Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (287 page)
Read Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Online
Authors: Homer,William Shakespeare
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
THANK Heaven! the crisis —
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last —
And the fever called ‘Living’
5
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length —
10
But no matter! — I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
15
Might fancy me dead —
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
20
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart: — ah that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness — the nausea —
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The pitiless pain —
Have ceased with the fever
That maddened my brain —
With the fever called ‘Living’
That burned in my brain.
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And oh! of all tortures
That
torture the worst
Has abated — the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
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Of Passion accurst: —
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst: —
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
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From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground —
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
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Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For a man never slept
In a different bed —
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And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
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Regretting, its roses —
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
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A holier odor
About it, of pansies —
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies —
With rue and the beautiful
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Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie —
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Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
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To sleep on her breast —
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
80
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm —
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly,
85
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead —
And I rest so contentedly,
Now, in my bed,
90
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead —
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead: —
But my heart it is brighter
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Than all of the many
Stars of the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie —
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie —
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With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
IT was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
5
Than to love and be loved by me.
I
was a child and
she
was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my ANNABEL LEE —
10
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
15
My beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
20
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me —
Yes! — that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
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Chilling and killing my ANNABEL LEE.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we —
Of many far wiser than we —
And neither the angels in heaven above,
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Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE:
For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE,
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And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE:
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling — my darling — my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea —
40
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
LO! ’tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
5
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
10
And hither and thither fly —
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
15
Invisible Woe!
That motley drama — oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
20
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
25
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! — it writhes! — with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
30
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out — out are the lights — out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
35
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, ‘Man,’
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
40
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
GOOD-BYE, proud world! I’m going home:
Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine.
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam;
5
But now, proud world! I’m going home.
Good-bye to Flattery’s fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth’s averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
10
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home.
I am going to my own hearth-stone,
15
Bosomed in yon green hills alone, —
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird’s roundelay,
20
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.
O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
25
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
30
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
THINK me not unkind and rude
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
Tax not my sloth that I
5
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.
Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
10
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.
There was never mystery
But ’tis figured in the flowers;
Was never secret history
15
But birds tell it in the bowers.
One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.
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List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
List of Poets in Alphabetical Order