Graded Memory Selections

LOVE OF COUNTRY

 
Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d,
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concenter’d all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor’d, and unsung.
 

—Scott.

THE DAFFODILS

 
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
 
 
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
 
 
The waves beside them danced; but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
 
 
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
 

—Wordsworth.

A CHILD’S THOUGHT OF GOD

 
They say that God lives very high:
But if you look above the pines
You cannot see God. And why?
 
 
And if you dig down in the mines
You never see him in the gold,
Though, from him, all that’s glory shines.
 
 
God is so good, he wears a fold
Of heaven and earth across his face—
Like secrets kept for love untold.
 
 
But still I feel that his embrace
Slides down by thrills, through all things made,
Through sight and sound of every place:
 
 
As if my tender mother laid
On my shut lids her kisses’ pressure,
Half waking me at night; and said,
“Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?”
 

—Mrs. Browning.

FROM MY ARM-CHAIR.¹³

 
Am I a king that I should call my own
This splendid ebon throne?
Or by what reason or what right divine,
Can I proclaim it mine?
 
 
Only, perhaps, by right divine of song
It may to me belong:
Only because the spreading chestnut tree
Of old was sung by me.
 
 
Well I remember it in all its prime,
When in the summer time
The affluent foliage of its branches made
A cavern of cool shade.
 
 
There by the blacksmith’s forge, beside the street,
Its blossoms white and sweet
Enticed the bees, until it seemed alive,
And murmured like a hive.
 
 
And when the winds of autumn, with a shout,
Tossed its great arms about,
The shining chestnuts, bursting from the sheath,
Dropped to the ground beneath.
 
 
And now some fragments of its branches bare,
Shaped as a stately chair,
Have, by a hearth-stone found a home at last,
And whisper of the past.
 
 
The Danish king could not in all his pride
Repel the ocean tide.
But, seated in this chair,
I can in rhyme
Roll back the tide of time.
 
 
I see again, as one in vision sees,
The blossoms and the bees,
And hear the children’s voices call,
And the brown chestnuts fall.
 
 
I see the smithy with its fires aglow,
I hear the bellows blow,
And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat
The iron white with heat.
 
 
And thus, dear children, have ye made for me
This day a jubilee,
And to my more than three-score years and ten
Brought back my youth again.
 
 
The heart hath its own memory, like the mind
And in it are enshrined
The precious keepsakes, into which is wrought
The giver’s loving thought.
 
 
Only your love and your remembrance could
Give life to this dead wood,
And make these branches, leafless now so long,
Blossom again in song.
 

—Longfellow.

A SONG OF EASTER.¹⁴

 
Sing, children, sing,
And the lily censers swing;
Sing that life and joy are waking and that
Death no more is king.
Sing the happy, happy tumult of the slowly bright’ning Spring;
Sing, little children, sing,
Sing, children, sing,
Winter wild has taken wing.
 
 
Fill the air with the sweet tidings till the frosty echoes ring.
Along the eaves, the icicles no longer cling;
And the crocus in the garden lifts its bright face to the sun;
And in the meadow, softly the brooks begin to run;
And the golden catkins, swing
In the warm air of the Spring—
Sing, little children, sing.
 
 
Sing, children, sing,
The lilies white you bring
In the joyous Easter morning, for hopes are blossoming,
And as earth her shroud of snow from off her breast doth fling,
So may we cast our fetters off in God’s eternal Spring;
So may we find release at last from sorrow and from pain,
Soon may we find our childhood’s calm, delicious dawn again.
Sweet are your eyes, O little ones, that look with smiling grace,
Without a shade of doubt or fear into the future’s face.
 
 
Sing, sing in happy chorus, with happy voices tell
That death is life, and God is good, and all things shall be well.
That bitter day shall cease
In warmth and light and peace,
That winter yields to Spring—
Sing, little children, sing.
 

—Celia Thaxter.

THE JOY OF THE HILLS.¹⁵

 
I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;
I have found my life and am satisfied.
Onward I ride in the blowing oats,
Checking the field lark’s rippling notes—
Lightly I sweep from steep to steep;
O’er my head through branches high
Come glimpses of deep blue sky;
The tall oats brush my horse’s flanks:
Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks;
A bee booms out of the scented grass;
A jay laughs with me as I pass.
 
 
I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget
Life’s hoard of regret—
All the terror and pain of a chafing chain.
Grind on, O cities, grind! I leave you a blur behind.
I am lifted elate—the skies expand;
Here the world’s heaped gold is a pile of sand.
Let them weary and work in their narrow walls;
I ride with the voices of waterfalls.
I swing on as one in a dream—I swing.
Down the very hollows, I shout, I sing.
The world is gone like an empty word;
My body’s a bough in the wind,—my heart a bird.
 

—Edwin Markham.

IN BLOSSOM TIME

 
Its O my heart, my heart,
To be out in the sun and sing,
To sing and shout in the fields about,
In the balm and blossoming.
 
 
Sing loud, O bird in the tree;
O bird, sing loud in the sky,
And honey-bees, blacken the clover-beds;
There are none of you as glad as I.
 
 
The leaves laugh low in the wind,
Laugh low with the wind at play;
And the odorous call of the flowers all
Entices my soul away.
 
 
For oh, but the world is fair, is fair,
And oh, but the world is sweet;
I will out in the old of the blossoming mould,
And sit at the Master’s feet.
 
 
And the love my heart would speak,
I will fold in the lily’s rim,
That the lips of the blossom more pure and meek
May offer it up to Him.
 
 
Then sing in the hedgerow green, O thrush,
O skylark, sing in the blue;
Sing loud, sing clear, that the King may hear,
And my soul shall sing with you.
 

—Ina Coolbrith.

THE STARS AND THE FLOWERS.¹⁶

 
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers so blue and golden
Stars that in earth’s firmament do shine.
 
 
Stars they are wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars that they beheld.
 
 
Wondrous truths and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of His love.
 
 
Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Written all over this great world of ours
Making evident our own creation,
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.
 
 
And the poet, faithful and far-seeing,
Sees, alike in stars and flowers, a part
Of the selfsame universal Being,
Which is throbbing in his brain and heart.
 
 
Gorgeous flowerets in the sunlight shining,
Blossoms flaunting in the eye of day,
Tremulous leaves, with soft and silver lining;
Buds that open only to decay;
 
 
Brilliant hopes, all woven in gorgeous tissues,
Flaunting gaily in the golden light;
Large desires with most uncertain issues,
Tender wishes blossoming at night.
 
 
These in flowers and men are more than seeming,
Workings are they of the selfsame powers,
Which the poet, in no idle dreaming,
Seeth in himself and in the flowers.
 
 
Everywhere about us are they glowing,
Some like stars to tell us Spring is born:
Others, their blue eyes with tears o’erflowing,
Stand like Ruth amid the golden corn.
 
 
Not alone in Spring’s armorial bearing,
And in summer’s green-emblazoned field,
But in arms of brave old Autumn’s wearing,
In the center of his blazoned shield.
 
 
Not alone in meadows and green alleys
On the mountaintop and by the brink
Of sequestered pool in woodland valleys,
Where the slaves of nature stoop to drink;
 
 
Not alone in her vast dome of glory,
Not on graves of birds or beasts alone,
But in old cathedrals, high and hoary,
On the tombs of heroes carved in stone;
 
 
In the cottage of the rudest peasant,
In ancestral homes whose crumbling towers,
Speaking of the Past unto the Present,
Tell us of the ancient Games of Flowers.
 
 
In all places, then, and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings;
Teaching us, by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things.
 
 
And with childlike, credulous affection
We behold their tender buds expand;
Emblems of our own great resurrection,
Emblems of the bright and better land.
 

—Longfellow

MEADOW-LARKS

 
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Oh, happy that I am!
(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing!)
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm,
O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the spring!
 
 
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O skies, serene and blue,
That shut the velvet pastures in, that fold the mountain’s crest!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! What of the clouds ye knew?
The vessels ride a golden tide, upon a sea at rest.
 
 
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain?
Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet!
Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain,
The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.
 
 
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is!
Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss,
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!
 

—Ina Coolbrith.

THE ARROW AND THE SONG

 
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
 
 
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
 
 
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
 

—Longfellow.

THE FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY OF AGASSIZ.¹⁷

 
It was fifty years ago,
In the pleasant month of May,
In the beautiful Pays de Vaud,
A child in its cradle lay.
 
 
And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying: “Here is a story-book
Thy Father has written for thee.”
 
 
“Come, wander with me,” she said,
“Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.”
 
 
And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sang to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.
 
 
And whenever the way seemed long,
Or his heart began to fail,
She would sing a more wonderful song,
Or tell a more marvelous tale.
 
 
So she keeps him still a child,
And will not let him go,
Though at times his heart beats wild
For the beautiful Pays de Vaud;
 
 
Though at times he hears in his dreams
The Ranz des Vaches of old,
And the rush of mountain streams
From glaciers clear and cold;
 
 
And the mother at home says, “Hark!
For his voice I listen and yearn;
It is growing late and dark,
And my boy does not return!”
 

—Longfellow.

SIXTH GRADE

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

 
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
 
 
Oh, well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
Oh, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
 
 
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
 
 
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
 

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

COLUMBUS—WESTWARD.¹⁸

 
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules;
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: “Now we must pray,
For lo, the very stars are gone.
Brave Adm’r’l speak; what shall I say?”
“Why say: ‘Sail on! sail on! sail on!’”
 
 
“My men grow mutinous day by day;
My men grow ghastly wan and weak.”
The stout mate thought of home; a spray
Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
“What shall I say, brave Adm’r’l, say,
If we sight naught but seas at dawn?”
“Why you shall say at break of day:
‘Sail on! sail on! sail on! sail on!’”
 
 
They sailed and sailed, as the winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
“Why, not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,
For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Adm’r’l; speak and say”—
He said: “Sail on! sail on! sail on!”
 
 
They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate:
“This mad sea shows its teeth to-night.
He curls his lips, he lies in wait,
With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
Brave Adm’r’l, say but one good word;
What shall we do when hope is gone?”
The words leapt as a leaping sword:
“Sail on! sail on! sail on! sail on!”
 
 
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck—
A light! A light! A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time’s burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: “On! sail on!”
 

—Joaquin Miller.

THE DAY IS DONE

 
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
 
 
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me,
That my soul cannot resist:
 
 
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
 
 
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
 
 
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards¹⁹ sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
 
 
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
 
 
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
 
 
Who, through long days of labor;
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
 
 
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction²⁰
That follows after prayer.
 
 
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
 
 
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
 

—Longfellow.

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS

 
The breaking waves dashed high on a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark the hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark on the wild New England shore.
 
 
Not as the conqueror comes, they the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of stirring drums, and the trumpet that sings of fame;
Not as the flying come, in silence and in fear;
They shook the depths of the desert gloom with their hymns of lofty cheer.
 
 
Amidst the storm they sang, and the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang with the anthems of the free!
The ocean eagle soared from his nest by the white wave’s foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared—this was their welcome home!
 
 
There were men with hoary hair amidst that pilgrim band;
Why had they come to wither there away from their childhood’s land?
There was woman’s fearless eye, lit by her deep love’s truth;
There was manhood’s brow serenely high, and the fiery heart of youth.
 
 
What sought they thus afar? Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war? They sought a faith’s pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground, the soil where first they trod:
They left unstained, what there they found, Freedom to worship God.
 

—Mrs. Hemans.

HE PRAYETH BEST

 
“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”
 

—Coleridge.

EACH AND ALL

 
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee from the hilltop looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far heard, lows not thine ear to charm,
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor’s creed has lent.
All are needed by each one;
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow’s note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home, in his nest, at even,
He sings the song, but it cheers not now,
For I did not bring the river and sky;
He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave,
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me.
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
I fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.
The lover watched his graceful maid,
As mid the virgin train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty’s best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white quire.
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage;
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.
When I said, “I covet truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood’s cheat;
I leave it behind with the games of youth.”
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground pine curled its pretty leaf,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet’s breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs,
Pine-cones and acorns lay on the ground.
Over me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and of deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;
Beauty through my senses stole:
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
 

—Emerson.