The Summer I Was Sixteen By Geraldine Connolly The turquoise pool rose up to meet us, its slide a silver afterthought down which we plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles. We did not exist beyond the gaze of a…
Category: Poem Analysis
The Starry Night
The Starry Night By Anne Sexton That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother …
The Little Boy with His Hands Up
The Little Boy with His Hands Up By Yala Korwin Your open palms raised in the air like two white doves frame your meager face, your face contorted with fear, grown old with knowledge beyond your years. Not yet ten.…
Alone
Alone By Maya Angelou Lying, thinking Last night How to find my soul a home Where water is not thirsty And bread loaf is not stone I came up with one thing And I don’t believe I’m wrong That nobody,…
The Silesian Weavers
The Silesian Weavers By Heinrich Heine In sad eyes there sheds no tear, They sit at the loom and grind their teeth: Germany, we weave your shroud; And into it we weave a threefold curse– –We weave; we weave. One curse…
The Silkworms
The Silkworms By Douglas Stewart All their lives in a box! What generations, What centuries of masters, not meaning to be cruel But needing their labour, taught these creatures such patience That now though sunlight strikes on the eye’s dark…
The Last Laugh
The Last Laugh By Wilfred Owen ‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died. Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed, The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain! Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut! And the Big Gun guffawed. Another sighed,—‘O Mother,—mother,—Dad!’ Then…
The Habit of Perfection
The Habit of Perfection By Gerard Manley Hopkins Elected Silence, sing to me And beat upon my whorlèd ear, Pipe me to pastures still and be The music that I care to hear. Shape nothing, lips; be lovely-dumb: It is…
The Garden of Love
The Garden of Love By William Blake I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green. And the gates of…
Vultures
Vultures By Chinua Achebe In the greyness and drizzle of one despondent dawn unstirred by harbingers of sunbreak a vulture perching high on broken bones of a dead tree nestled close to his mate his smooth bashed-in head, a pebble…
Unguarded Gate
Unguarded Gate By Thomas Bailey Aldrich Annotated edition of the 1892 Atlantic Text WIDE open and unguarded stand our gates, Named of the four winds, North, South, East, and West; Portals that lead to an enchanted land Of cities, forests,…
To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth
To the Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth By Phillis Wheatley Hail, happy day, when, smiling like the morn, Fair Freedom rose New-England to adorn: The northern clime beneath her genial ray, Dartmouth, congratulates thy blissful sway: Elate with hope…
To The Foot From Its Child
To The Foot From Its Child By Pablo Neruda Translated by Jodey Bateman A child’s foot doesn’t know it’s a foot yet And it wants to be a butterfly or an apple But then the rocks and pieces of glass,…
An Africa Thunderstorm
An Africa Thunderstorm By David Rubadiri From the west Clouds come hurrying with the wind Turning sharply Here and there Like a plague of locusts Whirling, Tossing up things on its tail Like a madman chasing nothing. Pregnant clouds Ride…
The Table And The Chair
The Table And The Chair By Edward Lear I Said the Table to the Chair, ‘You can hardly be aware, ‘How I suffer from the heat, ‘And from chilblains on my feet! ‘If we took a little walk, ‘We might…
What He Thought
What He Thought By Heather McHugh for Fabio Doplicher We were supposed to do a job in Italy and, full of our feeling for ourselves (our sense of being Poets from America) we went from Rome to Fano, met the…
The Hug
The Hug By Thom Gunn It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined Half of the night with our old friend Who’d showed us in the end To a bed I reached in one drunk stride. Already I lay…
The Great Storm
The Great Storm By Jo Shapcott We rode it all night. We were not ourselves then. Through the window everything was horizontal. In cars and ships and woods, folk died. Small trees scattered like matchsticks and a whole shed flew…
The More Loving One
The More Loving One By W. H. Auden Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man…
In Memoriam Prologue
In Memoriam Prologue By Lord Alfred Tennyson Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade;…