English Poem recitation : The Road Not Taken By Robert Frost

The Road Not Taken 

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

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.

 

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English Poem recitation : BOATS SAIL ON THE RIVERS By Christina Rosetti

English Poem recitation :  This time a simple poem for my brother in Kindergarten.

BOATS SAIL ON THE RIVERS 
by Christina Rosetti

Boats sail on the rivers,
 And ships sail on the seas;
 But clouds that sail across the sky
 Are prettier far than these.

 There are bridges on the rivers,
 As pretty as you please;
 But the bow that bridges heaven,
 And overtops the trees,
And builds a road from earth to sky,
 Is prettier far then these.

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Most Popular  English Poem recitation on my blog - "I can not remember my mother" by Tagore

English Poem recitation : Those Winter Sundays By Robert Hayden

High school English poem recitation : Vacation time and its time to find a good English poem for recitation for next year at high school. Came across this beautiful poem "Those Winter Sundays" By Robert Hayden

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

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About Poet : Robert Hayden (4 August 1913 – 25 February 1980) was an American poet, essayist, educator.

English Poem recitation : "A March In The Ranks Hard-Prest" by Walt Whitman

High school English poem recitation : Time for the search for many of us to find a good English poem for recitation.Its competition time again in schools. I am gathering some of the English poems for school recitation here for all of you. And this time its for high school english poem recitation as I am in 8th Standard...Time flies.

While searching for the English poem for recitation I came to know about "Poetry Out Loud: National Recitation Contest" in America. This is a program that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry through memorization and performance. Langston Ward, the Washington State Poetry Out Loud Champion, was named the National Champion at the National Finals held in Washington, DC on April 30, 2013. Here is the poem "A March In The Ranks Hard-Prest" by Walt Whitman which won the 1st prize for Mr Ward in the finals.

A March In The Ranks Hard-Prest
by Walt Whitman

A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown,
A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness,
Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating,
Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building,
We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted
building,
'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital,
Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and
poems ever made,
Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,
And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and
clouds of smoke,
By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some
in the pews laid down,
At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of
bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,)
I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily,)
Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all,
Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity,
some of them dead,
Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether,
odor of blood,
The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd,
Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the
death-spasm sweating,
An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls,
The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of
the torches,
These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor,
Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in;
But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he
me,
Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness,
Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks,
The unknown road still marching.

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You can listen to a good recitation of this poem @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYiJpfwzb0

About Poet : Walt Whitman (31 May 1819 - 26 March 1892 / New York / United States)
Walter "Walt" was an American poet, essayist and journalist. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and – in addition to publishing his poetry – was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War.

English Poem recitation : "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman

Primary school english poem recitation : Lots of children in school start searching for a good English poem for recitation when the competition time arrives. I am gathering some of the English poems for school recitation here for all of you.
For the 7th standard English poem recitation competition when I was searching for a good poem I came across this touching poem by Walt Whitman , "O Captain! My Captain"...This poem is based on the death of American president Abraham Lincoln.

"O Captain! My Captain!"               
by Walt Whitman

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.


O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.


My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

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You can listen to a good recitation of this poem @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7Q6cs_9tkw

About Poet : Walt Whitman (31 May 1819 - 26 March 1892 / New York / United States)
Walter "Walt" was an American poet, essayist and journalist. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and – in addition to publishing his poetry – was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War.

About Poem : Written on the death of Abraham Lincoln in 1865, O Captain! My Captain! is one of the most famous poems by Walt Whitman.The "ship" spoken of is intended to represent the United States of America, while its "fearful trip" recalls the troubles of the American Civil War. The title role "Captain" is Lincoln himself.

The assassination of United States President Abraham Lincoln took place on Good Friday,April 14, 1865, as the American Civil War was drawing to a close.Lincoln was shot while watching the play Our American Cousin with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.He died early the next morning.Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated. The assassination was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth.

Recitation of Poem : Where The Mind Is Without Fear by Tagore

I came across this famous poem by Rabindranath Tagore while searching for the poems for my 7th standard English poetry recitation competition.This is may be good for 4, 5 & 6 standards also.


Where The Mind Is Without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

Rabindranath Tagore

More poems @ Poem Hunter

I came across this famous poem by PB Shelly while searching for the poems for my 6th standard English poetry recitation competition. Maya Brown won the first prize by reciting this poem in her school , Woodbridge Senior High School during 2010. You can listen and view her beautiful recitation of the poem here.

Recitation of Poem :  Ozymandias by PB Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land                    
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand 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 read
Which 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 decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron.He is most famous for such classic anthology verse works as Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind, To a Skylark, and The Masque of Anarchy, which are among the most popular and critically acclaimed poems in the English language.