The World's Best Poetry, Volume 03: Sorrow and Consolation

Each day, when the glow of sunset Fades in the western sky, And the wee ones, tired of playing, Go tripping lightly by, I steal away from my husband, Asleep in his easy-chair, A...

The spinner twisted her slender thread As she sat and spun: "The earth and the heavens are mine," she said, "And the moon and sun; Into my web the sunlight goes, And the breath...

I am undone: there is no living, none, If Bertram be away. It were all one, That I should love a bright particular star, And think to wed it, he is so above me: In his bright ra...

O waly, waly, up the bank, O waly, waly, doun the brae, And waly, waly, yon burn-side, Where I and my love were wont to gae! I leaned my back unto an aik, I thocht it was a trus...

"A weary lot is thine, fair maid, A weary lot is thine! To pull the thorn thy brow to braid, And press the rue for wine! A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, A feather of the blue...

My daughter,--once the comfort of my age! Lured by a villain from her native home, Is cast, abandoned, on the world's wild stage, And doomed in scanty poverty to roam.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis...

Farewell!--but whenever you welcome the hour That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower. Then think of the friend that once welcomed it too. And forgot his own griefs, t...

Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Twined amorous round the raptured scene; The flowers...

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee, And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. And so, all t...

Fear death?--to feel the fog in my throat, The mist in my face, When the snows begin, and the blasts denote I am nearing the place, The power of the night, the press of the stor...

I know his face is hid Under the coffin lid; Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair; My hand that marble felt; O'er it in prayer I knelt; Yet my heart whispers that--he...

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless,-- That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upwards to God's throne in loud access O...

One by one, to the grave, to the bridal, They have followed her sisters from the door; Now they are old, and she is their idol:-- It all comes back on her heart once more. In th...

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language: for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloque...

O western orb sailing the heaven, Now I know what you must have meant as a month since I walked, As I walked in silence the transparent shadowy night, As I saw you had something...

No analysis of philosophy can make us acquainted with the tragedy of this life as the poet can; no exhortation of preacher can so effectively arouse in us the spirit of a Christ...

And the life that I had almost despised As something to pity, so poor and low, Had already borne fruit that the Lord so prized He loved to come near and see it grow.

And yet, how few believe such doctrine springs From a poor root Which all the winter sleeps here under foot, And hath no wings To raise it to the truth and light of things, But...

I Home: Friendship VI Fancy: Sentiment II Love VII Descriptive: Narrative III Sorrow and Consolation VIII National Spirit IV The Higher Life IX Tragedy: Humor V Nature X Poetica...

BURNS, ROBERT. "Ae fond kiss, and then we sever" 98 Banks o' Doon, The 12 Highland Mary 329 "I love my Jean" 126 Mary in Heaven, To 339 "O my Luve's like a red, red rose" 99 "O,...

ANONYMOUS. Absence 141 Fair Helen 330 Good Bye 97 Grief for the Dead 408 Guilty or Not Guilty 212 Lady Ann Bothwell's Lament 47 Lavender 355 Parting Lovers, The 104 Peace 437 Sa...