Poems Every Child Should Know

<h3><SPAN name="Mortality" id="Mortality"></SPAN>Mortality.</h3> <div class="pre_poem"><p>"Mortality" (by William Knox, 1789-1825) is always quoted as Lincoln's favourite poem.</p> </div> <table class="poem" summary="poem"><tr><td><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?<br/></span> <span class="i0">Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,<br/></span> <span class="i0">A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,<br/></span> <span class="i0">He passes from life to his rest in the grave.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Be scattered around and together be laid;<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the young and the old, and the low and the high,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The child that a mother attended and loved,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The mother that infant's affection that proved,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The husband that mother and infant that blessed,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Each, all, are away to their dwelling of rest.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Shone beauty and pleasure,&mdash;her triumphs are by;<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the memory of those that beloved her and praised<br/></span> <span class="i0">Are alike from the minds of the living erased.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The hand of the king that the scepter hath borne,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The brow of the priest that the miter hath worn,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The beggar that wandered in search of his bread,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Have faded away like the grass that we tread.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The saint that enjoyed the communion of heaven,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The sinner that dared to remain unforgiven,<br/></span> <span class="i0">The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">So the multitude goes, like the flower and the weed<br/></span> <span class="i0">That wither away to let others succeed;<br/></span> <span class="i0">So the multitude comes, even those we behold,<br/></span> <span class="i0">To repeat every tale that hath often been told.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">For we are the same that our fathers have been;<br/></span> <span class="i0">We see the same sights that our fathers have seen,&mdash;<br/></span> <span class="i0">We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And we run the same course that our fathers have run.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think;<br/></span> <span class="i0">From the death we are shrinking from, they too would shrink;<br/></span> <span class="i0">To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling;<br/></span> <span class="i0">But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">They loved, but their story we cannot unfold;<br/></span> <span class="i0">They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;<br/></span> <span class="i0">They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers may come;<br/></span> <span class="i0">They enjoyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">They died, ay! they died! and we things that are now,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Yea! hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;<br/></span> <span class="i0">And the smile and the tear, and the song and the dirge,<br/></span> <span class="i0">Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,<br/></span> <span class="i0">From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,<br/></span> <span class="i0">From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,&mdash;<br/></span> <span class="i0">O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?<br/></span></div> </td></tr></table> <p class="quotsig"><span class="smcap">William Knox.</span></p> <h3><SPAN name="On_First_Looking_Into_Chapmans_Homer" id="On_First_Looking_Into_Chapmans_Homer"></SPAN>On First Looking Into Chapman's "Homer."</h3> <div class="pre_poem"><p>"On First Looking Into Chapman's 'Homer,'" by John Keats (1795-1821). The last four lines of this sonnet form the most tremendous climax in literature. The picture is as vivid as if done with a brush. Every great book, every great poem is a new world, an undiscovered country. Every learned person is a whole territory, a universe of new thought. Every one who does anything with a heart for it, every specialist every one, however simple, who is strenuous and genuine, is a "new discovery." Let us give credit to the smallest planet that is true to its own orbit.</p> </div> <table class="poem" summary="poem"><tr><td><div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,<br/></span> <span class="i0">And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;<br/></span> <span class="i0">Round many western islands have I been<br/></span> <span class="i0">Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Oft of one wide expanse had I been told<br/></span> <span class="i0">That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne:<br/></span> <span class="i0">Yet did I never breathe its pure serene<br/></span> <span class="i0">Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">Then felt I like some watcher of the skies<br/></span> <span class="i0">When a new planet swims into his ken;<br/></span> <span class="i0">Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes<br/></span></div> <div class="stanza"> <span class="i0">He stared at the Pacific&mdash;and all his men<br/></span> <span class="i0">Look'd at each other with a wild surmise&mdash;<br/></span> <span class="i0">Silent, upon a peak in Darien.<br/></span></div> </td></tr></table> <p class="quotsig"><span class="smcap">John Keats.</span></p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />