Poems Teachers Ask For - Various

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Of thirsts I have quenched and brows I have laved, Of hands I have cooled, and souls I have saved. I have leaped through the valley, dashed down the mountain, Slipped from the sunshine, and dripped from the fountain, I have burst my cloud-fetters, and dropped from the sky, And everywhere gladdened the prospect and eye; I have eased the hot forehead of fever and pain, I have made the parched meadows grow fertile with grain. I can tell of the powerful wheel of the mill, That ground out the flour, and turned at my will. I can tell of manhood debased by you That I have uplifted and crowned anew; I cheer, I help, I strengthen and aid, I gladden the heart of man and maid; I set the wine-chained captive free, And all are better for knowing me." These are the tales they told each other, The Glass of Wine, and its paler brother, As they sat together, filled to the brim, On a rich man's table, rim to rim. Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

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      (Written after Lincoln's death by Tom Taylor, famous cartoonist of the London "Punch.")

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You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier!
You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace,
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer,
His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face,
His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair,
His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease,
His lack of all we prize as debonair,
Of power or will to shine, of art to please!
You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh,
Judging each step, as though the way were plain;
Reckless, so it could point its paragraph,
Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain!
Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet
The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet—
Say, scurril jester, is there room for you?
Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer—
To lame my pencil and confute my pen—
To make me own this hind, of princes peer,
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men.
My shallow judgment I had learned to rue,
Noting how to occasion's height he rose;
How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true,
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows;
How humble, yet how hopeful he could be;
How in good fortune and in ill the same;
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he,
Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame.
He went about his work—such work as few
Ever had laid on head, and heart, and hand—
As one who knows where there's a task to do,
Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command;
Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow,
That God makes instruments to work His will,
If but that will we can arrive to know,
Nor tamper with the weights of good and ill.
So he went forth to battle, on the side
That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's,
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied
His warfare with rude nature's thwarting mights;—
The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil,
The iron bark that turns the lumberer's axe,
The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil,
The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks,