Top Quizbowl Poems

The Waste Land

T.S. Eliot, Known for its fragmented structure, allusions to mythology, and the line 'April is the cruellest month.'

Paradise Lost

John Milton, Epic poem about the fall of man, featuring Satan's famous line 'Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.'

The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe, Narrative poem featuring a talking raven and the refrain 'Nevermore.'

Ode to a Nightingale

John Keats, Romantic ode reflecting on transience and immortality, beginning with 'My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains.'

Dover Beach

Matthew Arnold, Explores the decline of faith, starting with a description of the sea's 'eternal note of sadness.'

Howl

Allen Ginsberg, Beat generation poem starting 'I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.'

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost, Famous for the lines 'Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by.'

Song of Myself

Walt Whitman, Central poem of Leaves of Grass, beginning with 'I celebrate myself, and sing myself.'

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Features a cursed sailor and the famous line 'Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.'

Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Sonnet about the impermanence of power, ending with 'Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Beowulf

Anonymous, Old English epic about the hero Beowulf's battles with Grendel, Grendel's mother, and a dragon.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

William Wordsworth, Romantic poem about daffodils, starting with 'I wandered lonely as a cloud.'

Invictus

William Ernest Henley, Famous for the closing lines 'I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.'

Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Narrative poem commemorating a disastrous cavalry charge during the Crimean War.

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Emily Dickinson, Features personified Death as a carriage driver, starting with 'Because I could not stop for Death.'

Annabel Lee

Edgar Allan Poe, Gothic poem about a lost love, with the refrain 'In a kingdom by the sea.'

Ulysses

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dramatic monologue in the voice of the aging Ulysses, ending with 'To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'

If—

Rudyard Kipling, Inspirational poem beginning with 'If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.'

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

T.S. Eliot, Features the famous line 'Do I dare disturb the universe?' and explores modern alienation.

A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning

John Donne, Metaphysical poem using a compass as a conceit for love.

Kubla Khan

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Visionary fragment describing 'a stately pleasure-dome' in Xanadu.

My Last Duchess

Robert Browning, Dramatic monologue revealing the Duke's controlling nature, featuring a portrait of his late wife.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost, Ends with the famous lines 'And miles to go before I sleep.'

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron, Romantic poem praising a woman's grace and beauty.

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Dylan Thomas, Villanelle urging resistance against death, with the refrain 'Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

To His Coy Mistress

Andrew Marvell, Carpe diem poem featuring the lines 'But at my back I always hear / Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near.'

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Thomas Gray, Meditative poem on mortality, beginning with 'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.'

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer, Collection of stories in verse, including the General Prologue and the tale of the Wife of Bath.

An Ode to the West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Starts with 'O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being.'

The Tyger

William Blake, From Songs of Experience, featuring the lines 'Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night.'

Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey

William Wordsworth, Explores the power of nature and memory, beginning with 'Five years have past.'

Sailing to Byzantium

W.B. Yeats, Explores art and aging, starting with 'That is no country for old men.'

The Second Coming

W.B. Yeats, Known for 'Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold' and 'a rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem.'

The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Oscar Wilde, Reflects on prison life and morality, with the line 'Yet each man kills the thing he loves.'

Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats, Celebrates the eternal beauty of art, ending with 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty.'

The Divine Comedy

Dante Alighieri, Epic journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, featuring Virgil as a guide.

To a Skylark

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Celebrates the song of a skylark, opening with 'Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!'

Lady Lazarus

Sylvia Plath, Confessional poem referencing the Holocaust and resurrection, with the line 'I eat men like air.'

The Prelude

William Wordsworth, Autobiographical epic exploring the growth of the poet's mind.

The Song of Hiawatha

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Epic poem inspired by Native American legends, starting with 'By the shores of Gitche Gumee.'

Casey at the Bat

Ernest Lawrence Thayer, Humorous narrative about baseball, ending with 'But there is no joy in Mudville.'

Jabberwocky

Lewis Carroll, Nonsense poem from Through the Looking-Glass featuring words like 'slithy' and 'vorpal.'

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

Julia Ward Howe, Famous for 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.'

Thanatopsis

William Cullen Bryant, Meditation on death and nature, opening with 'To him who in the love of Nature holds.'

The Cremation of Sam McGee

Robert W. Service, Narrative about the frozen North, ending with Sam's cremation in a furnace.

The Iliad

Homer, Epic poem about the Trojan War, focusing on Achilles and his wrath.

The Odyssey

Homer, Epic poem about Odysseus's journey home after the Trojan War.

The Song of Roland

Anonymous, French epic poem about Charlemagne's knight Roland and his heroic last stand.

Gitanjali

Rabindranath Tagore, Collection of devotional poems, including themes of spirituality and unity.

The Aeneid

Virgil, Latin epic about Aeneas's journey to found Rome, featuring his descent into the underworld.

Inferno

Dante Alighieri, The first part of The Divine Comedy, detailing Dante's journey through Hell.

Don Juan

Lord Byron, Epic satirical poem about the adventures and misadventures of its titular character.

Aurora Leigh

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Verse novel exploring the life of a female poet.

The Faerie Queene

Edmund Spenser, Allegorical epic celebrating the virtues of chivalry.

The Lay of the Last Minstrel

Sir Walter Scott, Romantic narrative poem blending folklore and history.

Tam o' Shanter

Robert Burns, Humorous narrative about a drunken farmer encountering witches.

The Charge of the Heavy Brigade

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Companion poem to The Charge of the Light Brigade.

The Destruction of Sennacherib

Lord Byron, Known for its rhythmic repetition and biblical allusion.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Edward FitzGerald, Translation of Persian quatrains, often meditative and hedonistic.

The Seafarer

Anonymous, Old English poem exploring themes of exile and the sea.

The Wanderer

Anonymous, Anglo-Saxon elegy reflecting on loss and transience.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Anonymous, Middle English chivalric romance in verse.

The Vision of Piers Plowman

William Langland, Allegorical poem critiquing social and religious corruption.

The Cloud

Percy Bysshe Shelley, Extended metaphor describing the water cycle and nature's power.

The Garden

Andrew Marvell, Pastoral poem celebrating solitude and natural beauty.

To a Mouse

Robert Burns, Famous for the line 'The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley.'

The Eclogues

Virgil, Pastoral poems blending mythology and Roman politics.

The Georgics

Virgil, Didactic poems about farming and human relationship with nature.

Goblin Market

Christina Rossetti, Allegorical poem featuring themes of temptation and sisterly love.

The Ballad of East and West

Rudyard Kipling, Famous for the line 'East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.'

The Highwayman

Alfred Noyes, Narrative poem about love, sacrifice, and betrayal.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

J.R.R. Tolkien, Epic poem inspired by Norse mythology.

The Iliad of India

Valmiki, Sanskrit epic poem about the heroic deeds of Prince Rama, from the Ramayana.

Mahabharata

Vyasa, Sanskrit epic, including the Bhagavad Gita, exploring dharma and duty.

The Song of Songs

Attributed to Solomon, Biblical poem celebrating love and longing.

Bhagavad Gita

Part of the Mahabharata, featuring a dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna on duty and spirituality.

Genesis

Anonymous, Old English epic retelling of the biblical creation story.

Paradiso

Dante Alighieri, The final part of The Divine Comedy, exploring the realm of Heaven.

Evangeline

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Narrative poem about the Acadian deportation and lost love.

The Canterbury Tales: The Pardoner's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer, A moral tale of greed and death.

The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer, A story of chivalric love and rivalry.

The Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Tale

Geoffrey Chaucer, A bawdy and humorous tale of trickery.

The Lady of Shalott

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Narrative poem about a cursed lady who weaves in a tower.

Paul Revere's Ride

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Narrative poem immortalizing the American Revolutionary War.

The Death of the Hired Man

Robert Frost, Pastoral poem exploring themes of home and responsibility.

Easter, 1916

W.B. Yeats, Reflecting on the Irish independence movement and featuring the refrain 'A terrible beauty is born.'

In Memoriam A.H.H.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elegiac poem mourning the loss of a close friend.

The Bells

Edgar Allan Poe, Known for its onomatopoeia and rhythmic repetition of 'bells.'

Renascence

Edna St. Vincent Millay, Explores themes of spiritual awakening and the natural world.

I Sing the Body Electric

Walt Whitman, Celebrates the human body and soul, part of Leaves of Grass.

When You Are Old

W.B. Yeats, Romantic and reflective poem inspired by unrequited love.

The Tower

W.B. Yeats, Collection including poems about Irish myth and personal reflection.

The Burial of the Dead

T.S. Eliot, The opening section of The Waste Land, featuring themes of desolation.

The Four Quartets

T.S. Eliot, Philosophical and meditative poems on time and spirituality.

The Phoenix and the Turtle

William Shakespeare, Allegorical poem about the death of ideal love.

A Shropshire Lad

A.E. Housman, Collection of pastoral and elegiac poems.

Idylls of the King

Alfred Lord Tennyson, Epic poem cycle about the legends of King Arthur.

The Ballad of Birmingham

Dudley Randall, Reflecting on the 1963 church bombing in Alabama.

Poetry

Marianne Moore, Famous for the line 'I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.'

September 1, 1939

W.H. Auden, Poem written on the eve of World War II, beginning with 'I sit in one of the dives.'