THREE CENTURIES OF AMERICAN POETRY
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam hardcover edition published March 1999
Bantam trade paper edition published March 1999
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1999 by Allen Mandelbaum and Robert D. Richardson, Jr.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Three centuries of American poetry, 1623–1923 / edited by Allen Mandelbaum and Robert D. Richardson, Jr.
p.
cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56923-3
1. American poetry. I. Mandelbaum, Allen, 1926–
II. Richardson, Robert D., Jr., 1934–
PS584.T48
811.008—dc21
1999
98-31408
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words
“Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
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v3.1
TO THE ROARING WIND
What syllable are you seeking,
Vocalissimus,
In the distances of sleep?
Speak it.
—Wallace Stevens
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Introductions: On the Canon of American Poetry
Of Those “Who Live and Speak for Aye”
I - THE COLONIAL ERA: TO 1775
JOHN SMITH
The Sea Marke
ROGER WILLIAMS
Of Eating and Entertainment
ANNE BRADSTREET
The Author to Her Book
To My Dear and Loving Husband
Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666
Epitaphs for Queen Elizabeth
Contemplations
from The Four Ages of Man
Old Age
The Prologue
Anagrams
MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH
from The Day of Doom
JOHN COTTON OF ‘QUEEN’S CREEK’
Bacons Epitaph
EDWARD TAYLOR
Prologue
from Gods Determinations
The Preface
from Preparatory Meditations: First Series
The Reflexion
Meditation 6
Meditation 8
from Meditation 22
from Preparatory Meditations: Second Series
from Meditation 7
from Meditation 35
from Meditation 36
from Meditation 43
from Meditation 77
The Likenings of Edward Taylor: A Gathering of Tropes
from Preparatory Meditations: First Series
from Meditation 3
from Meditation 39
from Preparatory Meditations: Second Series
from Meditation 5
from Meditation 18
from Meditation 25
from Meditation 67B
from Meditation 75
from Miscellaneous Poems
Upon a Spider Catching a Fly
Huswifery
Upon Wedlock, And Death of Children
RICHARD STEERE
from A Monumental Memorial of Marine Mercy
THOMAS MAULE
To Cotton Mather, from a Quaker
EBENEZER COOKE
from The Sot-weed Factor
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Epitaph in Bookish Style.
JANE COLMAN TURELL
You Beauteous Dames
from An Invitation into the Country
ANONYMOUS
The Cameleon Lover (1732)
The Cameleon’s Defence (1732)
FRANCIS HOPKINSON
O’er the Hills
DANIEL BLISS
Epitaph of John Jack
ANONYMOUS
The Country School
SONGS AND HYMNS: TO 1775
The Lord to Mee a Shepherd Is (The Bay Psalm Book, 1640)
A Whaling Song (John Osborn, n.d.)
Christ the Apple-Tree (Anonymous, 1761)
Springfield Mountain (Irma Townsend Ireland, 1761)
Let Tyrants Shake (William Billings, 1770)
Wak’d by the Gospel’s Joyful Sound (Samson Occom, 1774)
II - REVOLUTION AND THE EARLY REPUBLIC: 1775–1825
JOHN TRUMBULL
from M’Fingal
from The Town-Meeting,
A.M
.
PHILIP FRENEAU
from George the Third’s Soliloquy
from The House of Night—A Vision
from The British Prison Ship
The Vanity of Existence—To Thyrsis
The Hurricane
The Wild Honey Suckle
The Indian Burying Ground
On the Uniformity and Perfection of Nature
Epitaph for Jonathan Robbins
PHILLIS WHEATLEY
To the University of Cambridge in New England, America
America
JOEL BARLOW
from The Hasty Pudding
from The Vision of Columbus
from The Columbiad
SONGS AND HYMNS: 1775–1825
Yankee Doodle (Anonymous, 1776)
The Yankee Man-of-War (Anonymous, 1778)
See! How the Nations Rage Together (Richard Allen, 1801)
I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord (Timothy Dwight, 1801)
Poor Wayfaring Stranger (Anonymous, n.d.)
Walk Softly (Shaker Hymn, n.d.)
I Will Bow and Be Simple (Shaker Hymn, n.d.)
Home, Sweet Home (John Howard Payne, 1823)
Oh Thou, to Whom in Ancient Time (John Pierpont, 1824)
III - YOUNG AMERICA: THE ROMANTIC ERA: 1826–1859
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Thanatopsis
from The Prairies
Green River
To Cole, the Painter, Departing for Europe
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY
The Indian’s Welcome to the Pilgrim Fathers
from The Stars
Death of an Infant
GEORGE MOSES HORTON
Early Affection
EDWARD COOTE PINKNEY
On Parting
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The Sphinx
Each and All
Hamatreya
The Rhodora
The Snowstorm
Ode Inscribed to W. H. Channing
Give All to Love
Bacchus
Blight
Dirge
Threnody
Concord Hymn
Brahma
Boston Hymn
Days
Terminus
Experience
from Quatrains
Poet [I]
Poet [II]
Shakspeare
Memory
Climacteric
Unity
Circles
from Life
from The Exile
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN
from The Past
To—–
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH
Annihilation
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER
Telling the Bees
from Snow-Bound—A Winter Idyl
Ichabod
The Fruit Gift
Abraham Davenport
The Slave-Ships
The Christian Slave
from Yorktown
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Hymn to the Night
A Psalm of Life
The Wreck of the Hesperus
Excelsior
The Slave in the Dismal Swamp
The Warning
The Arrow and the Song
Mezzo Cammin
from Fragments
December 18, 1847
August 4, 1856
Elegaic Verse XII
Jugurtha
The Cross of Snow
The Sound of the Sea
Chaucer
Divina Commedia
Snow-flakes
The Children’s Hour
Sandalphon
My Lost Youth
Haunted Houses
from Evangeline
from The Song of Hiawatha
Hiawatha’s Fasting
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
from Michael Angelo: A Fragment
from Monologue: The Last Judgment
from In the Coliseum
from From the Anglo-Saxon
The Grave
from Tales of a Wayside Inn
The Landlord’s Tale: Paul Revere’s Ride
The Spanish Jew’s Tale: The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi
The Spanish Jew’s Tale: Azrael
Delia
Dedication
LUCRETIA DAVIDSON
The Fear of Madness
EDGAR ALLAN POE
Sonnet—to Science
To Helen
Israfel
The City in the Sea
The Haunted Palace
Sonnet, Silence
The Conqueror Worm
Lenore
The Raven
Ulalume—A Ballad
The Bells
A Dream Within a Dream
For Annie
Eldorado
Annabel Lee
Monody on Doctor Olmsted
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
from An After-Dinner Poem (Terpsichore)
Aestivation
Ballad of the Oysterman
The Chambered Nautilus
The Deacon’s Masterpiece
The Last Leaf
Old Ironsides
Peau de Chagrin of State Street
The Poet Grows Old
THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS
The Shell
MARGARET FULLER
Let me Gather from the Earth
Winged Sphinx
FRANCES S. OSGOOD
He Bade me be Happy
ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER
I Slept and Dreamed
JONES VERY
The Dead
Thy Better Self
Enoch
The Latter Rain
The Eagles
The New Man
CHRISTOPHER CRANCH
Enosis
December
The Autumn Rain
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Love Equals Swift and Slow
Light-Winged Smoke
Though All the Fates
Salmon Brook
I Am a Parcel of Vain Strivings
All Things Are Current Found
My Life Has Been the Poem
Any Fool Can Make a Rule
I Am Bound, I Am Bound
The Poet’s Delay
WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING
from The Earth Spirit
AMERICAN INDIAN POEMS: 1826–1859
Chant to the Fire-fly
From the South: I
From the South: II
SONGS, HYMNS, CAROLS, AND PARLOR POEMS: 1826–1859
The Lament of the Captive (Richard H. Wilde, 1819)
A Visit from St. Nicholas (Clement Moore, 1823)
The Old Oaken Bucket (Samuel Woodworth, 1826)
Mary Had a Little Lamb (Sarah Josepha Hale, 1830)
America (Samuel Francis Smith, 1831)
Woodman, Spare That Tree (George Pope Morris, 1837)
Nearer My God to Thee (Sarah F. Adams, 1841)
Old Dan Tucker (Daniel Decatur Emmett, 1841)
The Blue Tail Fly (Daniel Decatur Emmett?, 1846)
Oh, Susanna! (Stephen Foster, 1848)
Camptown Races (Stephen Foster, 1850)
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (Edmund Hamilton Sears, 1850)
The E-ri-e (Anonymous, c.1850)
Turkey in the Straw (Anonymous, 1851)
Listen to the Mocking Bird (Septimus Winner, 1855)
Jingle Bells (John Pierpont, 1857)
The Yellow Rose of Texas (Anonymous, 1858)
Sweet Betsey from Pike (John A. Stone, 1858)
Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus (George Duffield, Jr., 1858)
IV - THE CIVIL WAR ERA: 1860–1870
WALT WHITMAN
One’s-Self I sing
To the States
The Ship Starting
Song of Myself (1891–1892 ed.)
In Paths Untrodden
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
On the Beach at Night
Europe
As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life
The Dalliance of the Eagles
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
The Wound-Dresser
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d
O Captain! My Captain!
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A Prairie Sunset
The Dismantled Ship
Good-Bye My Fancy
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
from A Fable for Critics
Phoebus
Emerson
Channing and Thoreau
Alcott
Hawthorne
Cooper
Poe
Longfellow
Philothea (Lydia Child)
Holmes
Lowell
from The Biglow Papers
from Introduction
The ’Cruetin Sarjunt
from Under the Willows
Aladdin
from Our Own—Progression F
HERMAN MELVILLE
The Portent
Misgivings
Shiloh: A Requiem
The House-Top, a Night Piece
The Martyr
The Apparition—A Retrospect
The Maldive Shark
To Ned
The Berg
Monody
Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem
The Ravaged Villa
My Jacket Old
Pontoosuc
from Clarel
from The Hostel
from The Inscription
from Prelusive
from The Cypriote
from The Shepherd’s Dale
from A New-Comer
from Ungar and Rolfe
Epilogue
ALICE CARY
The Bridal Veil
ANN PLATO
The Natives of America
JOSHUA McCARTER SIMPSON
from Away to Canada
FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN
from Sonnets, First Series
VI Not sometimes, but to him that heeds
from Sonnets, Second Series
V No! Cover not the fault. The wise revere
VII His heart was in his garden
XVIII And change with hurried hand
from Sonnets, Fourth Series
VIII Nor strange it is, to us who walk
from The Cricket
The Refrigerium
F.E.W. HARPER
Bury Me in a Free Land
from Moses, A Story of the Nile
The Death of Moses
LUCY LARCOM
They Said
from November
CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
Ballad
BAYARD TAYLOR
Bedouin Song
ROSE TERRY COOKE
Blue-beard’s Closet
HENRY TIMROD
Charleston
Ethnogenesis
La Belle Juive
Ode Sung at Magnolia Cemetery
HELEN HUNT JACKSON
Her Eyes
EMILY DICKINSON
49 I never lost as much but twice
67 Success is counted sweetest
71 A throe upon the features
76 Exultation is the going
108 Surgeons must be very careful
130 These are the days when Birds come back
146 On such a night
153 Dust is the only Secret
185 “Faith” is a fine invention
187 How many times these low feet staggered
189 It’s such a little thing to weep
201 Two swimmers wrestled on the spar
210 The thought beneath so slight a film
211 Come slowly—Eden!
214 I taste a liquor never brewed
216 Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (1859 and 1861)
234 You’re right—“the way is narrow”
241 I like a look of Agony
249 Wild Nights—Wild Nights!
254 “Hope” is the thing with feathers
258 There’s a certain Slant of light
280 I felt a Funeral, in my Brain
287 A Clock Stopped
288 I’m Nobody! Who are you?
301 I reason, Earth is short
303 The Soul selects her own Society
305 The difference between Despair
315 He fumbles at your Soul
324 Some keep the Sabbath going to Church
326 I cannot dance upon my Toes
341 After great pain, a formal feeling comes
346 Not probable—The barest Chance
352 Perhaps I asked too large
355 ’Tis Opposites—entice
356 The Day that I was crowned
364 The Morning after Woe
365 Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?
367 Over and over, like a Tune
376 Of Course—I prayed
377 To lose one’s faith—surpass
378 I saw no Way—The Heavens were stitched
383 Exhilaration—is within
384 No Rack can torture me
391 A Visitor in Marl
401 What Soft—Cherubic Creatures
405 It might be lonelier
407 If What we could—were what we would
429 The Moon is distant from the Sea
435 Much Madness is divinest Sense
441 This is my letter to the World
448 This was a Poet—It is That
455 Triumph—may be of several kinds
456 So well that I can live without
461 A Wife—at Daybreak I shall be
465 I heard a Fly buzz—when I died
485 To make One’s Toilette—after Death
492 Civilization—spurns—the Leopard!
501 This World is not Conclusion
502 At least—to pray—is left—is left
505 I would not paint—a picture
510 It was not Death, for I stood up
511 If you were coming in the Fall
518 Her sweet Weight on my Heart at Night
536 The Heart asks Pleasure—first
569 I reckon—when I count at all
579 I had been hungry, all the Years
640 I cannot live with You
642 Me from Myself—to banish
650 Pain—has an Element of Blank
657 I dwell in Possibility
675 Essential Oils—are wrung
680 Each Life Converges to some Centre
701 A Thought went up my mind today
709 Publication—is the Auction
724 It’s easy to invent a Life
729 Alter! When the Hills do
754 My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun
777 The Loneliness One dare not sound
785 They have a little Odor—that to me
847 Finite—to fail, but infinite to Venture
861 Split the Lark—and you’ll find the Music
870 Finding is the first Act
875 I stepped from Plank to Plank
883 The Poets light but Lamps
884 An Everywhere of Silver
914 I cannot be ashamed
963 A nearness to Tremendousness
994 Partake as doth the Bee
997 Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
1036 Satisfaction—is the Agent
1072 Title divine—is mine!
1129 Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
1196 To make routine a stimulus
1212 A word is dead
1218 Let my first Knowing be of thee
1226 The Popular Heart is a Cannon first
1333 A little Madness in the Spring
1463 A Route of Evanescence
1624 Apparently with no surprise
1651 A Word made Flesh is seldom
1732 My life closed twice before its close
1755 To make a prairie
1760 Elysium is as far as to
1765 That Love is all there is
CELIA THAXTER
Imprisoned
Alone
MARK TWAIN [SAMUEL CLEMENS]
Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
Fredericksburg
Identity
Memory
CHARLOTTE L.F. GRIMKE
Wordsworth
ADAH ISAACS MENKEN
Infelix
SIDNEY LANIER
The Crystal
Marsh Song—at Sunset
from Sunrise
The Raven Days
from Clover
The Mocking Bird
Song of the Chattahoochee
The Marshes of Glynn
A Ballad of Trees and the Master
SONGS, HYMNS, SPIRITUALS, AND CAROLS: 1859–1870
Dixie’s Land (Daniel Decatur Emmett, 1859)
Battle Hymn of the Republic (Julia Ward Howe, 1862)
When Johnny Comes Marching Home (“Louis Lambert”
[Patrick S. Gilmore], 1863)
When You and I Were Young, Maggie
(George W. Johnson, 1866)
Nobody Knows de Trouble I’ve Had (Unknown, 1867)
Rock O’ My Soul (Unknown, 1867)
Many Thousand Gone (Unknown, 1867)
Michael Row the Boat Ashore (Unknown, 1867)
O Little Town of Bethlehem (Phillips Brooks, 1868)
There Is a Balm in Gilead (Unknown)
V - THE ERA OF RECONSTRUCTION AND EXPANSION: 1870–1900
EMMA LAZARUS
The New Ezekiel
The New Colossus
JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Little Orphant Annie
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
Solitude
HENRIETTA CORDELIA RAY
My Spirit’s Complement
EDWIN MARKHAM
The Man with the Hoe
EDITH MATILDA THOMAS
Frost To-Night
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE
Rachel
Renunciation
To Life
Crows
SAMUEL ALFRED BEADLE
Words
GEORGE MARION MCCLELLAN
A September Night
BLISS CARMAN
A Vagabond Song
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY
from The Knight Errant
Borderlands
The Wild Ride
GEORGE SANTAYANA
O World, thou choosest not the better part
To W.P.
from Normal Madness
RICHARD HOVEY
The Sea Gypsy
MADISON CAWEIN
Uncalled
Deserted
JAMES EDWIN CAMPBELL
Mors et Vita
W.E.B. DU BOIS
A Litany at Atlanta
WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY
Gloucester Moors
The Bracelet of Grass
Faded Pictures
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON
Walt Whitman
Luke Havergal
Richard Cory
Miniver Cheevy
For a Dead Lady
Eros Turannos
Mr. Flood’s Party
The Man Against the Sky
JESSE RITTENHOUSE
Debt
GEORGE STERLING
Aldebaran at Dusk
The Black Vulture
EDGAR LEE MASTERS
Petit, the Poet
Many Soldiers
from Chicago
Cities of the Plain
from Henry C. Calhoun
AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY: 1870–1900
Song of Sequence (Navajo)
Invocation to Dsilyi N’eyani (Navajo)
The Whole World is Coming (Sioux)
from The Walum Olum or Red Score (Lenape)
SONGS, SPIRITUALS, HYMNS, AND POPULAR POEMS: 1870–1900
Frankie and Johnny (Unknown, 1870–75)
John Henry (Unknown, 1873)
Home on the Range (Brewster Higley, c.1876)
What a Friend We Have in Jesus (Joseph Scriven, 1876)
Carry Me Back to Old Virginny (James A. Bland, 1878)
Polly Wolly Doodle (Unknown, 1883)
Oh My Darling Clementine (Percy Montrose, 1884)
Casey at the Bat (Ernest Lawrence Thayer, 1888)
I Been Working on the Railroad (Unknown, 1894)
The Sidewalks of New York (James W. Blake, 1894)
When the Saints Go Marching In (Unknown, 1896)
I Never Saw a Purple Cow (Gelett Burgess, 1898)
VI - THE ADVENT OF THE MODERN: 1901–1922
STEPHEN CRANE
from The Black Riders
III In the desert
XXIV I saw a man pursuing the horizon
from War is Kind
I Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind
VI I explain the silvered passing
XXI A man said to the universe
JAMES WELDON JOHNSON
O Black and Unknown Bards
Lift Every Voice and Sing
LOLA RIDGE
from The Alley
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
Sympathy
We Wear the Mask
When All Is Done
The Paradox
The Poet
GUY WETMORE CARRYL
The Patrician Peacocks and the Overweening Jay
ROBERT FROST
Storm Fear
from Mountain Interval
Hyla Brook
from The Hill Wife
IV. The Oft-Repeated Dream
V. The Impulse
from New Hampshire
The Lockless Door
The Need of Being Versed in Country Things
Mending Wall
The Death of the Hired Man
After Apple-Picking
The Road Not Taken
The Oven Bird
Birches
‘Out, Out—’
ROBERT W. SERVICE
The Cremation of Sam McGee
“EDWARD E. PARAMORE, JR.”
The Ballad of Yukon Jake
TRUMBULL STICKNEY
Mnemosyne
Live Blindly
At Sainte-Marguerite
He Said: “If in His Image I was Made”
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY
After Music
A Far-Off Rose
AMY LOWELL
Solitaire
Meeting-House Hill
A Lady
Wind and Silver
GERTRUDE STEIN
from Bee Time Vine
from Yet Dish
from Tender Buttons
A Frightful Release
A Purse
A Mounted Umbrella
A Cloth
More
from Rooms
RIDGELY TORRENCE
The Son
ANNA HEMPSTEAD BRANCH
Ere the Golden Bowl is Broken
Connecticut Road Song
WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
Rhapsody
CARL SANDBURG
Chicago
Fog
Bones
Cool Tombs
Grass
Haze
ADELAIDE CRAPSEY
November Night
Triad
Susanna and the Elders
Night Winds
The Warning
DON MARQUIS
The Coming of Archy
VACHEL LINDSAY
General William Booth Enters into Heaven
Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
The Leaden-Eyed
WALLACE STEVENS
Peter Quince at the Clavier