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Celia Laighton Thaxter was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on June 29th, 1835 and spent her childhood years on the Isles of Shoals, initially on White Island, where her father, Thomas Laighton, was a lighthouse keeper, and then the wonderfully named Smuttynose and Appledore Islands. At sixteen, she married Levi Thaxter, her father's business partner, and moved to the mainland, residing first in Watertown, Massachusetts, at a property his father owned. In 1854, they moved to a house in Newburyport and later, in 1856, acquired their own home near the Charles River at Newtonville. Celia had two sons, one of whom was Roland, born August 28, 1858, and would become a prominent mycologist who would later teach at Harvard. Her first published poem was written during this time on the mainland. That poem, "Land-Locked", was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1861 and earned her $10. It was to be the beginning of a career that would make her one of America's most popular poets and short story writers. Her marriage with Levi was not perfect, tensions gradually increased. After 10 years she moved back to the islands and her beloved Appledore Island. The marriage was not over but the separations grew longer as Levi didn't share his wife's love of island life. Celia became the hostess of her father's hotel, the Appledore House, and many New England literary and artists stayed thee; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry David Thoreau, John Greenleaf Whittier, Sarah Orne Jewett, and the artists William Morris Hunt, Childe Hassam, who painted several pictures of her and watercolorist Ellen Robbins, who painted the flowers in her garden. Celia was present at the time of the infamous murders on Smuttynose Island, about which she wrote the essay, A Memorable Murder which we have included at the end of this volume of poetry. William Morris Hunt, a close family friend, trying to recover from a debilitating depression, drowned in late summer 1879, an apparent suicide, three days after finishing his last sketch. Celia bore the horror of discovering the body. That same year, the Thaxters' bought 186 acres on Seapoint Beach on Cutts Island, Kittery Point, where they built a grand Shingle Style "cottage" called Champernowne Farm. In 1880, they auctioned the Newtonville house, and in 1881, moved to their new home. In March 1888, her friend and fellow poet Whittier hoped "on that lonesome, windy coast where she can only look upon the desolate, winter-bitten pasture-land and the cold grey sea" she could be comforted by "memories of her Italian travels". Among Celia's most remembered and best loved poems are "The Burgomaster Gull", "Landlocked", "Milking", "The Great White Owl", "The Kingfisher", and "The Sandpiper". Celia Thaxter died suddenly on August 25th, 1894 on Appledore Island and is buried not far from her cottage, which later burned down in the 1914 fire that consumed The Appledore House hotel.

Amy Levy was born in London, England in 1861, the second of seven in a fairly wealthy Anglo-Jewish family. The children of the family read and participated in secular literary activities becoming firmly integrated into Victorian life. Her writing career was to begin early; her poem "Ida Grey" appearing when she was only fourteen. Her stories "Cohen of Trinity" and "Wise in Their Generation," were published by Oscar Wilde in his magazine "Women's World," and are considered among her best. Her first novel Romance of a Shop, written in 1888 is based on four sisters who experience the pleasures and hardships of running a business in London during the 1880s. This was followed by Reuben Sachs (also 1888) and concerned with Jewish identity and mores in the England of her time and therefore somewhat controversial); Her other writings reveal feminist concerns; Xantippe and Other Verses, from 1881 includes a poem in the voice of Socrates's wife; the volume A Minor Poet and Other Verse from 1884 has dramatic monologues and lyric poems. In 1886, Levy began a series of essays on Jewish culture and literature for the Jewish Chronicle, including The Ghetto at Florence, The Jew in Fiction, Jewish Humour and Jewish Children. That same year while travelling in Florence she met writer Vernon Lee. It is generally assumed they fell in love and this inspired the poem 'To Vernon Lee'. Her final book of poems, A London Plane-Tree from 1889, shows the beginnings of the influence of French symbolism. Despite many friendships and active life, Amy had suffered for a long time with major depression and this, together with her growing deafness, led her to commit suicide by inhaling carbon monoxide on September 10, 1889, at the age of twenty-seven.

Sir John Denham FRS was born in 1614 or 1615 (an exact date cannot be corroborated) in Dublin, Ireland, the son of his like named father, Sir John Denham, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and his second wife Eleanor Moore, daughter of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore. Denham and was educated at Trinity College, Oxford and at Lincoln's Inn in London. His literary career started with a tragedy, The Sophy, in 1641, followed a year later by his poem Cooper's Hill, probably his most famous work and a very early example of poetry devoted to the local description of the Thames Valley scenery surrounding his home at Egham in Surrey. During his career Denham was to return again and again to the work and write several versions to reflect the cultural and political upheavals of the Civil War. A Royalist by nature this caused to hold him back during the Civil War but in 1642 he was appointed High Sheriff of Surrey and governor of Farnham Castle. Whatever his politics it is as a poet that Denham, along with his fellow poet and contemporary Edmund Waller, exerted an influence on versification and poetical utterance and the great John Dryden thought their work to be the beginning of Augustan poetry. In 1661 Denham was elected to Parliament for the seat of Old Sarum and became a Fellow of the Royal Society on May 20th, 1663, as well as a Knight of the Bath. With the Restoration of Charles II Denham became Surveyor of the King's Works. He seemed to have no experience for this particular role and it is more likely it was awarded for past political services. John Webb, who, as Inigo Jones's deputy complained that "though Mr. Denham may, as most gentry, have some knowledge of the theory of architecture, he can have none of the practice and must employ another." Although he could administrate nothing suggests any actual design work though his influence would undoubtedly have been taken into account. Denham had an unhappy marriage, and his last years were clouded by advancing dementia. With Denham's increasing mental incapacity, Charles II requested in March 1669 that Christopher Wren be appointed Denham's "sole deputy"; Wren succeeded him as King's Surveyor upon his death two weeks later. Sir John Denham died on March 19th, 1669 and is buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey.

Abul 'Ala Al-Ma'arri was born in December 973 in modern day Maarrat al-Nu'man, near Aleppo, in Syria. He was a member of the Banu Sulayman, a noted family of Ma'arra, belonging to the larger Tanukh tribe that had formed part of the aristocracy in Syria dating back many hundreds of years. Aged only four he was rendered virtually blind due to smallpox and whilst this was thought to explain his pessimistic outlook on life and his fellow man it seems too young an age to support that. He was educated at Aleppo, Tripoli and Antioch and the area itself was part of the Abbasid Caliphate, the third Islamic caliphate, during what is now considered the Golden Age of Islam. During his schooling he began to write poetry, perhaps from as young as 11 or 12. In 1004-5 Al-Ma'arri learned that his father had died and, in commemoration, wrote an elegy in praise. A few years later, as an established poet and with a desire to see more of life and culture in Baghdad, he journeyed there, staying for perhaps as long as eighteen months. However, although he was respected and well received in literary circles he found the experience at odds with his growing ascetic beliefs and resisted all efforts to purchase his works. He was also by now a somewhat controversial figure and although on the whole respected his views on religion were now also causing him trouble. By 1010 with news of his mother ailing back at home he started the journey back to Ma'rra but arrived shortly after her death. He would now remain in Ma'arra for the rest of his life, continuing with his self-imposed ascetic style, refusing to sell his poems, living alone in seclusion and adhering to a strict vegetarian diet. Though he was confined, he lived out his years continuing his work and collaborating with others and enjoyed great respect despite some of the controversy associated with his beliefs. He is often now described as a "pessimistic freethinker". He attacked the dogmas of organised religion and rejected Islam and other faiths. Intriguingly Al-Ma'arri held anti-natalist views; children should not be born to spare them the pains of life. One of the recurring themes of his philosophy was the truth of reason against competing claims of custom, tradition, and authority. Al-Ma'arri taught that religion was a "fable invented by the ancients", worthless except to those who exploit the credulous masses. He went on to explain "Do not suppose the statements of the prophets to be true; they are all fabrications. Men lived comfortably till they came and spoiled life. The sacred books are only such a set of idle tales as any age could have and indeed did actually produce. However, Al-Ma'arri was still a monotheist, but believed that God was impersonal and that the afterlife did not exist. For someone who was not widely travelled Al-Ma'arri stated that monks in their cloisters or devotees in their mosques were blindly following the beliefs of their locality: if they were born among Magians or Sabians they would have become Magians or Sabians, further declaring, rather boldly, that "The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains." Abul 'Ala Al-Ma'arri never married and died aged 83, in May 1057 in his hometown, Maarrat al-Nu'man. Even on Al-Ma'arri's epitaph, he wanted it written that his life was a wrong done by his father and not one committed by himself. Today, despite fundamentalists and jihadists at odds with his thinking and viewing him as a heretic, Al-Ma'arri is regarded as one of the greatest of classical Arabic poets as these translated work readily attest too.

Kabir, (meaning Great and one of the 99 names of God in Arabic), was a mystic and poet, born around 1440 whose work continues to be revered today by Muslims, Sufis, Sikhs and Hindus and is the founder of the Kabir Panth (Path of Kabir), a religious community mainly in India with approximately 10 million members. He was born in Varanasi to poor Muslim parents, although some say he was the child of a Brahmin widow and said of himself that he was "at once the child of Allah and Ram." He grew up learning his father's craft of weaving and very unusually for a Muslim, overcame obstacles to become a disciple of Saint or Swami Ramananda, the leading pioneer of the Bhakti movement, which promoted salvation for all. We cannot be sure of what religious teaching he received in Ramananda's ashram as Ramananda died when Kabir was 13 but we do know that he did not renounce his worldly life, as he married and had children, and was disdainful of professional piety which led to later persecution by religious authorities. This was further amplified by his progressive philosophy of social equality and his spiritual synthesis of Hindu ideas of karma and reincarnation and Muslim beliefs of one god and no idolatry or caste system. We do know that he had no formal education and remained almost entirely illiterate and expressed his poems as 'banis' meaning utterances in Hindi although he borrowed from various dialects. His songs and couplets were part of a strong oral tradition in the region and although spread across northern India orally were also written down by two of his disciples, namely Bhagodas and Dharmadas. Kabir's style was inventive and imaginative and able to capture the attention of a wide range of Indians and provide a path to spiritual awakening which for Kabir was mainly about love and brotherhood and not to be divorced from daily life. "All our actions performed anywhere are our duties, and work is worship." His work is understood and accessible to generations of Indians, more so than any other Saint and in India remains one of the most quoted mystic poets of all time. His ability to simplify and use examples of our universal daily life to enhance our spiritual well being and acceptance of our own self make his work very relevant today as is apparent in this volume. Kabir is thought to have lived an exceptionally long life and probably died in 1518. It is said that his Hindu followers wanted his body cremated and his Muslim followers wanted his body buried and a fight therefore ensued. When they finally lifted the cloth that covered his dead body they found flowers and took half each for his last rites.

In the small state of Massachusetts a remarkable assemblage of Poets have given this corner of America a distinctive and honoured place in poetical history. Poets of the calibre of Amy Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell and George Cabot Lodge are speckled amongst Winifred Virginia Jackson, Gamaliel Bradford, G.O. Warren, Hilda Conkling and many others to bring you a rich reward of poems.

William Shakespeare is rightly regarded as English Literature's supreme talent. His plays are renowned and admired in every country and in every language. His poems too are acknowledged as classics. But many people don't take the time to envelop themselves in his complete sonnets. There are several we all know and can easily quote but there are many others, rich and rewarding, within this collection that extend not just our appreciation of him but also the high quality and poetic genius he brings to each and every sonnet.

James Elroy Flecker was born on 5th November 1884, in Lewisham, London.Flecker does not seem to have enjoyed academic study and achieved only a Third-Class Honours in Greats in 1906. This did not set him up for a job in either government service or the academic world.After some frustrating forays at school teaching he attempted to join the Levant Consular Service and entered Cambridge to study for two years. After a poor first year he pushed forward in the second and achieved First-Class honours. His reward was a posting to Constantinople at the British consulate.However, Flecker's poetry career was making better progress and he was beginning to garner praise for his poems including The Bridge of Fire. Unfortunately, he was also showing the first symptoms of contracting tuberculosis. Bouts of ill health were to now alternate with periods of physical well-being woven with mental euphoria and creativity.Before his early death he managed to complete several volumes of poetry, which he continually revised, together with some prose works and plays. It was a small canon of work but on his death on 3rd January 1915, of tuberculosis, in Davos, Switzerland he was described as "unquestionably the greatest premature loss that English literature has suffered since the death of Keats".

James Elroy Flecker was born on 5th November 1884, in Lewisham, London.Flecker does not seem to have enjoyed academic study and achieved only a Third-Class Honours in Greats in 1906. This did not set him up for a job in either government service or the academic world.After some frustrating forays at school teaching he attempted to join the Levant Consular Service and entered Cambridge to study for two years. After a poor first year he pushed forward in the second and achieved First-Class honours. His reward was a posting to Constantinople at the British consulate.However, Flecker's poetry career was making better progress and he was beginning to garner praise for his poems including The Bridge of Fire. Unfortunately, he was also showing the first symptoms of contracting tuberculosis. Bouts of ill health were to now alternate with periods of physical well-being woven with mental euphoria and creativity.Before his early death he managed to complete several volumes of poetry, which he continually revised, together with some prose works and plays. It was a small canon of work but on his death on 3rd January 1915, of tuberculosis, in Davos, Switzerland he was described as "unquestionably the greatest premature loss that English literature has suffered since the death of Keats".

James Elroy Flecker was born on 5th November 1884, in Lewisham, London.Flecker does not seem to have enjoyed academic study and achieved only a Third-Class Honours in Greats in 1906. This did not set him up for a job in either government service or the academic world.After some frustrating forays at school teaching he attempted to join the Levant Consular Service and entered Cambridge to study for two years. After a poor first year he pushed forward in the second and achieved First-Class honours. His reward was a posting to Constantinople at the British consulate.However, Flecker's poetry career was making better progress and he was beginning to garner praise for his poems including The Bridge of Fire. Unfortunately, he was also showing the first symptoms of contracting tuberculosis. Bouts of ill health were to now alternate with periods of physical well-being woven with mental euphoria and creativity.Before his early death he managed to complete several volumes of poetry, which he continually revised, together with some prose works and plays. It was a small canon of work but on his death on 3rd January 1915, of tuberculosis, in Davos, Switzerland he was described as "unquestionably the greatest premature loss that English literature has suffered since the death of Keats".

"At the height of their madness, The night winds pause, Recollecting themselves; But no lull in these wars."Herman Melville's Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War takes the form of seventy-two narrative poems that deal with the different events of the American Civil War. The poems, which survey the history of the conflict between the North and the South, are arranged in a chronological order and depict the behavior of the individuals in the opposing parties. Starting to write right after the end of the war, Melville enjoyed considerable first-hand experience with the events, though not directly taking part in them like many members of his own family. The poems depict the details of the campaigns and the battles that took place as well as the atrocities and the carnages that they caused. Generally, the remarkable thing about Melville's accounts is that they refuse to blindly take sides and try instead to present different insights and meditations about the historical conflict. Soldiers belonging to both sides of the battlefront are portrayed as being brave, patriotic and committed to the cause they defended. Nevertheless, Melville seems to be convinced that one of the two patriotic forces was right. His poems implicitly urge all faithful Americans to forget their misunderstandings and unite anew for the sake of the nation.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was born on 22nd February 1892 in Rockland, Maine, the eldest of three daughters. Her early years were tinted with much difficulty; divorced parents, poverty and a constant change of location. Despite this once settled in Camden, Maine Edna developed her literary talents at a furious rate. By 15, she had published her poetry in the popular children's magazine St. Nicholas, the Camden Herald, and the high-profile anthology Current Literature. In 1912, at 20, she entered her poem 'Renascence' in The Lyric Year poetry contest. Despite being considered the best poem it was only given fourth place. The ensuing uproar brought publicity and the offer of funding for her education at Vassar College. Here she wrote, both verse and plays as well as embarking on a series of affairs with women as she explored the wider world and all it offered. Edna achieved significant fame when she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923 for 'The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver'. It was a magnificent triumph. She married Eugen Jan Boissevain but on her wedding day she fell ill and he drove her to Manhattan for emergency surgery. He nursed her back to health with remarkable devotion. They were together, in an open marriage, until his death in 1949. In the summer of 1936, Edna was riding in a station wagon when the door swung open and she was hurled into the pitch-darkness and rolled into a rocky gully. She survived but with severely damaged nerves in her spine and was to live the rest of her life in pain. In 1942 in an article for The New York Times Magazine, Edna mourned the callous destruction of the Czechoslovak town of Lidice by Nazi forces in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. The article would serve as the basis of her 32-page poem, 'Murder of Lidice' in 1942. Edna St. Vincent Millay, after suffering a heart attack, fell down the stairs and died at her home on 19th October 1950. She was 58 years old.