yaaay William Blake!
I read the entire Cassell Book of English Literature, all 1500 pages of it, my 11th grade year of highschool -- mostly during geometry class.
You've definitely got one of his best up there. His work is brilliant.
The one below is singsong and more direct -- yet it still has charm.
THE TIGER
by: William Blake (1757-1827)
IGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Still, one of my favorite 19th century poems is Invictus by another William.
William Henely
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
for my unconquerable soul
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me unafraid
It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul