Description

Whitman and Yeats, Dickinson and Stein, Eliot and Frost. We all know their names. We’ve all read (or, in some instances, been forced to read) the poems that made them famous. But in their dusty tomes lie poetic gems to be uncovered, unexpected lines to be read, and new favorites to be found. This collection, compiled exclusively for DailyLit by Poets & Writers in celebration of National Poetry Month, offers some of the best-known poems—together with a few uncommon selections—for readers who want to revisit, reconsider, or even rediscover the lasting power of poems by the masters.

Contents

"The Burial of the Dead," from The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot
Poem 1354 by Emily Dickinson
"A Long Dress," from Tender Buttons, by Gertrude Stein
Good-By and Keep Cold, by Robert Frost
Sonnet 17, by William Shakespeare
One's-Self I Sing, by Walt Whitman
Ode on the Poets, by John Keats
Elegy, by Lord Byron
Lines Written in Early Spring, by William Wordsworth
Love is Not Blind, by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Poem 449, by Emily Dickinson
"To a Lady," from Wessex Poems and Other Verses, by Thomas Hardy
To A Poet, Who Would Have Me Praise Certain Bad Poets, Imitators Of His And Mine, by William Butler Yeats
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," from Prufrock and Other Observations, by T.S. Eliot
Richard Cory, by Edward Arlington Robinson
I Hear America Singing, by Walt Whitman
"Petit, the Poet," from The Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters
To an Early Daffodil, by Amy Lowell
Silence -- A Sonnet, by Edgar Allan Poe
"I thought once how Theocritus had sung" (Sonnet 1), from Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
My Voice, by Oscar Wilde
The Poet and His Song, by Paul Laurence Dunbar
"A Box," from Tender Buttons, by Gertrude Stein
Before Your Light Quite Fail, by Paul Verlaine
Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur, by Lewis Carroll
"IV: Solvitur Acris Hiems," from Odes, by Horace
Reluctance, by Robert Frost
Stanzas One and Two of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam
Ode to a Nightingale, by John Keats
"The Tables Turned," from Lyrical Ballads, by William Wordsworth

About the Author

Poets & Writers, Inc., is the primary source of information, support, and guidance for creative writers. Founded in 1970, it is the nation's largest nonprofit literary organization serving poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers. Our mission is to foster the professional development of poets and writers, to promote communication throughout the U.S. literary community, and to help create an environment in which literature can be appreciated by the widest possible public. P&W accomplishes this by publishing Poets & Writers Magazine, producing pw.org, providing publishing information, introducing emerging writers outside of New York to the New York City literary community, and paying fees to writers participating in public literary events. P&W's programs introduce writers to the larger literary community and connect them to audiences, making today’s writing visible and accessible in major cities and small towns across the country.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

Dull roots with spring rain.
A little life with dried tubers.
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
I ...