1. The first We knew of Him was Death -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 2287 times on American Poems.

The first We knew of Him was Death --
The second -- was -- Renown --
Except the first had justified
The second had not been.(Read full poem)

Over and over, like a Tune --
The Recollection plays --
Drums off the Phantom Battlements
Cornets of Paradise --

Snatches, from Baptized Generations --
Cadences too grand
But for the Justified Processions
At the Lord's Right hand.(Read full poem)

3. So glad we are -- a Stranger'd deem - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1435 times on American Poems.

So glad we are -- a Stranger'd deem
'Twas sorry, that we were --
For where the Holiday should be
There publishes a Tear --
Nor how Ourselves be justified --
Since Grief and Joy are done
So similar -- An Optizan
Could not decide between --(Read full poem)

There was a girl
who danced in the city that night,
that April 22nd,
all along the Charles River.
It was as if one hundred men were watching
or do I mean the one hundred eyes of God?
The yellow patches in the sycamores
glowed like miniature... (Read full poem)

5. This Bauble was preferred of Bees -- - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1330 times on American Poems.

This Bauble was preferred of Bees --
By Butterflies admired
At Heavenly -- Hopeless Distances --
Was justified of Bird --

Did Noon -- enamel -- in Herself
Was Summer to a Score
Who only knew of Universe --
It had created Her.(Read full poem)

The Winters are so short --
I'm hardly justified
In sending all the Birds away --
And moving into Pod --

Myself -- for scarcely settled --
The Phoebes have begun --
And then -- it's time to strike my Tent --
And open House -- again --

It's mostly,... (Read full poem)

7. Elijah's Wagon knew no thill - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 1396 times on American Poems.

Elijah's Wagon knew no thill
Was innocent of Wheel
Elijah's horses as unique
As was his vehicle --

Elijah's journey to portray
Expire with him the skill
Who justified Elijah
In feats inscrutable --(Read full poem)

Had I presumed to hope --
The loss had been to Me
A Value -- for the Greatness' Sake --
As Giants -- gone away --

Had I presumed to gain
A Favor so remote --
The failure but confirm the Grace
In further Infinite --

'Tis failure -- not of Hope... (Read full poem)

9. The Twenty Hoss-Power Shay - written by Ellis Parker Butler
From Leslie’s Monthly. Published in 1905. Read 304 times on American Poems.

You have heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day.
And then, of a sudden, it up and bust,
And all that was left was a mound of dust?
Holmes—O. W.—told it well
In a rhyme of... (Read full poem)

The last Campbell's tomato soup can 
of the twentieth century is going to 
the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh 
That is an example of a sentence 
Another is this from a CEO in Fortune 
"You die in either case, but this way you get 
to do it... (Read full poem)

11. An Instructor's Dream - written by Bill Knott
From The Unsubscriber. Published in 2000. Read 2988 times on American Poems.

Many decades after graduation
the students sneak back onto
the school-grounds at night
and within the pane-lit windows
catch me their teacher at the desk
or blackboard cradling a chalk:
someone has erased their youth,
and as they crouch closer to... (Read full poem)

WHAT best I see in thee, 
Is not that where thou mov’st down history’s great highways, 
Ever undimm’d by time shoots warlike victory’s dazzle, 
Or that thou sat’st where Washington sat, ruling the land in peace, 
Or thou the... (Read full poem)

13. Dream Song 121: Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it - written by John Berryman
From His Toy, His Dream, His Rest. Published in 1968. Read 636 times on American Poems.

Grief is fatiguing. He is out of it,
the whole humiliating Human round,
out of this & that.
He made a-many hearts go pit-a-pat
who now need never mind his nostril-hair
nor a critical error laid bare.

He endured fifty years. He was Randall... (Read full poem)

SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest—namely,
	One’s-Self—that wondrous thing a simple, separate person. That, for the use of
    the
	New World, I sing. 
Man’s physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing.... (Read full poem)

15. The Fallen Angels - written by Anne Sexton
Read 6997 times on American Poems.

They come on to my clean
sheet of paper and leave a Rorschach blot.
They do not do this to be mean,
they do it to give me a sign
they want me, as Aubrey Beardsley once said,
to shove it around till something comes.
Clumsy as I am,
I do it.
For I am... (Read full poem)

I watched the Moon around the House
Until upon a Pane --
She stopped -- a Traveller's privilege -- for Rest --
And there upon

I gazed -- as at a stranger --
The Lady in the Town
Doth think no incivility
To lift her Glass -- upon --

But never... (Read full poem)

17. There came a Day at Summer's full - written by Emily Dickinson
From Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Published in 1955. Read 3866 times on American Poems.

There came a Day at Summer's full,
Entirely for me --
I thought that such were for the Saints,
Where Resurrections -- be --

The Sun, as common, went abroad,
The flowers, accustomed, blew,
As if no soul the solstice passed
That maketh all things new... (Read full poem)

Roach, foulest of creatures,
who attacks with yellow teeth
and an army of cousins big as shoes,
you are lumps of coal that are mechanized
and when I turn on the light you scuttle
into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land.
Yet I know you... (Read full poem)

19. Here I Am ... - written by Charles Bukowski
Read 4352 times on American Poems.

drunk again at 3 a.m. at the end of my 2nd bottle
of wine, I have typed from a dozen to 15 pages of
poesy
an old man
maddened for the flesh of young girls in this
dwindling twilight
liver gone
kidneys going
pancrea pooped
top-floor blood pressure... (Read full poem)

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every... (Read full poem)

21. Base of all Metaphysics, The. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 1999 times on American Poems.

AND now, gentlemen, 
A word I give to remain in your memories and minds, 
As base, and finale too, for all metaphysics. 
  
(So, to the students, the old professor, 
At the close of his crowded course.)
  
Having studied the new and antique, the... (Read full poem)

"the cure of souls." Henry James


The radiant soda of the seashore fashions
Fun, foam and freedom. The sea laves
The Shaven sand. And the light sways forward
On self-destroying waves. 

The rigor of the weekday is cast aside with shoes,
With... (Read full poem)

23. Insomniac - written by Sylvia Plath
From The Collected Poems. Published in 1961. Read 8746 times on American Poems.

The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole --
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers... (Read full poem)

Can't swim; uses credit cards and pills to combat
   intolerable feelings of inadequacy;
Won't admit his dread of boredom, chief impulse behind
   numerous marital infidelities;
Looks fat in jeans, mouths clichés with confidence,
   breaks... (Read full poem)

25. Song of the Universal. - written by Walt Whitman
From Leaves of Grass. Published in 1900. Read 2798 times on American Poems.

1
COME, said the Muse, 
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, 
Sing me the Universal. 
  
In this broad Earth of ours, 
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart, 
Nestles the seed Perfection. 
  
By... (Read full poem)