

This etext was transcribed by Les Bowler.

          “_Whatever your occupation may be_, _and however crowded_
         _your hours with affairs_, _do not fail to secure at least_
              _a few minutes every day for refreshment of your_
                     _inner life with a bit of poetry_.”

                                * * * * *





                                  Poems
                            You Ought to Know


                                * * * * *

                               SELECTED BY
                             ELIA W. PEATTIE
                (_Literary Editor of the Chicago Tribune_)

                                * * * * *

                              ILLUSTRATED BY
                             ELLSWORTH YOUNG

                                * * * * *

                       [Picture: Publisher’s logo]

                                * * * * *

                   CHICAGO      NEW YORK       TORONTO
                        Fleming H. Revell Company
                           LONDON AND EDINBURGH

                                * * * * *

                             Copyright, 1902
                            By Tribune Company

                                * * * * *

                 Each illustration copyrighted separately

                                * * * * *

                             Copyright, 1903
                        Fleming H. Revell Company

                                * * * * *




INTRODUCTION


Each morning, for several months, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE has published at
the head of its first column, verses under the caption: “Poems You Ought
to Know.”  It has explained its action by the following quotation from
Professor Charles Eliot Norton:

    “_Whatever your occupation may be_, _and however crowded your hours
    with affairs_, _do not fail to secure at least a few minutes every
    day for refreshment of your inner life with a bit of poetry_.”

By publishing these poems THE TRIBUNE hopes to accomplish two things:
first, to inspire a love of poetry in the hearts of many of its readers
who have never before taken time or thought to read the best poems of
this and other centuries and lands; and, secondly, to remind those who
once loved song, but forgot it among the louder voices of the world, of
the melody that enchanted them in youth.

The title has carried with it its own standard, and the poems have been
kept on a plane above jocularity or mere prettiness of versification;
rather have they tried to teach the doctrines of courage, of nature-love,
of pure and noble melody.  It has been the ambition of those selecting
the verses to choose something to lift the reader above the “petty round
of irritating concerns and duties,” and the object will have been
achieved if it has helped anyone to “play the man,” “to go blithely about
his business all the day,” with a consciousness of that abounding beauty
in the world of thought which is the common property of all men.

No anthology of English verse can be complete, and none can satisfy all.
The compiler’s individual taste, tempered and guided by established
authority, is almost the only standard.  This collection has been
compiled not by one but by many thousands, and their selections here
appear edited and winnowed as the idea of the series seemed to dictate.
The book appears at the wide-spread and almost universal request of those
who have watched the bold experiment of a great Twentieth-Century
American newspaper giving the place of honor in its columns every day to
a selection from the poets.

For permission to reprint certain poems by Longfellow, Lowell, Harte,
Hay, Bayard Taylor, Holmes, Whittier, Parsons, and Aldrich, graciously
accorded by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the publishers, thanks are
gratefully acknowledged.  To Charles Scribner’s Sons, for an extract from
Lanier’s poems, and, lastly, to the many thousand readers, who, by their
sympathy, appreciation, and help have encouraged the continuance of the
daily publication of the poems, similar gratitude is felt.




CONTENTS

ADDISON, JOSEPH
  The Spacious Firmament on High                      58
ALDRICH, THOMAS BAILEY
  An Untimely Thought                                 73
  Nocturne                                           210
ALLEN, ELIZABETH AKERS
  Rock Me to Sleep                                    30
ARNOLD, MATTHEW
  Requiescat                                          90
  Self Dependence                                    156
  Song of Callicles                                  214
BARBAULD, MRS. A. L.
  Life                                               161
BEATTY, PAKENHAM
  To Thine Own Self Be True                           37
BEGBIE, HAROLD
  Grounds of the “Terrible”                          164
BLAKE, WILLIAM
  The Lamb                                           153
  The Tiger                                          176
BOKER, GEORGE H.
  Dirge for a Soldier                                 53
BOURDILLON, FRANCIS WILLIAM
  The Night Has a Thousand Eyes                      115
BRONTË, EMILY
  Remembrance                                         42
BROWN, BROWNLEE
  Thalassa                                           140
BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT
  The Cry of the Children                            106
BROWNING, ROBERT
  Misconceptions                                     184
  The Year’s at the Spring                           135
BRYANT, WILLIAM CULLEN
  Thanatopsis                                        112
  To a Waterfowl                                     225
BUNYAN, JOHN
  The Shepherd Boy’s Song                            100
BURNS, ROBERT
  Banks o’ Doon                                       76
Highland Mary                                        152
  John Anderson My Jo                                185
  Scots Wha Hae                                      182
BYRON, LORD
  Destruction of the Sennacherib                      32
  Maid of Athens                                     186
  She Walks in Beauty                                 57
  The Isles of Greece                                232
CAMPION, THOMAS
  Cherry Ripe                                         36
CAREY, HENRY
  Sally in Our Alley                                  68
CARLYLE, THOMAS
  To-Day                                             179
CARY, PHOEBE
  Nearer Home                                        174
CHATTERTON, THOMAS
  Faith                                              144
CHAUCER, GEOFFREY
  An Emperor’s Daughter Stands Alone                  60
CLARKE, MACDONALD
  In the Graveyard                                   166
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR
  Kubla Khan                                         190
CUNNINGHAM, ALLAN
  A Sea Song                                         134
DAVID
  Psalm XXIV                                         155
  Psalm XLVIII                                       231
  Psalm XLVI                                          44
  Psalm XIX                                           74
  Psalm LXXXIV                                       111
  Psalm CXXI                                         119
DICKINSON, EMILY
  The Grass                                          217
DOBSON, AUSTIN
  A Lovers’ Quarrel                                  188
  The Paradox of Time                                208
  The Pompadour’s Fan                                 75
  In Quaque                                          188
DURIVAGE, FRANCIS A.
  All                                                160
ELIOT, GEORGE
  Two Lovers                                          48
FINCH, FRANCIS MILES
  Nathan Hale                                        212
FOSS, SAM WALTER
  He’d Had No Show                                    93
GARNETT, RICHARD
  The Ballad of the Boat                             172
GILLINGTON, MARY C.
  Intra Muros                                         21
GOETHE, JOHANN WOLFGANG
  Mignon’s Song                                      110
HARTE, FRANCIS BRET
  Flynn of Virginia                                  204
  The Society upon the Stanislaus                    210
HAWKER, ROBERT STEPHEN
  The Song of the Western Men                        129
HAY, JOHN
  Jim Bludso                                          64
  Little Breeches                                    202
HENLEY, W. E.
  Invictus                                           131
HERBERT, GEORGE
  Virtue                                              34
HERRICK, ROBERT
  Counsel to Virgins                                 138
  Delight in Disorder                                 62
HOLLAND, JOSIAH GILBERT
  Babyhood                                            40
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL
  The Chambered Nautilus                              87
  The Last Leaf                                       84
HOOD, THOMAS
  Her Moral from Miss Kilmanseg                       95
  Past and Present                                   123
  Song of the Shirt                                   85
  The Death-Bed                                       33
HUNT, LEIGH
  Abou Ben Adhem                                     107
INGALLS, JOHN JAMES
  Opportunity                                        109
JACKSON, HENRY R.
  My Wife and Child                                  220
JONSON, BEN
  To Celia                                           187
KEATS, JOHN
  Ode on a Grecian Urn                                97
KEY, FRANCIS SCOTT
  The Star-Spangled Banner                           120
KINGSLEY, CHARLES
  The Three Fishers                                  230
KNOX, WILLIAM
  O Why Should the Spirit of Mortal                  228
LAMB, CHARLES
  The Old Familiar Faces                              18
LANIER, SIDNEY
  Evening Song                                        54
LEVER, CHARLES
  The Widow Malone                                   218
LOGAN, JOHN
  To the Cuckoo                                       94
LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH
  Arsenal at Springfield                             158
  Serenade (“The Spanish Student”)                    96
  The Bridge                                          76
  The Day Is Done                                    200
LOVELACE, RICHARD
  To Althea from Prison                               98
  To Lucasta on Going to the Wars                     35
LOWE, JOHN
  Mary’s Dream                                       124
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL
  Jonathan to John                                   222
  June                                               194
  The Heritage                                       116
  To the Dandelion                                   170
LYTLE, WILLIAM H.
  Antony and Cleopatra                               226
MACKAY, CHARLES
  A Deed and a Word                                   47
MAHONY, FRANCIS
  The Bells of Shandon                               196
MCCREERY, J. L.
  There Is No Death                                   25
MCPHELIM, E. J.
  Elia                                                70
MEYNELL, ALICE
  The Shepherdess                                    130
MILTON, JOHN
  Song on a May Morning                              163
MOORE, THOMAS
  Believe Me if All Those Endearing Young            101
  Charms
  Oft in the Stilly Night                             63
  The Harp that Once                                 195
  Though Lost to Sight                                20
  ’Tis the Last Rose of Summer                       132
MULOCK, DINAH MARIA
  Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True                  149
NEALE, JOHN M.
  Jerusalem the Golden                               183
NEWMAN, JOHN HENRY
  Lead Kindly Light                                   72
O’CONNOR, JOSEPH
  The Fount of Castaly                               142
PARSONS, THOMAS W.
  On a Bust of Dante                                 126
POE, EDGAR A.
  Annabel Lee                                        178
POPE, ALEXANDER
  Ode on Solitude                                    103
READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN
  Drifting                                            50
REALF, RICHARD
  A Holy Nation                                       23
RONSARD, PIERRE
  The Rose                                           143
ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA
  Uphill                                             148
RYAN, ABRAM
  Song of the Mystic                                  81
SCOTT, SIR WALTER
  Bonny Dundee                                       167
  Border Ballad                                      169
  Breathes there the Man                             104
  Where Shall the Lover Rest                         216
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
  One Touch of Nature                                 89
  Portia’s Speech on Mercy                           207
  Ruthless Time                                       46
  Song from “Cymbeline”                               71
  Time Hath, My Lord                                  46
  To Be or Not to Be                                 224
  Macbeth’s Soliloquy                                200
  When in Disgrace with Fortune                       19
SHELLEY, PERCY BYSSHE
  Music when Soft Voices Die                         133
  An Indian Serenade                                 141
SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP
  A Ditty                                            118
SILL, EDWARD ROWLAND
  The Fool’s Prayer                                   28
SPALDING, SUSAN MARR
  Fate                                                22
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS
  A Requiem                                           90
SUCKLING, SIR JOHN
  Ballad upon a Wedding                              192
  Why So Pale and Wan                                139
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES
  A Match                                            137
TAYLOR, BAYARD
  Bedouin Song                                        67
  The Song of the Camp                               146
TENNYSON, LORD
  Break, Break, Break                                 24
  Bugle Song                                         108
  Crossing the Bar                                   193
  Moral from “The Day Dream”                          66
  From “In Memoriam”                                 121
  Tears, Idle Tears                                  151
THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE
  At the Church Gate                                  92
  The Garret                                         198
TOMPKINS, JULIET WILBOR
  For All These                                       45
VILLON, FRANÇOIS
  Ballad—Dead Ladies                                 128
WALLER, EDMUND
  Go, Lovely Rose                                     82
  On a Girdle                                        199
WHITE, JOSEPH BLANCO
  Night                                               79
WHITMAN, WALT
  O Captain, My Captain                               38
  Warble for Lilac Time                              206
WHITTIER, JOHN G.
  Indian Summer                                      181
  The Waiting                                        136
WILLARD, EMMA
  Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep                   105
WITHER, GEORGE
  The Shepherd’s Resolution                           80
WOODWORTH, SAMUEL
  The Old Oaken Bucket                                86
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM
  The Daffodils                                      162
  The World Is Too Much with Us                      102
  To Sleep                                            17




TO SLEEP.
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.


William Wordsworth was born in 1770 and died at Rydal Mount in 1850.  He
was educated in Cambridge, where he graduated in 1791.  He traveled on
the continent before that, but he settled down for several years in
Dorset.  A visit from Coleridge determined his career in 1796.  He was
again abroad in 1798, but returned the following year and went to live at
Grasmere in the Lake District.  He held severai government positions and
was poet laureate from 1843 to his death.  His chief works are, “The
Evening Walk,” “Descriptive Sketches,” “The Excursion,” “White Doe of
Rylston,” “Thanksgiving Ode,” “Peter Bell,” “Waggoner,” “River Duddon,” A
Series of Sonnets, “The Borderers,” “Yarrow Revisited,” and “The
Prelude.”

   A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by
      One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
      Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
   Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;

   I’ve thought of all by turns, and still I lie
      Sleepless; and soon the small birds’ melodies
      Must hear, first utter’d from my orchard trees,
   And the first cuckoo’s melancholy cry.

   Even thus last night and two nights more I lay,
      And could not win thee, Sleep, by any stealth;
   So do not let me wear tonight away;
      Without thee what is all the morning’s wealth?
   Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
      Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!




THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES.
BY CHARLES LAMB.


Charles Lamb was born at London in 1775.  His most successful writings
are the “Tales from Shakespeare” (written in collaboration with his
sister), and his “Essays of Ella.”  Lamb died in 1834.

   I have had playmates, I have had companions,
   In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days—
   All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

   I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
   Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies—
   All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

   I loved a love once, fairest among women;
   Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her—
   All, all are gone the old familiar faces.

   I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man;
   Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
   Left him to muse on the old familiar faces.

   Ghost-like I pace round the haunts of my childhood,
   Earth seemed a desert I was bound to traverse,
   Seeking to find the old familiar faces.

   Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
   Why wert not thou born in my father’s dwelling?
   So might we talk of the old familiar faces—

   How some they have died, and some they have left me,
   And some are taken from me; all are departed—
   All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.




WHEN IN DISGRACE.
BY WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE.


   When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
      I all alone beweep my outcast state,
   And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
      And look upon myself and curse my fate,
   Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
      Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
   Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
      With what I most enjoy contented least;
   Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
      Haply I think on thee and then my state,
   (Like to the lark at break of day arising,
      From sullen earth), sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
   For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
      That then I scorn to change my state with kings.




“THOUGH LOST TO SIGHT, TO MEMORY DEAR.”
THOMAS MOORE.


   Sweetheart, good-by!  The fluttering sail
      Is spread to waft me far from thee;
   And soon before the favoring gale
      My ship shall bound across the sea.
   Perchance, all desolate and forlorn,
      These eyes shall miss thee many a year;
   But unforgotten every charm—
      Though lost to sight, to memory clear.

   Sweetheart, good-by!  One last embrace!
      Oh, cruel fate, two souls to sever!
   Yet in this heart’s most sacred place
      Thou, thou alone, shall dwell forever.
   And still shall recollection trace
      In fancy’s mirror, ever near,
   Each smile, each tear, upon that face—
      Though lost to sight, to memory dear.




INTRA MUROS.
BY MARY C.  GELLINGTON.


   At last ’tis gone, the fever of the day—
         Thank God, there comes an end to everything;
         Under the night cloud’s deepened shadowing,
   The noises of the city drift away
   Thro’ sultry streets and alleys, and the gray
         Fogs ’round the great cathedral rise and cling.
         I long and long, but no desire will bring
   Against my face the keen wind salt with spray.

   O, far away, green waves, your voices call;
         Your cool lips kiss the wild and weedy shore;
               And out upon the sea line sails are brown—
   White sea birds, crying, hover—soft shades fall—
         Deep waters dimple ’round the dripping oar,
               And last rays light the little fishing town.




FATE.
BY SUSAN MARR SPALDING.


Susan Marr Spalding was born in Bath, Me., and educated in a seminary
there.  From early girlhood she wrote verse, her sonnets being graceful
and tender.  At the death of her parents she lived with her uncle, a
clergyman, in New York.  She married Mr. Spalding, a literary man, and
made her home in Philadelphia.

   Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart,
   And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
   Each of the other’s being; and have no heed;
   And these, o’er unknown seas to unknown lands
   Shall cross, escaping wreck; defying death;
   And, all unconsciously, shape every act to this one end
   That, one day, out of darkness, they shall meet
   And read life’s meaning in each other’s eyes.

   And two shall walk some narrow way of life
   So nearly side by side that, should one turn
   Ever so little space to right or left,
   They needs must stand acknowledged face to face.
   And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet.
   With groping hands that never clasp; and lips
   Calling in vain to ears that never hear;
   They seek each other all their weary days
   And die unsatisfied—and that is fate.




A HOLY NATION.
BY RICHARD REALF.


Richard Realf was born in England in 1834 of poor parents and began
writing poetry at an early age.  His early work attracted the attention
of Tennyson, Miss Mitford, Miss Jameson, Miss Martineau, and others, and
they secured the publication of his volume, “Guesses at the Beautiful.”
He dabbled some in sculpture, and even studied agricultural science.  In
1854 he came to New York, where he wrote stories of slum life and
assisted in establishing some institutions for the relief of the poor.
He joined the first free soil parties moving to Kansas and was arrested.
He did newspaper work until he joined John Brown’s party.  He was Brown’s
secretary of state.  He was arrested in connection with the Harper’s
Ferry affair, enlisted in 1862, was wounded, taught a black school in
South Carolina in 1867, and for years led a hand to mouth existence, all
that time writing poetry, some of it of the most exquisite beauty.
Family troubles resulted in his suicide in San Francisco about 1875.

   Let Liberty run onward with the years,
   And circle with the seasons; let her break
   The tyrant’s harshness, the oppressor’s spears;
   Bring ripened recompenses that shall make
   Supreme amends for sorrow’s long arrears;
   Drop holy benison on hearts that ache;
   Put clearer radiance into human eyes,
   And set the glad earth singing to the skies.

   Clean natures coin pure statutes.  Let us cleanse
   The hearts that beat within us; let us mow
   Clear to the roots our falseness and pretense,
   Tread down our rank ambitions, overthrow
   Our braggart moods of puffed self-consequence,
   Plow up our hideous thistles which do grow
   Faster than maize in May time, and strike dead
   The base infections our low greeds have bred.




BREAK, BREAK, BREAK.
BY ALFRED TENNYSON.


Alfred Tennyson was born at Lincolnshire in 1809.  In 1828 he wrote, with
his brother, the “Poems by Two Brothers.”  He went to Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he met his friend, Arthur Hallam, upon whose death he
wrote “In Memoriam.”  When Wordsworth died in 1850, the laureateship was
given to Tennyson; later he was made a Baron.  He died at Aldworth, on
the Isle of Wight, in 1892, and has been given a place in Westminster
Abbey near the grave of Chaucer.  Other of his longer poems beside the
one mentioned above are: “The Princess,” “Maud,” “Enoch Arden,” and the
“Idyls of the King.”

   Break, break, break,
      On thy cold gray stones, O, sea!
   And I would that my tongue could utter
      The thoughts that arise in me.

  