2. William Cullen Bryant
1794-1878:
He wrote in an English
romantic style and
celebrated the
countryside of New
England. His work was
well-received in his time.
3. To a Waterfowl
Whither, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,--
The desert and illimitable air,--
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fann'd
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere:
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end,
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,
And scream among thy fellows; reed shall bend
Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven
Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,
And shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
4. Mutation
Hey talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so--
Pain dies as quickly: stem, hard-featured pain
Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.
The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;
And after dreams of horror, comes again
The welcome morning with its rays of peace.
Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,
Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease.
Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase
Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:
Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release
His young limbs from the chains that round him press.
Weep not that the world changes--did it keep
A stable changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.
5. The Crowded Street
Let me move slowly through the street,
Filled with an ever-shifting train,
Amid the sound of steps that beat
The murmuring walks like autumn rain.
How fast the flitting figures come!
The mild, the fierce, the stony face;
Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and some
Where secret tears have left their trace.
They pass--to toil, to strife, to rest;
To halls in which the feast is spread;
To chambers where the funeral guest
In silence sits beside the dead.
And some to happy homes repair,
Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,
These struggling tides of life that seem
With mute caresses shall declare
The tenderness they cannot speak.
And some, who walk in calmness here,
Shall shudder as they reach the door
Where one who made their dwelling dear,
Its flower, its light, is seen no more. . . .
6. The Poet
Thou, who wouldst wear the name
Of poet mid thy brethren of mankind,
And clothe in words of flame
Thoughts that shall live within the general mind!
Deem not the framing of a deathless lay
The pastime of a drowsy summer day.
But gather all thy powers,
And wreak them on the verse that thou dust weave,
And in thy lonely hours,
At silent morning or at wakeful eve,
While the warm current tingles through thy veins,
Set forth the burning words in fluent strains.
No smooth array of phrase,
Artfully sought and ordered though it be,
Which the cold rhymer lays
Upon his page with languid industry,
Can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed,
Or fill with sudden tears the eyes that read.
The secret wouldst thou know
To touch the heart or fire the blood at will?
Let thine own eyes o'erflow;
Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill;
Seize the great thought, ere yet its power be past,
And bind, in words, the fleet emotion fast. . . .
7. Emily Dickinson
1830-1886:
She is regarded as one of
America’s greatest poets;
nearly 1800 of her poems
were published. She lived a
life of simplicity and
seclusion, yet wrote with
great power, questioning the
nature of immortality and
death.
8. 501: This World is Not Conclusion
This world is not conclusion;
A sequel stands beyond,
Invisible, as music,
But positive, as sound.
It beckons and it baffles;
Philosophies don't know,
And through a riddle, at the last,
Sagacity must go.
To guess it puzzles scholars;
To gain it, men have shown
Contempt of generations,
And crucifixion known.
-1862
9. 547: I’ve Seen a Dying Eye
I've seen a dying eye
Run round and round a room
In search of something, as it seemed,
Then cloudier become;
And then, obscure with fog,
And then be soldered down,
Without disclosing what it be,
'T were blessed to have seen.
-1862
10. 622: To Know Just How He Suffered Would Be Dear
To know just how he suffered would be dear;
To know if any human eyes were near
To whom he could entrust his wavering gaze,
Until it settled firm on Paradise.
To know if he was patient, part content,
Was dying as he thought, or different;
Was it a pleasant day to die,
And did the sunshine face his way?
What was his furthest mind, of home, or God,
Or what the distant say
At news that he ceased human nature
On such a day?
(continued)
11. And wishes, had he any?
Just his sigh, accented,
Had been legible to me.
And was he confident until
Ill fluttered out in everlasting well?
And if he spoke, what name was best,
What first,
What one broke off with
At the drowsiest?
Was he afraid, or tranquil?
Might he know
How conscious consciousness could grow,
Till love that was, and love too blest to be,
Meet -- and the junction be Eternity?
-1862
12. 1090: I Am Afraid To Own a Body
I am afraid to own a Body—
I am afraid to own a Soul—
Profound—precarious Property
Possession, not optional—
Double Estate—entailed at pleasure
Upon an unsuspecting Heir—
Duke in a moment of Deathlessness
And God, a Frontier.
-1866
13. 1128: These Are the Nights
These are the Nights that Beetles love—
From Eminence remote
Drives ponderous perpendicular
His figure intimate
The terror of the Children
The merriment of men
Depositing his Thunder
He hoists abroad again—
A Bomb upon the Ceiling
Is an improving thing—
It keeps the nerves progressive
Conjecture flourishing—
Too dear the Summer evening
Without discreet alarm—
Supplied by Entomology
With its remaining charm—
-1868
14. Hope is the Thing with feathers
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I 've heard it in the chilliest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
15. Ralph Waldo Emerson
1803-1882:
He wrote mostly about nature and
remains important in American
history as a founder of the school of
thought known as
Transcendentalism. Its chief
features were a reliance on intuition
over cold, scientific reason, a belief
that the natural world held spiritual
truths and an optimistic view of the
human spirit.
16. Motto to “Illusions” When thou dost return
Flow, flow the waves hated, On the wave’s circulation,
Accursed, adored, Beholding the shimmer,
The waves of mutation: The wild dissipation,
No anchorage is. And, out of endeavor
Sleep is not, death is not; To change and to flow,
Who seem to die live. The gas become solid,
House you were born in, And phantoms and nothings
Friends of your spring-time, Return to be things,
Old man and young maid, And endless imbroglio
Day’s toil and is guerdon, Is law and the world, --
They are all vanishing, The first shalt thou know,
Fleeing to fables, That in the wild turmoil,
Cannot be moored. Horsed on the Proteus,
See the stars through them, Thou ridest to power,
Through treacherous marble. And to endurance.
Know, the stars yonder, -1860
The stars everlasting,
Are fugitive also,
And emulate, vaulted,
The lambent heat-lightning,
And fire-fly’s flight.
17. Motto to “The Poet”
A moody child and wildly wise
Pursued the game with joyful eyes,
Which chose, like meteors, their way,
And rived the dark with private ray:
They overleapt the horizon’s edge,
Searched with Apollo’s privilege;
Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,
Saw the dance of nature forward far;
Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,
Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.
-1844
18. The World-Soul
Thanks to the morning light, Yet there in the parlor sits
Thanks to the foaming sea, Some figure of noble guise, --
To the uplands of New Hampshire, Through flood and sear and firmament;
To the green-haired forest free; Through light, through life, it forward flows.
Thanks to each man of courage,
To the maids of holy mind; I see the inundation sweet,
To the boy with his games undaunted, I hear the spending of the stream
Who never looks behind. Through years, through men, through nature
fleet,
The politics are base; Through passion, thought, through power and
The letters do not cheer; dream.
And ‘tis far in the deeps of history, -1853
The voice that speaketh clear.
Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.
19. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1807-1882:
American educator and poet
whose works include Paul
Revere’s Ride and The Song of
Hiawatha. He had the gift of
easy rhyme and wrote poetry
as a bird sings, with natural
grace and melody.
20. Mezzo Cammin
Half of my life is gone, and I have let
The years slip from me and have not fulfilled
The aspiration of my youth, to build
Some tower of song with lofty parapet.
Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret
Of restless passions that would not be stilled,
But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,
Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;
Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past
Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights, --
A city in the twilight dim and vast,
With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights, --
And hear above me on the autumnal blast
The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.
-1842
21. The Day is Done
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me
That my soul cannot resist:
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of time.
22. Snowflakes
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the trouble heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
-1863
23. Edgar Allan Poe
1809-1849:
He is best known for his tales of
mystery, but his poems contain
beauty and significance.
24. Edgar Allan Poe
“A Dream Within A Dream” I stand amid the roar
Take this kiss upon the brow! Of a surf-tormented shore,
And, in parting from you now, And I hold within my hand
Thus much let me avow: Grains of the golden sand—
You are not wrong who deem How few! yet how they creep
That my days have been a dream; Though my fingers to the deep,
Yet if hope has flown away While I weep – while I weep!
In a night, or in a day, O God! can I not grasp
In a vision, or in none, Them with a tighter clasp?
Is it therefore the less gone? O God! can I not save
All that we see or seem One from the pitiless wave?
Is but a dream within in a dream. Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
-1829
25. To One in Paradise
Thou wast that all to me, love, For, alas! alas! with me
For which my soul did pine – The light of life is o’er!
A green isle in the sea, love, “No more – no more – no more –“
A fountain and a shrine, (Such language holds the solemn sea
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, To the sands upon the shore)
And all the flowers were mine. Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry hope, that didst arise And all my days are trances,
But to be overcast! And all my nightly dreams
A voice from out the future cries, Are where thy dark eye glances,
“On! on!” but o’er the past And where thy footstep gleams,
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies In what ethereal dances,
Mute, motionless, aghast! By what eternal streams. -1834
26. The Sleeper
At midnight, in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top,
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin molders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps!- and lo! where lies
Irene, with her Destinies! . . .
27. Romance
Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowly lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been – a most familiar bird;
Taught me my alphabet to say,
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child, with a most knowing eye.
Of late, eternal condor years
So shake the very heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings,
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away – forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.
-1829
28. Henry David Thoreau
1817-1862:
Although he thought of himself
primarily as a poet during his early
years, he was later discouraged in
this pursuit and gradually came to
feel that poetry was too confining.
Thoreau is considered one of the
most influential figures in American
thought and literature. A supreme
individualist, he defended the
human spirit against materialism
and social conformity.
29. Brother Where Dost Thou Dwell
Brother where dost thou dwell?
What sun shines for thee now?
Dost thou indeed farewell?
As we wished here below.
What season didst thou find?
‘Twas winter here.
Are not the fates more kind
Than they appear?
Is thy brow clear again
As in thy youthful years?
And was that ugly pain
The summit of thy fears?
Yes, thou was cheery still,
They could not quench thy fire,
Thou dids’t abide their will,
And then retire…
-1843
30. Pray to What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong
Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong,
Which asks no duties and no conscience?
The moon goes up by leaps her cheerful path
In some far summer stratum of the sky,
While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.
The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,
And far and near upon the leafless shrubs
The now dust still emits a silvery light.
Under the hedge, where drift banks are their screen,
The titmice now pursue their downy dreams,
As often in the sweltering summer nights
The bee doth drop asleep in the flower cup,
When evening overtakes him with his load.
By the brooksides, in the still genial night,
The more adventurous wanderer may hear
The crystals shoot and form, and winter slow
Increase his rule by gentlest summer means.
31. On Ponkawtasset, Since, We Took Our Way
On Ponkawtasset, since, we took our way,
down this still stream to far Billericay,
A poet wise has settled, whose fine ray
doth often shine on Concord’s twilight day.
Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high,
Shining more brightly as the day goes by,
Most travelers cannot at first descry,
But eyes that wont to range the evening sky,
And know celestial lights, do plainly see,
And gladly hail them, numbering two or three;
for lore that’s deep must deeply studied be,
As from deep wells men read star-poetry.
These stars are never paled, though out of sight,
But like the sun they shine forever bright;
Ay, they are suns, though earth must in its flight
Put out its eye that it may see their light.
32. Walt Whitman
1819-1892:
He is generally considered
to be the most important
American poet of his time.
He wrote in free verse,
relying heavily on the
rhythms of common
American speech.
33. Song of Myself
1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creed and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
34. Cavalry Crossing a Ford
A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,
They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun –
hark to the musical clank,
Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,
Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture,
the negligent rest on the saddles,
Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford—while,
Scarlet and blue and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.
– 1865
35. O Captain! My Captain!
1
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
2
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
(continued)
36. 3
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
38. Tent on the Beach: The Dreamer
And one there was, a dreamer born,
Who, with a mission to fulfill,
Had left the Muses’ haunts to turn
The crank of an opinion-mill,
Making his rustic reed of song
A weapon in the war with wrong,
Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough
That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow.
For while he wrought with strenuous will
The work his hands had found to do,
He heard the fitful music still
Of winds that out of dream-land blew.
The din about him could not drown
What the strange voices whispered down;
Along his task-field weir processions swept,
The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped.
39. A Lament
The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken,
One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken;
One heart from among us no longer shall thrill
With joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill.
Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering now
The light of her glances, the pride of her brow;
Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vain
To hear the soft tones of her welcome again.
Give our tears to the dead! For humanity’s claim
From its silence and darkness is ever the same;
The hope of that world whose existence is bliss
May not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.
(continued)
40. For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throw
On the scene of its troubled probation below,
Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead,
To that glance will be dearer the tears which we shed.
Oh, who can forget the mild light of her smile,
Over lips moved with music and feeling the while,
The eye’s deep enchantment, dark, dream-like, and clear,
In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its tear.
And the charm of her features, while over the whole
Played the hues of the heart and the sunshine of soul;
And the tones of her voice, like the music which seems
Murmured low in our ears by the Angel of dreams!
41. The River Path
No bird-song floated down the hill,
The tangled bank below was still;
No rustle from the birchen stem,
No ripple from the water’s hem.
The dusk of twilight round us grew,
We felt the falling of the dew;
For, from us, ere the day was done,
The wooded hills shut out the sun.
But on the river’s farther side
We saw the hill-tops glorified, --
A tender glow, exceeding fair,
A dream of day without its glare.
With us the damp, the chill, the gloom:
With them the sunset’s rosy bloom;
While dark, through willowy vistas seen,
the river rolled in shade between.
42. Themes in 1800’s Poetry:
• Nature
• Religion
• Country
• Love
• Suffering
