Poems You Ought to Know
SELECTED BY ELIA W. PEATTIE (Literary Editor of the Chicago Tribune)
ILLUSTRATED BY ELLSWORTH YOUNG
CHICAGO NEW YORK TORONTO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1902 By Tribune Company
Each illustration copyrighted separately
Copyright, 1903 Fleming H. Revell Company
INTRODUCTION
Each morning, for several months, The Chicago Tribune has published at the head of its first column, verses under the caption: “Poems You Ought to Know.” It has explained its action by the following quotation from Professor Charles Eliot Norton:
“Whatever your occupation may be, and however crowded your hours with affairs, do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every day for refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry.”
By publishing these poems The Tribune hopes to accomplish two things: first, to inspire a love of poetry in the hearts of many of its readers who have never before taken time or thought to read the best poems of this and other centuries and lands; and, secondly, to remind those who once loved song, but forgot it among the louder voices of the world, of the melody that enchanted them in youth.
The title has carried with it its own standard, and the poems have been kept on a plane above jocularity or mere prettiness of versification; rather have they tried to teach the doctrines of courage, of nature-love, of pure and noble melody. It has been the ambition of those selecting the verses to choose something to lift the reader above the “petty round of irritating concerns and duties,” and the object will have been achieved if it has helped anyone to “play the man,” “to go blithely about his business all the day,” with a consciousness of that abounding beauty in the world of thought which is the common property of all men.
No anthology of English verse can be complete, and none can satisfy all. The compiler’s individual taste, tempered and guided by established authority, is almost the only standard. This collection has been compiled not by one but by many thousands, and their selections here appear edited and winnowed as the idea of the series seemed to dictate. The book appears at the wide-spread and almost universal request of those who have watched the bold experiment of a great Twentieth-Century American newspaper giving the place of honor in its columns every day to a selection from the poets.
For permission to reprint certain poems by Longfellow, Lowell, Harte, Hay, Bayard Taylor, Holmes, Whittier, Parsons, and Aldrich, graciously accorded by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the publishers, thanks are gratefully acknowledged. To Charles Scribner’s Sons, for an extract from Lanier’s poems, and, lastly, to the many thousand readers, who, by their sympathy, appreciation, and help have encouraged the continuance of the daily publication of the poems, similar gratitude is felt.
p. iCONTENTS
Addison, Joseph
The Spacious Firmament on High
58
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey
An Untimely Thought
73
Nocturne
210
Allen, Elizabeth Akers
Rock Me to Sleep
30
Arnold, Matthew
Requiescat
90
Self Dependence
156
Song of Callicles
214
Barbauld, Mrs. A. L.
Life
161
Beatty, Pakenham
To Thine Own Self Be True
37
Begbie, Harold
Grounds of the “Terrible”
164
Blake, William
The Lamb
153
The Tiger
176
Boker, George H.
Dirge for a Soldier
53
Bourdillon, Francis William
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
115
Brontë, Emily
Remembrance
42
Brown, Brownlee
Thalassa
140
p. iiBrowning, Elizabeth Barrett
The Cry of the Children
106
Browning, Robert
Misconceptions
184
The Year’s at the Spring
135
Bryant, William Cullen
Thanatopsis
112
To a Waterfowl
225
Bunyan, John
The Shepherd Boy’s Song
100
Burns, Robert
Banks o’ Doon
76
Highland Mary
152
John Anderson My Jo
185
Scots Wha Hae
182
Byron, Lord
Destruction of the Sennacherib
32
Maid of Athens
186
She Walks in Beauty
57
The Isles of Greece
232
Campion, Thomas
Cherry Ripe
36
Carey, Henry
Sally in Our Alley
68
Carlyle, Thomas
To-Day
179
Cary, Phoebe
Nearer Home
174
Chatterton, Thomas
Faith
144
Chaucer, Geoffrey
An Emperor’s Daughter Stands Alone
60
Clarke, Macdonald
In the Graveyard
166
p. iiiColeridge, Samuel Taylor
Kubla Khan
190
Cunningham, Allan
A Sea Song
134
David
Psalm XXIV
155
Psalm XLVIII
231
Psalm XLVI
44
Psalm XIX
74
Psalm LXXXIV
111
Psalm CXXI
119
Dickinson, Emily
The Grass
217
Dobson, Austin
A Lovers’ Quarrel
188
The Paradox of Time
208
The Pompadour’s Fan
75
In Quaque
188
Durivage, Francis A.
All
160
Eliot, George
Two Lovers
48
Finch, Francis Miles
Nathan Hale
212
Foss, Sam Walter
He’d Had No Show
93
Garnett, Richard
The Ballad of the Boat
172
Gillington, Mary C.
Intra Muros
21
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang
Mignon’s Song
110
p. ivHarte, Francis Bret
Flynn of Virginia
204
The Society upon the Stanislaus
210
Hawker, Robert Stephen
The Song of the Western Men
129
Hay, John
Jim Bludso
64
Little Breeches
202
Henley, W. E.
Invictus
131
Herbert, George
Virtue
34
Herrick, Robert
Counsel to Virgins
138
Delight in Disorder
62
Holland, Josiah Gilbert
Babyhood
40
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
The Chambered Nautilus
87
The Last Leaf
84
Hood, Thomas
Her Moral from Miss Kilmanseg
95
Past and Present
123
Song of the Shirt
85
The Death-Bed
33
Hunt, Leigh
Abou Ben Adhem
107
Ingalls, John James
Opportunity
109
Jackson, Henry R.
My Wife and Child
220
jonson, Ben
To Celia
187
Keats, John
Ode on a Grecian Urn
97
p. vKey, Francis Scott
The Star-Spangled Banner
120
Kingsley, Charles
The Three Fishers
230
Knox, William
O Why Should the Spirit of Mortal
228
Lamb, Charles
The Old Familiar Faces
18
Lanier, Sidney
Evening Song
54
Lever, Charles
The Widow Malone
218
Logan, John
To the Cuckoo
94
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Arsenal at Springfield
158
Serenade (“The Spanish Student”)
96
The Bridge
76
The Day Is Done
200
Lovelace, Richard
To Althea from Prison
98
To Lucasta on Going to the Wars
35
Lowe, John
Mary’s Dream
124
Lowell, James Russell
Jonathan to John
222
June
194
The Heritage
116
To the Dandelion
170
Lytle, William H.
Antony and Cleopatra
226
Mackay, Charles
A Deed and a Word
47
Mahony, Francis
The Bells of Shandon
196
p. viMcCreery, J. L.
There Is No Death
25
McPhelim, E. J.
Elia
70
Meynell, Alice
The Shepherdess
130
Milton, John
Song on a May Morning
163
Moore, Thomas
Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young Charms
101
Oft in the Stilly Night
63
The Harp that Once
195
Though Lost to Sight
20
’Tis the Last Rose of Summer
132
Mulock, Dinah Maria
Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True
149
Neale, John M.
Jerusalem the Golden
183
Newman, John Henry
Lead Kindly Light
72
O’Connor, Joseph
The Fount of Castaly
142
Parsons, Thomas W.
On a Bust of Dante
126
Poe, Edgar A.
Annabel Lee
178
Pope, Alexander
Ode on Solitude
103
Read, Thomas Buchanan
Drifting
50
Realf, Richard
A Holy Nation
23
p. viiRonsard, Pierre
The Rose
143
Rossetti, Christina
Uphill
148
Ryan, Abram
Song of the Mystic
81
Scott, Sir Walter
Bonny Dundee
167
Border Ballad
169
Breathes there the Man
104
Where Shall the Lover Rest
216
Shakespeare, William
One Touch of Nature
89
Portia’s Speech on Mercy
207
Ruthless Time
46
Song from “Cymbeline”
71
Time Hath, My Lord
46
To Be or Not to Be
224
Macbeth’s Soliloquy
200
When in Disgrace with Fortune
19
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Music when Soft Voices Die
133
An Indian Serenade
141
Sidney, Sir Philip
A Ditty
118
Sill, Edward Rowland
The Fool’s Prayer
28
Spalding, Susan Marr
Fate
22
Stevenson, Robert Louis
A Requiem
90
Suckling, Sir John
Ballad upon a Wedding
192
Why So Pale and Wan
139
Swinburne, Algernon Charles
A Match
137
p. viiiTaylor, Bayard
Bedouin Song
67
The Song of the Camp
146
Tennyson, Lord
Break, Break, Break
24
Bugle Song
108
Crossing the Bar
193
Moral from “The Day Dream”
66
From “In Memoriam”
121
Tears, Idle Tears
151
Thackeray, William Makepeace
At the Church Gate
92
The Garret
198
Tompkins, Juliet Wilbor
For All These
45
Villon, François
Ballad—Dead Ladies
128
Waller, Edmund
Go, Lovely Rose
82
On a Girdle
199
White, Joseph Blanco
Night
79
Whitman, Walt
O Captain, My Captain
38
Warble for Lilac Time
206
Whittier, John G.
Indian Summer
181
The Waiting
136
Willard, Emma
Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep
105
Wither, George
The Shepherd’s Resolution
80
p. ixWoodworth, Samuel
The Old Oaken Bucket
86
Wordsworth, William
The Daffodils
162
The World Is Too Much with Us
102
To Sleep
17
p. 17TO SLEEP. BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
William Wordsworth was born in 1770 and died at Rydal Mount in 1850. He was educated in Cambridge, where he graduated in 1791. He traveled on the continent before that, but he settled down for several years in Dorset. A visit from Coleridge determined his career in 1796. He was again abroad in 1798, but returned the following year and went to live at Grasmere in the Lake District. He held severai government positions and was poet laureate from 1843 to his death. His chief works are, “The Evening Walk,” “Descriptive Sketches,” “The Excursion,” “White Doe of Rylston,” “Thanksgiving Ode,” “Peter Bell,” “Waggoner,” “River Duddon,” A Series of Sonnets, “The Borderers,” “Yarrow Revisited,” and “The Prelude.”
A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by One after one; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;
I’ve thought of all by turns, and still I lie Sleepless; and soon the small birds’ melodies Must hear, first utter’d from my orchard trees, And the first cuckoo’s melancholy cry.
Even thus last night and two nights more I lay, And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth; So do not let me wear tonight away; Without thee what is all the morning’s wealth? Come, blessed barrier between day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
p. 18THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES. BY CHARLES LAMB.
Charles Lamb was born at London in 1775. His most successful writings are the “Tales from Shakespeare” (written in collaboration with his sister), and his “Essays of Ella.” Lamb died in 1834.
I have had playmates, I have had companions, In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing, Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a love once, fairest among women; Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her— All, all are gone the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man; Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly; Left him to muse on the old familiar faces.
Ghost-like I pace round the haunts of my childhood, Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse, Seeking to find the old familiar faces.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, Why wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling? So might we talk of the old familiar faces—
How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed— All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
p. 19WHEN IN DISGRACE. BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising, From sullen earth), sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
p. 20“THOUGH LOST TO SIGHT, TO MEMORY DEAR.” THOMAS MOORE.
Sweetheart, good-by! The fluttering sail Is spread to waft me far from thee; And soon before the favoring gale My ship shall bound across the sea. Perchance, all desolate and forlorn, These eyes shall miss thee many a year; But unforgotten every charm— Though lost to sight, to memory clear.
Sweetheart, good-by! One last embrace! Oh, cruel fate, two souls to sever! Yet in this heart’s most sacred place Thou, thou alone, shall dwell forever. And still shall recollection trace In fancy’s mirror, ever near, Each smile, each tear, upon that face— Though lost to sight, to memory dear.
p. 21INTRA MUROS. BY MARY C. GELLINGTON.
At last ’tis gone, the fever of the day— Thank God, there comes an end to everything; Under the night cloud’s deepened shadowing, The noises of the city drift away Thro’ sultry streets and alleys, and the gray Fogs ’round the great cathedral rise and cling. I long and long, but no desire will bring Against my face the keen wind salt with spray.
O, far away, green waves, your voices call; Your cool lips kiss the wild and weedy shore; And out upon the sea line sails are brown— White sea birds, crying, hover—soft shades fall— Deep waters dimple ’round the dripping oar, And last rays light the little fishing town.
p. 22FATE. BY SUSAN MARR SPALDING.
Susan Marr Spalding was born in Bath, Me., and educated in a seminary there. From early girlhood she wrote verse, her sonnets being graceful and tender. At the death of her parents she lived with her uncle, a clergyman, in New York. She married Mr. Spalding, a literary man, and made her home in Philadelphia.
Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart, And speak in different tongues, and have no thought Each of the other’s being; and have no heed; And these, o’er unknown seas to unknown lands Shall cross, escaping wreck; defying death; And, all unconsciously, shape every act to this one end That, one day, out of darkness, they shall meet And read life’s meaning in each other’s eyes.
And two shall walk some narrow way of life So nearly side by side that, should one turn Ever so little space to right or left, They needs must stand acknowledged face to face. And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet. With groping hands that never clasp; and lips Calling in vain to ears that never hear; They seek each other all their weary days And die unsatisfied—and that is fate.
p. 23A HOLY NATION. BY RICHARD REALF.
Richard Realf was born in England in 1834 of poor parents and began writing poetry at an early age. His early work attracted the attention of Tennyson, Miss Mitford, Miss Jameson, Miss Martineau, and others, and they secured the publication of his volume, “Guesses at the Beautiful.” He dabbled some in sculpture, and even studied agricultural science. In 1854 he came to New York, where he wrote stories of slum life and assisted in establishing some institutions for the relief of the poor. He joined the first free soil parties moving to Kansas and was arrested. He did newspaper work until he joined John Brown’s party. He was Brown’s secretary of state. He was arrested in connection with the Harper’s Ferry affair, enlisted in 1862, was wounded, taught a black school in South Carolina in 1867, and for years led a hand to mouth existence, all that time writing poetry, some of it of the most exquisite beauty. Family troubles resulted in his suicide in San Francisco about 1875.
Let Liberty run onward with the years, And circle with the seasons; let her break The tyrant’s harshness, the oppressor’s spears; Bring ripened recompenses that shall make Supreme amends for sorrow’s long arrears; Drop holy benison on hearts that ache; Put clearer radiance into human eyes, And set the glad earth singing to the skies.
Clean natures coin pure statutes. Let us cleanse The hearts that beat within us; let us mow Clear to the roots our falseness and pretense, Tread down our rank ambitions, overthrow Our braggart moods of puffed self-consequence, Plow up our hideous thistles which do grow Faster than maize in May time, and strike dead The base infections our low greeds have bred.
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