Born in the USA - Exploring American Poems. The New England Poets

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Helen Hunt Jackson and Oliver Wendell Holmes

Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another. Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.

Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.

In the volumes of this series we take a look through the prism of individual regions of the United States through the centuries and decades.

The United States may be many things: the world’s policeman, a bully, a shameless purveyor of mass market culture but it also, in its better moments, a standard bearer for truth, transparency, equality and the more positive qualities of democracy.

Little wonder that’s its poets are rightly acknowledged as wonders of their art. Leading lights in the fight against slavery and for equality, even if the rest of the Nation is finding it problematic to catch up.

In this volume we have collected verse from poets born in New England. This corner of America where the first Europeans began to push the indigenous culture back from its home is a grid of small States that have been home to some of the greatest poets ever born anywhere, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Helen Hunt Jackson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Kathy Lee Bates.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Portable Poetry
• Release date: Sep 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9781835471517

Book preview

Born in the USA - Exploring American Poems

The New England Poets

An Introduction

Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another.  Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.

Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.

In the volumes of this series we take a look through the prism of individual regions of the United States through the centuries and decades.

The United States may be many things: the world’s policeman, a bully, a shameless purveyor of mass market culture but it also, in its better moments, a standard bearer for truth, transparency, equality and the more positive qualities of democracy.

Little wonder that’s its poets are rightly acknowledged as wonders of their art.  Leading lights in the fight against slavery and for equality, even if the rest of the Nation is finding it problematic to catch up. 

In this volume we have collected verse from poets born in New England.  This corner of America where the first Europeans began to push the indigenous culture back from its home is a grid of small States that have been home to some of the greatest poets ever born anywhere, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Helen Hunt Jackson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Kathy Lee Bates.     

Index of Contents

June by Horatio Alger Jr

On the Discoveries of Captain Lewis, January 14th 1807 by Joel Barlow

America the Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates

If You Could Come by Katharine Lee Bates

Above the Battle by Katherine Lee Bates

Turn Me to My Yellow Leaves by William Stanley Braithwaite

A Hymn of the Sea by William Cullen Bryant

Summer Wind by William Cullen Bryant

November by William Cullen Bryant

I Would Not Paint a Picture by Emily Dickinson

I Have a Bird in Spring by Emily Dickinson

The Name of it is Autumn by Emily Dickinson

Some Too Fragile for Winter Winds by Emily Dickinson

I Went to Heaven by Emily Dickinson

Credo by W E B Du Bois

Teach Me I Am Forgotten by the Dead by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Waves by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Culture by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Berrying by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Days by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Tenebris by Angelina Weld Grimké

The Black Finger by Angelina Weld Grimke

The Eyes of My Regret by Angelina Weld Grimké

In the Reading Room of the British Museum by Louise Imogen Guiney

Address to the Moon by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Ocean by Nathamiel Hawthorne

Go to the Grave by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Old Man of the Sea by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Prologue by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes

A Calendar of Sonnets - December by Helen Hunt Jackson

A Calendar of Sonnets - January by Helen Hunt Jackson

A Calendar of Sonnets - September by Helen Hunt Jackson

Octobers Bright Blue Weather by Helen Hunt Jackson

In London Town by Walter Learned

The Slave's Singing at Midnight by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Song of Haiwatha (Extract) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

An April Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Loss and Gain by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Despair by H P Lovecraft

Sunset by H P Lovecraft

Ode for July 4th 1917 by H P Lovecraft

Pacifist War Song - 1917 by H P Lovecraft

Providence by H P Lovecraft

In a Garden by Amy Lowell

Dog Days by Amy Lowell

Monadnock in Early Spring by Amy Lowell

The Crescent Moon by Amy Lowell

March Evening by Amy Lowell

The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell

Above and Below by James Russell Lowell

Of the Dawn of Freedom by James Russell Lowell

To H W L on His Birthday 27th February 1867 by James Russell Lowell

Slaves by James Russell Lowell

The Red Cross Nurses by Thomas L. Masson

A December Day by Robert Fuller Murray

Warren's Address by John Pierpoint

The Economy of Slavery by John Pierpoint

Hymn for the First of August by John Pierpoint

Prayer for the Slave by John Pierpoint

The Natives of America by Ann Plato

Reflections, Written on Visiting the Grave of a Venerated Friend by Ann Plato

A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe

Dreamland by Edgar Allan Poe

The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe

Sonnet - Silence by Edgar Allan Poe

Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe

Luke Havergal by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Mr Flood's Party by Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Children of the Night by Edwin Arlington Robinson

The Flying Dutchman by Edwin Arlington Robinson

In November by Phillip Henry Savage

Shakespeare by Philip Henry Savage

Here by the Brimming April Streams by Phillip Savage

Rhyme of the Rail by John Godfrey Saxe

Casey at the Bat by Ernest L Thayer

What's the Railroad to Me by Henry David Thoreau

Pray to What Earth Does this Sweet Cold Belong by Henry David Thoreau

Woof of the Sun by Henry David Thoreau

The Moon by Henry David Thoreau

Stanzas for the First of August by James Monroe Whitfield

To.... by James Monroe Whitfield

Ode for the 4th of July by James Monroe Whitfield

Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia, 1862 by John Greenleaf Whittier

A Word for the Hour by John Greenleaf Whittier

Snow-Bound (The Sun That Brief December Day) by John Greenleaf Whittier

September by Carlos Wilcox

January the 1st 1828 by Nathaniel