NELLIE.
Ask me to dance! I’d say no more about it,
If I were you!
(Waltz—Exeunt.)
KUBLA KHAN.
BY SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born at Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire 1772. He studied at Cambridge, but left without taking his degree. In 1795 he married Sara Fricker, Southey’s sister-in-law; in the same year he moved to Bristol. Here he published, in collaboration with Wordsworth, the “Lyrical Ballads.” In 1798 he went to Germany on an annuity from the Wedgewood brothers, but he soon returned to England and lived at Keswick. Later he went to London, where he lived at the house of Dr. Gilman and lectured on Shakespeare and the fine arts. He died at London in 1834.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves,
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw;
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song
To such deep delight ’twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air—
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
A BALLAD UPON A WEDDING.
BY SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
Her finger was so small, the ring
Would not stay on, which they did bring,
It was too wide a peck;
And to say truth (for out it must),
It looked like the great collar (just)
About our young colt’s neck.
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they fear’d the light;
But oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fine a sight.
Her cheeks so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison,
(Who sees them is undone),
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Catherine pear.
(The side that’s next the sun).
Her lips were red, and one was thin,
Compar’d to that was next her chin
(Some bee had stung it newly);
But (Dick) her eyes so guard her face
I durst no more upon them gaze
Than on the sun in July.
CROSSING THE BAR.
BY ALFRED TENNYSON.
Sunset and evening star
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.
JUNE.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then heaven tries the earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays;
Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen
Thrilling back over hills and valleys;
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there’s never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature’s palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
With the deluge of summer it receives;
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings
He sings to the wide world and she to her nest—
In the nice ear of nature, which song is the best?
THE HARP THAT ONCE THROUGH TARA’S HALLS.
BY THOMAS MOORE.
The harp that once through Tara’s halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory’s thrill is o’er,
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone that breaks at night
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives,
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives
THE BELLS OF SHANDON.
BY FRANCIS MAHONY.
Francis Sylvester Mahony, better known as Father Prout, was born in Cork in 1804. Though he was a Jesuit priest, he was more of a literatus than a man of God. He is the author of the famous “Reliques of Father Prout,” which he wrote for Frazer’s Magazine. Later he was the Rome correspondent for the Daily News and the Paris correspondent of the Globe. He died in Paris in 1866. Among his poems the following is the only one worth mention:
With deep affection and recollection
I often think of those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would in the days of childhood
Fling round my cradle their magic spells.
On this I ponder, where’er I wander,
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
I have heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine;
While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate,
But all their music spoke naught like thine;
For memory dwelling on each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
I have heard bells tolling “old Adrian’s mole” in,
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican,
And cymbals glorious, swinging uproarious,
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dame;
But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter
Flings o’er the Tiber, pealing solemnly.
O! the bells of Shandon
Sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
There’s a bell in Moscow, while on tower and kiosko
In St. Sophia the Turkman gets,
And loud in air calls men to prayer
From the tapering summit of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom I freely grant ’em,
But there’s an anthem more dear to me;
’Tis the bells of Shandon,
That sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
THE GARRET.
BY W. M. THACKERAY.
The many theater-goers who were pleased with Mr. Esmond’s comedy, “When We Were Twenty-One,” as played by the Goodwins, may like to see the Thackeray song from which the play took its name. It is an imitation of a poem by Beranger.
With pensive eyes the little room I view,
Where in my youth I weathered it so long,
With a wild mistress, a stanch friend or two,
And a light heart still breaking into song;
Making a mock of life and all its cares,
Rich in the glory of my rising sun,
Lightly I vaulted up four pair of stairs,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Yes, ’tis a garret, let him know’t who will;
There was my bed—full hard it was and small;
My table there—and I decipher still
Half a lame couplet charcoaled on the wall.
Ye joys that Time hath swept with him away,
Come to mine eyes, ye dreams of love and fun
For you I pawned my watch how many a day,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
* * *
One jolly evening, when my friends and I
Made happy music with our songs and cheers,
A shout of triumph mounted up thus high,
And distant cannon opened on our ears;
We rise—we join in the triumphant strain—
Napoleon conquers—Austerlitz is won—
Tyrants shall never tread us down again,
In the brave days when I was twenty-one.
Let us begone—the place is sad and strange;
How far, far off those happy times appear;
All that I have to live I’d gladly change
For one such month as I have wasted here—
To draw long dreams of beauty, love, and power
From founts of hope that never will return,
And drink all life’s quintessence in an hour—
Give me the days when I was twenty-one!
ON A GIRDLE.
BY EDMUND WALLER.
That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind:
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this hath done.
It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer:
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass! and yet there
Dwelt all that’s good, and all that’s fair:
Give me but what this ribband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round.
SOLILOQUY FROM MACBETH.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
THE DAY IS DONE.
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
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 bards 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 benediction
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.
LITTLE BREECHES.
BY JOHN HAY.
I don’t go much on religion,
I never ain’t had no show;
But I’ve got a middlin’ tight grip, sir,
On the handful o’ things I know.
I don’t pan out on the prophets,
And free-will, and that sort of thing—
But I b’lieve in God and the angels
Ever sence one night last spring.
I come into town with some turnips,
And my little Gabe come along—
No four-year-old in the county
Could beat him for pretty and strong,
Peart, and chippy, and sassy,
Always ready to swear and fight—
And I’d larnt him to chaw terbacker
Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.
The snow come down like a blanket
As I passed by Taggart’s store;
I went in for a jug of molasses
And left the team at the door.
They scared at something and started—
I heard one little squall
And hell-to-split over the prairie
Went team, Little Breeches and all.
Hell-to-split over the prairie!
I was almost froze with skeer;
But we rousted up some torches
And sarched for ’em far and near.
At last we struck hosses and wagon
Snowed under a soft, white mound,
Upsot, dead beat—but of little Gabe
No hide nor hair was found.
And here all hope soured on me,
Of my fellow-critter’s aid—
I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones,
Crotch deep in the snow and prayed.
* * *
By this, the torches was played out,
And me and Isrul Parr
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold
That he said was somewhar thar.
We found it at last, and a little shed
Where they shut up the lambs at night.
We looked in and seen them huddled thar,
So warm, and sleepy, and white,
And thar sot Little Breeches and chirped,
As peart as ever you see,
“I want a chaw of terbacker,
And that’s what the matter of me.”
How did he git thar? Angels.
He could never have walked in that storm;
They jest stooped down and toted him
To whar it was safe and warm.
And I think that saving a little child,
And fotching him to his own,
Is a durned sight better business
Than loafing around the Throne.
FLYNN OF VIRGINIA.
BY BRET HARTE.
Didn’t know Flynn—
Flynn of Virginia—
Long as he’s been ’yar?
Look’ee here, stranger
Whar hev you been?
Here in this tunnel
He was my pardner,
That same Tom Flynn—
Working together,
In wind and weather,
Day out and in.
Didn’t know Flynn!
Well, that is queer.
Why, it’s a sin,
To think of Tom Flynn—
Tom, with his cheer;
Tom, without fear—
Stranger, look ’yar!
Thar in the drift,
Back to the wall,
He held the timbers
Ready to fall;
Then in the darkness
I heard him call:
“Run for your life, Jake!
Run for your wife’s sake!
Don’t wait for me.”
And that was all
Heard in the din,
Heard of Tom Flynn—
Flynn of Virginia.
That lets me out
Here in the damp—
Out of the sun—
That ’ar derned lamp
Makes my eyes run.
Well, there—I’m done.
But, sir, when you’ll
Hear the next fool
Asking of Flynn—
Flynn of Virginia—
Just you chip in,
Say you knew Flynn;
Say that you’ve been ’yar.
WARBLE FOR LILAC-TIME.
BY WALT WHITMAN.
Warble me now for joy of lilac-time,
Sort me, O tongue and lips for nature’s sake, souvenirs of earliest summer,
Gather the welcome signs (as children with pebbles of stringing shells),
Put in April and May, the hylas croaking in the ponds, the elastic air,
Bees, butterflies, the sparrow with its simple notes,
Bluebird and darting swallow, nor forget the high-hole flashing his golden wings,
The tranquil sunny haze, the clinging smoke, the vapor,
Shimmer of waters with fish in them, the cerulean above.
All that is jocund and sparkling, the brooks running,
The maple woods, the crisp February days and the sugar making,
The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise and again at sunset.
Or flitting among the trees of the apple orchard, building the nest of his mate,
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its yellow-green sprouts,
For springtime is here! The summer is here, and what is this in it and from it?
Thou, soul, unloosen’d—the restlessness after I know not what;
Come, let us lag here no longer, let us be up and away!
O, if one could fly like a bird!
O, to escape, to sail forth as in a ship!
To glide with thee, O soul, o’er all, in all, as a ship o’er the waters;
Gathering these hints, the preludes, the blue sky, the grass, the morning drops of dew,
The lilac-scent, the bushes with dark green heart-shaped leaves,
Wood violets, the little delicate pale blossoms called innocent
Samples and sorts not for themselves alone, but for their atmosphere
To grace the bush I love—to sing with the birds,
A warble for joy of lilac-time.
PORTIA’S SPEECH ON MERCY.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
THE PARADOX OF TIME.
BY AUSTIN DOBSON.
Time goes, you say? Ah, no!
Alas! Time stays, we go;
Or else, were this not so,
What need to chain the hours,
For youth were always ours?
Time goes, you say?—ah, no!
Ours is the eyes’ deceit
Of men whose flying feet
Lead through some landscape low;
We pass, and think we see
The earth’s fixed surface flee;
Alas! Time stays—we go!
Once, in the days of old,
Your locks were curling gold,
And mine had shamed the crow;
Now, in the self-same stage,
We’ve reached the silver age;
Time goes, you say?—ah, no!
Once, when my voice was strong,
I filled the woods with song
To praise your “rose” and “snow”;
My bird that sung is dead;
Where are your roses fled?
Alas! Time stays—we go!
See in what traversed ways,
What backward fate delays
The hopes we used to know;
Where are our old desires—
Ah! where those vanished fires?
Time goes, you say?—ah, no!
How far, how far, O sweet,
The past behind our feet
Lies in the even-glow!
Now, on the forward way,
Let us fold hands and pray;
Alas! Time stays—we go!
NOCTURNE.
BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
Up to her chamber window,
A slight wire trellis goes,
And up this Romeo ladder
Clambers a bold white rose.
I lounge in the ilex shadows,
I see the lady lean,
Unclasping her silken girdle,
The curtain’s folds between.
She smiles on her white-rose lover,
She reaches out her hand
And helps him in at the window—
I see it where I stand!
To her scarlet lip she holds him,
And kisses him many a time—
Ah me! It was he that won her
Because he dared to climb.
THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS.
BY BRET HARTE.
I reside at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James;
I am not up to small deceit or any sinful games;
And I’ll tell in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our society upon the Stanislow.
But first I would remark that it is not a proper plan
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow man,
And if a member don’t agree with his peculiar whim
To lay for that same member for to “put a head” on him.
Now nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see
Than the first six months’ proceedings of that same society,
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones.
Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there,
From those same bones an animal that was extremely rare;
And Jones then asked the chair for a suspension of the rules
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost mules.
Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault,
It seems he had been trespassing on Jones’ family vault;
He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown,
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town.
Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass—at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.
Then Abner Dean of Angel’s raised a point of order, when—
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more.
For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage
In a warfare with the remnants of a paleozoic age;
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin,
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in.
And this is all I have to say of these improper games,
For I live at Table Mountain and my name is Truthful James;
And I’ve told in simple language what I know about the row
That broke up our society upon the Stanislow.
NATHAN HALE.
BY FRANCIS MILES FINCH.
These verses were written by the author of “The Blue and the Gray.” Nathan Hale, great-uncle of Edward Everett Hale, was born at Coventry, Conn., June 6, 1755. He was sent to New York by Washington to get information about the British, and was arrested while on that mission. He was hanged as a spy by order of Sir William Howe, Sept. 22, 1776. By his executioner he was denied the use of a Bible, and his family letters were burned.
To drum beat and heart beat,
A soldier marches by;
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye,
Yet to drum beat and heart beat
In a moment he must die.
By the starlight and moonlight,
He seeks the Briton’s camp;
He hears the rustling flag
And the armed sentry’s tramp;
And the starlight and the moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.
With slow tread and still tread,
He scans the tented line;
And he counts the battery guns,
By the gaunt and shadowy pine;
And his slow tread and still tread
Gives no warning sign.
The dark wave, the plumed wave,
It meets his eager glance;
And it sparkles ’neath the stars,
Like the glimmer of a lance—
A dark wave, a plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.
A sharp clang, a still clang,
And terror in the sound!
For the sentry, falcon eyed,
In the camp a spy hath found;
With a sharp clang, a steel clang,
The patriot is bound.
With a calm brow and a steady brow,
He listens to his doom;
In his look there is no fear,
Nor a shadowy trace of gloom;
But with calm brow and steady brow,
He robes him for the tomb.
In the long night, the still night,
He kneels upon the sod;
And the brutal guards withhold
E’en the solemn word of God!
In the long night, the still night,
He walks where Christ hath trod.
’Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn,
He dies upon the tree;
And he mourns that he can lose
But one life for liberty;
And in the blue morn, the sunny morn,
His spent wings are free.
But his last words, his message words,
They burn, lest friendly eye
Should read how proud and calm
A patriot could die.
With his last words, his dying words,
A soldier’s battle cry.
From fame leaf and angel leaf,
From monument and urn,
The sad earth, the glad of heaven,
His tragic fate shall learn;
And on fame leaf and angel leaf
The name of HALE shall burn!
THE SONG OF CALLICLES.
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Through the black, rushing smoke-bursts
Thick breaks the red flame.
All Etna heaves fiercely
Her forest-clothed flame.
Not here, O, Apollo,
Are haunts meet for thee,
But where Helicon breaks down
In cliff to the sea.
Where the moon-silver’d inlets
Send far their light voice
Up the still vale of Thisbe,
O, speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-top
Lie strewn the white flocks;
On the cliff-side the pigeons
Roost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,
Soft-lull’d by the rills,
Lie wrapped in their blankets,
Asleep on the hills.
What forms are those coming,
So white through the gloom?
What garments out-glistening
The gold-flower’d broom?
What sweet-breathing Presence
Out-perfumes the thyme?
What voices enrapture
The night’s balmy prime?
’Tis Apollo comes leading
His choir, the Nine—
The Leader is fairest,
But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollow,
They stream up again.
What seeks on this mountain
The glorified train?
They bathe in this mountain,
In the spring by their road.
Then on to Olympus,
Their endless abode.
Whose praise do they mention?
Of what is it told,
What will be forever,
What was from of old.
First hymn they the Father
Of all things; and then,
The rest of Immortals,
The action of men.
The Day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm;
The Night in her silence,
The Stars in their calm.
SONG FROM “MARMION.”
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Where shall the lover rest,
Whom the fates sever
From his true maiden’s breast,
Parted forever?
Where through groves deep and high,
Sounds the far billow,
Where early violets die,
Under the willow.
There, through the summer day,
Cool streams are laving;
There, while the tempests sway,
Scarce are boughs waving.
There thy rest shalt thou take,
Parted forever,
Never again to wake,
Never, O, never!
Where shall the traitor rest,
He, the deceiver,
Who could win maiden’s breast,
Ruin and leave her?
In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war’s rattle
With groans of the dying.
Her wing shall the eagle flap,
O’er the false hearted.
His warm blood the wolf shall lap,
E’er life be parted.
Shame and dishonor sit
By his grave ever;
Blessing shall hallow it—
Never, O, never!
THE GRASS.
BY EMILY DICKINSON.
The grass so little has to do—
A sphere of simple green,
With only butterflies to brood,
And bees to entertain,
And stir all day to pretty tunes
The breezes fetch along,
And hold the sunshine in its lap
And bow to everything;
And thread the dews all night, like pearls,
And make itself so fine—
A duchess were too common
For such a noticing.
And even when it dies, to pass
In odors so divine,
As lowly spices gone to sleep,
Or amulets of pine.
And then to dwell in sovereign barns,
And dream the days away—
The grass so little has to do,
I wish I were the hay!
THE WIDOW MALONE.
BY CHARLES LEVER.
Charles James Lever was born at Dublin in 1806. He was a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and afterwards became a physician, as well as a journalist, and the editor of the Dublin University Magazine. He was consul at Spezzia in 1858, and later at Trieste, where he died in 1872. His poems, when he did not try to be serious, are full of humor and rhythm. He wrote, among other novels, “Harry Lorrequer,” “Charles O’Malley,” and “Tom Burke of Ours.”
Did you hear of the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
Who lived in the town of Athlone,
Alone?
Oh! she melted the hearts
Of the swains in them parts—
So lovely the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
So lovely the Widow Malone.
Of lovers she had a full score
Or more;
And fortunes they all had galore,
In store;
From the minister down
To the clerk of the crown,
All were courting the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
All were courting the Widow Malone.
But so modest was Mistress Malone,
’Twas known
That no one could see her alone,
Ohone!
Let them ogle and sigh,
They could ne’er catch her eye—
So bashful the Widow Malone,
Ohone!
So bashful the Widow Malone.
Till one Misther O’Brien from Clare—
How quare!
It’s little for blushing they care
Down there—
Put his arm round her waist,
Gave ten kisses at laste—
“Oh,” says he, “you’re my Molly Malone—
My own!”
“Oh,” says he, “you’re my Molly Malone!”
And the widow they all thought so shy,
My eye!
Ne’er thought of a simper or sigh—
For why?
But, “Lucius,” says she,
“Since you’ve now made so free,
You may marry your Mary Malone,
Ohone!
You may marry your Mary Malone.”
There’s a moral contained in my song,
Not wrong,
And, one comfort, it’s not very long,
But strong;
If for widows you die
Learn to kiss, not to sigh,
For they’re all like sweet Mistress Malone!
Ohone!
Oh! they’re all like sweet Mistress Malone!
MY WIFE AND CHILD.
BY GENERAL HENRY R. JACKSON.
This poem, which has often been attributed to General “Stonewall” Jackson, was written by General Henry R. Jackson, a lawyer and diplomat, of Savannah, Ga.
The tattoo beats—the lights are gone,
The camp around in slumber lies;
The night with solemn pace moves on,
The shadows thicken o’er the skies;
But sleep my weary eyes hath flown,
And sad, uneasy thoughts arise.
I think of thee, Oh, dearest one,
Whose love my early life hath blest—
Of thee and him—our baby son—
Who slumbers on thy gentle breast.
God of the tender, frail and lone,
Oh, guard the tender sleeper’s rest.
And hover gently, hover near,
To her, whose watchful eye is wet—
To mother, wife—the doubly dear,
In whose young heart have freshly met
Two streams of love so deep and clear
And clear her drooping spirits yet.
Whatever fate those forms may show,
Loved with a passion almost wild—
By day—by night—in joy or woe—
By fears oppressed, or hopes beguiled,
From every danger, every foe,
O God! protect my wife and child!
Now, while she kneels before Thy throne,
Oh, teach her, ruler of the skies,
That, while by thy behest alone,
Earth’s mightiest powers fall or rise,
No tear is wept to Thee unknown,
No hair is lost, no sparrow dies!
That Thou can’st stay the ruthless hands
Of dark disease, and soothe its pain;
That only by Thy stern command
The battle’s lost, the soldier’s slain—
That from the distant sea or land
Thou bring’st the wanderer home again.
And when upon her pillow lone
Her tear-wet cheek is sadly prest,
May happier visions beam upon
The brightening current of her breast,
No frowning look nor angry tone
Disturb the Sabbath of her rest.
JONATHAN TO JOHN.
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
Lowell was born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1819. He went to Harvard college and was Longfellow’s successor as professor of modern languages at the same college. From 1857–’62 he was editor of the Atlantic Monthly; in 1863–’72 he was editor of the North American Review. He held the office of United States minister, first to Spain–1877–’80—and later to Great Britain–1880–’85. Lowell died at Cambridge in 1891. Among his poems are the “Biglow Papers,” the “Vision of Sir Launfal,” “A Tale for Critics.” Some of his prose works are “Among My Books,” “My Study Windows,” and “Political Essays.”
It don’t seem hardly right, John,
When both my hands was full,
To stump me to a fight, John—
Your cousin, tu, John Bull!
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
We know it now,” sez he;
“The lion’s paw is all the law,
According to J. B.,
Thet’s fit for you an’ me!”
You wonder why we’re hot, John?
Your mark wuz on the guns—
The neutral guns, thet shot, John,
Our brothers an’ our sons.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
There’s human blood,” sez he,
“By fits an’ starts, in Yankee hearts,
Though’t may surprise J. B.
More ’n it would you an’ me.”
When your rights was our wrongs, John,
You didn’t stop for fuss—
Britanny’s trident prongs, John,
Was good ’nough law for us.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess,
Though physic’s good,” sez he,
“It doesn’t foller thet he can swaller
Prescriptions signed ‘J. B.’,
Put up by you an’ me!”
We own the ocean, tu, John;
You mus’n’t take it hard,
Ef we can’t think with you, John,
It’s jest your own back yard.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess,
Ef thet’s his claim,” sez he,
“The fencin’ stuff’ll cost enough
To bust up friend J. B.,
Ez wal ez you an’ me!”
We know we’ve got a cause, John,
Thet’s honest, just, an’ true;
We thought ’twould win applause, John,
Ef nowheres else, from you.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
His love of right,” sez he,
“Hangs by a rotten fibre o’ cotton;
There’s natur’ in J. B.,
Ez wal ez you an’ me!”
God means to make this land, John,
Clear thru, from sea to sea,
Believe an’ understand, John,
The wuth o’ being free.
Ole Uncle S., sez he, “I guess
God’s price is high,” sez he;
“But nothin’ else than wut he sells
Wears long, an’ thet J. B.
May larn, like you an’ me.”
SOLILOQUY FROM “HAMLET.”
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.
To be, or not to be; that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death—
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveler returns—puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turns awry
And lose the name of action.
TO A WATER FOWL.
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
Whither, ’midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
* * *
There is a power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast—
The desert and illimitable air—
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere.
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
* * *
Thou’rt gone; the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone
Will lead my steps aright.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.
BY GENL. WILLIAM H. LYTLE.
William Haines Lytle was born at Cincinnati, O., in 1826, and died a hero’s death at Chickamauga in 1863. He enlisted in the Mexican war in 1846, and served with distinction. Afterwards he attained prominence as a lawyer and politician. When the civil war broke out he was appointed major general of volunteers. At Carnifex ferry he was desperately wounded, but recovered and took charge of a brigade. He was again wounded at Perryville and captured. Being exchanged, he was promoted to brigadier general and fought in many engagements till Sept. 29, 1863. His poems were never collected in book form. This one was written in 1857.
I am dying, Egypt, dying!
Ebbs the crimson life-tide fast,
And the dark Plutonian shadows
Gather on the evening blast.
Let thine arms, O queen, enfold me;
Hush thy sobs and bow thine ear.
Listen to the great heart secrets
Thou, and thou alone, must hear.
Though my scarred and veteran legions
Bear their eagles high no more,
And my wrecked and scattered galleys
Strew dark Actium’s fatal shore;
Though no glittering guards surround me,
Prompt to do their master’s will,
I must perish like a Roman—
Die the great Triumvir still!
Let no Cesar’s servile minions
Mock the lion thus laid low;
’Twas no foeman’s arm that felled him;
’Twas his own that struck the blow—
His who, pillowed on thy bosom,
Turned aside from glory’s ray—
His who, drunk with thy caresses,
Madly threw a world away.
Should the base plebeian rabble
Dare assail my name at Rome,
Where my noble spouse, Octavia,
Weeps within her widowed home,
Seek her; say the gods bear witness—
Altars, augurs, circling wings—
That her blood with mine commingled,
Yet shall mount the throne of kings.
As for thee, star-eyed Egyptian!
Glorious sorceress of the Nile!
Light the path to Stygian horrors
With the splendors of thy smile.
Give to Cæsar crowns and arches,
Let his brow the laurel twine;
I can scorn the senate’s triumphs,
Triumphing in love like thine.
I am dying, Egypt, dying;
Hark! the insulting foeman’s cry.
They are coming—quick, my falchion!
Let me front them ere I die.
Ah! no more amid the battle
Shall my heart exulting swell;
Isis and Osiris guard thee!
Cleopatra—Rome—farewell!
O, WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?
BY WILLIAM KNOX.
The following poem was a particular favorite with Abraham Lincoln. It was first shown to him when a young man by a friend, and afterwards he cut it from a newspaper and learned it by heart. He said to a friend: “I would give a great deal to know who wrote it, but have never been able to ascertain.” He did afterwards learn the name of the author.
William Knox was a Scottish poet who was born in 1789 at Firth and died in 1825 at Edinburgh. His “Lonely Hearth and Other Poems” was published in 1818, and “The Songs of Israel,” from which “O, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal be Proud” is taken, in 1824. Sir Walter Scott was an admirer of Knox’s poems, and befriended the author when his habits brought him into need.
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
As the young and the old, the low and the high,
Shall crumble to dust and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant’s affection who proved,
The father that mother and infant who blest—
Each, all, are away to that dwelling of rest.
The maid on whose brow, on whose cheek, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by;
And alike from the minds of the living erased
Are the memories of mortals who loved her and praised.
The head of the King, that the scepter hath borne;
The brow of the priest, that the miter hath worn;
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave—
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread—
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed,
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, we see the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers did think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers did shrink;
To the life we are clinging our fathers did cling,
But it speeds from us all like the bird on the wing.
They loved—but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned—but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved—but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed—but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died—ah! they died—we, things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain,
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.
’Tis the wink of an eye; ’tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud;
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
THE THREE FISHERS.
BY CHARLES KINGSLEY.
Charles Kingsley was born in Devonshire in 1819; he died in 1875. His poetical works consist of “The Saint’s Tragedy” and “Andromeda and Other Poems.”
Three fishers went sailing out into the West,
Out into the West as the sun went down;
Each thought on the woman who loved him the best;
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work and women must weep,
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep;
Though the harbor bar be moaning.
Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,
And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;
They looked at the squall and they looked at the shower,
And the rack it came rolling up ragged and brown!
But men must work and women must weep,
Though storms be sudden and waters deep,
And the harbor bar be moaning.
Three corpses lay out on the shining sands
In the morning gleam as the tide went down,
And the women are weeping and wringing their hands
For those who will never come back to the town;
For men must work and women must weep,
And the sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep—
And good-by to the bar and its moaning.
PSALM XLVIII.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised
In the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness,
Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth,
Is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.
God is known in her palaces for a refuge,
For, lo, the kings were assembled,
They passed by together.
They saw it and so they marveled;
They were troubled, and hasted away.
Fear took hold upon them there,
And pain, as of a woman in travail.
Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish with an east wind,
As we have heard, so have we seen
In the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God;
God will establish it forever.
We have thought of thy loving-kindness, O God,
In the midst of thy temple.
According to thy name, O God,
So is thy praise unto the ends of the earth;
Thy right hand is full of righteousness.
Let Mount Zion rejoice,
Let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.
Walk about Zion, and go round about her;
Tell the towers thereof.
Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces;
That ye may tell it to the generation following.
For this God is our God for ever and ever;
He will be our guide even unto death.
THE ISLES OF GREECE.
BY LORD BYRON.
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace—
Where Delos rose and Phœbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun, is set.
The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And, musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians’ grave
I could not deem myself a slave.
A King sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set where were they?
And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
Must we but blush? Our father’s bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!
In vain—in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call—
How answers each bold Bacchanal!
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave?
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade—
I see their glorious black eyes shine!
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep
Where nothing, save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
INDEX.
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| PAGE |
Abou Ben Adhem | Leigh Hunt | |
All | Francis A. Durivage | |
Althea from Prison, To | Richard Lovelace | |
Annabel Lee | Edgar Allan Poe | |
Antony and Cleopatra | William H. Lytle | |
Arsenal at Springfield, The | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |
| ||
Babyhood | Josiah Gilbert Holland | |
Ballade of Nicolete | Graham R. Tomson | |
Ballad of Old-Time Ladies | Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s version ofVillon | |
Ballad of the Boat, The | Richard Garnett | |
Ballad Upon a Wedding | Sir John Suckling | |
Banks o’ Doon | Robert Burns | |
Bedouin Love Song | Bayard Taylor | |
Believe Me If All Those | Thomas Moore | |
Bells of Shandon | Francis Mahony | |
Bonny Dundee | Sir Walter Scott | |
Border Ballad | Sir Walter Scott | |
Break, Break, Break | Lord Tennyson | |
Breathes There a Man | Sir Walter Scott | |
Bridge, The | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | |
Bugle Song | Lord Tennyson | |
| ||
Celia, To | Ben Jonson | |
Chambered Nautilus | Oliver Wendell Holmes | |
Cherry Ripe | Thomas Campion | |
Children, Cry of The | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | |
Church Gate, At the | William Makepeace Thackeray | |
Crossing the Bar | Lord Tennyson | |
Cuckoo, To the | John Logan | |
| ||
Daffodils, The | William Wordsworth | |
Dandelion, To the | James Russell Lowell | |
Dante, On A Bust of | T. W. Parsons | |
Death-Bed, The | Thomas Hood | |
Charles Mackay | ||
Delight in Disorder | Robert Herrick | |
Dirge for a Soldier | George H. Boker | |
Ditty, A | Sir Philip Sidney | |
Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True | Dinah Maria Mulock | |
Drifting | Thomas Buchanan Read | |
| ||
Elia | E. J. McPhelim | |
Emperor’s Daughter Stands Alone, An | Geoffrey Chaucer | |
Evening Song | Sidney Lanier | |
| ||
Faith | Thomas Chatterton | |
Fate | Susan Marr Spalding | |
Flynn of Virginia | Bret Harte | |
Fool’s Prayer, The | Edward Rowland Sill | |
For All These | Juliet Wilbor Tompkins | |
Fount of Castaly | Joseph O’Connor | |
| ||
Garret, The | William Makepeace Thackeray | |
Girdle, On a | Edmund Waller | |
Go, Lovely Rose | Edmund Waller | |
Grass, The | Emily Dickinson | |
Graveyard, In the | Macdonald Clarke | |
Grounds of the Terrible | Harold Begbie | |
| ||
Hark, Hark the Lark | William Shakespeare | |
Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls | Thomas Moore | |
He’d Had No Show | S. W. Foss | |
Heritage, The | James Russell Lowell | |
Her Moral (Miss Kilmanseg) | Thomas Hood | |
Highland Mary | Robert Burns | |
Holy Nation, A | Richard Realf | |
| ||
Indian Serenade | Percy Bysshe Shelley | |
Indian Summer | John G. Whittier | |
“In Memoriam” | Lord Tennyson | |
Mary C. Gillington | ||
Invictus | W. E. Henley | |
I Remember | Thomas Hood | |
Isles of Greece | Lord Byron | |
| ||
Jerusalem the Golden | John M. Neale | |
Jim Bludso | John Hay | |
John Anderson, My Jo | Robert Burns | |
Jonathan to John | James Russell Lowell | |
June | James Russell Lowell | |
| ||
Kubla Kahn | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | |
| ||
Lamb, The | William Blake | |
Last Leaf, The | Oliver Wendell Holmes | |
Lead Kindly Light | John Henry Newman | |
Life | Mrs. A. L. Barbauld | |
Little Breeches | John Hay | |
Lovers’ Quarrel, A | Austin Dobson | |
Lucasta on Going to the Wars, To | Richard Lovelace | |
Lucy | William Wordsworth | |
| ||
Maid of Athens | Lord Byron | |
Mary’s Dream | John Lowe | |
Match, A | Algernon Charles Swinburne | |
Mignon’s Song | Johann Wolfgang Goethe | |
Misconceptions | Robert Browning | |
Moral (“Lady Flora”) | Lord Tennyson | |
Music, When Soft Voices Die | Percy Bysshe Shelley | |
My Boat Is on the Shore | Lord Byron | |
My Wife and Child | Henry R. Jackson | |
| ||
Nathan Hale | Francis Miles Finch | |
Nearer Home | Phoebe Cary | |
Night | James Blanco White | |
Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The | Francis Williams Bourdillon | |
Nocturne | Thomas Bailey Aldrich | |
| ||
Walt Whitman | ||
Ode on a Grecian Urn | John Keats | |
Ode on Solitude | Alexander Pope | |
Oft in the Stilly Night | Thomas Moore | |
Old Familiar Faces, The | Charles Lamb | |
Old Oaken Bucket | Samuel Woodworth | |
One Touch of Nature | William Shakespeare | |
Opportunity | John James Ingalls | |
O, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud? | William Knox | |
| ||
O, Yet We Trust that Somehow Good (“InMemoriam”) | Lord Tennyson | |
| ||
Patriotism | Sir Walter Scott | |
Paradox of Time, The | Austin Dobson | |
Pompadour’s Fan, The | Austin Dobson | |
Portia’s Speech on Mercy | William Shakespeare | |
Psalm XIX |
| |
Psalm XXIV |
| |
Psalm XLVI |
| |
Psalm XLVIII |
| |
Psalm LXXXIV |
| |
Psalm CXXI |
| |
| ||
Remembrance | Emily Bronte | |
Requiem, A | Robert Louis Stevenson | |
Requiescat | Matthew Arnold | |
Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep | Emma Willard | |
Rock Me to Sleep | Elizabeth Akers Allen | |
Rose, The | Pierre Ronsard | |
Ruthless Time | William Shakespeare | |
| ||
Sally in Our Alley | Henry Carey | |
Scots Wha Hae | Robert Burns | |
Sea Song, A | Allan Cunningham | |
Self-Dependence | Matthew Arnold | |
Sennacherib’s Host, Destruction of | Lord Byron | |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | ||
Shepherdess, The | Alice Meynell | |
Shepherd’s Resolution, The | George Wither | |
She Walks in Beauty Like the Night | Lord Byron | |
Sleep, To | William Wordsworth | |
Song | John Bunyan | |
Song | William Shakespeare | |
Song of Callicles | Matthew Arnold | |
Song of the Camp | Bayard Taylor | |
Song of the Mystic | Abram Ryan | |
Song of the Shirt | Thomas Hood | |
Song of the Western Men | Robert S. Hawker | |
Song on a May Morning | John Milton | |
Society Upon the Stanislaus | Bret Harte | |
Spacious Firmament on High, The | Joseph Addison | |
Star Spangled Banner, The | Francis Scott Key | |
| ||
Tears, Idle Tears (“Princess”) | Lord Tennyson | |
Thalassa, Thalassa | Brownlee Brown | |
Thanatopsis | William Cullen Bryant | |
There Is No Death | J. L. McCreery | |
Though Lost to Sight | Thomas Moore | |
Three Fishers, The | Charles Kingsley | |
Tiger, The | William Blake | |
Time Hath My Lord (“Troilus and Cressida”) | William Shakespeare | |
’Tis the Last Rose of Summer | Thomas Moore | |
To Be or Not to Be (“Hamlet”) | William Shakespeare | |
Today | Thomas Carlyle | |
Tomorrow and Tomorrow (“Macbeth”) | William Shakespeare | |
To Thine Own Self Be True | Packenham Beatty | |
Two Lovers | George Eliot | |
| ||
Untimely Thought, An | Thomas Bailey Aldrich | |
Uphill | Christina Rossetti | |
| ||
Robert Herrick | ||
Virtue Immortal | George Herbert | |
| ||
Waiting, The | John G. Whittier | |
Warble for Lilac Time | Walt Whitman | |
Water Fowl, To a | William Cullen Bryant | |
When in Disgrace with Fortune | William Shakespeare | |
Where Shall the Lover Rest? (“Marmion”) | Sir Walter Scott | |
Why So Pale and Wan? | Sir John Suckling | |
Widow Malone, The | Charles Lever | |
World Is Too Much With Us, The | William Wordsworth | |
| ||
Year’s at the Spring, The | Robert Browning | |