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  • Poem

    Fable

    By Ralph Waldo Emerson
    The mountain and the squirrel  
    Had a quarrel;  
    And the former called the latter ‘Little Prig.’
    Bun replied,  
    ‘You are doubtless very big;         
    But all sorts of things and weather  
    Must be taken in together,  
    To make up a year  
    And a sphere.  
    And I think it no disgrace  
    To...
  • Poem

    On Quiet Feet

    By Nikki Grimes
    When my dad walks
    into a room,
    or down
    the street,
    he inches
    up on me
    silent
    as shadow,...
  • Poem

    Ode on a Grecian Urn

    By John Keats
    Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
           Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
    Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
           A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:...
  • Poem

    O Captain! My Captain!

    By Walt Whitman
    O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
    The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
    The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
    While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and...
  • Poem

    Casey at the Bat

    By Ernest Lawrence Thayer
    The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
    The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play.
    And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
    A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of...
  • Poem

    The Charge of the Light Brigade

    By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
    I
    Half a league, half a league,
    Half a league onward,
    All in the valley of Death
       Rode the six hundred.
    “Forward, the Light Brigade!
    Charge for the guns!” he said.
    Into the valley of Death
       Rode the six hundred.

    II
    “Forward, the Light Brigade!”
    Was there a man dismayed?
    Not though...
  • Poem

    Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

    By Jane Taylor
    Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
    How I wonder what you are!
    Up above the world so high,
    Like a diamond in the sky.

    When the blazing sun is gone,
    When he nothing shines upon,
    Then you show your little light,...
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    Figs from Thistles: First Fig

    By Edna St. Vincent Millay
    My candle burns at both ends;
       It will not last the night;
    But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
       It gives a lovely light!
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    Trees

    By Joyce Kilmer
    I think that I shall never see
    A poem lovely as a tree.

    A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
    Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

    A tree that looks at God all day,
    And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

    A tree that may in...
  • Poem

    Mending Wall

    By Robert Frost
    Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
    That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
    And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
    And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
    The work of hunters is another thing:
    I have come after them and made repair
    Where...
  • Poem

    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...
  • Poem

    The Raven

    By Edgar Allan Poe
    Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
    Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
        While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
    As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
    “’Tis...
  • Poem

    Ozymandias

    By Percy Bysshe Shelley
    I met a traveller from an antique land,
    Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell...
  • Poem

    If—

    By Rudyard Kipling
    If you can keep your head when all about you   
        Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
        But make allowance for their doubting too;   
    If you can wait and not be...
  • Poem

    To an Athlete Dying Young

    By A. E. Housman
    The time you won your town the race
    We chaired you through the market-place;
    Man and boy stood cheering by,
    And home we brought you shoulder-high.

    Today, the road all runners come,
    Shoulder-high we bring you home,
    And set you at your threshold down,
    Townsman of a...
  • Poem

    Jack

    By Jane Yolen
    Jack was quite nimble,
    Jack was quite quick,
    Jack gave the beanstalk
    A mighty big kick.
     
    Down came the giant—
    GIGANTIC fall—
    Bottoms up in a crater,
    Thus ending it all.
  • Poem

    If We Must Die

    By Claude McKay
    If we must die, let it not be like hogs
    Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
    While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
    Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
    If we must die, O let us nobly die,
    So that our...
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    The Witch Has Told You a Story

    By Ava Leavell Haymon
    You are food.
    You are here for me
    to eat. Fatten up,
    and I will like you better.

    Your brother will be first,
    you must wait your turn.
    Feed him yourself, you will
    learn to do it. You will take him

    eggs with yellow sauce, muffins
    torn apart and...
  • Poem

    The Twelve Days of Christmas

    By Anonymous
    The first day of Christmas,
    My true love sent to me
    A partridge in a pear tree.

    The second day of Christmas,
    My true love sent to me
    Two turtle doves, and
    A partridge in a pear tree.
    ...
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