Poetry Books

RETROSPECTION.I'd wandered, for a week or more,Through hills, and dells, and doleful green'ry,Lodging at any carnal door,Sustaining life on pork, and scenery.A weary scribe, I'd just let slipMy collar, for a short vacation,And started on a walking trip,That cheapest form of dissipation—And vilest, Oh! confess my pen,That I, prosaic, rather hate your"Ode to a Sky-lark" sort of... more...

THE AULD DOCTOR. O' a' the jobs that sweat the sarkGie me a kintra doctor's wark,Ye ca' awa' frae dawn till dark,Whate'er the weather be, O! Some tinkler wife is in the strae,Your boots are owre the taps wi' clayThrough wadin' bog an' sklimmin' braeThe besom for to see, O! Ye ken auld Jock o' Windybarns?The bull had near ca'ed oot his... more...

INTRODUCTION [The Dramatic Romances,...] enriched by some of the poems originally printed in Men and Women, and a few from Dramatic Lyrics as first printed, include some of Browning's finest and most characteristic work. In several of them the poet displays his familiarity with the life and spirit of the Renaissance—a period portrayed by him with a fidelity more real than history—for he enters... more...

PREFACE. The original, of which this is a translation, is universally considered one of the very best among many beautiful poems written by the same illustrious author. The sublime didactic thoughts therein expressed, in language majestic and yet so simple, have won for it a constantly increasing popularity; and, during half a century, in a language so rich in literary beauties as the Swedish, have... more...

"Less than the Dust" Less than the dust, beneath thy Chariot wheel,Less than the rust, that never stained thy Sword,Less than the trust thou hast in me, O Lord,Even less than these! Less than the weed, that grows beside thy door,Less than the speed of hours spent far from thee,Less than the need thou hast in life of me.Even less am I. Since I, O Lord, am nothing unto thee,See here thy Sword, I... more...

ES, she has grown old, And has caught a bad cold, Only bread and milk she touches, Except a little gruel, but she burns a greatdeal of fuel, and you may count,One, Two, Three, a great many times,while she hobbles across the room on hercrutches.   NOW many Lives has the Cat got? NONE! Is it true then, as they said, That poor old Puss is dead, So many lives as she’d got?   ES, the song has all been... more...

A SUMMER NIGHTHer mist of primroses within her breastTwilight hath folded up, and o'er the west,Seeking remoter valleys long hath gone,Not yet hath come her sister of the dawn.Silence and coolness now the earth enfold:Jewels of glittering green, long mists of gold,Hazes of nebulous silver veil the height,And shake in tremors through the shadowy night.Heard through the stillness, as in whispered... more...

INTRODUCTION WILLIAM CORY (Johnson) was born at Torrington in Devonshire, on January 9, 1823. He was the son of Charles William Johnson, a merchant, who retired at the early age of thirty, with a modest competence, and married his cousin, Theresa Furse, of Halsdon, near Torrington, to whom he had long been attached. He lived a quiet, upright, peaceable life at Torrington, content with little, and... more...

THE BROTHER AVENGED I stood before my master’s board,   The skinker’s office plying;The herald-men brought tidings then   That my brother was murdered lying. I followed my lord unto his bed,   By his dearest down he laid him;Then my courser out of the stall I led,   And with saddle and bit arrayed him. I sprang upon my courser’s back,   With the spur began to goad him;And ere I drew his... more...

Foreword I've tinkered at my bits of rhymesIn weary, woeful, waiting times;In doleful hours of battle-din,Ere yet they brought the wounded in;Through vigils of the fateful night,In lousy barns by candle-light;In dug-outs, sagging and aflood,On stretchers stiff and bleared with blood;By ragged grove, by ruined road,By hearths accurst where Love abode;By broken altars, blackened shrinesI've... more...