What are yours?
Notes
- Emily Dickinson is my favorite poet, and although themes of romanticism run through some of her poems, I am excluding her works from this list, in the name of variety.
- While all of these are well-known poems, this isn’t a list of the most popular poems of the era, it is a list of my favorites. There are beloved poems written by literary giants that just aren’t my ‘cup of tea’.
With no further ado (if the above can be considered ado), here they are:
- A Dream Within a Dream (Edgar Alan Poe).
Rhyme Scheme: AAABBCCDDBB/EEFFGGGHHIIBB
I love how Poe creates his own rhyme scheme. I wonder about the significance of switching from certainty after the first stanza (“All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream”) to uncertainty at the end (“Is all that we see or seem / But a dream within a dream?”). - A Poison Tree (William Blake)
Rhyme Scheme: AABB
What I admire about Blake is his creativity in writing about nature in novel ways (Tyger, Rose, Lamb, Tree, Garden, etc.). TLDR: Don’t bottle up your anger. - A Thing of Beauty (John Keats)
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD…
I always mentally linger, plumbing the depths of the first line, and never manage to process the rest of the poem. For beauty to be eternal, it must be objective, ie not in the eye of the beholder, as the beholder and her/his eye will one day sleep. If beauty is objective, does that mean that truth is as well? Can beauty be objective without truth being objective? (See what I mean?) I think the rest of the poem is pretty good too though. :) - Death is Here and Death is There (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCCDDEEFFGG
We live in a society that uses layers of distraction to insulate itself from the thought of death. And still, death pokes its head through on its own terms. This poem comes from another era, when pondering death couldn’t be avoided. Shelley ends the poem with a twist. If death didn’t exist, could love? Does mortality create love? I like how the second stanza only contains three lines, which creates an unstable feeling but accelerates the rhythm of the poem. - Daffodils (William Wordsworth)
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCC
The ABABCC rhyme scheme is one of my favorites. Wordsworth combines perfect rhymes with vocabulary that stimulates our imagination to create this timeless poem. - Good Night (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB
This playful poem uses Good Night / Good-night wordplay to craft a romantic poem that is short enough to memorize and melt hearts. - Love’s Philosophy (Percy Bysshe Shelley)
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD
I can’t help thinking of this poem as one big pickup line, with the last two lines written first, and the rest filled in later. As with his poem above, this is a perfect poem to recite to that special someone. - She Walks in Beauty (Lord Byron)
Rhyme Scheme: ABABAB
The fact that this poem was written about his cousin who was wearing a black mourning dress only adds to the haunting, romantic effect. - The Arrow and the Song (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Rhyme Scheme: AABB
Beautiful in its simplicity and succinctness. - The Children’s Hour (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB
Here we see how similar children are across the centuries, and how valuable the “Children’s Hour” was for this hard-working, but tender-hearted father. - The Rainy Day (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Rhyme Scheme: AABBA
This poem was the source for the saying/song “Into every life a little rain must fall”. Learning to accept and even embrace sadness is difficult but necessary. - The Raven (Edgar Alan Poe)
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBBB (With internal rhyme galore)
This was the first poem I ever memorized and it ending being my gateway to poetry in general. - The Tide Rises, The Tide Falls (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Rhyme Scheme: AABBA
There is something about the repetition and rhythm of this poem that fuses perfectly with its words that contrast our mortality and fragility with the seeming immortality of nature. - The Tyger (William Blake)
Rhyme Scheme: AABB
As with The Poison Tree, Blake uses a simple rhyme scheme to create an ode to nature and its maker. - When I have fears that I may cease to be (John Keats)
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Keats uses a Shakespeare Sonnet rhyme scheme to voice his concern about mortality cutting short his life before he can complete his creative and amorous goals. The meaning he intended for his last line is a point of debate.
If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy these other ones I’ve written:
A Door Just Opened On a Street
Examine the Rhyme Schemes — A Trick For Writing Rhyming Poetry
A Rhyme Primer — With Examples from Hamilton
My Tribute to Lin-Manuel Miranda — The Master Weaver
@ 2022, Rob Dods
