Top Ten Classic…Poems!
We’ll leave Classic Coke and Classic Rock for another day. In honor of upcoming National Poetry Month in April, my friend Sherry over at Semicolon Blog is asking for her readers’ top ten favorites. The catch? They have to have a copyright prior to 1910. Why not join in the fun? Send her your list too!
I love all sorts of poems and poets, and had quite a difficult time whittling this list down. If this were another day and another month my choices might be different. Choosing only 10 proved harder than I thought.
10. Because of the drama: Narrative poems don’t get much more dramatic and forceful than Lord Byron’s “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” Can you feel the horses’ thunder?
9. Because of the pretty flowers: Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” says it beautifully. If I ever have the chance to visit the Lake District, it will be in the spring when I can see daffodils. My heart will dance!
8. Because of the battle: Battlefield poems, sad reminders of the horrors of war, can’t be left off the list. “Shiloh” by Melville is a fairly new one for me. He’s not just about whales you know!
7. Because of women’s work: I’m a mom. I worry. Sometimes I need a reminder about what’s really important and what really matters. Anne Bradstreet does that for me in “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House.”
6. Because small things matter: Chesterton is an author I have yet to read widely, but my first tastes have certainly whetted my appetite. “The Donkey” is an apt reminder not to despise the unlovely and unlovable for we know not God’s purpose for them.
5. Because humans are too arrogant: It’s easy to get caught up in our own superiority until, that is, we read of Shelley’s “Ozymandias.” Few words are more stark and chilling than “…the lone and level sands stretch far away.”
4. Because he’s the Bard: Ok, you can all “compare thee to a summer’s day.” I like the sense of humor in Sonnet CXXX and I’m just ornery enough to include it on my list. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.
3. Because poetry should be fun: Call me simple, pedestrian, common…but some poems exist to be enjoyed for a rollicking good time. Save the literary analysis for another day and find out just how cold cold can be in Service’s “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”
2. Because of love: I can’t stand sappy love poems, but I do like poems about husbands and wives. Truest of the true loves, again thanks to Anne Bradstreet. “To My Dear and Loving Husband.”
1. Because the Word, the Logos, is the source of all our words: Psalm 23.