American Books

Sail on, O Ship of State!Sail on, O Union, strong and great!Humanity with all its fears,With all the hopes of future years,Is hanging breathless on thy fate!We know what Master laid thy keel,What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel,Who made each mast, and sail, and rope,What anvils rang, what hammers beat,In what a forge and what a heatWere shaped the anchors of thy hope!Fear not each sudden sound and... more...

This book contains the undesigned, but all the more spontaneous and authentic, biography of a very rare spirit. It contains the record of a short life, into which was crowded far more of keen experience and high aspiration—of the thrill of sense and the rapture of soul—than it is given to most men, even of high vitality, to extract from a life of twice the length. Alan Seeger had barely passed his... more...

I think I should scarcely trouble the reader with a special appeal in behalf of this book, if it had not specially appealed to me for reasons apart from the author's race, origin, and condition. The world is too old now, and I find myself too much of its mood, to care for the work of a poet because he is black, because his father and mother were slaves, because he was, before and after he began to... more...

“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits which be Angels of Light are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common VVood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of VVood doth the same.” Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I. chap. v. “Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow; and,... more...

LONGFELLOW'S POEMS IN PROSE he home of the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, during the greater part of his life was in the picturesque town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and there many of his best known poems were written. The forge of the Village Blacksmith really stood there beneath the shelter of a "spreading chestnut tree," in Cambridge, and when, as the town grew larger, the... more...

MEMOIR. Frederick William Thomas was the oldest child of E. S. Thomas and Anna his wife. He was born at Providence Rhode Island, but spent his earlier years at Charleston South Carolina, where Mr. E. S. Thomas resided and edited and published the Charleston City Gazette. While Frederick William was still young, Mr. Thomas removed to Baltimore Maryland, and there his son was educated and brought up to... more...

LIFE OF LOWELL In Cambridge there are two literary shrines to which visitors are sure to find their way soon after passing the Harvard gates, "Craigie House," the home of Longfellow and "Elmwood," the home of Lowell. Though their hallowed retirement has been profaned by the encroachments of the growing city, yet in their simple dignity these fine old colonial mansions still bespeak the... more...

AN OLD SWEETHEART OF MINE As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.   The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh... more...

THE KINGDOM OF LOVE In the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth   Reflected the sunrise above,I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth   To seek for the Kingdom of Love.I asked of a Poet I met on the way   Which cross-road would lead me aright;And he said “Follow me, and ere long you shall see   Its glittering turrets of light.” And soon in the distance a city shone... more...

THE QUALITY OF THE WORKS OF EDWARD DOYLE The quality of Edward Doyle's work was appraised by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in the following article by Mrs. Wilcox which appeared in the New York Evening Journal and the San Francisco Examiner, in 1905: Shut your eyes and bind them with a black cloth and try for one hour to see how cheerful you can be. Then imagine yourself deprived for life of the light of... more...