“Rooms” by Charlotte Mew [w/ Audio]

I remember rooms that have had their part
  In the steady slowing down of the heart.
The room in Paris, the room at Geneva,
The little damp room with the seaweed smell,
And that ceaseless maddening sound of the tide --
  Rooms where for good or for ill -- things died.
But there is the room where we (two) lie dead,
Though every morning we seem to wake and might just as well seem to sleep again
  As we shall somewhere in the other quieter, dustier bed
  Out there in the sun -- in the rain.

“The Night Has a Thousand Eyes” by Francis William Bourdillon [w/ Audio]

The night has a thousand eyes,
 And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
 With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
 And the heart but one:
Yet the light of a whole life dies
 When love is done.

“When I Was One-and-Twenty” by A.E. Housman [w/ Audio]

When I was one-and-twenty
 I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
 but not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
 but keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
 No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
 I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
 Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
 And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
 And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

“Invictus” by William Ernest Henley [w/ Audio]

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.

“A Red, Red Rose” by Robert Burns [w/ Audio]

O my Luve is like a red, red rose
 That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
 That's sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
 So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
 Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
 And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
 While the sand o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve!
 And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my Luve,
 Though it were ten thousand mile.

“A Drinking Song” by William Butler Yeats [w/ Audio]

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

“So We’ll Go No More a Roving” by Lord Byron [w/ Audio]

So, we'll go no more a roving
 So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
  And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
 And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
  And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
 And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
  By the light of the moon.

“Where Go the Boats?” by Robert Louis Stevenson [w/ Audio]

Dark brown is the river,
 Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
 With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
 Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating --
  Where will all come home?

On goes the river,
 And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
 Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
 A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
 Shall bring my boats ashore.

“The Flea” by John Donne [w/ Audio]

Source: CDC
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is;
It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead,
  Yet this enjoys before it woo,
  And pampered swells with one blood made of two,
  And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, nay more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is;
Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met,
And cloistered in these living walls of jet.
  Though use make you apt to kill me,
  Let not to that, self-murder added be,
  And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st and say that thou
Find'st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
  "Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
  Just so much honor, when thou yield'st to me,
  Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

“The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy [w/ Audio]

I leant upon a coppice gate
 When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
 The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
 Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
 Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
 The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
 The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
 Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
 Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
 The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
 Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
 In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
 Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
 Of such ecstatic sound
Was written in terrestrial things
 Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
 His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
 And I was unaware.