V \ American Sonnets an anthology i 1 I david bromwich editor •; ir T • .... ;•.:: \ 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.