I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
MARY (BOTHAM) HOWITT
(1799–1888)
HOWITT and her husband William were two of the most famous, most prolific writers in nineteenth-century England. Both turned out scores of books—novels, short stories, history, verse, not to mention volumes on which the pair collaborated. Mary Howitt became best known for fiction and poetry written for children, and her translations of works by Hans Christian Andersen and other writers.
The Howitts abandoned their Quaker upbringing to become leaders in England’s Spiritualist mania. William became a skilled automatic writer, his hand guided by “departed spirits.” He contributed more than a hundred articles to Spiritual Magazine, passionately arguing that Spiritualism was in harmony with primitive Christianity, and bashing the doctrine of incarnation. He produced in two volumes A History of the Supernatural in All Ages and Nations, and in All Churches, Christian and Pagan, Demonstrating a Universal Faith (1863). Both Howitts settled and died in Rome. A few years before her death, Mary converted to Roman Catholicism.
“The Spider and the Fly” was included in one of Howitt’s collections of verse, Sketches of Natural History (1834). Apparently it was based on an earlier folk song. I own The School Reader, Third Book (New York, 1853), edited by Charles W. Sanders, in which the words of Howitt’s poem are set to music by an unnamed composer. Above the song is “Words by C. W. Sanders”! The song’s chorus is a couplet that repeats the line: “Will you, will you, will you, will you, walk in, Mrs. Fly?” Lewis Carroll parodied the chorus, as well as the poem’s first line and meter, in the song sung by the Mock Turtle in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Is there not something sad about the fact that a writer so admired by her contemporaries is remembered today only for a child’s poem about a spider and a fly?
I found an amusing poem titled “Another Spider and Fly,” by Laura Garland Carr, in The Children’s Speaker (1897), compiled by John Wesley Hanson, Jr. It tells of a fly who is about to be gobbled by a spider when a swallow swoops down and eats the spider.
The Spider and the Fly
“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the spider to the fly;
‘“Tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.
The way into my parlor is up a winding stair,
And I have many pretty things to show when you are there.”
“O no, no,” said the little fly, “to ask me is in vain,
For who goes up your winding stair can ne’er come down again.”
“I’m sure you must be weary, dear, with soaring up so high;
Will you rest upon my little bed?” said the spider to the fly.
“There are pretty curtains drawn around, the sheets are fine and thin,
And if you like to rest awhile, I’ll snugly tuck you in.”
“O no, no,” said the little fly, “for I’ve often heard it said,
They never, never wake again, who sleep upon your bed.”
Said the cunning spider to the fly, “Dear friend, what shall I do,
To prove the warm affection I’ve always felt for you?
I have within my pantry good store of all that’s nice;
I’m sure you’re very welcome; will you please to take a slice?”
“O no, no,” said the little fly, “kind sir, that cannot be;
I’ve heard what’s in your pantry, and I do not wish to see.”
“Sweet creature!” said the spider, “you’re witty and you’re wise,
How handsome are your gauzy wings, how brilliant are your eyes!
I have a little looking-glass upon my parlor shelf,
If you’ll step in one moment, dear, you shall behold yourself.”
“I thank you, gentle sir,” she said, “for what you’re pleased to say,
And bidding you good-morning now, I’ll call another day.”
The spider turned him round about, and went into his den,
For well he knew the silly fly would soon be back again:
So he wove a subtle web, in a little corner sly,
And set his table ready to dine upon the fly.
Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing,
“Come hither, hither, pretty fly, with the pearl and silver wing:
Your robes are green and purple; there’s a crest upon your head;
Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine are dull as lead.”
Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little fly,
Hearing his wily flattering words, came slowly flitting by.
With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer drew,
Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and purple hue;
Thinking only of her crested head—poor foolish thing! At last,
Up jumped the cunning spider, and fiercely held her fast.
He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den,
Within his little parlor; but she ne’er came out again!
And now, dear little children, who may this story read,
To idle, silly, flattering words, I pray you ne’er give heed;
Unto an evil counselor close heart, and ear, and eye,
And take a lesson from this tale of the Spider and the Fly.
LEIGH HUNT
(1784–1859)
MAD CAREW, in Milton Hayes’s ballad about the green eye of the little yellow god, lost his life trying to please a vain woman. Count de Lorge, in Hunt’s almost forgotten poem, managed to save his skin, but behaved more sensibly after his heroic act.
Hunt was a London journalist, poet, essayist and political radical. I won’t repeat what I said about him in Best Remembered Poems, where I reprinted his “Abou Ben Adhem” and “Jenny Kiss’d Me.” I forgot to add there that when a grade-school teacher asked Isaac Asimov why Abou’s name led all the rest, Asimov replied, “Because his last name began with A.”
The Glove and the Lions
King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court.
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And ‘mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed:
And truly ’twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.
Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another,
Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, “Faith, gentlemen, we’re better here than there.”
De Lorge’s love o’erheard the King, a beauteous lively dame,
With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which always seemed the same;
She thought, The Count my lover is brave as brave can be;
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me;
King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine;
I’ll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine.
She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:
The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady’s face.
“By Heaven,” said Francis, “rightly done!” and he rose from where he sat;
“No love,” quoth he, “but vanity, sets love a task like that.”
COATES KI
NNEY
(1826–1904)
I WOULD GUESS that thousands of poems and songs have been written about the sound of rain on the roof. Indeed, when I was a boy I wrote one myself, though happily all I can recall are the banal opening lines:
I love to listen to the rain
On the roof and window pane,
And the moaning of a train
Somewhere near.
The most famous of such poems in English, “Rain on the Roof,” is the only poem remembered out of the total effusions of Coates Kinney. A lawyer and newspaperman, Kinney was born at Kinney’s Corners, New York, but lived most of his life in Ohio. Newspapers he edited included The Xenia Torchlight, Cincinnati Daily Times, Springfield Daily Republic and Ohio State Journal. He ended his Civil War career as a lieutenant-colonel, and served in the Ohio senate in 1881–1882.
“Rain on the Roof” first appeared in Our Great West (September 22, 1849) and later in Kinney’s privately published Keeuka and Other Poems (1855). Lyrics of the Ideal and the Real, and Mists of Fire and Some Eclogues were two later collections of his undistinguished verse.
Slason Thompson, in his collection The Humbler Poets (1885), prints a final stanza of this poem as revised by the author. He considers it inferior to the original, commenting that “poets are proverbially unsafe revisers of their own work.” Here is the altered stanza:
Art hath nought of tone or cadence
That can work with such a spell
In the soul’s mysterious fountains,
Whence the tears of rapture well,
As that melody of Nature,
That subdued, subduing strain,
Which is played upon the shingles
By the patter of the rain.
Rain on the Roof
When the humid shadows hover
Over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness
Gently weeps in rainy tears,
What a joy to press the pillow
Of a cottage-chamber bed,
And to listen to the patter
Of the soft rain overhead!
Every tinkle on the shingles
Has an echo in the heart;
And a thousand dreamy fancies
Into busy being start,
And a thousand recollections
Weave their bright hues into woof,
As I listen to the patter
Of the rain upon the roof.
Now in fancy comes my mother,
As she used to, years agone,
To survey her darling dreamers,
Ere she left them till the dawn;
Oh! I see her bending o’er me,
As I list to this refrain
Which is played upon the shingles
By the patter of the rain.
Then my little seraph sister,
With her wings and waving hair,
And her bright-eyed cherub brother—
A serene, angelic pair!—
Glide around my wakeful pillow,
With their praise or mild reproof,
As I listen to the murmur
Of the soft rain on the roof.
And another comes to thrill me
With her eye’s delicious blue;
And forget I, gazing on her,
That her heart was all untrue:
I remember but to love her
With a rapture kin to pain,
And my heart’s quick pulses vibrate
To the patter of the rain.
There is naught in Art’s bravuras,
That can work with such a spell
In the spirit’s pure, deep fountains,
Whence the holy passions well,
As that melody of Nature,
That subdued, subduing strain
Which is played upon the shingles
By the patter of the rain.
WILLIAM KNOX
(1789–1825)
WILLIAM KNOX was a Scottish farmer, educated at the University of Edinburgh, who gave up farming to become a writer. Of his many poems, only “Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?” has survived. I have been able to learn little about him except that he was a lovable alcoholic, much admired by Sir Walter Scott, and died in poverty at age 36.
Lincoln clipped Knox’s one memorable poem from a newspaper, where it ran without a byline, and for many years was unable to find out who wrote it. It was his favorite poem. He memorized all its stanzas and loved to recite them to friends and guests. I do not know where it was first published, or whether it is included in Knox’s The Lonely Heart and Other Poems (1825).
The poem appeared as a small book in 1865, and again in 1876 (with many later editions), profusely illustrated by L. B. Humphrey.
Oh! Why Should the Spirit of Mortal Be Proud?
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift-fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high
Shall moulder to dust and together shall die.
The infant a mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant’s affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant have blessed,—
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure—her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depth of the grave.
The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.
The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven;
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven;
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.
So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.
They loved, but the story we cannot unfold;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.
They died, aye! they died: and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
‘Tis the wink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath,
From t
he blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
(1807–1882)
I WILL NOT repeat here what I had to say in Best Remembered Poems about America’s most loved poet throughout most of the previous century. In that anthology I included nine of Longfellow’s poems that I thought were the most familiar today. Presented here are two less remembered ones, but favorites in Longfellow’s time.
Clocks have long been symbols of the inexorable passage of time. Will we live again in eternity, or vanish forever? The old clock doesn’t say.
Longfellow based his poem on an eloquent passage in the writings of Jacques Bridaine, a French Catholic priest. It describes the ticking of a clock as repeating “Toujours, jamais! jamais, toujours!” The poem’s first book appearance was in The Belfry of Bruges and Other Poems (1845). “The Rainy Day” was included in Ballads and Other Poems (1841), and was set to music in 1847 by Isaac Baker Woodbury.
The Old Clock on the Stairs
Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,—
Famous Poems from Bygone Days Page 13
