BEST LOVED POEMS Read online

  BEST LOVED POEMS

  Edited by Richard Charlton MacKenzie

  Permabooks

  ©1946, BY GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.

  Introduction

  Here is a collection of the poetry that America loves best. These are the poems that people ask for again and again—the old familiar favorites, known and loved since childhood, along with the newer selections that have won a place in the hearts of readers. These poems have something to say to us all, as, by common consent, each one has expressed a thought or crystallized an emotion with, a deeper and more enduring understanding. They all center on the great and universal things of life—Love, Home and Childhood, Faith and Immortality, Love of Country, Nature, and, since it too is a deeply human thing, Humor. The poems in this book are therefore arranged according to these classifications. The final chapter is devoted to the best-known old favorite story poems.

  To facilitate the reader’s finding the desired poem, an index of first lines is included. Within the sections, the poems are arranged alphabetically according to the author’s last name.

  Here, then, are many hours of reading pleasure, when one may reread the poems that are part of our common heritage, renew one’s acquaintance with some half-remembered poem that may have been lost sight of over the years, and perhaps be introduced to a new selection that will be an old favorite of tomorrow.

  R. C. M.

  Acknowledgments

  The editor wishes to express his thanks to the following authors, publishers, and agents for permission to use the poems indicated;

  Alice E. Allen—for “My Mother’s Garden,”

  Mrs. Young E. Allison—for “Derelict,” by Young E. Allison.

  John Bennett—for “Her Answer” and “In a Rose Garden.”

  Berton Braley— for “The Thinker.”

  Hally Carrington Brent—for “I Think I Know No Finer Things Than Dogs”

  Mrs. George Sargent Burgess and the Estate of Katharine Lee Bates—for “America, the Beautiful,” by Katharine Lee Bates

  Mrs. William Herbert Carruth-for “Each In His Own Tongue,” by William Herbert Carrutri.

  David Cory—for “Miss You.”

  W. B. Conkey Co.—for “You Never Can Tell” and “Will,” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

  Dodd, Mead and Co.—for “The Soldier,” from The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke; “Kashmiri Song,” from Indian Love Lyrics, by Laurence Hope; “The Spell of the Yukon” and “The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” from The Spell of the Ytifyn, by Robert W. Service; “Death Is a Door,” by Nancy Byrd Turner.

  Louise Driscoll——for “Hold Fast Your Dreams!”

  E, P. Dutton and Co., Inc.—for “The Donkey,” from The Wild Knight and other Poems, by Gilbert Keith Chesterton; “The Spires of Oxford,” from The Spires of Oxford and other Poems, by Winifred M. Letts.

  Mrs. Max Ehrmann—for “A Prayer,” by Max Ehrmann.

  Anna B. Gruber—for “My Neighbor’s Roses,” by Abraham L. Gruber.

  Robert Browning Hamilton—for “Along the Road.”

  Houghton, Mifflin Co.—for “Memory,” by Thomas Bailey Aid-rich; “Waiting,” by John Burroughs; “Out Where the West Begins,” by Arthur Chapman; “My Wage,” from The Door of Rewards and Fairies, by Rudyard Kipling; “The Vampire,” from Rudyard Kipling’s Versa—Definitive Edition; “Mother o’ Mine,” from The Light that Failed, by Rudyard Kipling.

  Mrs. Nixon Waterman—for “To Know All Is to Forgive All” and “Far from the Madding Crowd,” from A Rose to the Living and other Poems, by Nixon Waterman.

  Mary Brent Whiteside—for “Who Has Known Heights.”

  Victor Elaine Wright—for “The Want of You.”

  Barbara Young—for “I Hear It Said.”

  Contents

  POEMS OF LOVE

  You and I by Henry Alford

  How Many Times Do I Love Thee by Thomas L. Beddoes

  Her Answer by John Bennett

  In a Rose Garden by John Bennett

  Love’s Secret by William Blake

  Light by Francis W. Bourdillon

  Sonnet from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Suminum Bonuni by Robert Browning

  Auld Lang Syne by Robert Burns

  My Luve’s Like a Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns

  John Anderson, My Jo by Robert Burns

  She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

  Maid of Athens by Lord Byron

  Ossian’s Serenade by Major Colder Campbell

  Sally in Our Alley by Henry Carey

  Answer to a Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Miss You by David Cory

  Douglas, Douglas, Tender, and True by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

  Friendship by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

  Love by Roy Crop

  To a Friend by Grace Strickler Daivson

  Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae by Ernest Dowson

  I Want You by Arthur L. Gittom

  Song by Gerald Griffin

  Any Wife or Husband by Carol Haynes

  To Dianeme by Robert Herrick

  The Night Piece, to Julia by Robert Herrick

  To Anthea by Robert Herrick

  Whenas in Silks My Julia Goes by Robert Herrick

  Kashmiri Song by Laurence Hope

  Jenny Kissed Me by Leigh Hunt

  We Have Lived and Loved Together by Charles Jefferys

  To Celia by Ben Jonson

  The Blue Bowl by Blanche Bane Kuder

  Her Lips by Walter Savage Landor

  Evening Song by Sidney Lanier

  Serenade by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  To Althea from Prison by Richard Lovelace

  To Lucasta, on going to the Wars by Richard Lovelace

  Apelles’ Song by John Lyly

  Sweet Peril by George MacDonald

  I Love My Love by Charles Mackay

  Faustus to Helen by Christopher Marlowe

  The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe

  Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms by Thomas Moore

  A Temple to Friendship by Thomas Moore

  Kate Kearney by Lady Morgan

  Love Is Enough by William Morris

  Forget Thee? by John Moultrie

  The Enchantment by Thomas Otway

  New Friends and Old Friends by Joseph Parry

  To Helen by Edgar Allan Poe

  Fidelis by Adelaide Anne Procter

  An Old Sweetheart of Mine by James Whitcomb Riley

  When I Am Dead, My Dearest by Christina Georgina Rossetti

  Remember by Christina Georgina Rossetti

  Midsummer by Sydney King Russell

  Our Own by Margaret E. Sangster

  How I Love You by John Godfrey Saxe

  Who Is Sylvia? by William Shakespeare

  Sonnet by William Shakespeare

  One Word Is Too Often Profaned by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Love’s Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Lines to an Indian Air by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Kisses by William Strode

  The Constant Lover by Sir John Suckling

  After Love by Arthur Symons

  Bedouin Song by Bayard Taylor

  Song by Alfred Tennyson

  At Nightfall by Charles Hanson Towne

  Creed by Mary Ashley Townsend

  All Paths Lead to You by Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff

  Song by Edmund Waller

  Lucy by William Wordsworth

  She Was a Phantom of Delight by William Wordsworth

  The Want of You by Ivan Leonard Wright

  If You’re Ever Going to Love Me Anonymous

  If You But Knew Anonymous

  Love Me Little, Love Me
Long Anonymous

  Will You Love Me When I’m Old Anonymous

  HOME AND CHILDHOOD

  My Mother’s Garden by Alice E. Allen

  Rock Me to Sleep by Elizabeth Alters Allen

  Infant Joy by William Blake

  A Prayer for a Little Home by Florence Bone

  Home-Thoughts from Abroad by Robert Browning

  My Heart’s in the Highlands by Robert Burns

  Lullaby Town by John Irving Diller

  A Dutch Lullaby by Eugene Field

  Little Boy Blue by Eugene Field

  I Remember, I Remember by Thomas Hood

  Mother o’ Mine by Rudyard Kipling

  The Old Familiar Faces by Charles Lamb

  Memory by Abraham Lincoln

  Woodman, Spare that Tree by George Pope Morris

  Home, Sweet Home by John Howard Payne

  The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

  My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Whole Duty of Children by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Young Night Thought by Robert Louis Stevenson

  The Land of Story-books by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Rain by Robert Louis Stevenson

  The Land of Counterpane by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Home Is Where There Is One to Love Us by Charles Swum

  First Footsteps by Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Sweet and Low by Alfred Tennyson

  The Old Oaken Bucket by Samuel Woodworth

  POEMS OF INSPIRATION

  Be Strong by Maltbie Davenport Babcock

  Then Laugh by Bertha Adams Backus

  The Thinker by Berton Braley

  Life’s Mirror by “Madeline Bridges”

  Reward of Service by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Today by Thomas Carlyle

  Out Where the West Begins by Arthur Chapman

  Three Gates by Beth Day

  Hold Fast Your Dreams by Louise Driscott

  The Bridge Builder by Will Allen Dromgoole

  My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is by Sir Edward Dyer

  Count that Day Lost by George Eliot

  Little Things by Julia A. Fletcher

  The House by the Side of the Road by Sam Walter Foss

  The Human Touch by Spencer Michael Free

  Your Mission by Ellen M. Huntington Gates

  Like Mother, Like Son by Margaret Johnston Grafflin

  My Neighbor’s Roses by Abraham L. Gruber

  Myself by Edgar A. Guest

  Lord, Make a Regular Man out of Me by Edgar A Guest

  It Couldn’t Be Done by Edgar A. Guest

  Look Up by Edward Everett Hale

  Invictus by William Ernest Henley

  Duty by Ellen S. Hooper

  Lines from “Endymion” by John Keats

  Absence by Frances Anne Kemble

  A Farewell by Charles Kingsley

  If— by Rudyard Kipling

  Happiness by Priscilla Leonard

  A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  The Arrow and the Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Columbus by Joaquin Miller

  Small Things by Richard Monckton Milnes

  Sonnet on His Blindness by John Milton

  Who Hath a Book by Wilber D. Nesbit

  Vitaï Lampada by Henry Newbolt

  The Cry of a Dreamer by John Boyle O’Reilly

  The Common Road by Silas H. Perkins

  He Is Not Dead by James Whitcomb Riley

  My Wage by Jessie B. Riftenhouse

  A Bag of Tools by R. L. Sharps

  Opportunity by Edward Rowland Sill

  To Know All Is to Forgive All by Nixon Waterman

  You Never Can Tell by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Will by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  “I Hear It Said” by Barbara Young

  Always Finish Anonymous

  I Shall not Pass this Way Again Anonymous

  Charity Anonymous

  He Who Knows Persian Proverb

  Horse Sense Anonymous

  Our Lips and Ears Anonymous

  Living Anonymous

  FAITH AND IMMORTALITY

  A Soul’s Soliloquy by Wenonah Stevens Abbott

  Nearer, My God, to Thee by Sarah F. Adams

  All Things Bright and Beautiful by Cecil Frances Alexander

  Beautiful Things by Ellen P. Allerton

  No Funeral Gloom by William Allingham

  Life by Anna Laetitia Barbauld

  Onward, Christian Soldiers by Sabine Baring-Gould

  The Lamb by William Blake

  God Is Love by John Bowring

  Not Understood by Thomas Bracken

  Last Lines by Emily Bronte

  Christmas Everywhere by Phillips Broods

  O Little Town of Bethlehem by Phillips Broods

  Pray Without Ceasing by Ophelia Guyon Browning

  Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant

  Truth, Crushed to Earth by William Cullen Bryant

  Waiting by John Burroughs

  Each in His Own Tongue by William Herbert Carruth

  Nearer Home by Phoebe Gary

  There Is No Unbelief by Elizabeth York Case

  The Abiding Love by John White Chadwick

  A Prayer for Everyday by Mary Carolyn Dames

  Sorrow by Sir Aubrey De Vere

  Evening Contemplation by George Washington Doane

  Hymn by James Edmeston

  A Prayer by Max Ehrmann

  The Choir Invisible by George Eliot

  When Wilt Thou Save Thy People by Ebenezer Elliott

  My Evening Prayer by Charles H. Gabriel

  Sleep Sweet by Ellen M. Huntington Gates

  Elegy written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray

  The Lord God Planted a Garden by Dorothy Frances

  Along the Road by Robert Browning Hamilton

  A Hymn of Trust by Oliver Wendell Holmes

  Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt

  Immortality by Joseph Jefferson

  Recessional by Rudyard Kipling

  I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Abide with Me by Henry F. Lyte

  Opportunity by Walter Malone

  A Creed by Edwin Markham

  There Is No Death by J. H. McCreery

  How Far to Bethlehem by Madeleine Sweeny Miller

  Lead, Kindly Light by John Henry Newman

  I See His Blood upon the Rose by Joseph Mary Plunkett

  The Dying Christian to His Soul by Alexander Pope

  Ad Coelum by Harry Rontaine

  Up-Hill by Christina Georgina Rossetti

  The Book of Books by Sir Walter Scott

  I Have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger

  This, Too, Shall Pass Away by Lanta Wilson Smith

  Requiem by Robert Louis Stevenson

  Stanzas from “In Memoriam” by Alfred Tennyson

  Ring Out, Wild Bells by Alfred Tennyson

  Crossing the Bar by Alfred Tennyson

  Even This Shall Pass Away by Theodore Tilton

  Rock of Ages by Augustus M. Toplady

  Death Is a Door by Nancy Byrd Turner

  These Are the Gifts I Ask by Henry Van Dyke

  O God, Our Help in Ages Past by Isaac Watts

  An Ancient Prayer by Thomas H. B. Webb

  Jesus, Lover of My Soul by Charles Wesley

  O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman

  The Bible by John Greenleaf Whittier

  At Last by John Greenleaf Whittier

  The Rainbow by William Wordsworth

  The Twenty-Third Psalm from the Bible

  The Loom of Time Anonymous

  The Anvil—God’s Word Anonymous

  There Is No Death Anonymous

  POEMS OF PATRIOTISM

  America, the Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates

  The Flag Goes By by Henry Holcomb Bennett

  The Soldier by Rupert Brooke


  Ode by William Collins

  Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson

  The Coming American by Sam Walter Pass

  The Flag of Peace by Charlotte Perkins Oilman

  God, Give Us Men by Josiah Gilbert Holland

  Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes

  Battle-Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe

  What Constitutes a State? by Sir William Jones

  The Star-Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key

  From “The Ship of State” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Slaves by James Russell Lowell

  In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

  The Harp that Once through Tara’s Halls by Thomas Moore

  Breathes There the Man by Sir Walter Scott

  I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman

  NATURE AND REFLECTION

  Memory by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Quiet Work by Matthew Arnold

  Let Me Grow Lovely by Karle Wilson Baker

  Dream-Pedlary by Thomas L. Beddoes

  I Think I Know No Finer Things Than Dogs by Hally Carrington Brent

  My Garden by Thomas Edward Brown

  The Year’s at the Spring by Robert Browning

  Man’s Inhumanity to Man by Robert Burns

  For A’ That and A’ That by Robert Burns

  The Banks o’ Doon by Robert Burns

  The Old Woman by Joseph Campbell

  The Donkey by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

  The Blind Boy by Colley Gibber

  Red Geraniums by Martha Haskell Clark

  Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Retirement by William Cowper

  A Sea-Song by Allan Cunningham

  I’ll Tell You How the Sun Rose by Emily Dickinson

  Bishop Doane on His Dog by George Washington Doane

  A Little Work by George DuMaurier

  Stanzas from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward FitzGerald

  Out in the Fields by Louise Imogen Guiney

  To the Virgins by Robert Herrick

  October’s Bright Blue Weather by Helen Hunt Jackson

  Who Loves a Garden by Louise Seymour Jones

  Sonnet by John Keats

  Trust by Frances Anne Kemble

  Trees by Joyce Kilmer