Poems Every Child Should Know Part 38

What matter if I stand alone?

I wait with joy the coming years; My heart shall reap when it has sown, And gather up its fruit of tears.

The stars come nightly to the sky; The tidal wave comes to the sea; Nor time, nor s.p.a.ce, nor deep, nor high, Can keep my own away from me.

The waters know their own and draw The brook that springs in yonder heights; So flows the good with equal law Unto the soul of pure delights.

JOHN BURROUGHS.

ODE TO A SKYLARK.

"Ode to a Skylark," by Percy Bysshe Sh.e.l.ley (1792-1822), is usually a.s.signed to "grammar grades" of schools. It is included here out of respect to a boy of eleven years who was more impressed with these lines than with any other lines in any poem:

"Like a poet hidden, In the light of thought Singing songs unbidden Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not."

Hail to thee, blithe spirit-- Bird thou never wert-- That from heaven or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are brightening, Thou dost float and run, Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.

What thou art we know not; What is most like thee?

From rainbow-clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody:--

Like a poet hidden In the light of thought; Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not.

Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt-- A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?

Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now!

PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY.

THE SANDS OF DEE.

I have often had the pleasure of riding across the coast from Chester, England, to Rhyl, on the north coast of Wales, where stretch "The Sands of Dee" (Charles Kingsley, 1819-75). These purple sands at low tide stretch off into the sea miles away, and are said to be full of quicksands.

"O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee."

The western wind was wild and dark with foam And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land; And never home came she.

Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,-- A tress of golden hair, A drowned maiden's hair, Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet that shone so fair Among the stakes on Dee.

They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea.

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

A WISH.

"A Wish" (by Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855) and "Lucy" (by Wordsworth, 1770-1850) are two gems that can be valued only for the spirit of quiet and modesty diffused by them.

Mine be a cot beside the hill; A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear; A willowy brook that turns a mill With many a fall shall linger near.

The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch Shall twitter from her clay-built nest; Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch, And share my meal, a welcome guest.

Around my ivied porch shall spring Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew; And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing In russet gown and ap.r.o.n blue.

The village church among the trees, Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze And point with taper spire to Heaven.

S. ROGERS.

LUCY.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove; A maid whom there were none to praise, And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone Half-hidden from the eye!

Fair as a star, when only one Is s.h.i.+ning in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

SOLITUDE.

Happy the man, whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground.

Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread, Whose flocks supply him with attire; Whose trees in summer yield him shade, In winter fire.

Blest, who can unconcern'dly find Hours, days, and years slide soft away In health of body, peace of mind, Quiet by day,

Sound sleep by night; study and ease Together mixt, sweet recreation, And innocence, which most does please With meditation.