THE THREE FISHERS

229

REFERENCES

SIMS: Lights of London Town.

LOWELL: Youssuf.

TENNYSON: Charge of the Light Brigade. Break, Break, Break. HEMANS: Casabianca.

Wives of Brixham-Selected.

PERCY F. SINNETT: The Song of the Wild Sea Waves.

THOMAS WADE: The Net Braiders.

WILLIAM ALLINGHAM: The Sailor.

RICHARD GARNETT: The Ballad of the Boat.

ROSSETTI: The Sea Limits.

EMILY HENRIETTA HICKEY: A Sea Story.

HENRY HEINE: The Fisher's Cottage.

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH: The Face against the Pane.

TO A WATERFOWL

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

ILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT was returning to his home near the close of a day spent in deep thought. As he stood on an eminence overlooking a valley, he marked the flight of a single wild fowl, as it winged its way, solitary and lone. As he watched its certain flight, swerving neither to the right nor left, without hesitation or pause, until distance had made it invisible, the close analogy between the flight of the fowl and the life of man was born in upon him until the thought was given forth in the following poem. It at once took a firm hold upon the popular mind and fixed Bryant's place high among American men of letters.

TO A WATERFOWL*

Whither, midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

* Used by the courteous permission of the publishers, D. Appleton & Company.

TO A WATERFOWL

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-
The desert and illimitable air—

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,
Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone! the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.

SUGGESTIVE EXERCISES

231

1. Who is speaking in stanza 1? From what position? 2. How does the poet tell you the time of day? How could the heavens "glow with the last steps of day"?

3. Explain "rosy depths," "falling dew," "solitary way."

4. Explain "painted on the crimson sky."

5. Where does he cause us to think of the many possible destinies of the fowl?

""chafed

6. Explain "plashy brink," "marge," "rocking billows,"

ocean side."

7. What is “that pathless coast" mentioned in line 14?

8. Why is the bird "not lost"?

9. What does the poet think accounts for its not stooping to land?

10. What feeling is created by stanza 6?

11. Would "the abyss of heaven" have "swallowed up" its form had its course been less certain?

12. What lesson did the poet learn from this incident?

REFERENCES

BURNS: To a Mountain Daisy.

EMERSON: Rhodora.

SILL: Spring Twilight.

DANA: The Little Beach Bird.

THAXTER: The Sandpiper.

SYMONDS: The Nightingale.

HOGG: A Skylark.

SHELLEY: Ode to the Skylark.

STEVENSON: A Visit from the Sea.

TUBAL CAIN

CHARLES MACKAY

UBAL CAIN may well be regarded as the father

TUB

of manual training. He was the son of Lamech and Zillah and as the Bible tells us (Gen. 4:22), "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." Josephus, in The Antiquities of the Jews, says: "But Tubal exceeded all men in strength, and was very expert and famous in martial performances, first of all invented the art of working brass."

and

The author has seized upon the suggestion contained in the above facts and constructed a poem which contains in brief the history of civilization. The hero is the personification of the race as it evolved from barbarism to civilization. "The sword and the spear" are relics of organized conquest when might made right. The "sudden change" that came over the heart of the old hero is but typical of a higher vision of the arts of peace that should be the fruits of conquest. The "plowshare" is but symbolic of industry and peace and the higher progress of civilization. The poem closes with a significant hint that war is still honorable when waged in defense of home and country and sacred rights. The poem is a splendid poetic illumination of the oft-quoted saying of Matthew Arnold: "Might, till right is ready."