Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville occupy the center of this anthology of nearly three hundred poems, spanning the course of the century, from Joel Barlow to Edwin Arlington Robinson, by way of Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Poe, Holmes, Jones Very, Thoreau, Lowell, and Lanier.



For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

William C. Spengemann is the Hale Professor in Arts and Sciences and Professor of English Emeritus at Dartmouth College. He edited the Penguin Classics edition of Nineteenth-Century American Poetry.

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