Inside Out and Back Again Comprehension Poems

10 Greatest Poems Ever Written

Updated: September 4, 2021

by Evan Mantyk

What is poetry? What is great poetry? The poems below reply these questions. From least greatest (x) to greatest greatest (1), the poems in this listing are limited to ones originally written in the English language and which are nether 50 lines, excluding poems like Homer'southward Iliad, Edgar Allan Poe'south "Raven," Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy , and Lord Byron's mock epic Don Juan . Each verse form is followed by some brief assay. Many good poems and poets had to exist left off of this list. In the comments section beneath, experience free to make additions or construct your ain lists. You can also submit analyses of classic poetry to submissions@classicalpoets.org. They will be considered for publication on this website.

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10. "The Route Not Taken" by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Ii roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sad I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one equally far equally I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

And then took the other, as just equally fair,
And having maybe the amend claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them actually about the same,

And both that morning every bit lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another mean solar 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 ane less traveled past,
And that has fabricated all the difference.

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Analysis of the Verse form

This poem deals with that big noble question of "How to make a departure in the globe?" On starting time reading, it tells united states of america that the choice one makes really does matter, ending: "I took the 1 less traveled by, / And that has made all the divergence."

A closer reading reveals that the solitary choice that was made before by our traveling narrator mayhap wasn't all that significant since both roads were pretty much the aforementioned anyway ("Had warn them actually about the aforementioned") and it is only in the remembering and retelling that information technology made a difference. Nosotros are left to ponder if the narrator had instead traveled down "The Road Not Taken" might information technology have also made a difference every bit well. In a sense, "The Road Not Taken" tears apart the traditional view of individualism, which hinges on the importance of choice, equally in the instance of democracy in general (choosing a candidate), also as various constitutional freedoms: choice of religion, choice of words (freedom of speech), choice of group (freedom of associates), and option of source of data (freedom of press). For case, we might imagine a immature man choosing between being a carpenter or a banker subsequently seeing smashing significance in his pick to exist a banker, simply in fact there was non much in his original decision at all other than a passing fancy. In this, nosotros come across the universality of human beings: the roads leading to carpenter and broker being basically the same and the carpenters and bankers at the end of them—seeming like individuals who made significant choices—really being merely office of the collective of the human being race.

So is this poem non nearly the question "How to brand a difference in the world?" after all? No. It is nonetheless about this question. The ending is the virtually clear and striking part. If nothing else, readers are left with the impression that our narrator, who commands beautiful verse, profound imagery, and fourth dimension itself ("ages and ages hence") puts value on striving to make a divergence. The striving is reconstituted and complicated here in reflection, but our hero wants to make a difference and so should we. That is why this is a great verse form, from a basic or close reading perspective.

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9. "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, dusk gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her balmy eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Continue, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Requite me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I elevator my lamp beside the golden door!"

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Analysis of the Poem

Inscribed on the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor, this sonnet may take the greatest placement of any English verse form. Information technology also has one of the greatest placements in history. Lazarus compares the Statue of Liberty to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the 7 Wonders of the Aboriginal World. Like the Statue of Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes was an enormous god-similar statue positioned in a harbor. Although the Colossus of Rhodes no longer stands, it symbolizes the ancient Greek world and the greatness of the ancient Greek and Roman civilization, which was lost for a thousand years to the Due west, and only fully recovered again during the Renaissance. "The New Colossus" succinctly crystallizes the connection between the ancient world and America, a modern nation. It'due south a connectedness that can be seen in the White House and other state and judicial buildings beyond America that architecturally mirror ancient Greek and Roman buildings; and in the American political system that mirrors Athenian Democracy and Roman Republicanism.

In the midst of this vast comparison of the ancient and the American, Lazarus even so manages to clearly render America'due south distinct character. It is the can-do spirit of taking those persecuted and poor from around the world and giving them a new opportunity and hope for the future, what she calls "the gilt door." It is a uniquely scrappy and compassionate quality that sets Americans apart from the ancients. The relevance of this poem stretches all the way back to the pilgrims fleeing religious persecution in Europe to the controversies surrounding modern immigrants from Mexico and the Center E. While circumstances today take changed drastically, there is no denying that this open door was part of what fabricated America great once upon a time. It'south the perfect depiction of this quintessential Americanness that makes "The New Colossus" as well outstanding.

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8. "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

I met a traveler from an antiquarian land
Who said: "Ii vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand up in the desert . . . Nigh 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 read
Which notwithstanding survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, rex of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Null beside remains. Round the disuse
Of that colossal wreck, dizzying and blank
The solitary and level sands stretch far away."

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Analysis of the Verse form

In this winding story within a story inside a poem, Shelley paints for us the epitome of the ruins of a statue of ancient Egyptian king Ozymandias, who is today commonly known as Ramesses Two. This male monarch is still regarded as the greatest and nearly powerful Egyptian pharaoh. Yet, all that'southward left of the statue are his legs, which tell united states it was huge and impressive; the shattered caput and snarling face, which tell us how tyrannical he was; and his inscribed quote hailing the magnificent structures that he built and that have been reduced to dust, which tells usa they might not have been quite as magnificent every bit Ozymandias imagined. The image of a dictator-like rex whose kingdom is no more than creates a palpable irony. But, beyond that there is a perennial lesson about the inescapable and subversive forces of time, history, and nature. Success, fame, ability, money, health, and prosperity can only last and so long before fading into "alone and level sands."

At that place are even so more layers of meaning here that elevate this into ane of the greatest poems. In terms of lost civilizations that show the ephemeralness of human pursuits, in that location is no improve instance than the Egyptians—who we associate with such dazzling monuments as the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid at Giza (that stands far taller than the Statue of Liberty)—yet who completely lost their spectacular language, culture, and civilization. If the forces of time, history, and nature tin accept down the Egyptian civilization, it begs the question, "Who'southward next?" Additionally, Ozymandias is believed to have been the villainous pharaoh who enslaved the ancient Hebrews and who Moses led the exodus from. If all ordinary pursuits, such as power and fame, are but grit, what remains, the poem suggests, are spirituality and morality—embodied by the ancient Hebrew faith. If you don't accept those and then in the long run you are a "jumbo wreck." Thus, the perfectly composed scene itself, the Egyptian imagery, and the Biblical backstory convey a perennial message and make this a not bad poem.

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vii. "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats (1795-1821)

1000 withal unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-kid of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd fable haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Non to the sensual ear, merely, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, below the copse, g canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning well-nigh the goal nonetheless, practice not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy elation,
For always wilt k dearest, and she be off-white!

Keats'southward own drawing of the Grecian Urn.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Leap adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For always piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy dear!
For ever warm and withal to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever immature;
All breathing human being passion far to a higher place,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning brow, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and non a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, tin can east'er render.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
One thousand, silent form, dost tease u.s.a. out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Chiliad shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to human, to whom thou say'st,
"Dazzler is truth, truth dazzler,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

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Analysis of the Poem

As if in response to Shelley's "Ozymandias," Keats'south "Ode on a Grecian Urn" offers a sort of antitoxin to the inescapable and destructive strength of fourth dimension. Indeed, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" was published in 1819 but a year or so subsequently "Ozymandias." The antitoxin is simple: art. The art on the Grecian urn—which is basically a decorative pot from ancient Greece—has survived for thousands of years. While empires rose and fell, the Grecian urn survived. Musicians, copse, lovers, heifers, and priests all continue dying decade later decade and century after century, merely their artistic depictions on the Grecian urn live on for what seems eternity.

This realization about the timeless nature of art is not new now nor was it in the 1800s, but Keats has chosen a perfect example since ancient Greek civilization so famously disappeared into the ages, being subsumed by the Romans, and by and large lost until the Renaissance a thousand years later. Now, the ancient Greeks are all certainly dead (like the male monarch Ozymandias in Shelley's verse form) but the Greek art and culture live on through Renaissance painters, the Olympic Games, endemic Neoclassical architecture, and, of form, the Grecian urn.

Further, what is depicted on the Grecian urn is a variety of life that makes the otherwise cold urn experience alive and vibrant. This aliveness is accentuated past Keats'southward barrage of questions and blaring exclamations: "More than happy love! more than happy, happy dearest!" Art, he seems to suggest, is more alive and real than we might imagine. Indeed, the concluding ii lines tin can exist read every bit the urn itself talking: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." In these profound lines, Keats places u.s. within ignorance, suggesting that what we know on globe is limited, but that artistic beauty, which he has now established is alive, is continued with truth. Thus, nosotros can escape ignorance, humanness, and certain death and approach another class of life and truth through the dazzler of fine art. This effectively completes the thought that began in Ozymandias and makes this a corking poem one notch up from its predecessor.

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half dozen. "The Tiger" by William Blake (1757-1827)

Tiger Tiger, burning vivid,
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 mitt, cartel seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy middle?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread paw? and what dread anxiety?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw downward their spears
And h2o'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his piece of work to run into?
Did he who made the Lamb brand thee?

Tiger Tiger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or center,
Cartel frame thy fearful symmetry?

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Assay of the Poem

This poem contemplates a question arising from the idea of cosmos by an intelligent creator. The question is this: If there is a loving, compassionate God or gods who created homo beings and whose great powers exceed the comprehension of human beings, every bit many major religions concur, then why would such a powerful being let evil into the world. Evil here is represented past a tiger that might, should you be strolling in the Indian or Chinese wild in the 1700s, accept leapt out and killed y'all. What would have created such a dangerous and evil creature? How could it peradventure be the same divine blacksmith who created a cute harmless fluffy lamb or who created Jesus, also known equally the "Lamb of God" (which the devoutly Christian Blake was probably also referring to here). To put it another fashion, why would such a divine blacksmith create beautiful innocent children and then also let such children to be slaughtered. The battery of questions brings this mystery to life with lavish intensity.

Does Blake offering an answer to this question of evil from a good God? Information technology would seem not on the surface. But, this wouldn't be a neat poem if information technology were really that open up concluded. The answer comes in the fashion that Blake explains the question. Blake'southward language peels away the mundane world and offers a look at the super-reality to which poets are privy. Nosotros wing about in "forests of the night" through "distant deeps or skies" looking for where the fire in the tiger's eye was taken from by the Creator. This is the reality of expanded time, space, and perception that Blake so clearly elucidates elsewhere with the lines "To encounter a world in a grain of sand / And a sky in a wild flower, / Concord infinity in the palm of your mitt, / And eternity in an hour" ("Auguries of Innocence"). This indirectly tells united states of america that the reality that we normally know and perceive is really insufficient, shallow, and deceptive. Where nosotros perceive the injustice of the wild tiger something else entirely may be transpiring. What we unremarkably take for truth may actually be far from it: a idea that is scary, yet too sublime or beautiful—like the cute and fearsome tiger. Thus, this verse form is bully considering it concisely and compellingly presents a question that withal plagues humanity today, equally well as a key clue to the answer.

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five. "On His Incomprehension" by John Milton (1608-1674)

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is expiry to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more aptitude
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning admonish,
"Doth God verbal mean solar day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly enquire. But Patience, to forestall
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his ain gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er state and ocean without rest:
They too serve who merely stand up and wait."

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Analysis of the Poem

This poem deals with one's limitations and shortcomings in life. Anybody has them and Milton's blindness is a perfect case of this. His eyesight gradually worsened and he became totally blind at the age of 42. This happened after he served in an eminent position nether Oliver Cromwell's revolutionary Puritan regime in England. To put it just, Milton rose to the highest position an English author might at the time and and then sank all the way down to a state of beingness unable read or write on his own. How pathetic!

The genius of this poem comes in the fashion that Milton transcends the misery he feels. Starting time, he frames himself, non as an individual suffering or lone, merely every bit a failed servant to the Creator: God. While Milton is disabled, God here is enabled through imagery of a king commanding thousands. This celestial monarch, his ministers and troops, and his kingdom itself are invisible to human optics anyway, then already Milton has subtly undone much of his failing past subverting the necessity for human vision. More straightforwardly, through the voice of Patience, Milton explains that serving the celestial monarch just requires bearing those hardships, which really aren't that bad (he calls them "mild") that life has burdened you with (like a "yoke" put on an ox). This m mission from heaven may be as uncomplicated as continuing and waiting, having patience, and agreement the social club of the universe. Thus, this is a great verse form because Milton has not only dispelled sadness over a major shortcoming in life but also shown how the shortcoming is itself imbued with an extraordinary and uplifting purpose.

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four. "A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)

What the centre of the fellow said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is only an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou fine art, to grit returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Observe us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the globe's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like impaired, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Permit the dead Past bury its dead!
Human action,—act in the living Present!
Heart inside, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind u.s.a.
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind u.s.a.
Footprints on the sands of time;—

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Allow us, and then, exist up and doing,
With a middle for any fate;
Nevertheless achieving, nonetheless pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Analysis of the Poem

In this nine-stanza poem, the first six stanzas are rather vague since each stanza seems to begin a new thought. Instead, the accent here is on a feeling rather than a rational train of idea. What feeling? Information technology seems to be a reaction against science, which is focused on calculations ("mournful numbers") and empirical evidence, of which there is no, or very little, to prove the beingness of the soul. Longfellow lived when the Industrial Revolution was in high gear and the ideals of science, rationality, and reason flourished. From this perspective, the fact that the first six stanzas do not follow a rational railroad train of thought makes perfect sense.

According to the poem, the force of science seems to restrain one's spirit or soul ("for the soul is dead that slumbers"), lead to inaction and complacency from which we must pause free ("Human activity,—human activity in the living Present! / Heart inside, and God o'erhead!") for lofty purposes such as Art, Center, and God before time runs out ("Art is long, and Time is fleeting"). The terminal three stanzas—which, having cleaved complimentary from science past this betoken in the verse form, read more smoothly—suggest that this acting for lofty purposes can lead to greatness and can aid our fellow man.

We might think of the entire poem as a clarion call to practise slap-up things, nonetheless insignificant they may seem in the present and on the empirically observable surface. That may mean writing a poem and inbound information technology into a poetry contest, when y'all know the chances of your poem winning are very small; risking your life for something yous believe in when you know it is not pop or information technology is misunderstood; or volunteering for a cause that, although it may seem hopeless, yous feel is truly important. Thus, the greatness of this poem lies in its ability to so clearly prescribe a method for greatness in our modern earth.

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3. "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I wandered lonely every bit a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a oversupply,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Abreast the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the cakewalk.

Continuous equally the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten one 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 non but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little idea
What wealth the bear witness to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I prevarication
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They wink upon that inward heart
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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Assay of the Verse form

Through the narrator's chance encounter with a field of daffodils by the water, we are presented with the power and beauty of the natural globe. It sounds simple plenty, but there are several factors that contribute to this poem's greatness. First, the poem comes at a time when the Western world is industrializing and man feels spiritually solitary in the face of an increasingly godless worldview. This feeling is perfectly harnessed by the delineation of wandering through the wilderness "lonely as a deject" and by the ending scene of the narrator sadly lying on his couch "in vacant or in pensive mood" and finding happiness in solitude. The daffodils then go more than nature; they go a companion and a source of personal joy. Second, the very simplicity itself of enjoying nature—flowers, trees, the body of water, the sky, the mountains etc.—is perfectly manifested by the simplicity of the poem: the iv stanzas simply brainstorm with daffodils, draw daffodils, compare daffodils to something else, and stop on daffodils, respectively. Any common reader can hands become this poem, equally hands equally her or she might savour a walk effectually a lake.

Third, Wordsworth has subtly put forward more than only an ode to nature hither. Every stanza mentions dancing and the third stanza even calls the daffodils "a evidence." At this time in England, one might have paid money to see an opera or other operation of high artistic quality. Here, Wordsworth is putting forward the idea that nature can offer similar joys and even give you "wealth" instead of taking it from you, undoing the idea that beauty is attached to earthly money and social status. This, coupled with the language and topic of the poem, which are both relatively accessible to the common man, brand for a great verse form that demonstrates the extensive and accessible nature of dazzler and its assembly, truth and elation.

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2. "Holy Sonnet 10: Death, Be Non Proud" past John Donne (1572-1631)

Death, be non proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thousand art not then;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Dice not, poor Decease, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and slumber, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasance; so from thee much more must menstruation,
And soonest our best men with thee do become,
Residue of their bones, and soul's delivery.
K fine art slave to fate, take chances, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poisonous substance, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us slumber too
And amend than thy stroke; why swell'st m and then?
1 short sleep by, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, yard shalt die.

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Analysis of the Poem

Death is a perennial field of study of fear and despair. But, this sonnet seems to say that information technology need non exist this style. The highly focused attack on Death'southward sense of pride uses a grocery listing of rhetorical attacks: First, sleep, which is the closest human experience to decease, is actually quite nice. Second, all neat people dice sooner or later and the procedure of death could exist viewed as joining them. Tertiary, Expiry is nether the command of higher government such as fate, which controls accidents, and kings, who wage wars; from this perspective, Death seems no more than a pawn in a larger chess game within the universe. Quaternary, Decease must acquaintance with some unsavory characters: "poisonous substance, wars, and sickness." Yikes! They must brand unpleasant coworkers! (Y'all can almost encounter Donne laughing as he wrote this.) Fifth, "poppy and charms" (drugs) can do the sleep job also as Death or better. Decease, you're fired!

The sixth, most compelling, and nearly serious reason is that if one truly believes in a soul and so Death is really zippo to worry near. The soul lives eternally and this explains line 4, when Donne says that Death can't impale him. If y'all recognize the subordinate position of the body in the universe and place more than fully with your soul, so you lot tin't be killed in an ordinary sense. Further, this poem is so great because of its universal awarding. Fear of death is so natural an instinct and Death itself so all-encompassing and inescapable for people, that the spirit of this poem and applicability of information technology extends to almost any fright or weakness of character that ane might have. Confronting, head on, such a fear or weakness, as Donne has done here, allows human being beings to transcend their condition and their perception of Death, more than fully perhaps than one might through art past itself—equally many poets from this top ten list seem to say—since the fine art may or may not survive may or may not be any good, merely the intrinsic quality of one's soul lives eternally. Thus, Donne leaves a powerful lesson to learn from: face what you fear head on and remember that there is nothing to fear on earth if you lot believe in a soul.

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1. "Sonnet 18" by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more than temperate:
Crude winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too curt a date:
One-time likewise hot the middle of sky shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every off-white from fair quondam declines,
By adventure, or nature's irresolute class, untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
And then long every bit men can breathe or eyes can encounter,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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Analysis of the Verse form

Basically, the narrator tells someone he esteems highly that this person is better than a summer'due south day because a summertime's day is often too hot and too windy, and particularly because a summertime's day doesn't last; it must fade away just equally people, plants, and animals die. Just, this esteemed person does not lose dazzler or fade away similar a summer's day because he or she is eternally preserved in the narrator'southward ain poetry. "And then long lives this, and this gives life to thee" ways "This poetry lives long, and this poetry gives life to yous."

From a mod perspective this poem might come up off every bit pompous (assuming the greatness of 1's own poetry), arbitrary (criticizing a summer's day upon what seems a whim), and sycophantic (praising someone without substantial evidence). How then could this maybe exist number i? After the bad gustation of an old flavor to a modern tongue wears off, we realize that this is the very all-time of poetry. This is not pompous because Shakespeare really achieves greatness and creates an eternal poem. Information technology is okay to recognize poetry as great if it is great and information technology is okay to recognize an artistic hierarchy. In fact, it is absolutely necessary in educating, guiding, and leading others. The assault on a summer's day is not arbitrary. Woven throughout the language is an implicit connection between human beings, the natural world ("a summer's day"), and heaven (the dominicus is "the eye of heaven"). A comparison of a homo existence to a summertime's day immediately opens the heed to unconventional possibilities; to spiritual perspectives; to the ethereal realm of poesy and beauty. The unabashed praise for someone without a hint as to even the gender or accomplishments of the person is not irrational or sycophantic. Information technology is a pure and simple fashion of approaching our relationships with other people, assuming the best. It is a happier fashion to live—immediately free from the depression, stress, and pessimism that creeps into our hearts. Thus, this verse form is strikingly and refreshingly bold, profound, and uplifting.

Finally, every bit to the question of overcoming death, fear, and the decay of fourth dimension, an overarching question in these neat poems, Shakespeare adroitly answers them all past skipping the question, suggesting it is of no consequence. He wields such sublime power that he is unmoved and can instead offer remedy, his verse, at will to those he sees befitting. How marvelous!

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Source: https://classicalpoets.org/2016/01/07/10-greatest-poems-ever-written/

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