Poetry Books

No species of poetry is more ancient than the lyrical, and yet none shows so little sign of having outlived the requirements of human passion. The world may grow tired of epics and of tragedies, but each generation, as it sees the hawthorns blossom and the freshness of girlhood expand, is seized with a pang which nothing but the spasm of verse will relieve. Each youth imagines that spring-tide and love... more...

TO THE MOTHER "A Court as of angels, A public not to be bribed, Not to be entreated, Not to be overawed." Such is the audience—in long clothes or short frocks, in pinafores or kilts, or in the brief trousers that bespeak the budding man—such is the crowing, laughing court, the toddling public that awaits these verses. Every home, large or small, poor or rich, that has a child in it, is a... more...

1ONETWOCome buckle my Shoe.You lazy Elf!Pray do it yourself. Philadel Pub. and Sold by W. Charles. 34THREEFOURShut the door:Let us keep ourselves warmAnd not think of the storm.6FIVESIXI’m picking some sticks,That my mother may makeA nice currant Cake.78SEVENEIGHTYou are come here too late.’Tis all one to Ben,He can go home again.910NINETENWho’ll buy a fat Hen?Her bones are so smallYou may eat... more...

AN UPBRAIDING Now I am dead you sing to me   The songs we used to know,But while I lived you had no wish   Or care for doing so. Now I am dead you come to me   In the moonlight, comfortless;Ah, what would I have given alive   To win such tenderness! When you are dead, and stand to me   Not differenced, as now,But like again, will you be cold   As when we lived, or how? "These... more...

A SON OF THE SEAI was born for deep-sea faring;I was bred to put to sea;Stories of my father's daringFilled me at my mother's knee.I was sired among the surges;I was cubbed beside the foam;All my heart is in its verges,And the sea wind is my home.All my boyhood, from far vernalBourns of being, came to meDream-like, plangent, and eternalMemories of the plunging sea. Oh, the shambling sea is a... more...

THE OLD HANGING FORK.I.O don't you remember those days so divine,Around which the heart-strings all tenderly twine,When with sapling pole and a painted corkWe fished up and down the old Hanging Fork—From the railroad bridge, with its single span,Clear down to the mill at Dawson's old dam—From early morn till the shades of night,And it made no difference if fishdidn'tbite?II.What... more...

THE GOLD-SPINNER. A miller had a daughter, And lovely, too, she was; Her step was light, her smile was bright, Her eyes were gray as glass. (So Chaucer loved to write of eyes In which that nameless azure lies So like shoal-water in its hue, Though all too crystal clear for blue.) As you would suppose, the miller Was very proud of her, And would never fail to tell some tale As to what her graces were.... more...

A FUGUE OF HELL. I.I dreamed a mighty dream. It seemed mine eyesSealed for the moment were to things terrene,And then there came a strange, great wind that blewFrom undiscovered lands, and took my soulAnd set it on an uttermost peak of HellAmid the gloom and fearful silences.Slowly the darkness paled, and a weird dawnBroke on my wondering vision, and there grewUncanny phosphorescence in the airWhich... more...

A JOLLY BOOK How can they put in black and whiteWhat little children think at night,When lights are out and prayers are said,And you are all tucked up in bed? Such funny dreams go dancing throughYour head, of things nobody knew,Or saw, or ever half believes!—They're all inside these singing leaves. And little children laugh and goA-ring-a-round-a-rosy-O;And birds sing gay—you'd almost... more...

CANTO III "THROUGH me you pass into the city of woe:Through me you pass into eternal pain:Through me among the people lost for aye.Justice the founder of my fabric mov'd:To rear me was the task of power divine,Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.Before me things create were none, save thingsEternal, and eternal I endure. "All hope abandon ye who enter here." Such characters in colour... more...