100 Most Famous Poems Home Poems 100 Most Famous Poems The following is a list of the top 100 most famous poems of all time in the English language. There's always some room for debate when making "top 100" list like this, and lets face it, fame is a pretty fickle thing: it changes over time. But that said, we did our best to use available objective data in putting together this ranked list of the 100 most widely recognized and enduring poems ever written. To create this list, the following criteria was used: 1) Only poems that have "stood the test of time" were considered for this list. Modern poetry of approximately the last century has therefore not been included. 2) Each poem's ranking is based off of its relative fame within the English language. 3) In order to create more even ground for comparison, we have not included in this list nursery rhymes, or poems whose fame was primarily gained from being set to music. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe “Once upon a midnight dreary,While I pondered, weak and weary,” Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley “I met a traveler from an antique landWho said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel both” Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe “It was many and many a year ago,In a kingdom by the sea,” Invictus by William Ernest Henley “Out of the night that covers me,Black as the pit from pole to pole,” Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost “Nature's first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.” O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman “O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,” Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost “Whose woods these are I think I know.His house is in the village though;” No Man is an Island by John Donne “No man is an island,Entire of itself,” Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson “Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;” The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot “Let us go then, you and I,When the evening is spread out against the sky” I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth “I wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,” The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “It is an ancient Mariner,And he stoppeth one of three.” Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Listen, my children, and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,” If— by Rudyard Kipling “If you can keep your head when all about youAre losing theirs and blaming it on you,” Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree:” In Flanders Fields by John McCrae “In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,” Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson “Hope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,” Endymion by John Keats “A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:Its loveliness increases; it will never” Old Ironsides by Oliver Wendell Holmes “Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!Long has it waved on high,” Sonnet 43: How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and height ” Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day by William Shakespeare “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:” She Walks in Beauty by George Gordon, Lord Byron “She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;” Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold “The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies fair” The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Half a league, half a league,Half a league onward,” Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant “To him who in the love of nature holdsCommunion with her visible forms, she speaks” Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats “Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,” Fire and Ice by Robert Frost “Some say the world will end in fire,Some say in ice.” The Lady of Shalott by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “On either side the river lieLong fields of barley and of rye,” John Barleycorn by Robert Burns “There was three kings into the east,Three kings both great and high,” The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus “Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;” The World is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth “The world is too much with us; late and soon,Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—” Mending Wall by Robert Frost “Something there is that doesn't love a wall,That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,” Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats “My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness painsMy sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,” We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar “We wear the mask that grins and lies,It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—” A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe “Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,” The Tyger by William Blake “Tyger Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night;” I heard a Fly buzz when I died by Emily Dickinson “I heard a Fly buzz when I died;The stillness round my form” Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley “O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead” The Passionate Shepherd To His Love by Christopher Marlowe “Come live with me and be my love,And we will all the pleasures prove,” The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service “There are strange things done in the midnight sunBy the men who moil for gold;” Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost “I have been one acquainted with the night.I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.” To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet “If ever two were one, then surely we.If ever man were loved by wife, than thee;” Crossing the Bar by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Sunset and evening star,And one clear call for me!” I felt a funeral in my brain by Emily Dickinson “I felt a funeral in my brainAnd mourners, to and fro,” A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman “A noiseless patient spider,I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated,” When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be by John Keats “When I have fears that I may cease to beBefore my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,” A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Tell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!” Holy Sonnet 10: Death, be not proud by John Donne “Death, be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;” Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “It little profits that an idle king,By this still hearth, among these barren crags,” A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns “O my Luve is like a red, red roseThat’s newly sprung in June;” Much madness is divinest sense by Emily Dickinson “Much Madness is divinest SenseTo a discerning eye;” Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray “The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea,” The Soldier by Rupert Brooke “If I should die, think only this of me:That there’s some corner of a foreign field” A Poison Tree by William Blake “I was angry with my friend;I told my wrath, my wrath did end.” To a Mouse by Robert Burns “Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!” Success is counted sweetest by Emily Dickinson “Success is counted sweetestBy those who ne'er succeed.” Birches by Robert Frost “When I see birches bend to left and rightAcross the lines of straighter darker trees,” When I consider how my light is spent by John Milton “When I consider how my light is spent,Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,” Snow-Bound by John Greenleaf Whittier “The sun that brief December dayRose cheerless over hills of gray,” My life had stood — a loaded gun by Emily Dickinson “My life had stood — a loaded gun —In Corners — till a Day” To Autumn by John Keats “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;” I Have a Rendezvous with Death by Alan Seeger “I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade” Auguries of Innocence by William Blake “To see a world in a grain of sand,And a heaven in a wild flower,” Horatius at the Bridge by Thomas Babington Macaulay “Lars Porsena of Clusium,By the Nine Gods he swore” Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt “Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,” Tell all the truth but tell it slant by Emily Dickinson “Tell all the truth but tell it slant —Success in Circuit lies” The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “Under a spreading chestnut-treeThe village smithy stands;” Trees by Joyce Kilmer “I think that I shall never seeA poem lovely as a tree.” Frost at Midnight by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “The frost performs its secret ministry,Unhelped by any wind. The owlet’s cry” All the world's a stage by William Shakespeare “All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;” A bird came down the walk by Emily Dickinson “A bird came down the walk:He did not know I saw;” Pioneers! O Pioneers! by Walt Whitman “Come, my tan-faced children,Follow well in order, get your weapons ready;” Alone by Edgar Allan Poe “From childhood’s hour I have not beenAs others were—I have not seen” I'm nobody! Who are you? by Emily Dickinson “I'm nobody! Who are you?Are you nobody, too?” The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes “This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,Sails the unshadowed main,—” Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson “By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,” Remember by Christina Rossetti “Remember me when I am gone away,Gone far away into the silent land;” Sea Fever by John Masefield “I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;” Fog by Carl Sandburg “The fog comeson little cat feet.” When We Two Parted by George Gordon, Lord Byron “When we two partedIn silence and tears,” There is no frigate like a book by Emily Dickinson “There is no frigate like a bookTo take us lands away,” In Memoriam A.H.H. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,The flying cloud, the frosty light:” The Arrow and the Song by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “I shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;” The Eagle by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “He clasps the crag with crooked hands;Close to the sun in lonely lands,” Casabianca by Felicia Hemans “The boy stood on the burning deck,Whence all but him had fled;” I taste a liquor never brewed by Emily Dickinson “I taste a liquor never brewed,From tankards scooped in pearl;” I like to see it lap the miles by Emily Dickinson “I like to see it lap the miles,And lick the valleys up,” If I can stop one heart from breaking by Emily Dickinson “If I can stop one heart from breakingI shall not live in vain;” Break, Break, Break by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Break, break, break,On thy cold gray stones, O sea!” Wild nights — Wild nights! by Emily Dickinson “Wild nights! Wild nights!Were I with thee,” There is another sky by Emily Dickinson “There is another sky,Ever serene and fair,” Bright Star by John Keats “Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,” The First Snowfall by James Russell Lowell “The snow had begun in the gloaming,And busily all the night” Locksley Hall by Alfred, Lord Tennyson “Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn:Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn.” Evening Star by Edgar Allan Poe “’Twas noontide of summer,And mid-time of night;” A Late Walk by Robert Frost “When I go up through the mowing field,The headless aftermath,” Ae Fond Kiss by Robert Burns “Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;Ae fareweel, and then forever!” My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson “I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.” Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier “Maud Muller, on a summer's day,Raked the meadow sweet with hay.”