Little Masterpieces of English Poetry, Volume 3

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Henry Van Dyke
Doubleday, Page, 1905 - American poetry

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Page 214 - O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Page 246 - Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, And he laughing said to me : — ' Pipe a song about a lamb : ' So I piped with merry cheer. ' Piper, pipe that song again : ' So I piped ; he wept to hear.
Page 176 - TO HELEN. Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicean barks of yore, That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, The weary, way-worn wanderer bore To his own native shore. On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy Naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.
Page 249 - Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea ! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me ; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon ; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon ; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep,...
Page 42 - And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
Page 314 - Give me my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon. My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope's true gage; And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.
Page 132 - ON A GIRDLE THAT which her slender waist confined, Shall now my joyful temples bind; No monarch but would give his crown His arms might do what this has done. It was my Heaven's extremest sphere, The pale which held that lovely deer; My joy, my grief, my hope, my love, Did all within this circle move. A narrow compass! and yet there Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair; Give me but what this ribband bound, Take all the rest the sun goes round.
Page 289 - Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat — Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others, she lets us devote ; They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, So much was theirs who so little allowed : How all our copper had gone for his service ! Rags — were they purple, his heart had been proud ! We that had loved him so, followed him...
Page 90 - DRINK to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine ; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine. The thirst that from the soul doth rise Doth ask a drink divine ; But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I would not change for thine.
Page 72 - THE SEA. The Sea ! the Sea ! the open Sea ! The blue, the fresh, the ever free ! Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round ; It plays with the clouds ; it mocks the skies ; Or like a cradled creature lies.

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