Little Masterpieces of English Poetry, Volume 1

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Henry Van Dyke, Hardin Craig
Doubleday, Page, 1905

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Page 317 - Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore ! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken ! Leave my loneliness unbroken! quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!
Page 313 - or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore; But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping, And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door, That I scarce was sure I heard you" — here I opened wide the door; Darkness there and nothing more. Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before; But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token, And the only word there spoken was...
Page 57 - 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.
Page 278 - A SIMPLE Child, That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death ? I met a little cottage Girl : She was eight years old, she said; Her hair was thick with many a curl That clustered round her head. She had a rustic, woodland air, And she was wildly clad: Her eyes were fair, and very fair ; — Her beauty made me glad. "Sisters and brothers, little Maid, How many may you be?" "How many? Seven in all," she said, And wondering looked at me.
Page 315 - For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door, With such name as 'Nevermore.
Page 314 - Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,— " Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, " art sure no craven, Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore: Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore !" Quoth the Raven,
Page 38 - So stately his form, and so lovely her face, That never a hall such a galliard did grace; While her mother did fret, and her father did fume, And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; And the bride-maidens whispered '"Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.
Page 312 - Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow From my books surcease of sorrow — sorrow for the lost Lenore, For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore, Nameless here for evermore.
Page 161 - In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and Is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there Is a silent Joy at their arrival.
Page 318 - And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor: And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore...

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