Some "Hard" Words

Epigrams By Oscar Wilde

An epigram is a short poem that makes fun of or looks back at something past.

Oscar Wilde's Epigrams

I hope you have not been leading a double life,
pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time.
That would be hypocrisy.

There is no sin except stupidity.

My own business bores me to death.
    I prefer other people's.

Education is an admirable thing,
    but it is as well to remember that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful.
   To be in it is merely a bore.
       But to be out of it simply a tragedy.

Bio

Oscar Wilde was born on 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. He showed promise and talent at a very young age and he wrote poems along with his schoolwork. He went to America and met many of the famous poets of the day. He wrote operas, poems, and many other books. He had many financial troubles as he flaunted his wealth and travelled around the world visiting places. One of the main traits he was known for was his homosexuality, which would later lead to him to jail. He had a wife but he also had a relationship with Lord Alfred Douglass. Marquess of Queensberry (the Lord's father) witnessed this relationship and Oscar and the Marquess got into a fight. This went to the court and Oscar was put in jail after much evidence. His wife and family fled and changed their names and Oscar was alone. He got out of jail and he changed his name to Sebastion Melmoth. He renewed his relationship with Alfred and he died in 1900 from syphilis. 

Free Verse by Walt Whitman

A free verse is a poem is with no rhyme nor particular meter.

After the Sea-Ship By Walt Whitman/Bio Info

After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;

After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,

Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks, 

Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship: 

Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,

Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,

Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves, 

Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;

Ode By Pierre de Ronsard

A ode is a poem that is meant to be sung and it is in a wierd meter form. It should be expressive with exalted or enthusiastic emotion.

To His Young Mistress by Pierre de Ronsard/Bio Info

Fair flower of fifteen springs, that still

Art scarcely blossomed from the bud,
Yet hast such store of evil will,
A heart so full of hardihood,
Seeking to hide in friendly wise
The mischief of your mocking eyes.

If you have pity, child, give o'er,

Give back the heart you stole from me,
Pirate, setting so little store
On this your captive from Love’s sea,
Holding his misery for gain,
And making pleasure of his pain.

Another, not so fair of face,

But far more pitiful than you,
Would take my heart, if of his grace,
My heart would give her of Love’s due;
And she shall have it, since I find
That you are cruel and unkind.

Villanelle By Dylan Thomas

A villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with five tercets and a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet repeat at the end of the other tercets and are repeated again in the final quatrain.






Do not go gentle into that good night By Dylan Thomas/Bio Info

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.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Ballade by Ellis Parker Butler

A Ballade is a poem that tells a story with stanzas.

The Ballade of the Automobile By Ellis Parker Butler/Bio Info

When our yacht sails seaward on steady keel
And the wind is moist with breath of brine
And our laughter tells of our perfect weal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But if, automobiling, my woes combine
And fuel gives out in my road-machine
And it's sixteen miles to that home of mine--
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

When our coach rides smoothly on iron-shod wheel
With a deft touch guiding each taut drawn line
And the inn ahead holds a royal meal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, on some long and steep incline,
In a manner entirely unforeseen
The motor stops with a last sad whine--
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

When the air is crisp and the brooks congeal
And our sleigh glides on with a speed divine
While the gay bells echo with peal on peal,
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when, with perverseness most condign,
In the same harsh snowstorm, cold and keen,
My auto stops at the six-mile sign--
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

ENVOY

When yacht or Coach Club fellows dine
We may carol the praises of ruby wine;
But when Automobile Clubmen convene
Then ho! For a gallon of gasoline!

Acrostic Poem by Edgar Allen Poe

An acrostic is a poem or puzzle where certain letters in a line form something. 

Acrostic By Edgar Allen Poe/Bio Information

 Elizabeth it is in vain you say
“Love not” — thou sayest it in so sweet a way:
 In vain those words from thee or L. E. L.
 Zantippe’s talents had enforced so well:
 Ah! if that language from thy heart arise,
 Breathe it less gently forth — and veil thine eyes.
 Endymion, recollect, when Luna tried
 To cure his love — was cured of all beside —
 His folly — pride — and passion — for he died.

Haiku By Shiki

A Haiku is a Japanese poem with seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, with images evoking the world.

Haiku by Masaoka Shiki/Bio Information

My life, -
How much more of it remains?
The night is brief.

Limerick By Edward Lear

A limerick is a humorous, frequently bawdy, verse of three long and two short lines rhyming.

Edward Lear's Limerick/Bio Information

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'

Into My Own By Robert Frost

Into My Own by Robert Frost

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,

So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,

Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,

But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day

Into their vastness I should steal away,

Fearless of ever finding open land,

Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,

Or those should not set forth upon my track

To overtake me, who should miss me here

And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew--

Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Shakespeare Sonnet

Sonnet 138 by William Shakespeare

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutored youth,
Unlearned in the world's false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust? 
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love's best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flattered be.