Poetry Books

INTRODUCTION Upon being asked by a Reader whether the verses contained in this book were true.   And is it True? It is not True.And if it were it wouldn’t do,For people such as me and youWho pretty nearly all day longAre doing something rather wrong.Because if things were really so,You would have perished long ago,And I would not have lived to writeThe noble lines that meet your sight,Nor B. T. B.... more...

TO THE READER. Though cooks are often men of pregnant wit,Through niceness of their subject few have writ.’Tis a sage question, if the art of cooksIs lodg’d by nature or attain’d by books?That man will never frame a noble treat,Whose whole dependence lies in some receipt.Then by pure nature everything is spoil’d,—She knows no more than stew’d, bak’d, roast, and boil’d.When art and... more...

FANTASIES.   Altruism: A Legend of Old Persia. In the flowery land of Persia Long ago, as poets tell, Where three rivers met together Did a happy people dwell. Never did these happy people Suffer sickness, plague, or dearth, Living in a golden climate In the fairest place on earth, Living thus thro' endless summers And half-summers hardly colder, Growing, tho' they hardly guessed it, Very... more...

In the tenth book of the Republic, when Plato has completed his final burning denunciation of Poetry, the false Siren, the imitator of things which themselves are shadows, the ally of all that is low and weak in the soul against that which is high and strong, who makes us feed the things we ought to starve and serve the things we ought to rule, he ends with a touch of compunction: 'We will give... more...

PREFACE. Whatever other excellence may be wanting in the ensuing Poems, they are, with only nine exceptions out of the hundred, strictly Sonnets. Those nine vary only from the rules of the legitimate Sonnet in that they rhime three, instead of four times in the first part. The pause is in them, as in the rest, variously placed through the course of the verses; and thus they bear no more resemblance... more...

1. WILLKOMMEN UND ABSCHIED Es schlug mein Herz, geschwind zu Pferde!Es war getan, fast eh' gedacht;Der Abend wiegte schon die Erde,Und an den Bergen hing die Nacht;Schon stand im Nebelkleid die Eiche, 5Ein aufgetürmter Riese, da,Wo Finsternis aus dem GesträucheMit hundert schwarzen Augen sah. Der Mond von einem WolkenhügelSah kläglich aus dem Duft hervor; 10Die Winde schwangen leise... more...

MASTER WILLIE. There was once a little boy called Willie. I never knew his other name, and as he lived far off behind the mountain, we cannot go to inquire. He had fair hair and blue eyes, and there was something in his face that, when you had looked at him, made you feel quite happy and rested, and think of all the things you meant to do by-and-by when you were wiser and stronger. He lived all alone... more...

PREFACE The poems garnered up in this little volume were written at different periods in the life of the author, dating from her early girlhood up to recent years. They were not written with a view of making a book, each poem being the spontaneous outpouring of a deeply poetic nature and called forth by some experience that claimed her attention. The "Old Man of the Mountain," for instance, was... more...

“And hard by doth dwell, in St. Catherine’s cell, Ambrose, the anchorite old and grey.”—The Lay of St. Nicholas. Ambrose the anchorite old and greyLarruped himself in his lonely cell,And many a welt on his pious peltThe scourge evoked as it rose and fell. For hours together the flagellant leatherWent whacketty-whack with his groans of pain;And the lay-brothers said, with a wag of the... more...

EROS The sense of the world is short,—Long and various the report,—To love and be beloved;Men and gods have not outlearned it;And, how oft soe'er they've turned it,'Tis not to be improved. Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882] "NOW WHAT IS LOVE" Now what is Love, I pray thee, tell?It is that fountain and that wellWhere pleasure and repentance dwell;It is, perhaps, the sauncing... more...