? THE PROBLEM by Ralph Waldo Emerson I like a church; I like a cowl; I love a prophet of the soul; And on my heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains, or pensive smiles Yet not for all his faith can see Would I that cowl?d churchman be. Why should the vest on him […]
1800s Poetry
The Poor Ghost by Christina Rossetti
? The Poor Ghost by Christina Rossetti “Oh whence do you come, my dear friend, to me, With your golden hair all fallen below your knee, And your face as white as snowdrops on the lea, And your voice as hollow as the hollow sea?” “From the other world I come back to you, My […]
The Only Ghost I Ever Saw by Emily Dickinson
The Only Ghost I Ever Saw by Emily Dickinson The only ghost I ever saw Was dressed in mechlin, ? so; He wore no sandal on his foot, And stepped like flakes of snow. His gait was soundless, like the bird, But rapid, like the roe; His fashions quaint, mosaic, Or, haply, mistletoe. His conversation […]
The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe
The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace? Radiant palace?reared its head. In the monarch Thought’s dominion? It stood there! Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair! Banners yellow, glorious, golden, On its roof did float and […]
THE NINE LITTLE GOBLINS by James Whitcomb Riley
THE NINE LITTLE GOBLINS by James Whitcomb Riley They all climbed up on a high board-fence? Nine little Goblins, with green-glass eyes? Nine little Goblins that had no sense, And couldn’t tell coppers from cold mince pies; And they all climbed up on the fence, and sat? And I asked them what they were staring […]
The Haunted Oak by Paul Laurence Dunbar
THE HAUNTED OAK by Paul Laurence Dunbar Pray why are you so bare, so bare, Oh, bough of the old oak-tree; And why, when I go through the shade you throw, Runs a shudder over me? My leaves were green as the best, I trow, And sap ran free in my veins, But I saw […]
THE VAMPIRE by Rudyard Kipling
THE VAMPIRE by Rudyard Kipling (The verses?as suggested by the painting by Philip Burne Jones, first exhibited at the new gallery in London in 1897.) . A fool there was and he made his prayer (Even as you and I!) To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair (We called her the […]
The Kraken by Lord Alfred Tennyson
The Kraken by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892) Below the thunders of the upper deep, Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides; above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many […]
THAT THE NIGHT COME by W. B. Yeats
THAT THE NIGHT COME by W. B. Yeats She lived in storm and strife. Her soul had such desire For what proud death may bring That it could not endure The common good of life, But lived as ?twere a king That packed his marriage day With banneret and pennon, Trumpet and kettledrum, And the […]
THE LOOKING-GLASS BY RUDYARD KIPLING
THE LOOKING-GLASS by RUDYARD KIPLING The Queen was in her chamber, and she was middling old, Her petticoat was of satin, and her stomacher was gold. Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass, Making up her mind to face the cruel looking-glass. The cruel looking-glass that will never show a lass As comely or […]
Sleepy Hollow by William Ellery Channing
SLEEPY HOLLOW No abbey’s gloom, nor dark cathedral-stoops, No winding torches paint the midnight air; Here the green pines delight, the aspen droops Along the modest pathways, and those fair Pale asters of the season spread their plumes Around this field, fit garden for our tombs. And shalt thou pause to hear some funeral bell […]
Kin to Sorrow by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Kin to Sorrow by Edna St. Vincent Millay Am I kin to Sorrow, That so oft Falls the knocker of my door? Neither loud nor soft, But as long accustomed, Under Sorrow’s hand? Marigolds around the step And rosemary stand, And then comes Sorrow? And what does Sorrow care For the rosemary Or the marigolds […]
A PORTRAIT by Nathaniel Parker Willis
A PORTRAIT by Nathaniel Parker Willis She was not very beautiful, if it be beauty’s test To match a classic model when perfectly at rest; And she did not look bewitchingly, if witchery it be, To have a forehead and a lip transparent as the sea. The fashion of her gracefulness was not a follow’d […]
The Foresaken by William Wordsworth
The Foresaken By William Wordsworth THE peace which others seek they find; The heaviest storms not longest last; Heaven grants even to the guiltiest mind An amnesty for what is past; When will my sentence be reversed? I only pray to know the worst; And wish as if my heart would burst. O weary struggle! […]
HUSH’D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY by Walt Whitman
HUSH’D BE THE CAMPS TO-DAY by Walt Whitman (May 4, 1865) Hush’d be the camps to-day, And soldiers let us drape our war-worn weapons, And each with musing soul retire to celebrate, Our dear commander’s death. No more for him life’s stormy conflicts, Nor victory, nor defeat?no more time’s dark events, Charging like ceaseless clouds […]