p>Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two
PREFACE
In homely phrase, this is a sort of "second helping" of a dish that has pleased the taste of thousands. Our first collection of Poems Teachers Ask For was the response to a demand for such a book, and this present volume is the response to a demand for "more." In Book One it was impracticable to use all of the many poems entitled to inclusion on the basis of their being desired. We are constantly in receipt of requests that certain selections be printed in NORMAL INSTRUCTOR-PRIMARY PLANS on the page "Poems Our Readers Have Asked For." More than two hundred of these were chosen for Book One, and more than two hundred others, as much desired as those in the earlier volume, are included in Book Two.
Because of copyright restrictions, we often have been unable to present, in magazine form, verse of large popular appeal. By special arrangement, a number of such poems were included in Book One of Poems Teachers Ask For, and many more are given in the pages that follow. Acknowledgment is made below to publishers and authors for courteous permission to reprint in this volume material which they control:
THE CENTURY COMPANY—The Minuet, from "Poems and Verses," by Mary Mapes Dodge.
W.B. CONKEY COMPANY—Solitude, from "Poems of Passion," and How Salvator Won, from "Kingdom of Love," both by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.—Encouragement, by Paul Laurence Dunbar, copyright by Dodd, Mead & Company; Work, by Angela Morgan, from "The Hour Has Struck," copyright 1914 by Angela Morgan.
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY—How Did You Die? from "Impertinent Poems," and The Sin of the Coppenter Man, from "I Rule the House," both by Edmund Vance Cooke.
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY—The House with Nobody in It, from "Trees and Other Poems," by Joyce Kilmer, copyright 1914 by George H. Doran Company, publishers.
HAMLIN GARLAND—My Prairies and Color in the Wheat.
ISABEL AMBLER GILMAN—The Sunset City.
HARPER & BROTHERS—Over the Hill from the Poor-House and The School-Master's Guests, from "Farm Legends," by Will Carleton.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY—The Sandman, by Margaret Vandegrift; The Sin of Omission and Our Own, by Margaret E. Sangster; The Ballad of the Tempest, by James T. Fields; also the poems by Henry W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Alice Cary, Phoebe Cary, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and J.T. Trowbridge, of whose works they are the authorized publishers.
CHARLES H.L. JOHNSTON—The President.
RUDYARD KIPLING and DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY (A.P. WATT & SON, London, England)—Mother o' Mine.
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD COMPANY—Hullo and The Volunteer Organist, both from "Back Country Poems," by Sam Walter Foss, and He Worried About It, from "Whiffs from Wild Meadows," by Sam Walter Foss.
EDWIN MARKHAM—Lincoln, the Man of the People.
REILLY & LEE CO.—Home, from "A Heap o' Livin'," by Edgar A. Guest.
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY—Our Flag, by Margaret E. Sangster.
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS—I Have a Rendezvous with Death, by Alan Seeger; Song of the Chattahoochee, by Sidney Lanier; If All the Skies, by Henry van Dyke.
HARR WAGNER PUBLISHING COMPANY—Mothers of Men and The Fortunate Isles, by Joaquin Miller.
THE PUBLISHERS.
POEMS TEACHERS ASK FOR
BOOK TWO
Home
It takes a heap o' livin' in a house t' make it home,
A heap o' sun an' shadder, an' ye sometimes have t' roam
Afore ye really 'preciate the things ye left behind,
An' hunger fer 'em somehow, with 'em allus on yer mind.
It don't make any differunce how rich ye get t' be,
How much yer chairs an' tables cost, how great yer luxury;
It ain't home t' ye, though it be the palace of a king,
Until somehow yer soul is sort o' wrapped 'round everything.
Home ain't a place that gold can buy or get up in a minute;
Afore it's home there's got t' be a heap o' livin' in it:
Within the walls there's got t' be some babies born, and then
Right there ye've got t' bring 'em up t' women good, an' men;
And gradjerly, as time goes on ye find ye wouldn't part
With anything they ever used—they've grown into yer heart;
The old high chairs, the playthings, too, the little shoes they wore
Ye hoard; an' if ye could ye'd keep the thumbmarks on the door.
Ye've got t' weep t' make it home, ye've got t' sit and sigh
An' watch beside a loved one's bed, an' know that Death is nigh;
An' in the stillness o' the night t' see Death's angel come,
An' close the eyes o' her that smiled, an' leave her sweet voice dumb.
Fer these are scenes that grip the heart, an' when yer tears are dried,
Ye find the home is dearer than it was, an' sanctified;
An' tuggin' at ye always are the pleasant memories
O' her that was an' is no more—ye can't escape from these.
Ye've got t' sing and dance fer years, ye've got t' romp an' play,
An' learn t' love the things ye have by usin' 'em each day;
Even the roses 'round the porch must blossom year by year
Afore they 'come a part o' ye, suggestin' someone dear
Who used t' love 'em long ago, an' trained 'em jes' t' run
The way they do, so's they would get the early mornin' sun;
Ye've got t' love each brick an' stone from cellar up t' dome:
It takes a heap o' livin' in a house f' make it home.
The House with Nobody In It
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farm-house with its shingles broken and black;
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.
I've never seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know that house isn't haunted and I wish it were, I do,
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles and vines should be trimmed and tied,
But what it needs most of all is
