Reading 1: Poetry Selections

Reading 1: Poetry Selections

I wandered lonely as a cloud

William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:

I gazed—and gazed—but little thought

What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;

And then my heart with pleasure fills,

And dances with the daffodils.

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests, and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me proved,

  I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Annabel Lee

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE

It was many and many a year ago,

  In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

  By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

  Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

  In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

  I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

  Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

  In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

  My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

  And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

  In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

  Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

  In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

  Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

  Of those who were older than we—

  Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

  Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

  Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

  Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

  In her sepulchre there by the sea—

  In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Sonnet 7 William Shakespeare

Farewell Love and all thy laws for ever,
     Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more;
     Senec and Plato call me from thy lore
     To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavour.
  In blind error when I did persever,
     Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh ay so sore,
     Hath taught me to set in trifles no store,
     And scape forth, since liberty is liefer.
  Therefore farewell, go trouble younger hearts,
     And in me claim no more authority,
     With idle youth go use thy property,
  And thereon spend thy many brittle darts.
     For hitherto though I have lost all my time,
   Me lusteth no longer rotten boughs to climb.

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

God's Grandeur

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - (314)

BY EMILY DICKINSON

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Because I could not stop for Death – by Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –  
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –  
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –  
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –  
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –

Harlem by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

    Does it dry up

    like a raisin in the sun?

    Or fester like a sore—

    And then run?

    Does it stink like rotten meat?

    Or crust and sugar over—

    like a syrupy sweet?

    Maybe it just sags

    like a heavy load.

    Or does it explode?