No tide restrains me;
But ah! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.
Once round Sicilia’s isle
Sailed I, unfearing:
Conflict was on my prow,
Glory was steering.
Where fled the stranger ship
Wildly before me,
Down, like the hungry hawk,
My vessel bore me;
We carved on the craven’s deck
The red runes of slaughter:
When my bird whets her beak
I give no quarter.
The far waters know my keel,
No tide restrains me;
But ah! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.
Countless as spears of grain
Stood the warriors of Drontheim,
When like the hurricane
I swept down upon them!
Like chaff beneath the flail
They fell in their numbers:—
Their king with the golden hair
I sent to his slumbers.
I love the combat fierce,
No fear restrains me;
But ah! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.
Once o’er the Baltic Sea
Swift we were dashing;
Bright on our twenty spears
Sunlight was flashing;
When through the Skager Rack
The storm-wind was driven,
And from our bending mast
The broad sail was riven:
Then, while the angry brine
Foamed like a flagon,
Brimful the yesty rime
Filled our brown dragon;
But I, with sinewy hand
Strengthened in slaughter,
Forth from the straining ship
Bailed the dun water.
The wild waters know my keel,
No storm restrains me;
But ah! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.
Firmly I curb my steed,
As e’er Thracian horseman;
My hand throws the javelin true,
Pride of the Norseman;
And the bold skater marks,
While his lips quiver,
Where o’er the bending ice
I skim the river:
Forth to my rapid oar
The boat swiftly springeth—
Springs like the mettled steed
When the spur stingeth.
Valiant I am in fight,
No fear restrains me;
But ah! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.
Saith she, the maiden fair,
The Norsemen are cravens?
I in the Southland gave
A feast to the ravens!
Green lay the sward outspread,
The bright sun was o’er us
When the strong fighting men
Rushed down before us.
Midway to meet the shock
My courser bore me,
And like Thor’s hammer crashed
My strong hand before me;
Left we their maids in tears,
Their city in embers:
The sound of the Viking’s spears
The Southland remembers!
I love the combat fierce,
No fear restrains me;
But ah! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.
JULIA WARD HOWE (1819—1910)
Born into a well-to-do family in New York City, Julia Ward Howe was prominent during the Civil War, thanks to her poem “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Sung to the tune of “John Brown’s Body,” the famous poem, written in 1861 while visiting an army camp, became the war song of the Union army. Howe lectured on women’s suffrage, prison reform, and international peace. She and her humanitarian husband published the Commonwealth, an abolitionist newspaper. Passion Flowers (1854), Words for the Hour (1857), and Later Lyrics (1866) are some of Howe’s books of poems. In 1870, Howe published “Appeal to Womanhood Throughout the World,” urging an international meeting of women on the subject of peace; she achieved this one year later. She also wrote biographies, travel books, and essays, and was the first woman to be elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
His day is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
My Last Dance
The shell of objects inwardly consumed
Will stand till some convulsive wind awakes;
Such sense hath Fire to waste the heart of things,
Nature such love to hold the form she makes.
Thus wasted joys will show their early bloom,
Yet crumble at the breath of a caress;
The golden fruitage hides the scathèd bough;
Snatch it, thou scatterest wide its emptiness.
For pleasure bidden, I went forth last night
To where, thick hung, the festal torches gleamed;
Here were the flowers, the music, as of old;
Almost the very olden time it seemed.
For one with cheek unfaded (though he brings
My buried brothers to me in his look)
Said, ‘Will you dance?’ At the accustomed words
I gave my hand, the old position took.
Sound, gladsome measure! at whose bidding once
I felt the flush of pleasure to my brow,
While my soul shook the burthen of the flesh,
And in its young pride said, ‘Lie lightly, thou!’
Then, like a gallant swimmer, flinging high
My breast against the golden waves of sound,
I rode the madd’ning tumult of the dance,
Mocking fatigue, that never could be found.
Chide not—it was not vanity, nor sense,
(The brutish scorn such vaporous delight,)
But Nature, cadencing her joy of strength
To the harmonious limits of her right.
She gave her impulse to the dancing Hours,
To winds that weep, to stars that noiseless turn;
She marked the measure rapid hearts must keep,
Devised each pace that glancing feet should learn.
And sure, that prodigal o’erflow of life,
Unvowed as yet to family or state,
Sweet sounds, white garments, flowery coronals
Make holy in the pageant of our fate.
Sound, measure! but to stir my heart no more—
For, as I moved to join the dizzy race,
My youth fell from me; all its blooms were gone,
And others showed them, smiling, in my face.
Faintly I met the shock of circling forms
Linked each to other, Fashion’s galley-slaves,
Dream-wondering, like an unaccustomed ghost
That starts, surprised, to stumble over graves.
For graves were ‘neath my feet, whose placid masks
Smiled out upon my folly mournfully,
While all the host of the departed said,
‘Tread lightly—thou art ashes, even as we.’
Woman
A vestal priestess, proudly pure,
But of a meek and quiet spirit;
With soul all dauntless to endure,
And mood so calm that naught can stir it,
Save when a thought most deeply thrilling
Her eyes with gentlest tears is filling,
Which seem with her true words to start
From the deep fountain at her heart.
A mien that neither seeks nor shuns
The homage scattered in her way;
A love that hath few favored ones,
And yet for all can work and pray;
A smile wherein each mortal reads
The very sympathy he needs;
An eye like to a mystic book
Of lays that bard or prophet sings,
Which keepeth for the holiest look
Of holiest love its deepest things.
A form to which a king had bent,
The fireside’s dearest ornament-
Known in the dwellings of the poor
Better than at the rich man’s door;
A life that ever onward goes,
Yet in itself has deep repose.
A vestal priestess, maid, or wife—
Vestal, and vowed to offer up
The innocence of a holy life
To Him who gives the mingled cup;
With man its bitter sweets to share,
To live and love, to do and dare;
His prayer to breathe, his tears to shed,
Breaking to him the heavenly bread
Of hopes which, all too high for earth,
Have yet in her a mortal birth.
This is the woman I have dreamed,
And to my childish thought she seemed
The woman I myself should be:
Alas! I would that I were she.
The Burial of Schlesinger
Sad music breathes upon the air,
And steps come mournfully and slow;
Heavy is the load we bear,
Fellow-men our burthen share,
Death has laid our brother low.
Ye have heard our joyous strain,
Listen to our notes of wo!
Do ye not remember him
Whose finger, from the thrilling wire,
Now drew forth tears, now tones of fire?
Ah! that hand is cold for ever:
Gone is now life’s fitful fever—
We sing his requiem.
We are singing him to rest—
He will rise a spirit blest.
Sing it softly, sing it slowly—
Let each note our sorrow tell,
For it is our last farewell,
And his grave is lone and lowly.
We sorrow for thee, brother!
We grieve that thou must lie
Far from the spot where thy fathers sleep;
Thou earnest o’er the briny deep
In a stranger land to die.
We bear thee gently, brother,
To thy last resting-place;
Soon shall the earth above thee close,
And the dark veil of night repose
For ever on thy face.
We placed the last flowers, brother,
Upon thy senseless brow;
We kissed that brow before ’t was hid,
We wept upon thy coffin-lid,
But all unmoved wert thou.
We’ve smoothed the green turf, brother,
Above thy lowly head;
Earth in her breast receive thee:
Oh, it is sad to leave thee,
Alone in thy narrow bed!
Thou art not with us, brother—
Yet, in yon blissful land,
Perhaps, thou still canst hear us—
Perhaps thou hoverest near us
And smilest as the choral band,
Which once obeyed thy master hand,
Now linger with their tears to leave
The sod that seals thy grave.
The sun is sinking, brother,
And with it our melody.
The dying cadence of our rite
Is mingled with the dying light.
Oh, brother! by that fading ray,
And by this mournful parting lay,
We will remember thee.
The sculptor, in his chiselled stone,
The painter, in his colors blent,
The bard, in numbers all his own,
Raises himself his monument:
But he, whose every touch could wake
A passion, and a thought control,
He who, to bless the ear, did make
Music of his very soul;
Who bound for us, in golden chains,
The golden links of harmony-
Naught is left us of his strains,
Naught but their fleeting memory:
Then, while a trace of him remains,
Shall we not cherish it tenderly?
ALICE CARY (1820—1871)
The fourth of nine children, Alice Cary’s first poem was published in a Cincinnati newspaper when she was eighteen years old. Alice shared a love of literature with her sister, Phoebe, and together, the sisters published a volume of poems in 1850. Alice, considered the better poet of the two, comprised two-thirds of the book. The financial success of the book enabled them to move to New York City, where they contributed to periodicals. Alice’s books include Clovernook Papers (1852 and 1853), Lyra and Other Poems (1852), a children’s book, and several novels. She was also the first president of Sorosis, the pioneer women’s club founded by Jane Croly.
The Sea-Side Cave
“A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that
which hath wings shall tell the matter.”
At the dead of night by the side of the Sea
I met my gray-haired enemy,—
The glittering light of his serpent eye
Was all I had to see him by.
At the dead of night, and stormy weather
We went into a cave together,—
Into a cave by the side of the Sea,
And—he never came out with me!
The flower that up through the April mould
Comes like a miser dragging his gold,
Never made spot of earth so bright
As was the ground in the cave that night.
Dead of night, and stormy weather!
Who should see us going together
Under the black and dripping stone
Of the cave from whence I came alone!
Next day as my boy sat on my knee
He picked the gray hairs off from me,
And told with eyes brimful of fear
How a bird in the meadow near
Over her clay-built nest had spread
Sticks and leaves all bloody red,
Brought from a cave by the side of the Sea
Where some murdered man must be.
To Solitude
I am weary of the working,
Weary of the long day’s heat;
To thy comfortable bosom,
Wilt thou take me, spirit sweet?
Weary of the long, blind struggle
For a pathway bright and high,—
Weary of the dimly dying
Hopes that never quite all die.
Weary searching a bad cipher
For a good that must be meant;
Discontent with being weary,—
Weary with my discontent.
I am weary of the trusting
Where my trusts but torments prove;
Wilt thou keep faith with me? wilt thou
Be my true and tender lo
ve?
I am weary drifting, driving
Like a helmless bark at sea;
Kindly, comfortable spirit,
Wilt thou give thyself to me?
Give thy birds to sing me sonnets?
Give thy winds my cheeks to kiss?
And thy mossy rocks to stand for
The memorials of our bliss?
I in reverence will hold thee,
Never vexed with jealous ills,
Though thy wild and wimpling waters
Wind about a thousand hills.
FANNY CROSBY (1820—1915)
Primarily known as a hymn writer, Frances Jane (Fanny) Crosby lost her sight to an eve infection when she was six weeks old. Born in Putnam County, New York, Crosby attended the New York Institution for the Blind. She published her verses in the New York Herald and other newspapers in the 1840s. After her first two volumes, The Blind Girl and Other Poems (1844) and Monterey and Other Poems (1851), she began to write verses to be set to music. She taught English grammar and ancient history at the New York Institution for the Blind, and married a blind music teacher at the school in 1858. Since Crosby used nearly 200 different pseudonyms, she is estimated to have written approximately 6,000 hymns in her lifetime; among her most famous is “Safe in the Arms of Jesus.”
Great Poems by American Women Page 7