World Poetry Day

The rhythm of the tongue brings wordless music into the air; it is in poetry that the human essence is refined to such ritualistic purity. It's in the steady beats, the sonorous rise-and-fall of speech; for a moment it appears as if all the mysteries of the world have unlocked themselves to our private view. 

It's these works which are celebrated on World Poetry Day, falling on 21 March (yesterday), in which UNESCO recognizes the moving spirit of poetry and its transformative effect on culture. 

In honor of these celebrations, below is a small collection of parts of poems from 25 of the greatest poets and some of the most powerful words written in poetic form in history.

Emily Dickinson

'Because I could not stop for Death'

Because I could not stop for Death, 

He kindly stopped for me; 

The carriage held but just ourselves 

And Immortality 

Oscar Wilde

'To My Wife'

And when wind and winter harden 

All the loveless land, 

It will whisper of the garden, 

You will understand 

Gwendolyn MacEwen

'Dark Pines Under Water'

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper 

And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper 

In an elementary world; There is something down there and you want it told 

T.S Eliot

'The Hollow Men'

This is the way the world ends 

not with a bang but a whimper 

Sylvia Plath

'Lady Lazarus'

Out of the ash I rise 

With my red hair 

And I eat men like air

'Daddy'

At twenty I tried to die 

And get back, back, back to you. 

I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack, 

And they stuck me together with glue 

Wilfred Owen

'Dulce et Decorum est'

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Neruda

'Sonnet XVII'

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved 

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

Margaret Atwood

'Variation on the Word Sleep'

I would like to be the air 

that inhabits you for a moment 

only. I would like to be that unnoticed 

& that necessary 

e e cummings 

'the boys i mean are not refined'

they speak whatever’s on their mind 

they do whatever’s in their pants 

the boys i mean are not refined 

they shake the mountains when they dance 

Walt Whitman

'O Captain! My Captain!'

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; 

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won  

'Leaves of Grass'

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love 

If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles

Allen Ginsberg

'Song'

The weight of the world 

is love 

Under the burden 

of solitude, 

under the burden 

of dissatisfaction 

the weight, 

the weight we carry 

is love 

'Howl'

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, 

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix 

angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night

Maya Angelou

'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings'

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill

Of things unknown but longed for still

And his tune is heard on the distant hill

For the caged bird sings of freedom

'Still I Rise'

You may write me down in history 

With your bitter, twisted lies, 

You may trod me in the very dirt 

But still, like dust, I’ll rise 

William Butler Yeats 

The Second Coming'

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 

The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst  

Are full of passionate intensity '

Edna St. Vincent Millay 

'Dirge Without Music'

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave 

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; 

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. 

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned 

Alexander Pope

'Eloisa to Abelard'

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! 

The world forgetting, by the world forgot. 

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! 

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

William Shakespeare

'Sonnet 116'

Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove: 

O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, 

That looks on tempests, and is never shake

Ezra Pound

'A Girl'

Tree you are, 

Moss you are, 

You are violets with wind above them. 

A child - so high - you are, 

And all this is folly to the world

Charles Bukowski 

'The Unblinking Grief’

you are much more than simply dead

I am a dish for your ashes 

I am a fist for your vanished air 

the most terrible thing about life 

is finding it gone 

Elizabeth Barret Browning

Sonnet 43

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

Shel Silverstein

'Masks'

She had blue skin,

and so did he.

He kept it hid

and so did she.

They looked for blue

their whole life through.

Then passed right by—

and never knew 

Dylan Thomas

'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'

Do not go gentle into that good night, 

Old age should burn and rave at close of day; 

Rage, rage against the dying of the light 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’

Water, water, every where, 

And all the boards did shrink; 

Water, water, every where 

Nor any drop to drink 

Langston Hughes

'Let America Be America Again’

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart 

I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars 

I am the red man driven from the land, 

I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek - 

And finding only the same old stupid plan 

Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak 

Siegfried Sassoon

'Suicide in the Trenches’

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye 

Who cheer when soldier lads march by, 

Sneak home and pray you'll never know 

The hell where youth and laughter go

Robert Frost

Nothing Gold Can Stay

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay. 

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.