The chief American poets; selected poems by Bryant, Poe, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, Whitman and Lanier; ed., with notes, reference lists and biographical sketches

Front matter

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Preface

This volume is in no sense an anthology. Mr. Stednian has collected, with complete knowledge of the field, and with all but unerring taste and judgment, the choicest ' flowers ' of our American verse from more than six hundred poets. His American Anthology must remain for many years without a rival.

' Yet still the man is greater than his song.' Many true lovers of literature care more for a few poets than for many poems, and would prefer to have always by them the best work of our few chief poets, rather than the few best poems of our many minor singers. The present volume, like my British Poets of the Nineteenth Century, attempts to give, for each one of the authors included, all the material needed to show his development and his achievement, and to give a first knowledge of him as man and poet.

The selection has been made full and comprehensive. No poem has been omitted merely on account of its length, and every poem, even the longest, is given in full, with two exceptions only: Whitman's 'Song of Myself,' and Lowell's 'Fable for Critics.' The poems of each author are arranged in chronological order, and dated. Wherever possible, both the date of writing and that of first publication have been given.

The brief ' Biographical Sketches ' at the end of the volume are designed only to give an easily accessible summary of the author's life, especially as related to his poetical work. They make no pretence of absolute completeness, or of presenting new facts based on original investigation ; nor do they attempt any critical estimate of the poet's work, except in a paragraph or two of brief summary at the end of each.

In the reference lists, however, I have tried to furnish full material for a complete and thorough study of each author. Under the heading Editions in each list are named (1) the standard library editions of the author's complete works ; (2) the best library editions of his poetical works alone ; (3) the best one-volume editions of his poems; and (4) in some cases, the best books of selections from his work. Under the heading Biography and Reminiscences are named in the first paragraph the most important biographies of the poet, and in the second paragraph other books or essays dealing chiefly with his life and personality. There follow sections devoted to Criticism and to Tributes in Verse. In this mass of material, I have indicated throughout the books, essays, or editions which seemed to me of most importance, and have added a brief word of comment where it seemed desirable. I have not tried to give in these reference lists a complete bibliography of all that has been written on each author, and have omitted many titles which seemed to be of little or no importance. But I have wished to name everything that could be of value, and preferred to err on the side of inclusion rather than of omission. It is probable, however, that some essential references may have been overlooked, and it is hardly possible that in giving so many titles and dates, all errors should have been avoided. I shall be grateful for any corrections or important additions.

In the notes, I have planned to give only essential facts about the origin or circumstances of composition of each poem, and to show its connection with the author's life, or with his other works. Critical comment has been excluded, except, in a few cases, that of the author himself or of contemporary poets. In the case of two poets, Emerson and Whitman, it has seemed worth while to give from their prose a good many passages which illustrate the ideas of the poems, while the poems illuminate the ideas of the prose.

vi PREFACE

The dates in italic figures, at the left, give the date of writing; those in Roman, at the right, the date of publication. To make these dates as accurate as possible has involved, in most cases, not only a thorough study of the biographies of the poets, but also a great deal of research among the files of periodicals to which they may have contributed. In a few cases, where I have felt that a poem had perhaps been published in a periodical before the year of its appearance in a volume, but have not been able to trace it, I have indicated this by placing in parentheses the date of first publication in book form.

In making the selections I have tried to follow not so much my individual taste as the consensus of opinion, now pretty well formed, as to which poems of our elder authors are the best and most representative. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the ready generosity with which so many critics and teachers have given me the help of their advice and have put their special knowledge at my service. I have to thank, in the first place, Professor Charles F. Richardson of Dartmouth, and Professors W. P. Trent and Brander Matthews of Columbia, — three of the chief historians of American literature ; and next Professor George R. Carpenter of Columbia, who has written the best biographies we have of more than one of our chief poets. The present volume was first thought of as a companion to Professor Carpenter's A merican Prose; and while I have departed considerably from the plan and method of that book, I have had throughout Professor Carpenter's generous approval and cooperation. I am also under special obligation to Mr. W. R. Thayer, to whose sure taste and thorough knowledge of our poets I have often appealed; to Mr. Ferris Greenslet, who has helped me with the selections and the reference-list for Lowell; and to Mr. Laurens Maynard, who has put at my service his remarkable collection of Whitman books, and given freely of his time and knowledge in helping me to trace each poem of Whitman to its earliest publication, and to compare its text with that of the original edition.

I gladly take this opportunity to thank also Professor Charles W. Kent, of the University of Virginia, whose edition of Poe's poems in the Virginia Edition of the Complete Works is invaluable, and who has also generously given his personal help; Professor Edwin Mims, of Trinity College.; Professors W. L. Phelps, F. C. Prescott, A. H. Quinn, Henry N. Snyder, Charles L. Young, W. C. Thayer, G. Herbert Clarke, Richard Jones, J. H. Chamberlin, William B. Cairns, A. B. Milford, Frank C. Lockwood, Arthur P. Hall, Enoch Perrine, Vernon P. Squires, and Benjamin Sledd; Mr. Clyde Furst, of Columbia; Miss Jeannette Marks, of Mount Holyoke; Miss Lucy Tappan, the author of an excellent manual, Topical Notes on American Authors; and others who have kindly made suggestions or gone over my lists of selections. I wish also to thank the authorities of the Columbia, Harvard, and Cornell libraries, especially Mr. T. J. Kiernan, who have shown me many courtesies ; and others without whose help the volume could not have been begun or completed.

For the use of copyrighted material, I am under obligation to Dr. Edward W. Emerson ; Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.; Messrs. Harper & Bros.; Mrs. Sidney Lanier, and Messrs. Charles Scribner'sSons; Mr. Horace Traubel and Mr. Thomas B. Harned, the literary executors of Whitman, and Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co., his authorized publishers ; and of course, most of all, to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., without whose cooperation no book of selections from the chief American poets could be undertaken.

CURTIS HIDDEN PAGE.

Columbia University, New York City. October 1, 1905.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1

Thanatopsis

The Yellow Violet

Inscription for the Entrance to

Wood ...

To a Waterfowl ,'....

Green River

A Winter Piece

Hymn to Death

'O fairest of the rural maids'

Monument Mountain

Autumn Woods

A Forest Hymn

June

The Past .

The Evening Wind

To the Fringed Gentian

Hymn of the City

Song of Marion's Men

The Praikles

The Battle-Field

The Antiquity of Freedom .

' O mother of a mighty race '

The Planting of the Apple-Tree

Robert of Lincoln

Our Country's Call

The Little People of the Snow

The Poet

My Autumn Walk

The Death of Lincoln .

A Lifetime

The Flood of Years page

7 9

POE

Tamerlane 36

To ('I SAW thee on thy

brldal day') . . . .39

Song from Al Aaraaf ... 39

Romance 40

Sonnet — To Science .... 40

To ('The bowers whereat, in

DREAMS, I SEE') . . . .41

To ('I HEED NOT THAT MY EARTHLY

A Dream within a Dream . . .41 To Helen 41

ISRAFEL 41

The City in the Sea .... 42 The Sleeper 43 page

The Valley of Unrest .... 44

The Coliseum 45

Hymn 45

To One in Paradise .... 45

To F 46

To F s S. d ... 46

Sonnet to Zante 46

The Haunted Palace .... 46

Sonnet — Silence 47

The Conqueror Worm ... 47

Dream-Land 48

The Raven 48

Eulalie — A Song . . . . . 51

To Helen 52

The Bells 53

To my Mother 55

For Annie ...... 55

Annabel Lee 56

Eldorado 57

Good-bye 58

The River 58

Lines to Ellen 59

To Ellen at the South . . .59

To Ellen 59

Thine Eyes still shlned . . .60

Written in Naples .... 60

Written at Rome 60

Webster 61

Tjble~Rho_dora 61

Each and All 61

The Apology 62

Concord Hymn 63

The Humble-Bee 63

Uriel 64

The Problem ' 64

Written in a Volume of Goethe . 65

Woodnotes I 66

Woodnotes II 67

The Sphinx 71

The Snow-Storm 72

Fable 73

The Informing Spirit ... 73

Friendship 73

Forbearance . . . . . 73

Holidays 73

1 The poems of each author are arranged in chronological order. Exact dates will be found at the end of each poem.

VUl

The Old Clock on the Stairs

. 120

The Arrow and the Song

SO

Wanderer's Night-Songs

. 149

Ode, inscribed to W. H. Channing .

. 149

. 150

The Building of the Ship

The Ladder of St. Augustine

. 155

The Day's Ration ....

Daylight and Moonlight .

The Warden of the Cinque Ports

. 156

The Two Angels

The Song of Hiawatha .

. 158

The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz

. 211

Ode, sung in the Town Hall, Concord, m

The Courtship of Miles Standish .

The Children's Hour .

. 232

Paul Revere's Ride ....

Fragments on Nature and Life

Fragments on the Poet and the

The Birds of Killlngworth .

. 239

Quatrains and Translations .

The Bohemian Hymn . . .

9fi

Pan .

Killed at the Ford ....

?4?

Finale of Christus ....

The Hanging of the Crane

. 243

The Sound of the Sea

Three Friends of Mine

. 246

MORITURI SALUTAMUS ....

The Herons of Elmwood

. 251.

In the Churchyard at Tarrytown

The Spirit of Poetry . . . .

Burial of the Minnislnk .

The Return of Spring .

Victor and Vanquished

The Three Silences of Mollvos

. 253

The Light of Stars ....

Hymn to the Night .

A Ballad of the French Fleet .

Footsteps of Angels ....

Song : ' Stay, stay at Home, my heart

The Beleaguered City .

The Wreck of the Hesperus .

From my Arm-Chair

. 255

The Village Blacksmith

The Skeleton in Armor .

The Tide rises, the Tede falls

Serenade (from the Spanish Stu

The Cross of Snow

. 257

L'Envoi: The Poet and his Songs

The Bells of San Blas

The Slave's Dream

The Arsenal at Springfield .

The Vaudois Teacher .

To William Lloyd Garrison .

The Belfry of Bruges : Carillon .

Randolph of Roanoke .

IX

The Farewell op a Virginia Slave

Conductor Bradley .

. 263

The Prayer of Agassiz

. 265

. 343

Sunset on the Bearcamp .

Cassandra Southwick

. 267

. 345

Massachusetts to Virginia

Centennial Hymn

The Christian Slave

. 272

. 275

. 347

The Trailing Arbutus

. 275

The Angels of Buena Vista .

. 278

. 280

Storm on Lake Asquam The Poet and the Children

. 350

. 281

'Songs of Labor, Dedication .

282 . 282

351 . 352

The Bartholdi Statue

To E. C. S

. 352

The Last Eve of Summer .

James Russell Lowell .

. 353

First-Day Thoughts ....

To Oliver Wendell Holmes .

The Poor Voter on Election Day

Summer by the Lakeside .

The Rendition ....

Old Ironsides .....

. 355

The Ballad of the Oysterman

The Height of the Ridiculous .

. 356

The Last Walk in Autumn . .

Skipper Ireson's Ride .

The Garrison op Cape Ann

The Pipes at Lucknow .

. 358

. 359

On Lendtng a Punch-Bowl

Brown of Ossawatomie .

The Stethoscope Song .

. 360

The Statesman's Secret .

To William H. Seward .

After a Lecture on Wordsworth

. 363

After a Lecture on Shelley .

Amy Wentworth ....

The Hudson

. 365

To an English Friend ....

The Old Man Dreams .

. 366

Andrew Rykman's Prayer

Birthday of Daniel Webster .

Babbara Frietchie

The Wreck of Rivermouth

For the Meeting of the Burns Clui

Latter-Da y Warnings

The Chambered Nautilus

. 368

Bryant on his Birthday .

The Living Temple ....

Tidta Deacon's Masterpiece, or, The

Wonderful ' Oke-Hoss Shay '

. 369

The Eternal Goodness .

Contentment

Snowbound""

Parson Turell's Legacy

. 372

Abraham Davenport

The Dead Ship of Harpswell .

For the Burns Centennial Celebra-

. 374

The Worship of Nature .

. 327

At a Meeting of Friends .

. 375

Among the Hills

The Two Streams ....

Under the Violets

. 377

. 337

Prologue to ' Songs in Many Keys '

The Sisters

. 339

Brother Jonathan's Lament fob

Sister Caroline

. 378

Pasting Hymn

Union and Liberty .

To my Readers

Voyage of the Good Ship Union

Bryant's Seventieth Birthday . .

My Annual

All Here

Bill and Joe

Nearing the Snow-Line

Dorothy Q