Siren Song by Margaret Atwood This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see the beached skulls the song nobody…
Category: Poem Analysis
The Twelve Days of Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas by Anonymous The first day of Christmas, My true love sent to me A partridge in a pear tree. The second day of Christmas, My true love sent to me Two turtle doves, and A…
Sonnet 29
Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to…
La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad
La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad by John Keats O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing. O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so…
Out, Out—
Out, Out— by Robert Frost The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. And from there those that lifted eyes could count…
Lady Lazarus
Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it—— A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine…
50-50
50-50 by Langston Hughes I’m all alone in this world, she said, Ain’t got nobody to share my bed, Ain’t got nobody to hold my hand— The truth of the matter’s I ain’t got no man. Big Boy opened his…
My Friend
My Friend by Khalil Gibran My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear—a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The “I” in me, my friend, dwells…
The Snow-Storm
The Snow-Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils…
The Walrus and the Carpenter
The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll “The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright — And this was odd, because it was…
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling…
Birches
Birches by Robert Frost When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay As ice-storms do.…
The Wreck of the Hesperus
The Wreck of the Hesperus by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow It was the schooner Hesperus, That sailed the wintry sea; And the skipper had taken his little daughter, To bear him company. Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax, Her cheeks…
Lift Every Voice and Sing
Lift Every Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the…
Goblin Market
Goblin Market by Christiana Rossetti Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: “Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy: Apples and quinces, Lemons and oranges, Plump unpeck’d cherries, Melons and raspberries, Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches, Swart-headed mulberries, Wild free-born…
Success is Counted Sweetest
Success is Counted Sweetest by Emily Dickinson Success is counted sweetest By those who ne’er succeed. To comprehend a nectar Requires sorest need. Not one of all the purple Host Who took the Flag today Can tell the definition So clear…
Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou Art
Bright Star, Would I Were Stedfast as Thou Art by John Keats Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art— Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The…
The Highwayman
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes Part One The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees. The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas. The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman…
To an Athlete Dying Young
To an Athlete Dying Young by A. E. Housman The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market-place; Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. Today, the road all runners come,…
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
The Emperor of Ice-Cream by Wallace Stevens Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the…
