The Oxford Book of Story Poems was the prescribed one and many surely will remember reading it in at school. There were other books that had a colonial ting to it like ‘Arithmetic for the Overseas Students’, or books specifically for the colonies and dominions.

Of all the books the one on poetry impressed me the most. Here are some poems from the book that perhaps is still taught and lingers in your memories.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost This poem has an emotion to it that is shared by those who fight for a cause. I say this as I once read a PLO (Palestinian liberation Organization) activist (OK jihadi) being impressed by this poem, along with Love me tender, love me sweet by Elvis Priestley. There is a shared pathos. The last stanza of the poem is the inspiring one:

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

To a Skylark by PB Shelly This is along and meaningful poem, the lines that really hit are:

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Ode on Solitude by Alexander Pope, who is one of the greatest poets. This poem generates some happiness; only if one has those few acres … I have often quoted these lines, whenever I chose the road less trodden, and when I had some acres. Now I don’t but the thought can be satisfying. Pastoral and peaceful.

Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.