Pre-20th Century Poems

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ONLY poems listed here or in the current printed anthology are eligible for the 2012-2013 Poetry Out Loud competition. More information here.

The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd

By Sir Walter Ralegh

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move, . . .

Ode 

By Arthur O'Shaughnessy

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers . . .

Ode on a Grecian Urn

By John Keats

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
       Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express . . .

Ode on Solitude

By Alexander Pope

Happy the man, whose wish and care
   A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air, . . .

['Often rebuked, yet always back returning']

By Emily Brontë

Often rebuked, yet always back returning
    To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning . . .

Oh, Hope! thou soother sweet of human woes

By Charlotte Smith

Oh, Hope! thou soother sweet of human woes!
      How shall I lure thee to my haunts forlorn!
For me wilt thou renew the withered rose, . . .

Old Ironsides

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
   Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see . . .

On a Drop of Dew

By Andrew Marvell

See how the orient dew,
Shed from the bosom of the morn   
   Into the blowing roses, . . .

On the Death of Anne Brontë

By Charlotte Brontë

THERE 's little joy in life for me,
      And little terror in the grave;
I 've lived the parting hour to see . . .

On the Death of Richard West

By Thomas Gray

In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
And reddening Phœbus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join; . . .