When Freedom from her mountain height
Unfurled her standard to the air,
She tore the azure robe of night,
And set the stars of glory there.
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes
The milky baldric of the skies,
And striped its pure celestial white,
With streakings of the morning light;
Then from his mansion in the sun
She called her eagle bearer down,
And gave into his mighty hand,
The symbol of her chosen land.

From The American Flag by Joseph Rodman Drake

"There is simply nothing else like it in print."

--Helen Vendler, The New Republic

"This season's highbrow literary hit....Capacious, comprehensive, wide-ranging, and judiciously fair, the Library of America anthology presents the great body of American poetry in the century of the Louisiana Purchase, the Alamo, the Civil War, the expansion of the western frontier, the guilded age and the age of innocence. All the major figures and minor prophets are represented, in proportions both ample and calculated to reflect degrees of greatness. (Walt Whitman gets the most pages, 220; Emily Dickinson has the longest list of titles.) At the same time, the anthology offers a generous sampling of folk songs ('A Home on the Range,' 'Michael Row the Boat Ashore'), spirituals ('Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child'), and 19th-century versions of American Indian poetry.

The American heritage--made up in equal parts of history, local legend, and national myth--rests in the verse monuments perpetuated in these pages. The big guns and great war horses are all here--from the midnight ride of Paul Revere (in Longfellow's telling) to 'John Brown's Body' echoing in the battlefields of the Civil War ('John Brown died that the slave might be free,/ But his soul goes marching on'). Here is Ralph Waldo Emerson's tribute to the New England farmers who 'fired the shot heard round the world,' and here is Emma Lazarus's 'New Colossus' in New York harbor welcoming Europe's 'huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'...Many are the pleasures of rereading and re-assessing that this anthology affords."

--The Washington Post, December 23, 1993

"John Hollander's American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century is a wonder. It is also a work of amazing and quite tactful, almost invisible, erudition. It comes in two large volumes from the Library of America....The best way to conjure up what [Hollander] has accomplished might be to imagine a museum doing a comprehensive show of several hundred nineteenth century American painters.... Hollander has given us...samples of the popular song lyrics of the period, the comic verse from the magazines, the hymn writers, the minstrel show writers, the first Native American poets writing in English, some of the African American poets of the nineteenth century, the folk songs and work songs, the set pieces for school and platform recitation, the spirituals, a very large selection--enough to make a small book in itself--which is a kind of historical anthology of the efforts of nineteenth-century Europeans to translate Native American hunting songs, war songs, sacred songs, riddles, ceremonial chants into a European idiom."

--Robert Hass

Library of America Web Site, May, 2001

This landmark anthology gathers over 1,000 poems by nearly 150 poets to reveal the remarkable beauty and astonishing diversity of the distinctly American tradition of poetry that arose in the 19th century. This first volume extends chronologically from the classical couplets of Philip Freneau to the pioneering free verse of Whitman. Alongside generous selections by Poe, Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow, and Whittier are poems yet to achieve full recognition: mystical sonnets by Jones Very, the Romantic fantasias of Maria Gowen Brooks. Woven throughout are popular ballads, hymns, and songs, like "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," whose lyrics still echo in our American language. Contains newly researched biographical sketches of each poet, a year by year chronology of poets and poetry, and extensive notes.

PHILIP FRENEAU (1752-1832)

On the Civilization of the Western Aboriginal Country
On the Great Western Canal of the State of New York
To Mr. Blanchard, the Celebrated Aeronaut in America
On the Conflagrations at Washington

JOEL BARLOW (1754-1812)

from The Columbiad
Advice to a Raven in Russia

MANOAH BODMAN (1765-1850)

from An Oration on Death

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS (1767-1848)

The Wants of Man
To the Sun-Dial
To Sally

JAMES KIRKE PAULDING (1778-1860)

from The Backwoodsman

CLEMENT MOORE (1779-1863)

A Visit from St. Nicholas

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY (1779-1843)

Defence of Fort McHenry

WASHINGTON ALLSTON (1779-1843)

from The Sylphs of the Seasons
On a Falling Group in the Last Judgement of Michael Angelo, in the Cappella Sistina
On the Group of the Three Angels Before the Tent of Abraham, by Raffaelle, in the Vatican
On Seeing the Picture of Jolus by Peligrino Tibaldi, in the Institute at Bologna
On Rembrant; Occasioned by His Picture of Jacob's Dream
On the Luxembourg Gallery
To My Venerable Friend, the President of the Royal Academy
America to Great Britain
Coleridge
Art
On the Statue of an Angel, by Bienaimé, in the Possession of J. S. Copley Greene, Esq.
On Kean's Hamlet
A Word: Man
On Michael Angelo
Rubens

JOHN PIERPONT (1785-1866)

from Airs of Palestine
from A Word from a Petitioner
The Fugitive Slave's Apostrophe to the North Star

SAMUEL WOODWORTH (1785-1842)

The Bucket

RICHARD HENRY DANA (1787-1879)

The Dying Raven
The Pleasure Boat
Daybreak
The Husband's and Wife's Grave
The Chanting Cherubs

RICHARD HENRY WILDE (1789-1847)

The Lament of the Captive
To the Mocking-Bird
from Hesperia

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK (1790-1867)

On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake
Alnwick Castle
Marco Bozzaris
Red Jacket
from Connecticut

JOHN HOWARD PAYNE (1791-1852)

Home, Sweet Home!

LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY (1791-1865)

Indian Names

JOHN NEAL (1793-1876)

from The Battle of Niagara

CARLOS WILCOX (1794-1827)

from The Age of Benevolence

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878)

Thanatopsis
"I Cannot Forget With What Fervid Devotion"
To a Waterfowl
Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood
Green River
A Winter Piece
"Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids"
The Ages
The Rivulet
Summer Wind
An Indian at the Burying-Place of His Fathers
After a Tempest
Autumn Woods
November
Forest Hymn
The Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus
October
The Damsel of Peru
To an American Painter Departing for Europe
To the Fringed Gentian
The Prairies
The Fountain
The Painted Cup
The Night Journey of a River
The Constellations
Dante

MARIA GOWEN BROOKS (1794?-1845)

from Zophiël, or the Bride of Seven: Canto the Third, Palace of the Gnomes
Composed at the Request of a Lady, and Descriptive of Her Feelings

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE (1795-1820)

The Mocking-Bird
The National Painting
from The Culprit Fay
The American Flag
Niagara
To a Friend
Bronx

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL (1795-1856)

The Coral Grove

GEORGE MOSES HORTON (1798?-1883?)

On Liberty and Slavery
On Hearing of the Intention of a Gentleman to Purchase the Poet's Freedom

SAMUEL HENRY DICKSON (1798-1872)

Song�Written at the North

A. BRONSON ALCOTT (1799-1888)

Sonnet XIV: "Not Wordsworth's genius, Pestalozzi's love"
Sonnet XVIII: "Adventurous mariner! in whose gray skiff"
Sonnet XIX: "Romancer, far more coy than that coy sex!"

THOMAS COLE (1801-1848)

"I saw a Cave of sable depth profound"
A Painter
Lines Suggested by Hearing Music on the Boston Common at Night
The Lament of the Forest
The Voyage of Life, Part 2nd
The Dial
Lago Maggiore

EDWARD COOTE PINKNEY (1802-1828)

Italy
The Voyager's Song
To ..........
Serenade
A Health
On Parting
The Widow's Song

GEORGE POPE MORRIS (1802-1864)

The Oak

LYDIA MARIA CHILD (1802-1880)

The New-England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day

RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882)

The Sphinx
Each and All
The Problem
To Rhea
The Visit
Uriel
The World-Soul
Mithridates
Hamatreya
The Rhodora
The Humble-Bee
The Snow-Storm
from Woodnotes II
from Monadnoc
Fable
Ode, Inscribed to W. H. Channing
Astrja
Compensation
Forerunners
Sursum Corda
Give All to Love
Eros
from Initial, Djmonic, and Celestial Love
Merlin I
Merlin II
Bacchus
Merops
Saadi
Xenophanes
The Day's Ration
Blight
Musketaquid
Threnody
Hymn: Sung at the Completion of the Concord Monument
Brahma
Freedom
Voluntaries
Days
Sea-Shore
Song of Nature
Two Rivers
Waldeinsamkeit
Terminus
Suum Cuique
Memory
The Harp
Grace
Mottoes from the Essays
Nature (1836)
Compensation
Spiritual Laws
History
Self-Reliance
Circles
Art
Experience
Nature (1844)
Nominalist and Realist
Fate
Wealth
Worship
Illusions
"Awed I behold once more"
"Dear brother, would you know the life"
"Who knows this or that"
Intellect
"The patient Pan"
Maia

SARAH HELEN WHITMAN (1803-1878)

To ��

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)

"I left my low and humble home"
"Oh could I raise the darken'd veil"
The Ocean

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS (1806-1867)

January 1, 1829
Psyche, Before the Tribunal of Venus
from Melanie
The Confessional
Unseen Spirits
City Lyrics
The Lady in the White Dress, Whom I Helped Into the Omnibus
To Charles Roux, of Switzerland

WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS (1806-1870)

The Lost Pleiad
By the Swanannoa
from The City of the Silent
The New Moon

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (1807-1882)

The Spirit of Poetry
A Psalm of Life
Hymn to the Night
The Wreck of the Hesperus
The Village Blacksmith
The Skeleton in Armour
The Warning
Mezzo Cammin
The Day Is Done
Seaweed
Afternoon in February
The Bridge
Curfew
The Evening Star
Autumn
Couplet: February 24, 1847
Fragment: December 18, 1847
The Fire of Drift-Wood
from Evangeline
The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
from The Song of Hiawatha
XIV: Picture-Writing
from XXII: Hiawatha's Departure
My Lost Youth
The Children's Hour
from Tales of a Wayside Inn
Prelude: The Wayside Inn
The Landlord's Tale: Paul Revere's Ride
The Spanish Jew's Tale: Azrael
Snow-Flakes
Divina Commedia
Aftermath
Belisarius
Chaucer
Kéramos
Venice
The Harvest Moon
The Cross of Snow
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
Night
The Poet's Calendar
from Elegiac Verse
The Bells of San Blas

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (1807-1892)

Proem
Song of Slaves in the Desert
from Songs of Labor: Dedication
Ichabod!
Astrja
First-Day Thoughts
The Haschish
Maud Muller
The Barefoot Boy
Skipper Ireson's Ride
Telling the Bees
My Playmate
Barbara Frietchie
What the Birds Said
Snow-Bound
from Among the Hills: Prelude
My Triumph
Burning Drift-Wood

EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)

"Stanzas"
The Lake�To ��
To Science
Al Aaraaf
Romance
Fairy-Land
"Alone"
To Helen
Israfel
The Valley of Unrest
The City in the Sea
To F��
The Coliseum
The Haunted Palace
Silence
The Conqueror Worm
Lenore
Dream-Land
The Raven
Ulalume�A Ballad
The Bells
For Annie
Eldorado
Annabel Lee

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (1809-1865)

My Childhood-Home I See Again

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894)

Old Ironsides
The Chambered Nautilus
The Living Temple
The Deacon's Masterpiece: or the Wonderful "One-Hoss-Shay"
Contentment
The Voiceless
The Two Streams
from Wind-Clouds and Star-Drifts: III. Sympathies
Nearing the Snow-Line
The Flaneur
Prelude to a Volume Printed in Raised Letters for the Blind

THOMAS HOLLEY CHIVERS (1809-1858)

To Isa Sleeping
Avalon
Apollo
Lily Adair
The Wind

FANNY KEMBLE (1809-1893)

To the Wissahiccon
Impromptu

MARGARET FULLER (1810-1850)

Sistrum
Flaxman

EDMUND HAMILTON SEARS (1810-1876)

"It came upon the midnight clear," 588

CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH (1813-1892)

Correspondences
Gnosis
The Bird and the Bell
The Cataract Isle
In the Palais Royal Garden
Cornucopia
The Spirit of the Age
An Old Cat's Confessions
The Evening Primrose
December
My Old Palette
Music
Bird Language
from Seven Wonders of the World
The Printing-Press
The Locomotive
The Photograph

CHARLES TIMOTHY BROOKS (1813-1883)

Our Island Home
Lines: Composed at the Old Temples of Maralipoor

JONES VERY (1813-1880)

The New Birth
"In Him we live, & move, & have our being"
The Morning Watch
The Garden
The Song
The Latter Rain
The Dead
Thy Brother's Blood
The Earth
The Cup
The New World
The New Man
The Created
Autumn Leaves
The Hand and the Foot
The Eye and Ear
Yourself
The Lost
The Prayer
The Cottage
The Strangers
The Wild Rose of Plymouth
The Lament of the Flowers
Autumn Flowers
The Origin of Man, I
EPES SARGENT (1813-1880)
The Planet Jupiter
The Sea-Breeze at Matanzas
Rockall

DANIEL DECATUR EMMETT (1815-1904)

Dixie's Land
Boatman's Dance

PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE (1816-1850)

Florence Vane
Orthone

JOSIAH D. CANNING (1816-1892)

The Indian Gone!

HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817-1862)

"They who prepare my evening meal below"
"On fields oer which the reaper's hand has passd"
Fog
"Dong, sounds the brass in the east"
Rumors from an Jolian Harp
"My life has been the poem I would have writ"
"I am a parcel of vain strivings tied"
"Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird"
Guido's Aurora
Music
Inspiration

CORNELIUS MATHEWS (1817-1889)

from Poems on Man in His Various Aspects Under the American Republic
The Sculptor
The Journalist
The Masses

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING (1818-1901)

The Harbor
Hymn of the Earth
The Barren Moors
Walden
Murillo's Magdalen

WILLIAM WETMORE STORY (1819-1895)

Cleopatra
from A Contemporary Criticism
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891)
from The Present Crisis
from A Fable for Critics
from The Biglow Papers: Letter Six�The Pious Editor's Creed
from The Vision of Sir Launfal: Prelude to Part the First
Remembered Music�A Fragment
from Under the Willows
Ode Recited at the Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865

JULIA WARD HOWE (1819-1910)

My Last Dance
Battle-Hymn of the Republic

JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND (1819-1881)

from The Marble Prophecy

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH (1819-1902)

Ben Bolt

WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)

Leaves of Grass (1855)
(Song of Myself)
(A Song for Occupations)
(To Think of Time)
(The Sleepers)
(I Sing the Body Electric)
(Faces)
(Song of the Answerer)
(Europe the 72d and 73d Years of These States)
(A Boston Ballad)
(There Was a Child Went Forth)
(Who Learns My Lesson Complete?)
(Great Are the Myths)
from Leaves of Grass (1860)
Chants Democratic and Native American
from Leaves of Grass (1891-92)
from Inscriptions
Eidólons
from Children of Adam
From Pent-Up Aching Rivers
I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ
As Adam Early in the Morning
Calamus
In Paths Untrodden
Scented Herbage of My Breast
Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand
For You O Democracy
These I Singing in Spring
Not Heaving from My Ribb'd Breast Only
Of the Terrible Doubt of Appearances
The Base of All Metaphysics
Recorders Ages Hence
When I Heard at the Close of the Day
Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?
Roots and Leaves Themselves Alone
Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes
Trickle Drops
City of Orgies
Behold This Swarthy Face
I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing
To a Stranger
This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful
I Hear It Was Charged Against Me
The Prairie-Grass Dividing
When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame
We Two Boys Together Clinging
A Promise to California
Here the Frailest Leaves of Me
No Labor-Saving Machine
A Glimpse
A Leaf for Hand in Hand
Earth, My Likeness
I Dream'd in a Dream
What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?
To the East and to the West
Sometimes with One I Love
To a Western Boy
Fast Anchor'd Eternal O Love!
Among the Multitude
O You Whom I Often and Silently Come
That Shadow My Likeness
Full of Life Now
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Sea-Drift
Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life
Tears
To the Man-of-War-Bird
Aboard at a Ship's Helm
On the Beach at Night
The World Below the Brine
On the Beach at Night Alone
Songs for All Seas, All Ships
Patroling Barnegat
After the Sea-Ship
from Drum-Taps
Come Up from the Fields Father
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
As Toilsome I Wander'd Virginia's Woods
The Wound Dresser
Dirge for Two Veterans
Reconciliation
from Memories of President Lincoln
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
O Captain! My Captain!
By Blue Ontario's Shore
from Autumn Rivulets
Italian Music in Dakota
Proud Music of the Storm
Passage to India
from Whispers of Heavenly Death
Chanting the Square Deific
A Noiseless Patient Spider

Chronology
Biographical Notes
Note on the Texts
Notes
Index of Titles and First Lines
Index of Poets