Graded Memory Selections Part 20

Build to-day, then, strong and sure, With a firm and ample base; And ascending and secure Shall to-morrow find its place.

Thus alone can we attain To those turrets, where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky.

--_Longfellow._

POLONIUS' ADVICE TO LAERTES.

Give thy thoughts no tongue, Nor any unproportioned thought his act.

Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.

The friends thou hast and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel; But do not dull thy palm with entertainment Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear it that the opposer may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear; but few thine voice; Take each man's censure; but reserve thy judgment.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man; And they in France, of the best rank and station, Are of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For a loan oft loses both itself and friend.

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all--to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou can'st not then be false to any man.

--_Shakespeare._

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 hour 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 Book-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 shining 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--and the Barcan desert pierce, Or lose thyself in the continuous woods Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound, Save his own dashings--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 Unheeded by 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 employment, 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, that moves To that mysterious realm, 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.

--_Bryant._

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

When Freedom, from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there.

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure, celestial white With streakings of the morning light; Then, from his mansion in the sun, She called her eagle bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land.

Majestic monarch of the cloud!

Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest trumpings loud And see the lightning lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven-- Child of the sun! to thee 'tis given To guard the banner of the free; To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle-stroke; And bid its blending shine afar, Like rainbows on the clouds of war, The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, The sign of hope and triumph high!

When speaks the signal trumpet tone, And the long line comes gleaming on, Ere yet the life-blood, warm and wet, Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, Each soldier eye shall brightly turn To where thy sky-born glories burn, And, as his springing steps advance, Catch war and vengeance from the glance; And when the cannon-mouthings loud Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud, And gory sabres rise and fall, Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall, Then shall thy meteor glances glow, And cowering foes shall shrink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! on ocean wave Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave, When death, careering on the gale, Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frightened waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack; Each dying wanderer of the sea Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendors fly In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home, By angel hands to valor given, Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us!

--_Joseph Rodman Drake._

SPEECH AT THE DEDICATION OF THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AT GETTYSBURG.

NOVEMBER 18, 1863.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so n.o.bly advanced. It is rather for us, to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under G.o.d, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--_President Lincoln._

TO A SKYLARK.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit-- Bird thou never wert-- That from heaven, or near it Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest, Like a cloud of fire: The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning Of the setting sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven, In the broad daylight, Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.

Keen as are the arrows Of that silvery sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there.

All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflow'd.

What thou art we know not; What is most like thee!

From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see, As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.

Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not;

Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower;

Like a glow-worm golden, In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and gra.s.s, which screen it from the view;

Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.

Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling gra.s.s, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and fresh and clear, thy music doth surpa.s.s.

Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine; I have never heard Praise of lore or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphant chant, Match'd with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt-- A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.

What object are the fountains Of thy happy strain?

What fields, or waves, or mountains?

What shapes of sky or plain?

What love of thine own kind? What ignorance of pain?

With thy clear, keen joyance Languor cannot be; Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee; Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.