Poetry Books

Child Songs of Cheer A robin redbreast, fluting thereUpon the apple-bough,Is telling all the world how fairAre apple-blossoms now;The honey-dew its sweetness spillsFrom cuckoo-cups, and allThe crocuses and daffodilsAre drest for festival!Such pretty things are to be seen,Such pleasant things to do,The April earth it is so green,The April sky so blue,The path from dawn to even-songSo joyous is... more...

INTRODUCTION It has long been the opinion of many of the more progressive teachers of the United States that, next to Herakles, Odysseus is the hero closest to child-life, and that the stories from the "Odyssey" are the most suitable for reading-lessons. These conclusions have been reached through independent experiments not related to educational work in foreign countries. While sojourning in... more...

APPREHENSION AND all hours long, the town  Roars like a beast in a caveThat is wounded thereAnd like to drown;  While days rush, wave after waveOn its lair. An invisible woe unseals  The flood, so it passes beyondAll bounds: the great old cityRecumbent roars as it feels  The foamy paw of the pondReach from immensity. But all that it can do  Now, as the tide rises,Is to listen and hear the... more...

CANTO I O'er better waves to speed her rapid courseThe light bark of my genius lifts the sail,Well pleas'd to leave so cruel sea behind;And of that second region will I sing,In which the human spirit from sinful blotIs purg'd, and for ascent to Heaven prepares. Here, O ye hallow'd Nine! for in your trainI follow, here the deadened strain revive;Nor let Calliope refuse to soundA... more...

THE GHETTO I   Cool, inaccessible air  Is floating in velvety blackness shot with steel-blue lights,  But no breath stirs the heat  Leaning its ponderous bulk upon the Ghetto  And most on Hester street…   The heat…  Nosing in the body's overflow,  Like a beast pressing its great steaming belly close,  Covering all avenues of air…   The heat in Hester street,  Heaped... more...

THE NORTH WIND DOTH BLOW "Different people have different opinions" The North Wind doth blow,And we shall have snow,And what will the robin do then? Poor thing!He will sit in a barn,And to keep himself warmHe will hide his head under his wing. Poor thing! Oh, how cold it was! The North Wind howled round the barn, whirling the snowflakes into a little heap inside the half-open door. Even beyond... more...

THE DIARY OF AN OLD SOUL. 1. LORD, what I once had done with youthful might,Had I been from the first true to the truth,Grant me, now old, to do—with better sight,And humbler heart, if not the brain of youth;So wilt thou, in thy gentleness and ruth,Lead back thy old soul, by the path of pain,Round to his best—young eyes and heart and brain. 2. A dim aurora rises in my east,Beyond the line of jagged... more...

JACKY DANDY.This is little Jacky DandyHe loves cake and sugar-candy,He bought some at the grocer’s shop,And pleased away went hop, hop, hop. He hopp’d to the fair,And saw a show there.The first was the Lion,That never would yield;Behold how he ranger,The King of the field. He next saw the Wolf, a cruel and savage beast.This is the Wolf,That prouls thro’ the wood,Who preys upon lambs,And drinks of... more...

ON THE LIFE AND POETIC GENIUS OF EDWARD YOUNG. Between the period of George Herbert, and that of Edward Young, some singular changes had taken place in British poetry as well as in British manners, politics, and religion. There had passed over the land the thunderstorm of the Puritanic Revolt, which had first clouded and then cleared, for a season, the intellectual and moral horizon. The effect of this... more...

COME LASSES AND LADS Come Lasses and Lads, get leave of your Dads, And away to the May-pole hey: For every heHas got him a she,with a minstrel standing by. For Willy has gotten his Jill,And Johnny has got his Jone,To jigg it, jigg it, jigg it, jigg it,Jigg it up and down. "Strike up," says Watt; "Agreed," says Kate,"And I prithee, Fiddler, play;""Content," says Hodge,... more...