‘The Storm-Wind’ by William Barnes contrasts peace and danger with images of home and a terrifying storm. The poem emphasizes how much easier it is to appreciate the safety of home when the conditions outside are so inhospitable.
‘Love Poem’ by Gregory Orr is a short poem about a speaker’s imaginative telling of asking for someone’s phone number.
‘Sunlight on the Garden’ by Louis MacNeice is a poem about change, death, and accepting that life eventually ends.
‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ is a narrative poem by Lewis Carroll. It was included in his 1871 novel ‘Through the Looking-Glass.’
‘Next Day’ by Randall Jarrell is a confessional poem with a conversational tone that articulates the complex emotions of aging and change.
‘Toilet’ by Hugo Williams is a humorous poem that describes a man’s struggles to speak to a beautiful woman on a train.
‘Carpe Diem’ by William Shakespeare is a love song from Twelfth Night, sung by Feste the clown/fool. It’s about love and youth.
‘A Dirge’ by Christina Rossetti is a thoughtful and moving poem about death. It speaks on the birth and death of an important person in the speaker’s life.
‘Disappointed’ by Paul Laurence Dunbar is an inspirational poem in which Dunbar depicts an old man working hard in the last years of his life and losing everything he strove for.
‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ by W.H. Auden is a thoughtful poem written at the beginning of WWII. The piece describes a tyrant’s beliefs and his power over everything around him.
‘First News from Villafranca’ is a protest poem written in reaction to the Villafranca Armistice (11 July 1859) between Emperors Napoleon III of France and Francis Joseph I of Austria.
‘How Poetry Comes to Me’ by Gary Snyder is a thoughtful poem about receiving inspiration. The poet uses symbolism and other literary devices to depict poetic inspiration as an animal moving through the woods of his mind.
‘I did not reach Thee’ by Emily Dickinson is a complex poem about a speaker’s journey through life. She expresses both optimism and hesitation in the face of her death and attempts to reach God.
‘I have a Bird in spring’ by Emily Dickinson is dedicated to a close friendship poet was concerned about losing. It uses an extended metaphor created through zoomorphism.
‘Missing My Daughter’ by Stephen Spender is a poem about a speaker’s desire to see his daughter and how he feel trapped in a prison of loneliness.
‘Muse’ by Meena Alexander is a poem about the poet’s muse or source of inspiration. The poet recalls meeting and being positively influenced by a girl in her youth.
‘My Grandmother’ by Elizabeth Jennings is a thoughtful poem about one person’s relationship with her grandmother and her grandmother’s passion—collecting antiques.
‘Only a Dad’ by Edgar Albert Guest is dedicated to the poet’s father. The poem describes the man’s willingness to self-sacrifice and do whatever he can to make his children happy.
‘Snow-flakes’ by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a graceful and melodic poem that describes a snowfall as the sky sharing and shedding its grief.
‘Some rainbow – coming from the Fair!’ by Emily Dickinson delves into themes of spring, change, and rebirth. The poet depicts how the world changes when spring arrives.
‘The Freedom of the Moon’ by Robert Frost is a poem about humanity’s freedom. It uses beautiful figurative language to define the human experience.
‘The Juggler’ by Richard Wilbur is about the way that change can temporarily relieve some of the complacency human beings experience in life.
‘There was a time when my cheek burned’ by Emily Brontë is a sextilla that describes a speaker’s passion for truth, and justice, and how the world disappointed them.
‘To My Daughter On Being Separated from Her on Her Marriage’ by Anne Hunter is a touching poem in which the speaker describes her hopes and dreams for her daughter as she marries.
‘Walking the Dog’ by Howard Nemerov is a poem about an owner, his dog, and the walks they go on. The poet expresses the various sights he sees with his pet and the things they do and don’t share.
‘Windy Nights’ by Robert Louis Stevenson is a children’s poem about a nighttime storm. It was first published in 1885 in A Child’s Garden of Verses.