Illll III Ml lilHIti POEMS OF THE ENGLISH RACE POEMS OF THE ENGLISH RACE SELECTED AND EDITED BY RAYMOND MACDONALD ALDEN PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, STANFORD UNIVERSITY NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1921 Copyright, 1921, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS THE SCRIBNER PRSS* ^. jrf» \K CC 1115 t o OT O ye who in eternal youth g^ Speak with a living and creative flood This universal English, and do stand ^ Its breathing book, live worthy of that grand o Heroic utterance — parted, yet a whole, Far, yet unsevered, — children brave and free Of the great Mother-tongue, and ye shall be Lords of an empire wide as Shakespeare's soul, Sublime as Milton's immemorial theme. And rich as Chaucer's speech, and fair as Spenser's dream. SYDNEY DOBELL. o 122 ^ GO PREFACE The aim which has been in view in the making of this anthology is to bring together a body of poems sufficient to introduce the reader to the principal types, forms, and themes of poetry (outside the drama), and to meet all ordinary needs, in this field, of younger readers, — say from the ages of fifteen to twenty, — including not merely their more conscientious reading of the classics, but such free rambling in the poetic realm as they may be tempted to undertake for the joy that is set before them. The chief characteristics of the collection may be summarized briefly: 1. Nothing is included which is not believed to make some natural appeal to the ages indicated. Under this head, however, the editor has in a number of instances put his own judgment in abeyance to make place for practically all poems which are on the list of recommended readings for students in secondary schools. 2. American and British poems have been intermingled, so that — per- haps for the first time — ^the reader may obtain a conspectus of modern poetry written in the English tongue on both sides of the Atlantic, without disproportioning emphasis on nationality. 3. No poems have been included for the primary purpose of illustrating either the history of literature or the achievements of particular poets ; the poem itself, not the period or the author, is the only unit of choice. Yet, since the contents are printed in chronological order, those who seek it will find something like a historical view of the subject. 4. The contents have been divided into two parts: Narrative Poems, and Lyrical and Reflective Poems. The principal object in doing this is to call the reader's attention to the two chief interests to which poems correspond, — the objective or story interest, and that concerned with the expression of personal feeling or meditation. Of course there is a difficulty here with such types as the lyrical ballad or the dramatic monologue : "Alexander's Feast" or "Locksley Hall" might quite as properly fall in the first part as the second. But the effort has been to represent, in the classification, the primary eflFect of the poem. 5. Notes are restricted to matters which require immediate explanation in order to further the intelligent continuous reading of any poem, as dis- tinguished from detailed study; a special effort has been made to furnish introductory notes indicating what the reader should have in mind in beginning the selection. Without disparaging the formal study of appro- priate poems, one may question whether it should not be confined to matters vii viii PREFACE with which the poet himself would wish us to concern ourselves. Tennyson, it will be recalled, viewed with horror the effort to make his poems a means to learning in the schools. 6. The collection includes, in the first place, the classics which the years have culled out as memorable for younger readers from one generation to another, and, in the second place, a selection from recent poetry almost up to the present hour, (The temptation, however, to include poems connected with the late war has been resisted, since it is evidently quite too early to distingfuish those of lasting from those of merely temporary significance.) For the former group the editor naturally depends for the most part on the judgment of his betters ; for the latter he must assume a responsibility which causes him sometimes to tremble. It is important to represent poetry as still alive, engaged with all the experiences and interests of contemporary life, and the later pages of this book will show how it has caught up into its vital embrace the biological, social, and intellectual themes of the age, as well as the great physical achievements represented by the locomotive, the airplane, the Panama Canal, and the American city. But the reader must understand that there has been no effort to make that selective choice from the work of the later poets which the perspective of time makes possi- ble for the older. The recent poems here reprinted are chosen each for its own sake, with no pretence of judging them to be the best of their author, or as likely to be more lasting than others of their time ; the reason lies in some specific interest of theme, some hopeful element of youthful appeal, perhaps only in some metrical or other incidental quality which has proved significant either in the class-room or in reading at home. Nothing is more certain than that no two minds would make the same choices, and presuma- bly no one but the editor will read the entire contents ; yet it may be claimed with some assurance that every poem will be found worthily significant on one or another ground. What poetry does youth actually find appealing? This query is likely to occur to anyone who contemplates such a collection as this, and to be answered in accordance with memories of very various kinds. Vividness and movement are of course among the primary qualities from this point of view, as (fortunately) they are among the primary qualities of poetry's essence. Yet one is often astonished to learn what unexpected sources of more reflective interest are found to be valid, for comparatively young readers, in poems apparently beyond their natural reach ; of this "Rabbi Ben Ezra" is now a standard example. Sometimes a thought weighs on the immature mind which only the maturest poet has fully expressed ; some- times a half -ripe feeling is found reflected in the deepest poetry, where the reader could not discern it clearly, much less define or explain. Two ele- ments, the ethically didactic and the sentimental, are valued much more highly by youth than by older readers, especially of our own time, as all teachers are aware. The compiler of an anthology will therefore represent them, at their best, more fully than his personal taste would dictate. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the normal taste of young readers is not essentially sound in being more concerned for the substantial values of PREFACE ix poetry's thought-content than is approved by much characteristic criticism of the present day. In this connection the editor has been naturally interested, while col- lecting his materials, in fugitive memories of the literary passions of his own adolescence. Some of these have found representation in the book ; others he has scarcely the courage to justify. Among the memories are these : a devotion to Macaulay's "Horatius," easily explicable, of course, on the narrative side, but including a boyish ardor for the very melody of the f/pening words, "Lars Porsena of Clusium," and the rest, — an ardor in no wise impaired by a total want of knowledge as to who Lars Porsena might have been or where Clusium might be found ; an equally ardent affection for Buchanan Read's "Drifting," which was (and is) so fine a thing to repeat while rowing or sailing on any bay or stream ; a strange fascination, still hardly analyzed, for Herrick's little lyric on "Julia's Clothes," which was selected for republication in a certain play-room periodical issued by very youthful printers; a thrilling fondness for Heber's hymn, "The Son of God goes forth to war" — in this instance partly accounted for by a boys* tale of Juliana Ewing's, where it figures as "the tug-of-war hymn" ; a consciously ethical admiration for Lowell's "The Present Crisis," and a con- sciously sentimental appreciation of Longfellow's "Maidenhood"; finally, and in a little later period, when sunsets and such things had become reali- ties, a capture of the senses by Browning's lines telling of the place "where the quiet-colored end of evening smiles." These fragments of personal memory have not been gathered up here, of course, for personal reasons, but as fugitive data for the inductive study of the problem of poetry laying hold of youth. Happy the youth for whom the problem has been happily met ! who finds aid in the interpretation of his consciousness with such understanding as only poetry can give, — whose impulses toward the beau- tiful, toward hero-worship and patriotism, love and religion, are expressed for him by the inherited wisdom of his race as it is enshrined in speech and song. To make this more easy is the highest of the purposes animating this book. The editor is under great obligation, and takes this occasion to express his gratitude, to the authors and publishers who kindly gave their per- mission for the reprinting of the following poems : The poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Edward Rowland Sill, William Vaughn Moody, and Robert Haven Schauffler, are reprinted by special arrangement with the Houghton Mifflin Company. The poems by Rudyard Kipling are reprinted by special arrangement with Doubleday, Page and Company. The poems by Walt Whitman are reprinted by permission of Horace Traubel and Doubleday, Page and Company. The poems by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, Percy Mackaye, John G. Neihardt, James Oppenheim, Sara Teasdale, and George Edward Wood- berry are reprinted by permission of the authors and the Macmillan Com- X PREFACE pany; those by Madison Cawein by permission of the author's executors and the Macmillan Company, The poems by Alfred Noyes are reprinted by permission of the author and the Frederick A. Stokes Company. The poems by Wendell Phillips Stafford and O. W. Firkins are re- printed by permission of the authors and the Atlantic Monthly Company. The poems by Abbie Farwell Brown (from "Songs of Sixpence"), William Herbert Carruth (from "Each in his Own Tongue, and Other Poems"), Florence Earle Coates, Helen Gray Cone, Washington Gladden, Thomas S. Jones, Jr. (from "The Rose-Jar"), David Starr Jordan, Benjamin R. C. Low (from "The House that Was"), Edwin Markham, John Masefield, Harold T. Pulsifer (from "Mothers and Men"), Charles M. Sheldon, Lewis Worthington Smith, Will Henry Thompson, and Katharine Tynan, are reprinted by permission of their authors. The poems by Bliss Carman and Charlotte Perkins Stetson are re- printed by permission of their authors and Small, Maynard and Company. The poems by John B. Tabb, and Richard Hovey's "Comrades" and "At the End of the Day," are reprinted by permission of Small, Maynard and Company; Richard Hovey's "Unmanifest Destiny" is reprinted by permission of Duffield and Company. The poems by Emily Dickinson and Helen Hunt Jackson are reprinted by permission of Little, Brown and Company. "A Song of Today," by Mary A. Lathbury, is reprinted by permission of the Chautauqua Institution. "After Construing," by Arthur Christopher Benson, is reprinted by permission of the author and the John Lane Company. "When the Great Gray Ships Come In," by Guy Wetmore Carry!, is reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam's Sons. "A Little Song of Life," by Lizette Woodworth Reese, is reprinted by permission of Thomas Bird Mosher. "Trees," by Joyce Kilmer, and "The Sacrament of Fire," by John Oxenham (from "The Fiery Cross"), are reprinted by permission of the George H. Doran Company. "The Listeners" and "Nod " by Walter de la Mare are reprinted by permission of Henry Holt and Company. "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," "Father Gilligan" and the "Ballad of Moll Magee" (from "Poetical Works") by W. B. Yeats, by special permission of the author and the Macmillan Company. Finally, grateful acknowledgement is made of the assistance rendered by the editor's sometime colleague, Mr. Frank Ernest Hill, who not only made for this volume the paraphrase of Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale," but supplied a great numl^er of the explanatory notes for the poems of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. R. Ms A. Stanford University, California, March, 192 1. CONTENTS PART ONE NARRATIVE POEMS PAGE 1. The Pardoner's Tale Geoffrey Chaucer i 2. Sir Patrick Spence 4 3. Johnnie Cock 5 4. Kinmont Willie 6 5. The Twa Sisters 8 6. Agincourt IVilliam Shakespeare 9 7. Agincourt Michael Drayton ■ 11 8. Nyraphidia : the Court of Faery Michael Drayton 12 9. The Rape of the Lock Alexander Pope 17 10. The Painter who Pleased Nobody John Gay 29 11. The Peacock, the Turkey, and the Goose. . . .John Gay 29 12. Boadicea IVilliam Coix>per 3° 13. Tam O'Shanter Robert Burns 3 ^ 14. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge 33 15. Simon Lee William IVordsiuorth 41 16. Bishop Hatto Robert Southey 42 17. Lucy Gray IVilliam JVordsworth 43 18. Michael IVilliam Wordsivortli 43 19. Lochinvar Walter Scott 5° 20. Marraion and Douglas Walter Scott 5^ 21. The Battle of the Baltic Thomas Campbell 52 22. The Destruction of Sennacherib Lord Byron 53 23. The Prisoner of Chillon Lord Byron 53 24. Christabel Samuel Taylor Coleridge 57 25. The Burial of Sir John Moore Charles Wolfe 60 26. La Belle Dame sans Merci John Keats 61 27. The Eve of St. Agnes John Keats 62 28. The Red Fisherman Winthrop Mackivorth Praed .... 67 29. The Belle of the Bail-Room Winthrop Mackivorth Praed .... 70 30. Bonny Dundee Walter Scott 72 31. The Silent Tower of Bottreau Robert Stephen Haivker 73 32. The Lady of Shalott Alfred Tennyson 74 33. The Last Buccaneer Thomas Babington Macaulay ... 76 34. The Jackdaw of Rheims Richard Harris Barham 76 35. The Skeleton in Armor Henry Wadsiuorth Longfellow . . 78 36. Horatius Thomas Babington Macaulay ... 80 37. My Last Duchess Robert Broivning 86 38. The Shepherd of King Admetus James Russell Loivell 87 39. Rhoecus James Russell Lowell 87 40. Abou Ben Adhem Leigh Hunt 89 41. Rime of the Duchess May Elizabeth Barrett Browning .... 90 42. How They Brought the Good News Robert Browning 96 43. The Boy and the Angel Robert Browning 97 44. Incident of the French Camp Robert Browning 98 45. The Italian in England Robert Browning 98 46. The Raven Edgar Allan Poe 100 xii CONTENTS 47. Iphigeneia and Agamemnon fValUr Savage Landor 103 48. Sir Humphrey Gilbert Henry Wadsiaorth Longfelloiu . . 104 49. The Forsaken Merman Mattheiv Arnold 104 50. Sohrab and Rustum Mattheio Arnold 106 51. The Charge of the Light Brigade Alfred Tennyson 119 52. Instans Tyrannus Robert Browning 120 53. Ballad of Sir John Franklin George Henry Boker I2i 54. Skipper Ireson's Ride John Greenleaj fVhittier 123 55. King Solomon Oiven Meredith (Lord Lytton) . . 124 56. King Robert of Sicily Henry fVadsiuorth Longfelloiv . . 125 57. The Courtin' James Russell Loivell 128 58. The Lady of the Land William Morris 130 59. Gareth and Lynette Alfred Tennyson 137 60. Lancelot and Elaine Alfred Tennyson 160 61. The Passing of Arthur Alfred Tennyson 181 62. Herve Riel Robert Broiuning 189 63. The Revenge Alfred Tennyson 191 64. A Ballad of the French Fleet Henry Wadsivorth Longfelloiu . . 193 65. Pheidippides Robert Browning 194 66. The Charge of the Heavy Brigade Alfred Tennyson 196 67. The White Ship Dante Gabriel Rossetti 197 68. The Ballad of Judas Iscariot Robert Buchanan 201 69. The Slaying of Urgan Algernon Charles Sivinburne . . , 204 70. Opportunity Edivard Rowland Sill 205 71. The High Tide at Gettysburg fVill Henry Thompson 206 72. A Ballad of East and West Rudyard Kipling 207 73. The Ballad of Moll Magee William Butler Yeats 209 74. The Ballad of Father Gilligan William Butler Yeats 209 75. Elfin Skates Eugene Lee-Hamilton 210 76. The Death of Puck Eugene Lee-Hamilton 210 77. The Last Chantey Rudyard Kipling 211 78. Craven Henry Newbolt 212 79. Gillespie Henry Nenvbolt 213 80. Forty Singing Seamen Alfred Noyes 214 81. The Listeners Walter de la Mare 215 82. The Dauber Rounds Cape Horn John Masefield 216 83. The Star Sara Teasdale 218 84. The Finding of Jamie John G. Neihardt 219 PART TWO LYRICAL AND REFLECTIVE POEMS 85. Heart-Exchange Sir Philip Sidney 227 86. Who is Sylvia ? William Shakespeare 227 87. O Sweet Content Thomas Dekker 227 88. Blow, Blow, thou Winter Wind William Shakespeare 227 89. Under the Greenwood Tree William Shakespeare 228 90. O Mistress Mine William Shakespeare 228 91. Hark, Hark ! the Lark William Shakespeare 228 Sonnets: William Shakespeare 228 92. When in disgrace with Fortune and men 8 eyes 228 93. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 229 94. That time of year thou may'st in me behold 229 CONTENTS xiii PACK 95. But be contented : when that fell arrest 229 96. When in the chronicle of wasted time 229 97. Let me not to the marriage of true minds 230 98. Character of a Happy Life Sir Henry IVotton 230 99. It is not Growing Like a Tree Ben Jonson 230 00. To Celia Ben Jonjon 230 01. Sonnet (Since there's no help) Michael Drayton 231 02. The Crier Michael Drayton 23 1 03. Virtue George Herbert 231 04. Love George Herbert 23 1 05. The Pulley George Herbert 232 06. L'AUegro John Milton 232 07. II Penseroso John Milton 234 08. Death John Donne 236 09. Lycidas John Milton 236 10. Song (Why so pale and wan ?) Sir John Suckling 240 11. On his being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-three John Milton 240 12. The Holy Nativity Richard Crasha