31 Days: 101 Famous Poems

Since it’s Sunday I want to focus on inspiring things. So the first thing you need to do is go read the poetry Katie at Prime Periwinkle has written and is posting. I’ll wait.

Back? This book, 101 Famous Poems by Roy J. Cook (online), is a short compilation, one recommended by Cindy at ordo-amoris. My copy is very small, I almost wish I had a bigger one.

I love the index by author in the book. Sorry it is blurry. (Note to self: Next time you plan a series with mainly images, don’t rely on the cell phone’s camera.)

I love the images of each poet next to their poem. The older men with wonderful beards, the sterner types, the military men, the ladies with their lovely locks, … and the styles run the centuries.

Now I am going to be ornery, and post the opening lines of some of the poems with a link to read more. Because I’m like that. And sometimes I like to allow just a few lines of poetry to roll through my head over and over.

Trees by Sergeant Joyce Kilmer (the book notes he was in the 165th infantry, and was KIA)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
[read more]

Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (who died the year my grandmother was born)

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
[read more]

Horatius at the Bridge by Thomas Babington Macaulay (I just adore long poems that tell a story!)

Lars Porsena of Clusium,
By the nine gods he swore
That the great house of Tarquin
Should suffer wrong no more.
[hear more, because poetry is music]

Have a blessed day!