Move along. Nothing to see here.
Here are the top 100 most quoted lines of poetry. The list has been tinkered with so many time that it's not exact and google is changeable anyway.
I'm afraid that as I was making the list I simply didn't include ones that weren't making it into the top fifty, a practice that I now regret.
It's also worth mentioning that I ran the top fifty through Alta Vista and the result is that I trust Alta Vista even less than google.
1. That is no country for old men 22,300,000 Yeats
2. To err is human; to forgive, divine 14,800,000 Alexander Pope
3. I am the master of my fate
4. The child is father of the man
5. I wandered lonely as a cloud
6. And miles to go before I sleep 9,220,000 Robert Frost
7. Not with a bang but a whimper 5,280,000 T.S. Eliot
8. Tread softly because you tread on my dreams 4,860,000 Yeats
9. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield Tennyson
10. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair 3,080,000 Shelley
11. Better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all 2,400,000 Tennyson
12. Because I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me 236,000 Dickinson
13. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold Yeats
14. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun 2,230,000 Shax
15. Candy/Is dandy/But liquor/Is quicker 2,150,000 Ogden Nash
16. But at my back I always hear 2,010,000 Marvell
17. A little learning is a dangerous thing 1,860,000 Alexander Pope
18. The proper study of mankind is man 1,770,000 Alexander Pope
19. In Flanders fields the poppies blow 1,640,000 [but see below]
20. To be or not to be that is the question 1,640,000 Shax
21. Beauty is truth, truth beauty; that is all 1,470,000 Keats
22. A narrow fellow in the grass 1,310,000 Emily Dickinson
23. 'The time has come', the Walrus said,/'To talk of many things' 1,300,000 Lewis Carroll
24. I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled 1,140,000 Eliot
25. When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes 1,100,000 Shax
26. Hope springs eternal in the human breast 1,080,000 Alexander Pope
27. I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree. 1,080,000
28. When I am an old woman I shall wear purple 1,060,000 Jenny Joseph
29. Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose 1,050,000 Gertrude Stein
30. The lady doth protest too much, methinks 929,000 Shax
31. O Romeo, Romeo; wherefore art thou Romeo 912,000 Shax
32. Humankind cannot bear very much reality 891,000 Eliot
33. Stop all the clocks cut off the telephone 741,000 Auden
34. Busy old fool, unruly sun 675,000 Donne
35. Do not go gentle into that good night 665,000 Dylan Thomas
36. A thing of beauty is a joy forever 649,000 Keats
37. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness 641,000 Keats
38. Shall I compare thee to a summers day 638,000 Shax
39. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears 615,000 Shax
40. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 594,000 Coleridge
41. The quality of mercy is not strained 589,000 Shax
42. They also serve who only stand and wait 584,000 Milton
43. The moving finger writes; and, having writ,/Moves on 571,000 Fitzgerald
44. What is this life if, full of care,/We have not time to stand and stare 528,000 W.H. Davies
45. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers 521,000 Shakespeare
46. If music be the food of love, play on 507,000 Shax
47. If you can keep your head when all about you 447,000 Kipling
48. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways 467,000 Elizabeth Barrett Browning
49. Full fathom five thy father lies 438,000 Shax
50. I met a traveller from an antique land 419,000 Shelley
51. Had we but world enough and time 406,000 Marvell
52. The mind is its own place, and in itself/[Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n] 403,000 Milton
53. Captain, my captain, our fearful trip is done 363,000 Whitman
54. Neither a borrower nor a lender be 357,000 Shax
55. Alas poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio 353,000 Shax
56. They fuck you up your mum and dad 344,000 Larkin
57. The boy stood on the burning deck 342,000 Felicia Dorothea Hemans
58. April is the cruellest month, breeding 322,000 Eliot
59. Like a patient etherised up on table 303,000 Eliot
60. Is this a dagger which I see before me 291,000 Shax
61. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown 289,000 Shax
62. Twas brillig and the slithy toves 280,000 Carroll
63. Where ignorant armies clash by night 280,000 Arnold
64. Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven 271,000 Milton
65. Gas smells awful/You might as well live Dorothy Parker
66. There are more things in Heaven and earth Horatio 267,000 Shax
67. All the world’s a stage/And all the men and women 263,000 Shax
68. I took the one less traveled by/And that has made all the difference 260,000 Robert Frost
69. Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough 249,000 Betjeman
70. If winter comes, can spring be far behind? 248,000 Shelley
71. What passing bells for these who die as cattle 243,000
72. Home is the sailor, home from the sea 235,000 RL Stevenson
73. The mirror cracked from side to side 234,000 Tennyson
74. Cry God for Harry England and Saint/St George 227,000 Shakespeare
75. Come live with me and be my love 221,000 Marlowe
76. Now is the winter of our discontent 216,000 Shakespeare
77. Let me not to the marriage of true minds 216,000 Shakespeare
78. I know a bank where the wild thyme blows 209,000 Shakespeare
79. Devoid of sense and motion 209,000 Miton
80. Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit 199,000 Milton
81. No light but rather darkness visible 190,000 Milton
82. For each man kills the thing he loves 185,000 Wilde
83. But at my back I always hear/Time’s winged 185,000 Marvell
84. She walks in beauty like the night 184,000 Byron
85. The curfew tolls the knell of parting day 184,000 Gray
86. Batter my heart three personed God 179,000 Donne
87. About suffering they were never wrong 171,000 Auden
88. Beneath the thunders of the upper deep 162,000 Tennyson
89. Water water everywhere and not a drop to drink 158,000 Coleridge
90. By woman wailing for her demon lover 157,000 Coleridge
91. Macavity, Macavity there’s no one like Macavity 156,000 T.S. Eliot
92. I could not love thee, dear, so much Loved I not honour more 151,000 Lovelace
93. Say not the struggle nought availeth 135,000 Clough
94. A horse, a horse my kingdom for a horse 130,000 Shakespeare
95. O that this too too solid/sullied flesh would melt 117,000 Shakespeare
96. They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old 113,000
97. A cold coming we had of it 107,000 Eliot/Andrews
98. East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet 106,000 Kipling
99. Young and easy under the apple bough Dylan Thomas
100. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons 101,000 T.S. Eliot
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi, I am random dude.
ReplyDelete