1866 in poetry


 * ''In the old days (a custom laid aside
 * ''With breeches and cocked hats) the people sent
 * ''Their wisest men to make the public laws.
 * ''He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
 * ''The intolerable hush. "This well may be
 * ''The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
 * ''But be it so or not, I only know
 * ''My present duty, and my Lord's command
 * ''To occupy till He come. So at the post
 * ''Where He hast set me in His providence,
 * ''I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face,
 * ''No faithless servant frightened from my task,
 * ''But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
 * ''And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
 * ''Let God do His work, we will see to ours.
 * ''Bring in the candles." And they brought them in.
 * ''Bring in the candles." And they brought them in.

-- Lines 1-3, 36-48 from John Greenleaf Whittier's "Abraham Davenport" (text), a poem about an incident involving a Connecticut legislator.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).

Ode on the Mammoth Cheese
In this year a masterpiece of cheese-making, a 7,000-pound Canadian behemoth produced in Perth, Ontario, and sent to exhibitions in Toronto, New York and Britain, was given its appropriate due in poetry by one James McIntyre (1828–1906), a Canadian known as "The Cheese Poet", whose work has outlasted his subject and might even make its fame immortal. Herewith, an excerpt of his "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese Weighing Over 7,000 Pounds":


 * We have seen thee, Queen of Cheese,
 * Lying quietly at your ease,
 * Gently fanned by evening breeze;
 * Thy fair form no flies dare seize.


 * All gaily dressed, soon you'll go
 * To the provincial show,
 * To be admired by many a beau
 * In the city of Toronto.
 * from "Ode on the Mammoth Cheese"

McIntyre's poetry has been the subject of books in the twentieth century, however, the greatest boost to his fame probably came from a number of his poems being anthologized in the collection Very Bad Poetry, edited by Ross and Kathryn Petras (Vintage, 1997).

United Kingdom

 * Sarah Elizabeth Carmichael, Poems
 * Sir Francis Hastings Doyle, The Return of the Guards, and Other Poems
 * John Henry Newman, The Dream of Gerontius
 * Christina Rossetti, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems
 * Algernon Charles Swinburne, Poems and Ballads, first series, including "Dolores" (second series, 1878; third series, 1889)

United States

 * Elizabeth Akers, Poems
 * George Arnold, Drift: A Sea-Shore Idyl
 * Fitz-Greene Halleck, Lines to the Recorder
 * Herman Melville, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War
 * George Henry Miles, Christine
 * John Greenleaf Whittier:
 * Snow-Bound, United States
 * "Abraham Davenport", poem published in The Atlantic Monthly in May (text), about an incident involving Abraham Davenport

France

 * Théodore de Banville, Les Exilés
 * François Coppée, Le Reliquaire
 * Paul Verlaine, Poèmes saturniens, including "Chanson d'automne" ("Autumn Song")
 * Le Parnasse contemporain ("The Contemporary Parnassus"), first of three volumes (Volume II 1871, Volume III 1876), including poems by Théophile Gautier, Théodore de Banville, Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire, José-Maria de Heredia, François Coppée, Catulle Mendès, Sully Prudhomme, Paul Verlaine and Mallarmé

Belgium

 * Baudelaire, Les Épaves, French poet published in Belgium

Other languages

 * Estanislao del Campo, Fausto, satirical poem describing the impressions of a gaucho who attends Charles Gounod's opera Faust, and believes the events on stage to be happening in reality; Spanish-language, Argentina; an example of Gaucho literature

Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * Barcroft Blake (died 1892), Australian
 * Katherine Harris Bradley (half of "Michael Field")
 * Gelett Burgess, American, American
 * Edmund Vance Cooke (died 1932), American
 * Edwin Greenslade Murphy (died 1939), Australian
 * Bernard O'Dowd (died 1953), Australian poet and co-founder of paper Tocsin

Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:
 * Richard Le Gallienne
 * Francis Sylvester Mahony
 * Thomas Love Peacock
 * Friedrich Rückert (born 1788), German poet, translator, and professor of Oriental languages