Volume
Three
An Anthology
of Poetry
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CONTENTS
Thanks ................................................................................................................................ 10
With Whom is No Variableness, Neither Shadow of Turning .............................................. 11
The Risen Lord Our Christ .................................................................................................. 12
Light Shining Out of Darkness ............................................................................................. 13
The Bible ............................................................................................................................. 14
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread ...................................................................................... 15
The Song of David............................................................................................................... 16
L’Envoi ................................................................................................................................ 17
Jerusalem............................................................................................................................ 18
Miracles ............................................................................................................................... 19
From “Leaves of Grass” ...................................................................................................... 20
My Daily Creed .................................................................................................................... 21
That Time of Year................................................................................................................ 22
The World Is Too Much With Us ......................................................................................... 23
To Cole, The Painter, Departing For Europe ....................................................................... 24
The Mentor’s Counsel ......................................................................................................... 25
The Guardian Angel ............................................................................................................ 26
Judgment Day ..................................................................................................................... 27
She Touched the Strings ..................................................................................................... 28
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes ........................................................................................ 29
Nobility ................................................................................................................................ 30
Carry On! ............................................................................................................................. 32
For A’ That and A’ That ....................................................................................................... 34
The Right Kind of People .................................................................................................... 36
The House By the Side of the Road .................................................................................... 37
The Road Not Taken ........................................................................................................... 39
The Character of a Happy Life ............................................................................................ 40
Cicero on Friendship ........................................................................................................... 41
The Human Seasons........................................................................................................... 43
Young and Old .................................................................................................................... 44
The Seven Ages of Man ...................................................................................................... 45
Poetry for Grammar
Page 2
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Infant Joy............................................................................................................................. 46
The Man of Upright Life ....................................................................................................... 47
As Thy Days So Shall Thy Strength Be ............................................................................... 48
A Psalm of Life .................................................................................................................... 49
Solitude ............................................................................................................................... 51
I Remember, I Remember ................................................................................................... 52
Nearer Home ....................................................................................................................... 54
Death Be Not Proud ............................................................................................................ 55
The Last Leaf ...................................................................................................................... 56
Far Trumpets Blowing ......................................................................................................... 58
Once in Royal David’s City .................................................................................................. 59
Magna Charta ..................................................................................................................... 61
The Bluebells of Scotland.................................................................................................... 62
The Good Joan ................................................................................................................... 63
Bannockburn ....................................................................................................................... 65
Wolsey’s Farewell to His Greatness .................................................................................... 66
Love of Country ................................................................................................................... 67
Marmion and Douglas ......................................................................................................... 68
Polonius’ Advice to Laertes ................................................................................................. 71
Soliloquy from “Hamlet” ....................................................................................................... 72
On the Grasshopper and Cricket ......................................................................................... 74
The Pedigree of Honey ....................................................................................................... 75
The Housekeeper ................................................................................................................ 76
The Eagle ............................................................................................................................ 77
The Snake ........................................................................................................................... 78
The Lion .............................................................................................................................. 79
The Kilkenny Cats ............................................................................................................... 80
The Lamb ............................................................................................................................ 81
The Brown Bear .................................................................................................................. 82
The Kitten and The Falling Leaves ...................................................................................... 84
The Sandpiper ..................................................................................................................... 86
The Rainbow ....................................................................................................................... 88
The Rainbow ....................................................................................................................... 89
Poetry for Grammar
Page 3
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Memory ............................................................................................................................ 90
Sunrise and Sunset ............................................................................................................. 91
Do You Fear the Wind? ....................................................................................................... 92
The Mountain ...................................................................................................................... 93
I Saw God Wash the World ................................................................................................. 94
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud ............................................................................................ 95
The Brook............................................................................................................................ 96
The Shell ............................................................................................................................. 98
A Visit From the Sea ........................................................................................................... 99
Break, Break, Break .......................................................................................................... 100
Sea Fever .......................................................................................................................... 101
The Grass ......................................................................................................................... 102
Flower in the Crannied Wall .............................................................................................. 103
The Violet .......................................................................................................................... 104
Buttercups ......................................................................................................................... 105
The Ivy Green ................................................................................................................... 106
A Calendar ........................................................................................................................ 108
A December Day ............................................................................................................... 110
March ................................................................................................................................ 111
April ................................................................................................................................... 112
In April ............................................................................................................................... 113
Home-Thoughts, From Abroad .......................................................................................... 114
May ................................................................................................................................... 115
A Prayer in Spring ............................................................................................................. 116
The Voice of Spring ........................................................................................................... 117
June .................................................................................................................................. 118
The Summer Days Are Come Again ................................................................................. 119
Windy Nights ..................................................................................................................... 120
Mr. Nobody........................................................................................................................ 121
Lovelocks .......................................................................................................................... 122
Meg Merrilies ..................................................................................................................... 123
Lochinvar........................................................................................................................... 125
Horatius ............................................................................................................................. 127
Poetry for Grammar
Page 4
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Glove and the Lions ................................................................................................... 129
Sir Galahad ....................................................................................................................... 131
Robin Hood ....................................................................................................................... 133
The Death of Robin Hood.................................................................................................. 136
Fidelity ............................................................................................................................... 138
My Heart’s in the Highlands .............................................................................................. 141
Song of the Open Road..................................................................................................... 142
Hunting Song .................................................................................................................... 143
Song of Marion’s Men ....................................................................................................... 145
Song of Sherwood ............................................................................................................. 147
Stars .................................................................................................................................. 149
The Land of Story-Books Requiem ................................................................................... 150
The Day is Done ............................................................................................................... 151
Lord, Forever At Thy Side ................................................................................................. 153
Stealing ............................................................................................................................. 154
Life Sculpture .................................................................................................................... 155
The Secret......................................................................................................................... 156
Truth .................................................................................................................................. 157
The Things That Haven’t Been Done Before ..................................................................... 158
The Character of the Happy Warrior ................................................................................. 160
Contentment...................................................................................................................... 163
If ........................................................................................................................................ 164
The Blind Men And The Elephant ..................................................................................... 166
Opportunity........................................................................................................................ 168
Out To Old Aunt Mary’s ..................................................................................................... 169
Only a Dad ........................................................................................................................ 171
Little Boy Blue ................................................................................................................... 172
My Kate ............................................................................................................................. 173
She Was A Phantom Of Delight ........................................................................................ 175
Letter To A Young Friend .................................................................................................. 177
The Spires of Oxford ......................................................................................................... 180
On His Blindness ............................................................................................................... 181
Solitude ............................................................................................................................. 182
Poetry for Grammar
Page 5
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Waiting .............................................................................................................................. 183
The Barefoot Boy .............................................................................................................. 184
I Shall Not Pass This Way Again ....................................................................................... 187
Good-Bye .......................................................................................................................... 190
The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers ................................................................................. 192
Christmas Everywhere ...................................................................................................... 194
Jest ‘Fore Christmas ......................................................................................................... 195
The Christ Candle ............................................................................................................. 197
There’s A Song In The Air ................................................................................................. 198
Daybreak ........................................................................................................................... 199
I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose .......................................................................................... 200
Upon Westminster Bridge ................................................................................................. 201
The Cloud.......................................................................................................................... 202
Ode To The West Wind ..................................................................................................... 205
Ingratitude ......................................................................................................................... 208
My Heart Leaps Up ........................................................................................................... 209
Now The Day is Over ........................................................................................................ 210
Recessional....................................................................................................................... 212
The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls ......................................................................................... 214
Apostrophe To The Ocean ................................................................................................ 215
A Name In The Sand ......................................................................................................... 218
The Building of the Ship .................................................................................................... 219
The “Three Bells” Of Glasgow ........................................................................................... 221
The Chambered Nautilus .................................................................................................. 223
O Captain! My Captain! .................................................................................................... 225
Casabianca ....................................................................................................................... 226
Crossing The Bar .............................................................................................................. 228
Columbus .......................................................................................................................... 229
Childe Harold’s Farewell to England ................................................................................. 231
Plant A Tree ...................................................................................................................... 233
Trees ................................................................................................................................. 235
Daffodils ............................................................................................................................ 236
Reflections ........................................................................................................................ 237
Poetry for Grammar
Page 6
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Winter ................................................................................................................................ 238
In February ........................................................................................................................ 239
Spring Quiet ...................................................................................................................... 240
An Apple Orchard in the Spring ......................................................................................... 241
From Hamlet ..................................................................................................................... 242
Mercy from the “Merchant of Venice” ................................................................................ 243
Moonlight from the “Merchant of Venice” .......................................................................... 244
Sonnet: “The World Is Too Much With Us” ........................................................................ 245
The Owl And The Pussy-Cat ............................................................................................. 246
To A Skylark ...................................................................................................................... 248
The Tiger! .......................................................................................................................... 252
When I Heard The Learn’D Astronomer ............................................................................ 253
The Spider And The Fly .................................................................................................... 254
Hiawatha’s Childhood........................................................................................................ 256
The Highwayman .............................................................................................................. 259
Lord Ullin’s Daughter ......................................................................................................... 263
Ann Rutledge .................................................................................................................... 266
Lady Clare ......................................................................................................................... 267
Bruce and the Spider......................................................................................................... 271
Cuddle Doon ..................................................................................................................... 273
Abou Ben Adhem .............................................................................................................. 275
Parson Gray ...................................................................................................................... 276
Song of the Chattahoochee............................................................................................... 278
The Raven......................................................................................................................... 280
Annabel Lee ...................................................................................................................... 284
A Time to Talk ................................................................................................................... 286
The Book Our Mothers Read ............................................................................................ 287
The Children’s Hour .......................................................................................................... 288
A Late Walk ....................................................................................................................... 290
My Lost Youth ................................................................................................................... 291
The Old Oaken Bucket ...................................................................................................... 294
God’s Word ....................................................................................................................... 296
In Earthen Vessels ............................................................................................................ 297
Poetry for Grammar
Page 7
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
From Tales Of A Wayside Inn ........................................................................................... 298
Success............................................................................................................................. 299
Forbearance ...................................................................................................................... 300
If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking ............................................................................ 301
A Thing of Beauty .............................................................................................................. 302
The Past ............................................................................................................................ 303
The Lover Pleads With His Friend for Old Friends ............................................................ 304
Telling the Bees ................................................................................................................ 305
Overheard In An Orchard .................................................................................................. 308
The Declaration of Independence ..................................................................................... 309
From Letter To The Governors, June 8, 1783 ................................................................... 310
The Gettysburg Address ................................................................................................... 311
The Faith Of Abraham Lincoln .......................................................................................... 313
Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight (in SpringfIeld, Illinois).............................................. 314
The Colossus .................................................................................................................... 316
Great Men ......................................................................................................................... 317
From God Send Us Men ................................................................................................... 318
I Hear America Singing ..................................................................................................... 319
Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity .......................................................................... 320
A Noiseless Patient Spider (from “Leaves of Grass”) ........................................................ 322
Dragon-fly.......................................................................................................................... 323
The Owl (from “Juvenalia”) ................................................................................................ 324
A Girl’s Garden .................................................................................................................. 325
God’s World ...................................................................................................................... 327
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood .............................................................................. 328
Mountain Evenings ............................................................................................................ 330
October ............................................................................................................................. 331
Good Hours ....................................................................................................................... 332
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening ........................................................................ 333
Incident Of The French Camp ........................................................................................... 334
In Flanders Fields .............................................................................................................. 336
John Burns of Gettysburg (July 1, 2, 3, 1863) ................................................................... 337
Nathan Hale ...................................................................................................................... 341
Poetry for Grammar
Page 8
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
On Recrossing the Rocky Mountains After Many Years.................................................... 344
Warren’s Address .............................................................................................................. 347
Ticonderoga ...................................................................................................................... 349
Sheridan’s Ride ................................................................................................................. 352
The Charge of The Light Brigade ...................................................................................... 355
Paul Revere’s Ride............................................................................................................ 357
Old Ironsides ..................................................................................................................... 362
William Shakespeare Sonnets .......................................................................................... 363
The Quality of Mercy (from the Merchant of Venice) ......................................................... 365
Now Lords and Ladies....................................................................................................... 366
Beat! Beat! Drums! .......................................................................................................... 368
Mending Wall .................................................................................................................... 369
She Walks in Beauty ......................................................................................................... 371
Love Among the Ruins ...................................................................................................... 372
Deep River ........................................................................................................................ 375
The Eve Of Waterloo (from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage) ................................................... 376
I Thank God I’m Free at Las’ ............................................................................................. 378
Wild Grapes ...................................................................................................................... 379
L ‘Allegro ........................................................................................................................... 383
Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho .......................................................................................... 389
A Forest Hymn .................................................................................................................. 390
Crucifixion ......................................................................................................................... 394
Concord Hymn .................................................................................................................. 395
Poetry for Grammar
Page 9
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Thanks
by Norman Gale
Thank you very much indeed,
River, for your waving reed;
Hollyhocks, for budding knobs;
Foxgloves, for your velvet fobs;
Pansies, for your silky cheeks;
Chaffinches, for singing beaks;
Spring, for wood anemones
Near the mossy toes of trees;
Summer, for the fruited pear,
Yellowing crab, and cherry fare;
Autumn, for the bearded load,
Hazelnuts along the road;
Winter, for the fairy-tale,
Spitting log and bounding hail.
But, blest Father, high above,
All these joys are from Thy love;
And Your children everywhere,
Born in palace, lane, or square,
Cry with voices all agreed,
“Thank You very much indeed.”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 10
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
With Whom is No Variableness, Neither Shadow of Turning
by Arthur Hugh Glough
It fortifies my soul to know
That, though I perish, Truth is so:
That, howsoe’er I stray and range,
Whate’er I do, Thou dost not change.
I steadier step when I recall
That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 11
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Risen Lord Our Christ
by Harry Webb Farringion
I know not how that Bethlehem’s Babe
Could in the God-head be;
I only know the Manger Child
Has brought God’s life to me.
I know not how that Calvary’s cross
A world from sin could free:
I only know its matchless love
Has brought God’s love to me.
I know not how that Joseph’s tomb
Could solve death’s mystery:
I only know a living Christ,
Our immortality.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 12
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Light Shining Out of Darkness
by William Gowper
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence,
He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding ever hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 13
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Bible
by Sir Walter Scott
Within this awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries;
Happiest they of human race,
To whom their God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, to three the way;
But better had then ne’er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 14
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
by Maithie D. Babcock
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
And back of the flour the mill,
And back of the mill is the wheat and the shower,
And the sun and the Father’s will.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 15
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Song of David
by Christopher Smart
He sang of God, the mighty source
Of all things, the stupendous force
On which all strength depends:
From Whose right arm, beneath Whose eyes,
All period, power, and enterprise
Commences, reigns, and ends.
The world, the clustering spheres He made,
The glorious light, the soothing shade,
Dale, champaign, grove and hill:
The multitudinous abyss,
Where secrecy remains in bliss,
And wisdom hides her skill.
Tell them, I AM, Jehovah said
To Moses: while Earth heard in dread,
And, smitten to the heart,
At once, above, beneath, around,
All Nature, without voice or sound,
Replied, ‘0 Lord, THOU ART.’
Poetry for Grammar
Page 16
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
L’Envoi
by Rudyard Kipling
When Earth’s last picture is painted, and the
tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest coulours have faded, and the
youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it – lie
down for an aeon or two,
Till the Master of
All Good Workmen shall set us
to work anew!
And those who were good shall be happy: they
shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with
brushes of comet’s hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from - Magdalene,
Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never
be tired at all!
And only the Master shall praise us, and only
the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one
shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working, and each,
in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he see It for the God of
Things as They Are!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 17
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Jerusalem
by William Blake
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
in England’s green and pleasant land.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 18
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Miracles
by Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with my mother,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car.
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer
forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown - or of stars shining so
quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles.
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim - the rocks - the motion of the waves - the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
Poetry for Grammar
Page 19
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
From “Leaves of Grass”
by Walt Whitman
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the
stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and
the egg of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d’oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depressed head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is a miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 20
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
My Daily Creed
Author unknown
Let me be a little kinder,
Let me be a little blinder
To the faults of those about me;
Let me praise a little more;
Let me be, when I am weary,
Just a little bit more cheery;
Let me serve a little better
Those that I am striving for.
Let me be a little braver
When temptation bids me waver;
Let me strive a little harder
To be all that I should be;
Let me be little meeker
With the brother that is weaker;
Let me think more of my neighbor
And a little less of me.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 21
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
That Time of Year
by William Shakespeare
That time of year thou may’st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang:
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest:
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by:
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 22
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The World Is Too Much With Us
by William Wordsworth
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. - Great God! I’d rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 23
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
To Cole, The Painter, Departing For Europe
by William Cullen Bryant
Thine eyes shall see the light of distant skies;
Yet, Cole! thy heart shall bear to Europe’s strand
A living image of our own bright land,
Such as upon thy glorious canvas lies;
Lone lakes - savannas where the bison roves Rocks rich with summer garlands - solemn streams Skies, where the desert eagle wheels and screams Spring bloom and autumn blaze of boundless groves.
Fair scenes shall greet thee where thou goest - fair,
But different - everywhere the trace of men,
Paths, homes, graves, ruins, from the lowest glen
To where life shrinks from the fierce Alpine air.
Gaze on them, till the tears shall dim thy sight,
But keep that earlier, wilder image bright.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 24
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Mentor’s Counsel
by Angela Laughton
Art, my son,
is more than line or shape,
more than brush stroke of mountain or cloud,
more than azure, ochre, or gold.
Art transcends
the meadow cottage,
the verdant vale,
the innocent face.
Art, true art,
is a poem alighting gently on your canvas,
music singing through your brush,
deep emotion from your heart
that travels down your fingertips,
exploding with joy upon the canvas.
This rare gift of vision
left unclaimed, unused, unseen
would be...
merely there.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 25
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Guardian Angel
by Jacob Haymnan
Silence reigns in the abode of the sick,
Broken by the sound of the clock’s faint tick;
Of the patient’s whimper, or sigh very deep,
For the suffering humans have gone to sleep.
But someone is coming and retreating
Softly from patient to patient fleeting,
Yes, the nurse, an angel from the Lord,
Devotedly watching over her ward.
With a mild smile on her beaming face,
She gently quickens her steady pace,
Inquires for the patient’s comfort and need,
A true, good friend she is indeed.
Guardian angel, kind-faced nurse,
How could humanity reimburse
Such kindliness, unrequited love?
Nothing, but the divine spirit above.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 26
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Judgment Day
by John Oxenham
Every day is Judgment Day,
Count on no tomorrow.
He who will not, when he may,
Act today, today, today,
Doth but borrow
Sorrow.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 27
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
She Touched the Strings
by John Robert Henderson
She touched the strings, the vibrant strings,
And from the harp her deft hands drew
A melody that thrilled me through,
Seized on my heart and clings and clings.
Her melody on memory’s wings
Adown the years still throbs and sings She touched the strings.
A backward look, ah, how it brings
Old love as though it yet were new, To thrill my heartstrings still more true
Than that old melody that rings She touched the strings
Poetry for Grammar
Page 28
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
by Francis William Bourdillon
The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of a 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.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 29
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Nobility
by Alice ~Jamy
True worth is in being, not seeming, In doing each day that goes by
Some little good - not in dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There’s nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.
We get back our mete as we measure We cannot do wrong and feel right,
Nor can we give pain and gain pleasure,
For justice avenges each slight.
The air for the wing of the sparrow,
The bush for the robin and wren,
But always the path that is narrow
And straight, for the children of men.
‘Tis not in the pages of story
The heart of its ills to beguile,
Though he who makes courtship to glory
Gives all that he hath for her smile.
For when from her heights he has won her,
Alas! it is only to prove
That nothing’s so sacred as honor,
And nothing so loyal as love!
We cannot make bargains for busses,
Nor catch them like fishes in nets;
And
sometimes the thing our life misses,
Poetry for Grammar
Page 30
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Helps more that the thing which it gets.
For good lieth not in pursuing,
Nor gaining of great nor of small,
But just in the doing, and doing
As we would be done by, is all.
Through envy, through malice, through hating,
Against the world, early and late,
No jot of our courage abating Our part is to work and to wait.
And slight is the sting of his trouble
Whose winnings are less than his worth;
For he who is honest is noble,
Whatever his fortunes or birth.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 31
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Carry On!
by Robert Service
It’s easy to fight when everything’s right,
And you’re mad with the thrill and the glory;
It’s easy to cheer when victory is near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It’s a different song when everything’s wrong,
When you’re feeling infernally mortal;
When it’s ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up little soldier, and chortle:
Carry on! Carry on!
There isn’t much punch in your blow.
You’re glaring and staring and hitting out blind;
You’re muddy and bloody, but never you mind.
Carry on! Carry on!
You haven’t the ghost of a show.
It’s looking like death, but while you’ve a breath,
Carry on, my son! Carry on!
And so in the strife of the battle of life
It’s easy to fight when your winning;
Its easy to slave, and starve and be brave,
When the dawn of success is beginning.
But the man who can meet despair and defeat
With a cheer, there’s the man of God’s choosing;
The man who can fight to Heaven’s own height
Is the man who can fight when he’s losing.
Carry on! Carry on!
Things never were looming so black.
But show that you don’t have a cowardly streak,
And though you’re unlucky you never are weak.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Carry on! Carry on!
Brace up for another attack.
It’s looking like hell, but - you never can tell:
Carry on, old man! Carry on!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
For A’ That and A’ That
by Robert Burns
Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head, and a’ that?
The coward slave, we pass him by
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toils obscure, and a’ that;
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, The man’s the gowd for a’ that!
What tho’ on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden gray, and a’ that?
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, A man’s a man, for a’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, and a’ that;
The honest man, though e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men, for a’ that!
Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that Tho’ hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that;
For a’ that, and a’ that,
His riband, star, and a’ that,
The man o independent mind,
He looks an’ laughs at a’ that.
A prince can mak’ a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a’ that;
But an honest man’s aboon his might, Gude faith, he mauna fa’ that!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their dignities, an’ a’ that;
The pith o’ sense, and pride o’ worth,
Are higher rank than a’ that.
Then let us pray that come it may, (As come it will for a’ that), That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,
May bear the gree, an’ a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
It’s comin’ yet for a’ that, That man to man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 35
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Right Kind of People
by Edwin Markham
Gone is the city, gone the day,
Yet still the story and the meaning stay:
Once where a prophet in the palm shade basked
A traveler chanced at noon to rest his miles.
“What sort of people may they be,” he asked,
“In this proud city on the plains o’erspread?”
“Well, friend, what sort of people whence you came?”
“What sort?” the packman scowled; “why, knaves and fools.”
“You’ll find the people here the same,” the wise man said.
Another stranger in the dusk drew near,
And pausing, cried, “What sort of people here
In your bright city where yon towers arise?”
“Well, friend, what sort of people whence you came?”
“What sort?” the pilgrim smiled.
“Good, true and wise.”
“You’ll find the people here the same,”
The wise man said.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The House By the Side of the Road
by Sam Walter Foss
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go byThey are good, they are bad, they are weak,
they are strong.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 38
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 39
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Character of a Happy Life
by Sir Henry Wotton
How happy is he born or taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armor is his honest thought
And simple truth his utmost skill!
Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death,
Untied unto the world by care
Of public fame or private breath;
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor vice; hath ever understood
How deepest wounds are given by praise;
Nor rules of state, but rules of good:
Who hath his life from rumors freed;
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great.
Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend;
And entertains the harmless day
With a religious book or friend.
This man is free from servile bonds
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 40
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Cicero on Friendship
From Laelius
The Greek philosopher Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
examines what true friendship means.
I desire that it may be understood that I am now speaking, not of that
inferior species of amity which occurs in the common intercourse of the world
(although this, too, is not without its pleasures and advantages), but of that
genuine and perfect friendship, examples of which are so extremely rare as to
be rendered memorable by their singularity. It is this sort alone that can truly
be said to heighten the joys of prosperity, and mitigate the sorrows of
adversity, by a generous participation of both; indeed, one of the chief among
the many important offices of this connection is exerted in the day of
affliction, by dispelling the gloom that overcasts the mind, encouraging the
hope of happier times, and preventing the depressed spirits fro sinking into a
state of weak and unmanly despondence. Whoever is in possession of a true
friend sees the exact counterpart of his own soul. In consequence of this
moral resemblance between them, they are so intimately one that no
advantage can attend either which does not equally communicate itself to
both; they are strong in the strength, rich in the opulence, and powerful in
the power of each other. They can scarcely, indeed, be considered in any
respect as separate individuals, and wherever the one appears the other is
virtually present. I will venture an even bolder assertion, and affirm that in
despite of death they must both continue to exist so long as either of them
shall remain alive; for the deceased may, in a certain sense, be said still to
live whose memory is preserved with the highest veneration and the most
tender regret in the bosom of the survivor, a circumstance which renders the
former happy in death, and the latter honored in life.
If that benevolent principle which thus intimately unites two persons in
the bands of amity were to be struck out of the human heart, it would be
impossible that either private families or public communities should subsist even the land itself would lie waste, and desolation overspread the earth.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Should this assertion stand in need of a proof, it will appear evident by
considering the ruinous consequences which ensue from discord and
dissension; for what family is so securely established, or what government
fixed upon so firm a basis, that it would not be overturned and utterly
destroyed were a general spirit of enmity and malevolence to break forth
amongst its members? - a sufficient argument, surely, of the inestimable
benefits which flow from the kind and friendly affections.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Human Seasons
by John Keats
Four seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming nigh
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness - to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale rnisfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 43
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Young and Old
by charles Kingsley
When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.
When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down:
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there.
You loved when all was young.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 44
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Seven Ages of Man
by William Shakespeare
Jacques “As You Like It”
-
Act II, Scene 7
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover
Sighing like a furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 45
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Infant Joy
by Williamn Blake
“I have no name:
I am but two days old.”
What shall I call thee?
“I happy am,
Joy is my name.”
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty Joy!
Sweet joy but two days old.
Sweet joy I call thee;
Thou dost smile,
I sing the while;
Sweet joy befall thee!
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Page 46
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Man of Upright Life
by Thomas Campion
The man of life upright
Whose guiltless heart is free
From all dishonest deeds,
Or thought of vanity;
The man whose silent days
In harmless joys are spent,
Whom hopes cannot delude
Nor sorrow discontent;
That man needs neither towers
Nor armor for defense,
Nor secret vaults to fly
From thunder’s violence.
He only can behold
With unaffrighted eyes
The horrors of the deep
And terrors of the skies.
Thus, scorning all the cares
That fate, or fortune brings,
He makes the heaven his book,
His wisdom heavenly things;
Good thoughts his only friends,
His wealth a well-spent age,
And earth his sober inn
And quiet pilgrimage.
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Page 47
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
As Thy Days So Shall Thy Strength Be
by Georgiana Holmes (George Klingle,)
God broke the years to hours and days,
That hour by hour
And day by day,
Just going on a little way,
We might be able all along
To keep quite strong.
Should all the weights of life
Be laid across our shoulders,
And the future, rife
With woe and struggle,
Meet us face to face
At just one place,
We could not go;
Our feet would stop. And so
God lays a little on us every day,
And never, I believe, on all the way,
Will burdens bear so deep,
Or pathways lie so steep,
But we can go, if by God’s power
We only bear the burden of the hour.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 48
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Psalm of Life
-What the heart of the young man said to the psalmistby Henry W. Longfellow
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,-act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
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Page 50
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Solitude
by Alexander Pope
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air
In his own ground.
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire.
Blest, who can unconcernedly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away
In health of body, peace of mind;
Quiet by day.
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mixed, sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 51
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
I Remember, I Remember
by Thomas Hood
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 roses, red and white,
The vi’lets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The
laburnum on his birthday,-
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!
I remember, I remember
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ‘tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heav’n
Than when I was a boy.
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Page 53
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Nearer Home
by Phoebe Cary
One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o’er and o’er;
I’m nearer home today
Than I ever have been before;
Nearer my Father’s house,
Where the many mansions be;
Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea.
Nearer the bound of life,
Where we lay our burdens down;
Nearer leaving the cross,
Nearer gaining the crown!
But lying darkly between,
Winding down thro’ the night,
Is the silent, unknown stream,
That leads at last to the light.
Oh, if my mortal feet
Have almost gained the brink;
If it be I am nearer home
Even today than I think,Father, perfect my trust;
Let my spirit feel in death,
That her feet are firmly set
On the Rock of a living faith!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 54
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Death Be Not Proud
by John Donne
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death; nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures by,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones and souls’ delivery!
Thou’rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And POPPY or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 55
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Last Leaf
by Oliver Wendell Holmnes
I saw him once before,
As he pass’d by the door,
And again
The pavement stones resound
As he totters o’er the ground
With his cane.
They say that in his prime,
Ere the pruning-knife of Time
Cut him down,
Not a better man was found
By the Crier on his round
Through the town.
But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said
“They are gone.”
The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that lie has pressed
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb.
My grandmamma has said, Poor old lady, she is dead
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Long ago, That he had a Roman nose,
And his cheek was like a rose
In the snow;
But now his nose is thin,
And it rests upon his chin
Like a staff,
And a crook is in his back,
And a melancholy crack
In his laugh.
I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-corner’d hat,
And the breeches, and all that,
Are so queer!
And if I should live to be
The last leaf upon the tree
In the spring,
Let them smile, as I do now,
At the old forsaken bough
Where I cling.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 57
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Far Trumpets Blowing
by Louis F. Benson
A king might miss the guiding star,
A wise man’s foot might stumble;
For Bethlehem is very far
From all except the humble.
But he who gets to Bethlehem
Shall hear the oxen lowing;
And, if he humbly kneel with them,
May catch far trumpets blowing.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 58
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Once in Royal David’s City
by Cecil Frances Alexander
Once in royal David’s city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a Mother laid her baby
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that Mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little child.
He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall:
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour Holy.
And through all His wondrous childhood
He would honor and obey,
Love and watch the lowly Maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
Jesus is our childhood’s pattern,
Day by day like us He grew,
He was little, weak, and helpless,
Tears and smiles like us He knew:
And He feeleth for our sadness,
And He shareth in our gladness.
And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child, so dear and gentle,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Is our Lord in heaven above,
And He leads His children on
To the place where He has gone.
Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him; but in heaven,
Set at God’s right hand on high,
When like stars His children crowned
All in white shall wait around.
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Page 60
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Magna Charta
On June 15, 1215, King John met the barons near Runnymeade on the
Thames, and granted them the charter which they laid before him.
This charter contains sixty-three articles, some of which were merely
temporary. The whole English judicial system is based upon these principles:
“No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseised*, or outlawed, or
banished...unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the
land.”
“We will sell to no man, we will not deny to anyman, either justice or
right.”
Among the most important articles were the two which limited the power
of the king in matters of taxation:
“No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our kingdom unless by the general
council of our kingdom;” and
“For the holding of the general council of the kingdom...we shall cause to
be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and the greater barons
of the realm, singly, by our letters. And furthermore we shall cause to be
summoned generally by our sheriffs and bailiffs, all others who hold of us in
chief.”
*Dispossessed of land.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Bluebells of Scotland
Unknown
Oh where! and oh where! is your Highland laddie gone?
He’s gone to fight the French for King George upon the throne;
And it’s oh! in my heart how I wish him safe at home.
Oh where! and oh where! does your Highland laddie dwell?
He dwells in merry Scotland at the sign of the Bluebell;
And it’s oh! in my heart that I love my Highland lad.
Suppose, oh suppose, that your Highland lad should die?
The bagpipes shall play over him, I’ll lay me down and cry;
And it’s oh! in my heart that I wish me may not die!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Good Joan
by Lizette Woodworth Reese
Joan of Arch, or Jeanne d’ Arc as she is called in France, was a holy maid
who, dressed in shining armor amid riding a white charger, led the French
armies in an old war. During the World War, the French people used to
think that her spirit came back and rode up and down the land, cheering
and encouraging the soldiers.
Along the thousand roads of France,
Now there, now here, swift as a glance,
A cloud, a mist blown down the sky,
Good Joan of Arc goes riding by.
In Domremy at candlelight,
The orchards blowing rose and white
About the shadowy houses lie;
And Joan of Arch goes riding by.
On Avignon there falls a hush,
Brief as the singing of a thrush
Across old gardens April-high;
And Joan of Arch goes riding by.
The women bring the apples in,
Round Arles when the long gusts begin,
Then sit them down to sob and dry;
And Joan of Arch goes riding by.
Dim fall the hoofs down old Calais;
In Tours a flash of silver-gray,
Like flaw of rain in a clear sky;
And Joan of Arch goes riding by.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Who saith that ancient France shall fail,
A rotting leaf driv’n down the gale?
Then her sons know not how to die;
Then good God dwells no more on high!
Tours, Arles, and Domremy reply!
For Joan of Arch goes riding by.
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Page 64
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Bannockburn
Robert Bruce’s Address to His Army by Robert Burns
Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!
Now’s the day, and now’s the hour;
See the front o’ battle lour;
See approach proud Edward’s power Chains and slaverie!
Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!
Wha for Scotland’s King and Law,
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa’?
Let him follow me!
By opression’s woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow!
Let us do, or die!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 65
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Wolsey’s Farewell to His Greatness
From “Henry VIII”
by John Fletcher
Farewell! A long farewell to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
-
His greatness is a-ripening nips his root,
-
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur’d,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth; my high blown pride
At length broke under me, and now has left me,
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye!
I feel my heart new-opened. Oh! how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favors!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Love of Country
From “The Lay of the Last Minstrel” by Sir Walter Scott
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said:
“This is my own, my native land”?
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power and pelf,
The wretch concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Marmion and Douglas
From “Marmion” by Sir Walter Scott
The train from out the castle drew,
But Marmion stopped to bid adieu: “Though something I might plain,” he said
“Of cold respect to stranger guest,
Sent hither by your king’s behest,
While in Tantallon’s towers I stayed,
Part we in friendship from your land,
And noble Earl, receive my hand.” But Douglas round him drew his cloak,
Folded his arms, and thus he spoke: “My manors, halls, and bowers shall still
Be open, at my sovereign’s will
To each one whom he lists, howe’er
Unmeet to be the owner’s peer.
My castles are my king’s alone
From turret to foundation-stone, The hand of Douglas is his own;
And never shall in friendly grasp
The hand of such as Marmion clasp.” Burned Marmion’s swarthy cheek like fire,
And shook his very frame for ire,
And - “This to me!” he said, “An’t were not for thy hoary beard,
Such hand as Marmion’s had not spared
To cleave the Douglas’ head!
And first I tell thee, haughty Peer,
He who does England’s message here,
Although the meanest in her state,
May well, proud Angus, be thy mate:
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And, Douglas, more I tell thee here,
Even in thy pitch of pride,
Here in thy hold, thy vassals near,
(Nay, never look upon your lord,
And lay your hands upon your sword,)
I tell thee, thou’rt defied!
And if thou said’st I am not peer
To any lord in Scotland here,
Lowland or Highland, far or near,
Lord Angus, thou hast lied!”
On the Earl’s cheek the flush of rage
O’ercame the ashen hue of age;
Fierce he broke forth, - “And dar’st thou then
To beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hail?
And hop’st thou hence unscathed to go?
No, by St. Bride of Bothwell, no!
Up drawbridge, grooms, -what, Warder, ho!
Let the portcullis fall.Lord Marmion turned, - well was his need! And dashed the rowels in his steed,
Like arrow through the archway sprung;
The ponderous gate behind him rung:
To pass there was such scanty room,
The bars, descending, razed his plume.
The steed along the drawbridge flies,
Just as it trembled on the rise;
Not lighter does the swallow skim
Along the smooth lake’s level brim;
And when Lord Marmion reached his band
He halts, and turns with clenched hand,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
An shout of loud defiance pours,
And shook his gauntlet at the towers.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Polonius’ Advice to Laertes
From “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare
There my blessing with you.
-
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
-
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatched, unfledged courage. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in,
Bear that th’ opposed may be aware of thee.
Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy:
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
Arid borrowing dulleth the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Soliloquy from “Hamlet”
by William Shakespeare
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 heartache, 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; - ay, 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 bourne
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 sickhied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
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With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
On the Grasshopper and Cricket
by John Keats
The poetry of earth is never dead:
When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the grasshopper’s he takes the lead
-
In summer luxury, he has never done
-
With his delights, for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
On a lone winter evening, when the frost
Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
And seems to one, in drowsiness half-lost,
The grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.
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The Pedigree of Honey
by Emily Dickinson
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him,
Is aristocracy.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Housekeeper
by Charles Lamb
The frugal snail, with forecast of repose,
Carries his house with him wher’er he goes;
Peeps out, - and if there comes a shower of rain,
Retreats to his small domicile again.
Touch but a tip of him, a horn, - ‘tis well, He curls up in his sanctuary shell.
He’s his own landlord, his own tenant; stay
Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day.
Himself he boards and lodges; both invites
And feasts himself; sleeps with himself o’nights.
He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure
Chattles; himself is his own furniture,
And his sole riches. Wheresoe’er he roam, Knock when you will, - he’s sure to be at home.
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The Eagle
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Snake
by Emily Dickinson
A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him, - did you not,
His notice sudden is.
The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.
He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn,
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn
Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun, When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.
Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;
But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Lion
by Mary Howitt
When Lion sends his roaring forth,
Silence falls upon the earth;
For the creatures, great and small,
Know his terror-breathing call;
And, as if by death pursued,
Leave him to a solitude.
Lion, thou art made to dwell
In hot lands, intractable,
And thyself, the sun, the sand,
Are a tyrannous triple band;
Lion-king and desert throne,
All the region is your own!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Kilkenny Cats
Anonymnous
There wanst was two cats of Kilkenny,
Each thought there was one cat too many,
So they quarreled and they fit,
They scratch’d and they bit,
Till, barrmn’ their nails,
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats, there warnt any.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Lamb
by William Blake
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bade thee feed
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
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!
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Brown Bear
by Mary Austin
Now the wild bees that hive in the rocks
Are winding their horns, elfin shrill,
And hark, at the pine tree the woodpecker knocks,
And the speckled grouse pipes on the hill,
Now the adder’s dull brood wakes to run,
Now the sap mounts abundant and good,
And the brown bear has turned his side to the sun
In his lair in the depth of the wood Old Honey-Paw wakes in the wood.
‘Oh, a little more slumber,’ says he,
‘And a little more turning to sleep,’
But he feels the spring fervor that hurries the bee
And the hunger that makes the trout leap;
So he ambles by thicket and trail,
So he noses the tender young shoots,
In the spring of the year at the sign of the quail
The brown bear goes digging for roots For sappy and succulent roots.
Oh, as still goes the wolf on his quest
As the spotted snake glides through the rocks,
And the deer and the sheep count the lightest foot best,
And slinking and sly trots the fox.
But fleet-foot and light-foot will stay,
And fawns by their mothers will quail
At the saplings that snap and the thickets that sway
lI~rhen Honey-Paw takes to the trail When he shuffles and grunts on the trail.
He has gathered the ground squirrel’s board,
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He has rifled the store of the bees,
He has caught the young trout at the shoals of the ford
And stripped the wild plums from the trees;
SC) robbing and raging he goes,
And the right to his pillage makes good
Till he rounds out the year at the first of the snows
In his lair in the depth of the wood Old Honey-Paw sleeps in the wood.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 83
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Kitten and The Falling Leaves
by William Wordsworth
See the Kitten on the wall,
Sporting with the leaves that fall,
Withered leaves - one, two, and three From the lofty elder-tree!
Through the calm and frosty air
Of this morning bright and fair,
Eddying round and round they sink
Softly, slowly: one might think,
From the motions that are made,
Every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Faery hither tending, To this lower world descending,
Each invisible and mute,
In his wavering parachute.
But the Kitten, how she starts,
Crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow
Just as light and just as yellow.
There are many now - now one Now they stop and there are none.
What intenseness of desire
In her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-leap halfway
Now she meet the coming prey,
Lets it go as fast, and then
Has it in her power again:
Now she works with three or four,
Like an Indian conjurer;
Quick as he in feats of art,
Far beyond in joy of heart.
Were her antics played in the eye
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Of a thousand standers-by,
Clapping hands with shout and stare,
What would little Tabby care
For the plaudits of the crowd?
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Sandpiper
by Celia Thaxter
Poems 1872
Across the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud, black and swift, across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Nor flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong,
He scans me with a fearless eye;
Stanch friends are we, well-tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be tonight,
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
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My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky;
For are we not God’s children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Rainbow
by Williamn Wordsworth
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Rainbow
by Thomas Campbell
Triumphal arch, that fills the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud Philsophy
To teach me what thou art.
Still seem, as to my childhood’s sight,
A midway station given,
For happy spirits to alight,
Betwixt the earth and heaven.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Memory
by William Allingham
Four ducks on a pond,
A grasss-bank beyond,
A blue sky of spring,
White clouds on the wing;
What a little thing
To remember for years To remember with tears!
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Sunrise and Sunset
by Emily Dickinson
I’ll tell you how the sun rose,A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bomiets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”
But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while
Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Do You Fear the Wind?
by Hanilin Garland
Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them,
Be savage again.
Go hungry and cold like the wolf,
Go wade like the crane:
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your cheek will tan,
You’ll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,
But you’ll walk like a man!
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Mountain
by Emily Dickinson
The mountain sat upon the plain
In his tremendous chair,
His observation manifold,
His inquest everywhere.
The seasons played around his knees,
Like children round a sire:
Grandfather of the days is he,
Of dawn, the ancestor.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 93
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
I Saw God Wash the World
by William L. Stidger
I saw God wash the world last night
With His sweet showers on high,
And then, when morning came, I saw
Him hang it out do dry.
He washed each tiny blade of grass
And every trembling tree;
He flung His showers against the hill,
And swept the billowing sea.
The white rose is a cleaner white,
The red rose is more red,
Since God washed every fragrant face
And put them all to bed.
There’s not a bird, there’s not a bee
That wings along the way
But is a cleaner bird and bee
Than it was yesterday.
I saw God wash the world last night.
Ah, would He had washed me
As clean of all my dust and dirt
As that old white birch tree.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by William Wordsworth
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 stretched 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
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me 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.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Brook
by Alfred Tennyson
I come from haunts of coot and hern,
I make a sudden sally,
And sparkle out among tlhe fern,
To bicker down a valley.
By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges,
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.
Till last by Philip’s farm I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.
With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,
And many a fairy forehand set
With willow-weed arid mallow.
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I wind about and in and out,
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With here a blossom sailing.
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery water-break
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers;
I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses;
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river,
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Shell
by James Stephens
And then I pressed the shell
Close to my ear
And listened well,
And straightway like a bell
Came low and clear
The slow, sad murmur of the distant seas,
Whipped by an icy breeze
Upon a shore
Wind-swept and desolate.
It was a sunless strand that never bore
The footprint of a man,
Nor felt the weight
Since time began
Of any human quality or stir
Save what the dreary winds and waves incur.
And in the hush of waters was the sound
Of pebbles rolling round,
For ever rolling with a hollow sound.
And bubbling sea-weeds as the waters go
Swish to and fro
Their long, cold tentacles of slimy grey.
There was no day,
Nor ever came a night
Setting the stars alight
To wonder at the moon:
Was twilight only and the frightened croon,
Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary wind
And waves that journeyed blind And then I loosed my ear. . . 0, it was sweet
To hear a cart go jolting down the street.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Visit From the Sea
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Far from the loud sea beaches
Where he goes fishing and crying
Here in the inland garden
Why is the sea-gull flying?
Here are no fish to dive for;
Here is the corn and lea;
Here are the green trees rustling.
Hie away home to sea!
Fresh is the river water
And quiet among the rushes;
This is no home for the sea-gull,
But for the rooks and thrushes.
Pity the bird that has wandered!
Pity the sailor ashore!
Hurry him home to the ocean,
Let him come here no more!
High on the sea-cliff ledges
The white gulls are trooping and crying,
Here among rooks and roses,
Why is the sea-gull flying?
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Break, Break, Break
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Break, break, break,
On thy cold grey stones,
0 Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
0, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
0, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But 0 for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, 0 Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Sea Fever
by John Masefield
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea’s face and a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted
knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Grass
by Emily Dickinson
The grass so little has to do,
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain.
And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;
And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine, A duchess were too common
For such noticing.
And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
Like lowly spices lain to sleep,
Or spikenards, perishing
And then, in sovereign barns to dwell,
And dream the days away, The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Flower in the Crannied Wall
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower, but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Violet
by Jane Taylor
Down in a green and shady bed
A modest violet grew;
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head,
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its color bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there.
Yet there it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused a sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade.
Then let me to the valley go,
This pretty flower to see,
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Buttercups
by Louis Ginsberg
Buttercups, buttercups
What do you hold?
Buttercups, buttercups,
Minting your gold.
How do your rootlets
Filch from the mire
The sunken sunbeams
To fountains of fire?
You tip-toe and listen
To birds that rejoice Those bits of rainbow,
Blessed with a voice.
I also am hearing
Your golden words,
O buttercups, buttercups Rooted birds!
Whose bosoms have crumbled
To life you there, Golden Amnens
To Beauty’s prayer.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Ivy Green
by Charles Dickens
0, a dainty plant is the ivy green,
That creepeth o’er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The walls must be crumbled, the stones decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings,
And a staunch old heart has he!
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings
To his friend, the huge oak tree!
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves,
And
he joyously hugs and crawleth around
The rich mould of dead men’s graves.
Creeping where grim death has been,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old ivy shall never fade
From its hale and hearty green.
The brave old plant in its lonely days
Shall fatten upon the past;
For the stateliest building man can raise,
Is the ivy’s food at last.
Creeping on where time has been,
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A rare old plant is the ivy green.
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A Calendar
by Sara Coleridge
January brings the snow,
Makes our feet and fingers glow.
February brings the rain,
Thaws the frozen lakes again.
March brings breezes, loud and shrill,
To stir the dancing daffodil.
April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daisies at our feet.
May brings flocks of pretty lambs,
Skipping by their fleecy dams.
June brings tulips, lilies, roses,
Fills the children’s hands with posies.
Hot July brings cooling showers,
Apricots and gilly-flowers.
August brings the sheaves of corn,
Then the harvest home is borne.
Warm September brings the fruit;
Sportsmen then begin to shoot.
Fresh October brings the pheasant;
Then to gather nuts is pleasant.
Dull November brings the blast;
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Then the leaves are whirling fast.
Chill December brings the sleet,
Blazing fire, and Christmas treat.
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A December Day
by Sara Teasdale
Dawn turned on her purple pillow,
And late, late, came the winter day,
Snow was curved to the boughs on the willow,
The sunless world was white and gray.
At noon we heard a blue-jay scolding,
At five the last cold light was lost
From blackened windows faintly holding
The feathery filigree of frost.
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March
by William Cullen Bryant
The stormy March is come at last,
With wind, and cloud, and changing skies;
I hear the rushing of the blast,
That through that snowy valley flies.
Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild, stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.
For thou, to northern lands again,
The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast joined the gentle train,
And wear’st the gentle name of Spring.
Then sing aloud the gushing rills
And the full springs, from frost set free
That, brightly leaping down the hills,
Are just set out to meet the sea.
Thou bring’st the hope of those calm skies,
And that soft time of sunny showers,
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,
Seems of a brighter world than ours.
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April
by Sara Teasdale
The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree –
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
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In April
by Elizabeth Akers
The poplar drops beside the way
Its tasselled plumes of silver-gray;
The chestnut pouts its great brown buds
Impatient for the laggard May.
The honeysuckles lace the wall,
The hyacinths grow fair and tall;
And mellow sun and pleasant wind
And odorous bees are over all.
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Home-Thoughts, From Abroad
by Robert Browning
Oh, to be in England
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England-now!
And after April, when May follows
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops-at the bent spray’s edgeThat’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
-Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
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May
by George MacDonald
Merry, rollicking, frolicking May
Into the woods came skipping one day;
She teased the brook till he laughed outright,
And gurgled and scolded with all his might;
She chirped to the birds and bade them sing
A chorus of welcome to Lady Spring;
And the bees and butterflies she set
To waking the flowers that were sleeping yet.
She shook the trees till the buds looked out
To see what the trouble was all about,
And nothing in Nature escaped that day
The touch of the life-giving bright young May.
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A Prayer in Spring
by Robert Frost
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.
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The Voice of Spring
by Felicia Hemans
I come! I come! ye have called me long;
I come o’er the mountains with light and song.
Ye may trace my steps o’er the waking earth
By the winds which tell of the violet’s birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.
I have looked o’er the hills of the stormy North,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth;
The fisher is out on the sunny sea
And the reindeer bounds o’er the pastures free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright where my step has been.
From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain;
They are sweeping off to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o’er the forest boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves.
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June
by James Russell Lowell
What is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays:
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest, In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?
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The Summer Days Are Come Again
by Samuel Longfellow
The summer days are come again;
Once more the glad earth yields
Her golden wealth of ripening grain,
And breath of clover fields,
And deepening shade of summer woods,
And glow of summer air,
And winging thoughts, and happy moods
Of love and joy and prayer.
The summer days are come again;
The birds are on the wing;
God’s praises, in their loving strain,
Unconsciously they sing.
We know who giveth all the good
That doth our cup o’erbrim;
For summer joy in field and wood
We lift our song to Him.
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Windy Nights
by Robert Louis Stevenson
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again
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Mr. Nobody
Anonymous
I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse.
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody’s house!
Though no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every
plate we break was cracked
By Mr. Nobody.
He puts damp wood upon the fire,
That kettles will not boil:
His are the feet that bring in mud
And all the carpets soil.
The papers that so oft are lost –
Who had them last but he?
There’s no one tosses them about
But Mr. Nobody.
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Lovelocks
by Martin De la Mare
I watched the Lady Caroline
Bind up her dark and beauteous hair;
Her face was rosy in the glass,
And ‘twit the coils her hads would pass,
White in the candleshine.
Her bottles on the table lay,
Stoppered, yet sweet of violet;
Her image in the mirror stopped
To view those locks as lightly looped
As cherry-boughs in May.
The snowy night lay dim without,
I heard the Waits their sweet song sing;
The windows smouldered keen with frost;
Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed
Her beauteous hair about.
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Meg Merrilies
by John Keats
Old Meg she was a gipsy;
And lived upon the moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
And her house was out of doors.
Her apples were swart blackberries,
Her currants pods o’broom;
Her wine was dew of the wild white rose,
Her book a churchyard tomb.
Her brothers were the craggy hills,
Her sisters larchen trees Alone with her great family
She lived as she did please.
No breakfast had she many a morn,
No dinner many a noon,
And ‘stead of supper she would stare
Full hard against the moon.
But every morn of woodbine fresh
She made her garlanding,
And every night the dark glen yew
She wove, and she would sing.
And with her fingers old and brown,
She plaited mats of rushes,
And gave them to the cottagers
She met among the bushes.
Old Meg was brave as Margaret Queen
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And tall as Amazon:
An old red blanket cloak she wore;
A chip hat had she on.
God rest her aged bones somewhere She died full long agone!
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Lochinvar
by Sir Walter Scott
Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west,
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best,
And save his good broadsword he weapons had none;
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.
He stayed not for brake, and he stopped not for stone,
He swam the Eske River where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate
The bride had consented, the gallant came late:
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.
So boldly he entered the Netherby Hall,
Among bridesmen and kinsmen and brothers and all;
Then spoke the bride’s father, his hand on his sword
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),
“Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?”
“I long woo’d your daughter, my suit you denied; Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar.”
The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up,
He quaffed of the wine, and he threw down the cup.
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
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With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar, “Now tread we a measure!” said young Lochinvar.
So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
Arid the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume,
And the bridesmaidens whispered, “Twere better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.”
One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near;
So light to the croupe the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
“She is won! we are gone, over bank, bush and scaur;
They’ll have fleet steeds that follow,” quoth young Lochinvar.
There was mounting ‘mong Graemes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran:
There was racing and chasing, on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne’er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have ye e’er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?
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Horatius
by Thomas Babington Macaulay
Lars Porsena of Clusium,
By the nine gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
By the nine gods he swore it,
And named a trysting day,
And bade his messengers ride forth,
East and west and south and north,
To summon his array.
East and west and south and north
The messengers ride fast,
And tower and town and cottage
Have heard the trumpet’s blast.
Shame on the false Etruscan
Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium
Is on the march for Rome
And now hath every city
Sent up her tale of men;
The foot are fourscore thousand
The horse are thousands ten.
Before the gates of Sutrium
Is met the great array,
A proud man was Lars Porsena
Upon the trysting day.
But by the yellow Tiber
Was tumult and affright:
From all the spacious champaign
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To Rome men took their flight.
A mile around the city,
The throng stopped up the ways;
A fearful sight it was to see
Through two long nights and days.
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The Glove and the Lions
by Leigh Hunt
King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court;
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And ‘mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom
he sign’d:
And truly ‘twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.
Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid, laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with
their paws,
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one
another,
Till all the pit, with sand and mane, was in a thunderous
smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, “Faith, gentlemen, we’re better here than
there.”
De Lorge’s love o’erheard the king, a beauteous, lively dame,
With smiling lips, and sharp, bright eyes, which always seemed
the same:
She thought, “The Count my lover, is brave as brave can be,
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me!
King, ladies, lovers, all look on, the occasion is divine;
I’ll drop my glove to prove his love, great glory will be mine!
She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him
and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild;
The leap was quick; return was quick; he has regained his
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place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady’s face!
“In truth!” said Francis, “rightly done!” and he rose from where
he sat;
“No love,” quoth he, “but vanity, sets love a task like that.”
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Sir Galahad
by Alfred Tennyson
My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splinter’d spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and rider reel:
They reel, they roll in clanging lists,
And when the tide of combat stands,
Perfume and flowers fall in showers,
That lightly rain from ladies’ hands.
How sweet are looks that ladies bend
On whom their favours fall!
For them I battle till the end,
To save from shame and thrall:
But all my heart is drawn above,
My knees are bow’d in crypt and shrine:
I never felt the kiss of love,
Nor maiden’s hand in mine.
More bounteous aspects on me beam,
Me mightier transports move and thrill;
So keep I fair thro’ faith and prayer
A virgin heart in work and will.
Sometimes on lonely mountain-meres
I find a magic bark;
I leap on board: no helmsman steers:
I float till all is dark.
A gentle sound, an awful light!
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Three angels bear the holy Grail:
With folded feet, in stoles of white,
On sleeping wings they sail.
Ah, blessed vision! blood of God!
My spirit beats her mortal bars,
As down dark tides the glory slides,
And star-like mingles with the stars.
When on my goodly charger borne
Thro’ dreaming towns I go,
The cock crows ere the Christmas morn,
The streets are dumb with snow.
The tempest crackles on the leads,
Arid, ringing, springs from brand and mail;
But o’er the dark a glory spreads,
And gilds the driving hail.
I leave the plain, I climb the height;
No branchy thicket shelter yields;
But blessed forms in whistling storms
Fly o’er waste fens and windy fields.
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Robin Hood
John Keats
No! those days are gone away,
And their hours are old and gray,
And their minutes buried all
Under the down-trodden pall
Of the leaves of many years:
Many times have Winter’s shears,
Frozen North, and chilling East,
Sounded tempests to the feast
Of the forest’s whispering fleeces,
Since men knew nor rents nor leases.
No, the bugle sounds no more,
And the twanging bow no more;
Silent is the ivory shrill
Past the heath and up the hill;
There is no mid-forest laugh,
Where lone echo gives the half
To some wight, amazed to hear
Jesting, deep in forest drear.
On the fairest time of June
You may go, with sun or moon,
Or the seven stars to light you,
Of the polar ray to right you;
But you never may behold
Little John, or Robin bold;
Never one, of all the clan,
Thrumming on an empty can
Some old hunting ditty, while
He doth his green way beguile
To fairest hostess Merriment,
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Down beside the pasture Trent;
For he left the merry tale,
Messenger for spicy ale.
Gone, the merry morris din;
Gone, the song of Gamelyn;
Gone, the tough-belted outlaw
Idling in the “grene shawe” All are gone away and past!
And if Robin should be cast
Sudden from his tufted grave,
And if Marian should have
Once again her forest days,
She would weep, and he would craze:
He would swear, for all his oaks,
Fallen beneath the dockyard strokes,
Have rotted on the briny seas;
She would weep that her wild bees
Sang not to her - Strange! that honey
Can’t be got without hard money!
So it is; yet let us sing
Honor to the old bow-string!
Honor to the bugle-horn!
Honor to the woods unshorn!
Honor to the Lincoln green!
Honor to the archer keen!
Honor to tight Little John,
And the horse he rode upon!
Honor to bold Robin Hood,
Sleeping in the underwood!
Honor to Maid Marian
And to all the Sherwood clan!
Though their days have hurried by
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Let us two a burden try.
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The Death of Robin Hood
by William Rose Benet
There hangs the long bow, the strong bow, once was bent
To cleave the clout, to split the willow wand;
Till the quiver’s shafts were spent
The bow that wrought wild justice in this land.
The red deer, the roe deer knew that bow,
And king and clergy knew
How sure its clothyards flew
To right the poor and lay oppression low.
There grows our great oak, our girthed oak; over all
The shires of England may it branch and be
As once in Sherwood, tall
As truth, and honor’s ever-living tree!
The hunted and the hounded knew its ground
For refuge, knew who stood
A stiff yew hedge in the wood
Around its bole, when that the horn was wound
Merry men all, God spare you to the hunt;
Through time it stretches, down the centuries.
Outlawed, we bore the brunt
Of the hour’s disfavor, and its penalties;
Freemen, forever we with free men ride
Whenever, by God in Heaven,
They gather to make odds even!
Our souls with them they shall not fail that tide.
Now lift me; I would see my forest walls
Badged with our colours, yea, till Time be done.
Where this last arrow falls
Sod me with turf the stag treads lightly on.
Go soft then, saying naught; but, hark ye! kneel
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When the evil hour would awe
-
Kneel and bend now and draw
And loose your shafts in a whistling sleet of steel!
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Fidelity
by William Wordsworth
A barking sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;
He halts - and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a Dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.
The Dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:
Nor is there any one in sight
All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the creature doing here?
It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps, till June, December’s snow;
A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below!
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;
From trace of human foot or hand.
There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;
The crags repeat the raven’s croak,
In symphony austere;
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Thither the rainbow comes - the cloud And mists that spread the flying shroud;
And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,
That, if it could, would hurry past,
But that enormous barrier binds it fast.
Not free from boding thoughts, a while
The Shepherd stood: then makes his way
Following the Dog, o’er rocks and stones,
As quickly as he may;
Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled Discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The Man had fallen, that place of fear!
At length upon the Shepherd’s mind
It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recalled the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day
On which the Traveller passed this way.
But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!
A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.
The Dog, which still was hovering nigh,
Repeating the same timid cry,
This Dog, had been through three months’ space
A dweller in that savage place.
Yes, proof was plain that, since the day
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When this ill-fated Traveller died,
The Dog had watched about the spot,
Or by his master’s side:
How nourished here through such long time
He knows, who gave that love sublime;
And gave that strength of feeling, great
Above all human estimate!
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My Heart’s in the Highlands
by Robert Burns
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here.
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer,
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go!
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birthplace of valour, the country of worth!
Wherever I wander, wherever I roam,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
Farewell to the mountains, high-covered with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below,
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here.
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer,
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go!
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Song of the Open Road
by Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need
nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
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Hunting Song
by Sir Walter Scott
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
On the mountains dawns the day;
All the jolly chase is here
With hawk and horses and hunting-spear;
Hounds are in their couples yelling,
Hawks are whistling, horns are knelling;
Merrily, merrily mingle they,
“Waken, lords and ladies gay.”
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
The mist has left the mountain gray,
Springlets in the dawn are streaming,
Diamonds on the brake are gleaming;
And foresters have been busy been
To track the buck in thicket green;
Now we come to chant our lay,
“Waken, lords and ladies gay.”
Waken, lords and ladies gay,
To the greenwood haste away;
We can show you where he lies,
Fleet of foot and tall of size;
We can show the marks he made
When the oak his antlers frayed;
You shall see him brought to bay;
Waken, lords and ladies gay.
Louder, louder chant the lay,
Waken, lords and ladies gay!
Tell them youth and mirth and glee
Run a course as well as we;
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Time, stern huntsman! who can baulk,
Staunch as hound and fleet as hawk;
Think of this, and rise with day,
Gentle lords and ladies gay!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Song of Marion’s Men
by William Cullen Bryant
Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion’s name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress-tree;
We know the forest round us,
As seamen know the sea;
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.
Woe to the English soldiery
That little dread us near!
On them shall light at midnight
A strange and sudden fear;
When, waking to their tents on fire,
They grasp their arms in vain,
And they who stand to face us
Are beat to earth again;
And they who fly in terror deem
A mighty host behind,
And hear the tramp of thousands
Upon the hollow wind.
Then sweet the hour that brings release
From danger and from toil;
We talk the battle over,
And share the battle’s spoil.
The woodland rings with laugh and shout,
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As if a hunt were up,
And woodland flowers are gathered
To crown the soldier’s cup.
With merry songs we mock the wind
That in the pine-top grieves,
And slumber long and sweetly
On beds of oaken leaves.
Well knows the fair and friendly moon
The band that Marion leads, The glitter of their rifles,
The scampering of their steeds.
Tis life to guide the fiery barb
Across the moonlight plain;
‘Tis life to feel the night-wind
That lifts his tossing mane.
A moment in the British camp A moment-and away
Back to the pathless forest.
Before the peep of day.
Grave men there are by broad Santee,
Grave men with hoary hairs;
Their hearts are all with Marion,
For Marion are their prayers.
And lovely ladies greet our band
With kindliest welcoming,
With smiles like those of summer,
And tears like those of spring.
For them we wear these trusty arms,
And lay them down no more
Till we have driven the Briton
Forever from our shore.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Song of Sherwood
by William Makepeace Thackeray
Sherwood in the twilight, is Robin Hood awake?
Gray and ghostly shadows are gliding through the brake,
Shadows of the dappled deer, dreaming of the morn,
Dreaming of a shadowy man that winds a shadowy horn.
Robin Hood is here again: all his merry thieves
Hear a ghostly bugle-note shivering through the leaves,
Calling as he used to call, faint and far away,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Merry, merry England has kissed the lips of June:
All the wings of fairyland were here beneath the moon,
Like a flight of rose-leaves fluttering in a mist
Of opal and ruby and pearl and amethyst.
Merry, merry England is waking as of old,
With eyes of blither hazel and hair of brighter gold:
For Robin Hood is here again beneath the bursting spray
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Love is in the greenwood building him a house
Of wild rose and hawthorn and honeysuckle boughs;
Love is in the greenwood: dawn is in the skies;
And Marian is waiting with a glory in her eyes.
Hark! The dazzled laverock climbs the golden steep!
Marian is waiting: is Robin Hood asleep?
Round the fairy grass-rings frolic elf and fay,
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day.
Oberon, Oberon, rake away the gold,
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Rake away the red leaves, roll away the mould,
Rake away the gold leaves, roll away the red,
And wake Will Scarlett from his leafy forest bed.
Friar Tuck and Little John are riding down together
With quarter staff and drinking can and gray goose-feather.
The dead are coming back again; the years are rolled away
In Sherwood, in Sherwood about the break of day.
Softly over Sherwood the south wind blows.
All the heart of England hid in every rose
Hears across the greenwood the sunny whisper leap,
Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin asleep?
Hark, the voice of England wakes him as of old
And, shattering the silence with a cry of brighter gold,
Bugles in the greenwood echo from the steep,
Sherwood in the red dawn, is Robin Hood asleep?
Where the deer are gliding down the shadowy glen
AIll across the glades of fern he calls his merry men Doublets of the Lincoln green glancing through the May
In Sherwood, in Sherwood, about the break of day Calls them and they answer: from aisles of oak and ash
Ring the Follow! Follow! and the boughs begin to crash;
The ferns begin to flutter and the flowers begin to fly;
And through the crimson dawning the robber band goes by.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Stars
by Sara Teasdale
Alone in the night
On a dark hill
With pines around me
Spicy and still,
And a heaven full of stars
Over my head,
White and topaz
And misty red;
Myriads with beating
Hearts of fire
That aeons
Cannot vex or tire;
Up the dome of heaven
Like a great hill,
I watch them marching
Stately and still,
And I know that I
Am honored to be
Witness
Of so much majesty.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Land of Story-Books Requiem
by Robert Louis Stevenson
At evening when the lamp is lit,
Around the fire my parents sit;
They sit at home and talk and sing,
And do not play at anything.
Now, with my little gun, I crawl
All in the dark along the wall,
And follow round the forest track
Away behind the sofa back.
There, in the night, where none can spy,
All in my hunter’s camp I lie,
And play at books that I have read
Till it is time to go to bed.
These are the hills, these are the woods,
These are my starry solitudes;
And there the river by whose brink
The roaring lions come to drink.
I see the others far away
As if in firelit camp they lay,
And I, like to an Indian scout,
Around their party prowled about.
So, when my nurse comes in for me,
Home I return across the sea,
And go to bed with backward looks
At my dear land of Story-books.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Day is Done
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resistA feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As he mist resembles the rain.
Come read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of time;For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And tonight I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
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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.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
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Page 152
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Lord, Forever At Thy Side
by Orlando Gibbons
Lord, forever at thy side
Let my place and portion be:
Strip me of the robe of pride,
Clothe me with humility.
Meekly may my soul receive
All thy Spirit hath revealed;
Thou hast spoken; I believe,
Though the oracle be sealed.
Humble as a little child,
Weaned from the mother’s breast,
By no subtleties beguiled,
On thy faithful word I rest.
Israel, now and everymore
In the Lord Jehovah trust;
Him, in all his ways, adore
Wise and wonderful and just.
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Page 153
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Stealing
by James Russell Lowell
In vain we call old notions fudge,
And bend our conscience to our dealing;
The Ten Commandments will not budge,
And stealing will continue stealing.
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Page 154
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Life Sculpture
by George Washington Doane
Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy
With his marble block before him,
And his eyes lit up with a smile of joy,
As an angel-dream passed o’er him.
He carved the dream on that shapeless stone,
With many a sharp incision;
With heaven’s own light the sculpture shone,
He’d caught that angel-vision.
Children of life are we, as we stand
With our lives uncarved before us,
Waiting the hour when, at God’s command,
Our life-dream shall pass o’er us.
If we carve it then on the yielding stone,
With many a sharp incision,
Its heavenly beauty shall be our own, Our lives, that angel-vision.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Secret
by Ralph Spaulding Cushmnan
I met God in the morning
When my day was at its best,
And His presence came like sunrise,
Like a glory in my breast.
All day long the Presence lingered,
All day long He stayed with me,
And we sailed in perfect calmness
O’er a very troubled sea.
Other ships were blown and battered,
Other ships were sore distressed,
But the winds that seemed to drive them
Brought to us a peace and rest.
Then I thought of other mornings,
With a keen remorse of mind,
When I too had loosed the moorings,
With the Presence left behind.
So I think I know the secret,
Learned from many a troubled way:
You must seek Him in the morning
If you want Him through the day!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Truth
by Ben Jonson
Truth is the trial of itself,
And needs no other touch;
And purer than the purest gold,
Refine it ne’er so much.
It is the life and light of love,
The sun that ever shineth,
And spirit of that special grace,
That faith and love defineth.
It is the warrant of the word,
That yields a scent so sweet,
As gives a power of faith to tread
All falsehood under feet.
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Page 157
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Things That Haven’t Been Done Before
by Edgar Guest
The things that haven’t been done before,
Those are the things to try;
Columbus dreamed of an unknown shore
At the rim of the far flung sky,
And his heart was bold and his faith was strong
As he ventured in dangers new,
And he paid no heed to the jeering throng
Of the fears of the doubting crew.
The many will follow the beaten track
With guideposts on the way.
They live and have lived for ages back
With a chart for every day.
Someone has told them it’s safe to go
On the road he has traveled o’er,
And all that they ever strive to know
Are the things that were known before.
A few strike out, without map or chart,
Where never a man has been,
From the beaten paths they drew apart
To see who no man has seen.
There are deeds they hunger alone to do;
Though battered and bruised and sore,
They blaze the path for the many, who
Do nothing not done before.
The things that haven’t been done before
Are the tasks worthwhile today;
Are you one of the flock that follows, or
Are you one that shall lead the way?
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Are you one of the timid souls that quail
At the jeers of a doubting crew,
Or dare you, whether you win or fail,
Strike out for a goal that’s new?
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The Character of the Happy Warrior
by William Wordsworth
Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
- It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:
Whose high endeavors are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright;
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature’s highest dower:
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable - because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skillful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
- ‘Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
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Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He labors good on good to fix, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:
- Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honorable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honors, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
- He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe’er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love: ‘Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
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Conspicuous object in a Nation’s eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity, Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape or danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven’s applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is He
That every Man in arms should wish to be.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Contentment
by Edward Dyer
My mind to me a kingdom is;
Such perfect joy therein I find
As far excels all earth bliss
That God or Nature hath assigned;
Though much I want that most would have,
Yet still my mind forbids to crave.
Content I live; this is my stay, I seek no more than may suffice.
I press to bear no haughty sway;
Look, what I lack my mind supplies.
Lo, thus I triumph like a king,
Content with that my mind doth bring.
I laugh not at another’s loss,
I grudge not at another’s gain;
No worldly wave my mind can toss;
I brook that is another’s bane.
I fear no foe, nor fawn, nor friend;
I loathe not life, nor dread mine end.
My wealth is health and perfect ease;
My conscience clear my chief defense,
I never seek by bribes to please
Nor by desert to give offense.
Thus do I live, thus will I die;
Would all did so as well as I!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
If
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
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If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!
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Page 165
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Blind Men And The Elephant
by John Godfrey Saxe
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!’
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ‘tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is veiy like a snake!”
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
“What most this wondrous beast is like
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Is mighty plain,” quoth he;
“Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”
The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on a swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
The Moral:
So often in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Opportunity
by John James Ingalls
Master of human destinies am I.
Fame, love, and fortune on my footsteps wait,
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and, passing by
Hovel, and mart, and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden, once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake - if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate,
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implore I answer not, and I return no more.
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Page 168
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Out To Old Aunt Mary’s
by James Whitcomb Riley
Wasn’t it pleasant, 0 brother mine,
In those old days of the lost sunshine
Of youth - when Saturday’s chores were through,
And the “Sunday’s wood” in the kitchen, too,
And we went visiting, “me and you,”
Out to Old Aunt Mary’s?
It all comes back so clear today!
Though I am as bald as you are gray, Out by the barn-lot, and down the lane,
We patter along in the dust again,
As light as the tips of the drops of the rain,
Out to Old Aunt Mary’s!
We cross the pasture, and through the wood
Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood,
Where the hammering “red-heads” hopped awry,
And the buzzard “raised” in the “clearing” sky,
And lolled and circled, as we went by,
Out to Old Aunt Mary’s.
And then in the dust of the road again;
And the teams we met, and the countrymen;
And the long highway, with sunshine spread
As thick as butter on country bread,
Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead
Out to Old Aunt Mary’s.
Why, I see her now in the open door,
Where the little gourds grew up the sides, and o’er
The clapboard roof! – And her face - ah, me!
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Wasn’t it good for a boy to see And wasn’t it good for a boy to be
Out to Old Aunt Mary’s?
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Only a Dad
by Edgar Guest
Only a dad with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame
To show how well he has played the game;
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come and to hear his voice.
Only a dad with a brood of four,
One often million men or more
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.
Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd,
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.
Only a dad but he gives his all,
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing with courage stern and grim
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen:
Only a dad, but the best of men.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Little Boy Blue
by Eugene Field
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket molds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue, Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
My Kate
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
She was not as pretty as women I know,
And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow
Drop to shade, melt to nought in the long-trodden ways,
While she’s still remembered on warm and cold days –
My Kate.
Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace;
You turned from the fairest to gaze on her face:
And when you had once seen her forehead and mouth,
You saw as distinctly her soul and her truth My Kate.
Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke,
You looked at her silence and fancied she spoke:
When she did, so peculiar yet soft was the tone,
Though the loudest spoke also, you heard her alone My Kate.
I doubt if she said to you much that could act
As a thought or suggestion; she did not attract
In the sense of the brilliant or wise: I infer
‘Twas her thinking of others made you think of her My Kate.
She never found fault with you, never implied
Your wrong by her right; and yet men at her side
Grew nobler, girls purer, as through the whole town
The children were gladder that pulled at her gown My Kate.
None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall;
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They knelt more to God than they used - that was all:
If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant,
But the charm of her presence was felt when she went My Kate.
The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude,
She took as she found them, and did them all good;
It always was so with her - see what you have!
She has made the grass greener even here. . . with her grave –
My Kate.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
She Was A Phantom Of Delight
by William Wordsworth
She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment’s ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
I saw her upon a nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature’s daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveler between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warm, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright,
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With something of angelic light.
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Letter To A Young Friend
by Robert Burns
I lang hae thought, my youthfu’ friend,
A something to have sent you,
Tho’ it should serve nae ither end
Than just a kind memento:
But how the subject-theme may gang,
Let time and chance determine:
Perhaps it may turn out a sang;
Perhaps turn out a sermon.
Ye’ll try the world soon, my lad;
And, Andrew dear, believe me,
Ye’ll find mankind an unco squad,
And muckle they may grieve ye:
For care and trouble set your thought,
Ev’n when your end’s attained;
And a’ your views may come to nought,
Where every nerve is strained.
I’ll no say, men are villains a’:
The real, harden’d wicked,
Wha hae nae check but human law,
Are to a few restricked;
But, och! mankind are unco weak
An’ little to be trusted;
If self the wavering balance shake,
It’s rarely right adjusted!
Yet thy wha fa’ in fortune’s strife,
Their fate we shouldna censure;
For still, th’ important end of life
They equally may answer:
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A man may hae an honest heart,
Tho’ poortith hourly stare him;
A man may tak a neibor’s part,
Yet hae nae cash to spare him.
Ay free, aff han’, your story tell,
When wi’ a bosom crony;
But still keep something to yoursel;
Ye scarely tell to ony:
Conceal yoursel as weel’s ye can
Frae critical dissection:
But keek thro’ every other man
Wi’ sharpen’d, sly inspection.
The sacred lowe o’ weel-plac’d love,
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt th’ illicit rove,
Tho’ naething should divulge it:
I waive the quantum o’ the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But, och! it hardens a’ within,
And petrifies the feeling!
To catch Dame Fortune’s golden smile,
Assiduous wait upon her;
And gather gear by every wile
That’s justify’d by honour:
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train-attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.
The fear o’ hell’s a hangman’s whip
To haud the wretch in order;
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But where ye feel your honour grip,
Let that ay be your border;
Its slightest touches, instant pause Debar a’ side-pretences;
And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences.
The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear
And ev’n the rigid feature:
Yet ne’er with wits profane to range
Be complaisance extended;
An atheist-laugh’s a poor exchange
For Deity offended!
When ranting round in pleasure’s ring,
Religion may be blinded;
Or if she gie a random sting,
It may be little minded;
But when on Life we’re tempest-driv’n A conscience but a canker A correspondence fix’d xvi’ Heav’n
Is sure a noble anchor!
Adieu, dear, amiable youth!
Your heart can ne’er be wanting!
May prudence, fortitude, and truth,
Erect your brow undaunting!
In ploughman phrase, “God send you speed,”
Still daily to grow wiser;
And may ye better reck the rede,
Than ever did th’ adviser!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 179
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Spires of Oxford
(As seen from the train)
by Winifred M. Letts
I saw the spires of Oxford
As I was passing by,
The grey spires of Oxford
Against a pearl-grey sky,
My heart was with the Oxford men
Who went abroad to die.
The years go fast in Oxford,
The golden years and gay,
The hoary colleges look down
On careless boys at play,
But when the bugles sounded - War!
They put their games away.
They left the peaceful river,
The cricket field, the quad,
The shaven lawns of Oxford,
To seek a bloody sod They gave their merry youth away
For country and for God.
God rest you, happy gentlemen,
Who laid your good lives down,
Who took the khaki and the gun
Instead of cap and gown.
God bring you to a fairer place
Then even Oxford town.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
On His Blindness
by John Milton
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide, Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?
I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies; God doth not need
Either man’s work, or His own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest: They also serve who only stand and wait.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 181
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Solitude
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost in the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all, There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Waiting
by John Burroughs
Serene, I fold my hands and wait,
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more ‘gainst time or fate,
For lo! My own shall come to me.
I stay my haste, I make delays,
For what avails this eager pace?
I stand amid the eternal ways
And what is mine shall know my face.
Asleep, awake, by night or day,
The friends I seek are seeking me;
No wind can drive my bark astray,
Nor change the tide of destiny.
What matter if I stand alone?
I wait with joy the coming years;
My heart shall reap where it hath sown,
And garner up its fruit of tears.
The waters know their own, and draw
The brook that springs in yonder height;
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delights.
The stars come nightly to the sky;
The tidal wave unto the sea;
Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 183
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Barefoot Boy
by John Greenleaf Whittier
Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
With thy turned-up pantaloons,
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lip, redder still,
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace,
From my heart I give thee joy, I was once a barefoot boy.
Prince thou art, - the grown-up man
Only is republican.
Let the million-dollared ride!
Barefoot, trudging at his side,
Thou hast more than he can buy
in the reach of ear and eye Outward sunshine, inward joy:
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
Oh, for boyhood’s painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,
Knowledge never learned of schools,
Of the wild bee’s morning chase,
Of the wild flower’s time and place,
Flight of fowl and habitude
Of the tenants of the wood;
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodcheck digs his cell,
And the ground mole sinks his well
How the robin feeds her young,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
How the oriole’s nest is hung;
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the groundnut trails its vine,
Where the wood grape’s clusters shine;
Of the black wasp’s cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay,
And the artchitectural plans
Of gray hornet artisans! For, eschewing books and tasks,
Nature answers all he asks;
Hand in hand with her he walks,
Face to face with her he talks,
Part and parcel of her joy, Blessings on thee, barefoot boy!
Oh, for boyhood’s time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw
Me, their master, waited for.
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming birds and honeybees,
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade;
For my task the blackberry cone
Purpled over hedge and stone;
Laughed the brook for my delight
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall;
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine, on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides!
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Still, as my horizon grew,
Larger grew my riches too;
All the world I saw or knew
Seemed a complex Chinese toy,
Fashioned for a barefoot boy!
Oh for festal dainties spread,
Like my bowl of milk and bread, Pewter spoon and bowl of wood,
On the doorstone, gray and rude!
O’er me, like a regal tent,
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent,
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold;
Looped in many a wind-swung fold,
While for music came the play
Of the pied frog’s orchestra;
And to light the noisy choir,
Lit the fly his lamp of fire.
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on thee, barefoot boy!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 186
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
I Shall Not Pass This Way Again
by Eva Rose York
I shall not pass this way again –
Although it bordered be with flowers,
Although I rest in fragrant bowers,
And hear the singing
Of song-birds winging
To highest heaven their gladsome flight;
Though moons are full and stars are bright,
And winds and waves are softly sighing,
While leafy trees make low replying;
Though voices clear in joyous strain
Repeat a jubilant refrain;
Though rising suns their radiance throw
On summer’s green and winter’s snow,
In such rare splendor that my heart
Would ache from scenes like these to part;
Though beauties heighten,
And life-lights brighten,
And joys proceed from every pain, I shall not pass this way again.
Then let me pluck the flowers that blow,
And let me listen as I go
To music rare
That fills the air;
And let hereafter
Songs and laughter
Fill every pause along the way;
And to my spirit let me say:
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
“0 soul, be happy; soon ‘tis trod,
The path made thus for thee by God.
Be happy, thou, and bless His name
By whom such marvellous beauty came.”
And let no chance by me be lost
To kindness show at any cost.
I shall not pass this way again;
Then let me now relieve some pain,
Remove some barrier from the road,
Or brighten some one’s heavy load;
A helping hand to this one lend,
Then turn some other to befriend.
O God, forgive
That now I live
As if I might, sometime, return
To bless the weary ones that yearn
For help and comfort every day, For there be such along the way.
O God, forgive that I have seen
The beauty only, have not been
Awake to sorrow such as this;
That I have drunk the cup of bliss
Remembering not that those there be
Who drink the dregs of misery.
I love the beauty of the scene,
Would roam again o’er fields so green;
But since I may not, let me spend
My strength for others to the end, For those who tread on rock and stone,
And bear their burdens all alone,
Who loiter not in leafy bowers,
Nor hear the birds nor pluck the flowers.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A larger kindness give to me,
A deeper love and sympathy;
Then, 0, one day
May someone say Remembering a lessened pain “Would she could pass this way again.”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 189
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Good-Bye
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine.
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river ark on the ocean brine,
Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam:
But now, proud world! I’m going home.
Good-bye to Flattery’s fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth’s averted eye;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home.
I am going to my own hearthstone,
Bosomed to yon green hills alone, A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird’s roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
0, when I am safe in my sylvan home
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
When man in the bush with God may meet?
Poetry for Grammar
Page 191
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers
by Felicis Hemans
The breaking waves dashed high,
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark,
The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes,
They, the true-hearted came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame;
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear; They shook the depths of the desert gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free.
The ocean eagle soared
From his nest by the white wave’s foam;
And the rocking pines of the forest roared This was their welcome home.
There were men with hoary hair
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Admist that pilgrim band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood’s land?
There was woman’s fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love’s truth;
There was manhood’s brow serenely high
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? –
They sought a faith’s pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground
The soil where first they trod; They have left unstained what there they found –
Freedom to worship God.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 193
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Christmas Everywhere
by Phillips Brooks
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine,
Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine,
Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white,
Christmas where cornfields stand sunny and bright.
Christmas where children are hopeful and gay,
Christmas where old men are patient and gray,
Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight,
Broods o’er brave men in the thick of the fight;
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all;
No palace too great, no cottage too small.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Jest ‘Fore Christmas
by Eugene Field
Father calls me William, sister calls me Will,
Mother calls me Willie but the fellers call me Bill!
Mighty glad I ain’t a girl - ruther be a boy,
Without them sashes, curls, an things that’s worn by Fauntleroy!
Love to chawnk green apples an’ go swimmin’ in the lake Hate to take the castor-ile they give for belly-ache!
‘Most all the time, the whole year round, there ain’t no flies on
me,
But jest ‘fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!
Got a yeller dog named Sport, sick him on the cat.
First thing she knows she doesn’t know where she is at!
Got a clipper sled, an’ when us kids goes out to slide,
‘Long comes the grocery cart, an’ we all hook a ride!
But sometimes when the grocery man is worrited an’ cross,
He reaches at us with his whip, an’ larrups up his hoss,
An’ then I laff an’ holler, “Oh, ye never teched me!”
But jest ‘fore Christmas I’m as good as I kin be!
Gran’ma says she hopes that when I git to be a man,
I’ll be a missionarer like her oldest brother, Dan,
As was et up by the cannibals that live in Ceylon’s Isle,
Where every prospeck pleases, an’ only man is vile!
But gran’ma she has never been to see a Wild West show,
Nor read the life of Daniel Boone, or else I guess she’d know
That Buff’lo Bill an’ cowboys is good enough for me!
Excep’ just ‘for Christmas, when I’m as good as I kin be!
For Christmas, with its lots an’ lots of candies, cakes an’ toys,
Was made, they say, for proper kids an’ not for naughty boys;
So wash yer face an’ bresh yer hair, an’ mind yer p’s and q’s,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
And don’t bust out yer pantaloons, and don’t wear out yer
shoes;
Say “Yessum” to the ladies, and “Yessur” to the men,
An’ when they’s company, don’t pass yer plate for pie again;
But, thinkin’ of the things yer’d like to see upon the tree,
Jest ‘fore Christmas be as good as yer kin be!
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Christ Candle
by Kate Louise Brown
Little taper set tonight,
Throw afar thy tiny light
Up and down the darksome street,
Guide the tender, wandering feet
Of the darling Christ-child sweet.
He is coming in the snow,
As He came so long ago,
When the stars set o’er the hill,
When the town is dark and still,
Comes to do the Father’s will.
Little taper, spread thy ray,
Make His pathway light as day;
Let some door be open wide
For this guest of Christmastide,
Dearer than all else beside.
Little Christ-Child, come to me,
Let my heart Thy shelter be;
Such a home Thou wilt not scorn.
So the bless on Christmas morn,
Glad shall ring, “A Christ is born!”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 197
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
There’s A Song In The Air
by J. G. Holland
There’s a song in the air!
There’s a star in the sky!
There’s a mother’s deep prayer
And a baby’s low cry!
And the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing,
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!
There’s a tumult ofjoy
O’er the wonderful birth,
For the Virgin’s sweet boy
Is the Lord of the earth.
Ay! the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing,
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!
In the light of that star
Lie the ages impearled;
And that song from afar
Has swept over the world.
Every hearth is aflame, and the beautiful sing
In the homes of the nations that Jesus is King!
We rejoice in the light,
And we echo the song
That comes down thro’ the night
From the heavenly throng.
Ay! we shout to the lovely evangel they bring,
And we greet in His cradle our Saviour and King
Poetry for Grammar
Page 198
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Daybreak
by Henry W. Longfellow
A wind came up out of the sea,
And said, “0 mists, make room for me.”
It hailed the ships and cried,
“Sail on, Ye mariners, the night is gone.”
And hurried landward far away,
Crying, “Awake! it is the day.”
It said unto the forest, “Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!”
It touched the wood-bird’s folded wing,
And said, “0 bird, awake and sing!”
And o’er the farms, “0 chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near.”
It whispered to the fields ot corn,
“Bow down, and hail the coming morn.”
It shouted through the belfry-tower,
“Awake, 0 bell! proclaim the hour.”
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, “Not yet! In quiet lie.”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 199
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose
by Emily Dickinson
I’ll tell you how the sun rose,A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news, like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”
But how he set I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
That little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while
Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars
And let the flock away.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 200
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Upon Westminster Bridge
by William Wordsworth
Earth has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he he of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty;
This city now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, care,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep:
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 201
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Cloud
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ‘tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven’s blue smile,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead:
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer.
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I hind the sun’s throne with a burning zone,
And the moon’s with a girdle of pearl;
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which 1 march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain,
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laught at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 204
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Ode To The West Wind
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: 0 thou
Who chariotest to their dark winter bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odors plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning. There are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, ev’n from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
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Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all they congregated might
Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!
Thou For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
1ff were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than Thou, 0 uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
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The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seem’d a vision, I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.
Make me thy lyre, ev’n as the forest is:
What is my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither’d leaves, to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish’d hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken’d earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! 0 Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
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Ingratitude
by William Shakespeare
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou are not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
My Heart Leaps Up
by William Wordsworth
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
So was it when my life began;
So it is now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Now The Day is Over
by Sabine Baring-Gould
Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh,
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky.
Now the darkness gathers,
Stars begin to peep,
Birds, and beasts, and flowers
Soon will be asleep.
Jesu, give the weary
Calm and sweet repose;
With thy tenderest blessing
May our eyelids close.
Grant to little children
Visions bright of Thee;
Guard the sailors tossing
On the deep blue sea.
Comfort those who suffer,
Watching late in pain;
Those who plan some evil
From their sin restrain.
Through the long night-watches
May Thine Angels spread
Their white wings above me,
Watching round my bed.
When the morning wakens,
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Then may I arise,
Pure, and fresh, and sinless
In Thy Holy Eyes.
Glory to the Father,
Glory to the Son,
And to thee, Blest Spirit
Whilst all ages run.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Recessional
by Rudyard Kipling
God of our fathers, known of old Lord of our far-flung battle line –
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine –
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart;
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire;
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe –
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law –
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!
For heathern heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard All valiant dust that builds on dust,
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And guarding, calls not Thee to guard –
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!
Amen.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls
by Henry W. Longfellow
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Apostrophe To The Ocean
by George Gordon Byron
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne’er express, yet can not all conceal.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin, his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields
Are not a spoil for him, - thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his goods, where haply lies
His pretty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: - there let him lay.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into the nest of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada’s pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee;
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage - what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves’ play;
Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow;
Such as creation’s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed; in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime,
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime; The image of Eternity, the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton’d with thy breakers - they to me
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Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror - ‘twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 217
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Name In The Sand
by Hannah Flagg Gould
Alone I walked the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand:
I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name - the year - the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast:
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.
And so, methought, ‘twill shortly be
With every mark on earth from me:
A wave of dark oblivion’s sea
Will sweep across the place
Where I have trod the sandy shore,
Of time, and been to be no more,
Of me - my day - the name I bore,
To leave nor track nor trace.
And yet, with Him, who counts the sands
And holds the waters in His hands,
I know a lasting record stands
Inscribed against my name,
Of all, this mortal part has wrought,
Of all, this thinking soul has thought,
And from these fleeting moments caught
For glory, or for shame.
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Page 218
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Building of the Ship
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Then the Master,
With a gesture of command,
Waved his hand;
And at the word,
Loud and sudden there was heard,
All around them and below,
The sound of hammers, blow on blow,
Knocking away the shores and spurs.
And see! she stirs!
She starts, - she moves, - she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,
And, spurning with her foot the ground,
With one exulting, joyous bound,
She leaps into the ocean’s arms!
And lo! from the assembled crowd
There rose a shout, prolonged and loud,
That to the ocean seemed to say.
“Take her, 0 bridegroom, old and gray,
Take her to thy protecting arms,
With all her youth and all her charms!”
How beautiful she is! How fair
She lies within those arms, that press
Her form with many a soft caress
Of tenderness and watchful care!
Sail forth into the sea, 0 ship!
Through wind and wave, right onward steer!
The moistened eye, the trembling lip,
And not the signs of doubt or fear.
Sail forth into the sea of life,
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O gentle, loving, trusting wife,
And safe from all adversity
Upon the bosom of that sea
Thy comings and thy goings be!
For gentleness and love and trust
Prevail o’er angry wave and gust;
And in the wreck of noble lives
Something immortal still survives!
Thou, too, sail on, 0 Ship of State!
Sail on, 0 Union, strong and great!
Humanity with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!
We know what Master laid thy keel,
What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel,
Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,
What anvils rang, what hammers beat,
In what a forge and what a heat,
Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!
Fear not each sudden sound and shock.
‘Tis of the wave and not the rock;
‘Tis but the flapping of the sail,
And not a rent made by the gale.
In spite of rock and tempest’s roar,
In spite of false lights on the shore,
Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea!
Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee,
Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears,
Our faith triumphant o’er our fears,
Are all with thee, - are all with thee!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 220
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The “Three Bells” Of Glasgow
by John G. Whittier
Beneath the low-hung night cloud
That raked her splintering mast
The good ship settled slowly,
The cruel leak gained fast.
Over the awful ocean
Her signal guns pealed out.
Dear God! was that Thy answer
From the horror round about?
A voice came down the wild wind,
“Ho! ship ahoy!” its cry:
“Our stout Three Bells of Glasgow
Shall stand till daylight by!”
Hour after hour crept slowly,
Yet on the heaving swells
Tossed up and down the ship-lights,
The lights of the Three Bells!
And ship to ship made signals,
Man answered back to man,
While oft, to cheer and hearten,
The Three Bells nearer ran;
And the captain from her taffrail
Sent down his hopeful cry.
“Take heart! Hold on!” he shouted.
“The Three Bells shall lay by!”
All night across the waters
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The tossing lights shone clear;
All night from reeling taffrail
The Three Bells sent her cheer.
And when the dreary watches
Of storm and darkness passed,
Just as the wreck lurched under,
All souls were saved at last.
Sail on, Three Bells, forever,
In grateful memory sail!
Ring on, Three Bells of rescue,
Above the wave and gale!
Type of the Love eternal,
Repeat the Master’s cry,
As tossing through our darkness
The lights of God draw nigh!
Poetry for Grammar
Page 222
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Chambered Nautilus
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed, Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings -
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Build thee more stately mansions, 0 my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
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Page 224
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But 0 heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up - for you the flag is flung - for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths - for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
The arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult 0 shores and ring 0 bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 225
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Casabianca
by Felicia Hemans
The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck,
Shone round him o’er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud though childlike form.
The flames rolled on, - he would not go
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He called aloud, “Say, father, say,
If yet my task is done!”
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
“Speak, father!” once again he cried,
“If I may yet be gone!”
- And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair;
And looked from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair.
And shouted but once more aloud
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
“My father! must I stay?”
While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.
Then came a burst of thunder sound
The boy - Oh! where was he?
- Ask of the winds, that far around
With fragments strewed the sea With shrouc, and mast, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part, But the noblest thing that perished there
Was that young, faithful heart.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 227
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Crossing The Bar
by Alfred Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound or foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 228
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Columbus
by Cincinnatus Hiner Miller (known as Joaquin Miller)
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: “Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm’r’l, speak, what shall I say?”
“Why, say, ‘Sail on! sail on! and on!”
“My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Adm’r’l, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”
“Why, you shall say at break of day,
‘Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”
They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
“Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dead seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Adm’r’l; speak and say” He said, “Sail on! sail on! and on!”
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
“This mad sea shows his teeth to-night;
He curls his lips, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite:
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Brave Adm’r’l, say but one good word:
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt like a leaping sword:
“Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!”
Then pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck A light! a light! at last a light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 230
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Childe Harold’s Farewell to England
by George Gordon Byron
Adieu, adieu! my native shore
Fades o’er the waters blue;
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild sea-mew.
Yon sun that sets upon the sea
We follow in his flight;
Farewell awhile to him and thee,
My native land - Good-night!
A few short hours and he will rise
To give the morrow birth;
And I shall hail the main and skies
But not my mother earth.
Deserted is my own good hall,
Its hearth is desolate;
Wild weeds are gathering on the wall;
My dog howls at the gate.
Come hither, hither, my little page!
Why dost thou weep and wail?
Or dost thou dread the billows’ rage,
Or tremble at the gale?
But dash the tear-drop from thine eye;
Our ship is swift and strong:
Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly
More merrily along.
“Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,
I fear not wave nor wind:
Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I,
Am sorrowful in mind;
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
For I have from my father gone,
A mother whom I love,
And have no friends, save these alone,
but thee - and one above.
“My father bless’d me fervently,
Yet did not much complain;
But sorely will my mother sigh
Till I come back again.” Enough, enough, my little lad!
Such tears become thine eye;
If I thy guileless bosom had,
Mine own would not be dry.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 232
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Plant A Tree
by Lucy Larcom
He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
So man’s life must climb
From the clods of time
Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?
He who plants a tree
Plants a joy;
Plants a comfort that will never cloy;
Every day a fresh reality,
Beautiful and strong,
To whose shelter throng
Creatures blithe with song.
If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee!
He who plants a tree, He plants peace.
Under its green curtains jargons cease.
Leaf and zephyr murmur soothingly;
Shadows soft with sleep
Down tired eyelids creep,
Balm of slumber deep.
Never hast thou dreamed, thou blessed tree,
Of the benediction thou shalt be.
He who plants a tree, -
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He plants youth;
Vigor won for centuries in sooth;
Life of time, that hints eternity!
Boughs their strength uprear;
New shoots, every year,
On old growths appear;
Thou shalt teach the ages, sturdy tree,
Youth of soul is immortality.
He who plants a tree, He plants love,
Tents of coolness spreading out above
Wayfarers he may not live to see.
Gifts that grow are best;
Hands that bless are blest;
Plant! life does the rest!
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree,
And his work its own reward shall be.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 234
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Trees
by Sergeant Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree,
A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 235
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Daffodils
by William Wordsworth
I wander’d 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 be but gay,
In such a jocund company;
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me 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.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 236
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Reflections
by Sarah Pierce
One day my hound and I did roam
Amid the slender stately groves.
We lingered ‘neath each sylvan bower,
Embraced each lovely budding flower.
Anon my friend did wander from my side
To frisk about the green with joyful bound.
Awaiting him my fingers strummed my lyre
Pastoral songs to while away the hour.
Weeks hence these echoes filled my mind
With lilting joys of countryside we knew.
My canvas called - my pallette did invite
My fingers plied the brushes through the night.
My dog and I do still explore those hills
Returning to those treasured haunts alway.
The gathered sights and sounds that please us
Do mirrored find their home upon my easel.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 237
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Winter
by William Shakespeare
When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nip’d, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tu-whit;
To-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all about the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl
Tu-whit;
Tu-whoo, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 238
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
In February
by George Macdonald
Now in the dark of February rains,
Poor lovers of the sunshine, spring is born,
The earthy fields are full of hidden corn,
And March’s violets bud along the lanes;
Therefore with joy believe in what remains.
And thou who dost not feel them, do not scorn
Our early songs for winter overworn,
And faith in God’s handwriting on the plains.
‘Hope,’ writes he, ‘Love’ in the first violet,
‘Joy,’ even from Heaven, in songs and winds and trees;
And having caught the happy words in these
While Nature labours with the letters yet,
Spring cannot cheat us, though her hopes be broken,
Nor leave us, for we know what God hath spoken.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 239
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Spring Quiet
by Christina Rossetti
Gone were but the winter,
Come were but the spring,
I would go to a covert
Where the birds sing;
Where in the whitethorn
Singeth a thrush,
And a robin sings
In the holly-bush.
Full of fresh scents
Are the budding boughs
Arching high over
A cool green house;
Full of sweet scents,
And whispering air
Which sayeth softly:
‘We spread no snare;
‘Here dwell in safety,
Here dwell alone,
With a clear stream
And a mossy stone.
‘Here the sun shineth
Most shadily;
Here is heard an echo
Of the far sea,
Though far off it be.’
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
An Apple Orchard in the Spring
by William Martin
Have you seen an apple orchard in the spring?
In the spring?
An English apple orchard in the spring?
When the spreading trees are hoary
With their wealth of promised glory,
And the mavis sings its sotry,
In the spring.
Have you plucked the apple blossoms in the spring?
Pink buds pouting at the light,
Crumpled petals baby white,
Just to touch them a delight In the spring.
Have you walked beneath the blossoms in the spring?
In the spring?
Beneath the apple blossoms in the spring
When the pink cascades are falling,
And the silver brooklets brawling,
And the cuckoo bird soft calling,
In the spring.
If you have not, then you know not in the spring,
In the spring,
Half the colour, beauty, wonder of the spring,
No sweet sight can I remember
Half so precious, half so tender,
As the apple blossoms render
In the spring.
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From Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
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Mercy from the “Merchant of Venice”
by William Shakespeare
The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself,
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
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Moonlight from the “Merchant of Venice”
by William Shakespeare
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sound of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey’d cherubims.
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Sonnet: “The World Is Too Much With Us”
by William Wordsworth
The World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. - Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
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The Owl And The Pussy-Cat
by Edward Lear
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“0 lovely Pussy! 0 Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!”
Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
Oh! let us be married, too long we have tarried,
but what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away for a year and a day,
To the land where the bong-tree grows,
And there is a wood a Piggy-wig stood,
With a ring at the end of his nose,
His nose,
His nose!
With a ring at the end of his nose.
“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”
So they took it away, and were married next day,
by the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
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They danced by the light of the moon,
The moon,
The moon!
They danced by the light of the moon.
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To A Skylark
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun
O’er which clouds are brightening,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around they flight;
Like a star of heaven
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see - we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
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With thy voice is loud.
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from they presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.
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Sound of vernal showers,
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine!
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal
Or triumphal chant,
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
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Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow,
The world should listen then, as I am listening now!
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The Tiger!
by William Blake
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests in the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist th~~ cinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did He smile his work to see?
Did He who made the Lamb, make thee?
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
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When I Heard The Learn’D Astronomer
by Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts, and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
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The Spider And The Fly
by Mary Howitt
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly;
“Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.
The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I have many curious things to show when you are there.”
“0 no, no,” said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”
“I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the spider to the fly.
“There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in!”
“0 no, no,” said the little fly, “for I’ve often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed!”
Said the cunning spider to the fly, “Dear friend, what can I do,
To prove the warm affection I’ve always felt for you?
I have within my pantry, good store of all that’s nice;
I’m sure you’re very welcome - will you please to take a slice?”
“O no, no,” said the little fly, “kind sir, that cannot be,
I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see!”
“Sweet creature!” said the spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise,
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf,
If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”
“I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say,
And bidding you good-morning now, I’ll call another day.”
The spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly fly would soon be back again:
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
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And set his table ready, to dine upon the fly.
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
“Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing;
Your robes are green and purple - there’s crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead!”
Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly,
Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by;
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue Thinking only of her crested head - poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlor - but she ne’er came out again!
And now dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed:
Unto an evil counselor, close heart and ear and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.
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Hiawatha’s Childhood
By Henry Wadsworth Longfelow
By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rocked him in his linden cradle,
Bedded soft in moss and rushes,
Safely bound with reindeer sinews;
Stilled his fretful wail by saying,
“Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!”
Lulled his into slumber, singing,
“Ewa-yea! my little ouwlet!
Who is this, that lights the wigwam?
With his great eyes lights the wigwam?
Ewa-yea! my little owlet!”
Many things Nokomis taught him
Of the stars that shine in heaven;
Showed him Ishkoodah, the comet,
Ishkoodah, with fiery tresses;
Showed the Death-Dance of the spirits,
Warriors with their plumes and war-clubs,
Flaring far away to northward
In the frosty nights of winter;
Showed the broad white road in hiaven,
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Pathway of the ghosts, the shadows,
Running straight across the heavens,
Crowded with the ghosts, the shadows.
At the door on summer evenings,
Sat the little Hiawatha;
Heard the whispering of the pine-trees,
Heard the lapping of the waters,
Sounds of music, words of wonder;
“Minne-wawa!” said the pine-trees,
“Mudway-aushka!” said the water.
Saw the fire-fly Wah-wah taysee,
Flitting through the dusk of evening,
With the twinkle of its candle
Lighting up the brakes and bushes,
And he sang the song of children,
Sang the song Nokomis taught him:
“Wah-wah-taysee, little fire-fly,
Little, flitting, white-fire insect,
Little, dancing, white-fire creature,
Light me with your little candle,
Ere upon my bed I lay me,
Ere in sleep I close my eyelids!”
Saw the moon rise from the water,
Rippling, rounding from the water,
Saw the flecks and shadows on it,
Whispered, “What is that, Nokornis?”
And the good Nokomis answered:
“Once a warrior, very angry,
Seized his grandmother, and threw her
Up into the sky at midnight;
Right against the moon he threw her;
‘Tis her body that you see there.
‘Tis the heaven of flowers you see there;
All the wild-flowers of the forest,
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All the lilies of the prairie,
When on earth they fade and perish,
Blossom in that heaven above us.”
When he heard the owls at midnight,
Hooting, laughing in the forest,
“What is that?” he cried in terror,
“What is that,” he said, “Nokomis?”
And the good Nokomis answered:
“That is but the owl and owlet,
Talking in their native language,
Talking, scolding at each other.”
Then the little Hiawatha
Learned of every bird its language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How they built their nests in summer,
Where they hid themselves in winter,
Talked with them whene’er he met them,
Called them “Hiawatha’s Chickens.”
Of all beasts he learned the language,
Learned their names and all their secrets,
How the beavers built their lodges,
Where the squirrels hid their acorns,
How the reindeer ran so swiftly,
Why the rabbit was so timid,
Talked with them whene’er he met them,
Called them “Hiawatha’s Brothers.”
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The Highwayman
by Alfred Noyes
PART ONE
The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding Riding - riding The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin:
He’d a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh!
And he rode with a jeweled twinkle His pistol butts a-twinkle His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and
barred,
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord’s daughter;
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
Dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim, the ostler listened - his face was white and peaked –
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord’s daughter The landlord’s red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say:
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“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the sweet black waves of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the
West.
PART TWO
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon.
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
When the road was a gypsy’s ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A redcoat troop came marching Marching — marching King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
They said no word to the landlord; they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow
bed Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side, There was death at every window,
And hell at one dark window,
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had bound her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;!
They had tied a rifle beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
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“Now keep good watch!” and they kissed her. She heard the dead man
say –
Look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by
like years,
Till, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it, she strove no more for the rest,
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast.
She would not risk their hearing, she would not strive again,
For the road lay bare in the moonlight,
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love’s
refrain.
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding Riding - riding The redcoats looked to their priming! She stood up straight and still!
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment! She drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight Her musket shattered the moonlight -
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Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him - with her death.
He turned, he spurred to the West, he did not know she stood
Bowed, with her head o’er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it; his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord’s daughter,
The landlord’s black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness
there.
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon, wine-red was his velvet
coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his
throat.
And still of a winter ‘s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a gypsy’s ribbon looping the purple moor,
The highwayman comes riding Riding - riding The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred,
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter Bess, the landlord’s daughter Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
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Lord Ullin’s Daughter
by Thomas Campbell
A Chieftain, to the Highlands bound, Cries,
“Boatman, do not tarry!
And I’ll give thee a silver pound
To row us o’er the ferry!” “Now who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy water?”
“0, I’m the chief of Ulva’s isle,
And this, Lord Ullin’s daughter. “And fast before her father’s men
Three days we’ve fled together,
For should he find us in the glen,
My blood would stain the heather,
“His horsemen hard behind us ride;
Should they our steps discover,
Then who will cheer my bonny bride
When they have slain her lover?” Out spoke the hardy Highland wight, “I’ll go, my chief- I’m ready: It is not for your silver bright;
but for your winsome lady:
“And by my word! the bonny bird
In danger shall not tarry;
So, though the waves are raging white,
I’ll row you o’er the ferry.” By this the storm grew loud apace,
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The water-wraith was shrieking;
And in the scowl of heaven each face
Grew dark as they were speaking.
But still as wilder blew the wind,
And as the night grew drearer,
Adown the glen rode armed men,
Their trampling sounded nearer. “0 haste thee, haste!” the lady cries,
“Though tempests round us gather;
I’ll meet the raging of the skies,
but not an angry father.” The boat has left a stormy land,
A stormy sea before her, When, 0! too strong for human hand,
The tempest gather’d o’er her.
And still they row’d amidst the roar
Of waters fast prevailing:
Lord Ullin reach’d that fatal shore, His wrath was changed to wailing.
For, sore dismay’d through storm and shade
His child he did discover: One lovely hand she stretch’d for aid,
And one was round her lover.
“Come back! come back!” he cried in grief
“Across this stormy water:
And I’ll fogive your Highland chief,
My daughter! - 0 my daughter!”
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‘Twas vain: the loud waves lash’d the shore,
Return or aid preventing:
The waters wild went o’er his child,
And he was left lamenting.
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Ann Rutledge
by Edgar Lee Masters
Out of me unworthy and unknown
The vibrations of deathless music;
“With malice toward none, with charity for all.”
Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions,
And the beneficent face of a nation
Shining with justice and truth.
I am Ann Rutledge who sleeps beneath these weeds,
Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln,
Wedded to him, not through union,
But through separation.
Bloom forever, 0 Republic,
From the dust of my bosom!
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Lady Clare
by Alfred Tennyson
It was the time when lilies blow,
And clouds are highest up in the air;
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe
To give his cousin, Lady Clare.
I trow they did not part in scorn;
Lovers long-betroth’d were they;
They too will wed the morrow morn;
God’s blessing on the day!
“He does not love me for my birth,
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,
And that is well,” said Lady Clare.
In there came old Alice the nurse,
Said, “Who was this that went from thee?”
“It was my cousin,” said Lady Clare,
“To-morrow he weds with me.”
“O God be thank’d” said Alice the nurse,
“That all comes round so just and fair:
Lord Ronald is heir of all your lands,
And you are not the Lady Clare.”
“Are ye out of your mind, my nurse, my nurse,”
Said Lady Clare, “that ye speak so wild?”
“As God’s above,” said Alice the nurse,
“I speak the truth: you are my child.”
“The old Earl’s daughter died at my breast;
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I speak the truth, as I live by bread!
I buried her like my own sweet child,
And put my child in her stead.”
“Falsely, falsely have ye done,
O mother,” she said, “If this be true,
To keep the best man under the sun
So many years from his due.”
Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse,
“But keep the secret for your life,
And all you have will be Lord Ronald’s
When you are man and wife.”
“If I’m a beggar born,” she said,
“I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off, the brooch of gold,
And fling the diamond necklace by.”
“Nay now, my child,” said Alice the nurse,
“But keep the secret all ye can.”
She said: “Not so: but I will know
If there be any faith in man.”
“Nay now, what faith?” said Alice the nurse,
“The man will cleave unto his right.”
“And he shall have it,” the lady replied,
“Tho’ I should die to-night.”
“Yet give one kiss to your mother dear!
Alas! my child, I sinn’d for thee.”
“0 mother, mother, mother,” she said,
“So strange it seems to me.
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“Yet here’s a kiss for my mother dear,
My mother dear, if this be so,
And lay your hand upon my head,
And bless me, mother, ere I go.”
She clad herself in a russet gown,
She was no longer Lady Clare:
She went by dale, and she went by down,
With a single rose in her hair.
The lily-white doe Lord Ronald had brought
Leapt up from where she lay,
Dropt her head in the maiden’s hand,
And follow’d her all the way.
Down stept Lord Ronald from his tower,
“0 Lady Clare, you shame your worth!
Why come you drest like a village maid,
That are the flower of the earth?”
“If I come drest like a village maid,
I am but as my fortunes are:
I am a beggar born,” she said,
“And not the Lady Clare.”
“Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald,
“For I am yours in word and in deed.
Play me no tricks,” said Lord Ronald,
“Your riddle is hard to read.”
O and proudly stood she up!
Her heart within her did not fail:
She look’d into Lord Ronald’s eyes,
And told him all her nurse’s tale.
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He laugh’d a laugh of merry scorn:
He turn’d and kiss’d her where she stood
“If you are not the heiress born,
And I,” said he, “the next in blood “If you are not the heiress born,
And I,” said he, “the lawful heir,
We two will wed tomorrow morn,
And you shall still be Lady Clare.”
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Bruce and the Spider
by Bernard Barton
For Scotland’s and for freedom’s right
The Bruce his part had played,
In five successive fields of fight
Been conquered and dismayed;
Once more against the English host
His band he led, and once more lost
The meed for which he fought;
And now from battle, faint and worn,
The homeless fugitive forlorn
A hut’s lone shelter sought.
And cheerless was that resting place
For him who claimed a throne:
His canopy, devoid of grace,
The rude, rough beams alone;
The heather couch his only bed, Yet well I ween had slumber fled
From couch of eider-down!
Through darksome night till dawn of day,
Absorbed in wakeful thought he lay
Of Scotland and her crown.
The sun rose brightly, and its gleam
Fell on that hapless bed,
And tinged with light each shapeless beam
Which, roofed the lowly shed;
When, looking up with wistful eye,
The Bruce beheld a spider try
His filmy thread to fling
From beam to beam of that rude cot;
And well the insect’s toilsome lot
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Taught Scotland’s future king.
Six times his gossamery thread
The wary spider threw;
In vain the filmy line was sped,
For powerless or untrue
Each aim appeared, and back recoiled
The patient insect, six times foiled,
And yet unconquered still;
And soon the Bruce, with eager eye,
Saw him prepare once more to try
His courage, strength, and skill.
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Cuddle Doon
by Alexander Anderson
The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi’ muckle fash an’ din.
“Oh, try and sleep, ye waukrife rogues;
Your faither’s comin’ in.”
They never heed a word I speak.
I try to gie a froon;
But aye I hap them up, an’ cry,
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
Wee Jamie wi’ the curly heid –
He aye sleeps next the Wa’ Bangs up an’ cries, “I want a piece” –
The rascal starts them a’.
I rin an’ fetch them pieces, drinks –
They stop awee the soun’ Then draw the blankets up, an’ cry,
“Noo, weanies, cuddle doon!”
But ere five minutes gang, wee Rab
Cries oot, frae ‘neath the claes,
“Mither, mak’ Tam gie ower at ance:
He’s kittlin’ xvi’ his taes.”
The mischief’s in that Tam for tricks;
He’d bother half the toon.
But aye I hap them up, an’ cry,
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
At length they hear their father’s fit;
An’, as he steeks the door,
They turn their faces to the wa’,
While Tam pretends to snore.
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“Hae a’ the weans been gude?” he asks,
As he pits aff his shoon.”
The bairnies, John, are in their beds,
An’ lang since cuddled doon.”
An’ just afore we bed oorsels,
We look at oor wee lambs.
Tam has his airm roun’ wee Rab’s neck,
An’ Rab his airm roun’ Tam’s.
I lift wee Jamie up the bed,
An, as I straik each croon,
I whisper, till my heart fills up,
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
The baimies cuddle doon at nicht
Wi’ mirth that’s dear to me;
But soon the big warl’s cark an’ care
Will quaten down their glee.
Yet, come what will to ilka ane,
May He who rules aboon
Aye whisper, though their pows be bald,
“Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon!”
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Abou Ben Adhem
by James Leigh Hunt
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said,
“What writest thou?” The Vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord
Answered, “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the Angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”
The Angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And, lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!
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Parson Gray
by Oliver Goldsmith
A quiet home had Parson Gray,
Secluded in a vale;
His daughters all were feminine,
And all his sons were male.
How faithfully did Parson Gray
The bread of life dispense –
Well “posted” in theology,
and post and rail his fence.
‘Gainst all the vices of the age
He manfully did battle;
His chickens were a biped breed,
And quadruped his cattle.
No clock more punctually went,
he ne’er delayed a minute Nor ever empty was his purse,
when he had money in it.
His piety was; ne’er denied;
His truths hit saint and sinner;
At morn he always breakfasted;
he always dined at dinner.
He ne’er by any luck was grieved,
by any care perplexed –
No filcher he, though when he preached,
He always “took” a text.
As faithful characters he drew
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As mortal ever saw;
But ah! poor parson! when he died,
His breath he could not draw!
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Song of the Chattahoochee
by Sidney Lanier
Out of the hills of Habersham,
Down the valleys of Hall,
I hurry amain to reach the plain,
Run the rapid and leap the fall,
Split at the rock and together again,
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide,
And flee from folly on every side
With a lover’s pain to attain the plain
Far from the hills of Habersham,
Far from the valleys of Hall.
All down the hills of Habersham,
All through the valleys of Hall,
The rushes cried, Abide, abide,
The willful waterweeds held me thrall,
The laying laurel turned my tide,
The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay,
The dewberry dipped for to work delay,
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide,
Here in the hills of Habersham,
Here in the valleys of flail.
High o’er the hills of Habersham,
Veiling the valleys of Hall,
The hickory told me manifold
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold,
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine,
Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign,
Said, Pass not, so cold, these, manifold
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,
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These glades in the valleys of Hall.
And oft in the hills of Habersham,
And oft in the valleys of Hall,
The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone
Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl,
And many a luminous jewel lone
- Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist,
Ruby, garnet and amethyst –
Made lures with the lights of streaming stone
In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,
In the beds of the valleys of Hall.
But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
And oh, not the valleys of Hall
Avail: I am fain to water the plain.
Downward the voices of Duty call Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
And the lordly main from beyond the plain
Calls o’er the hills of Habersham,
Calls through the valleys of Hall.
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The Raven
by Edgar Allen Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore 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.”
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“‘Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; This it is and nothing more.”
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
“Sir,” said I “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you” - here 1 opened wide the door: Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
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And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
“Surely,” said I, “surely there is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore Let my heart be still a moment, and this mystery explore; ‘Tis the wind and nothing more!”
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he;
But with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door Perched uponi a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad face into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”
Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;
For we can not help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as “Nevermore.”
But the Raven, sitting lonely on that placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
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Nothing farther then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered Till I scarcely more than muttered, “Other friends have flown before On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore Till the dirges of his Hope the melancholy burden bore
Of - ‘Never - nevermore!”
But the Raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore!”
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o’er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o’er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent
thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
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“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul that spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!
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Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allen Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Titan to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love,
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that she winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and meYes! that was the reason - as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea That the wind came out of a cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
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Of those who were older than we,
Of many far wiser than we.
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life, and my bride,
In her sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
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A Time to Talk
by Robert Frost
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, What is it?
No, not as there is time to talk.
I thrust my hoe into the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
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The Book Our Mothers Read
by John Green leaf Whittier
We search the world for truth; we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful,
From graven stone and written scroll,
And all old flower-fields of the soul;
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from the quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read.
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The Children’s Hour
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alive, and laughing Allegra,
Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting arid planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
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Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, 0 blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart,
And
there I will keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
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A Late Walk
by Robert Frost
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words.
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
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My Lost Youth
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I remember the black wharves and the ships,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
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And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o’er and o’er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o’er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o’erlooking the tranquil bay,
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
“A boy’ will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering’s Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy’s brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
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And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o’er shadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
And Deering’s Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
“A boy’s will is the wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.”
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The Old Oaken Bucket
by Samuel Woodworth
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view!
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot which my infancy knew; The wide-spreading pond, and the mill which stood by it,
The bridge, and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy-house nigh it,
And e’en the rude bucket which hung in the well.
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.
That moss-covered vessel I hailed as a treasure,
For often at noon when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing!
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell;
Then soon with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well;
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well.
How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips!
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it
Though filled with the nectar that Jupiter sips.
And, now, far removed from the loved situation,
The tear of regret will intrusively swell,
As fancy reverts to my father’s plantation,
And sighs for the bucket, which hangs in the well;
The old oaken bucket, the iron bound bucket,
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The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well.
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God’s Word
by John Clifford
I paused last eve beside the blacksmith’s door,
And heard the anvil ring, the vesper’s chime,
And looking in I saw upon the floor
Old hammers, worn with beating years of time.
“How many anvils have you had?” said I,
“To wear and batter all these hammers so?”
‘Just one,” he answered. Then with twinkling eye:
“The anvil wears the hammers out, you know.”
And so, I thought, the anvil of God’s Word
For ages skeptics’ blows have beat upon,
But though the noise of falling blows was heard
The anvil is unchanged; the hammers gone.
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In Earthen Vessels
by John Greenleaf Whittier
The dear Lord’s best interpreters
Are humble human souls;
The gospel of a life like His
Is more than books or scrolls.
From scheme and creed the light goes out,
The saintly fact survives;
The blessed Master none can doubt,
Revealed in holy lives.
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From Tales Of A Wayside Inn
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The dawn is not distant,
Nor is the night starless;
Love is eternal!
God is still God, and
His faith shall not fail us;
Christ is eternal!
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Success
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.
The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.
The distant mountains, that uprear
There solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.
The heights of great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.
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Forbearance
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood rose, and left it on its stalk?
At rich men’s tables eaten bread and pulse?
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?
And loved so well a high behavior,
In man or maid, that thou from speech refrained,
Nobility, more nobly to repay?
0, be my friend, and teach me to be thine!
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If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
by Emily Dickinson
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Thing of Beauty
by John Keats
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o’er-darken’d ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
‘Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.
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The Past
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The debt is paid,
The verdict said,
The Furies layed
The plague is stayed,
All furtunes made;
Turn the key and bolt the door,
Sweet is death forevermore.
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the past;
Flies-to the adamantine door
Bolted down forevermore.
None can enter there No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finished what is packed,
Alter of mend eternal fact.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 303
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Lover Pleads With His Friend for Old Friends
by William Butler Yeats
Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time’s bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 304
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Telling the Bees
by John Greenleaf Whittier
Here is the place; right over the hill
Runs the path I took;
You can see the gap in the old wall still,
And the stepping stones in the shallow brook.
There is the house, with the gate red-barred,
And the poplars tall;
And the barn’s brown length, and the cattle-yard,
And the white horns tossing above the wall.
There are the beehives ranged in the sun;
And down by the brink
Off the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o’errum,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.
A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,
Heavy and slow;
And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,
And the same brook sings of a year ago.
There’s the same sweet clover-smell in the breeze;
And the June sun warm
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.
I mind me how with a lover’s care
From my Sunday coat
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my hair,
And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.
Since we parted, a month has passed, -
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To love, a year;
Down through the beeches I looked at last
On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.
I can see it all now, - the slantwise rain
Of light through the leaves,
The sundown’s blaze on her window-pane.
The bloom of her roses under the eaves.
Just the same as a month before, The house and the trees,
The barn’s brown gable, the vine by the door, Nothing changed but the hive of the bees.
Before them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back,
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.
Trembling, I listened: the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!
Then I said to myself, “My Mary weeps
For the dead to-day:
Happily her blind old grandshire sleeps
The fret and the pain of his age away.”
But her dog wined low; on he doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin,
The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sung to the bees stealing out and in.
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And the sound she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on: “Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!”
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Overheard In An Orchard
by Elizabeth Cheney
Said the Robin to the Sparrow:
“I should really like to know
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the Sparrow to the Robin:
“Friend, I think that it must be
That they have no heavenly Father
Such as cares for you and me.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 308
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Declaration of Independence
by Thomas Jefferson
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to one
another, and to assume that among the Powers of the Earth, the separate
and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitled
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which empel them to the separation. - We hold these
truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. - That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles
and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness.
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From Letter To The Governors, June 8, 1783
by George Washington
I now make it my earnest prayer,
that God would have you,
and the State over which you preside, in His holy protection;
that He would incline the hearts of the Citizens
to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience
to the Government,
to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another,
for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large,
and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field,
and finally,
that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all,
to do justice,
to love mercy,
and to demean ourselves with charity and humility,
and a pacific temper of mind,
which were characteristics of the Divine Author
of our blessed religion,
and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things,
we can never hope to be a happy nation.
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The Gettysburg Address
by Abraham Lincoln
Fourscore and seven years ago
our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition
that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation,
or any nation so conceived and so dedicated,
can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field
as a final resting place
for those who here gave their lives
that this nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But in a larger sense
we cannot dedicate,
we cannot consecrate,
we cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here,
have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note nor long remember,
what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us, the living,
rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.
It is rather for us to be here dedicated
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to the great task remaining before us,
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion
to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion,
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain,
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom,
and that government of the people.
by the people,
for the people,
shall not perish from the earth.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Faith Of Abraham Lincoln
by Abraham Lincoln
(formulated by Carl Sandburg from Lincoln ‘s own words; from The War
Years)
I believe the will of God prevails;
Without Him all human reliance is vain;
Without the assistance of that Divine Being I cannot succeed;
With that assistance I cannot fail.
I believe I am a humble instrument in the hands
of our Heavenly Father;
I desire that all my works and acts may be according to His will;
And that it may be so, I give thanks to the Almighty
and seek His Aid.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 313
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight (in SpringfIeld, Illinois)
by Vachel Lindsay
It is portentious, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house, pacing up and down.
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat, and plain worn shawl
Make him the quaint, great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us: -- as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why,
Too many homesteads in black terror weep. Continued
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.
He carried on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn
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Shall come; - the shining hope of Europe free:
The league of sober folk, the Workers’ Earth
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Colossus
by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek lame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 316
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Great Men
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Not gold, but only man can make
A people great and strong;
Men who, for truth and honor’s sake,
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while other sleep,
Who dare while others fly They build a nation’s pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.
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Page 317
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
From God Send Us Men
by F. J. Gillman
God send us men with hearts ablaze,
All truth to love, all wrong to hate;
These are the patriots nations need,
These are the bulwarks of the State.
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Page 318
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
I Hear America Singing
by Walt Whitman
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe
and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves
off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the
deck hand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter
singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the
morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at
work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day - at night the party of young fellows,
robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Hymn on the Morning of Christ’s Nativity
by John Milton
It was the winter wild,
While the Heaven-born child,
All meanly wrapt in rude manger lies;
Nature in awe to Him
Has dofft her gaudy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the sun, her
lusty paramour.
Nor war or battle’s sound
Was heard the world around:
The idle spear and shield were high up hung,
The hooked chariot stood
Unstained with hostile blood,
The trumpet spake not to the armed throng,
The king sat still with awful eye,
As if they surely knew their sovereign
Lord was by.
But peaceful was the night,
Wherein the Prince of light
His reign of peace upon the earth began:
The winds with wonder whist
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the
charmed wave.
The stars with deep amaze
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Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,
Bending one way their precious influence;
And will not take their flight,
For all the morning light,
Or Lucifer that often warned them thence;
But in their glimmering orbs did glow,
Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid
them go.
The shepherds on the lawn,
Or ere the point of dawn,
Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;
Full little thought they then,
That the mighty Pan
Was kindly come to live with them below;
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was all that did their silly thoughts so
busy keep;
But see the Virgin blest Hath laid her Babe to rest,
Time is our tedious song should here have ending.
Heaven’s youngest teem’d star,
Hath fixed her polished car,
Her sleeping Lord with handmaid lamp attending;
And all about the courtly stable
Bright harnessed Angels sit in order serviceable.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 321
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Noiseless Patient Spider (from “Leaves of Grass”)
by Walt Whitman
A noiseless patient spider,
I mark’d where a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark’d how to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.
And you 0 my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking
the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere,
0 my soul.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 322
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Dragon-fly
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Through crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Owl (from “Juvenalia”)
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
When cats run home and light is come,
And dew is cold upon the ground,
And the far-off stream is dumb,
And the whirring sail goes round,
And the whirring sail goes round;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
When merry milkmaids click the latch,
And rarely smells the new-mown hay,
And the cook hath sung beneath the thatch
Twice or Thrice his roundelay,
Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits,
The white owl in the belfry sits.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Girl’s Garden
by Robert Frost
A neighbor of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing.
One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
And he said, ‘Why not?’
In casting about for a corner
He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
And he said, ‘Just it.’
And he said, ‘That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm.’
It was not enough of a garden,
Her father said, to plow;
So she had to work it all by hand,
But she don’t mind now.
She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load,
And hid from anyone passing.
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And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weed.
A hill each of potatoes,
Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn
And even fruit trees.
And yes, she has long mistrusted
That a cider apple tree
In bearing there today is hers,
Or at least may be.
Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.
Now when she sees in the village
How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
She says, ‘I know!
It’s as when I was a farmer…’
Oh, never byway of advice!
And
she never sins by telling the tale
To the same person twice.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
God’s World
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists, that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart, - Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;
My soul is all but out of me, - let fall
No burning leaf, prithee, let no bird call.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood
by William Bryant
Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth that needs
No school of long experience, that the world
is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick Heart. Though wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, Misery. Hence these shades
Are still the abodes of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit, while below
The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam.
That waked them into life. Even the green trees
Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wildflower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets. The mossy rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude
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Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their earth upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet
Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o’er its bed
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks,
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice
In its own being. Softly tread the marge,
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water. The cool wind,
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Mountain Evenings
by Jamie Sexton Holme
Sunset; and the mountain tops are afire.
The tall chill peaks in their trappings of ice and snow
Are burning red as a Viking’s funeral pyre.
Even the glaciers flame and shimmer and glow.
Twilight; violet shadows on plain and hill.
Through green meadows, whistling, a cowherd passes.
Lazily lifting their feet through deep rich grasses
The cows turn homeward; homeward the late birds fly.
Beast and bird turn homeward, and shadows die.
Dusk; in the darkening west a faint glow lingers.
Low and rosy bright hangs the evening star,
Caught in a tiptoeing pine’s long delicate fingers.
The voice of the river is crystal-thin and faint and far.
Night; and silence brims the cup of the world,
So full that one trembling drop more would spill over.
Only a moth stirs in the drowsy stillness.
Only a velvet moth, a small shy rover,
Brushes my cheek like a wind-blown wandering petal Brushes my cheek like a flower, and then is gone.
There is no moon tonight, she has fled to some heavenly cover.
Quenched in a sea of cloud, the stars are dim as a glow-worm’s spark.
Now turns the bird to its mate, and lover to lover;
Now in the chill ravine the doe creeps close to her fawn.
Close and safe in the sheltering dark,
The dark that is kind to nest and lover,
They sleep, and wait for the dawn.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
October
by Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow’s wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf,
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
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Good Hours
by Robert Frost
I had for my winter evening walk –
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtains laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o’clock of a winter eve.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
That darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 333
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Incident Of The French Camp
by Robert Browning
You know, we French stormed Ratisbon:
A mile or so away
On a little mound, Napoleon
Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
Legs wide, arms locked behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
Oppressive with its mind.
Just as perhaps he mused “My plans
That soar, to earth may fall,
Let once my army-leader Lannes
Waver at yonder wall” Out ‘twixt the battery smokes there flew
A rider, bound on bound
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew
Until he reached the mound.
Then off there flung in smiling joy,
And held himself erect
By just his horse’s man, a boy:
You hardly could suspect (So right he kept his lips compressed,
Scarce any blood came through)
You looked twice ere you saw his breast
Was all but shot in two.
“Well,” cried he, “Emperor, by God’s grace
We’ve got you Ratisbon!
The Marshal’s in the market-place,
And you’ll be there anon
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To see your flag-bird flap his vans
Where I, to heart’s desire,
Perched him!” The chief’s eye flashed; his plans
Soared up again like fire.
The chief’s eye flashed; but presently
Softened itself, as sheathes
A film the mother-eagle’s eye
When her bruised eaglet breathes:
“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” the soldier’s pride
Touched to the quick, he said:
“I’m killed, Sire!” And his chief beside,
Smiling the boy fell dead.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 335
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae
The soldiers who fought in the World Wars did so the make the world so
safe that there would be no more wars. They want us to carry on the
torch of freedom which they, perhaps, can no longer hold, and to work for
universal brotherhood. There were so many poppies in France and
Flanders that they became a symbolic flower. The poppy is now the
emblem of the American Legion.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
John Burns of Gettysburg (July 1, 2, 3, 1863)
by Bret Harte
Have you heard the story that gossips tell
Of Burns of Gettysburg? - No? Ah, well:
Brief is the glory that hero earns,
Briefer the story of poor John Burns:
He was the fellow who won renown, The only man who didn’t back down
When the rebels rode through his native town;
But held his on in the fight next day,
When all his townsfolk ran away.
That was in July, Sixty-three,
The very day that General Lee,
Flower of Southern chivalry,
Baffled and beaten, backward reeled
From a stubborn Meade and a barren field.
I might tell how but the day before
John Burns stood at his cottage door,
Looking down the village street,
Where, in the shade of his peaceful vine,
He heard the low of his gathered kine,
And felt their breath with incense sweet
Or I might say, when the sunset burned
The old farm gable, he thought it turned
The milk that fell like a babbling flood
Into the milk-pail red as blood!
Or how he fancied the hum of bees
Were bullets buzzing through the trees.
But all such fanciful thoughts as these
Were strange to a practical man like Burns,
Who minded only his own concerns,
Troubled no more by fancies fine
Than on of his calm-eyed, long-tailed, kine, -
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Quite old-fashioned and matter-of-fact,
Slow to argue, but quick to act.
That was the reason, as some folks say,
He fought so well on that terrible day.
And it was terrible. On the right
Raged for hours the heady fight,
Thundered the battery’s double bass, Difficult music for men to face;
While on the left - where now the graves
Undulate like the living waves
That all that day unceasing swept
Up to the pits the Rebels kept Round shot ploughed the upland glades,
Sown with bullets, reaped with blades;
Shattered fences here and there
Tossed their splinters in the air;
The very trees were stripped and bare;
The barns that once held yellow grain
Were heaped with harvests of the slain;
The cattle bellowed on the plain,
The turkeys screamed with might and main,
And brooding barn-fowl left their rest
With strange shells bursting in each nest.
Just where the tide of battle turns,
Erect and lonely stood old John Burns.
How do you think the man was dressed?
He wore an ancient long buff vest,
Yellow as saffron, - but his best,
And, buttoned over his manly breast,
Was a bright blue coat, with a rolling collar,
And large gilt buttons, - size of a dollar, With tails that the country-folk called “swaller.”
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He wore a broad-brimmed, bell-crowned hat,
White as the locks on which it sat.
Never had such a sight been seen
For forty years on the village green,
Since old John Burns was a country beau,
And went to the “quiltings” long ago.
Close at his elbows all that day,
Veterans of the Peninsula,
Sunburnt and bearded, charged away;
And striplings, downy of lip and chin, Clerks that the Home Guard mustered in, Glanced, as they passed, at the hat he wore,
Then at the rifle his right hand bore;
And hailed him, from out their youthful lore,
With scraps of a slangy repertoire:
“How are you, White Hat?” “Put her through!”
“Your head’s level!” and “Bully for you!”
Called him “Daddy,” - begged he’d disclose
The name of the tailor who made his clothes,
And what was the value he set on those;
While Burns, unmindful of jeer and scoff,
Stood there picking the rebels off, With his long brown rifle and bell-crown hat,
And the swallow-tails they were laughing at.
‘Twas but a moment, for that respect
While clothes all courage their voices checked;
And something the wildest could understand
Spake in the old man’s strong right hand,
And his corded throat, and the lurking frown
Of his eyebrows under his old bell-crown;
Until, as they gazed, there crept an awe
Through the ranks in whispers, and some men saw,
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In the antique vestments and long white hair,
The Past of the Nation in battle there;
And some of the soldiers since declare
That the gleam of his old white hat afar,
Like the crested plume of the brave Navarre,
That day was their oriflamme of war.
So raged the battle. You know the rest:
How the rebels, beaten and backward pressed,
Broke at the final charge, and ran.
At which John Burns - a practical man Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows.
This is the story of old John Burns;
This is the moral the reader learns:
In fighting the battle, the question’s whether
You’ll show a hat that’s white, or a feather!
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Nathan Hale
by Francis Miles Finch
September 22, 1776
After the retreat from Long Island, Washington needed information as to
the British strength. Captain Nathan Hale, a young man of twenty-one,
volunteered to get this. He was taken, inside the enemy’s lines, and
hanged as a spy, regretting that he had but one life to lose for his
country.
To drum-beat and heart-beat
A soldier marches by:
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,
Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat
In a moment he must die.
By starlight and moonlight,
He seeks the Briton’s camp;
He hears the rustling flag,
And the armed sentry’s tramp;
And the starlight and moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.
With slow tread and still tread,
He scans the tented line;
And he counts the battery guns
By the gaunt and shadowy pine;
And his slow tread and still tread
Gives no warning sign.
The dark wave, the plumed wave,
It meets his eager glance;
And it sparkles ‘neath the stars,
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Like the glimmer of a lance A dark wave, a plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.
A sharp clang, a steel clang,
And terror in the sound!
For the sentry, falcon-eyed,
In the camp a spy hath found;
With a sharp clang, a steel clang,
The patriot is bound.
With calm brow, steady brow,
He listens to his doom;
In his look there is no fear,
Nor a shadow-trace of gloom;
But with calm brow and steady brow
He robes him for the tomb.
In the long night, the still night,
He kneels upon the sod;
And the brutal guards withhold
E’en the solemn Word of God!
In the long night, the still night,
He walks where Christ hath trod.
‘Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn,
He dies upon the tree;
And he mourns that he can lose
But one life for Liberty;
And in the blue morn, the sunny morn,
His spirit-wings are free.
But his last words, his message-words,
They burn, lest friendly eye
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Should read how proud and calm
A patriot could die,
With his last words, his dying words,
A soldier’s battle-cry.
From the Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf,
From monument and urn,
The sad of earth, the glad of heaven,
His tragic fate shall learn;
And on Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf
The name of HALE shall burn.
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On Recrossing the Rocky Mountains After Many Years
by John Charles Fremont
The famous explorer Fremont, one-time “conqueror” of Ca4fornia, military
and political leader who had once aspired even to the presidency of the
United States, saw in the winter-changed Rockies, which lie was
traversing in later years, a reflection of his once-brilliant but shadowed
career. In rather Byronic phraseology, disillusioned Fremont expressed his
despondent mood in the following poem.
Long years ago I wandered here
In the midsummer of the year Life’s summer, too;
A score of horsemen here we rode
The mountain world its glories showed,
All fair to view.
These scenes, in glowing colors drest,
Mirrored the life within my breast,
Its world of hopes;
The whispering woods and fragrant breeze
That stirred the grass in verdant seas
On billowy slopes,
And glistening crag in sunlit sky,
‘Mid snowy clouds piled mountains high,
Were joys to me;
My path was o’er the prairie wide,
Or here on grander mountain side,
To choose, all free.
The rose that waved in morning air,
And spread its dewy fragrance there,
In careless bloom,
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Gave to my heart its ruddiest hue,
O’er my glad life its color threw
And sweet perfume.
Now changed the scene and changed the eyes,
That here once looked on glowing skies,
Where summer smiled.
These riven trees, this wind-swept plain,
Now show the winter’s dread domain,
Its fury wild.
The rocks rise black from storm-packed snow,
All checked the river’s pleasant flow,
Vanished the bloom;
These dreary wastes of frozen plain
Reflect my bosom’s life again,
Now lonesome gloom.
The buoyant hopes and busy life
Have ended all in hateful strife,
And thwarted aim.
The world’s rude contact killed the rose,
No more its radiant color shows
False roads to fame.
Backward, amidst the twilight glow
Some lingering spots yet brightly show
On hard roads won,
Where still some grand peaks mark the way
Touched by the light of parting day
And memory’s sun.
But here thick clouds the mountains hide,
The dim horizon bleak and wide,
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No pathway shows,
And rising gusts, and darkening sky,
Tell of “the night that cometh” nigh,
The brief day’s close.
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Warren’s Address
by Jo/in Pierpont
June 17, 1775
Joseph Warren was commissioned by Massachusetts as a Major-General
three days before the battle of Bunker Hill, at which he fought as a
volunteer. He was one of the last to leave the field, amid as a British
officer in the redoubt called to him to surrender, a ball struck him in the
forehead, killing him instantly.
Stand! the ground’s your own, my braves!
Will ye give it up to slaves?
Will ye look for greener graves?
Hope ye mercy still?
What’s the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel.
Ask it - ye who will.
Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they’re afire!
And, before you, see
Who have done it! - From the vale
On they come! - And will ye quail? Leaden rain and iron hail
Let their welcome be!
In the God of battles trust!
Die we may, - and die we must! But, 0, where can dust to dust
Be consigned so well,
As where Heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot’s bed,
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And the rocks shall raise their head,
Of his deeds to tell!
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Ticonderoga
by V.B. Wilson
May10, 1775
After the news of Concord fight, a volunteer expedition from Vermont and
Connecticut, under Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, seized Ticonderoga
and Crown Point, whose military stores were of great service. From its
chime of bells, the French called Ticonderoga “Carillon.”
The cold, gray light of the dawning
On old Carillon falls,
And dim in the mist of the morning
Stand the grim old fortress walls.
No sound disturbs the stillness
Save the cataract’s mellow roar,
Silent as death is the fortress,
Silent the misty shore.
But up from the wakening waters
Comes the cool, fresh morning breeze,
Lifting the banner of Britain,
And whispering to the trees
Of the swift gliding boats on the waters
That are nearing the fog-shrouded land,
With the old Green Mountain Lion,
And his daring patriot band.
But the sentinel at the postern
Heard not the whisper low;
He is dreaming of the banks of the Shannon
As he walks on his beat to and fro,
Of the starry eyes in Green Erin
That were dim when he marched away,
And a tear down his bronzed cheek courses,
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‘Tis the first for many a day.
A sound breaks the misty stillness,
And quickly he glances around;
Through the mist, forms like towering giants
Seem rising out of the ground;
A challenge, the firelock flashes,
A sword cleaves the quivering air,
And the sentry lies dead by the postern,
Blood staining his bright yellow hair.
Then, with a shout that awakens
All the echoes of hillside and glen,
Through the low, frowning gate of the fortress,
Sword in hand, rush the Green Mountain men.
The scarce wakened troops of the garrison
Yield up their trust pale with fear;
And down comes the bright British banner,
And out rings a Green Mountain cheer.
Flushed with pride, the whole eastern heavens
With crimson and gold are ablaze;
And up springs the sun in his splendor
And flings down his arrowy rays,
Bathing in sunlight the fortress,
Turning to gold the grim walls,
While louder and clearer and higher
Rings the song of the waterfalls.
Since the taking of Ticonderoga
A century has rolled away;
But with pride the nation remembers
That glorious morning in May.
And the cataract’s silvery music
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Forever the story tells,
Of the capture of old Carillon,
The chime of the silver bells.
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Sheridan’s Ride
by Thomas Buchanan Read
Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to the chieftain’s door,
The terrible grumble and rumble and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.
And wider still those billows of war,
Thundered along the horizon’s bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
With Sheridan twenty miles away.
But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good, broad highway, leading down:
And there, through the flash of the morning light,
A steed as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass, as with eagle flight.
As if he knew the terrible need,
He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell, but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.
Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering South,
The dust, l.ike smoke from the cannon’s mouth;
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.
The heart of the steed, and the heart of the master,
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Were beating, like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls:
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet, the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind,
Like an ocean flying before the wind:
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of fire;
But lo! he is nearing his heart’s desire,
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.
The first that the General saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;
What was done? - what to do? - a glance told him both,
And, striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line ‘mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there, because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause.
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and his nostril’s play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say,
“I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down, to save the day!”
Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky, The American soldier’s Temple of Fame, There with the glorious General’s name,
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Be it said in letters both bold and bright:
“Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester, - twenty miles away!”
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The Charge of The Light Brigade
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs was but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
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Sab’ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunging in the battery smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d form the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that fought so well,
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
Oh! the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble Six Hundred!
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Paul Revere’s Ride
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Listen my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town tonight,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said, “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charleston shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
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And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade, By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay, A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
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Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
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That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be the first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. hi the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled, How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the red coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm, A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
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A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoofbeats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
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Old Ironsides
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon’s roar; The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more!
Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o’er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor’s tread,
Or know the conquered knee; The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!
Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!
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William Shakespeare Sonnets
18 - SHALL I COMPARE THEE?
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all to short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
29 – WHEN IN DISGRACE
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
-
Like to the lark at break of day arising
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From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
30 – SESSIONS OF SWEET SILENT THOUGHT
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
- But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
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The Quality of Mercy (from the Merchant of Venice)
by William Shakespeare
The quality of mercy is not strain’d;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein dost sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself,
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
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Now Lords and Ladies
Anonymous
Now Lords and Ladies, blithe and bold,
To bless you here now am I bound.
I thank you all a thousand-fold
And pray God save you whole and sound.
Wherever you go on grass or ground
May he you guide that nought you grieve;
For friendship that I here have found
Against my will I take my leave.
For friendship and for favours good,
For meat and drink you heaped on me;
The Lord that raised was on the Rood
Now keep you comely company.
Wherever you go on land or sea
May He you guide that nought you grieve;
Such fair delight you laid on me;
Against my will I take my leave.
Against my will although I wend,
I may not always tarry here
For everything must have an end
And even friends must part, I fear.
But we beloved however dear
Out of this world Death will us reave;
And when we brought are to our bier
Against our will we take our leave.
Now good day to you, good men all;
And good day to you, young and old;
And good day to you, great and small;
And grammercy a thousand-fold.
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If ought there were that dear ye hold,
Full fain I would the deed achieve.
Now Christ you keep from sorrows cold,
For now, at last, I take my leave.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Beat! Beat! Drums!
by Walt Whitman
Beat! beat! drums! - blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows - through doors - burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying;
Leave not the bridegroom quiet - no happiness must he have
now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or
gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums - so shrill you bugles
blow.
Beat! beat! drums! - blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities - o’er the rumble of wheels in the
streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? No
sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargain by day - no brokers or speculators would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums - you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums! - blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley - stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid - mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting
the hearses,
So strong you thump 0 terrible drums - so loud you bugles
blow.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 368
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Mending Wall
by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we found them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some are nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Before I build a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly from the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 370
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
She Walks in Beauty
by George Gordon, Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to the tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o’er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 371
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Love Among the Ruins
by Robert Browning
Where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro’ the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country’s very capital, its prince
Ages since
Held his court in, gathered councils, wielding far
Peace or war.
Now, - the country does not even boast a tree,
As you see,
To distinguish slopes of verdure, certain rills
From the hills
Intersect and give a name to, (else they run
Into one)
Where the domed and daring palace shot its spires
Up like fires
O’er the hundred-gated circuit of a wall
Bounding all,
Made of marble, men might march on nor be prest
Twelve abreast.
And such plenty and perfection, see, of grass
Never was!
Such a carpet as, this summer-time, o’er-spreads
And embeds
Every vestige of the city, guessed alone,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Stock or stone Where a multitude of men breathed joy and woe
Long ago;
Lust of glory pricked their hearts up, dread of shame
Struck them tame;
And that glory and that shame alike, the gold
Bought and sold.
Now, - the single little turret that remains
On the plains,
By the caper overrooted, by the gourd
Overscored,
While the patching houseleek’s head of blossom winks
Through the chinks Marks the basement whence a tower in ancient time
Sprang sublime,
And a burning ring, all round, the chariots traced
As they raced,
And the monarch and his minions and his dames
Viewed the games.
And I know, while thus the quiet-colored eve
Smiles to leave
To their folding, all our many-tinkling fleece
In such peace,
And the slopes and the rills in undistinguished gray
Melt away That a girl with eager eyes and yellow hair
Waits me there
In the turret whence the charioteers caught soul
For the goal,
When the king looked, where she looks now, breathless, dumb
Till I come.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
But he looked upon the city, every side,
Far and wide,
All the mountains topped with temples, all the glades’
Colonnades,
All the causeys, bridges, aqueducts, - and then
All the men!
When I do come, she will speak not, she will stand,
Either hand
On my shoulder, give her eyes the first embrace
Of my face,
Ere we rush, ere we extinguish sight and speech
Each on each.
In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As they sky,
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force Gold, of course.
Oh, heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Deep River
Deep river, my home is over the Jordan,
Deep river, Lord; I want to cross over into camp ground.
O children, 0, don’t you want to go to that gospel feast,
That promised land, that land, where all is peace?
Deep river, my home is over the Jordan,
Deep river, Lord; I want to cross over into camp ground.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 375
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
The Eve Of Waterloo (from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage)
by Lord George Gordon Byron
There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell; But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!
Did ye not hear it? - No; ‘twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet. But hark! - that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before!
Arm! Arm! it is - it is - the cannon’s opening roar!
Within a windowed niche of that high wall
Sate Brunswick’s fated chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amid the festival,
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell:
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.
Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro,
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And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne’er might be repeated: who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!
And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And, near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips - “The foe! They come! They
come!”
Poetry for Grammar
Page 377
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
I Thank God I’m Free at Las’
Free at las’, free at las’,
I thank God I’m free at las’.
Free at las’, free at las’,
I thank God I’m free at las’.
Way down yonder in de graveyard walk,
I thank God I’m free at las’.
Me an’ my Jesus gwineter meet an’ talk,
I thank God I’m free at las’.
On-a my knees when de light pass by,
I thank God I’m free at las’.
Thought my soul would arise and fly,
I thank God I’m free at las’.
Some o’ desse mornin’s bright and fair,
I thank God I’m free at las’.
Gwineter meet my Jesus in de middle of de air,
I thank God I’m free at las’,
Poetry for Grammar
Page 378
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Wild Grapes
by Robert Frost
What tree may not the fig be gathered from?
The grape may not be gathered from the birch?
It’s all you know the grape, or know the birch.
As a girl gathered from the birch myself
Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn,
I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of.
I was born, I suppose, like anyone,
And grew to be a little boyish girl
My brother could not always leave at home.
But that beginning was wiped out in fear
The day I swung suspended with the grapes,
And was come after like Eurydice
And brought down safely from the upper regions;
And the life I live now’s an extra life
I can waste as I please on whom I please.
So if you see me celebrate two birthdays,
And give myself out as two different ages,
One of them five years younger than I look One day my brother led me to a glade
Where a white birch he knew of stood alone,
Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves,
And heavy on her heavy hair behind,
Against her neck, an ornament of grapes.
Grapes, I knew grapes from having seen them last year.
One bunch of them, and there began to be
Bunches all round me growing in white birches,
The way they grew round Leif the Lucky’s German;
Mostly as much beyond my lifted hands, though,
As the moon used to seem when I was younger,
And only freely to be had for climbing.
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My brother did the climbing; and at first
Threw me down grapes to miss and scatter
And have to hunt for in sweet fern and hardhack;
Which gave him some time to himself to eat,
But not so much, perhaps, as a boy needed.
So then, to make me wholly self-supporting,
He climbed still higher and bent the tree to earth
And put it in my hands to pick my own grapes.
‘Here, take a treetop, I’ll get down another.
Hold on with all your might when I let go.’
I said I had the tree. It wasn’t true.
The opposite was true. The tree had me.
The minute it was left with me alone,
It caught me up as if I were the fish
And it the fishpole. So I was translated
To loud cries from my brother of ‘Let go!’
Don’t you know anything, you girl? Let go!’
But I, with something of the baby grip
Acquired ancestrally in just such trees
When wilder mothers than our wildest now
Hung babies out on branches by the hands
To dry or wash or tan, I don’t know which,
(You’ll have to ask an evolutionist) I held on uncomplainingly for life.
My brother tried to make me laugh to help me.
‘What are you doing up there in those grapes?
Don’t be afraid. A few of them won’t hurt you.
I mean, they won’t pick you if you don’t them.’
Much danger of my picking anything!
By that time I was pretty well reduced
To a philosophy of hang-and-let-hang.
‘Now you know how it feels,’ my brother said,
‘To be a bunch of fox-grapes, as they call them,
That when it thinks it has escaped the fox
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By growing where it shouldn’t - on a birch,
Where a fox wouldn’t think to look for it And if he looked and found it, couldn’t reach it Just then come you and Ito gather it.
Only you have the advantage of the grapes
In one way: you have one more stem to cling by,
And promise more resistance to the picker.’
One by one I lost off my hat and shoes,
And still I clung. I let my head fall back,
And shut my eyes against the sun, my ears
Against my brother’s nonsense; ‘Drop,’ he said,
‘I’ll catch you in my arms. It isn’t far.’
(Stated in lengths of him it might not be.)
‘Drop or I’ll shake the tree and shake you down.’
Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,
My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings.
‘Why, if she isn’t serious about it!
Hold tight awhile till I think what to do.
I’ll bend the tree down and let you down by it.’
I don’t know much about the letting down;
But once I felt ground with my stocking feet
And the world came revolving back to me,
I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers,
Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off.
My brother said: ‘Don’t you weigh anything?
Try to weigh something next time, so you won’t
Be run off with by birch trees into space.’
It wasn’t my not weighing anything
So much as my not knowing anything My brother had been nearer right before.
I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
As still I have not learned to let go with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart - nor need,
That I can see. The mind - is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 382
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
L ‘Allegro
by John Milton
Hence loathed Melancholy,
Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born,
In Stygian cave forlorn,
‘Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy;
Find out some uncouth cell,
Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings,
And the night-raven sings;
There under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,
As ragged as thy locks,
In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.
But come thou goddess fair and free,
In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth,
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister Graces more
To ivy-crowned Bacclius bore;
Or whether (as some sager sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a-Maying,
There on beds of violets blue
And fresh-blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debonair.
Haste thee nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful Jollity,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Quips and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled Care derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides.
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe,
And in thy right hand lead with thee,
The mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honour due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night,
From his watchtower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good-morrow,
Through the sweetbrier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine;
While the cock with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before:
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,
From the side of some hoar hill,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
Sometime walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman near at hand,
Whistles o’er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.
Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures
Whilst the landscape round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,
Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers, and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighboring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis met,
Are at their savoury dinner set
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Of herbs, and other country messes
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or if the earlier season lead
To the tanned haycock in the mead.
Sometimes with secure delight
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth, and many a maid,
Dancing in the chequered shade;
And young and old come forth to play
On a sunshine holy-day,
Till the livelong daylight fail:
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat,
How faery Mab the junkets eat;
She was pinched, and pulled, she said,
And he, by friar’s lantern led,
Tells how the drudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath threshed the corn
That ten day-laborers could not end;
Then lies him down, in the lubber fiend,
And stretched out all the chimney’s length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lulled asleep.
Towered cities please us then,
And the busy hum of men,
Where throngs of knights and barons bold,
In weeds of peace high triumphs hold,
With store of ladies, whose bright eyes
Rain influence, and judge the prize
Of wit, or arms, while both contend
To win her grace, whom all commend.
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask, and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eyes by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson’s learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy’s child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
And ever against eating cares,
Lap me in soft Lydian airs,
Married to immortal verse,
Such as the meeting soul may pierce
In notes with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out,
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running,
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony;
That Orpheus’ self may heave his head
From golden slumber, on a bed
Of heaped Elysian flowers, and hear
Such strains as would have won the ear
Of Pluto, to have quiet set free
His half-regained Eurydice.
These delights if though canst give,
Mirth, with thee I mean to live.
Poetry for Grammar
Page 388
Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho
Joshua fit de battle of Jericho,
Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fit de battle of Jericho,
And de walls come tumbling down.
You may talk about yo’ king of Gideon
Talk about yo’ man of Saul,
Dee’s none like good old Joshua
At de battle of Joshua.
Up to the walls of Jericho,
He marched with spear in hand;
“Go blow dem ram horns,” Joshua cried,
“Kase de battle am in my hand.”
Dem de lamb ram sheep horns begin to blow,
Trumpets begin to sourd,
Joshua commanded the chillen to shout,
And de walls come tumbling down.
Joshua fit de battle of Jericho,
Jericho, Jericho,
Joshua fit de battle of Jericho,
And de walls come tumbling down.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
A Forest Hymn
by William Cullen Bryant
The groves were God’s first temples. Ere man learned
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them, - ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather and roll back
The sound of anthems; in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences,
Which, from the stilly twilight of the place,
And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath that swayed at once
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah, why
Should we, in the world’ riper years, neglect
God’s ancient sanctuaries, and adore
Only among the crowd, and under roofs,
That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,
Offer one hymn - thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in His ear.
Father, thy hand
Hath reared these venerable columns, thou
Didst weave this verdant roof - Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and forthwith, rose
All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun,
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot towards heaven. The century-living crow
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Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches, till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshipper to hold
Communion with his Maker. These dim vaults,
These winding aisles, of human pomp or pride
Report not. No fantastic carvings show
The boast of our vain race to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here - thou fill’st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summit of these trees
In music; thou art in the cooler breath
That from the inmost darkness of the place
Comes, scarely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh moist ground, are all instinct with thee.
Here is continual worship; - Nature, here,
In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird
Passes; and yon clear spring, that midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth and wandering steeps the roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou has not left
Thyself without a witness, in the shades,
Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak By those immovable stem I stand and seem
Almost annihilated - not a prince,
In all that proud old world beyond the deep,
E’er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
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Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.
My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence, round me - the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.
Lo! all grow old and die—but see again,
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses - ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of earth’s charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch-enemy Death - yea, seats himself
Upon the tyrant’s throne - the sepulchre,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.
There have been hold men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed
Less age than the hoary trees and rocks
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Around them; - and there have been holy men
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble and are still. 0 God! When thou
Dost scare the world with falling thunderbolts, or fill
With all the waters of the firmament
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the village; when, at thy call,
Uprises the great deep and throws himself
Upon the continent and overwhelms
Its cities - who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strife and follies by?
0’, from these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchained elements to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
Into the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to confirm the order of our lives.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Crucifixion
They crucified my Lord, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word;
They crucified my Lord, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word.
Not a word, not a word, not a word.
They nailed him to the tree, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word;
They nailed him to the tree, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word.
Not a word, not a word, not a word.
They pierced Him in the side, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word,
They pierced Him in the side, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word.
Not a word, not a word, not a word.
The blood came twinklin’ down, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word,
The blood came twinklin’ down, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word.
Not a word, not a word, not a word.
He bowed his head an’ died, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word,
He bowed his head an’ died, an’ He never said a mumbalin’ word.
Not a word, not a word, not a word.
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight
Concord Hymn
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror in silence sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
On the green bank, by this soft stream,
We set today a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons our gone.
Spirit, that made those heroes dare,
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
Poetry for Grammar
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Grades: Six, Seven & Eight