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Index
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
A Note on the Poems
Poems For Life
Birth and Beginnings
SYLVIA PLATH: Morning Song
WILLIAM BLAKE: Infant Sorrow
WALTER DE LA MARE: The Birthnight: To F.
THOMAS TRAHERNE: The Salutation
ANNE STEVENSON: The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
E. E. CUMMINGS
ANONYMOUS: from the Chester Cycle of the Mystery Plays
W. S. MERWIN: Just This
THOMAS DEKKER: from Pleasant Comedy of Patient Grissil, IV, ii
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: Frost at Midnight
WALT WHITMAN: A Noiseless Patient Spider
SYLVIA PLATH: You're
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: To lanthe
THOMAS HARDY: Heredity
AMBROSE PHILIPS: Miss Charlotte Pulteney, in her mother's arms
CHINUA ACHEBE: Generation Gap
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: from Aurora Leigh, Sixth Book
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS: Spring
WILLIAM BLAKE
Childhood and Childish Things
HENRY VAUGHAN: The Retreat
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: Ode (Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood)
R. S. THOMAS: Children's Song
TED HUGHES: Full Moon and Little Frieda
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: Escape at Bedtime
EUGENE FIELD: Dutch Lullaby
WALT WHITMAN: There Was a Child Went Forth
ANONYMOUS
ANONYMOUS
LEWIS CARROLL: from Alice Through the Looking-Glass
THOMAS MORE: Childhood
A. A. MILNE: The End
WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED: Childhood and His Visitors
DEREK MAHON: Jardin du Luxembourg
WILLIAM BARNES: Children
SPIKE MILLIGAN: My Sister Laura
LOUIS UNTERMEYER: Portrait of a Child
GEORGE ELIOT: from Brother and Sister
OLIVIA MCCANNON: Probability
SEAMUS HEANEY: The Railway Children
JUDITH WRIGHT: Legend
FRANCES CORNFORD: Childhood
ROBERT GRAVES: Warning to Children
FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS: Casabianca
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS: Spring and Fall
WILLIAM BLAKE: The School Boy
JOHN CLARE: Schoolboys in Winter
THOMAS GRAY: Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College
GWEN HARWOOD: Father and Child
ALEXANDER POPE: from An Essay on Criticism
EDWIN MUIR: Childhood
HUGO WILLIAMS: Scratches
PATIENCE AGBABI: North(west)ern
CAROL ANN DUFFY: In Mrs Tilscher's Class
Growing Up and First Impressions
C. DAY LEWIS: Walking Away
WILLIAM BARNES: Sister Gone
ANDREW YOUNG: Field-Glasses
RUDYARD KIPLING
LEWIS CARROLL: Rules and Regulations
SAMUEL JOHNSON A: Short Song of Congratulation
LEMN SISSAY: Going Places
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: from Hamlet, III, i
ROBERT FROST: The Road Not Taken
THOMAS HARDY
JOHN KEATS: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: from The Prelude, Book XI (1850)
EBENEZER JONES: High Summer
ROBERT WEVER: In Youth is Pleasure
ROBERT HERRICK: To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
GEOFFREY CHAUCER: from Troilus and Criseyde, Book I
JOHN CLARE: First Love
ROBERT GRAVES: Love Without Hope
ELIZABETH DARYUSH: Still-life
APHRA BEHN: from The Emperor of the Moon, II, v
CHARLES TURNER: A Country Dance
KIRSTY GUNN: Mataatua
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON: from Don Juan, Canto I
ADRIAN MITCHELL: A Puppy Called Puberty
SASHA DUGDALE: First Love
TOGARA MUZANENHAMO: Smoke
FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: from Hero and Leander, Sestiad II
ANDREW MARVELL: To His Coy Mistress
JOHN KEATS: from The Eve of St Agnes
D. H. LAWRENCE: Green
E. E. CUMMINGS
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI: A Birthday
WALT WHITMAN: We Two Boys together Clinging
A. E. HOUSMAN: from A Shropshire Lad: II
LOUIS MACNEICE: Apple Blossom
Making a Living and Making Love
SIR HENRY WOTTON: The Character of a Happy Life
BEN JONSON: from The Alchemist, II, i
JOHN DAVIDSON: Thirty Bob a Week
THEODORE ROETHKE: Dolor
THOMAS HOOD: The Song of the Shirt
LINTON KWESI JOHNSON: More Time
PHILIP LARKIN: Toads
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
CAROL ANN DUFFY: Mrs Sisyphus
DEREK WALCOTT: Ebb
ARTHUR CLOUGH: Say Not the Struggle Nought Availeth
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE: Work Without Hope
JOHN MILTON: from Paradise Lost, Book IV
W. H. DAVIES: Leisure
LOUIS MACNEICE: Meeting Point
RICHARD BARNFIELD
BEN OKRI: I Held You in the Square
THOMAS MOORE: Did Not
FLEUR ADCOCK: Against Coupling
OGDEN NASH: Reflections on Ice-Breaking
EDMUND WALLER: To Phillis
LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU: [A Summary of Lord Lyttleton's ‘Advice to a lady’]
KIM ADDONIZIO: For Desire
ROBERT HERRICK: Delight in Disorder
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: from Ovid's Elegies, Book I
CHARLES SIMIC: Crazy about Her Shrimp
EMILY DICKINSON
JOHN DONNE: The Ecstasy
DAVID CONSTANTINE: ‘As our bloods separate’
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON: from The Princess
ARTHUR SYMONS: White Heliotrope
ROBERT BROWNING: Two in the Campagna
LEMN SISSAY: Love Poem
Family Life, for Better, for Worse
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
EDWIN MUIR: The Confirmation
JOHN BETJEMAN: The Subaltern's Love-song
WILLIAM BLAKE: from An Island in the Moon
EDMUND SPENSER: from Prothalamion
EDWARD LEAR: The Owl and the Pussy-cat
CARMEN BUGAN: A house of stone
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 116
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY: from The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
CAROL ANN DUFFY: White Writing
DICK DAVIS: Uxor Vivamus…
ABRAHAM COWLEY: The Wish
PHILIP LARKIN: This Be The Verse
ADRIAN MITCHELL: This Be the Worst
MAURA DOOLEY: Freight
MARK STRAND: ‘The Dreadful Has Already Happened’
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
ROBERT BURNS: A Poet's Welcome to his love-begotten Daughter; the first instance that entitled him to the venerable appellation of Father
STEPHEN SPENDER: To My Daughter
JAMES JOYCE: On the Beach at Fontana
GWEN HARWOOD: In the Park
COVENTRY PATMORE: The Toys
CHARLES LAMB: Parental Recollections
FLEUR ADCOCK: For a Five-year-old
ROBIN ROBERTSON: New Gravity
BEN JONSON: On My First Son
PEGGY CARR: Flight of the Firstborn
ANNE BRADSTREET: In Reference to Her Children, 23 June, 1659
WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: Danse Russe
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
MICHAEL ONDAATJE: The Strange Case
DAVID CONSTANTINE: Don't jump off the roof, Dad…
ROBERT BROWNING: Love in a Life
ROBERT CRAWFORD: Home
GRACE NICHOLS: Like a Beacon
A. K. RAMANUJAN: Self-Portrait
ROBERT HAYDEN: Those Winter Sundays
DILIP CHITRE: Father Returning Home
VINCENT BUCKLEY: from Stroke
ELIZABETH JENNINGS: One Flesh
ANNE FINCH, COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA: The Unequal Fetters
CHARLOTTE MEW: The Farmer's Bride
GEOFFREY CHAUCER: from The Wife of Bath's Prologue in The Canterbury Tales
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: from The Winter's Tale,I,ii
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON: from Don Juan, Canto III
EZRA POUND: The Bath Tub
JOHN MILTON: from Paradise Lost, Book IX
GEORGE MEREDITH: from Modern Love
PATIENCE AGBABI: Accidentally Falling
ERNEST DOWSON: Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae
JOHN DRYDEN: from Marriage A-La-Mode, I, i
MICHAEL DRAYTON
SIR THOMAS WYATT
NICK LAIRD: To The Wife
D. H. LAWRENCE: Trust
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 18
DOUGLAS DUNN: Modern Love
SEAMUS HEANEY: The Skunk
THOM GUNN: The Hug
ANNE BRADSTREET: To My Dear and Loving Husband
GEORGE CRABBE
DOM MORAES: Future Plans
JOHN DONNE: Love's Growth
Getting Older, Looking Back
ALISON FELL: Pushing forty
JOHN KEATS: To Autumn
ANDREW MARVELL: The Garden
FREDERICK GODDARD TUCKERMAN
MATTHEW ARNOLD: Dover Beach
JOHN CLARE: ‘I Am’
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW: Mezzo Cammin
PHILIP LARKIN: The Old Fools
CHARLES SIMIC: Grayheaded Schoolchildren
ROBERT SOUTHEY: The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them
LEWIS CARROLL: from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
T. S. ELIOT: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
RALPH WALDO EMERSON: Terminus
W. B. YEATS: Sailing to Byzantium
CAROLE SATYAMURTI: Day Trip
JENNY JOSEPH: Warning
WOLE SOYINKA: To My First White Hairs
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON: Ulysses
SIR HENRY LEE
JOHN MILTON
GEORGE HERBERT: The Forerunners
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: Old Man Travelling
JAMES HENRY: Very Old Man
EDWARD THOMAS: Old Man
MATTHEW ARNOLD: Growing Old
STEPHEN SPENDER
T. E. HULME: The Embankment
ERNEST DOWSON: Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam
W. B. YEATS: When You are Old
STEVIE SMITH: Pad, pad
JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER: A Song of a Young Lady. To her Ancient Lover
LEIGH HUNT: Rondeau
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 73
ROBERT BURNS: John Anderson My Jo
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
THOMAS MOORE
EDWARD THOMAS: Adlestrop
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE: A Vision of Spring in Winter
THOMAS HOOD: I Remember, I Remember
D. H. LAWRENCE: Piano
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Sonnet 30
JAMES HENRY
Intimations of Mortality
MARK STRAND A Morning
EDMUND BLUNDEN: The Midnight Skaters
EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY: Dirge Without Music
DYLAN THOMAS: Do not go gentle into that good night
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: from Doctor Faustus, scene xiv
WILFRED OWEN: Futility
HENRY VAUGHAN
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR: Age
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON: Tithonus
EMILY DICKINSON
SIR WALTER RALEGH: A Farewell to Court
THOMAS CAMPION
ALEXANDER POPE: The Dying Christian to His Soul
JOHN DONNE
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: from Cymbeline, IV, ii
EMILY BRONTË
GEORGE ELIOT
RUPERT BROOKE: The Soldier
JULIA ALVAREZ: Last Trees
LOUIS MACNEICE: The Sunlight on the Garden
THOMAS HARDY: Afterwards
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI: Remember
D. H. LAWRENCE: Bavarian Gentians
CAROLINE OLIPHANT, BARONESS NAIRNE: The Land o’ the Leal
KATHERINE, LADY DYER: [Epitaph on Sir William Dyer]
CHARLES CAUSLEY: Eden Rock
EDMUND WALLER: Of the Last Verses in the Book
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON: Crossing the Bar
ALDEN NOWLAN: This is What I Wanted to Sign Off With
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
RAYMOND CARVER: Late Fragment
Mourning and Monuments
W. H. AUDEN: Funeral Blues
WILFRED OWEN: Anthem for Doomed Youth
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON: from In Memoriam A. H. H.
GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING: Grief
IVOR GURNEY: To His Love
DOUGLAS DUNN: The Kaleidoscope
EDNA ST VINCENT MILLAY
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
THOMAS HARDY: After a Journey
ANONYMOUS (15TH CENTURY): The Unquiet Grave
EMILY BRONTË: Remembrance
R. S. THOMAS: Comparisons
EMILY DICKINSON
THOM GUNN: The Reassurance
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON: from In Memoriam A. H. H.
WILLIAM JOHNSON CORY: Heraclitus
DYLAN THOMAS: And death shall have no dominion
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: from Adonais
ROBERT BROWNING: My Last Duchess
EZRA POUND: Epitaphs
WALLACE STEVENS: A Postcard from the Volcano
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: Ozymandias
THOMAS GRAY: Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard
STEPHEN SPENDER
THOMAS HARDY: Transformations
WALT WHITMAN: from Song of Myself
PHILIP LARKIN: An Arundel Tomb
EDWIN MORGAN: Message Clear
Acknowledgements
Index of Poets
Index of Titles and First Lines
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