Top 10 Greatest Poems of All Time | Poetry Reading to Music

Hello subscribers and viewers, check out this poetry channel, Monolith. You will love it! / @monolithpoem
Listen to the greatest poems in English literature. Keats, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Frost and more are featured as the best of all time!
Poems | Background Music
0:06 The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost | Kevin MacLeod, Measured Paces
1:14 The New Colossus - Emma Lazarus | Jingle Punks, Into the Wormhole
2:30 Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley | Kevin MacLeod, Dark Walk
3:59 Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats | William Rosati, Parzival
7:53 The Tyger - William Blake | Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions, The Bronx is Burning
9:31 On His Blindness - John Milton | Bensound, November
10:48 A Psalm of Life - Henry Wadsworth | Doug Maxwell, Air to the Throne
13:02 Daffodils - William Wordsworth | Wayne Jones, A Quiet Thought
14:35 Holy Sonnet 10 - John Donne | Doug Maxwell/Media Right Productions, Arabian Nightfall
15:55 Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare | Chris Zabriskie, Prelude No. 18

[@JamesCrane]

I'd rather the words be heard, than the music play, whilst the poet's heart is on display.

[@alfonsassakauskas8563]

Music is too loud !!! It overpowers the spoken words.

[@retalbtaylor370]

I agree. I’m a poet myself and have decided not to use music in my readings. I was supposed to be in a “seniors talent show” of singers, comedians, and a couple of poets. I was one of them. When I did the rehearsal, they had chosen a musical accompaniment without even asking me. I find them distracting. My voice isn’t loud so I always prefer to read into a mic if its available. The end result of my rehearsal told me one thing. This was MY poem and I chose not to have the music behind it. They didn’t even know what kind of poem I would read, so how could the “proper” music be supplied without asking exactly WHAT they were setting it up with me. I dropped out of the performance, something I’ve never done before. I’ve been doing readings for 40 yrs and that’s the only time I backed out. I just did not belong there, my poem stands on its own,thank you‼️🤷‍♀️

[@jennifermukhia2759]

Yes . You can barely hear the words .

[@IAMDrelewin]

Agree

[@jasonmarcus8814]

I love you for this comment..

[@jacqueshollands5630]

Agree 100%. Pity

[@TheSaltydog07]

Keats lowers my blood pressure. The reciter is perfect. ❤

[@danielrevach319]

Greatest *English* poems of all time... Also, such great poetry doesn't need this loud foreground music. Can barely hear the words.

[@classicpoem5509]

I love these poems and also love to adding poems to the classical music!!😍 I think that the emotions of poems & some of classical music, they go together very well too. Thank you for wonderful poetry reading with your great voice!!😃

[@poetrytherapyinc]

Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you

[@longbow6976]

Could you put time stamps in the description to make it easier to find them?

[@TheKraftykid]

Also, whoever Shakespeare wrote that poem for, he definitely smashed.

[@mikemcknight1295]

Great choices! Magical words!

[@RocketKirchner]

Paradise Lost - Milton

[@kimmccabe1422]

William Blake the best me next in my dreams on paper!

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: You Sit, Face Averted Anonymous One, You sit, face averted, I'm in awe of you. The pond's lotuses are your other eyes. The crickets are your speech, the leaves your sighs. The corridor of fussing autumn trees, its space, And twilight jellyfish moon can't exhaust your grace. You have said bitter things when you were ill. Your sayings don't always have eagles' eyes. You sometimes drink, palm resting on the windowsill, With webbed words that won't let yesterday go. But you're still Eve before the fall, in spite of woe. I don't know you at all, though often mind Thinks it does, enamored as it is with memory. I have images of you, your being kind, unkind, Ferocious, a skilled lover, a song in bed, But these are not you right now, these are dead. I can't say who you are, so how can I compare You with others, think you are not quite as rare Or intelligent or beautiful as they? Only ideas, images are at play, And to take them to heart, as though they all Are you, would be Adam's plight after the fall. You're Lying There Still Asleep You're lying there still asleep, the sheets Below your knees, your skin poured smooth as coffee cream, Your curvatures of which hills themselves would dream. Our sheets and pillows are like geese Leaning against each other, and you're the Golden Fleece Now suddenly, as Jason's look alights on your form. Your beauty is the quiet storm That my temple would like to assail. I see your intense whirlpool drawing my spirit in... I don't care if there's something of the Siren in you; We all get destroyed in the end, let it be with you. You twitch slightly, the Golden Fleece may be waking you up; You rub your lips, you smile, you see my temple's up; You stroke it as though a cliff-triangle of cranes Were anticipating paradise in the sky, And I'm like a long-forgotten well that needs A beautiful woman to drink, who boils, who bleeds. What we do, my love, on this bed is not Some desperation, as though the worms outside In our garden were playing violins to our tumultuous tide, Mocking us with a death that's sure to come. What we have and do can but mock the sum Of inhibitions, repressions, anxieties. We will smash to atoms the presumptuous sun. We will look into our depths and be one. Meditation Anonymous One, Sometimes when cranes circle overhead, A person washes dishes with a circling hand. Sometimes when a bear runs and catches a silvery prize, A tennis player finds his perfect stride to the public's cries. Sometimes when a brand new car is first driven out, A bunch of new stars shed their cocoon. Sometimes when green leaves blush with the dawn of June, A virgin overcomes her awkwardness and doubt. Sometimes when it snows in Montreal or Edmonton, The flakes floating down, calm, That means that though the person has never known snow, His mind's calm, as he sits under a palm, While a lake in Vermont evens out to staring trees, And a dragonfly's perched on reed, at her ease. A leaf has fallen and a wind has blown In Africa, and a famous man emits a final moan. It's not quite synchronicity, it's much more: It's perhaps meditation, an awesome whole; It belies individual effort and control. Human Consciousness Anonymous One, Autumn has come and scatters yellow leaves, Yet for all that not one groans or ever grieves. The waves grow colder, begin to freeze... The butterfly by the river, it would seem, Passes on without regret, without a dream. I admire and love all these for whom no better or worse Is, and I grant human consciousness is a curse. But if I could go back before my birth And choose what form I'd take on earth, I'd choose the human, the doubting, the wailing cry, Love strengthened by the knowledge I will die, Prodigious praise given to yellow leaves, To unconscious harmony that never grieves. If our consciousness is a prison cell, It presages too the greatest joy, intercourse With a riveted, humbled seraphic force. If a cocoon be some confining dark, That confinement has also freedom's spark. Autumn's creatures live acceptance, harmonious play, But I'll take our consciousness and its beyond, any day. Forgiveness Anonymous One, There is no forgiveness because remorse and regret Have no place in what is, can never thrust Into mystery, like impotent mosquitoes can't pierce through bust Or ancient block, but at any rate, my Love, The fishnet's cast down from a vast Above Onto apples along a road Curving upward, cast on a hermit singing bird, And on tender echoes of word furled on word. Memories, like shadows of a star, Twine, twist in the space of what we are, And the fishnet is all about us Refreshing, invigorating the grass and trees, Thunder shaking the wilderness to the core With lips of lightning... We gather our vast store... One night of attention, and the rest is as You please. We forgive nothing, but we love giving love, Or love loves giving without thinking of Scars and staring at them, scratching anew: Forgiveness is resentment's residue.

[@moderndayaphorismswithUncleRay]

✌️, 💕 And Blessings!!!

[@lurshaikharbani3140]

Great poetry. 🙂

[@donaldmbamah4105]

Good choices. Number one especially but many many other sweet words are worth more and thus beg recompense or reconsideration. Top 10 huh I wonder what Marlowe would say.

[@poetrytherapyinc]

Good point. Think I have to re-think the list

[@patriotofpersia2238]

No Persian Poet? Rumi, Khayyam, Haffez, Saedi,.... Rumi is God of Poetry

[@general-soleimani-my-hero1815]

Exactly! Iranian poems are the greatest and there is no doubt about it. 💯🇮🇷

[@lalithdealwis4610]

Actually, the poetry of Rumi was not written in the English language and so, his poetry could very well be attractive in the Persian language and the ideas he expressed could also be very intriguing but the attraction of the poetry when translated to English depends to a great extent on the artistry of the translator. A poetic translator would I expect take the idea expressed by the original and express it in a poem written in English. To whom then, should the credit go? The originator of the idea or the writer of the poem. On the other hand, an accurate translator would merely express the original idea in English and, constrained by the need to be true to the original, perhaps not come up with a very moving poem but one which accurately conveys the thoughts of the original poet. I enjoy reading English translations of poems written in other languages and tend to appreciate the former type of translation more. I have read two translations of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The first was by Edward Fitzgerald, which I was made to understand strayed from time to time from the original Persian version. It moved me considerably while the other more accurate translation left me cold and unmoved. So, the fact that no poem written by Rumi is included here, does not necessarily mean that Rumi's work was not good enough to be included among the 10 best. It could mean that the translators came up a little bit short.

[@earlofthearies.1982]

Rumi?

[@lalithdealwis4610]

@@earlofthearies.1982 Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī, more popularly known simply as Rumi, was a 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. Born: September 30, 1207 - Died: December 17, 1273, Konya, Turkey. "Rumi is often described as the best-selling poet in the United States." - The New Yorker. Rumi was born in the early thirteenth century, in what is now Afghanistan. He later settled in Konya, in present-day Turkey, with his family. His father was a preacher and religious scholar, and he introduced Rumi to Sufism. Rumi continued his theological education in Syria, where he studied the more traditional legal codes of Sunni Islam, and later returned to Konya as a seminary teacher. It was there that he met an elder traveller, Shams-i-Tabriz, who became his mentor. The nature of the intimate friendship between the two is much debated, but Shams, everyone agrees, had a lasting influence on Rumi’s religious practice and his poetry. Shams pushed Rumi to question his scriptural education, debating Koranic passages with him and emphasizing the idea of devotion as finding oneness with God. Rumi would come to blend the intuitive love for God that he found in Sufism with the legal codes of Sunni Islam and the mystical thought he learned from Shams. Rumi built a large following in cosmopolitan Konya, incorporating Sufis, Muslim literalists and theologians, Christians, and Jews, as well as the local Sunni Seljuk rulers. You will find many recitations of translations of Rumi's poems on KZbin.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Well, only in the English language, presumably. There are magnificent poets in many different languages. You're right, though: Rumi is among the very greatest ever.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Mother to Son For some months I have left you alone, For I saw that a flower does not grow The more easily with a rain of stone, Or insistence such-and-such should not be so. I would not confine you with my country's past Nor impose upon you my culture's cast. Questions about these can feather your sky, Can weave their arcs in a passionate style, And you can be sure I'll oblige with a smile. But if no questions stir and break their shells, I won't be bothered, I will leave you be. But I fear there's as yet no clarity About freedom: It is not desire Simply to do what your pleasures demand, To be in the clutch of frivolity's hand. A cell can be of gold, a comfort as well, But it remains, after all, a prison cell. You wanted to paint, you expressed passion, But you expected the stars at the start. You thought excitement was the kin of stars, And so boredom quietly crept in your heart. If you're to be seized by a sublime space Within, with the brushstroke being its kiss, You must not presume upon instant grace, Nor allow excitements to dominate. Dodging boredom, you'll never have a rich store. Each pleasure will leave you emptier than before. If pleasure and excitement are your nutrition, You will never grow petals; no sublime space Will court you, or bestow a master's grace. March 22nd The farmer was bending over furrowed land When the sandy, serpentine trail claimed me. There was an embrace of irregularities, A nonchalant dismissal of symmetries. Imagined perfection had no business being there. Jagged rocks thrusted, asserted themselves. There were muddy patches and caked brown leaves. A few brown leaves crackled on dignified trees. Broken boughs, fallen pine needles, pine cones, The coarse bark, the pine trees, crooked and humped, The hiker, slightly turned, peeing up ahead, Other types of trees leaning, almost mischievously, As though by some imagined door, overhearing A secret or confession of someone they loved - All received the warmth and affection of March. Amidst such affection, I sometimes heard The distant call of a train, the cacophony Of dogs, the twitter or piercing note of a bird, Someone thumping down a brow of wooden stairs, Talking on his cell phone of mundane affairs. There was no disturbance, but a silence Cradling March light, a sweet acceptance, A space, delighted, seeming profoundly amused At its own various playful expressions, Not labeling one as higher or lower. I passed a hillock with straight and crooked tombstones, Turned, and reached a little secluded spot, Where small birds - not woodpeckers - were pecking At dark naked boughs, jaunty, sometimes hopping upward, Sometimes swinging downward, alighting on other trees. They continued their business closer and closer To me, or busy play, whatever it was. They pecked away on the same tree, moving away From each other on nearly level, opposite boughs Until they became eyes of a beautiful, strange face With dark webs or veins by which the clear sky Smiled a quiet, mischievous, welcoming smile. I stayed awhile and the twilight awoke - Old thoughts would return as surely as night; Confusion would burn, and that was all right - And I made my way back, growing hungry.

[@PedroCarvalho-lb7qx]

Anyone knows the song playing at 14 minutes? Or any of the others

[@KarLaLoVe]

💕💕💕🌴

[@nicksundby]

Please turn the music up louder, I could still hear the odd word people were saying.

[@TomZart]

SHAKESPEARE 1564 - 1616 Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest writer in history In his day was known as a master of good plays. The theater gave him the freedom to create And in turn he put hearts and souls a blaze. Far from the world of the stage Shakespeare was born in April of 1564. In the little English town called Stratford With several sisters and brothers after and before. All the boys went to the same grammar school As soon as they could read and write. Where the only subject taught was Latin Which was of little use to those born bright. At 18 he married a woman named Anne Hathaway Who was 8 years older than he. The daughter of a neighboring farmer Who bore his children, with twins, made three. In 7 years he was a successful actor After starting his career at 21. Only the best actors found work in London And by the grace a God Shakespeare was one. Many actors of the period were playwrights And Shakespeare was one of the best. His greatest success was Henry VI, Which placed him above the rest. Shakespeare turned to another kind of writing When because of a plague London theaters had to close. He wrote two narrative poems greatly admired by the critics Though to be famous as a poet, he never wanted or chose. He instead, turned back to the life of the stage As soon as the theaters reopened again. He joined an acting company until he retired Writing plays for the Chamberlain’s Men. Shakespeare died in 1616 And was buried in his local church back home. Where he had been baptized 52 years before He lies in his grave silent and alone. THANK YOU FOR WHO YOU ARE IN YOUR HEART ! By Tom Zart Google = Most Published Poet Tom’s 1,650 Poems Are Free To Share! Google = George Bush Tom Zart

[@nathansiegel6799]

I'm partial to Chaucer.

[@eduardmanecuta5350]

There are a lot of great writers. Like R. Tagore, Kahil Gibran, Rumi, Hafiz, Mihai Eminescu, Nicole Labiș Nichita Stănescu, Dante Alighieri, Giacomo Leopardi, Matsuo Basho, Yung Dong-ju, Li Po, Du Fu, Wang Wei, Lu Xun, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Susaku Endo, Eiji Yoshikawa, Serghei Essenin, Alexander Blok, A. Maiakovski, F. M. Dostoiesky, N. Leskov, Nicolae Dabijar, Grigore Vieru, Mo Yan, Homer, Virgil, Sant Juan de la Cruz (Saint John of the Cross), Cervantes, John Milton, Cehov, Goethe, Schiller, Ugo Foscolo, Lope de Vega, Dylan Thomas, Pablo Neruda, Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire, Giorgos Seferis, Konstantinos Kavafis, Nikos Kazantzakis, Tasso, George Orwell, Adolf Huxley, Mihail Lermontov, Savatie Baștovoi, Max Gallo, Masaoka Shiki, Hermann Hesse... Shakespeare is great, but the greatest of them all? I don't know about that. Some will say he is not even the top of English literature. They will ofer that spot to John Milton.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: The Young Man Sometimes when she saw someone turn around The corner, or pass through a restaurant door, Or when spring with its symphonic score Of buds performed and surged without a sound, She felt him, a presence, an absence, and more... There was no longer grief, but a strange pain, A part of her that thought the young man hadn't died, A part that thought she would meet him again. But she knew, she knew it was fantasy, Though the fantasy bore a grain of truth. Certainly the vibrancy, the light of this youth Looked through the eyes of the passersby, Looked through the eyes of those Sitting at the restaurant tables, looked from the sky When summer was absorbed in poetic blue, When winter was absorbed in the sharpest prose. When the young man was alive, they would share... Presence had reached an exuberant pitch Of love, adventure - but his absence would stitch A raiment of wisdom which she would wear, Being led back to her majestic heart, Being guided through life - breathing art. Cote-Des-Neiges Street, Montreal Softly submerged is Cote-des-Neiges street in the strangeness of new shops, delight of couples, in accordion-twilight, and in absence of stores where we used to go, a child and his mother 40 years ago. I feel you gazing at me through a church tree - from the horizon's crimson glow, a wound still fresh, and as a window's rose-struck glaze. I see you in a thousand other ways, hear the accordion, voice of you, the accordion growing faint, fading - a still more piercing voice of you. The mind intercedes, a tale ten times told, offering itself like sagacious gold to a stubborn, clinging child who half-believes. But the heart doesn't follow, the heart still grieves. A Glass of Water Drunk One June Morning June wears a dress of a waterfall's roar, glory gone galloping, crashing against jagged rocks, splitting apart - like cognition cracked in the face of disease. The water nevertheless winds its way, an egret poised within it, the egret spreading its wings, soon steeped in the glow of ever-widening rings. The water makes its way to where it's purified... A boy attending high school turns on the kitchen tap and drinks a glass of water. Refreshment reaps a sigh. His eyes open wide... Laughter ripples, the light of some idea poised within it - an idea spreading its wings, in time delighting in ever-widening rings... A youthful penchant for winged words grows and gives birth to other birds , the idea never leaving him, the idea whose different incarnations suffuses, spirit-like, many nations... Leaving These Palace Gates I won't keep you within these palace gates. You are free to go. You say a love compels you below, back to Earth. How, child, do you know you will remember your resolve, remember all this, remember Me? Birth does not guarantee you will follow through or even receptivity to those not so benighted as you may turn out to be. I won't keep you within these palace gates. You feel all those still suffering, still struggling and in need, and yes, follow, child, follow love's lead. And be aware: the realm realms below can drive you mad, make you coarse, befoul your seeing, lead you astray from your original course. For every fortunate, freakish fish that escapes the fisherman's net thousands flap helplessly, are caught, thousands sent off to the mouths of conditioning, contamination, rot. This love like a gong resounds your resolve. All is blessed in spite of all; all's for the best. Love sees the luminous palace, steeped in this; a healthy one sees health, bliss sees bliss, a husband or wife in the honeymoon. I won't keep you within the palace gates. You carry the sun and moon and infinitely more. Be aware that what seems most natural, like air, maybe your earthly parents, your own mind, may compound the mud of forgetfulness, may be enemies to which you grow resigned. This love like a gong resounds your resolve. All is blessed in spite of all; all's for the best. Be aware, child, before you go, though conviction boil as passionate blood, you may come to live on Earth despondent, sinking deeper in the mud, catching no whiff of these blessings one and all, as if this love had never existed at all. Those Twelve A piece of May slanting its way, falling on the piano’s worn-out wood, a peace cradling May had this to say: the 79 year old body that you wore writhing and struggling two months before on a hospital bed some twenty blocks away, succumbing to delirium - that's all the doctors could see… They saw and examined the x-ray; they saw twelve tumors in the brain and alleviated the body's pain. They didn't see the spirit's ecstatic storm breaking through, blazing through the confused and delirious human form… The pianist was giving way to twelve angels bearing you away, the winged fruition of twelve notes masterfully handled with your fingers of rain, appearing as twelve tumors in the brain.

[@lalithdealwis4610]

Bravo. Excellent.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Ode To Your Rainbow Road With its coal-colored hat, Proud triangular hat, The yellow stood - dreaming House and sunflower faces. The green met the yellow As you and I, beloved, have met In dreams, the green Dreaming itself as field astir. The good and bad from yellow Were born: you at the kitchen counter Cutting lemons for lemonade, Your humming itself lemonade, You and I reading on the cottage lawn Or quietly picnicking on the lawn As bees hummed in pink-white petals, As the sky sang its honey of poems. A muted yellow, too, was seen: Your face sickly, you lying in bed, That last month a face of muted yellow. The green - field, forest - rang Its bells: your beauty one summer day In the late 80s clothed with a green and white polka dot dress, you leaning against a wooden fence, your leg lifted like a ballerina’s, the classical pianist, too, steeped in the emerald-green of summer power, our conversations themselves that time wide-ranging, golden-green fields astir. Your rainbow road pulled me along Like a kaleidoscope of song. Then the blue house, blue married To white. The porch, the sliding door’s Silhouettes were a single flow, The cries of children submerged In the slice of an orange glow. How much we had, how much we shared Years and years ago. I can’t count the mornings that began With you whipping up some eggs, coaxing the toast onto the plate, Orange juice coaxing my morning into Great. Like one who lives in a house by the beach, Like a swimmer drawn daily to the beach, I awoke to the sounds of your motion, Your cooking, footsteps, the pianist’s fingers, my ocean, A presence, a love clothed in speech. Oh blue married to white, my home, Blue waxing lyrical a past, like foam. And there it was, the twilight, sprawling, encompassing the blue house and me, with its red eye, or some crimson wound, some stain, I felt would never die, or would like flotsam Find me again and again, Ripening, deepening into a net Of your absence, your violet. And yet - What vigor, what vim still went on To color the wanderer’s sorrow, To etch in the stars, angelic powers; How much of you had heightened the indigo. The sadness would go on - but wasn’t Sufficiently ample or wide To overwhelm: you played this rainbow road Like a seven-string guitar from the other side. My delight, my merriment would blaze, Be emblazoned with you for my remaining days, Your absence my sadness and wonder mixed, Your presence flaming in unfamiliar ways.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Red Cottage Days Simple - The country town store, its smoke-smelling wood, And my father buying groceries there, Then putting them in the car, driving through wood, The stillness embracing cool morning air, Crisscrossing beams under some sort of spell, Shadows concentrated in a trance-like stare, The path with a pebble-crunching tale to tell, Building up our anticipation, excitement, The red cottage hedge glittering a smile, And tall oak too, to the effect it's been a while... Sometimes we would have a barbecue soon, Then some hours later go fishing, Once twilight had shed its cocoon, And the lake had ceased its restless wishing, Our boat slicing through quietness, rocks and stone In the water slowly disappearing Into meditation, all becoming more intensely alone. We would often ride the car to town Once the night forgot itself in fireflies - Ride to the auction house filled with smoke and beer. He liked antique furniture. Our relationship was clear. It was simple, direct, honest, and deep. My strivings were unborn, his half-asleep. He still had hopes for his dreams at forty five. My thoughts were no busy bees yet, I had no hive. Simple words and silences fluttered about us, And no thoughts, no beliefs as yet divided us. Rain Rain scurried, and I followed her to the bank. Rain had a marvelous, flowing raven tress, A beautiful Asian woman who wore blue jeans, Her large brown eyes mazes of expressiveness, Somewhat frantic, desperate, a little sad. I followed her to the bank, but once I got there, The place but harbored still and humid air; An uncomfortable silence was all I had. Orange and green and blue chairs gave me a stare... I caught sight of Rain passing the large bank glass, And I hurried outside; somehow I thought There was an exotic restaurant she sought, And once an Indonesian one came into view, I knew I would enter the restaurant too. Yet once again, when I entered, confusion Had conspired to make silence an intrusion... Apparently, Rain had communed with air Who had given her wings; she flew elsewhere. Sometime later I brushed with her again. Though we didn't speak, something told me She was off toward the train station To acquire tourist information. I wanted her, I wanted her by my side, Yet whenever I entered, I saw her outside, Seeming more beautiful, just out of reach, Her raven tress lifted, a sigh of summer air, Every nonchalant lift adding to my care... I awoke to a charming morning stare... It was about 11 o'clock, and a spring bird Playfully chirped, delivered a piercing sound As if to say I had been mad, absurd. I could smell the grass, the freshness of grass; I could hear a drizzle that only silence weaves, Or rather, a drizzle, like a master pianist, That plays upon a keyboard of leaves. What a silly boy I had been to let care Conjure up restless imaginings, When a Rain, a sweet Rain, was already there... When my girlfriend Rebecca knocked on my door, I carried a heavy head Of drunkenness. Rebecca bought Groceries, she cooked, we then went to bed And made love, the unfurling heavenly gleam Laughing at my imagined want, my dream...

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

My list of candidates for the greatest poems in the English language (under 1000 words each), in no particular order: 1. Dialogue of Self and Soul (Yeats) 2. Yeats' 2 poems on Byzantium, maybe "The Wild Swans at Coole" 3. Frost's "The Most of It" and "Design" 4. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (just slightly over 1000 words) 5. Definitely a few poems by Wallace Stevens 6. Shelley's "Ozymandias" - well-selected in this video 7. A few sonnets by Shakespeare, even though I'm a little sick and tired of him 8. "Spring and Fall" by Hopkins 9. "Death, Be Not Proud" by Donne 10. Many candidates from Blake 11. Keats of course. Any of his odes. 12. Emily Dickinson has be to here ("There's a certain slant of light") She has many gems. 13. Love Wordsworth, but his best poems are much longer than the stipulated limit. Same can be said of Whitman. 14. "Voyages" by Hart Crane 15. "somewhere i have never traveled" by cummings

[@TheSaltydog07]

Where is Pope?

[@javieralvarez1072]

If everybody takes the road less traveled, doesnt it turn it into the the road more traveled?

[@markthiele770]

would be better without the music. Can hardly hear the words of some of them. But good selection

[@poetrytherapyinc]

thanks for feedback. will upload a version with no music very soon.

[@mohitgoswami7478]

Use captions.

[@nikyung3300]

Great list...but Holy Sonnet should be #1 and Shakespeare #2

[@lawyersstuffs4453]

Man I only knew the first one.

[@Tribecasoothsayer]

Why play the music so loud!?? I can hardly hear some of these poems

[@jackcooper3307]

Paradise Lost?..

[@suvrodeepbhowmik8958]

can someone name the piano pieces played in the background

[@poetrytherapyinc]

I have listed the music in the description. Thanks for watching!

[@BitLeg]

I think by yellow he meant Autumn

[@mikaellanicolepalao3635]

Pwede ba Kayo maguplode NG tagaolog version! Please🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@mikaellanicolepalao3635]

Kailangan ko po Kasi para sa contest

[@mrfunnyman2726]

Made a video for poems and played music over the poems lol

[@elsolbrilla3652]

Titles ? Info of speakers?

[@keanuperesgomes]

Nice video but the music threw me off.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Mothers Sometimes he had heard shadow-tangle-twilight-stirred- willowed entrance to the wood, crackling twigs on the forest floor a hundred yards or more into the wood. He'd stand there - turn back at last, heading homeward to his fern and fireplace, the smell of cooking and his mother's face, patterns wedded to the past. Lifetimes it seemed it took for what he had heard, shadow-tangle-twilight stirred, willowed entrance to the wood to be heard anew and understood. Fear had kept him turning back, fuelled his failure to recognize within the shadow-tangled twilight, dapple-drizzled wood, his Mother's eyes. Lifetimes it seemed had seen him returning to the other, the comfort and consolation that had arched themselves above his crib - his 2nd mother, the first face he'd seen, taken for mother. The one trusted, turned-to at all events, the one presumed to be his pearl and source - like one possessed, like knowledge mistaken for wisdom - whirlpool of time pulling him into its course, pulling out from him a prolonged, plaintive song, she had been cooking him, preparing him to be devoured by the world all along. Worthy To Be Slain Like a taste of honey, the summer's lake winking at me, you appeared to me. You began as elementary school, middle school, high school, university: you began as a coquettish look emanating from a book; you began as a girl smiling and laughing in high school and college; you winked at me, flirted with me, wearing the dress of knowledge... Encompassing alike ebb and flow, you appeared sometimes, sometimes withdrew. You sometimes caught sight of the scholar's glow, his eyes traveling across the ocean waves and landscapes of that dress. Your own eyes lost their coquettishness, night and silence steeping you in seriousness... You began looking on me as might a woman of stunning beauty, who sifts the chaff from grain, the prospective lover turning her eyes to the strong and worthy one again and again... The stunning lover-to-be sifting chaff from grain now offered her depths to me; I proved worthy enough to be slain. You brought me to a space where you were me, utterly alone, where you wore a necklace of bone, my memories of the beloved dead, memories of all that I had learned.... You brought me to a space in the heart where ice and fire couldn't stand apart, where the noble nurse and perverse were one, where there glowed no particular way, where no distinctions held sway... What thundered within the spirit of your face was life and death in their acutest embrace. You had sifted the chaff from grain; for whatever reason you saw me fit and worthy to be slain. Afraid of Death? Afraid of death? Yet you die more than a thousand times a day. The thought of a father playing with his boy after some seconds, minutes fades away. The thought of a professor before his class after some seconds, minutes fades away. The thought of a hungry husband in bed, the thought of a wanderer wondering where he's going or by what is led, the thought of a responsible man, and more - all these walk in and walk out the door, a thousand times or more are gone before the flowering of each dawn. Afraid of death? Yet this body is a new symphony number seven. What you call death's the possibility of creativity and heaven. The one that fears, trailing fears as well - all these walk in and out the door, however many times are gone before the flowering of each dawn. Both what's beautiful and horrific deemed - these pass by and by, like all things dreamed. How many times has the youth you recall or reimagine feared an ending as though it were the end of him, the end of all? Yet that apprehension or terror long gone, or sadness that seemed to encompass his dawn is now but a faint residue or trace. You may be smiling now at the restless nights that once descended on the youthful face - and smiling at what his fear couldn't see, at all those things feared that never came to be. Afraid of death? Yet in its light is born your wife's, son's, and daughter's beauty, its light turning up the volume of your love, its light love's music and love's poignancy. Afraid? Yet the fear and being aware and looking through the microscope outshine mere optimism, faith or hope. The fear penetrated: sap of every tree seen through the eyes of a child, the spring air. Fear penetrated: shedding of another death that pretends to live, pretends the fear's not there. By Way of Encouragement When I held your hand, and we walked together in the summer sun, heaven winking at us as passing cars; when I raised and nurtured you, comforted, consoled, cooked for you, helped you with your homework, the one you turned to in elation and distress, all that was a taste only, just a taste or sip of love, the spring and summer we shared but some petals of this love borne aloft, strung together by the wind. The taste and scent was like a little coaxing from a seasoned elder toward a fumbling child, that love like praise spoken by way of encouragement... Having shed the body, I no longer coax or encourage the child; you must do away with childish notions, things, the child too invested in bodily form, the child conceiving a mother and the seasons. The child saw a mother, saw only a sliver of Me, fixated as he was on the form. Let the child die and this love deepen ever... No mother nor child was ever born nor spring nor summer nor moon nor sun, all these but dreams blooming in the formless One.

[@lalithdealwis4610]

You are very good. Press on and keep at it.

[@cosmicman621]

You are a born poet.I read each poem through many times.I became more and more intimate with them.I have myself been writing the last 30 odd years.These are truly-real things you have written about...I am sincerely happy for you 🐝🌹🌈

[@bestindian2819]

Vidyapati 😮😮😮😮😮😮

[@stephenbrown2054]

Nice choice of poems, but the background music is so loud that it’s hard to hear the reader sometimes.

[@TheKraftykid]

Could’ve done without the music tbh. These poems can stand on their own.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Most of them are great, although I'm not sure about the title "greatest poems of all time". "10 Popular Poems" is more like it. As far as I can tell, the authors themselves wrote far greater poetry. "Daffodils" at number 3? Really? The Shakespeare sonnet is far less complex and deep than Blake's "Tiger". Still, it was an enjoyable video overall.

[@lalithdealwis4610]

@Yacov Mitchenko Poems affect different people differently. Actually, poems can even affect the same person differently at different times. I know that happens to me, often. I may read a poem many times and think to myself, "That's a nice poem". Then, one day, I will read that same poem again and, that day, that poem will move me more than any other poem has. I guess it has something to do with the kind of mood you are in when you read the poem. For this reason, I hesitate to compare a poem that I know has moved me at some point in time with any other poem that has also moved me at some other point in time. It wasn't the poem alone. It was the poem and me, together. "Daffodils" is one such poem. It will always be in any list of best poems I make.

[@PatriotOfPersia]

* Best Western Poet's Because i can't see Khayyam, Rumi , Hafez and Other Eastern Poet

[@poetrytherapyinc]

I agree! and I want to do a re-make with ALL the world's greats. But to be honest, I wouldn't know where to begin. Do you have a top 10 to share? That would be a tremendous help.

[@sivek9814]

Maya Angelou is definitely one you left out

[@lalithdealwis4610]

Yeah, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

The best black poet so far is Robert Hayden, while Countee Cullen comes pretty close. Dunbar is excellent at times, yes. Maya Angelou is not even in the conversation.

[@dwanderful1]

The music is far too loud cant hear.the actual poems

[@longbow6976]

69th like lol

[@JandenHale]

I feel like some of the music was too loud for the voicing.

[@reflectedpoj622]

Great video but ngl the music takes away from the poetry.

[@dew3968]

---------*Timestamps*--------- 0:06 The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost 1:14 The New Colossus - Emma Lazarus 2:30 Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley 3:59 Ode on a Grecian Urn - John Keats 7:53 The Tyger - William Blake 9:31 On His Blindness - John Milton 10:48 A Psalm of Life - Henry Wadsworth 13:02 Daffodils - William Wordsworth 14:35 Holy Sonnet 10: Death, Be Not Proud - John Donne 15:55 - Sonnet 18 - William Shakespeare

[@MikeWhiskyTango]

sry music too loud way too loud.

[@Bb-xp8ym]

These might be the "greatest" European poems but certainly not the greatest in the World or of all Time. At all.

[@yacovmitchenko1490]

Mine: Shattered Mirror Anonymous One, The mirror once stood still as Your radiant smile. The stars' clarity bowed before Adam's eyes. Then it shattered somehow, and the fragments' guile Started playing out with scheming surprise. Each deemed itself a unique culture and nation; It dreamed forth different faiths and hierarchy; It dreamed forth good and evil; each person's station Competed with another, and the enemy Or one fought against was inevitably born. Someone posted up a flag, and a flag was torn Or burned by someone else; the crusader's mind, Sword-intent, tried converting the equally blind. Much later, there was the democratic crusade, The axis of evil parade and charade. What the axis of evil intimated was not That the good would flower forth, be gloriously brought Into the open, once light had vanquished dark, But only how destitute both sides are of Your spark. The source of chaos and madness is not a foreign kind, But the long-divided, fragmented mind. More Beautiful Differences A single bird is pulled as needle from blue cloth. Hills drunk with shimmering green rustle being. A stream meditates, almost courting seeing. A figure, hunched over, is a kiss of distance, Each movement of arm almost embrace of soil. Three gray boulders are alive, mesmerized stillness. All movements, non-movement are luminous fact; Ideas scurry off like mice in light of fact. I don't stand here as Canadian, denying fact. Canada's a dream; there are people and earth. I don't know what I am, but I'm not Jewish; Being Jewish is yet another dream. There is seeing now, these hills, figure, stream, With unknowingness as my only wings. I don't embrace such ideas, and so I don't encourage division, needless woe. Is this throwing out too much that is rich? Is this the end of grand stories we can stitch? Not so: It's the beginning of me and you. The differences that remain shimmer, Being more beautiful and more deeply true. Amsterdam Park Anonymous One, The mature bloom of yellow afternoon Waved at us, and we entered Amsterdam park. September spoke softly to beach and sand dune, Passersby, deer, trees, red-berry bushes, till the Moon-Dark Of ourselves and aloneness silenced words, Scattering them as though they were a flock of birds. My friend and I - we walked and walked and some profound, Vast and alien meditation suffused each trail and mound. I could no longer say the rabbit stirred the grass Or deer leapt; any movement that would pass Was rather some anonymous force bending space In infinite ways; the green-glowing beetle was Your Face. We stopped by somewhere and only felt there was no mistake, That we had never been elsewhere or ever could be. I say now that we had come to some water With austere presences, each towering tree, But it was Aliveness before the world began: The horizon and shoreline were arcs, and in between Resounded ruffled echoes, cries from the Nothing-seen. I Dreamt Once.... Anonymous One, I dreamt once and it wasn’t a dream! I opened what seemed an ancient book, And You gave me a terrifying azure look Of transparency without will Which a billion suns couldn’t fill. You were humming, only humming, naked, alone, With intensity of a needle vibrating on a level tone; Your peace was invincible and crystalline; I felt the fear of drowning, the tense borderline; I couldn’t tell whether madness was engulfing me Or enlightenment beckoned, inviting me, Whether Your transparency meant my end Or targeted ignorance as does the true friend. What I saw had no sentiment to show, No human hope to offer, and one whose trust Rests with personal faces, affairs would have felt disgust At Your azure look, preferring constant human strife To what seemed no more than the end of life. I fled In panic and terror that swiftly led Me back through a whirlpool of yellow leaves, But I felt there’d never be loss or lack: You’d be a wound of richness, You’d always be humming, Calling me back. My Wife Anonymous One, If I turn my eyes from You, lovely words, My thoughts become a screen through which I see: There is no creation, I am my own Enemy, kin of Narcissus, like a painter turned to stone By his painting, as though he tried to fit The kaleidoscopic world into that one image alone. Words, too, are like young women in an office room: I work with them, admire their forms, their dress, But my Wife awaits me, and true happiness. She is Woman without image I cannot leave As I cannot leave myself, or if I try, I shall grow old as Adam, I shall grieve. So when I work, I work afresh, anew Because I feel You inside, only You. I flow in time, though not of time, a joy Which no diverting pleasures would destroy. You lead me not to comfort, but open spaces; Of shelter, security there are no traces. After all the thoughts, images that float During day, in and out of the office room, I return with delight Naked, vulnerable, to the Night.

[@PoetryofChaos]

great first poem but too much damn feet lol

[@lurasblurasb7128]

Poetry without Persian poets is like football without Brazilian footballers, even Persian is the most poetic language in the world

[@draigporffor3288]

Maybe! But you've gotta admit Welsh is a very beautiful language for poetry! The word "bard" comes from the Welsh word "bardd", and we created the Eisteddfodau/ Music, and poetry competitions.

[@eduardmanecuta5350]

Of all time? Maybe from English language...

[@ryougujiken3028]

Yeah the rumi or Al mutanabi solo them

[@dwanderful1]

Ruined by the intrusive music score

[@lovewavesdriftingforever]

Damn the music .. it’s distracting .. very loud and adds nothing .. good .

[@leacuster1741]

How convenient that all of the "10 Greatest Poems of All Time" were written in English!

[@truelove6005]

When this came on my mind instantly said stfu these are not the greatest poets.

[@randybailin4902]

Leaves of Grass (as a collective) doesn't make the top 10? Tough crowd.

[@sergioalcantar3290]

Sorry but the gain at music and vocals is unbalanced and makes some words unintelligible, ruining the listening experience.

[@JoePortly]

Isn't much of the poetry or 'literature' that's foist on us, just a fraud on us?

[@general-soleimani-my-hero1815]

Where are all the great Iranian / Persian poems? Rumi ? Ferdowsi ? Saaedi ? Hafez ? Omar Khaijam ? etc etc ?! Iranian poems are the greatest in history PERIOD! 🇮🇷💯

[@Laurentus]

Who?

[@lalithdealwis4610]

Actually, the poetry of Rumi was not written in the English language and so, his poetry could very well be attractive in the Persian language and the ideas he expressed could also be very intriguing but the attraction of the poetry when translated to English depends to a great extent on the artistry of the translator. A poetic translator would I expect take the idea expressed by the original and express it in a poem written in English. To whom then, should the credit go? The originator of the idea or the writer of the poem. On the other hand, an accurate translator would merely express the original idea in English and, constrained by the need to be true to the original, perhaps not come up with a very moving poem but one which accurately conveys the thoughts of the original poet. I enjoy reading English translations of poems written in other languages and tend to appreciate the former type of translation more. I have read two translations of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The first was by Edward Fitzgerald, which I was made to understand strayed from time to time from the original Persian version. It moved me considerably while the other more accurate translation left me cold and unmoved. So, the fact that no poem written by Rumi is included here, does not necessarily mean that Rumi's work was not good enough to be included among the 10 best. It could mean that the translators, and not Rumi, came up a little bit short.

[@larapalma3744]

Nope just some of the best known Less travelled could be just those 4 words

[@marky6456]

Jeeze that audio quality hurts

[@Poemsapennyeach]

What an insult to the poems to have music tinkling and dreadful visuals to 'set the mood' . Leaving after half a minute/

[@dwanderful1]

Music is very distracting

[@dwanderful1]

Music is far too loud very annoying

[@YarMalikHere]

Hate the background music.. Why do you have to ruin literature like this .. I just wanna hear without any music.

[@Laurentus]

Ozymandias is a great addition, but Bryan Cranston's rendition is by far the best. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qYHPhHtso5hqqtU

[@dragosgoldan8825]

GREETINGS FROM ROMANIA...MY NAME IS DRAGOS MIHAI GOLDAN AND I'M THE GREAT ROMANIAN ARTIST...POET AND WRITER TOO (INPUBLISHED YET BUT IN THE FUTURE I BECOME A REAL SUCCESSFULL MAN OF THIS UNIVERSE....)...I'M FONDATOR OF MARTIAL ARTS AND I AM A FONDATOR OF A NEW CONCEPT OF ROMANTIC DINNER BETWEEN WOMEN AND MAN TOGETHER FOREVER NOW AND FOREVER FOR TOTALLY IMORTALITY...DIN 💓 FOR YOU...!!!

[@Stop_Elitists_Wars]

This Music is such a bad idea

[@MyEasyasabc]

Why have music that completely over powers any of the actual poems, come on.

[@petergibson2035]

The music is too intrusive and also poetry should spoken aloud and not whispered.

[@amadeagottlieb]

The writhing female forms were overdone. Detracts from the spare beauty of spoken word.

[@drywaller12345]

Yeah, music destroys the poets' work

[@robertomendez187]

The loud cheesy music destroys the poetry. Coming from a published poet, it’s an abomination.