John Adams said take along a book and you’re never alone; Churchill said if you’ve memorized enough poetry you are never bored.

26.

But the Consul’s brow was sad, and the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
“Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down;
And if they once might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?”

27.

Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,

28.

And for the tender mother who ****ed him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses his baby at her ****t,
And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false ***tus, that wrought the deed of shame?

29.

Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path, a thousand may well be stopped by three:
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?’

30.

Then out spake Spurius Lartius; a Ramnian proud was he:
“Lo, I will stand at thy right hand and keep the bridge with thee.”
And out spake strong Herminius; of Titian blood was he:
“I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee.”

31.

“Horatius,” quoth the Consul, “as thou sayest, so let it be.”
And straight against that great array forth went the dauntless Three.

For that matter, what kid could resist the images in Southey’s Battle of Blenheim, ploughing up skulls, rotting corpses, and the refrain for out times:

But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory

I would add The Gettysburg Address, the Preamble to the Constitution, and (gasp!) Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden. I decided to memorize that one myself in 9th grade, when I realized it had nothing to do with race and everything to do with western cultural responsibility. My first time thumbing the nose at political correctness. Life has not been the same since.

On a more serious note, I’ve always had a soft spot for Kipling’s “The Sons of Martha”.

I’m amazed nobody’s come up with some of the more obscure Carroll, such as “The White Knight’s Tale”, or a selection from “The Hunting of the Snark”.

“I tell you once,
I tell you twice,
What I tell you three times is true…”

“Give All to Love” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

“To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell.

“Changes” by Robert Bulwer-Lytton.

Then, of course, there are all the poems that have been set to music that we call “songs.” Take away the music and explore the symbolism of the words.

Ah, to be young and ignorant again. Youth departs; ignorance increases. -cp

When I’ve tried it, the verses pop out as if in relief. The meter’s there, all right, but it no longer straitjackets the words, and this prevents the sing-song effect..

It even works for song lyrics, such as Springsteen’s “Born to Run” or The Eagles “Life in the Fast Lane”. Spoken lyrics can be surprisingly effective when broken out of the rhythmic constraints of the music.

In Eddie and the Cruisers, the band’s lyricist-to-be teaches Eddie about the importance of inserting just the right pause, or caesura, in a line of poetry. That clip ought to be a part of every poetry introduction. (Can’t find a Youtube of it. Darn.)

One more poem suggestion: “The Theory That Jack Built”, from Winsor and Perry’s Space Child’s Mother Goose.

I would include Newbolt’s *Vitai Lampada*, though boys would likely favour it more. Also - Cooke’s *How Did You Die?*, Shelley’s *Ozymandias*, Milton’s *Sonnet: On His Blindness*, Sandburg’s *Grass*, Edna Wilcox’ *Solitude*, Sills’ *Opportunity*, McCrae’s *In Flanders Fields*, & Magee’s *High Flight*. All of these were taught to me when I was younger, though they’re not stylish now.

In the same vein, I would recommend Brecht’s *The Solution* & “What If They Gave a War and Nobody Came?*, though originally in German.

And then there is an anonymous poem called “The Little Red God” (see below). It is so much in the style of Lindsay that it’s hard to believe he didn’t write it. I originally encountered it in a paperback book of verse titled American Ballads that appeared during the 1950s and have never seen it anywhere else. (It’s on the internet today, probably scanned from American Ballads, judging from the type face it appears in.) It is sort of an “If” for Americans, and if there was ever a poem that will persuade teenage boys that poetry isn’t for wimps this is it. It may flunk the doggerel test, but I would argue that it’s doggerel that transcends itself. It also has Hip Hop qualities too it. Talk about your earworm.

The Little Red God

Here’s a little red song to the god of guts,
Who dwells in palaces, brothels, huts;
The little Red God with the craw of grit;
The god who never learned how to quit;
He is neither a fool with a frozen smile,
Or sad old toad in a cask of bile;
He can dance with a shoe-nail in his heel
And never a sign of his pain reveal;
He can hold a mob with an empty gun
And turn a tragedy into fun;
Kill a man in a flash, a breath,
Or snatch a friend from the claws of death;
Swallow the pill of assured defeat
And plan attack in his slow retreat;
Spin the wheel till the numbers dance
And bit his thumb at the god of Chance;
Drink straight water with whisky-soaks,
Or call for liquor with temperance folks;
Tearless stand at the graven stone,
Yet weep in the silence of night, alone;
Worship a sweet, white virgin’s glove,
Or teach a courtesan how to love;
Dare the dullness of fireside bliss,
Or stake his soul for a wanton’s kiss;
Blind his soul to a woman’s eyes
When she says she loves and he knows she lies;
Shovel dung in the city mart
To earn a crust for his chosen art;
Build where the builders all have failed,
And sail the seas that no man has sailed;
Run a tunnel or dam a stream,
Or damn the men who finance the dream;
Tell a pal what his work is worth,
Though he lose his last, best friend on earth;
Lend the critical monkey-elf
A razor — hoping he’ll kill himself;
Wear the garments he likes to wear,
Never dreaming that people stare;
Go to church if his conscience wills,
Or find his own — in the far, blue hills.
He is kind and gentle, or harsh and gruff;
He is tender as love — or he’s rawhide tough;
A rough-necked rider in spurs and chaps,
Or well-groomed son of the town — perhaps;
And this is the little Red God I sing,
Who cares not a wallop for anything
That walks or gallops, that crawls or struts,
No matter how clothed — if it hasn’t got guts.
– Unknown

But there is neither East, nor West,
Border nor breed nor birth,
When two strong men stand face-to-face,
Though they come from the ends of the Earth.

Joyce Kilmer’s “The House With Nobody In It”

Rudyard Kipling’s “South Africa” and “The Power of the Dog”

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “Sonnet XXVI”

Charles Wolfe’s “To Mary”

Robert Service’s “The Lone Trail”

And, doggerel though it may be, Little Thomas

From “Nothing But Praise” by Lt. Henry G. Lee.

“Prayer Before Battle (To Mars)”
(December 8, 1941)
Before thine ancient altar, God of War,
Forlorn, afraid, alone, I kneel to pray.
The gentle shepherd whom I would adore,
Faced by thy blazing plaything, slips away.
And I am drained of faith — alone — alone.
Who now needs faith to face thy out thrust sword,
Bereft of hope, turned to pagan to the bone.
I kneel to thee and hail thee as my Lord.
From such a God as thee, I ask not life,
My life is forfeited, the hour is late.
Thou need not swerve the bullet, dull the knife.
I ask but strength to ride the wave of fate.
And one thing more — to validate this strife,
And my own sacrifice — teach me to hate.

“Three Years After”
(December 8, 1944)
“Teach me to hate,” I prayed — for I was young,
And fear was in my heart, and faith had fled.
“Teach me to hate! for hate is strength,” I said
“A staff to lean on.” Thus my challenge flung
Into the thunder of the clouds that hung
Cloaking with terror all the days ahead –
“Teach me to hate — the world I loved is dead;
Who would survive must learn a savage tongue.”

And I have learned — and paid in days that ran
To bitter schooling. Love was lost in pains,
Hunger replaced the beauty in life’s plan,
Honor and virtue vanished with the rains
And faith in God dissolved with faith in man.
I have my hate! But nothing else remains.

“On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”
John Keats

“Buffalo Bill’s Defunct”
E.E. Cummings

“Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries”
AE Housman

“Crossing the Bar”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

“On His Blindness”
John Milton

“The Hound of Heaven”
Francis Thompson

“The Hollow Men”
TS Eliot

“The Naming of Parts
Henry Reed

I remember these poems to this day; and can recite them.
They are all top-hotch. These are still my favorites.

I look forward to teaching these to my little son when he is old enough.

Sir John Suckling. 1609–1642

327. Why so Pale and Wan?

WHY so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can’t move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?

Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
Saying nothing do ‘t?
Prithee, why so mute?

Quit, quit for shame! This will not move;
This cannot take her.
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her:
The devil take her!

Alas…. This one has given me comfort more than a couple of times. Heh….

If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Visit the poetry workshop at Eratosphere sometime. You might be surprised by how many talented people are still trying to keep the tradition of versecraft alive.

Primer Lesson

Look out how you use proud words.
When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.
They wear long boots, hard boots; they walk off proud; they can’t hear you calling–
Look out how you use proud words.

Carl Sandburg

1)”The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens,” traditional
2)”On Moonlit Heath and Lonesome Bank,” Houseman
3)”Tom O’Bedlam’s Song,” traditional, especially suitable for Halloween
3)The WWII air force poems of Randall Jarrell–”Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is apparently often assigned, but there are lots more. Sample:

In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school–
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, “Our casualties were low.”

They said, “Here are the maps”; we burned the cities.

In a dream I walked with God
through the deep places of creation;
past walls that receded and gates that opened,
through hall after hall of silence, darkness and refreshment — the dwelling place of souls acquainted with light and warmth — until around me was an infinity into which we all flowed together and lived anew,
like the rings made by raindrops falling upon wide expanses of calm dark waters.

I’ll be bookmarking this page to use in our homeschool. Thanks.

Jim
There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo–
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which I now relate.

You know–or at least you ought to know,
For I have often told you so–
That Children never are allowed
To leave their Nurses in a Crowd;
Now this was Jim’s especial Foible,
He ran away when he was able,
And on this inauspicious day
He slipped his hand and ran away!

He hadn’t gone a yard when–Bang!
With open Jaws, a lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The Boy: beginning at his feet.
Now, just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels,
And then by gradual degrees,
Your shins and ankles, calves and knees,
Are slowly eaten, bit by bit.
No wonder Jim detested it!
No wonder that he shouted “Hi!”

The Honest Keeper heard his cry,
Though very fat he almost ran
To help the little gentleman.
“Ponto!” he ordered as he came
(For Ponto was the Lion’s name),
“Ponto!” he cried, with angry Frown,
“Let go, Sir! Down, Sir! Put it down!”
The Lion made a sudden stop,
He let the Dainty Morsel drop,
And slunk reluctant to his Cage,
Snarling with Disappointed Rage.
But when he bent him over Jim,
The Honest Keeper’s Eyes were dim.
The Lion having reached his Head,
The Miserable Boy was dead!

When Nurse informed his Parents, they
Were more Concerned than I can say:–
His Mother, as She dried her eyes,
Said, “Well–it gives me no surprise,
He would not do as he was told!”
His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James’s miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.

However, after a few decades, it helps to have at least attempted a few lightly-traveled roads. You won’t have to reproach yourself for missing your particular gold mine. If you’ve tried those roads, you’ll know it wasn’t there. If you haven’t, you don’t really know. You don’t know if you missed something precious because courage failed.

WHENAS in silks my Julia goes
Then, then (methinks) how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
O how that glittering taketh me!
–Wobut Hewwick

Also:
“The Bells” by Edgar Allan Poe - impossible NOT to memorize! I first heard this when our Rabbi - an otherwise very stern man - joyously recited it during our morning car-pool to school.

“The Listeners” by Walter de la Mare

“Go and Catch a Falling Star” by John Donne - very topical for teenage boys!

“To a Skylark” by Shelley

“The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy - very accessible poem about the dillemmas of war, as is:

“As Toilsome I wandered Virginia’s Woods” by Whitman

How about a little satire:

“In Westminster Abbey” by Betjeman

“Resume” or other poems by Dorothy Parker

You listed Roethke - we did “My Papa’s Waltz” which takes a child’s perspective

And if you want a double earworm, listen to Phil Ochs’s musical version of Poe’s “The Bells.” Here’s a slightly different excerpt, with better audio quality, I think (scroll down to click on the song).

Matthew Arnold would be my Victorian. “Dover Beach” concentrates on the decline of faith over the centuries. He is a man living during the Industrial Revolution and bearing witness to the effect the rise of science had on belief. It also has haunting imagery and a sad description of what the world has become.

My selection of Donne would be Sermon 17, or “No Man is an Island.” Not just for the most famous words, but the ones about each life being translated by war, or pain, or justice until it becomes a leaf in one of the books that lie open to each other in Heaven. It’s a poem that would tell kids that each life is precious.

There are so many great poems to uplift and enrich and deepen. What children are exposed to in school is a travesty.

It’s dark and depressing but “too much?”, I dunno. Dickinson’s the only poetry reading in 10th-grade Am-Lit that I actually found even vaguely interesting. I could not for all the tea in China name any other author I was exposed to in that course (I could make lots of obvious guesses, but not a single one actually stuck in my head), so, I think she needs to be included for approachability if nothing else. You might want to discuss the depressive themes explciitly to counter any developmental obsession, but it can also be used as an entry into some interesting discussion about copyright law and author’s rights. She directed that all her unpublished stuff be destroyed by her estate. Luckily, they did not do so — and it has all survived her death. This could be the basis for some lively discussion on the rights of authors over their works.

I personally tend towards the social gain theory — if you didn’t want anyone to have it, you should have destroyed it before anyone else got access to it. After that, it has a certain societal ownership as to access and use (society still owes you a reward for it, but as to access and use, you lost that when you chose to take it public).

Ulysses is one of Tennyson’s greatest poems but perhaps too long for easy memorisation.

T S Elliot: The Love Song of J Alfred Profrock they won’t understand it, but how can you resist: Between the rooms the women come and go, talking of Michaelangelo or I have measured out my life with coffee spoons and finally

[with apologies for any misquote]

Wilfred Owen: Dulce Est Decorum Est - gotta love the WW1 poets. They should also be introduced to Sassoon: “I am the enemy you killed, my friend” there’s years of mental chewing in that one.

The Twa Corbies: the language is great and its the first murder mystery: nobody knows about the murdered knight “but his hawk and his hound and his lady fair”. Creepy but not too creepy, and most kids love the pecking out of eyes bit.

Keats: When I have fears that I may cease to be - that usually resonates with teenagers. Ok, he died of TB, but we have drugs for that today. And it offers practical advice for overcoming depression.

Shelley’s Ozymandias is good too. “Look on my works ye mighty and despair” I recall the boys went for that one.

I like your list too - 10 is too few.

He thought he saw a banker’s clerk
Descending from a bus
He looked again and saw it was
A hippopotamus
‘If this should stay to dine’, he said
‘There won’t be much for us!’

He thought he’d found an argument
That proved he was the Pope
He looked again and found it was
A bar of mottled soap
‘A fact so dread’, he faintly said
‘Extinguishes all hope!’

A modern woman yet excels with sonnets which is one reason to recommend one that is a little offbeat in structure and expressive of the woman’s experience as one of the great struggles of mankind marches on:

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
“What a big book for such a little head!”
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading anymore:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

Many people feel that these issues are resolved and/or grown tiresome or stirring up trouble. Not so. e.g. my first husband. He was hip, rock and roll, well-educated professional from a family the same, Berkeley grad, fully informed of the p.c. du jour that putting women down was fully outre’.
And he would never have believed me if I hadn’t been too frightened to tell him (can o’ worms) that every time I started to tell him an opinion, theory, analysis of my own making, he would cut me off and dismiss my ideas as “sociology”! “More sociology.” (Sociology being a “soft science”) Disappointing, frustrating, maddening, hateful, substituted for, grew further and further apart until we couldn’t reach each other any longer.
OK.
This is not a sob-story. Now I’ll make my point in recommending the sonnet above, and the personal stuff.
Ready? Really? OK. Guys, please take note of your initial feelings, then if they evolve, when I say:

Seems like most of the poems recommended so far
by males (names) are about war, warriors, heroes, heroics, epic struggles and other rather brutal, competitive events or thoughts by survivors.
If so, that’s why I recommended the above piece…there is another pov.

Additionally, by the same author, an unstructured, symbolic within the reality of dead (which is the most significant result from wars) is absent from many kids communications and choices, forgotten within the omnipotence kids often feel or pose.
“Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies” is III of 3 about death, is not brutal and just kinda sneaks up with an awareness that it’s not just remote uncles or cats; it’s also friends, lovers, mothers and fathers. Not for guilt; for experiencing momentarily death’s permanence.