Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous…
Category: Poem Analysis
Mi Abuelo
Mi Abuelo By Alberto Ríos Where my grandfather is is in the ground where you can hear the future like an Indian with his ear at the tracks. A pipe leads down to him so that sometimes he whispers what…
Mean Time
Mean Time By Carol Ann Duffy The clocks slid back an hour and stole light from my life as I walked through the wrong part of town, mourning our love. And, of course, unmendable rain fell to the bleak streets…
Madam and the Rent Man
Madam and the Rent Man By Langston Hughes The rent man knocked. He said, Howdy-do? I said, What Can I do for you? He said, You know Your rent is due. I said, Listen, Before I’d pay I’d go to…
Living in Sin
Living in Sin By Adrienne Rich She had thought the studio would keep itself no dust upon the furniture of love Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal the pains relieved of grime. A plate of pears, a piano…
The Rose That Grew from Concrete
The Rose That Grew from Concrete By Tupac Shakur Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature’s law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet. Funny it seems, but…
The Ebb and Flow
The Ebb and Flow by Edward Taylor When first thou on me, Lord, wrought’st thy sweet print, My heart was made thy tinder box. My ‘ffections were thy tinder in’t: Where fell thy sparks by drops. Those holy sparks of…
The Paradox
The Paradox Paul Laurence Dunbar I am the mother of sorrows, I am the ender of grief; I am the bud and the blossom, I am the late-falling leaf. I am thy priest and thy poet, I am thy serf…
The Rear Guard
The Rear Guard by Siegfried Sassoon (Hindenburg Line, April 1917) Groping along the tunnel, step by step, He winked his prying torch with patching glare From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air. Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes and too…
The River of Life
The River of Life by Thomas Campbell The more we live, more brief appear Our life’s succeeding stages; A day to childhood seems a year, And years like passing ages. The gladsome current of our youth, Ere passion yet disorders,…
The Ruin
The Ruin by Matthew Hollis Rare is this wrought-work, pulled down by design; civilities collapse: even giants must die. The roofs unroofed, the towers are down, their beams unburdened and frost-locked. All that was raised has fallen, all in time…
The Runaway
The Runaway by Robert Frost Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall, We stopped by a mountain pasture to say, ‘Whose colt?’ A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall, The other curled at his…
Betting on the Muse
Betting on the Muse by Glenn Cole Russell Jimmy Foxx died an alcoholic in a skidrow hotel room. Beau Jack ending up shining shoes, just where he began. there are dozens, hundreds, more, maybe thousands more. being an athlete grown…
Leda and the Swan
Leda and the Swan by William Butler Yeats A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helpless breast upon his…
Litany
Litany By Billy Collins You are the bread and the knife, The crystal goblet and the wine… -Jacques Crickillon You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine. You are the dew on the morning grass…
From the Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge
From the Bridge: To Brooklyn Bridge By Hart Crane How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him, Shedding white rings of tumult, building high Over the chained bay waters Liberty— Then, with…
The Butterfly
The Butterfly By Pavel Friedmann The last, the very last, So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow. Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing against a white stone… Such, such a yellow Is carried lightly ‘way up high. It went away I’m…
The Beggars
The Beggars By Rainer Maria Rilke You didn’t know what was in the heap. A visitor found it to contain beggars. They sell the hollow of their hands. They show the sightseer their mouths full of filth, and let him…
The Armada
The Armada By Brian Patten Long, long ago when everything I was told was believable and the little I knew was less limited than now, I stretched belly down on the grass beside a pond and to the far bank…
The Albuquerque Graveyard
The Albuquerque Graveyard By Jay Wright It would be easier to bury our dead at the corner lot. No need to wake Before sunrise, take three buses, walk two blocks, search at the rear of the cemetery, to come upon…