RUDYARD KIPLING ENGLAND, 1865 Recessional A Victorian Ode God of our fathers, known of old Lord of our far-flung battle line Beneath whose awful hand we hold Dominion over palm and pine Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget - lest we forget! The tumult and the shouting dies - Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget — lest we forget! 5 10 If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe — 20 .5 10 Such boasting as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law - For heathen heart that puts her trust Amen. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT AMERICA, 1794-1878 To a Waterfowl Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? 15 Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?' There is a Power whose care Teaches 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 bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest. Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed 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. 5 10 15 20 5 10 The Death of the Flowers The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heaped in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread; The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprang and stood In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood? Alas! they all are in their graves, the gentle race of flowers Are lying in their lowly beds with the fair and good of ours. The rain is falling where they lie, but the cold Novem ber rain Calls not from out the gloomy earth the lovely ones again. The windflower and the violet, they perished long ago, And the brier rose and the orchis died amid the sum mer glow; But on the hills the goldenrod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sunflower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague on men, And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen. And now when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, 5 And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, 10 The south wind searches for the flowers whose fra grance late he bore, And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. And then I think of one who in her youthful beauty' died, The fair, meek blossom that grew up, and perished by my side. |