RELIGION AND POETRY BY WASHINGTON GLADDEN. The time is not long past when the copulative in that title might have suggested to some minds an antithesis,—as acid and alkali, or heat and cold. That religion could have affiliation with anything so worldly as poetry would have seemed to some pious people a questionable proposition. There were the Psalms, in the Old Testament, to be sure; and the minister had been heard to allude to them as... more...

THE STUDY OF POETRY. BY FRANCIS HOVEY STODDARD. Clever men of action, according to Bacon, despise studies, ignorant men too much admire them, wise men make use of them. "Yet," he says, "they teach not their own use, but that there is a wisdom without them and above them won by observation." These are the words of a man who had been taught by years of studiousness the emptiness of mere study. It does not teach its own usefulness, and gives its... more...

INTRODUCTION. "Norman's Woe" is the picturesque name of a rocky headland, reef, and islet on the coast of Massachusetts, between Gloucester and Magnolia. The special disaster in which the name originated had long been lost from memory when the poet Longfellow chose the spot as a background for his description of the "Wreck of the Hesperus," and gave it an association that it will scarcely lose while the English language endures. Nor does it... more...

THE ROWERS 1902 (When Germany proposed that England should help her in a naval demonstration to collect debts from Venezuela.) The banked oars fell an hundred strong,And backed and threshed and ground,But bitter was the rowers' songAs they brought the war-boat round. They had no heart for the rally and roarThat makes the whale-bath smoke—When the great blades cleave and hold and leaveAs one on the racing stroke. They... more...

PREFACE. In the beginning, before the heaven and the earth and the sea were created, the great abyss Ginungagap was without form and void, and the spirit of Fimbultyr moved upon the face of the deep, until the ice-cold rivers, the Elivogs, flowing from Niflheim, came in contact with the dazzling flames from Muspelheim. This was before Chaos. And Fimbultyr said: Let the melted drops of vapor quicken into life, and the giant Ymer was born in... more...

THE sun withdrew his last pale ray, And clos’d the short and chearless day; Loud blew the wind, and rain and sleet Against the cottage casement beat. The busy housewife trimm’d her fire, And drew the oaken settle nigher, [p6]And welcom’d home her own good man To his clean hearth, his pipe, and can; For Homespun and his bustling wife Were honest folks in humble life, Who liv’d contented with their lot, And... more...

THE CONFUSED DAWN. YOUNG MAN  What are the Vision and the CryThat haunt the new Canadian soul?  Dim grandeur spreads we know not whyO'er mountain, forest, tree and knoll,  And murmurs indistinctly fly.—  Some magic moment sure is nigh.O Seer, the curtain roll! SEERThe Vision, mortal, it is this—  Dead mountain, forest, knoll and treeAwaken all endued with bliss,  A native... more...

There is a room upstairs in the old house at Fruitlands in Harvard, Massachusetts, where the visitors pause and look about them with a softening glance and often with visible emotion, as though they felt a sudden nearness to something infinitely intimate and personal. They have come to see the place where Bronson Alcott and the group of transcendentalists cut themselves off from the world in the spring of 1843 and tried to found a New Eden where... more...

THREE WOMEN My love is young, so young;Young is her cheek, and her throat,And life is a song to be sungWith love the word for each note. Young is her cheek and her throat;Her eyes have the smile o' May.And love is the word for each noteIn the song of my life to-day. Her eyes have the smile o' May;Her heart is the heart of a dove,And the song of my life to-dayIs love, beautiful love. Her heart is the heart of a dove,Ah, would it but fly to... more...

TOMMY TATTER. “Oh! Tommy Tatter, Tommy Tatter,Tell me now what is the matter;Tell me, Tommy, do, I pray,What makes you look so sad to-day?”“Oh! Master Peter, Peter Pink,I’ve reason to be sad, I think;Oh! don’t you see my ragged clothes,My naked legs, and naked toes,My head without a hat, to letMy hair be dry in weather wet?Oh! I am cold and hungry, too,I wish I was as rich as you!”   “Oh! Tommy... more...