Poetry Classics: A Dream, By Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was one of the greatest yet mysterious poets in the world. His life shaped his poems and short stories; all the misery, sorrow, romantic feelings Poe suffered was expressed through his poems and short stories. He was part of the famous American Romantic Movement, consequently, most of his work was dark and disturbing.
Poetry Classics: The Tiger, By William Blake
This poem contemplates a question arising from the idea of creation by an intelligent creator. The question is this: If there is a loving, compassionate God or gods who created human beings and whose great powers exceed the comprehension of human beings, as many major religions hold, then why would such a powerful being allow evil into the world
Poetry Classics: Marching Streets, By F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American writer, whose works illustrate the Jazz Age. While he achieved limited success in his lifetime, he is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Poetry Classics: Advice To A Son, By Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway wrote Advice to a Son right after the Roaring Twenties in the early 1930's. This poem shows the many things that Hemingway had learned after fleeing to Paris from America after the Great War. Hemingway in his early thirties was writing to his son through poetry about the harsh reality of life.
Poetry Classics: Ode On A Grecian Urn, By John Keats
"Ode on a Grecian Urn" is a poem written by the English Romantic poet John Keats in May 1819 and published anonymously in the January 1820, Number 15, issue of the magazine Annals of the Fine Arts
Poetry Classics: The Road Not Taken, By Robert Frost
Frost's biographer Lawrance Thompson suggests that the poem's narrator is "one who habitually wastes energy in regretting any choice made: belatedly but wistfully he sighs over the attractive alternative rejected". Thompson also says that when introducing the poem in readings, Frost would say that the speaker was based on his friend Edward Thomas. In Frost's words, Thomas was "a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other"
Poetry Classics: Caedmon’s Hymn
The so-called Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) embeds this Anglo-Saxon hymn and the legend of its creation within his Latin text, An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, a book that describes the spread of Christianity in England. The hymn itself was composed in the mid- or late-7th century and so is the earliest surviving Old English poem.
Poetry Classics: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, By Robert Frost
A beloved and famous classic poem by Robert Frost.
Poetry Classics: Opportunity, By John James Ingalls
Opportunity, it is famously said, knocks only once. John James Ingalls, a U.S. Senator from Kansas, penned an ode to this simple but profound principle in the mid-19th century, and it was said to have become Theodore Roosevelt’s very favorite poem.
Poetry Classics: Ode 1.11, By Horace
Made famous by Robin Williams’ inspiring literature teacher in the film Dead Poets Society, Horace’s Ode 1.11 contains one of the most quoted Latin phrases — Carpe diem, or “Seize the day!”
Poetry Classics: The Iron Heel, By Jack London
The Iron Heel is a dystopian novel by American writer Jack London, first published in 1908. Generally considered to be "the earliest of the modern dystopian" fiction, it chronicles the rise of an oligarchic tyranny in the United States. This is a poem inside the book which is a take on Jack London's view of life.
Poetry Classics: Character Of The Happy Warrior, By William Wordsworth
What makes a good soldier? What qualities are attendant in a “happy warrior”? These are the questions that William Wordsworth lays out in the opening line of one of his most famous poems, and then proceeds to answer in the lines that follow.
Poetry Classics: Ulysses, By Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Ulysses" is a poem in blank verse by the Victorian poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. An oft-quoted poem, it is popularly used to illustrate the dramatic monologue form.
Poetry Classics: “The Soldier” By Rupert Brooke
This poem was written at the beginning of the First World War in 1914, as part of a series of sonnets written by Rupert Brooke. Brooke himself, predominantly a prewar poet, died the year after “The Soldier” was published. “The Soldier”, being the conclusion and the finale to Brooke’s ‘1914’ war sonnet series, deals with the death and accomplishments of a soldier.
Poetry Classics: ‘Auld Lang Syne’ By Robert Burns
Roughly translated as "old long since", this traditional New Year's anthem is based on an 18th century Scottish poem by Robert Burns.
Poetry Classics: Mending Wall, By Robert Frost
Robert Frost once told John F. Kennedy that “Poetry and power is the formula for another Augustan Age.” If that is the case, then Frost brought both to bear in this poem about two neighbors rebuilding a fence between their property during a cold winter in New England. A story told in blank verse, Frost critiques the phrase that he attributes to the other man in the story, “Good fences make good neighbors.” Dedicated to neighborliness and good will towards others, Frost’s work is a helpful tonic against 21st century individualism and selfishness. - Via The Art of Manliness
