Poetry An Introduction Poetry An Introduction
RUTH MILLER State University of New York at Stony Brook ROBERT A. GREENBERG Queens College of the City University of New York
M Copyright© 1981 by SI. Mart in's Press, Inc.
All Right s Reserved. No part of thi s publication may be reproduced or transmitted , in an y form or by any means, without permi ssion .
Published 1981by TH E MACM ILLAN PRESS LTD LOlldolland Basingstok» Companies and represematiues throughout the world
typ ography: Patr icia Sm ythe cove r art : Tom McKeven y
ISBN 978-0-333-32985-6 ISBN 978-1-349-06317-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-06317-8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The ed itors and pub lishers wish to than k the followi ng who have kind ly given permission for the use of copyright mat erial:
FL EUR AD COCK : 'The Wat er Below' from fixers by Fleur Adcock, V O xford University Press 1967. Rep rinted by permis sion of Oxford University Press . CONRAD AIKE N : 'The Road' from Callected Pocms. Second Edition , by Conrad Aiken. Copyrig ht :v 1953, 1970 by Co nrad Aiken. Rep rint ed by permission of Oxfo rd Uni versity Press Inc. SAMUEl AllEN: 'To Sateh' from IlJory Tusks and Otller Poems, and 'A Momen t Please' from Amt'ricQII ,"" t'.~ r () Poetry by Samuel Allen . © Samuel Allen an d reprin ted by permission of the autho r. ALURI ST A: 'Add ress' from Floricanus, copyright ':0 1971 by the Regen ts of the Lniv ersitv of Ca lifornia and reprinted by permission of Chica no Studies Resea rch Center. A.R.AM MONS: 'SO I Said I am Ezra' an d 'Choice' from Collected POt'm s 1951- 1971 by A. R. Ammons . Copyrigh t £> 1972 by A. R. Ammons.Reprint ed by permission of W. W. Norton & Co mpany Inc. A~O f'l,;Y MOUS : 'Hunting Song' urig inall y titled 'Comes the Deer to My Singi ng' from The indians Rook, recorded and ed ited by Na talie Curtis. Published by Dover Publica tions Inc ., and reprinted by pe rmission . ANOJlOYMO\'S: 'Dinka So ng' ('Do Yo u Not Hea r') from Di t'ill il.1I arId Lsperiencr. Tilt' RrJigimJ (l,f tilt Dillka by Godfrey Lienhar d t. f) Oxfo rd Unive rsity Press, 1961. Rep rin ted by per miss ion of Oxford l:niversity Press. ANONYMOUS; 'A Spe ll to Destroy Life' from Literalurt of the American ", diaus, edi ted by Th oma s E. Sanders and Walter W. Peek . Co pyright 'C Glencoe Press , and reprinted by per mission of Macmillan Publ ishi ng Co. Inc. MAR GA RET ATWOOD: 'We Are Standing Facing Each Other' from Power PolillcS by Margar et Atw ood . Cop yright '0 by Marga ret Atwood 1971. Repri nted by permission of House of Ana nsi Press. w. H. AUOEN: 'That Night Whe n joy Bega n', 'If I coold Tell You', 'In Memory of W. B. Yeats', 'Luthe r', 'The Unkn ow n Citize n', and Musee des Beaux Arts' fro m C olfectt'd Poems by W.H. Auden: "Ih e Cu ltura l Presupposit ion ' from Th e EnglISh Audtn (1977) edi ted by Edwa rd Mendelson . All repri nted by pe rm ission of Faber and Fabe r Ltd . Ar-t1RI BARAkA (LeRoi jones) : 'W.W: from Black MaXic P'''''ry: 1961-1 967 by Amiri Baraka. Cop yright D 1969 LeRoi Jones. Reprinted by pe rmission of The Ste rling Lord Agency Inc. BASII O: 'As Firmly Ce mented Clam-Shells' and 'O nly For Morni ng Glories' from Till' Narrow Road 10 tlte Dr?(f' North and OtherTra,...1Skelches by Matsuo Bash o. translated by Nobuyuk i Yuasa
Acknowledgements and cop yrights appear at the back of the book on pages 55&-559, wh ich con stitute an extension of the cop yright page. To T.V.B. Preface
This book provides an introduction to the elements of poetry, formulates a series of contexts for the interpretation of poems, and offers a sub stantial anthology. Our purpose throughout is to enable students to read poems with understanding and pleasure and to provide them with a basic vocabulary for analyzing and talking about poems. Part One comprises a full discussion of the elements of poetry. After a brief opening chapter, we introduce the basic concepts of speaker or persona, setting, subject, and theme and then progress from the par ticular uses of language and devices of prosody to more general consid erations of structure, genre, and tone. The inclusion of a chapter on genre is perhaps unusual in an introductory book on poetry, but we think it is important for the student to see how poems often depend for a part of their meaning on the ways in which they are related to a particular tradition. The larger sense of Part One is of the interplay of all the elements; we repeatedly emphasize the integrative, organic nature of the poem. As much as possible we have avoided the abstract, seeking always to keep particular poems in the forefront of our discussion. Part Two, "Perspectives," shows how poems may be illuminated when they are considered from various, often complementary, points of view . Its seven chapters take up successively the perspectives of biography, history, society, philosophy, religion, psychology, and myth. Our interest here is in the kinds of new insights and perceptions, the fresh meanings and implications, each perspective makes possible. We
vii are deliberately pluralistic in our treatment, favoring no one approach over another, although we do emphasize that any single approach has its limitations and we point these out as they arise in the course of our discussions. Our aim is to set forth the premises of each approach, to show it in practice, and thus to generate the kind of exciting discussion that results when diverse points of view collide in the give and take of the classroom. About 350 poems are included in the discussions and exercises in Parts One and Two. Part Three, the anthology, provides some 150 additional poems for further exploration, presented without editorial comment but with occasional glosses and explanatory footnotes. Taken all together, the nearly 500 poems in this book represent every major style, voice, and genre in English and American poetry, beginning with Ceedmon and Chaucer and extending to poets whose first significant work has appeared within the past two decades. As a glance through the index of authors and titles will show, many poets are represented by several poems, and quite a few are represented by ten or more. Among the poets who could be studied in some depth are Auden, Blake, Cummings, Dickinson, Donne, Frost, Hardy, Herbert, Hopkins, Hous man, Keats, Shakespeare, Whitman, Williams, Wordsworth, and Yeats. Poems in translation appear throughout the volume. The book incorporates a number of other features that should be mentioned here. A brief chapter, "Writing About Poetry," though not extensive, should be enough to enable students to get started on the kinds of papers they are most likely to be assigned. The listings we have called "Some Groupings of Poems for Comparison" should prove useful not only as a source of writing topics but also generally as a stimulant to exploration and classroom discussion. We especially enjoyed gath ering the photographs for"A Gallery of Poets" and believe that students will find it fascinating to see some of the poets who wrote the poems. The "Index of Terms" lists alphabetically all of the important literary terms used in the text, with a reference to the page where each is first introduced and defined. Except in a few instances--e.g., "Westron Wynde"-where we wanted to give students a sense of the older text, we have modernized spelling and punctuation. We wish to express our indebtedness to Thomas Broadbent and Nancy Perry of St. Martin's Press, whose skills and guidance have been decisive throughout the planning and evolution of this book . R. M. R. A. G.
viii 10pical Iable of Contents
PREFACE vii
Part One ELEMENTS 2
1. Some Impulses to Poetry 5 2. Speaker, Setting, Subject, and Theme 20 SPEAKER 20 SETTING 29 SUBJECT AND THEME 33
3. Words and Word Order 44 DICTION: DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 44 SYNTAX 49 ALLUSION 56
4. Figurative Language and Imagery 66
5. Symbols and Allegory 87 SYMBOLS 87 ALLEGORY 98
ix 6. Rhyme, Rhythm, and Stanza 109 RHYME 110 RHYTHM 116 STANZA 124
7. Structure 137 8. Genre 158 NARRATIVE POETRY 159 DRAMATIC POETRY 167 LYRIC POETRY 175
9. Tone and Attitude 203
Part Two PERSPECTIVES 234 10. Poetry and Biography 237 11. Poetry and History 262 12. Poetry and Society 279 13. Poetry and Philosophy 299 14. Poetry and Religion 317 15. Poetry and Psychology 343 16. Poetry, Mythology, and Myth 368
Part Three ANTHOLOGY 387 Writing About Poetry 525 Some Groupings of Poems for Comparison 531 A Gallery of Poets 543
INDEX OF TERMS 561
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 565
INDEX OF AUTHORS AND TITLES 575 x Topical Table of Contents Contents
PREFACE vii
Part One ELEMENTS 2 1. Some Impulses to Poetry 5 Anonymous, Hunting Song 5 Anonymous, A Spell to Destroy Life 7 Walt Whitman , Reconciliation 9 Emily Dickinson, Baffled for Just a Day or Two 10 Ben Jonson , On Something, That Walks Somewhere 11 John Scott, I Hate That Drum's Discordant Sound 11 Robinson Jeffers, Shine, Perishing Republic 13 Anonymous, On an Old Woman Who Sold Pots 14 Robert Herrick, Upon Prue, His Maid 15 William Wordsworth , A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal 15 Emily Dickinson, I Died for Beauty-But Was Scarce 16 Anonymous, Westron Wynde 16 Shirley Williams, You Know It's Really Cold 17 William Blake, Infant Sorrow 17 T. 5. Eliot, The Hippopotamus 18
2. Speaker, Setting, Subject, and Theme 20 SPEAKER 20
xi f. Peter Meinke, Advice to My Son 20 Walt Whitman , As Adam Early in the Morning 21 Walt Whitman , Animals 22 Richard Wilbur, Two Voices in a Meadow 22 William Blake, The Clod & the Pebble 23 e. e. cummings, "next to of course god america i 24 Randall farrell , Gunner 25 Robert Browning, Porphyria's Lover 26 Thomas Hardy, "Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave? 28 SETTING 29 Stephen Crane, In the Desert 29 Theodore Roethke, Root Cellar 30 Robert Bly, Poem in Three Parts 30 Robert Lowell, Robert Frost 31 Emily Dickinson , Because I Could Not Stop for Death 32 SUBJECT AND THEME 33 fohn Crowe Ransom, Piazza Piece 33 Abraham Cowley, Drinking 35 Ralph Waldo Emerson , Brahma 36 EXERCISES 37 George Gordon, Lord Byron, Stanzas 37 William fay Smith, American Primitive 37 Edward Thomas, The Gallows 38 Ezra Pound, The Encounter 39 William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper 39 Lawrence Ferlinghetti, In a Surrealist Year 40 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls 41 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Eagle 41 Robert Browning, The Year's at the Spring 42 fohn Keats, In Drear-Nighted December 42 Richard Wilbur, The Pardon 43
3. Words and Word Order 44 DICTION: DENOTATION AND CONNOTATION 44 William Carlos Williams, Poem 45 Carl Sandburg, Fog 45 Samuel Allen, To Satch 46 Robert Frost, Design 47 Robert Frost, Dust of Snow 48 SYNTAX 49 George Gordon , Lord Byron, So We'll Go No More A-Roving 50 Henry King, Sic Vita 51 William Wordsworth , My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold 51 Adelaide Crapsey, Niagara 53 xii Contents Gary Snyder, Some Good Things to Be Said for the Iron Age 54 William Carlos William s, The Artist 55 ALLUSION 56 Austin Clark, Penal Law 57 Wilfred Owen, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young 58 Richard Crashaui, On Our Crucified Lord, Naked and Bloody 59 Langston Hughes, Merry-Co-Round 59 Walter Savage Landor, Dirce 59 William Butler Yeats, Long-Legged Fly 60 George Gordon , Lord Byron, The Destruction of Sennacharib 60 Sir John Suckling, Song 61 EXERCISES 62 John Masefield, Cargoes 62 William Cartwright, No Platonique Love 63 Walt Whitman , A Noiseless Patient Spider 64
4. Figurative Language and Imagery 66 John Updike, Winter Ocean 67 Adelaide Crapsey, November Night 70 Stephen Spender, Word 72 Ted Hughes, The Dove-Breeder 73 James Stephens, The Wind 74 John Donne, Death, Be Not Proud, Though Some Have Called Thee 75 George Herbert , Bitter-Sweet 76 John Donne, A Hymn to Cod the Father 77 Robert Herrick, Cherry-Ripe 78 Richard Crashaui, An Epitaph upon a Young Married Couple Dead and Buried Together 78 D. H. Lawrence, Mystic 82 EXERCISES 82 Stephen Crane, "It Was Wrong to Do This," Said the Angel 83 William Collins, Ode Written in the Beginning of the Year 1746 84 John Keats, To Autumn 85
5. Symbols and Allegory 87 SYMBOLS 87 William Blake, The Sick Rose 89 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Old Yew, Which Graspest at the Stones 90 James Wright , Saint Judas 92 Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar 93
Contents xiii Wallace Stevens, Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock 94 William Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud 95 William Butler Yeats , The Second Coming 96 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Crossing the Bar 97 Robert Frost, Fire and Ice 97 William Butler Yeats , The Coming of Wisdom with Time 98 ALLEGORY 98 Stephen Crane, Once There Came a Man 98 St. John of the Cross, Songs of the Soul in Rapture at Having Arrived at the Height of Perfection, Which Is Union with God by the Road of Spiritual Negation 99 Edgar Lee Masters, Carl Hamblin 101 George Herbert, Redemption 102 EXERCISES 102 Sarah N. Cleghorn, The Golf Links 102 Algernon Charles Swinburne, A Lyke-Wake Song 103 Fleur Adcock, The Water Below 103 W. S. Merwin, On the Subject of Poetry 104 William Shakespeare, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day 105 Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking 106 Anonymous, Brief Autumnal 107 George Herbert, The Pilgrimage 107 William Cowper, I Was a Stricken Deer, That Left the Herd 108 Gregory Orr, In an Empty Field at Night 108
6. Rhyme, Rhythm, and Stanza 109 RHYME 110 Robert Herrick, Upon a Child That Died 111 Oliver Goldsmith, When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly 111 W. H. Auden, That Night When Joy Began 112 William Shakespeare, Sigh No More, Ladies, Sigh No More 113 RHYTHM 116 Sir Philip Sidney, His Being Was in Her Alone 120 STANZA 124 Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory 124 Theodore Roethke, The Bat 125 W. H. Auden, If I Could Tell You 126 Edna St. Vincent Millay , Grown-up 126 Edmund Waller, Go, Lovely Rose 127 Ben Jonson, Song: To Celia 128 William Shakespeare, My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun 129 xiv Contents William Shakespeare, from Hamlet 130 Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 132 Charles Olson , La Chute 132 EXERCISES 133 Gerard Manley Hopkins, Heaven-Haven 133 William Blake, The Garden of Love 134 Elinor Wylie, Velvet Shoes 134 John Keats, When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be 135 William Wordsworth , Composed upon Westminster Bridge 136 Edmund Spenser, What Guile Is This, That Those Her Golden Tresses 136
7. Structure 137 Robert Frost, "Out, Out-" 137 John Millington Synge, A Question 138 William Butler Yeats, The Four Ages of Man 139 A. E. Housman , Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now 140 Thomas Hardy, The Man He Killed 140 John Clare, Badger 142 William Stafford, Traveling Through the Dark 143 Ted Hughes , Owl's Song 144 Walt Whitman, When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 144 e. e. cummings, a sweet spontaneous 145 Jonathan Swift, A Description of the Morning 146 Dorothy Parker, Resume 147 Sir Walter Raleigh, What Is Our Life? A Play of Passion 147 Samuel Allen, A Moment Please 148 John Webster, Call for the Robin Redbreast and the Wren 149 Denise Leoeriou, Sunday Afternoon 150 Richard Wilbur, A Late Aubade 151 EXERCISES 152 Arthur Guiierman, On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness 152 Alan Dugan, On Hurricane Jackson 152 Robert Burns, John Anderson My Jo, John 153 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Music, When Soft Voices Die 153 David lgnatoui, The Dream 153 William Shakespeare, That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold 154 John Donne, At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners Blow 154 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias 155 Thom Gunn, Lebensraum 155 Lucille Clifton , Good Times 156 Gary Snyder, The Uses of Light 156
Contents xv 8. Genre 158 NARRATIVE POETRY 159 Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Mill 159 Anonymous, Lord Randal 161 Anonymous, Sir Patrick Spens 162 John Keats, La Belle Dame sans Merci 164 e. e. cummings, All in green went my love riding 166
DRAMATIC POETRY 167 William Shakespeare, from Othello 167 A. R. Ammons, So I Said I Am Ezra 169 Edgar Lee Masters, Elsa Wertman 170 Edgar Lee Masters , Hamilton Greene 170 William Carlos Williams , Tract 171 Robert Browning, My Last Duchess 173
LYRIC POETRY 175 Francesco Petrarch, The Eyes That Drew from Me Such Fervent Praise 176 John Keats , On First Looking into Chapman's Homer 176 Michael Drayton , Since There's No Help, Come, Let Us Kiss and Part 177 William Shakespeare, Not Marble, nor the Gilded Monuments 178 W. H. Auden, In Memory of W. B. Yeats 180 Theodore Roethke, Elegy for Jane 183 Alexander Pope, Ode on Solitude 184 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind 185
EXERCISES 187 Anonymous, The Twa Corbies 187 Robert Browning, Meeting at Night 188 Robert Browning, Parting at Morning 188 William Shakespeare, from Romeo and Juliet 189 e. e. cummings, the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls 189 John Crowe Ransom, Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter 190 Robert Burns, Bonie Doon 190 Anonymous, The Three Ravens 191 Alfred, Lord Tennyson , The Sisters 192 Anonymous, Edward 193 Edgar Allan Poe, Eldorado 195 Anonymous, Thomas Rhymer 196 John Donne, The Flea 198 Anne Sexton, The Moss of His Skin 199 John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn 201
xvi Contents 9. Tone and Attitude 203 Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool 204 e. e. cummings, Buffalo Bill's 204 Gary Snyder, For the Children 204 Mari Evans, And the Hotel Room Held Only Him 206 Randall Jarrell, Bats 207 Thomas Nashe, A Litany in Time of Plague 208 Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay 210 Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta, Going to the Wars 210 Ezra Pound, from Hugh Selwyn Mauberly 211 John Donne, Song 212 Siegfried Sassoon , Does It Matter? 213 A. E. Housman, Is My Team Ploughing 214 Thomas Hardy , Channel Firing 215 Chidiock Tichborne, Elegy 217 Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose 218 Dylan Thomas , Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night 218 Raymond Patterson, When I Awoke 219 Seamus Heaney, Mother of the Groom 220 Donald Justice, Counting the Mad 221 EXERCISES 222 Hugh MacDiarmid, In the Children's Hospital 222 Archibald MacLeish , The End of the World 222 J. R. Rowland, Seven Days 223 Jay MacPherson, Ordinary People in the Last Days 223 Fenton Johnson , Tired 224 Emily Dickinson , A Narrow Fellow in the Grass 225 D. H. Lawrence, Snake 226 Denise Levertov, To the Snake 228 Thomas Hardy , The Ruined Maid 228 Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish 229 Ishmael Reed, beware : do not read this poem 231 Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 232 Robert Frost, The Draft Horse 233
Part Two Perspectives 234 10. Poetry and Biography 237 Adrienne Rich, From a Survivor 237 Lucille Clifton, In Salem 239 Christopher Smart, from Jubilate Agno 239 W. B. Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree 242 John Milton, When I Consider How My Light Is Spent 243
Contents xvii William Wordsworth, It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free 244 Thomas Hardy, The Going 245 Thomas Hardy, The Voice 246 Thomas Hardy, I Found Her Out There 247 W. B. Yeats, The Circus Animals' Desertion 249 Robert Lowell, The Old Flame 250 EXERCISES 252 Frank O'Hara, The Day Lady Died 252 Walt Whitman, Epigraph to Drum-Taps, 1871 253 Walt Whitman, Cavalry Crossing a Ford 254 Walt Whitman, Year That Trembled and Reel'd Beneath Me 254 Walt Whitman, A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown 254 Walt Whitman, A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Dim 255 Sylvia Plath, Tulips 256 Sylvia Plath, The Rival 258 Sylvia Plath, Daddy 259 Sylvia Plath, Mirror 261
11. Poetry and History 262 Anonymous, Song 262 Alexander Pope, Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness 263 John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Impromptu on Charles II 263 Walt Whitman, a Captain! My Captain! 264 Andrew Marvell, Bermudas 266 John Milton, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont 267 Percy Bysshe Shelley, Song to the Men of England 268 Anonymous, Now Goeth Sonne Under Wode 270 Edgar Lee Masters, Anne Rutledge 270 W. H. Auden, Luther 271 Galway Kinnell, For the Lost Generation 272 EXERCISES 273 Robert Lowell, After the Surprising Conversions 274 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Concord Hymn 276 Thomas Hardy, Drummer Hodge 276 e. e. cummings, my sweet old etcetera 277
12. Poetry and Society 279 W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen 279 Walt Whitman, I Sit and Look Out 281 William Blake, London 282 xviii Contents Robert Bly, The Great Society 283 Henry Vaughan, Happy That First White Age When We 284 Richard Wright, Between the World and Me 285 Randall Jarrell , The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 287 Mari Evans, I Am a Black Woman 287 Kenneth Rexroth, The Bad Old Days 288 EXERCISES 290 Arthur Hugh Clough, The Latest Decalogue 290 D. H. Lawrence, How Beastly the Bourgeois Is 291 Denise Levertov, What Were They Like 292 Richard Eberhart , The Fury of Aerial Bombardment 293 Henry Reed, Naming of Parts 293 Yuri Suhl, The Permanent Delegate 294 Stanley Kunitz, The War Against the Trees 296 Gerard Manley Hopkins, Binsey Poplars 297
13. Poetry and Philosophy 299 A. E. Housman, They Say My Verse Is Sad: No Wonder 299 A. E. Housman , To an Athlete Dying Young 300 Alexander Pope, from An Essay on Man 301 William Shakespeare, from Troilus and Cress ida 303 William Wordsworth , Lines Written in Early Spring 304 Herman Melville, The Maldive Shark 305 Elizabeth Jennings, In Praise of Creation 305 Thomas Hardy , The Subalterns 306 Arthur Hugh Clough, All Is Well 307 Wallace Stevens, The Plain Sense of Things 308 Thomas Kinsella, An Old Atheist Pauses by the Sea 309 Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush 310 W. H. Auden , Musee des Beaux Arts 311 EXERCISES 313 Robert Frost, Mending Wall 313 Gary Snyder, The Snow on Saddle Mountain 314 Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man 314 Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach 315
14. Poetry and Religion 317 from The Book of Job 317 Wallace Stevens, Bowl 318 James Stephens , What Tomas Said in a Pub 319 Anne Bradstreet, Upon the Burning of Our House 320 Edward Taylor, The Souls Groan to Christ for Succour 322 John Donne, This Is My Play's Last Scene, Here Heavens Appoint 324
Contents xix Robert Southwell, The Burning Babe 325 Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall 326 Gerard Manley Hopkins , Pied Beauty 327 Gerard Manley Hopkins, I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark, Not Day 327 Gerard Manley Hopkins , Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord, If I Contend 328 Richard Crashato, To the Infant Martyrs 329 Richard Crashaui, Upon the Infant Martyrs 329 Emily Dickinson , Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church 330 Thomas Hardy, In a Wood 330 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from In Memoriam 332 T. S. Eliot, Journey of the Magi 333 Edwin Muir, The Annunciation 335 John Berryman , from Eleven Addresses to the Lord 336 EXERCISES 337 Anonymous, Adam Lay Bounden 337 Thomas Hood , A Reflection 337 Ted Hughes , Theology 337 William Blake, The Lamb 338 William Blake, The Tiger 338 George Herbert, Discipline 339 St. John of the Cross , a Living Flame of Love 340 St. Francis of Assisi, The Canticle of the Sun 341
15. Poetry and Psychology 343 Edward Lear, How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear! 347 Ann Darr, The Gift 348 Donald Finkel, The Father 349 Adrienne Rich, Bears 350 D. H. Lawrence, Piano 351 Robert Duncan , My Mother Would Be a Falconress 353 William Blake, A Little Boy Lost 355 William Shakespeare, Th' Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame 356 Louise Bogan, To an Artist, To Take Heart 358 EXERCISES 358 Helen Sorrels , From a Correct Address in a Suburb of a Major City 359 Ezra Pound, The Temperaments 359 Marianne Moore, Silence 360 Robert Lowell, Middle Age 360 James Wright , Revelation 361 William Blake, A Poison Tree 362 Robert Hayden , The Whipping 363 xx Contents Aubrey Beardsley, The Ballad of a Barber 363 George Herbert, The Collar 365
16. Poetry, Mythology, and Myth 368 William Wordsworth , The World Is Too Much with Us, Late and Soon 369 Alfred, Lord Tennyson , Lines 370 Robert Graves, Galatea and Pygmalion 370 Joseph Brodsky, Odysseus to Telemachus 372 Alfred, Lord Tennyson , Ulysses 373 Louise Bogan, Medusa 375 Vincent O'Sullivan, Medusa 375 Paul Verlaine, Parsifal 377 Judith Wright, Woman's Song 379 James Dickey, The Poisoned Man 380 EXERCISES 382 Edgar Allan Poe, To Helen 382 H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), Helen 383 Seamus Heaney, Bog Queen 383 A. R. Ammons, Choice 385
Part Three ANTHOLOGY 387
Conrad Aiken, The Road 389 Alurista, Address 390 Anonymous, Bonny Barbara Allan 391 Anonymous, The Silver Swan 392 Margaret Atwood, We Are Standing Facing Each Other 392 W. H. Auden, The Cultural Presupposition 393 Imamu Amiri Baraka, W. W. 394 Bashi), As Firmly Cemented Clam-Shells 394 Bash», Only for Morning Glories 394 Aphra Behn, Song: Love Arm'd 395 Juanita Bell, Indian Children Speak 395 John Berryman, Life, Friends, Is Boring. We Must Not Say So 396 Elizabeth Bishop, North Haven 397 William Blake, And Did Those Feet in Ancient Times 398 William Blake, The Chimney Sweeper 398 William Blake, The Crystal Cabinet 399 Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children 400 Gwendolyn Brooks, An Aspect of Love, Alive in the Ice and Fire 400
Contents xxi Robert Browning, Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister 401 Czedmon, Hymn 403 Thomas Campion, There Is a Garden in Her Face 404 Thomas Carew, Mediocrity in Love Rejected 404 Thomas Carew, A Song 405 Geoffrey Chaucer, A Good Man Was Ther of Religioun 405 John Clare, Mouse's Nest 407 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan 407 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, On Donne's Poetry 409 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Work Without Hope 409 William Congreoe, Pious Celinda Goes to Prayers 409 Hart Crane, The Air Plant 410 Robert Creeleu, The Flower 410 Countee Cullen, Saturday's Child 411 Emily Dickinson, After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes 411 Emily Dickinson, I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died 412 Emily Dickinson, The Soul Selects Her Own Society 412 John Donne, Batter My Heart, Three -Personed God, for You 413 John Donne, Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star 413 John Donne, The Sun Rising 414 John Donne, A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning 415 John Dryden, To the Memory of Mr. Oldham 416 Richard Eberhart, The Groundhog 417 T. S. Eliot, Gerontion 418 T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 420 Lawrence Ferlinghetti, In Golden Gate Park That Day 424 Robert Frost , Birches 425 John Gay, The Wild Boar and the Ram 426 Allen Ginsberg, To Aunt Rose 427 Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa 429 Nikki Giovanni, Winter Poem 429 Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 430 Donald Hall , The Sleeping Giant 433 Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain 434 Robert Hayden, Witch Doctor 436 George Herbert , Easter Wings 438 George Herbert, The Pulley 438 George Herbert , Virtue 439 Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder 439 Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 440 Robert Herrick, Upon Julia's Clothes 440 A. D. Hope, The Brides 441 Gerard Manley Hopkins, God's Grandeur 441 Gerard Manley Hopkins , The Windhover 442 A. E. Housman, Eight O'Clock 442 A. E. Housman, With Rue My Heart Is Laden 443 Langston Hughes , The Negro Speaks of Rivers 443 xxii Contents David lgnatoui, Oedipus 444 Robinson Jeffers, Hurt Hawks 444 Robinson Jeffers, To the Stone-Cutters 445 Ben Jon son , Inviting a Friend to Supper 445 Ben Jonson, Still to Be Neat, Still to Be Dressed 446 June Jordan , A Poem About Intelligence for My Brothers and Sisters 447 John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale 448 John Keats, This Living Hand 451 Galway Kinnell , Last Songs 451 Maxine Kumin, The Absent Ones 452 Philip Larkin, Church Going 452 Philip Larkin, Toads 454 D.H. Lawrence, Bavarian Gentians 455 D. H. Lawrence, Gloire de Dijon 456 Don L. Lee, Man Thinking About Woman 456 Philip Levine, To a Child Trapped in a Barber Shop 457 Vachel Lindsay, Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight 458 Amy Lowell, Wind and Silver 459 Robert Lowell, Skunk Hour 460 Archibald MacLeish , Ars Poetica 461 Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love 462 Andrew Marvell , To His Coy Mistress 463 W. S. Merwin , Another Year Come 464 W. S. Merwin, For the Anniversary of My Death 464 John Milton, How Soon Hath Time 464 John Milton , Lycidas 465 Marianne Moore, Poetry 470 Charles Olson, from The Songs of Maximu s 471 Wilfred Owen, ATerre 473 Wilfred Owen, Futility 475 Alexander Pope, Most Souls, 'Tis True, but Peep Out Once an Age 475 Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro 476 Ezra Pound, A Pact 476 Ezra Pound, Portrait d'une Femme 476 Sir Walter Raleigh, The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd 477 Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy 478 Theodore Roethke, The Meadow Mouse 479 Theodore Roeihke, My Papa's Waltz 480 Christina Rossetti, In an Artist's Studio 480 Muriel Rukeyser, Effort at Speech Between Two People 481 Guadelupe de Saavedra , IF You Hear That a Thousand People Love You 482 Anne Sexton , Welcome Morning 483 William Shakespeare, Fear No More the Heat 0' the Sun 483 William Shakespeare, Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies 484
Contents xxiii William Shakespeare, Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds 485 William Shakespea re, No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead 485 William Shakespea re, Spring 486 William Shakespea re, When My Love Swears That She Is Made of Truth 486 William Shakespeare, When to the Sessi ons of Sweet Silent Thought 487 William Shakespeare, Winter 487 Lou is Simpson, My Father in the Night Commanding No 488 W. D. Snodgrass, April Inventory 489 Stephen Spender, I Think Continually of Those Who Were Trul y Great 491 Edmund Spenser, My Love Is Like to Ice and I to Fire 491 Edmund Spenser, One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand 492 William Stafford, For the Grave of Daniel Boone 492 Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream 493 Wallace Stevens, Peter Quince at the Clavier 494 Walla ce Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird 496 Sir John Suckling, Out upon It! 497 May Swenson , The Secret in the Cat 498 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Tithonus 499 Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill 501 Dylan Thomas, In My Cra ft or Sullen Art 503 Dylan Thomas, A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London 503 Alice Walker, Medicine 504 Robert Penn Warren, Apology for Domitian 505 Robert Penn Warren, Bearded Oaks 506 Walt Whitman , When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloorn'd 507 William Carlos William s, The Dance 513 William Carlos Williams, The Red Wheelbarrow 514 William Carlos William s, This Is Just to Say 514 William Carlos Williams, To Waken an Old Lady 515 William Wordsworth, London, 1802 515 William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood 516 William Wordsworth, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways 521 W. B. Yeats, Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop 521 W. B. Yeats , Leda and the Swan 522 W. B. Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium 522 Onakatomi No Yoshinobu, The Deer on Pine Mountain 523
xxiv Contents Writing About Poetry 525 Some Groupings of Poems for Comparison 531
A Gallery of Poets 543
IND EX OF TERMS 561
INDEX OF FIRST LINES 565
INDE X OF AUTHORS AND TITLES 575
Contents xxv