“ It is a stately poem worthy of a Goethe or a Shakespeare. 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. ”

“ It is too long for most children to commit to memory, and I generally assign one stanza to one pupil and another to another pupil until it is divided up among them. The poem is a masterpiece. Doubtless the poet meant to show that the forsaken merman had a greater soul to save than the woman who sought to save her soul by deserting natural duty. Salvation does not come through the faith that builds itself at the expense of love. ”

“ The solitary, majestic character of Sir Walter Raleigh, his intrepidity while undergoing tortures inflicted by a cowardly king, the ring of indignation—- all these make a weapon for him stronger than the ax that beheaded him. ”

“ Longfellow (1807-82) is truly the children’s poet. His poems are as simple, pathetic, artistic, and philosophical as if they were intended to tell the plain everyday story of life to older people. “The Village Blacksmith” has been learned by thousands of children, and there is no criticism to be put upon it. The age of the child has nothing whatever to do with his learning it. Age does not grade children nor is poetry wholly to be so graded. “Time is the false reply.”
Henry W. Longfellow.
Sweet and Low. Alfred Tennyson. ”

“ Let the slow boy learn and recite as many stanzas as he can and the boy of quick memory follow him up with the rest. It does not help the slow boy’s memory to keep it down entirely or deprive it of its smaller activity because he cannot learn the whole. Some people will invariably give the slow child a very short poem. It is often better to divide a long poem among the children, letting each child learn a part. The sustained interest of a long poem is worth while. ”

“ Nevertheless, the child enjoys most the poem that is just long enough, and there is much to be said in favour of the selection that is adapted, in length, to the average mind; for the child hesitates in the presence of quantity rather than in the presence of subtle thought. 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 ”

“ Children are untouched by the commercial spirit which is the reproach of this age. “Ingratitude is the vice of republics,” and this poem puts to shame the love of money and the spirit of ingratitude that could let a national servant become a wreck. ”

“ The “elegy” was a favourite form of poem with the ancients, but Gray is said to have reached the climax among poets in this style of verse. The great line of the poem is:
“The path of glory leads but to the grave.”
It would almost seem that poetry has for its greatest mission the lesson of a proper humility.
Thomas Gray.
Rabbi Ben Ezra
“Rabbi Ben Ezra” (by Robert Browning, 1812-89) . Youth is for dispute and age for counsel; each year, each period of a man’s life is but the necessary step to the next. Youth is an uncertain thing to bank on. ”

“ Emerson teaches one lesson above all others, that each soul must work out for itself its latent force, its own individual expression, and that with a “sad sincerity.” “The bishop of the soul” can do no more.
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. ”

“ Burns, more than any other poet, has thrown the enchantment of poetry over his own locality.
Robert Burns.
The Light of Other Days. Thomas Moore.
My Own Shall Come to Me.
If John Burroughs (1837-) had never written any other poem than “My Own Shall Come to Me,” he would have stood to all ages as one of the greatest of American poets. The poem is most characteristic of the tall, majestic, slow-going poet and naturalist. There is no greater line in Greek or English literature than
“I stand amid the eternal ways.” ”

“ Eugene Field, above all other poets, paid the finest tribute to children. This poet only, could make the whole ocean warm because a child’s heart was there to warm it.
Eugene Field.
Stevenson’s Birthday. Katherine Miller.
A Modest Wit.
I learned “A Modest Wit” as a reading-lesson when I was a child. It has clung to me and so I cling to it. It is just as good as it ever was. It is a sharp thrust at power that depends on externalities. ”

“ If girls should be educated to be good mothers, so should boys be taught that fatherhood is the highest and holiest joy and right of man. The child is educator to the man. He teaches him how to take responsibility, how to give unbiased judgments, and how to be fatherly like “Our Father who is in Heaven.” (1844-.)
George W. Cable.
The Brook.
Tennyson’s “The Brook” is included out of love to a dear old schoolmate in Colorado. The real brook, near Cambridge, England, is tame compared to your Colorado streams, O beloved comrade. This poem is well liked by the majority of pupils. ”

“ Children always love to learn it after hearing it read correctly and by one who understands and appreciates it. “Stand by” is the motto. My pupils teach it to me once a year and learn it themselves, too.
John G. Whittier.
Sheridan’s Ride.
There never was a boy who did not like “Sheridan’s Ride,” by T. Buchanan Read (1822-72) . The swing and gallop in it take every boy off from his feet. The children never teach this poem to me, because they love to learn it at first sight. It is easily memorised. ”

“ Obedience is the salvation of any army. John Burroughs says: “I never hear that poem but what it thrills me through and through.”
Alfred Tennyson.
The Tournament.
There are several of Sidney Lanier’s (1842-81) poems that children love to learn. “Tampa Robins,” “The Tournament” (Joust 1.) , “Barnacles,” “The Song of the Chattahoochee,” and “The First Steamboat Up the Alabama” are among them. At our “poetry contests” the children have plainly demonstrated that this great poet has reached his hand down to the youngest. ”

“ Rudyard Kipling.
The Man With the Hoe.
“The Man With the Hoe” is purely an American product, and every American ought to be proud of it, for we want no such type allowed to be developed in this country as the low-browed peasant of France. This poem is a stroke of genius. The story goes that it so offended a modern plutocrat that he offered a reward of $10,000 to any one who could write an equally good poem in rebuttal. ”

“ People are more and more coming to recognise the fact that each individual soul has a right to its own stages of development. “The Chambered Nautilus” is for that reason beloved of the masses. It is one of the grandest poems ever written. ”

“ A Chrysalis.
“A Chrysalis” is a favourite poem with John Burroughs, and is found, too, in Stedman’s collection. We all come to a point in life where we need to burst the shell and fly away into the new realm. (1835-98.)
Mary Emily Bradley.
For a’ That.
Robert Burns, the plowman and poet, “dinnered wi’ a lord.” The story goes that he was put at the second table. That lord is dead, but Robert Burns still lives. He is immortal. It is “the survival of the fittest” “For a’ That and a’ That” is a poem that wipes out the superficial value put on money and other externalities. ”

“ The Duel.
“The Duel,” by Eugene Field (1850-95) , is almost the most popular humorous poem that has come under my notice. In making such a collection as this it is not easy to find poems at once delicate, witty, and graphic. I have taught “The Duel” hundreds of times, and children invariably love it.
Eugene Field.
The Boy Who Never Told a Lie.
“The Boy Who Never Told a Lie” (anonymous) , as well as “Whatever Brawls Disturb the Street,” by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) , are real gems. A few years ago they were more in favour than the poorer verse that has been put forward. ”

“ Laddie, aged eleven, do you remember how you studied and recited “King Henry of Navarre” every poetry hour for a year? It was a long poem, but you stuck to it to the end. We did not know the meaning of a certain word, but I found it up in Switzerland. It is the name of a little town. (1800-59.)
Thomas B. Macaulay.
The Glove and the Lions.
“The Glove and the Lions” was one of my early reading-lessons. It is an incisive thrust at the vanity of “fair” women. A woman be a “true knight” as well as a man. ”

“ It sometimes happens that there are people who do not know that authors are protected by copyright laws. A publisher once cited to me an instance of a teacher who innocently put forth a little volume of poems that she loved and admired, without asking permission of any one. ”

“ The Lye.
“The Lye,” by Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618) , is one of the strongest and most appealing poems a teacher can read to her pupils when teaching early American history. The poem is full of magnificent lines, such as “Go, soul, the body’s guest.” The poem never lacks an attentive audience of young people when correlated with the study of North Carolina and Sir Walter Raleigh. ”

“ I should judge from this essay that any boy at that age would like the poem, even if he had not himself been over the ground as this boy had. (1812-89.)
Robert Browning.
The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna.
“The Burial of Sir John Moore” was one of my reading-lessons when I was a child. A distinguished teacher says: “It has become a part of popular education,” as has also “The Eve of Waterloo” and “The Death of Napoleon.” They are all poems of great rhythmical swing, intense and graphic. ”

“ This ivy envelops a great castle in ruins. Every child in that locality loves the old ivy. It is typical of the ivy as seen all through Wales and England.
Charles Dickens.
The Noble Nature.
“The Noble Nature,” by Ben Jonson (1574-1637) , needs no plea. A small virtue well polished is better than none.
Ben Jonson.
The Flying Squirrel.
“The Flying Squirrel” is an honest account of a live creature that won his way into scores of hearts by his mad pranks and affectionate ways. It is enough that John Burroughs has commended the poem. ”

“ This poem ranks with “Sir Galahad,” if not above it. It is a stroke of genius, and every American ought to be proud of it. Every time my boys read “Odysseus” or the story of Ulysses with me we read or learn “Moly.” The plant moly grows in the United States as well as in Europe.
Edith M. Thomas.
Cupid Drowned.
“Cupid Drowned” (1784-1859) , “Cupid Stung” (1779-1852) , and “Cupid and My Campasbe” (1558-1606) are three dainty poems recommended by Mrs. Margaret Mooney, of the Albany Teachers’ College, in her “Foundation Studies in Literature.” Children are always delighted with them. ”

“ Alfred Tennyson.
The Overland-Mail.
“The Overland-Mail” is a most desirable poem for children to learn. When one boy learns it the others want to follow. It takes as a hero the man who gives common service—the one who does not lead or command, but follows the line of duty. (1865-.)
Rudyard Kipling.
Gathering Song of Donald Dhu.
Jon, do you remember when you used to spout “Pibroch of Donald Dhu”? I think you were ten years old. Sir Walter Scott’s men all have a genius for standing up to their guns, and boys gather up the man’s genius when reciting his verse. ”

“ Rudyard Kipling.
Ozymandias of Egypt.
“Ozymandias of Egypt,” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) . This sonnet is a rebuke to the insolent pride of kings and empires. It is extremely picturesque. It finds a place here because more elderly scholars of good judgment are pleased with it. I remember an old gray-haired scholar in Chicago who often recited it to his friends merely because it touched his fancy.
Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Mortality.
“Mortality” (by William Knox, 1789-1825) is always quoted as Lincoln’s favourite poem. ”