Poetry has many meanings, stories, and life lessons embodied in it.

It is easy to talk about the brilliance and power of poetry, but more difficult to identify just what it is that makes a poem great and worthy of being passed down for decades, centuries, or even millennia.

The following poems, though, have claim to such a stature.

These great poems each have some claim on being one of the best poems of all time, either because of their unique and beautiful language or because of their original approach to poetry.

Sonnet 130: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

By William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

While William Shakespeare is best known among the general public for his many brilliant plays, scholars have also been endlessly fascinated by his poetry, particularly his extensive collection of love sonnets. Sonnet 130 parodies the over-the-top metaphors and comparisons often used by writers of romantic poetry while still expressing a love as deep, if not deeper, for the poet’s muse.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
    And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
    As any she belied with false compare.

Ozymandias

By Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Percy Shelley’s most acclaimed and famous poem addresses, in all of fourteen lines, the enormity of time, the inevitability of death, and the necessity of all people being condemned to obscurity. If even the mighty “King of Kings” is now fallen, buried in the sand and forgotten, how can ordinary people hope to escape the same fate, without even a statue to remind subsequent generations of their names?

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Number 43: How Do I Love Thee?

By Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s most famous poem is a love sonnet, taken from a celebrated collection of love sonnets. What makes Number 43 stand out, though, is its uncomplicated devotion and earnest expression of affection; it manages to succinctly convey the depth of the speaker’s love in simple language that is not muddied by overly elaborate metaphors or imagery.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus (1849-87)

With “The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus produced perhaps the most succinct and powerful statement of the American ideal ever written. The poem articulates the mission of the United States as a refuge for any and all seeking a better life, an ideal visually represented by the Statue of Liberty on which it is engraved.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Fog

By Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Carl Sandburg’s “Fog” is a poem more remarkable for its simple imagery than its elaborate metaphorical meaning or complex rhymes and rhythms. The poem captures a universal experience of watching the fog roll in and out with a unique image that will stick with readers for decades.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Medusa

By Louise Bogan (1897-1970)

Louise Bogan was the first female poet laureate of the United States, but her poem “Medusa” is not a feminist reframing of the character, but instead a reflection on the natural world, which remains “balanced” and continues to move around the speaker, even as they are frozen by the power of the Gorgon.

I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved,—a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.

When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.

This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.

The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.

And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost (1874-1963)

One of Robert Frost’s greatest poems, “Stopping by Woods” is usually characterized by scholars as a contemplation on the speaker’s mortality, defined by a sense of exhaustion with life, battling with a love of the beauty of the world and a sense of obligation that keep the speaker from succumbing to death, though Frost himself denied this.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This Is Just to Say

By William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

William Carlos Williams was renowned for his short, simple, image-heavy poetry, including this piece, modeled after a note left on a kitchen counter for a partner or spouse. The poem uses the image of the stolen plums as a symbol for the give and take of selfishness, forgiveness, and sacrifice that is necessary in any relationship.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Harlem

By Langston Hughes (1901-67)

Often called “A Dream Deferred,” this poem speaks succinctly to the African-American experience, defined by goals, dreams, and expectations that had to be set aside, buried, or severely curtailed due to racism, and then wonders what the final result of all this suppressed ambition will be, surmising it may ultimately lead to violence.

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?

            Maybe it just sags
            like a heavy load.

            Or does it explode?

Mad Girl’s Love Song

By Sylvia Plath (1932-63)

“Mad Girl’s Love Song” gives voice to a woman who is insecure in her romance, and perhaps her mental health, not convinced either of her lover’s reality or his devotion to her. She still finds beauty, though, in reveling in her love and dreaming about the relationship that may be, even if it is not, or cannot be proven to be, real.

“I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite ins*ne.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, h*ll’s fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan’s men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)”

We Real Cool

By Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

While the seven pool players of “We Real Cool” are often considered representations of the Seven Deadly Sins, the poem is mostly a commentary on a youth culture that encouraged dangerous behavior as a way to seem “cool,” and the nihilism it bred in African American youth who had very little hope of improving their lives anyway. However, the poem also celebrates the unique culture these youths created, crafting a new way of being in the face of overwhelming pressure and hardship.

                                    THE POOL PLAYERS.
                                    SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
D*e soon.

Summary

Here we have shared with you over 10 of the greatest poems of all time, which span the past five centuries.

Each poem represents a variety of viewpoints and discusses the most important topics in human existence, such as love, death, and the human condition.

We have included some of the greatest poems ever written by well-established household names, such as William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Langston Hughes, as well as lesser-known but equally brilliant and respected classic poetry by poets like Stevie Smith and Elizabeth Bishop.

Some of these poems are unique to their time and place and offer a sharp insight into the society in which they were written, while others reflect on the deeply personal worldview of the poet. While some are filled with beautiful romance, others are grim poems about death.

All of them are unique and masterful works by some of the best poets of their day, and they continue to be studied, respected, and even revered to this day.