English Narrative Poems

If from the public way you turn your steps Up the tumultuous brook of Greenhead Ghyll,[102] You will suppose that with an upright path Your feet must struggle; in such bold asce...

It has all been told and painted; as for me, they say I fainted, 125 And the wooden-legged old Corporal stumped with me down the stair: When I woke from dreams affrighted the ev...

Bonnivard, the son of the Lord of Lune, was born in 1496. When sixteen years old, he inherited from his uncle the priory of St. Victor, near Geneva. Later he allied himself with...

By none but me can the tale be told, The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold. 275 (_Lands are swayed by a king on a throne._) 'Twas a royal train put forth to sea, Yet the tale can be...

The Mayor was dumb, and the Council stood As if they were changed into blocks of wood, Unable to move a step, or cry 210 To the children merrily skipping by, --Could only follow...

"Think then, will it bring honor to thy head If folk say, 'Everything aside he cast And to all fame and honor was he dead, And to his one hope now is dead at last, 410 Since all...

_The Revenge_ deals with an incident of the war between England and Spain during the latter half of the sixteenth century. Sir Richard Grenville, the hero, came from a long line...

By this the lazy gossips of the port, Abhorrent of a calculation crost, 470 Began to chafe as at a personal wrong. Some thought that Philip did but trifle with her; Some that sh...

With farmer Allan at the farm abode William and Dora. William was his son, And she his niece. He often looked at them, And often thought, "I'll make them man and wife." Now Dora...

A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff; In this the children play'd at keeping house. Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, 25 While Annie still was mistress; but at times En...

The discussion of narrative methods may be left to the will and discretion of the teacher. A study of the separate poems here presented will show that while the four almost indi...

Of Nelson and the North, Sing the glorious day's renown, When to battle fierce came forth All the might of Denmark's crown, And her arms along the deep proudly shone; 5 By each...

So Lord Howard passed away with five ships of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven; But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land...

You know the rest. In the books you have read, How the British Regulars fired and fled,-- How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farmyard wall, Chas...

"Away, away, my steed and I, Upon the pinions of the wind. All human dwellings left behind; 425 We sped like meteors through the sky, When with its crackling sound the night Is...

Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley. Andersen's Fairy Tales. Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum. Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Bacon's Essays. Bible (Memorab...

I saw them--and they were the same, They were not changed like me in frame; I saw their thousand years of snow On high--their wide long lake below, 335 And the blue Rhone in ful...

John Greenleaf Whittier was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, December 17, 1807, and died at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, September 7, 1892. Whittier's ancestors for several ge...

That ancient Beadsman heard the prelude soft; And so it chanced, for many a door was wide, From hurry to and fro. Soon, up aloft, 30 The silver, snarling[144] trumpets 'gan to c...

"I long woo'd your daughter, my suit you denied;-- Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like the tide-- 20 And now I am come, with this lost love of mine, To lead but one measu...