Poetry of The 1800sAmerican Poets

William Cullen Bryant1794-1878: He wrote in an English romantic style and celebrated the countryside of New England. His work was well-received in his time.

To a Waterfowl

Whither, 'midst falling dew,While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursueThy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brinkOf weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-- The desert and illimitable air,-- Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fann'd At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere: Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reed shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He, who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.

Mutation

Hey talk of short-lived pleasure--be it so--

Pain dies as quickly: stem, hard-featured pain

Expires, and lets her weary prisoner go.

The fiercest agonies have shortest reign;

And after dreams of horror, comes again

The welcome morning with its rays of peace.

Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain,

Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease.

Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase

Are fruits of innocence and blessedness:

Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release

His young limbs from the chains that round him press.

Weep not that the world changes--did it keep

A stable changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep.

The Crowded Street

Let me move slowly through the street,Filled with an ever-shifting train,Amid the sound of steps that beatThe murmuring walks like autumn rain.

How fast the flitting figures come!The mild, the fierce, the stony face;Some bright with thoughtless smiles, and someWhere secret tears have left their trace.They pass--to toil, to strife, to rest;To halls in which the feast is spread;To chambers where the funeral guestIn silence sits beside the dead.And some to happy homes repair,Where children, pressing cheek to cheek,These struggling tides of life that seemWith mute caresses shall declareThe tenderness they cannot speak.And some, who walk in calmness here,Shall shudder as they reach the doorWhere one who made their dwelling dear,Its flower, its light, is seen no more. . . .

The Poet

Thou, who wouldst wear the nameOf poet mid thy brethren of mankind,And clothe in words of flameThoughts that shall live within the general mind! Deem not the framing of a deathless lay The pastime of a drowsy summer day.But gather all thy powers,And wreak them on the verse that thou dust weave, And in thy lonely hours,At silent morning or at wakeful eve,While the warm current tingles through thy veins,Set forth the burning words in fluent strains.No smooth array of phrase,Artfully sought and ordered though it be,Which the cold rhymer laysUpon his page with languid industry,Can wake the listless pulse to livelier speed,Or fill with sudden tears the eyes that read.

The secret wouldst thou knowTo touch the heart or fire the blood at will?Let thine own eyes o'erflow;Let thy lips quiver with the passionate thrill;Seize the great thought, ere yet its power be past,And bind, in words, the fleet emotion fast. . . .

Emily Dickinson1830-1886: She is regarded as one of America’s greatest poets; nearly 1800 of her poems were published. She lived a life of simplicity and seclusion, yet wrote with great power, questioning the nature of immortality and death.

501: This World is Not Conclusion

This world is not conclusion;

A sequel stands beyond,

Invisible, as music,

But positive, as sound.

It beckons and it baffles;

Philosophies don't know,

And through a riddle, at the last,

Sagacity must go.

To guess it puzzles scholars;

To gain it, men have shown

Contempt of generations,

And crucifixion known.

-1862

547: I’ve Seen a Dying Eye

I've seen a dying eye

Run round and round a room

In search of something, as it seemed,

Then cloudier become;

And then, obscure with fog,

And then be soldered down,

Without disclosing what it be,

'T were blessed to have seen.

-1862

622: To Know Just How He Suffered Would Be Dear

To know just how he suffered would be dear;

To know if any human eyes were near

To whom he could entrust his wavering gaze,

Until it settled firm on Paradise.

To know if he was patient, part content,

Was dying as he thought, or different;

Was it a pleasant day to die,

And did the sunshine face his way?

What was his furthest mind, of home, or God,

Or what the distant say

At news that he ceased human nature

On such a day?

(continued)

And wishes, had he any?

Just his sigh, accented,

Had been legible to me.

And was he confident until

Ill fluttered out in everlasting well?

And if he spoke, what name was best,

What first,

What one broke off with

At the drowsiest?

Was he afraid, or tranquil?

Might he know

How conscious consciousness could grow,

Till love that was, and love too blest to be,

Meet -- and the junction be Eternity?

-1862

1090: I Am Afraid To Own a Body

I am afraid to own a Body—

I am afraid to own a Soul—

Profound—precarious Property

Possession, not optional—

Double Estate—entailed at pleasure

Upon an unsuspecting Heir—

Duke in a moment of Deathlessness

And God, a Frontier.

-1866

1128: These Are the Nights

These are the Nights that Beetles love—

From Eminence remote

Drives ponderous perpendicular

His figure intimate

The terror of the Children

The merriment of men

Depositing his Thunder

He hoists abroad again—

A Bomb upon the Ceiling

Is an improving thing—

It keeps the nerves progressive

Conjecture flourishing—

Too dear the Summer evening

Without discreet alarm—

Supplied by Entomology

With its remaining charm—

-1868

Hope is the Thing with feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I 've heard it in the chilliest land,

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

1803-1882:He wrote mostly about nature and remains important in American history as a founder of the school of thought known as Transcendentalism. Its chief features were a reliance on intuition over cold, scientific reason, a belief that the natural world held spiritual truths and an optimistic view of the human spirit.

Motto to “Illusions”Flow, flow the waves hated, Accursed, adored, The waves of mutation:No anchorage is.Sleep is not, death is not;Who seem to die live.House you were born in,Friends of your spring-time,Old man and young maid, Day’s toil and is guerdon,They are all vanishing,Fleeing to fables,Cannot be moored. See the stars through them,Through treacherous marble.Know, the stars yonder,The stars everlasting,Are fugitive also,And emulate, vaulted,The lambent heat-lightning,And fire-fly’s flight.

When thou dost return

On the wave’s circulation,Beholding the shimmer,The wild dissipation,And, out of endeavorTo change and to flow,The gas become solid,And phantoms and nothingsReturn to be things,And endless imbroglioIs law and the world, --The first shalt thou know,That in the wild turmoil,Horsed on the Proteus,Thou ridest to power,And to endurance. -1860

Motto to “The Poet”

A moody child and wildly wise

Pursued the game with joyful eyes,

Which chose, like meteors, their way,

And rived the dark with private ray:

They overleapt the horizon’s edge,

Searched with Apollo’s privilege;

Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,

Saw the dance of nature forward far;

Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,

Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.

-1844

The World-Soul Thanks to the morning light, Thanks to the foaming sea,To the uplands of New Hampshire, To the green-haired forest free;Thanks to each man of courage, To the maids of holy mind;To the boy with his games undaunted, Who never looks behind. The politics are base; The letters do not cheer;And ‘tis far in the deeps of history, The voice that speaketh clear.Trade and the streets ensnare us, Our bodies are weak and worn;We plot and corrupt each other, And we despoil the unborn.

Yet there in the parlor sits Some figure of noble guise, --Through flood and sear and firmament; Through light, through life, it forward flows. I see the inundation sweet, I hear the spending of the streamThrough years, through men, through nature fleet, Through passion, thought, through power and dream.-1853

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1807-1882:American educator and poet whose works include Paul Revere’s Ride and The Song of Hiawatha. He had the gift of easy rhyme and wrote poetry as a bird sings, with natural grace and melody.

Mezzo Cammin

Half of my life is gone, and I have let

The years slip from me and have not fulfilled

The aspiration of my youth, to build

Some tower of song with lofty parapet.

Not indolence, nor pleasure, nor the fret

Of restless passions that would not be stilled,

But sorrow, and a care that almost killed,

Kept me from what I may accomplish yet;

Though, half-way up the hill, I see the Past

Lying beneath me with its sounds and sights, --

A city in the twilight dim and vast,

With smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights, --

And hear above me on the autumnal blast

The cataract of Death far thundering from the heights.-1842

The Day is DoneThe day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wings of Night,As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight. I see the lights of the village Gleam through the rain and the mist,And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me That my soul cannot resist: A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain,And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain. Come, read to me some poem, Some simple and heartfelt lay,That shall soothe this restless feeling, And banish the thoughts of day. Not from the grand old masters, Not from the bards sublime,Whose distant footsteps echo Through the corridors of time.

SnowflakesOut of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,Over the woodlands brown and bare Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression,Even as the trouble heart doth make In the white countenance confession, The troubled sky reveals The grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, slowly in silent syllables recorded;This is the secret of despair, Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, Now whispered and revealed To wood and field. -1863

Edgar Allan Poe

1809-1849:He is best known for his tales of mystery, but his poems contain beauty and significance.

Edgar Allan Poe

“A Dream Within A Dream”

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow:

You are not wrong who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within in a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand—

How few! yet how they creep

Though my fingers to the deep,

While I weep – while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

-1829

To One in Paradise

Thou wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine –

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry hope, that didst arise

But to be overcast!

A voice from out the future cries,

“On! on!” but o’er the past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me

The light of life is o’er!

“No more – no more – no more –“

(Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore)

Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy dark eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams,

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams. -1834

The Sleeper

At midnight, in the month of June,I stand beneath the mystic moon.An opiate vapor, dewy, dim,Exhales from out her golden rim,And, softly dripping, drop by drop,Upon the quiet mountain top,Steals drowsily and musicallyInto the universal valley.The rosemary nods upon the grave;The lily lolls upon the wave;Wrapping the fog about its breast,The ruin molders into rest;Looking like Lethe, see! the lakeA conscious slumber seems to take,And would not, for the world, awake.All Beauty sleeps!- and lo! where liesIrene, with her Destinies! . . .

Romance

Romance, who loves to nod and sing, With drowsy head and folded wing, Among the green leaves as they shakeFar down within some shadowly lake, To me a painted paroquetHath been – a most familiar bird; Taught me my alphabet to say,To lisp my very earliest wordWhile in the wild wood I did lie,A child, with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal condor years So shake the very heaven on high With tumult as they thunder by,I have no time for idle cares Through gazing on the unquiet sky.And when an hour with calmer wingsIts down upon my spirit flings,That little time with lyre and rhyme To while away – forbidden things!My heart would feel to be a crime Unless it trembled with the strings. -1829

Henry David Thoreau

1817-1862:Although he thought of himself primarily as a poet during his early years, he was later discouraged in this pursuit and gradually came to feel that poetry was too confining. Thoreau is considered one of the most influential figures in American thought and literature. A supreme individualist, he defended the human spirit against materialism and social conformity.

Brother Where Dost Thou Dwell Brother where dost thou dwell? What sun shines for thee now?Dost thou indeed farewell? As we wished here below. What season didst thou find? ‘Twas winter here.Are not the fates more kind Than they appear? Is thy brow clear again As in thy youthful years?And was that ugly pain The summit of thy fears? Yes, thou was cheery still, They could not quench thy fire,Thou dids’t abide their will, And then retire… -1843

Pray to What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong Pray to what earth does this sweet cold belong,Which asks no duties and no conscience?The moon goes up by leaps her cheerful pathIn some far summer stratum of the sky,While stars with their cold shine bedot her way.The fields gleam mildly back upon the sky,And far and near upon the leafless shrubsThe now dust still emits a silvery light.Under the hedge, where drift banks are their screen,The titmice now pursue their downy dreams,As often in the sweltering summer nightsThe bee doth drop asleep in the flower cup,When evening overtakes him with his load.By the brooksides, in the still genial night,The more adventurous wanderer may hearThe crystals shoot and form, and winter slowIncrease his rule by gentlest summer means.

On Ponkawtasset, Since, We Took Our Way

On Ponkawtasset, since, we took our way,down this still stream to far Billericay,A poet wise has settled, whose fine raydoth often shine on Concord’s twilight day. Like those first stars, whose silver beams on high,Shining more brightly as the day goes by,Most travelers cannot at first descry,But eyes that wont to range the evening sky, And know celestial lights, do plainly see,And gladly hail them, numbering two or three;for lore that’s deep must deeply studied be,As from deep wells men read star-poetry. These stars are never paled, though out of sight,But like the sun they shine forever bright;Ay, they are suns, though earth must in its flight Put out its eye that it may see their light.

Walt Whitman

1819-1892:He is generally considered to be the most important American poet of his time. He wrote in free verse, relying heavily on the rhythms of common American speech.

Song of Myself1I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul,I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,I now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,Hoping to cease not till death. Creed and schools in abeyance,Retiring back while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,Nature without check with original energy.

Cavalry Crossing a Ford

A line in long array where they wind betwixt green islands,

They take a serpentine course, their arms flash in the sun –

hark to the musical clank,

Behold the silvery river, in it the splashing horses loitering stop to drink,

Behold the brown-faced men, each group, each person a picture,

the negligent rest on the saddles,

Some emerge on the opposite bank, others are just entering the ford—while,

Scarlet and blue and snowy white,

The guidon flags flutter gayly in the wind.

– 1865

O Captain! My Captain! 1O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart!O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

2O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head; It is some dream that on the deck,You've fallen cold and dead.

(continued)

3My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still; My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will; The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done; From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells! But I, with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

John Greenleaf Whittier

1807-1892:He was a Quaker poet who wrote of freedom and faith. He was known for his humanitarianism.

Tent on the Beach: The Dreamer And one there was, a dreamer born, Who, with a mission to fulfill,Had left the Muses’ haunts to turn The crank of an opinion-mill,Making his rustic reed of songA weapon in the war with wrong,Yoking his fancy to the breaking-ploughThat beam-deep turned the soil for truth to spring and grow. For while he wrought with strenuous will The work his hands had found to do,He heard the fitful music still Of winds that out of dream-land blew.The din about him could not drownWhat the strange voices whispered down;Along his task-field weir processions swept,The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped.

A Lament The circle is broken, one seat is forsaken,One bud from the tree of our friendship is shaken;One heart from among us no longer shall thrillWith joy in our gladness, or grief in our ill. Weep! lonely and lowly are slumbering nowThe light of her glances, the pride of her brow;Weep! sadly and long shall we listen in vainTo hear the soft tones of her welcome again. Give our tears to the dead! For humanity’s claimFrom its silence and darkness is ever the same;The hope of that world whose existence is blissMay not stifle the tears of the mourners of this.

(continued)

For, oh! if one glance the freed spirit can throwOn the scene of its troubled probation below,Than the pride of the marble, the pomp of the dead,To that glance will be dearer the tears which we shed. Oh, who can forget the mild light of her smile,Over lips moved with music and feeling the while,The eye’s deep enchantment, dark, dream-like, and clear,In the glow of its gladness, the shade of its tear. And the charm of her features, while over the wholePlayed the hues of the heart and the sunshine of soul;And the tones of her voice, like the music which seemsMurmured low in our ears by the Angel of dreams!

The River Path No bird-song floated down the hill,The tangled bank below was still; No rustle from the birchen stem,No ripple from the water’s hem. The dusk of twilight round us grew,We felt the falling of the dew; For, from us, ere the day was done,The wooded hills shut out the sun. But on the river’s farther sideWe saw the hill-tops glorified, -- A tender glow, exceeding fair,A dream of day without its glare. With us the damp, the chill, the gloom:With them the sunset’s rosy bloom; While dark, through willowy vistas seen,the river rolled in shade between.

Themes in 1800’s Poetry:

• Nature• Religion• Country• Love• Suffering