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Dhandalmoksha
A mere means to relax on a leisurely day for some and for others being life itself, poetry has been written on almost everything that exists around us—from odes on seemingly insignificant objects to the lamentation of death of people revered worldwide. Poetry is something that is dream-like and yet thought-provoking.
The voyage into the beautiful and mesmerizing world of poetry in this edition begins in the fourteenth century with an extract from Chaucer’s legendary work Canterbury Tales and stops in the twentieth century with Dylan Thomas’ power-packed poetry, his vehemence on fighting death till your last breath.
Notes have been scattered throughout this edition, enriching your understanding of the poems’ context, inspiration, varying interpretations and even criticism. All this and much more lies ahead for you to discover in our eclectic collection of 50 World’s Greatest Poems
The voyage into the beautiful and mesmerizing world of poetry in this edition begins in the fourteenth century with an extract from Chaucer’s legendary work Canterbury Tales and stops in the twentieth century with Dylan Thomas’ power-packed poetry, his vehemence on fighting death till your last breath.
Notes have been scattered throughout this edition, enriching your understanding of the poems’ context, inspiration, varying interpretations and even criticism. All this and much more lies ahead for you to discover in our eclectic collection of 50 World’s Greatest Poems
- GenresPoetry
Paperback
Published January 8, 2018
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If an editor is known, however, Various is not necessary. List the name of the editor as the primary author (with role "editor"). Contributing authors' names follow it.
Note: WorldCat is an excellent resource for finding author information and contents of anthologies.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
June 29, 2021
This collection of poems is a mixed bag: from great to meh. Overall I enjoyed only the poems that were not very big in size, and were comprehensible to my mind.
It contains poems from the era of Chaucer to the modern times of Dylan Thomas, and all other important poets in between.
It contains poems from the era of Chaucer to the modern times of Dylan Thomas, and all other important poets in between.
March 29, 2021
I wonder what the criteria for 'greatest poems' was. While some were absolutely beautiful, others were to be honest, quite bad.
September 4, 2020
5 stars for the publisher alone. Really well designed and also pretty cheap.
July 13, 2022
A fairly good collection, can be made better though.
December 31, 2022
Ahh! What a journey it was.
To be honest some poems were just out of my league while others were deep, meaningful, thought-provoking, and imaginative. I mean they are ‘World’s greatest poems’ what can I say slash write or what am I supposed to say slash write?
Some of my favorites are:
• Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1931)
• Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (1865)
• Charge of the Brigade by Alfred Tennyson (1854)
• IF by Rudyard Kipling (1910)
• The Soldier by Rupert Brooke (1915)
• The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
• O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman (1867)
• A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth (1838)
• This Is My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson (1890)
• The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916)
• Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1807)
💟Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1931)
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
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 think the perspective for love in the poem is amazing. 🫰
🃏Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (1865)
’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.
~ ‘Jolly’. I think it explains everything. This is a famous nonsense poem. The poem has its own world with its own creatures, plants, language, and its own words, surprisingly it is well-understood to us as well, and it is beautifully written. It enhanced my mood 😅.
I never thought poems could be written in this way. Wow!!! 😅
💭Charge of the Brigade by Alfred Tennyson (1854)
I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
~ I knew this poem from the movie, The blind side. The movie is based on real life, a must-watch.
🪶 The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
~ After watching ‘Wednesday’ who wouldn’t love ‘Nevermore'.
⚜️ IF by Rudyard Kipling (1910)
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!
🏴The Soldier by Rupert Brooke (1915)- If I should die, think only this of me:
👩✈️ O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman (1867)
~ I knew this because Gale adores his Captain, Walter White in ‘Breaking Bad’. Ahh! poor Gale. It’s so nice to read poems after getting references.
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done.
…..
O Captain! my Captain! Rise up and hear the bells.
….
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
….
♎️ A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth (1838)
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
📝 This Is My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson (1890)
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—
The simple News that Nature told—
With tender Majesty
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see—
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me
⚠️The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
…..
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
🌼Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1807)
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.
🔅Astrophil and Stella
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
“Fool”, said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.”
Ending my very long, copied and pasted review here with my one last opinion: I think poems are ambiguous. You can relate to them in your own way. They make you feel words in a beautiful way. They can hurt or compel you to feel what being hurt feels like, but they also console you. They are very powerful.
#happyreading
To be honest some poems were just out of my league while others were deep, meaningful, thought-provoking, and imaginative. I mean they are ‘World’s greatest poems’ what can I say slash write or what am I supposed to say slash write?
Some of my favorites are:
• Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1931)
• Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (1865)
• Charge of the Brigade by Alfred Tennyson (1854)
• IF by Rudyard Kipling (1910)
• The Soldier by Rupert Brooke (1915)
• The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
• O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman (1867)
• A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth (1838)
• This Is My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson (1890)
• The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916)
• Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1807)
💟Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1931)
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
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 think the perspective for love in the poem is amazing. 🫰
🃏Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (1865)
’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.
~ ‘Jolly’. I think it explains everything. This is a famous nonsense poem. The poem has its own world with its own creatures, plants, language, and its own words, surprisingly it is well-understood to us as well, and it is beautifully written. It enhanced my mood 😅.
I never thought poems could be written in this way. Wow!!! 😅
💭Charge of the Brigade by Alfred Tennyson (1854)
I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
~ I knew this poem from the movie, The blind side. The movie is based on real life, a must-watch.
🪶 The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.”
Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
~ After watching ‘Wednesday’ who wouldn’t love ‘Nevermore'.
⚜️ IF by Rudyard Kipling (1910)
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!
🏴The Soldier by Rupert Brooke (1915)- If I should die, think only this of me:
👩✈️ O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman (1867)
~ I knew this because Gale adores his Captain, Walter White in ‘Breaking Bad’. Ahh! poor Gale. It’s so nice to read poems after getting references.
O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done.
…..
O Captain! my Captain! Rise up and hear the bells.
….
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
….
♎️ A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth (1838)
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
📝 This Is My Letter to the World by Emily Dickinson (1890)
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—
The simple News that Nature told—
With tender Majesty
Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see—
For love of Her—Sweet—countrymen—
Judge tenderly—of Me
⚠️The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost (1916)
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
…..
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
🌼Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1807)
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.
🔅Astrophil and Stella
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
“Fool”, said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.”
Ending my very long, copied and pasted review here with my one last opinion: I think poems are ambiguous. You can relate to them in your own way. They make you feel words in a beautiful way. They can hurt or compel you to feel what being hurt feels like, but they also console you. They are very powerful.
#happyreading
March 15, 2020
The thing I didn't appreciate that much was how the not so well written poems were put in first, before the really phenomenal ones, it kinda forced me into a foul mood!
But then again, you gotta experience bad to know what good really feels like, so it only makes sense to start with mediocre and finish with magnificent!
All in all, the book was alright and because I read it in a period where I didn't want to read anything else, I'd go ahead saying that it surely provided me with the outcome I was hoping for!
But then again, you gotta experience bad to know what good really feels like, so it only makes sense to start with mediocre and finish with magnificent!
All in all, the book was alright and because I read it in a period where I didn't want to read anything else, I'd go ahead saying that it surely provided me with the outcome I was hoping for!
February 12, 2023
Collection of beautiful wondrous poetry works ..loved the way emotions, feelings and vibes are articulated within this compact collection.
June 19, 2020
This book just opens up to much more than anyone ever expected.
May 27, 2021
Good collectible edition of poems featuring some of the best poets' works.An enthralling read covering major works.I loved it.A must have for poetry lovers!!
July 31, 2021
Good collection of poems, although they can be hardly considered "world's" best poems as they only rinclude poets from English-speaking part of the world.
March 21, 2023
The collection could have so much more. Has some of the greatest like Daffodils and If.
April 29, 2025
“I am a part of all that I have met”
“Come my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world”
“Come my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world”
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews