poetry chart

8/9/2019 Poetry Chart

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Poetry page 2 of This downloadable PDF copyright 2004 by SparkNotes LLC.

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Howcan | Ilive | among | thisgentleobso | lescent |breedof | heroes,|| andnot weep?

(Arist rocrats, Keith Douglas)

Ibal | anced all,|| brought all| to mind,Theyears | to come| seemedwaste| ofbreath,

(An Irish Airma n Foresees His Death,Willia m Butler Yeats)

Come, my | Celia, | Letus | prove. (Come, My Celia,Ben Jonson)

This is the| Forest pri | meval. The | murmuring |pines and the | hemlocks.

(Evangeline,Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)(Note: the last foot is a trochee.)

The last| of the light| of the sunThat had died| in thewest(Come In, Robert Frost) (Note: the first unstressed

syllable is omitted in the first line.)

RedRover, | R edRoverIcallyou,| comeover.

As yet | but k nock,||breathe, shine,||(Fourteenth Holy Sonn et,John Donne)

Nights lead | en scep | ter seals | my drow | syeyes,

Then cease,|| my song,|| till fair |Auro | rarise.(An Hymn to the Evening,Phillis Wheatley)

Therefore | allsea | sonsshall | besweet | tothee,

Whether | the sum | mer clothe | the gen | eralearth

Withgreen| ness, or | the red | breastsit | andsing

(Frost at Midnight,Samuel Taylor Coleridge)(Note: the first two initial feet are irregular.)

The king | sits in | Dunferm | line townDrinking | theblude-red |wine ;Owhare | will Iget| a skeely | skipperTo sail | this new ship | of mine?

(Sir Patri ck Spens, Anonymous)

so much dependsupon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside t he whitechickens.

(The Red Wheelbarrow,William Carlos Williams)

Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,Twenty-eight young men and all so friendly;Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lone-

some.(Song of Myself,Walt Whitman)

I have had to learn the simplest thingslast. Which made for difficulties.

(Maximu s, to himself,Charles Olson)

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by fe eling. What is there to know?I hear my being dance from ear to ear.I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

(The Waking,Theodore Roethke)

What would t his Man? Now upwa rd will he soar,And lit tle less t han Angel, would bemore...

(An Essay on Man (Epistle I ),Alexander Pope)

Whenas in silks my Juli agoes,

Then, then, methinks, how sweetlyflowsThat liquefaction of herclothes.(Upon Julias Clothes,Robert Herrick)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumnsbeing,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are dr iven, like g hosts fr om an enchante r fleeing,Yellow, and black, and pa le, and hect ic red ,Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,

Who char iotest to the ir dark w intry bed(Ode to the West Wind,Percy Bysshe Shelley)

I felt a Funeral, in myBrain,And Mourne rs to andfroKept treadingtreadingtill itseemedThat Sense was breakingthrough

And when the y all were se ated,A Serv ice, like a DrumKept beatingbeatingtill I thoughtMy Mind was goingnumb

(280,Emily Dickinson)

But I, who daily craving,Cannot have to contentme,Have more cause to lamentmeSince wanting is more woe than too much having.

(The Nightingale,Sir Philip Sidney)

Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread,For Love is dead.

(Ring Out Your Bell s,Sir Philip Sidney)

How stayest thou there, whilst Iat Ipswich lie?

(A Letter to Her Hu sband,Anne Bradstreet)

As I strolled alone, years ago, down alongThe Ohioshore.

(In Response To a Rumor That the OldestWhorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia, Has

Been Conde mned, James Wright)


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Fond are lifes lustfuljoys,Death proves them all but toys;

(A Litany in Time of Pla gue,Thomas Nashe)

The Bustle in a HouseThe Morning after DeathIs solemnest of industriesEnacted upon Earth

(1078,Emily Dickinson)

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;A kind old nun i n a white hood replies;

The children learn to cipher and tosing,To study reading-books and histories,To cut and sew, be neat in everythingIn the best modern waythe childrenseyesIn momentary wonder stare upon

A sixt y-year -old smili ng publicman.(Among School Child ren,William Butler Yeats)

The cranes legshave gotten shorter in the spring rain.

(Basho)

There was an Old Man with a beard,Who said, It i s just as I feared !Two Owls and aHen, four Larks and a Wren,Have all built their nests in my beard!

(There Was an Old Man with a Beard,

Edward Lear)

Since theres no help, come let us kiss and part;Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,

And I am g lad, yea g lad with a ll my heartThat thus so cleanly I myself can free;Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time ,Be it not seen in either of our browsThat we one jot of former love retain.Now at the last gasp of loves latest breath,

When, his pu lse fail ing, Passi on speechle ss lies,When Faith is kneeling by his bed of de ath,

And Innocence is closing up his eyes,Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

(Idea,Michael Drayton)

(Note: These are archaic spellings, but the wordsare easy to sound out; where we would write v, uis written, and vice versa.)

One day I wrote her name vpon t he strand, but came the waues and washed it away: agayne I wrote it with a second hand, but came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.

Vayne man, sayd she, that doe st in vai ne assay, a mortall thing so to immortalize, for I my selue shall lyke to this decay, and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize.Not so (quod I) let baser things deuize, to dy in dust, but you shall liue by fame: my verse your vertues rare shall eternize, and in the heuens wryte your glorious name.

Where whena s death sha ll all the world subdew, our loue shall liue, and later life renew.

(Sonnet 75 fromAmoretti,Edmund Spenser)

Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Joves great son to her glad husband gave, Rescud from death by force, though pale and

faint.Mine, as whom washd from spot of child-bed taint Purific ation in the old Law did save, And such as yet once more I trust to have Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,Came vested all in white, pure as her mind; Her face was veild, yet to my fancied sight Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shindSo clear as in no face with more delight. But Oh! as to embrace me she inclind, I wakd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

(Sonnet 23,John Milton)

Thexpense of spirit in a waste of shameIs lust in action; and till action, lustIs perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust

(Sonnet 129,William Shakespeare)

here they comethese guysgray truckradio playing

(the trash men,Charles Bukowski)

There is a parrot imitating springin the palace, its feathers parsley green.

(Parsley,Rita Dove)

Tyger! Tyger! Burning brightIn the forests of the night

(The Tyger,William Blake)

The English are so niceSo awfully niceThey are the nicest people in the world.

(The English Are So Nice!,D. H. Lawrence)

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drun k...

(Ode to a Nightingale,John Keats)

Your sweetnes s of soul was a mystery to me,(Grandmothers, Adrienne Rich)

To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells,

bellsFrom the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

(The Bells,Edgar Allan Poe)


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The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, t he moon lies fairUpon the straits

(Dover Beac h,Matthew Arnold)

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the win-dow-panes

(The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,T.S. Eliot)

I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high oer vales and hills...(I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud,

William Word sworth)

Hope was but a timid friendShe sat without my grated den,

Watching how my fate would tend...(Hope,Emily Bront)

And I have known the arms already, known themall

Arms t hat are brac eleted and white and ba re

(The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,T.S. Eliot)

I have thrown out yesterdays milkAnd opened a book of max ims.

(The Broken Home,James Merrill)

When a daf fodil I se eHanging down his head towards me,Guess I may what I must be:First, I shall decline my head;Secondly, I shall be dead;Lastly, safely buried.

(Divinati on by a Daff odil,Robert Herrick)

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatne ss, like the ooze of oilCrushed.

(Gods Grandeur,Gerard Manley Hopkins)

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumns being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

Are dr iven, like g hosts fr om an enchante r fleeing(Ode to the West Wind,Percy Bysshe Shelley)

My sparrow, you are not here,Waiting li ke a fern, ma king a spi ny shadow.The sides of wet stones cannot console me,Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

(Elegy for Jane,Theodore Roethke)

My friend, this body offers to carry us fornothingas the ocean carries logs. So on some daysthe body wails with its great energy; it smashes upthe boulders, lifting small crabs, that flow aroundthe sides.

(Mercian Hymns, Geoffrey Hill)


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Sample argument: While the poem is about lossthroughout, by the end, the speakers position changesfrom grief to acceptance.

Sample argument: While the poem appears to be apatriotic hymn to a nation at war, the imagery suggeststhat the poet is actually deeply critical of the war.

Sample argument: The poets use of the epic iambicpentameter gives a solemn, philosophical seriousnessto a poem that otherwise might seem lighthearted.

Two roads diverged1in a yellow wood2 1And sorr y I could not tr avel both 2And be one tr aveler, long I stood 3And looked dow n one as far as I could 4To where it bent in the undergr owth; 5Then took the other, just as fair, 6

And havi ng perhaps t he better claim, 7Because it was grassy and wanted3wear; 8Though as for that the passing there 9Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both t hat morning e qually lay 11

In leaves no step had trodden4black. 12Oh, I kept the first for another day! 13

Yet knowing how way lea ds on to way, 14I doubted if I should ever come back. 15I shall be telling this with a sigh 16Somewhere ages and ages hence: 17Two roads diverge d in a wood, and I 18I took the one less traveled by, 19

And that ha s made all t he diff erence. 20(The Road Not Taken,Robert Frost)

Notes:1. diverged: separated, split2. wood: forest3. wanted: lacked4. trodden: worn by walking

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, 1So do our minutes hasten to their end, 2Each changing place with that which goes before, 3In sequent toil all forwards do contend1. 4Nativity2, once in the main of light3, 5Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crowned 6Crooked eclipses4gainst his glory fight, 7

And Time that gave dot h now his gif t confound5. 8Time doth transfix the flourish6set on youth, 9

And delve s the para llels7in beauty s brow, 10Feeds on the rarities of natures truth8, 11

And nothi ng stand s but for his sc ythe to mow. 12 And yet to times in hope9 my verse shall stand, 13 Praising thy worth, despite his10cruel hand. 14

(Sonnet 60,Shakespeare)Notes:1. In sequent toilcontend: one after another they

struggle forward2.nativity: birth3.in the main of light: exposed to the light of day

(i.e., of life)4.crooked eclipses: bodily imperfections, or ill astro -

logical omens5.confound: thwart, oppose6.transfix the flourish: destroy the loveliness7.delves the parallels: digs rows, i.e., wrinkles8.rarities of natures tr uth: outstanding examples of

natural beauty9.to times in hope: with hope of outlasting the ages10.his: Times


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