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About this book:

The Magical World of Poetry is an anthology of over one hundred ninety poetical works: some all-time favorites such as Annabel Lee, Paul Revere's Ride, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock; as well as many lesser known gems.

The book contains poems by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, Sara Teasdale, Edgar Guest, Eugene Field, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Frances E. W. Harper, George Moses Horton, and many others.

The internet edition of this book can be read online here.

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Refreshing this page will randomly select another poem to be displayed at the right.

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The Magical World of Poetry was edited by
Mark James Wooding

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Notes on the text: I am not a scholar, and I make no pretense of this being a scholarly work. There are multiple versions of many of these poems, and as a general rule I tried to use the last printed version before the author's death. I don't claim to have done so in every case. With some of the older works I've left the archaic spelling, but not in every case. In the past what is now a "u" was written as "v", and "v" as "u" (which is probably why "w" is pronounced double "u" and not double "v"). I tried to avoid the older usages of "u" and "v". In a few works I used predominantly (but not necessarily exclusively) modern spelling. In most other works I left them as I found them. This may make them more difficult to read, but I found the diversity appealing. The decisions were largely subjective. I recommend that anyone who wants to try and research other versions begin with Google Books as a source. -MJW
A Lesson of Mercy

by  Alice Cary

A boy named Peter
Found once in the road
All harmless and helpless,
A poor little toad;

And ran to his playmate,
And all out of breath
Cried, "John, come and help,
And we'll stone him to death!"

And picking up stones,
The two went on the run,
Saying, one to the other,
"Oh, won't we have fun?"

Thus primed and all ready,
They'd got nearly back,
When a donkey came
Dragging a cart on the track.

Now the cart was as much
As the donkey could draw,
And he came with his head
Hanging down; so he saw,

All harmless and helpless,
The poor little toad,
A-taking his morning nap
Right in the road.

He shivered at first,
Then he drew back his leg,
And set up his ears,
Never moving a peg.

Then he gave the poor toad,
With his warm nose a dump,
And he woke and got off
With a hop and jump.

And then with an eye
Turned on Peter and John,
And hanging his homely head
Down, he went on.

"We can't kill him now, John,"
Says Peter, "that's flat,
In the face of an eye and
An action like that!"

"For my part, I haven't
The heart to," says John;
"But the load is too heavy
That donkey has on:

"Let's help him"; so both lads
Set off with a will
And came up with the cart
At the foot of the hill.

And when each a shoulder
Had put to the wheel,
They helped the poor donkey
A wonderful deal.

When they got to the top
Back again they both run,
Agreeing they never
Had had better fun.



Website copyright © 2010 Mark James Wooding