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 wand'rest 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.

A Red, Red Rose, Robert Burns

My love is like a red, red rose Thats newly sprung in June : My love is like the melody Thats sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I : And I will love 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 love thee still, my dear, While the sands o life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love, And fare thee weel a while ! And I will come again, my love, Thou it were ten thousand mile.

Harlem, Langston Hughes What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?

------------------, Langston Hughes The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.

You Fit Into Me, Margaret Atwood You fit into me like a hook into an eye

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. a fish hook an open eye Or does it explode?

Fire and Ice, Robert Frost

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

The Clod and the Pebble, William Blake "Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

So sung a little Clod of Clay Trodden with the cattle's feet, But a Pebble of the brook Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another's loss of ease, And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

I'm nobody! Who are you?, Emily Dickinson I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell! They'd banish -- you know!

How dreary to be somebody! How public like a frog To tell one's name the livelong day To an admiring bog!

One Art, Elizabeth Bishop The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster.

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! 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.