Eighth Reader Part 15

Select the stanza which seems to you the most touching, and read it.

Study now the peculiarities of the poem. Do the lines rime? Are they of similar length? What can you say about the meter?

Compare this poem with the two gems from Browning, pages 38 and 41.

Compare it with the selection from Longfellow, page 54; with that from Lanier, page 66. How does it differ from any or all of these?

What is poetry? Name three great American poets; three great English poets.

THE ADDRESS AT GETTYSBURG[31]

Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation--or any nation so conceived and so dedicated--can long endure.

We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as the final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so n.o.bly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us;--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion;--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under G.o.d, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 31: By Abraham Lincoln, at the dedication of the National Cemetery, 1863.]

ODE TO THE CONFEDERATE DEAD[32]

Sleep sweetly in your humble graves, Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause; Though yet no marble column craves The pilgrim here to pause.

In seeds of laurel in the earth The blossom of your fame is blown, And somewhere, waiting for its birth, The shaft is in the stone.

Meanwhile, behalf the tardy years Which keep in trust your storied tombs, Behold! Your sisters bring their tears And these memorial blooms.

Small tribute! but your shades will smile More proudly on these wreathes to-day, Than when some cannon-molded pile Shall overlook this bay.

Stoop, angels, hither from the skies!

There is no holier spot of ground Than where defeated valor lies, By mourning beauty crowned.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 32: By Henry Timrod, an American poet (1829-1867).]

THE CHARIOT RACE[33]

Orestes? He is dead. I will tell all as it happened.

He journeyed forth to attend the great games which h.e.l.las counts her pride, to join the Delphic contests. There he heard the herald's voice, with loud and clear command, proclaim, as coming first, the chariot race, and so he entered, radiant, every eye admiring as he pa.s.sed. And in the race he equaled all the promise of his form in those his rounds, and so with n.o.blest prize of conquest left the ground.

Summing up in fewest words what many scarce could tell, I know of none in strength and act like him. And having won the prize in all the fivefold forms of race which the umpires had proclaimed, he then was hailed, proclaimed an Argive, and his name Orestes, the son of mighty Agamemnon, who once led h.e.l.las's glorious host.

So far, well. But when a G.o.d will injure, none can escape, strong though he be. For lo! another day, when, as the sun was rising, came the race swift-footed of the chariot and the horse, he entered the contest with many charioteers. One was an Achaean, one was from Sparta, two were from Libya with four-horsed chariots, and Orestes with swift Thessalian mares came as the fifth. A sixth, with bright bay colts, came from aetolia; the seventh was born in far Magnesia; the eighth was an aenian with white horses; the ninth was from Athens, the city built by the G.o.ds; the tenth and last was a Boeotian.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Chariot Race.]

And so they stood, their cars in order as the umpires had decided by lot. Then, with sound of brazen trumpet, they started.

All cheering their steeds at the same moment, they shook the reins, and at once the course was filled with the clash and din of rattling chariots, and the dust rose high. All were now commingled, each striving to pa.s.s the hubs of his neighbors' wheels. Hard and hot were the horses'

breathings, and their backs and the chariot wheels were white with foam.

Each charioteer, when he came to the place where the last stone marks the course's goal, turned the corner sharply, letting go the right-hand trace horse and pulling the nearer in. And so, at first, the chariots kept their course; but, at length, the aenian's unbroken colts, just as they finished their sixth or seventh round, turned headlong back and dashed at full speed against the chariot wheels of those who were following. Then with tremendous uproar, each crashed on the other, they fell overturned, and Crissa's broad plain was filled with wreck of chariots.

The man from Athens, skilled and wise as a charioteer, saw the mischief in time, turned his steeds aside, and escaped the whirling, raging surge of man and horse. Last of all, Orestes came, holding his horses in check, and waiting for the end. But when he saw the Athenian, his only rival left, he urged his colts forward, shaking the reins and speeding onward. And now the twain continued the race, their steeds sometimes head to head, sometimes one gaining ground, sometimes the other; and so all the other rounds were pa.s.sed in safety.

Upright in his chariot still stood the ill-starred hero. Then, just as his team was turning, he let loose the left rein unawares, and struck the farthest pillar, breaking the spokes right at his axles' center.

Slipping out of his chariot, he was dragged along, with reins dissevered. His frightened colts tore headlong through the midst of the field; and the people, seeing him in his desperate plight, bewailed him greatly--so young, so n.o.ble, so unfortunate, now hurled upon the ground, helpless, lifeless.

The charioteers, scarcely able to restrain the rus.h.i.+ng steeds, freed the poor broken body--so mangled that not one of all his friends would have known whose it was. They built a pyre and burned it; and now they bear hither, in a poor urn of bronze, the sad ashes of that mighty form--that so Orestes may have his tomb in his fatherland.

Such is my tale, full sad to hear; but to me who saw this accident, nothing can ever be more sorrowful.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 33: Translated from the "Electra" of Sophocles, written about 450 years before Christ. The narrative is supposed to have been related by the friend and attendant of the hero, Orestes.]

THE COLISEUM AT MIDNIGHT[34]

I crossed the Forum to the foot of the Palatine, and, ascending the Via Sacra, pa.s.sed beneath the Arch of t.i.tus. From this point I saw below me the gigantic outline of the Coliseum, like a cloud resting upon the earth.

As I descended the hillside, it grew more broad and high,--more definite in its form, and yet more grand in its dimensions,--till, from the vale in which it stands encompa.s.sed by three of the Seven Hills of Rome, the majestic ruin in all its solitary grandeur "swelled vast to heaven."

A single sentinel was pacing to and fro beneath the arched gateway which leads to the interior, and his measured footsteps were the only sound that broke the breathless silence of night.

What a contrast with the scene which that same midnight hour presented, when in Domitian's time the eager populace began to gather at the gates, impatient for the morning sports! Nor was the contrast within less striking. Silence, and the quiet moonbeams, and the broad, deep shadow of the ruined wall!

Where now were the senators of Rome, her matrons, and her virgins? Where was the ferocious populace that rent the air with shouts, when, in the hundred holidays that marked the dedication of this imperial slaughter house, five thousand wild beasts from the Libyan deserts and the forests of Anatolia made the arena sick with blood?

Where were the Christian martyrs that died with prayers upon their lips, amid the jeers and imprecations of their fellow men? Where were the barbarian gladiators, brought forth to the festival of blood, and "butchered to make a Roman holiday"?