This year I resolved to learn at least 12 poems by heart, in a quest to introduce more lyricism in life. Much of our cognition is centred around language, so it is no surprise that well-chosen lines of verse can alter one’s mood and perspective or amplify experience.

Barber’s Penguin’s Poems by Heart is a nice little anthology of Western classics. There isn’t really much more to say about the collection, and each poem is probably deserving of its own essay, so instead, here are some nice lines from the collection:

Motivation and perseverance: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” (Henley); “Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning, they do not go gentle into that good night” (Dylan Thomas).

Appreciation of the beauty in the world: “then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils” (Wordsworth); “Glory be to God for dappled things […] Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches wings” (Gerard Manley Hopkins); “to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour” (Blake).

Existential humility: “On the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, look on my works, ye mighty, and despair’. Nothing beside remains.” (Shelley). “Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved, and be with caution bold. Not all that tempts your wandering eyes, and heedless hearts, is lawful prize; nor all that glisters, gold” (Thomas Gray, about his beloved cat that drowned in a tub of goldfish); “Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, do not go gentle into that good night” (Dylan Thomas).

Melancholy of the wandering spirit: “We’ll go no more a roving, so late into the night, though the heart be still as loving and the moon be still as bright” (Lord Byron); “I must 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” (Masefield); “The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep” (Robert Frost); “This World is not Conclusion. [...] Narcotics cannot still the Tooth that nibbles at the soul” (Dickinson).

On romance: “Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad” (Christina Rossetti); “My luve is like a red, red rose, that’s newly sprung in June: my luve is like the melodie, that’s sweetly play’d in tune” (Robert Burns); “ I love thee with the breath, smiles tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death” ( Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

Vivid imagery: “Weave a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, for he on honey-dew hath fed and drunk the milk of Paradise” (Coleridge); “’Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The Jaws that bite, the claws that catch!” (Lewis Carroll); “I saw the Sun even in the midst of night // I saw the Man that saw this wondrous sight” (anon).