Poetry Books

THEILLUSTRATEDALPHABET OF BIRDS       BOSTONWM. CROSBY & H.P. NICHOLS.1851.      A     a   THE AUK A is an Auk,   Of the Artic sea,He lives on the ice,   Where the winds blow free.          B     b THE BLUE BIRD. B is a Blue Bird.  In early spring,How sweet his songs  Through the forest ring.      C    c   THE CONDOR. C is a Condor,  On the Andes'... more...

Strange Meeting It seemed that out of the battle I escapedDown some profound dull tunnel, long since scoopedThrough granites which Titanic wars had groined.Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and staredWith piteous recognition in fixed eyes,Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.And by his smile, I knew that... more...

THE VAGABOND It was deadly cold in Danbury town  One terrible night in mid November,  A night that the Danbury folk rememberFor the sleety wind that hammered them down,That chilled their faces and chapped their skin,  And froze their fingers and bit their feet,And made them ice to the heart within,      And spattered and scattered      And shattered and batteredTheir shivering bodies... more...

THE ROWERS 1902 (When Germany proposed that England should help her in a naval demonstration to collect debts from Venezuela.)The banked oars fell an hundred strong,And backed and threshed and ground,But bitter was the rowers' songAs they brought the war-boat round.They had no heart for the rally and roarThat makes the whale-bath smoke—When the great blades cleave and hold and leaveAs one on the... more...

BYTOWN. CHAPTER I. In '28, on Patrick's Day,At one p.m., there came this wayFrom Richmond, in the dawn of spring,He who doth now the glories singOf ancient Bytown, as 'twas then,A place of busy working men,Who handled barrows and pickaxes,Tamping irons and broadaxes,And paid no Corporation taxes;Who, without license onward carriedAll kinds of trade, but getting married;Stout, sinewy, and... more...

THEAFFECTIONATE SHEPHEARD. THE TEARES OF AN AFFECTIONATE SHEPHEARD SICKE FOR LOVE,OR THE COMPLAINT OF DAPHNIS FOR THELOVE OF GANIMEDE.Scarce had the morning starre hid from the lightHeavens crimson canopie with stars bespangled,But I began to rue th' unhappy sightOf that faire boy that had my hart intangled;Cursing the time, the place, the sense, the sin;I came, I saw, I viewd, I slipped in.If it... more...

THE HIGHER PANTHEISMIN A NUTSHELL One, who is not, we see: but one, whom we see not, is:Surely this is not that: but that is assuredly this.What, and wherefore, and whence? for under is over and under:If thunder could be without lightning, lightning could be without thunder.Doubt is faith in the main: but faith, on the whole, is doubt:We cannot believe by proof: but could we believe without?Why, and... more...

THE MAN THAT WAS A GHOSTGold light across the golden coomb;The sun went west with horns of fire;Athwart the sweet, sea-breathing roomThe swallows swooped; the village spireGlowed red against a gleam of broom;While earth its scented secrets told,There, silent, sunset-aureoled,Sat Ioläus, mild and old.In distance large the moving shipsSailed on into the evening skies.He gazed, and saw not. In eclipseHe... more...

e have no means of knowing the history of Master "Ebenezer Cook, Gentleman," who, one hundred and forty-six years ago, produced the Sot-Weed Factor's Voyage to Maryland. He wrote, printed, published, and sold it in London for sixpence sterling, and then disappeared forever. We do not know certainly that Mr. Cook himself was the actual adventurer who suffered the ills described by him... more...

INTRODUCTION. Few poems have been more variously designated than Comus. Milton himself describes it simply as “A Mask”; by others it has been criticised and estimated as a lyrical drama, a drama in the epic style, a lyric poem in the form of a play, a phantasy, an allegory, a philosophical poem, a suite of speeches or majestic soliloquies, and even a didactic poem. Such variety in the description... more...