Wk 1easy6 lines
The Eagle
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1851
Device: Alliteration & imagery
Pairs with: Opening week — short anchor for recitation routine
Poetry Rotation
One poem a week. Thirty-six weeks. A year of voices.
A complete recitation and copywork cycle — chosen for accessibility, public-domain status, and thematic match to each quarter's history arc. Use Monday for first reading, Wednesday for copywork, and Friday for recitation.
Quarter 1
9 poems
Wk 2moderate14 lines
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1818
Device: Sonnet · dramatic irony
Pairs with: Mesopotamian kings & the impermanence of empire
Wk 3moderate24 lines
The Tyger
William Blake · 1794
Device: Trochaic meter · symbolism
Pairs with: Creation stories in Gilgamesh
Open Week 3 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 4moderate11 lines
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman · 1860
Device: Catalog & free verse
Pairs with: Daily life in ancient Egypt parallel
Open Week 4 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 5easy12 lines
Hope is the thing with feathers
Emily Dickinson · c.1861
Device: Extended metaphor
Pairs with: Burial customs & afterlife beliefs
Open Week 5 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 6challenging21 lines
Sympathy
Paul Laurence Dunbar · 1899
Device: Refrain & symbolism
Pairs with: Power & oppression (Hammurabi)
Open Week 6 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 7moderate20 lines
The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost · 1916
Device: First-person narrative · ambiguity
Pairs with: Ranofer's choices in The Golden Goblet
Open Week 7 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 8easy6 lines
Fog
Carl Sandburg · 1916
Device: Metaphor (extended)
Pairs with: Indus Valley monsoons
Open Week 8 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 9easy8 lines
Dreams
Langston Hughes · 1922
Device: Metaphor · simile
Pairs with: Quarter close — short, memorable recitation
Open Week 9 →Public domain · safe to print
Quarter 2
9 poems
Wk 10challenging14 lines
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
John Keats · 1816
Device: Sonnet (Petrarchan)
Pairs with: Opening the Iliad / Black Ships Before Troy
Open Week 10 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 11challenging16 lines
Ulysses (excerpt)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1842
Device: Blank verse · dramatic monologue
Pairs with: The Odyssey
Open Week 11 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 12moderate41 lines
Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe · 1849
Device: Anapestic rhythm · refrain
Pairs with: Greek love & loss; mythic patterns
Open Week 12 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 13moderate55 lines
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1854
Device: Dactylic meter · onomatopoeia
Pairs with: Battle of Thermopylae study
Open Week 13 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 14moderate18 lines
She Walks in Beauty
Lord Byron · 1814
Device: Iambic tetrameter
Pairs with: Greek concept of arete & beauty
Open Week 14 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 15moderate16 lines
Invictus
William Ernest Henley · 1888
Device: Quatrains · resolve
Pairs with: Spartan ethos
Open Week 15 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 16easy16 lines
Stars
Sara Teasdale · 1920
Device: Imagery
Pairs with: Constellations / Eratosthenes lesson
Open Week 16 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 17moderate14 lines
The Bells (Section I)
Edgar Allan Poe · 1849
Device: Onomatopoeia · alliteration
Pairs with: Roman daily life / Detectives in Togas
Open Week 17 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 18moderate32 lines
If—
Rudyard Kipling · 1910
Device: Conditional structure · anaphora
Pairs with: Q2 close — recite from memory
Open Week 18 →Public domain · safe to print
Quarter 3
9 poems
Wk 19challenging12 lines
Caesar's Funeral Oration (Antony, excerpt)
William Shakespeare · 1599
Device: Iambic pentameter · rhetoric
Pairs with: Roman empire & rhetoric
Open Week 19 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 20challenging14 lines
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare · 1609
Device: Sonnet (Shakespearean)
Pairs with: Roman concept of permanence in art
Open Week 20 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 21moderate32 lines
The Builders
Henry W. Longfellow · 1849
Device: Extended metaphor
Pairs with: Roman engineering / Macaulay's City
Open Week 21 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 22moderate36 lines
A Psalm of Life
Henry W. Longfellow · 1838
Device: Apostrophe · meter
Pairs with: Pompeii / mortality theme
Open Week 22 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 23moderate14 lines
The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus · 1883
Device: Sonnet · allusion
Pairs with: Compare/contrast w/ Ozymandias (Wk 2)
Open Week 23 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 24easy4 lines
A Quiet Night Thought
Li Bai (李白) · c. 750
Device: Imagery · jueju form
Pairs with: Tang China
Open Week 24 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 25moderate8 lines
Spring View
Du Fu (杜甫) · 757
Device: Parallelism · lüshi form
Pairs with: Tang China & war
Open Week 25 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 26moderate12 lines
From the Rubáiyát (selections)
Omar Khayyám (trans. FitzGerald) · 1859
Device: Rubaiyat quatrain
Pairs with: Bridge into Q4 — Islamic Golden Age preview
Open Week 26 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 27easy12 lines
Trees
Joyce Kilmer · 1913
Device: Personification
Pairs with: Quarter close — easy recitation
Open Week 27 →Public domain · safe to print
Quarter 4
9 poems
Wk 28moderate20 lines
The Tyger / The Lamb (paired)
William Blake · 1789-94
Device: Paired contrast
Pairs with: House of Wisdom — knowledge & belief
Open Week 28 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 29challenging36 lines
Kubla Khan
Samuel Taylor Coleridge · 1816
Device: Imagery · exoticism
Pairs with: Mongol / Silk Road imagination
Open Week 29 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 30challenging36 lines
The Lady of Shalott (Pt I)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1842
Device: Ballad meter
Pairs with: Medieval Europe imagery
Open Week 30 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 31moderate16 lines
Hymn to the Nile (Ancient Egyptian)
Anonymous (Egyptian, trans.) · c. 2100 BCE
Device: Hymn · apostrophe
Pairs with: Compare cross-culturally — return to Q1 themes
Open Week 31 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 32easy12 lines
Caravan (from Mansa Musa's pilgrimage)
Traditional Mande
Device: Oral tradition
Pairs with: Mansa Musa research project
Open Week 32 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 33moderate44 lines
Sir Patrick Spens
Anonymous (Scottish ballad) · c. 1500
Device: Ballad form
Pairs with: Adam of the Road / medieval England
Open Week 33 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 34challenging18 lines
The Prologue (Canterbury Tales, excerpt)
Geoffrey Chaucer · c. 1387
Device: Iambic pentameter · Middle English
Pairs with: Late medieval England
Open Week 34 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 35easy16 lines
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost · 1923
Device: Rhyme scheme (AABA)
Pairs with: Year-end reflection
Open Week 35 →Public domain · safe to print
Wk 36challenging14 lines
Sonnet 116
William Shakespeare · 1609
Device: Sonnet
Pairs with: Final recitation — performance week
Open Week 36 →Public domain · safe to print
Weekly routine
- Monday — First reading. Read aloud twice. Discuss the device.
- Tuesday — Vocabulary. Mark and define unfamiliar words.
- Wednesday — Copywork. Copy 4–8 lines in best handwriting.
- Thursday — Discussion. What does the poet want us to feel? How does form serve meaning?
- Friday — Recitation. Recite from memory (easy: full poem; challenging: best 8 lines).
Keep exploring
36 poems · all public-domain or short fair-use excerpts.