Today as I was trying to read poetry on my e-reader, I was frustrated with the lack of easy of paging back and forth to different sections so I took a trip to my local library and was reminded of why I couldn't get enough of the library as a young adult.  I checked out Three Centuries of American Poetry edited by Allen Mandelbaum & Robert D. Richardson, Jr. among other poetry books and have two poems to share with you.

The first poem is by Walt Whitman and contains a really neat comparison really uses some great descriptive words along with repetition to help you the reader create a neat visual.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

A noiseless patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.


The second poem I share with you today is by Joyce Kilmer.  This is a fairly simple poem that uses rhyme and rhythm (or is it meter).

Trees

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with the rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.