Poems Teachers Ask For Volume II Part 1

Poems Teachers Ask For.

Book Two.

by Various.

PREFACE

In homely phrase, this is a sort of "second helping" of a dish that has pleased the taste of thousands. Our first collection of _Poems Teachers Ask For_ was the response to a demand for such a book, and this present volume is the response to a demand for "more." In Book One it was impracticable to use all of the many poems ent.i.tled to inclusion on the basis of their being desired. We are constantly in receipt of requests that certain selections be printed in NORMAL INSTRUCTOR-PRIMARY PLANS on the page "Poems Our Readers Have Asked For." More than two hundred of these were chosen for Book One, and more than two hundred others, as much desired as those in the earlier volume, are included in Book Two.

Because of copyright restrictions, we often have been unable to present, in magazine form, verse of large popular appeal. By special arrangement, a number of such poems were included in Book One of _Poems Teachers Ask For_, and many more are given in the pages that follow. Acknowledgment is made below to publishers and authors for courteous permission to reprint in this volume material which they control:

THE CENTURY COMPANY--_The Minuet_, from "Poems and Verses," by Mary Mapes Dodge.

W.B. CONKEY COMPANY--_Solitude_, from "Poems of Pa.s.sion," and _How Salvator Won_, from "Kingdom of Love," both by Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x.

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.--_Encouragement_, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, copyright by Dodd, Mead & Company; _Work_, by Angela Morgan, from "The Hour Has Struck," copyright 1914 by Angela Morgan.

DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY--_How Did You Die?_ from "Impertinent Poems,"

and _The Sin of the Coppenter Man_, from "I Rule the House," both by Edmund Vance Cooke.

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY--_The House with n.o.body in It_, from "Trees and Other Poems," by Joyce Kilmer, copyright 1914 by George H. Doran Company, publishers.

HAMLIN GARLAND--_My Prairies and Color in the Wheat_.

ISABEL AMBLER GILMAN--_The Sunset City_.

HARPER & BROTHERS--_Over the Hill from the Poor-House_ and _The School-Master's Guests_, from "Farm Legends," by Will Carleton.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY--_The Sandman_, by Margaret Vandegrift; _The Sin of Omission_ and _Our Own_, by Margaret E. Sangster; _The Ballad of the Tempest_, by James T. Fields; also the poems by Henry W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and J.T. Trowbridge, of whose works they are the authorized publishers.

CHARLES H.L. JOHNSTON--_The President_.

RUDYARD KIPLING and DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY (A.P. WATT & SON, London, England)--_Mother o' Mine_.

LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD COMPANY--_Hullo_ and _The Volunteer Organist_, both from "Back Country Poems," by Sam Walter Foss, and _He Worried About It_, from "Whiffs from Wild Meadows," by Sam Walter Foss.

EDWIN MARKHAM--_Lincoln, the Man of the People_.

REILLY & LEE CO.--_Home_, from "A Heap o' Livin'," by Edgar A. Guest.

FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY--_Our Flag_, by Margaret E. Sangster.

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS--_I Have a Rendezvous with Death_, by Alan Seeger; _Song of the Chattahoochee_, by Sidney Lanier; _If All the Skies_, by Henry van d.y.k.e.

HARR WAGNER PUBLISHING COMPANY--_Mothers of Men_ and _The Fortunate Isles_, by Joaquin Miller.

THE PUBLISHERS.

POEMS TEACHERS ASK FOR

BOOK TWO

Home

It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home, A heap o' sun an' shadder, an' ye sometimes have t' roam Afore ye really 'preciate the things ye left behind, An' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em allus on yer mind.

It don't make any differunce how rich ye get t' be, How much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great yer luxury; It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king, Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped 'round everything.

Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute; Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' livin' in it: Within the walls there's got t' be some babies born, and then Right there ye've got t' bring 'em up t' women good, an' men; And gradjerly, as time goes on ye find ye wouldn't part With anything they ever used--they've grown into yer heart; The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore Ye h.o.a.rd; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumbmarks on the door.

Ye've got t' weep t' make it home, ye've got t' sit and sigh An' watch beside a loved one's bed, an' know that Death is nigh; An' in the stillness o' the night t' see Death's angel come, An' close the eyes o' her that smiled, an' leave her sweet voice dumb.

Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an' when yer tears are dried, Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an' sanctified; An' tuggin' at ye always are the pleasant memories O' her that was an' is no more--ye can't escape from these.

Ye've got t' sing and dance fer years, ye've got t' romp an' play, An' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 'em each day; Even the roses 'round the porch must blossom year by year Afore they 'come a part o' ye, suggestin' someone dear Who used t' love 'em long ago, an' trained 'em jes' t' run The way they do, so's they would get the early mornin' sun; Ye've got t' love each brick an' stone from cellar up t' dome: It takes a heap o' livin' in a house f' make it home.

_Edgar A. Guest._

The House with n.o.body In It

Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track I go by a poor old farm-house with its shingles broken and black; I suppose I've pa.s.sed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with n.o.body in it.

I've never seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things; That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.

I know that house isn't haunted and I wish it were, I do, For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of gla.s.s, And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the gra.s.s.

It needs new paint and shingles and vines should be trimmed and tied, But what it needs most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a bit of money and all my debts were paid, I'd put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.

I'd buy that place and fix it up the way that it used to be, And I'd find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now a new home standing empty with staring window and door Looks idle perhaps and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store, But there's nothing mournful about it, it cannot be sad and lone For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life, That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife, A house that has echoed a baby's laugh and helped up his stumbling feet, Is the saddest sight, when it's left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back, Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart, For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

_Joyce Kilmer._