by Stephen Crane (1871 – 1900).

Once I Saw Mountains Angry

Once I saw mountains angry,
And ranged in battle-front.
Against them stood a little man;
Aye, he was no bigger than my finger.
I laughed, and spoke to one near me,
“Will he prevail?”
“Surely,” replied this other;
“His grandfathers beat them many times.”
Then did I see much virtue in grandfathers –
At least, for the little man
Who stood against the mountains.

Notes:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/scrane.htm
http://www.online-literature.com/crane/

by Lewis Carroll (1832 – 1898).

A Boat beneath a Sunny Sky

A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?

Notes:
http://www.lewiscarroll.org/carroll.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lcarroll.htm

by Sara Teasdale (1884 – 1933).

Dust

When I went to look at what had long been hidden,
A jewel laid long ago in a secret place,
I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire—
But only a pinch of dust blew up in my face.

I almost gave my life long ago for a thing
That has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes—
It is strange how often a heart must be broken
Before the years can make it wise.

Notes:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/658
http://www.bonniehamre.com/Personal/Sara3.htm

by Joyce Kilmer (1886 – 1918).

The Singing Girl
(For the Rev. Edward F. Garesche, S. J.)

There was a little maiden
In blue and silver drest,
She sang to God in Heaven
And God within her breast.
It flooded me with pleasure,
It pierced me like a sword,
When this young maiden sang:  “My soul
Doth magnify the Lord.”
The stars sing all together
And hear the angels sing,
But they said they had never heard
So beautiful a thing.
Saint Mary and Saint Joseph,
And Saint Elizabeth,
Pray for us poets now
And at the hour of death.

Notes:
http://www.risingdove.com/Kilmer/Trees.asp
http://www.nd.edu/~wcawley/corson/cors023.htm

by Major Henry Livingston, Jr.  (1748 -1828).

Dialogue

Children
Pray dearest mother if you please
Cut up your double-curded cheese,
The oldest of the brotherhood.
It’s ripe, no doubt and nicely good!
Your reputation will rise treble
As we the lucious morsel nibble.
Praise will flow from each partaker
Both on the morsel and the maker!

Madame
Your suit is vain,–upon my word,
You taste not yet my double-curd;
I know the hour,–the very minute
In which I’ll plunge my cutteau in it;
Am I to learn of witless bairns
How I must manage my concerns?
As yet the fervid dog-star reigns
And gloomy Virgo holds the reigns.
Be quiet chicks, sedate and sober
And house your stomachs till October;
Then for a feast! Upon my word,
I’ll really cut my double curd.

Notes:
http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/msscfa/sc19687.htm
http://www.answers.com/topic/henry-livingston-jr

by Franklin Pierce Adams (1881 – 1960).

The Rich Man (1919)

The rich man has his motor-car,
His country and his town estate.
He smokes a fifty-cent cigar
And jeers at Fate.

He frivols through the livelong day,
He knows not Poverty, her pinch.
His lot seems light, his heart seems gay;
He has a cinch.

Yet though my lamp burns low and dim.
Though I must slave for livelihood—
Think you that I would change with him?
You bet I would!

Notes:
http://www.mgilleland.com/fpabio.htm
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=81659
http://www.npg.si.edu/exh/caricatures/fadams.htm

Material for the Stout-Hearted Reader to Ruminate

♦ Essays, Lectures & Speeches ♦

—   —   —

James M. McPherson (1936 – ) is professor emeritus of United States history at Princeton University and past president of the American Historical Association.  His specialty is the American Civil War.  He has authored several books on the topic, including Marching toward Freedom: The Negro in the Civil War, 1861-1865. (1968), Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (2003), and Abraham Lincoln (2009).

This week’s text is McPherson’s NEH Jefferson lecture, “’For a Vast Future also’: Lincoln and the Millennium”, given at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall, Washington D.C. on March 27, 2000.   His lecture was about Lincoln’s understanding of the historical significance of the times   “…[Lincoln] was intensely aware, as he told Congress in December 1861 when America was engulfed in a tragic Civil War, that this struggle to preserve the Union “is not altogether for today—it is for a vast future also.”

The distinction between “negative liberty” and “positive liberty” is an important point in McPherson’s lecture about Lincoln—

 “The concept of negative liberty is perhaps more familiar. It can be defined as the absence of restraint, a freedom from interference by outside authority with individual thought or behavior. Laws requiring automobile passengers to wear seatbelts or motorcyclists to wear helmets are a violation of their liberty to go without seatbelts or helmets. Negative liberty, therefore, is best described as freedom from. Positive liberty can be defined as freedom to–freedom to live longer and better because wearing a seatbelt or helmet has saved one from death or inquiry.”

Join others from around the world in this weekly reading event! You can find McPherson’s text at this website:

http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/mcpherson/speech.html

by Claude McKay (1890 – 1948).

December, 1919

Last night I heard your voice, mother,
      The words you sang to me
When I, a little barefoot boy,
      Knelt down against your knee.

And tears gushed from my heart, mother,
      And passed beyond its wall,
But though the fountain reached my throat
      The drops refused to fall.

‘Tis ten years since you died, mother,
      Just ten dark years of pain,
And oh, I only wish that I
      Could weep just once again.

Notes:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/25
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/life.htm

by Henry David Thoreau ( 1817 – 1862).

The Moon

Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed.
–Raleigh

The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.

She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless,
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.

And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,
Yet alway in her proper sphere
She’s mistress of the night.

Notes:
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/thoreau.htm
http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/

by James E. McGirt (1874 – 1930).

Summer is Gone

The summer’s gone;
I stand in ice and sleet.
Where art thou gone?
Pray tell—I wish to seek.
I seek the woods,
Where once an arbor green;
Ah, nothing now—
The ice and woods are seen.
The place I sat,
And caught the summer glow,
I see ’tis now
A sheet of ice and snow.

Notes:
http://www.answers.com/topic/james-ephraim-mcgirt