Rule Britannia By James Thomson When Britain first, at heaven’s command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain— “Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves.”…
Tag: poem analysis
Second Fig
Second Fig By Edna St. Vincent Millay Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand: Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand! Summary of Second Fig Popularity of “Second Fig”: The poem ‘Second Fig’ was written…
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass By Robert Hayden When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air, usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all, when it is truly instinct, brain…
Refugee in America
Refugee in America By Langston Hughes There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say On my heart-strings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I…
Quiet Work
Quiet Work By Matthew Arnold One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity– Of toil unsever’d from…
Immigrants at Central Station 1951
Immigrants at Central Station, 1951 By Peter Skrzynecki It was sad to hear The trains whistle this morning At the railway station. All night it had rained. The air was crowded With a dampness that slowly Sank into our thoughts-…
Come In
Come In By Robert Frost As I came to the edge of the woods, Thrush music — hark! Now if it was dusk outside, Inside it was dark. Too dark in the woods for a bird By sleight of wing…
Cherry-Ripe
Cherry-Ripe By Thomas Campion There is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place, Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow There cherries grow which none may buy Till “Cherry-ripe” themselves do…
Quarantine
Quarantine By Eavan Boland In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people a man set out from the workhouse with his wife. He was walking—they were both walking—north. She was sick with…
Postcards from God
Postcards from God By Imtiaz Dharker Yes, I do feel like a visitor, a tourist in this world that I once made. I rarely talk, except to ask the way, distrusting my interpreters, tired out by the babble of what…
The Pigeons
The Pigeons By Richard Kell They paddle with staccato feet In powder-pools of sunlight, Small blue busybodies Strutting like fat gentlemen With hands clasped Under their swallowtail coats; And, as they stump about, Their heads like tiny hammers Tap at…
The Pearl
The Pearl By George Herbert MATTHEW-xiii I know the ways of learning; both the head And pipes that feed the press, and make it run; What reason hath from nature borrowed, Or of itself, like a good huswife, spun In…
Peace of Wild Things
Peace of Wild Things By Wendell Berry When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and…
Ogichidag
Ogichidag By Jim Northrup I was born in war, WW Two. Listened as the old men told stories of getting gassed in the trenches, WW One. Saw my uncles come back from Guadalcanal, North Africa and the battle of the…
Next, Please
Next, Please By Philip Larkin Always too eager for the future, we Pick up bad habits of expectancy. Something is always approaching; every day Till then we say, Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear Sparkling armada of promises draw…
Mushrooms
Mushrooms By Sylvia Plath Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the…
Paper Boats
Paper Boats By Rabindranath Tagore Day by day I float my paper boats one by one down the running stream. In big black letters I write my name on them and the name of the village where I live. I…
On Time
On Time By John Milton Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race, Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours, Whose speed is but the heavy Plummets pace; And glut thy self with what thy womb devours, Which is no…
On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries
On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries Connecticut College, 1968 by Julia Alvarez Your book surprised me on the bookstore shelf — swans gliding on a blueblack lake; no blurbs by the big boys on back; no sassy, big-haired picture…
Night Mail
Night Mail By WH Auden This is the night mail crossing the Border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order, Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner, the girl next door. Pulling up Beattock,…