Fantasy vs. Reality

Chencho’s Cow

The struggles of life with passion proved to be difficult, but life without passion was dull

When We Two Parted

A lament for a lost love in which the speaker recalls the moment of parting

The Eolian Harp

Focuses on man's relationship with nature

Friday Black

Follows a department store salesman, as he copes with “vicious, insatiable Black Friday shoppers” who become violent and animalistic in their desire to shop

I Heard a Fly Buzz - When I Died -

The narrator is on her deathbed as she describes the progression towards her death

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

A pastoral poem from the English Renaissance

The Nymph’s Reply to the Shephard

In reply to the shepherd’s courtship, the nymph presents a point-by-point rejection of his offer of a transitory life of passion and pastoral idyll

Raleigh was Right

Composed in response to the Elizabethan exchange between Christopher Marlowe, in "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love", and Walter Raleigh, with "The Nymph's Reply"

I Spy

About a 12-year-old boy named Charlie Stowe who decides to break into his father's tobacco shop to steal cigarettes

My Last Duchess

The speaker is giving the emissary of the family of his prospective new wife a tour of the artworks in his home

Candide

A young man lives a sheltered life, being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism by his mentor, Professor Pangloss. This lifestyle is abruptly ended, followed by his slow and painful disillusionment.

Sonnet 130

Mocks the conventions of the showy and flowery courtly sonnets in its realistic portrayal of his mistress

The Road Not Taken

Its central theme is the divergence of paths, both literally and figuratively

To His Coy Mistress

Addressing a woman who has been slow to respond to his romantic advance