INVICTUS *

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud;
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

And

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.

WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY.

* From "Poems," by W. E. Henley, published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

PROSPICE

Fear death-to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so-one fight more,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

ROBERT BROWNING.

L'ENVOI

When Earth's last picture is painted, and the tubes are twisted and dried,

When the oldest colors have faded, and the youngest critic has died,

We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it-lie down for an

æon or two,

Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall set us to work anew!

And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's hair;

They shall find real saints to draw from-Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;

They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;

And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;

But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his sep

arate star,

Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things

as They Are!

RUDYARD KIPLING.

FROM "THANATOPSIS"

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves

To that mysterious realm, whence each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

A FAREWELL

TO C. E. G.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
No lark could pipe in skies so dull and gray;
Yet, if you will, one quiet hint I'll leave you,
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who can be clever;
Do lovely things, not dream them, all day long;
And so make Life, and Death, and that For Ever,
One grand, sweet song.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

NOTE

THESE are not by any means the only poems in this volume which every child should know, which should "flash upon the inward eye" and be a part of one's inmost consciousness. Nearly every poem given is worth knowing for its own sake, but preeminently these, which would certainly have been included in this place did they not fall properly under other headings:

"TO A WATER-FOWL," William Cullen Bryant.
"O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!" Walt Whitman.
SONG FROM "PIPPA PASSES," Robert Browning.
"TO A SKYLARK," Percy Bysshe Shelley.
"DAFFODILS," William Wordsworth.
"COLUMBUS," Joaquin Miller.

"RING OUT, WILD BELLS," Alfred Tennyson.
"How SLEEP THE BRAVE," William Collins.
"SOLDIER, REST," Sir Walter Scott.
"AMERICA," Samuel Francis Smith.
"THE LARK," James Hogg.

"A TRUE LENT," Robert Herrick.

"THE AMERICAN FLAG," James Rodman Drake.
"THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER," Francis Scott Key.
"SHERIDAN'S RIDE," Thomas Buchanan Read.

"JUNE," James Russell Lowell.

"HOME THOUGHTS FROM ABROAD," Robert Browning. "MIDSUMMER," John T. Trowbridge.

SHAKESPEARE'S SONGS.

"HYMN TO THE CREATION," Joseph Addison.

"THE REPUBLIC," Henry Wadsworth Longfelllow.

"ODE TO THE CUCKOO," Michael Bruce.

"TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY," Robert Burns.