1998 Students' Favorite Poems

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“Annabel Lee”

by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love-

I and my Annabel Lee;

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsman came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,

Went envying her and me-

Yes!-that was was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we-

Of many far wiser than we-

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling-my darling-my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

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“No, Thank You, John”

by Christina Rossetti

I never said I loved you, John:

Why will you teaze me day by day,

And wax a weariness to think upon

With always “do” and “pray”?

You know I never loved you, John;

No fault of mine made me your toast:

Why will you haunt me with a face as wan

As shows an hour-old ghost?

I dare say Meg or Moll would take

Pity upon you, if you'd ask:

And pray don't remain single for my sake

Who can't perform that task.

I have no heart? - Perhaps I have not;

But then you're mad to take offence

That I don't give you what I have not got:

Use your own common sense.

Let bygones be bygones:

Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:

I'd rather answer “No” to fifty Johns

Than answer “Yes” to you.

Let's mar our pleasant days no more,

Song-birds of passage, days of youth:

Catch at today, forget the days before:

I'll wink at your untruth.

Let us strike hands as hearty friends;

No more, no less; and friendship's good:

Only don't keep in view ulterior ends,

And points not understood

In open treaty. Rise above

Quibbles and shuffling off and on:

Here's friendship for you if you like; but love,-

No, thank you, John.

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"Fire and Ice"

by Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

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"i sing of Olaf glad and big"

ee cummings

i sing of Olaf glad and big

whose warmest heart recoiled at war:

a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel (trig

westpointer most succinctly bred)

took erring Olaf soon in hand;

but-through an host of overjoyed

noncoms (first knocking on the head

him) do through icy waters roll

that helplessness which others stroke

with brushes recently employed

anent this muddy toiletbowl,

while kindred intellects evoke

allegiance per blunt instruments-

Olaf (being to all intents

a corpse and wanting any rag

upon what God unto him gave)

responded, without getting annoyed

"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave

(departing hurriedly to shave)

but-though all kinds of officers

(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)

their passive prey did kick and curse

until for wear their clarion

voices and boots were much the worse,

and egged the firstclassprivates on

his rectum wickedly to tease

by means of skilfully applied

bayonets roasted hot with heat-

Olaf (upon what were once knees)

does almost ceaselessly repeat

"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president, being of which

assertations duly notified

threw the yellowsonofabitch

into a dungeon, where he died

Christ (of His mercy infinite)

i pray to see; and Olaf, too

preponderatingly because

unless statistics lie he was

more brave than me: more blond than you.

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“Mending Wall”

by Robert Frost

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

ëStay where you are until our backs are turned!í

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees well never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put notion in his head:

“Why do they make good neighbors?” Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesnít love a wall,

That wants it down. I could say “Elves” to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

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“The Wayfarer”

The wayfarer,

Perceiving the pathway to truth,

Was struck with astonishment.

It was thickly grown with weeds.

"Ha," he said,

"I see that none has passed here

In a long time."

Later he saw that each weed

Was a singular knife.

"Well," he mumbled at last,

"Doubtless there are other roads."

XXII

When the prophet, a complacent fat man,

Arrived at the mountain-top,

He cried: "Woe to my knowledge!

I intended to see good white lands

And bad black lands,

But the scene is grey."

VI

God fashioned the ship of the world carefully.

With the infinite skill of an All-Master

Made He the hull and the sails,

Held He the rudder

Ready for adjustment.

Erect stood He, scanning His work proudly.

Then -- at fateful time -- a wrong called,

And God turned, heeding.

Lo, the ship, at this opportunity, slipped slyly,

Making cunning noiseless travel down the ways.

So that, forever rudderless, it went upon the seas

Going ridiculous voyages,

Making quaint progress,

Turning as with serious purpose

Before stupid winds.

And there were many in the sky

Who laughed at this thing.

IX

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

and carousing in sin.

One looked up, grinning,

And said, "Comrade! Brother!"

XX

A learned man came to me once.

He said, "I know the way, -- come."

And I was overjoyed at this.

Together we hastened.

Soon, too soon, were we

Where my eyes were useless,

And I knew not the ways of my feet.

I clung to the hand of my friend;

But at last he cried, "I am lost."

XXIV

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;

Round and round they sped.

I was disturbed at this;

I accosted the man.

"It is futile," I said,

"You can never -- "

"You lie," he cried,

And ran on.

XXXI

Many workmen

Built a huge ball of masonry

Upon a mountain-top.

Then they went to the valley below,

And turned to behold their work.

"It is grand," they said;

They loved the thing.

Of a sudden, it moved:

It came upon them swiftly;

It crushed them all to blood.

But some had opportunity to squeal.

XXXV

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;

He climbed for it,

And eventually he achieved it --

It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:

When the man went to the earth

And looked again,

Lo, there was the ball of gold.

Now this is the strange part:

It was a ball of gold.

Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

XXXVI

I met a seer.

He held in his hands

The book of wisdom.

"Sir," I addressed him,

"Let me read."

"Child -- " he began.

"Sir," I said,

"Think not that I am a child,

For already I know much

Of that which you hold.

Aye, much."

He smiled.

Then he opened the book

And held it before me. --

Strange that I should have grown so suddenly blind.

XXXIX

The livid lightnings flashed in the clouds;

The leaden thunders crashed.

A worshipper raised his arm.

"Hearken! Hearken! The voice of God!"

"Not so," said a man.

"The voice of God whispers in the heart

So softly

That the soul pauses,

Making no noise,

And strives for these melodies,

Distant, sighing, like faintest breath,

And all the being is still to hear."

XLIV

I was in the darkness;

I could not see my words

Nor the wishes of my heart.

Then suddenly there was a great light --

"Let me into the darkness again."

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“Block City”

Robert Louis Stevenson

What are you able to build with your blocks?

Castles and palaces, temples and docks.

Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,

But I can be happy and building at home.

Let the sofa be mountains, the carpet be sea,

There I'll establish a city for me:

A kirk and a mill and a palace beside,

And a harbor as well where my vessels may ride.

Great is the palace with pillar and wall,

A sort of a tower on the top of it all,

And steps coming down in an orderly way

To where my toy vessels lie safe in the bay.

This one is sailing and that one is moored:

Hark to the song of the sailors on board!

And see, on the steps of my palace, the kings

Coming and going with presents and things!

Now I have done with it, down let it go!

All in a moment the town is laid low.

Block upon block lying scattered and free,

What is there left of my town by the sea?

Yet as I saw it, I see it again,

The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men,

And as long as I live and where'er I may be,

I'll always remember my town by the sea.

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“The Road not Taken”

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

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 by,

And that has made all the difference.

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“A Dream Within a Dream”

by Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

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“anyone lived in a pretty how town”

by - e. e. cummings

anyone lived in a pretty how town

(with up so floating many bells down)

spring summer autumn winter

he sang his didn't he danced his did.

Women and men(both little and small)

cared for anyone not at all

they sowed their isn't they reaped their same

sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few

and down they forgot as up they grew

autumn winter spring summer)

that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf

she laughed his joy she cried his grief

bird by snow and stir by still

anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones

laughed their cryings and did their dance

(sleep wake hope and then)they

said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon

(and only the snow can begin to explain

how children are apt to forget to remember

with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess

(and noone stooped to kiss his face)

busy folk buried them side by side

little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep

and more by more they dream their sleep

noone and anyone earth by april

wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)

summer autumn winter spring

reaped their sowing and went their came

sun moon stars rain

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“Luke Havergal”

by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,--

There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,--

And in the twilight wait for what will come.

The leaves will whisper there of her, and some,--

Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;

But go, and if you listen she will call.

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal--

Luke Havergal.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies

To rift the fiery night that's in your eyes;

But there, where western glooms are gathering,

The dark will end the dark, if anything:

God slays Himself with every leaf that flies,

And hell is more than half of paradise.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies--

In eastern skies.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this,--

Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss

That flames upon your forehead with a glow

That blinds you to the way that you must go.

Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,--

Bitter, but one that faith may never miss.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this--

To tell you this.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal,

There are the crimson leaves upon the wall.

Go,--for the winds are tearing them away,--

Nor think to riddle the dead words they say,

Nor any more to feel them as they fall;

But go! and if you trust her she will call.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal--

Luke Havergal.

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