American Books

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the houseNot a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;The children were nestled all snug in their beds,While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;And mamma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,Had just settled our brains for a... more...

One hesitates to lift the veil and throw the light upon a life so hidden and a personality so withdrawn as that of Emma Lazarus; but while her memory is fresh, and the echo of her songs still lingers in these pages, we feel it a duty to call up her presence once more, and to note the traits that made it remarkable and worthy to shine out clearly before the world. Of dramatic episode or climax in her... more...

OKLAHOMA. Oklahoma! Oklahoma! Land, O, land of the Fair God, Land where ancient, savage races Through barbarian ages trod! Through thy story fancy traces Facts above what fictions say, Where the world with haste advances,— Born are nations in a day! Where the wigwam stood so lonely, Lordly cities rise in might; Where spread desert wildness only, Fertile farms and homes delight. Thou hast summoned to... more...

FOREWORD In presenting a loyal and venerable ex-slave as an artless exponent of freedom, freedom of conduct as well as of speech, the author of this trivial volume is perhaps not composing an individual so truly as individualizing a composite, if the expression will pass. The grizzled brown dispenser of homely admonitions is a figure not unfamiliar to those who have "moved in plantation... more...

To M AE C E N A S.   MAECENAS, you, beneath the myrtle shade,  Read o'er what poets sung, and shepherds play'd.  What felt those poets but you feel the same?  Does not your soul possess the sacred flame?  Their noble strains your equal genius shares  In softer language, and diviner airs.    While Homer paints, lo! circumfus'd in air,  Celestial Gods in mortal forms... more...