CROSSING THE BAR

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CROSSING THE BAR

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark; .

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

1. Why is the sunset hour chosen?

2. What does the evening star indicate?

3. Explain, "moaning of the bar."

4. "That which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home" is a symbol of what experience of the soul?

5. Then, according to Tennyson, what is death?

6. As twilight deepens, what change in the poet's mood?

7. What is the "bourne of Time and Place"?

8. Why are we left to imagine where the flood will bear him? 9. What triumphant hope of the poet makes death a happy

home-returning?

10. If this poem has a universal meaning, what do each of the following stand for?

(a) Sunset and twilight.
(b) Evening star.

(c) The bar.

(d) The sea.

(e) The Pilot.

11. Read the poem until you feel the beauty of its melody and the appropriateness of its rhythm. He whose soul comes into conscious touch with the Divine, can read this poem the hundredth time and find new meanings.

REFERENCES

WORDSWORTH: Intimations on Immortality.

WHITTIER: At Last. My Triumph.

LONGFELLOW: In the Harbor. Victor and Vanquished.
BROWNING: Prospice. By the Fireside.

EMERSON: Good-bye, Proud World. Terminus.

THACKERAY: Death of Colonel Newcome.

EDWIN ARNOLD: After Death. The Secret of Death.
ELIOT: The Choir Invisible.

PRIEST: Over the River.

STODDARD: The Soul's Defiance.

MCCREERY: There is No Death.

POPE: The Dying Christian to His Soul.

A. L. BARBAULD: Life, I know not what thou art.

MRS. BROWNING: The Sleep.

ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE: The Hills of Rest.

SILL: The Future.

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE: The Other World.

ALBERT GORTON GREENE: The Baron's Last Banquet.

PAUL HAYNE: In Harbor.

BRYANT: Thanatopsis.

RALEIGH: Even Such is Time.

STEVENSON: Requiem.

PHOEBE CARY: Nearer Home.

A FLOWER GARDEN

NOT MINE

And if I share my crust,
As common manhood must,

With one whose need is greater than my own,
Shall I not also give

His soul that it may live,

Of the abundant pleasure I have known?

And so, if I have wrought,
Amassed, or conceived aught

Of beauty or intelligence or power,
It is not mine to hoard:

It stands there to afford

Its generous service simply as a flower.

-BLISS CARMEN.

GOD GIVE US MEN

God give us men! A time like this demands

Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands; Men whom the lust of office does not kill;

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;

Men who possess opinions and a will;

Men who have honor; men who will not lie;

Men who can stand before a demagogue

And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;

Tall men, sun crowned, who live above the fog

In public duty and in private thinking;

For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large profession and their little deeds
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,

Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.
-J. G. HOLLAND.

LOVE OF COUNTRY

Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land;
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well:
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and self,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust form whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

-WALTER SCOTT.

VICTOR

To have toiled upward through the barren years,
To have had courage to contend with wrong;
And walked in silence when the victor's song
Was justly thine, lest it should reach the ears
Of the great grieving host of vanquished ones;
Showing Christ's mercy to the puny soul

That would have kept thee from the longed-for goalAll these are victories, oh, worthy sons!

But to have battled bravely, and have failed-
Yet falling, stood undaunted to the last
Cheering the one who on to victory passed:
Infusing hope to those by doubts assailed;
Conquering self, beneath the chastening rod-
Behold a victor worthy of his God!

-BETH CLATER WHITSON, in Metropolitan Magazine.

A FLOWER GARDEN

FOR THOSE WHO FAIL

"All honor to him who shall win the prize,"
The world has cried for a thousand years,
But to him who tries, and who fails and dies,
I give great honor and glory and tears.

Give glory and honor and pitiful tears
To all who fail in their deeds sublime,
Their ghosts are many in the van of years,
They were born with time in advance of time.

Oh, great is the hero who wins a name,
But greater many and many a time,
Some pale-faced fellow who dies in shame
And lets God finish the thought sublime.

And great is the man with a sword undrawn,
And good is the man who refrains from wine,
But the man who fails and yet still fights on,
Lo! he is the twin-born brother of mine.
-JOAQUIN MILLER.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

A blend of mirth and sadness, smiles and tears,
A quaint knight-errant of the pioneers:

A homely hero born of star and sod;
A peasant prince; a masterpiece of God.

LIGHT

The night has a thousand eyes,

The day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

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