Poetry Books

CANTO I IN the midway of this our mortal life,I found me in a gloomy wood, astrayGone from the path direct: and e'en to tellIt were no easy task, how savage wildThat forest, how robust and rough its growth,Which to remember only, my dismayRenews, in bitterness not far from death.Yet to discourse of what there good befell,All else will I relate discover'd there.How first I enter'd it I... more...

OUR LITTLE BROWN HOUSE.  There's a little brown house just under the hill;It's not by the river, nor yet by a rill;It's not on the green-sward where the gay and proud meet,But it stands on the corner of Bandbarrack's street.This time-honored veteran, in armor complete,Has stood many winters the storm and the sleet—The early spring rains and the long summer heat,The wear and the... more...

A ROMAN LAWYER IN JERUSALEM Marcus, abiding in Jerusalem,Greeting to Caius, his best friend in Rome! Salve! these presents will he borne to youBy Lucius, who is wearied with this place,Sated with travel, looks upon the EastAs simply hateful—blazing, barren, bleak,And longs again to find himself in Rome,After the tumult of its streets, its trainsOf slaves and clients, and its villas coolWith marble... more...

GRAND'THER BALDWIN'S THANKSGIVING UNDERNEATH protected branches, from the highway just aloof;Stands the house of Grand'ther Baldwin, with its gently sloping roof. Square of shape and solid-timbered, it was standing, I have heard,In the days of Whig and Tory, under royal George the Third. Many a time, I well remember, I have gazed with Childish aweAt the bullet-hole remaining in the... more...

I. THE BEGINNINGS Coleridge lived in what may safely be called the most momentous period of modern history. In the year following his birth Warren Hastings was appointed first governor-general of India, where he maintained English empire during years of war with rival nations, and where he committed those acts of cruelty and tyranny which called forth the greatest eloquence of the greatest of English... more...

FIRST SESTIAD On Hellespont, guilty of true-love's blood,In view and opposite two cities stood,Sea-borderers, disjoined by Neptune's might;The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.At Sestos Hero dwelt; Hero the fair,Whom young Apollo courted for her hair,And offered as a dower his burning throne,Where she should sit for men to gaze upon.The outside of her garments were of lawn,The lining purple... more...

INTRODUCTION A SHORT LIFE OF ARNOLD Matthew Arnold, poet and critic, was born in the village of Laleham,Middlesex County, England, December 24, 1822. He was the son of Dr.Thomas Arnold, best remembered as the great Head Master at Rugby andin later years distinguished also as a historian of Rome, and of MaryPenrose Arnold, a woman of remarkable character and intellect. Devoid of stirring incident, and,... more...

THE OLD ARM-CHAIR. I love it, I love it; and who shall dare To chide me for loving that old arm-chair? I've cherished it long as a sainted prize; I've bedewed it with tears and embalmed it with sighs 'Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart; Not a tie will break, not a link will start. Would ye learn the spell?—a mother sat there: And a sacred thing is that old arm-chair. In... more...

Canto I.Right beautiful is Torksey's hall,Adown by meadowed Trent;Right beautiful that mouldering wall,And remnant of a turret tall,Shorn of its battlement. For, while the children of the SpringBlush into life, and die;And Summer's joy-birds take light wingWhen Autumn mists are nigh;And soon the year—a winterling—With its fall'n leaves doth lie;That ruin gray—Mirror'd,... more...

CANTO I His glory, by whose might all things are mov'd,Pierces the universe, and in one partSheds more resplendence, elsewhere less.  In heav'n,That largeliest of his light partakes, was I,Witness of things, which to relate againSurpasseth power of him who comes from thence;For that, so near approaching its desireOur intellect is to such depth absorb'd,That memory cannot follow.... more...