The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics

At Gibraltar. W.P. Foster. At Gibraltar. I. England, 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. 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. No 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, 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. The Gravedigger. Oh, the shambling sea is a sexton old, And well his work is done; With an equal grave for lord and knave, He buries them every one. Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip, He makes for the nearest shore; And God, who sent him a thousand ship, Will send him a thousand more; But some he'll save for a bleaching grave, And shoulder them in to shore,— Shoulder them in, shoulder them in, Shoulder them in to shore. Oh, the ships of Greece and the ships of Tyre Went out, and where are they? In the port they made, they are delayed With the ships of yesterday. He followed the ships of England far As the ships of long ago; And the ships of France they led him a dance, But he laid them all arow. Oh, a loafing, idle lubber to him Is the sexton of the town; For sure and swift, with a guiding lift, He shovels the dead men down. But though he delves so fierce and grim, His honest graves are wide, As well they know who sleep below The dredge of the deepest tide. Oh, he works with a rollicking stave at lip, And loud is the chorus skirled; With the burly note of his rumbling throat He batters it down the world. He learned it once in his father's house Where the ballads of eld were sung; And merry enough is the burden rough, But no man knows the tongue. Oh, fair, they say, was his bride to see, And wilful she must have been, That she could bide at his gruesome side When the first red dawn came in. And sweet, they say, is her kiss to those She greets to his border home; And softer than sleep her hand's first sweep That beckons, and they come. Oh, crooked is he, but strong enough To handle the tallest mast; From the royal barque to the slaver dark, He buries them all at last. Then hoy and rip, with a rolling hip, He makes for the nearest shore; And God, who sent him a thousand ship, Will send him a thousand more; But some he'll save for a bleaching grave, And shoulder them in to shore,— Shoulder them in, shoulder them in, Shoulder them in to shore. B. Carman. The Absence of Little Wesley. HOOSIER DIALECT. Sence 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! 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 Wesley's gone! And then, o' nights, when Mother's settin' up oncommon late, A-bilin' pears er somepin', and I set and smoke and wait, Tel the moon out through the winder don't look bigger'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 bed come fer us to go to bed, With our last prayers, and our last tears, sence little Wesley's dead! J.W. Riley. Be Thou a Bird, My Soul. Be thou a bird, my soul, and mount and soar Out of thy wilderness, Till earth grows less and less, Heaven, more and more. Be thou a bird, and mount, and soar, and sing, Till all the earth shall be Vibrant with ecstasy Beneath thy wing. Be thou a bird, and trust, the autumn come, That through the pathless air Thou shalt find otherwhere Unerring, home. Opportunity. This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:— There spread a cloud of dust along a plain; And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. A craven hung along the battle's edge, And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel— That blue blade that the king's son bears,—but this Blunt thing!"—he snapt and flung it from his hand, And lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, And saved a great cause that heroic day. E.R. Sill. Dutch Lullaby. [14] Wynken, 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, 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; 'Twas 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, 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. [14] From "A Little Book of Western Verse," copyright, 1889, by Eugene Field, published by Charles Scribner's Sons. The Maryland Yellow-throat. [15] While 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 !" Tell her to leave her cockleshells, 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 !" 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 !" 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. [15] From "The Builders and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons. The Silence of Love. Oh, 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. The Secret. Nightingales 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. The Whip-poor-will. [16] Do 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," " Whippoorwill! whippoorwill! " Sad and shrill,—" whippoorwill! " 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! whippoorwill! " Sad and shrill,—" whippoorwill! " 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! " 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! " 'Twas but a shadowy sadness, That lightly passed away; But I have known the substance Of sorrow, since that day. For nevermore at twilight, Beside the silent mill, I'll wait for you, in the falling dew, And hear the whip-poor-will. " Whippoorwill! whippoorwill! " Sad and shrill,—" whippoorwill! " 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! whippoorwill! " A passing thrill—" whippoorwill! " H. Van Dyke. [16] From "The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, Charles Scribner's Sons. Fertility. Spirit 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. 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. The Veery. [17] The 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: 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 singing; 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, I fain would hear, before I go, the wood notes of the veery. H. Van Dyke. [17] From "The Builders, and Other Poems," copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons. The Eavesdropper. In 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. 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. Sesostris. Sole 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. 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 America," "The Day of Doom," "M'Fingal," or "The Columbiad?" 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, Allston, 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, "Warren'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 sustained 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 emotional, personal, suggestively imaginative. In fact, Bryant's muse is not lyrical. With the exception of Pinkney 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, illustrates both his championship of favorites, and unmerciful scourging of foes. Unseen Spirits. —The earnest sincerity, evident in every line of this poem, removes it at once from the company of those gay society verses sparkling with conceits which won for Willis the satiric comment of Lowell in "A Fable for Critics:" "There is Willis, all natty, and jaunty, and gay, Who says his best things in so foppish a way, With conceits and pet phrases so thickly o'erlaying 'em, That one hardly knows whether to thank him for saying 'em; Over-ornament ruins both poem and prose,— Just conceive of a Muse with a ring in her nose!" Had Willis written more such lyrics as "Unseen Spirits," his fame could hardly have proved so ephemeral. Poe considered this poem Willis's best, and I see no ground for calling the critic's judgment in question. To Helen. —This brief lyric, written in the poet's youth, is not only among the most exquisite from his pen, 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. Old Ironsides. —"Old Ironsides" was the popular name for the frigate Constitution . Dr. 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 genuinely lyrical of American poems. Skipper Ireson's 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 deservedly popular. One questions whether the last stanza might not have been omitted with advantage both to the unity and force of the poem. The Last Leaf. —This masterpiece of mingled humor and pathos was a favorite poem of Abraham Lincoln. The Old Kentucky Home. —The sincere and tender sentiment of this song, no less than its popular melody, has made it for many years a favorite. Even better known is Foster's "Old Folks at Home," which is said to have had a larger sale than any other American song. 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 Massachusetts 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, South Carolina, in 1864. 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. A Death-bed. —This is a worthy companion-piece to that other miniature classic, Thomas Hood's song, beginning, "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." I often think, however, that Whittier will live longest by his hymns and poems of purely religious devotion. I know of 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 I have ventured to make omissions. Thalatta. —Regarding this poem, Thomas Wentworth Higginson says, in "The New World and the New Book:" "Who knows but that, when all else of American literature 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 Dartmouth graduate, a teacher, and a disciple of Emerson. The Fall of the Leaf. —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, charming turns of phrase, and the intimate knowledge of Nature it reveals, it is almost alone in American poetry. The Rhodora. —"The Rhodora" has a conciseness and unity too rare in Emerson's poetry, which, beautiful 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. 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 imaginative, but her utter scorn of form in composition 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." On a Bust of Dante. —Parsons, one of the best 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 Skips. —In a recent review of American Literature in the London Athæneum 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." Evening Song. —No poem of Lanier is more free from his characteristic faults. One regrets that so much of his work, highly imaginative as it is, is marred by over-elaboration and artificiality. A Woman's Thought. —The striking reality and directness of this lyric, its immense emotional undercurrent, and its abrupt, almost gasping metre, admirably suited to the impassioned mood of the speaker,—these are a few of the qualities that combine to make "A Woman's Thought" one of the most remarkable poems in the book. The White Jessamine. —One of the most charming of Father Tabb's lyrics. The verse of this poet is uneven in merit. He is too prone to merely fanciful conceits. But at his best Tabb is imaginative, as, for example, in the lines where he says of Angelo that he— "From the sterile womb of stone, Raised children unto God." 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. The Battle-field. —Miss Dickinson has much of the witchcraft and subtlety of William Blake. Many verses of the shy recluse, whom Mr. Higginson so happily has introduced to the world, are not only daring and unconventional, 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 of "A Prelude." Sesostris. —Of this poem Mr. Stoddard has the high praise that in imaginative quality it is unequalled in nineteenth century literature, unless by Leigh Hunt's sonnet on the Nile. The same critic does not scruple to declare of Mr. Mifflin that he has a "glorious imagination," and to prophesy for him a distinguished future. Seldom indeed has a first book of verse won such instant and universal appreciation as Mr. Mifflin's volume of sonnets, just issued as the "American Treasury" goes to press. INDEX TO FIRST LINES. A blight, a gloom, I know not what; 242 All that thou art not, makes not up the sum; 267 All the long August afternoon; 223 A man said unto his angel; 211 Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold; 266 Around the rocky headlands, far and near; 271 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 sea are tossing ships; 149 At the king's gate the subtle noon; 183 Ay, tear her tattered ensign down; 76 Be thou a bird, my soul, and mount and soar; 282 Because I could not stop for Death; 264 Bedtime's come fu' little boys; 225 Behind him lay the gray Azores; 199 Beneath the warrior's helm, behold; 248 Birds are singing round my window; 193 Burly, dozing bumble-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 Dark as the clouds of even; 100 Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days; 126 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; 1 Farragut, Farragut; 110 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; 31 Her hands are cold; her face is white; 124 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 childhood; 8 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 waited in the little sunny room; 247 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 Just where the Treasury's marble front; 188 Lear and Cordelia! 'twas an ancient tale; 78 Let me come in where you sit weeping,—aye; 263 Let me move slowly through the street; 42 Lo! Death has reared himself a throne; 15 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 books I'd fain cast off, I cannot read; 172 My heart, I cannot still it; 192 My life closed twice before its close; 252 My life is like the summer rose; 4 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 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 Of all the rides since the birth of time; 87 Oh, inexpressible as sweet; 289 Oh, the shambling sea is a sexton old; 277 Oh, who would stay indoor, indoor; 251 Oh, what's the way to Arcady ; 243 Old Sorrow I shall meet again; 230 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 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 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; 71 Sparkling and bright in liquid light; 32 Spirit that moves the sap in spring; 294 Still in thy love I trust; 218 Such special sweetness was about; 224 The apples are ripe in the orchard; 117 The dawn came in through the bars of the blind; 213 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 evening of the year draws on; 162 The handful here, that once was Mary's earth; 147 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 royal feast was done; the King; 205 The shadows lay along Broadway; 24 The sky is dark, and dark the bay below; 217 The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky Home; 98 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 These are the days when birds come back; 265 This bronze doth keep the very form and mold; 207 This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream; 283 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 unrelenting Past; 18 Thou wast all that to me, love; 34 Thought is deeper than all speech; 181 Three roses, wan as moonlight, and weighed down; 210 Under a spreading chestnut-tree; 92 Upon a cloud among the stars we stood; 229 Vast hollow voids, beyond the utmost reach; 257 We sat within the farmhouse old; 133 What, cringe to Europe! 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 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

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