Of course, this list is fluid and anything but final. It is much to hard to ever be satisfied
with a list of merely ten poems, for how many poems must you leave out?
1. "O Captain my Captain", Walt Whitman
2. "Dulce et Decorum est", Wilfred Owens
3. "Lucinda Matlock" (from Spoon River Anthology), Edgar Lee Masters
4. The Aenied, Virgil
5. "Harlem", Langston Hughes
6. "The Raven", Edgar Allan Poe
7. The lyrics of “Something”, George Harrison
8. "The Tyger", William Blake
9. "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death", W.B. Yeats
10. "The Wasteland", T.S. Eliot
Excerpt from "O Captain! My Captain!"
My Captain does not answer me, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has not pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object one;
Exult! O shores, and ring, O! bells
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies
Fallen cold and dead.
I like the Harrison nod in there. Also, if you like Masters, I think you might also like Edwin Arlington Robinson's work--some beautiful, often tragic character sketches, many of which are set the fictitious Tilbury Town.
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