Immortal Poems of the English Language

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Overview

Immortal Poems

Here is the most inclusive anthology of verse ever published at so low a price. It contains not only the best-known works of the British and American masters but also the verse of the most brillant poets of our own day. Oscar Williams, who compiled Immortal Poems, was a distinguished editor and poet in his own right, of whom Robert Lowell wrote in the Sewanee Review: "Mr. Williams is probably the best anthologist in America today."

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More About This Book

Overview

Immortal Poems

Here is the most inclusive anthology of verse ever published at so low a price. It contains not only the best-known works of the British and American masters but also the verse of the most brillant poets of our own day. Oscar Williams, who compiled Immortal Poems, was a distinguished editor and poet in his own right, of whom Robert Lowell wrote in the Sewanee Review: "Mr. Williams is probably the best anthologist in America today."

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780671496104
  • Publisher: Pocket Books
  • Publication date: 8/28/1983
  • Format: Mass Market Paperback
  • Edition description: Reprint
  • Pages: 624
  • Sales rank: 482,086
  • Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 6.80 (h) x 1.00 (d)

Meet the Author

Oscar Williams (1900-1964), editor of this book, was himself a distinguished poet. The author of five books of poetry, including That's All That Matters and Selected Poems, he has been called "clever, disconcerting, rash" (Lionel Abel) and "a very real and important poet...(whose) powerful imagery and unique personal idiom will add a permanent page to American poetry" (Dylan Thomas).

Mr. Williams achieved literary distinction not only as a highly original and vigorous American poet, but also as one of the great poetry anthologists of his time. His most outstanding anthologies are "The Little Treasury Series," The War Poets, Immortal Poems of the English Language, The Pocket Book of Modern Verse and The New Pocket Anthology of American Verse, the latter three published by Pocket Books. These are accepted as present-day classics in their fields and are in wide use in colleges and universities. Other anthologies include a revised edition of Palgrave's The Golden Treasury, The Major British Poets, The Major American Poets, and The Silver Treasury of Light Verse.

Mr. Williams' last and most ambitious anthology was Master Poems of the English Language, now also published by Pocket Books. A huge work of over 1100 pages, illustrated with portraits of the poets and combining a comprehensive anthology with a broad sampling of critical writing, it is a superb contribution by the man Robert Lowell called "probably the best anthologist in America."

Read an Excerpt

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

1340? — 1400

Balade

Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte, tresses clere;

Ester, ley thou thy meknesse, al a-doun;

Hyd, Jonathas, al thy frendly manere;

Penalopee, and Marcia Catoun,

Mak of your wyfhod no comparisoun;

Hyde ye your beautes, Isoude and Eleyne,

Alceste is here, that al that may desteyne.

Thy faire bodye lat bit nat appere,

Lavyne; and thou, Lucresse of Rome toun,

And Polixene, that boghte love so dere,

Eek Cleopatre, with al thy passioun,

Hyde ye your trouthe in love and your renoun;

And thou, Tisbe, that hast for love swich peyne:

Alceste is here, that al that may desteyne.

Herro, Dido, Laudomia, alle in-fere,

Eek Phyllis, hanging for thy Demophoun,

And Canace, espyed by thy chere,

Ysiphile, betrayed with Jasoun,

Mak of your trouthe in love no bost ne soun;

Nor Ypermistre or Adriane, ne pleyne;

Alceste, is here, that al that may desteyne.

The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse

To you, my purse, and to non other wight

Complayne I, for ye be my lady dere!

I am so sory, now that ye been light;

For certes, but ye make me hevy chere,

Me were as leaf be layd upon my bere;

For whiche unto your mercy thus I crye:

Beth hevy ageyn, or elles moote I dye!

Now voucheth sauf this day, or hit be night,

That I of you the blisful soun may here,

Or see your colour lyk the sonne bright,

That of yelownesse hadde never pere,

Ye be my lyf, ye be myn hertes stere,

Quene of comfort and of good companye:

Beth hevy ageyn, or elles moote I dye!

Now purse, that be to me my lyves light,

And saveour, as doun in this world here,

Out of this toune help me through your might,

Sin that ye wole nat been my tresorere,

For I am shave as nye as any frere,

But yet I pray unto your curtesye:

Beth hevy ageyn, or elles moote I dye!

L'ENVOY DE CHAUCER

O conquerour of Brutes Albyon,

Which that by lyne and free eleccion

Ben verray king, this song to you I send;

And ye, that mowen al our harmes amend,

Have mind upon my supplicacioun!

JOHN SKELTON

1460? — 1529

Lullay, Lullay

With, Lullay, lullay, like a childe

Thou slepist to long, thou art begilde.

"My darling dere, my daisy flowre.

Let me," quod he, "ly in your lap."

"Ly still," quod she, "my paramoure,

Ly still hardely, and take a nap."

His hed was hevy, such was his hap,

All drowsy dreming, drownd in slepe,

That of his love he toke no kepe,

With, Hey, lullay, etc.

With ba, ba, ba, and bas, bas, bas,

She cherished him both cheke and chin,

That he wist never where he was;

He had forgotten all dedely sin,

He wantid wit her love to win:

He trusted her payment, and lost all his pay:

She left him sleeping, and stale away.

The river routh, the waters wan,

She sparid not to wete here fete;

She wadid over, she found a man

That halsid her hartely and kist her swete:

Thus after her cold she cought a hete.

"My lefe," she said, "routith in his bed;

Ywis he had an hevy hed."

What dremist thou, drunchard, drousy pate!

Thy lust and liking is from thee gone,

Thou blinkerd blowboll, thou wakist to late,

Behold, thou lieste, luggard, alone!

Well may thou sigh, well may thou grone,

To dele with her so cowardly:

Ywis, poule-hachet, she blerid thine i.

ANONYMOUS: SONGS & BALLADS

Sumer Is Icumen In

Sumer is icumen in,

Lhudè sing cuccu;

Groweth sod and bloweth med

And springth the wudè nu.

Sing cuccu!

Awè bleteth after lomb,

Lhouth after calvè cu;

Bulluc sterteth, buckè verteth;

Murie sing cuccu.

Cuccu, cuccu,

Wel singès thu, cuccu,

Ne swik thu naver nu.

Sing cuccu nu! Sing cuccu!

Sing cuccu! Sing cuccu nu!

I Sing of a Maiden

I sing of a maiden

That is makeles;

King of all kings

To her son she ches.

He came al so still

There his mother was,

As dew in April

That falleth on the grass.

He came al so still

To his mothers bour,

As dew in April

That falleth on the flour.

He came al so still

There his mother lay,

As dew in April,

That falleth on the spray.

Mother and maiden

Was never none but she;

Well may such a lady

Goddes mother be.

The Falcon

Lully, lulley! lully, lulley!

The faucon hath borne my make away!

He bare him up, he bare him down,

He bare him into an orchard brown.

In that orchard there was an halle,

That was hangéd with purple and pall.

And in that hall there was a bed,

It was hangéd with gold sa red.

And in that bed there li'th a knight,

His woundés bleeding day and night.

At that bed's foot there li'th a hound,

Licking the blood as it runs down.

By that bed-side kneeleth a may,

And she weepeth both night and day.

And at that bed's bead standeth a stone,

Corpus Christi written thereon.

Lully, lulley! lully, lulley!

The faucon hath borne my make away.

My Love in Her Attire

My love in her attire doth show her wit,

It doth so well become her:

For every season she hath dressings fit,

For winter, spring, and summer.

No beauty she doth miss,

When all her robes are on:

But Beauty's self she is,

When all her robes are gone.

O western wind, when wilt thou blow,

That the small rain down can rain?

Christ, if my love were in my arms

And I in my bed again!

Love Not Me

Love not me for comely grace,

For my pleasing eye or face,

Nor for any outward part:

No, nor for a constant heart!

For these may fail or turn to ill:

So thou and I shall sever.

Keep therefore a true woman's eye,

And love me still, but know not why!

So hast thou the same reason still

To doat upon me ever.

There Is a Lady Sweet and Kind

There is a Lady sweet and kind,

Was never face so pleased my mind;

I did but see her passing by,

And yet I love her till I die.

Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,

Her wit her voice my heart beguiles,

Beguiles my heart, I know not why,

And yet I love her till I die.

Cupid Is wingèd and doth range,

Her country so my love doth change:

But change she earth, or change she sky,

Yet will I love her till I die.

Copyright © 1952 by Simon & Schuster Inc.

Table of Contents

Geoffrey Chaucer 11
John Skelton 12
Anonymous: Songs & Ballads 14
Sir Thomas Wyatt 29
Sir Philip Sidney 30
Sir Walter Raleigh 33
Sir Edward Dyer 36
Edmund Spenser 38
George Peele 44
Samuel Daniel 44
Michael Drayton 45
Christopher Marlowe 45
William Shakespeare 48
Thomas Nashe 77
Thomas Campion 78
Ben Jonson 79
John Donne 80
John Webster 96
Robert Herrick 97
George Herbert 99
James Shirley 104
Thomas Carew 105
Edmund Waller 106
John Milton 106
Sir John Suckling 132
William Cartwright 133
Richard Crashaw 134
Richard Lovelace 137
Abraham Cowley 139
Andrew Marvell 140
Henry Vaughan 145
John Dryden 149
Thomas Traherne 151
William Douglas 156
George Berkeley 157
John Gay 158
Alexander Pope 160
William Oldys 186
Thomas Gray 187
William Collins 194
Christopher Smart 195
Oliver Goldamith 211
William Cowper 223
Thomas Chatterton 224
William Blake 226
Robert Burns 236
William Wordsworth 249
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 267
Thomas Campbell 288
Walter Savage Landor 289
Thomas Moore 290
Leigh Hunt 290
George Gordon, Lord Byron 291
Percy Bysshe Shelley 294
William Cullen Bryant 320
John Keats 321
Thomas Hood 344
Ralph Waldo Emerson 347
Thomas Lovell Beddoes 348
Elizabeth Barrett Browning 349
John Greenleaf Whittier 349
Honry Wadsworth Longfellow 350
Edward FitzGerald 350
Edgar Allan Poe 363
Alfred, Lord Tennyson 372
Oliver Wendell Holmes 397
Robert Browning 399
Edward Lear 405
Emily Bronte 407
James Russell Lowell 408
Herman Melville 409
Walt Whitman 410
Charles Kingsley 426
Arthur Hugh Clough 426
Julia Ward Howe 427
Matthew Arnold 428
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 437
George Meredith 441
Christina Rossetti 442
Emily Dickinson 442
Lewis Carroll (C. L. Dodgson) 448
Sir W. S. Gilbert 449
Algernon Charles Swinburne 450
Thomas Hardy 451
Sidney Lanier 454
Gerard Manley Hopkins 458
Robert Bridges 474
William Ernest Henley 475
Francis Thompson 476
John Davidson 481
A. E. Housman 484
George Santayana 487
William Butler Yeats 489
Rudyard Kipling 495
Ernest Dowson 496
Edgar Lee Masters 497
Edwin Arlington Robinson 498
W. H. Davies 501
Walter De La Mare 502
Robert Frost 503
John Masefield 510
Sarah N. Cleghorn 511
Carl Sandburg 512
Harold Monro 512
Vachel Lindsay 514
Wallace Stevens 517
William Carlos Williams 521
Elinor Wylie 522
D. H. Lawrence 523
Ezra Pound 524
Rupert Brooke 528
Robinson Jeffers 530
Edwin Muir 531
Marianne Moore 533
Thomas Stearns Eliot 534
John Crowe Ransom 543
Conrad Aiken 545
Edna St. Vincent Millay 548
John Peale Bishop 548
Archibald MacLeish 550
Wilfred Owen 550
E. E. Cummings 555
Robert Graves 557
F. R. Higgins 560
Allen Tate 561
Hart Crane 562
Oscar Williams 567
Ogden Nash 571
C. Day Lewis 573
Richard Eberhart 574
Peter Quennell 575
Esther Mathews 577
William Empson 578
Vernon Watkins 578
W. H. Auden 580
Louis MacNeice 586
Stephen Spender 588
Alfred Hayes 590
W. R. Rodgers 591
Elizabeth Bishop 592
Lawrence Durrell 594
F. T. Prince 595
Delmore Schwartz 598
Karl Shapiro 599
George Barker 601
Henry Reed 604
John Manifold 605
Robert Lowell 606
Gene Derwood 608
Dylan Thomas 612
Index of First Lines 619
Index of Authors and Titles 627

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 7 )

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Sort by: Showing all of 7 Customer Reviews

  • Posted April 17, 2011

    My favorite poetry book

    I've loved this collection since I was a teenager. All of my aunts and uncles pased it around the family before it got to me (an earlier edition but the same works were included.) To the reviewer who only wanted The Raven, perhaps you should have bought a collection of Poe's works. I love this book for its inclusion of wonderful but lesser known poems; sometimes it is a good thing to expand your horizons.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted January 30, 2012

    Good Collection, somewhat outdated

    This used to be my favorite anthology of poetry, and over the years I had lost it. Rereading it now, it is very much attuned towards the classics and big names,the Elizabethans, Poe, Blake,Tennyson, Keats, Auden etc, with nothing later than Dylan Thomas, which leaves out almost an entire two generations of poetry, and completely skips lesser known poets. Nonetheless, what is in it is the established backbone of well known poems from a variety of traditional greats, and if you have a gap in your library on such older material, at 447 poems, it's a good value for the money. A much more inclusive and up to date collection would be any of the recent Norton Anthologies.

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  • Posted July 29, 2011

    So glad this is still in print!

    My high school boyfriend gave me a copy of this book almost 30 years ago. The boyfriend is long gone, but the book remains, much read, and greatly loved. This is the book that introduced me to many poets and poems that have become dear friends. I still pull it out of my desk drawer, cover missing, pages loose, to share poems with my students. I'm so glad to find this book still in print.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 24, 2006

    Try another one

    Sure, for 7 dollars, this is a pretty fair deal. But there are so many good poems missing from this anthology that sometimes I regret buying this book, even if it IS cheap. Williams did not include some very famous poems, including Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven. I understand that since this is a Pocket Book, the selections must be extremely limited, but still, I would've liked to have that poem and others in here. Additionally, the pages are thin, and the print is small and often blurry. And, since it is 2006, you might want to get a newer poetry anthology, and not this one from 30 years ago. To speak good about it, it is extremely convenient to carry with you anywhere, but be careful to not rip the pages.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted April 24, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 19, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 27, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

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