Poetry Books

The Bride The little white bride is left aloneWith him, her lord; the guests have gone;The festal hall is dim.No jesting now, nor answering mirth.The hush of sleep falls on the earthAnd leaves her here with him. Why should there be, O little white bride,When the world has left you by his side,A tear to brim your eyes?Some old love-face that comes again,Some old love-moment sweet with painOf passionate... more...

Author's Introduction   To you who have lifted the veil of mists o'er-blown  And gazed in the eyes of dawn when night had flown—  Have felt in your hearts a thrill of sheer delight  As you scanned the scene below from some alpine height—  I extend this fleeting glimpse across a world  Of forest and meadow land—at last unfurled—  Through vistas of soaring peaks with... more...

CANTO THE FIRST.I.Ye shores of England, as ye fast recedeThe pain of parting rends my weary breast.I must regret—yet there is little needThat I should mourn, for only wild unrestIs mine while in my native land I roam.Thou gav'st me birth, but cannot give a home.II.Yet happy were the days that have been mine,So happy that those days must needs be few.It could not be that that bright sun would... more...

PREFACE. It is singular that the first great age of English lyric poetry should have been also the one great age of English dramatic poetry: but it is hardly less singular that the lyric school should have advanced as steadily as the dramatic school declined from the promise of its dawn. Born with Marlowe, it rose at once with Shakespeare to heights inaccessible before and since and for ever, to sink... more...

PREFACE. Those friends who have taken an interest in my literary productions may feel some surprise at my appearance in the character of a translator of Sanscrit poetry. To those, and indeed to all who may take up the present volume, I owe some explanation of my pretensions as a faithful interpreter of my original text. Those pretensions are very humble; and I can unfeignedly say, that if the field had... more...

All round the year the changing suns and rains Beat on men’s work—to wreck and to decay— But nature builds more perfectly than they, Her changing unchanged sea resists, remains. All round the year new flowers spring up to shew How gloriously life is more strong than death; And in our hearts are seeds of love and faith, Ah, sun and showers, be kind, and let them grow.   RESURGAM. Swift pass the... more...

PREFACE Seldom does a book of poems appear that is definitely a response to demand and a reflection of readers' preferences. Of this collection that can properly be claimed. For a decade Normal instructor-primary plans has carried monthly a page entitled "Poems Our Readers Have Asked For." The interest in this page has been, and is, phenomenal. Occasionally space considerations or... more...

This is the House that Jack built. This is the Malt, that lay in the House that Jack built. This is the Rat, that eat the Malt, that lay in the House that Jack built. This is the Cat, that killed the Rat, that eat the Malt, that lay in the House that Jack built. This is the Dog, that worried the Cat, that killed the Rat, that eat the Malt, that lay in the House that Jack built. This is the Cow with the... more...

Oh, ye, who so lately were blythesome and gay,At the Butterfly’s Banquet, carousing away;Your feasts and your revels of pleasure are fled,For the soul of the Banquet, the Butterfly’s dead.No longer the Flies and the Emmets advance,To join with their friends in the Grasshopper’s dance;For see, his thin form o’er the favourite bend,And the Grasshopper mourns for the loss of his friend.And hark, to... more...

PRELUDE.   Poems are heavenly things,  And only souls with wings  May reach them where they grow,  May pluck and bear below,  Feeding the nations thus  With food all glorious.   Verses are not of these;  They bloom on earthly trees,  Poised on a low-hung stem,  And those may gather them  Who cannot fly to where  The heavenly gardens are.   So I by devious ways  Have pulled... more...