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“ They bid you send your sword."
And he answered, "Grapple her stern and bow.
They have asked for the steel. They shall have it now;
Out cutlasses and board!"
It was our war-ship Clampherdown,
Spewed up four hundred men;
And the scalded stokers yelped delight,
As they rolled in the waist and heard the fight,
Stamp o'er their steel-walled pen.
They cleared the cruiser end to end,
From conning-tower to hold.
They fought as they fought in Nelson's fleet;
They were stripped to the waist, they were bare to the feet,
As it was in the days of old. ”

“ Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories are!
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of Navarre!
Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance,
Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, O pleasant land of France!
And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the waters,
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning daughters.
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy,
For cold, and stiff, and still are they who wrought thy walls annoy.
Hurrah! Hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war,
Hurrah! Hurrah! ”

“ Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!" cried its chief.
Captains, give the sailor place!
He is Admiral, in brief.
Still the north wind, by God's grace!
See the noble fellow's face
As the big ship, with a bound,
Clears the entry like a hound,
Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!
See, safe through shoal and rock,
How they follow in a flock,
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,
Not a spar that comes to grief! ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.
Under his spurning feet the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind,
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace fire,
Swept on, with his wild eye full of ire.
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire ”

“ Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?
Talk to me of rocks and shoals, me who took the soundings, tell
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell,
'Twixt the offing here and Grève where the river disembogues?
Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?
Morn and eve, night and day,
Have I piloted your bay,
Entered free and anchored fast at the foot of Solidor.
Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty Hogues!
Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's a way! ”

“ She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest: shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!
Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy! ”

“ Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou shalt do!"
⁠For pleasant is this flesh,
⁠Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pull'd ever to the earth, still yearns for rest;
⁠Would we some prize might hold
⁠To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!
⁠Let us not always say,
⁠"Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gain'd ground upon the whole!"
⁠As the bird wings and sings,
⁠Let us cry, "All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!" ”

“ Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word) ,
"Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"
"I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied;—
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide—
And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."
The bride kissed the goblet; the knight took it up ”

“ The Moon shone white and alive and plain.
Said the Wind, "I will blow you out again."
The Wind blew hard, and the Moon grew dim.
⁠"With my sledge,
⁠And my wedge,
⁠I have knocked off her edge!
If only I blow right fierce and grim,
The creature will soon be dimmer than dim."
He blew and he blew, and she thinned to a thread
⁠"One puff
⁠More's enough
⁠To blow her to snuff!
One good puff more where the last was bred,
And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go the thread." ”

“ The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word;
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come, when his task of fame is wrought—
Come, with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought—
Come in her crowning hour—and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prisoned men ”

“ Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sail'd away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly? ”

“ George Macdonald's charming book, "At the Back of the North Wind," also was my wonder and delight.
Little White Lily
Sat by a stone,
Drooping and waiting
Till the sun shone.
Little White Lily
Sunshine has fed;
Little White Lily
Is lifting her head.
Little White Lily
Said: "It is good
Little White Lily's
Clothing and food."
Little White Lily
Dressed like a bride!
Shining with whiteness,
And crownèd beside.
Little White Lily
Drooping with pain,
Waiting and waiting
For the wet rain.
Little White Lily
Holdeth her cup;
Rain is fast falling
And filling it up. ”

“ The straw's in the stack, the hay in the mow,
⁠The cooling dews are falling;—
The friendly sheep his welcome bleat,
The pigs come grunting to his feet,
The whinnying mare her master knows,
When into the yard the farmer goes,
⁠His cattle calling,—
⁠"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'! co'!"
While still the cow-boy, far away,
Goes seeking those that have gone astray,—
⁠"Co', boss! co', boss! co'! co'!" ”

“ They died, ay! they died! and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. ”

“ And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and passed north,
I had him sit next me at table, my firelock lean'd in the corner.
I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men. ”

“ They should store up an untold wealth of heroic sentiment; they should acquire the habit of carrying a literary quality in their conversation; they should carry a heart full of the fresh and delightful associations and memories connected with poetry hours to brighten mature years. They should develop their memories while they have memories to develop.
Will the boy who took every poetry hour for a whole school year to learn "Henry of Navarre" ever regret it, or will the children who listened to it? ”

“ Once a year the children learn "The Shepherd of King Admetus," which is one of the finest poems ever written as showing the possible growth of real history into mythology, the tendency of mankind to deify what is fine or sublime in human action. Not every child will learn this entire poem, because it is so long. But every child will learn the best lines in it while the children are teaching it to me and when I take my turn in teaching it to them. No child fails to catch the spirit and intent of the poem and to become entirely familiar with it. ”

“ Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
⁠Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
⁠And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
⁠Before thee lies revealed,—
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed! ”

“ Where the shadow falls the deepest,
Where the clustering nuts fall free,
That's the way for Billy and me.
Why the boys should drive away,
Little sweet maidens from the play,
Or love to banter and fight so well,
That's the thing I never could tell. ”

“ England is distinctively a country of homes, pretty, little, humble homes as well as stately palaces and castles, homes well made of stone or brick for the most part, and clad with ivy and roses. Who would not be proud to have had such a home as Ann Hathaway's humble cottage or one of the little huts in the Lake District? The homes of America are often more palatial, especially in small cities, but the use of wood in America makes them less substantial than the slate-and-brick houses of England. ”

“ I make claim for this collection that it is made up of poems that the majority of children will learn of their own free will. There are people who believe that in the matter of learning poetry there is no "ought," but this is a false belief. There is a duty, even there; for every American citizen ought to know the great national songs that keep alive the spirit of patriotism. Children should build for their future—and get, while they are children, what only the fresh imagination of the child can assimilate. ”

“ An Incident of the French Camp.
"An Incident of the French Camp," by Robert Browning (1812-89) , is included in this volume out of regard to a boy of eight years who did not care for many poems, but this one stirred his heart to its depths.
You know, we French storm'd Ratisbon:
⁠A mile or so away
On a little mound, Napoleon
⁠Stood on our storming-day;
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how,
⁠Legs wide, arms lock'd behind,
As if to balance the prone brow
⁠Oppressive with its mind. ”

“ The bee awak'd—with anger wild
The bee awak'd, and stung the child.
Loud and piteous are his cries;
To Venus quick he runs, he flies;
"Oh, Mother! I am wounded through—
I die with pain—in sooth I do! ”

“ I hear the church-bells ring,
⁠O say, what may it be?"
"'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"—
⁠And he steered for the open sea.
"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
⁠O say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
⁠In such an angry sea!" ”

“ They knew, by his glazed and unearthly eye,
⁠That life had nearly perished.
They knew by his awful and kingly look,
⁠By the order hastily spoken,
That he dreamed of days when the nations shook,
⁠And the nations' hosts were broken.
He dreamed that the Frenchman's sword still slew,
⁠And triumphed the Frenchman's eagle,
And the struggling Austrian fled anew,
⁠Like the hare before the beagle. ”

“ Oh, let us be married,—too long we have tarried,—
⁠But what shall we do for a ring?"
They sailed away for a year and a day
⁠To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a piggy-wig stood
⁠With a ring in the end of his nose,—
⁠His nose,
⁠With a ring in the end of his nose.
"Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling
⁠Your ring?" Said the piggy, "I will." ”

“ I love his rough-shod way of trampling down and kicking out of the way the conventionalities that spring up like poisonous mushrooms to make the world a vast labyrinth of petty "proprieties" until everything is nasty. I love the oxygen he pours on the world. I love his genius for brotherliness, his picture of the Negro with rolling eyes and the firelock in the corner. ”

“ Like to children poor,
Playing in their sturdy health
By their mother's door,
Purple with the north wind,
Yet alert and bold;
Fearing not, and caring not,
Though they be a-cold!
What to them is winter! ”

“ For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door
With such a name as "Nevermore." ”

“ And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming, throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow, that lies floating on the floor,
Shall be lifted—nevermore! ”