Selected Classic English Poems

Sonnet 18 William Shakespeare

 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
 Thou art more lovely and more temperate :
 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
 And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

 And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
 By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade ,
 When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

 So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 29 William Shakespeare

 When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
 I all alone beweep my outcast state,
 And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
 And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

 Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

 Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
 Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
 With what I most enjoy contented least;

 Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

 Haply I think on thee—and then my state,
 Like to the lark at break of day arising
 From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

 For thy sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings

 That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

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The Flea by John Donne
 Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

 How little that which thou deniest（英[dɪˈnaɪz] me is;

 Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,
 And in this flea our two bloods mingled [ˈmɪŋɡld]
be;
 Thou know’st that this cannot be said
 A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead[ˈmeɪdn],
 Yet this enjoys before it woo,
 And pampered[ˈpæmpə(r)] swells with one blood made of two,
 And this, alas [əˈlæs], is more than we would do.

 Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

 Where we almost, nay more than married, are.
 This flea is you and I, and this
 Our marriage bed and marriage temple is;
 Though parents grudge[ɡrʌdʒ], and you, we are met,
 And cloistered[ˈklɔɪstəd] in these living walls of jet[dʒet].
 Though use make you apt to kill me,
 Let not to that, self-murder added be,
 And sacrilege[ˈsækrəlɪdʒ], three sins in killing three.

 Cruel[ˈkruːəl] and sudden, hast[hæst] thou since

 Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
 Wherein could this flea guilty be,
 Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
 Yet thou triumph’st[ˈtraɪʌmf], and say’st that thou
 Find'st not thy self nor me the weaker now;
 ‘Tis true; then learn how false fears be:
 Just so much honor, when thou yield'st [jiːld] to me,
 Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time Robert Herrick

 Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
 Old time is still a-flying;
 And this same flower that smiles today,
 Tomorrow will be dying.

 The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

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  The higher he’s a-getting,
 The sooner will his race be run,
 And nearer he’s to setting.

 That age is best which is the first,

 When youth and blood are warmer;
 But being spent, the worse, and the worst,
 Times still succeed the former.

 Then be not coy, but use your time,

 And, while ye may, go marry;
 For having lost but once your prime,
 You may forever tarry.

 London William Blake

  I wander thro' each charter'd street,
 Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,

In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry

Every blackning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear

How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

The Tyger William Blake

 Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
 　　In the forests of the night,，
 　　What immortal hand or eye
 　　Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

 　　In what distant deeps or skies

 　　Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

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  　　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 grasp?
 　　Dare 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?

 　　Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

 　　In the forests of the night,
 　　What immortal hand or eye
 　　Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

My Heart's in the Highlands Robert Burns

 My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
 My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
 Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
 My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

 Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,

 The birth-place of valor, the country of worth;
 Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
 The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

 Farewell to the mountains high-cover'd with snow,

 Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
 Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
 Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

 My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

 My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
 Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,

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  My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

A Red, Red Rose Robert Burns

 O, my luve’s like a red, red rose,
 That’s newly sprung in June;
 O, my luve’s like the melodie
 That’s sweetly played in tune.

 As fair are thou, my bonnie 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:
 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 awhile!
 And I will come again, my luve,
 Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

The solitary reaper William Wordsworth

 Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself，
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

 No Nightingale did ever chaunt

More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas

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 Among the farthest Hebrides.

 Will no one tell me what she sings?—

Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

 Whate‘er the theme, the Maiden sang

As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;——
I listen'd, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.

I wandered Lonely as a Cloud William Wordsworth

 I wandered lonely as a cloud
 That floats [fləʊt] on high over 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 shine

 And twinkle on the milky way,
 They stretched in never-ending line
 Along the margin [ˈmɑːdʒɪn] of a bay:
 Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
 Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 The waves beside them danced; but they

 Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
 A poet could not but be gay,
 In such a jocund [ˈdʒɒkənd] company;
 I gazed-and gazed –but little thought
 What wealth the show to me had brought:

 For oft, when on my couch I lie

 In vacant or in pensive mood,

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  They flash upon that inward eye
 Which is the bliss[blɪs] of solitude [ˈsɒlətjuːd];
 And then my heart with pleasure fills,
 And dances with the daffodils[ˈdæfədɪl].

To Autumn John Keats

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 Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
 Conspiring with him how to load and bless
 With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
 To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
 And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
 To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
 With 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 o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
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 Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
 Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
 Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
 Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
 Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
 Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
 Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers
 And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
 Steady thy laden head across a brook;
 Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
 Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
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 Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
 Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
 While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
 And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
 Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
 Among the river sallows, borne aloft
 Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
 And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
 Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
 The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
 And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

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Home-Thoughts from Abroad Robert Browning
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Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England--now!
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And after April, when May follows
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops--at the bent spray's edge
That's the wise thrush :he sings each song twice over
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
Far brighter than this gaudy melon--flower!

Meeting at Night              by Robert Browning 

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The gray sea and the long black land; 
And the yellow half-moon large and low:  i
And the startled[ˈstɑːtld] little waves that leap 
In fiery[ˈfaɪəri] ringlets[ˈrɪŋlət] from their sleep, 
As I gain the cove [kəʊv] with pushing prow [praʊ],
And quench [kwentʃt] its speed in the slushy [ˈslʌʃi] sand. 
 2
Then a mile of warm sea-scented [ˈsentɪd] beach; 
Three fields to cross till a farm appears; 
A tap at the pane[peɪn], the quick sharp scratch 

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 And blue spurt [spɜːt] of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through joys and fears, 
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

A Psalm of Life Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

1
Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers
And things are not what they seem.
2
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
3
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destin’d and our way;
But to act, that each to-morrow.
Find us farther than to-day.
4
Art is long, and time is fleeting.
And our hearts, though stout and brave.
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
5
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
6
Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’er head!
7    
Lives of great men all remind us
 We can make our lives sublime,
 And, departing, leave behind us
 Footprints on the sands of time.

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 8
Footprints, that, perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
 A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
 Seeing, shall take heart again.
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Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait

1.Psalm [sɑ:m]n. 赞美诗，圣诗。

2.mournful[ˈmɔ:nfl]adj. 悲伤的， 哀痛的。
3.slumbers [ˈslʌmbəz]n.睡眠，沉睡状态。
4.earnest[ˈɜ:nɪst]adj.热心的， 诚挚的，真挚的。
5.returnest=return 返回。
6.sorrow['sɒrəʊ]n.悲痛，悔恨，惋惜。
7.fleeting [ˈfli:tɪŋ] adj.短暂的, 稍纵即逝的。
8.stout [staʊt] adj. 坚固的。
9.muffled[ˈmʌfld]adj.（声音）被隔的,，听不太清的。
10.drums[drʌm]n.鼓， 鼓声。
11.Funeral[ˈfju:nərəl]n.葬礼，丧礼。
12.bivouac [ˈbɪvuæk]n. 露营。
13.strife [straɪf]n. 冲突，竞争。
14.sublime [səˈblaɪm]adj. 崇高的，卓越的。
15.forlorn [fəˈlɔ:n] adj. 孤独的，凄凉的。
16.shipwrecked['ʃiprekt] adj.遭遇海难

destined英[ˈdestɪnd]美[ˈdestɪnd]

adj.预定; 注定; (尤指) 命中注定; 开往; 运往; 前往;

v.注（命，派，指，预）定;

O Captain! My Captain! Walt Whitman

 O captain! My captain! our fearful trip is done,
 The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring 英[ˈdeərɪŋ];
 But O heart! Heart! Heart!

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  O the bleeding drops of red!
 Where on the deck my Captain lies,
 Fallen cold and dead.

 O Captain! My Captain! Rise up and hear the bells;

 Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle [ˈbjuːɡl]trills,
 For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the Shores crowding,
 For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
 Here, Captain! Dear father!
 This arm beneath your head;
 It is some dream that on the deck
 You’ve fallen cold and dead.

 My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
 My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
 The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
 From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
 Exult, O shores! And ring, O bells!
 But I, with mournful tread,
 Walk the deck my Captain lies,
 Fallen cold and dead.

The Road not Taken Robert Frost

 Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
 And sorry I could not travel both
 And be one traveler, long I stood
 And looked down one as far as I could
 To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 Then took the other, as just as fair,

 And having perhaps the better claim,
 Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
 Though as for that the passing there
 Had worn them really about the same.

 And both that morning equally lay

 In leaves no step had trodden black.
 Oh, I kept the first for another day!

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  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
 I doubted if I should ever come back.

 I shall be telling this with a sigh

 Somewhere ages and ages hence:
 Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
 I took the one less traveled by,
 And that has made all the difference.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though; 
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. 

When You Are Old William Butler Yeats-W.B. Yeats

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

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Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint—John Milton

Methought I saw my late espoused saint

Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave,
Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescued from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine , as whom washed from spot of childbed taint,
Purification in the old law did save,
And such, as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind.
Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight,
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O, as to embrace me she inclined,
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.

The Man He Killed-Thomas Hardy

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,
I shot him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
I shot him dead because---
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That’s clear enough; although

He thought he’d list, perhaps,

Off-hand-like—just as I---
Was out of work—had sold his traps---
No other reason why.

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Yes, quaint and curious war is !
You shoot a fellow down
You ‘s treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.

My Papa’s Waltz-Theodore Roethke

The whisky on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans

Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

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i