 | Poems by William W. Story |  |
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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
“And for our tong, that still is so empayred
By travelling linguists,—I can proved it clear
That no tong has the muses' utterance heyred
For verse, and that swete music to the ear
Strook out of Rhyme so naturally as this.”
Chapman.
By travelling linguists,—I can proved it clear
That no tong has the muses' utterance heyred
For verse, and that swete music to the ear
Strook out of Rhyme so naturally as this.”
Chapman.
Give me of every language, first my vigorous English
Stored with imported wealth, rich in its natural mines—
Grand in its rhythmical cadence, simple for household employment—
Worthy the poet's song, fit for the speech of a man.
Stored with imported wealth, rich in its natural mines—
Grand in its rhythmical cadence, simple for household employment—
Worthy the poet's song, fit for the speech of a man.
Not from one metal alone the perfectest mirror is shapen,
Not from one color is built the rainbow's aërial bridge,
Instruments blending together yield the divinest of music,
Out of a myriad flowers sweetest of honey is drawn.
Not from one color is built the rainbow's aërial bridge,
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Out of a myriad flowers sweetest of honey is drawn.
So unto thy close strength is welded and beaten together
Iron dug from the North, ductile gold from the South;
So unto thy broad stream the ice-torrents born in the mountains
Rush, and the rivers pour brimming with sun from the plains.
Iron dug from the North, ductile gold from the South;
So unto thy broad stream the ice-torrents born in the mountains
Rush, and the rivers pour brimming with sun from the plains.
Thou hast the sharp clean edge and the downright blow of the Saxon,
Thou the majestical march and the stately pomp of the Latin,
Thou the euphonious swell, the rhythmical roll of the Greek;
Thine is the elegant suavity caught from sonorous Italian,
Thine the chivalric obeisance, the courteous grace of the Norman—
Thine the Teutonic German's inborn guttural strength.
Thou the majestical march and the stately pomp of the Latin,
Thou the euphonious swell, the rhythmical roll of the Greek;
Thine is the elegant suavity caught from sonorous Italian,
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Thine the Teutonic German's inborn guttural strength.
Raftered by firm-laid consonants, windowed by opening vowels,
Thou securely art built, free to the sun and the air;
Over thy feudal battlements trail the wild tendrils of fancy,
Where in the early morn warbled our earliest birds;
Science looks out from thy watch-tower, love whispers in at thy lattice,
While o'er thy bastions wit flashes its glittering sword.
Thou securely art built, free to the sun and the air;
Over thy feudal battlements trail the wild tendrils of fancy,
Where in the early morn warbled our earliest birds;
Science looks out from thy watch-tower, love whispers in at thy lattice,
While o'er thy bastions wit flashes its glittering sword.
Not by corruption rotted nor slowly by ages degraded,
Have the sharp consonants gone crumbling away from our words;
Virgin and clean is their edge like granite blocks chiselled by Egypt;
Just as when Shakespeare and Milton laid them in glorious verse.
Have the sharp consonants gone crumbling away from our words;
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Just as when Shakespeare and Milton laid them in glorious verse.
Fitted for every use like a great majestical river,
Blending thy various streams, stately thou flowest along,
Bearing the white-winged ship of Poesy over thy bosom,
Laden with spices that come out of the tropical isles,
Fancy's pleasuring yacht with its bright and fluttering pennons,
Logic's frigates of war and the toil-worn barges of trade.
Blending thy various streams, stately thou flowest along,
Bearing the white-winged ship of Poesy over thy bosom,
Laden with spices that come out of the tropical isles,
Fancy's pleasuring yacht with its bright and fluttering pennons,
Logic's frigates of war and the toil-worn barges of trade.
How art thou freely obedient unto the poet or speaker
When, in a happy hour, thought into speech he translates;
Caught on the word's sharp angles flash the bright hues of his fancy—
Grandly the thought rides the words, as a good horseman his steed.
When, in a happy hour, thought into speech he translates;
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Grandly the thought rides the words, as a good horseman his steed.
Now, clear, pure, hard, bright, and one by one, like to hail-stones,
Short words fall from his lips fast as the first of a shower—
Now in a twofold column, Spondee, Iamb, and Trochee,
Unbroke, firm-set, advance, retreat, trampling along—
Now with a sprightlier springiness bounding in triplicate syllables,
Dance the elastic Dactylics in musical cadences on,
Now their voluminous coil intertangling like huge anacondas
Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words.
Flexile and free in thy gait and simple in all thy construction,
Yielding to every turn thou bearest thy rider along;
Now like our hackney or draught-horse serving our commonest uses,
Now bearing grandly the Poet Pegasus-like to the sky.
Short words fall from his lips fast as the first of a shower—
Now in a twofold column, Spondee, Iamb, and Trochee,
Unbroke, firm-set, advance, retreat, trampling along—
Now with a sprightlier springiness bounding in triplicate syllables,
Dance the elastic Dactylics in musical cadences on,
Now their voluminous coil intertangling like huge anacondas
Roll overwhelmingly onward the sesquipedalian words.
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Yielding to every turn thou bearest thy rider along;
Now like our hackney or draught-horse serving our commonest uses,
Now bearing grandly the Poet Pegasus-like to the sky.
Thou art not prisoned in fixed rules, thou art no slave to a grammar,
Thou art an eagle uncaged scorning the perch and the chain,
Hadst thou been fettered and formalized, thou hadst been tamer and weaker.
How could the poor slave walk with thy grand freedom of gait?
Let then grammarians rail and let foreigners sigh for thy signposts,
Wandering lost in thy maze, thy wilds of magnificent growth.
Call thee incongruous, wild, of rule and of reason defiant;
I in thy wildness a grand freedom of character find.
So with irregular outline tower up the sky-piercing mountains
Rearing o'er yawning chasms lofty precipitous steeps,
Spreading o'er ledges unclimbable, meadows and slopes of green smoothness,
Bearing the flowers in their clefts, losing their peaks in the clouds.
Thou art an eagle uncaged scorning the perch and the chain,
Hadst thou been fettered and formalized, thou hadst been tamer and weaker.
How could the poor slave walk with thy grand freedom of gait?
Let then grammarians rail and let foreigners sigh for thy signposts,
Wandering lost in thy maze, thy wilds of magnificent growth.
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I in thy wildness a grand freedom of character find.
So with irregular outline tower up the sky-piercing mountains
Rearing o'er yawning chasms lofty precipitous steeps,
Spreading o'er ledges unclimbable, meadows and slopes of green smoothness,
Bearing the flowers in their clefts, losing their peaks in the clouds.
Therefore it is that I praise thee and never can cease from rejoicing,
Thinking that good stout English is mine and my ancestors' tongue;
Give me its varying music, the flow of its free modulation—
I will not covet the full roll of the glorious Greek,—
Luscious and feeble Italian, Latin so formal and stately,
French with its nasal lisp nor German inverted and harsh—
Not while our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices—
Play on the soft flute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war,
Sing with the high sesquialtro, or drawing its full diapason
Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops.
Thinking that good stout English is mine and my ancestors' tongue;
Give me its varying music, the flow of its free modulation—
I will not covet the full roll of the glorious Greek,—
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French with its nasal lisp nor German inverted and harsh—
Not while our organ can speak with its many and wonderful voices—
Play on the soft flute of love, blow the loud trumpet of war,
Sing with the high sesquialtro, or drawing its full diapason
Shake all the air with the grand storm of its pedals and stops.
| Poems by William W. Story | |