The Best of Poetry — A Young Person's Book of Evergreen Verse: Two-Hundred Classic Poems

By Elsinore Books

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 preview of this book for a full listing.

At Elsinore Books we pride ourselves on creating beautiful Kindle 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. We regularly update the formatting of our books, to ensure they will always remain perfectly accessible on all Kindle models.

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

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elsinore Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2017

Book preview

Introduction

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.

Rudolph Amsel and Teresa Keyne

Copyright © Elsinore Books 2017

The Elsinore Books Collection

Classic Poetry Collection

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

Classic Literature Collection

The Way Through the Woods: One Hundred Classic Fairy Tales

Classic Short Stories: The Complete Collection—All 100 Masterpieces

Modern Poetry Collection

The Vanishing: One Hundred Shorter and Shorter Poems from 99 Words to 0

A more detailed listing of our titles can be viewed here.

Contents

Introduction

The Elsinore Books Collection

Contents

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

A Final Word

Acknowledgements

The Elsinore Books Collection

Part 1: Magic and Wonder

This is the Key

ANONYMOUS

This is the Key of the Kingdom:

In that Kingdom is a city;

In that city is a town;

In that town is a street;

In that street there winds a lane;

In that lane there is a yard;

In that yard there is a house;

In that house there waits a room;

In that room an empty bed;

And on that bed a basket—

A Basket of Sweet Flowers:

Of Flowers, of Flowers;

A Basket of Sweet Flowers.

Flowers in a basket;

Basket on the bed;

Bed in the chamber;

Chamber in the house;

House in the weedy yard;

Yard in the winding lane;

Lane in the broad street;

Street in the high town;

Town in the city;

City in the Kingdom—

This is the Key of the Kingdom.

Of the Kingdom this is the Key.

The Splendour Falls on Castle Walls¹

By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

(1809–1892)

The splendour falls on castle walls

  And snowy summits old in story:

The long light shakes across the lakes,

And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,

And thinner, clearer, farther going!

O sweet and far from cliff and scar

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:

Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,

They faint on hill or field or river:

Our echoes roll from soul to soul,

  And grow for ever and for ever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,

And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Then Quickly Rose Sir