Category: Poem Analysis

Sonnet 15: When I Consider Everything That Grows

Sonnet 15: When I Consider Everything That Grows By William Shakespeare When I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; When…

Sonnet 3

Sonnet 3: Look in Thy Glass and Tell The Face Thou Viewest by William Shakespeare Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest, Now is the time that face should form another, Whose fresh repair if now thou…

You Will Never See Me

You Will Never See Me By Joyce Alcantara You may see me struggle but you won’t see me fall. Regardless if I’m weak or not I’m going to stand tall. Everyone says life is easy but truly living it is…

You Will Forget

You Will Forget By Chenjerai Hove If you stay in comfort too long You will not know The weight of a water pot On the bald head of the village woman You will forget The weight of three bundles of…

Act of Union

Act of Union By Seamus Heaney I To-night, a first movement, a pulse, As if the rain in bogland gathered head To slip and flood: a bog-burst, A gash breaking open the ferny bed. Your back is a firm line…

A Woman’s Hands

A Woman’s Hands By Eva Bezwoda A woman’s hands always hold something: A handbag, a vase, a child, a ring, an idea. My hands are tired of holding They simply want to fold themselves. On a crowded bus, I watched…

A Sheep Fair

A Sheep Fair By Thomas Hardy The day arrives of the autumn fair, And torrents fall, Though sheep in throngs are gathered there, Ten thousand all, Sodden, with hurdles round them reared: And, lot by lot, the pens are cleared,…

Alabama Centennial

Alabama Centennial By Naomi Long Madgett They said, “Wait.” Well, I waited. For a hundred years I waited In cotton fields, kitchens, balconies, In bread lines, at back doors, on chain gangs, In stinking “colored” toilets And crowded ghettos, Outside…

Against Love

Against Love By Katherine Philips HENCE Cupid! with your cheating toys, Your real Griefs, and painted Joys, Your Pleasure which itself destroys. Lovers like men in fevers burn and rave, And only what will injure them do crave. Men’s weakness…

Africa My Africa

Africa My Africa By David Diop Africa of proud warriors in ancestral Savannahs Africa of whom my grandmother sings On the banks of the distant river I have never known you But your blood flows in my veins Your beautiful…

Africa

Africa By Maya Angelou Thus she had lain sugarcane sweet deserts her hair golden her feet mountains her breasts two Niles her tears. Thus she has lain Black through the years. Over the white seas rime white and cold brigands…

A Time for Everything

A Time for Everything By King Solomon To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to…

The African Beggar

The African Beggar By Raymond Tong Sprawled in the dust outside the Syrian store, a target for small children, dogs and flies, a heap of verminous rags and matted hair, he watches us with cunning reptile eyes, his noiseless, small-poxed…

A Sketch for a Modern Love

A Sketch for a Modern Love By Tadeusz Różewicz And yet whiteness can be best described by greyness a bird by a stone sunflowers in December love poems of old used to be descriptions of flesh they described this and…

Alone in the Woods

Alone in the Woods By Stevie Smith Alone in the woods I felt The bitter hostility of the sky and the trees Nature has taught her creatures to hate Man that fusses and fumes Unquiet man As the sap rises…

The Wound in Time

The Wound in Time By Carol Ann Duffy It is the wound in Time. The century’s tides, chanting their bitter psalms, cannot heal it. Not the war to end all wars; death’s birthing place; the earth nursing its ticking metal…

The Tom Cat

The Tom Cat By Donald Robert Perry Marquis At midnight in the alley A Tom-cat comes to wail, And he chants the hate of a million years As he swings his snaky tail. Malevolent, bony, brindled Tiger and devil and…