THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER BY DYLAN THOMAS & MY HEART LEAPS UP BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

v

Contents

PREFACE TO THE SHORTER FIFTH EDITION xli Editorial Procedures xliii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xlv

CAEDMON’S HYMN (translated by John Pope) 1

From BEOWULF (translated by Seamus Heaney) 2

Riddles (translated by Richard Hamer) 10 1 (“I am a lonely being, scarred by swords”) 10 2 (“My dress is silent when I tread the ground”) 10 3 (“A moth ate words; a marvellous event”) 11

THE SEAFARER (translated by Ezra Pound) 11

Anonymous Lyrics of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries 14 Now Go’th Sun under Wood 14 The Cuckoo Song 14 Fowls in the Frith 15 I Am of Ireland 15

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (ca. 1343–1400) 15 The Canterbury Tales 15

The General Prologue 15 The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale 35

Troilus and Criseide 63 Cantus Troili 63

Lyrics and Occasional Verse 64 Complaint to His Purse 64 To His Scribe Adam 65

WILLIAM LANGLAND (ca. 1330–ca. 1400) 65 Piers Plowman, lines 1–111 65

PEARL, 1–5 (1375–1400) 69

Anonymous Lyrics of the Fifteenth Century 72 Adam Lay I-bounden 72 I Sing of a Maiden 72 I Have a Young Sister 73

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Timor Mortis 74 The Corpus Christi Carol 75 Western Wind 76 The Sacrament of the Altar 76 See! Here, My Heart 76

WILLIAM DUNBAR (ca. 1460–ca. 1525) 76 Lament for the Makaris 76 Done Is a Battle 79

JOHN SKELTON (1460–1529) 81 Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale 81 To Mistress Margaret Hussey 82 Phillip Sparow 83

Early Modern Ballads 86 The Douglas Tragedy 86 Lord Randal 89 The Three Ravens 90 Sir Patrick Spens 91 The Unquiet Grave 92 Bonny Barbara Allan 93 Mary Hamilton 95 The Bitter Withy 97

Anonymous Elizabethan and Jacobean Poems 98 Weep You No More, Sad Fountains 98 There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind 99 Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song 100

THOMAS WYATT (1503–1542) 102 The Long Love, That in My Thought Doth Harbor 102 Whoso List to Hunt 103 My Galley 103 They Flee from Me 104 Patience, Though I Have Not 104 My Lute Awake! 105 Forget Not Yet 106 Lucks, My Fair Falcon 107 Stand Whoso List 107

HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY (ca. 1517–1547) 108 The Soote Season 108 Love, That Doth Reign and Live within My Thought 108 Wyatt Resteth Here 109

ANNE ASKEW (1521–1546) 110 The Ballad Which Anne Askewe Made and Sang When She Was

in Newgate 110

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QUEEN ELIZABETH I (1533–1603) 111 When I Was Fair and Young 111 [The Doubt of Future Foes Exiles My Present Joy] 112 [Ah Silly Pug, Wert Thou So Sore Afraid] 112

GEORGE GASCOIGNE (ca. 1534–1577) 113 And If I Did, What Then? 113 Gascoigne’s Lullaby 114

ISABELLA WHITNEY (fl. 1567–1573) 115 A Sweet Nosegay 115

A Communication Which the Author Had to London, Before She Made Her Will 115

From The Manner of Her Will, & What She Left to London, and to All Those in It, at Her Departing 116

CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE (d. 1586) 120 [My Prime of Youth Is but a Frost of Cares] 120

SIR WALTER RALEGH (ca. 1552–1618) 120 A Vision upon the Fairy Queen 120 The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd 121 The Lie 122 [Fortune Hath Taken Thee Away, My Love] 124

EDMUND SPENSER (1552–1599) 125 The Faerie Queene 125

Book 1, Canto 1 125 Amoretti 139

Sonnet 15 (“Ye tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle”) 139

Sonnet 23 (“Penelope for her Ulisses sake”) 140 Sonnet 54 (“Of this worlds Theatre in which we stay”) 140 Sonnet 67 (“Lyke as a huntsman after weary chace”) 141 Sonnet 70 (“Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty

king”) 141 Sonnet 71 (“I joy to see how in your drawen work”) 141 Sonnet 75 (“One day I wrote her name upon the

strand”) 142 Sonnet 79 (“Men call you fayre, and you doe credit it”) 142

Epithalamion 143

JOHN LYLY (1554–1606) 153 Cupid and My Campaspe 153 Oh, For a Bowl of Fat Canary 154

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554–1586) 154 Ye Goatherd Gods 154 What Length of Verse? 157

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Astrophil and Stella 157 1 (“Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show”) 157 21 (“Your words my friend [right healthful caustics]

blame”) 158 31 (“With how sad steps, Oh Moon, thou climb’st the

skies”) 158 48 (“Soul’s joy, bend not those morning stars from me”) 159 49 (“I on my horse, and Love on me, doth try”) 159 52 (“A strife is grown between Virtue and Love”) 159 63 (“O Grammer rules, ô now your virtues show”) 160 71 (“Who will in fairest book of Nature know”) 160 Seventh Song (“Whose senses in so evil consort, their stepdame

Nature lays”) 164 90 (“Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame”) 161

ROBERT SOUTHWELL (ca. 1561–1595) 162 The Burning Babe 162

MARY SIDNEY (1561–1621) 162 Psalm 58: Si Vere Utique 162 Psalm 114: In Exitu Israel 163

SAMUEL DANIEL (1563–1619) 164 Delia 164

1 (“Unto the boundless Ocean of thy beauty”) 164 2 (“Go wailing verse, the infants of my love”) 164 6 (“Fair is my love, and cruel as she’s fair”) 165 49 (“Care-charmer Sleep, son of the sable Night”) 165 50 (“Let others sing of knights and paladins”) 166

MICHAEL DRAYTON (1563–1631) 166 Idea 166

To the Reader of these Sonnets 166 6 (“How many paltry, foolish, painted things”) 167 14 (“If he from heaven that filched that living fire”) 167 61 (“Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part”) 168

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564–1593) 168 The Passionate Shepherd to His Love 168

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564–1616) 169 Sonnets 169

1 (“From fairest creatures we desire increase”) 169 3 (“Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest”) 169 12 (“When I do count the clock that tells the time”) 170 15 (“When I consider everything that grows”) 170 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”) 171 20 (“A woman’s face, with nature’s own hand painted”) 171 29 (“When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes”) 171 30 (“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought”) 172 55 (“Not marble, nor the gilded monuments”) 172

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65 (“Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea”) 173

71 (“No longer mourn for me when I am dead”) 173 73 (“That time of year thou mayst in me behold”) 173 87 (“Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing”) 174 94 (“They that have power to hurt and will do none”) 174 97 (“How like a winter hath my absence been”) 175 106 (“When in the chronicle of wasted time”) 175 107 (“Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul”) 175 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”) 176 126 (“O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy pow’r”) 176 129 (“Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame”) 177 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”) 177 138 (“When my love swears that she is made of truth”) 177 144 (“Two loves have I of comfort and despair”) 178 146 (“Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth”) 178

The Phoenix and the Turtle 179 Songs from the Plays 181

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind 181 Fear No More the Heat o’ the Sun 181 Full Fathom Five 182

THOMAS CAMPION (1567–1620) 182 My Sweetest Lesbia 182 I Care Not for These Ladies 183 Follow Thy Fair Sun 184 When to Her Lute Corinna Sings 184 Rose-cheeked Laura 185

THOMAS NASHE (1567–1601) 185 Summer’s Last Will 185

[Spring, the Sweet Spring] 185 [Adieu, Farewell, Earth’s Bliss] 186

AEMILIA LANYER (1569–1645) 187 From Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum 187

JOHN DONNE (1572–1631) 191 The Good-Morrow 191 Song (“Go and catch a falling star”) 192 Woman’s Constancy 192 The Sun Rising 193 The Canonization 194 Song (“Sweetest love, I do not go”) 195 The Anniversary 196 A Valediction of Weeping 197 A Valediction Forbidding Mourning 198 The Ecstasy 199 The Funeral 201 The Flea 202 The Relic 202

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Elegy XIX. To His Mistress Going to Bed 203 Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward 205 Holy Sonnets 206

1 (“Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay?”) 206 5 (“I am a little world made cunningly”) 206 7 (“At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow”) 207 10 (“Death, be not proud, though some have called

thee”) 207 14 (“Batter my heart, three-personed God; for You”) 208

BEN JONSON (1572–1637) 208 To the Reader 208 On My First Daughter 208 On My First Son 209 On Spies 209 To John Donne 209 Inviting a Friend to Supper 210 On Gut 211 To Penshurst 211 Song: To Celia (I) 214 Song: To Celia (II) 214 A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme 215 Still to Be Neat 216 Though I Am Young and Cannot Tell 217 To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author Mr. William

Shakespeare 217 A Sonnet to the Noble Lady, the Lady Mary Wroth 219 Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount 220 Queen and Huntress 220

MARY WROTH (1587–1651?) 221 Pamphilia to Amphilanthus 221

1 (“When night’s black mantle could most darkness prove”) 221

3 (“Yet is there Hope: then Love but play thy part”) 221 37 (“Night, welcome art thou to my mind distressed”) 222 74 Song (“Love a child is ever crying”) 222 A Crown of Sonnets Dedicated to Love 223

77 (“In this strange labyrinth how shall I turn”) 223 78 (“Is to leave all and take the thread of Love”) 224 82 (“He may our prophet, and our tutor prove”) 224

ROBERT HERRICK (1591–1674) 225 The Argument of His Book 225 The Vine 225 Delight in Disorder 226 Corinna’s Going A-Maying 226 To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 228 Upon Julia’s Breasts 228 Upon a Child That Died 229 Upon Julia’s Clothes 229

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An Ode for Him 229 The Pillar of Fame 230 To Find God 230 The White Island, or Place of the Blest 231

HENRY KING (1592–1669) 232 An Exequy to His Matchless, Never-to-Be-Forgotten

Friend 232

GEORGE HERBERT (1593–1633) 235 The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations 235

The Altar 235 Redemption 235 Easter Wings 236 Sin (I) 237 Affliction (I) 238 Prayer (I) 239 Jordan (I) 240 Virtue 240 Artillery 241 The Collar 242 The Pulley 243 The Flower 243 The Forerunners 245 Love (III) 246

THOMAS CAREW (ca. 1595–1640) 246 A Song (“Ask me no more where Jove bestows”) 246 Song. To My Inconstant Mistress 247 An Elegy upon the Death of the Dean of Paul’s, Dr. John

Donne 247

The Massachusetts Bay Psalm Book (1640) 250 Psalm 58 250

EDMUND WALLER (1606–1687) 251 Song (“Go, lovely rose!”) 251

JOHN MILTON (1608–1674) 252 On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity 252 On Shakespeare 260 L’Allegro 260 Il Penseroso 264 How Soon Hath Time 268 Lycidas 269 Comus 274

Song (“Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv’st unseen”) 274 When I Consider How My Light Is Spent 274 On the Late Massacre in Piedmont 275 Methought I Saw 275

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Paradise Lost 276 The Verse 276 Book 1 [The Invocation] 277 From Book 4 [lines 1–113] 278

SIR JOHN SUCKLING (1609–1642) 281 Song (“Why so pale and wan, fond lover?”) 281 Sonnet II (“Of thee, kind boy, I ask no red and white”) 281 Out upon It! 282

ANNE BRADSTREET (ca. 1612–1672) 282 The Prologue 282 Before the Birth of One of Her Children 283 To My Dear and Loving Husband 285 The Author to Her Book 285 A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public

Employment 286 Here Follows Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July

10th, 1666 287

RICHARD CRASHAW (1613–1649) 288 The Tear 288

RICHARD LOVELACE (1618–1658) 289 To Althea, from Prison 289 To Lucasta, Going to the Wars 290 The Grasshopper 291

ANDREW MARVELL (1621–1678) 292 Bermudas 292 To His Coy Mistress 293 The Definition of Love 294 The Mower against Gardens 295 The Garden 296

HENRY VAUGHAN (1621–1695) 298 The Retreat 298 They Are All Gone into the World of Light! 299 The Waterfall 301

MARGARET CAVENDISH (1623–1673) 302 An Apology for Writing So Much upon This Book 302 Of Many Worlds in This World 302

JOHN DRYDEN (1631–1700) 303 Mac Flecknoe 303 To the Memory of Mr. Oldham 309 A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day 310

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KATHERINE PHILIPS (1632–1664) 312 Epitaph 312 To My Excellent Lucasia, on Our Friendship 312

THOMAS TRAHERNE (1637–1674) 313 Wonder 313

EDWARD TAYLOR (ca. 1642–1729) 315 Meditation 8 (“I kenning through astronomy divine”) 315 Upon a Spider Catching a Fly 316

APHRA BEHN (1640?–1689) 318 Song (“Love Armed”) 318 The Disappointment 318 Song (“On Her Loving Two Equally”) 322 To the Fair Clarinda, Who Made Love to Me, Imagined More

Than Woman 323

JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER (1647–1680) 323 The Disabled Debauchee 323 The Imperfect Enjoyment 325 A Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover 326

ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA (1661–1720) 327 The Spleen 327 Adam Posed 331 A Nocturnal Reverie 331

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667–1745) 333 A Description of a City Shower 333 Stella’s Birthday 334 The Lady’s Dressing Room 336 A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed 339 Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D. 341

ISAAC WATTS (1674–1748) 353 Our God, Our Help 353 Psalm 58 355

JOHN GAY (1685–1732) 356 Songs from The Beggar’s Opera 356

Air X—“Thomas, I Cannot” 356 Air XI—“A Soldier and a Sailor” 356 Air XVI—“Over the Hills, and Far Away” 356 Air XXVII—“Green Sleeves” 357

ALEXANDER POPE (1688–1744) 357 The Rape of the Lock 357 Epistle to Miss Blount 375

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An Essay on Man, in Four Epistles 376 From Epistle 1 (lines 1–130) 376

Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot 379 The Dunciad 389

[The Triumph of Dulness] 389

LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1689–1762) 390 Saturday (The Smallpox) 390 The Lover: A Ballad 392 A Receipt to Cure the Vapors 393

JAMES THOMSON (1700–1748) 394 The Seasons 394

From Winter (lines 223–358) 394

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709–1784) 397 Prologue Spoken by Mr. Garrick 397 The Vanity of Human Wishes 399

THOMAS GRAY (1716–1771) 407 Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College 407 Ode (On the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of

Goldfishes) 409 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 410

WILLIAM COLLINS (1721–1759) 414 Ode on the Poetical Character 414 Ode to Evening 416

CHRISTOPHER SMART (1722–1771) 417 Jubilate Agno, lines 697–770 (“For I will consider my Cat

Jeoffry”) 417 Psalm 58 419

JEAN ELLIOT (1727–1805) 420 The Flowers of the Forest 420

OLIVER GOLDSMITH (ca. 1730–1774) 421 When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly 421 The Deserted Village 422

WILLIAM COWPER (1731–1800) 431 Olney Hymns 431

Light Shining out of Darkness 431 The Castaway 431 Lines Written during a Period of Insanity 433

ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD (1743–1825) 434 The Rights of Woman 434 To the Poor 435 Life 435

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CHARLOTTE SMITH (1749–1806) 436 To the Shade of Burns 436 Nepenthe 437 From Beachy Head 437

PHILLIS WHEATLEY (ca. 1753–1784) 438 On Being Brought from Africa to America 438 To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works 439

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757–1827) 440 Poetical Sketches 440

Song (“How sweet I roam’d from field to field”) 440 To the Evening Star 440

Songs of Innocence 441 Introduction (“Piping down the valleys wild”) 441 The Lamb 441 Holy Thursday [I.] 442 The Divine Image 442 The Little Black Boy 443

Songs of Experience 444 Introduction (“Hear the voice of the Bard!”) 444 A Divine Image 444 Holy Thursday [II.] 445 The Clod & the Pebble 445 The Sick Rose 446 A Poison Tree 446 The Tyger 446 Ah Sun-flower 447 The Garden of Love 447 London 448

Songs and Ballads 448 I Askèd a Thief 448 Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau 449 A Question Answered 449

Milton 450 And Did Those Feet 450

Jerusalem 450 England! Awake! Awake! Awake! 450

ROBERT BURNS (1759–1796) 451 Green Grow the Rashes 451 To a Mouse 452 Holy Willie’s Prayer 453 John Anderson My Jo 455 A Red Red Rose 456

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770–1850) 456 Expostulation and Reply 456 The Tables Turned 457 Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey 458 Anecdote for Fathers 462

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The Prelude 464 Book I, lines 301–647 (“Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew

up”) 464 She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 471 Three Years She Grew 471 A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal 472 Resolution and Independence 473 It Is a Beauteous Evening 476 London, 1802 477 Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 477 Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room 478 My Heart Leaps Up 478 Ode: Intimations of Immortality 478 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 483 The World Is Too Much with Us 484 The Solitary Reaper 484 Surprised by Joy 485 Mutability 485 Scorn Not the Sonnet 486

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE (1772–1834) 486 Kubla Khan 486 Frost at Midnight 488 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 489 Dejection: An Ode 505

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR (1775–1864) 509 Rose Aylmer 509 Dirce 509 Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher 509

GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON (1788–1824) 510 Written after Swimming from Sestos to Abydos 510 She Walks in Beauty 510 When We Two Parted 511 So We’ll Go No More A-Roving 512 Don Juan 512

Fragment on the Back of the Ms. of Canto I 512 Canto the First. Stanzas 1–119 513

On This Day I Complete My Thirty-sixth Year 537

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1792–1822) 538 Hymn to Intellectual Beauty 538 Ozymandias 541 Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples 541 England in 1819 542 Ode to the West Wind 543 The Cloud 545 To a Skylark 547 Adonais 550

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Hellas 563 The World’s Great Age 563

JOHN CLARE (1793–1864) 564 Badger 564 Farewell 565 I Am 566

FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS (1793–1835) 566 Casabianca 566

JOHN KEATS (1795–1821) 567 On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer 567 On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again 568 When I Have Fears 568 To Homer 569 The Eve of St. Agnes 569 On the Sonnet 579 La Belle Dame sans Merci 579 Ode to Psyche 581 Ode to a Nightingale 582 Ode on Melancholy 584 Ode on a Grecian Urn 585 To Autumn 587 Bright Star 588 This Living Hand 588

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803–1882) 588 Concord Hymn 588 The Rhodora 589 The Snow-Storm 589 Ode (Inscribed to W. H. Channing) 590 Intellect 593 Fate 593

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING (1806–1861) 593 Sonnets from the Portuguese 593

1 (“I thought once how Theocritus had sung”) 593 43 (“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”) 594

Aurora Leigh 594 From Book 5 [Poets and the Present Age] 594

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807–1882) 597 From Evangeline 597 The Song of Hiawatha 597

From Part III: Hiawatha’s Childhood 597 The Cross of Snow 599

EDWARD FITZGERALD (1809–1883) 600 The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám of Naishápúr 600

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OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809–1894) 613 The Chambered Nautilus 613

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809–1849) 614 Sonnet—To Science 614 To Helen 615 The Raven 615 Annabel Lee 618

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (1809–1892) 619 Mariana 619 The Lady of Shalott 621 The Lotos-Eaters 625 Ulysses 629 Break, Break, Break 631 Songs from The Princess 631

Tears, Idle Tears 631 Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal 632

In Memoriam A.H.H. 633 1 (“I held it truth, with him who sings”) 633 2 (“Old Yew, which graspest at the stones”) 633 7 (“Dark house, by which once more I stand”) 634 11 (“Calm is the morn without a sound”) 634 19 (“The Danube to the Severn gave”) 634 50 (“Be near me when my light is low”) 635 67 (“When on my bed the moonlight falls”) 635 88 (“Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet”) 636 95 (“By night we lingered on the lawn”) 636 119 (“Doors, where my heart was used to beat”) 638 121 (“Sad Hesper o’er the buried sun”) 638 130 (“Thy voice is on the rolling air”) 639

The Eagle 639 Tithonus 639 Crossing the Bar 641

ROBERT BROWNING (1812–1889) 642 Porphyria’s Lover 642 My Last Duchess 643 The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church 644 Home-Thoughts, from Abroad 647 A Toccata of Galuppi’s 648 “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” 650 Fra Lippo Lippi 656 Two in the Campagna 664

EDWARD LEAR (1812–1888) 666 There Was an Old Man with a Beard 666 The Owl and the Pussy-Cat 666 How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear 667

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EMILY BRONTË (1818–1848) 668 Remembrance 668 The Prisoner. A Fragment 669 No Coward Soul Is Mine 671

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH (1819–1861) 671 The Latest Decalogue 671 Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth 672

JULIA WARD HOWE (1819–1910) 673 Battle-Hymn of the Republic 673

HERMAN MELVILLE (1819–1891) 673 The Portent 673 Shiloh 674 The Maldive Shark 674 The Berg 675 Monody 676

Spirituals 676 Go Down, Moses 676 Ezekiel Saw the Wheel 677

WALT WHITMAN (1819–1892) 679 Song of Myself 679

1 (“I celebrate myself, and sing myself”) 679 5 (“I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself

to you”) 679 6 (“A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full

hands”) 680 11 (“Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore”) 681 24 (“Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son”) 682 52 (“The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me . . .”) 683

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry 684 When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer 689 Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night 689 Beat! Beat! Drums! 690 Cavalry Crossing a Ford 691 Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking 691 When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d 696 A Noiseless Patient Spider 702 To a Locomotive in Winter 703

MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822–1888) 704 Shakespeare 704 To Marguerite 704 The Scholar-Gypsy 705 Dover Beach 711

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DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI (1828–1882) 712 The Blessed Damozel 712 The House of Life 715

A Sonnet 715

GEORGE MEREDITH (1828–1909) 716 Modern Love 716

1 (“By this he knew she wept with waking eyes”) 716 17 (“At dinner, she is hostess, I am host”) 716 30 (“What are we first? First, animals; and next”) 717 48 (“Their sense is with their senses all mixed in”) 717 49 (“He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge”) 717 50 (“Thus piteously Love closed what he begat”) 718

Lucifer in Starlight 718

EMILY DICKINSON (1830–1886) 719 39 (49) (“I never lost as much but twice -”) 719 68 (89) (Some things that fly there be -”) 719 112 (67) (“Success is counted sweetest”) 719 124 (216) (“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -”) (1859) 720 124 (216) (“Safe in their Alabaster Chambers -”) (1862) 720 145 (59) (“A little East of Jordan”) 721 202 (185) (“ ‘Faith’ is a fine invention”) 721 260 (288) (“I’m nobody! Who are you?”) 722 269 (249) (“Wild nights - Wild nights!”) 722 314 (254) (“ ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers -”) 722 320 (258) (“There’s a certain Slant of light”) 723 339 (241) (“I like a look of Agony”) 723 340 (280) (“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain”) 723 359 (328) (“A Bird, came down the Walk -”) 724 372 (341) (“After great pain, a formal feeling comes -”) 725 409 (303) (“The Soul selects her own Society -”) 725 445 (613) (“They shut me up in Prose -”) 725 479 (712) (“Because I could not stop for Death -”) 726 533 (569) (“I reckon - When I count at all -”) 727 591 (465) (“I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -”) 727 620 (435) (“Much Madness is divinest Sense -”) 728 740 (789) (“On a Columnar Self -”) 728 764 (754) (“My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -”) 728 782 (745) (“Renunciation - is a piercing Virtue -”) 729 788 (709) (“Publication - is the Auction”) 730 905 (861) (“Split the Lark - and you’ll find the Music -”) 730 1096 (986) (“A narrow Fellow in the Grass”) 730 1108 (1078) (“The Bustle in a House”) 731 1263 (1129) (“Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -”) 731 1489 (1463) (“A Route of Evanescence”) 732 1793 (1732) (“My life closed twice before it’s close”) 732 1788 (1763) (“Fame is a bee”) 732

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830–1894) 733 Song (“When I am dead, my dearest”) 733

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Remember 733 Echo 733 In an Artist’s Studio 734 Up-Hill 734 Passing Away, Saith the World, Passing Away 735

LEWIS CARROLL (CHARLES LUTWIDGE DODGSON) (1832–1898) 736

Jabberwocky 736 [Humpty Dumpty’s Explication of Jabberwocky] 737

W. S. GILBERT (1836–1911) 738 I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General 738 Titwillow 740

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE (1837–1909) 740 Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon 740

When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter’s Traces 740 A Forsaken Garden 742

THOMAS HARDY (1840–1928) 744 Hap 744 I Look into My Glass 744 Drummer Hodge 745 A Broken Appointment 745 The Darkling Thrush 746 The Ruined Maid 747 The Convergence of the Twain 748 Channel Firing 749 The Voice 750 During Wind and Rain 751 In Time of “The Breaking of Nations” 751

SIDNEY LANIER (1842–1881) 752 The Marshes of Glynn 752

GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS (1844–1889) 755 God’s Grandeur 755 The Windhover 755 Pied Beauty 756 [As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame] 756 Felix Randal 757 Spring and Fall 757 [Carrion Comfort] 758 [No Worst, There Is None. Pitched Past Pitch of Grief] 758 [My Own Heart Let Me More Have Pity On] 759 [Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord . . . ] 759

A. E. HOUSMAN (1859–1936) 760 Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now 760

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To an Athlete Dying Young 760 Is My Team Ploughing 761 With Rue My Heart Is Laden 762 “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff . . .” 762 Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries 764 Crossing Alone the Nighted Ferry 764 Here Dead Lie We Because We Did Not Choose 765

RUDYARD KIPLING (1865–1936) 765 Tommy 765 Recessional 766

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865–1939) 767 The Stolen Child 767 The Lake Isle of Innisfree 768 When You Are Old 769 Adam’s Curse 769 No Second Troy 770 The Wild Swans at Coole 771 Easter 1916 772 The Second Coming 774 Sailing to Byzantium 774 Leda and the Swan 776 Among School Children 776 Byzantium 778 Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop 780 Lapis Lazuli 780 Long-Legged Fly 782 The Circus Animals’ Desertion 782 Under Ben Bulben 784

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON (1869–1935) 787 Richard Cory 787 George Crabbe 787 Reuben Bright 788 Miniver Cheevy 788 Mr. Flood’s Party 789

CHARLOTTE MEW (1869–1928) 790 The Farmer’s Bride 790

STEPHEN CRANE (1871–1900) 792 From The Black Riders and Other Lines 792

I (“BLACK RIDERS CAME FROM THE SEA”) 792 III (“IN THE DESERT”) 792 XXV (“BEHOLD, THE GRAVE OF A WICKED MAN”) 792 LVI (“A MAN FEARED THAT HE MIGHT FIND AN

ASSASSIN”) 793 From War is Kind 793 [A Man Adrift on a Slim Spar] 793

Contents / xxii i

PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR (1872–1906) 794 A Summer’s Night 794 Sympathy 795

ROBERT FROST (1874–1963) 795 Mending Wall 795 Home Burial 796 After Apple-Picking 799 The Wood-Pile 800 The Road Not Taken 801 The Oven Bird 801 Birches 802 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 803 Acquainted with the Night 804 Neither Out Far Nor In Deep 804 Design 805 Provide, Provide 805 The Silken Tent 806 Come In 806 Never Again Would Birds’ Song Be the Same 807 The Most of It 807 The Gift Outright 808 Directive 808

AMY LOWELL (1874–1925) 810 Patterns 810 The Weather-Cock Points South 812

GERTRUDE STEIN (1874–1946) 813 Stanzas in Meditation 813

Part I, Stanza XIII (“She may count three little daisies very well”) 813

Part III, Stanza II (“I think very well of Susan but I do not know her name”) 813

Part III, Stanza V (“It is not a range of a mountain”) 814 Part V, Stanza XXXVIII (“Which I wish to say is this”) 814 Part V, Stanza LXIII (“I wish that I had spoken only of it

all.”) 814

EDWARD THOMAS (1878–1917) 814 In Memoriam [Easter 1915] 814 As the team’s head brass 815

WALLACE STEVENS (1879–1955) 816 The Snow Man 816 The Emperor of Ice-Cream 816 Sunday Morning 817 Anecdote of the Jar 820 Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird 820 Peter Quince at the Clavier 822

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The Idea of Order at Key West 824 Waving Adieu, Adieu, Adieu 825 Of Mere Being 826

E. J. PRATT (1883–1964) 827 Come Not the Seasons Here 827 From Stone to Steel 827

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS (1883–1963) 828 Danse Russe 828 Portrait of a Lady 829 The Red Wheelbarrow 829 This Is Just to Say 830 Poem 830 A Sort of a Song 831 Asphodel, That Greeny Flower 831

Book I 831 Pictures from Brueghel 838

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus 838

D. H. LAWRENCE (1885–1930) 838 Love on the Farm 838 Piano 840 Snake 840 The English Are So Nice! 843 Bavarian Gentians 843

EZRA POUND (1885–1972) 844 Portrait d’une Femme 844 The Garden 845 A Pact 845 Ts’ai Chi’h 846 In a Station of the Metro 846 The River-Merchant’s Wife: a Letter 846 The Cantos 847

I (“And then went down to the ship”) 847 XLV (“With Usura”) 849

H. D. (HILDA DOOLITTLE) (1886–1961) 851 Helen 851 The Walls Do Not Fall 851

[1] (“An incident here and there”) 851

SIEGFRIED SASSOON (1886–1967) 853 “They” 853 Everyone Sang 853

ROBINSON JEFFERS (1887–1962) 854 Shine, Perishing Republic 854 Birds and Fishes 854

Contents / xxv

MARIANNE MOORE (1887–1972) 855 The Fish 855 Poetry 856 The Steeple-Jack 857 What Are Years? 859 Nevertheless 860 The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing 861

T. S. ELIOT (1888–1965) 862 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 862 The Waste Land 866 The Hollow Men 879

JOHN CROWE RANSOM (1888–1974) 881 Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter 881 Piazza Piece 882 Parting, without a Sequel 882

ISAAC ROSENBERG (1890–1918) 883 Break of Day in the Trenches 883

HUGH MacDIARMID (CHRISTOPHER MURRAY GRIEVE) (1892–1978) 884

Another Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries 884 From In Memoriam James Joyce 884

ARCHIBALD MacLEISH (1892–1982) 885 Ars Poetica 885 The Snowflake Which Is Now and Hence Forever 886

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY (1892–1950) 887 First Fig 887 Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare 887 [I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed] 887 The Buck in the Snow 888 I Dreamed I Moved among the Elysian Fields 888 Armenonville 889

WILFRED OWEN (1893–1918) 889 Anthem for Doomed Youth 889 Dulce Et Decorum Est 890 Strange Meeting 891 Futility 892

E. E. CUMMINGS (1894–1962) 892 All in green went my love riding 892 Spring is like a perhaps hand 893 “next to of course god america i 894 since feeling is first 894 somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond 895

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may I feel said he 895 anyone lived in a pretty how town 896 who are you,little I 897

JEAN TOOMER (1894–1967) 898 Cane 898

Reapers 898 Harvest Song 898

ROBERT GRAVES (1895–1985) 899 Love Without Hope 899 Warning to Children 899 The White Goddess 900

LOUISE BOGAN (1897–1970) 901 Juan’s Song 901 Man Alone 901 Song for the Last Act 902 Night 903

HART CRANE (1899–1932) 903 Voyages 903 The Bridge 907

Proem: To Brooklyn Bridge 907 To Emily Dickinson 908

LAURA (RIDING) JACKSON (1901–1991) 909 The Wind Suffers 909 Ding-Donging 910

STERLING A. BROWN (1901–1989) 910 Slim in Atlanta 910 Bitter Fruit of the Tree 912

LANGSTON HUGHES (1902–1967) 912 The Weary Blues 912 The Negro Speaks of Rivers 913 Dream Variations 914 Cross 914 Song for a Dark Girl 914 Harlem 915 Theme for English B 915 Dinner Guest: Me 916

ROY CAMPBELL (1902–1957) 917 The Zulu Girl 917 The Sisters 918

STEVIE SMITH (1902–1971) 918 No Categories! 918

Contents / xxvii

Mr. Over 919 Not Waving but Drowning 920

COUNTEE CULLEN (1903–1946) 920 Heritage 920 Incident 923 Yet Do I Marvel 923

EARLE BIRNEY (1904–1991) 924 Bushed 924 The Bear on the Delhi Road 925

C. DAY LEWIS (1904–1972) 926 Two Songs 926

(“I’ve heard them lilting at loom and belting”) 926 (“Come, live with me and be my love”) 926

Where are the War Poets? 927

PATRICK KAVANAGH (1904–1967) 927 From The Great Hunger 927 Epic 929

STANLEY KUNITZ (b. 1905) 930 Robin Redbreast 930 Touch Me 931

ROBERT PENN WARREN (1905–1989) 931 Bearded Oaks 931 Masts at Dawn 933 Evening Hawk 934

WILLIAM EMPSON (1906–1984) 934 Legal Fiction 934 Missing Dates 935

W. H. AUDEN (1907–1973) 936 Lullaby [Lay your sleeping head, my love] 936 As I Walked Out One Evening 937 Twelve Songs 938

IX [Funeral Blues] 938 Musée des Beaux Arts 939 In Memory of W. B. Yeats 939 September 1, 1939 941 In Praise of Limestone 944 The Shield of Achilles 946

A. D. HOPE (1907–2000) 948 Australia 948 Inscription for a War 949

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LOUIS MacNEICE (1907–1963) 949 The Sunlight on the Garden 949 Bagpipe Music 950 From Autumn Journal (“September has come and I wake”) 951 London Rain 952 Star-gazer 954

THEODORE ROETHKE (1908–1963) 955 My Papa’s Waltz 955 Elegy for Jane 955 The Waking 956 I Knew a Woman 956 Wish for a Young Wife 957

RICHARD WRIGHT (1908–1960) 958 Haiku: This Other World 958

21 (“On winter mornings”) 958 31 (“In the falling snow”) 958 210 (“Crying and crying”) 958 490 (“Waking from a nap”) 958 762 (“Droning autumn rain”) 958 783 (“I cannot find it”) 958

MALCOLM LOWRY (1909–1957) 959 Delirium in Vera Cruz 959 Eye-Opener 959 Strange Type 959

ELIZABETH BISHOP (1911–1979) 960 Casabianca 960 The Fish 960 Filling Station 962 Sestina 963 In the Waiting Room 964 One Art 966

IRVING LAYTON (b. 1912) 967 The Birth of Tragedy 967 Berry Picking 968

ROBERT HAYDEN (1913–1980) 968 Those Winter Sundays 968 Night, Death, Mississippi 969 Paul Laurence Dunbar 970

MURIEL RUKEYSER (1913–1980) 971 Boy with His Hair Cut Short 971 Night Feeding 971 Rondel 972

Contents / xxix

MAY SWENSON (1913–1989) 972 Cardinal Ideograms 972 Goodbye, Goldeneye 973

R. S. THOMAS (1913–2000) 974 Welsh Landscape 974 The View from the Window 975

JOHN BERRYMAN (1914–1972) 975 Homage to Mistress Bradstreet 975

17–21 975 A Sympathy, A Welcome 977 The Dream Songs 977

1 (“Huffy Henry hid the day”) 977 14 (“Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so”) 978 29 (“There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart”) 978 145 (“Also I love him: me he’s done no wrong”) 979 324. An Elegy for W.C.W., The Lovely Man 979 382 (“At Henry’s bier let some thing fall out well:”) 980

RANDALL JARRELL (1914–1965) 980 90 North 980 The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner 981 Eighth Air Force 981 Next Day 982

WELDON KEES (1914–1955) 984 For H. V. (1901–1927) 984 When the Lease Is Up 984 Robinson 984

HENRY REED (1914–1986) 985 Lessons of the War 985

1. Naming of Parts 985

DYLAN THOMAS (1914–1953) 986 The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the

Flower 986 The Hand That Signed the Paper 987 After the Funeral 987 A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in

London 988 Fern Hill 989 In My Craft or Sullen Art 990 Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night 991

JUDITH WRIGHT (1915–2000) 992 Woman to Man 992 Eve to Her Daughters 992

xxx / Contents

DAVID GASCOYNE (1916–2001) 994 Ecce Homo 994

P. K. PAGE (b. 1916) 996 Stories of Snow 996 Deaf-Mute in the Pear Tree 997

GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917–2000) 998 kitchenette building 998 the birth in a narrow room 998 the rites for Cousin Vit 999 We Real Cool 999 Medgar Evers 1000 Boy Breaking Glass 1000

ROBERT LOWELL (1917–1977) 1001 Mr. Edwards and the Spider 1001 My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow 1003 Water 1006 For the Union Dead 1007 Epilogue 1009

AMY CLAMPITT (1920–1994) 1010 Beach Glass 1010 The Cormorant in Its Element 1011 Syrinx 1011

KEITH DOUGLAS (1920–1944) 1012 Vergissmeinnicht 1012 Aristocrats 1013

HOWARD NEMEROV (1920–1991) 1014 The Goose Fish 1014 A Primer of the Daily Round 1015 The Blue Swallows 1015 Boy with Book of Knowledge 1016 Strange Metamorphosis of Poets 1017

MONA VAN DUYN (b. 1921) 1017 Letters from a Father 1017

RICHARD WILBUR (b. 1921) 1020 First Snow in Alsace 1020 Love Calls Us to the Things of This World 1021 Advice to a Prophet 1022 Junk 1023 Cottage Street, 1953 1024 Zea 1025

Contents / xxxi

PHILIP LARKIN (1922–1985) 1026 For Sidney Bechet 1026 Born Yesterday 1027 Church Going 1027 An Arundel Tomb 1029 MCMXIV 1030 Talking in Bed 1031 The Trees 1031 Sad Steps 1032 The Explosion 1032 This Be The Verse 1033

JAMES DICKEY (1923–1997) 1034 The Lifeguard 1034 Sled Burial, Dream Ceremony 1035

ANTHONY HECHT (1923–2004) 1036 A Hill 1036 The Dover Bitch 1037 The Ghost in the Martini 1038 Still Life 1041 The Book of Yolek 1042 Death the Painter 1043

DENISE LEVERTOV (1923–1997) 1043 O Taste and See 1043 Tenebrae 1044 Caedmon 1045

DONALD JUSTICE (1925–2004) 1046 Counting the Mad 1046 Men at Forty 1046 Pantoum of the Great Depression 1047

CAROLYN KIZER (b. 1925) 1048 The Erotic Philosophers (Part Five of “Pro Femina”) 1048

KENNETH KOCH (1925–2002) 1052 You Were Wearing 1052 Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams 1053 To My Twenties 1053

A. R. AMMONS (1926–2001) 1054 Corsons Inlet 1054 Pet Panther 1057 All’s All 1058

JAMES K. BAXTER (1926–1972) 1058 New Zealand 1058

xxxii / Contents

ROBERT CREELEY (b. 1926) 1059 Heroes 1059 I Know a Man 1060 Bresson’s Movies 1060

ALLEN GINSBERG (1926–1997) 1061 Howl 1061

Part I 1061 A Supermarket in California 1067

JAMES MERRILL (1926–1995) 1068 The Broken Home 1068 The Victor Dog 1071 The Book of Ephraim 1072

C. (“Correct but cautious, that first night, we asked”) 1072 Arabian Night 1074

FRANK O’HARA (1926–1966) 1075 The Day Lady Died 1075 Why I Am Not a Painter 1076

W. D. SNODGRASS (b. 1926) 1077 Heart’s Needle 1077

2 (“Late April and you are three; today”) 1077 3 (“The child between them on the street”) 1077 7 (“Here in the scuffled dust”) 1078 10 (“The vicious winter finally yields”) 1078

Mementos, 1 1079

JOHN ASHBERY (b. 1927) 1080 The Painter 1080 Soonest Mended 1081 Ode to Bill 1083 Paradoxes and Oxymorons 1083

GALWAY KINNELL (b. 1927) 1084 The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye to His

Poetry Students 1084 After Making Love We Hear Footsteps 1085

W. S. MERWIN (b. 1927) 1086 The Drunk in the Furnace 1086 Separation 1086 Losing a Language 1087 Whoever You Are 1088

CHARLES TOMLINSON (b. 1927) 1088 Farewell to Van Gogh 1088

Contents / xxxii i

JAMES WRIGHT (1927–1980) 1089 A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack 1089 Speak 1090

DONALD HALL (b. 1928) 1091 The One Day 1091

Prophecy 1091 Independence Day Letter 1094

PHILIP LEVINE (b. 1928) 1094 You Can Have It 1094 The Simple Truth 1096

ANNE SEXTON (1928–1974) 1096 The Truth the Dead Know 1096 And One for My Dame 1097

L. E. SISSMAN (1928–1976) 1099 Dying: An Introduction 1099

IV. Path. Report 1099 V. Outbound 1099

THOM GUNN (1929–2004) 1100 On the Move 1100 A Map of the City 1101 From the Wave 1102 The Missing 1103

JOHN HOLLANDER (b. 1929) 1104 Swan and Shadow 1104 An Old-Fashioned Song 1105

RICHARD HOWARD (b. 1929) 1105 Nikolaus Mardruz to his Master Ferdinand, Count of Tyrol,

1565 1105

PETER PORTER (b. 1929) 1111 A Consumer’s Report 1111 An Exequy 1112

ADRIENNE RICH (b. 1929) 1114 Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers 1114 Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law 1115 Diving into the Wreck 1119 Modotti 1121

EDWARD KAMAU BRATHWAITE (b. 1930) 1122 The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy 1122

Ancestors 1122 1 (“Every Friday morning my grandfather”) 1122

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2 (“All I can remember of his wife”) 1123 3 (“Come-a look”) 1123

TED HUGHES (1930–1998) 1124 The Thought-Fox 1124 Pike 1125 Examination at the Womb-Door 1126 Daffodils 1127 Platform One 1128

GARY SNYDER (b. 1930) 1129 Above Pate Valley 1129 Four Poems for Robin 1130 Instructions 1132

DEREK WALCOTT (b. 1930) 1132 A Far Cry from Africa 1132 From The Schooner Flight 1133 Midsummer 1135 Omeros 1136

Chapter XXXVIII 1136

ALAN BROWNJOHN (b. 1931) 1138 Common Sense 1138

JAY MacPHERSON (b. 1931) 1139 The Swan 1139 A Lost Soul 1139

GEOFFREY HILL (b. 1932) 1140 The Guardians 1140 Mercian Hymns 1141

VI (“The princes of Mercia were badger and raven. Thrall”) 1141

VII (“Gasholders, russet among fields. Milldams, marlpools”) 1141

VIII (“The mad are predators. Too often lately they harbour”) 1142

Lachrimae 1142 1. Lachrimae Verae 1142

An Apology for the Revival of Christian Architecture in England 1143

9. The Laurel Axe 1143

SYLVIA PLATH (1932–1963) 1143 Tulips 1143 Daddy 1145 Ariel 1147 Lady Lazarus 1148

Contents / xxxv

ANNE STEVENSON (b. 1933) 1151 Arioso Dolente 1151

Popular Ballads of the Twentieth Century 1152 Pete Seeger (b. 1919) • Where Have All the Flowers

Gone? 1152 Bob Dylan (b. 1941) • Boots of Spanish Leather 1153

AMIRI BARAKA (LEROI JONES) (b. 1934) 1154 In Memory of Radio 1154 An Agony. As Now. 1155

AUDRE LORDE (1934–1992) 1156 Coal 1156 From the House of Yemanjá 1157

N. SCOTT MOMADAY (b. 1934) 1158 Headwaters 1158 The Eagle-Feather Fan 1158 The Gift 1159 Two Figures 1159

WOLE SOYINKA (b. 1934) 1159 Telephone Conversation 1159

MARK STRAND (b. 1934) 1160 The Prediction 1160 Always 1160 Dark Harbor 1161

XVI (“It is true, as someone has said, that in”) 1161

CHARLES WRIGHT (b. 1935) 1162 Chinese Journal 1162 As Our Bodies Rise, Our Names Turn into Light 1163 Quotations 1164

DARYL HINE (b. 1936) 1165 Letting Go 1165 Riddle 1165

C. K. WILLIAMS (b. 1936) 1166 Snow: II 1166 The Question 1166

TONY HARRISON (b. 1937) 1168 On Not Being Milton 1168 A Kumquat for John Keats 1168

xxxvi / Contents

LES MURRAY (b. 1938) 1171 Noonday Axeman 1171 Morse 1174

CHARLES SIMIC (b. 1938) 1174 Prodigy 1174 A Book Full of Pictures 1175 Cameo Appearance 1176

MARGARET ATWOOD (b. 1939) 1176 At the Tourist Center in Boston 1176 Flowers 1178

SEAMUS HEANEY (b. 1939) 1179 Digging 1179 Punishment 1180 The Skunk 1182 A Dream of Jealousy 1182 From Station Island 1183 From Clearances 1185 Casting and Gathering 1186 Fom Squarings 1187

ROBERT PINSKY (b. 1940) 1187 A Long Branch Song 1187 The Street 1188 ABC 1189

BILLY COLLINS (b. 1941) 1190 Japan 1190 Litany 1191

ROBERT HASS (b. 1941) 1192 Meditation at Lagunitas 1192 Tahoe in August 1193

DEREK MAHON (b. 1941) 1194 A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford 1194 The Window 1196

ERIC ORMSBY (b. 1941) 1196 Starfish 1196 Skunk Cabbage 1197 Origins 1197

ALFRED CORN (b. 1943) 1198 Navidad, St. Nicholas Ave. 1198 A Conch from Sicily 1199

Contents / xxxvii

LOUISE GLÜCK (b. 1943) 1199 The Garden 1199 Vita Nova 1200

MICHAEL ONDAATJE (b. 1943) 1201 Letters & Other Worlds 1201 House on a Red Cliff 1203

MICHAEL PALMER (b. 1943) 1204 Of this cloth doll which 1204 I Do Not 1205

EAVAN BOLAND (b. 1944) 1206 That the Science of Cartography Is Limited 1206

CRAIG RAINE (b. 1944) 1207 A Martian Sends a Postcard Home 1207

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA (b. 1947) 1209 Facing It 1209 Banking Potatoes 1209 Sunday Afternoons 1210

ROBYN SARAH (b. 1949) 1211 Courtney, Mentioned in Passing, Years After 1211 Relics 1212

AGHA SHAHID ALI (1949–2001) 1213 Lenox Hill 1213

JAMES FENTON (b. 1949) 1214 Dead Soldiers 1214 In Paris with You 1216

CHARLES BERNSTEIN (b. 1950) 1217 Of Time and the Line 1217 why we ask you not to touch 1218 this poem intentionally left blank 1219

ANNE CARSON (b. 1950) 1219 New Rule 1219 Sumptuous Destitution 1219 The Beauty of the Husband 1220

IV. HE SHE WE THEY YOU . . . 1220

DANA GIOIA (b. 1950) 1222 Prayer 1222 The Next Poem 1222

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JORIE GRAHAM (b. 1951) 1223 At Luca Signorelli’s Resurrection of the Body 1223 The Surface 1226

PAUL MULDOON (b. 1951) 1226 Milkweed and Monarch 1226 Third Epistle to Timothy 1227

RITA DOVE (b. 1952) 1231 Parsley 1231 Dusting 1233

DANIEL HALL (b. 1952) 1234 Love-Letter-Burning 1234 Mangosteens 1235

VIKRAM SETH (b. 1952) 1236 From The Golden Gate 1236

GARY SOTO (b. 1952) 1238 The Soup 1238 Not Knowing 1239

GJERTRUD SCHNACKENBERG (b. 1953) 1240 Supernatural Love 1240

LOUISE ERDRICH (b. 1954) 1241 I Was Sleeping Where the Black Oaks Move 1241 Birth 1242

CAROL ANN DUFFY (b. 1955) 1242 Warming Her Pearls 1242

LI-YOUNG LEE (b. 1957) 1243 Persimmons 1243 Out of Hiding 1245

CYNTHIA ZARIN (b. 1959) 1246 The Ant Hill 1246 Song 1247

SIMON ARMITAGE (b. 1963) 1247 From Killing Time 1247

GREG WILLIAMSON (b. 1964) 1249 Double Exposures 1249

III. Visiting Couple Kissing and Halved Onion 1249 XXV. Group Photo with Winter Trees 1249

New Year’s: A Short Pantoum 1250

Contents / xxxix

VERSIFICATION 1251 Rhythm 1252 Meter 1253 Rhyme 1260 Forms 1263

Basic Forms 1263 Composite Forms 1270 Irregular Forms 1272 Open Forms or Free Verse 1272 Other Forms of Poetry 1274

Suggestions for Further Reading 1275

POETIC SYNTAX 1277 What Is Syntax? 1277 Parts of Syntax 1279

Sentences and Words 1279 Clauses 1280

Moves in the Game 1284 Nominal Syntax 1284 Double Syntax 1285 Word Order Inversions 1286

The Game of Interpretation 1289 Emily Dickinson 1289 John Keats 1291 Thomas Gray 1291 John Dryden 1292 William Blake 1293

Scorn Not Syntax 1296 Suggestions for Further Reading 1297

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 1299

PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1350

INDEX 1357