He wrote "To a Waterfowl" in 1815. When he had completed his study of law, he set out on foot to find a village where he might begin work as a lawyer. He was poor and without friends. At the end of a day's journey, when he began to feel discouraged, he saw a wild duck flying alone high in the sky. Then the thought came to him that he would be guided aright, just as the bird was, and he wrote "To a Waterfowl," the most artistic of all his poems. The poem is suitable for the seventh or eighth grade.

TO A WATERFOWL
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou

pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee

wrong,

As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless

coast

The desert and illimitable air

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land Though the dark night is near.

Bryant wrote this poem in 1849 after he had been planting fruit trees on his country place on Long Island.

THE PLANTING OF THE
APPLE-TREE

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Come, let us plant the apple-tree. Cleave the tough greensward with the spade:

Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mould with kindly care,
And press it o'er them tenderly,
As, round the sleeping infant's feet,
We softly fold the cradle-sheet;

So plant we the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree? Buds, which the breath of summer days Shall lengthen into leafy sprays; Boughs where the thrush, with crimson breast,

Shall haunt, and sing, and hide her nest;

We plant, upon the sunny lea, A shadow for the noontide hour, A shelter from the summer shower, When we plant the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree? Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the May-wind's restless wings, When, from the orchard row, he pours Its fragrance through our open doors; A world of blossoms for the bee, Flowers for the sick girl's silent room, For the glad infant sprigs of bloom, We plant with the apple-tree.

What plant we in this apple-tree? Fruits that shall swell in sunny June, And redden in the August noon, And drop, when gentle airs come by, That fan the blue September sky,

While children come, with cries of glee, And seek them where the fragrant grass Betrays their bed to those who pass, At the foot of the apple-tree.

And when, above this apple-tree, The winter stars are quivering bright, And winds go howling through the night, Girls, whose young eyes o'erflow with mirth,

Shall peel its fruit by cottage-hearth,

And guests in prouder homes shall see, Heaped with the grape of Cintra's vine And golden orange of the line,

The fruit of the apple-tree.

The fruitage of this apple-tree Winds and our flag of stripe and star Shall bear to coasts that lie afar, Where men shall wonder at the view, And ask in what fair groves they grew; And sojourners beyond the sea Shall think of childhood's careless day, And long, long hours of summer play, In the shade of the apple-tree.

Each year shall give this apple-tree A broader flush of roseate bloom, A deeper maze of verdurous gloom, And loosen, when the frost-clouds lower, The crisp brown leaves in thicker shower.

The years shall come and pass, but we Shall hear no longer, where we lie, The summer's songs, the autumn's sigh, In the boughs of the apple-tree.

And time shall waste this apple-tree. Oh, when its agèd branches throw Thin shadows on the ground below, Shall fraud and force and iron will Oppress the weak and helpless still?

What shall the tasks of mercy be, Amid the toils, the strifes, the tears Of those who live when length of years Is wasting this apple-tree?

"Who planted this old apple-tree?" The children of that distant day Thus to some agèd man shall say; And, gazing on its mossy stem, The gray-haired man shall answer them: "A poet of the land was he,

Born in the rude but good old times; 'Tis said he made some quaint old rhymes,

On planting the apple-tree."

356

The next poem, by the English poet Thomas Edward Brown (1830-1897), deserves to be classed with the most beautiful and artistic verse in our language. Students will notice the allusion to the biblical tradition that God walked in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening.

MY GARDEN

THOMAS EDWARD BROWN

A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) ranks yery high among English poets. He endeavored to bring poetry close to actual life and to get rid of the stilted language of conventional verse. The struggle was long and difficult, but Wordsworth lived long enough to know that the world had realized his greatness. Many of his poems are suitable for use with children. Their simplicity, their directness, and their utter sincerity made many of them, while not written especially for the young, seem as if directly addressed to the childlike mind. "We are Seven," "Lucy Gray," and "Michael" belong to this number, as do the two masterpieces among short poems which are quoted here. "How many people," exclaims Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, "have been waked to a quicker consciousness of life by Wordsworth's simple lines about the daffodils, and what he says of the thoughts suggested to him by 'the meanest flower that blows'!" In both poems the imagery is of the utmost importance. Through it the reader is able to put himself with the poet and see things as the poet saw them. In "The Daffodils" the flowers, jocund in the breeze, drive away the melancholy mood with which the poet had approached them and enable him to carry away a picture in his memory that can be drawn upon for help on future occasions of gloom. In "The Solitary Reaper" the weird and haunting notes of the song coming to his ear in an unknown tongue suggest possible ideas back of the strong feeling which he recognizes in the

singer. Here also, the poet's memory carries something away,

"The music in my heart I bore,

Long after it was heard no more." One of the purposes in teaching poetry should be to store the mind, not with words only, but with impressions that may later be recalled to beautify and strengthen life. DAFFODILS

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed-and gazed-but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

358

THE SOLITARY REAPER

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary highland lass!

Reaping and singing by herself;

Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
Oh, listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chant

More welcome notes to weary bands Of travelers in some shady haunt,

Among Arabian sands:

A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings?— Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things,

And battles long ago!

Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending: I saw her singing at her work,

And o'er the sickle bending;
I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

359

Lady Norton (1808-1877) does not belong among the great poets, but she wrote several poems that were immense favorites with a generation now passing away. Among them are "Bingen on the Rhine," "The King of Denmark's Ride," and the one given below. It will no doubt show that her work still has power to stir readers of the present day, although we are likely to think of her poems as being too

emotional or sentimental. She wrote the words of the very popular song "Juanita."

THE ARAB TO HIS
FAVORITE STEED

CAROLINE E. NORTON

My beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by,

With thy proudly arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye, Fret not to roam the desert now, with all thy winged speed;

I may not mount on thee again,- thou'rt sold, my Arab steed!

Fret not with that impatient hoof,snuff not the breezy wind,— The farther that thou fliest now, so far am I behind;

The stranger hath thy bridle-rein, -thy master hath his gold,

Fleet-limbed and beautiful, farewell;

thou'rt sold, my steed, thou'rt sold. Farewell! those free untired limbs full many a mile must roam,

To reach the chill and wintry sky which clouds the stranger's home;

Some other hand, less fond, must now

thy corn and bed prepare,

Thy silky mane, I braided once, must be another's care!

The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee

Shall I gallop through the desert paths, where we were wont to be;

Evening shall darken on the earth, and o'er the sandy plain

Some other steed, with slower step, shall bear me home again.

Yes, thou must go! the wild, free breeze, the brilliant sun and sky, Thy master's house,-from all of these my exiled one must fly;

Thy proud dark eye will grow less proud, thy step become less fleet,

"It was here he bowed his glossy neck when last I saw him drink!"

master's hand to meet.

Only in sleep shall I behold that dark eye,

fevered dream is o'er,

I could not live a day, and know that we should meet no more!

They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger's power is strong,

They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long.

Who said that I had given thee up? who said that thou wast sold?

Robert Southey (1774-1843) was poet laureate of England, and a most prolific writer of poetry and miscellaneous prose. His great prominence in his own day has been succeeded by an obscurity so complete that only a few items of his work are now remembered. Among these are "The Battle of Blenheim," a very brief and effective satire against war, "The Well of St. Keyne," a humorous poem based on an old superstition, and "The Inchcape Rock," a stirring narrative of how evil deeds return upon the evil doer. (See, also, No. 153.)

THE INCHCAPE ROCK

ROBERT SOUTHEY

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The ship was as still as she could be;
Her sails from Heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock,

thou oft hast borne me on;