Read Mrs. Browning’s poem, A Musical Instrument, which is about Pan and his pipe of reeds.

COLLATERAL READINGS

Nooks and Corners of Old New York Charles Hemstreet
In Old New York Thomas A. Janvier
The Greatest Street in the World: 
  Broadway Stephen Jenkins
The God of Music (poem) Edith M. Thomas
A Musical Instrument Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Classic Myths (See Index) C.M.  Gayley
The Age of Fable Thomas Bulfinch
A Butterfly in Wall Street
  (in Madrigals and Catches) Frank D. Sherman
Come Pan, and Pipe
  (in Madrigals and Catches) " " "
Pan Learns Music (poem) Henry van Dyke
Peeps at Great Cities:  New York Hildegarde Hawthorne
Vignettes of Manhattan Brander Matthews
New York Society Ralph Pulitzer
In the Cities (poem) R.W.  Gilder
Up at a Villa—­Down in the City Robert Browning
The Faun in Wall Street[5] (poem) John Myers O’Hara

THE HAND OF LINCOLN

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

    Look on this cast, and know the hand
      That bore a nation in its hold;
    From this mute witness understand
      What Lincoln was,—­how large of mould

    The man who sped the woodman’s team,
      And deepest sunk the ploughman’s share,
    And pushed the laden raft astream,
      Of fate before him unaware.

    This was the hand that knew to swing
      The axe—­since thus would Freedom train
    Her son—­and made the forest ring,
      And drove the wedge, and toiled amain.

    Firm hand, that loftier office took,
      A conscious leader’s will obeyed,
    And, when men sought his word and look,
      With steadfast might the gathering swayed.

    No courtier’s, toying with a sword,
      Nor minstrel’s, laid across a lute;
    A chief’s, uplifted to the Lord
      When all the kings of earth were mute!

    The hand of Anak, sinewed strong,
      The fingers that on greatness clutch;
    Yet, lo! the marks their lines along
      Of one who strove and suffered much.

    For here in knotted cord and vein
      I trace the varying chart of years;
    I know the troubled heart, the strain,
      The weight of Atlas—­and the tears.

    Again I see the patient brow
      That palm erewhile was wont to press;
    And now ’tis furrowed deep, and now
      Made smooth with hope and tenderness.

    For something of a formless grace
      This moulded outline plays about;
    A pitying flame, beyond our trace,
      Breathes like a spirit, in and out,—­