Immortal Poems of the English Language

Immortal Poems of the English Language

by Oscar Williams
Immortal Poems of the English Language

Immortal Poems of the English Language

by Oscar Williams
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Overview

A timeless and comprehensive anthology of enduring English language poetry, featuring entries from 150 British and American poets, including Alexander Pope, Lord Byron, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Emily Dickinson.

The last six hundred years in British and American literature have given us some of the most moving and memorable poems in all literature. Now, discover many of these same works in one gorgeously wrought collection, featuring entries from poets as legendary and beloved as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Waldo Emerson, D.H. Lawrence, and many more.

From Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberywocky” to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and from Shakespeare’s sonnets to anonymous classics, this is the ultimate gift for poetry lovers of all ages and backgrounds. Arranged chronologically, the 150 poems featured in this stunning collection reflect the immortality of the poetic soul.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781982191542
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: 06/14/2022
Pages: 592
Sales rank: 387,276
Product dimensions: 5.30(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Oscar Williams (1900–1964), editor of this book, was a distinguished poet. The author of five books of poetry, including That's All That Matters and Selected Poems, he achieved literary distinction not only as a highly original and vigorous American poet, but also as one of the great poetry anthologists of his time.

Read an Excerpt

GEOFFREY CHAUCER
1340? -- 1400

Balade

Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte, tresses clere;
Ester, ley thou thy meknesse, al a-doun;
Hyd, Jonathas, al thy frendly manere;
Penalopee, and Marcia Catoun,
Mak of your wyfhod no comparisoun;
Hyde ye your beautes, Isoude and Eleyne,
Alceste is here, that al that may desteyne.

Thy faire bodye lat bit nat appere,
Lavyne; and thou, Lucresse of Rome toun,
And Polixene, that boghte love so dere,
Eek Cleopatre, with al thy passioun,
Hyde ye your trouthe in love and your renoun;
And thou, Tisbe, that hast for love swich peyne:
Alceste is here, that al that may desteyne.

Herro, Dido, Laudomia, alle in-fere,
Eek Phyllis, hanging for thy Demophoun,
And Canace, espyed by thy chere,
Ysiphile, betrayed with Jasoun,
Mak of your trouthe in love no bost ne soun;
Nor Ypermistre or Adriane, ne pleyne;
Alceste, is here, that al that may desteyne.


The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse

To you, my purse, and to non other wight
Complayne I, for ye be my lady dere!
I am so sory, now that ye been light;
For certes, but ye make me hevy chere,
Me were as leaf be layd upon my bere;
For whiche unto your mercy thus I crye:
Beth hevy ageyn, or elles moote I dye!

Now voucheth sauf this day, or hit be night,
That I of you the blisful soun may here,
Or see your colour lyk the sonne bright,
That of yelownesse hadde never pere,
Ye be my lyf, ye be myn hertes stere,
Quene of comfort and of good companye:
Beth hevy ageyn, or elles moote I dye!

Now purse, that be to me my lyves light,
And saveour, as doun in this world here,
ANONYMOUS: SONGS & BALLADS

Sumer Is Icumen In

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhudè sing cuccu;
Groweth sod and bloweth med
And springth the wudè nu.
Sing cuccu!
Awè bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calvè cu;
Bulluc sterteth, buckè verteth;
Murie sing cuccu.
Cuccu, cuccu,
Wel singès thu, cuccu,
Ne swik thu naver nu.
Sing cuccu nu! Sing cuccu!
Sing cuccu! Sing cuccu nu!


I Sing of a Maiden

I sing of a maiden
That is makeles;
King of all kings
To her son she ches.

He came al so still
There his mother was,
As dew in April
That falleth on the grass.

He came al so still
To his mothers bour,
As dew in April
That falleth on the flour.

He came al so still
There his mother lay,
As dew in April,
That falleth on the spray.

Mother and maiden
Was never none but she;
Well may such a lady
Goddes mother be.


The Falcon

Lully, lulley! lully, lulley!
The faucon hath borne my make away!

He bare him up, he bare him down,
He bare him into an orchard brown.

In that orchard there was an halle,
That was hangéd with purple and pall.

And in that hall there was a bed,
It was hangéd with gold sa red.

And in that bed there li'th a knight,
His woundés bleeding day and night.

At that bed's foot there li'th a hound,
Licking the blood as it runs down.

By that bed-side kneeleth a may,
And she weepeth both night and day.

And at that bed's bead standeth a stone,
Corpus Christi written thereon.
Lully, lulley! lully, lulley!< BR>The faucon hath borne my make away.


My Love in Her Attire

My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer.
No beauty she doth miss,
When all her robes are on:
But Beauty's self she is,
When all her robes are gone.

O western wind, when wilt thou blow,
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!


Love Not Me

Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face,
Nor for any outward part:
No, nor for a constant heart!
For these may fail or turn to ill:
So thou and I shall sever.
Keep therefore a true woman's eye,
And love me still, but know not why!
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever.


There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind

There is a Lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.

Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I love her till I die.

Cupid Is wingèd and doth range,
Her country so my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet will I love her till I die.

Copyright © 1952 by Simon & Schuster Inc.

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Geoffrey Chaucer 1

John Skelton 2

Anonymous: Songs & Ballads 3

Sir Thomas Wyatt 18

Sir Philip Sidney 19

Sir Walter Raleigh 22

Sir Edward Dyer 26

Edmund Spenser 27

George Peele 33

Samuel Daniel 33

Michael Drayton 34

Christopher Marlowe 34

William Shakespeare 36

Thomas Nashe 63

Thomas Campion 63

Ben Jonson 64

John Donne 65

John Webster 79

Robert Herrick 80

George Herbert 81

James Shirley 86

Thomas Carew 87

Edmund Waller 88

John Milton 88

Sir John Suckling 112

William Cartwright 112

Richard Crashaw 113

Richard Lovelace 117

Abraham Cowley 118

Andrew Marvell 119

Henry Vaughan 124

John Dryden 128

Thomas Traherne 130

William Douglas 134

George Berkeley 135

John Gay 136

Alexander Pope 138

William Oldys 162

Thomas Gray. 162

William Collins 169

Christopher Smart 170

Oliver Goldsmith 185

William Cowper 196

Thomas Chatterton 197

William Blake 199

Robert Burns 208

William Wordsworth 220

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 236

Thomas Campbell 257

Walter Savage Landor 258

Thomas Moore 258

Leigh Hunt 259

George Gordon, Lord Byron 259

Percy Bysshe Shelley 262

William Cullen Bryant 286

John Keats 288

Thomas Hood 308

Ralph Waldo Emerson 311

Thomas Lovell Beddoes 312

Elizabeth Barrett Browning 312

John Greenleaf Whittier 313

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 313

Edward FitzGerald 314

Edgar Allan Poe 326

Alfred, Lord Tennyson 334

Oliver Wendell Holmes 355

Robert Browning 356

Edward Lear 361

Emily Bronte 363

James Russell Lowell 365

Herman Melville 365

Walt Whitman 367

Charles Kingsley 379

Arthur Hugh Clough 380

Julia Ward Howe 381

Matthew Arnold 381

Dante Gabriel Rossetti 389

George Meredith 394

Christina Rossetti 394

Emily Dickinson 395

Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson) 399

Sir W. S. Gilbert 400

Algernon Charles Swinburne 401

Thomas Hardy 403

Sidney Lanier 405

Gerard Manley Hopkins 408

Robert Bridges 422

William Ernest Henley 423

Francis Thompson 424

John Davidson 428

A. E. Housman 431

George Santayana 433

William Butler Yeats 435

Rudyard Kipling 440

Ernest Dowson 442

Edgar Lee Masters 443

Edwin Arlington Robinson 443

W. H. Davies 447

Walter De La Mare 447

Robert Frost 448

John Masefield 455

Sarah N. Cleghorn 456

Carl Sandburg 456

Harold Monro 457

Vachel Lindsay 458

Wallace Stevens 460

William Carlos Williams 464

Elinor Wylie 466

D. H. Lawrence 466

Ezra Pound 467

Rupert Brooke 470

Robinson Jeffers 473

Edwin Muir 474

Marianne Moore 475

Thomas Stearns Eliot 476

John Crowe Ransom 484

Conrad Aiken 486

Edna St. Vincent Milky 489

John Peale Bishop 489

Archibald MacLeish 490

Wilfred Owen 491

E. E. Cummings 495

Robert Graves 497

F. R. Higgins 500

Allen Tate 501

Hart Crane 502

Oscar Williams 506

Ogden Nash 510

C. Day Lewis 511

Richard Eberhart 512

Peter Quennell 514

Esther Mathews 515

William Empson 516

Vernon Watkins 516

W. H. Auden 518

Louis MacNeice 524

Stephen Spender 525

Alfred Hayes 527

W. R. Rodgers 528

Elizabeth Bishop 529

Lawrence Durrell 530

F. T. Prince 531

Delmore Schwartz 533

Karl Shapiro 534

George Barker 536

Henry Reed 539

John Manifold 540

Robert Lowell 541

Gene Derwood 542

Dylan Thomas 546

Index of First Lines 553

Index of Authors and Titles 565

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