McCLURE'S LIBRARY OF CHILDREN'S CLASSICS

EDITED BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
AND NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH

GOLDEN NUMBERS
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH

THE POSY RING
A BOOK OF VERSE FOR CHILDREN

PINAFORE PALACE
A BOOK OF RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY

Library of Fairy Literature

THE FAIRY RING

MAGIC CASEMENTS A SECOND FAIRY BOOK

OTHER VOLUMES TO FOLLOW

Send to the publishers for Complete Descriptive Catalogue

GOLDEN NUMBERS

A BOOK OF VERSE FOR YOUTH

CHOSEN AND CLASSIFIED BY

Kate Douglas Wiggin

AND

Nora Archibald Smith

WITH INTRODUCTION AND INTERLEAVES BY

KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN

NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1909


Copyright, 1902, by
McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO.

Published, October, 1902, N

GOLDEN NUMBERS

[Pg v]

A NOTE

We are indebted to the following firms for permission to use poems mentioned:

Frederick Warne & Co., for poems of George Herbert and Reginald Heber; Small, Maynard & Co., for two poems by Walt Whitman, and "The Tax-Gatherer," by John B. Tabb; George Routledge & Son, for "Sir Lark and King Sun," George Macdonald; Longmans, Green & Co., for Andrew Lang's "Scythe Song"; Lee & Shepard, for "A Christmas Hymn," "Alfred Dommett," and "Minstrels and Maids," William Morris; J. B. Lippincott Co., for three poems by Thomas Buchanan Read; John Lane, for "The Forsaken Merman," Matthew Arnold, and "Song to April," William Watson; "The Skylark," Frederick Tennyson; E. P. Dutton & Co., for "O Little Town of Bethlehem," Phillips Brooks; Dana, Estes & Co., for "July," by Susan Hartley Swett; Little, Brown & Co., for poems of Christina G. Rossetti, and for the three[Pg vi] poems, "The Grass," "The Bee," and "Chartless" by Emily Dickinson; D. Appleton & Co., publishers of Bryant's Complete Poetical Works, for "March," "Planting of the Apple Tree," "To the Fringed Gentian," "Death of Flowers," "To a Waterfowl," and "The Twenty-second of December"; Charles Scribner's Sons, for "The Wind" and "A Visit from the Sea," both taken from "A Child's Garden of Verses"; "The Angler's Reveille," from "The Toiling of Felix"; "Dear Land of All My Love," from "Poems of Sidney Lanier," and "The Three Kings," from "With Trumpet and Drum," by Eugene Field; The Churchman, for "Tacking Ship Off Shore," by Walter Mitchell; The Whitaker-Ray Co., for "Columbus" and "Crossing the Plains," from The Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller; The Macmillan Co., for "At Gibraltar," from "North Shore Watch and Other Poems," by George Edward Woodberry.

The following poems are used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Houghton, Mifflin Co., the authorized publishers:

T. B. Aldrich, "A Turkish Legend," "Before the Rain," "Maple Leaves," and "Tiger Lilies"; Christopher P. Cranch, "The Bobolinks";[Pg vii] Alice Cary, "The Gray Swan"; Margaret Deland, "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night"; Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Forbearance," "The Humble-Bee," "Duty," "The Rhodora," "Concord Hymn," "The Snow Storm," and Ode Sung in the Town Hall, Concord; James T. Fields, "Song of the Turtle and the Flamingo"; Oliver Wendell Holmes, "Old Ironsides" and "The Chambered Nautilus"; John Hay, "The Enchanted Shirt"; Julia Ward Howe, "Battle Hymn of the Republic"; Bret Harte, "The Reveille" and "A Greyport Legend"; T. W. Higginson, "The Snowing of the Pines"; H. W. Longfellow, "The Wreck of the Hesperus," "The Psalm of Life," "Home Song," "The Three Kings," and "The Harvest Moon"; James Russell Lowell, "Washington," extracts from "The Vision of Sir Launfal," "The Fatherland," "To the Dandelion," "The Singing Leaves," and "Stanzas on Freedom"; Lucy Larcom, "Hannah Binding Shoes"; Edna Dean Proctor, "Columbia's Emblem"; T. W. Parsons, "Dirge for One Who Fell in Battle"; E. C. Stedman, "The Flight of the Birds" and "Going A-Nutting"; E. R. Sill, "Opportunity"; W. W. Story, "The English Language"; Celia Thaxter,[Pg viii] "The Sandpiper" and "Nikolina"; J. T. Trowbridge, "Evening at the Farm" and "Midwinter"; Bayard Taylor, "A Night With a Wolf" and "The Song of the Camp"; J. G. Whittier, "The Corn Song," "The Barefoot Boy," "Barbara Frietchie," extracts from "Snow-Bound," "Song of the Negro Boatman," and "The Pipes at Lucknow"; W. D. Howells, "In August"; J. G. Saxe, "Solomon and the Bees."

[Pg ix]

CONTENTS

A CHANTED CALENDAR Page

Daybreak. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 1
Morning. By John Keats 1
A Morning Song. By William Shakespeare 2
Evening in Paradise. By John Milton 2
Evening Song. By John Fletcher 3
Night. By Robert Southey 4
A Fine Day. By Michael Drayton 5
The Seasons. By Edmund Spenser 5
The Eternal Spring. By John Milton 5
March. By William Cullen Bryant 6
Spring. By Thomas Carew 7
Song to April. By William Watson 7
April in England. By Robert Browning 8
April and May. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 9
May. By Edmund Spenser 9
Song on May Morning. By John Milton 10
Summer. By Edmund Spenser 10
June Weather. By James Russell Lowell 11
July. By Susan Hartley Swett 13
August. By Edmund Spenser 14
[Pg x]In August. By William Dean Howells 14
Autumn. By Edmund Spenser 15
Sweet September. By George Arnold 15
Autumn's Processional. By Dinah M. Mulock 16
October's Bright Blue Weather. By H. H. 16
Maple Leaves. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 17
Down to Sleep. By H. H. 18
Winter. By Edmund Spenser 19
When Icicles Hang by the Wall. By William Shakespeare 19
A Winter Morning. By James Russell Lowell 20
The Snow Storm. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 21
Old Winter. By Thomas Noel 22
Midwinter. By John Townsend Trowbridge 23
Dirge for the Year. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 25


THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL

The World Beautiful. By John Milton 27
The Harvest Moon. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 27
The Cloud. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 28
Before the Rain. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 31
Rain in Summer. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 32
Invocation to Rain in Summer. By William C. Bennett 34
The Latter Rain. By Jones Very 35
[Pg xi]The Wind. By Robert Louis Stevenson 35
Ode to the Northeast Wind. By Charles Kingsley 36
The Windy Night. By Thomas Buchanan Read 39
The Brook. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 40
The Brook in Winter. By James Russell Lowell 42
Clear and Cool. By Charles Kingsley 44
Minnows. By John Keats 45
Snow-Bound (Extracts). By John G. Whittier 46
Highland Cattle. By Dinah M. Mulock 50
A Scene in Paradise. By John Milton 52
The Tiger. By William Blake 53
The Spacious Firmament on High. By Joseph Addison 54


GREEN THINGS GROWING

Green Things Growing. By Dinah M. Mulock 57
The Sigh of Silence. By John Keats 58
Under the Greenwood Tree. By William Shakespeare 59
The Planting of the Apple Tree. By William Cullen Bryant 59
The Apple Orchard in the Spring. By William Martin 63
Mine Host of "The Golden Apple." By Thomas Westwood 64
The Tree. By Jones Very 65
[Pg xii]A Young Fir-Wood. By Dante G. Rossetti 65
The Snowing of the Pines. By Thomas W. Higginson 66
The Procession of the Flowers. By Sydney Dobell 67
Sweet Peas. By John Keats 68
A Snowdrop. By Harriet Prescott Spofford 69
Almond Blossom. By Sir Edwin Arnold 69
Wild Rose. By William Allingham 70
Tiger-Lilies. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 71
To the Fringed Gentian. By William Cullen Bryant 72
To a Mountain Daisy. By Robert Burns 73
Bind-Weed. By Susan Coolidge 74
The Rhodora. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 76
A Song of Clover. By "Saxe Holm" 76
To the Dandelion (Extract). By James Russell Lowell 77
To Daffodils. By Robert Herrick 78
The Daffodils. By William Wordsworth 79
The White Anemone. By Owen Meredith 80
The Grass. By Emily Dickinson 81
The Corn-Song. By John G. Whittier 82
Columbia's Emblem. By Edna Dean Proctor 84
Scythe Song. By Andrew Lang 86
Time to Go. By Susan Coolidge 86
The Death of the Flowers. By William Cullen Bryant 88
[Pg xiii]Autumn's Mirth. By Samuel Minturn Peck 90


ON THE WING

Sing On, Blithe Bird. By William Motherwell 93
To a Skylark. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 94
Sir Lark and King Sun: A Parable. By George Macdonald 99
The Skylark. By Frederick Tennyson 101
The Skylark. By James Hogg 102
The Bobolinks. By Christopher P. Cranch 103
To a Waterfowl. By William Cullen Bryant 105
Goldfinches. By John Keats 107
The Sandpiper. By Celia Thaxter 107
The Eagle. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 109
Child's Talk in April. By Christina G. Rossetti 109
The Flight of the Birds. By Edmund Clarence Stedman 111
The Shepherd's Home. By William Shenstone 112
To a Cricket. By William C. Bennett 113
On the Grasshopper and Cricket. By John Keats 114
The Tax-Gatherer. By John B. Tabb 114
To the Grasshopper and the Cricket. By Leigh Hunt 115
The Bee. By Emily Dickinson 116
The Humble-Bee. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 116
All Things Wait Upon Thee. By Christina G. Rossetti 119
[Pg xiv]Providence. By Reginald Heber 119


THE INGLENOOK

A New Household. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 121
Two Heavens. By Leigh Hunt 121
A Song of Love. By "Lewis Carroll" 122
Mother's Song. Unknown 123
The Bonniest Bairn in a' the Warl'. By Robert Ford 125
Cuddle Doon. By Alexander Anderson 126
I am Lonely. By George Eliot 128
Brother and Sister. By George Eliot 129
Home. By William Ernest Henley 131
Love Will Find Out the Way. Unknown 133
The Sailor's Wife. By William J. Mickle 134
Evening at the Farm. By John Townsend Trowbridge 136
Home Song. By Henry W. Longfellow 138
Étude Réaliste. By Algernon C. Swinburne 139
We Are Seven. By William Wordsworth 141


FAIRY SONGS AND SONGS OF FANCY

Puck and the Fairy. By William Shakespeare 145
Lullaby for Titania. By William Shakespeare 146
Oberon and Titania to the Fairy Train. By William Shakespeare 147
Ariel's Songs. By William Shakespeare 147
[Pg xv]Orpheus with His Lute. By William Shakespeare 149
The Arming of Pigwiggen. By Michael Drayton 149
Hesperus' Song. By Ben Jonson 151
L'Allegro (Extracts). By John Milton 152
Sabrina Fair. By John Milton 157
Alexander's Feast. By John Dryden 158
Kubla Khan. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 160
The Magic Car Moved On. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 162
Arethusa. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 165
The Culprit Fay (Extracts). By Joseph Rodman Drake 168
A Myth. By Charles Kingsley 173
The Fairy Folk. By William Allingham 174
The Merman. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 177
The Mermaid. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 178
Bugle Song. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 181
The Raven. By Edgar Allan Poe 182
The Bells. By Edgar Allan Poe 189


SPORTS AND PASTIMES

Blowing Bubbles. By William Allingham 195
Bicycling Song. By Henry C. Beeching 196
Going A Maying. By Robert Herrick 197
Jog On, Jog On. By William Shakespeare 200
A Vagabond Song. By Bliss Carman 201
[Pg xvi]Swimming. By Algernon C. Swinburne 201
Swimming. By Lord Byron 202
The Angler's Reveille. By Henry van Dyke 203
The Angler's Invitation. By Thomas Tod Stoddart 207
Skating. By William Wordsworth 207
Reading. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 209
On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer. By John Keats 210
Music's Silver Sound. By William Shakespeare 210
The Power of Music. By William Shakespeare 211
Descend, Ye Nine! By Alexander Pope 212
Old Song. By Edward Fitzgerald 213
The Barefoot Boy. By John G. Whittier 214
Leolin and Edith. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 218
Going A-Nutting. By Edmund Clarence Stedman 219
Whittling. By John Pierpont 220
Hunting Song. By Sir Walter Scott 222
The Hunter's Song. By Barry Cornwall 223
The Blood Horse. By Barry Cornwall 225
The Northern Seas. By William Howitt 226
The Needle. By Samuel Woodwork 228


A GARDEN OF GIRLS

A Portrait. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 231
Little Bell. By Thomas Westwood 234
[Pg xvii]A Child of Twelve. By Percy Bysshe Shelley 237
Chloe. By Robert Burns 238
O, Mally's Meek, Mally's Sweet. By Robert Burns 239
Who Is Silvia? By William Shakespeare 240
To Mistress Margaret Hussey. By John Skelton 240
Ruth. By Thomas Hood 242
My Peggy. By Allan Ramsay 243
Annie Laurie. By William Douglas 243
Lucy. By William Wordsworth 245
Jessie. By Bret Harte 246
Olivia. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 247
Nikolina. By Celia Thaxter 248
The Solitary Reaper. By William Wordsworth 249
Helena and Hermia. By William Shakespeare 250
Phyllis. By William Drummond 251
So Sweet is She. By Ben Jonson 251
I Love My Jean. By Robert Burns 252
My Nannie's Awa'. By Robert Burns 253


THE WORLD OF WATERS

To the Ocean. By Lord Byron 255
A Life on the Ocean Wave. By Epes Sargent 257
The Sea. By Barry Cornwall 258
A Sea-Song. By Allan Cunningham 259
A Visit from the Sea. By Robert Louis Stevenson 261
[Pg xviii]Drifting. By Thomas Buchanan Read 262
Tacking Ship Off Shore. By Walter Mitchell 265
Windlass Song. By William Allingham 268
The Coral Grove. By James Gates Percival 269
The Shell. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 270
Bermudas. By Andrew Marvell 272
Where Lies the Land? By Arthur Hugh Clough 273


FOR HOME AND COUNTRY

The First, Best Country. By Oliver Goldsmith 275
My Native Land. By Sir Walter Scott 276
Loyalty. By Allan Cunningham 276
My Heart's in the Highlands. By Robert Burns 277
The Minstrel Boy. By Thomas Moore 278
The Harp that Once Through Tara's Halls. By Thomas Moore 279
Fife and Drum. By John Dryden 280
The Cavalier's Song. By William Motherwell 280
The Old Scottish Cavalier. By Wm. Edmondstoune Aytoun 281
The Song of the Camp. By Bayard Taylor 284
Border Ballad. By Sir Walter Scott 286
Gathering Song of Donuil Dhu. By Sir Walter Scott 287
The Reveille. By Bret Harte 288
[Pg xix]Ye Mariners of England. By Thomas Campbell 290
The Knight's Tomb. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge 292
How Sleep the Brave! By William Collins 292
Dirge. By Thomas William Parsons 293
The Burial of Sir John Moore. By Charles Wolfe 295
Soldier, Rest! By Sir Walter Scott 296
Recessional. By Rudyard Kipling 297
The Fatherland. By James Russell Lowell 298


NEW WORLD AND OLD GLORY

Dear Land of All My Love. By Sidney Lanier 301
Columbus. By Joaquin Miller 301
Pocahontas. By William Makepeace Thackeray 303
Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. By Felicia Hemans 305
The Twenty-second of December. By William Cullen Bryant 306
Washington. By James Russell Lowell 307
Warren's Address. By John Pierpont 308
Carmen Bellicosum. By Guy Humphreys McMaster 309
The American Flag. By Joseph Rodman Drake 311
Old Ironsides. By Oliver Wendell Holmes 312
Indians. By Charles Sprague 313
[Pg xx]Crossing the Plains. By Joaquin Miller 314
Concord Hymn. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 315
Ode. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 316
Stanzas on Freedom. By James Russell Lowell 317
Abraham Lincoln. By Richard Henry Stoddard 318
Lincoln, the Great Commoner. By Edwin Markham 319
Abraham Lincoln. By Henry Howard Brownell 321
O Captain! My Captain! By Walt Whitman 323
The Flag Goes By. By Henry Holcomb Bennett 324
The Black Regiment. By George Henry Boker 326
Night Quarters. By Henry Howard Brownell 329
Battle-Hymn of the Republic. By Julia Ward Howe 331
Sheridan's Ride. By Thomas Buchanan Read 332
Song of the Negro Boatman. By John G. Whittier 335
Barbara Frietchie. By John G. Whittier 337
Two Veterans. By Walt Whitman 340
Stand by the Flag! By John Nichols Wilder 342
At Gibraltar. By George Edward Woodberry 343
Faith and Freedom. By William Wordsworth 345
Our Mother Tongue. By Lord Houghton 345
The English Language (Extracts). By William Wetmore Story 346
To America. By Alfred Austin 347
[Pg xxi]The Name of Old Glory. By James Whitcomb Riley 349


IN MERRY MOOD
On a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes. By Thomas Gray 353
The Priest and the Mulberry Tree. By Thomas Love Peacock 355
The Council of Horses. By John Gay 356
The Diverting History of John Gilpin. By William Cowper 359
To a Child of Quality. By Matthew Prior 369
Charade. By Winthrop M. Praed 370
A Riddle. By Hannah More 371
A Riddle. By Jonathan Swift 372
A Riddle. By Catherine M. Fanshawe 373
Feigned Courage. By Charles and Mary Lamb 374
Baucis and Philemon. By Jonathan Swift 375
The Lion and the Cub. By John Gay 378
Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog. By Oliver Goldsmith 379
The Walrus and the Carpenter. By "Lewis Carroll" 381
Song of the Turtle and Flamingo. By James T. Fields 385
Captain Reece. By William S. Gilbert 387
The Cataract of Lodore. By Robert Southey 391
The Enchanted Shirt. By John Hay 395
Made in the Hot Weather. By William Ernest Henley 398
[Pg xxii]The Housekeeper. By Charles Lamb 400
The Monkey. By Mary Howitt 401
November. By Thomas Hood 402
Captain Sword. By Leigh Hunt 403


STORY POEMS: ROMANCE AND REALITY

The Singing Leaves. By James Russell Lowell 407
Seven Times Two. By Jean Ingelow 411
The Long White Seam. By Jean Ingelow 413
Hannah Binding Shoes. By Lucy Larcom 414
Lord Ullin's Daughter. By Thomas Campbell 416
The King of Denmark's Ride. By Caroline E. Norton 418
The Shepherd to His Love. By Christopher Marlowe 420
Ballad. By Charles Kingsley 422
Romance of the Swan's Nest. By Elizabeth Barrett Browning 423
Lochinvar. By Sir Walter Scott 427
Jock of Hazeldean. By Sir Walter Scott 430
The Lady of Shalott. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 431
The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire. By Jean Ingelow 438
The Forsaken Merman. By Matthew Arnold 444
The Sands of Dee. By Charles Kingsley 450
The "Gray Swan." By Alice Gary 452
[Pg xxiii]The Wreck of the Hesperus. By Henry W. Longfellow 454
A Greyport Legend. By Bret Harte 458
The Glove and the Lions. By Leigh Hunt 460
How's My Boy? By Sydney Dobell 462
The Child-Musician. By Austin Dobson 463
How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix. By Robert Browning 464
The Inchcape Rock. By Robert Southey 468
A Night with a Wolf. By Bayard Taylor 471
The Dove of Dacca. By Rudyard Kipling 472
The Abbot of Inisfalen. By William Allingham 474
The Cavalier's Escape. By George Walter Thornbury 479
The Pied Piper of Hamelin. By Robert Browning 480
Hervé Riel. By Robert Browning 493
Vision of Belshazzar. By Lord Byron 500
Solomon and the Bees. By John G. Saxe 502
The Burial of Moses. By Cecil Frances Alexander 504


WHEN BANNERS ARE WAVING

When Banners Are Waving. Unknown 509
Battle of the Baltic. By Thomas Campbell 511
The Pipes at Lucknow. By John Greenleaf Whittier 514
[Pg xxiv]The Battle of Agincourt. By Michael Drayton 517
The Battle of Blenheim. By Robert Southey 522
The Armada. By Lord Macaulay 524
Ivry. By Lord Macaulay 530
On the Loss of the Royal George. By William Cowper 535
The Charge of the Light Brigade. By Alfred, Lord Tennyson 537
Bannockburn. By Robert Burns 539
The Night Before Waterloo. By Lord Byron 540
Hohenlinden. By Thomas Campbell 542
Incident of the French Camp. By Robert Browning 544
Marco Bozzaris. By Fitz-Greene Halleck 545
The Destruction of Sennacherib. By Lord Byron 548


TALES OF THE OLDEN TIME

Sir Patrick Spens. Old Ballad 551
The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington. Old Ballad 555
King John and the Abbot of Canterbury. Old Ballad 558
Lord Beichan and Susie Pye. Old Ballad 563
The Gay Gos-hawk. Old Ballad 569
Earl Mar's Daughter. Old Ballad 576
Chevy-Chace. Old Ballad 582
Hynde Horn. Old Ballad 593
[Pg xxv]Glenlogie. Old Ballad 597


LIFE LESSONS

Life. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 601
In a Child's Album. By William Wordsworth 602
To-Day. By Thomas Carlyle 602
The Noble Nature. By Ben Jonson 603
Forbearance. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 603
The Chambered Nautilus. By Oliver Wendell Holmes 604
Duty. By Ralph Waldo Emerson 605
On His Blindness. By John Milton 606
Sir Launfal and the Leper. By James Russell Lowell 606
Opportunity. By Edward Rowland Sill 608
Abou Ben Adhem and the Angel. By Leigh Hunt 609
Be True. By Horatio Bonar 610
The Shepherd Boy Sings in the Valley of Humiliation. By John Bunyan 610
A Turkish Legend. By Thomas Bailey Aldrich 611
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. By Thomas Gray 612
Polonius to Laertes. By William Shakespeare 618
The Olive-Tree. By S. Baring-Gould 619
Coronation. By H. H. 620
December. By John Keats 622
The End of the Play. By William Makepeace Thackeray 623
A Farewell. By Charles Kingsley 625
[Pg xxvi]A Boy's Prayer. By Henry C. Beeching 626
Chartless. By Emily Dickinson 626
Peace. By Henry Vaughan 627
Consider. By Christina G. Rossetti 628
The Elixir. By George Herbert 629
One by One. By Adelaide A. Procter 629
The Commonwealth of the Bees. By William Shakespeare 631
The Pilgrim. By John Bunyan 632
Be Useful. By George Herbert 633


THE GLAD EVANGEL

A Christmas Carol. By Josiah Gilbert Holland 635
The Angels. By William Drummond 636
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. By Margaret Deland 637
The Star Song. By Robert Herrick 638
Hymn for Christmas. By Felicia Hemans 639
New Prince, New Pomp. By Robert Southwell 640
The Three Kings. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 641
The Three Kings. By Eugene Field 644
A Christmas Hymn. By Alfred Dommett 646
O Little Town of Bethlehem. By Phillips Brooks 648
While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night. By Nahum Tate 649
Christmas Carol. Old English 650
[Pg xxvii]Old Christmas. By Mary Howitt 652
God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen. By Dinah Maria Mulock 653
Minstrels and Maids. By William Morris 654
An Ode on the Birth of Our Saviour. By Robert Herrick 656
Old Christmas Returned. Old English 657
Ceremonies for Christmas. By Robert Herrick 658
Christmas in England. By Sir Walter Scott 659
The Gracious Time. By William Shakespeare 661
Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning. By Reginald Heber 661

[Pg xxxi]

INTRODUCTION

On the Reading of Poetry

There is no doubt, I fear, that certain people are born without, as certain other people are born with, a love of poetry. Any natural gift is a great advantage, of course, be it physical, mental, or spiritual. The dear old tales which suggest the presence of fairies at the cradle of the new-born child, dealing out, not very impartially, talents, charms, graces, are not so far from the real truth. You may have been given a straight nose, a rosy cheek, a courteous manner, a lively wit, a generous disposition; but perhaps the Fairy Fine-Ear, who hears the grass grow, and the leaf-buds throb, had a pressing engagement at somebody else's cradle-side when you most needed her benefactions. There is another elf too, a Dame o' Dreams; she is clad all in color-of-rose, and when she touches your eyelids you see visions forever after; beautiful haunting things hidden from duller eyes, visions made of stars and dew and magic. Never any great poet lived but these two fairies were present at his birth, and it may be that they stole a[Pg xxxii] moment to visit you. If such was the case you love, need, crave poetry, to understand yourself, your neighbor, the world, God; and you will find that nothing else will satisfy you so completely as the years go on. If, on the other hand, these highly mythical but interesting personages were absent when the question of your natural endowment was being settled, do not take it too much to heart, but try to make good the deficiencies.

You must have liked the rhymes and jingles of your nursery-days:

or

I am certain you remember what pleasure it gave you to make "contrary" rhyme with "Mary" instead of pronouncing it in the proper and prosy way.

"But" you answer, "I did indeed like that sort of verse, and am still fond of it when it dances and prances, or trips and patters and tinkles; it is what is termed "sublime" poetry that is dull and difficult to understand; the verb is always a long distance from its subject; the punctuation comes in the middle of the lines, so that it reads like prose in spite of one, and it is[Pg xxxiii] generally sprinkled with allusions to Calypso, Œdipus, Eurydice, Hesperus, Corydon, Arethusa, and the Acroceraunian Mountains; or at any rate with people and places which one has to look up in the atlas and dictionary."

Of course, all poems are not equally simple in sound and sense. It does not require much intelligence to read or chant Poe's Raven, and if one does not quite understand it, one is so taken captive by the weird, haunting music of the lines, the recurrence of phrases and repetition of words, that one does not think about its meaning:

The moment, however, that your eye falls upon the following lines from "Paradise Lost" you confess privately that if you were obliged to parse and analyze them the task would cause you a weary half-hour with Lindley Murray or Quackenbos.

Very well then, do not try to parse them; Paradise Lost was not written exclusively for the grammarians; content yourself with enjoying the picture; the frisking of the beasts of the earth, while Adam and Eve watched them from a fountain-side in Paradise.

No one need be ashamed of liking a good deal of rhyme and rhythm, swing and movement and melody in poetry; absolute perfection of form, though all too rarely attained, is one of the chief delights of the verse-lover. "The procession of beautiful sounds that is a poem," says Walter Raleigh. It is quite natural to love the music of verse before you catch the deeper thought, and you feel, in some of the greatest poetry, as if only the angels could have put the melodious words together. There is more in this music than meets the eye or ear; it is what differentiates prose from poetry, which, to quote Wordsworth, is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge. Prose it is said can never be too truthful or too wise, but song is more than mere Truth and Wisdom, it is the "rose upon Truth's lips, the light in Wisdom's eyes." That is why the thought in it finds its way to the very heart of one and makes one glow and tremble, fills one with desire to do some splendid action, right some wrong, be something other[Pg xxxv] than one is, more noble, more true, more patient, more courageous.

We who have selected the poems in this book have had to keep in mind the various kinds of young people who are to read it. The boys may wish that there were more story and battle poems, and verses ringing with spirited and war-like adventures; the girls may think that there are too many already; while both, perhaps, may miss certain old favorites like Horatius or The Ancient Mariner, omitted because of their great length. Some of you will yawn if the book flies open at Milton; some will be bored whenever they chance upon Pope; others will never read Wordsworth except on compulsion. Romantic little maids will turn away from "Tacking Ship off Shore," while their brothers will disdain "The Swan's Nest Among the Reeds"; but it was necessary to make the book for all sorts and conditions of readers, and such a volume must contain a taste of the best things, whether your special palate is ready for them or not. When you are twenty-one you may say, loftily, "I do not care for Pope and Dryden, I prefer Spenser and Tennyson, or Ben Jonson and Herrick," or whatever you really do prefer,—but now, although, of course, you have your personal likes and dislikes, you cannot be sure that they are based on anything real[Pg xxxvi] or that they will stand the test of time and experience.

So you will find between these covers we hope, a little of everything good, for we have searched the pages of the great English-speaking poets to find verses that you would either love at first sight, or that you would grow to care for as you learn what is worthy to be loved. Where we found one beautiful verse, quite simple and wholly beautiful, we have given you that, if it held a complete thought or painted a picture perfect in itself, even although we omitted the very next one, which perhaps would have puzzled and wearied the younger ones with its involved construction or difficult phraseology.

Will you think, I wonder, that this very simple talk is too informal to be quite proper when one remembers that it is to serve as introduction to the greatest poets that ever lived? Informality is very charming in its place, no doubt (for so the thought might cross your mind), but one does not use it with kings and queens; still the least things, you know, may sometimes explain or interpret the greatest. The brook might say, "I am nothing in myself, I know, but I am showing you the way to the ocean; follow on if you wish to see something really vast and magnificent."

There are besides gracious courtesies to be observed[Pg xxxvii] on certain occasions. If a famous poet or author should chance to come to your village or city and appear before the people, someone would have to introduce the stranger and commend him to your attention; and if he did it modestly it would only be an act of kindliness; a wish to serve you and at the same time bespeak for him a gentle and a friendly hearing. Once introduced—Presto, change! If he is a great poet he is a great wizard; the words he uses, the method and manner in which he uses them, the cadence of his verse, the thoughts he calls to your mind, the way he brings the quick color to your cheek and the tear to your eye, all these savor of magic, nothing else. Who could be less than modest in his presence? Who could but wish to bring the whole world under his spell? You will readily be modest, too, when you confront these splendid poems, even although some of you may not wholly comprehend as yet their grandeur and their majesty; may not fully understand their claim to immortality. Where is there a girl who would not make a low curtsey to Shakespeare's Silvia, Milton's Sabrina, Wordsworth's Lucy, or Mrs. Browning's Elizabeth? And if there is a boy who could stand with his head covered before Horatius, Hervé Riel, Sir Launfal, or Motherwell's Cavalier he is not one of those we had in[Pg xxxviii] mind when we made this book. Neither is it altogether the personality of hero or heroine that fills us with reverence; it is the beauty and perfection of the poem itself that almost brings us to our knees in worship. A little later on you will have the same feeling of admiration and awe for Shelley's Skylark, Emerson's Snow Storm, Wordsworth's Daffodils, Keats's Daybreak, and for many another poem not included in this book, to which you must hope to grow. For it is a matter of growth after all, and growth, in mind and spirit, as in body, is largely a matter of will. It is all ours, the beauty in the world: your task is merely to enter into possession. Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare are yours as much as another's. The great treasury of inspiring thoughts that has been heaped together as the ages went by, that "rich deposit of the centuries," is your heritage; if you wish to assert your heirship no one can say you nay; if you will to be a Crœsus in the things of the mind and spirit, no one can ever keep you poor.

We have brought you only English verse, so you must wait for the years to give you Homer, Virgil, Dante, Goethe, Schiller, Victor Hugo, and many another; and of English verse we have only given a hint of the treasures in store for you later on.[Pg xxxix]

We have quoted you poems from the grand old masters, those "bards sublime,"

and many a verse:—

Since you will not like everything in the book equally well, may we advise you how to use it? First find something you know and love, and read it over again. (Penitent, indeed, shall we be if it has been omitted!) The meeting will be like one with a dear playfellow and friend in a new and strange house, and the house will seem less strange after you have met and welcomed the friend.

Then search the pages until you see a verse that speaks to you instantly, catches your eye, begs you to read it, willy-nilly. There are dozens of such poems in this collection, as simple as if they had been written for six-year-olds instead of for the grown-up English-speaking[Pg xl] world: little masterpieces like Tennyson's Brook, Kingsley's Clear and Cool, Shakespeare's Fairy Songs, Burns's Mountain Daisy, Emerson's Rhodora, Motherwell's Blithe Bird, Hogg's Skylark, Wordsworth's Pet Lamb, Scott's Ballads, and scores of others.

This so far is pure pleasure, but why not, as another step, find something difficult, something you instinctively draw back from? It will probably be Milton, Pope, Dryden, Browning, or Shelley. You cannot find any "story" in it; its rhymes do not run trippingly off the tongue; there are a few strange and unpronounceable words, the punctuation and phrasing puzzle you, and worse than all you are obliged to read it two or three times before you really understand its meaning. Very well, that is nothing to be ashamed of, and you surely do not want to be vanquished by a difficulty. You will realize some time or other that all learning, like all life, is a sort of obstacle race in which the strongest wins.

I once said to a dear old minister who was preaching to a very ignorant and unlearned congregation, "It must be very difficult, sir, for you to preach down to them"; for he was a man of rare scholarship and true wisdom;—"I try to be very simple a part of the time," he answered, "but not always; about once a month I fling[Pg xli] the fodder so high in the rack that no man can catch at a single straw without stretching his neck!"

Now pray do not laugh at that illustration; smile if you will, but it serves the purpose. Just as we develop our muscles by exercising our bodies, so do we grow strong mentally and spiritually by this "stretching" process. You are not obliged to love an impersonal, remote, or complex poem intimately and passionately, but read it faithfully if you do not wish to be wholly blind and deaf to beauties of sense or sound that happier people see and hear. Joubert says most truly: "You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some with you," but there are some splendid things in verse as in prose that you stand in too great awe of to love in any real, childlike way. It is never scenes from Paradise Lost that run through your mind when you are going to sleep. It is something with a lilt, like:

or a poem with a gallant action in it like Marco Bozzaris, or with a charming story like The Singing Leaves, or a mysterious and musical one, like Kubla Khan or The Bells, or something that[Pg xlii] when first you read it made you a little older and a little sadder, in an odd, unaccustomed way quite unlike that of real grief:

When you read that verse of Longfellow's afterwards you see that he has expressed your mood exactly. That is what it means to be a poet, and that is what poetry is always doing for us; revealing, translating thoughts we are capable of feeling, but not expressing.

Perhaps you will not for a long time see the beauty of certain famous reflective poems like Gray's Elegy, but we must include a few of such things whether they appeal to you very strongly or not, merely because it is necessary that you should have an acquaintance, if not a friendship, with lines that the world by common consent has agreed to call immortal. They show you, without your being conscious of it, show you by their lines "all gold and seven times refined,"—how beautiful the English language can be when it is used by a master of style. Young people do not think or talk very much about style, but they come under its spell unconsciously and respond to its influence quickly[Pg xliii] enough. To give a sort of definition: style is a way of saying or writing a thing so that people are compelled to listen. When you grow sensitive to beauty of language you become, in some small degree at least, capable of using it yourself. You could not, for instance, read daily these "honey-tongued" poets without gathering a little sweetness for your own unruly member.

There are certain spiritual lessons to be gained from many of these immortal poems, lessons which the oldest as well as the youngest might well learn. Turn to Milton's Ode on his Blindness. It is not easy reading, but you will begin to care for it when experience brings you the meaning of the line, "They also serve who only stand and wait." It is one of a class of poems that have been living forces from age to age; that have quickened aspiration, aroused energy, deepened conviction; that have infused a nobler ardor and loftier purpose into life wherever and whenever they were read.

Prefacing each of the divisions of this volume you will find a page or "interleaf" of comment on, and appreciation of, the poems that follow. These pages you may read or not as you are minded; they are only friendly or informal letters from an old traveller to a pilgrim who has just taken his staff in hand.[Pg xliv]

By and by you will add poem after poem to your list of favorites, and so, gradually, you will make your own volume of Golden Numbers, which will be far better than any book we can fashion for you. Perhaps you will copy single verses and whole poems in it and, later, learn them by heart. Such treasures of memory "will henceforth no longer be forgettable, detachable parts of your mind's furniture, but well-springs of instinct forever."

Kate Douglas Wiggin.

GOLDEN NUMBERS

INTERLEAVES

A Chanted Calendar

Here is the Year's Processional in verse; the story of her hours, her days, her seasons, told as only poets can, because they see and hear things not revealed to you and me, and are able by their magic to make us sharers in the revelation. Read the first six poems and ask yourself whether you have ever realized the glories of the common day; from the moment when morning from her orient chambers comes, and the lark at heaven's gate sings, to the hour when the moon, unveiling her peerless light, throws her silver mantle o'er the dark, and the firmament glows with living sapphires.

It is the task of poetry not only to say noble things, but to say them nobly; having beautiful fancies, to clothe them in beautiful phrases, and if you search these poems you will find some of the most wonderful word-pictures in the English language. How charming Drayton's description of the summer breeze:

If the day is dreary you need only read Lowell's "June Weather," and like the bird sitting at his door in the sun, atilt like a blossom among the leaves, your "illumined being" will overrun with the "deluge of summer it receives."

Then turn the page; the picture fades as you read Trowbridge's "Midwinter." The speckled sky is dim; the light flakes falter and fall slow; the chickadee sings cheerily; lo, the magic touch again and the house mates sit, as Emerson saw them,

[Pg 1]

I

A CHANTED CALENDAR

Daybreak

Morning

A Morning Song

Evening in Paradise

Evening Song

Night

A Fine Day

The Seasons

The Eternal Spring

March[1]

Spring

Song to April[2]

April in England

April and May

May

Song on May Morning

Summer

June Weather

July[3]

August

In August

Autumn

Sweet September

Autumn's Processional

October's Bright Blue Weather

Maple Leaves

"Down to Sleep"

Winter

When Icicles Hang by the Wall

A Winter Morning

The Snow Storm

Old Winter

Midwinter

Dirge for the Year

[Pg 26]

INTERLEAVES

The World Beautiful

"Study Nature, not books," said that inspired teacher, Louis Agassiz.

The poets do not bring you the fruit of conscious study, perhaps, for they do not analyze or dissect Dame Nature's methods; with them genius begets a higher instinct, and it is by a sort of divination that they interpret for us the power and grandeur, romance and witchery, beauty and mystery of "God's great out-of-doors." The born poet, like the born naturalist, seems to have additional senses. Emerson says of his friend Thoreau that he saw as with microscope and heard as with ear-trumpet, while his memory was a photographic register of all he saw and heard; and Thoreau the naturalist might have said the same of Emerson the poet.

Glance at the succession of beautiful images in Shelley's "Cloud" or Aldrich's "Before the Rain", lend your ear to the tinkle of Tennyson's "Brook." Contrast them with the bracing lines of the "Northeast Wind," the rough metre of "Highland Cattle," the chill calm of "Snow Bound," the grand style of Milton's "Morning," the noble simplicity of Addison's "Hymn," and note how the great poet bends his language to the mood of Nature, grim or sunny, stormy or kind, strong or tender. There is a stanza in Pope's "Essay on Criticism" which conveys the idea perfectly:

[Pg 27]

II

THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL

The World Beautiful

The Harvest Moon

The Cloud

Before the Rain

Rain in Summer

Invocation to Rain in Summer

The Latter Rain

The Wind[4]

Ode to the Northeast Wind

The Windy Night[5]

The Brook

The Brook in Winter

Clear and Cool

Minnows

Snow-Bound

(Extracts)

Highland Cattle

A Scene in Paradise

The Tiger

The Spacious Firmament on High

[Pg 56]

INTERLEAVES

Green Things Growing

[Pg 57]

III

GREEN THINGS GROWING

Green Things Growing

The Sigh of Silence

Under the Greenwood Tree

The Planting of the Apple Tree[6]

An Apple Orchard in the Spring

Mine Host of "The Golden Apple"

The Tree

A Young Fir-Wood

The Snowing of the Pines

The Procession of the Flowers

Sweet Peas

A Snowdrop

Almond Blossom

Wild Rose

Tiger-Lilies

To the Fringed Gentian[7]

To a Mountain Daisy

On Turning One Down With the Plough in April.

Bind-Weed

The Rhodora

A Song of Clover

To the Dandelion

(Extract)

To Daffodils

The Daffodils

The White Anemone

The Grass

The Corn-Song

Columbia's Emblem

Scythe Song[8]

Time to Go

The Death of the Flowers[9]

Autumn's Mirth

[Pg 92]

INTERLEAVES

On the Wing

Our "little brothers of the air," have you named them all without a gun, as Emerson asks in "Forbearance"? Shy, glancing eyes peer from nests half-hidden in leaves; the forest is vocal with melody, the air is tremulous with the whirr of tiny wings.

Poet-singers have written undying lines about their brother minstrels of the wood, and the "blithe lark," especially, has a proud place in poetry, apostrophized as he is by Shakespeare, Shelley, Frederick Tennyson, Wordsworth, and The Ettrick Shepherd.

As the skylark's note dies away we hear the saucy chatter of Cranch's Bobolink, the twitter of Keats's Goldfinches, the mournful cry of Celia Thaxter's Sandpiper, and the revolving wheel of Emily Dickinson's Humming-bird, with its resonance of emerald, its rush of cochineal. The feathered warblers, Robin, Bluebird, Swallow, speed their southern flight, but there are other songs of summer, voices of sweet and tiny cousins, heard at the lazy noontide; chirpings, rustlings of the green little vaulters in the sunny grass. And if the wee grasshoppers and those warm little housekeepers the crickets, have served as themes for Keats and Leigh Hunt, so has the humble bee provoked his tribute from the poets:

Come within earshot of his drowsy hum, his breezy bass,—Father Tabb's publican bee,

or Emerson's yellow-breeched philosopher,

[Pg 93]

IV

ON THE WING

Sing On, Blithe Bird!

To a Skylark

Sir Lark and King Sun: A Parable

The Skylark[10]

The Skylark