the greatest poetry, as if only the angels could have put the melodious words together. There is more in this music than meets the eye or ear; it is what differentiates prose from poetry, which, to quote Wordsworth, is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge. Prose it is said can never be too truthful or too wise, but song is more than mere Truth and Wisdom, it is the
rose upon Truth's lips, the light in Wisdom's eyes." That is why the thought in it finds its way to the very heart of one and makes one glow and tremble, fills one with desire to do some splendid action, right some wrong, be something other than one is, more noble, more true, more patient, more courageous.
We who have selected the poems in this book have had to keep in mind the various kinds of young people who are to read it. The boys may wish that there were more story and battle poems, and verses ringing with spirited and war-like adventures; the girls may think that there are too many already; while both, perhaps, may miss certain old favorites like Horatius or The Ancient Mariner, omitted because of their great length. Some of you will yawn if the book flies open at Milton; some will be bored whenever they chance upon Pope; others will never read Wordsworth except on compulsion. Romantic little maids will turn away from Tacking Ship off Shore,
while their brothers will disdain The Swan's Nest Among the Reeds
; but it was necessary to make the book for all sorts and conditions of readers, and such a volume must contain a taste of the best things, whether your special palate is ready for them or not. When you are twenty-one you may say, loftily, I do not care for Pope and Dryden, I prefer Spenser and Tennyson, or Ben Jonson and Herrick,
or whatever you really do prefer,—but now, although, of course, you have your personal likes and dislikes, you cannot be sure that they are based on anything real or that they will stand the test of time and experience.
So you will find between these covers we hope, a little of everything good, for we have searched the pages of the great English-speaking poets to find verses that you would either love at first sight, or that you would grow to care for as you learn what is worthy to be loved. Where we found one beautiful verse, quite simple and wholly beautiful, we have given you that, if it held a complete thought or painted a picture perfect in itself, even although we omitted the very next one, which perhaps would have puzzled and wearied the younger ones with its involved construction or difficult phraseology.
Will you think, I wonder, that this very simple talk is too informal to be quite proper when one remembers that it is to serve as introduction to the greatest poets that ever lived? Informality is very charming in its place, no doubt (for so the thought might cross your mind), but one does not use it with kings and queens; still the least things, you know, may sometimes explain or interpret the greatest. The brook might say, I am nothing in myself, I know, but I am showing you the way to the ocean; follow on if you wish to see something really vast and magnificent.
There are besides gracious courtesies to be observed on certain occasions. If a famous poet or author should chance to come to your village or city and appear before the people, someone would have to introduce the stranger and commend him to your attention; and if he did it modestly it would only be an act of kindliness; a wish to serve you and at the same time bespeak for him a gentle and a friendly hearing. Once introduced—Presto, change! If he is a great poet he is a great wizard; the words he uses, the method and manner in which he uses them, the cadence of his verse, the thoughts he calls to your mind, the way he brings the quick color to your cheek and the tear to your eye, all these savor of magic, nothing else. Who could be less than modest in his presence? Who could but wish to bring the whole world under his spell? You will readily be modest, too, when you confront these splendid poems, even although some of you may not wholly comprehend as yet their grandeur and their majesty; may not fully understand their claim to immortality. Where is there a girl who would not make a low curtsey to Shakespeare's Silvia, Milton's Sabrina, Wordsworth's Lucy, or Mrs. Browning's Elizabeth? And if there is a boy who could stand with his head covered before Horatius, Hervé Riel, Sir Launfal, or Motherwell's Cavalier he is not one of those we had in mind when we made this book. Neither is it altogether the personality of hero or heroine that fills us with reverence; it is the beauty and perfection of the poem itself that almost brings us to our knees in worship. A little later on you will have the same feeling of admiration and awe for Shelley's Skylark, Emerson's Snow Storm, Wordsworth's Daffodils, Keats's Daybreak, and for many another poem not included in this book, to which you must hope to grow. For it is a matter of growth after all, and growth, in mind and spirit, as in body, is largely a matter of will. It is all ours, the beauty in the world: your task is merely to enter into possession. Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare are yours as much as another's. The great treasury of inspiring thoughts that has been heaped together as the ages went by, that rich deposit of the centuries,
is your heritage; if you wish to assert your heirship no one can say you nay; if you will to be a Crœsus in the things of the mind and spirit, no one can ever keep you poor.
We have brought you only English verse, so you must wait for the years to give you Homer, Virgil, Dante, Goethe, Schiller, Victor Hugo, and many another; and of English verse we have only given a hint of the treasures in store for you later on.
We have quoted you poems from the grand old masters, those bards sublime,
"Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time,"
and many a verse:—
—"from some humbler poet
Whose songs gushed from his heart
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies."
Since you will not like everything in the book equally well, may we advise you how to use it? First find something you know and love, and read it over again. (Penitent, indeed, shall we be if it has been omitted!) The meeting will be like one with a dear playfellow and friend in a new and strange house, and the house will seem less strange after you have met and welcomed the friend.
Then search the pages until you see a verse that speaks to you instantly, catches your eye, begs you to read it, willy-nilly. There are dozens of such poems in this collection, as simple as if they had been