Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Ballad of the Harp-Wevaer

Poetry for the Well-Read Student

Over 50 great poems perfect to read in middle school, high school, and beyond...

You may also enjoy Children's Poems, 100 Great Poems, and Civil War Songs
Looking for stories? Visit our collections of Short Stories for Students and Feel-Good Stories.

The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Millay's poem won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923, along with Eight Sonnets.
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
Whitman's tribute poem to Abraham Lincoln, memorably recited by John Keating in the movie, Dead Poets Society.
To the Spring. Or of the Fables of the Ancients. by Giacomo Leopardi
"Say, O gentle Spring, canst thou this icy heart inspire, and melt, that in the bloom of youth, the frost of age hath felt?"

To The Spring. Or Of the Fables of The Ancients.

Pastoral by William Carlos Williams
"The little sparrows hop ingenuously about the pavement quarreling with sharp voices over those things that interest them."
Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson
One of Dickinson's most celebrated poems for its symbols, imagery, and imperfectly rhyming quatrains.
New Hampshire by Robert Frost
Frost's poem won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924.
Fire and Ice by Robert Frost
A bit apocalyptic, Frost speculates how it all will end.

Paris in Spring

Paris in Spring by Sara Teasdale
"But the rain-drops still are clinging and falling one by one. Oh, it's Paris, it's Paris, and spring-time has begun."
The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Ye whose hearts are fresh and simple, who have faith in God and Nature, who believe that in all ages every human heart is human, that in even savage bosoms there are longings, yearnings, strivings."
Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly by Li Bai
"Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly, and the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking. Which was the real-- the butterfly or the man?"

Chuang Tzu and the Butterfly

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd

When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom'd by Walt Whitman
Whitman wrote this poem in 1865, juxtaposing Lincoln's death with Spring's bursting forth of life and renewal.
The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll
This memorable poem is recited by Tweedledee and Tweedledum in Through the Looking Glass.
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
"'Twas brilling, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe..." [It's just fun to read aloud!]

The Raven

The More Loving One by W.H. Auden
Auden confronts indifference by the Universe: "If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me."
The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary..." A must-read, setting the standard for gothic poetry.
The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats
Yeats offers vivid hyperbole and the literary devices, and explore the relationship between poetry and music.
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson
"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul..."
Little Women (poem) by Louisa May Alcott
As in Little Women, one of Louisa's sisters died. "Four sisters parted for an hour, none lost, one only gone before, made by love's immortal power, nearest and dearest evermore."

Big Grand Coolee Dam

The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe
What became the most popular song for the Union during the Civil War, Howe wrote the acclaimed lyrics, "Mine eyes have seen the glory" after an inspiring visit with President Lincoln in 1862. Includes Johnny Cash recording, featured in Civil War Songs
The Minstrel Boy by Thomas Moore
"But his harp belongs to the brave and free, and shall never sound in slavery!" This popular Irish folk song written after the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was revived during the American Civil War with a new third verse. Featured in Civil War Songs
Big Grand Coolee Dam by Woody Guthrie
"She heads up the Canadian Rockies where the rippling waters glide, comes rumbling down the canyon to meet that salty tide."
First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay
"My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night."

First Fig

Ode to Silence by Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four season through..."
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
"In Flanders fields the poppies grow between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scarce heard amid the guns below."

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
The poem isn't what most people think it's about, read it again to find out whether you're on the right path.
The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson
"Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die, Into the valley of Death."
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer, things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
Perplexed Music by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"Experience, like a pale musician, holds a dulcimer of patience in his hand, whence harmonies we cannot understand."

Goliath and David

Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere..." is a poem that canonized this legendary event in history.
Goliath and David by Robert Graves
Spoiler alert: David can't beat Goliath EVERY time.
Nothing Will Die by Alfred Lord Tennyson
This metaphysical verse will cheer you up after reading his last one, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
I, Too, Sing America by Langston Hughes
Hughes launched jazz poetry during the Harlem Renaissance and shed light on the black experience between 1920 to 1960.

The poems in this section are often studied in high school

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
One of the most influential and greatest poems of all times, from Whitman's collection, Leaves of Grass. Enjoy our helpful Study Guide
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
A traveler's description of a ruined statue of the Egyptian King Ramses II, 13th century BCE.
Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley
"O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, pestilence-stricken multitudes!"

To The Virgins, To Make Much of Time

There Will Come Soft Rains by Sara Teasdale
One of Teasdale's best known poems about nature's resilience after the Great War's destruction. "Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mankind perished utterly."
To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick
You know this one from Dead Poets Society: "Gather yee rosebuds while yee may..." A carpe diem theme poem.

There Will Come Soft Rains

Song: Go and catch a falling star by John Donne
A metaphysical poem chalk-full of spiritual metaphors.
Mending Wall by Robert Frost
This poem is where the expression comes from: "Good fences make good neighbors."
Each and All by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The transcendalist who wrote the essay, Self-Reliance offers this poem steeped in nature, "Beauty through my senses stole; I yielded myself to the perfect whole."

Each and All

In Praise of Solid People by C.S. Lewis
"O happy people! I have seen no verse yet written in your praise, and, truth to tell, the time has been I would have scorned your easy ways."

All the World's a Stage

How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Remember that Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd spoof? Here's the source: "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways."
All the World's a Stage by William Shakespeare
This oft-quoted sonnet is excerpted from Shakespeare's comedy, As You Like It.
My Heart and I by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Barrett's poems are described as a fresh, strange music. She expresses her love and loss of her dear friend, and coming to terms with her own imminent death.

A Shropshire Lad - Loveliest of Trees

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare
Each quatrain artfully applies different metaphor to the experiences of growing old.
A Shropshire Lad - II - Loveliest of Trees by A.E. Housman
A lovely poem marking the seasons of pastoral beauty compared to fleeting youth and growing old.
Doubt No More That Oberon by Edna St. Vincent Millay
A tribute to the king of the fairies, Shakespeare's character in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
A Day of Sunshine by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It's one of those days that makes you feel exhilarated! "I feel the electric thrill, the touch / Of life, that seems almost too much."

She Walks in Beauty

She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron
One of England's greatest poets and leader of the romantic movement, Byron composed this piece in 1813 after being mesmerized by a lady dressed in black at a ball, his cousin by marriage.
Our Country by Julia Ward Howe
"Let Justice with the faultless scales hold fast the worship of they sons."
A Nameless Grave by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"A soldier of the Union mustered out," is the inscription on an unknown grave in Newport News, Virginia.
Daybreak by Jack London
You may not think of Jack London as a poet, acclaimed for The Call of the Wild and man versus nature themes; which makes this tender poem an unexpected treat.
Ebb Tide by Sara Teasdale
"To the empty beach at ebb tide, bare with its rocks and scars, come back like the sea with singing, and light of a million stars."

A Poem of Changgan

Magdalen Walks by Oscar Wilde
Wilde's poem simply "pops" with the joy of the Spring!
The River Merchant's Wife by Li Bai
Li Bai wrote and Ezra Pound skillfully translated this poem rich in allegory, metaphor and symbols. A must read.
A Poem of Changgan by Li Bai
Written from the voice of an 8th century Chinese woman, Bai juxtaposed images to convey emotions.
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne
This is a metaphysical poem you should know, John Donne's finest.
Song of the Witches by William Shakespeare
Three witches make an evil potion with poisoned entrails, toe of frog, fillet of fenny snake, while chanting: "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
Goblin Feet by J.R.R. Tolkien
"They are fading round the turn, where the glow worms palely burn, and the echo of their padding feet is dying!"
Oily Weather by Ernest Hemingway
"The sea rolls with love, surging and caressing, undulating its great loving belly."

Oily Weather

Ultimately by Ernest Hemingway
"He tried to spit out the truth, dry mouthed at first..."
We Grow Accustomed to the Dark by Emily Dickinson
A powerful poem using the end-of-the-day as a metaphor for life's struggles.
A November Night by Sara Teasdale
The imagery of lights and love are simply elegant.
A Pinch of Salt by Robert Graves
"When a dream is born in you with a sudden clamorous pain, when you know the dream is true and lovely, with no flaw nor stain..."
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
A farcical poem about a "prude" in a "frock" who observes: "In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo.

Ode on a Grecian Urn
Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
The biggest of Keats' "odes": "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
I Taught Myself to Live Simply by Anna Akhmatova
The acclaimed Russian modernist poet, having survived a totalitarian regime, offers verses to keep us from "superfluous worry."
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
You can almost see those daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze with Wordsworth's skillful similes!
Winter in the Boulevard by D.H. Lawrence
"Their abundant summery wordage silenced, caught in the grim undertow; naked the trees confront implacable winter's long, cross-questioning brunt."
The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth
An environmentalist's cautionary tale: "Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours;..."
Dreams by Langston Hughes
"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."
Let America Be America Again
Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes
"O, let my land be a land where Liberty is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, but opportunity is real, and life is free, equality is the air we breathe."
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot
Considered one of the most influential modernist poems of the twentieth century for its cerebral, sparse, and haunting vision of society after the First World War. "I will show you fear in a handful of dust."
Awake! Young Men of England by George Orwell
The author of 1984 was an activist committed to democratic socialism, and is credited with introducing the terms "cold war," "thought police," and "big brother." What was his intention with this poem?
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
A Little Poem by George Orwell
Orwell's poem provokes social commentary, "It is forbidden to dream again; We maim our joys or hide them;..."
The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope
This mock-heroic poem diffused an actual feud between two aristocratic families subject to the Test Act, which imposed harsher penalities on non-Anglicans.
Bless God, he went as soldiers by Emily Dickinson
Though her work was most intense and prolific during the Civil War, she rarely wrote explicitly about it. There's no ambiguity in this poem's references.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Read where these expressions came from: "having an albatross around one's neck" and "water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink."
I Cannot Live Without You by Emily Dickinson
Her similes and metaphors are so riveting; giving the impression of straddling between life and death.
If by Rudyard Kipling
Kipling offers such a large body of work; this poem offers provocative "if" statements: "If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken / Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,..."
A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe
Poe's metaphysical reality is worth pondering: "All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream."
A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever by John Keats
"Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams..."
Love and Friendship by Emily Bronte
Bronte, author of Wuthering Heights, offers similes using the wild rose-briar and the holly-tree to contrast the endurance of both types of relationships.
A Poison Tree by William Blake
Author of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, you don't want to be Blake's foe in this poem.
To the Friend of My Youth: To Kitty by Kate Chopin
This may be Chopin's final poem, a lovely tribute to an enduring friendship.
Paradise Lost by John Milton
The granddaddy of them all is last, Milton's ten thousand lines of verse, published in ten books, in which he justifies the existence of God and man.

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Want more poetry? Enjoy 100 Great Poems and World War I Literature. You might also enjoy American History, Civil War Stories, and Civil War Songs.
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