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While William Shakespeare is best known among the general public for his many brilliant
plays, scholars have also been endlessly fascinated by his poetry, particularly his extensive
collection of love sonnets. Sonnet 130 parodies the over-the-top metaphors and comparisons
often used by writers of romantic poetry while still expressing a love as deep, if not deeper, for
the poet’s muse.
Percy Shelley’s most acclaimed and famous poem addresses, in all of fourteen lines, the
enormity of time, the inevitability of death, and the necessity of all people being condemned to
obscurity. If even the mighty “King of Kings” is now fallen, buried in the sand and forgotten,
how can ordinary people hope to escape the same fate, without even a statue to remind
subsequent generations of their names?
John Keats’ ode to perhaps the least-romanticized of the seasons is mostly a catalogue of
remarkable and beautiful detail and naturalistic imagery. The poem also encourages readers
to find and celebrate the beauty and necessity in things, like the cold and brown of autumn,
that might, at first, seem unpleasant or not worth noticing.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous poem is a love sonnet, taken from a celebrated
collection of love sonnets. What makes Number 43 stand out, though, is its uncomplicated
devotion and earnest expression of affection; it manages to succinctly convey the depth of the
speaker’s love in simple language that is not muddied by overly elaborate metaphors or
imagery.
In this poem, Emily Dickinson contemplates the prospect of death with the same clear eyes
and direct language that characterizes all of her work; she expresses grief at the life that will
continue on without her, but ultimately finds peace in considering that she is headed “toward
Eternity” and her reward in the afterlife.
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
It is easy to consider “O Captain! My Captain!” as more significant for the event it documents –
the assassination of Abraham Lincoln – than for its own poetic merits; however, the poem is a
powerful expression of a particular form of grief – the grief of a devoted follower toward a
great leader.
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.
The New Colossus
With “The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus produced perhaps the most succinct and powerful
statement of the American ideal ever written. The poem articulates the mission of the United
States as a refuge for any and all seeking a better life, an ideal visually represented by the
Statue of Liberty on which it is engraved.
Carl Sandburg’s “Fog” is a poem more remarkable for its simple imagery than its elaborate
metaphorical meaning or complex rhymes and rhythms. The poem captures a universal
experience of watching the fog roll in and out with a unique image that will stick with readers
for decades.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
The Second Coming
Like much post-war poetry, “The Second Coming” contemplates the collapse of society as we
know it, driven by industrialization and the violence of the First World War. Yeats uses
biblical imagery to express his fears about the direction of human society in the years after
the war, creating an experience that is both haunting and deeply unsettling for the reader.
D. H. Lawrence’s “Shadows” is another reflection on the speaker’s mortality, this time from a
standpoint based in the cycles of the natural world and the idea of reincarnation. The speaker
in “Shadows” does not fear death, because they believe they shall live again through a natural
cycle similar to the phases of the moon.
and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me,
William Carlos Williams was renowned for his short, simple, image-heavy poetry, including
this piece, modeled after a note left on a kitchen counter for a partner or spouse. The poem
uses the image of the stolen plums as a symbol for the give and take of selfishness, forgiveness,
and sacrifice that is necessary in any relationship.
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas’ reflection on death urges readers toward the ‘correct’ way of dying, which, in
Thomas’ telling, is defiant, not colored with acceptance or surrender. The poem is ultimately
addressed to old men in general, but especially the speaker’s father, who the speaker urges to
fight against death, presumably because they have not yet accepted his inevitable demise.
Often called “A Dream Deferred,” this poem speaks succinctly to the African-American
experience, defined by goals, dreams, and expectations that had to be set aside, buried, or
severely curtailed due to racism, and then wonders what the final result of all this suppressed
ambition will be, surmising it may ultimately lead to violence.
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?
Or does it explode?
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
“Mad Girl’s Love Song” gives voice to a woman who is insecure in her romance, and perhaps
her mental health, not convinced either of her lover’s reality or his devotion to her. She still
finds beauty, though, in reveling in her love and dreaming about the relationship that may be,
even if it is not, or cannot be proven to be, real.
Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina” is, in some ways, an autobiographical account of her going to live
with her grandmother when she was five, but it is also a portrait of a family working to love
one another and find joy in the midst of a tragic dissolution of other parts of the family.