SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Do not be alarmed if you find this a little hard to understand.  It is expressed in rather figurative language, and one has to study it to get its meaning.  The poem is about those people who look forward constantly to something better, and feel that they must always be pressing forward at any cost.  Who is represented as speaking?  What sort of life are the travelers leaving behind them?  Why do they feel a keen distress?  What is the “whole” that they are striving to see?  What is their “sacred hunger”?  Why is it “dearer” than the feasting of those who stay at home?  Notice how the third stanza reminds one of Gloucester Moors.  Look up the word sidereal:  Can you tell what it means here?  “Lives and lives behind us” means a long time ago; you will perhaps have to ask your teacher for its deeper meaning.  Do the travelers know where they are going?  Why do they set forth?  Note the description of the dawn in the fifth stanza.  What is the boon of “endless quest”?  Why is it spoken of as a gift (boon)?  Compare the last line of this poem with the last line of The Wild Ride, on page 161.  Perhaps you will be interested to compare the Road-Hymn with Whitman’s The Song of the Open Road.

Do the meter and verse-form seem appropriate here?  Is anything gained by the difference in the length of the lines?

ON A SOLDIER FALLEN IN THE PHILIPPINES

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY

      Streets of the roaring town,
      Hush for him, hush, be still! 
      He comes, who was stricken down
      Doing the word of our will. 
      Hush!  Let him have his state,
      Give him his soldier’s crown. 
      The grists of trade can wait
      Their grinding at the mill,
    But he cannot wait for his honor, now the trumpet has been blown;
    Wreathe pride now for his granite brow, lay love on his breast
      of stone.

      Toll!  Let the great bells toll
      Till the clashing air is dim. 
      Did we wrong this parted soul? 
      We will make it up to him. 
      Toll!  Let him never guess
      What work we set him to. 
      Laurel, laurel, yes;
      He did what we bade him do. 
    Praise, and never a whispered hint but the fight he fought was good;
    Never a word that the blood on his sword was his country’s
      own heart’s-blood.

    A flag for the soldier’s bier
      Who dies that his land may live;
      O, banners, banners here,
      That he doubt not nor misgive! 
      That he heed not from the tomb
      The evil days draw near
      When the nation, robed in gloom,
      With its faithless past shall strive. 
    Let him never dream that his bullet’s scream went wide of its
      island mark,
    Home to the heart of his darling land where she stumbled
      and sinned in the dark.