Minor Poems

by Unknown

CONTENTS.

		Page
[Ae Fond Kiss]	Robert Burns	52
[Age of Wisdom, The]	William Makepeace Thackeray	115
[Arsenal at Springfield, The]	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	146
[Astarte]	Robert Bulwer Lytton	54
[Betrothed Anew]	Edmund Clarence Stedman	86
[Blindness, On his]	John Milton	143
[Brave at Home, The]	Thomas Buchanan Read	142
[Break, break, break]	Alfred Tennyson	53
[Bridal Dirge, A]	Bryan Waller Procter	163
[Brookside, The]	Richard Monckton Milnes	36
[Bugle-song]	Alfred Tennyson	40
[Cavalier's Song, The]	William Motherwell	132
[Chambered Nautilus, The]	Oliver Wendell Holmes	214
[Changes]	Robert Bulwer Lytton	71
[Children's Hour, The]	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	152
[Christmas Hymn, A]	Alfred Dommett	217
[Cloud, The]	John Wilson	213
[Come, rest in this bosom]	Thomas Moore	46
[Coronach]	Sir Walter Scott	133
[Courtin', The]	James Russell Lowell	26
[Days that are no more, The]	Alfred Tennyson	65
[Death-Bed, The]	Thomas Hood	160
[Death of the Flowers, The]	William Cullen Bryant	100
[Death's Final Conquest]	James Shirley	182
[Dirge for a Soldier]	George Henry Boker	134
[Drake, Joseph Rodman]	Fitz-Greene Halleck	169
[Driving Home the Cows]	Kate Putnam Osgood	140
[Eagle, The]	Alfred Tennyson	105
[Enticed]	William C. Wilkinson	224
[Epilogue]	The Editor	231
[Evelyn Hope]	Robert Browning	161
[Farewell, A]	Charles Kingsley	199
[Farewell, A]	Alfred Tennyson	112
[Girdle, On a]	Edmund Waller	23
[Going Home]	Benjamin F. Taylor	185
[Graves of a Household, The]	Felicia Hemans	174
[Haunted Houses]	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	73
[Health, A]	Edward Coate Pinkney	21
[Hermit, The]	James Beattie	175
[Heroes]	Edna Dean Proctor	144
[Highland Mary]	Robert Burns	166
[How's my Boy?]	Sydney Dobell	150
[Hymn to the Night]	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	103
[Ichabod]	John Greenleaf Whittier	123
[Indian Gold Coin, To an]	John Leyden	183
[In Memoriam]	Thomas K. Hervey	173
[I Remember, I Remember]	Thomas Hood	72
[Ivy Green, The]	Charles Dickens	90
[Knight's Tomb, The]	Samuel Taylor Coleridge	133
[Kubla Khan]	Samuel Taylor Coleridge	16
[Lament, A]	Percy Bysshe Shelley	192
[Lament of the Irish Emigrant]	Lady Dufferin	158
[Land of Lands, The]	Alfred Tennyson	126
[Land o' the Leal, The]	Lady Nairne	156
[Last Leaf, The]	Oliver Wendell Holmes	117
[Last Rose of Summer, The]	Thomas Moore	111
[Lie, The]	Sir Walter Raleigh	204
[Life]	Anna Lætitia Barbauld	193
[Life]	Henry King	192
[Lines on a Skeleton]	Anonymous	201
[Lines to an Indian Air]	Percy Bysshe Shelley	42
[Little Black Boy, The]	William Blake	181
[Little Years, The]	Robert T. S. Lowell	114
[Long-Ago, The]	Richard Monckton Milnes	88
[Lost Leader, The]	Robert Browning	119
[Love Not]	Caroline Norton	51
[Lucasta, To]	Richard Lovelace	125
[Maid of Athens, ere we part]	Lord Byron	45
[Mango Tree, The]	Charles Kingsley	59
[Man's Mortality]	Simon Wastel	189
[Mariana]	Alfred Tennyson	37
[Mary in Heaven, To]	Robert Bums	61
[Minstrel's Song]	Thomas Chatterton	171
[Monterey]	Charles Fenno Hoffman	128
[Moore, Thomas, To]	Lord Byron	110
[Musical Instrument, A]	Elizabeth Barrett Browning	11
[My Child]	John Pierpont	154
[My Heid is like to rend]	William Motherwell	56
[My Psalm]	John Greenleaf Whittier	221
[My Slain]	Richard Realf	219
[Nice Correspondent, A]	Frederick Locker	24
[Night and Death]	Joseph Blanco White	104
[Not Far to Go]	William Barnes	43
[Ode]	William Collins	139
[Ode]	Theodore P. Cook	137
[Ode]	Sir William Jones	148
[Ode]	Henry Timrod	136
[Ode on a Grecian Urn]	John Keats	199
[Oft in the Stilly Night]	Thomas Moore	64
[Old Familiar Faces, The]	Charles Lamb	66
[Old Man's Idyl, An]	Richard Realf	84
[On a Picture of Peel Castle]	William Wordsworth	209
[Over the River]	Nancy Priest Wakefield	78
[O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?]	William Knox	177
[Pauper's Death-Bed, The]	Caroline Bowles Southey	208
[Petition to Time, A]	Bryan Waller Procter	122
[Philip, my King]	Dinah Maria Mulock Craik	149
[Progress]	Robert Bulwer Lytton	179
[Qua Cursum Ventus]	Arthur Hugh Clough	69
[River Path, The]	John Greenleaf Whittier	82
[St. Agnes]	Alfred Tennyson	215
[Sands of Dee, The]	Charles Kingsley	102
[Serenade]	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	41
[She died in beauty]	Charles Doyne Sillery	164
[She is far from the land]	Thomas Moore	170
[She walks in beauty]	Lord Byron	34
[She was a phantom of delight]	William Wordsworth	18
[She was not fair, nor full of grace]	Bryan Waller Procter	165
[Skylark, The]	James Hogg	104
[Skylark, To the]	Percy Bysshe Shelley	106
[Slanten Light o' Fall, The]	William Barnes	20
[Snow-Storm, A]	Charles Gamage Eastman	97
[Soldier's Dream, The]	Thomas Campbell	127
[Song,—"The heath this night"]	Sir Walter Scott	124
[Song for September, A]	Thomas William Parsons	63
[Song of the Camp, A]	Bayard Taylor	130
[Sonnets]	William Shakespeare	48
[Spinning-Wheel Song, The]	John Francis Waller	32
[Stanzas,—"My life is like the summer rose"]	Richard Henry Wilde	113
[Summer Longings]	Denis Florence Mac-Carthy	91
[Thanatopsis]	William Cullen Bryant	75
[They are all gone]	Henry Vaughan	80
[Three Fishers, The]	Charles Kingsley	143
[Tiger, The]	William Blake	96
[Time's Changes]	David Macbeth Moir	67
[Tithonus]	Alfred Tennyson	193
[Tom Bowling]	Charles Dibdin	168
[Too Late!]	Dinah Maria Mulock Craik	167
[Too Late]	Fitz-Hugh Ludlow	120
[Toujours Amour]	Edmund Clarence Stedman	228
[Treasures of the Deep, The]	Felicia Hemans	212
[Two Women]	Nathaniel Parker Willis	207
[Undiscovered Country, The]	Edmund Clarence Stedman	220
[Virtue]	George Herbert	203
[Voiceless, The]	Oliver Wendell Holmes	229
[Voyage, The]	Alfred Tennyson	13
[Weariness]	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	227
[Welcome, The]	Thomas Davis	35
[When the Kye come Hame]	James Hogg	30
[Woman of Three Cows, The]	James Clarence Mangan	196
[Woman's Question, A]	Adelaide Anne Procter	46
[Yarrow Unvisited]	William Wordsworth	93

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A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sat the great god Pan,
While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
(How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sat by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan
(Laughed while he sat by the river),
"The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed."
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain,—
For the reed which grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds in the river.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

---

THE VOYAGE.

We left behind the painted buoy
That tosses at the harbor-mouth:
And madly danced our hearts with joy,
As fast we fleeted to the south:
How fresh was every sight and sound
On open main or winding shore!
We knew the merry world was round,
And we might sail forevermore.

Warm broke the breeze against the brow,
Dry sang the tackle, sang the sail:
The lady's-head upon the prow
Caught the shrill salt, and sheered the gale.
The broad seas swelled to meet the keel,
And swept behind: so quick the run,
We felt the good ship shake and reel,
We seemed to sail into the sun!

How oft we saw the sun retire,
And burn the threshold of the night,
Fall from his ocean-lane of fire,
And sleep beneath his pillared light!
How oft the purple-skirted robe
Of twilight slowly downward drawn,
As through the slumber of the globe
Again we dashed into the dawn!

New stars all night above the brim
Of waters lightened into view;
They climbed as quickly, for the rim
Changed every moment as we flew.
Far ran the naked moon across
The houseless ocean's heaving field,
Or flying shone, the silver boss
Of her own halo's dusky shield;

The peaky islet shifted shapes,
High towns on hills were dimly seen,
We passed long lines of northern capes
And dewy northern meadows green.
We came to warmer waves, and deep
Across the boundless east we drove,
Where those long swells of breaker sweep
The nutmeg rocks and isles of clove.

By peaks that flamed, or, all in shade,
Gloomed the low coast and quivering brine
With ashy rains, that spreading made
Fantastic plume or sable pine;
By sands and steaming flats, and floods
Of mighty mouth, we scudded fast,
And hills and scarlet-mingled woods
Glowed for a moment as we passed.

O hundred shores of happy climes,
How swiftly streamed ye by the bark!
At times the whole sea burned, at times
With wakes of fire we tore the dark;
At times a carven craft would shoot
From havens hid in fairy bowers,
With naked limbs and flowers and fruit,
But we nor paused for fruits nor flowers.

For one fair Vision ever fled
Down the waste waters day and night,
And still we followed where she led
In hope to gain upon her flight.
Her face was evermore unseen,
And fixed upon the far sea-line;
But each man murmured, "O my Queen,
I follow till I make thee mine."

And now we lost her, now she gleamed
Like Fancy made of golden air,
Now nearer to the prow she seemed
Like Virtue firm, like Knowledge fair,
Now high on waves that idly burst
Like Heavenly Hope she crowned the sea,
And now, the bloodless point reversed,
She bore the blade of Liberty.

And only one among us,—him
We pleased not,—he was seldom pleased:
He saw not far: his eyes were dim:
But ours he swore were all diseased.
"A ship of fools!" he shrieked in spite,
"A ship of fools!" he sneered and wept.
And overboard one stormy night
He cast his body, and on we swept.

And never sail of ours was furled
Nor anchor dropped at eve or morn;
We loved the glories of the world,
But laws of nature were our scorn;
For blasts would rise and rave and cease,
But whence were those that drove the sail
Across the whirlwind's heart of peace,
And to and through the counter-gale?

Again to colder climes we came,
For still we followed where she led:
Now mate is blind and captain lame,
And half the crew are sick or dead.
But blind or lame or sick or sound,
We follow that which flies before:
We know the merry world is round,
And we may sail forevermore.

Alfred Tennyson.

---

KUBLA KHAN.

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.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm, which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced,
Amid whose swift, half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail;
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles, meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale, the sacred river ran,—
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war.

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 a 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.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT.

She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;
Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn;
A dancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too!
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of virgin-liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food,
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death:
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel-light.

William Wordsworth.

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THE SLANTEN LIGHT O' FALL.