Mar 21, 2023

6 iconic lines from poetry

Surabhi Rawat

World Poetry Day

Every year World Poetry Day is celebrated on March 21 in order to promote reading, writing, and teaching of poetry. It also aims to promote poetry translations and preserve indigenous languages and cultures through poems.

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Iconic lines from poetry

On World Poetry Day today, here we list down some famous and iconic lines from English poems and their meaning.

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“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I– I took the road less traveled by”

This is perhaps one of the most famous lines from poetry that everyone knows. Written by Robert Frost in 'The Road Not Taken', the line refers to making unusual chioces in your life.

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“I wandered lonely as a cloud”

This line is from one of William Wordsworth’s most famous poems 'Daffodils'. Wordsworth had written it in 1804, after being inspired by a walk in the Lake District with his sister, where he saw many daffodils!

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“Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink”

This famous line is written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the poem 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. The context of this line is: crew members of the ship are stranded in the middle of the ocean, and while there is water everywhere, ironically, they are thirsty and can't drink any of it.

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"‘Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all”

The lines are from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem 'In Memoriam A.H.H'. It took Tennyson 17 years to write this poem, which he had written in memory of his friend Arthur Henry Hallam's sudden death.

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“Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”

The line is from William Butler Yeats' poem 'Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven'. To give context and meaning to the phrase, here are a few lines from the poem: “But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”

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“If I should die, think only this of me”

This famous line is the first sentence of the poem 'The Soldier' by Rupert Brooke, which was written in 1914. However, the beautiful line is often used out of context. The original poem goes on like: “That there’s some corner of a foreign field / That is forever England.”

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For more such stories...

Check out the Books section on The Times of India website.

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Thanks For Reading!

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