SELECTIONS, DESIGNED FOR SINGLE RECITATIONS NOT FOR READING IN CLASSES. EVELYN HOPE. Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. That is her book-shelf, this her bed; She plucked that piece of geranium flower, Little has yet been changed, I think : The shutters are shut, no light may pass Robert Browning. Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. Sixteen years old when she died! Perhaps she had scarcely heard my name; It was not her time to love; beside, Her life had many a hope and aim, Duties enough, and little cares, And now was quiet, now astir, Till God's hand beckoned unawares, And the sweet white brow is all of her. Is it too late then, Evelyn Hope? And our paths in the world diverged so wide, Each was nought to each, must I be told? No, indeed! for God above Is great to grant, as mighty to make, I claim you still, for my own love's sake! Delayed it may be for more lives yet, Through worlds I shall traverse, not a few: Much is to learn and much to forget Ere the time be come for taking you. But the time will come, - at last it will, When, Evelyn Hope, what meant, I shall say, In the lower earth, in the years long still, And your mouth of your own geranium's red In the new life come in the old one's stead. I have lived, I shall say, so much since then, Gained me the gains of various men, Ransacked the ages, spoiled the climes; Yet one thing, one, in my soul's full scope, Either I missed or itself missed meAnd I want and find you, Evelyn Hope! What is the issue? let us see! I loved you, Evelyn, all the while! My heart seemed full as it could hold See, I shut it inside the sweet cold hand. There, that is our secret! go to sleep; You will wake, and remember, and understand. ANNABEL LEE. It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, Edgar A. Poe. That a maiden there lived, whom you may know And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love, and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea: But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her high-born kinsmen came The angels, not half so happy in heave 1, Yes! that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of many far wiser than we; And neither the angels in heaven above, For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee, And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so all the night-time, I lie down by the side Of my darling-my darling—my life and my bride, In her tomb by the sounding sea. MOTHER AND POET. TURIN, AFTER NEWS FROM GAETA, 1861. Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the east, Yet I was a poetess only last year, And good at my art, for a woman, men said; But this woman, this, who is agonized here, Mrs. Browning. -The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head For ever instead. Y What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain! What art's for a woman? To hold on her knees Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her throat, And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat; To teach them. . It stings there! I made them indeed And when their eyes flashed.. O my beautiful eyes! When one sits quite alone! God, how the house forth at the wheels Then one weeps, then one kneels! feels! At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled With my kisses, of camp-life and glory, and how They both loved me; and, soon coming home to be spoiled, Then was triumph at Turin! "Ancona was free!" I bore it; friends soothed me; my grief looked sublime To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong, One loved me for two-would be with me ere long: Who forbids our complaint." My Nannie would add, "he was safe, and aware On which, without pause, up the telegraph line Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : -Shot. Tell his mother. Ah, ah, "his," "their" mother, not "mine," No voice says "My mother" again to me. What! You think Guido forgot? Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, O Christ of the seven wounds, who look'dst through the dark How we common mothers stand desolate, mark, Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away, Both boys dead? but that's out of nature. We all Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 'T were imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall; And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta 's taken, what then? When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? When the guns of Cavalli with final retort, Have cut the game short? When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee, When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red, When you have your country from mountain to sea, When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head, (And I have my Dead) |