Welcome home, fellow poetry lover! Are you searching for your daily shot of emotions? Look no further! We’ve scoured the depths of literary history to bring you the cream of the crop — the best lines from the most famous poems. From Shakespeare’s sonnets to Maya Angelou’s musings, these poetry lines will have you reaching for a notebook (or a tweet) to share your newfound wisdom with the world.
As a kid, I remember feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of poetry. I struggled to understand the hidden meanings and symbols, especially with some style choices in romantic poems, and often felt discouraged by my inability to fully grasp the beauty of verse. But now, as an adult who has lived through lessons and journeys, it’s not as hard to find meaning in poems. In fact, it’s easier to appreciate the nuances and subtleties of a poem once you have some life experience under your belt.
So take the time to appreciate the craft and skill that went into these poems, with their perfect blend of carefully chosen words and intense emotion. Notice the rhythm and rhyme, the imagery and metaphor, and the feelings they evoke. Each line is a window into the mind and heart of the poet and a reflection of the society and culture in which they lived. Some may resonate with you on a personal level, while others could challenge your beliefs or make you see the world in a new way. That’s the beauty of poetry — it can move, change, and connect us to something greater than ourselves.
Whether you’re a seasoned poetry aficionado or a newcomer to the world of verse, we hope you’ll find something that speaks to you and that you’ll come back to read the best poetry lines again and again for inspiration and solace. Happy reading!
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"Wolf and Woman" — Nikita Gill
"Some days
I am more wolf
than woman
and I am still learning
how to stop apologizing
for my wild."
We are all born wild, no knowledge of society norms, what to do or how to do it. We re born only knowing we need, snd mother provides.
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" — 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."
"Hope is the thing with feathers" — Emily Dickinson
"Hope is the thing with feathers, That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all."
"Still I Rise" — Maya Angelou
"You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise."
I got chills!!! I could hear her reading these words, out loud in my mind!
"Coordinates" — Yrsa Daley-Ward
"Every time I travel
I meet myself a little more."
"To My Wife" — Oscar Wilde
"And when wind and winter harden
All the loveless land,
It will whisper of the garden,
You will understand."
Wow! That’s hard to understand! I guess his wife knew what he was talking about.
"Invictus" — William Ernest Henley
"I am the master of my fate"
"Song: To Celia" — Ben Jonson
"Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine; Or leave a kiss but in the cup, And I'll not look for wine."
"Happiness" — Raymond Carver
"Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it."
"Variations on the Word Sleep" — Margaret Atwood
"I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed & that necessary."
"Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" — W.B. Yeats
"I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
"No Help For That" — Charles Bukowski
"There is a place in the heart that will never be filled and we will wait and wait in that space."
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" — William Wordsworth
"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."
"Oh Yes" — Charles Bukowski
"there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late."
"Dreams" — Langston Hughes
“Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.”
"Fog" — Carl Sandburg
“The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.”
"The Laughing Heart" — Charles Bukowski
“your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.”
"Leisure" — William Henry Davies
"What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare"
"Mirror" — Sylvia Plath
"I am not cruel, just truthful —
The eye of a little god, four cornered."
"Sonnet 18" — William Shakespeare
"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate."
"Trees" — Joyce Kilmer
"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree."
“And if life’s love’s a branch, I’ll nurse thy bruise and bleeding stanch.”
"Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening" — Robert Frost
“And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
"Twelfth Night" — William Shakespeare
"If music be the food of love, play on"
"Because I could not stop for Death" — Emily Dickinson
"Because I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me"
"All Through Eternity" — Rumi
"Beauty and Love are as body and soul. Beauty is the mine, Love is the diamond."
"A Woman Speaks" — Audre Lorde
"I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon’s new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white."
"Before You Came" — Faiz Ahmed Faiz
“Don't leave now that you're here—
Stay. So the world may become like itself again...”
"Yours" — Daniel Hoffman
“Without you I'd be an unleafed tree
Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.”
"All I Ever Wanted" — Katie Ford
"All I ever wanted was to sit by a fire with someone who wanted me in measure the same to my wanting. To want to make a fire with someone, with you, was all."
"After Sappho" — Lee Ann Brown
"So many people advised me against you. How glad I am we could not resist."
"Celebration" — Mari Evans
"I will bring you a whole person and you will bring me a whole person and we will have us twice as much of love and everything"
"I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" — Maya Angelou
"The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom."
"Lene Gammelgaard" — Helen Mort
"Now you’re a woman and that’s all
they’ll know, no matter
what you carry or how far
you go, alone, in rationed light."
I think if I had written this poem I might have tried to rhyme “camel lard” with Gammelgaard.
"Stop All The Clocks" — WH Auden
"He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong."
"The Road Not Taken" — Robert Frost
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
"Variations on the Word Sleep" — Margaret Atwood
"I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
and that necessary."
"Life is Fine" — Langston Hughes
"Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry-
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die."
"Instructions" — Neil Gaiman
“Ride the wise eagle (you shall not fall).
Ride the silver fish (you will not drown).”
"Hamlet" — William Shakespeare
"To be or not to be: that is the question"
"XVII" — Pablo Neruda
"I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body."
"Bread and Music" — Conrad Aiken
"Music I heard with you was more than music, And bread I broke with you was more than bread; Now that I am without you, all is desolate; All that was once so beautiful is dead"
"Poem to an Unnameable Man" — Dorothea Lasky
"And I will not cry also, although you will expect me to. I was wiser too than you had expected for I knew all along you were mine"
"Poem for My Love" — June Jordan
"I am amazed by peace. It is this possibility of you asleep and breathing in the quiet air."
"Love's Philosophy" — Percy Bysshe Shelley
"And the sunlight clasps the earth, And the moonbeams kiss the sea – What are all these kissings worth if thou kiss not me?"
"Stank" — Fatimah Asghar
"Each morning I stitch a scowl
over my smile. Let my eyes sass
every person standing between me
& the bus stop."
"Moments" — Mary Oliver
"There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.
Like, telling someone you love them.
Or giving your money away, all of it."
"Wild Geese" — Mary Oliver
"You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves."
"Tactics and Strategy" — Mario Benedetti
"My strategy is that some day, I don't know how, nor with what pretext, That finally you need me."
"The Waking" — Theodore Roethke
"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go."
"Song Of Myself" — Walt Whitman
“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
"Variations On The Word Love" — Margaret Atwood
“It’s a single
vowel in this metallic
silence, a mouth that says
O again and again in wonder
and pain, a breath, a finger
grip on a cliffside. You can
hold on or let go.”
"Romeo and Juliet" — William Shakespeare
"O Romeo, Romeo; wherefore art thou Romeo"
"Every Day You Play" — Pablo Neruda
"I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."
"I Am Not Yours" — Sara Teasdale
"Oh plunge me deep in love — put out my senses, leave me deaf and blind, swept by the tempest of your love, a taper in a rushing wind."
A taper is a slender candle. If you were picturing one of those wiggly-nosed little mini elephants, that is a Tapir.
"Somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond" — E. E. Cummings
"You open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose"
"The Great Fires" — Jack Gilbert
"Love allows us to walk in the sweet music of our particular heart."
"Sonnets From the Portuguese 43" — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
"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 Bait" — John Donne
"Come live with me, and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove."
"Saying Your Names" — Richard Siken
"I do believe his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me like stars."
"Take, Oh, Take Those Lips Away" — John Fletcher
"Take, oh, take those lips away That so sweetly were forsworn And those eyes, like break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn; But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, though sealed in vain."
"Love Is Not All" — Edna St. Vincent Millay
"It well may be that in a difficult hour, Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, Or nagged by want past resolution's power, I might be driven to sell your love for peace, Or trade the memory of this night for food. It well may be. I do not think I would."
"I Have to Tell You" — Dorothea Grossman
"I have to tell you, there are times when the sun strikes me like a gong, and I remember everything, even your ears."
[Love is more thicker than forget] — E. E. Cummings
"Love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky"
"The Sun Rising" — John Donne
"Love, all alike, no season knows nor clime, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time."
“If time be rags, and ducks be guys, I’ll pack no bags and cast no dies.”
"The More Loving One" — W.H. Auden
"If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving be me."
“And if that man don’t like me none, I’ll serve to him a poison bun.”
"Apology" — William Carlos Williams
"The beauty of
the terrible faces
of our nonentities
stirs me to it."
"Cotton in the Air" — Derrick Brown
"You are cotton caught in the air. I am unfurling laces in your body."
"Courage is a Muscle" — Salena Godden
"Courage is the muscle we work night and day
To get equal rights, to get equal pay."
"The Unbearable Weight of Staying" — Warsan Shire
"I think of lovers as trees, growing to and, from one another, searching for the same light."
"Nancy Meyers and My Dream of Whiteness" — Morgan Parker
"I can’t be sorry
enough. I have learned
everything is urgent."
"Phenomenal Woman" — Maya Angelou
"The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me."
"If" — Rudyard Kipling
"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!"
"To Autumn" — John Keats
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run."
"One Art" — Elizabeth Bishop
"It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master,
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster."
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" — T.S. Eliot
"For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons;
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."
"The Second Coming" — William Butler Yeats
"The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
"Bright Star" — John Keats
"Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death."
"A Question" — Robert Frost
"A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth."
"Ulysses" — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
"'Hope' is the thing with feathers - (314)" — Emily Dickinson
"Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without words,
And never stops-at all."
Emily Dickinson was absolutely passionate about botany, in her early years.
"Enterprise" — Nissim Ezekiel
“Our deeds were neither great nor rare.
Home is where we have to gather grace.”
“Kirk and Spock their souls they bare, Uhura has a lovely face.”
"Valentine" — Carol Ann Duffy
“Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.”
"Mad Girl's Love Song" — Sylvia Plath
“I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.”
"Life In A Love" — Robert Browning
“Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you…”
"A Psalm Of Life" — H. W. Longfellow
“Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!”
"Sonnet 116" — William Shakespeare
"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom."
"Alive Together" — Lisel Mueller
"This poem is endless, the odds against us are endless, our chances of being alive together statistically nonexistent; still we have made it"
"Cascando" — Samuel Beckett
"The hours after you are gone are so leaden they will always start dragging too soon"
"To My Dear and Loving Husband" — Anne Bradstreet
"Then while we live, in love let's so persevere, That when we live no more, we may live ever."
"To Earthward" — Robert Frost
"Love at the lips was touch as sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air"
"Unending Love" – Rabindranath Tagore
"My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs, That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms, In life after life, in age after age, forever."
"You Are Jeff" — Richard Siken
"But he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for"
"I Love You" — Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"Clasp me close in your warm young arms, while the pale stars shine above, and we'll live our whole young lives away in the joys of a living love."
"Annabel Lee" — Edgar Allan Poe
"And we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee."
"If You Were Coming in the Fall" — Emily Dickinson
"If certain, when this life was out, That yours and mine should be, I'd toss it yonder like a rind, And taste eternity."
"From Mother" — Nadine Aisha Jassat
"At home, by the kitchen table
I watch my mother’s hands spin the yarn
of meals and housework
of duty and obligation."
"Mrs Midas" — Carol Ann Duffy
"And who, when it comes to the crunch, can live
with a heart of gold?"
"An Evening" — Gwendolyn Brooks
"Scarcely a tear to shed;
Hardly a word to say;
The end of a summer day;
Sweet Love dead."
"Leaves of Grass" — Walt Whitman
"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles."
"Little Red Cap" — Carol Ann Duffy
"Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head
Warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood
But then I was young."
"The Starling" — Amy Lowell
"I weary for desires never guessed,
For alien passions, strange imaginings,
To be some other person for a day."
"Diving into the Wreck" — Adrienne Rich
"I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone."
"Holy Sonnet X" — John Dunne
"DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so."
"Accomplished Facts" — Carl Sandburg
“Ride, ride, ride on in the great new blimps‒
Cross-unheard of oceans, circle the planet.
When you come back we may sit by the five hollyhocks. ”
I interpret this as, “You go off and do your thing. When you get back let’s hang out and you can tell me all about it.”
"How Do I Love Thee?" — Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“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 Rose That Grew From Concrete" — Tupac Shakur
“Did you hear about the rose that grew
from a crack in the concrete?
Proving nature’s law is wrong it
learned to walk with out having feet.”
