The best poems Ive ever known!- part 1

Writing poems is a hobby and reading them is another hobby. I undertake both. One of the most inspiring poets I know is Robert Frost and his amazing poem, Road Less Traveled:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, 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

...Robert Frost

 

 

This kind of literature is rare, though one can find if searched for! Alfred Lord Tennyson is another great poem whose poem "Home they brought her Warrior dead " will not be forgotten since it was the first poem I fell in love with in 8th Standard. 

Home they brought her warrior dead:

She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:

All her maidens, watching, said,

'She must weep or she will die.'

Then they praised him, soft and low,

Called him worthy to be loved,

Truest friend and noblest foe;

Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,

Lightly to the warrior stept,

Took the face-cloth from the face;

Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,

Set his child upon her knee—

Like summer tempest came her tears—

'Sweet my child, I live for thee.'

 -----Alfred Lord Tennyson

Depressing??? No! It is sweet how Tennyson thought about the scenario. A Mother's love for her child is shown in a remarkable way in the poem.

T.S Eliot is an authentic and original poet. I cannot forget the first time I read 'The Waste Land' on the internet, I fell in awe with Eliot, it was a Masterpiece collection! Rhapsody on a Windy Night and The Hippopotamus are poems to be read. He wrote lengthy poems, but they were worth it!

William Wordsworth's Daffodils- another poem which inspired me in my school days. At that time, this poem was more than an inspiration to take up Arts and get into writing poetry:

I wander'd 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 stretch'd 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.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).

Death be not proud and Death the leveler: two standard 8 poems which are still on my mind. Death, be not proud- by John Donne:

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Death Be Not Proud
by John Donne