100 of the Best Poems to Memorize in Morning Time

So you want to start memorizing poetry in Morning Time. You know you should start with something that delights you as the Mama. But there are millions of possibilities! Where to begin?

Start here with my list of 100 of the best poems to memorize in Morning Time!

I even have a checklist you can print out and keep in your homeschool planner. Imagine how much fun it will be to look back and see how many beautiful words and delightful ideas you and your children now know by heart!

Be sure to check out the Year of Memory Work, where I have recorded video recitations of several of these selections.

1. “A December Day,” Sara Teasdale
2. “A Mighty Fortress,” Martin Luther
3. “A Negro Love Song,” Paul Laurence Dunbar
4. “A Red, Red Rose,” Robert Burns
5. “A Walking Song,” J. R. R. Tolkien
6. “A was an Apple Pie,” traditional nursery rhyme
7. “All Things Bright and Beautiful,” Cecil Frances Alexander
8. “Amazing Grace,” John Newton
9. “Arithmetic,” Carl Sandburg
10. “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep,” traditional nursery rhyme
11. “Batter My Heart,” John Donne
12. “Be Glad Your Nose is On Your Face,” Jack Prelutsky
13. “Be Thou My Vision,” translated by Eleanor Hull
14. “Caged Bird,” Maya Angelou
15. “Casey at the Bat,” Ernest Lawrence Thayer
16. “Caterpillar,” Christina Rossetti
17. “Daffodils,” William Wordsworth
18. “Death Be Not Proud,” John Donne
19. “Digging,” Seamus Heaney
20. “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” Dylan Thomas
21. “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold
22. “Eletelephony,” Laura E. Richards
23. “Fortune,” Lawrence Ferlinghetti
24. “Hey Diddle Diddle,” traditional nursery rhyme
25. “hist whist,” e. e. cummings
26. “Horatius at the Bridge,” Thomas Babington, Lord Macauley
27. “I Had a Little Nut Tree,” traditional nursery rhyme
28. “I Know a Bank,” William Shakespeare
29. “Iliad,” lines 1-16, Homer
30.  “I’m Nobody, Who are You?” Emily Dickinson
31. “If,” Rudyard Kipling
32. “In Flanders Field,” John Macrae
33. “In the Bleak Midwinter,” Christina Georgina Rossetti
34. “Intro to Paradise Lost,” John Milton
35. “It Couldn’t Be Done,” Edgar Guest
36. “Jabberwocky,” Lewis Carroll
37. “King Alfred’s War Song”
38. “Kubla Khan,” Samuel Coleridge
39. “Lady of Shallott,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
40. “Laughing Time,” William Jay Smith
41. “Little Miss Muffet,” traditional nursery rhyme
42. “Lochinvar,” Sir Walter Scott
43. “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
44. “Most Glorious Lord of Life,” Edmund Spenser
45. “Mother to Son,” Langston Hughes
46. “My Shadow,” Robert Louis Stevenson
47.  “New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus
48. “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” Robert Frost
49. “O Captain, My Captain,” Walt Whitman
50. “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” John Keats
51. “Old Mother Hubbard,” Sarah Catherine Martin
52. “On His Blindness,” John Milton
53. “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley
54. “Pied Beauty,” Gerard Manley Hopkins
55. “Poem,” William Carlos Williams
56. “Prologue to the Canterbury Tales,” Geoffrey Chaucer
57. Psalm 23
58. Psalm 51
59. Psalm 100
60. Psalm 139
61. Psalm 150
62. “Quality of Mercy,” William Shakespeare
63. “Ring-A-Ring,” Kate Greenaway
64. “Sea Fever,” John Masefield
65. “She Walks in Beauty,” Lord Byron
66. “Skyscrapers,” Rachel Field
67. “Sneezles,” A. A. Milne
68. “Sonnet 116,” William Shakespeare
69. “Sonnets from the Portuguese XXIX,” Elizabeth Barrett Browning
70. “St. Patrick’s Breastplate”
71. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” Robert Frost
72. “The Altar,” George Herbert
73. “The Baby,” George Macdonald
74. “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
75. “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” Lord Byron
76. “The Eagle,” Alfred, Lord Tennyson
77. “The Frog,” Hilaire Belloc
78. “The Glove and the Lions,” Leigh Hunt
79. “The Highwayman,” Alfred Noyes
80. “The Jumblies,” Edward Lear
81. “The Kite,” Harry Behn
82. “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” W. B. Yeats
83. “The Lamb,” William Blake
84. “The Lost Doll,” Charles Kingsley
85. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T. S. Eliot
86. “The Meehoo and the Exactlywatt,” Shel Silverstein
87. “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd,” Sir Walter Raleigh
88. “The Old Pond,” Matsuo Basho
89. “The Owl and the Pussycat,” Edward Lear
90. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” Christopher Marlowe
91. “The Raven,” Edgar Allen Poe
92. “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost
93. “The Spider and the Fly,” Mary Howitt
94. “The Tyger,” William Blake
95. “The Wild Rose,” Wendell Berry
96. “The Yak,” Hilaire Belloc
97. “Trees,” Joyce Kilmer
98. “We Wear the Mask,” Paul Lawrence Dunbar
99. “What the Mirror Said,” Lucille Clifton
100. “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod,” Eugene Field

Don’t forget to download your free printable copy of the best poems for Morning Time checklist!

Want even more memory work resources? Start here:

• How to Choose the Best Memory Work for Your Homeschool
• What is Morning Time?
• Memory Work From a Real Mom’s Perspective
• Memory Work Resource Pack: Middle Ages
• Memory Work Resource Pack: Ecumenical Creeds
• Ultimate Poetry Book List
• The Year of Memory Work (52 weeks of video recitations and printables…FREE)
• Ultimate Poetry Book List
• Introduction to Poetry
• Poem in Your Pocket Day printables
• Exploring Shakespeare with Children
• 12 Poems Everyone Should Know By Heart
• Can you Haiku?
• Poetry Free Writing
• Facebook Live sharing 4 new poetry books I’m excited about
• YouTube playlist of my Year of Memory Work recitations

Find even more “100 Things” tips, tricks, books, hands-on projects, lessons, games, or ideas here!