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AMERICAN

Assembled by: SHEHRYAR RIAZ

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WALT WHITMAN There was A Child Went Forth +

I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing +
One’s-Self I Sing + Poets to Come + To A Stranger +
O Captain! My Captain! + Shut Not Your Doors + These Carols

EMILE DICKINSON Success Is Counted Sweetest + “Hope” Is The Thing with Feathers +
After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes + She Lay As If at Play +
This Is My Letter to The World + The last night that she lived

ROBERT FROST Mending Wall + After Apple Picking + The Road Not Taken + Tree at my Window +
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening + Acquainted with the Night + The Pasture
American Novel & Poetry

Table of Contents

WALT WHITMAN .................................................................... 3

There was A Child Went Forth ........................................................................................................ 3
O Captain! My Captain! .................................................................................................................. 4
One's-Self I Sing .............................................................................................................................. 4
I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing ........................................................................................... 4
Poets to Come................................................................................................................................. 4
To a Stranger................................................................................................................................... 5
These Carols .................................................................................................................................... 5
Shut Not Your Doors ....................................................................................................................... 5

EMILE DICKINSON .................................................................. 6

Success is counted sweetest........................................................................................................... 6
“Hope” is the thing with Feathers …............................................................................................... 6
After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes...................................................................................... 6
She Lay As If at Play ........................................................................................................................ 6
The last Night that She lived ........................................................................................................... 7
This is my letter to the World ......................................................................................................... 7

ROBERT FROST ....................................................................... 8

Mending Wall.................................................................................................................................. 8
After Apple-Picking ......................................................................................................................... 8
The Road Not Taken ....................................................................................................................... 9
Tree at my Window ........................................................................................................................ 9
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening ....................................................................................... 9
Acquainted with the Night.............................................................................................................. 9
The Pasture ................................................................................................................................... 10

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American Novel & Poetry
WALT WHITMAN
There was A Child …
THERE was a child went forth every day;
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he
became;
And that object became part of him for the day, or a
certain part of the day, or for many years, or
stretching cycles of years.
The early lilacs became part of this child,
And grass, and white and red morning-glories, and
white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-
bird,
And the Third-month lambs, and the sow’s pink-faint
litter, and the mare’s foal, and the cow’s calf,
And the noisy brood of the barn-yard, or by the mire
of the pond-side,
And the fish suspending themselves so curiously
below there—and the beautiful curious liquid,
And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads—
all became part of him.
The field-sprouts of Fourth-month and Fifth-month
became part of him;
Winter-grain sprouts, and those of the light-yellow
corn, and the esculent roots of the garden,
And the apple-trees cover’d with blossoms, and the
fruit afterward, and wood-berries, and the
commonest weeds by the road;
And the old drunkard staggering home from the out-
house of the tavern, whence he had lately risen,
And the school-mistress that pass’d on her way to
the school,
And the friendly boys that pass’d—and the
quarrelsome boys,
And the tidy and fresh-cheek’d girls—and the
barefoot negro boy and girl,
And all the changes of city and country, wherever he
went.
His own parents,
He that had father’d him, and she that had conceiv’d
him in her womb, and birth’d him,
They gave this child more of themselves than that;
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They gave him afterward every day—they became
part of him.
The mother at home, quietly placing the dishes on
the supper-table;
The mother with mild words—clean her cap and
gown, a wholesome odor falling off her person and
clothes as she walks by;
The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean,
anger’d, unjust;
The blow, the quick loud word, the tight bargain, the
crafty lure,
The family usages, the language, the company, the
furniture—the yearning and swelling heart,
Affection that will not be gainsay’d—the sense of
what is real—the thought if, after all, it should prove
unreal,
The doubts of day-time and the doubts of night-
time—the curious whether and how,
Whether that which appears so is so, or is it all
flashes and specks?
Men and women crowding fast in the streets—if
they are not flashes and specks, what are they?
The streets themselves, and the façades of houses,
and goods in the windows,
Vehicles, teams, the heavy-plank’d wharves—the
huge crossing at the ferries,
The village on the highland, seen from afar at
sunset—the river between,
Shadows, aureola and mist, the light falling on roofs
and gables of white or brown, three miles off,
The schooner near by, sleepily dropping down the
tide—the little boat slack-tow’d astern,
The hurrying tumbling waves, quick-broken crests,
slapping,
The strata of color’d clouds, the long bar of maroon-
tint, away solitary by itself—the spread of purity it
lies motionless in,
The horizon’s edge, the flying sea-crow, the
fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud;
These became part of that child who went forth
every day, and who now goes, and will always go
forth every day.
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American Novel & Poetry
O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle
trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the
shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces
turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and
still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor
will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage
closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object
won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
One's-Self I Sing
One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person,
Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.
Of physiology from top to toe I sing,
Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for
the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far,
The Female equally with the Male I sing.
Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power,
Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws
divine,
The Modern Man I sing.
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I Saw in Louisiana …
I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the
branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering
joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think
of myself,
But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves
standing alone there without its friend near, for I
knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of
leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in
my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear
friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me
think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in
Louisiana solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a
lover near,
I know very well I could not.
Poets to Come
POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am
for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental,
greater than before known,
Arouse! Arouse—for you must justify me—you must
answer.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for
the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry
back in the darkness.
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American Novel & Poetry

I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully

stop-ping, turns a casual look upon you, and then
averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we
sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all
exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim
and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Shut Not Your Doors
SHUT not your doors to me proud libraries,
For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd
shelves, yet needed most, I bring,
Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it
everything,
A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by
the intellect,
But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.

To a Stranger
Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I
look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking,
(it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid,
affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl
with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has
become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as
we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in
return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I
sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

These Carols
THESE carols sung to cheer my passage through the
world I see,
For completion I dedicate to the Invisible World.

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American Novel & Poetry
EMILE DICKINSON
Success is counted sweetest
Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory
As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!
“Hope” is the thing …
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
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After great pain …
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
She Lay As If at Play
She lay as if at play
Her life had leaped away—
Intending to return—
But not so soon—
Her merry Arms, half dropt—
As if for lull of sport—
An instant had forgot—
The Trick to start—
Her dancing Eyes—ajar—
As if their Owner were
Still sparkling through
For fun—at you—
Her Morning at the door—
Devising, I am sure—
To force her sleep—
So light—so deep—
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American Novel & Poetry

The last Night that She lived

The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying-this to Us
Made Nature different
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see—
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me

We noticed smallest things-

Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our minds
Italicised-as 'twere.

As we went out and in

Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame
That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite-

We waited while She passed-

It was a narrow time-
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.

She mentioned, and forgot

Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce
Consented, and was dead

And we, we placed the hair,

And drew the head erect;
And then an awful leisure was,
Our faith to regulate.

This is my letter …
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—
The simple News that Nature told—
With tender Majesty

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American Novel & Poetry
ROBERT FROST
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
‘Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
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He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’
After Apple-Picking
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
Page | 8
American Novel & Poetry
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Tree at my Window
Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
Vague dream head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.
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But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.
That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.
Stopping by Woods …
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Acquainted with the Night
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
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American Novel & Poetry

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

The Pasture
I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone lonjjmjg.—You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.

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