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Nearer my Father's house,

Where the many mansions be;
Nearer the great white throne,
Nearer the crystal sea;

Nearer the bound of life,

Where we lay our burdens down;
Nearer leaving the cross,

Nearer gaining the crown!

But lying darkly between,

Winding down through the night,
Is the silent, unknown stream,
That leads at last to the light.

Closer and closer my steps

Come to the dread abysm:

Closer Death to my lips

Presses the awful chrism.

Oh, if my mortal feet

Have almost gained the brink;
If it be I am nearer home
Even to-day than I think;

Father, perfect my trust;

Let my spirit feel in death,
That her feet are firmly set

On the rock of a living faith!

9. Thomas Buchanan Read (1822-1872) was a Pennsylvania artist and a poet of no mean ability. His most famous poem is the battle song Sheridan's Ride, which follows.

SHERIDAN'S RIDE

I.

Up from the South, at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste, to a chieftain's door

The terrible grumble, and rumble, and roar
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

2.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon's bar;
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled
Making the blood of the listener cold

As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
With Sheridan twenty miles away.

3.

But there is a road from Winchester town,

A good broad highway leading down;

And there through the flush of the morning light,

A steed as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass with eagle flight.
As if he knew the terrible need,

He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hills rose and fell,-but his heart was gay
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

4.

Still sprang from those swift hoofs, thundering south
The dust like smoke from the cannon's mouth
Or the trail of a comet, sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster.

The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting the walls
Impatient to be where the battlefield calls;

Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play With Sheridan only ten miles away.

5.

Under his spurning feet the road
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,

And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed, like a bark fed with furnace fire
Swept on with his wild eyes full of ire,
But lo! he is nearing his heart's desire,
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

6.

The first that the general saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;

What was done,-what to do,-a glance told him both, And, striking his spurs with a terrible oath,

He dashed down the line mid a storm of huzzas,

And the wave of retreat checked its course there because

The sight of the master compelled it to pause,

With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;

By the flash of his eye and the red nostrils' play

He seemed to the whole great army to say, "I have brought you Sheridan all the way From Winchester, down to save the day!"

7.

Hurrah! hurrah for Sheridan !

Hurrah! hurrah for horse and man!

And when their statues are placed on high,
Under the dome of the Union sky,-
The American soldier's Temple of Fame,-
Then with the glorious General's name
Be it said in letters both bold and bright:
"Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester-twenty miles away!"

10. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) lived a life of seclusion at Amherst, Massachusetts, where she wrote some remarkable poems which are in a class by themselves. They were not published until 1890, four years after her death. (See Bibliography, page 294, for suggested readings.)

II.

Edward Rowland Sill (1841-1887) was a native of New England. He went to California for his health, where he became professor of English literature in the University of California. He "exhibited a notable talent in his poetry, which shows rich gifts of spiritual insight and power," says Professor Simonds.

THE FOOL'S PRAYER

The royal feast was done; the King

Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool:
The rod must heal the sin; but Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

""Tis not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept

Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung!

The word we had not sense to say

Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders-oh, in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool."

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

12. Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) was a Jewess of New York City who wrote some remarkable poems protesting against the persecution of her race in Russia. She had a message to deliver to her people, but unhappily it was given only in part, because of her untimely death. (See Bibliography, page 294, for suggested readings.)

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13. Walt Whitman (1819-1892), the most unconventional of all our poets both in choice of theme and form of expression, aspired to be the poet of Democracy. He was born on Long Island, was practically self-educated, became a teacher, and later a journalist. During the Civil War he went to Washington where he served as nurse in the hospitals. His latter days were spent in Camden, New Jersey, where he was known as the good gray poet of Camden Town." He is sometimes called "the poet of epithets, phrases, lines." "His message was unique, his manner of giving it bizarre," yet he was a real force in literature and has had much influence. Mr. Edmund Gosse calls him a poet in solution. The following extracts show not only his eccentricities of form but his sincerity of purpose. In O Captain! My Captain! and some other poems he demonstrates that it was possible for him to follow regular form if he so willed.

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