The 333 Greatest (Short) Poems
Poetry comes in all shapes, styles and sizes, with no reigning definition of what even constitutes a poem. Less so what makes a great poem.
Most source material (including anthologies, critical volumes and reading lists) have traditionally focused on English poetry, especially British and American works. Typically only a smattering of poems created in other languages are considered. To overcome this we have consulted a wider range of critics, scholars, anthologies, curricula, readers and poets themselves from around the world—to highlight great poetry of diverse eras and origins.
We have also faced the length issue. It seems ludicrous to compare everything from single-line verses to book-long epic poetry for the same "greatest poetry" list. So we have separated long and short poems into separate lists, and have also distinguished collections of poems.
Of course, the categories often overlap. We have some rules of thumb to determine into which group a given work falls into. The poems listed below as "short" poems can generally be read and appreciated in a single sitting—from a minute to an hour or so. They tend to be under a dozen pages long. They usually present single moods or thoughts, and feature unitary themes with compact, cohesive storylines. However, the determination is not always not so clearcut and sometimes comes down to a subjective judgment.
The consensus about what is considered great is always changing of course as new works appear and older works undergo re-evaluation. This list is accordingly always under revision.
Latest update: March 27, 2024
BCE
c.2030
"A Love Song of Shu-Suen"
by Anonymous, Sumer
Poem
c.600
"Ode to Anactoria"
by Sappho, Greece
Poem
"Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite"
by Anonymous, Greece
Poem
c.250
"Hymn to Apollo"
by Callimachus, Greece
Poem
c.60
"Let us live, my Lesbia"
by Catullus, Rome
Poem
CE
c.740
"Deer Park"
by Wang Wei, China
Poem
"Drifting on the Lake"
by Wang Wei, China
Poem
"A Farewell"
by Wang Wei, China
Poem
c.750
"Jade Stairs Lament"
by Li Bai, China
Poem
"Quiet Night Thought"
by Li Bai, China
Poem
"Waking From Drunkenness on a Spring Day"
by Li Bai, China
Poem
c.1130
"A Quatrain in Summer"
by Li Qingzhao, China
Poem
1290
"Upon a day, came Sorrow into me"
by Alighieri Dante, Italy
Poem
c.1535
"They Flee From Me That Sometimes Did Me Seek"
by Thomas Wyatt, England
Poem
1599
"The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
by Christopher Marlowe, England
Poem
1600
"Adieu, Farewell Earth's Bliss"
by Walter Raleigh, England
Poem
"The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"
by Walter Raleigh, England
Poem
c.1600
"Lord Randall"
by Anonymous, Scotland
Poem
1603
"On My First Son"
by Ben Jonson, England
Poem
1616
"To Celia"
by Ben Jonson, England
Poem
1624
"No Man Is an Island"
by John Donne, England
Poem
1633
"Batter My Heart, Three Personed God"
by John Donne, England
Poem
"Death, Be Not Proud"
by John Donne, England
Poem
"Go and Catch a Falling Star"
by John Donne, England
Poem
"Good-Morrow, The"
by John Donne, England
Poem
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"
by John Donne, England
Poem
"Love"
by George Herbert, England
Poem
1639
"Why So Pale and Wan, Fond Lover?"
by John Suckling, England
Poem
1645
"Go, Lovely Rose"
by Edmund Haller, England
Poem
1648
"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time"
by Richard Lovelace, England
Poem
1649
"Upon Julia's Clothes"
by Robert Herrick, England
Poem
"To Lucasta, Going to the Wars"
by Richard Lovelace, England
Poem
1650
"Delight in Disorder"
by Robert Herrick, England
Poem
"The Retreat"
by Henry Vaughan, Wales
Poem
1656
"The Twa Sisters"
by Anonymous, England
Poem
1673
"On His Blindness"
by John Milton, England
Poem
1675
"Lord Thomas and Fair Annet"
by Anonymous, England
Poem
1678
"To My Dear and Loving Husband"
by Anne Bradstreet, United States
Poem
c.1680
"The Fox and the Crow"
by Jean de La Fontaine, France
Poem
1681
"Absalom and Achitophel"
by John Dryden, England
Poem
"To His Coy Mistress"
by Andrew Marvell, England
Poem
1680s
"Foolish Men"
by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexico
Poem
1692
"Dream"
by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Mexico
Poem
1747
"Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes"
by Thomas Gray, England
Poem
1749
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"
by Thomas Gray, England
Poem
1765
"Sir Patrick Spens"
by Anonymous, Scotland
Poem
1773
"Phyllis Wheatley"
by On Being Brought from Africa, United States
Poem
1782
"Erlkönig"
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany
Poem
1786
"Ode to Joy"
by Friedrich Schiller, Germany
Poem
1788
"Auld Lang Syne"
by Robert Burns, Scotland
Poem
1789
"The Lamb"
by William Blake, England
Poem
1794
"London"
by William Blake, England
Poem
"A Poison Tree"
by William Blake, England
Poem
"The Tyger"
by William Blake, England
Poem
1798
"Frost at Midnight"
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Scotland
Poem
1800
"Michael"
by William Wordsworth, England
Poem
"A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal"
by William Wordsworth, England
Poem
"The Life Path"
by Friedrich Hölderlin, Germany
Poem
1805
"The Last Rose of Summer"
by Thomas More, Ireland
Poem
1805
"The Palace of Pleasure"
by Leigh Hunt, England
Poem
1807
"Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802"
by William Wordsworth, England
Poem
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
by William Wordsworth, England
Poem
"Ode: Intimations of Mortality"
by William Wordsworth, England
Poem
"Character of the Happy Warrior"
by William Wordsworth, England
Poem
"The World Is Too Much With Us"
by William Wordsworth, England
Poem
1808
"And did those feet in ancient time"
by William Blake, England
Poem
1814
"She Walks in Beauty"
by George Gordon Byron, England
Poem
1816
"Kubla Khan"
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, England
Poem
"On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"
by John Keats, England
Poem
"To a Waterfowl"
by William Cullen Bryant, United States
Poem
1817
"Thanatopsis"
by William Cullen Bryant, United States
Poem
1818
"Ozymandias"
by Percy Byssche Shelley, England
Poem
1819
"Ode on a Grecian Urn"
by John Keats, England
Poem
"Ode to a Nightingale"
by John Keats, England
Poem
"Love's Philosophy"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley, England
Poem
"The Infinite"
by Giacomo Leopardi, Italy
Poem
1820
"To Autumn"
by John Keats, England
Poem
"The Cloud"
by Percy Byssche Shelley, England
Poem
"Ode to the West Wind"
by Percy Byssche Shelley, England
Poem
"To a Skylark"
by Percy Byssche Shelley, England
Poem
"La Belle Dame Sans Mercie"
by John Keats, England
Poem
"The Lake"
by Alphonse de Lamartine, France
Poem
1825
"To ***"
by Alexander Pushkin, Russia
Poem
1829
"The Spider and the Fly"
by Mary Howitt, England
Poem
1830
"So, we'll go no more a-roving"
by George Gordon Byron, England
Poem
"Old Ironsides"
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, United States
Poem
1834
"Abou Ben Adhem"
by Leigh Hunt, England
Poem
"The Rhodora"
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, United States
Poem
1835
"The Hermit"
by Joseph von Eichendorff, Germany
Poem
1837
"Borodino"
by Mikhail Lermontov, Russia
Poem
"Death of the Poet"
by Mikhail Lermontov, Russia
Poem
1838
"Jenny Kiss'd Me"
by Leigh Hunt, England
Poem
"A Psalm of Life"
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, United States
Poem
"Concord Hymn"
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, United States
Poem
1842
"My Last Duchess"
by Robert Browning, England
Poem
" Break, Break, Breakl"
by Alfred Lord Tennyson, England
Poem
"Locksley Hall"
by Alfred Lord Tennyson, England
Poem
"The Lady of Shalott"
by Alfred Lord Tennyson, England
Poem
"Ulysses"
by Alfred Lord Tennyson, England
Poem
1844
"Night Thoughts"
by Heinrich Heine, Germany
Poem
1845
"Meeting at Night"
by Robert Browing, England
Poem
"Sweetheart, let’s see if the rose"
by Pierre de Ronsard, France
Poem
1847
"The First Snowfall"
by James Russell Lowell, United States
Poem
1848
"Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth"
by Arthur Hugh Clough, England
Poem
"When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be"
by John Keats, England
Poem
1850
"How Do I Love Thee?"
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, England
Poem
"The Blessed Damozel"
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, England
Poem
1851
"O Soul, Remember"
by Eduard Mörike, Germany
Poem
1853
"The Scholar Gipsy"
by Matthew Arnold, England
Poem
1854
"Charge of the Light Brigade"
by Alfred Lord Tennyson, England
Poem
1855
"Evelyn Hope"
by Robert Browning, England
Poem
"I Sing the Body Electric"
by Walt Whitman, United States
Poem
"Song of Myself"
by Walt Whitman, United States
Poem
1856
"Tomorrow, at Dawn"
by Victor-Marie Hugo, France
Poem
"Poet and Citizen"
by Nikolai Nekrasov, Russia
Poem
"The Snow-Storm"
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, United States
Poem
"Maud Muller"
by John Greenleaf Whittier, United States
Poem
1857
"The Song of Exile"
by Gonçalves Dias, Brazil
Poem
1858
"The Chambered Nautilus"
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, United States
Poem
"The Deacon's Masterpiece"
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, United States
Poem
1860
"Paul Revere's Ride"
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, United States
Poem
"The Children's Hour"
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, United States
Poem
1861
"The Albatross"
by Charles Baudelaire, France
Poem
1862
"Remember"
by Christina Rossetti, England
Poem
1863
"Auguries of Innocence"
by William Blake, England
Poem
"Sudden Light"
by Christina Rossetti, England
Poem
1864
"Success is counted sweetest"
by Emily Dickinson, United States
Poem
1865
"O Captain! My Captain!"
by Walt Whitman, United States
Poem
1866
"You Will Not Grasp Her With Your Mind"
by Fyodor Tyutchev, Russia
Poem
1867
"Dover Beach"
by Matthew Arnold, England
Poem
1869
"Clair de Lune"
by Paul Verlaine, France
Poem
"A Noiseless Patient Spider"
by Walt Whitman, United States
Poem
1870
"The Sleeper in the Valley"
by Arthur Rimbaud, France
Poem
1871
"Jabberwocky"
by Lewis Carroll, England
Poem
"The Drunken Boat"
by Arthur Rimbaud, France
Poem
1873
"Red Cotton Night-Cap Country "
by Robert Browning, England
Poem
1874
"The Afternoon of a Faun"
by Stéphane Mallarmé, France
Poem
1881
"Requiescat"
by Oscar Wilde, Ireland
Poem
1883
"The New Colossus"
by Emma Lazarus, United States
Poem
"Solitude"
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, United States
Poem
1887
"To Be Born a Man"
by Adela Zamudio, Bolivia
Poem
"Low Tide on Grand Pré"
by Bliss Carmen, Canada
Poem
"Requiem"
by Robert Louis Stevenson, Scotland
Poem
1888
"Invictus"
by William Ernest Henley, England
Poem
1889
"Crossing the Bar"
by Alfred Lord Tennyson, England
Poem
1890
"London Snow"
by Robert Bridges, England
Poem
"Gunga Din"
by Rudyard Kipling, England
Poem
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"
by W.B. Yeats, Ireland
Poem
"Because I could not stop for Death"
by Emily Dickinson, United States
Poem
1891
"A Sincere Man Am I"
by José Marti, Cuba
Poem
"'Hope' Is the Thing With Feathers"
by Emily Dickinson, United States
Poem
"I'm Nobody! Who Are You?"
by Emily Dickinson, United States
Poem
"A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"
by Emily Dickinson, United States
Poem
1892
"Vitai Lampada"
by Henry Newbolt, England
Poem
1896
"Vitae Summa Brevis"
by Ernest Dowson, England
Poem
"Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae"
by Ernest Dowson, England
Poem
"I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died"
by Emily Dickinson, United States
Poem
"We Wear the Mask"
by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, United States
Poem
1897
"Recessional"
by Rudyard Kipling, England
Poem
"Richard Cory"
by Edwin Arlington Robinson, United States
Poem
1899
"Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"
by W.B. Yeats, Ireland
Poem
"The Man With the Hoe"
by Edwin Markham, United States
Poem
1904
"Waiting for the Babarians"
by Constantine Cavafy, Greece
Poem
1905
"The Girl Was Singing In a Church Choir"
by Alexander Blok, Russia
Poem
1906
"The Highwayman"
by Alfred de Noyes,
Poem
1907
"The Cremation of Sam McGee"
by Robert W. Service, Canada
Poem
"The Shooting of Dan McGrew"
by Robert W. Service, Canada
Poem
1908
"Torso of an Archaic Apollo"
by Rainer Maria Rilke, Germany
Poem
1909
"My Country"
by Ricardo Miro, Panama
Poem
1910
"If"
by Rudyard Kipling, England
Poem
"Miniver Cheevy"
by Edwin Arlington Robinson, United States
Poem
1911
"The Little Car"
by Guillaume Apollinaire, France
Poem
1911
"Dusky Veil Shades Her Hands Clenching"
by Anna Akhmatova, Russia
Poem
1912
"The Listeners"
by Walter de la Mare, England
Poem
"Renascence"
by Edna St. Vincent Millay, United States
Poem
1913
"Zone"
by Guillaume Apollinaire, France
Poem
"These My Poems, Written So Early"
by Marina Tsvetaeva, Russia
Poem
"Trees"
by Joyce Kilmer, United States
Poem
"Sacred Emily"
by Gertrude Stein, United States
Poem
1914
"Grodek"
by Georg Trakl, Austria
Poem
"For the Fallen"
by Laurence Binyon, England
Poem
"Listen"
by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russia
Poem
"Mending Wall"
by Robert Frost, United States
Poem
"The Death of the Hired Man"
by Robert Frost, United States
Poem
"Chicago"
by Carl Sandburg, United States
Poem
1915
"In Flanders Fields"
by John McCrae, Canada
Poem
"The Soldier"
by Rupert Brooke, England
Poem
"The Dead"
by Rupert Brooke, England
Poem
"The Pool"
by Hilda Doolittle, United States
Poem
"The Road Not Taken"
by Robert Frost, United States
Poem
"Ann Rutledge"
by Edgar Lee Masters, United States
Poem
"The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter"
by Ezra Pound, United States
Poem
1916
"Sea-Fever"
by John Masefield, England
Poem
"Cargoes"
by John Masefield, England
Poem
"Fog"
by Carl Sandburg, United States
Poem
"I Have a Rendezvous with Death"
by Alan Seeger, United States
Poem
"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
by Wallace Stevens, United States
Poem
1918
"Suicide in the Trenches"
by Siegfried Sassoon, England
Poem
"God's Grandeur"
by Gerard Manley Hopkins, England
Poem
"Pied Beauty"
by Gerard Manley Hopkins, England
Poem
"Spring and Fall"
by Gerard Manley Hopkins, England
Poem
"The Windhover"
by Gerard Manley Hopkins, England
Poem
"The Fish"
by Marianne Moore, United States
Poem
"There Will Come Soft Rains"
by Sara Teasdale, United States
Poem
1919
"An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"
by W.B. Yeats, Ireland
Poem
"Black Messengers"
by César Vallejo, Peru
Poem
"If We Must Die"
by Claude McKay, United States
Poem
1920
"Anthem for Doomed Youth"
by Wilfred Owen, England
Poem
"Dulce et Decorum Est"
by Wilfred Owen, England
Poem
"The Second Coming"
by W.B. Yeats, Ireland
Poem
"Mr. Flood's Party"
by Edwin Arlington Robinson, United States
Poem
1922
"Mother to Son"
by Langston Hughes, United States
Poem
"The Emperor of Ice Cream"
by Wallace Stevens, United States
Poem
1923
"Snake"
by D.H. Lawrence, England
Poem
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
by Robert Frost, United States
Poem
"Fire and Ice"
by Robert Frost, United States
Poem
"The Red Wheelbarrow"
by William Carlos Williams, United States
Poem
1924
"Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines"
by Pablo Neruda, Chile
Poem
"Letter to a Woman"
by Sergei Esenin, Russia
Poem
"The Weary Blues"
by Langston Hughes, United States
Poem
1928
"Sailing to Byzantium"
by W.B. Yeats, United States
Poem
1930
"In the Middle of the Road"
by Carlos Drummond De Andrade, Brazil
Poem
1931
"Love Is Not All: It Is Not Meat nor Drink"
by Edna St. Vincent Millay, United States
Poem
1932
"Bavarian Gentians"
by D.H. Lawrence, England
Poem
1934
"Immortality"
by Clare Harner, United States
Poem
"This Is Just to Say"
by William Carlos Williams, United States
Poem
"The Idea of Order at Key West"
by Wallace Stevens, United States
Poem
1935
"Words From Confinement"
by Cesare Pavese, Italy
Poem
"Proletarian Portrait"
by William Carlos Williams, United States
Poem
"To a Poor Old Woman"
by William Carlos Williams, United States
Poem
1936
"Funeral Blues"
by W.H. Auden, England
Poem
1938
"To Those Born After"
by Bertolt Brecht, Germany
Poem
1939
"Musée des Beaux Arts"
by W.H. Auden, England
Poem
1940
"David"
by Earle Birney, Canada
Poem
"Song of Negroes in Cuba"
by Federico García Lorca, Cuba
Poem
"The Unknown Citizen"
by W.H. Auden, England
Poem
1942
"Liberty"
by Paul Eluard, France
Poem
1944
"Day and Night"
by Dorothy Livesay, Canada
Poem
1945
"Family Portrait"
by Carlos Drummond De Andrade, Brazil
Poem
"Autumn Leaves"
by Jacques Prévert, France
Poem
"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
by Randall Jarrell, United States
Poem
"Elegy Just in Case"
by John Ciardi, United States
Poem
1945–1962
"Middle Passage"
by Robert Hayden, United States
Poem
1946
"Fern Hill"
by Dylan Thomas, Wales
Poem
1947
"The Key of Water"
by Octavio Paz, Mexico
Poem
"Directive"
by Robert Frost, United States
Poem
1948
"If You Forget Me"
by Pablo Neruda, Chile
Poem
"Death Fugue"
by Paul Celan, Romania
Poem
1950
"Death will come and will have your eyes"
by Cesare Pavese, Italy
Poem
1951
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"
by Dylan Thomas, Wales
Poem
1952
"I carry your heart with me"
by e.e. cummings, United States
Poem
1953
"Deferred Time"
by Ingeborg Bachmann, Austria
Poem
"The Waking"
by Theodore Roethke, United States
Poem
1954
"The Birth of Tragedy"
by Irving Layton, Canada
Poem
"Meditations in an Emergency"
by Frank O'Hara, United States
Poem
1956
"A Ballad of Going Down to the Store"
by Miron Białoszewski, Poland
Poem
1957
"Elegy of Fortinbras"
by Zbigniew Herberti, Poland
Poem
1958
"I Am Waiting"
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, United States
Poem
"Junkman's Obbligato"
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, United States
Poem
1959
"I Do Not Love You Except Because I Love You"
by Pablo Neruda, Chile
Poem
"We Real Cool"
by Gwendolyn Brooks, United States
Poem
"Memories of West Street and Lepke"
by Robert Lowell, United States
Poem
1961
"Babi Yar"
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russia
Poem
1962
"Warning"
by Jenny Joseph, England
Poem
"Those Winter Sundays"
by Robert Hayden, United States
Poem
1963
"Sylvia's Death"
by Anne Sexton, United States
Poem
1965
"Daddy"
by Sylvia Plath, United States
Poem
"Lady Lazarus"
by Sylvia Plath, United States
Poem
1966
"Digging"
by Seamus Heaney, Northern Ireland
Poem
"The Express"
by Stephen Spender, England
Poem
"Tracks"
by Tomas Tranströmer, Sweden
Poem
1967
"Pièta"
by Wisława Szymborska, Poland
Poem
"Face the Animal"
by Jean Follain, France
Poem
1968
"The Poor"
by Roberto Sosa, Honduras
Poem
1969
"Draft of a Modern Love Poem"
by Tadeusz Różewicz, Poland
Poem
1970
"Don’t Leave the Room"
by Joseph Brodsky, Russia
Poem
1972
"Under a Certain Little Star"
by Wisława Szymborska, Poland
Poem
1973
"Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)"
by Nikki Giovanni, United States
Poem
"Diving Into the Wreck"
by Adrienne Rich, United States
Poem
1974
"This Be the Verse"
by Philip Larkin, England
Poem
1975
"Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror"
by John Ashbery, United States
Poem
1976
"In Praise of My Sister"
by Wisława Szymborska, Poland
Poem
"One Art"
by Elizabeth Bishop, United States
Poem
1977
"Calderoniana"
by Efraín Huerta, Mexico
Poem
"And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name"
by John Ashbery, United States
Poem
"Still I Rise"
by Maya Angelou, United States
Poem
"Power"
by Audre Lorde, United States
Poem
1980
"Homage to My Hips"
by Lucille Clifton, United States
Poem
1981
"The Colonel"
by Carolyn Forché, United States
Poem
1982
"Heroics"
by Julia Alvarez, United States
Poem
1983
"A Smile to Remember"
by Charles Bukowski, United States
Poem
1985
"Mock Orange"
by Louise Glück, United States
Poem
1986
"Love After Love"
by Derek Walcott, St. Lucia
Poem
1987
"To Live in the Borderlands"
by Gloria Anzaldua, United States
Poem
"Ancestor"
by Jimmy Santiago Baco, United States
Poem
1989
"From the Bridge"
by Claribel Alegría, Nicaragua
Poem
1992
"The Man With the Night Sweats"
by Thom Gunn, United States
Poem
1994
"Blood"
by Carmen Boullosa, Mexico
Poem
1995
"In the Secular Night"
by Margaret Atwood, Canada
Poem
2003
"Rain"
by Claribel Alegria, Nicaragua
Poem
"Errata"
by Kevin Young, United States
Poem
2005
"Text"
by Carol Ann Duffy, England
Poem
2008
"Rain"
by Don Paterson, Scotland
Poem
2010
"The Golden Shovel"
by Terrance Hayes, United States
Poem
2011
"Moving"
by Luis Chaves, Costa Rica
Poem
"Home"
by Warsan Shire, Costa England
Poem
2012
"Balas Chonas"
by Cherríe Morago, United States
Poem
2013
"Rape Joke"
by Patricia Lockwood, United States
Poem
