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World's Best Poetry, Volume 6: Fancy and Sentiment (Part 1)

The sixth 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 notable poems that deal with both the realm of the fantastic and our own sensibilities, covering subjects such as the imagination; fairies; elves; sprites; myths; mysticism; legends; time; and human life. It also includes an introductory essay to the volume by poet and literary historian Charles Francis Richardson (1851-1913). - Summary by Tomas Peter (8 hr 59 min)

Chapters

The Place of Poetry in Life by Charles Francis Richardson

Fantasy: From 'The Vision of Delight' by Ben Jonson

Hallo, My Fancy by William Cleland

Ideality by Hartley Coleridge

Fancy by John Keats

Imagination: From 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act V. Sc. 2 by William Shakespe…

Queen Mab: From 'Romeo and Juliet,' Act I. Sc. 4 by William Shakespeare

Oberon's Feast by Robert Herrick

Fairy's Song: From 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act II. Sc. 1 by William Shakes…

Compliment to Queen Elizabeth: From 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act II. Sc. 2 …

The Fairies' Lullaby: From 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' Act II. Sc. 3 by Willia…

Fairies' Song by Thomas Randolph

The Fairies by William Allingham

Kilmeny: From 'The Queen's Wake' by James Hogg

The Fairy Child by John Anster

Garden Fairies by Philip Bourke Marston

The Culprit Fay by Joseph Rodman Drake

Oh! Where Do Fairies Hide Their Heads? by Thomas Haynes Bayly

Songs of Ariel: From 'The Tempest,' Act I. Sc. 2 by William Shakespeare

Airy Nothings: From 'The Tempest,' Act IV. Sc. 1 by William Shakespeare

The Erl-King by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Djinns by Victor Marie Hugo

The Lady Lost in the Wood: From 'Comus' by John Milton

The Nymph of the Severn: From 'Comus' by John Milton

Tam o' Shanter: A Tale by Robert Burns

The Lore-Lei by Heinrich Heine

The Fisher by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Sirens' Song: From 'Inner Temple Masque' by William Browne

The Forsaken Merman by Matthew Arnold

The Flitting of the Fairies: From 'The End of Elfintown' by Jane Barlow

A Musical Instrument by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

A Transformation: From 'The Metamorphoses' by Ovid

The Comet by Charles Sangster

The Ballad of Judas Iscariot by Robert Buchanan

The Blessèd Damozel by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The King's Highway by Harriet Waters Preston

Rhœcus by James Russell Lowell

Una and the Red Crosse Knight: From 'The Faërie Queene,' Book I. Canto I by Edm…

Una and the Lion: From 'The Faërie Queene,' Book I. Canto III by Edmund Spenser

The Bower of Bliss: From 'The Faërie Queene,' Book II. Canto XII by Edmund Spen…

The Cave of Sleep: From 'The Faërie Queene,' Book I. Canto I by Edmund Spenser

The Castle of Indolence (from Canto I) by James Thomson

Outward Bound by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Ulalume by Edgar Allan Poe

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Haunted Palace by Edgar Allan Poe

The Sunken City by Wilhelm Müller

The Walker of the Snow by Charles Dawson Shanly

The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning

Quatrains by William Hamilton Hayne

A Yellow Pansy by Helen Gray Cone

Echo and Silence by Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges

Sherwood by Alfred Noyes

Far-Away by Dr. George Sigerson

Time the Supreme: From 'Night Thoughts,' Night I by Dr. Edward Young

To-morrow: From 'Irene' by Samuel Johnson

Three Days by James Roberts Gilmore

Procrastination: From 'Night Thoughts,' Night I by Dr. Edward Young

Ave atque Vale by Rosamund Marriott Watson

The Ballad of Dead Ladies by François Villon

The Approach of Age: Sonnet XII by William Shakespeare

The Old Year and the New by William Cleaver Wilkinson

The Death of the Old Year by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A Fancy from Fontenelle by Austin Dobson

What Is the Grass?: From 'The Song of Myself' by Walt Whitman

The Petrified Fern by Mary L. Bolles Branch

The Making of Man by John White Chadwick

The Ascent of Man by Rossiter W. Raymond

Rubáiyát by Omar Khayyám

Time (An Enigma) by Jonathan Swift

This Life by William Drummond

The Character of a Happy Life by Sir Henry Wotton

Retribution by Friedrich von Logau

The Lye by Sir Walter Raleigh

The Generous Air by Palladas

Good Life, Long Life by Ben Jonson

Life by Richard Henry Wilde

Where Lies the Land? by Arthur Hugh Clough

Life by George Herbert

Life by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Rose-Bush by Johann Ludwig Uhland

History of a Life by Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall)

My Quaker Grandmothers by Oliver Huckel

Address to the Mummy at Belzoni's Exhibition by Horace Smith

London Bridge by Frederic Edward Weatherly

The Crowded Street by William Cullen Bryant

L'Allegro by John Milton

Dining: From 'Lucile' by Robert, Earl of Lytton (Owen Meredith)

The Family Skeleton: From 'Modern Love' by George Meredith

The Epicure by Anacreon

The Indian Weed by Anonymous

Smoking Spiritualized by Ralph Erskine

Without and Within by Pietro Metastasio

Il Penseroso by John Milton

Excelsior by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Wild Ride by Louise Imogen Guiney

The Vagabonds by John Townsend Trowbridge

Fame: From 'An Essay on Man,' Epistle IV by Alexander Pope

Pelters of Pyramids by Richard Henry Hengist Horne

Enid's Song: From 'Idyls of the King' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Fortune: From 'Fanny' by Fitz-Greene Halleck

Opportunity by William Blake

Opportunity by John James Ingalls

Undeveloped Lives by William E.H. Lecky

Augury by Edith M. Thomas

'Keep Sweet and Keep Movin'' by Robert J. Burdette

A Tear by Samuel Rogers

The Jester's Sermon by George Walter Thornbury

The Fool's Prayer by Edward Rowland Sill

At Midsummer by Louise Chandler Moulton

A Sunrise Song by Sidney Lanier

Illusions by Robert Underwood Johnson

Proem: From 'The Isles of the Amazons,' Part III by Joaquin Miller

A California Christmas by Joaquin Miller

Yussouf by James Russell Lowell

Beauty: From 'An Hymne in Honor of Beautie' by Edmund Spenser

Beauty Unadorned: From 'Elegies,' Book I, II by Propertius

Fortune by Sophocles

Greatness: From 'An Essay on Man,' Epistle IV by Alexander Pope

Perseverance by Leonardo da Vinci

The One White Hair by Walter Savage Landor

Growing Gray by Austin Dobson

Healthful Old Age: From 'As You Like It,' Act II. Sc. 2 by William Shakespeare

Quack Medicines: From 'The Borough' by George Crabbe

The Three Warnings by Hester Lynch Thrale

Old Age and Death: From 'Verses Upon His Divine Poesy' by Edmund Waller

The Ruling Passion: From 'Moral Essays,' Epistle I by Alexander Pope

The Will by Dr. John Donne

To a Skeleton by Anonymous

The True Philosophy of Life by William Dunbar