Selected Poems of Herman Melville

Table Of Contents

Selected Poems (Melville, Herman)Introduction
Suggestions for Further Reading
A Note on the Texts

Selected Poems

From Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866)

The Portent
Misgivings
The Conflict of Convictions
Apathy and Enthusiasm
The March into Virginia
Ball’s Bluff
DuPont’s Round Fight
Donelson
In the Turret
The Temeraire
A Utilitarian View of the Monitor‘s Fight
Shiloh
Battle of Stone River, Tennessee
The House-top
The Armies of the Wilderness
On the Photograph of a Corps Commander
The Swamp Angel
Sheridan at Cedar Creek
The College Colonel
A Dirge for McPherson
At the Cannon’s Mouth
The March to the Sea
The Frenzy in the Wake
The Surrender at Appomattox
A Canticle
The Martyr
“The Coming Storm”
Rebel Color-bearers at Shiloh
The Muster
“Formerly a Slave.”
Magnanimity Baffled
On the Slain Collegians
America
Verses Inscriptive and Memorial
On the Home Guards
The Fortitude of the North
An Uninscribed Monument
On the Grave
On a Natural Monument
Commemorative of a Naval Victory
The Scout toward Aldie
Lee in the Capitol
A Meditation
Supplement

From Clarel (1876)

Part I: Jerusalem
I. The Hostel
IV. Of the Crusaders
XIII. The Arch
XVII. Nathan
Part II: The Wilderness
IV. Of Mortmain
XI. Of Deserts
XXII. Concerning Hebrews
XXXI. The Inscription
XXXIV. Mortmain Reappears
XXXV. Prelusive
XXXVI. Sodom
Part III: Mar Saba
V. The High Desert
XXIX. Rolfe and the Palm
XXXII. Empty Stirrups
Part IV: Bethlehem
XX. Derwent and Ungar
XXI. Ungar and Rolfe
XXX. The Valley of Decision
XXXI. Dirge
XXXII. Passion Week
XXXIII. Easter
XXXIV. Via Crucis
XXXV. Epilogue

From John Marr and Other Sailors (1888)

John Marr and Other Sailors
John Marr
Tom Deadlight
Jack Roy
Sea-Pieces
The Haglets
Minor Sea-Pieces
The Man-of-War Hawk
The Tuft of Kelp
The Maldive Shark
Crossing the Tropics
The Berg
The Enviable Isles
Pebbles

From Timoleon (1891)

Timoleon
After the Pleasure Party
The Night-march
The Ravaged Villa
The Margrave’s Birthnight
Magian Wine
The Garden of Metrodorus
The Weaver
Lamia’s Song
In a Garret
Monody
Lone Founts
The Bench of Boors
The Enthusiast
Art
Buddha
C——’s Lament
Shelley’s Vision
Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem of the Twelfth Century
The Marchioness of Brinvilliers
The Age of the Antonines
Herba Santa
Fruit of Travel Long Ago
Venice
In a Bye-Canal
Pisa’s Leaning Tower
In a Church of Padua
Milan Cathedral
The Parthenon
Greek Masonry
Greek Architecture
The Apparition
In the Desert
The Great Pyramid

From Weeds and Wildings Chiefly: With a Rose or Two (1924)

Clover
The Little Good-Fellows
Trophies of Peace
The American Aloe on Exhibition
The New Rosicrucians
The New Ancient of Days
Immolated
The Rusty Man
Camoens
Montaigne and His Kitten
Gold in the Mountain
A Spirit Appeared to Me
Hearts-of-gold
Pontoosuce
Billy in the Darbies (from Billy Budd)

Notes
Index of First Lines