Ten of my Favourite Poems and Some Lines as an Exemplar: You'll Love Them Too by the End of this List.

1. 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
    ....
    And I had done a hellish thing,
    And it would work 'em woe:
    For all averred, I had killed the bird
    That made the breeze to blow.
    ....
    Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
    Had I from old and young!
    Instead of the cross, the Albatross
    About my neck was hung.
    ....
2. 'The Road not Taken' by Robert Frost.
    ....
    I shall be telling this with a sigh
    Somewhere ages and ages hence:
    Two roads diverged in the wood, and I—
    I took the one less traveled by,
    And that has made all the difference.
3. 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' by TS Eliot.
    ....
    And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
    Smoothed by long fingers,
    Asleep ... tired ... or it malingers,
    Stretched on the floor, beside you and me.
    Shall I, after tea and cake and ices,
    Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
    But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
    Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
    I am no prophet—and here's no great matter;
    I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
    And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
    And in short, I was afraid.
    ....
4. 'Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night' by Dylan Thomas.
    Do not go gentle into that good night,
    Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
    Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
    ....
5. 'I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud' by William Wordsworth.
    [about daffodils]
    ....
    Continuous as the stars that shine
    And twinkle in the milky way,
    They stretched in never-ending line
    Along the margins of a bay:
    Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
    Tossing their heads in a sprightly dance.
    ....
6. 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' by Wallace Stevens.
    ....
    I do not know which to prefer,
    The beauty of inflections
    Or the beauty of innuendoes,
    The blackbird whistling
    Or just after.
    ....
7. 'Lyrebirds' by Judith Wright.
    ....
    Ten years, and I have never gone.
    I'll never go.
    I'll never see the lyre birds—
    the few, the shy, the fabulous,
    the dying poets.
    ....
    No, I have never gone.
    Some things ought to be left secret, alone;
    some things—birds like walking fables—
    ought to inhabit nowhere but the reverence of the heart.
8. 'This is Just to Say' by William Carlos Williams.
    I have eaten
    the plums
    that were in
    the ice box

    and which
    you were probably
    saving
    for breakfast

    Forgive me
    they were delicious
    so sweet
    and so cold
9. 'London' by William Blake.
    I wander thro' each charter'd street,
    Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
    And mark in every face I meet,
    Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

    In every cry of every man,
    In every Infant's cry of fear,
    In every voice, in every ban,
    The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.
    ....
10. 'Song of the Open Road' by Walt Whitman.
     Afoot and light-hearted, I take to the open road,
     Healthy, free, the world before me,
     The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose.

     Henceforth I ask not good-fortune—I myself am good fortune;
     Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
     Strong and content, I travel the open road.
    ....