Classics Books

PREFACE In publishing this poem, the Author feels that some apology is needed. It deals with matters of a kind not usually treated in modern verse, and which ask to be approached, if at all, with dignity and reverence. He trusts that he will not be found lacking on this essential point. Nevertheless, he cannot expect but that he may wound by his plain speaking the feelings of those among his readers... more...

LOST POND "Lost Pond" was a tradition, a myth. It had never been seen by any living person. Two dead men, it was alleged, had visited it on several occasions while they were yet living. Wonderful tales were told about that pond for which many persons had hunted, but which no one of the present generation had ever been able to find. Every guide in Long Lake township talked about Lost Pond and... more...

Chapter I Miriam sat in her lowly cabin, painfully rocking her body to and fro; for a great sorrow had fallen upon her life. She had been the mother of three children, two had died in their infancy, and now her last, her loved and only child was gone, but not like the rest, who had passed away almost as soon as their little feet had touched the threshold of existence. She had been entangled in the... more...

CHAPTER I. The Trial. Mr. Kent was a very able magistrate. He had sat on the bench for many years and was considered a man of great legal attainments and skill. He very seldom erred in his judgment, and being gifted with a natural shrewdness, he saw the difference at once between a guilty and an innocent man. He rarely erred; long practice had made him an adept in reading faces. But on this morning,... more...

EDWARD LEAR England, 1812-1888 The Owl and the Pussy-CatThe Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to seaIn a beautiful pea-green boat.They took some honey, and plenty of moneyWrapped up in a five-pound note.The Owl looked up to the moon above,And sang to a small guitar,"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love!What a beautiful Pussy you are,—You are;What a beautiful Pussy you are!"10 Pussy said to the Owl,... more...

CHAPTER I. IN ST. JACOB STRAAT. "The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life." "It is the Professor von Holzen," said a stout woman who still keeps the egg and butter shop at the corner of St. Jacob Straat in The Hague; she is a Jewess, as, indeed, are most of the denizens of St. Jacob Straat and its neighbour, Bezem Straat, where the fruit-sellers live—"it is the Professor von... more...

DEAD MEN'S DUST.You don't buy poetry. (Neither do I.)Why?You cannot afford it? Bosh! you spend Editions de luxeon a thirsty friend.You can buy any one of the poetry bunchFor the price you pay for a business lunch.Don't you suppose that a hungry head,Like an empty stomach, ought to be fed?Looking into myself, I find this true,So I hardly can figure it false in you.And you... more...

CHAPTER I. AN ADVERTISEMENT. A small boy with a tiny white dog in his arms stood near the New York approach to the Brooklyn Bridge on a certain June morning not many years since, gazing doubtfully at the living tide which flowed past him, as if questioning whether it might be safe to venture across the street. Seth Barrows, otherwise known by his acquaintances as Limpy Seth, because of what they were... more...

INTRODUCTION I The development of Tennyson's genius, methods, aims and capacity of achievement in poetry can be studied with singular precision and fulness in the history of the poems included in the present volume. In 1842 he published the two volumes which gave him, by almost general consent, the first place among the poets of his time, for, though Wordsworth was alive, Wordsworth's best... more...

CHAPTER VI For the first few days after his return Sunwich was full of surprises to Jem Hardy. The town itself had changed but little, and the older inhabitants were for the most part easily recognisable, but time had wrought wonders among the younger members of the population: small boys had attained to whiskered manhood, and small girls passing into well-grown young women had in some cases even... more...