Immortal Poems of the English Language, edited by Oscar Williams

For our next meeting, I'd like us to read a selection of memorable poems! I think such a read is a good idea for the fall season. I will select about 8-10 poems and add them here (soon). You are welcome to send me the titles of poems from the anthology that you might like us to discuss.

The image, above, is from the most recent edition of the book, which has been in print for at least fifty years. But there are earlier editions available from different websites offering used books for around $5, and it is also available online as a free pdf. (You can also use another collection that contains all or most of the poems I've listed below!)

From Simon and Schuster, the publisher's website:

"A timeless and comprehensive anthology of enduring English language poetry, featuring entries from 150 British and American poets, including Alexander Pope, Lord Byron, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Emily Dickinson.

The last six hundred years in British and American literature have given us some of the most moving and memorable poems in all literature. Now, discover many of these same works in one gorgeously wrought collection, featuring entries from poets as legendary and beloved as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Ralph Waldo Emerson, D.H. Lawrence, and many more.

From Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberywocky” to Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and from Shakespeare’s sonnets to anonymous classics, this is the ultimate gift for poetry lovers of all ages and backgrounds. Arranged chronologically, the 150 poems featured in this stunning collection reflect the immortality of the poetic soul."

INTERNET ARCHIVE COPY OF IMMORTAL POEMS

If there's a poem in the volume you'd like to discuss, send me the title (and maybe a note or question) at sharonmaselli47@gmail.com

HERE ARE THE POEMS WE WILL READ. I will have a couple of general questions and then the others from the groups. Enjoy!

Early Anonymous Poems
Lord Randal (12-13)
Sir Patrick Spens (11-12)
Old Age
Ulysses, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (337)
Among School Children, W.B. Yeats (438-440)
Elegies
O Captain! My Captain! Walt Whitman (367)
In Memory of W.B. Yeats, W.H. Auden (519)
A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London, Dylan Thomas (546)
Love
O Western Wind, Anonymous (6)
The Good Morrow, John Donne (67)
Farewell to Love, Michael Drayton (34)
Take, O Take Those Lips Away, William Shakespeare (41)
Death
Death Be Not Proud, John Donne (73)
Because I Could Not Stop for Death, Emily Dickinson (396)
Full Fathom Five, William Shakespeare (42)
Poetry
A Sweet Disorder, Robert Herrick (80-81)
Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments, William Shakespeare (46)
Poetry, Marianne Moore, 475-6
War
Channel Firing**,** Thomas Hardy, (404-5)
Naming of Parts, Henry Reed (539)
Arms and the Boy, Wilfred Owen (492)
Civilization
The World Is Too Much with Us, William Wordsworth (230)
Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley (353)
Nature
To Autumn, John Keats (292)
To-night the Winds Begin, Alred, Lod Tennyson (351)
Pied Beauty, Gerard Manley Hopkins (409)
Miscellaneous Nice Poems!
Musee des Beaux Arts, W.H.Auden (518)
On His Blindness, John Milton (88)
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind, William Shakespeare (38)