Famous Poems from Bygone Days Read online

To dress my dinner well.

  What next I want, at princely cost,

  Is elegant attire:

  Black sable furs for winter’s frost,

  And silks for summer’s fire,

  And Cashmere shawls, and Brussels lace

  My bosom’s front to deck,—

  And diamond rings my hands to grace,

  And rubies for my neck.

  And then I want a mansion fair,

  A dwelling-house, in style,

  Four stories high, for wholesome air—

  A massive marble pile;

  With halls for banquetings and balls,

  All furnish’d rich and fine;

  With high-blood studs in fifty stalls,

  And cellars for my wine.

  I want a garden and a park,

  My dwelling to surround—

  A thousand acres, (bless the mark!)

  With walls encompassed round—

  Where flocks may range and herds may low,

  And kids and lambkins play,

  And flowers and fruits commingled grow,

  All Eden to display.

  I want, when summer’s foliage falls,

  And autumn strips the trees,

  A house within the city’s walls,

  For comfort and for ease;

  But here, as space is somewhat scant,

  And acres somewhat rare,

  My house in town I only want

  To occupy—a square.

  I want a steward, butler, cooks;

  A coachman, footman, grooms;

  A library of well-bound books,

  And picture-garnish’d rooms;

  Corregio’s Magdalen and Night,

  The Matron of the Chair;

  Guido’s fleet coursers in their flight,

  And Claudes, at least a pair.

  I want a cabinet profuse

  Of medals, coins, and gems;

  A printing-press for private use,

  Of fifty thousand ems;

  And plants, and minerals, and shells;

  Worms, insects, fishes, birds;

  And every beast on earth that dwells

  In solitude or herds.

  I want a board of burnish’d plate,

  Of silver and of gold;

  Tureens of twenty pounds in weight,

  And sculpture’s richest mould;

  Plateaus, with chandeliers and lamps,

  Plates, dishes—all the same;

  And porcelain vases, with the stamps

  Of Sèvres and Angouleme.

  And maples of fair glossy stain,

  Must form my chamber doors,

  And carpets of the Wilton grain

  Must cover all my floors;

  My walls with tapestry bedeck’d,

  Must never be outdone;

  And damask curtains must protect

  Their colours from the sun.

  And mirrors of the largest pane

  From Venice must be brought;

  And sandal-wood and bamboo cane,

  For chairs and tables bought;

  On all the mantel-pieces, clocks

  Of thrice-gilt bronze must stand,

  And screens of ebony and box

  Invite the stranger’s hand.

  I want (who does not want?) a wife,—

  Affectionate and fair;

  To solace all the woes of life,

  And all its joys to share.

  Of temper sweet, of yielding will,

  Of firm, yet placid mind,—

  With all my faults to love me still

  With sentiment refined.

  And as Time’s car incessant runs,

  And Fortune fills my store,

  I want of daughters and of sons

  From eight to half a score.

  I want (alas! can mortal dare

  Such bliss on earth to crave?)

  That all the girls be chaste and fair,

  The boys all wise and brave.

  And when my bosom’s darling sings,

  With melody divine,

  A pedal harp of many strings

  Must with her voice combine.

  Piano, exquisitely wrought,

  Must open stand apart,

  That all my daughters may be taught

  To win the stranger’s heart.

  My wife and daughters will desire

  Refreshment from perfumes,

  Cosmetics for the skin require,

  And artificial blooms.

  The civet fragrance shall dispense,

  And treasured sweets return;

  Cologne revive the flagging sense,

  And smoking amber burn.

  And when at night my weary head

  Begins to droop and doze,

  A chamber south, to hold my bed,

  For nature’s soft repose;

  With blankets, counterpanes, and sheet,

  Mattress, and sack of down,

  And comfortables for my feet,

  And pillows for my crown.

  I want a warm and faithful friend,

  To cheer the adverse hour;

  Who ne’er to flatter will descend,

  Nor bend the knee to power,—

  A friend to chide me when I’m wrong,

  My inmost soul to see;

  And that my friendship prove as strong

  For him as his for me.

  I want a kind and tender heart,

  For others’ wants to feel;

  A soul secure from fortune’s dart,

  And bosom arm’d with steel;

  To bear divine chastisement’s rod,

  And, mingling in my plan,

  Submission to the will of God,

  With charity to man.

  I want a keen observing eye,

  An ever-listening ear,

  The truth through all disguise to spy,

  And wisdom’s voice to hear:

  A tongue, to speak at virtue’s need,

  In heaven’s sublimest strain;

  And lips, the cause of man to plead,

  And never plead in vain.

  I want uninterrupted health,

  Throughout my long career,

  And streams of never-failing wealth,

  To scatter far and near—

  The destitute to clothe and feed,

  Free bounty to bestow,

  Supply the helpless orphan’s need,

  And soothe the widow’s woe.

  I want the genius to conceive,

  The talents to unfold,

  Designs, the vicious to retrieve,

  The virtuous to uphold;

  Inventive power, combining skill,

  A persevering soul,

  Of human hearts to mould the will,

  And reach from pole to pole.

  I want the seals of power and place,

  The ensigns of command;

  Charged by the People’s unbought grace

  To rule my native land.

  Nor crown nor scepter would I ask

  But from my country’s will,

  By day, by night, to ply the task

  Her cup of bliss to fill.

  I want the voice of honest praise

  To follow me behind,

  And to be thought in future days

  The friend of human kind,

  That after ages, as they rise,

  Exulting may proclaim

  In choral union to the skies

  Their blessings on my name.

  These are the Wants of mortal Man,—

  I cannot want them long,

  For life itself is but a span,

  And earthly bliss—a song.

  My last great Want—absorbing all—

  Is, when beneath the sod,

  And summoned to my final call,

  The Mercy of my God.

  And oh! while circles in my veins

  Of life the purple stream,

  And yet a fragment small remains

  Of nature’s transient dream,

  My soul, i
n humble hope unseared,

  Forget not thou to pray,

  That this, THY WANT, may be prepared

  To meet the Judgment Day.

  THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

  (1836–1907)

  BORN IN PORTSMOUTH, New Hampshire, Aldrich spent most of his life in New York City and Boston as a popular poet, novelist, essayist, playwright and author of short stories. He also edited several newspapers and magazines in the two cities, including the Atlantic Monthly, where he spent ten years as editor. His well-polished lyrics were collected in half a dozen volumes.

  Aldrich intensely disliked the free verse of Walt Whitman, and Whitman had an equally low opinion of Aldrich’s poems. “Yes, Tom,” he once said, “I like your tinkles. I like them very well.”

  “Memory” was perhaps Aldrich’s best known lyric. It was much admired by Whittier, who said it aroused “a pleasure that is very near pain in its intensity.”

  Memory

  My mind lets go a thousand things,

  Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,

  And yet recalls the very hour—

  ’T was noon by yonder village tower,

  And on the last blue noon in May

  The wind came briskly up this way,

  Crisping the brook beside the road;

  Then, pausing here, set down its load

  Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly

  Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

  ANONYMOUS

  ANONYMOUS POEMS, as they traveled from one newspaper to another, underwent many changes. “The Hell-Bound Train” is no exception. I have taken a version that I found in an old scrapbook and combined it with the one in Hazel Felleman’s The Best Loved Poems of the American People (1936). Felleman’s version changes “Tom Gray” to “A Texas Cowboy,” and includes three stanzas not contained in the scrapbook’s clipping. Where lines differ, I have selected those that scan the best.

  Granger’s Index to Poetry says the poem has been attributed to J. W. Pruitte, but I have never seen it with this byline.

  The Hell-Bound Train

  Tom Gray lay on the bar room floor,

  Having drunk so much he could drink no more.

  So he fell asleep with a troubled brain,

  And dreamed that he rode on a hell-bound train.

  The engine with blood was red and damp,

  And brilliantly lit with a brimstone lamp;

  For fuel, an imp was shoveling bones,

  While the furnace rang with a thousand groans.

  The boiler was filled with lager beer,

  And the devil himself was the engineer.

  The passengers made such a motley crew—

  Church members, Atheist, Gentile and Jew.

  Rich men in broadcloth, beggars in rags;

  Handsome young ladies and withered old hags;

  Yellow and black men, red, brown and white—

  All chained together! What a terrible sight.

  While the train rushed on at an awful pace—

  The sulphurous fumes scorched hands and face;

  Wider and wider the country grew,

  As faster and faster the engine flew.

  Louder and louder the thunder crashed

  And brighter and brighter the lightning flashed;

  Hotter and hotter the air became

  Till the clothes were burned from each quivering frame.

  And out of the distance there arose a yell,

  “Ha, ha,” said the devil, “we’re nearing hell!”

  Then oh, how the passengers shrieked with pain

  And begged the devil to stop the train.

  But he capered about, and sang in his glee,

  And laughed and joked at their agony.

  “My faithful friends, you have done my work,

  And the devil can never a pay-day shirk.

  “You have bullied the weak, and robbed the poor,

  And the starving brother turned from your door.

  You have laid up gold where the canker rusts,

  And given free vent to your fleshly lusts.

  “You have justice scorned, and corruptions sown,

  And trampled the law of nature down.

  You have drank and rioted, murdered and lied,

  And mocked at God in your hell-born pride.

  “You have paid full fare, so I’ll carry you through,

  For it’s only just you should get your due.

  Why, the laborer always expects his hire,

  So I’ll land you safe in the lake of fire.

  “Where your flesh shall roast in the flames that roar,

  And my imps torment you forever more.”

  Then Tom awoke with an anguished cry,

  Clothes soaked with sweat and his hair standing high.

  And he prayed as never before that hour,

  To be saved from drink and the devil’s power,

  And his vows and prayers were not in vain,

  For he never more rode on a hell-bound train.

  ANONYMOUS

  I HAVE NO IDEA where this tender poem first appeared or who the author was. Burton Stevenson, in his monumental Home Book of Verse (1922), titles it “Forty Years Ago” and credits it to one Francis Huston, about whom he says he has no biographical information. Hazel Felleman, in The Best Loved Poems of the American People gives it the byline of Dill Armor Smith, whoever he is. Granger’s Index to Poetry calls the author “unknown,” and so does The Fireside Book of Poetry (1878), edited by Henry Coates, and The Speaker’s Garland, 1, no. 3 (1872). Music for the poem, by William Willing, can be found in Heart Songs (1909).

  I had a great-uncle who taught me the knife game mentioned in the fourth stanza. It is known as mumblety-peg or mumble-the-peg. A pocket knife is flipped off each finger, wrist, elbow, shoulder, chin and other parts of the body so that it falls and sticks in the ground. The loser is obliged to pull out with his teeth a peg that has been driven firmly into the dirt.

  Twenty Years Ago

  I’ve wander’d to the village, Tom, I’ve sat beneath the tree,

  Upon the school-house play-ground, which shelter’d you and me;

  But none were there to greet me, Tom, and few were left to know,

  That play’d with us upon the grass some twenty years ago.

  The grass is just as green, Tom—barefooted boys at play,

  Were sporting just as we did then, with spirits just as gay;

  But the “master” sleeps upon the hill, which, coated o’er with snow,

  Afforded us a sliding-place, just twenty years ago.

  The old school-house is alter’d some, the benches are replaced

  By new ones, very like the same our pen-knives had defaced;

  But the same old bricks are in the wall, the bell swings to and fro,

  Its music, just the same, dear Tom, ’twas twenty years ago.

  The boys were playing some old game, beneath the same old tree—

  I do forget the name just now; you’ve play’d the same with me

  On that same spot; ’twas play’d with knives, by throwing so and so,

  The loser had a task to do, there, just twenty years ago.

  The river’s running just as still, the willows on its side

  Are larger than they were, Tom, the stream appears less wide;

  But the grapevine swing is ruin’d now where once we play’d the beau,

  And swung our sweethearts—“pretty girls”—just twenty years ago.

  The spring that bubbled ‘neath the hill, close by the spreading beech,

  Is very low—’twas once so high that we could almost reach;

  And kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom, I even started so!

  To see how much that I am changed since twenty years ago.

  Near by the spring, upon an elm, you know I cut your name,

  Your sweetheart’s just beneath it, Tom, and you did mine the same—

  Some heartless wretch had peel’d the bark, ’twas dying sure but sl
ow,

  Just as the one whose name was cut, died twenty years ago.

  My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears came in my eyes,

  I thought of her I loved so well—those early broken ties—

  I visited the old churchyard, and took some flowers to strew

  Upon the graves of those we loved, some twenty years ago.

  Some are in the churchyard laid, some sleep beneath the sea,

  But few are left of our old class, excepting you and me,

  And when our time is come, Tom, and we are call’d to go,

  I hope they’ll lay us where we play’d, just twenty years ago.

  ANONYMOUS

  SLASON THOMPSON, in his 1899 book The Humbler Poets: A Collection of Newspaper and Periodical Verse 1870 to 1885, includes this anonymous tearjerker. It would be interesting to know when and where it was first published. I have never seen it with a byline.

  Guilty or Not Guilty

  She stood at the bar of justice,

  A creature wan and wild,

  In form too small for a woman,

  In features too old for a child;

  For a look so worn and pathetic

  Was stamped on her pale young face,

  It seemed long years of suffering

  Must have left that silent trace.