Graded Memory Selections

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;He is tramping 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 have 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.—Julia Ward Howe.

THE BAREFOOT BOY.24

Blessings on thee, little man,Barefoot boy with cheeks of tan!With thy turned up pantaloonsAnd thy merry whistled tunes;With thy red lips, redder still,Kissed by strawberries on the hill;With the sunshine on thy face,Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;From my heart I give thee joy!—I was once a barefoot boy!Oh, for boyhood’s painless play,Sleep that wakes in laughing day,Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,Knowledge never learned in schools,Of the wild bee’s morning chase,Of the wild flower’s time and place,How the tortoise bears his shell,How the woodchuck digs his cell,How the robin feeds her young,How the oriole’s nest is hung,Where the whitest lilies blow,Where the freshest berries grow,Where the ground-nut trails its vine,Where the wood-grape’s clusters shine,Of the black wasp’s cunning way,Mason of his walls of clay.Oh, for boyhood’s time of June,Crowding years in one brief moon,When all things I heard or sawMe, their master, waited for!I was rich in flowers and trees,Humming-birds and honey-bees;For my sport the squirrel played,Plied the snouted mole his spade.Laughed the brook for my delight,Through the day and through the night,Whispering at the garden wall,Talked with me from fall to fall.Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,Mine the walnut slopes beyond,Mine on bending orchard trees,Apples of Hesperides.I was monarch: pomp and joyWaited on the barefoot boy!—Whittier.

LINCOLN, THE GREAT COMMONER.25

When the Norn-mother saw the Whirl-wind Hour,Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,She bent the strenuous heavens and came downTo make a man to meet the mortal need.She took the tried clay of the common road,Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth,Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy:Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff,It was a stuff to wear for centuries,A man that matched the mountains and compelledThe stars to look our way and honor us.The color of the ground was in him, the red EarthThe tang and odor of the primal things—The rectitude and patience of the rocks:The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;The courage of the bird that dares the sea;The justice of the rain that loves all leaves;The pity of the snow that hides all scars;The loving kindness of the wayside well;The tolerance and equity of lightThat gives as freely to the shrinking weedAs to the great oak flaring to the wind—To the grave’s low hill as to the MatterhornThat shoulders out the sky.And so he cameFrom prairie cabin up to Capitol,One fair Ideal led our chieftain on.Forevermore he burned to do his deedWith the fine stroke and gesture of a king.He built the rail pile as he built the State,Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,The conscience of him testing every blow,To make his deed the measure of a man.So came the captain with the mighty heart;And when the step of earthquake shook the house,Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold,He held the ridge-pole up and spiked againThe rafters of the Home. He held his place—Held the long purpose like a growing tree—Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.And when he fell in whirlwind, he went downAs when a kingly cedar green with boughsGoes down with a great shout upon the hills.—Edwin Markham.

OPPORTUNITY.26

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:There spread a cloud of dust along a plainAnd underneath the cloud, or in it, ragedA furious battle, and men yelled, and swordsShocked upon swords and shields, a prince’s bannerWavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.A craven hung along the battle’s edge,And thought: “Had I a sword of keener steel—That blue blade that the king’s son bears—but thisBlunt thing!” He snapped and flung it from his hand,And lowering crept away and left the field.Then came the king’s son wounded, sore bestead,And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,Hilt buried in the dry and trodden sand,And ran and snatched it, and with battle shoutLifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,And saved a great cause on that heroic day.—Edward Rowland Sill.

A SONG.27

There is ever a song somewhere, my dear;There is ever a something sings alway:There’s the song of the lark when the skies are clear,And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray.The sunshine showers across the grain,And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;And in and out, when the eaves drip rain,The swallows are twittering ceaselessly.There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.Be the skies above or dark or fair,There is ever a song that our hearts may hear—There is ever a song somewhere, my dear—There is ever a song somewhere!There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,In the mid-night black, or the mid-day blue;The robin pipes when the sun is here,And the cricket chirps the whole night through.The buds may blow, and the fruit may grow,And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sear;But whether the sun, or the rain, or the snow,There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.Be the skies above or dark or fair,There is ever a song that our hearts may hear—There is ever a song somewhere, my dear—There is ever a song somewhere!—James Whitcomb Riley.

TO A FRIEND

Green be the turf above thee,Friend of my better days!None knew thee but to love thee,Nor named thee but to praise.Tears fell, when thou wert dying,From eyes unused to weep,And long, where thou art lying,Will tears the cold turf steep.When hearts, whose truth was proven,Like thine are laid in earth,There should a wreath be wovenTo tell the world their worth.—Fitz-Greene Halleck.

SEVENTH GRADE

PSALM CXXI

1. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.

2. My help cometh from the Lord, which made Heaven and earth.

3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

4. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5. The Lord is thy keeper: The Lord is thy shade on thy right hand.

6. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

7. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul.

8. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

—Bible.

RAIN IN SUMMER

How beautiful is the rain!After the dust and heat,In the broad and fiery street,In the narrow lane,How beautiful is the rain!How it clatters upon the roofsLike the tramp of hoofs!How it gushes and struggles outFrom the throat of the overflowing spout.Across the window-paneIt pours and pours,And swift and wide,With a muddy tide,Like a river down the gutter roarsThe rain, the welcome rain!The sick man from his chamber looksAt the twisted brooks;He can feel the coolBreath of each little pool;His fevered brainGrows calm again,And he breathes a blessing on the rain!From the neighboring schoolCome the boysWith more than their wonted noiseAnd commotion;And down the wet streetsSail their mimic28 fleets,Till the treacherous poolEngulfs them in its whirlingAnd turbulent ocean.In the country on every side,Where, far and wide,Like a leopard’s tawny and spotted hide,Stretches the plain,To the dry grass and the drier grainHow welcome is the rain!In the furrowed landThe toilsome and patient oxen stand,Lifting the yoke-encumbered29 head,With their dilated nostrils spread,They silently inhaleThe clover-scented gale,And the vapors that ariseFrom the well-watered and smoking soilFor this rest in the furrow after toil,Their large and lustrous eyesSeem to thank the Lord,More than man’s spoken word.Near at hand,From under the sheltering trees,The farmer seesHis pastures and his fields of grain,As they bend their topsTo the numberless beating dropsOf the incessant rain.He counts it as no sinThat he sees thereinOnly his own thrift and gain.These and far more than these,The Poet sees!He can beholdAquarius30 oldWalking the fenceless fields of airAnd, from each ample foldOf the clouds about him rolled,Scattering everywhereThe showery rain,As the farmer scatters his grain.He can beholdThings manifoldThat have not yet been wholly told,Have not been wholly sung nor said.For his thought, which never stops,Follows the water-dropsDown to the graves of the dead,Down through chasms and gulfs profoundTo the dreary fountain-headOf lakes and rivers under ground,And sees them, when the rain is done,On the bridge of colors seven,Climbing up once more to heaven,Opposite the setting sun.Thus the seer,31With vision clear,Sees forms appear and disappear,In the perpetual round of strangeMysterious changeFrom birth to death, from death to birth;From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,Till glimpses more sublimeOf things unseen beforeUnto his wondering eyes revealThe universe, as an immeasurable wheelTurning forevermoreIn the rapid and rushing river of time.—Longfellow.

A PSALM OF LIFE

Tell me not in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!For the soul is dead that slumbers,And things are not what they seem.Life is real! life is earnest!And the grave is not its goal;Dust thou art, to dust returnest,Was not spoken of the soul.Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,Is our destined end or way;But to act, that each to-morrowFind us farther than to-day.Art is long, and Time is fleeting,And our hearts though stout and brave,Still, like muffled drums, are beatingFuneral marches to the grave.In the world’s broad field of battle,In the bivouac of life,Be not like dumb, driven cattle—Be a hero in the strife!Trust no future, howe’er pleasant;Let the dead past bury its dead!Act, act in the living present,Heart within, and God o’erhead!Lives of great men all remind usWe can make our lives sublime,And, departing, leave behind usFootprints on the sands of time:Footprints that perhaps another,Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,Seeing, shall take heart again.Let us, then, be up and doing,With a heart for any fate;Still achieving, still pursuing,Learn to labor and to wait.—Longfellow.

HYMN ON THE FIGHT AT CONCORD

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.The foe long since in silence slept,Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,And Time the ruined bridge has sweptDown the dark stream which seaward creeps.On this green bank, by this soft stream,We set to-day the votive stone,That memory may their deed redeem,When, like our sires, our sons are gone.Spirit that made those heroes dareTo die, and leave their children free,Bid Time and Nature gently spareThe shaft we raise to them and thee.—R. W. Emerson.

TO A WATERFOWL

Whither, ’midst falling dew,While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursueThy solitary way?Vainly the fowlers’ eyeMight mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,As, darkly seen against the crimson sky,Thy figure floats along.Seek’st thou the plashy brinkOf weedy lake, or marge of river wide,Or where the rocking billows rise and sinkOn the chafed ocean side?There is a Power whose careTeaches thy way along that pathless coast,The desert and illimitable air,Lone wandering, but not lost.All day thy wings have fanned,At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,Though the dark night is near.And soon that toil shall end;Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bendSoon o’er thy sheltered nest.Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heavenHath swallow’d up thy form; yet, on my heart,Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,And shall not soon depart.He who, from zone to zone,Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,In the long way that I must tread alone,Will lead my steps aright.—Bryant.

THE HERITAGE

The rich man’s son inherits lands,And piles of brick and stone, and gold,And he inherits soft white hands,And tender flesh that fears the cold,Nor dares to wear a garment old;A heritage it seems to me,One scarce would wish to hold in fee.The rich man’s son inherits cares;The banks may break, the factory burn,A breath may burst his bubble shares,And soft white hands could hardly earnA living that would serve his turn;A heritage it seems to me,One scarce would wish to hold in fee.The rich man’s son inherits wants,His stomach craves for dainty fare;With sated heart, he hears the pantsOf toiling hands with brown arms bare,And wearies in his easy-chair;A heritage it seems to me,One scarce would wish to hold in fee.What doth the poor man’s son inherit?Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;King of two hands, he does his partIn every useful toil and art;A heritage it seems to me,A king might wish to hold in fee.What doth the poor man’s son inherit?Wishes o’erjoyed with humble things,A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,Content that from enjoyment springs,A heart that in his labor sings;A heritage it seems to me,A king might wish to hold in fee.What doth the poor man’s son inherit?A patience learned of being poor,Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,A fellow-feeling that is sureTo make the outcast bless his door;A heritage, it seems to meA king might wish to hold in fee.O rich man’s son! there is a toilThat with all others level stands;Large charity doth never soil,But only whiten, soft, white hands—This is the best crop from thy lands;A heritage, it seems to me,Worth being rich to hold in fee.O poor man’s son, scorn not thy state;There is worse weariness than thine,In merely being rich and great;Toil only gives the soul to shine,And makes rest fragrant and benign;A heritage, it seems to me,Worth being poor to hold in fee.Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,Are equal in the earth at last;Both children of the same dear God,Prove title to your heirship vastBy record of a well-filled past;A heritage, it seems to me,Well worth a life to hold in fee.—Lowell.

ELEGY

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,And leaves the world to darkness and to me.Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,And all the air a solemn stillness holds,Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tow’rThe moping owl does to the moon complainOf such as, wand’ring near her secret bow’r,Molest her ancient solitary reign.Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree’s shade,Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,Each in his narrow cell forever laid,The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,The cock’s shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,Or busy housewife ply her evening care:No children run to lisp their sire’s return,Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share.Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke:How jocund did they drive their team afield!How bow’d the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!Let not ambition mock their useful toil,Their homely joys and destiny obscure;Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile,The short and simple annals of the poor.The boast of heraldry; the pomp of pow’r,And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,Await alike the inevitable hour—The paths of glory lead but to the grave.Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,If mem’ry o’er their tomb no trophies raise,Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault,The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.Can storied urn or animated bustBack to its mansion call the fleeting breath?Can honor’s voice provoke the silent dust,Or flatt’ry soothe the dull cold ear of death?Perhaps in this neglected spot is laidSome heart once pregnant with celestial fire;Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,Or waked to ecstacy the living lyre.But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,Rich with the spoils of time, did ne’er unroll;Chill penury repress’d their noble rage,And froze the genial current of the soul.Full many a gem of purest ray sereneThe dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear:Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,And waste its sweetness on the desert air,Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breastThe little tyrant of his fields withstood,Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest,Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.Th’ applause of list’ning senates to command,The threats of pain and ruin to despise,To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land,And read their hist’ry in a nation’s eyesTheir lot forbade: nor circumscrib’d aloneTheir growing virtues, but their crimes confin’d:Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,Or heap the shrine of luxury and prideWith incense kindled at the Muse’s flame.Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,Their sober wishes never learned to stray;Along the cool, sequester’d vale of lifeThey kept the noiseless tenor of their way.Yet e’en these bones from insult to protectSome frail memorial still erected nigh,With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck’d,Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unletter’d Muse,The place of fame and elegy supply:And many a holy text around she strews,That teach the rustic moralist to die.For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,This pleasing anxious being e’er resign’d,Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,Nor cast one longing, ling’ring look behind?On some fond breast the parting soul relies,Some pious drops the closing eye requires;Ev’n from the tomb the voice of nature cries,Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires.For thee, who, mindful of th’ unhonor’d Dead,Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;If chance, by lonely contemplation led,Some kindred spirit shall enquire thy fate,Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,“Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawnBrushing with hasty steps the dews away,To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.“There at the foot of yonder nodding beech,That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high,His listless length at noontide would he stretch,And pore upon the brook that babbles by“Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,Mutt’ring his wayward fancies he would rove;Now drooping, woeful-wan, like one forlorn,Or craz’d with care, or cross’d in hopeless love.“One morn I missed him on the custom’d hill,Along the heath, and near his fav’rite tree;Another came; nor yet beside the rill,Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.“The next, with dirges due in sad array,Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne—Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay,Grav’d on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.”

THE EPITAPH

Here rests his head upon the lap of earthA youth, to fortune and to fame unknownFair science frown’d not on his humble birth,And melancholy mark’d him for her own.Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,Heav’n did a recompense as largely send:He gave to mis’ry all he had, a tear,He gain’d from heav’n (’twas all he wish’d) a friend.No farther seek his merits to disclose,Or draw his frailties from their dread abode(There they alike in trembling hope repose)The bosom of his father and his God.—Thomas Gray.

GRADATIM.32

Heaven is not gained at a single bound;But we build the ladder by which we riseFrom the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,And we mount to its summit round by round.I count this thing to be grandly true,That a noble deed is a step toward God—Lifting the soul from the common sodTo a purer air and a broader view.We rise by things that are ’neath our feet;By what we have mastered of good and gain;By the pride deposed and the passion slain,And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,When the morning calls us to life and light,But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night,Our lives are trailing the sordid dust.We hope, we resolve, we aspire, we pray,And we think that we mount the air on wingsBeyond the recall of sensual things,While our feet still cling to the heavy clay.Wings for the angels, but feet for men!We may borrow the wings to find the way—We may hope, and resolve, and aspire, and pray,But our feet must rise, or we fall again.Only in dreams is a ladder thrownFrom the weary earth to the sapphire walls;But the dream departs, and the vision falls,And the sleeper wakes on his pillow of stone.Heaven is not reached at a single bound:But we build the ladder by which we riseFrom the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,And we mount to its summit round by round.—J. G. Holland.

GOD SAVE THE FLAG.33

Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,Burning with star-fires, but never consuming,Flashed its broad ribbons of lily and rose.Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it,Vainly his worshipers pray for its fall;Thousands have died for it, millions defend it,Emblem of justice and mercy to all.Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors,Mercy that comes with her white-handed train,Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors,Sheathing the saber and breaking the chain.Born on the deluge of old usurpations,Drifted our Ark o’er the desolate seas,Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nationsTorn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!God bless the flag and its loyal defendersWhile its broad folds o’er the battle-fields wave,Till the dim star-wreaths rekindle its splendorsWashed from its stains in the blood of the brave!—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

LIFE.34

Forenoon and afternoon and night—Forenoon and afternoon and night,Forenoon, and—what!The empty song repeats itself. No more?Yea, that is life: Make this forenoon sublime,This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,And Time is conquered and thy crown is won.—Edward Rowland Sill.

EIGHTH GRADE

HYMN TO THE NIGHT

I heard the trailing garments of the NightSweep through her marble halls!I saw her sable skirts all fringed with lightFrom the celestial walls!I felt her presence, by its spell of might,Stoop o’er me from above;The calm, majestic presence of the Night,As of the one I love.I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,The manifold soft chimes,That fill the haunted chambers of the Night,Like some old poet’s rhymes.From the cool cisterns of the midnight airMy spirit drank repose;The fountain of perpetual peace flows there—From those deep cisterns flows.O holy Night! from thee I learn to bearWhat man has borne before!Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care,And they complain no more.Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer!Descend with broad-winged flight,The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair,The best beloved Night!—Longfellow.

THE BUILDERS

All are architects of Fate,Working in these walls of Time;Some with massive deeds and great,Some with ornaments of rhyme.Nothing useless is, or low;Each thing in its place is best;And what seems but idle showStrengthens and supports the rest.For the structure that we raise,Time is with materials filled;Our to-days and yesterdaysAre the blocks with which we build.Truly shape and fasten these;Leave no yawning gaps between;Think not, because no man sees,Such things will remain unseen.In the elder days of art,Builders wrought with greatest careEach minute and unseen part;For the gods see everywhere.Let us do our work as wellBoth the unseen and the seen;Make the house where God may dwellBeautiful, entire, and clean.Else our lives are incomplete,Standing in these walls of Time,Broken stairways, where the feetStumble as they seek to climb.Build to-day, then, strong and sure,With a firm and ample base;And ascending and secureShall to-morrow find its place.Thus alone can we attainTo those turrets, where the eyeSees the world as one vast plain,And one boundless reach of sky.—Longfellow.