Unforgettable poems from my days in school

If music is the language of emotions, poems are but music in words. In my opinion they are superior than songs, for they give you the liberty to read them to your own tune. Poems can stir intense emotions not just on the first-read but on every-read. Fourteen years of schooling exposes one to poems of a variety of genre. The first I remember reading was "Boats Sail On The Rivers by Christina Georgina Rossetti". Elementary school English textbooks had many of her poems. As a child I marvelled at the simple subjects she chose and the profound philosophy she infered. 'Everything in nature is prettier far than anything that man has made',she said in her 'Boats sail on the river'. 'The clouds keep moving but where do they go?" she asked in 'Clouds'.
Come primary school and the subjects of the poems were a little deeper. Who could forget the truth in the words 'King will be well, if he sleeps one night. In the Shirt of a Happy Man', from John Hay's 'Enchanted Shirt' or the mystery in the words' who has seen the wind niether you nor I', from Rossetti's 'Wind' or the triumph of justice in Goldsmith's 'Elegy on the death of a Mad Dog'.
Middle school brought in the form of poetry a mixture of humour, romance and nature. I rolled in laughter for 'Simon Snoots Whiskers' and A.P.Herbert's 'At the Theatre: to the Lady behind me'. I  blushed reading Lord Byron's 'She walks in beauty' and Noyes'  'The Highway man'. I sang with Wordsworth's 'Solitary reaper' and shuddered reading Walter de lamare's "The listeners'. I sailed the seven seas as I read Masefields "sea-Fever' and "Cargoes'.
Highschool was simply breath-taking, beginning with Milton's 'On his blindess' I drenched myself in the wonders of  'The Village School master', 'Night and Death','Tiger', "Death the Leveller', 'Stopping by the woods on a snowny evening', 'The Daffodils', 'Menelaus and Helen', 'Milk for the cat', 'La belle dame sans merci', 'Soldier' and the ironical 'Ozymandias'.


I was always poor at memorising poems, but some lines stay etched in my mind for the truths they speak, the valour they express and the music they play.

1. "But the bow that bridges heaven,
   And overtops the trees,
   And builds a road from earth to sky,
   Is prettier far than these."
2. "The glories of our blood and state are shawdows not substantial things"
3. "only the deeds of the just smell sweet and blosoom in their dust"
4. "If I should die think only this of me, That there's some corner of a foreign field
   That is forever England"
5. "And that one talent which is death to hide"
6. "For oft when on my couch I lay in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon my inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude and then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils"
7. "Behold her single in the field yon solitary highland lass, reaping and singing to herself"
8. "Tiger tiger burning bright in the forest of the night'
9. "Men may come and men may go but I go on forever"
10. "Still they gazed and still the wonder grew, how one small head could carry all he knew"
11. "The soldier's pride
    Touched to quick, he said:
    "I'm killed, Sire!" And his chief beside,
    Smiling the boy fell dead."
12. "And this is why I sojourn here
    Alone and palely loitering,
    Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
    And no birds sing."

Poetry is such soothing salve to the wounds inflicted by the cacophony of the FM radios, silly SMSs, formidable forwarded emails, jarring caller-tunes and raucous ring -tones.