10.
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
(1874-1963)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
9. “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus
(1849-1887)
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
8. “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1792-1822)
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
 7. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
(1795-1821)

6. “The Tiger by William Blake (1757-1827)

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both, Tiger Tiger, burning bright,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? In the forests of the night;
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What immortal hand or eye,
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; On what wings dare he aspire?
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d, What the hand, dare seize the fire?
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave And what shoulder, and what art,
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, And when thy heart began to beat,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve; What dread hand? and what dread feet?
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
When the stars threw down their spears
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
And water’d heaven with their tears:
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
Did he smile his work to see?
For ever panting, and for ever young;
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. Tiger Tiger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede

Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
 Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
5. “On His Blindness” by John Milton (1608- Find us farther than today.
1674)
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,

In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!

Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us

We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;—

Footprints, that perhaps another,

Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
When I consider how my light is spent A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, Seeing, shall take heart again.
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my soul more bent Let us, then, be up and doing,
To serve therewith my Maker, and present With a heart for any fate;
My true account, lest he returning chide, Still achieving, still pursuing,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” Learn to labor and to wait.
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

4. “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth

Longfellow (1807-1882)

What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
3. “Daffodils” by William Wordsworth (1770-
1850)

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

1. “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare (1564-

I wandered lonely as a cloud 1616)
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
2. “Holy Sonnet 10: Death, Be Not Proud”
by John Donne (1572-1631)
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.