Poetry To Go

A sonnet pondering the inevitable passing of life's bloom and flower, and the question each of us must face as we aging creep our way toward death.

Ever feel like our 21st century living distances us from what really matters in life? Wordsworth gives voice to that very concern, that our human preoccupations, especially economic ones, keep us from the direct experience of a world that is alive with a Divine Anima. For the pleasures of wealth we trade away the joy of sublime beauty that the natural world offers us.

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience were my earliest introduction to Romantic poetry. They too are large, they contain multitudes. Few poets have given me such an all-inclusive perspective from which to measure out the meaning of my daily life.

What's worse than unrequited love? The loveless passing of your beloved. In this poem, A.E. Housman relives the agonies of the ignored and forgotten lovers of Narcissus.

A poem of the wanderlust one usually associates with the young and unattached, Vincent Millay reminds us that the voice beckoning us to adventure can be heard by anyone with ears to hear it.

By Emily Dickinson, a poem of love and weather—or weathering love? Either way I love this poem—always it makes me think of my wife (and fellow English major).

A short poem by Walt Whitman from Leaves of Grass, one of my favorites.