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A review by sitibbetts7
101 Great American Poems by The American Poetry and Literacy Project
5.0
Some of my highlights :
“So shalt thou rest - and what if though shalt fall
Unheeded by the living - and no friend
Take note of thy departure?”
-William Cullen Bryant
“And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.”
-Edgar Allen Poe
“I could not sleep I’d I saw the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.”
-Frances E. Harper
“Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.”
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom-
A field where a thousand corpses lie.”
-Stephen Crane
“I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.”
-Langston Hughes
“And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
…
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
…
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—“
-T.S. Eliot
“And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom. You did not say 'en masse,' you said 'independence.' But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also. Freedom is poor and laborious; that torch is not safe but hungry, and often requires blood for its fuel.”
-Robinson Jeffers
“Peace flows into me As the tide to the pool by the shore; It is mine forevermore, It ebbs not back like the sea. I am the pool of blue That worships the vivid sky; My hopes were heaven-high, They are all fulfilled in you. I am the pool of gold When sunset burns and dies— You are my deepening skies, Give me your stars to hold.”
-Sara Teasdale
“You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.”
-Ezra Pound
“I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.”
-Carl Sandburg
“So shalt thou rest - and what if though shalt fall
Unheeded by the living - and no friend
Take note of thy departure?”
-William Cullen Bryant
“And all I lov’d, I lov’d alone.”
-Edgar Allen Poe
“I could not sleep I’d I saw the lash
Drinking her blood at each fearful gash,
And I saw her babes torn from her breast,
Like trembling doves from their parent nest.”
-Frances E. Harper
“Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.”
-Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom-
A field where a thousand corpses lie.”
-Stephen Crane
“I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.”
-Langston Hughes
“And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
…
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
…
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—“
-T.S. Eliot
“And you, America, that passion made you. You were not born to prosperity, you were born to love freedom. You did not say 'en masse,' you said 'independence.' But we cannot have all the luxuries and freedom also. Freedom is poor and laborious; that torch is not safe but hungry, and often requires blood for its fuel.”
-Robinson Jeffers
“Peace flows into me As the tide to the pool by the shore; It is mine forevermore, It ebbs not back like the sea. I am the pool of blue That worships the vivid sky; My hopes were heaven-high, They are all fulfilled in you. I am the pool of gold When sunset burns and dies— You are my deepening skies, Give me your stars to hold.”
-Sara Teasdale
“You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.”
-Ezra Pound
“I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I have. And I forget.
Sometimes I growl, shake myself and spatter a few red drops for history to remember. Then—I forget.
When I, the People, learn to remember, when I, the People, use the lessons of yesterday and no longer forget who robbed me last year, who played me for a fool—then there will be no speaker in all the world say the name: “The People,” with any fleck of a sneer in his voice or any far-off smile of derision.
The mob—the crowd—the mass—will arrive then.”
-Carl Sandburg