POETRY OF THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

Transcription

1 POETRY OF THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE A Diverse Anthology from the Romantic Period Edited and with an Introduction by PAUL KANE G E O R G E B R A Z I L L E R N E W Y O R K

2 INTRODUCTION, BY PAUL KANE 13 THE POEMS 23 LYDIA HUNTLEY SlGOURNEY ( ) 25 Indian Names 26 To a Shred of Linen 2 7 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT ( ) 30 Thanatopsis 31 To a Waterfowl 3 3 Sonnet To an American Painter Departing for Europe 34 To the Fringed Gentian 34 The Prairies 35 MARIA GOWEN BROOKS (1794?-I845) 39 from Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven 40 Composed at the Request of a Lady, and Descriptive of Her Feelings 47 GEORGE MOSES HORTON (1798P-1883?) 49 On Liberty and Slavery 50 On Hearing of the Intention of a Gentleman to Purchase the Poet's Freedom 51 RALPH WALDO EMERSON ( ) 53 Each and All 55 The Problem 56 The Visit 58 Uriel 59 Hamatreya 60 The Rhodora 62 The Snow-Storm 63 Ode, Inscribed to W. H. Channing 64 Merlin I 67

3 Merlin II 69 Bacchus 70 Musketaquid 72 Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument, April 19, Brahma 75 Days 76 Waldeinsamkeit 76 Compensation 78 "Awed I behold once more" 79 "Teach me I am forgotten by the dead" 80 Maia 80 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE ( ) n 81 "Oh could I raise the darken'd veil" 82 The Ocean 82 "Oh, Man can seek the downward glance" 83 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW ( ) 84 A Psalm of Life 86 The Wreck of the Hesperus 87 The Village Blacksmith 90 The Warning 91 Mezzo Cammin 92 The Jewish Cemetery at Newport 92 My Lost Youth 94 Aftermath 97 The Bells of San Bias 98 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER ( ) 100 The Hunters of Men 102 Ichabod! 103 Telling the Bees 104 Barbara Frietchie 106 What the Birds Said 108 Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll 110 EDGAR ALLAN POE ( ) 131 To Science 132 Romance 133

4 "Alone" To Helen Israfel The Valley of Unrest The City in the Sea Silence The Sleeper Lenore Dream-Land The Raven Ulalume A Ballad Annabel Lee o OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES ( ) Old Ironsides The Chambered Nautilus MARGARET FULLER ( ) Sistrum Flaxman Freedom and Truth FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD ( ) He Bade Me Be Happy Forgive and Forget Ah! Woman Still ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER ( ) "I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty" "Heart, heart, lie still" "Better a sin which purposed wrong to none" CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH ( ) Correspondences Enosis The Ocean In the Palais Royal Garden The Spirit of the Age Bird Language The Pines and the Sea

5 JONES VERY ( ) 174 The Columbine 175 The New Birth 175 The Garden c 176 The Dead 176 The Presence 177 Thy Brother's Blood 177 The Created 178 The New World 178 The Prayer 179 Autumn Leaves 180 The Barberry-Bush 180 The Hand and the Foot 181 Yourself 181 The Silent 182 The Spheres 183 The Lost 183 The Origin of Man 184 HENRY DAVID THOREAU ( ) 185 "I am a parcel of vain strivings tied" 186 The Poet's Delay 187 The Inward Morning 188 Rumors from an Aeolian Harp 189 "Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird" 189 "When Winter fringes every bough" 190 "My life has been the poem I would have writ" 191 "On fields oer which the reaper's hand has passed" 191 "Low-anchored cloud" 192 "What's the railroad to me?" 192 Music 193 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING ( ) 194 A Poet's Hope 195 Walden 197 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL ( ) 199 from A Fable for Critics 200

6 JULIA WARD HOWE ( ) 205 Battle-Hymn of the Republic 2 06 The Soul-Hunter 206 WALT WHITMAN ( ) 208 from Song of Myself 210 The Sleepers 221 I Sing the Body Electric 229 There Was a Child Went Forth A Woman Waits for Me 237 Spontaneous Me 238 Trickle Drops 240 I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing 240 Here the Frailest Leaves of Me 241 Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 241 Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 246 As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life 252 When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 254 Cavalry Crossing a Ford 254 When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 255 The Last Invocation 262 A Clear Midnight 262 A Noiseless Patient Spider 263 So Long! 263 Hours Continuing Long 266 HERMAN MELVILLE ( ) 267 The Portent 269 A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Fight 269 Malvern Hill 270 The Maldive Shark 271 To Ned 272 After the Pleasure Party 273 Monody 277 Art 278 Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem of the 12th Century 278 HENRY HOWARD BROWNELL ( ) 279 Night-Quarters 280 The Burial of the Dane 281

7 FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN ( ) 284 from Sonnets, First Series 285 VII "Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray" 285 X "An upper chamber in a darkened house" 285 from Sonnets, Third Series 286 X "Sometimes I walk where the deep water dips" 286 The Cricket 286 JAMES MONROE WHITFIELD ( ) 291 America PHOEBE CARY ( ) 297 Jacob 298 Advice Gratis to Certain Women 298 Dorothy's Dower 299 FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER ( ) 301 The Slave Mother 302 Bible Defence of Slavery 303 Lines 304 Free Labor 305 Let the Light Enter! 306 Bury Me in a Free Land 306 JOHN ROLLIN RIDGE ( ) 308 Mount Shasta 309 The Rainy Season in California 311 The Stolen White Girl 313 HENRY TIMROD ( ) 315 Dreams 316 "I know not why, but all this weary day" 317 Lines 317 HELEN HUNT JACKSON ( ) 319 In Time of Famine 320 Poppies on the Wheat 321 Crossed Threads 321 EMILY DICKINSON ( ) "Success is counted sweetest" "These are the days when Birds come back " 323

8 185 " 'Faith' is a fine invention" "I'm "wife" I've finished that " "I taste a liquor never brewed " "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers " "I like a look of Agony," "Wild Nights Wild Nights!" "There's a certain Slant of light" "A single Screw of Flesh" "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain," "A Clock stopped " "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" "Of Bronze and Blaze " "The Soul selects her own Society " "I should have been too glad, I see " "He fumbles at your Soul" "Before I got my eye put out" "A Bird came down the Walk " "After great pain, a formal feeling comes " "Much Madness is divinest Sense " "This is my letter to the World" "This was a Poet It is That" "I heard a Fly buzz when I died " "I'm ceded I've stopped being Theirs " "It was not Death, for I stood up" "Mine by the Right of the White Election!" "I reckon when I count at all " "They shut me up in Prose " "Our journey had advanced " "The Brain is wider than the Sky " "I cannot live with You " "Pain has an Element of Blank " "I dwell in Possibility " "Of all the Souls that stand create " "Publication is the Auction" "Because I could not stop for Death " "Remorse is Memory awake " "My Life had stood a Loaded Gun " "Despair's advantage is achieved" "This Consciousness that is aware" 346

9 986 "A narrow Fellow in the Grass" 1072 "Title divine is mine!" 1099 "My Cocoon tightens Colors tease " 1101 "Between the form of Life and Life" 1129 "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant " 1545 "The Bible is an antique Volume " 1593 "There came a Wind like a Bugle " 1651 "A Word made Flesh is seldom" 1732 "My life closed twice before its close " ADAH ISAACS MENKEN ( ) Judith Aspiration Infelix EMMA LAZARUS ( ) Echoes Venus of the Louvre 1492 The New Colossus From By The Waters of Babylon: No. V Currents NOTES ON THE POEMS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS