Poetry Codex

American

Herman Melville

1819–1891

Herman Melville (1819–1891) was an American novelist, short-story writer and poet, born in New York City. He is best known for the sea novel Moby-Dick (1851), which was little appreciated in his lifetime.

Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) was his first book of verse, a sequence of poems on the American Civil War, from John Brown to the surrender at Appomattox and its aftermath. Melville turned chiefly to poetry in his later years and worked for many years as a customs inspector in New York.

Major Works (1)

  1. Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land — Narrative poem, 1876

Poems (107)

  1. The Portent
  2. Misgivings
  3. The Conflict of Convictions
  4. Apathy and Enthusiasm
  5. The March into Virginia: Ending in the First Manassas
  6. Lyon: Battle of Springfield, Missouri
  7. Ball’s Bluff: A Reverie
  8. Dupont’s Round Fight
  9. The Stone Fleet: An Old Sailor’s Lament
  10. Donelson
  11. The Cumberland
  12. In the Turret
  13. The Temeraire
  14. A Utilitarian View of the Monitors Fight
  15. Shiloh: A Requiem
  16. The Battle for the Mississippi
  17. Malvern Hill
  18. The Victor of Antietam
  19. Battle of Stone River, Tennessee: A View from Oxford Cloisters
  20. Running the Batteries: As observed from the Anchorage above Vicksburgh
  21. Stonewall Jackson: Mortally wounded at Chancellorsville
  22. Stonewall Jackson: Ascribed to a Virginian
  23. Gettysburg: The Check
  24. The House-top: A Night Piece
  25. Look-out Mountain: The Night Fight
  26. Chattanooga
  27. The Armies of the Wilderness
  28. On the Photograph of a Corps Commander
  29. The Swamp Angel
  30. The Battle for the Bay
  31. Sheridan at Cedar Creek
  32. In the Prison Pen
  33. The College Colonel
  34. The Eagle of the Blue
  35. A Dirge for McPherson: Killed in front of Atlanta
  36. At the Cannon’s Mouth: Destruction of the Ram Albermarle by the Torpedo-Launch
  37. The March to the Sea
  38. The Frenzy in the Wake: Sherman’s advance through the Carolinas
  39. The Fall of Richmond: The tidings received in the Northern Metropolis
  40. The Surrender at Appomattox
  41. A Canticle
  42. The Martyr
  43. “The Coming Storm”
  44. Rebel Color-bearers at Shiloh
  45. The Muster: Suggested by the Two Days’ Review at Washington
  46. Aurora-Borealis: Commemorative of the Dissolution of Armies at the Peace
  47. The Released Rebel Prisoner
  48. A Grave near Petersburg, Virginia
  49. “Formerly a Slave”
  50. The Apparition: A Retrospect
  51. Magnanimity Baffled
  52. On the Slain Collegians
  53. America
  54. On the Home Guards: who perished in the Defense of Lexington, Missouri
  55. Inscription: for Graves at Pea Ridge, Arkansas
  56. The Fortitude of the North: under the Disaster of the Second Manassas
  57. On the Men of Maine: killed in the Victory of Baton Rouge, Louisiana
  58. An Epitaph
  59. Inscription: for Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg
  60. The Mound by the Lake
  61. On the Slain at Chickamauga
  62. An uninscribed Monument: on one of the Battle-fields of the Wilderness
  63. On Sherman’s Men: who fell in the Assault of Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia
  64. On the Grave: of a young Cavalry Officer killed in the Valley of Virginia
  65. A Requiem: for Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports
  66. On a natural Monument: in a field of Georgia
  67. Commemorative of a Naval Victory
  68. Presentation to the Authorities
  69. The Returned Volunteer to his Rifle
  70. The Scout toward Aldie
  71. Lee in the Capitol
  72. A Meditation
  73. John Marr
  74. Bridegroom Dick
  75. Tom Deadlight
  76. Jack Roy
  77. The Haglets
  78. The Aeolian Harp
  79. To the Master of the Meteor
  80. Far Off-Shore
  81. The Man-of-War Hawk
  82. The Figure-Head
  83. The Good Craft Snow-Bird
  84. Old Counsel
  85. The Tuft of Kelp
  86. The Maldive Shark
  87. To Ned
  88. Crossing the Tropics
  89. The Berg
  90. The Enviable Isles
  91. Pebbles
  92. Lines Traced Under an Image of Amor Threatening
  93. The Night March
  94. The Ravaged Villa
  95. The New Zealot to the Sun
  96. Monody
  97. Lone Founts
  98. The Bench of Boors
  99. Art
  100. The Enthusiast
  101. Shelley’s Vision
  102. The Marchioness of Brinvilliers
  103. The Age of the Antonines
  104. Herba Santa
  105. Off Cape Colonna
  106. The Apparition
  107. L’Envoi

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