The Singing Man, A Book of Songs and Shadows

This is a collection of a number of long narrative poems. Ms. Peabody's poetry is marked by vivacity and living images. The poems contained in this collection are a great example of Ms. Peabody's style.

By : Josephine Preston Peabody (1874 - 1922)

01 - The Singing Man 02 - The Trees 03 - Rich Man, Poor Man 04 - The Foundling 05 - The Feaster 06 - The Golden Shoes 07 - Noon at Paestum 08 - Vestal Flame 09 - The Prophet 10 - The Long Lane 11 - Alison's Mother to the Brook 12 - Canticle of the Babe 13 - Gladness 14 - The Nightingale Unheard 15 - Envoi

We make our songs as we must, from fragments of the joy and sorrow of living. What Life itself may be, we cannot know till all men share the chance to know.

Until the day of some more equal portion, there is no human brightness unhaunted by this black shadow: the thought of those unnumbered who pay all the heavier cost of life, to live and die without knowledge that there is any Joy of Living.

No song could face such blackness, but for the will to share, and for hope of the day of sharing.

Upon that hope and that mindfulness, the poems in this book are linked together.