Nineteenth-Century American Poetry

Table Of Contents

INTRODUCTION
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
A NOTE ON THE TEXTS

JOEL BARLOW (1754–1812)
from The Columbiad: Book the Eighth

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794–1978)
Thanatopsis
To a Waterfowl
Mutation
Hymn to the North Star
To a Mosquito
A Meditation on Rhode Island Coal
The Prairies
The Crowded Street
Not Yet
The Poet
The Death of Lincoln

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882)
Each and All
The Humble-Bee
The Snow-Storm
Grace
Blight
Motto to “The Poet”
The World-Soul
Mithridates
Hamatreya
Ode, Inscribed to W.H. Channing
Merlin I
Motto to “Nature”
Days
The Chartist’s Complaint
Two Rivers
Motto to “Illusions”
Terminus

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807–1882)
Mezzo Cammin
The Warning
The Day Is Done
Dante
Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass
The Fire of Drift-Wood
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
The Ropewalk
The Golden Mile-Stone
from Hiawatha: The White Man’s Foot
Snow-Flakes
The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi
The Rhyme of Sir Christopher

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807–1892)
The Cities of the Plain
The Farewell
Official Piety
The Haschish
Skipper Ireson’s Ride
The Palm-Tree
Brown of Ossawatomie
A Word for the Hour
Barbara Frietchie
from Tent on the Beach: [The Dreamer]
Overruled

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809–1849)
Dreams
Sonnet: To Science
Romance
A Dream within a Dream
The City in the Sea
To One in Paradise
Silence
The Sleeper
The Conqueror Worm
Dreamland
Stanzas
The Raven
A Valentine
Ulalume
Annabel Lee
Eldorado

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809–1894)
Old Ironsides
Our Limitations
Latter-Day Warnings
The Chambered Nautilus
Iris, Her Book
Prologue
Tartarus

JONES VERY (1813–1880)
The New Birth
The Son
The Word
The Spirit
The Serpent
The Robe
The Winter Rain
The Cross
The Mountain
The Promise
The Birds of Passage
The Silent
The Indian’s Retort
Slavery
The First Atlantic Telegraph
The Slowness of Belief in a Spiritual World
Forevermore

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862)
Sic Vita
Brother Where Dost Thou Dwell
On Ponkawtasset, Since, We Took Our Way
Low-Anchored Cloud
Woof of the Sun, Ethereal Gauze
My Life Has Been the Poem I Would Have Writ
Inspiration
For Though the Eaves Were Rabbeted
Pray to What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong
A Winter and Spring Scene

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819–1891)
A Contrast
from A Fable for Critics
from The Biglow Papers: The Pious Editor’s Creed
The Darkened Mind
Sonnet: On Being Asked for an Autograph in Venice
The Boss
In a Copy of Omar Khayyam
Science and Poetry

WALT WHITMAN (1819–1892)
Song of Myself
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Beat! Beat! Drums!
As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado
Years of the Modern
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Passage to India
Prayer of Columbus
To a Locomotive in Winter

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1891)
Immolated
from Battle-Pieces
The Portent
Misgivings
The March into Virginia
The Temeraire
A Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Fight
Stonewall Jackson: Mortally Wounded at Chancellorsville
Stonewall Jackson: Ascribed to a Virginian
The House-Top
The College Colonel
The Martyr
The Apparition
Iris
from Clarel
from Part I, canto xiii: The Arch
Part II, canto vii: Guide and Guard
from Part II, canto xxiii: By the Jordan
from Part III, canto xx: Afterward
from Part III, canto xxix: Rolfe and the Palm
from Part IV, canto iii: The Island
Part IV, canto xxxi: Dirge
Part IV, canto xxxiv: Via Crucis
Part IV, canto xxxv: Epilogue
from John Marr and Other Sailors
Tom Deadlight
The Aeolian Harp
The Maldive Shark
The Berg
The Enviable Isles
Pebbles
from Timoleon
After the Pleasure Party
The Night-March
Art
Herba Santa
In a Bye-Canal
The Attic Landscape
The Parthenon
In the Desert
from Weeds and Wildings, Chiefly; with a Rose or Two
The Little Good Fellows
The Chipmunk
Time’s Betrayal
Rosary Beads
Miscellaneous Poems
The Rusty Man
Camoens
Fruit and Flower Painter
In Shards the Sylvan Vases Lie
To ––
Pontoosuce
Billy in the Darbies

FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN (1821–1873)
Sonnets: First Series
Infatuation
Rhotruda
As Sometimes in a Grove
Coralie
The Cricket

EMILY DICKINSON (1830–1886)
49. I never lost as much but twice
95. My nosegays are for Captivies––
77. I never hear the word “escape”
89. Some things that fly there be––
135. Water, is taught by thirst
185. “Faith” is a fine invention
211. Come slowly––Eden!
213. Did the Harebell loose her girdle
243. I’ve known a Heaven, like a Tent–
249. Wild Nights––Wild Nights!
257. Delight is as the flight––
258. There’s a certain Slant of light
281. ‘Tis so appalling––it exhilarates––
290. Of Bronze––and Blaze––
301. I reason, Earth is short––
307. The One who could repeat the Summer day––
315. He fumbles at your Soul
326. I cannot dance upon my Toes––
328. A Bird came down the Walk––
338. I know that He exists
357. God is a distant––stately Lover––
410. The first Day’s Night had come––
414. ‘Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch
435. Much Madness is divinest Sense––
448. This was a Poet––It is That
501. This World is not Conclusion
502. At least––to pray––is left––is left––
506. He touched me, so I live to know
519. ‘Twas warm––at first––like Us––
547. I’ve seen a Dying Eye
556. The Brain, within its Groove
577. If I may have it, when it’s dead
599. There is a pain––so utter––
606. The Trees like Tassels––hit––and swung–
612. It would have starved a Gnat––
613. They shut me up in Prose––
622. To know just how He suffered––would be dear––
629. I watched the Moon around the House
632. The Brain––is wider than the Sky––
640. I cannot live with You––
652. A Prison gets to be a friend––
656. The Name––of it––is “Autumn”––
657. I dwell in Possibility––
670. One need not be a Chamber––to be Haunted––
754. My Life had stood––a Loaded Gun––
1053. It was a quiet way––
1712. A Pit––but Heaven over it––
525. I think the Hemlock likes to stand
665. Dropped into the Ether Acre––
709. Publication––is the Auction
771. None can experience stint
812. A Light exists in Spring
824. The Wind begun to rock the Grass
854. Banish Air from Air––
915. Faith––is the Pierless Bridge
925. Struck, was I, not yet by Lightning––
949. Under the Light, yet under
959. A loss of something ever felt I––
997. Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
1056. There is a Zone whose even Years
1090. I am afraid to own a Body––
1128. These are the Nights that Beetles love––
1173. The Lightning is a yellow Fork
1235. Like Rain it sounded till it curved
1247. To pile like Thunder to its close
1311. This dirty––little––Heart
1331. Wonder––is not precisely Knowing
1575. The Bat is dun, with wrinkled Wings––
1400. What mystery pervades a well!
1433. How brittle are the Piers
1445. Death is the supple Suitor
1527. Oh give it Motion––deck it sweet
1542. Come show thy Durham Breast
1551. Those––dying then
1670. In Winter in my Room
1718. Drowning is not so pitiful
1751. There comes an hour when begging stops

SARAH MORGAN BRYAN PIATT (1836–1919)
The Palace-Burner
A Doubt
This World
In Her Prison
Answering a Child
No Help
In a Queen’s Domain
If I Had Made the World
Stone for a Statue
Army of Occupation
A Lesson in a Picture
A Pique at Parting
Her Word of Reproach
Sad Spring-Song

SIDNEY LANIER (1842–1881)
Song for “The Jacquerie”
Nirvana
To Beethoven
To Richard Wagner
The Revenge of Hamish
To Bayard Taylor

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1869–1935)
Walt Whitman
John Evereldown
Luke Havergal
Three Quatrains
The House on the Hill
Aaron Stark
Sonnet
Verlaine
Richard Cory
Cliff Klingenhagen
Reuben Bright
The Tavern
Octaves XV, XIX, XX

EXPLANATORY NOTES