For Ben Spencer
The Seashell Anthology of Great Poetry Copyright © 1996 and 2009 by Christopher Burns. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Additional copyright information appears in the Acknowledgments.
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Author Index> Title Index
Introduction
To the Reader, Denise Levertov
The Creation
The Creation, James Weldon Johnson
They Ask: Is God, Too, Lonely?, Carl Sandburg
The Earth, Anne Sexton
I dwell in possibility, Emily Dickinson
Song Making, Sara Teasdale
One’s Self I sing, Walt Whitman
God is indeed a jealous God, Emily Dickinson
Yet Do I Marvel, Countee Cullen
For Black Poets Who Think of Suicide,
Etheridge Knight
Constantly Risking Absurdity, Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Artist, William Carlos Williams
Ars Poetica, Archibald MacLeish
Poetry, Carl Sandburg
Prayers of Steel, Carl Sandburg
How Poetry Comes To Me, Gary Snyder
Digging, Seamus Heaney
Paradoxes and Oxymorons, John Ashbery
Coda, Ezra Pound
Epilogue, Robert Lowell
For My People
I hear America Singing, Walt Whitman
Song of Myself, Walt Whitman
next to of course god america i, e. e. cummings
A Supermarket in California, Allen Ginsberg
The New Colossus, Emma Lazarus
Let other people come as streams,
Charles Reznikoff
I will write songs against you, Charles Reznikoff
from “The People Yes”, Carl Sandburg
For My People, Margaret Walker
I, too, sing America, Langston Hughes
Night Funeral in Harlem, Langston Hughes
The Firebombers, Anne Sexton
From “Howl”, Allen Ginsberg
Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio,
James Wright
Limited, Carl Sandburg
Chicago, Carl Sandburg
Jazz Fantasia, Carl Sandburg
The Dance, William Carlos Williams
Night Journey, Theodore Roethke
New Mexican Mountain, Robinson Jeffers
Milton by Firelight, Gary Snyder
High Flight, John Gillespie Magee
The Highwayman
Jack, Carl Sandburg
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer
Cinderella, Anne Sexton
Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll
Felix Randal, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Highwayman, Alfred Noyes
The Ballad of William Sycamore,
Stephen Vincent Benét
The Carpenter's Son, A. E. Housman
The Cremation of Sam McGee, Robert Service
The Shooting of Dan McGrew, Robert Service
Richard Cory, Edwin Arlington Robinson
The Death of the Hired Man, Robert Frost
The Performance, James Dickey
Reuben Bright, Edwin Arlington Robinson
Hard Rock Returns to Prison, Etheridge Knight
The Examination, W. D. Snodgrass
The Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll
Mrs. Severin, Winfield Townley Scott
The Unknown Citizen, W. H. Auden
Arms and the Boy
Anthem for Doomed Youth, Wilfred Owen
The Send-Off, Wilfred Owen
Base Details, Siegfried Sassoon
Naming of Parts, Henry Reed
The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Julia Ward Howe
If we are marked to die, William Shakespeare
If We Must Die, Claude McKay
An Army Corps on the March, Walt Whitman
Counterattack, Siegfried Sassoon
Dulce et Decorum Est, Wilfred Owen
Ultima Ratio Regum, Stephen Spender
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, Randall Jarrell
Arms and the Boy, Wilfred Owen
Antrim, Robinson Jeffers
The Rear Guard, Siegfried Sassoon
Losses, Randall Jarrell
Reconciliation, Walt Whitman
Buttons, Carl Sandburg
The Three Ravens, English Ballad
Here dead lie we because we did not choose,
A. E. Housman
In Flanders Fields, John McCrae
Grass, Carl Sandburg
Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold
Recessional, Rudyard Kipling
What Were They Like?, Denise Levertov
Anne Sexton
And did those feet in ancient time, William Blake
Once more unto the breach, William Shakespeare
The Last War, Kingsley Amis
Earth, John Hall Wheelock
The Way Through the Woods
The Pasture, Robert Frost
After Apple Picking, Robert Frost
Root Cellar, Theodore Roethke
When green buds hang in the elm, A. E. Housman
The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost
The Way Through Woods, Rudyard Kipling
The Song of the Wandering Aengus,
William Butler Yeats
The Lake Isle of Innisfree, William Butler Yeats
I taste a liquor never brewed, Emily Dickinson
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth
The Tiger, William Blake
The Lamb, William Blake
The Eagle, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Dalliance of Eagles, Walt Whitman
Vulture, Robinson Jeffers
Hurt Hawks, Robinson Jeffers
God's World, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Spring, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Pied Beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Inversnaid, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Love Calls Us To Things Of This World,
Richard Wilbur
Chinoiseries, Amy Lowell
Fern Hill, Dylan Thomas
Puritan Sonnet, Elinor Wylie
Fog, Carl Sandburg
The Waning Moon, Percy Bysshe Shelley
What Lips My Lips Have Kissed
Politics, William Butler Yeats
I Knew a Woman, Theodore Roethke
Nude Descending a Staircase, X. J. Kennedy
Piazza di Spagna, Early Morning, Richard Wilbur
Her Heart, John Masefield
On a Certain Lady at Court, Alexander Pope
Delight in Disorder, Robert Herrick
Preference, Langston Hughes
The Gypsy Girl, Ralph Hodgson
No Images, Waring Cuney
The Harlem Dancer, Claude McKay
Blackberry Sweet, Dudley Randall
To a Dark Girl, Gwendolyn Bennett
Night Piece, to Julia, Robert Herrick
To Celia, Ben Jonson
To Helen, Edgar Allen Poe
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,
Christopher Marlowe
&
nbsp; The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd,
Sir Walter Raleigh
A Simile for Her Smile, Richard Wilbur
A Red, Red Rose, Robert Burns
That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
William Shakespeare
if i have made, my lady, e. e. cummings
Lullaby, W. H. Auden
A Line-Storm Song, Robert Frost
The Lost Mistress, Robert Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for naught,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I am Not Yours, Sara Teasdale
I want to die while you love me,
Georgia Douglas Johnson
My Last Duchess, Robert Browning
Playboy, Richard Wilbur
Request, Laurence Hope
Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae,
Ernest Dowson
Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?,
William Shakespeare
Some glory in their birth, some in their skill,
William Shakespeare
When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,
William Shakespeare
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments,
William Shakespeare
Advice to a Girl, Thomas Campion
Joy, Carl Sandburg
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,
Robert Herrick
Love is Not Concerned, Alice Walker
To His Coy Love, Michael Drayton
To His Coy Mistress, Andrew Marvell
Meeting at Night, Robert Browning
Parting at Morning, Robert Browning
That Day, Anne Sexton
Staying at Ed's Place, May Swenson
In May, J. M. Synge
Gold, Donald Hall
A Woman Waits for Me, Walt Whitman
It Is This Way with Men, C. K. Williams
may i feel said he, e. e. cummings
Four Poems, Vidyakara’s “Treasury”
Lightning, D. H. Lawrence
Leda and the Swan, William Butler Yeats
Two Songs, Adrienne Rich
Mock Orange, Louise Glück
Woman's Constancy, John Donne
To a Lady asking him how long he would love her,
Sir George Etheredge
To My Inconstant Mistress, Thomas Carew
The Constant Lover, Sir John Suckling
For My Lover, Returning to His Wife, Anne Sexton
The House Grown Silent, Sylvia Townsend Warner
O Western Wind, Author Unknown
Siwashing it out once in Siuslaw Forest,
Gary Snyder
O that 'twere possible, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sleepless, Sara Teasdale
Belle Isle, 1949, Philip Levine
If There Be Sorrow, Mari Evans
Where Have You Gone, Mari Evans
The heart asks pleasure first, Emily Dickinson
La Belle Dame Sans Merci, John Keats
Down by the salley gardens, William Butler Yeats
The Hill, Rupert Brooke
Because I Liked You Better, A. E. Housman
One Art, Elizabeth Bishop
Only Tell Her that I Love, John, Lord Cutts
Love, Darwin T. Turner
Separation, W. S. Merwin
What lips my lips have kissed,
Edna St. Vincent Millay
I Shall Go Back, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Oh, when I was in love with you, A. E. Housman
If Ever Two Were One
To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet
How Do I Love Thee?, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Modern Declaration, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Love is not all, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Permanently, Kenneth Koch
Love Poem, John Frederick Nims
Oh! Death Will Find Me, Rupert Brooke
Long I thought that knowledge alone
would suffice, Walt Whitman
Same in Blues, Langston Hughes
50-50, Langston Hughes
Soiled Dove, Carl Sandburg
Let me not to the marriage of true minds,
William Shakespeare
When I Have Fears, John Keats
The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter, Ezra Pound
Love on the Farm, D. H. Lawrence
The Farmer's Bride, Charlotte Mew
I Have Been Through the Gates, Charlotte Mew
The Wife's Tale, Seamus Heaney
Meditation at Kew, Anna Wickham
How sweet I roamed from field to field,
William Blake
Danse Russe, William Carlos Williams
What Wild Dawns There Were, Denise Levertov
Storm Fear, Robert Frost
A Wife Waits, Thomas Hardy
After Making Love We Hear Footsteps,
Galway Kinnell
A Question, J. M. Synge
The Ache of Marriage, Denise Levertov
Man and Wife, Mitchell Goodman
Six Years Later, Joseph Brodsky
Man and Wife, Robert Lowell
To My Wife, J. V. Cunningham
Coming to This, Mark Strand
We never said farewell, Mary Coleridge
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part,
Michael Drayton
Oh, Oh, you will be sorry for that word,
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Unpunished, Mary Coleridge
Divorce, Anna Wickham
A Renewal, James Merrill
Mag, Carl Sandburg
Ah, You Thought, Anna Akhmatova
Mementos, 1, W. D. Snodgrass
Idolatry, Arna Bontemps
Parting, Emily Dickinson
Time does not bring relief, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Seeing you stand once more before my eyes,
Amy Lowell
Alzheimer's: The Wife, C. K. Williams
The Widow's Lament in Springtime,
William Carlos Williams
At least my dear, Edna St. Vincent Millay
Complaint, James Wright
On His Deceased Wife, John Milton
Highland Mary, Robert Burns
The Last Dance, May Riley Smith
When You Are Old, William Butler Yeats
My Papa's Waltz
Morning Song, Sylvia Plath
To L. B. S., Winfield Townley Scott
Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note,
Imamu Amiri Baraka
Mill-Doors, Carl Sandburg
The One Girl at the Boys Party, Sharon Olds
35/10, Sharon Olds
Spring and Fall, Gerard Manley Hopkins
Portrait of Girl with Comic Book, Phyllis McGinley
Young Girls, P. K. Page
When I was a boy, Dylan Thomas
Baudelaire, Delmore Schwartz
This world is gradually becoming a place,
John Berryman
Momma Welfare Roll, Maya Angelou
To My Mother, George Barker
Nightingales in America, Jane Flanders
Piano, D. H. Lawrence
My Papa's Waltz, Theodore Roethke
Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden
Grandfather in the Old Men's Home, W. S. Merwin
The Moss of His Skin, Anne Sexton
Wanderer’s Song
Wanderer's Song, Arthur Symons
The World is Too Much with Us,
William Wordsworth
Sea Fever, John Masefield
Sailing to Byzantium, William Butler Yeats
Ulysses, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Dolor, Theodore Roethke
Departmental, Robert Frost
the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls,
e. e. cummings
He stared at ruin, John Berryman
Memories of West Street and Lepke, Robert Lowell
Skunk Hour, R
obert Lowell
Men at Forty, Donald Justice
Third Avenue in Sunlight, Anthony Hecht
The Hunchback in the Park, Dylan Thomas
Thoughts, Michael Benedikt
My Erotic Double, John Ashbery
Sonnet 115, John Berryman
The soul selects her own society, Emily Dickinson
Much madness is divinest sense, Emily Dickinson
Her Kind, Anne Sexton
Ringing the Bells, Anne Sexton
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
William Shakespeare
Preludes, T.S. Eliot
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
To be, or not to be, William Shakespeare
The Roofwalker, Adrienne Rich
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm,
James Wright
Above These Cares, Edna St. Vincent Millay
A Poem Some People Will Have to Understand,
Imamu Amiri Baraka
In a Dark Time, Theodore Roethke
The Leaden-Eyed, Vachel Lindsay
On His Blindness, John Milton
Kubla Khan, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Runes, Denise Levertov
So, we'll go no more a-roving,
George Gordon, Lord Byron
Weariness, Sara Teasdale
Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted with the Night, Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,
Robert Frost
The Dark Forest, Edward Thomas
Reluctance, Robert Frost
Directive, Robert Frost
Bereft, Robert Frost
Terminus, Ralph Waldo Emerson
On Growing Old, John Masefield
The Villain, William Henry Davies
You, Andrew Marvell, Archibald MacLeish
Dream Variations, Langston Hughes
London, William Blake
Clear Night, Charles Wright
Silver, Walter de la Mare
Beginning, James Wright
End of Summer, Stanley Kunitz
Night is my sister, Edna St. Vincent Millay
What if a much of a which of a wind,
e. e. cummings
A Dirge, Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!,
William Shakespeare
England in 1819, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Prophecy, Elinor Wylie
Sleep, Sir Philip Sidney
I Hear an Army, James Joyce
The Watch, Frances Cornford
Snowflakes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Bird, Rabindranath Tagore
If—, Rudyard Kipling
Invictus, William Ernest Henley
Medicine Formula, Takelma Indian Song
The Lord is My Shepherd, Book of Psalms
The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry
When Earth's last picture Is painted,
Rudyard Kipling
Epistle to Be Left in the Earth, Archibald MacLeish
The End of the World, Archibald MacLeish