Poetry Books

RHYMES OF A ROLLING STONE Prelude I sing no idle songs of dalliance days,No dreams Elysian inspire my rhyming;I have no Celia to enchant my lays,No pipes of Pan have set my heart to chiming.I am no wordsmith dripping gems divineInto the golden chalice of a sonnet;If love songs witch you, close this book of mine,Waste no time on it. Yet bring I to my work an eager joy,A lusty love of life and all things... more...

RELIGION AND POETRY BY WASHINGTON GLADDEN. The time is not long past when the copulative in that title might have suggested to some minds an antithesis,—as acid and alkali, or heat and cold. That religion could have affiliation with anything so worldly as poetry would have seemed to some pious people a questionable proposition. There were the Psalms, in the Old Testament, to be sure; and the minister... more...

The Hill People.Their steps are light and exceedingly fleet:They pass me by in the hurrying street.I pause to look at a window’s show—From the white-flecked alp the hill winds blow—And all at once it has passed me there,Lilting back to the land of the air,Back to the land of the great white stills:Is it only the wind that comes down from the hills?———Was it Pikes Peak Pixie or Cheyenne... 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...

MOLLIE CHARANE “O, Mollie Charane, where got you your gold?”   Lone, lone you have left me here.“O not in the curragh, deep under the mould.”   Lone, lone, and void of cheer. “O, Mollie Charane, where got you your stock?”   Lone, lone you have left me here.“O not in the curragh from under a block.”   Lone, lone, and void of cheer. “O, Mollie Charane, where got you your... more...

Barter   Life has loveliness to sell,   All beautiful and splendid things,  Blue waves whitened on a cliff,   Soaring fire that sways and sings,  And children's faces looking up  Holding wonder like a cup.   Life has loveliness to sell,   Music like a curve of gold,  Scent of pine trees in the rain,   Eyes that love you, arms that hold,  And for your spirit's still... more...

PREFACE. In this, the third series of Breakfast-Table conversations, a slight dramatic background shows off a few talkers and writers, aided by certain silent supernumeraries. The machinery is much like that of the two preceding series. Some of the characters must seem like old acquaintances to those who have read the former papers. As I read these over for the first time for a number of years, I... more...

ADDRESS TO THE FLAG [After the Battle of Gettysburg.]Float in the winds of heaven, O tattered Flag!Emblem of hope to all the misruled world:Thy field of golden stars is rent and red—Dyed in the blood of brothers madly spilledBy brother-hands upon the mother-soil.O fatal Upas of the savage Nile,Transplanted hither—rooted—multiplied—Watered with bitter tears and sending forthThy venom-vapors till... more...

Old Ragnor's Cliffs. Like some horrific Gorgon's mammoth skull,Thrown up by Titan spade,From out those cavesWhere saurians with mastodons had played,Before the sea had made their homes their graves,And scared their ghosts with screech of sea-born mew and gull, Is Ragnor's beetling brow, the seaman's dread,That scowls by night and dayOn that same seaAnd with earth-shaking sound is... more...

MARSK STIG’S DAUGHTERS Two daughters fair the Marshal had,O grievous was their fate and sad. The eldest she took her sister’s handAnd away they went to Sweden’s land. Home from the Stevn King Byrgye rode;Up to him Marsk Stig’s daughters trode. “What women ye who beset my gate?What brings ye hither at eve so late?” “Daughters of Stig, the Marshal brave,So earnestly thee for help we... more...