Here’s another one of the famous top ten lists…I will try to collect them all and put them on a separate page on my site soon. Last March I listed my favorite poets. These are anthologies of poems from many poets. They are not necessarily the best anthologies to be found, but they are from my shelves, so I am familiar with them all.

Marguerite de Angeli’s Book of Nursery and Mother Goose Rhymes.
This was a Caldecott Honor book in 1955 for the illustrations, which are delicate and lovely, especially the full-page color illustrations. From the author’s foreword: “Saying or singing rhymes seems always to open a long corridor in my mind through which I see generations of mothers going about their needful work, the children at their heels or in their laps enchanted by the rhythmic sound of words.” This volume has one of the most complete collections of nursery rhymes I have seen, and there are a few riddles, too.

Piper, Pipe That Song Again, selected by Nancy Larrick.
A slim volume with simple poems and illustrations appropriate for younger children. Many are just the right length for copywork or memorizing. The editor says, “Poems are meant to be read aloud just as songs are meant to be sung aloud. As you read a poem again and again, it becomes part of you. The rhythm seems to flow from you the way a song you love pours out as you sing. And you will want to enjoy it time after time.”

Favorite Poems Old and New selected by Helen Farris, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard.
Many homeschoolers have heard of this volume. At almost 600 pages it is pleasantly plump with a feast of poems within its leaves: poems about nature, seasons, family, holidays, history, fantasy, traveling and even epic sagas. The editor grew up in a book-loving home with a preacher papa. “Shakespeare was especially Papa’s. When he was working his way through the old University of Chicago he took on an extra job in order to buy the Complete Works.” A heritage of books!

Wings From the Wind selected and illustrated by Tasha Tudor.
Many of the selections reflect Tasha Tudor’s New England upbringing and her love for nature. I can’t resist her illustrations. There are a couple of corgis in the pictures…this must be one of the earliest books where she drew them as her later illustrations are often crowded with corgis!

An Inheritance of Poetry collected and arranged by Gladys L. Adshead and Annis Duff, decorated by Nora S. Unwin.
My friend Laura D. is the one who inspired me to buy this collection of poems. The first section has poems about God, including “Saint Patrick’s Breastplate” and other traditional Celtic poems. This is another fat volume, but it has many verses which may not be familiar, making it fun to explore.

The Standard Book of British and American Verse, selected by Nella Braddy, preface by Christopher Morley.
From the preface: “But how clumsy and evasive is the strongest novelist by comparison: like a longshoreman in rubber boots plodding along the beach, while the poet, bare athletic swimmer, is diving from the end of the pier.” This collection begins in the Middle Ages and continues through the early 20th century. These are classic poets; many names will be familiar. This large volume is a good reference for this genre as well as an enjoyable read.

The Top 500 Poems edited by William Harmon (dedicated to his 3-year-old daughter).
This is another large collection of classic poets and their works, beginning in the Middle Ages, but it has included more poems from modern times. It may be redundant to have both this and the previous volume if you are looking for a general anthology…this book is over 400 pages longer than The Standard Book of British and American Verse, however, and it has short biographies of the poets and some background information about some of the poems.

Anne’s Anthology, selected by Margie Gray.
These are poems that L.M. Montgomery “quotes or alludes to in Anne of Green Gables.” Many of the poems are Victorian epics. There is quite a lot of helpful annotation. This book is used in the literature-based unit study Where the Brook and the River Meet.

The Harp and Laurel Wreath edited by Laura M. Berquist.
Subtitled: “Poetry and Dictation for the Classical Curriculum.” The selections are organized by levels, beginning with the early years, then the grammatical stage, the dialectical stage and the rhetorical stage. There are helpful ideas for encouraging memorization, and each section has passages of prose to memorize as well as passages for dictation. The sections for older students include study questions (and their answers) and explanations of literary terms.

The Golden Treasury of Poetry, selected and with commentary by Louis Untermeyer, illustrated by Joan Walsh Anglund.
I wrote about this one yesterday!

Now here’s a poem from An Inheritance of Poetry to help you wax poetic and unleash the poetry in your soul:

Peace
by Henry Vaughan
My soul, there is a country
Far beyond the stars,
Where stands a wingéd sentry
All skillful in the wars:
There, above noise and danger,
Sweet Peace sits crown’d with smiles,
And One born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.
He is thy gracious Friend,
And—O my soul, awake!&mdash
Did in pure love descend
To die here for thy sake.
If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of Peace,
The Rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress, and thy ease.
Leave then thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure
But One who never changes—
Thy God, thy life, thy cure.