Free eBooks - Poetry - American
Total eBooks in selected subject: 135 on 14 pages.
by
The Maid of Tamalpais.
This she told me in the firelightAs I sat beside her campfire,In a grove of giant redwoods,On the slope of Tamalpais.Old she was, and bent and wrinkled,Lone survivor of the Tamals,Ancient tribe of Indian people,Who have left their name and legendOn the mountain they held sacred.On the ground she sat and brooded,With a blanket wrapped around her—Sat and gazed into the campfire.On ... more...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
American poet and educator. Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poems which are known for their musicality and which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. His works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline". He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets. ...
INTRODUCTION.
Should you ask me, whence these stories?Whence these legends and traditions,With the odors of the forest,With the dew and damp of meadows,5With the curling smoke of wigwams,With the rushing of great rivers,With their frequent repetitions,And their wild reverberations,As of thunder in the mountains?10I should answer, I should tell you,"From the forests and the prairies,From the great ... more...
by
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
American poet and educator. Longfellow predominantly wrote lyric poems which are known for their musicality and which often presented stories of mythology and legend. He became the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas. His works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline". He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five Fireside Poets. ...
The Song of Hiawatha is based on the legends and stories of many North American Indian tribes, but especially those of the Ojibway Indians of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. They were collected by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the reknowned historian, pioneer explorer, and geologist. He was superintendent of Indian affairs for Michigan from 1836 to 1841.
Schoolcraft married Jane, ... more...
by
THE THUNDERBOLT.
There is an artless tradition among the Indians, related by Irving, of a warrior who saw the thunderbolt lying upon the ground, with a beautifully wrought moccasin on each side of it. Thinking he had found a prize, he put on the moccasins, but they bore him away to the land of spirits, whence he never returned.
Loud pealed the thunderFrom arsenal high,Bright flashed the lightningAthwart ... more...
by
The Lone War-Path.
A STORY OF SIOUX AND BLACKFOOT.
O'er a vast prairie stoops the sultry night;The moon in her broad kingdom wanders white;High hung in space, she swims the murky blue.Low lies yon village of the roaming Sioux—Its smoke-stained lodges, moving toward the west,By conquering Sleep invaded and possessed.
All there, save one, own his benign command;Their chief has lately left this little ... more...
by
Introduction
"Tell me, ye muses, what hath former agesNow left succeeding times to play upon,And what remains unthought on by those sagesWhere a new muse may try her pinion?"
So Complained Phineas Fletcher in his Purple Island as long ago as 1633. Three centuries have brought to the development of lyric passion no higher form than that of the sonnet cycle. The sonnet has been likened to an exquisite ... more...
by
INTRODUCTION
This syllabus, or finding-list, is offered to lovers of folk-literature in the hope that it may not be without interest and value to them for purposes of comparison and identification. It includes 333 items, exclusive of 114 variants, and embraces all popular songs that have so far come to hand as having been "learned by ear instead of by eye," as existing through oral ... more...
by
Flag of The Free
Flag of the free, our sable siresHave borne thee oft beforeInto hot battles' hell-lit fires,Against the fiercest foe.When first he shook his shaggy mein,And made the welkin ring,Brave Attucks fell upon the Plain,Thy stripes first crimsoning!
Thy might and majesty we hurl,Against the bolts of Mars;And from thy ample folds unfurlThy field of flaming stars!Fond hope to nations ... more...
by
FOREWORD
In presenting a loyal and venerable ex-slave as an artless exponent of freedom, freedom of conduct as well as of speech, the author of this trivial volume is perhaps not composing an individual so truly as individualizing a composite, if the expression will pass.
The grizzled brown dispenser of homely admonitions is a figure not unfamiliar to those who have "moved in plantation circles" in the ... more...
by
"Pray, what would you like?" said a Toyman, one day,Addressing a group of young folks,"I have toys in abundance, and very cheap, too,Though not quite so cheap as my jokes.
"Here's a famous managerie, full of wild beasts;See! this lion with wide open jaws,Enough to affright one, and yet I've no doubt,You might venture to play with his claws.
"Here's a tiger as tame as a lap-dog, you'll find,And a ... more...
