Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem "Excelsior" in the early morning hours of September 28, 1841, and it was published for the first time in a periodical four months later. Excelsior is a Latin word which loosely translated means "ever upward" or "always higher". With that in mind, this poem could be interpreted as a sort of allegory on perseverance and always striving against the odds, or alternatively, blindly following your own desires without heeding the advice and counsel of others. E...
May 04, 2019•3 min
First published in a periodical just a few days before Christmas in 1888, "Christmas at Sea" is a vivid narrative poem that pulls the reader into the scenes. The stark contrast between the warm, domestic scene and the freezing weather onboard the ship is very poignant and is the most interesting part of the piece to me. While the Scottish writer is known more for his novels, he also wrote three volumes of poetry with the first one, A Child's Garden of Verses, being the most known to casual poetr...
Dec 22, 2018•4 min
Born in rural Massachusetts in 1807, John Greenleaf Whittier began to write poetry at a young age with his first poem being published in the summer of 1826. Shortly thereafter, he began working as an editor of various periodicals. The poem "In School-days" was written in 1869 and Whittier may have drawn a bit on his own experience as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. The poem was praised by the public as well as by other poets with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow commenting, "There is something mo...
Nov 29, 2018•3 min
Probably the most well-known poem by Walt Whitman, "O Captain! My Captain!" is a moving metaphor for President Abraham Lincoln's leadership of the country during the Civil War and his assassination which shocked the nation. This poem is actually only one of a handful that Whitman wrote in honor of Lincoln, whom he greatly admired. "O Captain" was written in 1865 shortly after the death of the President and was published later the same year in a small booklet containing a collection of 18 of Whit...
Apr 20, 2018•3 min
Mary Leapor was a young poet born into Britain's working class. She died at the young age of 24 and therefore her body of work is not very large, but it contains some lengthy pieces which are quite respected and have received much acclaim to this day. Published posthumously in 1748, "The Crucifixion and Resurrection. An Ode." is a beautiful and vivid depiction of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. Leapor recounts this event in her signature style and the poem's first three stanzas seem to...
Mar 29, 2018•3 min
The poem "Eldorado" was first published in 1849 in the Boston-based periodical, The Flag of Our Union, a publication which also printed works from Louisa May Alcott. Incidentally, this poem was published just a little over five months before Edgar Allan Poe would meet his untimely–and still unexplained–death. Poe is, of course, known for his melancholy and dark writings and although there are some gray undertones in "Eldorado", they are far less overt than those in many of his other pieces. The ...
Feb 21, 2018•2 min
"Autumn Fires" was first published in 1885 in a volume titled Penny Whistles which contained over 60 poems, including "My Shadow", "The Lamplighter", and "The Land of Story-books". The collection was later re-titled A Child’s Garden of Verses and has been reprinted many times. Robert Louis Stevenson is, of course, well-known for his short stories and novels, such as the pirate adventure story, Treasure Island, which was published two years prior to the aforementioned poetry collection.
Nov 23, 2017•1 min
While she wrote dozens of poems, Emma Lazarus is most known for "The New Colossus" and information about much of her other work is scarce. Indeed, information regarding "Afternoon" is almost nonexistent online. This beautiful, narrative piece is filled with vivid visuals that draw the reader into the scene. It takes very little effort to feel as though one is walking alongside the unnamed "her" in the poem. Whether the woman Lazarus refers to is herself or if it is a more general usage of the pr...
Oct 15, 2017•3 min
American born, Jewish poet, Emma Lazarus wrote this now famous sonnet in 1883 for the purpose of aiding the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty as Lazarus notes on the original manuscript of the poem (pictured below). Unfortunately, she never saw the poem enshrined on Liberty Island as the plaque bearing the poem's text was not affixed to the pedestal wall until 1903; over a decade and a half after Lazarus' death in 1887. The title of the poem is a reference to the Colossus of Rhod...
Sep 01, 2017•2 min
This popular poem by American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, was first published in the literary magazine, The Knickerbocker, in 1838. The following year, this poem was collected with several other early Longfellow works and published in a volume titled Voices of the Night. Longfellow revisits the idea of likening poems to psalms as well as other themes from “A Psalm of Life" in subsequent works on several other occasions, including one entitled "The Reaper and the Flowers" which was original...
Jul 27, 2017•2 min
Written and published in the winter of 1854, "The Charge of the Light Brigade" memorializes the story of the British soldiers who fought in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. The battle, in which the Russian forces had soundly defeated the British, had just taken place less than two months prior when Tennyson wrote this poem. One survivor of the defeated cavalry regiment, the 11th Hussars, Private Thomas Williams, remarked later in a letter to his parents, “I could see what would be...
Jun 15, 2017•3 min
American lyric poet, Sara Teasdale, was born in 1884 in Missouri. She published her first poem in a newspaper in 1907 followed by a volume of her poetry later that year. In 1950, science fiction writer, Ray Bradbury published a short story which contained Teasdale's poem, "There Will Come Soft Rains" and Bradbury also used that as his story's title. Many of her poems have been put to music over the years, including "The Long Hill" which was recorded by the band Clifford Grooms in 2013.
May 30, 2017•1 min
Written in 1889, when Tennyson was about 80 years old, "Crossing The Bar" is one of his last pieces of poetry. The elegy embraces similar themes as many of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's other works as he once again uses references to the sea; this time to make his point about the ending of life on earth. Tennyson seemed to view the piece as a bookend of sorts to his work and requested that this poem be placed last in all future publications of collections of his poetry.
May 15, 2017•2 min
First published in 1840, "The Village Blacksmith" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is a wonderful example of a short, narrative poem. It not only tells the reader a story, but it is one which many can relate to since it is really a story of the "everyman". After its initial publication in a periodical, "The Village Blacksmith" was then included in a volume of Longfellow's works entitled Ballads and Other Poems, published in 1841, which included other now well-known poems such as, "The Wreck of the ...
Apr 09, 2017•3 min
Emma Lazarus was an American poet who was writing during the late 1800s. She is most known for her sonnet in honor of The Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus". Her poem, "Florence Nightingale", was written on March 7, 1867 and was first published in 1871. There are conflicting opinions about the accuracy of this poem's portrayal of the woman known as "The Mother of Modern Nursing" and "The Lady with the Lamp", but regardless, it is a wonderful piece which honors Nightingale's contributions to t...
Feb 17, 2017•2 min
English poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in 1806 and is believed to have written her first poem at the young age of 6. Unlike many classic poets, Barrett Browning was quite well respected and her works were well received during her lifetime. Among the admirers of her work were Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe; the latter even dedicated a volume of his poems to her in 1845. Perhaps most known for her sonnets and especially the very famous piece, "How Do I Love Thee?", Barrett Browning...
Jan 29, 2017•1 min
"The Eagle" was first published in 1851, shortly after Tennyson was appointed as Poet Laureate of Britain in 1850; a position he held until his death in 1892. In spite of its short length, "The Eagle" still contains a lot of meaning. It is packed with beautiful imagery and the iambic tetrameter Tennyson employs allows the words to flow off the tongue in an easy rhythm. It is simply a delightful piece to read and contemplate.
Sep 30, 2016•59 sec
Perhaps better known for his fiction works such as Treasure Island and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson was also a prolific poet, publishing a handful of collections of poems. "My Shadow" was first published in 1885 in a collection titled A Child’s Garden of Verses. The poem is a wonderful snapshot of childhood wonder and innocence.
Jul 31, 2016•2 min
American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, wrote "The Children's Hour" about his relationship with his own three daughters, even using their names in the piece. It was first published in 1860 in the Boston-based magazine, The Atlantic Monthly. Subsequent publishings were often accompanied by a portrait of the three girls. The poem is a beautiful look at a father's love for his children, but also contains the bittersweet tones of the realization that the childhood years are fleeting.
Jun 19, 2016•3 min
English writer, Charlotte Brontë, is probably best known for her novel, Jane Eyre, although she wrote a handful of other novels as well as many poems. For many years she wrote and published her works under the pseudonym, Currer Bell. The poem, Evening Solace, was first published in 1846 as part of a collection of pieces by Charlotte and her two sisters, Emily and Anne.
May 31, 2016•2 min
This poem was originally published in 1684 in Part 2 of the well-known allegorical novel that Bunyan wrote, The Pilgrim's Progress. The text was later modified and set to music in the early 1900s and sung as a hymn in churches. There are a few textual variations of the piece and it has also been known under several different titles including, "He Who Would Valiant Be" and "The Pilgrim". We have chosen to use the original text for this reading.
Apr 17, 2016•2 min
This beautiful, narrative poem was first published in 1849 in a volume titled "Poems", just a few years after James Thomas Fields became a partner in a Boston publishing firm. Several of Fields' works reference the sea which may have been due to the fact that his father was a sea captain, although he died when Fields was quite young. After James Thomas Fields' death in 1881 at the age of 63, two of Fields' contemporaries, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier, wrote poems in his...
Mar 26, 2016•2 min
Before beginning to work full time on his literary interests, Robert Bridges worked for 8 years as a physician in several London hospitals. "London Snow" was written several years after he left the medical field and is a beautiful poem full of imagery which details how enchanting a fresh snowfall is for young and old alike. Bridges served as the Poet Laureate of England from 1913 until his death in 1930.
Mar 03, 2016•3 min
After working for many hours on a poem in 1922, Robert Frost stepped outside and was suddenly inspired to write "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening". He said later that he was able to complete the piece in just a few minutes. Published in 1923, it is a beautiful poem which depicts the wonder of watching the snow fall in winter and along with "The Road Not Taken" has become one of Frost's most well-known works.
Feb 22, 2016•1 min
The personification of nature that Dickinson employs in this poem is simply beautiful. As always, she uses a few words to articulate so much and does it so well. It's so easy to visualize in one's mind's eye the scene that she is describing. And then with the last few words, Dickinson brings home the true point of the piece with the comparison of nature to humanity.
Feb 16, 2016•1 min
Written on Christmas Day in 1863 during the heat of the Civil War by American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Christmas Bells" is perhaps more well-known in the form of the Christmas carol "I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day". Organist John Baptiste Calkin set the poem to music in 1872 and it has been since performed and recorded by dozens of artists.
Dec 20, 2015•3 min
Emily Dickinson was a master of saying much with a few words. In these few lines she paints a beautiful word picture of the amazing canvas of the skies. Some scholars contend that this poem is a reference to the American Civil War, and while that may be the case it still stands on its own as a beautiful piece even if taken literally.
Dec 12, 2015•1 min
Contrasting the sadness and beauty of the changing of seasons, Emily Brontë also leaves the reader with a sense of anticipation of the cooler weather in this short work. The vivid imagery she uses seems to leap from the page and make the piece come alive. The fifth of six children, Emily was a quite capable poet as evidenced by this beautiful depiction of autumn, but is more known for her novel, Wuthering Heights.
Dec 08, 2015•1 min
Written in May of 1915 by Canadian physician, Lt. Col. John McCrae, "In Flanders Fields" is one of the most recognizable poems about the First World War. It was first published in a London magazine about 7 months after being written. The poem is still well-loved in McCrae's native Canada and was even featured on a ten dollar note in 2001.
Nov 11, 2015•1 min
This piece is one of Dickinson's most recognizable works and it is one of the few which has been titled by an editor as Emily Dickinson did not title her poems. "Chartless" was first published in 1890 after her death in 1886 by a few of her personal acquaintances. The version of the poem we used here is the edited text which is slightly different from Dickinson's original.
Oct 17, 2015•53 sec
