Uniquely comprehensive...highly readable...the definitive collection of classic lyric poetry. From Shakespeare's wise music to Marvell's profundity and wit...from the Romantics' passionate view of man and woman and nature to twentieth-centur poets' confused searching, this outstanding one-volume collection brings us the profound, soul-nourishing experience of great poetry. Brilliantly selected and arranged by renowned literary masters Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine, the poems here reflect the genius of six centuries of poets. It is the finest anthology of lyric poetry ever published. "Truth" by Geoffrey Chaucer "Ophelia's Song" by William Shakespeare "The Canonization" by John Donne "To Heaven" by Ben Jonson "Ode on Solitude" by Alexander Pope "The Tyger" by William Blake "The Solitary Reaper" by William Wordsworth "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins "Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats and more than ninety additional classic poems.

A wide selection of enduring work in chronological order by over 100 acknowledged masters of poetry.

Is both a history and an anthology of poetry in the English language, from Chaucer to T.S. Eliot and from Shakespeare to Dylan Thomas.

A collection of poems by African-American writers, including Lucy Terry, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Alice Walker.

This comprehensive anthology attempts to give the common reader possession of six centuries of great British and American poetry. The book features a large introductory essay by Harold Bloom called "The Art of Reading Poetry," which presents his critical reflections of more than half a century devoted to the reading, teaching, and writing about the literary achievement he loves most. In the case of all major poets in the language, this volume offers either the entire range of what is most valuable in their work, or vital selections that illuminate each figure's contribution. There are also headnotes by Harold Bloom to every poet in the volume as well as to the most important individual poems. Much more than any other anthology ever gathered, this book provides readers who desire the pleasures of a sublime art with very nearly everything they need in a single volume. It also is regarded as his final meditation upon all those who have formed his mind.