Crossing The Bar by Alfred, Lord TennysonSunset and evening star,And one clear call for me!And may there be no moaning of the bar,When I put out to sea,But such a tide as moving seems asleep,Too full for sound and foam,When that which drew from out the boundless deepTurns again home.Twilight and evening bell,And after that the dark!And may there be no sadness of farewell,When I embark;For tho from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crost the bar.

If by Rudyard KiplingIf you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,Or being lied about, dont deal in lies,Or being hated, dont give way to hating,And yet dont look too good, nor talk too wise:If you can dream and not make dreams your master;If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth youve spokenTwisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,And stoop and build em up with worn-out tools:If you can make one heap of all your winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Remember by Christina RossettiRemember me when I am gone away,Gone far away into the silent land;When you can no more hold me by the hand,Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.Remember me when no more day by dayYou tell me of our future that you plannd:Only remember me; you understandIt will be late to counsel then or pray.Yet if you should forget me for a whileAnd afterwards remember, do not grieve:For if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once I had,Better by far you should forget and smileThan that you should remember and be sad.

Daffodils by William WordsworthI wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high oer vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced, but theyOut-did the sparkling leaves in glee;A poet could not be but gay,In such a jocund company!I gazed and gazed but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;

Invictus by W.E. HenleyOut of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.

How Soon Hath Time by John Milton PrintShare via Facebook Twitter Google+Published at 12:01AM, November 19 2011How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!My hasting days fly on with full career,But my late spring no bud or blossom shewth.Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,That I to manhood am arrived so near,And inward ripeness doth much less appear,That some more timely-happy spirits enduth.Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,It shall be still in strictest measure evenTo that same lot, however mean or high,Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;All is, if I have grace to use it so,As ever in my great Taskmasters eye.

The Arrow and the Song by Henry Wadsworth LongfellowI shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;For, so swiftly it flew, the sightCould not follow it in its flight.I breathed a song into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;For who has sight so keen and strong,That it can follow the flight of song?Long, long afterward, in an oakI found the arrow, still unbroke;And the song, from beginning to end,I found again in the heart of a friend.

Answer to a Childs Question by Samuel Taylor ColeridgeDo you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove,The linner and thrush say, I love and I love!In the winter theyre silent the wind is so strong;What it says, I dont know, but it sings a loud song.But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,And singing, and loving all come back together.But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,The green fields below him, the blue sky above,That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he-I love my Love, and my Love loves me!

To Autumn by John KeatsTimes photographer, Gareth Iwan Jones PrintShare via Facebook Twitter Google+ Times photographer, Gareth Iwan JonesPublished at 12:01AM, November 19 2011Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;Conspiring with him how to load and blessWith fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;To bend with apples the mossd cottage-trees,And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shellsWith a sweet kernel; to set budding more,And still more, later flowers for the bees,Until they think warm days will never cease,For Summer has oer-brimmd their clammy cells.Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may findThee sitting careless on a granary floor,Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;Or on a half-reapd furrow sound asleep,Drowsd with the fume of poppies, while thy hookSpares the next swath and all its twined flowers:And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keepSteady thy laden head across a brook;Or by a cider-press, with patient look,Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen PrintShare via Facebook Twitter Google+Published at 12:01AM, November 19 2011Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep.Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod.All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf disappointed shells that dropped behind.GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd floundering like a man in fire or lime.--Dim, through the misty panes and thick green lightAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning.In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns PrintShare via Facebook Twitter Google+ Published at 12:01AM, November 19 2011O my Luves like a red, red rose,Thats newly sprung in June:O my Luves like the melodie,Thats sweetly playd in tune.As fair art thou, my bonie lass,So deep in luve am I;And I will luve thee still, my dear,Till a the seas gang dry.Till a the seas gang dry, my dear,And the rocks melt wi the sun;And I will luve thee still, my dear,While the sands o life shall run.And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!And fare-thee-weel, a while!And I will come again, my Luve,Tho twere ten thousand mile!

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe ShelleyI met a traveller from an antique landWho said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear --My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler YeatsHad I the heavens embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf night and light and the half-light,I would spread the cloths under your feet:But I, being poor, have only my dreams;I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden PrintShare via Facebook Twitter Google+Published at 12:01AM, November 19 2011Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good.

The Tyger by William BlakeTigerIllustration by Kerry Lemon PrintShare via Facebook Twitter Google+ TigerIllustration by Kerry LemonPublished at 12:01AM, November 19 2011Tyger! Tyger! burning brightIn the forest of the nightWhat immortal hand or eyeCould frame thy fearful symmetry?In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand dare seize the fire?And what shoulder, and what art,Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand? and what dread feet?What the hammer? what the chain?In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil? what dread graspDare its deadly terrors clasp?When the stars threw down their spears,And watered heaven with their tears,Did He smile his work to see?Did He who made the lamb make thee?