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Poems Every Child Should Know

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<h3>Old Folks at Home.</h3> <table class="poem" summary="poem"><tr><td><div class="stanza"> Way down upon de Swanee Ribber, Far, far away, Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber, Dere's wha de old folks stay. All up and down de whole creation Sadly I roam, Still longing for de old plantation, And for de old folks at home. </div> <div class="stanza"> All de world am sad and dreary, Eberywhere I roam; Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary, Far from de old folks at home! </div> <div class="stanza"> All round de little farm I wandered When I was young, Den many happy days I squandered, Many de songs I sung. When I was playing wid my brudder Happy was I; Oh, take me to my kind old mudder! Dere let me live and die. </div> <div class="stanza"> One little hut among de bushes, One dat I love, Still sadly to my memory rushes, No matter where I rove. When will I see de bees a-humming All round de comb? When will I hear de banjo tumming, Down in my good old home? </div> <div class="stanza"> All de world am sad and dreary, Eberywhere I roam; Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary, Far from de old folks at home! </div> </td></tr></table> Stephen Collins Foster. <h3>The Wreck of the "Hesperus."</h3> <div class="pre_poem">"The Wreck of the Hesperus," by Longfellow (1807-82), on "Norman's Woe," off the coast near Cape Ann, is a historic poem as well as an imaginative composition. </div> <table class="poem" summary="poem"><tr><td><div class="stanza"> It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company. </div> <div class="stanza"> Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks like the dawn of day, And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds That ope in the month of May. </div> <div class="stanza"> The skipper he stood beside the helm, His pipe was in his mouth, And he watched how the veering flaw did blow The smoke now west, now south. </div> <div class="stanza"> Then up and spake an old sailor, Had sailed the Spanish Main, "I pray thee put into yonder port, For I fear a hurricane. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Last night the moon had a golden ring, And to-night no moon we see!" The skipper he blew a whiff from his pipe, And a scornful laugh laughed he. </div> <div class="stanza"> Colder and louder blew the wind, A gale from the northeast, The snow fell hissing in the brine, And the billows frothed like yeast. </div> <div class="stanza"> Down came the storm, and smote amain The vessel in its strength; She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed, Then leaped her cable's length. </div> <div class="stanza"> "Come hither! come hither! my little daughter, And do not tremble so; For I can weather the roughest gale That ever wind did blow." </div> <div class="stanza"> He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat Against the stinging blast; He cut a rope from a broken spar, And bound her to the mast. </div> <div class="stanza"> "O father! I hear the church-bells ring, O say, what may it be?" "Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"— And he steered for the open sea. </div> <div class="stanza"> "O father! I hear the sound of guns, O say, what may it be?" "Some ship in distress, that cannot live In such an angry sea!" </div> <div class="stanza"> "O father! I see a gleaming light, O say, what may it be?" But the father answered never a word, A frozen corpse was he. </div> <div class="stanza"> Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark, With his face turned to the skies, The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow On his fixed and glassy eyes. </div> <div class="stanza"> Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed That savèd she might be; And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave On the Lake of Galilee. </div> <div class="stanza"> And fast through the midnight dark and drear, Through the whistling sleet and snow, Like a sheeted ghost the vessel swept Toward the reef of Norman's Woe. </div> <div class="stanza"> And ever the fitful gusts between A sound came from the land; It was the sound of the trampling surf On the rocks and the hard sea-sand. </div> <div class="stanza"> The breakers were right beneath her bows, She drifted a dreary wreck, And a whooping billow swept the crew Like icicles from her deck. </div> <div class="stanza"> She struck where the white and fleecy waves Looked soft as carded wool, But the cruel rocks they gored her side Like the horns of an angry bull. </div> <div class="stanza"> Her rattling shrouds all sheathed in ice, With the masts went by the board; Like a vessel of glass she stove and sank,— Ho! ho! the breakers roared! </div> <div class="stanza"> At daybreak on the bleak sea-beach A fisherman stood aghast, To see the form of a maiden fair Lashed close to a drifting mast. </div> <div class="stanza"> The salt sea was frozen on her breast, The salt tears in her eyes; And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed, On the billows fall and rise. </div> <div class="stanza"> Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe! </div> </td></tr></table> Henry W. Longfellow. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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