Category: Poetry

A Vers de Société Anthology

To Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company for poems by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, Bret Harte, John G. Saxe, Norah Perry, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James T. Field, Edith Thomas, Edmund Clarence Stedman and Charl...

Chapters

2. Part 2

Mr. Adams tells us that “_Vers de Société_ should be applied to the poetry of fashionable life alone; should be limited to the doings and sayings of the world of fashion, and sh...

3. Part 3

And that he could die Whenever he would; But that he could live But as long as he could; How grievous soever The torment might grow, He scorned to endeavour To finish it so. But...

12. Part 12

_LET all men living on earth take heed, For their own soul’s sake, to a rhyme well meant; Writ so that he who runs may read— We are the folk that a-summering went, Who while the...

4. Part 4

Time passed. My eldest girl was married And I now am a grandsire grey; One pet of four years old I’ve carried Among the wild-flower’d meads to play. In our old fields of childis...

14. Part 14

WHEN first I saw fair-featured Grace, In dainty tailor-fashioned gown, I fell in love with her sweet face, And pooh-poohed at her escort, Brown. The fellow’s rich, but such a cl...

7. Part 7

EXQUISITE wines and comestibles, From Slater, and Fortnum and Mason; Billiard, écarté, and chess tables; Water in vast marble basin; Luminous books (not voluminous) To read unde...

5. Part 5

True love is at home on a carpet, And mightily likes his ease, And true love has an eye for a dinner, And starves beneath shady trees. His wing is the fan of a lady, His foot’s...

9. Part 9

A dozen engagements I’ve broken; I left in the midst of a set; Likewise a proposal, half spoken, That waits—on the stairs—for me yet. They say he’ll be rich—when he grows up— An...

13. Part 13

As in Paradise I listened. Ah, I did not understand That a little cloud, no larger than the average human hand, Might, as stated oft in fiction, spread into a sable pall, When s...

8. Part 8

I wonder if—What’s that? A knock? Is that you, James? Eh? What? God bless me! How time has flown! It’s eight o’clock, And here’s my fellow come to dress me. Be quick, or I shall...

11. Part 11

A BAGATELLE! Ah, Mistress Prue, So gaily laughing all life through, You call it that, the flower you fling Lightly aside, the song you sing, The fan, the glove no longer new.

6. Part 6

I know, Justine, you speak me fair As often as we meet; And ’tis a luxury, I swear, To hear a voice so sweet; And yet it does not please me quite, The civil way you’ve got; For...

10. Part 10

Thou comfortest as music does, and wine, And grief dies smothered in thy purple fold. Let one greater than I, Kiss, and more bold, Rear thee a classic, monumental line.

1. Part 1

To Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company for poems by Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, Bret Harte, John G. Saxe, Nora...

15. Part 15

I should have guessed you drinking tea With someone whom you loved to madness; I should have thought you cold to me, And revelled in a depth of sadness. But, no! you came withou...

16. Part 16

DOBSON, AUSTIN Avice 177 A Song of the Four Seasons 179 In Town 181 When I Saw You Last, Rose 183 To “Lydia Languish” 184 The Old Sedan Chair 186 “Le Roman de la Rose” 188