What is one of your favourite poems ?

Question

Iam trying to find a poem i would be able to read to my class at school

Answer 1

This is an old Irish poem. May the road rise to meet you, may the wind be always at your back, the sun shine warm upon your face and until we meet again may God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Answer 2

Someone already suggested an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem, Renascence I believe, but I prefer her sonnets to anything else. This (although not a sonnet) is probably her most widely known poem, and a lovely poem it is:

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!

Another of my favourite poems to read aloud is Old Age Sticks, by ee cummings.

Answer 3

Wiskey Frisky

Hippity Hop

Up He Goes

To The Tree Top

Whirley Twirley

Round And Round

Down He Scampers

To The Ground


This is a poem that was in a child's book written anonomously. It is my kids' favorite poem! It is about a squirrel.

Answer 4

Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Answer 5

This was my favorite poem, when I was a child. I chose it for three reasons:
1. It's perfect for a school situation
2. It was written by a woman, and you're a young woman
3. It created a huge change in England.

In the days that Elizabeth B. Browning wrote this poem, there were no child labor laws, and the industrial revolution had just begun. The main newspaper in England at the time, did what the papers did here in the U.S. in the 19th century, and that is they all had a poem on their first page.

The day this poem showed up on the front page, was a shameful day for England, because she's comparing the plight of the children in England with the freedom of the children here, or so she believed.

Child labor laws were immediately passed and this poem saved the lives of zillions of British children:
(this is very long; I read a much shorter version and suggest you do the same)

(I decided to cut it for you, because it looked formidable; here's a link, if you wish to see the whole poem:
http://www.bartleby.com/246/260.html )

The Cry of the Children

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61)


DO ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,
Ere the sorrow comes with years?
They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,
And that cannot stop their tears.
The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,
The young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west:
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!
They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

“For oh,” say the children, “we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap;
If we car’d for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.
Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping,
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring
Through the coal-dark, underground,
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.

“For all day, the wheels are droning, turning;
Their wind comes in our faces,
Till our hearts turn, our heads with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places:
Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling,
Turns the long light that drops adown the wall,
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling,
All are turning, all the day, and we with all.
And all day, the iron wheels are droning,
And sometimes we could pray,
‘O ye wheels,’ moaning breaking out in a mad
‘Stop! be silent for to-day!’”

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to Him and pray;
So the blessed One who blesseth all the others,
Will bless them another day.
They answer, “Who is God that He should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirr’d?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word.
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door:
Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
Hears our weeping any more?

And well may the children weep before you!
They are weary ere they run:
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun.
They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;
They sink in man’s despair, without its calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm:
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly
The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
Let them weep! let them weep!

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,
For they mind you of their angels in high places,
With eyes turned on Deity.
“How long,” they say, “how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child’s heart,—
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?
Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,
And your purple shows your path!
But the child’s sob in the silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath.”

(Yikes, 'hope I didn't cut too much... Check it out, okay?)
Did you know that during this time, they used children as chimney sweeps? Often the children would get caught up in the chimney, until they were burned out.
Good luck.
And do beware; song lyrics do not poetry make....
A songwriter would be the first to admit it; some songs may be minor poetry, few are, but most, as we say in music "don't hold up" without the music!

Answer 6

I.

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered 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 daring.
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red!
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

II.

O captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up! For you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills:
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores a-crowding:
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.


III.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won!
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

Answer 7

If you can't think of a poem that you like bring your favorite song to read to class. song is written poetry put to music.

Answer 8

None other than

Stopping by woods on a snowy evening by Robert Frost

esp. last paragraph :
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.

Answer 9

Mending Wall, by Robert Frost if you are N. America, and something by Auden if you are British.

Answer 10

Im 16 and i love to be or not to be that is the question-shakespeare goo dpoem righ there!