
INTRODUCTION TO POETRY ~BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day
There once was a little girl so innocent and free-
One morning she work up
That had all been taken
The growing idleness of summer grass
With its frail kites of furious butterflies
Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
There are so many roots to the tree of anger
that sometimes the branches shatter
before they bear.
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –