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Various
Graded Memory Selections

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PAUL REVERE’S RIDE

 
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
 
 
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town²¹ to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light—
One if by land, and two if by sea,
And I on the opposite shore²² will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
 
 
Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
 
 
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street,
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers²³
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
 
 
Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch,
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade—
Up the light ladder, slender and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.
 
 
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
 
 
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!
 
 
···
 
 
A hurry of hoofs in the village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night.
 
 
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.
 
 
It was one by the village clock,
When he rode into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral stare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
 
 
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of the birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
 
 
···
 
 
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm—
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forever more!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
 

—Longfellow.

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC

 
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is tramping out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
 
 
I have seen him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I have read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.
 
 
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel;
Since God is marching on.”
 
 
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
 
 
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
 

—Julia Ward Howe.

THE BAREFOOT BOY.²⁴

 
Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy with cheeks of tan!
With thy turned up pantaloons
And thy merry whistled tunes;
With thy red lips, redder still,
Kissed by strawberries on the hill;
With the sunshine on thy face,
Through thy torn brim’s jaunty grace;
From my heart I give thee joy!—
I was once a barefoot boy!
 
 
Oh, for boyhood’s painless play,
Sleep that wakes in laughing day,
Health that mocks the doctor’s rules,
Knowledge never learned in schools,
Of the wild bee’s morning chase,
Of the wild flower’s time and place,
How the tortoise bears his shell,
How the woodchuck digs his cell,
 
 
How the robin feeds her young,
How the oriole’s nest is hung,
Where the whitest lilies blow,
Where the freshest berries grow,
Where the ground-nut trails its vine,
Where the wood-grape’s clusters shine,
Of the black wasp’s cunning way,
Mason of his walls of clay.
 
 
Oh, for boyhood’s time of June,
Crowding years in one brief moon,
When all things I heard or saw
Me, their master, waited for!
I was rich in flowers and trees,
Humming-birds and honey-bees;
For my sport the squirrel played,
Plied the snouted mole his spade.
 
 
Laughed the brook for my delight,
Through the day and through the night,
Whispering at the garden wall,
Talked with me from fall to fall.
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond,
Mine the walnut slopes beyond,
Mine on bending orchard trees,
Apples of Hesperides.
 
 
I was monarch: pomp and joy
Waited on the barefoot boy!
 

—Whittier.

LINCOLN, THE GREAT COMMONER.²⁵

 
When the Norn-mother saw the Whirl-wind Hour,
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She bent the strenuous heavens and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need.
She took the tried clay of the common road,
Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth,
Dashed through it all a strain of prophecy:
Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff,
It was a stuff to wear for centuries,
A man that matched the mountains and compelled
The stars to look our way and honor us.
 
 
The color of the ground was in him, the red Earth
The tang and odor of the primal things—
The rectitude and patience of the rocks:
The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn;
The courage of the bird that dares the sea;
The justice of the rain that loves all leaves;
The pity of the snow that hides all scars;
The loving kindness of the wayside well;
The tolerance and equity of light
That gives as freely to the shrinking weed
As to the great oak flaring to the wind—
To the grave’s low hill as to the Matterhorn
That shoulders out the sky.
 
 
And so he came
From prairie cabin up to Capitol,
One fair Ideal led our chieftain on.
Forevermore he burned to do his deed
With the fine stroke and gesture of a king.
He built the rail pile as he built the State,
Pouring his splendid strength through every blow,
The conscience of him testing every blow,
To make his deed the measure of a man.
 
 
So came the captain with the mighty heart;
And when the step of earthquake shook the house,
Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold,
He held the ridge-pole up and spiked again
The rafters of the Home. He held his place—
Held the long purpose like a growing tree—
Held on through blame and faltered not at praise.
And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
As when a kingly cedar green with boughs
Goes down with a great shout upon the hills.
 

—Edwin Markham.

OPPORTUNITY.²⁶

 
This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:
There spread a cloud of dust along a plain
And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged
A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords
Shocked upon swords and shields, a prince’s banner
Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes.
 
 
A craven hung along the battle’s edge,
And thought: “Had I a sword of keener steel—
That blue blade that the king’s son bears—but this
Blunt thing!” He snapped and flung it from his hand,
And lowering crept away and left the field.
 
 
Then came the king’s son wounded, sore bestead,
And weaponless, and saw the broken sword,
Hilt buried in the dry and trodden sand,
And ran and snatched it, and with battle shout
Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down,
And saved a great cause on that heroic day.
 

—Edward Rowland Sill.

A SONG.²⁷

 
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear;
There is ever a something sings alway:
There’s the song of the lark when the skies are clear,
And the song of the thrush when the skies are gray.
 
 
The sunshine showers across the grain,
And the bluebird trills in the orchard tree;
And in and out, when the eaves drip rain,
The swallows are twittering ceaselessly.
 
 
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
Be the skies above or dark or fair,
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear—
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear—
There is ever a song somewhere!
 
 
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
In the mid-night black, or the mid-day blue;
The robin pipes when the sun is here,
And the cricket chirps the whole night through.
 
 
The buds may blow, and the fruit may grow,
And the autumn leaves drop crisp and sear;
But whether the sun, or the rain, or the snow,
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
 
 
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear.
Be the skies above or dark or fair,
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear—
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear—
There is ever a song somewhere!
 

—James Whitcomb Riley.

TO A FRIEND

 
Green be the turf above thee,
Friend of my better days!
None knew thee but to love thee,
Nor named thee but to praise.
 
 
Tears fell, when thou wert dying,
From eyes unused to weep,
And long, where thou art lying,
Will tears the cold turf steep.
 
 
When hearts, whose truth was proven,
Like thine are laid in earth,
There should a wreath be woven
To tell the world their worth.
 

—Fitz-Greene Halleck.

SEVENTH GRADE

PSALM CXXI

1. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.

2. My help cometh from the Lord, which made Heaven and earth.

3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber.

4. Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

5. The Lord is thy keeper: The Lord is thy shade on thy right hand.

6. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

7. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: He shall preserve thy soul.

8. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

—Bible.

RAIN IN SUMMER

 
How beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
 
 
How it clatters upon the roofs
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout.
 
 
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours,
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
 
 
The sick man from his chamber looks
At the twisted brooks;
He can feel the cool
Breath of each little pool;
His fevered brain
Grows calm again,
And he breathes a blessing on the rain!
 
 
From the neighboring school
Come the boys
With more than their wonted noise
And commotion;
And down the wet streets
Sail their mimic²⁸ fleets,
Till the treacherous pool
Engulfs them in its whirling
And turbulent ocean.
 
 
In the country on every side,
Where, far and wide,
Like a leopard’s tawny and spotted hide,
Stretches the plain,
To the dry grass and the drier grain
How welcome is the rain!
 
 
In the furrowed land
The toilsome and patient oxen stand,
Lifting the yoke-encumbered²⁹ head,
With their dilated nostrils spread,
They silently inhale
The clover-scented gale,
And the vapors that arise
From the well-watered and smoking soil
For this rest in the furrow after toil,
Their large and lustrous eyes
Seem to thank the Lord,
More than man’s spoken word.
 
 
Near at hand,
From under the sheltering trees,
The farmer sees
His pastures and his fields of grain,
As they bend their tops
To the numberless beating drops
Of the incessant rain.
He counts it as no sin
That he sees therein
Only his own thrift and gain.
 
 
These and far more than these,
The Poet sees!
He can behold
Aquarius³⁰ old
Walking the fenceless fields of air
And, from each ample fold
Of the clouds about him rolled,
Scattering everywhere
The showery rain,
As the farmer scatters his grain.
 
 
He can behold
Things manifold
That have not yet been wholly told,
Have not been wholly sung nor said.
For his thought, which never stops,
Follows the water-drops
Down to the graves of the dead,
Down through chasms and gulfs profound
To the dreary fountain-head
Of lakes and rivers under ground,
And sees them, when the rain is done,
On the bridge of colors seven,
Climbing up once more to heaven,
Opposite the setting sun.
 
 
Thus the seer,³¹
With vision clear,
Sees forms appear and disappear,
In the perpetual round of strange
Mysterious change
From birth to death, from death to birth;
From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth,
Till glimpses more sublime
Of things unseen before
Unto his wondering eyes reveal
The universe, as an immeasurable wheel
Turning forevermore
In the rapid and rushing river of time.
 

—Longfellow.

A PSALM OF LIFE

 
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
 
 
Life is real! life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
 
 
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
 
 
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
 
 
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle—
Be a hero in the strife!
 
 
Trust no future, howe’er pleasant;
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present,
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
 
 
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time:
 
 
Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
 
 
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
 

—Longfellow.

HYMN ON THE FIGHT AT CONCORD

 
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.
 
 
The foe long since in silence slept,
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps,
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
 
 
On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day the votive stone,
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.
 
 
Spirit that made those heroes dare
To die, and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.
 

—R. W. Emerson.

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?
 
 
Vainly the fowlers’ eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly seen against 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 swallow’d 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.
 

—Bryant.

THE HERITAGE

 
The rich man’s son inherits lands,
And piles of brick and stone, and gold,
And he inherits soft white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold,
Nor dares to wear a garment old;
A heritage it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
 
 
The rich man’s son inherits cares;
The banks may break, the factory burn,
A breath may burst his bubble shares,
And soft white hands could hardly earn
A living that would serve his turn;
A heritage it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
 
 
The rich man’s son inherits wants,
His stomach craves for dainty fare;
With sated heart, he hears the pants
Of toiling hands with brown arms bare,
And wearies in his easy-chair;
A heritage it seems to me,
One scarce would wish to hold in fee.
 
 
What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
Stout muscles and a sinewy heart,
A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands, he does his part
In every useful toil and art;
A heritage it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
 
 
What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
Wishes o’erjoyed with humble things,
A rank adjudged by toil-won merit,
Content that from enjoyment springs,
A heart that in his labor sings;
A heritage it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold in fee.
 
 
What doth the poor man’s son inherit?
A patience learned of being poor,
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,
A fellow-feeling that is sure
To make the outcast bless his door;
A heritage, it seems to me
A king might wish to hold in fee.
 
 
O rich man’s son! there is a toil
That with all others level stands;
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whiten, soft, white hands—
This is the best crop from thy lands;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.
 
 
O poor man’s son, scorn not thy state;
There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great;
Toil only gives the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.
 
 
Both, heirs to some six feet of sod,
Are equal in the earth at last;
Both children of the same dear God,
Prove title to your heirship vast
By record of a well-filled past;
A heritage, it seems to me,
Well worth a life to hold in fee.
 

—Lowell.