Wednesday 4 November 2009

This Is a Dummy Post

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

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