Famous Recommended
Poetry - Top 20 List!
There are so many poems to choose from
it is difficult to know where to make
a start! We have therefore devised a
Top 20 List of our favourite poems.
It was an extremely difficult task and
obviously our choice, in the end, was
based on personal preferences! We hope
that the list will provide our readers
with as much pleasure that these famous
verses have given to us. A good knowledge
of these famous verses will provide
all students and children with a good
grounding of the subject. Each poet
has a different style of writing making
expert use of the English language.
We have been asked on many occasions
which is our favourite poem. Impossible!
Writing styles, subject matter and even
childhood memories influence choices,
so we gave up and endeavoured to, at
least, compile a list of our top twenty
famous and favourite poems! The first
line of the famous verse has been included
to jog the memory! Please refer to the
Index for the Top 20 list! We can, however
give examples of some moving verses
from a selection of sad poems. The first
one we have chosen is O Death Rock Me
Asleep a little-known poignant poem
by the tragic Queen Anne Boleyn who
composed the poem just before her execution
on the orders of King Henry VIII of
England. She was only 29 years old and
she was innocent of all the crimes she
was accused of:
O Death Rock Me Asleep a sad and
poignant poem by Anne Boleyn just before
her execution
Death, rock me asleep,
Bring me to quiet rest,
Let pass my weary guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Let thy sound my death tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.
My pains who can express?
Alas, they are so strong;
My dolour will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Let thy sound my death tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.
Alone in prison strong
I wait my destiny.
Woe worth this cruel hap that I
Should taste this misery!
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Let thy sound my death tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.
Farewell, my pleasures past,
Welcome, my present pain!
I feel my torments so increase
That life cannot remain.
Cease now, thou passing bell;
Rung is my doleful knell;
For the sound my death doth tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.
The House with Nobody in it a poem
by Joyce Kilmer
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the
Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its
shingles broken and black.
I suppose I've passed it a hundred times,
but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house,
the house with nobody in it.
I never have seen a haunted house, but
I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits,
their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn't haunted, and
I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn't be so lonely if it had
a ghost or two.
This house on the road to Suffern needs
a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk
and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and
the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is
some people living inside.
If I had a lot of money and all my debts
were paid
I'd put a gang of men to work with brush
and saw and spade.
I'd buy that place and fix it up the
way it used to be
And I'd find some people who wanted
a home and give it to them free.
Now, a new house standing empty, with
staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like
a hat on its block in the store.
But there's nothing mournful about it;
it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it
that it has never known.
But a house that has done what a house
should do,
a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms
around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby's laugh
and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it's left
alone, that ever your eyes could meet.
So whenever I go to Suffern along the
Erie track
I never go by the empty house without
stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling
roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old
house is a house with a broken heart.
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