And when my chaperon is seen, They come from everywhere- They bow as my young Midas here And as those aged crickets chirp, Her youth awakening bright, With all its hope, desire, delight Ah, me! I wish that I were quite As young as young as she! Reprinted by permission of, and by special arrangeIment with, Charles Scribner's Sons. America the Beautiful Katharine Lee Bates Katharine Lee Bates was born in Falmouth, Mass., in 1859. She is a graduate of the class of 1880 at Wellesley College. Since 1888 she has been professor of English literature in the same institution. She has traveled extensively in Europe and the Orient. Among her numerous publications may be mentioned, "College Beautiful and Other Poems," "English Religious Drama," and "Story of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, Retold for Children." Let affection and oratorical fervor characterize the reading of this exquisite poem. It is perhaps best read from the book, after some explanatory introduction to the effect that the author is apostrophizing America. O BEAUTIFUL for spacious skies, America! America! God shed His grace on thee O beautiful for pilgrim feet, America! America! God mend thine every flaw, O beautiful for heroes proved Who more than self their country loved, May God thy gold refine O beautiful for patriot dream Reprinted by permission of the author. The Caravels of Columbus Elias Lieberman Elias Lieberman was born in Petrograd, Russia, in 1883. He was graduated from the College of the City of New York, and is at present Head of the English Department in the Bushwick High School, New York City. He has written plays, short stories, and essays, in addition to his poetry. In its thought this poem is a happy combination of Joaquin Miller's "Sail On" and Longfellow's "Ship of State.' The selection should be delivered with directness and strength, He kept them pointed straight ahead Due west they sailed toward shores unknown. The fearless leader standing deep In thought, beside the helm-alone. He heard about him snarls of rage, He scanned the frowns of those who plot Revolt, and day by day he saw But sea and sky, yet faltered not! And, day by day, he swept in vain Gazed down and murmured-angry kine, Alert to start a wild stampede For home and fodder. This he bore With iron will until the day When hope's fruition brought the shore. His caravels in modern times Can never make the ports that be; In fancy's fleet they drift along Unchartered wastes from sea to sea, But he who kept them westward bound So long ago is still alive; His spirit stirs the trumpet call Wherever men of courage strive. Our ship of state is sailing, too, Reprinted by permission of the author. Pioneers Badger Clark Badger Clark was born at Albia, Iowa, in 1883. He now lives in The Black Hills of South Dakota. Louis Untermeyer in his "American and British Poetry" says of him: "Clark is one of the few men who have lived to see their work become part of folk-lore, many of his songs having been adapted and paraphrased by the cowboys who have made them their own. There is wind in his songs; the smell of camp-smoke; and the colors of prairie sunsets rise from them." His most famous works are "Sun and Saddle Leather" and "Grass-Grown Trails." A wide sweep of the imagination and a keen visualization of the westward march of American civilization are required for an adequate vocal interpretation of this fine poem. A BROKEN Wagon wheel that rots away beside the river, A sunken grave that dimples on the bluff above the trail; The larks call, the wind sweeps, the prairie grasses quiver And sing a wistful roving song of hoof and wheel and sail. Pioneers, pioneers, you trailed it on to glory, Across the circling deserts to the mountains blue. and dim. New England was a night camp; Old England was a story, The new home, the true home, lay out beyond the rim. You fretted at the old hearth, the kettle and the cricket, The fathers' little acres, the wood lot and the pond. |