When You Are Old
Yeats reflects on love and memory in “When You Are Old,” a tender vision of devotion and time’s quiet sorrow.
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
A line-by-line exploration of Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” examining its villanelle form, grief, and defiance of death.
Invictus
“Invictus” captures unbroken resolve in the face of suffering — William Ernest Henley’s immortal cry of the unconquered soul.
The Raven
Explore Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting vision of grief and obsession in “The Raven,” where memory becomes both muse and torment.
There Will Come Soft Rains
Nature’s calm outlasts human conflict in Teasdale’s quietly devastating WWI-era lyric.
The Kiss
Fulfillment turns ambivalent in Teasdale’s eight-line lyric of longing and disillusion.
I Am Not Yours
Teasdale’s classic love lyric balancing the hunger to yield with the need to remain oneself.
The Look
A two-quatrain gem in which the memory of a look proves stronger than any kiss.
The White Man’s Burden
An imperial‑era exhortation whose persuasive craft and racial assumptions make it a central text for contextual study.
If—
Discover Kipling’s timeless code of endurance and self-mastery in “If—,” a father’s lesson in courage and restraint.
To an Athlete Dying Young
A meditation on youth, fame, and mortality, where early death preserves glory from decay.
Loveliest of Trees
A gentle meditation on the fleeting beauty of life and the resolve to see the cherry bloom before time runs out.