World's Best Poetry, Volume 5: Nature (Part 1)


The fifth of ten volumes of poetry edited by Canadian poet laureate Bliss Carman (1861-1929). This collection, the first of two parts, includes a range of poems dealing with the natural world, covering subjects such as nature's influence on the poetic mind; daylight and nighttime; the seasons; inland waters; and highlands. It also includes an introductory essay to the volume by the "Father of Canadian Poetry" Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts (1860-1943). - Summary by Tomas Peter (6 hr 28 min)

Chapters

The Poetry of Nature by Charles George Douglas Roberts
The World Is Too Much with Us (Sonnet) by William Wordsworth
Earth, Ocean, Air: From the Preface of 'Alastor' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
On a Beautiful Day by John Sterling
God in Nature: From 'Paracelsus' by Robert Browning
My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth
Each and All by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Country Faith by Norman Gale
Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth
Great Nature Is an Army Gay by Richard Watson Gilder
Come to These Scenes of Peace by William Lisle Bowles
Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude by Thomas Gray
Nature by Jones Very
Influence of Natural Objects: From 'The Prelude' I by William Wordsworth
An Indian Song by William Butler Yeats
The Tables Turned by William Wordsworth
Rus in Urbe by Clement Scott
The Faun (A Fragment) by Richard Hovey
Invocation to Light: From 'Paradise Lost,' Book III by John Milton
Light: From 'Paradise Lost,' Book VII by John Milton
Light by George MacDonald
The Northern Lights by Benjamin Franklin Taylor
From the 'Hymn to Light' by Abraham Cowley
Daybreak by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Dawn by Richard Watson Gilder
Morning Song by Joanna Baillie
Morning by John Cunningham
Pack Clouds Away by Thomas Heywood
Morning: From 'The Minstrel' by James Beattie
Summer Rain by Hartley Coleridge
The Oasis of Sidi Khaled by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
A Midsummer's Noon in the Australian Forest by Charles Harpur
Noontide by John Leyden
A Summer Noon by William Howitt
The Midges Dance Aboon the Burn by Robert Tannahill
Sunset: From 'Queen Mab' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Fancy in Nubibus by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Day Is Dying: From 'The Spanish Gypsy' by Marian Evans Lewes Cross (George Elio…
The End of the Day by Duncan Campbell Scott
Evening by Archibald Lampman
A Twilight Fancy by Dora Read Goodale
To the Evening Star by Thomas Campbell
The Evening Wind by William Cullen Bryant
Evening in Paradise: From 'Paradise Lost,' Book IV by John Milton
Evening: From 'Don Juan' by Lord Byron
Moonlight on the Prairie: From 'Evangeline' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
To Delia by Samuel Daniel
The Camp at Night: From 'The Iliad,' Book VIII by Homer
To Night by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Night by Joseph Blanco White
Night: From 'Childe Harold,' Canto II by Lord Byron
Night: From 'Queen Mab' by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Hymn to the Night by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In the Wide Awe and Wisdom of the Night by Charles G.D. Roberts
A Hymn: From the Conclusion of 'The Seasons' by James Thomson
March by William Morris
When the Hounds of Spring by Algernon Charles Swinburne
March by William Wordsworth
Spring, the Sweet Spring by Thomas Nashe
Return of Spring by Pierre de Ronsard
Spring by Thomas Gray
Summer Longings by Denis Florence MacCarthy
Sweetly Breathing, Vernal Air by Thomas Carew
Home Thoughts from Abroad by Robert Browning
May Morning by Celia Thaxter
Song (On May Morning) by John Milton
Spring in Carolina by Henry Timrod
Spring by Ebenezer Elliott
Die Down, O Dismal Day by David Gray
Morning in May: From 'The Canterbury Pilgrims: The Knightes Tale' by Geoffrey C…
Cuckoo Song by Anonymous
Spring: From 'In Memoriam' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Betrothed Anew by Edmund Clarence Stedman
The Ploughman by Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Plough by Richard Hengist Horne
They Come! The Merry Summer Months by William Motherwell
Song of the Summer Winds by George Darley
A Drop of Dew by Andrew Marvell
June by William Cullen Bryant
The Story of a Summer Day by Alexander Hume
Knee-Deep in June by James Whitcomb Riley
Ballade of Midsummer Days and Nights by William Ernest Henley
Invocation to Rain in Summer by William Cox Bennett
Rain in Summer by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Before the Rain by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Signs of Rain by Dr. Edward Jenner
Summer Storm by James Russell Lowell
After the Rain by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
A Storm in the Distance by Paul Hamilton Hayne
Rain by Ebenezer Jones
The Dancing of the Air by Sir John Davies
Wicklow Winds: From 'Wicklow' by George Francis Savage-Armstrong
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Cloud Chorus: From 'The Clouds' by Aristophanes
The Cloud by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Summer Moods by John Clare
In Praise of Angling by Sir Henry Wotton
The Angler's Wish by Izaak Walton
The Angler by John Chalkhill
Swimming: From 'The Two Foscari' by Lord Byron
The Pleasure-Boat by Richard Henry Dana
The Solitary Woodsman by Charles G.D. Roberts
September by George Arnold
The Latter Rain by Jones Very
To Autumn by John Keats
Harvest Song by Ludwig H.C. Hölty
Life in the Autumn Woods (Virginia) by Philip Pendleton Cooke
Hunting Song by Sir Walter Scott
The Hunter's Song by Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall)
The Hunted Squirrel: From 'Britannia's Pastorals,' Book I, Song 5 by William Br…
A Hunting We Will Go by Henry Fielding
The Stag Hunt: From 'The Lady of the Lake,' Canto I by Sir Walter Scott
The Stag Hunt: From 'The Seasons: Autumn' by James Thomson
The Old Squire by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Indian Summer by John Banister Tabb
No! by Thomas Hood
When the Frost Is on the Punkin by James Whitcomb Riley
Autumn: A Dirge by Percy Bysshe Shelley
When Icicles Hang by the Wall: From 'Love's Labour's Lost,' Act V. Sc. 2 by Wil…
Winter (A Song to Be Sung Behind the Stove) by Matthias Claudius
Frost by Edith Matilda Thomas
Snow-Flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
December by Joel Benton
Snow-Flakes by Mary Mapes Dodge
The Snow-Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Snow-Storm by Ethelwyn Wetherald
The Snow-Shower by William Cullen Bryant
'The Snowing of the Pines' by Thomas Wentworth Higginson
A Snow-Storm: Scene in a Vermont Winter by Charles Gamage Eastman
Winter by John Howard Bryant
Winter Scenes: From 'The Seasons: Winter' by James Thomson
Winter Song by Ludwig H.C. Hölty
Winter Morning: From 'The Winter Morning Walk: 'The Task,' Book V' by William C…
Sleigh Song by G.W. Pettee
Our Skater Belle by Anonymous
O Winter! Wilt Thou Never Go? by David Gray
A Song of Seasons by Elizabeth Roberts MacDonald
The Valley Brook by John Howard Bryant
Song of the Brook: From 'The Brook: An Idyl' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Shaded Water by William Gilmore Simms
A Farewell by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Birch Stream by Anna Boynton Averill
Song of the River by Charles Kingsley
Afton Water by Robert Burns
The Snows by Charles Sangster
My River by Eduard Mörike
On the Rhine by William Lisle Bowles
Oxus: From 'Sohrab and Rustum' by Matthew Arnold
The Fall of Niagara by John Gardiner Calkins Brainard
To Seneca Lake by James Gates Percival
The Bugle: From 'The Princess' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The Lake Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
Calm on Lake Leman: From 'Childe Harold,' Canto III by Lord Byron
The Silence of the Hills by William Prescott Foster
Storm in the Alps: From 'Childe Harold,' Canto III by Lord Byron
Dover Cliff: From 'King Lear,' Act IV. Sc. 6 by William Shakespeare
Choral Song: From 'The Bacchae' by Euripides
An Alpine Descent by Samuel Rogers
From 'Mont Blanc' by Percy Bysshe Shelley