Poems You Ought to Know

by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

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.

		PAGE
Abou Ben Adhem	Leigh Hunt	[107]
All	Francis A. Durivage	[160]
Althea from Prison, To	Richard Lovelace	[98]
Annabel Lee	Edgar Allan Poe	[178]
Antony and Cleopatra	William H. Lytle	[226]
Arsenal at Springfield, The	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	[158]
Babyhood	Josiah Gilbert Holland	[40]
Ballade of Nicolete	Graham R. Tomson	[78]
Ballad of Old-Time Ladies	Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s version ofVillon	[128]
Ballad of the Boat, The	Richard Garnett	[172]
Ballad Upon a Wedding	Sir John Suckling	[192]
Banks o’ Doon	Robert Burns	[76]
Bedouin Love Song	Bayard Taylor	[67]
Believe Me If All Those	Thomas Moore	[101]
Bells of Shandon	Francis Mahony	[196]
Bonny Dundee	Sir Walter Scott	[167]
Border Ballad	Sir Walter Scott	[169]
Break, Break, Break	Lord Tennyson	[24]
Breathes There a Man	Sir Walter Scott	[104]
Bridge, The	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	[55]
Bugle Song	Lord Tennyson	[108]
Celia, To	Ben Jonson	[187]
Chambered Nautilus	Oliver Wendell Holmes	[87]
Cherry Ripe	Thomas Campion	[36]
Children, Cry of The	Elizabeth Barrett Browning	[106]
Church Gate, At the	William Makepeace Thackeray	[92]
Crossing the Bar	Lord Tennyson	[193]
Cuckoo, To the	John Logan	[94]
Daffodils, The	William Wordsworth	[162]
Dandelion, To the	James Russell Lowell	[170]
Dante, On A Bust of	T. W. Parsons	[126]
Death-Bed, The	Thomas Hood	[33]
Deed and a Word, A	Charles Mackay	[47]
Delight in Disorder	Robert Herrick	[62]
Dirge for a Soldier	George H. Boker	[53]
Ditty, A	Sir Philip Sidney	[118]
Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True	Dinah Maria Mulock	[149]
Drifting	Thomas Buchanan Read	[50]
Elia	E. J. McPhelim	[70]
Emperor’s Daughter Stands Alone, An	Geoffrey Chaucer	[60]
Evening Song	Sidney Lanier	[54]
Faith	Thomas Chatterton	[144]
Fate	Susan Marr Spalding	[22]
Flynn of Virginia	Bret Harte	[204]
Fool’s Prayer, The	Edward Rowland Sill	[28]
For All These	Juliet Wilbor Tompkins	[45]
Fount of Castaly	Joseph O’Connor	[142]
Garret, The	William Makepeace Thackeray	[198]
Girdle, On a	Edmund Waller	[199]
Go, Lovely Rose	Edmund Waller	[82]
Grass, The	Emily Dickinson	[217]
Graveyard, In the	Macdonald Clarke	[166]
Grounds of the Terrible	Harold Begbie	[164]
Hark, Hark the Lark	William Shakespeare	[71]
Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls	Thomas Moore	[195]
He’d Had No Show	S. W. Foss	[93]
Heritage, The	James Russell Lowell	[116]
Her Moral (Miss Kilmanseg)	Thomas Hood	[95]
Highland Mary	Robert Burns	[152]
Holy Nation, A	Richard Realf	[23]
Indian Serenade	Percy Bysshe Shelley	[141]
Indian Summer	John G. Whittier	[181]
“In Memoriam”	Lord Tennyson	[121]
Intra Muros	Mary C. Gillington	[21]
Invictus	W. E. Henley	[131]
I Remember	Thomas Hood	[123]
Isles of Greece	Lord Byron	[232]
Jerusalem the Golden	John M. Neale	[183]
Jim Bludso	John Hay	[64]
John Anderson, My Jo	Robert Burns	[185]
Jonathan to John	James Russell Lowell	[222]
June	James Russell Lowell	[194]
Kubla Kahn	Samuel Taylor Coleridge	[190]
Lamb, The	William Blake	[153]
Last Leaf, The	Oliver Wendell Holmes	[84]
Lead Kindly Light	John Henry Newman	[72]
Life	Mrs. A. L. Barbauld	[161]
Little Breeches	John Hay	[202]
Lovers’ Quarrel, A	Austin Dobson	[188]
Lucasta on Going to the Wars, To	Richard Lovelace	[35]
Lucy	William Wordsworth	[59]
Maid of Athens	Lord Byron	[186]
Mary’s Dream	John Lowe	[124]
Match, A	Algernon Charles Swinburne	[137]
Mignon’s Song	Johann Wolfgang Goethe	[110]
Misconceptions	Robert Browning	[184]
Moral (“Lady Flora”)	Lord Tennyson	[66]
Music, When Soft Voices Die	Percy Bysshe Shelley	[133]
My Boat Is on the Shore	Lord Byron	[180]
My Wife and Child	Henry R. Jackson	[220]
Nathan Hale	Francis Miles Finch	[212]
Nearer Home	Phoebe Cary	[174]
Night	James Blanco White	[79]
Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The	Francis Williams Bourdillon	[115]
Nocturne	Thomas Bailey Aldrich	[210]
O, Captain, My Captain	Walt Whitman	[38]
Ode on a Grecian Urn	John Keats	[97]
Ode on Solitude	Alexander Pope	[103]
Oft in the Stilly Night	Thomas Moore	[63]
Old Familiar Faces, The	Charles Lamb	[18]
Old Oaken Bucket	Samuel Woodworth	[86]
One Touch of Nature	William Shakespeare	[89]
Opportunity	John James Ingalls	[109]
O, Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?	William Knox	[228]
O, Yet We Trust that Somehow Good (“InMemoriam”)	Lord Tennyson	[121]
Patriotism	Sir Walter Scott	[104]
Paradox of Time, The	Austin Dobson	[208]
Pompadour’s Fan, The	Austin Dobson	[75]
Portia’s Speech on Mercy	William Shakespeare	[207]
Psalm XIX		[74]
Psalm XXIV		[155]
Psalm XLVI		[44]
Psalm XLVIII		[231]
Psalm LXXXIV		[111]
Psalm CXXI		[119]
Remembrance	Emily Bronte	[42]
Requiem, A	Robert Louis Stevenson	[90]
Requiescat	Matthew Arnold	[90]
Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep	Emma Willard	[105]
Rock Me to Sleep	Elizabeth Akers Allen	[30]
Rose, The	Pierre Ronsard	[143]
Ruthless Time	William Shakespeare	[46]
Sally in Our Alley	Henry Carey	[68]
Scots Wha Hae	Robert Burns	[182]
Sea Song, A	Allan Cunningham	[134]
Self-Dependence	Matthew Arnold	[156]
Sennacherib’s Host, Destruction of	Lord Byron	[32]
Serenade (From “The Spanish Student”)	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	[96]
Shepherdess, The	Alice Meynell	[130]
Shepherd’s Resolution, The	George Wither	[80]
She Walks in Beauty Like the Night	Lord Byron	[57]
Sleep, To	William Wordsworth	[17]
Song	John Bunyan	[100]
Song	William Shakespeare	[71]
Song of Callicles	Matthew Arnold	[214]
Song of the Camp	Bayard Taylor	[146]
Song of the Mystic	Abram Ryan	[81]
Song of the Shirt	Thomas Hood	[85]
Song of the Western Men	Robert S. Hawker	[129]
Song on a May Morning	John Milton	[163]
Society Upon the Stanislaus	Bret Harte	[210]
Spacious Firmament on High, The	Joseph Addison	[58]
Star Spangled Banner, The	Francis Scott Key	[120]
Tears, Idle Tears (“Princess”)	Lord Tennyson	[151]
Thalassa, Thalassa	Brownlee Brown	[140]
Thanatopsis	William Cullen Bryant	[112]
There Is No Death	J. L. McCreery	[25]
Though Lost to Sight	Thomas Moore	[20]
Three Fishers, The	Charles Kingsley	[230]
Tiger, The	William Blake	[176]
Time Hath My Lord (“Troilus and Cressida”)	William Shakespeare	[46]
’Tis the Last Rose of Summer	Thomas Moore	[132]
To Be or Not to Be (“Hamlet”)	William Shakespeare	[224]
Today	Thomas Carlyle	[179]
Tomorrow and Tomorrow (“Macbeth”)	William Shakespeare	[200]
To Thine Own Self Be True	Packenham Beatty	[37]
Two Lovers	George Eliot	[48]
Untimely Thought, An	Thomas Bailey Aldrich	[73]
Uphill	Christina Rossetti	[148]
Virgins, Counsel to	Robert Herrick	[138]
Virtue Immortal	George Herbert	[34]
Waiting, The	John G. Whittier	[136]
Warble for Lilac Time	Walt Whitman	[206]
Water Fowl, To a	William Cullen Bryant	[225]
When in Disgrace with Fortune	William Shakespeare	[19]
Where Shall the Lover Rest? (“Marmion”)	Sir Walter Scott	[216]
Why So Pale and Wan?	Sir John Suckling	[39]
Widow Malone, The	Charles Lever	[218]
World Is Too Much With Us, The	William Wordsworth	[102]
Year’s at the Spring, The	Robert Browning	[135]