This page is dedicated to demonstrating that classical poetry forms make the best songs. Poems with appropriate meter and rhyme can easily be turned into great songs, whereas free verse poems just can’t. I’m especially hoping that this page can be used as a resource for English literature teachers to nudge their students toward an appreciation of classical poetry forms. All the songs on this page are from well known poets from bygone centuries (and thus in the public domain!); Twitter/X Facebook

List of poems

Auguries of Innocence – I wandered Lonely as a Cloud – An Essay on Criticism – The Garden – Invictus – Your Loss Will Break My Heart – She Walks In Beauty – IF – A Railway Carriage – To My Dear and Loving Husband – Leisure – The Tyger – A Dream Within A Dream – Diana

Be sure to visit here for more great songs!

Auguries of Innocence

by William Blake (1863)

Daffodils

from “I wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth (1802)

Where Angels Fear To Tread

from An Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope (1711)

In The Garden Of Eden

from The Garden by Andrew Marvell (1681)

The Captain Of My Soul

from Invictus by William Ernest Henley (1888)

Your Loss Will Break My Heart

from Your Loss Will Break My Heart by Thomas Haynes Bayly (1830)

She Walks In Beauty Like The Night

from She Walks In Beauty by Lord Byron (1815)

IF

from IF– by Rudyard Kipling (1910)

View From A Train

From A Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)

For My Husband

from To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet (1678)

Stand And Stare

from Leisure by William Henry Davies (1911)

The Tyger

from The Tyger by William Blake (1794)

A Dream Within A Dream

from A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allen Poe (1849)

Diana

from “Hymn to Diana” by Ben Jonson (1601)