Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths for you the
shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will; The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object

won:

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no

more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that

sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

Christmas Everywhere

PHILLIPS BROOKS

(Born December 13, 1835; Died January 23, 1893)

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!
Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pine,
Christmas in lands of the palm-tree and vine,

Christmas where snow peaks stand solemn and white,
Christmas where cornfields stand sunny and bright.
Christmas where children are hopeful and gay,
Christmas where old men are patient and gray,
Christmas where peace, like a dove in his flight,
Broods o'er brave men in the thick of the fight;
Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight!

For the Christ-child who comes is the Master of all;
No palace too great, no cottage too small.

Little Boy Blue

EUGENE FIELD

(Born September 3, 1850; Died November 4, 1895)

The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair,

And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.

"Now, don't you go till I come," he said,
66 'And don't you make any noise!"
So toddling off to his trundle-bed
He dreamt of the pretty toys.

And as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue,-

Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,

Each in the same old place,

Awaiting the touch of a little hand,

The smile of a little face.

And they wonder, as waiting these long years through,
In the dust of that little chair,

What has become of our Little Boy Blue
Since he kissed them and put them there.

From "The Poems of Eugene Field."
Copyright 1911. Charles Scribner's Sons.

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils,

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be

gay

În such a jocund company.

I gazed, and gazed, but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.