Famous Poems from Bygone Days Read online

  DOVER BOOKS ON LITERATURE AND DRAMA

  BEST REMEMBERED POEMS, Martin Gardner. (27165-X) $3.95

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  THE CLAVERINGS, Anthony Trollope. (23464-9) $8.50

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  STRUGGLING UPWARD; OR LUKE LARKIN’s LUCK, Horatio Alger, Jr. (24737-6) $4.95

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  A CHRISTMAS CAROL: THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT, Charles Dickens. (20980-6) $8.95

  THE DAYS OF HENRY THOREAU, Walter Harding. (24263-3) $10.95

  THE HEART OF THOREAU’S JOURNALS, Odell Shepard. (20741-2) $6.95

  SHAKESPEARE LEXICON AND QUOTATION DICTIONARY, Alexander Schmidt. (22726-X, 22727-8) Two-volume set $31.90

  How TO WRITE, Gertrude Stein. (23144-5) $6.95

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  Paperbound unless otherwise indicated. Prices subject to change without notice. Available at your book dealer or write for free catalogues to Dept. 23, Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501. Please indicate field of interest. Each year Dover publishes over 200 books on fine art, music, crafts and needlework, antiques, languages, literature, children’s books, chess, cookery, nature, anthropology, science, mathematics, and other areas.

  Manufactured in the U.S.A.

  The face of Madeleine, painted on the wooden floor of a bar in Central City,

  Colorado, as a tribute to d’Arcy’s famous poem.

  (Courtesy of the Central City Opera House Association.)

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1995 by Martin Gardner.

  All rights reserved under Pan American and International Copyright Conventions.

  Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario.

  Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., 3 The Lanchesters, 162–164 Fulham Palace Road, London W6 9ER.

  Bibliographical Note

  Famous Poems from Bygone Days is a new anthology, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1995.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Famous poems from bygone days / edited and annotated by Martin Gardner.

  p. cm.

  9780486148564

  1. English poetry. 2. American poetry. I. Gardner, Martin, 1914–

  PR1175.F225 1995

  821’.008—dc20

  94-48822

  CIP

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y 11501

  A Verseman’s Apology

  Alas! I am only a rhymer,

  I don’t know the meaning of Art;

  But I learned in my little school primer

  To love Eugene Field and Bret Harte.

  I hailed Hoosier Riley with pleasure,

  To John Hay I took off my hat;

  These fellows were right to my measure,

  And I’ve never gone higher than that.

  The Classics! Well, most of them bore me,

  The Moderns I don’t understand;

  But I keep Burns, my kinsman, before me,

  And Kipling, my friend, is at hand.

  They taught me my trade as I know it,

  Yet though at their feet I have sat,

  For God-sake don’t call me a poet,

  For I’ve never been guilty of that.

  A rhyme-rustler, rugged and shameless,

  A Bab Balladeer on the loose;

  Of saccharine sonnets I’m blameless,

  My model has been—Mother Goose.

  And I fancy my grave-digger griping

  As he gives my last lodging a pat:

  “That guy wrote McGrew;

  ’Twas the best he could do” . . .

  So I’ll go to my Maker with that.

  —ROBERT SERVICE, from Songs of a Sun-Lover

  Table of Contents

  DOVER BOOKS ON LITERATURE AND DRAMA

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  A Verseman’s Apology

  INTRODUCTION

  JOHN QUINCY ADAMS - (1767–1848)

  THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH - (1836–1907)

  ANONYMOUS

  MABEL DOW (NORTHAM) BRINE - (1816–1913)

  THOMAS EDWARD BROWN - (1830–1897)

  ROBERT BROWNING - (1812–1889)

  JOHN WILLIAM BURGON - (1813–1888)

  JOHN BURROUGHS - (1837–1921)

  WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER - (1825–1902)

  WILLIAM McKENDREE CARLETON - (1845–1912)

  JULIA A. (FLETCHER) CARNEY - (1823–1908)

  WILLIAM HERBERT CARRUTH - (1859�
�1924)

  PHILA HENRIETTA CASE - (?–?)

  RUTH CHESTERFIELD - (?-?)

  LYDIA MARIA (FRANCIS) CHILD - (1802–1880)

  SARAH NORCLIFFE CLEGHORN - (1876–1959)

  EDMUND VANCE COOKE - (1866–1932)

  HUGH ANTOINE D’ARCY - (1843–1925)

  MARIE RAVENAL DE LA COSTE - (?–?)

  SARAH DOUDNEY - (1843–1926)

  THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH - (1819–1902)

  JAMES THOMAS FIELDS - (1817–1881)

  FRANCIS MILES FINCH - (1827–1907)

  WILLIAM WESCOTT FINK - (1844–?)

  HARRIET A. GLAZEBROOK - (?-?)

  HOMER GREENE - (1853–1940)

  BRET HARTE - (1839–1902)

  JOHN (MILTON) HAY - (1838–1905)

  J. MILTON HAYES - (?–?)

  GEORGE HOEY - (?–?)

  OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES - (1809–1894)

  THOMAS HOOD - (1799–1845)

  MARY (BOTHAM) HOWITT - (1799–1888)

  LEIGH HUNT - (1784–1859)

  COATES KINNEY - (1826–1904)

  WILLIAM KNOX - (1789–1825)

  HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW - (1807–1882)

  JOHN LUCKEY McCREERY - (1835–1906)

  JOHN BOYLE O’REILLY - (1844–1890)

  EDWARD E. (“TED”) PARAMORE, JR. - (1895–1956)

  SAMUEL MINTURN PECK - (1854–1938)

  NORA PERRY - (1841–1896)

  EDGAR ALLAN POE - (1809–1849)

  JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY - (1849–1916)

  EPES SARGENT - (1813–1880)

  JOHN GODFREY SAXE - (1816–1887)

  ROBERT SERVICE - (1874—1958)

  EDWARD ROWLAND SILL - (1841—1887)

  ARABELLA EUGENIE SMITH - (1844-1916)

  FRANK LEBBY STANTON - (1857—1927)

  GEORGE WASHINGTON STEVENS - (1866—1926)

  WILLIAM LEROY STIDGER - (1885—1949)

  CARLYLE FAHLSWORTH STRAUB - (1898—1950)

  JANE TAYLOR - (1783—1824)

  CHARLES HANSON TOWNE - (1877—1949)

  JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE - (1827-1916)

  HENRY VAN DYKE - (1852—1933)

  WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE - (1819—1881)

  JOHN WHITAKER WATSON - (1824—1890)

  EDWARD JEWITT WHEELER - (1859-1922)

  JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER - (1807—1892)

  REVEREND CHARLES WOLFE - (1791—1823)

  HENRY CLAY WORK - (1832—1884)

  ALPHABETICAL LIST OF TITLES

  ALPHABETICAL LIST OF FIRST LINES

  A CATALOG OF SELECTED DOVER BOOKS IN ALL FIELDS OF INTEREST

  INTRODUCTION

  THIS BOOK IS a companion to my Best Remembered Poems, published by Dover in 1992. In that collection I tried strenuously to select poems I thought were best known today among persons who find time to enjoy verse.

  The poems here are different. They are poems that in the past were well known to American readers but that today are recalled, if at all, mainly by the elderly. For one reason or another most have fallen by the wayside. Like old popular verse still enjoyed, they are not to be confused with poems on the level of those by, say, Shakespeare, Milton or Keats. Yet they all have what so much of modern free verse lacks—that magic coincidence of easily comprehended significance with a pleasing sound structure.

  Many of this book’s poems are obviously close to what Robert Service, denigrating his own work, called “tootling, tin-whistle music.” Even doggerel, however, can be relished, like the pleasure aroused by a well-drawn cartoon, or by jazz or by some country and gospel songs.

  As in my previous anthology, selections are arranged alphabetically by author, with brief introductions to each. Don’t be ashamed of being pleased or amused by these “humbler poets” whose sentimental songs, as Longfellow wrote in “The Day Is Done,” gushed from their heart. Their lines are easy to memorize, and can be understood without revelations from erudite critics. Their rhythms may jingle and clank, but at least they have a melodic structure.

  If you are as old as I am, many poems in this volume will awaken vague, half-forgotten memories. If you are young, you may find the poems as pleasantly surprising as hearing for the first time a catchy tune your great-grandparents warbled. The themes that dominate these poems of bygone days are: death (especially the deaths of infants and other loved ones), growing old, heaven, mother, father, grandparents, Jesus, church, preachers, recollections of childhood, the evils of drink, war and patriotism, farm life, tramps and vagabonds, ships and the sea, storms and railroads. Is it not curious that modern poets have little interest in cars and airplanes?

  No stanzas in Best Remembered Poems are repeated here. Please do not write to ask why a certain gem has been omitted until you check to see if it is in the earlier collection. Of course there are thousands of poems admired by our forefathers that are not in either anthology. All I can say is that I did my best to pick the few I believe were most admired.

  In making selections I have relied heavily on my collection of pre-1900 “speakers” and huge anthologies that often have the word “gems” in their title. Particularly useful were the ten volumes of The Speaker’s Garland, edited by Phineas Garrett, as well as collections of sentimental verse read on popular radio shows. I also made use of scrapbooks that I’ve picked up from time to time in antique malls. Is there any better proof of the nineteenth-century love of poetry than the practice of clipping and pasting down verse that appeared daily in almost every American newspaper? Alas, the snippers seldom recorded the date of a clipping or its source.

  Not many people today, I suspect, are aware of how enormously admired poetry was in the days before motion pictures and television. It was read, savored, recited and memorized by persons on all levels of education and sophistication. England’s great romantic poets were world famous and well paid. When Browning was the rage, his verse was studied in hundreds of Browning clubs in England and America. Professional reciters drew huge audiences all over the land. Hundreds of “speakers” were published, many illustrated with amusing photographs of men and women in elocutionary poses.

  Before free verse took over, the love of poetry was also reflected in the high quality of song lyrics by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and many others, not to forget England’s immortal Gilbert and Sullivan. Today’s rock lyrics are so banal as to make “Ben Bolt” seem to have been penned by Shakespeare. Who can even understand the words of a rock song, often consisting of a single sentence shouted over and over while the singer gyrates and leaps about the stage to music that has little to offer except a few chords and an insistent beat?

  The old love of poetry continued well into the early decades of this century, when Rudyard Kipling, Robert Service, Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Eddie Guest were widely read. When radio offered more than popular music and call-in talk shows, millions enjoyed such verse reciters as Tony Wons and Ted Malone.

  Please do not imagine that I selected poems on the basis of vague impressions that they were once enormously admired. They are here as the result of considerable research into old anthologies and private scrapbooks to identify those poems that most often caught the fancy of anthologists and scrapbook keepers.

  For help on several introductions I wish to thank William Harmon, professor of English at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Russell T. Barnhart, New York City. It was Russell who located the obituaries of Edward Paramore, Jr. and Carlyle Fahlsworth Straub. I also acknowledge here my debt to Hayward Cirker, president of Dover Publications and an old friend, for proposing gems I otherwise would have overlooked, for valuable corrections and suggestions, and for encouraging me to assemble the two anthologies.

  Three references deserve special mention: Famous Single Poems, by Burton Stevenson; Victorian Parlour Poetry (1992 Dover rpt. of Parlour Poetry: A Casquet of Gems, New York: The Viking Press, 1969) by Michael Turner; and You Know These Lines! by Merle De Voro Johnson. Johnson’s book has a marvelous foreword by H. L. Mencken. The Baltimore sage allows that mo
st of the old poems are “on all fours with cigarette pictures or college yells,” but confesses that when he rereads them he begins “to wobble, for they take me back to happy days.”

  Sound me the first line of any of them, and I’ll rattle on to the last—lifted all the while as I have never been lifted by the metaphysical dithyrambs of T. S. Eliot. Is Eliot a better poet than Whittier or Holmes? I suppose he is. But let him prove it by wringing the human heart as they did. In particular, let him wring it so that it will stay wrung.

  JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

  (1767–1848)

  BORN IN BRAINTREE (now Quincy), Massachusetts, the son of the second president of the United States, John Quincy Adams became the sixth president. As Secretary of State he was responsible for the Monroe Doctrine.

  Not many know that Adams was a professor of rhetoric at Harvard, his alma mater, and that he was a writer of copious prose and verse. A portion of his diary was published in twelve volumes!

  Only one poem, “The Wants of Man,” became famous. It is said to have first been published in an Albany newspaper, though I do not know the details, and can be found in Adams’s Poems of Religion and Society (1848). Its twenty-five stanzas are seldom given entire. The first two lines are quoted from Oliver Goldsmith’s The Hermit, which appears in The Vicar of Wakefield (1766).

  The Wants of Man

  “Man wants but little here below,

  Nor wants that little long.”

  ‘Tis not with me exactly so;

  But ’tis so in my song.

  My wants are many and, if told,

  Would muster many a score;

  And were each wish a mint of gold,

  I still should long for more.

  What first I want is daily bread—

  And canvas-backs—and wine—

  And all the realms of nature spread

  Before me, when I dine.

  Four courses scarcely can provide

  My appetite to quell;

  With four choice cooks from France beside,