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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