32.

William Herbert Carruth: Each in His Own Tongue.

7. Spirited utterance; fast time

The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew-pearled;

1 From Each in His Own Tongue and Other Poems, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Used with the kind permission of the author.

33.

34.

The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn:
God's in His heaven-

All's right with the world!

Browning: Pippa Passes (Pippa's Song).

Gallant and gay in their doublets gray,
All at a flash like the darting of flame,
Chattering Arabic, African, Indian —
Certain of springtime, the swallows came!

Doublets of gray silk and surcoats of purple,
And ruffs of russet round each little throat,
Wearing such garb they had crossed the waters,
Mariners sailing with never a boat.

Edwin Arnold: The Swallows.

protest;

How in Heaven's name did Columbus get over
Is a pure wonder to me, I
Cabot, and Raleigh too, that well-read rover,
Frobisher, Dampier, Drake, and the rest.
Bad enough all the same,
For them that after came,
But, in great Heaven's name,
How he should ever think

That on the other brink

Of this wild waste, terra firma should be,
Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.

What if wise men had, as far back as Ptolemy,

Judged that the earth like an orange was round,
None of them ever said, "Come along, follow me,
Sail to the West, and the East will be found."

Many a day before

Ever they'd come ashore,

Sadder and wiser men,

They'd have turned back again;

And that he did not, but did cross the sea,

Is a pure wonder, I must say, to me.

Clough: Columbus.

35. They went to sea in a sieve, they did;
In a sieve they went to sea:

In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter's morn, on a stormy day,
In a sieve they went to sea.

And when the sieve turned round and round,
And every one cried, "You'll all be drowned!”
They called aloud, “Our sieve ain't big;
But we don't care a button, we don't care a fig;
In a sieve we'll go to sea!"

Far and few, far and few

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a sieve.

The water it soon came in, it did;

The water it soon came in ;

So, to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet
In a pinky paper all folded neat;

And they fastened it down with a pin.
And they passed the night in a crockery jar;
And each of them said, "How wise we are!
Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,
Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,
While round in our sieve we spin."

Far and few, far and few

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a sieve.

And in twenty years they all came back, –

In twenty years or more;

And every one said, "How tall they've grown!

For they've been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,

And the hills of the Chankly Bore."

And they drank their health, and gave them a feast

Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;

And every one said, "If we only live,

We, too, will go to sea in a sieve,

To the hills of the Chankly Bore."

36.

37.

Far and few, far and few

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,
And they went to sea in a sieve.

Edward Lear: The Jumblies.

A wind came up out of the sea,

And said, "O mists, make room for me."
It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on,
Ye mariners, the night is gone."
And hurried landward far away,
Crying, "Awake! it is the day."
It said unto the forest, "Shout!
Hang all your leafy banners out!
It touched the wood-bird's folded wing,
And said, "O bird, awake and sing."
And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer,
Your clarion blow; the day is near.'
It whispered to the fields of corn,
"Bow down, and hail the coming morn.'
It shouted through the belfry tower,
"Awake, O bell! proclaim the hour!
It crossed the churchyard with a sigh,
And said, "Not yet in quiet lie."

Longfellow: Daybreak.

8. For general reading

THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN 1
A CHILD'S STORY

Robert Browning

I

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,

By famous Hanover city;

The river Weser, deep and wide,

Washes its wall on the southern side;

A pleasanter spot you never spied;

1 In abridging The Pied Piper of Hamelin the author has been helped by the cutting of the poem found in Charles Wesley Emerson's Evolution of Expression, volume i.

They fought the dogs and killed the cats,

And bit the babies in the cradles,

And ate the cheeses out of the vats,

And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,

Split open the kegs of salted sprats,

Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,

And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

III

At last the people in a body

66

To the Town Hall came flocking:

""T is clear,” cried they, "our Mayor's a noddy And as for our Corporation-shocking

To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine

What's best to rid us of our vermin!
Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!"
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

IV

An hour they sat in council;

At length the Mayor broke silence:
"For a guilder I'd my ermine gown sell,
I wish I were a mile hence!

It's
easy to bid one rack one's brain
I'm sure my poor head aches again,
I've scratched it so, and all in vain.