The Children's Garland from the Best Poets

by Unknown

E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Katherine Ward, Joseph Cooper,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

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Golden Treasury Series

THE
CHILDREN'S GARLAND
FROM THE BEST POETS

SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY
COVENTRY PATMORE

London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1895

First Edition printed 1861 (dated 1862). Reprinted with corrections, and Index added, February 1862. Reprinted with corrections, 1863. Reprinted 1866, 1871, 1874, 1877, 1879, March and August 1882, 1884, 1891, 1892, 1895.

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PREFACE

This volume will, I hope, be found to contain nearly all the genuine poetry in our language fitted to please children,—of and from the age at which they have usually learned to read,—in common with grown people. A collection on this plan has, I believe, never before been made, although the value of the principle seems clear.

The test applied, in every instance, in the work of selection, has been that of having actually pleased intelligent children; and my object has been to make a book which shall be to them no more nor less than a book of equally good poetry is to intelligent grown persons. The charm of such a book to the latter class of readers is rather increased than lessened by the surmised existence in it of an unknown amount of power, meaning and beauty, beyond that which is at once to be seen; and children will not like this volume the less because, though containing little or nothing which will not at once please and amuse them, it also contains much, the full excellence of which they may not as yet be able to understand.

The application of the practical test above mentioned has excluded nearly all verse written expressly for children, and most of the poetry written about children for grown people. Hence, the absence of several well-known pieces, which some persons who examine this volume may be surprised at not finding in it.

I have taken the liberty of omitting portions of a few poems, which would else have been too long or otherwise unsuitable for the collection; and, in a very few instances, I have ventured to substitute a word or a phrase, when that of the author has made the piece in which it occurs unfit for children's reading. The abbreviations I have been compelled to make in the "Ancient Mariner," in order to bring that poem within the limits of this collection, are so considerable as to require particular mention and apology.

No translations have been inserted but such as, by their originality of style and modification of detail, are entitled to stand as original poems.

Coventry Patmore.

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INDEX OF FIRST LINES

PAGE

• A barking sound the shepherd hears[248]
• A chieftain to the Highlands bound[246]
• A country life is sweet[31]
• A fox, in life's extreme decay[171]
• A fragment of a rainbow bright[41]
• A lion cub, of sordid mind[301]
• A Nightingale that all day long[276]
• A parrot, from the Spanish main[124]
• A perilous life, and sad as life may be[76]
• A widow bird sate mourning for her love[329]
• A wonder stranger ne'er was known[165]
• Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)[19]
• Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight[20]
• Among the dwellings framed by birds[32]
• An ancient story I'll tell you anon[159]
• An old song made by an aged old pate[136]
• An outlandish knight came from the North lands[221]
• Art thou the bird whom man loves best[99]
• As I a fare had lately past[9]
• As it fell upon a day[169]
• As in the sunshine of the morn[271]
• At dead of night, when mortals lose[295]
• Attend all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise[70]
• Before the stout harvesters falleth the grain[115]
• Beside the Moldau's rushing stream[96]
• Clear had the day been from the dawn[35]
• Close by the threshold of a door nail'd fast[303]
• Come dear children, let us away[50]
• Come listen to me, you gallants so free[44]
• Come live with me and be my Love[7]
• Come unto these yellow sands[67]
• Did you hear of the curate who mounted his mare[304]
• Do you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove[3]
• Faintly as tolls the evening chime[81]
• Fair daffodils, we weep to see[207]
• Full fathom five thy father lies[57]
• Gentlefolks, in my time, I've made many a rhyme[149]
• Good-bye, good-bye to Summer[106]
• Good people all, of every sort[241]
• Hail, beauteous stranger of the grove[43]
• Half a league, half a league[174]
• Hamelin Town's in Brunswick[150]
• Happy insect! what can be[117]
• Her arms across her breast she laid[200]
• Here lies, whom hound did ne'er pursue[18]
• Ho, sailor of the sea[68]
• How beautiful is the rain[15]
• I am monarch of all I survey[86]
• I come from haunts of coot and hern[4]
• I had a dove, and the sweet dove died[125]
• I sail'd from the Downs in the Nancy[74]
• I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and he[38]
• I wander'd by the brook-side[322]
• If all the world was apple-pie[339]
• In ancient times, as story tells[254]
• In distant countries have I been[317]
• In her ear he whispers gaily[119]
• In the hollow tree in the grey old tower[107]
• Into the sunshine[226]
• It chanced upon a winter's day[281]
• It is an ancient Mariner[58]
• It is not growing like a tree[340]
• It was a summer evening[184]
• It was the schooner Hesperus[78]
• I've watch'd you now a full half-hour[291]
• Jaffar, the Barmecide, the good Vizier[96]
• Jenny Wren fell sick[336]
• John Bull for pastime took a prance[242]
• John Gilpin was a citizen[138]
• King Lear once ruled in this land[265]
• Lady Alice was sitting in her bower window[220]
• Laid in my quiet bed in study as I were[339]
• Little Ellie sits alone[320]
• Little white Lily[238]
• Lord Thomas he was a bold forester[258]
• Mary-Ann was alone with her baby in arms[30]
• My banks they are furnished with bees[118]
• My heart leaps up when I behold[341]
• Napoleon's banners at Boulogne[178]
• No stir in the air, no stir in the sea[23]
• Now ponder well, you parents dear[100]
• Now the bright morning star, day's harbinger[2]
• Now the hungry lion roars[2]
• 'Now, woman, why without your veil?'[296]
• O Mary, go and call the cattle home[55]
• O listen, listen, ladies gay[82]
• O say what is that thing called Light[126]
• O sing unto my roundelay[239]
• O then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you[261]
• O where have ye been, Lord Randal, my son?[26]
• O where have you been, my long, long, love[273]
• O, young Lochinvar is come out of the west[262]
• Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray[13]
• Oh, hear a pensive prisoner's prayer[116]
• Oh, to be in England[88]
• Oh! what's the matter? what's the matter[127]
• Old stories tell how Hercules[292]
• On his morning rounds the master[264]
• On the green banks of Shannon when Sheelah was nigh[243]
• Once on a time a rustic dame[147]
• Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary[191]
• One day, it matters not to know[218]
• One morning (raw it was and wet)[186]
• Open the door, some pity to show[49]
• Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower'd[182]
• Piping down the valleys wild[1]
• Proud Maisie is in the wood[305]
• Remember us poor Mayers all[233]
• See the Kitten on the wall[8]
• Seven daughters had Lord Archibald[197]
• Shepherds all, and maidens fair[123]
• Sir John got him an ambling nag[287]
• Some will talk of bold Robin Hood[284]
• Spring, the sweet Spring, is the year's pleasant king[223]
• The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold[328]
• The boy stood on the burning deck[35]
• The cock is crowing[25]
• The crafty Nix, more false than fair[196]
• The fox and the cat, as they travell'd one day[251]
• The gorse is yellow on the heath[314]
• The greenhouse is my summer seat[244]
• The hollow winds begin to blow[37]
• The Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor[108]
• The mountain and the squirrel[122]
• The noon was shady, and soft airs[252]
• The ordeal's fatal trumpet sounded[215]
• The post-boy drove with fierce career[312]
• The stately homes of England[208]
• The stream was as smooth as glass, we said, 'Arise and let's away'[84]
• The summer and autumn had been so wet[133]
• The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing[190]
• The Wildgrave winds his bugle horn[200]
• There came a ghost to Margaret's door[224]
• There came a man, making his hasty moan[187]
• There was a jovial beggar[131]
• There was a little boy and a little girl[339]
• There was an old woman, as I've heard tell[338]
• There was three kings into the East[27]
• There were three jovial Welshmen[337]
• There's that old hag Moll Brown, look, see, just past[335]
• They glide upon their endless way[6]
• They grew in beauty side by side[315]
• Three fishers went sailing away to the west[311]
• Three times, all in the dead of night[98]
• Thou that hast a daughter[76]
• Tiger, tiger, burning bright[158]
• To grass, or leaf, or fruit, or wall[302]
• To sea! to sea! the calm is o'er[248]
• Toll for the brave[56]
• Tread lightly here, for here, 'tis said[254]
• 'Twas in the prime of summer time[88]
• 'Twas on a lofty vase's side[170]
• Under the green hedges after the snow[48]
• Under the greenwood tree[12]
• Underneath an old oak tree[41]
• Up the airy mountain[163]
• Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away[324]
• Up! up! ye dames, ye lasses gay[327]
• Upon a time a neighing steed[216]
• When Arthur first in court began[306]
• When as King Henry ruled this land[228]
• When I remember'd again[289]
• When I was still a boy and mother's pride[127]
• When icicles hang by the wall[22]
• When shall we three meet again[214]
• When the British warrior queen[180]
• Whither, 'midst falling dew[283]
• Who is yonder poor maniac, whose wildly fixed eyes[210]
• Will you hear a Spanish lady[234]
• With farmer Allan at the farm abode[329]
• Within a thick and spreading hawthorn bush[316]
• Ye mariners of England[176]
• Year after year unto her feet[325]
• 'You are old, Father William,' the young man cried[173]
• You beauteous ladies great and small[277]
• You spotted snakes with double tongue[257]
• Young Henry was as brave a youth[183]

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CONTENTS

1. [The Child and the Piper]
2. [On May Morning]
3. [The Approach of the Fairies]
4. [Answer to a Child's Question]
5. [The Brook]
6. [Stars]
7. [The Shepherd to his Love]
8. [The Kitten and Falling Leaves]
9. [The Ferryman, Venus, and Cupid]
10. [Song]
11. [Lucy Gray, or Solitude]
12. [Rain in Summer]
13. [Epitaph on a Hare]
14. [Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel]
15. [La Belle Dame sans Mercy]
16. [Winter]
17. [The Inchcape Rock]
18. [Written in March]
19. [Lord Randal]
20. [John Barleycorn]
21. [Mary-Ann's Child]
22. [The Useful Plough]
23. [A Wren's Nest]
24. [A Fine Day]
25. [Casabianca, a True Story]
26. [Signs of Rain]
27. [How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix]
28. [The Rainbow]
29. [The Raven and the Oak]
30. [Ode to the Cuckoo]
31. [Robin Hood and Allin a Dale]
32. [Violets]
33. [The Palmer]
34. [The Forsaken Merman]
35. [The Sands o' Dee]
36. [The Loss of the Royal George]
37. [A Sea Dirge]
38. [The Ancient Mariner]
39. [Song of Ariel]
40. [How's my Boy?]
41. [The Spanish Armada]
42. [The Tar for all Weathers]
43. [The Fisherman]
44. [The Sailor]
45. [The Wreck of the Hesperus]
46. [A Canadian Boat Song]
47. [Rosabelle]
48. [The Ballad of the Boat]
49. [Verses, supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk]
50. [Home Thoughts from Abroad]
51. [The Dream of Eugene Aram]
52. [The Beleaguered City]
53. [Jaffar]
54. [Colin and Lucy]
55. [The Redbreast Chasing the Butterfly]
56. [The Children in the Wood]
57. [Robin Redbreast]
58. [The Owl]
59. [Hart Leap Well]
60. [The Summer Shower]
61. [The Mouse's Petition]
62. [The Grasshopper]
63. [The Shepherd's Home]
64. [The Lord of Burleigh]
65. [The Mountain and the Squirrel]
66. [Evening]
67. [The Parrot]
68. [Song]
69. [The Blind Boy]
70. [False Friends-like]
71. [Goody Blake and Harry Gill]
72. [The Jovial Beggar]
73. [Bishop Hatto]
74. [The Old Courtier]
75. [John Gilpin]
76. [The Milkmaid]
77. [Sir Sidney Smith]
78. [The Pied Piper of Hamelin]
79. [The Tiger]
80. [King John and the Abbot of Canterbury]
81. [The Fairies]
82. [The Suffolk Miracle]
83. [The Nightingale]
84. [On a favourite Cat drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes]
85. [The Fox at the Point of Death]
86. [The Old Man's Comforts and how he gained them]
87. [The Charge of the Light Brigade]
88. [Ye Mariners of England]
89. [Napoleon and the Sailor]
90. [Boadicea, an Ode]
91. [The Soldier's Dream]
92. [Love and Glory]
93. [After Blenheim]
94. [The Sailor's Mother]
95. [Mahmoud]
96. [Autumn, a Dirge]
97. [The Raven]
98. [The Nix]
99. [The Seven Sisters, or the Solitude of Binnorie]
100. [The Beggar Maid]
101. [The Wild Huntsman]
102. [To Daffodils]
103. [The Homes of England]
104. [Mary the Maid of the Inn]
105. [The Witches' Meeting]
106. [Adelgitha]
107. [The Council of Horses]
108. [St. Romuald]
109. [Lady Alice]
110. [The Outlandish Knight]
111. [Spring]
112. [Sweet William's Ghost]
113. [The Fountain]
114. [Fair Rosamund]
115. [The Hitchen May-Day Song]
116. [The Spanish Lady's Love]
117. [Little White Lily]
118. [Minstrel's Song in Ella]
119. [An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog]
120. [Nongtongpaw]
121. [Poor Dog Tray]
122. [The Faithful Bird]
123. [Lord Ullin's Daughter]
124. [The Sea]
125. [Fidelity]
126. [The Fox and the Cat]
127. [The Dog and the Water-Lily]
128. [An Epitaph on a Robin Redbreast]
129. [Baucis and Philemon]
130. [Lullaby for Titania]
131. [Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor]
132. [Queen Mab]
133. [Young Lochinvar]
134. [Incident Characteristic of a Favourite Dog]
135. [King Lear and his Three Daughters]
136. [The Butterfly and the Snail]
137. [The Dæmon Lover]
138. [The Nightingale and the Glow-worm]
139. [The Lady turned Serving-Man]
140. [Pairing Time Anticipated]
141. [To a Water Fowl]
142. [Robin Hood and the Bishop of Hereford]
143. [Sir John Suckling's Campaign]
144. [The Nun's Lament for Philip Sparrow]
145. [To a Butterfly]
146. [The Dragon of Wantley]
147. [The Ungrateful Cupid]
148. [The King of the Crocodiles]
149. [The Lion and the Cub]
150. [The Snail]
151. [The Colubriad]
152. [The Priest and the Mulberry-Tree]
153. [The Pride of Youth]
154. [Sir Lancelot du Lake]
155. [The Three Fishers]
156. [Alice Fell, or Poverty]
157. [The First Swallow]
158. [The Graves of a Household]
159. [The Thrush's Nest]
160. [The Last of the Flock]
161. [The Romance of the Swan's Nest]
162. [Song]
163. [Timothy]
164. [The Sleeping Beauty]
165. [Choral Song of Illyrian Peasants]
166. [The Destruction of Sennacherib]
167. [The Widow Bird]
168. [Dora]
169. [A Witch, Spoken by a Countryman]
170. [Nursery Rhymes]
171. [The Age of Children Happiest]
172. [The Noble Nature]
173. [The Rainbow]

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