CONTENTS

• Frontispiece
• Title page
• Acknowledgments to Publishers and Authors
• Preface
• Contents
• Index of Authors
• Part I.
• Part II.
• Part III.
• Part IV.
• Part V.
• Part VI.
• Index of First Lines

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COPYRIGHT. 1904, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS TO PUBLISHERS AND AUTHORS

It sometimes happens that there are people who do not know that authors are protected by copyright laws. A publisher once cited to me an instance of a teacher who innocently put forth a little volume of poems that she loved and admired, without asking permission of any one. Her annoyance was boundless when she found that she had no right to the poems.

Special permission has been obtained for each copyrighted poem in this volume, and the right to publish has been purchased of the author or publisher, except in those cases where the author or the publisher has, for reasons of courtesy and friendship, given the permission.

In addition to the business arrangements which have been made, we wish to extend our thanks and acknowledgments to those firms which have so kindly allowed us to use their material.

To Houghton, Mifflin & Company, of Boston, we are indebted for the use of the following poems: From the copyrighted works of Longfellow—"The Arrow and the Song," "A Fragment of Hiawatha's Childhood," "The Skeleton in Armour," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Ship of State," "The Psalm of Life," "The Village Blacksmith." From Whittier—"Barbara Frietchie" and "The Three Bells of Glasgow." From Emerson—"The Problem." From Burroughs—"My Own Shall Come to Me." From Lowell—"The Finding of the Lyre," "The Shepherd of King Admetus," and a fragment of "The Vision of Sir Launfal," From Holmes—"The Chambered Nautilus" and "Old Ironsides." From James T. Fields—"

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@16436@[email protected]#The_Captains_Daughter" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">The Captain's Daughter." From Bayard Taylor—"The Song in Camp," From Celia Thaxter—"The Sandpiper." From J. T. Trowbridge—"Farm-Yard Song." From Edith M. Thomas—"The God of Music" and Hermes' "Moly."

To Charles Scribner's Sons we are indebted for the use of the following poems: From the copyrighted works of Eugene Field—"Wynken Blynken, and Nod," "Krinken," and "The Duel." From Robert Louis Stevenson—"My Shadow." From James Whitcomb Riley's poems—"Little Orphant Annie." From the poems of Sidney Lanier—"Barnacles" and "The Tournament." From "The Poems of Patriotism"—"Sheridan's Ride."

We are further indebted to Charles Scribner's Sons, as well as to Mr. George W. Cable, for "The New Arrival," taken from "The Cable Story Book," and to Mrs. Katherine Miller and Scribner's Magazine for "Stevenson's Birthday."

To J. B. Lippincott Company we are indebted for the use of "Sheridan's Ride," from the complete works of T. Buchanan Read.

To Harper & Brothers for the use of "Driving Home the Cows," by Kate Putnam Osgood.

To Little, Brown & Company, of Boston, "How the Leaves Came Down," by Susan Coolidge.

To the Whitaker & Ray Company, of San Francisco, "Columbus," by Joaquin Miller, from his complete works published and copyrighted by that company.

To D. Appleton & Company for "The Planting of the Apple-Tree" and "Robert of Lincoln," from the complete works of William Cullen Bryant; also for "Marco Bozzaris," from the works of Fitz-Greene Halleck.

To the Macmillan Company for "The Forsaken Merman," by Matthew Arnold, from the complete volume of his poems published by that company.

To the Howard University Print, Washington, D.C., for Jeremiah Rankin's little poem, "The Babie," from "Ingleside Rhaims."

To the heirs of Mary Emily Bradley for "A Chrysalis."

To Henry Holcomb Bennett for "The Flag Goes By."

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PREFACE

Is this another collection of stupid poems that children cannot use? Will they look hopelessly through this volume for poems that suit them? Will they say despairingly, "This is too long," and "That is too hard," and "I don't like that because it is not interesting"?

Are there three or four pleasing poems and are all the rest put in to fill up the book? Nay, verily! The poems in this collection are those that children love. With the exception of seven, they are short enough for children to commit to memory without wearying themselves or losing interest in the poem. If one boy learns "The Overland Mail," or "The Recruit," or "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod," or "The Song in Camp," or "

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@16436@[email protected]#Old_Ironsides" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">Old Ironsides," or "I Have a Little Shadow," or "The Tournament," or "The Duel," nine boys out of ten will be eager to follow him. I know because I have tried it a dozen times. Every boy loves "Paul Revere's Ride" (alas! I have not been able to include it), and is ambitious to learn it, but only boys having a quick memory will persevere to the end. Shall the slower boy be deprived of the pleasure of reading the whole poem and getting its inspiring sentiment and learning as many stanzas as his mind will take? No, indeed. Half of such a poem is better than none. Let the slow boy learn and recite as many stanzas as he can and the boy of quick memory follow him up with the rest. It does not help the slow boy's memory to keep it down entirely or deprive it of its smaller activity because he cannot learn the whole. Some people will invariably give the slow child a very short poem. It is often better to divide a long poem among the children, letting each child learn a part. The sustained interest of a long poem is worth while. "The Merman," "The Battle of Ivry," "Horatius at the Bridge," "Krinken," "The Skeleton in Armour," "The Raven" and "Hervé Riel" may all profitably be learned that way. Nevertheless, the child enjoys most the poem that is just long enough, and there is much to be said in favour of the selection that is adapted, in length, to the average mind; for the child hesitates in the presence of quantity rather than in the presence of subtle thought. I make claim for this collection that it is made up of poems that the majority of children will learn of their own free will. There are people who believe that in the matter of learning poetry there is no "ought," but this is a false belief. There is a duty, even there; for every American citizen ought to know the great national songs that keep alive the spirit of patriotism. Children should build for their future—and get, while they are children, what only the fresh imagination of the child can assimilate.

They should store up an untold wealth of heroic sentiment; they should acquire the habit of carrying a literary quality in their conversation; they should carry a heart full of the fresh and delightful associations and memories, connected with poetry hours to brighten mature years. They should develop their memories while they have memories to develop.

Will the boy who took every poetry hour for a whole school year to learn "Henry of Navarre" ever regret it, or will the children who listened to it? No. It was fresh every week and they brought fresh interest in listening. The boy will always love it because he used to love it. There were boys who scrambled for the right to recite "The Tournament," "The Charge of the Light Brigade," "The Star-Spangled Banner," and so on. The boy who was first to reach the front had the privilege. The triumph of getting the chance to recite added to the zest of it. Will they ever forget it?

I know Lowell's "The Finding of the Lyre." Attention, Sir Knights! See who can learn it first as I say it to you. But I find that I have forgotten a line of it, so you may open your books and teach it to me. Now, I can recite every word of it. How much of it can you repeat from memory? One boy can say it all. Nearly every child has learned the most of it. Now, it will be easy for you to learn it alone. And Memory, the Goddess Beautiful, will henceforth go with you to recall this happy hour.

Mary E. Burt.
The John A. Browning School, 1904.

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CONTENTS

PART I

1. The Arrow and the Song 3
   Henry W. Longfellow
2. The Babie 4
   Jeremiah Eames Rankin
3. Let Dogs Delight to Bark and Bite 4
   Isaac Watts
4. Little Things 5
   Ebenezer Cobham Brewer
5. He Prayeth Best 5
   Samuel T. Coleridge
6. Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star 6
   Anonymous
7. Pippa 6
   Robert Browning
8. The Days of the Month

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@16436@[email protected]#The_Days_of_the_Month" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">7
An Old Song

True Royalty 7
Rudyard Kipling

Playing Robinson Crusoe 8
Rudyard Kipling

My Shadow 9
Robert Louis Stevenson

Little White Lily 10
George Macdonald

How the Leaves Came Down 12
Susan Coolidge

Willie Winkie 13
William Miller

The Owl and the Pussy-Cat 15
Edward Lear

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 16
Eugene Field

The Duel 18
Eugene Field

The Boy Who Never Told a Lie 19
Anonymous

Love Between Brothers and Sisters 20
Isaac Watts

The Bluebell of Scotland 20
Anonymous

If I Had But Two Little Wings 21
Samuel T. Coleridge

A Farewell 21
Charles Kingsley

Casabianca 22
Felicia Hemans

The Captain's Daughter 23
James T. Fields

The Village Blacksmith 25
Henry W. Longfellow

Sweet and Low 27
Alfred Tennyson

The Violet 27
Jane Taylor

The Rainbow (a fragment) 28
William Wordsworth

A Visit From St. Nicholas 29
Clement Clarke Moore

The Star-Spangled Banner 31
Francis Scott Key

Father William 33
Lewis Carroll

The Nightingale and the Glow-worm 34
William Cowper

PART II

1. The Frost 39
   Hannah Flagg Gould
2. The Owl 40
   Alfred Tennyson
3. Little Billee 41
   William Makepeace Thackeray
4. The Butterfly and the Bee 42
   William Lisle Bowles
5. An Incident of the French Camp 43
   Robert Browning
6. Robert of Lincoln

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@16436@[email protected]#Robert_of_Lincoln" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">44
William Cullen Bryant

Old Grimes 47
Albert Gorton Greene

Song of Life 48
Charles Mackay

Fairy Song 50
John Keats

A Boy's Song 50
James Hogg

Buttercups and Daisies 51
Mary Howitt

The Rainbow 53
Thomas Campbell

Old Ironsides 53
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Little Orphant Annie 54
James Whitcomb Riley

O Captain! My Captain! 57
Walt Whitman

Ingratitude 58
William Shakespeare

The Ivy Green 59
Charles Dickens

The Noble Nature 60
Ben Jonson

The Flying Squirrel 60
Mary E. Burt

Warren's Address 63
John Pierpont

The Song in Camp 64
Bayard Taylor

The Bugle Song 66
Alfred Tennyson

The Three Bells of Glasgow 67
John G. Whittier

Sheridan's Ride 68
Thomas Buchanan Read

The Sandpiper 71
Celia Thaxter

Lady Clare 72
Alfred Tennyson

The Lord of Burleigh 75
Alfred Tennyson

Hiawatha's Childhood 79
Henry W. Longfellow

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 82
William Wordsworth

John Barleycorn 83
Robert Burns

A Life on the Ocean Wave 85
Epes Sargent

The Death of the Old Year 86
Alfred Tennyson

Abou Ben Adhem 89
Leigh Hunt

Farm-Yard Song 90
J.T. Trowbridge

To a Mouse 92
Robert Burns

To a Mountain Daisy 94
Robert Burns

Barbara Frietchie

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@16436@[email protected]#Barbara_Frietchie" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">96
John G. Whittier

PART III

1. Lochinvar 103
   Sir Walter Scott
2. Lord Ullin's Daughter 105
   Thomas Campbell
3. The Charge of the Light Brigade 107
   Alfred Tennyson
4. The Tournament 110
   Sidney Lanier
5. The Wind and the Moon 111
   George Macdonald
6. Jesus the Carpenter 114
   Catherine C. Liddell
7. Letty's Globe 115
   Charles Tennyson Turner
8. A Dream 116
   William Blake
9. Heaven Is Not Reached at a Single Bound 117
   J. G. Holland
10. The Battle of Blenheim 117
    Robert Southey
11. Fidelity 120
    William Wordsworth
12. The Chambered Nautilus 122
    Oliver Wendell Holmes
13. Crossing the Bar 124
    Alfred Tennyson
14. The Overland-Mail 125
    Rudyard Kipling
15. Gathering Song of Donald Dhu 126
    Sir Walter Scott
16. Marco Bozzaris 128
    Fitz-greene Halleck
17. The Death of Napoleon 131
    Isaac McClellan
18. How Sleep the Brave 133
    William Collins
19. The Flag Goes By 133
    Henry Holcomb Bennett
20. Hohenlinden 134
    Thomas Campbell
21. My Old Kentucky Home 136
    Stephen Collins Foster
22. Old Folks at Home 137
    Stephen Collins Foster
23. The Wreck of the Hesperus 138
    Henry W. Longfellow
24. Bannockburn 142
    Robert Burns

PART IV

1. The Inchcape Rock 145
   Robert Southey
2. The Finding of the Lyre 148
   James Russell Lowell
3. A Chrysalis 149
   Mary Emily Bradley
4. For a' That 151
   Robert Burns
5. The New Arrival

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">152
George W. Cable

The Brook 153
Alfred Tennyson

The Ballad of the Clampherdown 154
Rudyard Kipling

The Destruction of Sennacherib 158
Lord Byron

I Remember, I Remember 159
Thomas Hood

Driving Home the Cows 160
Kate Putnam Osgood

Krinken 162
Eugene Field

Stevenson's Birthday 164
Katherine Miller

A Modest Wit 165
Selleck Osborne

The Legend of Bishop Hatto 166
Robert Southey

Columbus 160
Joaquin Miller

The Shepherd of King Admetus 171
James Russell Lowell

How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix 173
Robert Browning

The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna 176
C. Wolfe

The Eve of Waterloo 177
Lord Byron

Ivry 179
Thomas B. Macaulay

The Glove and the Lions 184
Leigh Hunt

The Well of St. Keyne 186
Robert Southey

The Nautilus and the Ammonite 188
Anonymous

The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk 190
William Cowper

The Homes of England 192
Felicia Hemans

Horatius at the Bridge 193
Thomas B. Macaulay

The Planting of the Apple-Tree 211
William Cullen Bryant

PART V

1. June 217
   James Russell Lowell
2. A Psalm of Life 218
   Henry W. Longfellow
3. Barnacles 219
   Sidney Lanier
4. A Happy Life 220
   Sir Henry Wotton
5. Home, Sweet Home 220
   John Howard Payne
6. From Casa Guidi Windows 222
   Elizabeth Barrett Browning
7. Woodman, Spare That Tree! 222
   George Pope Morris
8. Abide With Me

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@16436@[email protected]#Abide_With_Me" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">223
Henry Francis Lyte

Lead, Kindly Light 224
John Henry Newman

The Last Rose of Summer 225
Thomas Moore

Annie Laurie 226
William Douglas

The Ship of State 227
Henry W. Longfellow

America 228
Samuel Francis Smith

The Landing of the Pilgrims 229
Felicia Hemans

The Lotos-Eaters 231
Alfred Tennyson

Moly 233
Edith M. Thomas

Cupid Drowned 234
Leigh Hunt

Cupid Stung 234
Thomas Moore

Cupid and My Campasbe 235
John Lyly

A Ballad for a Boy 236
Anonymous

The Skeleton in Armour 240
Henry W. Longfellow

The Revenge 246
Alfred Tennyson

Sir Galahad 253
Alfred Tennyson

A Name in the Sand 256
Hannah Flagg Gould

PART VI

1. The Voice of Spring 259
   Felicia Hemans
2. The Forsaken Merman 260
   Matthew Arnold
3. The Banks o' Doon 265
   Robert Burns
4. The Light of Other Days 266
   Thomas Moore
5. My Own Shall Come to Me 267
   John Burroughs
6. Ode to a Skylark 268
   Percy Bysshe Shelley
7. The Sands of Dee 271
   Charles Kingsley
8. A Wish 272
   Samuel Rogers
9. Lucy 272
   William Wordsworth
10. Solitude 273
    Alexander Pope
11. John Anderson 274
    Robert Burns
12. The God of Music 275
    Edith M. Thomas
13. A Musical Instrument 275
    Elizabeth Barrett Browning
14. The Brides of Enderby 277
    

class="smcap">Jean Ingelow

The Lye 283
Sir Walter Raleigh

L'Envoi 285
Rudyard Kipling

Contentment 286
Edward Dyer

The Harp That Once Through Tara's Halls 287
Thomas Moore

The Old Oaken Bucket 288
Samuel Woodworth

The Raven 289
Edgar Allan Poe

Arnold von Winkleried 296
James Montgomery

Life, I Know Not What Thou Art 299
A. L. Barbauld

Mercy 300
William Shakespeare

Polonius' Advice 301
William Shakespeare

A Fragment from "Julius Cæsar" 301
William Shakespeare

The Skylark 302
Thomas Hogg

The Choir Invisible 303
George Eliot

The World Is Too Much With Us 304
William Wordsworth

On His Blindness 304
John Milton

She Was a Phantom of Delight 305
William Wordsworth

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 306
Thomas Gray

Rabbi Ben Ezra 312
Robert Browning

Prospice 320
Robert Browning

Recessional 321
Rudyard Kipling

Ozymandias of Egypt 322
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mortality 323
William Knox

On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer 326
John Keats

Hervé Riel 326
Robert Browning

The Problem 333
Ralph Waldo Emerson

To America 335
Alfred Austin

The English Flag 337
Rudyard Kipling

The Man With the Hoe 342
Edwin Markham

Song of Myself 344
Walt Whitman

Index 350

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