The Best Short Poems of the Nineteenth Century: Being the Twenty-five Best Short Poems as Selected by Ballot by Competent CriticsFleming H. Revell Company, 1899 - 52 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abou ADHEM Alfred angel Art thou bar be moaning BARBOUR BEQUEST BATTLE-HYMN Best Short Poems Blow boundless deep Turns BREAK bugle burnished rows Chambered Nautilus CHARLES clasp cling camps cold Copyright CROSSING THE BAR daffodils dancing dark Death Diamonds to fasten dim and flaring dost dragon-fly Dream dying Elizabeth Barrett Browning fiery gospel writ Forever god Pan grace shall deal grapes of wrath heart Heaven Houghton hundred cir Israfel John Keats Kiss Lead Thou lilies look'd Lord Tennyson lov'd Mifflin moaning of farewell never come back Never was lady night Nineteenth Century o'er pass'd pipes poets read a fiery read his righteous reed river Robert Browning ship of pearl sing so wildly Sleep Song Sonnet soon soul Spirit stars stood supplementary list sweet terrible swift sword Thanatopsis thine thou art thought tide as moving turbidly Turns again home Twilight weary William Wordsworth women must weep writ in burnished
Popular passages
Page 19 - We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. — Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
Page 23 - 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?
Page 10 - Year after year beheld the silent toil That spread his lustrous coil; Still, as the spiral grew, He left the past year's dwelling for the new, Stole with soft step its shining archway through, Built up its idle door, Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Page 16 - THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady ? What men or gods are these?
Page 13 - In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me: As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, While God is marching on.
Page 43 - I WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, — A host of golden daffodils Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay : Ten thousand saw I, at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee ; A poet could not...
Page 9 - This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, — The venturous bark that flings On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings, And coral reefs lie bare, Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Page 37 - The post of the foe ; Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, Yet the strong man must go : For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall, Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, The best and the last ! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore, And bade me creep past.
Page 27 - In Heaven a spirit doth dwell "Whose heart-strings are a lute"; None sing so wildly well As the angel Israfel, And the giddy stars (so legends tell), Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell Of his voice, all mute.
Page 40 - SWIFTLY walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night ! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where all the long and lone daylight Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear, — Swift be thy flight...