Poems Every Child Should Know / The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library

by Unknown

I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles: Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowlèd churchman be. Why should the vest on him allure, Which I could not on me endure? Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought; Never from lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle; Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old; The litanies of nations came, Like the volcano’s tongue of flame, Up from the burning core below,— The canticles of love and woe: The hand that rounded Peter’s dome And groined the aisles of Christian Rome Wrought in a sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free; He builded better than he knew; The conscious stone to beauty grew. Knowst thou what wove yon woodbird’s nest Of leaves and feathers from her breast? Or how the fish outbuilt her shell, Painting with morn each annual cell? Or how the sacred pine-tree adds To her old leaves new myriads? Such and so grew these holy piles, While love and terror laid the tiles. Earth proudly wears the Parthenon, As the best gem upon her zone, And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids; O’er England’s abbeys bends the sky, As on its friends, with kindred eye; For out of Thought’s interior sphere These wonders rose to upper air; And Nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat. These temples grew as grows the grass; Art might obey, but not surpass. The passive Master lent his hand To the vast soul that o’er him planned; And the same power that reared the shrine Bestrode the tribes that knelt within. Ever the fiery Pentecost Girds with one flame the countless host, Trances the heart through chanting choirs, And through the priest the mind inspires. The word unto the prophet spoken Was writ on tables yet unbroken; The word by seers or sibyls told, In groves of oak, or fanes of gold. Still floats upon the morning wind, Still whispers to the willing mind. One accent of the Holy Ghost The heedless world hath never lost. I know what say the fathers wise,— The Book itself before me lies, Old Chrysostom, best Augustine, And he who blent both in his line, The younger Golden Lips or mines, Taylor, the Shakespeare of divines. His words are music in my ear, I see his cowlèd portrait dear; And yet, for all his faith could see, I would not the good bishop be.

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To America.

“To America,” included by permission of the Poet Laureate, is a good poem and a great poem. It is a keen thrust at the common practice of teaching American children to hate the English of these days on account of the actions of a silly old king dead a hundred years. Alfred Austin deserves great credit for this poem.

What is the voice I hear On the winds of the western sea? Sentinel, listen from out Cape Clear And say what the voice may be. ’Tis a proud free people calling loud to a people proud and free. And it says to them: “Kinsmen, hail! We severed have been too long. Now let us have done with a worn-out tale— The tale of an ancient wrong— And our friendship last long as our love doth and be stronger than death is strong.” Answer them, sons of the self-same race, And blood of the self-same clan; Let us speak with each other face to face And answer as man to man, And loyally love and trust each other as none but free men can. Now fling them out to the breeze, Shamrock, Thistle, and Rose, And the Star-spangled Banner unfurl with these— A message to friends and foes Wherever the sails of peace are seen and wherever the war-wind blows— A message to bond and thrall to wake, For wherever we come, we twain, The throne of the tyrant shall rock and quake, And his menace be void and vain; For you are lords of a strong land and we are lords of the main. Yes, this is the voice of the bluff March gale; We severed have been too long, But now we have done with a worn-out tale— The tale of an ancient wrong— And our friendship last long as love doth last and stronger than death is strong.

Alfred Austin.

The English Flag.

It is quite true that the English flag stands for freedom the world over. Wherever it floats almost any one is safe, whether English or not.

[Above the portico the Union Jack remained fluttering in the flames for some time, but ultimately when it fell the crowds rent the air with shouts, and seemed to see significance in the incident.—Daily Papers.]

Winds of the World, give answer? They are whimpering to and fro— And what should they know of England who only England know?— The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag, They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the English Flag! Must we borrow a clout from the Boer—to plaster anew with dirt? An Irish liar’s bandage, or an English coward’s shirt? We may not speak of England; her Flag’s to sell or share. What is the Flag of England? Winds of the World, declare! The North Wind blew:—“From Bergen my steel-shod van-guards go; I chase your lazy whalers home from the Disko floe; By the great North Lights above me I work the will of God, That the liner splits on the ice-field or the Dogger fills with cod. “I barred my gates with iron, I shuttered my doors with flame, Because to force my ramparts your nutshell navies came; I took the sun from their presence, I cut them down with my blast, And they died, but the Flag of England blew free ere the spirit passed. “The lean white bear hath seen it in the long, long Arctic night, The musk-ox knows the standard that flouts the Northern Light: What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my bergs to dare, Ye have but my drifts to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!” The South Wind sighed:—“From The Virgins my mid-sea course was ta’en Over a thousand islands lost in an idle main, Where the sea-egg flames on the coral and the long-backed breakers croon Their endless ocean legends to the lazy, locked lagoon. “Strayed amid lonely islets, mazed amid outer keys, I waked the palms to laughter—I tossed the scud in the breeze— Never was isle so little, never was sea so lone, But over the scud and the palm-trees an English flag was flown. “I have wrenched it free from the halliard to hang for a wisp on the Horn; I have chased it north to the Lizard—ribboned and rolled and torn; I have spread its fold o’er the dying, adrift in a hopeless sea; I have hurled it swift on the slaver, and seen the slave set free. “My basking sunfish know it, and wheeling albatross, Where the lone wave fills with fire beneath the Southern Cross. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my reefs to dare, Ye have but my seas to furrow. Go forth, for it is there!” The East Wind roared:—“From the Kuriles, the Bitter Seas, I come, And me men call the Home-Wind, for I bring the English home. Look—look well to your shipping! By the breath of my mad typhoon I swept your close-packed Praya and beached your best at Kowloon! “The reeling junks behind me and the racing seas before, I raped your richest roadstead—I plundered Singapore! I set my hand on the Hoogli; as a hooded snake she rose, And I flung your stoutest steamers to roost with the startled crows. “Never the lotos closes, never the wild-fowl wake, But a soul goes out on the East Wind that died for England’s sake— Man or woman or suckling, mother or bride or maid— Because on the bones of the English the English Flag is stayed. “The desert-dust hath dimmed it, the flying wild-ass knows. The scared white leopard winds it across the taintless snows. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my sun to dare, Ye have but my sands to travel. Go forth, for it is there!” The West Wind called:—“In squadrons the thoughtless galleons fly That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die. They make my might their porter, they make my house their path, Till I loose my neck from their rudder and whelm them all in my wrath. “I draw the gliding fog-bank as a snake is drawn from the hole; They bellow one to the other, the frightened ship-bells toll, For day is a drifting terror till I raise the shroud with my breath, And they see strange bows above them and the two go locked to death. “But whether in calm or wrack-wreath, whether by dark or day, I heave them whole to the conger or rip their plates away, First of the scattered legions, under a shrieking sky, Dipping between the rollers, the English Flag goes by. “The dead dumb fog hath wrapped it—the frozen dews have kissed— The naked stars have seen it, a fellow-star in the mist. What is the Flag of England? Ye have but my breath to dare, Ye have but my waves to conquer. Go forth, for it is there!”