Top 500 Poems

William Harmon is the James Gordon Hanes Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is the editor of A Handbook to Literature, The Classic Hundred Poems, and The Oxford Book of American Light Verse, and he is the author of several volumes of poetry, including winners of the Lamont Award and the William Carlos Williams Award.

If your library can buy only one volume of poetry, let this be it. Booklist The Top 500 Poems is intriguing in concept and management, and most of us will want to own it. And for this we are grateful. -- Gwendolyn Brooks, poet A revealing snapshot of one aspect of Western civilization, even including a list of the poems in order of popularity. Globe and Mail The merriest poetry anthology of the past decade... It's everything from 'Sumer is icumen in' to Sylvia Plath's 'Daddy' with terse, plain, and rather wonderful commentary by Harmon. Buffalo News It is rare indeed to come across a book in which wisdom and love come together as powerfully as they do for William Harmon. -- John Frederick Nims, coauthor of Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry

• 1 This Is It! Anonymous (c.1250-c.1350) 7 Cuckoo Song Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400) 8 General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales Anonymous (c.1400-1600) 10 Sir Patrick Spens 14 Western Wind 15 Edward, Edward 18 Thomas the Rhymer 21 The Wife of Usher's Well 23 As You Came from the Holy Land of Walsingham 25 Corpus Christi Carol 26 The Three Ravens 28 Tom o' Bedlam's Song 31 Adam Lay I-bounden 32 Lord Randal 33 The Cherry-Tree Carol 35 The Lord Is My Shepherd 36 I Sing of a Maiden 37 A Lyke-Wake Dirge 39 My Love in Her Attire 40 The Demon Lover 43 Weep You No More, Sad Fountains 44 The Unquiet Grave 46 Waly, Waly John Skelton (1460?-1529) 48 To Mistress Margaret Hussey Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) 50 They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek 52 The Lover Complaineth the Unkindness of His Love 54 Whoso List to Hunt Sir Walter Ralegh (1554?-1618) 55 The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd 57 The LIe 60 Even Such Is Time 61 The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage Edmund Spenser (c.1552-1599) 64 One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand 65 Prothalamion Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) 71 With How Sad Steps, O Moon, Though Climb'st the Skies! 72 Leave Me, O Love, Which Reachest But to Dust 73 My True Love Hath My Heart 74 Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse My Love to Show 75 Come Sleep! O Sleep, the Certain Knot of Peace George Peele (c.1558-1597) 76 His Golden Locks Time Hath to Silver Turned 78 Whenas the Rye Reach the Chin Robert Southwell (c.1561-1595) 79 The Burning Babe Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) 80 Care-Charmer Sleep, Son of the Sable Night Michael Drayton (1536-1593) 81 Since There's No Help, Come Let Us Kiss and Part Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) 82 The Passionate Shepherd to His Love William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 84 That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold 86 Shal I Copmare Thee to a Summer's Day? 87 Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds 88 Fear No MOre the Heat o' the Sun 89 When Icicles Hang by the Wall 90 Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies 91 When to the Sessions of Sweet Siletn Thought 92 O Mistress Mine 93 The Expense of Spirit in a Waste of Shame 94 When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's Eyes 95 When Daisies Pied 96 It Was a Lover and His Lass 97 My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing like the Sun 98 Poor Soul, the Center of My Sinful Earth 99 Hark! Hark! the Lark! 100 Take, O Take Those Lips Away 101 Farewell! Thou Art Too Dear for My Possessing 102 Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I 103 When That I Was and a Little Tiny Boy 104 Full Many a Glorious Morning Have I Seen 105 No Longer Mourn for Me When I Am Dead 106 Tired with All These, for Restful Death I Cry 107 Like as the Waves Make towards the Pebbled Shore 108 When Daffodils Begin to Peer 109 How like a Winter Hath My Absense Been 110 Since Brass, nor Stone, nor Earth, nor Boundless Sea 111 Come Away, Come Away, Death 112 Come unto These Yellow Sands 113 Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred Thomas Campion (1567-1620) 114 My Sweet Lesbia 115 Rose-cheeked Laura 116 There Is a Garden in Her Face 117 Thrice Toss These Oaken Ashes in the Air Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) 118 Adieu, Farewell, Earth's Bliss 120 Spring, the Sweet Spring Chidiock Tichborne (c.1568-1586) 121 Tichborne's Elegy Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) 123 On His Mistress, the Queen of Bohemia John Donne (1572-1631) 125 Death, Be Not Proud 126 Batter My Heart, Three-Person'd God 127 The Good Morrow 128 At the Round EArth's Imagined Corners 129 Go and Catch a Falling Star 131 The Sun Rising 133 A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning 135 A Hymn to God the Father 136 The Ecstasy 139 The Canonization 141 The Flea 143 Hymn to God My God, in My Sickness 145 Sweetest Love, I Do Not Go 147 A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy's Day, Being the Shortest Day 149 The Funeral 150 The Apparition 151 The Relic 153 Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward 155 The Anniversary Ben Johnson (1572-1637) 157 Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes 158 On My First Son 159 Hymn to Diana 160 Still to Be Neat 161 The Triumph of Charis 163 Epitaph on S.P. 164 Slow, Slow, Fresh Fount, Keep Time with My Salt Tears 165 Come, My Celia, Let Us Prove 166 To Pensburst John Webster (c.1578-1632) 170 Call for the Robin Redbreast and the Wren William Browne (c.1590-1645) 171 On the Countess Dowarger of Pembroke Robert Herrick (1591-1674) 172 To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time 173 Upon Julia's Clothes 174 Delight in Disorder 175 To Daffodils 176 The Argument of His Book 177 Corinna's Going a-Maying 180 The Night-Piece to Julia 181 Grace for a Child Henry King, Bishop of Chichester (1592-1669) 182 Exequy on His Wife George Herbert (1593-1633) 186 Love Bade Me Welcome 188 The Collar 190 Virtue 191 The Pulley 192 Redemption 193 Easter Wings 194 Jordan 195 Prayer to the Church's Banquet Thomas Carew (1595-1639) 196 Ask Me No More Where Jove Bestows 198 To My Inconstant Mistress Sir William Davenant (1606-1668) 199 The Lark Now Leaves His Watery Nest Edmund Waller (1606-1687) 200 Go, Lovely Rose 202 On a Girdle John Milton (1608-1674) 203 Lycidas 209 On His Deceased wife 210 On His Blindness 211 On the Late Massacre in Piedmont 212 L'Allegro 217 Il Penseroso Sir John Suckling (1609-1642) 222 Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover? Anne Bradstreet (c.1612-1672) 223 To My Dear and Loving Husband Richard Lovlace (1618-1658) 224 To Lucasta, Going to the Wars 225 To Althea, from Prison 227 The Grasshopper Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) 229 To His Coy Mistress 231 The Garden 234 The Definition of Love 236 Bermudas 238 An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland 242 The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers 244 The Mower to the Glow-Worms 245 A Dialogue between the Soul and Body Henry Vaughan (1622-1695) 247 The Retreat 249 The World 251 They Are All Gone into the World of Light 253 Peace 254 The Night John Dryden (1631-1700) 256 To the Memory of Mr. Oldham 258 Mac Clecknoe 265 A Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687 268 Alexander's Feast; or, The Power of Music Edward Taylor (c.1645-1729) 275 Huswifery Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) 276 A Description of the Morning Alexander Pope (1688-1744) 277 Know Then Thyself 279 Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot 291 An Essay on Criticism Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) 312 A Short Song of Congratulation 314 On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet, a Practiser in Physic 316 The Vanity of Human Wishes: The Tenth Satire of Juvenal Imitated Thomas Gray (1716-1771) 327 Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard 333 Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes William Collins (1721-1759) 335 Ode to Evening 337 How Sleep the Brave Oliver Goldsmith (c.1730-1774) 338 When Lovely Woman Stoops to Folly 339 An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog 341 The Deserted Village William Cowper (1731-1800) 354 Light Shining out of Darkness 356 The Poplar Field Philip Freneau (1752-1832) 357 The Indian Burying Ground William Blake (1757-1827) 359 The Tyger 361 London 362 And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time 363 Piping down the Vailleys Wild 364 The Sick Rose 365 The Lamb 366 Ah! Sun-Flower 367 Hear the Voice of the Bard 368 Auguries of Innocence 372 How Sweet I Roam'd from Field to Field 373 The Little Black Boy 375 A Poison Tree 376 The Chimney Sweeper 378 To the Evening Star 379 The Garden of Love 380 The Clod and the Pebble 381 Holy Thursday 382 Mock On, Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau Robert Burns (1759-1796) 383 A Red, Red Rose 384 To a Mouse on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785 386 John Anderson, My Jo 387 The Banks o' Doon 388 For A' That and A' That 390 Holy Willie's Prayer William Wordsworth (1770-1850) 394 The World Is Too Much with Us 396 I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud 397 Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 398 The Solitary Reaper 400 Ode: Intimations of Imortality from Recollections of Early Childhood 407 Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey Lucy (comprising:) 412 She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways 412 I Traveled among Unkown Men 413 Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known 414 Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower 415 A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal 416 It Is a Beauteous Evening 417 London, 1802 418 My Heart Leaps Up 419 Surprised By Joy 420 She Was a Phantom of Delight 421 Resolution and Independence Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) 426 Proud Maisie 427 Breathes There the Man with Soul So Dead 428 Lochinvar Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) 430 Kubla Khan 433 The Rime of the Ancient Mariner 458 Dejection: An Ode 463 Frost at Midnight Robert Southey (1774-1843) 466 The Battle of Blenheim Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864) 469 Rose Aylmer 470 Dirce 471 I Strove with None, for None Was Worth My Strife 472 Past Ruined Ilion Helen Lives Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) 473 Hohenlinden Clement Clarke Moore (1779-1863) 475 A Visit from St. Nicholas Leigh Hunt *1784-1859) 477 Jenny Kissed Me 478 Abou Ben Adhem George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824) 479 So We'll Go No More a-Roving 481 She Walks in Beauty 482 The Destruction of Sennacherib 484 When We Two Parted 486 The Ocean 489 There Was a Sound of Revelry by Night Charles Wolfe (1791-1823) 493 The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) 495 Ozymandias 497 Ode to the West Wind 500 To a Skylark 504 Music, When Soft Voices Die 505 To Night 507 England in 1819 508 To _____ 509 Adonais John Clarke (1793-1864) 528 I Am William Cullen Bryant *1794-1878) 530 To a Waterfowl 532 Thanatopsis John Keats (1795-1821) 535 To Autumn 537 La Belle Dame sans Merci 539 La Belle Dame sans Merci (Revised Version) 541 On First Looking into Chapman's Homer 542 Ode to a Nightingale 546 Old on a Grecian Urn 548 When I Have Fears 549 Ode on Melancholy 551 The Eve of St. Agnes 565 Bright Star 566 Ode to Psyche Thomas Hood (1799-1845) 569 I Remember, I Remember Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849) 571 Old Adam, the Carrion Crow Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 573 Concord Hymn 574 The Snow-Storm 575 The Rhodora 576 Brahma 577 Fable 578 Days Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) 579 How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) 580 My Lost Youth 584 Paul Revere's Ride 589 Chaucer John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) 590 Barbara Frietchie 593 Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyl Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) 615 The Deacon's Masterpiece; or, The Wonderful "One Hoss Shay" 620 The Chambered Nautilus 622 Old Ironsides Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) 623 To Helen 625 The Raven 631 Annabel Lee 633 The City in the Sea 635 The Bells 639 The Haunted Palace Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809-1892) 641The Splendor Falls 646 Break, Break, Break 644 Crossing the Bar 645 Ulysses 648 The Eagle 649 Tears, Idle Tears 650 Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal 651 The Charge of the Light Brigade 654 Mariana 657 The Lady of Shalott 664 Flower in the Crannied Wall Robert Browning (1812-1889) 665 My Last Duchess 668 Home Thoughts from Abroad 669 Meeting at Night 670 The Year's at the Spring 671 The Bishop Orders His Tomb at St. Praxed's Church 675 Parting at Morning 676 Two in the Campagna Edward Lear (1812-1888) 679 The Owl and the Pussy-Cat 681 The Jumblies Emily Bronte (1818-1848) 684 Remebrance Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) 686 Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth 687 The Latest Decalogue Julia Ward Howe (1819-1892) 688 The Battle Hymn of the Republic 690 A Noiseless Patient Spider 692 O Captain! My Captain! 694 When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd 704 I Hear America Singing 705 Cavalry Crossing a Ford Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) 706 Dover Beach 708 The Scholar-Gipsy William Allingham (1824-1889) 717 The Fairies George Meredith (1824-1909) 719 Lucifer in Starlight 720 Thus Piteously Love Closed What He Begat Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) 721 The Blessed Damozel 727 The Woodspurge Emily Dickinson (1860-1886) 728 "Because I could not stop for Death" 730 "I heard a Fly buzz--when I died" 731 "A narrow Fellow in the Grass" 732 There's a certain Slant of light" 733 "A Bird came down the Walk" 734 "The Soul selects her own Society" 735 "I like to see it lap the Miles" 736 "My life closed twice before its close" 737 "Success is counted sweetest" 738 "I taste a liquor never brewed" 739 "After great pain, a formal feeling comes" 740 "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" 741 "I never saw a Moor" 742 "Much Madness is divinest Sense" Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) 743 When I Am Dead 744 Up-Hill 745 A Birthday 746 Remember "Lewis Carroll" (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832-1898) 747 Jabberwocky 749 The Walrus and the Carpenter 753 Father William 755 I'll Tell Thee Everything I Can 758 How Doth the Little Crocodile Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) 759 The Yarn of the Nancy Bell Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) 763 When the Hounds of Spring Are on Winter's Traces 766 The Garden of Prosperpine Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) 770 The Darkling Thrush 772 The Oxen 773 In Time of "The Breaking of Nations" 774 Channel Firing 776 Afterwards 777 The Convergence of the Twain 779 The Man He Killed 780 Neutral Tones 781 The Ruined Maid 783 The Voice 784 During Wind and Rain Robert Bridges (1844-1930) 786 London Snow 788 Nightingales Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) 789 Pied Beauty 790 The Windhover 792 God's Grandeur 793 Spring and Fall 794 Felix Randal 795 No Worst, There Is None 796 Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord 797 Spring 798 Heaven-Haven 799 Inversnaid 800 The Habit of Perfection 802 Carrion Comfort Eugene Field (1850-1895) 803 Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 805 The Duel Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) 807 Requiem Edwin Markham (1852-1904) 808 The Man with the Hoe Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) 810 The Ballad of Reading Gaol Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) 833 Loveliest of Trees 834 To an Athlete Dying Young 836 With Rue My Heart Is Laden 837 When I Was One-and-Twenty 838 Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff 841 Into My Heart an Air That Kills 842 On Wenlock Edge 843 The Hound of Heaven Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) 849 Recessional 851 Danny Deever William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) 853 The Second Coming 855 Sailing to Byzantium 857 Leda and the Swan 858 The Lake Isle of Innisfree 859 When You Are Old 860 Among School Children 863 An Irish Airman Foresees His Death 864 Easter, 1916 867 The Wild Swans at Coole 869 The Circus Animals' Desertion 871 A Prayer for My Daughter 874 Lapis Lazuli 876 The Song of Wandering Aengus 877 No Second Troy Gelett Burgess (1866-1951) 878 The Purple Cow Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) 879 Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae 880 Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) 881 Anne Rutledge Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) 882 Mr. Flood's Party 885 Miniver Cheevy 887 Richard Cory 888 Eros Turannos 890 For a Dead Lady 891 Luke Havergal William Henry Davies (1871-1940) 893 Leisure Walter de la Mare (1873-1956) 896 Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 897 Mending Wall 899 Fire and Ice 900 The Road Not Taken 901 Birches 903 After Apple-Picking 905 Acquainted with the Night 906 Provide, Provide 907 The Gift Outright 908 Directive 910 Design John Masefield (1878-1967) 911 Cargoes Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) 912 Chicago 914 Fog 915 Cool Tombs 916 Grass Edward Thomas (1878-1917) 917 The Owl Vachel Lindsay (1879-1931) 918 Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) 920 Sunday Morning 925 Anecdote of the Jar 926 The Emperor of Ice-Cream 927 The Idea of Order at Key West 929 Peter Quince at the Clavier 932 Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) 935 The Red Wheelbarrow 936 The Dance 937 Spring and All 939 The Yachts David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) 941 Piano 942 Snake 946 Bavarian Gentians Ezra Pound (1885-1972) 948 The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter 950 In a Station of the Metro Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) 951 The Soldier Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962 952 Hurt Hawks 954 Shine, Perishing Republic Marianne Moore (1887-1972) 955 Poetry 957 A Grave Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) 959 Still Falls the Rain Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) 961 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock 966 Journey of the Magi 968 The Waste Land 982 Sweeney among the Nightingales 984 Gerontion 987 Little Gidding John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974) 995 Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter 997 Piazza Piece Claude McKay (1890-1948) 998 If We Must Die Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) 999 Break of Day in the Trenches Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982) 1001 You, Andrew Marvell 1003 Ars Poetica 1005 The End of the World Wilfred Own (1893-1918) 1006 Anthem for Doomed Youth 1007 Dulce et Decorum Est 1008 Strange Meeting 1010 Greater Love Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962) 1011 anyone lived in a pretty how town 1013 "next to of course god america i" Hart Crane (1899-1832) 1014 To Brooklyn Bridge Allen Tate (1899-1879) 1017 Ode to the Confederate Dead Langston Hughes (1902-1967) 1021 The Negro Speaks of Rivers Stevie Smith (1902-1971) 1022 Not Waving But Drowning Richard Eberhart (b.1904) 1023 The Fury of Aerial Bombardment 1024 The Groundhog Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) 1026 Musee des Beaux Arts 1028 In Memory of W.B. Yeats 1031 Lullaby Louis MacNeice (1907-1963) 1033 Bagpipe Music Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) 1035 My Papa's Waltz 1036 I Knew a Woman 1038 The Waking 1039 Elegy for Jane 1040 In a Dark Time Sir Stephen Spender (b.1909) 1041 I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) 1043 The Fish Robert Hayden (1913-1980) 1046 Those Winter Sundays Randall Jarrell (1914-1986) 1048 Naming of Parts Dylan Thomas (1914-1953) 1050 Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night 1052 Fern Hill 1054 A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London 1056 The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower Gwendolyn Brooks (b.1917) 1057 We Real Cool Robert Lowell (1917-1977) 1058 Skunk Hour 1061 For the Union Dead 1064 Mr. Edward and the Spider Richard Wilbur (b.1921) 1066 Love Calls Us to the things of This World Philip Larkin (1922-1985 1068 Church Going Allen Ginsberg (b.1926) 1071 A Supermarket in California Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) 1073 Daddy 1077 The Poems in Order of Popularity 1093 Acknowledgements 1099 Index of Poets 1105 Index of Titles and First Lines