JOHN
TOWNSEND
TROWBRIDGE.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v28 - Songs, Hymns, Lyrics
We're low,- we're very, very low,-
Yet from our fingers glide
The silken flow and the robes that glow
Round the limbs of the sons of pride.
And what we get, and what we give,
We know, and we know our share:
We're not too low the cloth to weave,
But too low the cloth to wear!
We're low — we're low — we're very, very low;
And yet when the trumpets ring,
The thrust of a poor man's arm will go
Through the heart of the proudest king.
We're low – we're low — our place we know.
We're only the rank and file:
We're not too low to kill the foe,
But too low to touch the spoil.
ERNEST CHARLES JONES.
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16753
THE BALLAD OF THE COMMON FOLK
From (Gringoire)
K
INGS, in your turn that will be judged some day,
Think upon those that lack of all delight;
Have pity on the folk that love and pray,
That know no joy, that weary day and night,
That delve the soil, that die for you in fight.
Their life is like the damned souls' in fire,
That never know the taste of their desire.
The luckiest barefoot and anhungered go;
The scorching sun, the rain, the frost, the mire-
For poor folk all is misery and woe.
Like beasts that wear their lives in toil away,
Within his hovel is the wretched wight.
Will he for once make merry and be gay,
For harvest reaped or for a bridal night,
Thinking at least to mark one day with white,
Down swoops his lord upon the luckless sire,
With outstretched hand, and greed that yet more dire
From satisfaction of its lust doth grow,
And like a vulture empties barn and byre.
For poor folk all is misery and woe.
Have pity on the wretched fool whose play
Unknits your brow; the fisher that for fright
Starts, when the levin leaps athwart his way;
The dreamy blue-eyed maiden, humbly dight,
That spins before her door in the sunlight;
Have pity on the mother's void desire,
Clasping her starving infant nigh and nigher,
(Ah God! that little children should die so! )
To warm its frozen limbs for lack of fire.
For poor folk all is misery and woe.
ENVOI
For all poor folk I crave your pity, sire:
The peasant lying in the frozen mire,
The nun that telling o'er her beads doth go,
And for all those that lack their heart's desire.
For poor folk all is misery and woe.
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE.
Translation of John Payne.
XXVIII-1048
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16754
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
SONG OF THE FORGE
C'
a
LANG, clang! the massive anvils ring -
Clang, clang! a hundred hammers swing:
Like the thunder-rattle of a tropic sky
The mighty blows still multiply:
Clang, clang!
Say, brothers of the dusky brow,
What are your strong arms forging now? —
Clang, clang! we forge the colter now
The colter of the kindly plow:
Sweet Mary, mother, bless our toil;
May its broad furrow still unbind
To genial rains, to sun and wind,
The most benignant soil.
Clang, clang-our colter's course shall be
On many a sweet and sheltered lea,
By many a streamlet's silver tide,
Amidst the song of the morning birds,
Amidst the low of the sauntering herds,
Amidst soft breezes which do stray
Through woodbine hedges and sweet May
Along the green hill's side.
When regal autumn's bounteous hand
With wide-spread glory clothes the land;
When to the valleys, from the brow
Of each resplendent slope is rolled
A ruddy sky of living gold,
We bless — we bless the plow. -
Clang, clang - again, my mates, what glows
Beneath the hammer's potent blows ? -
Clink, clank — we forge the giant chain
Which bears the gallant vessel's strain,
Midst stormy winds and adverse tides;
Secured by this, the good ship braves
The rocky roadstead, and the waves
Which thunder on her sides.
Anxious no more, the merchant sees
The mist drive back before the breeze,
The storm-cloud on the hill;
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16755
Calmly he rests, though far away
In boisterous climes his vessel lay,
Reliant on our skill. -
Say on what sand these links shall sleep,
Fathoms beneath the solemn deep:
By Afric's pestilential shore,
By many an iceberg, lone and hoar,
By many a palmy western isle
Basking in spring's perpetual smile,
By stormy Labrador ?
Say, shall they feel the vessel reel,
When to the battery's deadly peal
The crushing broadside makes reply?
Or else, as at the glorious Nile,
Hold grappling ships, that strive the while
For death or victory?
Hurrah! Cling, clang! once more, what glows,
Dark brothers of the forge, beneath
The iron tempest of your blows,
The furnace's red breath ? -
Clang, clang - a burning torrent, clear
And brilliant, of bright sparks, is poured
Around and up in the dusky air,
As our hammers forge the sword.
The sword! a name of dread; yet when
Upon the freeman's thigh 'tis bound,
While for his altar and his hearth,
While for the land that gave him birth,
The war-drums roll, the trumpets sound-
How sacred is it then!
Whenever for the truth and right
It flashes in the van of fight,-
Whether in some wild mountain pass,
As that where fell Leonidas;
Or on some sterile plain and stern,
A Marston or a Bannockburn;
Or, mid fierce crags and bursting rills,
The Switzer's Alps and Tyrol's hills;
Or as, when sank the Armada's pride,
It gleams above the stormy tide, –
## p. 16756 (#456) ##########################################
16756
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Still, still, whene'er the battle word
Is liberty,- when men do stand
For justice and their native land, -
Then Heaven bless the sword.
-
Author Unknown.
THE COWBOY
“W***
»
IAT care I, what cares he,
What cares the world of the life we know!
Little they reck of the shadowless plains,
The shelterless mesa, the sun and the rains,
The wild, free life, as the winds that blow. ”
With his broad sombrero,
His worn chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds
Where the wild bull feeds;
And he laughs ha, ha! who cares, who cares!
Ruddy and brown — careless and free -
A king in the saddle — he rides at will
O'er the measureless range where rarely change
The swart gray plains so weird and strange,
Treeless, and streamless, and wondrous still!
With his slouch sombrero,
His torn chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds
Where the wild bull feeds;
And he laughs ha, ha! who cares, who cares!
He of the towns, he of the East,
Has only a vague, dull thought of him;
In his far-off dreams the cow-boy seems
A mythical thing, a thing he deems
A Hun or a Goth, as swart and grim!
With his stained sombrero,
His rough chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds
Where the wild bull feeds;
And he laughs ha, ha! who cares, who cares!
## p. 16757 (#457) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16757
Often alone, his saddle a throne,
He scans like a sheik the numberless herd;
Where the buffalo-grass and the sage-bush dry
In the hot white glare of a cloudless sky,
And the music of streams is never heard.
With his gay sombrero,
His brown chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds
Where the wild bull feeds;
And he laughs ha, ha! who cares, who cares!
Swift and strong, and ever alert,
Yet sometimes he rests on the dreary vast;
And his thoughts, like the thoughts of other men,
Go back to his childhood's days again,
And to many a loved one in the past.
With his gay sombrero,
His rude chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
He rests awhile,
With a tear and a smile,
Then he laughs, ha, ha! who cares, who cares!
Sometimes his mood from solitude
Hurries him heedless off to the town!
Where mirth and wine through the goblet shine,
And treacherous sirens twist and twine
The lasso that often brings him down.
With his soaked sombrero,
His rent chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
He staggers back
On the homeward track,
And shouts to the plains — who cares, who cares!
'Tis over late at the ranchman's gate
He and his fellows, perhaps a score,
Halt in a quarrel o'er night begun,
With a ready blow and a random gun
There's a dead, dead comrade! nothing more.
With his slouched sombrero,
His dark chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
## p. 16758 (#458) ##########################################
16758
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
He dashes past
With face o'ercast,
And growls in his throat — who cares, who cares!
Away on the range there is little change:
He blinks in the sun, he herds the steers;
But a trail on the wind keeps close behind,
And whispers that stagger and blanch the mind,
Through the hum of the solemn noon he hears.
With his dark sombrero,
His stained chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
He sidles down
Where the grasses brown
May hide his face while he sobs — who cares!
But what care I, and what cares he?
This is the strain, common at least:
He is free and vain of his bridle-rein,
Of his spurs, of his gun, of the dull gray plain;
He is ever vain of his broncho beast!
With his gray sombrero,
His brown chapparejos,
And clinking spurs,
Like a Centaur he speeds
Where the wild bull feeds;
And he laughs, ha, ha! - who cares, who cares!
JOHN ANTROBUS.
THE SONG OF THE SONS OF ESAU
Y
E SMOOTH-FACED sons of Jacob, hug close your ingleside;
Guard well the market in its wealth, the palace in its pride!
Oh, blithe it is to wander, and the world is uide!
Hard straining at their cables, the captive vessels ride:
Haul up the prisoning anchor, swing out upon the tide!
Oh, grandly fills the canvas, and the sea is wide!
Mysterious spreads the forest, where strange shy creatures bide:
Within its dim remoteness, who knows what wonders hide ?
Oh, softly step the wild things, and the jungle's wide!
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16759
Across the stretching desert the tireless camels stride,
The scorching sun above them, the scorching sands beside.
Oh, steady swing the camels, and the plain is wide!
Through leagues on leagues of ice-fields, the time-old glaciers slide
Across the drifted valley, from drifted mountain-side.
Oh, keenly stings the Northwind, and the snow is wide!
We cannot help but wander, whatever fate betide;
We seek the vast far places, nor trail nor chart to guide.
The restlessness is on us, and the world is wide !
Oh, canny sons of Jacob, to fret and toiling tied,
We grudge you not the birthright for which your father lied !
We own the right of roaming, and the world is wide!
For you the pomp and power, prosperity and pride :
For us the happy wilderness, and not a care to chide.
To give us room to wander was the world made wide!
BERTHA
OKS RUNKLE.
STROLLERS
WE
E HAVE no castles,
We have no vassals,
We have no riches, no gems and no gold;
Nothing to ponder,
Nothing to squander:
Let us go wander
As minstrels of old.
You with your lute, love,
I with my flute, love,
Let us make music by mountain and sea;
You with your glances,
I with my dances,
Singing romances
of old chivalry.
“Derry down derry!
Good folk, be merry!
Hither, and hearken where happiness is! -
Never go borrow
Care of to-morrow,
Never go sorrow
While life hath a kiss. ”
## p. 16760 (#460) ##########################################
16760
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Let the day gladden
Or the night sadden,
We will be merry in sunshine or snow;
You with your rhyme, love,
I with my chime, love,
We will make time, love,
Dance as we go.
Nothing is ours,
Only the flowers,
Meadows, and stars, and the heavens above;
Nothing to lie for,
Nothing to sigh for,
Nothing to die for
While still we have love.
“Derry down derry!
Good folk be merry!
Hither, and hearken a word that is sooth:-
Care ye not any
If ye have many
Or not a penny,
If still ye have youth! ”
MADISON J. CAWEIN.
A LOAFER
I
HANG about the streets all day,
At night I hang about;
I sleep a little when I may,
But rise betimes the morning's scout;
For through the year I always hear
Afar, aloft, a ghostly shout.
My clothes are worn to threads and loops;
My skin shows here and there;
About my face like seaweed droops
My tangled beard, my tangled hair;
From cavernous and shaggy brows
My stony eyes untroubled stare.
I move from Eastern wretchedness
Through Fleet Street and the Strand;
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16761
And as the pleasant people press,
I touch them softly with my hand,
Perhaps to know that still I go
Alive about a living land.
For, far in front the clouds are riven:
I hear the ghostly cry,
As if a still voice fell from heaven
To where sea-whelmed the drowned folk lie
In sepulchres no tempest stirs,
And only eyeless things pass by.
In Piccadilly spirits pass:
Oh, eyes and cheeks that glow!
Oh, strength and comeliness! Alas,
The lustrous health is earth, I know
From shrinking eyes that recognize
No brother in my rags and woe.
I know no handicraft, no art,
But I have conquered fate;
For I have chosen the better part,
And neither hope, nor fear, nor hate.
With placid breath, on pain and death -
My certain alms alone I wait.
And daily, nightly comes the call,
The pale unechoing note,
The faint “Aha! » sent from the wall
Of heaven, but from no ruddy throat
Of human breed or seraph's seed, -
A phantom voice that cries by rote.
JOHN DAVIDSON.
THRESHED OUT
I
HEARD the sudden Binder roar;
I heard the Reaper shout:
God flung me on his threshing-floor-
His oxen trod me out! .
And here I lie, all bruised and brown,
Beneath the trampling feet -
The Ragweed and the Thistledown,
The Cockle and the Wheat!
ROBERT K. KERNIGHAN.
## p. 16762 (#462) ##########################################
16762
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE VAGABONDS
W*
E ARE two travelers, Roger and I.
Roger's my dog ; - come here, you scamp!
Jump for the gentleman - mind your eye!
Over the table look out for the lamp! -
The rogue is growing a little old:
Five years we've tramped through wind and weather
And slept out-doors when nights were cold,
And ate and drank — and starved — together.
We've learned what comfort is, I tell you!
A bed on the foor, a bit of rosin,
A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow!
The paw he holds up there's been frozen);
Plenty of catgut for my fiddle
(This out-door business is bad for the strings),
Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle,
And Roger and I set up for kings!
No, thank ye, sir, I never drink:
Roger and I are exceedingly moral
Aren't we, Roger ? — see him wink! -
Well, something hot, then, — we won't quarrel.
He's thirsty too, - see him nod his head ?
What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk!
He understands every word that's said,
And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk,
The truth is, sir, now I reflect,
I've been so sadly given to grog,
I wonder I've not lost the respect
(Here's to you, sir! ) even of my dog.
But he sticks by, through thick and thin;
And this old coat, with its empty pockets,
And rags that smell of tobacco and gin,
He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets.
There isn't another creature living
Would do it, and prove, through every disaster,
So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving
To such a miserable, thankless master!
No, sir! -- see him wag his tail and grin!
By George! it makes my old eyes water! -
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16763
That is, there's something in this gin
That chokes a fellow. But no matter!
We'll have some music if you're willing,
And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, sir! )
Shall march a little. Start, you villain!
Stand straight! 'Bout face! Salute your officer!
Put up that paw! Dress! Take your rifle!
(Some dogs have arms, you see! ) Now hold your
Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle,
To aid a poor old patriot soldier!
March! Halt! Now show how the rebel shakes
When he stands up to hear his sentence.
Now tell us how many drams it takes
To honor a jolly new acquaintance.
Five yelps, - that's five; he's mighty knowing !
The night's before us, fill the glasses !
Quick, sir! I'm ill — my brain is going!
Some brandy - thank you - there, it passes!
Why not reform ? That's easily said;
But I've gone through such wretched treatment,
Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread,
And scarce remembering what meat meant,
That my poor stomach's past reform;
And there are times when, mad with thinking,
I'd sell out heaven for something warm
To prop a horrible inward sinking.
Is there a way to forget to think ?
At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends,
A dear girl's love — but I took to drink -
The same old story: you know how it ends.
If you could have seen these classic features,
You needn't laugh, sir: they were not then
Such a burning libel on God's creatures;
I was one of your handsome men !
If you had seen her, so fair and young,
Whose head was happy on this breast!
If you could have heard the songs I sung
When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed
That ever I, sir, should be straying
From door to door, with fiddle and dog,
## p. 16764 (#464) ##########################################
16764
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Ragged and penniless, and playing
To you to-night for a glass of grog!
She's married since,- a parson's wife:
'Twas better for her that we should part, -
Better the soberest, prosiest life
Than a blasted home and a broken heart.
I have seen her ? Once: I was weak and spent
On the dusty road; a carriage stopped:
But little she dreamed, as on she went,
Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped!
You've set me talking. sir; I'm sorry:
It makes me wild to think of the change!
What do you care for a beggar's story?
Is it amusing? you find it strange ?
I had a mother so proud of me!
'Twas well she died before — Do you know
If the happy spirits in heaven can see
The ruin and wretchedness here below ?
Another glass, and strong, to deaden
This pain; then Roger and I will start.
I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden,
Aching thing in place of a heart ?
He is sad sometimes, and would weep, if he could,
No doubt, remembering things that were, -
A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food,
And himself a sober, respectable cur.
I'm better now: that glass was warming.
You rascal! limber your lazy feet!
We must be fiddling and performing
For supper and bed, or starve in the street.
Not a very gay life to lead, you think?
But soon we shall go where lodgings are free,
And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink; -
The sooner the better for Roger and me!
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE.
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16765
THE PAUPER'S DRIVE
Thr
HERE's a grim one-horse hearse in a jolly round trot,-
To the church-yard a pauper is going, I wot:
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings:-
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!
Oh, where are the mourners ? Alas! there are none;
He has left not a gap in the world, now he's gone,-
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man:
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can.
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns !
What a jolting, and creaking, and splashing, and din!
The whip, how it cracks! and the wheels, how they spin!
How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled! -
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world!
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!
Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast.
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!
You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed,
Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid !
And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low,
You've a chance to the grave like a "gemman” to go!
Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!
But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad,
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brutes, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend !
Bear soft his bones over the stones!
Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet owns !
THOMAS NOEL.
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16766
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
THE MASTER'S TOUCH
I
N THE still air the music lies unheard;
In the rough marble beauty hides unseen:
To make the music and the beauty, needs
The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen.
Great Master, touch us with thy skillful hand;
Let not the music that is in us die:
Great Sculptor, hew and polish us; not let,
Hidden and lost, thy form within us lie!
Spare not the stroke! do with us as thou wilt!
Let there be naught unfinished, broken, marred;
Complete thy purpose, that we may become
Thy perfect image, thou our God and Lord!
HORATIUS BONAR.
THE MAKING OF MEN
A
S THE insect from the rock
Takes the color of its wing;
As the bowlder from the shock
Of the ocean's rhythmic swing
Makes itself a perfect form,
Learns a calmer front to raise ;
As the shell, enameled warm
With the prism's mystic rays.
Praises wind and wave that make
All its chambers fair and strong;
As the mighty poets take
Grief and pain to build their song:
Even so for every soul,
Whatsoe'er its lot may be,-
Building, as the heavens roll,
Something large and strong and free, -
Things that hurt and things that mar
Shape the man for perfect praise;
Shock and strain and ruin are
Friendlier than the smiling days.
JOHN WHITE CHADWICK.
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16767
THE LARGER PRAYER
A
T FIRST I prayed for Light:
Could I but see the way,
How gladly, swiftly would I walk
To everlasting day!
And next I prayed for Strength,
That I might tread the road
With firm, unfaltering feet, and win
The heavens' serene abode.
And then I asked for Faith:
Could I but trust my God,
I'd live enfolded in his peace,
Though foes were all abroad.
But now I pray for Love:
Deep love to God and man;
A living love that will not fail,
However dark his plan;
And Light and Strength and Faith
Are opening everywhere!
God only waited for me till
I prayed the larger prayer.
EDNAH DEAN CHENEY.
GIFTS
“Ο
WORLD-God, give me wealth! " the Egyptian cried.
His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold
Palace and pyramid; the brimming tide
Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.
Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet,
World-circling traffic roared through mart and street;
His priests were gods; his spice-balmed kings enshrined
Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep.
Seek Pharaoh's race to-day, and ye shall find
Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep.
«O World-God, give me beauty! ) cried the Greek.
His prayer was granted. All the earth became
Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak,
Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame;
## p. 16768 (#468) ##########################################
16768
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Peopled the world with imaged grace and light.
The lyre was his, and his the breathing might
Of the immortal marble, his the play
Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue.
Go seek the sunshine race, ye find to-day
A broken column and a lute unstrung.
“O World-God, give me power! ” the Roman cried.
His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained
A captive to the chariot of his pride;
The blood of myriad provinces was drained
To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart.
Invulnerably bulwarked every part
With serried legions and with close-meshed code,
Within, the burrowing worm had gnawed its home;
A roofless ruin stands where once abode
The imperial race of everlasting Rome.
“O Godhead, give me truth! ” the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted: he became the slave
Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide,
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to save.
The Pharaohs knew him; and when Greece beheld,
His wisdom wore the hoary crown of eld.
Beauty he hath forsworn, and wealth and power.
Seek him to-day, and find in every land;
No fire consumes him, neither foods devour:
Immortal through the lamp within his hand.
EMMA LAZARUS.
A POET'S HOPE
L"
ADY, there is a hope that all men have,-
Some mercy for their faults, a grassy place
To rest in, and a flower-strewn, gentle grave;
Another hope which purifies our race,–
That when that fearful bourn's forever past,
They may find rest — and rest so long to last.
I seek it not, I ask no rest forever:
My path is onward to the farthest shores.
Upbear me in your arms, unceasing river,
That from the soul's clear fountain swiftly pours,
## p. 16769 (#469) ##########################################
SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
16769
Motionless not until the end is won,
Which now I feel hath scarcely felt the sun.
To feel, to know, to soar unlimited,
'Mid throngs of light-winged angels sweeping far,
And pore upon the realms unvisited
That tessellate the unseen unthought star;
To be the thing that now I feebly dream
Flashing within my faintest, deepest gleam!
Ah, caverns of my soul! how thick your shade,
Where flows that life by which I faintly see:
Wave your bright torches, for I need your aid,
Golden-eyed dæmons of my ancestry!
Your son though blinded hath a light within,
A heavenly fire which ye from suns did win.
O Time! O Death! I clasp you in my arms,
For I can soothe an infinite cold sorrow,
And gaze contented on your icy charms,
And that wild snow-pile which we call to-morrow;
Sweep on, O soft and azure-lidded sky,
Earth's waters to your gentle gaze reply.
I am not earth-born, though I here delay:
Hope's child, I summon infiniter powers,
And laugh to see the mild and sunny day
Smile on the shrunk and thin autumnal hours;
I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me,-
If my bark sinks, 'tis to another sea.
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.
THE LAST POET
“WHEN
HEN will your bards be weary
Of rhyming on? How long
Ere it is sung and ended,
The old, eternal song ?
«Is it not long since empty,
The horn of full supply;
And all the posies gathered,
And all the fountains dry?
XXVIII-1049
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As long as the sun's chariot
Yet keeps its azure track,
And but one human visage
Gives answering glances back;
As long as skies shall nourish
The thunderbolt and gale,
And frightened at their fury,
One throbbing heart shall quail;
As long as after tempests
Shall spring one showery bow,
One breast with peaceful promise
And reconcilement glow;
As long as night the concave
Sows with its starry seed,
And but one man those letters
Of golden writ can read;
Long as a moonbeam glimmers,
Or bosom sighs a vow;
Long as the wood-leaves rustle
To cool a weary brow;
As long as cypress shadows
The graves more mournful make,
Or one cheek's wet with weeping,
Or one poor heart can break;
So long on earth shall wander
The goddess Poesy,
And with her, one exulting
Her votarist to be.
And singing on, triumphing,
The old earth-mansion through,
Out marches the last minstrel;-
He is the last man too.
The Lord holds the creation
Forth in his hand meanwhile,
Like a fresh flower just opened,
And views it with a smile.
When once this Flower Giant
Begins to show decay,
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16771
And earths and suns are flying
Like blossom-dust away;
Then ask,- if of the question
Not weary yet, -- "How long
Ere it is sung and ended,
The old, eternal song ? ”
ANASTASIUS GRÜN.
Translation of N. L. Frothingham.
WE ARE THE MUSIC-MAKERS
W*
E ARE the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the Old of the New World's worth:
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY.
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
· ACCORDANCE
H
E WHO with bold and skillful hand sweeps o'er
The organ-keys of some cathedral pile,
Flooding with music, vault and nave and aisle,
Though on his ear falls but a thundrous roar,-
In the composer's lofty motive free,
Knows well that all that temple vast and dim
Thrills to its base with anthem, psalm, and hymn
True to the changeless laws of harmony.
So he who on these changing chords of life,
With firm, sweet touch plays the Great Master's score
Of truth, and love, and duty, evermore,
Knows too that far beyond this roar and strife,
Though he may never hear, in the true time
These notes must all accord in symphonies sublime.
ANNE C. L. BOTTA.
CHOPIN
I
A
DREAM of interlinking hands, of feet
Tireless to spin the unseen, fairy woof
Of the entangling waltz. Bright eyebeams meet,
Gay laughter echoes from the vaulted roof.
Warm perfumes rise; the soft unflickering glow
Of branching lights sets off the changeful charms
Of glancing gems, rich stuffs, the dazzling snow
Of necks unkerchieft, and bare, clinging arms.
Hark to the music! How beneath the strain
Of reckless revelry, vibrates and sobs
One fundamental chord of constant pain,
The pulse-beat of the poet's heart that throbs.
So yearns, though all the dancing waves rejoice,
The troubled sea's disconsolate, deep voice.
II
Who shall proclaim the golden fable false
Of Orpheus's miracles? This subtle strain
Above our prose world's sordid loss and gain
Lightly uplifts us. With the rhythmic waltz,
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16773
The lyric prelude, the nocturnal song
Of love and languor, varied visions rise,
That melt and blend to our enchanted eyes.
The Polish poet who sleeps silenced long,
The seraph-souled musician, breathes again
Eternal eloquence, immortal pain.
Revived the exalted face we know so well,
The illuminated eyes, the fragile frame,
Slowly consuming with its inward flame -
We stir not, speak not, lest we break the spell.
III
A voice was needed, sweet and true and fine
As the sad spirit of the evening breeze,
Throbbing with human passion, yet divine
As the wild bird's untutored melodies.
A voice for him 'neath twilight heavens dim,
Who mourneth for his dead, while round him fall
The wan and noiseless leaves. A voice for him
Who sees the first green sprout, who hears the call
Of the first robin on the first spring day.
A voice for all whom Fate hath set apart,
Who, still misprized, must perish by the way,
Longing with love, for that they lack the art
Of their own soul's expression. For all these
Sing the unspoken hope, the vague, sad reveries.
IV
Then Nature shaped a poet's heart, - a lyre
From out whose chords the slightest breeze that blows
Drew trembling music, wakening sweet desire.
How shall she cherish him? Behold! she throws
This precious, fragile treasure in the whirl
Of seething passions: he is scourged and stung;
Must dive in storm-vext seas, if but one pearl
Of art or beauty therefrom may be wrung.
No pure-browed pensive nymph his Muse shall be:
An Amazon of thought with sovereign eyes,
Whose kiss was poison, man-brained, worldly-wise,
Inspired that elfin, delicate harmony.
Rich gain for us! But with him is it well ? —
The poet who must sound earth, heaven, and hell!
EMMA LAZARUS.
## p. 16774 (#474) ##########################################
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
WHAT THE SONNET IS
F
OURTEEN small broidered berries on the hem
Of Circe's mantle, each of magic gold;
Fourteen of lone Calypso's tears that rolled
Into the sea, for pearls to come of them;
Fourteen clear signs of omen in the gem
With which Medea human fate foretold;
Fourteen small drops which Faustus, growing old,
Craved of the Fiend, to water life's dry stem.
It is the pure white diamond Dante brought
To Beatrice; the sapphire Laura wore
When Petrarch cut it sparkling out of thought;
The ruby Shakespeare hewed from his heart's core:
The dark, deep emerald that Rossetti wrought
For his own soul, to wear for evermore.
EUGENE LEE-HAMILTON.
THE BOOK-STALL
11
T STANDS in a winding street,
A quiet and restful nook,
Apart from the endless beat
Of the noisy heart of Trade:
There's never a spot more cool
Of a hot midsummer day
By the brink of a forest pool,
Or the bank of a crystal brook
In the maple's breezy shade,
Than the book-stall old and gray.
Here are precious gems of thought
That were quarried long ago,
Some in vellum bound, and wrought
With letters and lines of gold;
Here are curious rows of “calf,”
And perchance an Elzevir;
Here are countless (mos) of chaff,
And a parchment folio,
Like leaves that are cracked with cold,
All puckered and brown and sear.
In every age and clime
Live the monarchs of the brain:
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16775
And the lords of prose and rhyme,
Years after the long last sleep
Has come to the kings of earth
And their names have passed away,
Rule on through death and birth;
And the thrones of their domain
Are found where the shades are deep
In the book-stall old and gray.
1
CLINTON SCOLLARD.
A BOOK-LOVER'S APOLOGIA
TEA
EMPTATIon lurks in every leaf
Of printed page or cover,
Whene'er I haunt the book-shops old,
Their treasures rare discover;
Or when, in choicest catalogues,
Among which I'm a rover,
My heart leaps up their names to see,-
For am I not their lover ?
I linger o'er each dainty page
With loving touch and tender;
But find their sweet, seductive charms
Soon call me to surrender.
Brave fight, 'twixt heart and my lean purse,
My loved books' strong defender!
More precious for the valiant strife
That love is called to render!
But when in Bibliopolis
Their dear forms round me cluster,
While rank on rank and file on file
In gathering numbers muster,
Think you I mind the sordid tongues
That soulless talk and bluster,
Or weigh, against their priceless worth,
The golden dollar's lustre?
Ah, no! since there are drink and food
For which the soul has longings,
And in its daily, upward strife,
Finds both in such belongings,-
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS*
Dear books! loved friends, full meet ye are
To greet the earliest dawnings
Of all the happiest days in life,
Of all its brightest mornings!
HARRIETTE C. S. BUCKHAM.
THE CHRYSALIS OF A BOOKWORM
I
READ, O friend, no pages of old lore,
Which I loved well — and yet the flying days,
That softly passed as wind through green spring ways
And left a perfume, swift fly as of yore;
Though in clear Plato's stream I look no more,
Neither with Moschus sing Sicilian lays,
Nor with bold Dante wander in amaze,
Nor see our Will the Golden Age restore.
I read a book to which old books are new,
And new books old. A living book is mine -
In age, three years: in it I read no lies,
In it to myriad truths I find the clue -
A tender little child; but I divine
Thoughts high as Dante's in her clear blue eyes.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN.
TO THE MEMORY OF BEN JONSON
T"
He Muse's fairest light in no dark time,
The wonder of a learned age; the line
Which none can pass! the most proportioned wit, -
To nature, the best judge of what was fit;
The deepest, plainest, highest, clearest pen;
The voice most echoed by consenting men;
The soul which answered best to all well said
By others, and which most requital made;
Tuned to the highest key of ancient Rome,
Returning all her music with his own;
In whom, with nature, study claimed a part,
And yet who to himself owed all his art:
Here lies Ben Jonson! every age will look
With sorrow here, with wonder on his book.
JOHN CLEVELAND.
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16777
GIVE ME THE OLD
« Old Wine to drink, Old Wood to burn, Old Books to read, Old Friends to
converse with. ”
O
LD wine to drink!
Ay, give the slippery juice
That drippeth from the grape thrown loose
Within the tun;
Plucked from beneath the cliff
Of sunny-sided Teneriffe,
And ripened 'neath the blink
Of India's sun!
Peat whisky hot,
Tempered with well-boiled water!
These make the long night shorter :
Forgetting not
Good stout old English porter.
Old wood to burn!
Ay, bring the hillside beech
From where the owlets meet and screech,
And ravens croak;
The crackling pine, and cedar sweet:
Bring too a clump of fragrant peat,
Dug 'neath the fern;
The knotted oak,
A fagot too, perhap,
Whose bright Aame dancing, winking,
Shall light us at our drinking;
While the oozing sap
Shall make sweet music to our thinking.
Old books to read!
Ay, bring those nodes of wit,
The brazen-clasped, the vellum-writ,
Time-honored tomes !
The same my sire scanned before,
The same my grandsire thumbed o'er,
The same his sire from college bore, -
The well-earned meed
Of Oxford's domes:
Old Homer blind,
Old Horace, rake Anacreon, by
Old Tully, Plautus, Terence, lie;
Mort Arthur's olden minstrelsie,
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
Quaint Burton, quainter Spenser, ay!
And Gervase Markham's venerie:
Nor leave behind
The Holye Book by which we live and die.
Old friends to talk!
Ay, bring those chosen few,
The wise, the courtly, and the true,
So rarely found:
Him for my wine, him for my stud,
Himn for my easel, distich, bud
In mountain walk!
Bring Walter good,
With soulful Fred, and learned Will:
And thee, my alter ego (dearer still
For every mood).
ROBERT HINCKLEY MESSINGER.
MAURICE DE GUÉRIN
THE
He old wine filled him, and he saw, with eyes
Anoint of Nature, fauns and dryads fair
Unseen by others; to him maidenhair
And waxen lilacs, and those birds that rise
A-sudden from tall reeds at slight surprise,
Brought charmed thoughts; and in earth everywhere
He, like sad Jaques, found a music rare
As that of Syrinx to old Grecians wise.
A pagan heart, a Christian soul had he:
He followed Christ, yet for dead Pan he sighed,
Till earth and heaven met within his breast;
As if Theocritus in Sicily
Had come upon the Figure crucified,
And lost his gods in deep Christ-given rest.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN.
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16779
THEOCRITUS
AM
H! UNTO thee belong
The pipe and song,
Theocritus, –
Loved by the satyr and the faun!
To thee the olive and the vine,
To thee the Mediterranean pine,
And the soft lapping sea!
Thine, Bacchus,
Thine the blood-red revels,
Thine the bearded goat !
Soft valleys unto thee,
And Aphrodite's shrine,
And maidens veiled in falling robes of lawn!
But unto us, to us,
The stalwart glories of the North :
Ours is the sounding main,
And ours the voices uttering forth
By midnight round these cliffs a mighty strain;
A tale of viewless islands in the deep
Washed by the waves' white fire,
Of mariners rocked asleep
In the great cradle, far from Grecian ire
Of . Neptune and his train:
To us, to us,
· The dark-leaved shadow and the shining birch,
The Alight of gold through hollow woodlands driven,
Soft dying of the year with many a sigh, –
These, all, to us are given!
And eyes that eager evermore shall search
The hidden seed, and searching find again
Unfading blossoms of a fadeless spring, -
These, these, to us!
The sacred youth and maid,
Coy and half afraid;
The sorrowful earthly pall,
Winter and wintry rain,
And Autumn's gathered grain,
With whispering music in their fall, —
These unto us!
And unto thee, Theocritus,
To thee,
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SONGS HYMNS AND LYRICS
The immortal childhood of the world,
The laughing waters of an inland sea,
And beckoning signal of a sail unfurled !
ANNIE FIELDS.
CARLYLE AND EMERSON
A
BALE-FIRE kindled in the night,
By night a blaze, by day a cloud,
With flame and smoke all England woke, -
It climbed so high, it roared so loud:
While over Massachusetts's pines
Uprose a white and steadfast star;
And many a night it hung unwatched, -
It shone so still, it seemed so far.
But Light is Fire, and Fire is Light;
And mariners are glad for these, -
The torch that flares along the coast,
The star that beams above the seas.
MONTGOMERY SCHUYLER.
THE AMERICAN PANTHEON
LINES ON GRISWOLD's POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA'
WEN
HEN Rufus Griswold built his pantheon wide,
And set a hundred poets round its walls,
Did he suppose their statues would abide
The tests of time, upon their pedestals ?
A hundred poets,- some in Parian stone
Perchance, and some in brittle plaster cast,
And some mere shades, whose names are scarcely known,
Dii minores of a voiceless past.
