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American Sonnets
an anthology
i 1 I david bromwich editor •; ir T • .... ;•.::
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AMERICAN POETS PROJECT
THE LIBRARY OF AMERICA CONTENTS
Introduction xvii A Note on the Sonnet xxxix
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1767-1848) To the Sun-Dial 1
WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779-1843) On the Luxembourg Gallery i
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878) November 3 To an American Painter Departing for Europe 4
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882) Mezzo Cammin s from Divina Commedia I. "Oft have I seen at some cathedral door" 6 The Sound of the Sea 7 Nature 8 The Harvest Moon 9 The Cross of Snow 10
EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849) To Science 11 JONES VERY (1813-1880) The Columbine 12 The New Birth 13 The Garden 14 The Latter Rain 13 The Dead 16 Thy Brother's Blood 17 Nature IS The Children 19 Autumn Leaves 20
The Barberry Bush 21 The Hand and Foot 21
Yourself 23 The Lost 24 from The Origin of Man I. "Man has forgot his Origin; in vain" 25
HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862) from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers "This is my Carnac, whose unmeasured dome" 26
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891) The Street 27
FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN (1821-1873) from Sonnets, First Series VII. "Dank fens of cedar, hemlock branches gray" 28 X. "An upper chamber in a darkened house" 29 XXVIII. "Not the round natural world, not the deep mind" 30 from Sonnets, Second Series VII. "His heart was in his garden; but his brain" 31 XV. "Gertrude and Gulielma, sister-twins" 32 XVI. "Under the mountain, as when first I knew" 33 XVIII. "And change with hurried hand has swept these scenes" 34 XXIX. "How oft in schoolboy-days, from the school's sway" 35 XXX. "Yet even mid merry boyhood's tricks and scapes" 36 XXXII. "O for the face and footstep! woods and shores" 37 from Sonnets, Third Series IV "Thin little leaves of wood fern, ribbed and toothed" 38 VI. "I looked across the rollers of the deep" 39 VII. "O rest divine! O golden certainty" 40 IX. "But into order falls our life at last" 41 X. "Sometimes I walk where the deep water dips" 42 from Sonnets, Fourth Series" I. "Still, like a city, seated on a height" 43 VIII. "Nor strange it is, to us who walk in bonds" 44 from Sonnets, Fifth Series III. "And yet tonight, when summer daylight dies" 45 XVI. "Let me give something!—as the years unfold" 46
HELEN HUNT JACKSON (1830-1885) Crossed Threads 47
EMMA LAZARUS (1849-1887) The New Colossus 48 Long Island Sound 49
EDWIN MARKHAM (1852-1940) In Death Valley 50
LIZETTE WOODWORTH REESE (1856-1935) April in Town si
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY (1861-1920) The Lights of London 32 GEORGE SANTAYANA (1863-1952) from Sonnets, 1883-1893 III. "O world, thou choosest not the better part!" XVI. "A thousand beauties that have never been" from To W. P. II. "With you a part of me hath passed away" from Sonnets, 1895 XXIX. "What riches have you that you deem me poor"
RICHARD HOVEY (1864-1900) Accident in Art
EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1869-1935) Dear Friends 58
Sonnet ("Oh for a poet—for a beacon bright") 39
The Clerks 60
George Crabbe 61
On the Night of a Friend's Wedding 62
The Pity of the Leaves 63
L'Envoi 64
Lost Anchors 65
Many Are Called 66
The Sheaves 67 from Not Always II. "There were long days when there
was nothing said" 68
New England 69
Reunion 70
ROBERT FROST (1874-1963)
Into My Own 71
Mowing 72
Meeting and Passing 73
The Oven Bird 74 Putting in the Seed 75 The Investment 76 The Master Speed 77 Design 7» On a Bird Singing in Its Sleep 79 Unharvested so The Silken Tent si Never Again Would Birds' Song Be the Same 82
TRUMBULL STICKNEY (1874-1904) "Your image walks not in my common way" 83 "Tho' lack of laurels and of wreaths not one" 84 "Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream" ss "Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord" 86 "The melancholy year is dead with rain" 87 from Sonnets from Greece Near Helikon ss
WALLACE STEVENS (1879-1955) Autumn Refrain 89
ELINOR WYLIE (1885-1928) Wild Peaches 90 Unfinished Portrait 94 False Prophet 95
JOHN CROWE RANSOM (1888-1974) Good Ships 96 Parting at Dawn 97 Piazza Piece 98
CONRAD AIKEN (1889-1973) from And in the Human Heart X. "If we must speak, then let us humbly speak" 99 XXXIX. "Bird's eye or snake's eye, bright through leaves; the leaf" 100 CLAUDE MCKAY (1889-1948) Dawn in New York 101 Outcast 102
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY (1892-1950) "If I should learn, in some quite casual way" 103 "I think I should have loved you presently" 104 "I shall forget you presently, my dear" 105 "Love is not blind. I see with single eye" 106 "Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!" 107 Sonnet to Gath ios from Fatal Interview VII. "Night is my sister, and how deep in love" 109 XXXIII. "Sorrowful dreams remembered after waking" no XXXV "Clearly my ruined garden as it stood" 111 XLVI. "Even in the moment of our earliest kiss" 112 "I too beneath your moon, almighty Sex" 113
SAMUEL GREENBERG (1893-1917) from Sonnets of Apology XXVII. Immortality 114
E. E. CUMMINGS (1894-1962) "a wind has blown the rain away and blown" 115 " 'next to of course god america i" 116 "if i have made,my lady,intricate" 117 "he does not have to feel because he thinks" 11 a "pity this busy monster,manunkind" 119 "why must itself up every of a park" 120 "from spiralling ecstatically this" 121 "all worlds have halfsight,seeing either with" 122
H. PHELPS PUTNAM (1894-1948) from On Drink II. "Strong drink goes to the soul and sets it free" 123 LOUISE BOGAN (1897-1970) Sonnet ("Since you would claim the sources of my thought") 124 Simple Autumnal 123 Single Sonnet 126
JOHN WHEELWRIGHT (1897-1940) from Mirrors of Venus VII. Sanct 127 XII. Mother 128 XIII. Father 129 XXIX. Phallus 130
LEONIE ADAMS (1899-1988) Twilight of the Wood 131 Alas, Kind Element! 132
HART CRANE (1899-1932) To Emily Dickinson 133
ALLEN TATE (1899-1979) The Subway 134 from Sonnets at Christmas II. "Ah, Christ, I love you rings to the wild sky" 135 .from More Sonnets at Christmas II. "The day's at end and there's nowhere to go" 136
YVOR WINTERS (1900-1968) The Prince 137
R. P. BLACKMUR (1904-1965) Phasellus Ille 138 from Dedications II. Wind and Weather 139
RICHARD EBERHART (1904-2005) Burden 140 ROBERT FITZGERALD (1910-1985) Petit Jour i4i
ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911-1979) Sonnet 142
J. V. CUNNINGHAM (1911-1985) The Aged Lover Discourses in the Flat Style 143
DELMORE SCHWARTZ (1913-1966) The Beautiful American Word, Sure 144
KARL SHAPIRO (1913-2000) Christmas Eve: Australia 145 Full Moon: New Guinea 146
JOHN BERRYMAN (1914-1972) from Berryman's Sonnets XI. "I expect you from the North. The path winds in" 147
WELDON KEES (1914-1955) To Build a Quiet City in His Mind 148
ROBERT LOWELL (1917-1977) The North Sea Undertaker's Complaint 149 Inauguration Day: January 1953 150
WILLIAM MEREDITH (1919-2007) The Illiterate 151
HOWARD NEMEROV (1920-1991) This Present Past 152
RICHARD WILBUR (b. 1921) A Miltonic Sonnet for Mr. Johnson on His Refusal of Peter Hurd's Official Portrait 153 ANTHONY HECHT (1923-2004) Fifth Avenue Parade 154
Louis SIMPSON (b. 1923) Summer Storm 133
EDGAR BOWERS (1924-2000) The Virgin Mary 156 The Astronomers of Mont Blanc 157
DONALD JUSTICE (1925-2004) The Poet at Seven 1 as The Artist Orpheus 159
JAMES MERRILL (1926-1995) Marsyas 160 The Broken Home 161
JAMES WRIGHT (1927-1980) Saint Judas 168
JOHN HOLLANDER (b. 1929) Jefferson Valley 169
ADRIENNE RICH (b. 1929) The Insusceptibles 170
ROBERT MEZEY (b. 1935) Owl 171
Sources and Acknowledgments 175 Notes 1 as Index of Poets, Titles, and First Lines 189