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 daring;But O heart! heart! heart!O the bleeding drops of red,Where on the … Read more
By William Blake Tyger Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;What immortal hand or eye,Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies.Burnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art,Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when … Read more
by William Wordsworth I wandered lonely as a CloudThat 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 shineAnd twinkle on the Milky Way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of … Read more
by Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand 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 that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped … Read more
By William Shakespeare Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or … Read more
By Clement Clarke Moore ’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the houseNot a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds,While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;And mamma … Read more
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I heard the bells on Christmas DayTheir old, familiar carols play,And wild and sweetThe words repeatOf peace on earth, good-will to men! And thought how, as the day had come,The belfries of all ChristendomHad rolled alongThe unbroken songOf peace on earth, good-will to men! Till ringing, singing on its way,The world … Read more
By Christina Rossetti In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,In the bleak midwinter, long ago. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.In the bleak midwinter a … Read more
By Thomas Hardy Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.“Now they are all on their knees,”An elder said as we sat in a flockBy the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures whereThey dwelt in their strawy pen,Nor did it occur to one of us thereTo doubt they were kneeling then. So … Read more
By John Mason Neale Good King Wenceslas look’d out,On the Feast of Stephen;When the snow lay round about,Deep, and crisp, and even:Brightly shone the moon that night,Though the frost was cruel,When a poor man came in sight,Gath’ring winter fuel. “Hither, page, and stand by me,If thou know’st it, telling,Yonder peasant, who is he?Where and what … Read more