Poems Teachers Ask For Volume I Part 67

Take up our quarrel with the foe!

To you, from failing hands, we throw The torch. Be yours to hold it high!

If ye break faith with us who die, We shall not sleep, though poppies blow In Flanders fields.

_John McCrae._

In Flanders Fields: An Answer

In Flanders fields the cannon boom And fitful flashes light the gloom, While up above, like eagles, fly The fierce destroyers of the sky; With stains the earth wherein you lie Is redder than the poppy bloom, In Flanders fields.

Sleep on, ye brave. The shrieking sh.e.l.l, The quaking trench, the startled yell, The fury of the battle h.e.l.l Shall wake you not; for all is well.

Sleep peacefully; for all is well.

Your flaming torch aloft we bear, With burning heart an oath we swear To keep the faith, to fight it through, To crush the foe, or sleep with you In Flanders fields.

_C.B. Galbreath._

Little Boy Blue

The little toy dog is covered with dust, But st.u.r.dy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket moulds in his hands.

Time was when the little toy dog was new And the soldier was pa.s.sing fair, And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said, "And don't you make any noise!"

So toddling off to his trundle-bed He dreamt of the pretty toys.

And as he was dreaming, an angel song Awakened our Little Boy Blue,-- Oh, the years are many, the years are long, But the little toy friends are true.

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand, Each in the same old place, Awaiting the touch of a little hand, The smile of a little face.

And they wonder, as waiting these long years through, In the dust of that little chair, What has become of our little Boy Blue Since he kissed them and put them there.

_Eugene Field._

Thanatopsis

To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts Of the last bitter h.o.a.r come like a blight Over thy spirit, and sad images Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;-- Go forth, under the open sky, and list To Nature's teachings, while from all around-- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-- Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground, Where thy pale form was laid with many tears.

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, And, lost each human trace, surrendering up Thine individual being, shalt thou go To mix forever with the elements, To be a brother to the insensible rock And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place Shalt thou retire alone--nor couldst thou wish Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings.

The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good, Fair forms, and h.o.a.ry seers of ages past, All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills, Rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun,--the vales Stretching in pensive quietness between; The venerable woods--rivers that move In majesty, and the complaining brooks That make the meadows green; and, poured round all, Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-- Are but the solemn decorations all Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, Are s.h.i.+ning on the sad abodes of death, Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread The globe are but a handful to the tribes That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own das.h.i.+ngs--yet, the dead are there; And millions in those solitudes, since first The flight of years began, have laid them down In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.

So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw In silence from the living, and no friend Take note of thy departure? All that breathe Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee. As the long train Of ages glide away, the sons of men,-- The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man,-- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side, By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

_William Cullen Bryant._

The First Settler's Story

It ain't the funniest thing a man can do-- Existing in a country when it's new; Nature, who moved in first--a good long while-- Has things already somewhat her own style, And she don't want her woodland splendors battered, Her rustic furniture broke up and scattered, Her paintings, which long years ago were done By that old splendid artist-king, the sun, Torn down and dragged in civilization's gutter, Or sold to purchase settlers' bread and b.u.t.ter.

She don't want things exposed from porch to closet, And so she kind o' nags the man who does it.

She carries in her pockets bags of seeds, As general agent of the thriftiest weeds; She sends her blackbirds, in the early morn, To superintend his fields of planted corn; She gives him rain past any duck's desire-- Then maybe several weeks of quiet fire; She sails mosquitoes--leeches perched on wings-- To poison him with blood-devouring stings; She loves her ague-muscle to display, And shake him up--say every other day; With, thoughtful, conscientious care she makes Those travelin' poison-bottles, rattlesnakes; She finds time, 'mongst her other family cares, To keep in stock good wild-cats, wolves, and bears.

Well, when I first infested this retreat, Things to my view looked frightful incomplete; But I had come with heart-thrift in my song, And brought my wife and plunder right along; I hadn't a round trip ticket to go back, And if I had there wasn't no railroad track; And drivin' East was what I couldn't endure: I hadn't started on a circular tour.

My girl-wife was as brave as she was good, And helped me every blessed way she could; She seemed to take to every rough old tree, As sing'lar as when first she took to me.

She kep' our little log-house neat as wax, And once I caught her fooling with my axe.

She learned a hundred masculine things to do: She aimed a shot-gun pretty middlin' true, Although in spite of my express desire, She always shut her eyes before she'd fire.

She hadn't the muscle (though she _had_ the heart) In out-door work to take an active part; Though in our firm of Duty and Endeavor She wasn't no silent partner whatsoever.

When I was logging, burning, choppin' wood, She'd linger round and help me all she could, And keep me fresh-ambitious all the while, And lifted tons just with her voice and smile.

With no desire my glory for to rob, She used to stan' around and boss the job; And when first-cla.s.s success my hands befell, Would proudly say, "_We_ did that pretty well!"

She _was_ delicious, both to hear and see-- That pretty wife-girl that kep' house for me.

Well, neighborhoods meant counties in those days; The roads didn't have accommodating ways; And maybe weeks would pa.s.s before she'd see-- And much less talk with--any one but me.

The Indians sometimes showed their sun-baked faces, But they didn't teem with conversational graces; Some ideas from the birds and trees she stole, But 'twasn't like talking with a human soul; And finally I thought that I could trace A half heart-hunger peering from her face.

Then she would drive it back and shut the door; Of course that only made me see it more.

'Twas hard to see her give her life to mine, Making a steady effort not to pine; 'Twas hard to hear that laugh bloom out each minute, And recognize the seeds of sorrow in it.

No misery makes a close observer mourn Like hopeless grief with hopeful courage borne; There's nothing sets the sympathies to paining Like a complaining woman uncomplaining.

It always draws my breath out into sighs To see a brave look in a woman's eyes.

Well, she went on, as plucky as could be, Fighting the foe she thought I did not see, And using her heart-horticultural powers To turn that forest to a bed of flowers.

You cannot check an unadmitted sigh, And so I had to soothe her on the sly, And secretly to help her draw her load; And soon it came to be an up-hill road.

Hard work bears hard upon the average pulse, Even with satisfactory results; But when effects are scarce, the heavy strain Falls dead and solid on the heart and brain.

And when we're bothered, it will oft occur We seek blame-timber; and I lit on her; And looked at her with daily lessening favor, For what I knew she couldn't help, to save her.

And Discord, when he once had called and seen us, Came round quite often, and edged in between us.

One night, when I came home unusual late, Too hungry and too tired to feel first-rate, Her supper struck me wrong (though I'll allow She hadn't much to strike with, anyhow); And when I went to milk the cows, and found They'd wandered from their usual feeding ground, And maybe'd left a few long miles behind 'em, Which I must copy, if I meant to find 'em, Flash-quick the stay-chains of my temper broke, And in a, trice these hot words I had spoke: "You ought to've kept the animals in view, And drove 'em in; you'd nothing else to do.

The heft of all our life on me must fall; You just lie round and let me do it all."

That speech--it hadn't been gone a half a minute Before I saw the cold black poison in it; And I'd have given all I had, and more, To've only safely got it back in-door.

I'm now what most folks "well-to-do" would call I feel to-day as if I'd give it all, Provided I through fifty years might reach And kill and bury that half-minute speech.

She handed back no words, as I could hear; She didn't frown; she didn't shed a tear; Half proud, half crushed, she stood and looked me o'er, Like some one she had never seen before!

But such a sudden anguish-lit surprise I never viewed before in human eyes.

(I've seen it oft enough since in a dream; It sometimes wakes me like a midnight scream.)

Next morning, when, stone-faced, but heavy-hearted, With dinner pail and sharpened axe I started Away for my day's work--she watched the door.