་

ན

REPRESENTATIVE

AMERICAN POETRY

EDITED BY E. B. RICHARDS, HEAD OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, CENTRAL HIGH
SCHOOL, SYRACUSE, NEW YORK: : : :

C⋅E··M⋅

Co

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO

HAVARD UNIVERSI

DEPT. OF EDUCATION LIERARK :

GIFT OF THE PUBLISHER
MAY 27 1019

Merrill's English Texts

THIS series of books includes in complete editions those mas-
terpieces of English Literature that are best adapted for the use
of schools and colleges. The editors of the several volumes are
chosen for their special qualifications in connection with the
texts issued under their individual supervision, but familiarity
with the practical needs of the classroom, no less than sound
scholarship, characterizes the editing of every book in the series.

In connection with each text, the editor has provided a
critical and historical introduction, including a sketch of the life
of the author and his relation to the thought of his time, critical
opinions of the work in question chosen from the great body of
English criticism, and, where possible, a portrait of the author.
Ample explanatory notes of such passages in the text as call for
special attention are supplied, but irrelevant annotation and
explanations of the obvious are rigidly excluded.

CHARLES E. MERRILL COMPANY

COPYRIGHT, 1919

BY

CHARLES E. MERRILL CO.

UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

PREFACE

THE poems in this book are arranged according to the date of the birth of the author. The bibliography is arranged alphabetically. The notes are purposely few because the poems are intended to be read for pleasure, not to be studied.

Grateful acknowledgment for permission to use copyrighted poems is hereby made to individual writers, publishers, and literary executors.

Messrs. D. Appleton and Company: Bryant's "Thanatopsis."

Mr. Dana Burnet and The Evening Sun: Burnet's "The Battle of Liège."

Dr. John Finley and The Red Cross Magazine: Finley's "The Red Cross Spirit Speaks."

Mr. Robert C. Holliday, Literary Executor of Joyce Kilmer, and George H. Doran Company: poems by Joyce Kilmer.

Houghton Mifflin Company, by special arrangement and permission: poems by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Watson Gilder, Francis Bret Harte, John Hay, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Julia Ward Howe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Edward Rowland Sill, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Edmund Clarence Stedman, Bayard Taylor, John Townsend Trowbridge, and John Greenleaf Whittier.

Mrs. Louisa E. Ingalls: "Opportunity" by John James Ingalls.

Mr. Vachel Lindsay and The Macmillan Company: Lindsay's "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight."