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,—