My Heart Leaps Up By William Wordsworth My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall…
Category: Poem Analysis
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal
A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal By William Wordsworth A slumber did my spirit seal; I had no human fears: She seemed a thing that could not feel The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force;…
Sonnet 139
Sonnet 139: O, call not me to justify the wrong By William Shakespeare O, call not me to justify the wrong That thy unkindness lays upon my heart; Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue; Use power…
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep By Mary Elizabeth Frye Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints…
The Trees Are Down
The Trees Are Down By Charlotte Mew —and he cried with a loud voice: Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees— (Revelation) They are cutting down the great plane-trees at the end of the gardens. For days…
Courage
Courage By Anne Sexton It is in the small things we see it. The child’s first step, as awesome as an earthquake. The first time you rode a bike, wallowing up the sidewalk. The first spanking when your heart went…
The Definition of Love
The Definition of Love By Andrew Marvell My Love is of a birth as rare As ’tis for object strange and high: It was begotten by despair Upon Impossibility. Magnanimous Despair alone Could show me so divine a thing, Where…
Be Nobody’s Darling
Be Nobody’s Darling By Alice Walker Be nobody’s darling; Be an outcast. Take the contradictions Of your life And wrap around You like a shawl, To parry stones To keep you warm. Watch the people succumb To madness With ample cheer;…
Blizzard
Blizzard By William Carlos Williams Snow: years of anger following hours that float idly down — the blizzard drifts its weight deeper and deeper for three days or sixty years, eh? Then the sun! a clutter of yellow and blue…
The Wildflower’s Song
The Wildflower’s Song By William Blake As I wander’d the forest, The green leaves among, I heard a wild flower Singing a song. I slept in the Earth In the silent night, I murmur’d my fears And I felt delight.…
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd
The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd By Sir Walter Raleigh If all the world and love were young, And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move, To live with thee, and be thy love. Time drives…
Sonnet 133
Sonnet 133: Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan By William Shakespeare Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me: Is’t not enough to torture me alone,…
Poetry of Departures
Poetry of Departures By Philip Larkin Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand, As epitaph: He chucked up everything And just cleared off, And always the voice will sound Certain you approve This audacious, purifying, Elemental move. And they are right, I think.…
Oread
Oread By Hilda Doolittle Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us, cover us with your pools of fir. Summary of Oread Popularity of “Oread”: This short and precise…
I Dreaded That First Robin
I Dreaded That First Robin By Emily Dickinson I dreaded that first Robin, so, But He is mastered, now, I’m accustomed to Him grown, He hurts a little, though — I thought If I could only live Till that first…
Icarus
Icarus By Edward Field Only the feathers floating around the hat Showed that anything more spectacular had occurred Than the usual drowning. The police preferred to ignore The confusing aspects of the case, And the witnesses ran off to a…
I Being Born A Woman And Distressed
I Being Born A Woman And Distressed By Edna St Vincent Millay I, being born a woman and distressed By all the needs and notions of my kind, Am urged by your propinquity to find Your person fair, and feel…
Eldorado
Eldorado By Edgar Allan Poe Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old— This knight so bold— And o’er his heart a shadow Fell…
Sonnet 112
Sonnet 112 By William Shakespeare Your love and pity doth the impression fill, Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow; For what care I who calls me well or ill, So you o’er-green my bad, my good allow? You are…
Sonnet 111
Sonnet 111: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide By William Shakespeare O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public…