A TREASURY OF

AMERICAN VERSE.

THE ARROW AND THE SONG.

I SHOT an arrow into the air,

It fell to earth, I knew not where:
For so swiftly it flew, the sight,
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight, so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak,
I found the arrow still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

THE SONNET.

WHAT is a sonnet? 'Tis the pearly shell

That murmurs of the far-off murmuring sea;
A precious jewel carved most curiously;
It is a little picture painted well.
What is a sonnet? 'Tis the tear that fell
From a great poet's hidden ecstasy;

A two-edged sword, a star, a song-ah me!
Sometimes a heavy-tolling funeral bell.

This was the flame that shook with Dante's

breath;

The solemn organ whereon Milton played,

And the clear glass where Shakespeare's shadow

falls;

A sea this is-beware who ventureth!

For like a fjord the narrow floor is laid

Mid-ocean deep to the sheer mountain walls.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER.

AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR.

He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough Press'd round to hear the praise of one Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff, As homespun as their own.

And, when he read, they forward leaned,
Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears,

His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned From humble smiles and tears.

Slowly there grew a tender awe,
Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard,
As if in him who read they felt and saw
Some presence of the bard.

It was a sight for sin and wrong
And slavish tyranny to see,

A sight to make our faith more pure and strong
In high humanity.

I thought, these men will carry hence
Promptings their former life above,
And something of a finer reverence
For beauty, truth, and love.

God scatters love on every side,
Freely among his children all,
And always hearts are lying open wide,
Wherein some grains may fall.

There is no wind but soweth seeds
Of a more true and open life,

Which burst, unlook'd-for, into high-soul'd deeds With wayside beauty rife.

We find within these souls of ours
Some wild germs of a higher birth,

Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers Whose fragrance fills the earth.

Within the hearts of all men lie

These promises of wider bliss,
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,
In sunny hours like this.

All that hath been majestical

In life or death, since time began, Is native in the simple heart of all, The angel heart of man.

And thus, among the untaught poor, Great deeds and feelings find a home, That cast in shadow all the golden lore Of classic Greece and Rome.

O mighty brother-soul of man, Where'er thou art, in low or high, Thy skyey arches with exulting span O'er-roof infinity!

All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win To one who grasps the whole :

In his broad breast the feeling deep That struggled on the many's tongue, Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap O'er the weak thrones of wrong.

All thought begins in feeling,-wide

In the great mass its base is hid,

And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, A moveless pyramid.

Nor is he far astray who deems

That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by order'd impulse streams From the great heart of God.

God wills, man hopes: in common souls
Hope is but vague and undefined,
Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls
A blessing to his kind.

Never did Poesy appear

So full of heaven to me, as when

I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men.

It may be glorious to write

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century;—

But better far it is to speak

One simple word, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men ;

To write some earnest verse or line,
Which, seeking not the praise of art,