Great Poems List

Almost everyone has, at some point in their life, read a great poem. Great poems are distinguished by the fact that they are profound, well-written, wisdom packed recordings with the power to transform the way we think about things. Great poems are a lot like great teachers; the really great ones don't come along as often as we'd like and the so-so ones makes us realize how great the great ones are. Great poems have the advantage over great books that they tend to be much, much shorter. So short that, in many cases, they may be learned by heart.

: Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
: As I foretold you, were all spirits and
: Are melted into air, into thin air:
: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
: The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
: The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
: Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
: And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
: Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
: As dreams are made on, and our little life
: Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest act IV scene 1 William Shakespeare

: To every thing there is a season,
: And a time to every purpose under the heaven:
: A time to be born, and a time to die;
: A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
: A time to kill, and a time to heal;
: a time to break down, and a time to build up;
: A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
: A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
: A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
: A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
: A time to get, and a time to lose;
: A time to keep, and a time to cast away;
: A time to rend, and a time to sew;
: A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
: A time to love, and a time to hate;
: A time of war, and a time of peace.

BookOfEcclesiastes 3i-viii (King James Version)

William Shakespeare, Sonnet XXIX

: 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 one more rich in hope,
: Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
: Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
: With what I most enjoy contented least,
: Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
: Haply I think on thee, and then my state
: (Like to the lark at break of day arising
: From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate,
: For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
: That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

TheRaven by EdgarAllanPoe

TheHighwayman? by AlfredNoyes?

Jabberwocky by LewisCarroll

Ulysses by AlfredLordTennyson?. It is both moving and lyrical. The rhythm of the lines are best appreciated when read out loud.

It begins with these words:

: It little profits that an idle king,
: By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
: Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
: Unequal laws unto a savage race,
: That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

Now go find it on Google.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.

II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.

III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.

V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.

VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause.

VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?

VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.

IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.

X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.

XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.

XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.

XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.

-- Wallace Stevens

: Perplexed Music --Affectionately inscribed to E. J.
: EXPERIENCE, like a pale musician, holds
: A dulcimer of patience in his hand,
: Whence harmonies, we cannot understand,
: Of God; will in his worlds, the strain unfolds
: In sad-perplexed minors: deathly colds
: Fall on us while we hear, and countermand
: Our sanguine heart back from the fancyland
: With nightingales in visionary wolds.
: We murmur 'Where is any certain tune
: Or measured music in such notes as these?'
: But angels, leaning from the golden seat,
: Are not so minded their fine ear hath won
: The issue of completed cadences,
: And, smiling down the stars, they whisper--SWEET.
: Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1806-1861