Great lines of poetry (1-10)

6. To my right, / In a field of sunlight between two pines, / The droppings of last year's horses / Blaze up into golden stones. / I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on. / A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home. / I have wasted my life. (James Wright, "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota")

5. Love set you going like a fat gold watch. / The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry / Took its place among the elements. (Sylvia Plath, "Morning Song")

4. The eyes open to a cry of pulleys, / And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul / Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple / As false dawn. / Outside the open window / The morning air is all awash with angels. (Richard Wilbur, "Love Calls Us to the Things of this World")

3. All the world like a woolen lover / once did seem on Henry's side. / Then came a departure. / Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought. / I don't see how Henry, pried / open for all the world to see, survived. (John Berryman, From The Dream Songs -1)

2. For the mind, like Rome, contains / Catacombs, aqueducts, amphitheatres, palaces, / Churches and equestrian statues, fallen, broken or soiled. / The mind possesses and is possessed by all the ruins / Of every haunted, hunted generation's celebration. (Delmore Schwartz, "The Mind Is an Ancient and Famous Capital")

1. I stop, / gather wet wood, / cut dry shavings, / and for her, / whose face / I held in my hands / a few hours, whom I gave back / only to keep holding the space where she was, // I light / a small fire in the rain. (Galway Kinnell, "Under the Maud Moon")