Poetry Books

THE NIGHTINGALE, OR THE TRANSFORMED DAMSEL I know where stands a Castellaye,   Its turrets are so fairly gilt;With silver are its gates inlaid,   Its walls of marble stone are built. Within it stands a linden tree,   With lovely leaves its boughs are hung,Therein doth dwell a nightingale,   And sweetly moves that bird its tongue. A gallant knight came riding by,   He heard its dulcet ditty... 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...

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. 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...

The ordered intermingling of the real and the dream,— The mill above the river, and the mist above the stream; The life of ceaseless labor, brave with song and cheery call— The radiant skies of evening, with its rainbow o'er us all. An Old Sweetheart of Mine!—Is thisher presence here with me,Or but a vain creation ofa lover's memory?A fair, illusive visionthat would vanish into airDared... 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...

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...

OILING. (A Song In and Out of Season.) Excuse me, Sweetheart, if I smear,With wisdom learnt from ancient teachers,Now winter time once more is here,This grease upon your lengthy features!Behaving thus, your loyal friendNo whit encourages deception:Believe me, Fairest, in the endThis oil will better your complexion.Fairest, believe! Did you imagine in the bagTo sleep the sleep of Rip Van Winkle,Removed... more...

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...

INTRODUCTION. "Norman's Woe" is the picturesque name of a rocky headland, reef, and islet on the coast of Massachusetts, between Gloucester and Magnolia. The special disaster in which the name originated had long been lost from memory when the poet Longfellow chose the spot as a background for his description of the "Wreck of the Hesperus," and gave it an association that it will... more...