The New Anthology of American Poetry

VOLUME ONE Traditions and Revolutions, Beginnings to 1900

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EDITED BY Steven Gould Axelrod Camille Roman Thomas Travisano

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS NEW BRUNSWICK, NEW JERSEV, AND LONDON CONTENTS

Preface xxv Acknowledgments xxix

PART ONE: PRE-COLUMBIAN PERIOD TO 1800 Introduction 3

NATIVE-AMERICAN SONGS, RITUAL POETRY, AND LYRIC POETRY (Pre-1492-1800) . .' 5

The Tree of the Great Peace [IROQUOIS] 6 Sayatasha's Night Chant [ZUNI] 7 Song [COPPER ESKIMO] 27 Love Song [ALEUT] 28 Song of Repulse to a Vain Lover [MAKAH] To'ak 28 Formula to Secure Love [CHEROKEE] 28 Formula to Cause Death [CHEROKEE] A'yunini, or the Swimmer 29 Woman's Song [CHIPPEWA] 30 Song of War [CHIPPEWA] Odjib'we 31 Song for Bringing a Child into the World [SEMINOLE] 31 Song for the Dying [SEMINOLE] 31

GASPAR PEREZ DE VILLAGRA (1555-1620) . •. • • 32 FROM Historia de la Nueva Mexico/The History of New Mexico Canto Primero/Canto 1 33

ANNE 8RADSTREET (ca. 1612-1672) 42 The Prologue 43 An Epitaph on My Dear and Ever Honored Mother 45 The Author to Her Book 46 viii • Contents

Contemplations 47 The Flesh and the Spirit 55 To Her Father with Some Verses 58 To My Dear and Loving Husband 58 A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment 59 Before the Birth of One of Her Children 60 In Reference to Her Children 60 For Deliverance from a Fever 63 In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet 64 Verses upon the Burning of Our House 64 As Weary Pilgrim 66

MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH (1631-1705) 67

FROM The Day of Doom 68

EDWARD TAYLOR (ca. 1642-1729) " . . . .75

FROM Preparatory Meditations Prologue 77 Meditation 8 (First Series) 78 Meditation 16 (First Series) 79 Meditation 22 (First Series) 81 Meditation 39 (First Series) 82 Meditation 42 (First Series) 84 Meditation 150 (Second Series) 85

FROM God's Determinations The Preface 86

FROM Miscellaneous Poems Upon a Spider Catching a Fly 87 Upon a Wasp Chilled with Cold 89 Huswifery 90 Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children 91

LUCY TERRY (ca. 1730-1821) . . 93

Bars Fight 94 Contents •

PHILIP FRENEAU (1752-1832) 95 To Sir Toby 97 On the Emigration to America and Peopling the Western Country 99 The Wild Honey Suckle 100 The Indian Burying Ground 101 On Mr. Paine's Rights of Man 103

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (ca. 1753-1784) . . .104 On Being Brought from_Africa to America 106 To the University of Cambridge, in 107 On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield, iyyo 108 On Imagination 109 To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth 111 To S.M.,a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works 113 To His Excellency General Washington 114

JOEL BARLOW (1754-1812) 115

FROM The Hasty Pudding Canto 1 116

SONGS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION AND NEW NATION . . . .121

PATRIOT LYRICS The Liberty Song 122 Chester 123 Alphabet 124 The King's own Regulars; And their Triumphs over the Irregulars 125 The Irishman's Epistle to the Officers and Troops at Boston 127 The Yankee's Return from Camp 128 The Public Spirit of the Women 130 A Toast to Washington Francis Hopkinson 130 Adams and Liberty Thomas Paine 131 x • Contents

LOYALIST LYRICS When Good Queen Elizabeth Governed the Realm 132 Song for a Fishing Party 133 Burrowing Yankees 134 A Refugee Song 134

PART TWO: EARLY TO MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY Introduction 139

AFRICAN-AMERICAN SLAVE SONGS (1800-1863) 141 Go Down, Moses 142 Many Thousand Gone 143 Michael Row the Boat Ashore 144 Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Had 145 Roll, Jordan, Roll 146 There's a Meeting Here To-Night 146

NATIVE-AMERICAN SONGS, RITUAL POETRY, AND LYRIC POETRY (1800-1900) 147

FROM The Mountain Chant [NAVAJO] One of the Awl Songs 148 Last Song of the Exploding Stick 149 FROM The Night Chant [NAVAJO] Song in the Rock 149 Last Song in the Rock 150 Prayer of First Dancers 150 Song of the Earth [NAVAJO] 153 The Dancing Speech of O-No'-Sa [IROQUOIS] 155

SIX DREAM SONGS You and I Shall Go [WINTU] 155 Minnows and Flowers [WINTU] 155 Sleep [WINTU] 156 Dandelion Puffs [WINTU] 156 There Above [WINTU] 156 Strange Flowers [WINTU] 157 Contents • xi

GHOST DANCE SONGS [The Father Says So] [sioux] 157 [Give Me Back My Bow] [sioux] 157 [The Whole World Is Coming] [sioux] 158

LYDIA HOWARD HUNTlEY SIGOURNEY (1791-1865) 159 The Suttee 159 Indian Names 161

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878) 162 Thanatopsis 164 To a Waterfowl 166 An Indian Story 167 AScene on the Banks of the Hudson 170 Hymn of the City 171 The Death of Lincoln 172

GEORGE MOSES HORTON (ca. 1797-1883) 173 On Liberty and Slavery 173

JANE JOHNSTON SCHOOLCRAFT [BAME-WA-WA-GE-ZHIK-A-QUAY, WOMAN OF THE STARS RUSHING THROUGH THE SKY] (1800-1841) . . .175 To Sisters on a Walk in the Garden, after a Shower 176 FROM The Forsaken Brother, a Chippewa Tale Neesya, neesya, shyegwuh gushuh/My brother, my brother 176

SARAH HELEN WHITMAN (1803-1878) 177 The Raven 179 FROM Sonnets [to Poe] 181 To 182

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882) 182 Concord Hymn 185 Each and All 185 The Rhodora 187 The Snow-Storm 187 xii • Contents

The Humble-Bee 188 Hamatreya 191 Merlin 193 Ode, Inscribed to W. H. Channing 196 Days 200 Brahma 200' FROM Voluntaries 201

PROSE T/ze Poet 202 Letter to Walt Whitman 219

ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH (1806-1893) 220 The Unattained 221

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882) 221 A Psalm of Life 226 Hymn to the Night 227 The Wreck of the Hesperus 228 Mezzo Cammin 231 The Day Is Done 232 The Bridge 233 FROM Evangeline [Prologue] 235 MyLostYouth 236 T/ie Jewish Cemetery at Newport 238 FROM The Song of Hiawatha V. Hiawatha's Fasting 241 XIV. Picture-Writing 248 The Landlord's Tale: Paul Revere's Ride 253 Aftermath 256 i Milton 257 Nature 257 The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls 258 The Cross of Snow 258

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892) 259 Massachusetts to Virginia 261 Ichabod! 265 Contents • xiii

c Skipper Ireson's Ride 266 Telling the Bees 270 Snow-Bound 272

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) 294 [Alone] 298 Sonnet—To Science 299 Romance 299 To Helen 300 Israfel 301 T/ze City in the Sea 302 T/ze Haunted Palace 304 T/ze Raven 305 Ulalume 309 Eldorado 312 To Hefen 313 To My Mother 315 T/ze Be//s 315 Annabel Lee 318

PROSE T/ie Philosophy of Composition 320

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894) 329 Old Ironsides 330 The Chambered Nautilus 331 T/ze Deacon's Masterpiece, or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay 333 The Flaneur 337

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865) 341 My Childhood Home I See Again 343

MARGARET FULLER (1810-1850) 346 Meditations 347

FRANCES SARGENT LOCKE OSGOOD (1811-1850) 350 The Maiden's Mistake 351 The Wraith of the Rose 352 Lines 353 The Hand That Swept the Sounding Lyre 354 xiv • Contents

ADA [SARAH LOUISA FORTEN] (ca. 1814-1898) 355 The Slave Girl's Farewell 356 The Slave 357

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862) 358 Sic Vita 359 Haze 361 Smoke 361 My life has been the poem I would have writ 362 Mist 362 Between the traveller and the setting sun 362

JULIA WARD HOWE (1819-1910) 363 Battle Hymn of the Republic 364

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891) 365

FROM Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War The Portent 367 The March into Virginia 368 Shiloh 369 A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Fight 370 The House-Top 371 The College Colonel 372 The Apparition 373

OTHER POEMS The Maldive Shark 374 Art 374 Monody 375

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891) 376

FROM A Fable for Critics Ralph Waldo Emerson 377 Edgar Allan Poe 379 379 Contents • xv

WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892) . . • 380 Song of Myself 384 There Was a Child Went Forth 432 Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 434 As I Ebb 'd with the Ocean of Life 439 I Sit and Look Out 441 Native Moments 442 Once I Pass'd through a Populous City 442 Facing West from California's Shores 443 As Adam Early in the Morning 443 In Paths Untrodden 443 Hours Continuing Long 444 Trickle Drops 445 City of Orgies 445 Behold This Swarthy Face 445 I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing 446 Here the Frailest Leaves of Me 446 A Hand-Mirror 446 When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer 447 Cavalry Crossing a Ford 447 The Wound-Dresser 448 Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night 450 Bivouac on a Mountain Side 451 When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 451 Reconciliation 458 One's-Self I Sing 458 A Noiseless Patient Spider 459 Passage to India 459 The Dalliance of the Eagles 468 Good-Bye My Fancy! 468

ALICE CARY (1820-1871) 469 The Sea-Side Cave 470 Contradiction 471 • Contents

FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN (1821-1873) 471 Sonnets 472 The Cricket 473

PHOEBE CARY (1824-1871) 477 Dorothy's Dower 478 Samuel Brown 480

FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER (1825-1911) 481 The Slave Mother 484 Bible Defence of Slavery 485 The Slave Auction 486 Lines 487 The Slave Mother, a Tale of the Ohio 488 Bury Me in a Free Land 490 Aunt Chloe's Politics 492 Learning to Read 492 Church Building 494 A Double Standard 495

MARIA WHITE LOWELL (1827-1853) 497 Africa 498 The Sick-Room 501 An Opium Fantasy 502

ROSE TERRY COOKE (1827-1892) 504 Captive 505 Blue-Beard's Closet 506 "Che Sara Sara" 507 Semele 508 A Hospital Soliloquy 509 Schemhammphorasch 511 Arachne 514 R. W. Emerson 515 Contents • xvii

JOHN ROLLIN RIDGE (1827-1867) 516 The Stolen White Girl 517

HENRY TIMROD (1828-1867) 518 Ode 518

HAWAIIAN PLANTATION WORK SONGS (1825-1930) 519 Uya AnmalMy Mother Dear Nae Nakasone 521 Hana-Hana: Working 521 The Five O'Clock Whistle! 522 Hole Hole Bushi /Stripping Leaves from Sugarcane 523

JINSHAN GE/SONGS OF GOLD MOUNTAIN (1838-1920) 523 [Jinshan Fu Xing]/Song of the Wife of a Gold Mountain Man 524

POPULAR EUROPEAN-AMERICAN SONGS 524 On Top of Old Smoky 525 Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie 526 Clementine 527 Aura Lee 528 The Battle Cry of Freedom 528 Tenting on the Old Camp Ground 529 When Johnny Comes Marching Home 530 Come Home, Father Henry Clay Work 530 I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen 531 FROM America, the Beautiful Katherine Lee Bates 532

PART THREE: LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY Introduction 535

CORRIDOS (1860s-1930s) 537 Kiansis I/Kansas 1 538

ZARAGOZA CLUBS (1860s) 540 Me/'ico libre ha de ser/Mexico will be free Merced J. de Gonzales 540 En la antigua Roma habia/In ancient Rome there stood Filomena Ibarra 541 xviii • Contents

DEWITT CLINTON DUNCAN [TOO-QUA-STEE] (1829-1909) . . . .542 The Dead Nation 544

HELEN HUNT JACKSON (1830-1885) • . .545 Found Frozen 546 Danger 546 Cheyenne Mountain 547

EMILY DICKINSON (1830-1886) 548 I never lost as much but twice 552 Success is counted sweetest 5 52 These are the days when birds come back 553 The daisy follows soft the sun 553 Title divine is mine! 554 "Faith" is a fine invention 554 I taste a liquor never brewed 555 We dont cry-Tim and I 555 I'm nobody! Who are you? 556 Wild nights - Wild nights! 557 There's a certain slant of light 557 1 felt a funeral in my brain 558 I'm ceded - I've stopped being theirs 559 It was not death, for I stood up 559 A bird came down the walk 560 The soul has bandaged moments 561 After great pain a formal feeling comes 562 This world is not conclusion 562 One need not be a chamber to be haunted 563 The soul selects her own society 564 I had been hungry all the years 564 They shut me up in prose 565 This was a poet 565 I died for beauty but was scarce 566 / dwell in possibility 566 I was the slightest in the house 567 Contents

Because I could not stop for death 567 A still volcano life 568 This is my letter to the world 569 For largest woman's heart I knew 569 I heard a fly buzz when I died 569 The brain is wider than the sky 570 Much madness is divinest sense 570 I've seen a dying eye 571 I started early - took my dog 571 I cannot live with you 572 Pain has an element of blank 574 My life had stood a loaded gun 574 Publication is the auction 575 This consciousness that is aware ~ 575 Color - caste - denomination 576 She rose to his requirement - dropt $JJ Under the light yet under 577 A narrow fellow in the grass 578 The bustle in a house 578 Tell all the truth but tell it slant 579 What mystery pervades a well! 579 Volcanoes be in Sicily 580 My life closed twice before it's close 580

LETTERS To Susan Gilbert (Dickinson) (June 2j, 1852) 581 To Samuel Bowles (About February 1861) 582 To recipient unknown (About 1861) 582 To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (April 15,1862) 584 To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (April25,1862) 585 To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (June 7,1862) 586 To Thomas Wentworth Higginson (July 1862) 587 To Otis P. Lord (About 1878) 588 To Susan Gilbert Dickinson (About 1884) 588 xx • Contents

ADAH ISAACS MENKEN (ca. 1835-1868) 589 Myself 591 A Memory 593 Infelix 594

SARAH M.B. PIATT (1836-1919) 595 Giving Back the Flower 597 Shapes of a Soul 598 A Hundred Years Ago 599 The Palace-Burner 600 Her Blindness in Grief 601 We Two 603 The Witch in the Glass 604

LYDIA KAMAKAEHA [QUEEN LIU'UOKALANI] (1838-1917) . . . .605 Aloha "Oe/Farewell to Thee 606 Ku *u Pucz I Paoa-ka-lani/My Flower at Paoa-ka-lani 607 Sanoe/Sanoe 608

INACOOLBRITH (1841-1928) 610 The Mariposa Lily 611 The Sea-Shell 612 The Captive of the White City 612 Sailed 615 Woman 615

SIDNEY LANIER (1842-1881) 617 The Marshes of Glynn 618

EMMA LAZARUS (1849-1887) 621 Long Island Sound 623 T/ze Cranes oflbycus 624 T/ze South 624 Echoes 626 City Visions 627 In Exi/e 628 Contents •

The New Colossus 629 1492 630 Venus of the Louvre 630

SARAH ORNEJEWETT (1849-1909) 631 ACagedBird 632

ALBERYALLSON WHITMAN (1851-1901) 633

FROM The Octoroon 635

EDWIN MARKHAM (1852-1940) 646 The Man with the Hoe 647 Preparedness 649 Outwitted 649

JOSE MARTi (1853-1895) 649 FROM Versos sencillos/Simple Verses 650

ERNEST FRANCISCO FENOLLOSA (1853-1908) 656 The Wood Dove 658 Fuji at Sunrise 659

LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY (1861-1920) 659 Tarpeia 660 Planting the Poplar 662

MARY MCNEIL FENOLLOSA (1865-1954) 663 Miyoko San 664 Yuki 665

OWL WOMAN [JUANA MANWELL] (1867-1957) 666 FROM Songs for Treating Sickness, Parts One and Two 667

SADAKICHI HARTMANN (1867-1944) 669 Cyanogen Seas Are Surging 671 FROM My Rubaiyat 672 Tanka 674 FROM Haikai 676 • Contents

EDGAR LEE MASTERS (1868-1950) ....:.... 676 FROM Spoon River Anthology The Unknown 677 Elsa Wertman 678 Hamilton Greene 679

W.E.B. DU BOIS (1868-1963) 679 A Litany of Atlanta 680 My Country 'Tis of Thee 683 The Quadroon 684

WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY (1869-1910) 685 The Bracelet of Grass 685 An Ode in Time of Hesitation 686

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1869-1935) 693 The House on the Hill 695 The Children of the Night 696 John Evereldown 697 Luke Havergal 698 Richard Cory 699 Calverly's 700 Miniver Cheevy 701 Eros Turannos 702 The Mill 703 Mr. Flood's Party 704

STEPHEN CRANE (1871-1900) 706 FROM The Black Riders and Other Lines 1 ("Black riders came from the sea") 707 3 ("In the desert") 707 9 ("I stood upon a high place") 708 19 ("A god in wrath") 708 24 ("I saw a man pursuing the horizon") 708 27 ("A youth in apparel that glittered") 709 46 ("Many red devils ran from my heart") . 709 56 ("A man feared that he might find an assassin") 710 Contents • xxiii

FROM War is Kind y6 ("Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind") 710 96 ("A man said to the universe") 711

POSTHUMOUSLY PUBLISHED POEMS 113 ("A man adrift on a slim spar") 711

JAMES WELDON JOHNSON (1871-1938) 712 O Black and Unknown Bards 713 My City 714

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (1872-1906) 715 Accountability 718 The Mystery 719 A Summer's Night 719 We Wear the Mask 720 When Malindy Sings 720 Dawn 723 Sympathy 723 The Poet 724 Douglass 724 The Debt 725 The Haunted Oak 725 To Alice Dunbar 727 Compensation 728

About the Editors 729 Index 731