30 great poems everyone should knowWe’re delighted to bring you a collection of 30 wonderful poems from the new iF Poems app — and we want you to write the next great one in our young poet competitionErica WagnerSaturday November 19 2011, 12.00am GMT, The Times

ILLUSTRATION BY KERRY LEMONShare

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Why do you need a poetry app? The better question, to my mind, is why don’t you? For with the iF Poems app, created by Allie Esiri

and Rachel Kelly, you will have more than 200 classic poems at your fingertips, all of them (yes, I do mean all of them) perfect to read and recite for children and adults alike. It’s the first poetry app for children, but grown-ups will get a great deal out of it, too.

I have always loved learning poetry by heart. One of my favourite books — this was in the days before apps, my dears — is the wonderful anthology By Heart: 101 Poems to Remember by the late Ted Hughes.It’s true to say that once you have learnt a poem, you really do have something to treasure; something that no one can take away from you, ever. I learnt some of the poems in Hughes’s book more than a decade ago, but they are still in my head, to be silently recited to myself as I travel on the Tube or go for a swim. Bliss.So we’re delighted to offer you a taster here of 30 poems, all of which are featured on iF Poems. We’ve got Blake, we’ve got Burns, we’ve got Dickinson and Rossetti — all of which, we hope, will inspire you and your family not only to learn them, but also to write some poems. Once you have done that you can enter our iF Poems/The Times Young Poet Competition — and who knows, one day, Carol Ann Duffy may have to look to her laurels. Entries will appear on The Times website. For further inspiration, you can see videos of Jonathan Ross and Will Young, and listen to Helena Bonham Carter and Bill Nighy, all reciting poems from the app.

So get reading — and writing!

10 per cent of all proceeds from sales of the iF Poems app go to Save the Children

We’ll Go No More A-Roving by Lord ByronSo, we’ll go no more a-rovingSo late into the night,Though the heart be still as loving,And the moon be still as bright.For the sword outwears its sheath,And the soul wears out the breast,And the heart must pause to breathe,And love itself have rest.Though the night was made for loving,And the day returns too soon,Yet we’ll go no more a-rovingBy the light of the moon.I Hear America Singing by Walt WhitmanI hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,The day what belongs to the day — at night the party of young

fellows, robust, friendly,Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.Poor Old Lady by AnonPoor old lady, she swallowed a fly.I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.Poor old lady, I think she’ll die.Poor old lady, she swallowed a spider.It squirmed and wriggled and turned inside her.She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.Poor old lady, I think she’ll die.Poor old lady, she swallowed a bird.How absurd! She swallowed a bird.She swallowed the bird to catch the spider,She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.Poor old lady, I think she’ll die.Poor old lady, she swallowed a cat.Think of that! She swallowed a cat.She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.She swallowed the bird to catch the spider.She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.Poor old lady, I think she’ll die.Poor old lady, she swallowed a dog.She went the whole hog when she swallowed the dog.She swallowed the dog to catch the cat.She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.She swallowed the bird to catch the spider.She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,

I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.Poor old lady, I think she’ll die.Poor old lady, she swallowed a cow.I don’t know how she swallowed a cow.She swallowed the cow to catch the dog.She swallowed the dog to catch the cat.She swallowed the cat to catch the bird.She swallowed the bird to catch the spider.She swallowed the spider to catch the fly, I don’t know why she swallowed a fly.Poor old lady, I think she’ll die.Poor old lady, she swallowed a horse.She died, of course.Funeral Blues by W.H. AudenStop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,Silence the pianos and with muffled drumBring out the coffin, let the mourners come.Let aeroplanes circle moaning overheadScribbling on the sky the message “He is Dead”.Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.He was my North, my South, my East and West,My working week and my Sunday rest,My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Funeral Blues is Copyright © 1936 by W.H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Curtis BrownCrossing The Bar by Alfred, Lord TennysonSunset and evening star,And one clear call for me!And may there be no moaning of the bar,When I put out to sea,But such a tide as moving seems asleep,Too full for sound and foam,When that which drew from out the boundless deepTurns again home.Twilight and evening bell,And after that the dark!And may there be no sadness of farewell,When I embark;For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and PlaceThe flood may bear me far,I hope to see my Pilot face to faceWhen I have crost the bar.

ILLUSTRATION BY KERRY LEMON

The Song of Mr Toad by Kenneth GrahameThe world has held great Heroes,As history-books have showed;But never a name to go down to fameCompared with that of ToadThe clever men at OxfordKnow all that there is to be knowed.But they none of them knew one half as muchAs intelligent Mr Toad!The animals sat in the Ark and cried,Their tears in torrents flowed.Who was it said, “There’s land ahead?”Encouraging Mr Toad!The Army all salutedAs they marched along the road.Was it the King? Or Kitchener?

No. It was Mr Toad!The Queen and her Ladies-in-waitingSat at the window and sewed.She cried, “Look! who’s that handsome man?”They answered, “Mr Toad.”If by Rudyard KiplingIf you can keep your head when all about youAre 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 DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spokenTwisted 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 winningsAnd risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginningsAnd never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinewTo serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in youExcept 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 minuteWith 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!Remember by Christina RossettiRemember me when I am gone away,Gone far away into the silent land;When you can no more hold me by the hand,Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.Remember me when no more day by dayYou tell me of our future that you plann’d:Only remember me; you understandIt will be late to counsel then or pray.Yet if you should forget me for a whileAnd afterwards remember, do not grieve:For if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once I had,Better by far you should forget and smileThan that you should remember and be sad.Daffodils by William WordsworthI wandered lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o’er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A host, of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the milky way,They stretched in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced, but theyOut-did the sparkling leaves in glee;A poet could not be but gay,In such a jocund company!I gazed and gazed but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward LearIThe Owl and the Pussy-cat went to seaIn a beautiful pea green boat,They took some honey, and plenty of money,Wrapped up in a five pound note.The Owl looked up to the stars above,And sang to a small guitar,“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,What a beautiful Pussy you are,You are,

You are!What a beautiful Pussy you are!”IIPussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!How charmingly sweet you sing!O let us be married! too long we have tarried:But what shall we do for a ring?”They sailed away, for a year and a day,To the land where the Bong-tree growsAnd there in a wood a Piggy-wig stoodWith a ring at the end of his nose,His nose,His nose,With a ring at the end of his nose.III“Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shillingYour ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”So they took it away, and were married next dayBy the Turkey who lives on the hill.They dined on mince, and slices of quince,Which they ate with a runcible spoon;And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,They danced by the light of the moon,The moon,The moon,They danced by the light of the moon.Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor ColeridgeIn Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree:Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea.So twice five miles of fertile groundWith walls and towers were girdled round:And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;And here were forests ancient as the hills,Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slantedDown the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!A savage place! as holy and enchantedAs e’er beneath a waning moon was hauntedBy woman wailing for her demon-lover!And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,A mighty fountain momently was forced:Amid whose swift half-intermitted burstHuge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:And ’mid these dancing rocks at once and everIt flung up momently the sacred river.Five miles meandering with a mazy motionThrough wood and dale the sacred river ran,Then reached the caverns measureless to man,And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from farAncestral voices prophesying war!The shadow of the dome of pleasureFloated midway on the waves;Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.It was a miracle of rare device,A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!A damsel with a dulcimerIn a vision once I saw:It was an Abyssinian maid,And on her dulcimer she played,Singing of Mount Abora.Could I revive within meHer symphony and song,To such a deep delight ’twould win me,That with music loud and long,I would build that dome in air,That sunny dome! those caves of ice!And all who heard should see them there,And all should cry, Beware! Beware!His flashing eyes, his floating hair!Weave a circle round him thrice,And close your eyes with holy dread,For he on honey-dew hath fed,And drunk the milk of Paradise.Invictus by W.E. HenleyOut of the night that covers me,Black as the Pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.How Soon Hath Time by John MiltonHow soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!My hasting days fly on with full career,But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,That I to manhood am arrived so near,And inward ripeness doth much less appear,That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,It shall be still in strictest measure evenTo that same lot, however mean or high,Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;All is, if I have grace to use it so,As ever in my great Taskmaster’s eye.The Arrow and the Song by Henry Wadsworth LongfellowI shot an arrow into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;For, so swiftly it flew, the sightCould not follow it in its flight.I breathed a song into the air,It fell to earth, I knew not where;

For who has sight so keen and strong,That it can follow the flight of song?Long, long afterward, in an oakI found the arrow, still unbroke;And the song, from beginning to end,I found again in the heart of a friend.Answer to a Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor ColeridgeDo you ask what the birds say? The sparrow, the dove,The linner and thrush say, “I love and I love!”In the winter they’re silent — the wind is so strong;What it says, I don’t know, but it sings a loud song.But green leaves, and blossoms, and sunny warm weather,And singing, and loving — all come back together.But the lark is so brimful of gladness and love,The green fields below him, the blue sky above,That he sings, and he sings; and for ever sings he-“I love my Love, and my Love loves me!”Sonnet 18 by William ShakespeareShall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And oft’ is his gold complexion dimm’d;And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:But thy eternal Summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou owest;Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.The Soldier by Rupert BrookeIf I should die, think only this of me:That there’s some corner of a foreign fieldThat is forever England. There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England’s, breathing English air,Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.And think, this heart, all evil shed away,A pulse in the eternal mind, no lessGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.To Autumn by John KeatsSeason of mists and mellow fruitfulness,Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;Conspiring with him how to load and blessWith fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shellsWith a sweet kernel; to set budding more,And still more, later flowers for the bees,Until they think warm days will never cease,For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may findThee sitting careless on a granary floor,Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hookSpares the next swath and all its twined flowers:And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keepSteady thy laden head across a brook;Or by a cider-press, with patient look,Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mournAmong the river sallows, borne aloftOr sinking as the light wind lives or dies;And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble softThe red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred OwenBent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep.Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod.All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hootsOf disappointed shells that dropped behind.GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumblingAnd floundering like a man in fire or lime.--Dim, through the misty panes and thick green lightAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning.In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.[Dulce et Decorum Est. Pro patria mori: Sweet and fitting it is. To die for one’s country.]A Red, Red Rose by Robert BurnsO my Luve’s like a red, red rose,That’s newly sprung in June:O my Luve’s like the melodie,That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,So deep in luve am I;And I will luve thee still, my dear,Till a’ the seas gang dry.Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;And I will luve thee still, my dear,While the sands o’ life shall run.And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!And fare-thee-weel, a while!And I will come again, my Luve,Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe ShelleyI met a traveller from an antique landWho said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stoneStand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,Tell that its sculptor well those passions readWhich yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.And on the pedestal these words appear --‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’Nothing beside remains. Round the decayOf that colossal wreck, boundless and bareThe lone and level sands stretch far away.”He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by William Butler YeatsHad I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark clothsOf night and light and the half-light,I would spread the cloths under your feet:But I, being poor, have only my dreams;I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

ILLUSTRATION BY KERRY LEMON

The Tyger by William BlakeTyger! Tyger! burning brightIn the forest of the nightWhat immortal hand or eyeCould frame thy fearful symmetry?In what distant deeps or skiesBurnt the fire of thine eyes?On what wings dare he aspire?What the hand dare seize the fire?And what shoulder, and what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?And when thy heart began to beat,What dread hand? and what dread feet?What the hammer? what the chain?In what furnace was thy brain?What the anvil? what dread graspDare its deadly terrors clasp?When the stars threw down their spears,And watered heaven with their tears,Did He smile his work to see?Did He who made the lamb make thee?Tyger! Tyger! burning brightIn the forests of the night,What immortal hand or eyeDare frame thy fearful symmetry?Death Be Not Proud by John DonneDeath be not proud, though some have called theeMighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Emily DickinsonHope is the thing with feathersThat perches in the soul,And sings the tune without the words,And never stops at all.And sweetest in the gale is heard;And sore must be the stormThat could abash the little birdThat kept so many warm.I’ve heard it in the chilliest landAnd on the strangest sea;Yet, never, in extremity,It asked a crumb of me.Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll’Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid 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 shunThe 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 throughThe vorpal blade went snicker-snack!He left it dead, and with its headHe 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 tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabeHow Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett BrowningHow do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of every day’sMost quiet need, by sun and candlelight.I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.I love with a passion put to useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,I shall but love thee better after death.Love and Friendship by Emily BrontëLove is like the wild rose-briar,Friendship like the holly-tree

The holly is dark when the rose-briar bloomsBut which will bloom most constantly?The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,Its summer blossoms scent the air;Yet wait till winter comes againAnd who will call the wild-briar fair?Then scorn the silly rose-wreath nowAnd deck thee with the holly’s sheen,That when December blights thy browHe may still leave thy garland green.Jerusalem by William BlakeAnd did those feet in ancient timeWalk upon England’s mountains green?And was the holy Lamb of GodOn England’s pleasant pastures seen?And did the Countenance DivineShine forth upon our clouded hills?And was Jerusalem builded hereAmong these dark Satanic Mills?Bring me my bow of burning gold!Bring me my arrows of desire!Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!Bring me my chariot of fire!I will not cease from mental fight,Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,Till we have built JerusalemIn England’s green and pleasant land.

ILLUSTRATION BY KERRY LEMON

The Elephant by Hilaire BellocWhen people call this beast to mind,They marvel more and moreAt such a little tail behind,So large a trunk before.The Elephant, from The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts by Hilaire Belloc, reprinted by permission of Peters Fraser & Dunlop (petersfraserdunlop.com) on behalf of the Estate of Hilaire Belloc