Anita Doré

So many of the poems were Death and Depressing.

Scattered among them, here are my favorites:

To a Skylark
The Tiger
She Walks in Beauty
Kubla Khan
The Song of Solomon
Do Not go Gentle into That Good Night
Miracles (Walt Whitman)
Some Keep the Sabbath Going to Church
To Everything there is a Season
Though I Speak with the Tongues of Men and Angels
We Shall Overcome
Get on Board Little Children
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Death Be Not Proud
The Sound of Silence
The Second Coming
I Hear America Singing
Lines Written in Early Spring… (más)

I have four poetry anthologies, and I'd rank this next to last. The fat tome Book of Women Poets for it's international and historical focus--it opens with Enheduanna, a Sumerian Priestess who may be the earliest known name in written literature. The Immortal Poems of the English Language offers 447 poems embracing a wide range of the best poets in the language from Chaucer to Dylan Thomas. This is a slimmer volume than either, having been published in 1970 would miss the best of the last half century and with only 270 poems of the English language. It's value added is the grouping into themes: Nature, Creatures, Portraits, Stories, Love, Generation, Humor, Places... Home and Away, Belief, Commitment, Protest, War, Death, Alienation, Human Condition, Meaning of Life. To take as an example the smallest section, humor, it includes:

Lewis Carroll, The Mad Gardener's Song
Guy Wetmore Carryl, The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven
W. S. Gilbert, Nightmare
Robert Burns, To an Artist
Lewis Carroll, Evidence Read at the Trial of the Knave of Hearts
Phyllis McGinley, Death at Suppertime

That illustrates one of the book's strongest virtues, that it doesn't just go to the usual subjects, and in fact my favorites in that section come from the more obscure poets--Carryl and McGinley. So, an anthology at least worth considering.… (más)