General Books

“Let us buy,”Said Sally Fry,“Something nice,”Said Betsy Price,“What shall it be,”Said Kitty Lee,“A nice plum cake,”Said Lucy Wake. Which will you have, the doll, or Noah’s Ark? said mother to Mary one day. The doll, if you please, I think I will take, for then I can prettily play. One day John said, as he made his bow,“Mamma, are you at leisure now?Tell me, for much I wish to... more...

INTRODUCTION We remember Samuel Wesley (1662-1735), if at all, as the father of a great religious leader. In his own time he was known to many as a poet and a writer of controversial prose. His poetic career began in 1685 with the publication of Maggots, a collection of juvenile verses on trivial subjects, the preface to which, a frothy concoction, apologizes to the reader because the book is neither... more...

MAY-DAY.   Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring,With sudden passion languishing,Maketh all things softly smile,Painteth pictures mile on mile,Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths,Whence a smokeless incense breathes.Girls are peeling the sweet willow,Poplar white, and Gilead-tree,And troops of boysShouting with whoop and hilloa,And hip, hip three times three.The air is full of whistlings bland;What... more...

Barter   Life has loveliness to sell,   All beautiful and splendid things,  Blue waves whitened on a cliff,   Soaring fire that sways and sings,  And children's faces looking up  Holding wonder like a cup.   Life has loveliness to sell,   Music like a curve of gold,  Scent of pine trees in the rain,   Eyes that love you, arms that hold,  And for your spirit's still... more...

I PRELUDE: THE TROOPS Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloomShudders to drizzling daybreak that revealsDisconsolate men who stamp their sodden bootsAnd turn dulled, sunken faces to the skyHaggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten downThe stale despair of night, must now renewTheir desolation in the truce of dawn,Murdering the livid hours that grope for peace. Yet these, who cling to life with... more...

In the merry spring time, thus says my song,When the sun shines bright and the days grow long,And the crocuses brilliant, in purple and gold,Bloom in the gardens in numbers untold;When in the fields the grass grows green,And a few early lambs are seen;When daffodils in gaudy gownsLook gay upon the verdant downs,And fair spring flowers of each degreeIn every sheltered nook you see. See image   HOW MANY... more...

A PESSIMISTIC VIEW A little bit of Thackeray, A little bit of Scott, A modicum of Dickens just To tangle up the plot, A paraphrase of Marryat, Another from Dumas— You ask me for a novel, sir, And I say, there you are. The pen is greater than the sword, Of that there is no doubt. The pen for me whene’er I wish An enemy to rout. A pen, a pad, and say a pint Of ink with which to scrawl, To put a foe... more...

TO BELGIUM Our tears, our songs, our laurels—what are these  To thee in thy Gethsemane of loss,Stretched in thine unimagined agonies  On Hell's last engine of the Iron Cross. For such a world as this that thou shouldst die  Is price too vast—yet, Belgium, hadst thou soldThyself, O then had fled from out the earth  Honour for ever, and left only Gold. Nor diest thou—for soon shalt... more...

INTRODUCTION  A mid the many celebrations last Christmas Eve, in various places by different persons, there was one, in New York City, not like any other anywhere. A company of men, women, and children went together just after the evening service in their church, and, standing around the tomb of the author of "A Visit from St. Nicholas," recited together the words of the poem which we all know... more...

IA month without sight of the sunRising or reigning or settingThrough days without use of the day,Who calls it the month of May?The sense of the name is undoneAnd the sound of it fit for forgetting.We shall not feel if the sun rise,We shall not care when it sets:If a nightingale make night's airAs noontide, why should we care?Till a light of delight that is done rise,Extinguishing grey... more...