World Poetry Day: Time to celebrate the power of words

The rhythm of the tongue brings wordless music into the air; it is in poetry that the human essence is refined to such ritualistic purity. It's in the steady beats, the sonorous rise-and-fall of speech; for a moment it appears as if all the mysteries of the world have unlocked themselves to our private view.

It's these works which are celebrated on World Poetry Day, falling on 21 March, in which UNESCO recognises the moving spirit of poetry and its transformative effect on culture.

In honour of these celebrations, here stands a small collection of singular lines, stanzas, and notions possessing the power which springs the most moving of thoughts and feelings.

Here are a few poetries with the most powerful lines ever written

And when wind and winter harden / All the loveless land, / It will whisper of the garden, / You will understand

'To My Wife', Oscar Wilde

This is the way the world ends / not with a bang but a whimper
'The Hollow Men', T.S Eliot

Out of the ash, I rise / With my red hair / And I eat men like air
'Lady Lazarus', Sylvia Plath

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved / in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
'Sonnet XVII', Neruda

they speak whatever's on their mind / they do whatever's in their pants / the boys i mean are not refined / they shake the mountains when they dance
'the boys i mean are not refined', E. E. Cummings

OneIndia News