TH UNIY6RS1TY Of CALlfORNIA LIBRARY AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS EDITED BY FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES POPULAR EDITION BOSTON L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY (INCORPORATED) PUBLISHERS Copyright, BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) Copyright, 1901 BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (INCORPORATED) ' \ TentV. Impresivni, September, 1906 (EnUmtal $!rrss Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U. S. A. IE0 PREFACE. THE numerous collections of American verse share, I think, one fault in common : they include too much. Whether this has been a bid for popularity, a conces- sion to Philistia, I cannot say; but the fact remains that all anthologies of American poetry are, so far as I know, more or less uncritical. The aim of the present book is different. In no case has a poem been included because it is widely known. The purpose of this compilation is solely that of pre- serving, in attractive and permanent form, about one hundred and sixty of the best lyrics of America. I am quite aware of the danger attending such exacting honor-rolls. At best, an editor's judgment is only personal, and the realization of this fact gives me no small diffidence in attempting to decide what American lyrics are best worthy of preservation. That every reader of the " American Treasury " will find some favorite poem omitted, there can be little doubt. But the effort made in this book towards a vU PREFACE. careful estimate of our lyrical poetry is at any rate, I feel sure, in a good direction. There appear in the index of Mr. Stedman's " Poets of America " the names of over three hun- dred native writers. American verse in the last half century has been extraordinarily prolific. It would seem that the time has come, in the course of our national literature, for proving all things and holding fast that which is good. The fact that the title of this compilation instantly calls to mind that of Mr. Palgrave's scholarly collec- tion of English lyrics need not prove a disadvantage to the book if the purpose which led to the choice of name is understood. The verse of a single cen- tury produced in a new country should not be expected to equal the poetic wealth of an old and intellectual nation. But if American poetry cannot hope to rival the poetry of the mother country, it may at least be compared with it; and the fact of such a comparative point of view will aid rather than hinder the student of our native poetry in estimating its value. American verse has suffered at the hands both of its admirers and its enemies. Injudicious praise, no less than supercilious contempt, has reacted unfavor- ably on the fame of our poets. Again and again has some minor versifier been hailed as the " American Keats " or the " American Burns." Really excellent viii PREFACE. poets, though distinctly poets of second rank, have been elevated amid the blare of critical trumpets to the company of Wordsworth and Milton. All this is unprofitable and silly. But not much better is the attitude of certain critics who patronize everything in the English language which has been written out- side of England. Though America has added barring Poe and Whitman no distinctly new notes to English poetry, it has added certainly not a few true ones. A nation need never apologize for its lit- erature when it has produced such lyrics to go no further as " On a Bust of Dante," " Ichabod," The Chambered Nautilus," and the " Waterfowl." My method of arrangement is roughly chronolog- ical. The First Book, which is shorter than the others, might be called the book of Bryant; the Second, of Longfellow; and the Third, of Al- drich. Since the periods must of course overlap, this division of the poems can be at most only suggestive. I have made it no part of my design to grant to the better known poets a larger number of lyrics than those given later and younger men. I have paid no regard to that purely conventional idea of proportion, that would assign to five or six writers a dozen selections each, and to another set of poets, in proportion to their popular fame, half that num- ber. We can safely leave the final adjustment of all iz PREFACE. rival claims to Time, the best critic ; in the mean- while having the more modest aim of selecting, irre- spective of contemporary judgments, whatever is best suited to our purpose. A word more should be said about the title. I have not interpreted the term lyric so rigidly as to exclude sonnets, ballads, elegiac verse, or even pieces of al- most pure description. If I had held to the strictest sense of lyric, this book would never have been com- piled; for I suspect nothing will strike the reader more forcibly than the fact that, despite the excel- lence of the poems included, there is a notable lack of unconsciousness of pure singing quality. Such things as Pinkney's "Health" and Holmes's "Old Ironsides " are the exception. The poems are com- posed cleverly, but they do not quite sing themselves to their own music. The best American verse, while not insincere, is seldom wholly spontaneous. This is not saying that much spontaneous verse has not been written in this country ; much has been, but the sing- er's voice has too often been uncultivated, and the product inartistic. The names of many popular poets are entirely omitted. In no case, however, was this probably due to oversight. I have gone over carefully a wide field of verse, not without finding much to admire, but never quite happening upon that final touch of suc- cessful achievement where art and inspiration join. PREFACE, fn the earlier editions of this book, there were no selections from Walt Whitman, but after due reflec- tion I have thought it best to include several of the more lyrical passages from Mr. Whitman's " Leaves of Grass." I wish to acknowledge various favors kindly shown by Professor C. T. Winchester, Professor Barrett Wen- dell, and Mr. H. E. Scudder. Thanks are also due Mr. T. B. Aldrich for the privilege of including the six poems from his pen, which were kindly selected for the book by the poet himself. The following firms deserve thanks for permitting the use of copy- righted poems : Houghton, Mifflin &* Co. : Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Christopher Pearse Cranch, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Annie Adams Fields, Louise Imogen Guiney 9 Francis Bret Harte, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Dean Howells, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Kate Putnam Osgood, Thomas William Parsons, Lizette Woodworth Reese, Hiram Rich, Edward Rowland Sill, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Bayard Taylor, Edith Matilda Thomas, Henry David Thoreau, Maurice Thompson, John Greenleaf Whittier, George Edward Woodberry. Selections from the works of the foregoing writers PREFACE. are included " by permission of and by special ar- rangement with Hough ton, Mifflin & Co., publishers of the works of said authors." D. Appleton &> Co. : Fitz-Greene Halleck, William Cullen Bryant. Lee & Shepard : Julia Ward Howe. Henry T. Coates & Co. : Charles Fenno Hoffman. Little, Brown &> Co. : Emily Dickinson, Helen Hunt Jackson, Louise Chandler Moulton. Small, Maynard efen* TT ELEN, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicaean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, wayworn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome. Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche How statue-like I see thee stand, The agate lamp within thy hand ! Ah, Psyche, from the regions which Are Holy Land 1 E. A. POE. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. and CPARKLING and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in, With hue as red as the rosy bed Which a bee would choose to dream in. Then fill to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting. Oh ! if Mirth might arrest the flight Of Time through Life's dominions, We here awhile would now beguile The graybeard of his pinions, To drink to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting. But since Delight can't tempt the wight, Nor fond Regret delay him, Nor Love himself can hold the elf, Nor sober Friendship stay him, SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. We'll drink to-night, with hearts as light, To loves as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting. C. F. HOFFMAN. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. in *HPHOU wast all that to me, love, For which my soul did pine : A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers^ And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last ! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast ! A voice from out the Future cries, On ! on ! " but o'er the Past (Dim gulf ! ) my spirit hovering lies Mute, motionless, aghast. For, alas ! alas ! with me The light of Life is o'er ! No more no more no more (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar. TO ONE IN PARADISE. And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy dark eye glances, And where thy footstep gleams, In what ethereal dances, By what eternal streams. E. A. POE. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. t$e eaf0 of rafte. /^ KEEN be the turf above thee, Friend of my better days ! None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. Tears fell when thou wert dying, From eyes unused to weep, And long, where thou art lying, Will tears the cold turf steep. When hearts, whose truth was proven, Like thine, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth ; And I, who woke each morrow To clasp thy hand in mine, Who shared thy joy and sorrow, Whose weal and woe were thine, 36 THE DEATH OF JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow, But IVe in vain essayed it, And feel I cannot now. While memory bids me weep thee, Nor thoughts nor words are free, The grief is fixed too deeply That mourns a man like thee. F. G. HALLECK. 37 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. TJaffeg of it smiled a silent dell ^^^ Where the people did not dwell ; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sunlight lazily lay. Now each visitor shall confess The sad valley's restlessness. Nothing there is motionless, Nothing save the airs that brood Over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees That palpitate like the chill seas Around the misty Hebrides ! Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven That rustle through the unquiet Heaven Uneasily, from morn to even, Over the violets there that lie In myriad types of the human eye, Over the lilies there that wave And weep above a nameless grave ! 38 THE VALLEY OF UNREST. They wave : from out their fragrant tops Eternal dews come down in drops. They weep : from off their delicate stems Perennial tears descend in gems. E. A. POE. 39 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. r T % HOU blossom bright with autumn dew, And colored with the heaven's own blue, That openest when the quiet light Succeeds the keen and frosty night : Thou comest not when violets lean O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen, Or columbines, in purple dressed, Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest. Thou waitest late and com'st alone, When woods are bare and birds are flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near his end. Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye Look through its fringes to the sky, Blue blue as if that sky let fall A flower from its cerulean wall. TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN. I would that thus, when I shall sec The hour of death draw near to me, Hope, blossoming within my heart, May look to heaven as I depart. W. C. BRYANT. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Afreet T ET me move slowly through the street, Filled with an ever-shifting train, Amid the sound of steps that beat The murmuring walks like autumn rain. How fast the flitting figures come ! The mild, the fierce, the stony face, Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some Where secret tears have left their trace. They pass to toil, to strife, to rest ; To halls in which the feast is spread; To chambers where the funeral guest In silence sits beside the dead. And some to happy homes repair, Where children, pressing cheek to cheek, With mute caresses shall declare The tenderness they cannot speak. And some, who walk in calmness here, Shall shudder as they reach the door THE CROWDED STREET. Where one who made their dwelling dear, Its flower, its light, is seen no more. Youth, with pale cheek and slender frame, And dreams of greatness in thine eye ! Go'st thou to build an early name, Or early in the task to die ? Keen son of trade, with eager brow ! Who is now fluttering in thy snare ? Thy golden fortunes, tower they now, Or melt the glittering spires in air ? Who of this crowd to-night shall tread The dance till daylight gleam again ? Who sorrow o'er the untimely dead ? Who writhe in throes of mortal pain ? Some, famine-struck, shall think how long The cold, dark hours, how slow the light ; And some, who flaunt amid the throng, Shall hide in dens of shame to-night. Each where his tasks or pleasures call, They pass, and heed each other not. There is who heeds, who holds them all In His large love and boundless thought. 43 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. These struggling tides of life, that seem In wayward, aimless course to tend, Are eddies of the mighty stream That rolls to its appointed end. W. C. BRYANT. THE RAVEN. /^VNCE 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 De- cember, 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 forevermore. 45 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 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 I opened wide the door : Darkness there, and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, 46 THE RAVEN. Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token, 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 that 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. 4? AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he; But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my cham- ber door Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy 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 Plu- tonian shore ! " Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear dis- course so plainly, Though its answer little meaning little relevancy bore; For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being THE RAVEN. Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his cham- ber door Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as " Nevermore." But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour. Nothing further 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, 49 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of ' Never nevermore.' " But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy 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 lamplight gloated o'er, But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er She shall press, ah, nevermore ! 50 THE RAVEN. 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." "Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! prophet still, if bird or devil ! Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore, Desolate, yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted On this home by Horror haunted tell me truly, I implore, Is there, is there balm in Gilead ? tell me tell me, I implore ! " Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." " Prophet ! " said I, " thing of evil ! prophet still, if bird or devil ! 5' AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 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 hath 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; THE RAVEN. 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 ! E. A. POE. S3 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. /~\NCE this soft turf, this rivulet's sands, Were trampled by a hurrying crowd, And fiery hearts and armed hands Encountered in the battle-cloud. Ah ! never shall the land forget How gushed the life-blood of her brave, Gushed, warm with hope and courage yet, Upon the soil they fought to save. Now all is calm and fresh and still; Alone the chirp of flitting bird, And talk of children on the hill, And bell of wandering kine are heard. No solemn host goes trailing by The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain ; Men start not at the battle-cry ; Oh, be it never heard again ! Soon rested those who fought ; but thou Who minglest in the harder strife 54. THE BATTLE-FIELD. For truths which men receive not now, Thy warfare only ends with life. A friendless warfare ! lingering long Through weary day and weary year ; A wild and many-weaponed throng Hang on thy front and flank and rear. Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, And blench not at thy chosen lot ; The timid good may stand aloof, The sage may frown, yet faint thou not ! Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, The foul and hissing bolt of scorn, For with thy side shall dwell, at last, The victory of endurance born. Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers ; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies among his worshippers. Yea, though thou lie upon the dust, When they who helped thee flee in fear, Die full of hope and manly trust, Like those who fell in battle here. 55 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Another hand thy sword shall wield, Another hand the standard wave, Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed The blast of triumph o'er thy grave. W. C. BRYANT. THE SLEEPER. A T midnight, in the month of June, "^ I stand beneath the mystic moon. An opiate vapor, dewy, dim, Exhales from out her golden rim, And, softly dripping, drop by drop, Upon the quiet mountain-top, Steals drowsily and musically Into the universal valley. The rosemary nods upon the grave: The lily lolls upon the wave ; Wrapping the fog about its breast, The ruin moulders into rest ; Looking like Lethe, see ! the lake A conscious slumber seems to take, And would not, for the world, awake. All beauty sleeps ! and lo ! where lies Irene, with her destinies ! O lady bright ! can it be right, This window open to the night? The wanton airs from the tree-top Laughingly through the lattice drop ; 57 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain canopy So fitfully, so fearfully, Above the closed and fringed lid 'Neath which thy slumb'ring soul lies hid, That, o'er the floor and down the wall, Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall. lady dear, hast thou no fear? Why and what art thou dreaming here ? Sure thou art come o'er far-off seas, A wonder to these garden trees ! Strange is thy pallor ; strange thy dress ; Strange, above all, thy length of tress, And this all solemn silentness ! The lady sleeps. Oh, may her sleep, Which is enduring, so be deep ! Heaven have her in its sacred keep ! This chamber changed for one more holy f This bed for one more melancholy, 1 pray to God that she may lie Forever with unopened eye, While the pale sheeted ghosts go by. My love, she sleeps. Oh, may her sleep, As it is lasting, so be deep ! 58 THE SLEEPER. Soft may the worms about her creep I Far in the forest, dim and old, For her may some tall vault unfold : Some vault that oft hath flung its black And winged panels fluttering back, Triumphant, o'er the crested palls Of her grand family funerals ; Some sepulchre, remote, alone, Against whose portal she hath thrown, In childhood, many an idle stone ; Some tomb from out whose sounding door She ne'er shall force an echo more, Thrilling to think, poor child of sin, It was the dead who groaned within ! E. A. POE. 59 BOOK SECOND. NATURE. A S a fond mother, when the day is o'er, "^ Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more, So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know. H. W. LONGFELLOW. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. fefie. I SAW the twinkle of white feet, I saw the flash of robes descending ; Before her ran an influence fleet, That bowed my heart like barley bending. As, in bare fields, the searching bees Pilot to blooms beyond our finding, It led me on, by sweet degrees Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding. Those Graces were that seemed grim Fates ; With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me ; The long-sought Secret's golden gates On musical hinges swung before me. I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp Thrilling with godhood ; like a lover I sprang the proffered life to clasp ; The beaker fell ; the luck was over. The Earth has drunk the vintage up ; What boots it patch the goblet's splinters ? Can Summer fill the icy cup, Whose treacherous crystal is but Winter's ? HEBE. O spendthrift haste ! await the Gods ; Their nectar crowns the lips of Patience ; Haste scatters on unthankful sods The immortal gift in vain libations. Coy Hebe flies from those that woo, And shuns the hands would seize upon her ; Follow thy life, and she will sue To pour for thee the cup of honor. J. R. LOWELL. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. ag {0 one. '"PHE 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 resist : A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the 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, 66 THE DAY IS DONE. 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 to-night I long for rest. Read from some humbler poet, Whose songs gashed 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. 67 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 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. H. W. LONGFELLOW. 68 ICHABOD. CO fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn Which once he wore ! The glory from his gray hairs gone Forevermore ! Revile him not, the Tempter hath A snare for all ; And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, Befit his fall ! Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, When he who might Have lighted up and led his age, Falls back in night. Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark A bright soul driven, Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, From hope and heaven ! Let not the land once proud of him Insult him now, 69 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, Dishonored brow. But let its humbled sons, instead, From sea to lake, A long lament, as for the dead, In sadness make. Of all we loved and honored, naught Save power remains, A fallen angel's pride of thought, Still strong in chains. All else is gone ; from those great eyes The soul has fled : When faith is lost, when honor dies, The man is dead ! Then, pay the reverence of old days To his dead fame ; Walk backward, with averted gaze, And hide the shame ! J. G. WHITTIER. SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. Jit |E)ump#iree O OUTHWARD with fleet of ice Sailed the corsair Death; Wild and fast blew the blast, And the east-wind was his breath. His lordly ships of ice Glisten in the sun ; On each side, like pennons wide, Flashing crystal streamlets run. His sails of white sea-mist Dripped with silver rain ; But where he passed there were cast Leaden shadows o'er the main. Eastward from Campobello Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed ; Three days or more seaward he bore, Then, alas ! the land-wind failed. Alas ! the land-wind failed, And ice-cold grew the night ; AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. And nevermore, on sea or shore, Should Sir Humphrey see the light. He sat upon the deck, The Book was in his hand ; " Do not fear ! Heaven is as near," He said, " by water as by land ! " In the first watch of the night, Without a signal's sound, Out of the sea, mysteriously, The fleet of Death rose all around. The moon and the evening star Were hanging in the shrouds ; Every mast, as it passed, Seemed to rake the passing clouds. They grappled with their prize, At midnight black and cold ! As of a rock was the shock ; Heavily the ground-swell rolled. Southward through day and dark, They drift in close embrace, With mist and rain, o'er the open main ; Yet there seems no change of place. 72 SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT. Southward, forever southward, They drift through dark and day ; And like a dream, in the Gulf Stream Sinking, vanish all away. H. W. LONGFELLOW. 73 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Concorb Sung at the completion of the Battle Monument, April 19, 1836. T> Y 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 silent sleeps ; And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward On this green bank, by this soft stream, We set to-day a votive stone, That memory may their deed redeem, When, like our sires, our sons are gone. Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we ruse to them and thee. R. W. EMERSOM. TO AMERICA. Po (America, "117" HAT, cringe to Europe ! Band it all in one, Stilt its decrepit strength, renew its age, Wipe out its debts, contract a loan to wage Its venal battles, and, by yon bright sun, Our God is false, and liberty undone, If slaves have power to win your heritage ! Look on your country, God's appointed stage, Where man's vast mind its boundless course shall run: For that it was your stormy coast He spread A fear in winter ; girded you about With granite hills, and made you strong and dread. Let him who fears before the foemen shout, Or gives an inch before a vein has bled, Turn on himself, and let the traitor out ! G. H. BOKER. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. A Y, 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 ; 76 OLD IRONSIDES. Nail to the mast her holy flag, Set every threadbare sail, And give her to the god of storms, The lightning, and the gale ! O. W. HOLMESc AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. o (Bngfewb. i. T EAR and Cordelia ! 'twas an ancient tale Before thy Shakespeare gave it deathless fame ; The times have changed, the moral is the same. So like an outcast, dowerless and pale, Thy daughter went ; and in a foreign gale Spread her young banner, till its sway became A wonder to the nations. Days of shame Are close upon thee ; prophets raise their wail. When the rude Cossack with an outstretched hand Points his long spear across the narrow sea, " Lo ! there is England ! " when thy destiny Storms on thy straw-crowned head, and thou dost stand Weak, helpless, mad, a by-word in the land, God grant thy daughter a Cordelia be ! [1852.] II. Stand, thou great bulwark of man's liberty ! Thou rock of shelter, rising from the wave, Sole refuge to the overwearied brave Who planned, arose, and battled to be free, Fell, undeterred, then sadly turned to thee, 78 TO ENGLAND. Saved the free spirit from their country's grave, To rise again, and animate the slave, When God shall ripen all things. Britons, ye Who guard the sacred outpost, not in vain Hold your proud peril ! Freemen undefiled, Keep watch and ward ! Let battlements be piled Around your cliffs ; fleets marshalled, till the main Sink under them ; and if your courage wane, Through force or fraud, look westward to your child! [1853.] G. H. BOKER. 79 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Wtrecft of t (Je T T was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea ; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, That ope in the month of May. The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth, And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now West, now South. Then up and spake an old Sail&r, Had sailed to the Spanish Main, " I pray thee, put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane. " Last night, the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see 1 " 80 THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the Northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength ; She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed, Then leaped her cable's length. " Come hither ! come hither ! my little daughter, And do not tremble so ; For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow." He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. " O father ! I hear the church-bells ring, Oh, say, what may it be ? " " 'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast ! " And he steered for the open sea. 81 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. " O father ! I hear the sound of guns, Oh, say, what may it be ? " " Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea ! " " O father ! I see a gleaming light, " Oh, say, what may it be ? " But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. Then the maiden clasped her hands and pra>ed That saved she might be ; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave, On the Lake of Galilee. And fast through the midnight dark and drenr, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe. And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land ; 82 THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS. It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck. She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks, they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull. Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board ; Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank, Ho ! ho ! the breakers roared ! At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach, A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair, Lashed close to a drifting mast. The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes ; And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise. 83 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow ! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe ! H. W. LONGFELLOW. BEDOUIN SONG. T^ROM the Desert I come to thee On a stallion shod with fire , And the winds are left behind In the speed of my desire. Under thy window I stand, And the midnight hears my cry : I love thee, I love but thee, With a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! Look from thy window and see My passion and my pain ; I lie on the sands below, And I faint in thy disdain. Let the night-winds touch thy brow With the heat of my burning sigh, And melt thee to hear the vow Of a love that shall not die AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! My steps are nightly driven, By the fever in my breast, To hear from thy lattice breathed The word that shall give me rest. Open the door of thy heart, And open thy chamber door, And my kisses shall teach thy lips The love that shall fade no more Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold ! B. TAYLOR. 86 SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. JJfttpper 3reson'0 (gibe* /^\F all the rides since the birth of time, Told in story or sung in rhyme, On Apuleius's Golden Ass, Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, Witch astride of a human back, Islam's prophet on Al-Borak, The strangest ride that ever was sped Was Ireson's, out from Marblehead ! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead ! Body of turkey, head of owl, Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, Feathered and ruffled in every part, Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. Scores of women, old and young, Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, Shouting and singing the shrill refrain : " Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 8? AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase Bacchus round some antique vase, Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, With conch-shells blowing and fish-horns' twang, Over and over the Maenads sang: " Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead ! " Small pity for him ! He sailed away From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay, Sailed away from a sinking wreck, With his own town's-people on her deck ! " Lay by ! lay by ! " they called to him. Back he answered, " Sink or swim ! Brag of your catch of fish again ! " And off he sailed through the fog and rain ! Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead ! Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur That wreck shall lie forevermore. SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. Mother and sister, wife and maid, Looked from the rocks of Marblehead Over the moaning and rainy sea, Looked for the coming that might not be ! What did the winds and the sea-birds say Of the cruel captain who sailed away ? Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead ! Through the street, on either side, Up flew windows, doors swung wide ; Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, Hulks of old sailors run aground, Shook head, and fist, and hat, and cane, And cracked with curses the hoarse refrain : " Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead ! " Sweetly along the Salem road Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. Little the wicked skipper knew Of the fields so green and the sky so blue, 89 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Riding there in his sorry trim, Like an Indian idol glum and grim, Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear Of voices shouting, far and near : " Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd horrt, Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt By the women o' Morble'ead ! " " Hear me, neighbors ! " at last he cried, " What to me is this noisy ride ? What is the shame that clothes the skin To the nameless horror that lives within ? Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, And hear a cry from a reeling deck ! Hate me and curse me, I only dread The hand of God and the face of the dead ! " Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead ! Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea Said, " God has touched him ! Why should Said an old wife, mourning her only son : " Cut the rogue's tether and let him run ! " So with soft relentings and rude excuse, Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, 90 SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. And gave him a cloak to hide him in, And left him alone with his shame and sin. Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart By the women of Marblehead ! J. G. WHITTIER. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. T TNDER a spreading chestnut-tree The village smithy stands ; The smith, a mighty man is he, With large and sinewy hands ; And the muscles of his brawny arms Are strong as iron bands. His hair is crisp, and black, and long, His face is like the tan ; His brow is wet with honest sweat, He earns whate'er he can, And looks the whole world in the face, For he owes not any man. Week in, week out, from morn till night, You can hear his bellows blow ; You can hear him swing his heavy sledge, With measured beat and slow, Like a sexton ringing the village bell, When the evening sun is low. And children coming home from school Look in at the open door ; 92 THE VILLAGE BLACKSMITH. They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing-floor. He goes on Sunday to the church, And sits among his boys ; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter's voice, Singing in the village choir, And it makes his heart rejoice. It sounds to him like her mother's voice, Singing in Paradise ! He needs must think of her once more, How in the grave she lies ; And with his hard, rough hand he wipes A tear out of his eyes. Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing, Onward through life he goes ; Each morning sees some task begin, Each evening sees it close ; Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose. H. W. LONGFELLOW. 93 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS, T F with light head erect I sing, Though all the Muses lend their force, From my poor love of anything, The verse is weak and shallow as its source. But if with bended neck I grope Listening behind me for my wit, With faith superior to hope, More anxious to keep back than forward it, Making my soul accomplice there Unto the flame my heart hath lit, Then will the verse for ever wear, Time cannot bend the line which God has writ H. D. THOREAU. THE LAST LEAF. T SAW him once before, As he passed by the door t 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." 95 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he 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 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-cornered hat, And the breeches, and all that, Are so queer ! THE LAST LEAF. 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. O. W. HOLMES. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 0e Catof of eaf 0, From " When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." f^OME lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arrmng, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later delicate death. Prais'd be the fathomless universe, For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, And for love, sweet love but praise ! praise ! praise ! For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome ? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly. THE CAROL OF DEATH. Approach strong deliveress, When it is so, when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead, Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee, Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death. From me to thee glad serenades, Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee, And the sights of the open landscape and the high- spread sky are fitting, And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night. The night in silence under many a star, The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know, And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veiPd death, And the body gratefully nestling close to thee. Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the prairies wide, Over the dense-pack'd cities all and the teeming wharves and ways, I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee O death. W. WHITMAN, 99 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. (gegiment Port Hudson, May 27, 1863. TP\ARK as the clouds of even, Ranked in the western heaven, Waiting the breath that lifts All the dread mass, and drifts Tempest and falling brand Over a ruined land ; So still and orderly, Arm to arm, knee to knee, Waiting the great event, Stands the black regiment. Down the long, dusky line Teeth gleam, and eyeballs shine ; And the bright bayonet, Bristling and firmly set, Flashed with a purpose grand, Long ere the sharp command Of the fierce rolling drum Told them their time had come, Told them what work was sent For the black regiment. 100 THE BLACK REGIMEN.T. " Now," the flag-sergeant cried, " Though death and hell betide, Let the whole nation see If we are fit to be Free in this land ; or bound Down, like the whining hound, Bound with red stripes of pain In our old chains again ! " Oh, what a shout there went From the black regiment ! " Charge ! " Trump and drum awoke; Onward the bondmen broke ; Bayonet and sabre-stroke Vainly opposed their rush. Through the wild battle's crush, With but one thought aflush, Driving their lords like chaff, In the guns' mouths they laugh ; Or at the slippery brands Leaping with open hands, Down they tear man and horse, Down in their awful course ; Trampling with bloody heel Over the crashing steel, All their eyes forward bent, Rushed the black regiment. 101 SONGS AND LYRICS. " Freedom ! " their battle-cry, " Freedom ! or leave to die ! " Ah ! and they meant the word, Not as with us 'tis heard, Not a mere party shout; They gave their spirits out, Trusted the end to God, And on the gory sod Rolled in triumphant blood. Glad to strike one free blow, Whether for weal or woe ; Glad to breathe one free breath, Though on the lips of death ; Praying alas ! in vain ! That they might fall again, So they could once more see That burst to liberty ! This was what " freedom " lent To the black regiment. Hundreds on hundreds fell ; But they are resting well ; Scourges and shackles strong Never shall do them wrong. Oh, to the living few, Soldiers, be just and true ! 102 THE BLACK REGIMENT. Hail them as comrades tried ; Fight with them side by side ; Never, in field or tent, Scorn the black regiment. G. H. BOKER. 103 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. n^HE despot treads thy sacred sands, Thy pines give shelter to his bands, Thy sons stand by with idle hands, Carolina ! He breathes at ease thy airs of balm, He scorns the lances of thy palm ; Oh ! who shall break thy craven calin, Carolina ! Thy ancient fame is growing dim, A spot is on thy garment's rim ; Give to the winds thy battle-hymn, Carolina ! Call on thy children of the hill, Wake swamp and river, coast and rill, Rouse all thy strength and all thy skill, Carolina ! Cite wealth and science, trade and art, Touch with thy fire the cautious mart, And pour thee through the people's heart, Carolina ! 104 CAROLINA. Till even the coward spurns his fears, And all thy fields, and fens, and meres Shall bristle like thy palm with spears, Carolina ! I hear a murmur as of waves That grope their way through sunless caves, Like bodies struggling in their graves, Carolina ! And now it deepens ; slow and grand It swells, as, rolling to the land, An ocean broke upon thy strand, Carolina ! Shout ! Let it reach the startled Huns ! And roar with all thy festal guns ! It is the answer of thy sons, Carolina 1 H. TlMROD. 105 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. trfle for a Jioftteir. /^LOSE his eyes ; his work is done ! What to him is friend or foeman, Rise of moon, or set of sun, Hand of man, or kiss of woman ? Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow ! What cares he ? He cannot know ; Lay him low ! As man may, he fought his fight, Proved his truth by his endeavor; Let him sleep in solemn night, Sleep forever and forever. Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow ! What cares he ? He cannot know ; Lay him low ! Fold him in his country's stars, Roll the drum and fire the volley ! What to him are all our wars, What but death bemocking folly ? 106 DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER. Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow ! What cares he ? He cannot know; Lay him low ! Leave him to God's watching eye ; Trust him to the hand that made him. Mortal love weeps idly by ; God alone has power to aid him. Lay him low, lay him low, In the clover or the snow ! What cares he ? He cannot know ! Lay him low ! G. H. BOKER., 10? AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. n of TV/I" INE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fatal lightning of His terrible swift sword : His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps ; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps ; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps : His day is marching on. I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel : "As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal ; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel ! Since God is marching on." 108 BATTLE- HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat ; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judg- ment seat ; Oh ! be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my feet ! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born, across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me: As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on. J. W. HOWE. 109 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. TpARRAGUT, Farragut, r Old Heart of Oak, Daring Dave Farragut, Thunderbolt stroke, Watches the hoary mist Lift from the bay, Till his flag, glory-kissed, Greets the young day. Far, by gray Morgan's walls, Looms the black fleet. Hark, deck to rampart calls With the drums' beat ! Buoy your chains overboard, While the steam hums ; Men ! to the battlement, Farragut comes. See, as the hurricane Hurtles in wrath Squadrons of clouds amain Back from its path ! FARRAGUT. Back to the parapet, To the guns' lips, Thunderbolt Farragut Hurls the black ships. Now through the battle's roar Clear the boy sings, " By the mark fathoms four," While his lead swings. Steady the wheelmen five " Nor' by east keep her," " Steady," but two alive : How the shells sweep her ! Lashed to the mast that sways Over red decks, Over the flame that plays Round the torn wrecks, Over the dying lips Framed for a cheer, Farragut leads his ships, Guides the line clear. On by heights cannon-browed, While the spars quiver ; Onward still flames the cloud Where the hulks shiver. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. See, yon fort's star is set, Storm and fire past. Cheer him, lads, Farragut, Lashed to the mast ! Oh ! while Atlantic's breast Bears a white sail, While the Gulf's towering crest Tops a green vale ; Men thy bold deeds shall tell, Old Heart of Oak, Daring Dave Farragut, Thunderbolt stroke ! W. T. MEREDITH. Ill MY MARYLAND. n^HE despot's heel is on thy shore, 1 Maryland ! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland ! Avenge the patriotic gore That flecked the streets of Baltimore, And be the battle-queen of yore, Maryland, my Maryland! Hark to an exiled son's appeal, Maryland ! My Mother State, to thee I kneel, Maryland ! For life and death, for woe and weal, Thy peerless chivalry reveal, And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, Maryland, my Maryland ! Thou wilt not cower in the dust, Maryland ! "3 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Thy beaming sword shall never rust, Maryland ! Remember Carroll's sacred trust, Remember Howard's warlike thrust, And all thy slumberers with the just, Maryland, my Maryland ! Come ! 'tis the red dawn of the day, Maryland ! Come with thy panoplied array, Maryland ! With Ringgold's spirit for the fray, With Watson's blood at Monterey, With fearless Lowe and dashing May, Maryland, my Maryland ! Dear Mother, burst the tyrant's chain, Maryland ! Virginia should not call in vain, Maryland ! She meets her sisters on the plain, " Sic semper/" 'tis the proud refrain That baffles minions back amain, Maryland ! Arise in majesty again, Maryland, my Maryland ! 114 MY MARYLAND. Come ! for thy shield is bright and strong, Maryland ! Come ! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, Maryland ! Come to thine own heroic throng Stalking with Liberty along, And chant thy dauntless slogan-song, Maryland, my Maryland! I see the blush upon thy cheek, Maryland ! For thou wast ever bravely meek, Maryland ! But lo ! there surges forth a shriek, From hill to hill, from creek to creek, Potomac calls to Chesapeake, Maryland, my Maryland! Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, Maryland ! Thou wilt not crook to his control, Maryland ! Better the fire upon thee roll, Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, Than crucifixion of the soul, Maryland, my Maryland! AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. I hear the distant thunder-hum, Maryland ! The old Line's bugle, fife, and drum, Maryland ! She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb ; Huzza ! she spurns the Northern scum ! She breathes ! She burns ! She'll come ! She'll come ! Maryland, my Maryland ! J. R. RANDALL. 116 TO THE MAN -OF -WAR -BIRD. HTHOU who hast slept all night upon the storm, Waking renew'd on thy prodigious pinions, (Burst the wild storm ? above it thou ascended'st, And rested on the sky, thy slave that cradled thee,) Now a blue point, far, far in heaven floating, As to the light emerging here on deck I watch thee, (Myself a speck, a point on the world's floating vast.) Far, far at sea, After the night's fierce drifts have strewn the shore with wrecks, With re-appearing day as now so happy and serene, The rosy and elastic dawn, the flashing sun, The limpid spread of air cerulean, Thou also re-appearest. Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurri- cane, Thou ship of air that never furl'st thy sails, Days, even weeks untired and onward, through spaces, realms gyrating, 117 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. At dusk that look's t on Senegal, at morn America, That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder- cloud, In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul, What joys ! what joys were thine ! W. WHITMAN, ft* SONG OF THE CAMP. of f0e Camp. " f~* IVE us a song ! " the soldiers cried, The outer trenches guarding, When the heated guns of the camps allied Grew weary of bombarding. The dark Redan, in silent scoff, Lay grim and threatening under ; And the tawny mound of the Malakoff No longer belch'd its thunder. There was a pause. A guardsman said: " We storm the forts to-morrow ; Sing while we may, another day Will bring enough of sorrow." They lay along the battery's side, Below the smoking cannon : Brave hearts from Severn and from Clyde, And from the banks of Shannon. They sang of love, and not of fame ; Forgot was Britain's glory: 119 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Each heart recall'd a different name, But all sang " Annie Laurie." Voice after voice caught up the song, Until its tender passion Rose like an anthem, rich and strong, Their battle-eve confession. Dear girl, her name he dared not speak, But as the song grew louder, Something upon the soldier's cheek Washed off the stains of powder. Beyond the darkening ocean burn'd The bloody sunset's embers, While the Crimean valleys learn'd How English love remembers. And once again a fire of hell Rain'd on the Russian quarters, With scream of shot, and burst of shell, And bellowing of the mortars ! And Irish Nora's eyes are dim For a singer dumb and gory ; And English Mary mourns for him Who sang of " Annie Laurie." 120 SONG OF THE CAMP. Sleep, soldiers ! still in honor'd rest Your truth and valor wearing : The bravest are the tenderest, The loving are the daring. B. TAYLOR. S2I AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 3n T LAY me down to sleep, With little thought or care Whether my waking find Me here or there. A bowing, burdened head, That only asks to rest, Unquestioning, upon A loving breast. My good right hand forgets Its cunning now. To march the weary march I know not how. I am not eager, bold, Nor strong all that is past ; I am ready not to do At last, at last. My half day's work is done, And this is all my part ; I give a patient God My patient heart, 122 IN THE HOSPITAL. And grasp His banner still, Though all its blue be dim ; These stripes, no less than stars, Lead after Him. M. W. HOWLAND. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. OXofefe. T T ER hands are cold ; her face is white ; No more her pulses come and go ; Her eyes are shut to life and light ; Fold the white vesture, snow on snow, And lay her where the violets blow. But not beneath a graven stone, To plead for tears with alien eyes ; A slender cross of wood alone Shall say, that here a maiden lies In peace beneath the peaceful skies. And gray old trees of hugest limb Shall wheel their circling shadows round To make the scorching sunlight dim That drinks the greenness from the ground, And drop their dead leaves on her mound. When o'er their boughs the squirrels run, And through their leaves the robins call, And, ripening in the autumn sun, The acorns and the chestnuts fall, Doubt not that she will heed them all. 124 UNDER THE VIOLETS. For her the morning choir shall sing Its matins from the branches high, And every minstrel voice of Spring, That trills beneath the April sky, Shall greet her with its earliest cry. When, turning round their dial-track, Eastward the lengthening shadows pass, Her little mourners, clad in black, The crickets, sliding through the grass, Shall pipe for her an evening mass. At last the rootlets of the trees Shall find the prison where she lies, And bear the buried dust they seize In leaves and blossoms to the skies. So may the soul that warmed it rise ! If any, born of kindlier blood, Should ask, What maiden lies below ? Say only this : A tender bud, That tried to blossom in the snow, Lies withered where the violets blow. O. W. HOLMES. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. p\AUGHTERS of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. To each they offer gifts after his will, Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, Forgot my morning wishes, hastily Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. R. W. EMERSON. 126 THE DYING LOVER. nPHE grass that is under me now Will soon be over me, Sweet; When you walk this way again I shall not hear your feet. You may walk this way again, And shed your tears like dew ; They will be no more to me then Than mine are now to you ! R. H. STODDARD. *From "The Poems of R. H. Stoddard," copyright, x88o by Charles Scribner's Sons. 127 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. "117" HEN I was a beggarly boy, And lived in a cellar damp, I had not a friend nor a toy, But I had Aladdin's lamp ; When I could not sleep for cold, I had fire enough in my brain, And builded, with roofs of gold, My beautiful castles in Spain ! Since then I have toiled day and night, I have money and power good store, But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright, For the one that is mine no more ; Take, Fortune, whatever you choose, You gave, and may snatch again ; I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose, For I own no more castles in Spain ! J. R. LOWELL. 128 THE FLIGHT OF YOUTH. of are gains for all our losses, There are balms for all our pain ; But when youth, the dream, departs, It takes something from our hearts, And it never comes again. We are stronger, and are better, Under manhood's sterner reign ; Still, we feel that something sweet Followed youth, with flying feet, And will never come again. Something beautiful is vanished, And we sigh for it in vain ; We behold it everywhere, On the earth, and in the air, But it never comes again. R. H. STODDARD. 'From "The Poems of R. H. Stoddard," copyright, 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 129 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. *T*HE pines were dark on Ramoth hill, Their song was soft and low ; The blossoms in the sweet May wind Were falling like the snow. The blossoms drifted at our feet, The orchard birds sang clear; The sweetest and the saddest day It seemed of all the year. For, more to me than birds or flowers, My playmate left her home, And took with her the laughing spring, The music and the bloom. She kissed the lips of kith and kin, She laid her hand in mine : What more could ask the bashful boy Who fed her father's kine ? She left us in the bloom of May : The constant years told o'er Their seasons with as sweet May morns, But she came back no more. THE PLAYMATE. I walk, with noiseless feet, the round Of uneventful years ; Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring And reap the autumn ears. She lives where all the golden year Her summer roses blow ; The dusky children of the sun Before her come and go. There haply with her jewelled hands She smooths her silken gown, No more the homespun lap wherein I shook the walnuts down. The wild grapes wait us by the brook, The brown nuts on the hill, And still the May-day flowers make sweet The woods of Follymill. The lilies blossom in the pond, The bird builds in the tree, The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill The slow song of the sea. I wonder if she thinks of them, And how the old time seems, 131 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. If ever the pines of Ramoth wood Are sounding in her dreams. I see her face, I hear her voice : Does she remember mine ? And what to her is now the boy Who fed her father's kine ? What cares she that the orioles build For other eyes than ours, That other hands with nuts are filled, And other laps with flowers ? O playmate in the golden time ! Our mossy seat is green, Its fringing violets blossom yet, The old trees o'er it lean. The winds so sweet with birch and fern A sweeter memory blow ; And there in spring the veeries sing The song of long ago. And still the pines of Ramoth wood Are moaning like the sea, The moaning of the sea of change Between myself and thee ! J. G. WHITTIER. 13* SERENADE. CTARS of the summer night! Far in yon azure deeps, Hide, hide your golden light ! She sleeps ! My lady sleeps ! Sleeps ! Moon of the summer night ! Far down yon western steeps, Sink, sink in silver light ! She sleeps ! My lady sleeps ! Sleeps ! Wind of the summer night ! Where yonder woodbine creeps. Fold, fold thy pinions light ! She sleeps ! My lady sleeps ! Sleeps! Dreams of the summer night ! Tell her, her lover keeps 133 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Watch ! while in slumbers light She sleeps ! My lady sleeps ! Sleeps ! H. W. LONGFELLOW. '34 THE REPUBLIC. , too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O 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 Workmen 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 ! H. W. LONGFELLOW. 1 From " The Building of the Ship." AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. IT ER suffering ended with the day, Yet lived she at its close, And breathed the long, long night away In statue-like repose. But when the sun in all his state Illumed the eastern skies, She passed through Glory's morning gate And walked in Paradise. J. ALDRICH. 136 TELLING THE BEES. IT ERE 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 Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'emm, 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 . 137 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 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 had passed, 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 hives of 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. TELLING THE BEES. 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 ; Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps The fret and the pain of his age away." But her dog whined low ; on the 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. And the song she was singing ever since In my ear sounds on : " Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! Mistress Mary is dead and gone ! " J. G. WHITTIER. 139 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. T T may be through some foreign grace, And unfamiliar charm of face ; It may be that across the foam Which bore her from her childhood's home, By some strange spell, my Katie brought Along with English creeds and thought Entangled in her golden hair Some English sunshine, warmth, and air ! I cannot tell, but here to-day, A thousand billowy leagues away From that green isle whose twilight skies No darker are than Katie's eyes, She seems to me, go where she will, An English girl in England still ! I meet her on the dusty street, And daisies spring about her feet ; Or, touched to life beneath her tread, An English cowslip lifts its head; And, as to do her grace, rise up The primrose and the buttercup ! I roam with her through fields of cane, And seem to stroll an English lane, , 1.40 KATIE. Which, white with blossoms of the May, Spreads its green carpet in her way ! As fancy wills, the path beneath Is golden gorse, or purple heath ; And now we hear in woodlands dim Their unarticulated hymn, Now walk through rippling waves of wheat? Now sink in mats of clover sweet, Or see before us from the lawn The lark go up to greet the dawn ! All birds that love the English sky Throng round my path when she is by ; The blackbird from a neighboring thorn With music brims the cup of morn, And in a thick, melodious rain The mavis pours her mellow strain ! But only when my Katie's voice Makes all the listening woods rejoice I hear with cheeks that flush and pale The passion of the nightingale ! H. TIMROD. 141 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 1^" OT as all other women are Is she that to my soul is dear; Her glorious fancies come from far, Beneath the silver evening-star, And yet her heart is ever near. Great feelings hath she of her own, Which lesser souls may never know ; God giveth them to her alone, And sweet they are as any tone Wherewith the wind may choose to blow. Yet in herself she dwelleth not, Although no home were half so fair; No simplest duty is forgot ; Life hath no dim and lowly spot That doth not in her sunshine share. She doeth little kindnesses, Which most leave undone, or despise ; For naught that sets one heart at ease, And giveth happiness or peace, Is low-esteemed in her eyes. 143 MY LOVE. She hath no scorn of common things, And, though she seem of other birth, Round us her heart intwines and clings, And patiently she folds her wings To tread the humble paths of earth. Blessing she is ; God made her so, And deeds of week-day holiness Fall from her noiseless as the snow, Nor hath she ever chanced to know That aught were easier than to bless. She is most fair, and thereunto Her life doth rightly harmonize ; Feeling or thought that was not true Ne'er made less beautiful the blue Unclouded heaven of her eyes. She is a woman ; one in whom The spring-time of her childish years Hath never lost its fresh perfume, Though knowing well that life hath room For many blights and many tears. I love her with a love as still As a broad river's peaceful might, '43 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Which, by high tower and lowly mill, Goes wandering at its own will, And yet doth ever flow aright. And, on its full, deep breast serene, Like quiet isles my duties lie ; It flows around them and between, And makes them fresh, and fair, and green, Sweet homes wherein to live and die. J. R. LOWELL. 144 SHE CAME AND WENT. e Came ewb Went A S a twig trembles, which a bird Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, So is my memory thrilled and stirred ; I only know she came and went. As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, The blue dome's measureless content, So my soul held that moment's heaven ; I only know she came and went. As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps The orchards full of bloom and scent, So clove her May my wintry sleeps ; I only know she came and went. An angel stood and met my gaze, Through the low doorway of my tent; The tent is struck, the vision stays ; I only know she came and went. MS AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Oh, when the room grows slowly dim, And life's last oil is nearly spent, One gush of light these eyes will brim, Only to think she came and went. J. R. LOWELL, 146 HER EPITAPH. i>etr n^HE handful here, that once was Mary's earth, Held, while it breathed, so beautiful a soul, That, when she died, all recognized her birth, And had their sorrow in serene control. " Not here ! not here ! " to every mourner's heart The wintry wind seemed whispering round her bier; And when the tomb-door opened, with a start We heard it echoed from within, " Not here ! " Shouldst thou, sad pilgrim, who mayst hither pass, Note in these flowers a delicater hue, Should spring come earlier to this hallowed grass, Or the bee later linger on the dew, Know that her spirit to her body lent Such sweetness, grace, as only goodness can ; That even her dust, and this her monument, Have yet a spell to stay one lonely man, H7 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Lonely through life, but looking for the day When what is mortal of himself shall sleep, When human passion shall have passed away, And Love no longer be a thing to weep. T. W. PARSONS. 148 THE ESTRAY. ^ me> m y merr y woodman, Why standest so aghast ? " " My lord ! 'twas a beautiful creature That hath but just gone past ! " " A creature what kind of a creature ? " " Nay, now, but I do not know ! " ' Humph ! what did it make you think of?'* " The sunshine on the snow." " I shall overtake my horse then." The woodman open'd his eye : The gold fell all around him, And a rainbow spann'd the sky. B. F. WILLSON. 149 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 0e tecofceretr. T HAVE a little kinsman Whose earthly summers are but three, And yet a voyager is he Greater than Drake or Frobisher, Than all their peers together ! He is a brave discoverer, And, far beyond the tether Of them who seek the frozen Pole, Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll. Ay, he has travelled whither A winged pilot steered his bark Through the portals of the dark, Past hoary Mimir's well and tree, Across the unknown sea. Suddenly, in his fair young hour, Came one who bore a flower, And laid it in his dimpled hand With this command : " Henceforth thou art a rover ! Thou must make a voyage far, THE DISCOVERER. Sail beneath the evening star, And a wondrous land discover." With his sweet smile innocent Our little kinsman went. Since that time no word From the absent has been heard. Who can tell How he fares, or answer well What the little one has found Since he left us, outward bound ? Would that he might return ! Then should we learn From the pricking of his chart How the skyey roadways part. Hush ! does not the baby this way bring, To lay beside this severed curl, Some starry offering Of chrysolite or pearl ? Ah, no ! not so ! We may follow on his track, But he comes not back. And yet I dare aver He is a brave discoverer Of climes his elders do <**c know. '5* AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. He has more learning than appears On the scroll of twice three thousand years, More than in the groves is taught, Or from furthest Indies brought ; He knows, perchance, how spirits fare, What shapes the angels wear, What is their guise and speech In those lands beyond our reach, And his eyes behold Things that shall never, never be to mortal hearers .told. E. C. STEDMAN. AT LAST. "\17HEN first the bride and bridegroom wed, They love their single selves the best ; A sword is in the marriage bed, Their separate slumbers are not rest. They quarrel, and make up again, They give and suffer worlds of pain. Both right and wrong, They struggle long, Till some good day, when they are old, Some dark day, when the bells are tolled, Death having taken their best of life, They lose themselves, and find each other ; They know that they are husband, wife, For, weeping, they are Father, Mother ! R. H. STODDARD. x From "The Poems of R. H. Stoddard," copyright 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 'S3 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. CRY OF THE TEN THOUSAND. T STAND upon the summit of my years. Behind, the toil, the camp, the march, the strife, The wandering and the desert ; vast, afar, Beyond this weary way, behold ! the Sea ! The sea o'erswept by clouds and winds and wings, By thoughts and wishes manifold, whose breath Is freshness and whose mighty pulse is peace. Palter no question of the dim Beyond ; Cut loose the bark ; such voyage itself is rest ; Majestic motion, unimpeded scope, A widening heaven, a current without care. Eternity ! Deliverance, Promise, Course ! Time-tired souls salute thee from the shore. J. B. BROWN. '54 GONDOLIEDS. i. YESTERDAY. "pvEAR yesterday, glide not so fast; Oh, let me cling To thy white garments floating past; Even to shadows which they cast I cling, I cling. Show me thy face Just once, once more ; a single night Cannot have brought a loss, a blight Upon its grace. Nor are they dead whom thou dost bear, Robed for the grave. See what a smile their red lips wear ; To lay them living wilt thou dare Into a grave ? I know, I know, I left thee first ; now I repent ; I listen now ; I never meant To have thee go. '55 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Just once, once more, tell me the word Thou hadst for me ! Alas ! although my heart was stirred, I never fully knew or heard It was for me. O yesterday, My yesterday, thy sorest pain Were joy couldst thou but come again, Sweet yesterday. Venice, foray 26. II. TO-MORROW. All red with joy the waiting west, O little swallow, Couldst thou tell me which road is best ? Cleaving high air with thy soft breast For keel, O swallow, Thou must overlook My seas and know if I mistake ; I would not the same harbor make Which yesterday forsook. I hear the swift blades dip and plash Of unseen rowers ; 156 GONDOLIEDS. On unknown land the waters dash ; Who knows how it be wise or rash To meet the rowers ! Premi! Premi! Venetians boatmen lean and cry ; With voiceless lips I drift and lie Upon the twilight sea. The swallow sleeps. Her last low call Had sound of warning. Sweet little one, whatever befall, Thou wilt not know that it was all In vain thy warning. I may not borrow A hope, a help. I close my eyes ; Cold wind blows from the Bridge of Sighs ; Kneeling I wait to-morrow. Venice^ May jo. H. H. JACKSON. 157 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 3n TVT EN say the sullen instrument That, from the Master's bow, With pangs of joy or woe, Feels music's soul through every ibre sent, Whispers the ravished strings More than he knew or meant ; Old summers in its memory glow ; The secrets of the wind it sings ; It hears the April-loosened springs ; And mixes with its mood All it dreamed when it stood In the murmurous pine-wood Long ago ! The magical moonlight then Steeped every bough and cone; The roar of the brook in the glen Came dim from the distance blown ; The wind through its glooms sang low, And it swayed to and fro With delight as it stood, In the wonderful wood, Long ago ! 158 IN THE TWILIGHT. O my life, have we not had seasons That only said, " Live and rejoice ? " That asked not for causes and reasons, But made us all feeling and voice ? When we went with the winds in their blowing, When Nature and we were peers, And we seemed to share in the flowing Of the inexhaustible years ? Have we not from the earth drawn juices Too fine for earth's sordid uses ? Have I heard, have I seen All I feel and I know? Doth my heart overween ? Or could it have been Long ago ? Sometimes a breath floats by me, An odor from Dreamland sent, That makes the ghost seem nigh me Of a splendor that came and went, Of a life lived somewhere, I know not In what diviner sphere, Of memories that stay not and go not, Like music heard once by an ear That cannot forget or reclaim it, A something so shy, it would shame it '59 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. To make it a show, A something too vague, could I name it, For others to know, As if I had lived it or dreamed it, As if I had acted or schemed it, Long ago ! And yet, could I live it over, This life that stirs in my brain, Could I be both maiden and lover, Moon and tide, bee and clover, As I seem to have been, once again, Could I but speak and show it, This pleasure more sharp than pain, That baffles and lures me so, The world should not lack a poet, Such as it had In the ages glad, Long ago ! J. R. LOWELL. 160 THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS. i0e0, flje O^HE 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 in the darkness calls and 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. H. W. LONGFELLOW. 161 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 3fune.' FOR a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking : 'Tis heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only God may be had for the asking ; No price is set on the lavish summer ; June may be had by the poorest comer. And what is so rare as a day in June ? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries 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, * From " The Vision of Sir Launfal." 162 JUNE. 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? Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it, We are happy now because God wills it ; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green ; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell ; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing ; The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, 163 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For other couriers we should not lack ; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing, And hark ! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing ! J. R. LOWELL. THE RHODORA. ON BEING ASKED, WHENCE IS THE FLOWER? T N May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes, I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook, To please the desert and the sluggish brook. The purple petals, fallen in the pool, Made the black water with their beauty gay ; Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool, And court the flower that cheapens his array. Rhodora ! if the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being : Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose ! I never thought to ask, I never knew : But, in my simple ignorance, suppose The self-same Power that brought me there brought you. R. W. EMERSON. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. (ftafure, /^v NATURE ! I do not aspire ^^^ To be the highest in thy quire, To be a meteor in the sky, Or comet that may range on high ; Only a zephyr that may blow Among the reeds by the river low ; Give me thy most privy place Where to run my airy race. In some withdrawn, unpublic mead Let me sigh upon a reed, Or in the woods, with leafy din, Whisper the still evening in : Some still work give me to do, Only be it near to you ! For Td rather be thy child And pupil, in the forest wild, Than be the king of men elsewhere, And most sovereign slave of care. H. D. THOREAU. 166 MY STRAWBERRY. r\ MARVEL, fruit of fruits, I pause To reckon thee. I ask what cause Set free so much of red from heats At core of earth, and mixed such sweets With sour and spice : what was that strength Which out of darkness, length by length, Spun all thy shining thread of vine, Netting the fields in bond as thine. I see thy tendrils drink by sips From grass and clover's smiling lips ; I hear thy roots dig down for wells, Tapping the meadow's hidden cells : Whole generations of green things, Descended from long lines of springs, I see make room for thee to bide A quiet comrade by their side; I see the creeping peoples go Mysterious journeys to and fro, Treading to right and left of thee, Doing thee homage wonderingly. I see the wild bees as they fare, Thy cups of honey drink, but spare. 167 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. I mark thee bathe and bathe again In sweet uncalendared spring rain. I watch how all May has of sun Makes haste to have thy ripeness done, While all her nights let dews escape To set and cool thy perfect shape. Ah, fruit of fruits, no more I pause To dream and seek thy hidden laws 1 I stretch my hand and dare to taste, In instant of delicious waste On single feast, all things that went To make the empire thou hast spent. H. H. JACKSON. 1 68 THE HUMBLE-BEE. "DURLY, dozing humble-bee, Where thou art is clime for me. Let them sail for Porto Rique, Far-off heats through seas to seek ; I will follow thee alone, Thou animated torrid-zone ! Zigzag steerer, desert cheerer, Let me chase thy waving lines ; Keep me nearer, me thy hearer, Singing over shrubs and vines. Insect lover of the sun, Joy of thy dominion ! Sailor of the atmosphere ; Swimmer through the waves of air ; Voyager of light and noon ; Epicurean of June ; Wait, I prithee, till I come Within earshot of thy hum, All without is martyrdom. When the south wind, in May days, With a net of shining haze AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Silvers the horizon wall, And with softness touching all, Tints the human countenance With a color of romance, And infusing subtle heats, Turns the sod to violets, Thou, in sunny solitudes, Rover of the underwoods, The green silence dost displace With thy mellow, breezy bass. Hot midsummer's petted crone, Sweet to me thy drowsy tone Tells of countless sunny hours, Long days, and solid banks of flowers ; Of gulfs of sweetness without bound In Indian wildernesses found ; Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure, Firmest cheer, and bird-like pleasure. Aught unsavory or unclean Hath my insect never seen ; But violets and bilberry bells, Maple-sap and daffodels, Grass with green flag half-mast high, Succory to match the sky, 170 THE HUMBLE-BEE. Columbine with horn of honey, Scented fern, and agrimony, Clover, catchfly, adder's-tongue, And brier-roses, dwelt among ; All beside was unknown waste, All was picture as he passed. Wiser far than human seer, Yellow-breeched philosopher ! Seeing only what is fair, Sipping only what is sweet, Thou dost mock at fate and care, Leave the chaff, and take the wheat. When the fierce northwestern blast Cools sea and land so far and fast, Thou already slumberest deep ; Woe and want thou canst outsleep ; Want and woe, which torture us, Thy sleep makes ridiculous. R. W. EMERSON. 171 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. of From " Song of Myself." T AM he that walks with the tender and growing night, I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night. Press close bare-bosom'd night press close mag- netic nourishing night ! Night of south winds night of the large few stars ! Still nodding night mad naked summer night. Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth ! Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees ! Earth of departed sunset earth of the mountains misty-topt ! Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue ! Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river ! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake ! Far-swooping elbow'd earth rich apple-blossom' d earth ! Smile, for your lover comes. W. WHITMAN. 172 THE ASCENT. From " Song of Myself." T AM an acme of things accomplish'd, and I an encloser of things to be. My feet strike an apex of the apices of the stairs, On every step bunches of ages, and larger bunches between the steps, All below duly travel'd, and still I mount and mount. Rise after rise bow the phantoms behind me, Afar down I see the huge first Nothing, I know I was even there, I waited unseen and always, and slept through the lethargic mist, And took my time, and took no hurt from the fetid carbon. Long I was hugg'd close long and long. Immense have been the preparations for me, Faithful and friendly the arms that have help'd me. 173 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Cycles ferried my cradle, rowing and rowing like cheerful boatmen, For room to me stars kept aside in their own rings, They sent influences to look after what was to hold me. Before I was born out of my mother generations guided me, My embryo has never been torpid, nothing could overlay it. For it the nebula cohered to an orb, The long slow strata piled to rest it on, Vast vegetables gave it sustenance, Monstrous sauroids transported it in their mouths and deposited it with care. All forces have been steadily employed to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul. W. WHITMAN. TO THE DANDELION, to f$e cmbefton. DEAR common flower, that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May, Which children pluck, and, full of pride, uphold, High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they An Eldorado in the grass have found, Which not the rich earth's ample round May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be. Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease ; 'Tis the Spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand, Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye. Thou art my tropics and mine Italy ; To look at thee unlocks a warmer clime ; AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. The eyes thou givest me Are in the heart, and heed not space or time : Not in mid June the golden-cuirassed bee Feels a more summer-like warm ravishment In the white lily's breezy tent, His fragrant Sybaris, than I, when first From the dark green thy yellow circles burst. Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, Where, as the breezes pass, The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue That from the distance sparkle through Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. My childhood's earliest thoughts are linked with thee; The sight of thee calls back the robin's song, Who, from the dark old tree Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, And I, secure in childish piety, Listened as if I heard an angel sing With news from heaven, which he could bring 176 TO THE DANDELION. Fresh every day to my untainted ears When birds and flowers and I were happy peers. How like a prodigal doth Nature seem, When thou, for all thy gold, so common art ! Thou teachest me to deem More sacredly of every human heart, Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, Did we but pay the love we owe, And with a child's undoubting wisdom look On all these living pages of God's book. J. R. LOWELL, AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 0am6ereb (Itaufifu*. r "PHIS 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, 178 THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS. 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 : Build thee more stately mansions, O 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 ! O. W. HOLMES. '79 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. S~\ MESSENGER, art thou the king, or I ? Thou dalliest outside the palace gate Till on thine idle armor lie the late And heavy dews. The morn's bright scornful eye Reminds thee ; then, in subtle mockery, Thou smilest at the window where I wait, Who bade thee ride for life. In empty state My days go on, while false hours prophesy Thy quick return ; at last, in sad despair, I cease to bid thee, leave thee free as air ; When lo, thou stand'st before me glad and fleet, And lay'st undreamed-of treasures at my feet. Ah ! messenger, thy royal blood to buy I am too poor. Thou art the king, not I. H. H. JACKSON. 180 STANZAS. T^HOUGHT is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught. We are spirits clad in veils : Man by man was never seen ; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen. Heart to heart was never known ; Mind with mind did never meet ; We are columns left alone Of a temple once complete. Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart, though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie ; All is thus but starlight here. What is social company But a babbling summer stream ? What our wise philosophy But the glancing of a dream ? 181 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Only when the sun of love Melts the scattered stars of thought ; Only when we live above What the dim-eyed world hath taught ; Only when our souls are fed By the Fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led, Which they never drew from earth, We, like parted drops of rain Swelling till they meet and run, Shall be all absorbed again, Melting, flowing into one. C. P. CRANCH. 182 CORONATION. Coronation. A T the king's gate the subtle noon Wove filmy yellow nets of sun ; Into the drowsy snare too soon The guards fell one by one. Through the king's gate, unquestioned then, A beggar went, and laughed, " This brings Me chance, at last, to see if men Fare better, being kings." The king sat bowed beneath his crown, Propping his face with listless hand ; Watching the hour-glass sifting down Too slow its shining sand. " Poor man, what wouldst thou have of me ? " The beggar turned, and, pitying, Replied, like one in dream, " Of thee, Nothing. I want the king." Uprose the king, and from his head Shook off the crown and threw it by. " O man, thou must have known," he said, " A greater king than I." 183 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Through all the gates, unquestioned then, Went king and beggar hand in hand. Whispered the king, "Shall I know when Before his throne I stand ? " The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste Were wiping from the king's hot brow The crimson lines the crown had traced. " This is his presence now." At the king's gate the crafty noon Unwove its yellow nets of sun ; Out of their sleep in terror soon The guards waked one by one. " Ho here ! Ho there ! Has no man seen The king? " The cry ran to and fro ; Beggar and king, they laughed, I ween, The laugh that free men know. On the king's gate the moss grew gray ; The king came not. They called him dead ; And made his eldest son one day Slave in his father's stead. H. H. JACKSON. 184 ON A BUST OF DANTE. a Q5u0f of ante, C EE, from this counterfeit of him Whom Arno shall remember long, How stern of lineament, how grim, The father was of Tuscan song : There but the burning sense of wrong, Perpetual care and scorn, abide ; Small friendship for the lordly throng; Distrust of all the world beside. Faithful if this wan image be, No dream his life was, but a fight ; Could any Beatrice see A lover in that anchorite ? To that cold Ghibelline's gloomy sight Who could have guessed the visions came Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light, In circles of eternal flame ? The lips as Cumae's cavern close, The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose, But for the patient hope within, 185 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Declare a life whose course hath been Unsullied still, though still severe ; Which, through the wavering days of sin, Kept itself icy-chaste and clear. Not wholly such his haggard look When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed, With no companion save his book, To Corvo's hushed monastic shade ; Where, as the Benedictine laid His palm upon the convent's guest, The single boon for which he prayed Was peace, that pilgrim's one request. Peace dwells not here, this rugged face Betrays no spirit of repose ; The sullen warrior sole we trace, The marble man of many woes. Such was his mien when first arose The thought of that strange tale divine. When hell he peopled with his foes, The scourge of many a guilty line. War to the last he waged with all The tyrant canker-worms of earth ; Baron and duke, in hold and hall, Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth ; 186 ON A BUST OF DANTE. He used Rome's harlot for his mirth ; Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime ; But valiant souls of knightly worth Transmitted to the rolls of Time. O Time ! whose verdicts mock our own 5 The only righteous judge art thou ; That poor old exile, sad and lone, Is Latium's other Virgil now : Before his name the nations bow ; His words are parcel of mankind, Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow, The marks have sunk of Dante's mind. T. W. PARSONS 187 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Lines written on the occasion of Lincoln's death. S~\ 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 O 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; 1 88 O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! Here Captain ! dear father ! This 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 nor 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 O shores, and ring O bells ! But I with mournful tread Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. W. WHITMAN. 189 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. (Bnbgmion* '"PHE rising moon has hid the stars; Her level rays, like golden bars, Lie on the landscape green, With shadows brown between. And silver white the river gleams, As if Diana, in her dreams, Had dropt her silver bow Upon the meadows low. On such a tranquil night as this, She woke Endymion with a kiss, When, sleeping in the grove, He dream c 1 not of her love. Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought, Love gives itself, but is not bought ; Nor voice, nor sound betrays Its deep, impassioned gaze. It comes, the beautiful, the free, The crown of all humanity, In silence and alone To seek the elected one. 190 ENDYMION. It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep, And kisses the closed eyes Of him who slumbering lies. O weary hearts ! O slumbering eyes ! O drooping souls, whose destinies Are fraught with fear and pain, Ye shall be loved again ! No one is so accursed by fate, No one so utterly desolate, But some heart, though unknown, Responds unto his own. Responds, as if with unseen wings An angel touched its quivering strings ; And whispers, in its song, " Where hast thou stayed so long ? " H. W. LONGFELLOW. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. TV/T Y heart, I cannot still it, Nest that had song-birds in it? And when the last shall go, The dreary days, to fill it, Instead of lark or linnet, Shall whirl dead leaves and snow. Had they been swallows only, Without the passion stronger That skyward longs and sings, Woe's me, I shall be lonely When I can feel no longer The impatience of their wings ! A moment, sweet delusion, Like birds the brown leaves hover ; But it will not be long Before their wild confusion Fall wavering down to cover The poet and his song. J. R. LOWELL. 192 BIRDS. TDIRDS are singing round my window, Tunes the sweetest ever heard, And I hang my cage there daily, But I never catch a bird. So with thoughts my brain is peopled, And they sing there all day long : But they will not fold their pinions In the little cage of Song. R. H. STODDARD. 'From "The Poems of R. H. Stoddard," copyright, 1880, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 193 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. pRITHEE tell me, Dimple-Chin, At what age does Love begin ? Your blue eyes have scarcely seen Summers three, my fairy queen, But a miracle of sweets, Soft approaches, sly retreats, Show the little archer there, Hidden in your pretty hair; When didst learn a heart to win? Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin ! " Oh ! " the rosy lips reply, " I can't tell you if I try. 'Tis so long I can't remember : Ask some younger lass than I ! " Tell, oh, tell me, Grizzled-Face, Do your heart and head keep pace ? When does hoary Love expire, When do frosts put out the fire ? Can its embers burn below All that chill December snow ? 194 TOUJOURS AMOUR. Care you still soft hands to press, Bonny heads to smooth and bless ? When does Love give up the chase ? Tell, oh, tell me, Grizzled-Face ! " Ah ! " the wise old lips reply, " Youth may pass and strength may die ; But of Love I can't foretoken : Ask some older sage than I ! " E. C. STEDMAN. 195 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. T T was nothing but a rose I gave her, - Nothing but a rose Any wind might rob of half its savor, Any wind that blows. When she took it from my trembling fingers With a hand as chill, Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers, Stays, and thrills them still ! Withered, faded, pressed between the pages, Crumpled fold on fold, Once it lay upon her breast, and ages Cannot make it old ! H. P. SPOFFORD, NO MORE. (fto lore 'T* HIS is the Burden of the Heart, The Burden that it always bore *. We live to love ; we meet to part ; And part to meet on earth 1 More: We clasp each other to the heart, And part to meet on earth No More. There is a time for tears to start, For dews to fall and larks to soar : The Time for Tears, is when we part To meet upon the earth No More : The Time for Tears, is when we part To meet on this wide earth No More. B. F. WILLSON. 197 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. o a TJoung &ivt ging. WITH A GIFT OF FRESH PALM-LEAVES. is Palm Sunday: mindful of the day, I bring palm branches, found upon my way : But these will wither ; thine shall never die, The sacred palms thou bearest to the sky ! Dear little saint, though but a child in years, Older in wisdom than my gray compeers ! We doubt and tremble, we, with bated breath, Talk of this mystery of life and death : Thou, strong in faith, art gifted to conceive Beyond thy years, and teach us to believe ! Then take my palms, triumphal, to thy home, Gentle white palmer, never more to roam ! Only, sweet sister, give me, ere thou go'st, Thy benediction, for my love thou know'st ! We, too, are pilgrims, travelling towards the shrine , Pray that our pilgrimage may end like thine ! T. W. PARSONS. 198 THE PORT OF SHIPS. of T)EHIND 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'ral 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'ral, 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. 1 From The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller. 199 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. These very winds forget their way, For God from these dread seas is gone. Now speak, brave Adm'ral ; speak, and say " He said: " Sail on ! Sail on ! and on ! " They sailed ! They sailed ! Then spake the mate: " This mad sea shows its teeth to-night ; He curls his lip, he lies in wait With lifted teeth, as if to bite ! Brave Adm'ral, say but one good word, What shall we do when hope is gone ? " The words leaped as a leaping sword : Sail on ! Sail on ! Sail on ! and on ! " C. H. MILLER. 200 PARADISI GLORIA. nn HE RE is a city, builded by no hand, And unapproachable by sea or shore, And unassailable by any band Of storming soldiery for evermore. There we no longer shall divide our time By acts or pleasures, doing petty things Of work or warfare, merchandise or rhyme ; But we shall sit beside the silver springs That flow from God's own footstool, and behold Sages and martyrs, and those blessed few Who loved us once and were beloved of old, To dwell with them and walk with them anew, In alternations of sublime repose, Musical motion, the perpetual play Of every faculty that Heaven bestows Through the bright, busy, and eternal day. T. W. PARSONS. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. T N the summer even, While yet the dew was hoar, I went plucking purple pansies, Till my love should come to shore. The fishing-lights their dances Were keeping out at sea, And come, I sung, my true love ! Come hasten home to me ! But the sea, it fell a-moaning, And the white gulls rocked thereon ; And the young moon dropped from heaven, And the lights hid one by one. All silently their glances Slipped down the cruel sea, And wait ! cried the night and wind and storm, Wait, till I come to thee ! H. P. SPOFFORD. 202 BOOK THIRD. THE FOOL'S PRAYER. $oof HTHE royal feast was done; the King Sought some new sport to banish care, And to his jester cried : " Sir Fool, Kneel now, and make for us a prayer ! " The jester doffed his cap and bells, And stood the mocking court before ; They could not see the bitter smile Behind the painted grin he wore. He bowed his head, and bent his knee Upon the monarch's silken stool ; His pleading voice arose : " O Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool ! " No pity, Lord, could change the heart From red with wrong to white as wool 5 The rod must heal the sin : but, Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 'Tis not by guilt the onward sweep Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay ; 'Tis by our follies that so long We hold the earth from heaven away. 205 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. " These clumsy feet, still in the mire, Go crushing blossoms without end ; These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust Among the heart-strings of a friend. " The ill-timed truth we might have kept Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ? The word we had not sense to say Who knows how grandly it had rung ? " Our faults no tenderness should ask, The chastening stripes must cleanse them all ; But for our blunders oh, in shame Before the eyes of heaven we fall. " Earth bears no balsam for mistakes ; Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will ; but Thou, O Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool ! " The room was hushed ; in silence rose The King, and sought his gardens cool, And walked apart, and murmured low, " Be merciful to me, a fool ! " E. R. SILL. 206 ON THE LIFE -MASK OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. of @6ra0am feincofn. 'T^HIS bronze doth keep the very form and mold Of our great martyr's face. Yes, this is he : That brow all wisdom, all benignity ; That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold Like some harsh landscape all the summer's gold ; That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea For storms to beat on ; the lone agony Those silent, patient lips too well foretold. Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men As might some prophet of the elder day, Brooding above the tempest and the fray With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken. A power was his beyond the touch of art Or armed strength : his pure and mighty heart. R. W. GILDER. 207 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. "WEARS have flown since I knew thee first, And I know thee as water is known of thirst : Yet I knew thee of old at the first sweet sight, And thou art strange to me, Love, to-night. R. W. GILDER. 208 TO A DEAD WOMAM. a eafc *M" OT a kiss in life ; but one kiss, at life's end, I have set on the face of Death in trust for thee. Through long years keep it fresh on thy lips, O friend ! At the gate of Silence give it back to me. H. C. BUNNER. 1 From " The Poems of H. C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons. "09 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down Each with its loveliness as with a crown, Drooped in a florist's window in a town. The first a lover bought. It lay at rest, Like flower on flower, that night, on Beauty's breast The second rose, as virginal and fair, Shrunk in the tangles of a harlot's hair. The third, a widow, with new grief made wilcl Shut in the icy palm of her dead child. T. B. ALDRICH. v THE KINGS. A MAN said unto his angel : "" " My spirits are fallen thro', And I cannot carry this battle ; O brother ! what shall I do ? " The terrible Kings are on me, With spears that are deadly bright, Against me so from the cradle Do fate and my fathers fight." Then said to the man his angel: " Thou wavering, foolish soul, Back to the ranks ! What matter To win or to lose the whole, "As judged by the little judges Who hearken not well, nor see ? Not thus, by the outer issue, The Wise shall interpret thee. " Thy will is the very, the only, The solemn event of things ; The weakest of hearts defying Is stronger than all these Kings. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. " Tho' out of the past they gather, Mind's Doubt and bodily Pain, And pallid Thirst of the Spirit That is kin to the other twain, " And Grief, in a cloud of banners, And ringletted Vain Desires, And Vice with the spoils upon him Of thee and thy beaten sires, " While Kings of eternal evil Yet darken the hills about, Thy part is with broken sabre To rise on the last redoubt ; u To fear not sensible failure, Nor covet the game at all, But fighting, fighting, fighting, Die, driven against the wall ! " L. I. GUINEY. 212 TRIUMPH. '"PHE dawn came in through the bars of the blind, And the winter's dawn is gray, And said, " However you cheat your mind, The hours are flying away." A ghost of a dawn, and pale, and weak, " Has the sun a heart," I said, " To throw a morning flush on the cheek Whence a fairer flush has fled ? " As a gray rose-leaf that is fading white Was the cheek where I set my kiss ; And on that side of the bed all night Death had watched, and I on this. I kissed her lips, they were half apart, Yet they made no answering sign ; Death's hand was on her failing heart, And his eyes said, " She is mine." 1 From " The Poems of H. C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 213 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. I set my lips on the blue-veined lid, Half-veiled by her death-damp hair; And oh, for the violet depths it hid And the light I longed for there ! Faint day and the fainter life awoke, And the night was overpast; And I said, " Though never in life you spoke Oh, speak with a look at last ! " For the space of a heart-beat fluttered her breath, As a bird's wing spread to flee ; She turned her weary arms to Death, And the light of her eyes to me. H. C. BUNNER. 214 EVENING SONG. (Evening T OOK off, dear Love, across the sallow sands, And mark yon meeting of the sun and sea, How long they kiss in sight of all the lands. Ah ! longer, longer, we. Now in the sea's red vintage melts the sun, As Egypt's pearl dissolved in rosy wine, And Cleopatra night drinks all. 'Tis done, Love, lay thine hand in mine. Come forth, sweet stars, and comfort heaven's heart ; Glimmer, ye waves, round else unlighted sands. O night ! divorce our sun and sky apart, Never our lips, our hands. S. LANIER. 1 From " Poems of Sidney Lanier," copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D. Lanier, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. (gring tye '~pHE wind from out the west is blowing, The homeward-wandering cows are lowing, Dark grow the pine-woods, dark and drear, The woods that bring the sunset near. When o'er wide seas the sun declines, Far off its fading glory shines, Far off, sublime, and full of fear, The pine-woods bring the sunset near. This house that looks to east, to west, This, dear one, is our home, our rest ; Yonder the stormy sea, and here The woods that bring the sunset near. R. W. GILDER. 216 MY LOVE FOR THEE. feofce Sot TV/T Y love for thee doth march like armed men, Against a queenly city they would take. Along the army's front its banners shake ; Across the mountain and the sun-smit plain It steadfast sweeps as sweeps the steadfast rain ; And now the trumpet makes the still air quake, And now the thundering cannon doth awake Echo on echo, echoing loud again. But, lo ! the conquest higher than bard e'er sung : Instead of answering cannon, proud surrender ! Joyful the iron gates are open flung And, for the conqueror, welcome gay and tender ! Oh, bright the invader's path with tribute flowers, While comrade flags flame forth on wall and towers ! R. W. GILDER. 217 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. in 08 &o*e 3 trust" CTILL in thy love I trust, Supreme o'er death, since deathless is thy essence ; For, putting off the dust, Thou hast but blest me with a nearer presence. And so, for this, for all, I breathe no selfish plaint, no faithless chiding ; On me the snowflakes fall, But thou hast gained a summer all-abiding. Striking a plaintive string, Like some poor harper at a palace portal, I wait without and sing, While those I love glide in and dwell immortal. A. A. FIELDS. 218 THE FUTURE. 0e $ufure. "IITHAT may we take into the vast Forever ? That marble door Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor, No fame-wreathed crown we wore, No garnered lore. What can we bear beyond the unknown portal ? No gold, no gains Of all our toiling : in the life immortal No hoarded wealth remains, Nor gilds, nor stains. Naked from out that far abyss behind us We entered here : No word came with our coming, to remind us What wondrous world was near, No hope, no fear. Into the silent, starless Night before us, Naked we glide : No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us, No comrade at our side, No chart, no guide. 219 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow, Our footsteps fare : The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow His love alone is there, No curse, no care. E. R. SILL. 220 PRESCIENCE. (prescience. HTHE new moon hung in the sky, The sun was low in the west, And my betrothed and I In the churchyard paused to rest Happy maiden and lover, Dreaming the old dream over : The light winds wandered by, And robins chirped from the nest. And lo ! in the meadow-sweet Was the grave of a little child, With a crumbling stone at the feet, And the ivy running wild Tangled ivy and clover Folding it over and over : Close to my sweetheart's feet Was the little mound up-piled. Stricken with nameless fears, She shrank and clung to me, And her eyes were filled with tears For a sorrow I did not see : 221 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Lightly the winds were blowing, Softly her tears were flowing Tears for the unknown years And a sorrow that was to be ! T. B. ALDRICH. 222 IN AUGUST. 3n (August A LL the long August afternoon, "^ The little drowsy stream Whispers a melancholy tune, As if it dreamed of June And whispered in its dream. The thistles show beyond the brook Dust on their down and bloom, And out of many a weed-grown nook The aster-flowers look With eyes of tender gloom. The silent orchard aisles are sweet With smell of ripening fruit. Through the sere grass, in shy retreat, Flutter, at coming feet, The robins strange and mute. There is no wind to stir the leaves, The harsh leaves overhead ; Only the querulous cricket grieves, And shrilling locust weaves A song of Summer dead. W. D. HOWELLS. 223 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. ag n^ou Came* UCH special sweetness was about That day God sent you here, 1 knew the lavender was out, And it was mid of year. Their common way the great winds blew, The ships sailed out to sea ; Yet ere that day was spent I knew Mine own had come to me. As after song some snatch of tune Lurks still in grass or bough, So, somewhat of the end o' June Lurks in each weather now. The young year sets the buds astir, The old year strips the trees ; But ever in my lavender I hear the brawling bees. L. W. REESE. 224 DE SHEEPFOL'. A NEGRO MELODY. pvE massa ob de sheepfoP, Dat guards de sheepfol' bin, Look out in de gloom erin' meadows^ Wha'r de long night rain begin So he call to de hirelin' shepa'd, " Is my sheep, is dey all come in ? " Oh, den, says de hirelin' shepa'd : " Dey's some, dey's black and thin, And some, dey's po' oP wedda's ; But de res', dey's all brung in. But de res', dey's all brung in." Den de massa ob de sheepfoP, Dat guards de sheepfoP bin, Goes down in de gloomerin' meadows, Wha'r de long night rain begin So he le' down de ba's ob de sheepfoP, Callin' sof, " Come in. Come in." Callin' sof, " Come in. Come in." Den up t'ro' de gloomerin' meadows, T'ro' de coP night rain and win', 225 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. And up t'ro' de gloomerin' rain-paf, Wha'r de sleet fa' pie'cin' thin, De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfoP, Dey all comes gadderin' in. De po' los' sheep ob de sheepfoP, Dey all comes gadderin' in. S. P. McL. GREENE 226 WAITING. CERENE, I fold my hands and wait, Nor care for wind, or tide, or 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 has 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 delight 227 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 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. J. BURROUGHS. 228 THE FLIGHT. T TPON a cloud among the stars we stood. The angel raised his hand and looked and said, " Which world, of all yon starry myriad Shall we make wing to ? " The still solitude Became a harp whereon his voice and mood Made spheral music round his haloed head. I spake for then I had not long been dead " Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood A moment on these orbs ere I decide. . . . What is yon lower star that beauteous shines And with soft splendor now incarnadines Our wings ? There would I go and there abide." He smiled as one who some child's thought divines : " That is the world where yesternight you died." L. MIFFLIN. 229 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. '"pHERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood Touch of manner, hint of mood ; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time. The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by, And my lonely spirit thrills To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the hills. There is something in October sets the gypsy blood astir ; We must rise and follow her, When from every hill of flame She calls and calls each vagabond by name. B. CARMAN. 230 LITTLE BOY BLUE. feifffe 'IP HE 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 moulds 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 dreampt 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, 1 From " A Little Book of Western Verse," copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. 2 3 I AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Awaiting the touch of a little hand, The smile of a little face. And they wonder, as waiting these 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. E. FIELD. STRONG AS DEATH. eerffl. 1 /^V DEATH, when thou shalt come to me From out thy dark, where she is now, Come not with graveyard smell on thee, Or withered roses on thy brow. Come not, O Death, with hollow tone, And soundless step, and clammy hand Lo, I am now no less alone Than in thy desolate, doubtful land ; But with that sweet and subtle scent That ever clung about her (such As with all things she brushed was blent) ; And with her quick and tender touch. With the dim gold that lit her hair, Crown thyself, Death ; let fall thy tread So light that I may dream her there, And turn upon my dying bed. * From " The Poems of H. C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 233 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. And through my chilling veins shall flame My love, as though beneath her breath ; And in her voice but call my name, And I will follow thee, O Death. H. C. BUNNER. 234 THE WHITE JESSAMINE. T KNEW she lay above me, Where the casement all the night Shone, softened with a phosphor glow Of sympathetic light, And that her fledgling spirit pure Was pluming fast for flight. Each tendril throbbed and quickened As I nightly climbed apace, And could scarce restrain the blossoms When, anear the destined place, Her gentle whisper thrilled me Ere I gazed upon her face. I waited, darkling, till the dawn Should touch me into bloom, While all my being panted To outpour its first perfume, When, lo ! a paler flower than mine Had blossomed in the gloom ! J. B. TABS. 235 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. JE>ouse of TVT OT a hand has lifted the latchet Since she went out of the door- No footstep shall cross the threshold, Since she can come in no more. There is rust upon locks and hinges, And mold and blight on the walls, And silence faints in the chambers, And darkness waits in the halls Waits as all things have waited Since she went, that day of spring, Borne in her pallid splendor To dwell in the Court of the King : With lilies on brow and bosom, With robes of silken sheen, And her wonderful, frozen beauty, The lilies and silk between. Red roses she left behind her, But they died long, long ago 236 THE HOUSE OF DEATH. 'Twas the odorous ghost of a blossom That seemed through the dusk to glow. The garments she left mock the shadows With hints of womanly grace, And her image swims in the mirror That was so used to her face. The birds make insolent music Where the sunshine riots outside, And the winds are merry and wanton With the summer's pomp and pride. But into this desolate mansion, Where Love has closed the door, Nor sunshine nor summer shall enter, Since she can come in no more. L. C. MOULTON. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. $ $rojricaf Q&otrning erf JJea. C KY in its lucent splendor lifted Higher than cloud can be ; Air with no breath of earth to stain it, Pure on the perfect sea. Crests that touch and tilt each other, Jostling as they comb ; Delicate crash of tinkling water, Broken in pearling foam. Flashings or is it the pinewood's whispers, Babble of brooks unseen, Laughter of winds when they find the blossoms. Brushing aside the green ? Waves that dip, and dash, and sparkle ; Foam-wreaths slipping by, Soft as a snow of broken roses Afloat over mirrored sky. Off to the east the steady sun-track Golden meshes fill 238 A TROPICAL MORNING AT SEA. Webs of fire, that lace and tangle, Never a moment still. Liquid palms but clap together, Fountains, flower-like, grow Limpid bells on stems of silver Out of a slope of snow. Sea-depths, blue as the blue of violets Blue as a summer sky, When you blink at its arch sprung over Where in the grass you lie. Dimly an orange bit of rainbow Burns where the low west clears, Broken in air, like a passionate promise Born of a moment's tears. Thinned to amber, rimmed with silver, Clouds in the distance dwell, Clouds that are cool, for all their color, Pure as a rose-lipped shell. Fleets of wool in the upper heavens Gossamer wings unfurl ; Sailing so high they seem but sleeping Over yon bar of pearl. 2 39 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. What would the great world lose, I wonder Would it be missed or no If we stayed in the opal morning, Floating forever so ? Swung to sleep by the swaying water, Only to dream all day Blow, salt wind from the north upstarting, Scatter such dreams away ! E. R. SILL. 240 MEMORY. (JJlemorg. TV/T Y mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, And yet recalls the very hour 'Twas noon by yonder village tower, And on the last blue noon in May The wind came briskly up this way, Crisping the brook beside the road ; Then, pausing here, set down its load Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly Two petals from that wild-rose tree. T. B. ALDRICH. 241 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. $ (gtoob* A BLIGHT, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness ; A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's in- sistence ; A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone ex- istence ; A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blos- somed bough is broken. T. B. ALDRICH. 242 THE WAY TO ARCADY. Wag to f~\H, what's the way to A ready, To A ready, to A ready ; Oh, whafs the way to A ready, Where all the leaves are merry ? Oh, what's the way to Arcady? The spring is rustling in the tree The tree the wind is blowing through It sets the blossoms flickering white. I knew not skies could burn so blue Nor any breezes blow so light. They blow an old-time way for me, Across the world to Arcady. Oh, what's the way to Arcady? Sir Poet, with the rusty coat, Quit mocking of the song-bird's note. How have you heart for any tune, You with the wayworn russet shoon ? Your scrip, a-swinging by your side, Gapes with a gaunt mouth hungry-wide. I'll brim it well with pieces red, If you will tell the way to tread. 1 From " The Poems of H. C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896^ by Charles Scribner's Sons. 243 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Oh, I am bound for A ready. And if you but keep pace with me You tread the way to Arcady. And where away lies Arcady, And how long yet may the journey be ? Ah, that (quoth he) / do not know Across the clover and the snow Across the frost, across the flowers Through summer seconds and winter hours. Pve trod the way my whole life long, And know not now where it may be; My guide is but the stir to song, That tells me I can not go wrong, Or clear or dark the pathway be Upon the road to Arcady. But how shall I do who cannot sing ? I was wont to sing, once on a time There is never an echo now to ring Remembrance back to the trick of rhyme. '7 strange you cannot sing (quoth he), The folk all sing in Arcady. But how may he find Arcady Who hath not youth nor melody ? 244 THE WAY TO ARCADY. What, know you not, old man (quoth he) Your hair is white, your face is wise That Love must kiss that Mortal \r eyes Who hopes to see fair A ready f No gold can buy you entrance there ; But beggared Love may go all bare No wisdom won with weariness ; But Love goes in with Foltys dress No fame that wit could ever win; But only Love may lead Love in To Arcady, to A ready. Ah, woe is me, through all my days Wisdom and wealth I both have got, And fame and name, and great men's praise ; But Love, ah, Love ! I have it not. There was a time, when life was new But far away, and half forgot I only know her eyes were blue ; But Love I fear I knew it not. We did not wed, for lack of gold, And she is dead, and I am old. All things have come since then to me, Save Love, ah, Love ! and Arcady. 245 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Ah, then I fear we part (quoth he), My way^s for Love and A ready. But you, you fare alone, like me ; The gray is likewise in your hair. What love have you to lead you there, To Arcady, to Arcady? Ah, no, not lonely do I fare ; My true companions Memory. With Love he fills the Spring-time air; With Love he clothes the Winter tree. Oh, past this poor horizons bound My song goes straight to one who stands - Her face all gladdening at the sound To lead me to the Spring-green lands, To wander with enlacing hands. The songs within my breast that stir Are all of her, are all of her. My maid is dead long years (quoth he), She waits for me in Arcady. Oh, yon* s the way to Arcady, To Arcady, to Arcady ; Oh, yon's the way to Arcady, Where all the leaves are merry. H. C. BUNKER. 246 EVE'S DAUGHTER. T WAITED in the little sunny room : The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play, The white rose on the porch was all in bloom, And out upon the bay I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come. " Such an old friend, she would not make me stay While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo, Danae in her shower ! and fit to slay All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow : Gold hair, that streamed away As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow. "She would not make me wait!" but well I know She took a good half-hour to loose and lay Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so ! E. R. SILL. 247 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. an 3nfagfio JE>eab of T3ENEATH the warrior's helm, behold The flowing tresses of the woman ! Minerva, Pallas, what you will A winsome creature, Greek or Roman. Minerva ? No ! 'tis some sly minx In cousin's helmet masquerading ; If not then Wisdom was a dame For sonnets and for serenading ! I thought the goddess cold, austere, Not made for love's despairs and blisses : Did Pallas wear her hair like that ? Was Wisdom's mouth so shaped for kisses ? The Nightingale should be her bird, And not the Owl, big-eyed and solemn : How very fresh she looks, and yet She's older far than Trajan's Column ! The magic hand that carved this face, And set this vine-work round it running, Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought Had lost its subtle skill and cunning. 248 ON AN INTAGLIO HEAD OF MINERVA. Who was he ? Was he glad or sad, Who knew to carve in such a fashion ? Perchance he graved the dainty head For some brown girl that scorned his passioa Perchance, in some still garden-place, Where neither fount nor tree to-day is, He flung the jewel at the feet Of Phryne, or perhaps 'twas Lais. But he is dust ; we may not know His happy or unhappy story : Nameless, and dead these centuries, His work outlives him there's his glory ! Both man and jewel lay in earth Beneath a lava-buried city ; The countless summers came and went With neither haste, nor hate, nor pity. Years blotted out the man, but left The jewel fresh as any blossom, Till some Visconti dug it up To rise and fall on Mabel's bosom ! O nameless brother ! see how Time Your gracious handiwork has guarded : 240 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. See how your loving, patient art Has come, at last, to be rewarded. Who would not suffer slights of men, And pangs of hopeless passion also, To have his carven agate-stone On such a bosom rise and fall so ! T. B. ALI>*UCH HUNTING-SONG. /^VH, who would stay indoor, indoor, ^ When the horn is on the hill ? (Bugle : Tar- antara ! ) With the crisp air stinging, and the huntsmen singing, And a ten-tined buck to kill ! Before the sun goes down, goes down, We shall slay the buck of ten ; (Bugle : Tarantara ! ) And the priest shall say benison, and we shall ha'e venison, When we come home again. Let him that loves his ease, his ease, Keep close and house him fair ; (Bugle : Tarantara ! ) He'll still be a stranger to the merry thrill of danger And the joy of the open air. But he that loves the hills, the hills, Let him come out to-day ! (Bugle : Tarantara I ) For the horses are neighing, and the hounds are baying, And the hunt's up, and away ! R. HOVEY. 251 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS, TV/T Y life closed twice before its close ; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me, So huge, so hopeless to conceive, As these that twice befell. Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell. E. UICKINSON. 2*2 WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN. (Bees fo Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan, Even before he gets so far As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, At the last of the thirty palace-gates, The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, Orders a feast in his favorite room Glittering squares of colored ice, Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice, Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, Limes, and citrons, and apricots, And wines that are known to Eastern princes; And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots Of spiced meats and costliest fish And all that the curious palate could wish, Pass in and out of the cedarn doors : Scattered over mosaic floors Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, And a musical fountain throws its jets Of a hundred colors into the air. The dusk Sultana loosens her hair, 2 53 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. And stains with the henna-plant the tips Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips Till they bloom again ; but, alas, that rose Not for the Sultan buds and blows ! Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman When he goes to the city Ispahan. Then at a wave of her sunny hand The dancing-girls of Samarcand Glide in like shapes from fairy-land, Making a sudden mist in air Of fleecy veils and floating hair And white arms lifted. Orient blood Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes. And there, in this Eastern Paradise, Filled with the breath of sandal-wood^ And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh, Sits Rose-in-Blqom on a silk divan, Sipping the wines of Astrakhan ; And her Arab lover sits with her. That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan. Now, when I see an extra light, Flaming, flickering on the night From my neighbor's casement opposite, 254 WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN. I know as well as I know to pray, I know as well as a tongue can say, That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman Has gone to the city Ispahan. T. B. ALDRICH AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. , of old, was God's dominion ; 'Twas His beloved child, His own first-born; And He was aged ere the thought of morn Shook the sheer steeps of black Oblivion. Then all the works of darkness being done Through countless aeons hopelessly forlorn, Out to the very utmost verge and bourn, God at the last, reluctant, made the sun. He loved His darkness still, for it was old : He grieved to see His eldest child take flight ; And when His Fiat lux the death-knell tolled, As the doomed Darkness backward by Him rolled, He snatched a remnant flying into light And strewed it with the stars, and called it Night, L. MIFFLIN. 256 HE MADE THE STARS ALSO. f>e "WAST hollow voids, beyond the utmost reach Of suns, their legions withering at His nod, Died into day hearing the voice of God ; And seas new made, immense and furious, each Plunged and rolled forward, feeling for a beach ; He walked the waters with effulgence shod. This being made, He yearned for worlds to make From other chaos out beyond our night For to create is still God's prime delight The large moon, all alone, sailed her dark lake, And the first tides were moving to her might; Then Darkness trembled, and began to quake Big with the birth of stars, and when He spake A million worlds leapt into radiant light ! L. MIFFLIN. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. VyiNDof the North, Wind of the Norland snows, Wind of the winnowed skies and sharp, clear stars Blow cold and keen across the naked hills, And crisp the lowland pools with crystal films, And blur the casement-squares with glittering ice, But go not near my love. Wind of the West, Wind of the few, far clouds, Wind of the gold and crimson sunset lands Blow fresh and pure across the peaks and plains, And broaden the blue spaces of the heavens, And sway the grasses and the mountain pines, But let my dear one rest. Wind of the East, Wind of the sunrise seas, Wind of the clinging mists and gray, harsh rains Blow moist and chill across the wastes of brine, And shut the sun out, and the moon and stars, And lash the boughs against the dripping eaves, Yet keep thou from my love. THE FOUR WINDS. But thou, sweet wind ! Wind of the fragrant South, Wind from the bowers of jasmine and of rose Over magnolia glooms and lilied lakes And flowering forests come with dewy wings, And stir the petals at her feet, and kiss The low mound where she lies. C. H. LUDERS. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. "VT O W at last I am at home Wind abeam and flooding tide, And the offing white with foam, And an old friend by my side Glad the long, green waves to ride. Strange how we've been wandering Through the crowded towns for gain. You and I who loved the sting Of the salt spray and the rain And the gale across the main ! What world honors could avail Loss of this the slanted mast, And the roaring round the rail, And the sheeted spray we cast Round us as we seaward passed ? As the sad land sinks apace, With it sinks each thought of care; Think not now of aging face ; Question not the whitening hair : Youth still beckons everywhere. 260 THE RETURN. And the light we thought had fled From the sky-line glows there now ; Bends the same blue overhead ; And the waves we used to plow Part in beryl at the bow. Hours like this we two have known In the old days, when we sailed Seaward ere the night had flown, Or the morning star had paled Like the shy eyes love has veiled. Round our bow the ripples purled, As the swift tide outward streamed Through a hushed and ghostly world, Where our harbor reaches seemed Like a river that we dreamed. Then we saw the black hills sway In the waters' crinkled glass, And the village wan and gray, And the startled cattle pass Through the tangled meadow-grass. Through the glooming we have run Straight into the gates of day, 261 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS, Seen the crimson-edged sun Burn the sea's gray bound away Leap to universal sway. Little cared we where we drove So the wind was strong and keen. Oh, what sun-crowned waves we clove ! What cool shadows lurked between Those long combers pale and green ! Graybeard pleasures are but toys ; Sorrow shatters them at last : For this brief hour we are boys ; Trim the sheet and face the blast ; Sail into the happy past ! L. F. TOOKER. 362 BEREAVED. T ET me come in where you sit weeping, aye, Let me, who have not any child to die, Weep with you for the little one whose love I have known nothing of. The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed Their pressure round your neck ; the hands you used To kiss. Such arms such hands I never knew. May I not weep with you? Fain would I be of service say some thing, Between the tears, that would be comforting, But ah ! so sadder than yourselves am I, Who have no child to die. J. W. RILEY. 163 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. "DECAUSE I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me ; The carriage held but just ourselves And Immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put away My labor, and my leisure too, For his civility. We passed the school where children played, Their lessons scarcely done ; We passed the fields of gazing grain, We passed the setting sun. We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground ; The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound. Since then 'tis centuries ; but each Feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads Were toward eternity. E. DICKINSON. 264 INDIAN SUMMER. ummer. HTHESE are the days when birds come back, A very few, a bird or two, To take a backward look, These are the days when skies put on The old, old sophistries of June, A blue and gold mistake. Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee, Almost thy plausibility Induces my belief, Till ranks of seeds their witness bear, And softly through the altered air Hurries a timid leaf ! Oh, sacrament of summer days, Oh, last communion in the haze, Permit a child to join, Thy sacred emblems to partake, Thy consecrated bread to break, Taste thine immortal wine ! E. DICKINSON. 265 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Conffteb. A NOTHER lamb, O Lamb of God, behold, Within this quiet fold, Among Thy Father's sheep I lay to sleep ! A heart that never for a night did rest Beyond its mother's breast. Lord, keep it close to Thee, Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me ! J. B. TABB. IN ABSENCE. 3n A LL that thou art not, makes not up the sum Of what thou art, beloved, unto me : All other voices, wanting thine, are dumb ; All vision, in thine absence, vacancy. J. B. TABB O 207 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. of (~)UT of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapids 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 wilful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving 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 H all. 1 From " Poems of Sidney Lanier," copyright, 1884, 1891, by Mary D. Lanier, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. 268 SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE. 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, 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 acloud 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 for to water the plain. 269 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. 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. S. LANIER. 270 SONG. IN LEINSTER. T TRY to knead and spin, but my life is low the while. Oh, I long to be alone, and walk abroad a mile ; Yet if I walk alone, and think of naught at all, Why from me that's young should the wild tears fall ? The shower-st r icken earth, the earth-colored streams, They breathe on me awake, and moan to me in dreams ; And louder >^y fondling the broke castle- wall, upon xny heart till the wild tears fall. i 'i& *~abin door looks down a furze-lighted hill, Ai*d far PS Leighlin Cross the fields are green and 3tiH 5 /**>t once I hear the blackbird in Leighlin hedges call, r ^ie foolishness is on me, and the wild tears fall. L. I. GUINEY. 271 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. in V\THEN I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray. My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night, Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight. Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather, No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills. R. HOVEY. AT GIBRALTAR. i. "C*NGLAND, I stand on thy imperial ground, Not all a stranger ; as thy bugles blow, I feel within my blood old battles flow, The blood whose ancient founts in thee are found. Still surging dark against the Christian bound Wide Islam presses ; well its peoples know Thy heights that watch them wandering below ; I think how Lucknow heard their gathering sound. I turn and meet the cruel turbaned face ; England, 'tis sweet to be so much thy son ! I feel the conqueror in my blood and race ; Last night Trafalgar awed me, and to-day Gibraltar wakened ; hark, thy evening gun Startles the desert over Africa ! II. Thou art the rock of empire, set mid-seas Between the East and West, that God has built ; Advance thy Roman borders where thou wilt, While run thy armies true with His decrees. 2 73 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Law, justice, liberty, great gifts are these ; Watch that they spread where English blood is spilt, Lest, mixt and sullied with his country's guilt, The soldier's life-stream flow and Heaven displease. Two swords there are : one naked, apt to smite, Thy blade of war ; and, battled-storied, one Rejoices in the sheath and hides from light. American I am ; would wars were done ! Now westward look, my country bids Good-night, Peace to the world from ports without a gun ! G. E. WOODBERRY. JERRY AN' ME. "^T O matter how the chances are, Nor when the winds may blow, My Jerry there has left the sea With all its luck an' woe : For who would try the sea at all, Must try it luck or no. They told him Lor', men take no care How words they speak may fall They told him blunt, he was too old, Too slow with oar an' trawl, An' this is how he left the sea An' luck an' woe an' all. Take any man on sea or land Out of his beaten way, If he is young 'twill do, but then, If he is old an' gray, A month will be a year to him, Be all to him you may. He sits by me, but most he walks The door-yard for a deck, 275 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. An' scans the boat a-goin' out Till she becomes a speck, Then turns away, his face as wet As if she were a wreck. I cannot bring him back again, The days when we were wed. But he shall never know my man The lack o' love or bread, While I can cast a stitch or fill A needleful o' thread. God pity me, I'd most forgot How many yet there be, Whose goodmen full as old as mine Are somewhere on the sea, Who hear the breakin' bar an' think O' Jerry home an' me. H. RICH 276 FROST. frost TTOW small a tooth hath mined the season's heart! How cold a touch hath set the wood on fire, Until it blazes like a costly pyre Built for some Ganges emperor, old and swart, Soul-sped on clouds of incense ! Whose the art That webs the streams, each morn, with silver wire, Delicate as the tension of a lyre, Whose falchion pries the chestnut-burr apart ? It is the Frost, a rude and Gothic sprite, Who doth unbuild the Summer's palaced wealth, And puts her dear loves all to sword or flight; Yet in the hushed, unmindful winter's night The spoiler builds again with jealous stealth, And sets a mimic garden, cold and bright. E. M. THOMAS 277 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Were 6uf QJtg JJpirif feooseb upon tye @m TIT ERE but my spirit loosed upon the air, By some High Power who could Life's chains unbind, Set free to seek what most it longs to find, To no proud Court of Kings would I repair : I would but climb, once more, a narrow stair, When day was wearing late, and dusk was kind ; And one should greet me to my failings blind, Content so I but shared his twilight there. Nay ! well I know he waits not as of old, I could not find him in the old-time place, I must pursue him, made by sorrow bold, Through worlds unknown, in strange Celestial race, Whose mystic round no traveller has told, From star to star, until I see his face. L. C. MOULTON. 278 EBB AND FLOW. 66 T WALKED beside the evening sea, And dreamed a dream that could not be , The waves that plunged along the shore Said only : " Dreamer, dream no more ! " But still the legions charged the beach ; Loud rang their battle-cry, like speech ; But changed was the imperial strain : It murmured : " Dreamer, dream again ! " I homeward turned from out the gloom, That sound I heard not in my room ; But suddenly a sound, that stirred Within my very breast, I heard. It was my heart, that like a sea Within my breast beat ceaselessly : But like the waves along the shore, It said : " Dream on ! " and " Dream no more ! " G. W. CURTIS, 279 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. $60ence of feiftfe HOOSIER DIALECT. C ENCE little Wesley went, the place seems all so strange and still W'y, I miss his yell o' " Gran'pap ! " as I'd miss the whipperwill ! And to think I ust to scold him fer his everlastin' noise, When I on'y rickollect him as the best o' little boys ! I wisht a hunderd times a day 'at he'd come trompin' in, And all the noise he ever made was twic't as loud ag'in! It 'u'd seem like some soft music played on some fine insturment, 'Longside o' this loud lonesomeness, sence little Wesley went ! Of course the clock don't tick no louder than it ust to do Yit now they's times it 'pears like it 'u'd bu'st itse'f in two ! And let a rooster, suddent-like, crow som'er's clos't around, And seems's ef, mighty nigh it, it 'u'd lift me off the ground ! 280 THE ABSENCE OF LITTLE WESLEY. And same with all the cattle when they bawl around the bars, In the red o' airly mornin', er the dusk and dew and stars, When the neighbers' boys 'at passes never stop, but jes' go on, A-whistlin' kind o' to theirse'v's sence little Wes- ley's gone ! And then, o' nights, when Mother's settin' up oncom- mon late, A-bilin' pears er somepin', and I set and smoke and wait, Tel the moon out through the winder don't look big- ger'n a dime, And things keeps gittin' stiller stiller stiller all the time, I've ketched myse'f a-wishin' like as I dumb on the cheer To wind the clock, as I hev done fer mor'n fifty year, A-wishin' 'at the time hed come fer us to go to bed, With our last prayers, and our last tears, sence little Wesley's dead ! J. W. RILEY. 281 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. feitffe 'pHROUGH the fierce fever I nursed him, and then he said I was the woman I ! that he would wed ; He sent a boat with men for his own white priest, And he gave my father horses, and made a feast. I am his wife : if he has forgotten me, I will not live for scorning eyes to see. (Little wild baby, that knowest not where thou art going, Lie still ! lie still ! Thy mother will do the rowing) Three moons ago it was but three moons ago He took his gun, and started across the snow ; For the river was frozen, the river that still goes down Every day, as I watch it, to find the town ; The town whose name I caught from his sleeping lips,. A place of many people and many ships. (Little wild baby, that knowest not where thou art going, Lie still / lie still ! Thy mother will do the rowing) 282 LITTLE WILD BABY. I to that town am going, to search the place, With his little white son in my arms, till I see his face. Only once shall I need to look in his eyes, To see if his soul, as I knew it, lives or dies. If it lives, we live, and if it is dead, we die, And the soul of my baby will never ask me why. (Little wild baby, that knowest not where thou art going, Lie still! lie still/ Thy mother will do the rowing. I have asked about the river : one answered me, That after the town it goes to find the sea ; That great waves, able to break the stoutest bark, Are there, and the sea is very deep and dark. If he is happy without me, so best, so best ; I will take his baby and go away to my rest. (Little wild baby, that knowest not where thou art going, Lie still ! lie still ! Thy mother will do the rowing. The river flows swiftly, the sea is dark and deep : Little wild baby, lie still! Lie still and sleep.} M. T. JANVIER. 283 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. AfyTYNKEN, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe, Sailed on a river of misty light Into a sea of dew. " Where are you going, and what do you wish ? " The old moon asked the three. " We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea ; Nets of silver and gold have we," Said Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. The old moon laughed and sung a song, As they rocked in the wooden shoe; And the wind that sped them all night long Ruffled the waves of dew ; The little stars were the herring-fish That lived in the beautiful sea. " Now cast your nets wherever you wish, 1 From " A Little Book of Western Verse," copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. 284 DUTCH LULLABY. But never afeard are we ! " So cried the stars to the fishermen three, Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. All night long their nets they threw For the fish in the twinkling foam, Then down from the sky came the wooden shoe, Bringing the fishermen home ; 'Twc*s all so pretty a sail, it seemed As if it could not be ; And some folk thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed Of sailing that beautiful sea ; But I shall name you the fishermen three : Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes, And Nod is a little head, And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies Is a wee one's trundle-bed ; So shut your eyes while Mother sings Of wonderful sights that be, 285 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. And you shall see the beautiful things As you rock on the misty sea Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three,- Wynken, Blynken, And Nod. E. FIELD. 286 THE MARYLAND YELLOW -THRO AT T1THILE May bedecks the naked trees With tassels and embroideries, And many blue-eyed violets beam Along the edges of the stream, I hear a voice that seems to say, Now near at hand, now far away, " Witchery witchery witchery" An incantation so serene, So innocent, befits the scene : There's magic in that small bird's note See, there he flits the yellow-throat : A living sunbeam, tipped with wings, A spark of light that shines and sings " Witchery witchery witchery" You prophet with a pleasant name, If out of Mary-land you came, You know the way that thither goes Where Mary's lovely garden grows : Fly swiftly back to her, I pray, And try, to call her down this way, " Witchery witchery witchery / " 1 From " The Builders and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Tell her to leave her cockle-shells, And all her little silver bells That blossom into melody, And all her maids less fair than she. She does not need these pretty things, For everywhere she comes, she brings " Witchery witchery witchery / r ' The woods are greening overhead, And flowers adorn each mossy bed ; The waters babble as they run One thing is lacking, only one : If Mary were but here to-day, I would believe your charming lay, " Witchery witchery witchery I " Along the shady road I look Who's coming now across the brook ? A woodland maid, all robed in white The leaves dance round her with delight, The stream laughs out beneath her feet Sing, merry bird, the charm's complete, " Witchery witchery witchery ! " H. VAN DYKE. 288 THE SILENCE OF LOVE. JHfence of (^\H, inexpressible as sweet, Love takes my voice away ; I cannot tell thee, when we meet, What most I long to say. But hadst thou hearing in thy heart To know what beats in mine, Then shouldst thou walk, where'er thou art, In melodies divine. So warbling birds lift higher notes Than to our ears belong ; The music fills their throbbing throats, But silence steals the song. G. E. WOODBERRY. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. XTIGHTINGALES warble about it, All night under blossom and star; The wild swan is dying without it, And the eagle cryeth afar; The sun he doth mount but to find it, Searching the green earth o'er ; But more doth a man's heart mind it, Oh, more, more, more ! Over the gray leagues of ocean The infinite yearneth alone ; The forests with wandering emotion The thing they know not intone ; Creation arose but to see it, A million lamps in the blue ; But a lover he shall be it If one sweet maid is true. G. E. WOODBERRY. 290 THE WHIP-POOR-WILL. T~\ O you remember, father, It seems so long ago, The day we fished together Along the Pocono ? At dusk I waited for you, Beside the lumber-mill, And there I heard a hidden bird That chanted, " whip-poor-will," ' 1 IV h ippoorivill ! whippoorwill / ' ' Sad and shrill, " whippoorivill 7 " The place was all deserted ; The mill-wheel hung at rest; The lonely star of evening Was quivering in the west; The veil of night was falling ; The winds were folded still ; And everywhere the trembling air Re-echoed " whip-poor-will ! " " Whippoorwill ! ivhippoorwill ! " Sad and shrill, " whippoorwill ! " 1 From " The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, Charles Scribner's Sons. 291 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. You seemed so long in coming, I felt so much alone ; The wide, dark world was round me, And life was all unknown ; The hand of sorrow touched me, And made my senses thrill With all the pain that haunts the strain Of mournful whip-poor-will. " Whippoorwill ! whippoorwill 7" Sad and shrill, " whippoorwill / " What did I know of trouble ? An idle little lad ; I had not learned the lessons That make men wise and sad. I dreamed of grief and parting, And something seemed to fill My heart with tears, while in my ears Resounded " whip-poor-will." " Whippoorwill! whippoorwill!" Sad and shrill, " whippoorwill. 1 " 'Twas but a shadowy sadness, That lightly passed away ; But I have known the substance Of sorrow, since that day. 292 THE WHIP-POOR-WILL. For nevermore at twilight, Beside the silent mill, 111 wait for you, in the falling dew, And hear the whip-poor-will. " Whippoorwill ! vuhippoorwill / " Sad and shrill, " whippoorwill 7 " But if you still remember, In that fair land of light, The pains and fears that touch us Along this edge of night, I think all earthly grieving, And all our mortal ill, To you must seem like a boy's sad dream, Who hears the whip-poor-will. " Whippoorwill ! ivhippoorwill ! " A passing thrill " ivhippoorwill / H. VAN DYKE. 293 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. C PIRIT that moves the sap in spring, When lusty male birds fight and sing, Inform my words, and make my lines As sweet as flowers, as strong as vines. Let mine be the freshening power Of rain on grass, of dew on flower ; The fertilizing song be mine, Nut-flavored, racy, keen as wine. Let some procreant truth exhale From me, before my forces fail ; Or ere the ecstatic impulse go, Let all my buds to blossoms blow. If quick, sound seed be wanting where The virgin soil feels sun and air, And longs to fill a higher state, There let my meanings germinate. Let not my strength be spilled for naught, But, in some fresher vessel caught, Be blended into sweeter forms, And fraught with purer aims and charms. 294 FERTILITY. Let bloom-dust of my life be blown To quicken hearts that flower alone ; Around my knees let scions rise With heavenward-pointed destinies. And when I fall, like some old tree, And subtile change makes mould of me, There let earth show a fertile line Whence perfect wild-flowers leap and shine ! M. THOMPSON. 295 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. '"PHE moonbeams over Arno's vale in silver flood were pouring, When first I heard the nightingale a long-lost love deploring. So passionate, so full of pain, it sounded strange and eerie ; I longed to hear a simpler strain, the wood notes of the veery. The laverock sings a bonny lay above the Scottish heather ; It sprinkles down from far away like light and love together ; He drops the golden notes to greet his brooding mate, his dearie ; I only know one song more sweet, the vespers of the veery. In English gardens, green and bright and full of fruity treasure, I heard the blackbird with delight repeat his merry measure : 1 From " The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons. 296 THE VEERY. The ballad was a pleasant one, the tune was loud and cheery, And yet, with every setting sun, I listened for the veery. But far away, and far away, the tawny thrush is sing- ing; New England woods, at close of day, with that clear chant are ringing : And when my light of life is low, and heart and flesh are weary, T fain would hear, before I go, the wood notes of the veery. H. VAN DYKE. 297 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. T N a still room at hush of dawn, My Love and I lay side by side And heard the roaming forest wind Stir in the paling autumn-tide. I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad Because the round day was so fair ; While memories of reluctant night Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair. Outside, a yellow maple-tree, Shifting upon the silvery blue With small innumerable sound, Rustled to let the sunlight through. The livelong day the elvish leaves Danced with their shadows on the floor; And the lost children of the wind Went straying homeward by our door. And all the swarthy afternoon We watched the great deliberate sun Walk through the crimsoned hazy world, Counting his hilltops one by one. 2Q8 THE EAVESDROPPER. Then as the purple twilight came And touched the vines along our eaves, Another Shadow stood without And gloomed the dancing of the leaves. The silence fell on my Love's lips ; Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad With pondering some maze of dream, Though all the splendid year was glad. Restless and vague as a gray wind Her heart had grown, she knew not why. But hurrying to the open door, Against the verge of western sky I saw retreating on the hills, Looming and sinister and black, The stealthy figure swift and huge Of One who strode and looked not back. B. CARMAN. 299 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Q OLE Lord of Lords and very King of Kings, He sits within the desert, carved in stone ; Inscrutable, colossal, and alone, And ancienter than memory of things. Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings ; Disdain sits on his lips ; and in a frown Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown. The affrighted ostrich dare not dust her wings Anear this Presence. The long caravan's Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare. This symbol of past power more than man's Presages doom. Kings look and Kings despair : Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands And dark thrones totter in the baleful air ! L. MIFFLIN. 300 DRIVING HOME THE COWS. rifcing gome f0e 0*00. /^~\UT of the clover and blue-eyed grass ^^^ He turned them into the river-lane ; One after another he let them pass, Then fastened the meadow-bars again. Under the willows, and over the hill, He patiently followed their sober pace ; The merry whistle for once was still, And something shadowed the sunny face. Only a boy ! and his father had said He never could let his youngest go : Two already were lying dead Under the feet of the trampling foe. But after the evening work was done, And the frogs were loud in the meadow-swamp. Over his shoulder he slung his gun And stealthily followed the foot-path damp. Across the clover, and through the wheat, With resolute heart and purpose grim, Though cold was the dew on his hurrying feet And the blind bat's flitting startled him. 301 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Thrice since then had the lanes been white, And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom ; And now, when the cows came back at night The feeble father drove them home. For news had come to the lonely farm That three were lying where two had lain ; And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm Could never lean on a son's again. The summer day grew cool and late. He went for the cows when the work was dorie \ But down the lane, as he opened the gate, He saw them coming one by one : Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess, Shaking their horns in the evening wind ; Cropping the buttercups out of the grass But who was it following close behind ? Loosely swung in the idle air The empty sleeve of army blue ; And worn and pale, from the crisping hair, Looked out a face that the father knew. For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn, And yield their dead unto life again ; 302 DRIVING HOME THE COWS. And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn In golden glory at last may wane. The great tears sprang to their meeting eyes ; For the heart must speak when the lips are dumb : And under the silent evening skies Together they followed the cattle home. K. P. OSGOOD. 303 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. A CLOUD possessed the hollow field, The gathering battle's smoky shield. Athwart the gloom the lightning flashed, And through the cloud some horsemen dashed, And from the heights the thunder pealed. Then at the brief command of Lee Moved out that matchless infantry, With Pickett leading grandly down, To rush against the roaring crown Of those dread heights of destiny. Far heard above the angry guns A cry across the tumult runs, The voice that rang through Shiloh's woods And Chickamauga's solitudes, The fierce South cheering on her sons ! Ah, how the withering tempest blew Against the front of Pettigrew ! A Khamsin wind that scorched and singed Like that infernal flame that fringed The British squares at Waterloo ! 304 THE HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG. A thousand fell where Kemper led ; A thousand died where Garnett bled ; In blinding flame and strangling smoke The remnant through the batteries broke And crossed the works with Armistead. " Once more in Glory's van with me ! " Virginia cried to Tennessee ; "We two together, come what may, Shall stand upon these works to-day ! " (The reddest day in history.) Brave Tennessee ! In reckless way Virginia heard her comrade say : " Close round this rent and riddled rag 1 " What time she set her battle-flag Amid the guns of Doubleday. But who shall break the guards that wait Before the awful face of Fate ? The tattered standards of the South Were shriveled at the cannon's mouth, And all her hopes were desolate. In vain the Tennesseean set His breast against the bayonet ! 35 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. In vain Virginia charged and raged, A tigress in her wrath uncaged, Till all the hill was red and wet ! Above the bayonets, mixed and crossed, Men saw a gray, gigantic ghost Receding through the battle-cloud, And heard across the tempest loud, The death-cry of a nation lost ! The brave went down ! Without disgrace They leaped to Ruin's red embrace, They only heard Fame's thunders wake, And saw the dazzling sun-burst break In smiles on Glory's bloody face ! They fell who lifted up a hand And bade the sun in heaven to stand ! They smote and fell, who set the bars Against the progress of the stars, And stayed the march of Motherland ! They stood, who saw the future come On through the fight's delirium ! They smote and stood, who held the hope Of nations on that slippery slope Amid the cheers of Christendom. 306 THE HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG. God lives ! He forged the Iron will That clutched and held that trembling hill. God lives and reigns ! He built and lent The heights for Freedom's battlement Where floats her flag in triumph still ! Fold up the banners ! Smelt the guns ! Love rules. Her gentler purpose runs. A mighty mother turns in tears The pages of her battle years, Lamenting all her fallen sons ! W. H. THOMPSON. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. '"PHE hours I spent with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me ; I count them over, every one apart, My rosary. Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, To still a heart in absence wrung ; I tell each bead unto the end and there A cross is hung. Oh, memories that bless and burn ! Oh, barren gain and bitter loss ! I kiss each bead, and strive at last to learn To kiss the cross, Sweetheart, To kiss the cross. R. C. ROGERS. GRIZZLY. /COWARD, of heroic size, In whose lazy muscles lies Strength we fear and yet despise ; Savage, whose relentless tusks Are content with acorn husks ; Robber, whose exploits ne'er soared O'er the bee's or squirrel's hoard ; Whiskered chin, and feeble nose, Claws of steel on baby toes, Here in solitude and shade, Shambling, shuffling plantigrade, Be thy courses undismayed ! Here, where Nature makes thy bed, Let thy rude, half -human tread Point to hidden Indian springs, Lost in ferns and fragrant grasses, Hovered o'er by timid wings, Where the wood-duck lightly passes, Where the wild bee holds her sweets, Epicurean retreats, Fit for thee, and better than Fearful spoils of dangerous man. 305 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. In thy fat-jowled deviltry Friar Tuck shall live in thee ; Thou mayest levy tithe and dole; Thou shalt spread the woodland cheer, From the pilgrim taking toll ; Match thy cunning with his fear; Eat, and drink, and have thy fill ; Yet remain an outlaw still ! F. B. HARTE. UNMANIFEST DESTINY. (Jlnmamfesf esfmp, n^O what new fates, my country, far And unforeseen of foe or friend, Beneath what unexpected star, Compelled to what unchosen end, Across the sea that knows no beach The Admiral of Nations guides Thy blind obedient keels to reach The harbor where thy future rides ! The guns that spoke at Lexington Knew not that God was planning then The trumpet word of Jefferson To bugle forth the rights of men. To them that wept and cursed Bull Run What was it but despair and shame ? Who saw beneath the cloud the sun ? Who knew that God was in the flame ? Had not defeat upon defeat, Disaster on disaster come, The slave's emancipated feet Had never marched behind the drum. 3" AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. There is a Hand that bends our deeds To mightier issues than we planned, Each son that triumphs, each that bleeds, My country, serves Its dark command. I do not know beneath what sky Nor on what seas shall be thy fate ; I only know it shall be high, I only know it shall be great R. HOVEY. July, i8g8. 312 NOTES. AMERICAN poetry before Bryant was considerable in amount, but, with few exceptions, it must be looked for by the curious student in the graveyard of old anthologies. Who now reads "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam in America," " The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung up in Amer- ica," " The Day of Doom," " M'Fingal," or " The Colum- biad ? " Skipping a generation from Barlow's death, who reads with much seriousness any one of the group of poets of which Bryant in his earliest period was the centre : Halleck, Pierpont, Sprague, Drake, Dana, Percival, All- ston, Brainard, Mrs. Osgood, and Miss Brooks ? A few of them, to be sure, are remembered by an occasional lyric, Halleck by " Marco Bozzaris," a spirited ode in the manner of Campbell ; Pierpont by his ringing lines, "War- ren's Address to the American Soldiers ; " Drake by " The American Flag," conventional but not commonplace, and marked by one very imaginative line ; and Allston by two rather excellent lyrics, " Rosalie " and " America to Great Britain." The first poet to accomplish work of high sus- tained excellence was Bryant. His poetry, though never impassioned, is uniformly elegant. It is often as chaste as Landor at his best. But it never surprises ; it is not 3*3 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. emotional, personal, suggestively imaginative. In fact, Bryant's muse is not lyrical. With the exception of Pink- ney and Hoffman, whose " Sparkling and Bright," if technically defective, is a true song, we must wait for our lyric poet till we reach Edgar Allan Poe, the greatest one inclines to say the only master of musical quality in verse whom America has produced. The Wild Honeysuckle. Philip Freneau, born in 1752, was a soldier in the American Revolution. Though never rising quite into the highest class of poets, he is our first genuine singer. " The Indian Burying-ground " and " To a Honey-bee " are only less successful than the graceful lines quoted. A Health. Poe was an enthusiastic admirer of this poem. He pronounced it, in his essay entitled " The Poetic Principle," "full of brilliancy and spirit," and added : " It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinkney to have been born too far south. Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing called The North American Review" This passage, very characteristic of Poe's criticisms, illus- trates both his championship of favorites, and unmerciful scourging of foes. A Poefs Hope. The two concluding stanzas from a poem of considerable length. To Helen. This brief lyric, written in the poet's youth, is not only among the most exquisite from his pen 3*4 NOTES. but it furnishes one of the most famous among current quotations : " The glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome." On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake. These manly lines have yielded another phrase to the world's memory. Hardly any quotation is more hackneyed than the last two verses of the first stanza. Drake was a young poet, the intimate friend and literary co-laborer of Halleck, who died September, 1820, in his twenty-fifth year. To the Fringed Gentian. This lyric well illustrates what Mr. Stedman has aptly termed Bryant's " Doric simplicity." Nothing of Wordsworth's is freer from ornament or from the least trace of affectation. The Raven. Though not belonging to the highest order of poetry, " The Raven " still maintains its position at the head of its class. No more astonishing tour de force can be found in English literature. Nature. Generally regarded, I think, the finest of Longfellow's, if not of American, sonnets. Ichabod. Occasioned by the defection and fall of Daniel Webster. It is worthy a place by the side of Browning's " Lost Leader." In later years, Whittier wrote a poem on the theme, which, while not a retraction of his former position, is penned in a tenderer, more tolerant mood. " The Lost Occasion " is its title, and it is only just to the poet to read this second lyric, hardly less successful, in connection with the first. 315 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Old Ironsides. " Old Ironsides " was the popular name for the frigate Constitution. Doctor Holmes's poem appeared in the Boston Advertiser " at the time when it was proposed to break up the old ship as unfit for service." Bedouin Song. One of the most spirited, most genu- inely lyrical of American poems. Skipper Iresorts Ride. These lines have an easy, swinging quality that is quite inimitable. One inclines to agree with Mr. Stedman : Of all our poets he (Whittier) is the most natural balladist." The Village Blacksmith. The directness and homely strength of " The Village Blacksmith " have made it de- servedly popular. The editor has ventured to omit the final stanza beginning: "Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend," which obviously adds neither to the unity nor to the force of the poem. Inspiration. The first three stanzas out of the seven which are usually quoted under this title. In the complete poem there are nineteen stanzas beside an introductory and a concluding stanza in a different metre. See Tho- reau's " Poems of Nature," edited by H. S. Salt and F. B. Sanborn, Boston and London, 1895. The Last Leaf. This masterpiece of mingled humoi- and pathos was a favorite poem of Abraham Lincoln. The Carol of Death. Although few of Whitman's poems can be strictly called lyrics, no general collection of American verse should be without representative extracts from " Leaves of Grass," which at least is informed throughout with a very noble lyrical spirit. 316 NOTES. Carolina. The concluding lines of this lyric have an imaginative vigor rare in American poetry. Four stanzas are omitted. Dirge for a Soldier. Boker's Dirge was written in memory of General Philip Kearney. Battle-hymn of the Republic. Written in December, 1861, while Mrs. Howe was on a visit to Washington. Soon after the writer's return to Boston the lines were accepted for publication in the Atlantic Monthly by James T. Fields, who suggested the title of the poem. The song did not at first receive much notice, but before the Civil War was over had become very popular. My Maryland. A poem of great strength and beauty, though of uneven merit. It is unfortunately marred by a few rather intemperate expressions. The sincerity of feeling is everywhere so evident, however, that these must be forgiven. The lines were written by a native of Baltimore, Prof. James Randall, and were first published in April, 1861. The author of the famous song was teaching in a Louisiana college when he read in a New Orleans paper the news of the attack on the Massachu- setts troops as they passed through Baltimore. This newspaper account inspired the verses. In the Hospital. This poem, which has enjoyed at best a newspaper immortality, deserves to be more widely known. Its simplicity, directness, and truth of feeling are quite beyond praise. According to a story which one dislikes to believe apocryphal, these lines were found under the pillow of a wounded soldier near Port Royal, Sourn Carolina, in 1864. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. Days. Regarded from the point of view of artistic form, perhaps nothing of Emerson's is quite so flawless as " Days," a poem which for conciseness and polish is worthy to be called classic. Serenade. From The Spanish Student, 1843. A Death-bed. This is a worthy companion-piece to that other miniature classic, Thomas Hood's song, begin' ning, " We watched her breathing through the night." Telling the Bees. "A remarkable custom, brought from the Old Country, formerly prevailed in the rural districts of New England. On the death of a member of the family, the bees were at once informed of the event, and their hives dressed in mourning. The ceremonial was supposed to be necessary to prevent the swarms from leaving their hives and seeking a new home." This poem of Whittier's is almost his highest achievement. Lowell said, in writing of the Quaker poet (Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, VI.) : " Many of his poems (such for example as * Telling the Bees '), in which description and sentiment mutually inspire each other, are as fine as any in the language." One often thinks, however, that Whittier will live longest by his hymns and poems of religious devotion. There is nothing similar in English that surpasses "The Eternal Goodness," and perhaps half a dozen other poems. Katie. About one-third of Timrod's graceful poem which bears this title. This is one of the few cases where the editor has ventured to make omissions. Thalatta. Regarding this poem, Thomas Wentwortb NOTES. Higginson says, in " The New World and the New Book : " " Who knows but that, when all else of American litera- ture has vanished in forgetfulness, some single little masterpiece like this may remain to show the high-water mark, not merely of a single poet, but of a nation and a generation ? " The author of " Thalatta " was a Dart- mouth graduate, a teacher, and a disciple of Emerson. The Rhodora. "The Rhodora" has a conciseness and unity too rare in Emerson's poetry, which, beau- tiful in details, is strangely uneven. We sigh as we think what an unrivalled lyric poet Emerson would have been had he been sustained at the heights he was capable of reaching. No one surpasses Emerson at his best ; he is almost a great poet. Nature. Thoreau's prose is known universally; his verse has not won as yet the recognition it deserves. It has little lyrical quality, but for unconventionality, charm- ing turns of phrase, and the intimate knowledge of Nature it reveals, it is almost alone in American poetry. The Chambered Nautilus. Many think this Holmes's finest poem. It is taken from " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 1858. Thought. Helen Jackson is, perhaps, the most gifted of American women poets. Emily Dickinson is more im- aginative, but her utter indifference to form in com- position makes her work, unique as it is, less satisfying. Mrs. Jackson was a favorite with Emerson, and he is said to have liked best among her poems this sonnet, " Thought." 319 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. On a Bust of Dante. Parsons, one of the noblest of American poets, is one of the most neglected. Stedman is inclined to think "On a Bust of Dante " the finest of American lyrics (see "The Nature of Poetry," 254.) The Port of Ships. In a recent review of American Literature in the London Athaneum occurs this sentence ; " In point of power, workmanship, and feeling, among all poems written by Americans, we are inclined to give first place to the * Port of Ships,' of Joaquin Miller." The con- cluding stanza, which is didactic and inferior to the others, is omitted. This poem is generally known by the title, " Columbus." The White Jessamine. Always artistic, Tabb's verse usually suggests workmanship ; it is more thoughtful than spontaneous. His religious poetry presents, in the main, a rather striking similarity to the work of George Herbert. Parting. Miss Dickinson has much of the witchcraft and subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr. Higginson so happily has intro- duced to the world, are not only daring and uncon- ventional, but recklessly defiant of form. But, as her editor has well said, " When a thought takes one's breath away, a lesson on grammar seems an impertinence." Emily Dickinson had more than a message, more than the charm of unexpectedness, more than the gift of phrase, she had (and of how many Americans can this be said ? ) an intense imagination. Fertility. This selection appears in the collected poems of Maurice Thompson (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1892), under the title, "A Prelude." 320 NOTES. Sesostris. Of this poem Mr. Stoddard has the high praise that in imaginative quality it is unequalled in nine- teenth century literature, unless by Leigh Hunt's sonnet on the Nile. The High Tide at Gettysburg. -The author of this vigorous ballad is a brother of the late Maurice Thompson. He served in the Confederate army through the war, and subsequently entered the legal profession. His present home is in Seattle, Washington. 321 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. PAGB Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way . 175 Dear yesterday, glide not so fast . . . 155 Do you remember, father ...... 291 England, I stand on thy imperial ground . . . 273 Fair flower that dost so comely grow i Farragut, Farragut . . . . . . .no For a cap and bells our lives we pay . . . 1 62 From the Desert I come to thee .... 85 "Give us a songl" the soldiers cried . . .119 Green be the turf above thee 36 Helen, thy beauty is to me 31 Her hands are cold ; her face is white . . . 1 24 Here is the place ; right over the hill . . . 137 Her suffering ended with the day . . . .136 How dear to this heart are the scenes of my child- hood 8 How small a tooth hath mined the season's heart . 277 I am a woman therefore I may not . . . 227 I fill this cup to one made up . . . . .12 I have a little kinsman . . . . . -150 I knew she lay above me . . . . . -235 I lay me down to sleep 122 I saw him once before 95 I saw the twinkle of white feet .... 64 I stand upon the summit of my years . . 154 I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while 271 I waited in the little sunny room .... 247 I walked beside the evening sea .... 279 If with light head erect I sing 94 In a still room at hush of dawn .... 298 In Heaven a spirit doth dwell 21 322 INDEX TO FIRST LINES. J-AGB A blight, a gloom, I know not what . . , . 242 A cloud possessed the hollow field .... 304 All that thou art not, makes not up the sum . . 267 All the long August afternoon 233 A man said unto his angel 211 Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold . . . 266 As a fond mother, when the day is o'er . . 63 As a twig trembles, which a bird . . . .145 At midnight, in the month of June ... 57 At the king's gate the subtle noon .... 183 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down .... 76 Because I could not stop for Death .... 264 Behind him lay the gray Azores . . . . 199 Beneath the warrior's helm, behold .... 248 Birds are singing round my window . . . . 193 Burly, dozing humble-bee . . . . . .169 By the rude bridge that arched the flood ... 74 Chaos, of old, was God's dominion .... 256 Close his eyes ; his work is done . . . .106 Come lovely and soothing death .... 98 Coward, of heroic size 309 Dark as the clouds of even . . . . .100 Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days . . .126 De massa ob de sheepfoF 225 3 2 3 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. PAGE Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way . 175 Dear yesterday, glide not so fast . . . . 155 Do you remember, father . . . . . .291 England, I stand on thy imperial ground . . . 273 Fair flower that dost so comely grow i Farragut, Farragut no For a cap and bells our lives we pay . . .162 From the Desert I come to thee . . . -85 "Give us a song!" the soldiers cried . . .119 Green be the turf above thee ..... 36 Helen, thy beauty is to me 1 31 Her hands are cold ; her face is white . . . 1 24 Here is the place ; right over the hill . . . 137 Her suffering ended with the day . . . .136 How dear to this heart are the scenes of my child- hood 8 How small a tooth hath mined the season's heart . 277 I am an acme of things accomplish'd . . 173 I am he that walks with the tender and growing night 172 I fill this cup to one made up 12 I have a little kinsman . . . . . . 150 I knew she lay above me ...... 235 I lay me down to sleep . . . . . .122 I saw him once before ...... 95 I saw the twinkle of white feet .... 64 I stand upon the summit of my years . . . 154 I try to knead and spin, but my life is low the while 271 I waited in the little sunny room .... 247 I walked beside the evening sea .... 279 If with light head erect I sing . < 94 3 2 4 INDEX TO FIRST LINES. PAGE In a still room at hush of dawn .... 298 In Heaven a spirit doth dwell 21 In May, when sea- winds pierced our solitudes . .165 In the greenest of our valleys 26 In the summer even ....... 202 It may be through some foreign grace . . .140 It was many and many a year ago . . . .10 It was nothing but a rose I gave her . . . 196 It was the schooner Hesperus 80 Lear and Cordelia I 'twas an ancient tale . . 78 Let me come in where you sit weeping, aye . . 263 Let me move slowly through the street ... 42 Lo 1 Death has reared himself a throne . . -IS Look off, dear Love, across the sallow sands . .215 Look out upon the stars, my love . . . .14 Men say the sullen instrument . . . . 158 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord 108 My heart, I cannot still it 192 My life closed twice before its close . . . .252 My life is like the summer rose .... 4 My love for thee doth march like armed men . .217 My mind lets go a thousand things . . . .241 Nightingales warble about it ..... 290 No matter how the chances are . . . . 275 Not a hand has lifted the latchet .... 236 Not a kiss in life ; but one kiss, at life's end . . 209 Not as all other women are . . . . .142 Now at last I am at home ..... 260 " Now tell me, my merry woodman " . . .149 O Captain ! my Captain 1 our fearful trip is done . 188 325 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. PAGB O Death, when thou shalt come to me . . 233 O fairest of the rural maids 6 O marvel, fruit of fruits, I pause . . . .167 O messenger, art thou the king, or I . . . 180 O Nature ! I do not aspire ..... 166 O Time ! O Death 1 I clasp you in my arms . . 24 Of all the rides since the birth of time ... 87 Oh, inexpressible as sweet 289 Oh, who would stay indoor, indoor . . . .251 Oh, whafs the way to Arcady ..... 243 Once it smiled a silent dell 38 Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands ... 54 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary ...... 45 Out of the clover and blue-eyed grass . . .301 Out of the hills of Habersham . . . .268 Prithee tell me, Dimple-Chin 194 See, from this counterfeit of him . . . .185 Sence little Wesley went, the place seems all so strange and still 280 Serene, I fold my hands and wait .... 227 Sky in its lucent splendor lifted .... 238 So fallen ! so lost ! the light withdrawn ... 69 Sole Lord of Lords and very King of Kings . . 300 Southward with fleet of ice . . . . 7 1 Sparkling and bright in liquid light . . . 32 Spirit that moves the sap in spring .... 294 Stars of the summer night 133 Still in thy love I trust . ' 218 Such special sweetness was about .... 224 The dawn came in through the bars of the blind 213 326 INDEX TO FIRST LINES. PAGE The day is done, and the darkness .... 66 The despot treads thy sacred sands .... 104 The despot's heel is on thy shore . . . . 113 The grass that is under me now . . . .127 The handful here, that once was Mary's earth . .147 The hours I spent with thee, dear heart . . . 308 The little toy dog is covered with dust . . .231 The moonbeams over Arno's vale in silver flood were pouring ....... 296 The new moon hung in the sky . . . .221 The pines were dark on Ramoth hill . . . 130 The rising moon has hid the stars . . . .190 The royal feast was done ; the King . . . 205 The sky is dark, and dark the bay below . . .217 The tide rises, the tide falls 161 The wind from out the west is blowing . . .216 There are gains for all our losses . . . .129 There is a city, builded by no hand . . . .201 There is something in the autumn that is native to my blood ....... 230 These are the days when birds come back . . 265 This bronze doth keep the very form and mold . 207 This is Palm Sunday; mindful of the day . . 198 This is the Burden of the Heart . . . .197 This is the ship of pearl, which poets feign . . 178 Thou blossom bright with autumn dew ... 40 Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State .... 135 Thou unrelenting Past 18 Thou wast all that to me, love 34 Thou who hast slept all night upon the storm . . 117 Thought is deeper than all speech . . . .181 3 2 7 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. PACK Through the fierce fever I nursed him, and then he said 282 Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down . 210 To what new fates, my country, far . . . . 311 Under a spreading chestnut-tree .... 92 Upon a cloud among the stars we stood . . . 229 Vast hollow voids, beyond the utmost reach . . 257 We break the glass, whose sacred wine . . 25 Were but my spirit loosed upon the air . . . 278 What, cringe to Europe 1 Band it all in one . . 75 What may we take into the vast Forever? . . 219 When first the bride and bridegroom wed . . 153 When I am standing on a mountain crest . . 272 When I was a beggarly boy . . . . .128 When the Sultan Shah-Zaman ..... 253 While May bedecks the naked trees .... 287 Whither, midst falling dew 29 Who has robbed the ocean cave .... 3 Wind of the North 258 Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, one night . . . 284 Years have flown since I knew thee first . . . 208 3*8 INDEX TO AUTHORS. PAGB James Aldrich, 18101856 136 Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836 .... 210, 221, 241, 242, 248, 253 George Henry Boker, 1823 1890 . 75, 78, 100, 106 Joseph Brownlee Brown, 1824 1888 . . .154 William Cullen By rant, 1794 1878 6, 18, 29, 40, 42, 54 Henry Cuyler Bunner, 1855 1896 209, 213, 233, 243 John Burroughs, 1837 227 Bliss Carman, 1861 230, 298 William Ellery Channing, 1818 .... 24 Christopher Pearse C ranch, 1813 1892 . .181 George William Curtis, 1824 1892 . . . 279 Emily Dickinson, 1830 1886 . . 252,264,265 Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 1882 74, 126, 165, 169 Eugene Field, 1850 1895 .... 231,284 Annie Adams Fields, 1834 218 Philip Freneau, 1752 1832 I 3 2 9 AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. PAGE Richard Watson Gilder, 1844 207, 208, 216, 217 Sarah Pratt (McLean) Greene, 1858 . . .225 Louise Imogen Guiney, 1861 . . .211, 271 Fitz-Greene Halleck, 1790 1867 .... 36 Francis Bret Harte, 1839 1902 .... 309 Charles Fenno Hoffman, 1806 1884 ... 32 Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1809 1894 76, 95, 124, 178 Richard Hovey, 1864 1900 . . 251, 272, 311 Julia Ward Howe, 1819 108 William Dean Howells, 1837 .... 223 Mary Woolsey Howland, 1832 1864 . . . 122 Helen Hunt Jackson, 1831 1885 . 155, 167, 180, 183 Margaret Thomson Janvier (" Margaret Vande- grift"), 1845 282 Sidney Lanier, 1842 1881 .... 215,268 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807 1882 63, 66, 71, 80, 92, 133, 135, 161, 190 James Russell Lowell, 1819 '891 64, 128, 142, 145, 158, 162, 175, 192 Charles Henry Lu'ders, 1858 1891 . . . 258 William Tuckey Meredith, 1839 .... no Lloyd Mifflin, 1846 . . . 229, 256, 257, 300 Cincinnatus Hiner (Joaquin) Miller, 1841 . . 199 Louise Chandler Moulton, 1835 . . . 236,278 Kate Putnam Osgood, 1841 .... 301 330 INDEX TO AUTHORS. PAGE Thomas William Parsons, 1819 1892 147, 185, 198, 201 Edward Coate Pinkney, 1802 1828 . 12, 14, 25 Edgar Allan Poe, 1809 1849 .... 10, 15, 21, 26, 31, 34, 38, 45, 57 James Ryder Randall, 1839 IJ 3 Lizette Woodworth Reese, 1860 . . . 224 Hiram Rich, 1832 275 James Whitcomb Riley, 1853 . . . 263,280 John Shaw, 1778 1809 3 Edward Rowland Sill, 1841 1887 205, 219, 238, 247, 283 Harriet Prescott Spofford, 1835 J 9^ 202 Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1833 I 5> J 94 Richard Henry Stoddard, 1825 1903 127, 129, 153, 193 John Banister Tabb, 1845 2 35> 2 ^6, 267 Bayard Taylor, 1825 1878 . . . .85, 119 Edith Matilda Thomas, 1854 . . . .277 Maurice Thompson, 1844 1901 .... 294 Will Henry Thompson, 1848 .... 304 Henry David Thoreau, 1817 1862 . . 94, 166 Henry Timrod, 1829 1867 .... 104,140 L. Frank Tooker, 1855 260 Henry Van Dyke, 1852 . . . 287,291,296 Walt Whitman, 1819 1892 . 98, 117, 172, 173, 188 John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807 1892 69, 87, 130. 137 Richard Henry Wilde, 1789 1847 ... 4 33. AMERICAN SONGS AND LYRICS. PAGE Byron Forceythe Willson, 1837 1867 J 49> *97 George Edward Woodberry, 1855 . 273, 289, 290 Samuel Woodworth, 1785 1842 .... 8 332 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. *&: : - r: ' l! ^ FEB y r. CD LD If, 1937 r , - MAR 16 1937 Wftn 1 1983 M* 7 mm 11 n 1 fi 2.005 ' v *> IQ/LC; pot i * w I " ly'-rJ 16 ft* h" fii. , /f~ / d FT f^ 1 1*^ Ss, ^ w^*^ KcG'D 'E.D OCT 18 19Q6 YA 01598 305528 t V. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY