There are 200 poems to explore in this collection—poems about love, and war; songs of the sea; tales of magic and adventure; rhythmic rhapsodies; nonsense verse; descriptions of the world (and the creatures in it), and of the seasons, and the soul.
Many of the poems here will be familiar to you already. We have ransacked the common treasure hoard of “classics”, collecting those best-known, and best-loved masterpieces that have long stood the test of time. But we have also explored further beneath the mountain, and unearthed some rarer gems.
You may enter the collection through the front door if you wish; the very first poem provides a key. But do not feel compelled to proceed directly forward. Those readers who best explore a collection of verse, do so as though in possession of map which, while appearing to guide their footsteps, is revealed on closer inspection to be a perfect and absolute blank.
This book is organized thematically, with 10 poems for each of the following 20 themes:
1) Magic and Wonder
2) Animalia: Mammals
3) Animalia: Birds
4) Animalia: Creep, Crawl, and Fly
5) Love and Friendship
6) War and Conflict
7) The Natural World
8) Life and Inspiration
9) Sadness and Remembrance
10) Journeys and Adventures
11) Tales and Songs
12) Songs of the Sea
13) Reflecting on Things
14) Humour and Curiosities
15) Nonsense
16) Miniatures
17) Stars, Moon, and Night
18) Sleep, Dreams, and Lullabies
19) The Year Round; Spring and Summer
20) The Year Round; Autumn and Winter
Included are masterpieces by Christina Rossetti, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Emily Dickinson, Robert Burns, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Sara Teasdale, William Blake, Byron, Robert Frost and many other outstanding poets. Please view the contents panel on the right for a full listing.
At Elsinore Books we pride ourselves on creating beautiful e-books, and devote great attention to formatting, and ease of navigation. This book contains a cleanly-styled contents page that permits easy movement between the poems.
This book is part of the Best of Poetry series, which also includes:
The Best of Poetry: Thoughts that Breathe and Words that Burn
The Best of Poetry: Shakespeare, Muse of Fire
The Best of Poetry — A Young Person's Book of Evergreen Verse
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If you have any questions, you can contact us at admin@elsinorebooks.co.uk and we'll be with you right away to help.Part 1: Magic and Wonder
This is the Key — Anonymous
The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Then Quickly Rose Sir Bedevere — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Overheard on a Saltmarsh — Harold Monro
A Fairy in Armor — Joseph Rodman Drake
The Fairies — William Allingham
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble — William Shakespeare
The Deserted House — Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
When the Night Wind Howls — W. S. Gilbert
The Song of Wandering Aengus — W. B. Yeats
Part 2: Animalia; Mammals
The Law of the Jungle — Rudyard Kipling
The Hounds — John Freeman
The Tyger — William Blake
Earthy Anecdote — Wallace Stevens
The Pig-Tale — Lewis Carroll
I Am the Cat of Cats — W. B. Rands
Dog — Harold Monro
The Hedgehog — J. J. Bell
The Camel’s Complaint — Charles E. Carryl
The Donkey — G. K. Chesterton
Part 3: Animalia; Birds
Who Killed Cock Robin? — Anonymous
The Eagle — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I Had a Dove — John Keats
Three Hens — Henry Johnstone
The Ostrich — Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
A Bird Came Down the Walk — Emily Dickinson
When the Rain Raineth — Anonymous
From the Shore — Carl Sandburg
The Pelican Chorus — Edward Lear
Wolfram’s Song — Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Part 4: Animalia; Creep, Crawl, and Fly
Kindness — Christina Rossetti
A Wee Little Worm — James Whitcomb Riley
The Fly — William Blake
Guessing Song — Henry Johnstone
The Snail’s Dream — Oliver Herford
The Example — W. H. Davies
The Ant-Lion — Thomas Miller
Fleas — Augustus De Morgan
The Spider and the Fly — Mary Howitt
Poor Old Lady — Anonymous
Part 5: Love and Friendship
A Red, Red Rose — Robert Burns
The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò — Edward Lear
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes — Francis William Bourdillon
Nothing Say — James Henry
So We’ll Go No More a Roving — George Gordon, Lord Byron
The Owl and the Pussy-Cat — Edward Lear
Somewhere or Other — Christina Rossetti
How Do I Love Thee? — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Love-Song of Har Dyal — Rudyard Kipling
The Arrow and the Song — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Part 6: War and Conflict
The Charge of the Light Brigade — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
After Blenheim — Robert Southey
Casabianca — Felicia Hemans
The Dumb Soldier — Robert Louis Stevenson
The Runes on Weland’s Sword — Rudyard Kipling
The Cherry Trees — Edward Thomas
There Will Come Soft Rains — Sara Teasdale
Once More unto the Breach — William Shakespeare
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night — Walt Whitman
Dulce et Decorum Est — Wilfred Owen
Part 7: The Natural World
Of Wet and of Wildness — Gerard Manley Hopkins
A Thunder Storm — Emily Dickinson
The Road Not Taken — Robert Frost
Trees — Sara Coleridge
The Cataract of Lodore — Robert Southey
I Chatter, Chatter, as I Flow — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
My Heart’s in the Highlands — Robert Burns
The Way Through the Woods — Rudyard Kipling
The Lake Isle of Innisfree — W. B. Yeats
After Apple-Picking — Robert Frost
Part 8: Life and Inspiration
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking — Emily Dickinson
Climbing — Amy Lowell
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers — Emily Dickinson
If — Rudyard Kipling
Invictus — W. E. Henley
Count that Day Lost — George Eliot
The Rainy Day — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Life — Adam Lindsay Gordon
To See a World in a Grain of Sand — William Blake
I Hear America Singing — Walt Whitman
Part 9: Sadness and Remembrance
Remember — Christina Rossetti
Requiem — Robert Louis Stevenson
A Farewell — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Crossing the Bar — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Song — Christina Rossetti
Everything Passes and Vanishes — William Allingham
The Knight’s Tomb — Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Death of Robin Hood — Eugene Field
They Are Not Long — Ernest Dowson
Warm Summer Sun — Mark Twain
Part 10: Journeys and Adventures
Now Hollow Fires Burn Out to Black — A. E. Housman
Under the North Star — Menella Bute Smedley
Excelsior — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Skeleton in Armor — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Eldorado — Edgar Allan Poe
The Nutcrackers and the Sugar-Tongs — Edward Lear
The Hunting of the Snark — Lewis Carroll
Out Where the West Begins — Arthur Chapman
Cross-Roads — Mathilde Blind
Uphill — Christina Rossetti
Part 11: Tales and Songs
Lochinvar — Sir Walter Scott
Annabel Lee — Edgar Allan Poe
Hiawatha’s Childhood — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Escape — James Henry
Barbara Frietchie — John Greenleaf Whittier
At the Railway Station, Upway — Thomas Hardy
A Smuggler’s Song — Rudyard Kipling
Waltzing Matilda — Banjo Paterson
The Lobster-Quadrille — Lewis Carroll
The Bells — Edgar Allan Poe
Part 12: Songs of the Sea
Where Lies the Land — Arthur Hugh Clough
Pirate Ditty — Robert Louis Stevenson
The Ships — J. J. Bell
The Pobble Who Has No Toes — Edward Lear
The Jumblies — Edward Lear
O Captain! my Captain! — Walt Whitman
Song of the Galley-Slaves — Rudyard Kipling
Twilight — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Letters — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pater’s Bathe — Edward Abbott Parry
Part 13: Reflecting on Things
Flint — Christina Rossetti
Leisure — W. H. Davies
Below the Surface-Stream — Matthew Arnold
The Song of the Low — Ernest Jones
Little Things — Julia A. Carney
Sympathy — Paul Laurence Dunbar
Ozymandias — Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Indian upon God — W. B. Yeats
Sonnet Composed upon Westminster Bridge — William Wordsworth
Past, Present, and Future — Emily Brontë
Part 14: Humour and Curiosities
The Elf and the Dormouse — Oliver Herford
The Blind Men and the Elephant — John Godfrey Saxe
The Story of Augustus Who Would Not Have Any Soup — Heinrich Hoffmann
The People — Elizabeth Madox Roberts
Father William — Lewis Carroll
The White Knight’s Ballad — Lewis Carroll
Doctor Bell — Anonymous
An Accommodating Lion — Tudor Jenks
The Little Dog’s Day — Rupert Brooke
A Little Collection of Limericks — Various Authors
Part 15: Nonsense
The Dong with a Luminous Nose — Edward Lear
The Quangle Wangle’s Hat — Edward Lear
The Fastidious Serpent — Henry Johnstone
Calico Pie — Edward Lear
The Mad Gardener’s Song — Lewis Carroll
In the Night — Anonymous
A Chronicle — Anonymous
The Jabberwocky — Lewis Carroll
The Walrus and the Carpenter — Lewis Carroll
I Saw a Peacock — Anonymous
Part 16: Miniatures
Sea-Sand and Sorrow — Christina Rossetti
Rain — Robert Louis Stevenson
A Word is Dead — Emily Dickinson
First Fig — Edna St. Vincent Millay
Grey Goose and Gander — Anonymous
The Coming of Good Luck — Robert Herrick
The Shoreless Sea — William Soutar
Baseball — Anonymous
Fog — Carl Sandburg
Happy Thought — Robert Louis Stevenson
Part 17: Stars, Moon, and Night
The Evening Star — William Blake
Chimes — Alice Meynell
Night Clouds — Amy Lowell
The Wind and the Moon — George Macdonald
Full Moon; Santa Barbara — Sara Teasdale
The Moon — Robert Louis Stevenson
Lady Moon — Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton
What the Scarecrow Said — Vachel Lindsay
Windy Nights — Robert Louis Stevenson
The Night Is Darkening Round Me — Emily Brontë
Part 18: Sleep, Dreams, and Lullabies
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod — Eugene Field
The Land of Nod — Robert Louis Stevenson
Escape at Bedtime — Robert Louis Stevenson
The Sandman — Evaleen Stein
Night — Mary Butts
A Charm to Call Sleep — Henry Johnstone
Seal Lullaby — Rudyard Kipling
Sweet and Low — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Lullaby — Thomas Dekker
Lights Out — Edward Thomas
Part 19: The Year Round; Spring and Summer
The Twelve Months — George Ellis
A Winter and Spring Scene — Henry David Thoreau
Song of the Seedling — John Gray
The Fire of Spring — Omar Khayyám
A Flower Is Looking Through the Ground — Harold Monro
The Daffodils — William Wordsworth
Four Ducks on a Pond — William Allingham
John Barleycorn — Robert Burns
Fly Away, Fly Away Over the Sea — Christina Rossetti
An Indian Summer Day on the Prairie — Vachel Lindsay
Part 20: The Year Round; Autumn and Winter
Autumn Fires — Robert Louis Stevenson
Wind and Silver — Amy Lowell
Who Has Seen the Wind? — Christina Rossetti
November — Thomas Hood
November Night — Adelaide Crapsey
Skating — William Wordsworth
Snow — Edward Thomas
A Visit from St. Nicholas — Clement Clarke Moore
Speak of the North — Charlotte Brontë
The Months — Christina Rossetti