Brave New World Is Inert as a Work of Art Nothing Can Bring It Alive

10 Greatest Poems E'er Written

Updated: September 4, 2021

by Evan Mantyk

What is poetry? What is smashing poetry? The poems below answer these questions. From least greatest (ten) to greatest greatest (1), the poems in this list are limited to ones originally written in the English linguistic communication and which are nether fifty lines, excluding poems like Homer's Iliad, Edgar Allan Poe's "Raven," Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy , and Lord Byron's mock epic Don Juan . Each poem is followed by some brief analysis. Many good poems and poets had to be left off of this list. In the comments section below, feel free to brand additions or construct your own lists. You can as well submit analyses of archetype verse to submissions@classicalpoets.org. They will be considered for publication on this website.

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

Two roads diverged in a yellow woods,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be ane traveler, long I stood
And looked downwards 1 as far equally I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

So took the other, every bit just every bit fair,
And having possibly the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the aforementioned,

And both that morning every bit lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the showtime for another mean solar day!
Nevertheless knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should always come dorsum.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled past,
And that has made all the difference.

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Analysis of the Poem

This poem deals with that big noble question of "How to make a difference in the world?" On first reading, it tells us that the option one makes really does matter, catastrophe: "I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference."

A closer reading reveals that the solitary choice that was made earlier by our traveling narrator maybe wasn't all that significant since both roads were pretty much the same anyway ("Had warn them really about the aforementioned") and information technology is only in the remembering and retelling that it made a divergence. We are left to ponder if the narrator had instead traveled down "The Road Not Taken" might it accept also made a divergence also. In a sense, "The Road Not Taken" tears apart the traditional view of individualism, which hinges on the importance of choice, equally in the case of democracy in full general (choosing a candidate), also equally various constitutional freedoms: choice of religion, choice of words (freedom of speech), choice of group (freedom of assembly), and pick of source of information (freedom of printing). For example, we might imagine a immature man choosing between being a carpenter or a banker later seeing great significance in his choice to be a broker, only in fact there was non much in his original decision at all other than a passing fancy. In this, we run across the universality of homo beings: the roads leading to carpenter and banker existence basically the same and the carpenters and bankers at the end of them—seeming similar individuals who made significant choices—really being just part of the collective of the man race.

Then is this verse form not about the question "How to brand a difference in the world?" later on all? No. Information technology is still about this question. The ending is the most clear and hit part. If nothing else, readers are left with the impression that our narrator, who commands beautiful verse, profound imagery, and time itself ("ages and ages hence") puts value on striving to make a deviation. The striving is reconstituted and complicated here in reflection, but our hero wants to make a divergence and so should we. That is why this is a nifty poem, from a basic or close reading perspective.

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

Non similar the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from country to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand up
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Female parent of Exiles. From her beacon-paw
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe complimentary,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp abreast the golden door!"

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Analysis of the Poem

Inscribed on the Statue of Freedom in New York harbor, this sonnet may have the greatest placement of whatever English poem. It also has i of the greatest placements in history. Lazarus compares the Statue of Liberty to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Like the Statue of Liberty, the Colossus of Rhodes was an enormous god-like statue positioned in a harbor. Although the Colossus of Rhodes no longer stands, it symbolizes the ancient Greek earth and the greatness of the aboriginal Greek and Roman civilization, which was lost for a thousand years to the West, and only fully recovered again during the Renaissance. "The New Colossus" succinctly crystallizes the connection between the ancient earth and America, a modern nation. Information technology's a connection that can exist 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 organization that mirrors Athenian Republic and Roman Republicanism.

In the midst of this vast comparison of the ancient and the American, Lazarus however manages to clearly return America's singled-out grapheme. It is the tin-exercise spirit of taking those persecuted and poor from around the world and giving them a new opportunity and hope for the time to come, what she calls "the gold door." It is a uniquely scrappy and compassionate quality that sets Americans apart from the ancients. The relevance of this poem stretches all the mode dorsum to the pilgrims fleeing religious persecution in Europe to the controversies surrounding modern immigrants from Mexico and the Heart East. While circumstances today take changed drastically, in that location is no denying that this open up door was part of what made America great once upon a time. It'due south the perfect depiction of this quintessential Americanness that makes "The New Colossus" also outstanding.

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

I met a traveler from an antique country
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Well-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 yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My proper name is Ozymandias, rex of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nil beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The solitary and level sands stretch far abroad."

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Assay of the Poem

In this winding story within a story inside a poem, Shelley paints for us the image of the ruins of a statue of ancient Egyptian king Ozymandias, who is today commonly known as Ramesses Two. This king is still regarded as the greatest and most powerful Egyptian pharaoh. However, all that'due south left of the statue are his legs, which tell us it was huge and impressive; the shattered head 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 us they might non have been quite as magnificent every bit Ozymandias imagined. The image of a dictator-like king whose kingdom is no more creates a palpable irony. Just, beyond that there is a perennial lesson most the inescapable and destructive forces of time, history, and nature. Success, fame, ability, coin, health, and prosperity tin can simply last so long before fading into "lone and level sands."

There are yet more layers of meaning here that elevate this into one of the greatest poems. In terms of lost civilizations that show the ephemeralness of human being pursuits, there is no better example 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)—all the same who completely lost their spectacular language, culture, and civilization. If the forces of time, history, and nature can take downward the Egyptian civilization, it begs the question, "Who's next?" Additionally, Ozymandias is believed to accept been the villainous pharaoh who enslaved the ancient Hebrews and who Moses led the exodus from. If all ordinary pursuits, such equally power and fame, are merely grit, what remains, the poem suggests, are spirituality and morality—embodied by the ancient Hebrew faith. If you lot don't have those then in the long run you are a "colossal wreck." Thus, the perfectly composed scene itself, the Egyptian imagery, and the Biblical backstory convey a perennial message and make this a great poem.

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

G still unravish'd helpmate of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and wearisome time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend 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 sweetness, simply those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Piping to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor always tin those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal however, do non grieve;
She cannot fade, though 1000 hast not thy elation,
For ever wilt thousand love, and she be off-white!

Keats's own cartoon of the Grecian Urn.

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For e'er piping songs for ever new;
More happy honey! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever immature;
All animate human passion far above,
That leaves a centre high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green chantry, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What piffling town past river or sea shore,
Or mount-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Volition silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With woods branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of idea
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When quondam age shall this generation waste matter,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—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's "Ode on a Grecian Urn" offers a sort of antidote to the inescapable and subversive force of time. Indeed, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" was published in 1819 merely a year or and then afterward "Ozymandias." The antidote is uncomplicated: art. The art on the Grecian urn—which is basically a decorative pot from aboriginal Hellenic republic—has survived for thousands of years. While empires rose and fell, the Grecian urn survived. Musicians, copse, lovers, heifers, and priests all proceed dying decade after decade and century subsequently century, but their artistic depictions on the Grecian urn live on for what seems eternity.

This realization well-nigh the timeless nature of art is not new now nor was it in the 1800s, merely Keats has called a perfect instance since ancient Greek civilization so famously disappeared into the ages, being subsumed by the Romans, and generally lost until the Renaissance a thousand years later. Now, the ancient Greeks are all certainly dead (like the king Ozymandias in Shelley'southward poem) but the Greek art and culture live on through Renaissance painters, the Olympic Games, owned Neoclassical architecture, and, of grade, the Grecian urn.

Further, what is depicted on the Grecian urn is a diverseness of life that makes the otherwise cold urn experience alive and vibrant. This aliveness is accentuated by Keats's barrage of questions and blaring exclamations: "More happy dearest! more happy, happy beloved!" Art, he seems to suggest, is more alive and real than we might imagine. Indeed, the final two lines tin be read as the urn itself talking: "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on globe, and all ye need to know." In these profound lines, Keats places us within ignorance, suggesting that what nosotros know on globe is limited, but that artistic beauty, which he has now established is live, is connected with truth. Thus, we can escape ignorance, humanness, and sure decease and approach another form of life and truth through the dazzler of fine art. This effectively completes the thought that began in Ozymandias and makes this a dandy poem one notch up from its predecessor.

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

Tiger Tiger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal paw or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the burn of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, cartel seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what fine art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

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

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd sky with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

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

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Analysis of the Verse form

This poem contemplates a question arising from the idea of creation past an intelligent creator. The question is this: If there is a loving, compassionate God or gods who created homo beings and whose bully powers exceed the comprehension of man beings, as many major religions hold, and then why would such a powerful being let evil into the globe. Evil here is represented by a tiger that might, should you be strolling in the Indian or Chinese wild in the 1700s, have leapt out and killed you. What would have created such a dangerous and evil animal? How could information technology possibly be the aforementioned divine blacksmith who created a cute harmless fluffy lamb or who created Jesus, as well known as the "Lamb of God" (which the devoutly Christian Blake was probably as well referring to hither). To put it another manner, why would such a divine blacksmith create beautiful innocent children and so also allow such children to exist slaughtered. The bombardment of questions brings this mystery to life with lavish intensity.

Does Blake offering an answer to this question of evil from a practiced God? Information technology would seem not on the surface. Merely, this wouldn't be a keen verse form if it were really that open ended. The answer comes in the style that Blake explains the question. Blake's linguistic communication peels away the mundane world and offers a look at the super-reality to which poets are privy. We wing about in "forests of the nighttime" through "distant deeps or skies" looking for where the fire in the tiger'southward middle 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 meet a earth in a grain of sand / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your mitt, / And eternity in an 60 minutes" ("Auguries of Innocence"). This indirectly tells us that the reality that nosotros ordinarily know and perceive is actually bereft, shallow, and deceptive. Where nosotros perceive the injustice of the wild tiger something else entirely may be transpiring. What we ordinarily take for truth may actually exist far from it: a thought that is scary, yet also sublime or beautiful—like the beautiful and fearsome tiger. Thus, this poem is great considering it concisely and compellingly presents a question that withal plagues humanity today, besides as a central clue to the respond.

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5. "On His Blindness" by John Milton (1608-1674)

When I consider how my calorie-free is spent
Ere one-half my days in this dark globe and wide,
And that i talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, low-cal denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to preclude
That murmur, presently replies: "God doth not demand
Either man's piece of work or his own gifts: who best
Behave his mild yoke, they serve him all-time. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They as well serve who just 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 example 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 government in England. To put it but, Milton rose to the highest position an English writer might at the time then sank all the way down to a state of being unable read or write on his own. How pathetic!

The genius of this poem comes in the way that Milton transcends the misery he feels. Get-go, he frames himself, non as an individual suffering or lonely, but as 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 homo eyes anyway, so already Milton has subtly undone much of his failing by subverting the necessity for human vision. More straightforwardly, through the vocalisation of Patience, Milton explains that serving the celestial monarch only requires bearing those hardships, which really aren't that bad (he calls them "mild") that life has encumbered you lot with (like a "yoke" put on an ox). This grand mission from heaven may be as simple as continuing and waiting, having patience, and agreement the club of the universe. Thus, this is a cracking poem because Milton has not but dispelled sadness over a major shortcoming in life but likewise shown how the shortcoming is itself imbued with an extraordinary and uplifting purpose.

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

What the heart of the swain said to the Psalmist

Tell me non, in mournful numbers,
Life is simply 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;
Grit grand art, to dust returnest,
Was non spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and non sorrow,
Is our destined end or fashion;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

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

In the world'south wide field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Hereafter, howe'er pleasant!
Allow the expressionless Past bury its dead!
Act,—deed in the living Present!
Centre within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of slap-up men all remind u.s.
Nosotros can brand our lives sublime,
And, departing, go out behind u.s.
Footprints on the sands of time;—

Footprints, that peradventure another,
Sailing o'er life'south solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall have heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a eye for any fate;
Even so achieving, still pursuing,
Larn to labor and to wait.

Analysis of the Poem

In this nine-stanza poem, the first half-dozen stanzas are rather vague since each stanza seems to begin a new idea. Instead, the emphasis here is on a feeling rather than a rational train of idea. What feeling? It 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 evidence the existence of the soul. Longfellow lived when the Industrial Revolution was in high gear and the ideals of scientific discipline, rationality, and reason flourished. From this perspective, the fact that the starting time vi stanzas do not follow a rational train of idea makes perfect sense.

According to the poem, the force of science seems to restrain one'due south spirit or soul ("for the soul is dead that slumbers"), lead to inaction and complacency from which we must pause free ("Deed,—act in the living Present! / Centre within, and God o'erhead!") for lofty purposes such equally Art, Centre, and God before time runs out ("Art is long, and Time is fleeting"). The last three stanzas—which, having broken free from science by this point in the poem, read more smoothly—propose that this acting for lofty purposes tin can pb to greatness and can help our fellow man.

We might call back of the entire poem equally a blaring call to do nifty things, however insignificant they may seem in the present and on the empirically observable surface. That may mean writing a verse form and entering it into a poetry competition, when you know the chances of your poem winning are very small; risking your life for something you believe in when yous know it is non popular or it is misunderstood; or volunteering for a cause that, although it may seem hopeless, you 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 globe.

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iii. "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 crowd,
A host, of aureate daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the cakewalk.

Continuous as the stars that polish
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Forth the margin of a bay:
10 k saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; simply they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not merely be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but niggling thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For frequently, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They wink upon that in center
Which is the bliss of solitude;
Then my eye with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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Analysis of the Poem

Through the narrator's chance encounter with a field of daffodils past the h2o, we are presented with the power and beauty of the natural world. It sounds elementary enough, but at that place are several factors that contribute to this poem'south greatness. First, the poem comes at a time when the Western world is industrializing and human being feels spiritually lonely in the face of an increasingly godless worldview. This feeling is perfectly harnessed by the delineation of wandering through the wilderness "alone as a cloud" and by the catastrophe scene of the narrator sadly lying on his couch "in vacant or in pensive mood" and finding happiness in confinement. The daffodils and then get more nature; they become a companion and a source of personal joy. 2d, the very simplicity itself of enjoying nature—flowers, trees, the bounding main, the sky, the mountains etc.—is perfectly manifested by the simplicity of the poem: the four stanzas simply begin with daffodils, describe daffodils, compare daffodils to something else, and stop on daffodils, respectively. Any common reader can hands get this verse form, as easily as her or she might relish a walk around a lake.

Third, Wordsworth has subtly put forward more than just an ode to nature here. Every stanza mentions dancing and the tertiary stanza even calls the daffodils "a show." At this time in England, one might accept paid money to see an opera or other performance of high creative quality. Hither, Wordsworth is putting forward the idea that nature can offering like joys and fifty-fifty give you "wealth" instead of taking it from y'all, undoing the idea that beauty is attached to earthly money and social condition. This, coupled with the language and topic of the verse form, which are both relatively accessible to the common human, make for a great poem that demonstrates the extensive and accessible nature of beauty and its associates, truth and bliss.

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two. "Holy Sonnet 10: Death, Exist Non Proud" by John Donne (1572-1631)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for yard fine art not so;
For those whom thousand think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Expiry, nor still canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasance; so from thee much more must menstruum,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul'due south delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, state of war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep likewise
And amend than thy stroke; why smashing'st grand and so?
One brusk sleep by, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

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Analysis of the Verse form

Death is a perennial subject of fear and despair. Only, this sonnet seems to say that it need non be this way. The highly focused assail on Expiry's sense of pride uses a grocery list of rhetorical attacks: First, sleep, which is the closest human experience to death, is really quite overnice. 2nd, all bang-up people die sooner or later and the process of expiry could be viewed as joining them. Third, Death is under the command of college authorities such every bit fate, which controls accidents, and kings, who wage wars; from this perspective, Death seems no more than a pawn in a larger chess game inside the universe. Fourth, Decease must associate with some unsavory characters: "poison, wars, and sickness." Yikes! They must make unpleasant coworkers! (Y'all can most come across Donne laughing equally he wrote this.) Fifth, "poppy and charms" (drugs) can practice the slumber job also as Death or better. Death, you're fired!

The sixth, most compelling, and nearly serious reason is that if one truly believes in a soul and then Death is actually nothing to worry about. The soul lives eternally and this explains line iv, when Donne says that Death can't kill him. If yous recognize the subordinate position of the body in the universe and identify more than fully with your soul, so you lot tin't be killed in an ordinary sense. Farther, this poem is so great because of its universal awarding. Fear of death is so natural an instinct and Death itself and so all-encompassing and inescapable for people, that the spirit of this poem and applicability of information technology extends to almost any fearfulness or weakness of character that one might accept. Against, head on, such a fear or weakness, equally Donne has done here, allows man beings to transcend their condition and their perception of Death, more than fully perhaps than one might through art by itself—as many poets from this top ten list seem to say—since the fine art may or may not survive may or may not exist any good, but the intrinsic quality of one'south soul lives eternally. Thus, Donne leaves a powerful lesson to acquire from: confront what y'all fright caput on and remember that in that location is nil to fearfulness on earth if you believe in a soul.

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i. "Sonnet 18" past William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Yard art more than lovely and more than temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer'south lease hath all likewise brusque a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair quondam declines,
By hazard, or nature's irresolute course, 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 so long as men tin can breathe or eyes can run across,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

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Analysis of the Poem

Basically, the narrator tells someone he esteems highly that this person is better than a summer's day because a summer's day is often too hot and too windy, and especially considering a summertime's day doesn't last; information technology must fade abroad merely as people, plants, and animals die. But, this esteemed person does non lose beauty or fade abroad like a summer'southward day because he or she is eternally preserved in the narrator's own poetry. "Then long lives this, and this gives life to thee" ways "This poetry lives long, and this poetry gives life to you."

From a modern perspective this poem might come off equally pompous (bold the greatness of one's own verse), capricious (criticizing a summer's day upon what seems a whim), and sycophantic (praising someone without substantial evidence). How then could this possibly exist number one? After the bad sense of taste of an old flavor to a modernistic tongue wears off, nosotros realize that this is the very all-time of poetry. This is non pompous because Shakespeare really achieves greatness and creates an eternal poem. Information technology is okay to recognize poesy equally great if information technology is cracking and it is okay to recognize an artistic bureaucracy. In fact, it is absolutely necessary in educating, guiding, and leading others. The attack on a summer's day is not capricious. Woven throughout the linguistic communication is an implicit connectedness betwixt human beings, the natural earth ("a summer's day"), and heaven (the sun is "the eye of heaven"). A comparing of a human being being to a summer's day immediately opens the listen to unconventional possibilities; to spiritual perspectives; to the ethereal realm of poetry and beauty. The unabashed praise for someone without a hint as to even the gender or accomplishments of the person is non irrational or sycophantic. It is a pure and unproblematic style of approaching our relationships with other people, assuming the best. Information technology is a happier fashion to live—immediately complimentary from the depression, stress, and cynicism that creeps into our hearts. Thus, this poem is strikingly and refreshingly bold, profound, and uplifting.

Finally, as to the question of overcoming expiry, fear, and the decay of time, an overarching question in these nifty poems, Shakespeare adroitly answers them all by skipping the question, suggesting it is of no consequence. He wields such sublime power that he is unmoved and can instead offer remedy, his poetry, at volition 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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