Poetry Books

I The sister Hours in circles linked,Daughters of men, of men the mates,Are gone on flow with the day that winked,With the night that spanned at golden gates.Mothers, they leave us, quickening seed;They bear us grain or flower or weed,As we have sown; is nought extinctFor them we fill to be our Fates.Life of the breath is but the loan;Passing death what we have sown. Pearly are they till the pale... more...

In an old world garden dreaming,Where the flowers had human names,Methought, in fantastic seeming,They disported as squires and dames. Of old in Rosamond's Bower,With it's peacock hedges of yew,One could never find the flowerUnless one was given the clue;So take the key of the wicket,Who would follow my fancy free,By formal knot and clipt thicket,And smooth greensward so fair to see And while... more...

THE MOUSE AND HER SONS.Once on a time there lived a Mouse,Sole mistress of a spacious house,And rich as mouse need be:'Tis true her dwelling, underground,Was neither long, nor square, nor round,But suiting her degree.No lofty ceilings there were seen,No windows clear, or gardens green,Or rooms with neat division.But, in a corner, she could findOf viands, sorted to her mind,A notable provision.Her... more...

Since the publication of Edward Fitzgerald's classic translation of the Rubaiyat in 1851 - or rather since its general popularity several years later - poets minor and major have been rendering the sincerest form of flattery to the genius of the Irishman who brought Persia into the best regulated families. Unfortunately there was only one Omar and there were scores of imitators who, in order to... more...

CLAIR DE LUNE. Your soul is as a moonlit landscape fair,Peopled with maskers delicate and dim,That play on lutes and dance and have an airOf being sad in their fantastic trim. The while they celebrate in minor strainTriumphant love, effective enterprise,They have an air of knowing all is vain,—And through the quiet moonlight their songs rise, The melancholy moonlight, sweet and lone,That makes to... more...

INTRODUCTION Thirteen years after the publication, in 1855, of the Poems, in two volumes, entitled "Men and Women," Browning reviewed his work and made an interesting reclassification of it. He separated the simpler pieces of a lyric or epic cast—such rhymed presentations of an emotional moment, for example, as "Mesmerism" and "A Woman's Last Word," or the picturesque... more...

Queen Summeror the Tourneyof the Lily & the Rosepenned & portrayedby Walter Crane When Summer on the earth was queenShe held her court in gardens greenFair hung with tapestry of leaves,Where threads of gold the sun enweavesWith checquered patterns on the floorOf velvet lawns the scythe smoothes o’er:Their waving fans the soft winds spreadEach way to cool Queen Summer’s head:The woodland... more...

EDWARD L. BERNAYSHe was a burly Dutch tenor,And I patiently trailed him in his waking and sleeping hoursThat I might not lose a story,—But his life was commonplace and unimaginative—Air raids and abdications kept his activities,(A game of bridge yesterday, a ride to Tarrytown),Out of the papers.I watchfully waited,Yearning a coup that would place him on theMusical map.A coup, such as kissing a... more...

IN WAR TIME. TO SAMUEL E. SEWALL AND HARRIET W. SEWAll, OF MELROSE. These lines to my old friends stood as dedication in the volume which contained a collection of pieces under the general title of In War Time. The group belonging distinctly under that title I have retained here; the other pieces in the volume are distributed among the appropriate divisions. OLOR ISCANUS queries: "Why should weVex... more...

There was an Old Man with a nose,Who said, "If you choose to supposeThat my nose is too long, you are certainly wrong!"That remarkable Man with a nose. There was a Young Person of Smyrna,Whose Grandmother threatened to burn her;But she seized on the Cat, and said, "Granny, burn that!You incongruous Old Woman of Smyrna!" There was an Old Man on a hill,Who seldom, if ever, stood still;He... more...