L’Allegro (Selected Excerpts)
Milton’s ode to mirth celebrates festivity as a disciplined joy — pastoral song and theater shaping perception and virtue.
On His Blindness (Sonnet XIX)
Milton’s Sonnet XIX reframes vocation through patience: “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
Lycidas (Selected Excerpts)
Milton’s pastoral elegy blends classical rite and Christian prophecy, turning grief into renewed vocation.
Paradise Lost (Selected Excerpts)
Milton’s epic of the Fall explores freedom and obedience in sweeping blank verse — theology unfolding as dramatic action.
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (Selected Excerpts)
Whitman’s Lincoln elegy braids lilac, star, and thrush into a ritual of grief and renewal in free verse.
O Captain! My Captain!
Whitman’s elegy for Lincoln balances public exultation with private grief in a rare, formally rhymed lament.
I Hear America Singing
An anthem of labor and individuality, “I Hear America Singing” gathers many voices into one democratic chorus.
Song of Myself (Selected Excerpts)
Whitman’s “Song of Myself” makes a democratic, embodied lyric — a capacious voice that invites contradiction and communion.
Blueberries
Neighbors trade lively talk over a bumper crop in “Blueberries,” where burn, botany, and community meet.
Revelation
In “Revelation,” Frost explores our need to hide and to be found, turning speech itself into a form of revelation.
The Vantage Point
From solitude, Frost’s “The Vantage Point” looks upon life and death, then turns to the living earth for quiet belonging.
Going for Water
A twilight errand becomes enchantment in “Going for Water,” where nature and imagination coexist in quiet wonder.