Poetry Books

THE COD-FISHER Where leap the long Atlantic swellsIn foam-streaked stretch of hill and dale,Where shrill the north-wind demon yells,And flings the spindrift down the gale;Where, beaten 'gainst the bending mast,The frozen raindrop clings and cleaves,With steadfast front for calm or blastHis battered schooner rocks and heaves. To same the gain, to some the loss,To each the chance, the risk, the... more...

TO THE LITTLE COUSINS ANNIE, KITTY, AND CORDELIA I dedicate this book to you, my dearest dears, with more love than I have ink to write out, and more good wishes and fond hopes than any printer would care to print. You will see by these stories that the children of different countries are pretty much alike. I doubt not, if you were in France now, you would get along nicely with the little Monsieurs and... more...

INTRODUCTION A few days ago I said to a distinguished Bengali doctor of medicine, 'I know no German, yet if a translation of a German poet had moved me, I would go to the British Museum and find books in English that would tell me something of his life, and of the history of his thought. But though these prose translations from Rabindranath Tagore have stirred my blood as nothing has for years, I... more...

PART THE FIRST. I     IN the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,  Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pré  Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,  Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.  Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,  Shut out the turbulent tides; but at... more...

ADDRESSED TO THE CRITIC.      Critics of art, connoisseurs of fair Fame,Who on her bulwarks stand, to guard the wayUnto the courts wherein her favored dwell,Where they have gained admittance by the pass“True merit,” which alone can bring them there;Thine is the power the unworthy to debar,To tell them that they are unfit to comeTo seek a standing near her honored throne.Away in sorrow the... more...

BABY TORTOISE You know what it is to be born alone,Baby tortoise!The first day to heave your feet little by littlefrom the shell,Not yet awake,And remain lapsed on earth,Not quite alive. A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean. To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as ifit would never open,Like some iron door;To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower baseAnd reach your skinny little neckAnd take your... more...

CANTO XV True love, that ever shows itself as clearIn kindness, as loose appetite in wrong,Silenced that lyre harmonious, and still'dThe sacred chords, that are by heav'n's right handUnwound and tighten'd, flow to righteous prayersShould they not hearken, who, to give me willFor praying, in accordance thus were mute?He hath in sooth good cause for endless grief,Who, for the love of... more...

CHAP. I. What a Poet and Poesie is, and who may be worthily sayd the most excellent Poet of our time. A Poet is as much to say as a maker. And our English name well conformes with the Greeke word: for of [Greek: poiein] to make, they call a maker Poeta. Such as (by way of resemblance and reuerently) we may say of God: who without any trauell to his diuine imagination, made all the world of nought, nor... more...

Homer's "Iliad" begins towards the close of the last of the ten years of the Trojan War: its incidents extend over some fifty days only, and it ends with the burial of Hector. The things which came before and after were told by other bards, who between them narrated the whole "cycle" of the events of the war, and so were called the Cyclic Poets. Of their works none have survived;... more...

ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY.This is the month, and this the happy morn,Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King,Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,Our great redemption from above did bring;For so the holy sages once did sing,That he our deadly forfeit should release,And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.That glorious form, that light insufferable,And that far-beaming blaze... more...