As reading is an essential part of learning a new language, students of English should always be reading works of fiction and non-fiction to build their vocabulary, learn idiomatic expressions and improve their grammar.
In this article, we will list ten great poems to read when learning English, for beginners, intermediate and advanced students. The progression of the poems goes from simple language and concepts to more complex structures and imagery.
All of them offer a good diverse range of styles, themes and linguistic challenges. They will certainly provide you as English learners with ample opportunities to improve your comprehension and overall language proficiency at various levels of difficulty.
Poem 1: “The Swing” by Robert Louis Stevenson (1891)
Beginner Level (A1-A2 on the CEFR scale), simple language and straightforward ideas.
“How do you like to go up in a swing, / Up in the air so blue?”
This is a joyful, endearing and rhythmic poem about swinging on a swing. It’s about a sweet little boy enjoying the act of swinging. With his dog beside him, he believes he is able to fly. And, who knows, in his swing, he might well be right.
How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!
Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
River and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—
Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!Poem 2: “The Tyger” by William Blake (1794)
Upper Beginner Level (CEFR: A2-B1), simple but with some figurative language.
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright, In the forests of the night.”
This is both a repetitive and a rhythmic poem about a mysterious tiger. From early childhood, Blake spoke of having visions. Much of the poem’s content has strong imagery.
Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand, dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat. What dread hand? & what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain, In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears And water'd heaven with their tears: Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger Tyger burning bright, In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Poem 3: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth (1802)
Intermediate (CEFR: B1-B2), more complex sentences, imagery and metaphor.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o’er vales and hills, / When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils”.
What I particularly like is that this lyric poem describes nature so beautifully. It is one of his most popular, inspired by a walk with his sister Dorothy, when they saw a “long belt” of daffodils in the Lake District.
Its reflective tone can help you as learners to expand your ability to be descriptive with your vocabulary, especially your adjectives with phrases like ‘golden daffodils, ‘milky way’, ‘sprightly dance’ and ‘pensive mood’.
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed — and gazed — but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Poem 4: “If” by Rudyard Kipling (1895)
Intermediate (CEFR: B1 to C1), more complex sentences, imagery and metaphor.
“If you can keep your head when all about you, / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you.”
This poem is written in the form of paternal advice to the poet’s son, John. It has a moral message that’s conveyed in a direct and simple yet motivational tone. It will be very effective in helping you learn about conditional sentences (those starting typically with the word ‘if’ or ‘unless’).
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings — nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more — you’ll be a Man, my son!
Poem 5: “Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll (1872)
Intermediate (CEFR: B1 to C1), more complex sentences, imagery and metaphor.
It’s a fun, indeed non-sensical, poem about the killing of a creature named “the Jabberwock”.
It will help with your understanding of how to create words with its unfamiliar and original vocabulary with neologisms (new words) such as ‘chortle’, a kind of laugh that is a blend of a ‘chuckle’ and a ‘snort’. However don’t worry too much about learning the vocabulary on offer in this poem. Words such as “jubjub”, “frumious”, “mimsy”, “vorpal” and “galumphing” are just colourful and imaginative but not in the dictionary.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy. ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.
Poem 6: “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)
Upper Intermediate Level (CEFR: B2-C2), more abstract themes, layered meaning and complex syntax.
I love “I met a traveller from an antique land” as it is such a stunning opening line.
This, for me, is a thought-provoking poem, a sonnet (14 lines in length) about the inevitable decline of powerful rulers. Shelley was one of the major figures of English romanticism and here he uses quite advanced literary tools such as alliteration with phrases such as ‘boundless and bare’, ‘lone and level ’and ‘sands stretch’.
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.”
Poem 7: “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare (1609)
Upper Intermediate Level (B2-C2), more abstract themes, layered meaning and complex syntax.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate”.
This is perhaps the best-known of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. In it, the speaker asks whether he should compare the Fair Youth to a summer’s day, but notes that he has qualities that surpass a summer’s day, which is one of the themes of the poem. Here he exhibits the poetic form of the sonnet with its metaphors and its comparisons.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Poem 8: “Paradise Lost” Book 1 by John Milton (1667)
Advanced Level (CEFR: C1-C2), sophisticated structure, complex symbolism and abstract thought.
This epic poem opens with the lines: “Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit / Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe.” And thus it briefs the reader about the whole plot it is about to relate. Milton’s command is for this Muse to “Sing”, to instruct, inspire and support him in his composition, devised for the purposes of asserting “th’ Eternal Providence” and justifying “the wayes of God to Men”.
This is an extraordinary epic poem dealing with all kinds of grand themes involving both good and evil as well as free will. It uses a range of complexities, in particular archaic linguistic forms.
OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos: or if Sion Hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song, That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime. And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark Illumin, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great Argument I may assert Eternal Providence, And justifie the wayes of God to men. (...)
The full poem can be read here.
Poem 9: “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats (1819)
Advanced Level (CEFR: C1-C2), sophisticated structure, complex symbolism and abstract thought.
“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains, / My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk” are the direct and vivid opening lines.
This was composed in Hampstead, London: it’s a complex romantic poem dealing with mortality, beauty and nature.
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. (...)
The full poem can be found here.
Poem 10: “The Waste Land” – Excerpt: “The Burial of the Dead” – by T.S. Eliot (1922)
Advanced Level (CEFR: C1-C2), sophisticated structure, complex symbolism and abstract thought.
“April is the cruellest month, breeding, / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain”.
Known for its difficulty, this poem is hard to grasp, filled with oblique, cultural references, fragmented structures as well as rich symbolism.
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
The full poem can be read here.
Conclusion
These ten recommended poems to read when learning English are just a very small selection of the towering amount of beautiful poetry created by English-speaking poets over the centuries.
Hopefully, they will inspire you to delve further into the intricacies, stark imagery and profound meaning produced by the most astonishing wizards of the English language that history has given us.
This article was written by Break Into English’s blog contributor Adam Jacot de Boinod.
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