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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

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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?
What all our lives to save thee?

We reck not what we gave thee;
We will not dare to doubt thee,
But ask whatever else, and we will dare!
(1865)

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If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy,
We'd play for lives and seasons
With loving looks and treasons
And tears of night and morrow

And laughs of maid and boy;
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.

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

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Seasons impaired not the ray

Of thy buoyant cheerfulness clear.
Such thou wast! and I stand
In the autumn evening, and think
Of bygone autumns with thee.

Fifteen years have gone round
Since thou arosest to tread,
In the summer-morning, the road
Of death, at a call unforeseen,
Sudden. For fifteen years,
We who till then in thy shade
Rested as under the boughs
Of a mighty oak, have endured
Sunshine and rain as we might,
Bare, unshaded, alone,
Lacking the shelter of thee.

O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely, afar,

In the sounding labor-house vast
Of being, is practised that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!1

Yes, in some far-shining sphere,
Conscious or not of the past,
Still thou performest the word

Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live,
Prompt, unwearied, as here!
Still thou upraisest with zeal

The humble good from the ground,
Sternly repressest the bad;

Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse
Those who with half-open eyes
Tread the border-land dim
'Twixt vice and virtue; reviv'st,
Succorest. This was thy work,
This was thy life upon earth.

What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth?
Most men eddy about
Here and there eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,

Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurled in the dust,
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing; and then they die,-
Perish; and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,

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I With these lines compare Tennyson's "Wellington Ode," lines 255-58, page 312.

And there are some whom a thirst
Ardent, unquenchable, fires,
Not with the crowd to be spent,
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust,
Effort unmeaning and vain.
Ah yes! some of us strive
Not without action to die
Fruitless, but something to snatch
From dull oblivion, nor all
Glut the devouring grave.
We, we have chosen our path,-
Path to a clear-purposed goal,
Path of advance; but it leads

80

A long, steep journey, through sunk
Gorges, o'er mountains in snow.
Cheerful, with friends, we set forth:
Then, on the height, comes the storm. 90
Thunder crashes from rock

To rock; the cataracts reply;
Lightnings dazzle our eyes;
Roaring torrents have breached
The track; the stream-bed descends

In the place where the wayfarer once
Planted his footstep-the spray
Boils o'er its borders! aloft,

The unseen snow-beds dislodge
Their hanging ruin. Alas,

Havoc is made in our train!

Friends who set forth at our side
Falter, are lost in the storm.
We, we only are left!

With frowning foreheads, with lips
Sternly compressed, we strain on,
On-and at nightfall at last
Come to the end of our way,
To the lonely inn 'mid the rocks;
Where the gaunt and taciturn host
Stands on the threshold, the wind
Shaking his thin white hairs,
Holds his lantern to scan
Our storm-beat figures, and asks,-
Whom in our party we bring?
Whom we have left in the snow?

Sadly we answer, We bring
Only ourselves! we lost

Sight of the rest in the storm.

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Hardly ourselves we fought through, 120
Stripped, without friends, as we are.
Friends, companions, and train,
The avalanche swept from our side.

But thou wouldst not alone
Be saved, my father! alone
Conquer and come to thy goal,
Leaving the rest in the wild.
We were weary, and we

Fearful, and we in our march
Fain to drop down and to die.
Still thou turnedst, and still
Beckonedst the trembler, and still
Gavest the weary thy hand.
If, in the paths of the world,
Stones might have wounded thy feet,
Toil or dejection have tried
Thy spirit, of that we saw
Nothing to us thou wast still
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm!
Therefore to thee it was given
Many to save with thyself,
And, at the end of thy day,
O faithful shepherd, to come,
Bringing thy sheep in thy hand.

And through thee I believe

In the noble and great who are gone;
Pure souls honored and blest
By former ages, who else-
Such, so soulless, so poor,

Is the race of men whom I see-
Seemed but a dream of the heart,
Seemed but a cry of desire.
Yes! I believe that there lived
Others like thee in the past,
Not like the men of the crowd
Who all round me to-day
Bluster or cringe, and make life
Hideous and arid and vile;
But souls tempered with fire,
Fervent, heroic, and good,
Helpers and friends of mankind.

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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,
Ye like angels appear,
Radiant with ardor divine.

Beacons of hope, ye appear!

Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow.

Ye alight in our van! at your voice,
Panic, despair, flee away.

Ye move through the ranks, recall
The stragglers, refresh the outworn,
Praise, re-inspire the brave.
Order, courage, return;
Eyes rekindling, and prayers,
Follow your steps as ye go.
Ye fill up the gaps in our files,
Strengthen the wavering line,
Stablish, continue our march,
On, to the bound of the waste,
On to the City of God.
(1867)

EAST LONDON

MATTHEW ARNOLD

190

200

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THE ETERNAL GOODNESS

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER [The closing portion of a poem of twenty-two stanzas.]

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,

The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,
Nor works my faith to prove;
I can but give the gifts He gave,
And plead his love for love.

And so beside the Silent Sea
I wait the muffled oar;

No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.

I know not where his islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond his love and care.

O brothers! if my faith is vain,
If hopes like these betray,
Pray for me that my feet may gain
The sure and safer way.

And Thou, O Lord! by whom are seen
Thy creatures as they be,
Forgive me if too close I lean
My human heart on Thee!
(1867)

THE STEAM THRESHING

MACHINE

CHARLES TENNYSON-TURNER

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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,
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 the 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, 10
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!

(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.

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