Boom, cannon, boom to all the winds and waves! 381 Clash out, glad bells, from every rocking steeple! Banners, advance with triumph, bend your staves! And from every mountain-peak Let beacon- fire to answering beacon speak, Katahdin tell Monadnock, Whiteface1 he, And so leap on in light from sea to sea, Till the glad news be sent Across a kindling continent, Making earth feel more firm and air breathe braver: 390 "Be proud! for she is saved, and all have helped to save her! She that lifts up the manhood of the poor, She of the open soul and open door, With room about her hearth for all mankind! The fire is dreadful in her eyes no more; From her bold front the helm she doth unbind, Sends all her handmaid armies back to spin, And bids her navies, that so lately hurled Their crashing battle, hold their thunders in, Swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore. 400 No challenge sends she to the elder world, That looked askance and hated; a light No poorest in thy borders but may now Lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow. O Beautiful! my Country! ours once more! Smoothing thy gold of war-dishevelled hair O'er such sweet brows as never other wore, And letting thy set lips, Freed from wrath's pale eclipse, The rosy edges of their smile lay bare, What words divine of lover or of poet Could tell our love and make thee know it, 420 Among the Nations bright beyond compare? What were our lives without thee? We reck not what we gave thee; If you were thrall to sorrow, And I were page to joy, And laughs of maid and boy; If you were April's lady, And I were lord in May, We'd throw with leaves for hours, And draw for days with flowers, Till day like night were shady And night were bright like day; If you were April's lady, And I were lord in May. If you were queen of pleasure, And I were king of pain, We'd hunt down love together, Pluck out his flying-feather, And teach his feet a measure, And find his mouth a rein: If you were queen of pleasure, And I were king of pain. (1866) RUGBY CHAPEL MATTHEW ARNOLD 30 40 Seasons impaired not the ray Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear. Fifteen years have gone round O strong soul, by what shore In the sounding labor-house vast Yes, in some far-shining sphere, Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live, The humble good from the ground, Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse What is the course of the life Gather and squander, are raised 20 I With these lines compare Tennyson's "Wellington Ode," lines 255-58, page 312. And there are some whom a thirst 80 A long, steep journey, through sunk To rock; the cataracts reply; In the place where the wayfarer once The unseen snow-beds dislodge Havoc is made in our train! Friends who set forth at our side With frowning foreheads, with lips Sadly we answer, We bring Sight of the rest in the storm. 100 Hardly ourselves we fought through, 120 But thou wouldst not alone Fearful, and we in our march And through thee I believe In the noble and great who are gone; Is the race of men whom I see- 130 140 150 160 170 180 That army, not one shall arrive; Sole they shall stray; in the rocks Stagger forever in vain, Die one by one in the waste. Then, in such hour of need Of your fainting, dispirited race, Beacons of hope, ye appear! Languor is not in your heart, Ye alight in our van! at your voice, Ye move through the ranks, recall EAST LONDON MATTHEW ARNOLD 190 200 THE ETERNAL GOODNESS JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [The closing portion of a poem of twenty-two stanzas.] I know not what the future hath And if my heart and flesh are weak The bruised reed He will not break, No offering of my own I have, And so beside the Silent Sea No harm from Him can come to me I know not where his islands lift O brothers! if my faith is vain, And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen THE STEAM THRESHING MACHINE CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER 10 20 Flush with the pond the lurid furnace burned At eve, while smoke and vapor filled the yard; The gloomy winter sky was dimly starred, The fly-wheel with a mellow murmur turned; While, ever rising on its mystic stair In the dim light, from secret chambers borne, The straw of harvest, severed from the corn, Climbed, and fell over, in the murky air. I thought of mind and matter, will and law, And then of him1 who set his stately seal Of Roman words on all the forms he saw Of old-world husbandry: I could but feel With what a rich precision he would draw The endless ladder and the booming wheel! (1868) ALADDIN JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL When I was a beggarly boy, But I had Aladdin's lamp; Since then I have toiled day and night, I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose, (1868) LOST DAYS DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat 1 Virgil, who poetized Roman farm-life in his Georgics. |