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19th century poetry
- 1. Poetry of the 1900s American Poets
- 2. Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872-1906: He was the first African- American poet to make a living from writing. He wrote his first poem at age six and gave his first public recital at age nine.
- 3. Ione Ah, yes, ‘t is sweet still to remember, Though ‘t were less painful to forget; For while my heart glows like an ember, Mine eyes with sorrow’s drops are wet, And, oh, my heart is aching yet. It is a law of mortal pain That old wounds, long accounted well, Beneath the memory’s potent spell, Will wake to life and bleed again. So ‘t is with me; it might be better If I should turn no look behind, -- If I could curb my heart and fetter, From reminiscent gaze my mind, Or let my soul go blind – go blind! But would I do it if I could? Nay! Ease at such a price were spurned; For, since my love was once returned, All that I suffer seemth good. I know, I know it is the fashion, When love has left some heart distressed, To weight the air with wordful passion; But I am glad that in my breast I ever held so dear a guest. Love does not come at every nod, Or every voice that calleth “hasten;”. . .
- 4. Unexpressed Deep in my heart that aches with the repression, And strives with plentitude of bitter pain, There lives a thought that clamors for expression, And spends its undelivered force in vain. What boasts it that some other may have thought it? The right of thoughts’ expression is divine; The price of pain I pay for it has bought it, I care not who lays claim to it – ‘t is mine! And yet not mine until it be delivered; The manner of its birth shall prove the test. Alas, alas, my rock of pride is shivered – I beat my brow – the thought still unexpressed.
- 5. Longing If you could sit with me beside the sea to-day, And whisper with me sweetest dreamings o’er and o’er; I think I should not find the clouds so dim and gray, And not so loud the waves complaining at the shore. If you could sit with me upon the shore to-day, And hold my hand in yours as in the days of old, I think I should not mind the chill baptismal spray, Nor find my hand and heart and all the world so cold. If you could walk with me upon the sand to-day, And tell me that my longing love had won your own, I think all my sad thoughts would then be put away, And I could give back laughter the Ocean’s moan!
- 6. Ere Sleep Comes Down to Soothe the Weary Eyes Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, Which all the day with ceaseless care have sought The magic gold which from the seeker flies; Ere dreams put on the gown and cap of thought, And make the waking world a world of lies, -- Of lies most palpable, uncouth, forlorn, That say life’s full of aches and tears and sighs, -- Oh, how with more than dreams the soul is torn, Ere sleep comes down to soothe the weary eyes, What phantoms fill the dimly lighted room; What ghostly shades in awe-creating guide Are bodies forth within the teeming gloom. What echoes faint of sad and soul-sick cries, And pangs of vague inexplicable pain That pay the spirit’s ceaseless enterprise,. . .
- 7. Robert Frost 1874-1963 Using traditional verse forms, he wrote about searching and often about dark mediations on universal themes. His work is infused with layers of ambiguity and irony.
- 8. Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To know that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
- 9. Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake, The only other sound’s the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
- 10. November We saw leaves go to glory, then almost migratory go part way down the lane, and then to end the story get beaten down and pasted in one wild day of rain. We heard “’Tis over” roaring. A year of leaves was wasted. Oh, we make a boast of storing, of saving and of keeping, but only by ignoring the waste of moments sleeping, the waste of pleasure weeping, by denying and ignoring the waste of nations warring.
- 11. My November Guest My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her pleasure will not let me stay, She talks and I am fain to list; She’s glad the birds are gone away, She’s glad her simple worsted grey Is silver now with clinging mist. The desolate, deserted trees, The faded earth, the heavy sky, The beauties she so truly sees, She thinks I have no eye for these, And vexes me for reason why. Now yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow, But it were vain to tell her so, And they are better for her praise.
- 12. Langston Hughes 1902-1967 He lived with his grandmother in Lawrence, Kansas, until he was thirteen. He was named class poet of his eighth-grade class. He used the rhythms of African-American music, particularly blues and jazz in his poems.
- 13. Silence I catch the pattern Of your silence Before you speak. I do not need To hear a word. In your silence Every tone I seek Is heard.
- 14. Refugee Loneliness terrific beats on my heart, Bending the bitter broken boughs of pain. Stunned by the onslaught that tears the sky apart I stand with unprotected head against the rain. Loneliness terrific turns to panic and to fear. I hear my footsteps on the stairs of yesteryear, Where are you? Oh, where are you? Once so dear.
- 15. Girl She lived in sinful happiness And died in pain. She danced in sunshine And laughed in rain. She went one summer morning When flowers spread the plain, But she told everybody She was coming back again. Folks made a coffin And hid her deep in earth. Seems like she said: My body Brings new birth. For sure there grew flowers And tall young trees And sturdy weeds and grasses To sway in the breeze. And sure she lived In growing things With no pain To laugh in sunshine And dance in rain.
- 16. Love Song for Antonia If I should sing All of my songs for you And you would not listen to them, If I should build All of my dream houses for you And you would never live in them, If I should give All of my hopes to you And you would laugh and say: I do not care, Still I would give you my love Which is more than my songs, More than any houses of dreams, Or dreams of houses— I would still give you my love Though you never looked at me.
- 17. Troubled Woman She stands In the quiet darkness, This troubled woman Bowed by Weariness and pain Like an Autumn flower In the frozen rain, Like a Wind-blown autumn flower That never lifts its head Again.
- 18. Edna Millay 1892-1950 She was the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. She ranks today as a major figure in twentieth century American literature.
- 19. Ebb I know what my heart is like Since your love died; It is like a hollow ledge Holding a little pool Left there by the tide, A little tepid pool, Drying inward from the edge.
- 20. Two Sonnets in Memory II Where can the heart be hidden in the ground And be at peace, and be at peace forever, Under the world, untroubled by the sound Of mortal tears, that cease from pouring never? Well for the heart, by stern compassion harried, If death be deeper than the churchmen say, -- Gone from this world indeed what’s graveward carried, And laid to rest indeed what’s laid away. Anguish enough while yet the indignant breather Have blood to spurt upon the oppressor’s hand; Who would eternal be, and hand in ether A stuffless ghost above his struggling land, Retching in vain to render up the groan That is not there, being aching dust’s alone?
- 21. Pity Me Not Because the Light of Day Pity me not because the light of day At close of day no longer walks the sky; Pity me not for the beauties passed away From field and thicket as the year goes by; Pity me not the waning of the moon, Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea, Nor that a man’s desire is hushed so soon, And you no longer look with love on me. This have I known always: Love is no more Than the wide blossom which the wind assails, Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore, Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales; Pity me that the heart is slow to learn What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
- 22. The Dream Love, if I weep it will not matter, And if you laugh I shall not care; Foolish am I to think about it, But it is good to feel you there. Love, in my sleep I dreamed of waking, -- White and awful the moonlight reached Over the floor, and somewhere, somewhere There was a shutter loose, -- it screeched! Swung in the wind, -- and not wind blowing! – I was afraid, and turned to you, Put out my hand to you for comfort, -- And you were gone! Cold, cold as dew, Under my hand the moonlight lay! Love, if you laugh I shall not care, But if I weep it will not matter, -- Ah, it is good to feel you there!
- 23. Sylvia Plath 1932-1963 She published her first poem at eight years old. She was described as sensitive, intelligent, and a perfectionist. She committed suicide at the age of thirty.
- 24. Pheasant You said you would kill it this morning. Do not kill it. It startles me still, The jut of that odd, dark head, pacing Through the uncut grass on the elm’s hill. It is something to own a pheasant, Or just to be visited at all. I am not mystical: it isn’t As if I thought it had a spirit. It is simply in its element. That gives it a kingliness, a right. The print of its big foot last winter, The tail-track, on the snow in our court— The wonder of it, in that pallor, Through crosshatch of sparrow and starling. Is it its rareness, then? It is rare. But a dozen would be worth having, A hundred, on that hill – green and red, Crossing and recrossing: a fine thing!
- 25. Stillborn These poems do not live: it’s a sad diagnosis. They grew their toes and fingers well enough, Their little foreheads bulged with concentration. If they missed out on walking about like people It wasn’t for any lack of mother-love. O I cannot understand what happened to them! They are proper in shape and number and every part. They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid! They smile and smile and smile and smile at me. And still the lungs won’t fill and the heart won’t start. They are not pigs, they are not even fish, Though they have a piggy and a fishy air – It would be better if they were alive, and that’s what they were. But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction, And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.
- 26. Sheep in Fog The hills step off into whiteness. People or stars Regard me sadly, I disappoint them. The train leaves a line of breath. O slow Horse the color of rust, Hooves, dolorous bells – All morning the Morning has been blackening, A flower left out. My bones hold a stillness, the far Fields melt my heart. They threaten To let me through to a heaven Starless and fatherless, a dark water.
- 27. Carl Sandburg 1878-1967 His works portray his concern for the difficulties of the American worker. His goal was to write simple poems with which people could identify.
- 28. To a Dead Man Over the dead line we have called to you To come across with a word to us, Some beaten whisper of what happens Where you are over the dead line Deaf to our calls and voiceless. The flickering shadows have not answered Nor your lips sent a signal Whether to love talks and roses grow And the sun breaks at morning Splattering the sea with crimson.
- 29. Under the Harvest Moon Under the harvest moon, When the soft silver Drips shimmering Over the garden nights, Death, the gray mocker, Comes and whispers to you As a beautiful friend Who remembers. Under the summer roses When the flagrant crimson Lurks in the dusk Of the wild red leaves, Love, with little hands, Comes and touches you With a thousand memories, And asks you Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
- 30. Monotone The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain. The sun on the hills is beautiful Or a captured sunset sea-flung, Bannered with fire and gold. A face I know is beautiful – With fire and gold of sky and sea, And the peace of long warm rain.
- 31. The Road and the End I shall foot it down the roadway in the dusk, Where shapes of hunger wander And the fugitives of pain go by. I shall foot it In the silence of the morning, See the night slur into dawn, Hear the slow great winds arise Where tall trees flank the way And shoulder toward the sky. The broken boulders by the road Shall not commemorate my ruin. Regret shall be the gravel under foot. I shall watch for Slim birds swift of wing That go where wind and ranks of thunder Drive the wild processionals of rain. The dust of the traveled road Shall touch my hands and face.
- 32. Wallace Stevens 1897-1955 He is best known for his poem “The Snowman”, of which a commentator once said, it is “the best short poem in the English language”.
- 33. The Snow Man One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
- 34. She’s Just a Memory But that’s not what I want her to be She meant the world to me But now she’s just a memory. Day after Day Night after Night I think of her Remembering the times We spent together and Hoping someday I’ll see her again.
- 35. A Quiet Normal Life His place, as he sat and as he thought, was not In anything that he constructed, so frail, So barely lit, so shadowed over and naught, As, for example, a world in which, like snow, He became an inhabitant, obedient To gallant notions on the part of the cold. It was here. This was the setting and the time Of year. Here in his house and in his room, In his chair, the most tranquil thought grew peaked And the oldest and the warmest heart was cut By gallant notions on the part of night – Both late and alone, above the crickets’ chords, Babbling, each one, the uniqueness of its sound. There was no fury in transcendent forms. But his actual candle blazed with artifice.
- 36. Gray Room Although you sit in a room that is gray, Except for the silver Of the straw-paper, And pick At your pale white gown; Or lift on the green beads Of your necklace, To let it fall; Or gaze at your green fan Printed with the red branches of a red willow; Or, with one finger, Move the leaf in the bowl – The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia Beside you... What is all this? I know how furiously your heart is beating.
- 37. Themes in 1900’s Poetry: • Relationships • Individual Identity • Social Consciousness • The Working Class • Life and Death