Poetry can sometimes be elusive, the real meaning layered beneath another. In this volume American poets give voice to their nation, their hopes, and their aspirations. Whitman, Emerson, and Dickinson are joined by Poe, Holmes, Dunbar, and others to pleasure our ears and minds with a rambling stroll through their works. It doesn’t define America, but it captures her mood and the flavours of her soul in the early days of the American dream. The selections are:

• ‘American Poetry - An Introduction’
• ‘To My Dear and Loving Husband’ - Anne Bradstreet
• ‘The Wild Honey Suckle’ - Phillip Freneau
• ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ - Francis Scott Key
• ‘Hymn To the North Star’ - William Cullen Bryant
• ‘Summer Wind’ - William Cullen Bryant
• ‘The Snow Storm’ - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• ‘Goodbye’ - Ralph Waldo Emerson
• ‘A Psalm of Life’ - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• ‘Extract from Hiawatha’ - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• ‘Woods in Winter’ - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• ‘The Raven’ - Edgar Allan Poe
• ‘Annabel Lee’ - Edgar Allan Poe
• ‘A Dream Within a Dream’ - Edgar Allan Poe
• ‘Prologue’ - Oliver Wendell Holmes
• ‘Pray to What Earth Does This Sweet Cold Belong’ - Henry David Thoreau
• ’From Song of Myself’ - Walt Whitman
• ‘Warble of Lilac Time’ - Walt Whitman
• ‘A Carol of Harvest for 1867’ - Walt Whitman
• ‘A July Afternoon by the Pond’ - Walt Whitman
• ‘Night on the Prairies’ - Walt Whitman
• ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ - Julia Ward Howe
• ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ - Emily Dickinson
• ‘The Only Ghost I Ever Saw’ - Emily Dickinson
• ‘Lullaby’ - Louisa May Alcott
• and more