Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven”:
Enthroned on the bust by the door,
The raven exclaims “Nevermore!”
It’s rather annoying,
For I was enjoying
My mourning for dear lost Lenore.
Edgar Allen Poe, “The Bells”:
Bells are quite noisy, it’s true,
And each has a quite distinct hue,
From silver and gold
Different stories are told,
Foretelling both glory and rue.
W. H. Auden, “Funeral Blues”:
Shut off the clocks and the phone,
And let no dog bark with his bone:
Let the planes overhead
Only say “he is dead”…
Now I’m sorry, there’s nobody home.
T. S. Eliot, “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock”:
A man can walk down on the beach
Roll his pants up and munch on a peach;
He isn’t deluded
And won’t be included
By mermaids that sing each to each.
T.S. Eliot, “The Wasteland”:
You called me the hyacinth girl
When you gave sweet Shakespeare a whirl;
The city’s unreal,
And the dead men don’t feel,
So let’s let the storm warnings twirl.
Lewis Carroll, “The Jabberwock”:
‘Twas mimsy out there by the wabe
And all of the momewraths out grabe.
The Jabberwock’s dead
(Some kid took off its head,
And his father said “You’re my best babe!”).
Beowulf:
Terribly troubled, the Thane
Demanded defense from a Dane
For fierce in the fen
Mighty monsters maimed men
Great Grendal gave plenty of pain.
William Butler Yeats, “Stolen Child”:
Come on, human kid, and let’s go,
There’s so much to see and to show.
Run off with the fae,
Hurry fast, skip away,
And you’ll never a mortal life know!
John Keats, ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci":
The sedge is all dry; spring has sped,
And the birds that once sang have all fled.
The merciless dame
Goes on making her claim
To young hunks who keep winding up dead.
Lord Tennyson, “The Princess”:
The echoes keep fading away
With the splendor that ebbs with the day,
But the castle is grand
In this bright fairyland,
And there’s not that much else I can say.
Christina Rossetti, “Goblin Market”:
At goblin men we mustn’t stare,
And we shouldn’t go to their Fair.
Their fruit may seem tasty,
But we can’t be hasty,
And don’t let them play with your hair!
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