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History in Verse:
3 – The Modern Age
This page contains a small sample of the many poems relating to this
period of history.
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;
And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o’er
When a band of exiles moored their barque
On the wild New England shore.
Not as the conqueror comes
They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums
And the trumpet that sings of fame;
Not as the flying come,
In silence and in fear—
They shook the depths of the desert’s gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.
Amidst the storm they sang,
And the stars heard, and the sea;
And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free!
The ocean-eagle soared
From his nest by the white waves’ foam,
And the rocking pines of the forest roared—
This was their welcome home!
There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band:
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood’s land?
There was woman’s fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love’s truth;
There was manhood’s brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.
What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith’s pure shrine!
Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod.
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.
~ Felicia
Hemans (1793-1835) ~
’Twas the twenty-third of July, in the sixteen thirty-seven,
On the Sabbath morn from high St. Giles the solemn peal was given;
King Charles had sworn that Scottish men should pray by printed rule;
He sent a book, but never dreamt of danger from a stool.
The Council and the Judges, with ermined pomp elate,
The Provost and the Bailies in gold and crimson state,
Fair silken-vested ladies, grave doctors of the school,
Were there to please the King, and learn the virtues of a stool.
The Bishop and the Dean came in wi’ muckle gravity,
Right smooth and sleek, but lordly pride was lurking in their e’e;
Their full lawn sleeves were blown and big, like seals in briny pool;
They bore a book, but little thought they soon should feel a stool.
The Dean he to the alter went, and, with a solemn look,
He cast his eyes to heaven, and read the curious-printed book:
In Jenny’s heart the blood upwelled with bitter anguish full;
Sudden she started to her legs, and stoutly grasped the stool!
As when a mountain wildcat springs upon a rabbit small,
So Jenny on the Dean springs, with gush of holy gall;
Wilt thou say mass at my lugs, thou popish-puling fool?
No! No! She said, and at his head she flung the three-legged stool.
A bump, a thump! A smash, a crash! Now gentle folks beware!
Stool after stool, like rattling hail, came twirling through the air,
With, well done, Jenny! Bravo, Jenny! That’s the proper tool!
When the Devil will out, and shows his snout, just meet him with a
stool!
The Council and the Judges were smitten with strange fear,
The ladies and the Bailies their seats did deftly clear,
The Bishop and the Dean went in sorrow and in dool,
And all the Popish flummery fled when Jenny showed the stool!
And thus a mighty deed was done by Jenny’s valiant hand,
Black Prelacy and Popery she drove from Scottish land;
King Charles he was a shuffling knave, priest Laud a meddling fool,
But Jenny was a woman wise, who beat them with a stool!
~ John
Stuart Blackie (1809-1895) ~
Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud,
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed,
And on the neck of crownèd fortune proud
Hast reared God’s trophies, and His work pursued,
While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbued
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester’s laureate wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war: new foes arise
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.
~ John
Milton (1608-1674) ~
While British hearts with noble ardour glow,
Warm with the genuine spirit of the brave;
Ah! still a grateful tear of joy must flow,
The sacred tribute o’er a hero's grave.
Oh! yes, a sweet enthusiastic tear
Shall tremble in the generous Briton’s eye;
And own with melting energy sincere,
A Nelson’s worth, a country’s liberty,
The mournful muse shall consecrate his name
With all the inspiration of the lyre;
And loyal bosoms kindling at his fame,
Shall glory in the patriotic fire.
And o’er the tomb that holds his sacred dust
Shall glory weave the brightest laurel crown;
While in the noble records of the just,
His name shall live in virtue’s fair renown.
~ Felicia
Hemans (1793-1835) ~
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward!
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery-smoke,
Right through the line they broke
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not—
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them,
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them—
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
Oh, the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.
~ Alfred
Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) ~
Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts, in glad surprise,
To higher levels rise.
The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.
Honour to those whose words or deeds
Thus help us in our daily needs,
And by their overflow
Raise us from what is low!
Thus thought I, as by night I read
Of the great army of the dead,
The trenches cold and damp,
The starved and frozen camp,
The wounded from the battle-plain,
In dreary hospitals of pain,
The cheerless corridors,
The cold and stony floors.
Lo! in that house of misery
A lady with a lamp I see
Pass through the glimmering gloom,
And flit from room to room.
And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
Her shadow as it falls
Upon the darkening walls.
As if a door in heaven should be
Opened and then closed suddenly,
The vision came and went,
The light shone and was spent.
On England’s annals, through the long
Hereafter of her speech and song,
That light its rays shall cast
From portals of the past.
A lady with a lamp shall stand
In the great history of the land,
A noble type of good,
Heroic womanhood.
Nor even shall be wanting here
The palm, the lily, and the spear—
The symbols that of yore
Saint Filomena bore.
~ Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) ~
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch—stitch—stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the “Song of the Shirt!”
Work—work—work!
While the cock is crowing aloof;
And work—work—work
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's oh! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save
If this is Christian work!
Work—work—work!
Till the brain begins to swim;
Work—work—work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep
And sew them on in a dream.
Oh, men with sisters dear!
Oh, men with mothers and wives!
It is not linen you’re wearing out,
But human creatures’ lives!
Stitch—stitch—stitch,
In poverty, hunger and dirt,
Sewing at once with a double thread
A shroud as well as a shirt.
But why do I talk of Death,
That phantom of grisly bone?
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own.
It seems so like my own
Because of the fasts I keep;
Oh, God! that bread should be so dear
And flesh and blood so cheap!
Work—work—work!
My labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread—and rags.
That shattered roof, and this naked floor,
A table, a broken chair,
And a wall so blank my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there.
Work—work—work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work—work—work
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumbed,
As well as the weary hand.
Work—work—work!
In the dull December light,
And work—work—work,
When the weather is warm and bright;
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling,
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the Spring.
Oh! but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet,
With the sky above my head
And the grass beneath my feet!
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!
Oh! but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!
With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch—stitch—stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch—
Would that its tone could reach the rich—
She sang this “Song of the Shirt!”
~ Thomas
Hood (1799-1845) ~
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red!
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
~ Walt
Whitman (1819-1892) ~
("For here lay the excellent wisdom of him that built
Mansoul, that the walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most mighty
adverse potentate unless the townsmen gave consent thereto." —Bunyan's
Holy War.)
Tinker out of Bedford,
A vagrant oft in quod,
A private under Fairfax,
A minister of God—
Two hundred years and thirty
Ere Armageddon came
His single hand portrayed it,
And Bunyan was his name!
He mapped for those who follow,
The world in which we are—
"This famous town of Mansoul"
That takes the Holy War.
Her true and traitor people,
The gates along her wall,
From Eye Gate unto Feel Gate,
John Bunyan showed them all.
All enemy divisions,
Recruits of every class,
And highly-screened positions
For flame or poison-gas;
The craft that we call modern,
The crimes that we call new,
John Bunyan had ’em typed and filed
In Sixteen Eighty-two.
Likewise the Lords of Looseness
That hamper faith and works,
The Perseverance-Doubters,
And Present-Comfort shirks,
With brittle intellectuals
Who crack beneath a strain—
John Bunyan met that helpful set
In Charles the Second’s reign.
Emmanuel’s vanguard dying
For right and not for rights,
My Lord Apollyon lying
To the State-kept Stocholmites,
The Pope, the swithering Neutrals,
The Kaiser and his Gott—
Their roles, their goals, their naked souls—
He knew and drew the lot.
Now he hath left his quarters,
In Bunhill Fields to lie,
The wisdom that he taught us
Is proven prophecy—
One watchword through our Armies
One answer from our Lands:—
"No dealings with Diabolus
As long as Mansoul stands!"
A pedlar from a hovel,
The lowest of the low,
The Father of the Novel,
Salvation’s first Defoe,
Eight blinded generations
Ere Armageddon came,
He showed us how to meet it,
And Bunyan was his name!
~ Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) ~
For patient hands the woods to fell, the new-formed fields to till,
The huts to build, the scanty flocks and herds to guard from ill.
For bolder spirits, to forsake the sea-board settlement,
And learn the secret of the land where never white man went,
Through mountain-pass, and forest dark, and wide unsheltered plain,
Through fiery heat of summer, and through frost, and flood, and rain,
Unheeding thirst, or hunger, or the shower of savage spears,
What soldiers e’er were braver than Australian pioneers?
What though it was by axe, and plough, and miner’s oft-edged tool,
And tending sheep and kine through weary years,—of hardship full,—
The only victories we boast were by our fathers won?
The men who won them had prevailed where feats of arms were done!
Three generations born of her our Country now can tell,
And son, and sire, and grandsire, all in turn have served her well;
Not only with the sinewy arm, the hardened hand of toil,
That wrest their wealth from rifted rock and forest-cumbered soil,—
By love of order and of law; by proffered boon to all
Of learning,—in the township school and in the college hall;
By liberal leisure, well-bestowed, for sports of land and wave;
And by the faith preserved to us God to the Elders gave!
And now Britannia’s household send her, greetings—from beside
The icy streams of Canada,—and islands scattered wide
Betwixt the two Americas,—from Africa’s sea-marge,
And where the race of Aurungzebe held empire rich and large,
And where amid New Zealand fern the English skylarks build,
And rosy children’s sun-burnt hands with English flowers are filled,—
And from our own Australia too,—and all unite to say,—
“Bind us to thee with stronger bonds than those we own today,
Give to our sons a place with thine,—for each to each is peer,—
And let them share thy councils, and the dangers that endear,
And what the Olden Realm has been the Newer Realm shall be,
With a place in every freeman’s heart and a port in every sea!”
~ Mary
Hannay Foott (1846-1918) ~
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
~ John
McCrae (1872-1918) ~
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
~ Laurence
Binyon (1869-1943) ~
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
~
Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941) ~
You seamen, I have eaten your hard bread
And drunken from your tin, and known your ways;
I understand the qualities I praise
Though lacking all, with only words instead,
I tell you this, that in the future time
When landsmen mention sailors, such, or such,
Someone will say "Those fellows were sublime
Who brought the Armies from the Germans' clutches,"
Through the long time the story will be told;
Long centuries of praise on English lips,
Of courage godlike and of hearts of gold
Off Dunquerque beaches in the little ships.
And ships will dip their colours in salute
To you, henceforth, when passing Zuydecoote.
~
John Masefield (1878-1967) ~
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