Speaking of poetry...I've read quite a bit of that in years gone by. I have loved Shakespeare's Sonnets, Lord Byron's She Walks in Beauty, Yeats, Donne, Dickinson, Browing. That was a love poetry phase. :-) One of the first dramatic poems I remember being drawn to was Annabel Lee by Poe. My sister, who was four years older than me, was in high school...probably 9th or 10 grade, and she had to memorize the poem. I'll never forget her reciting it about the house so she could get it perfectly. I ended up memorizing it as well...or at least the first few lines. I can still say them today:

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

Then...I feel like I can remember her also having to memorize part of Chaucer's, The Canterbury Tales. I read that myself years later as an adult, and I could never find the part I thought she had memorized. I thought it was the Prologue, but that didn't ring a bell. In reading about Chaucer, though, I discovered my favoite poem of his, Merciless Beauty. I fell in love with it and the translation from Old English to new. Here's the first stanza:

Your eyen two will slay me suddenly;
I may the beauty of them not sustain,
So woundeth it throughout my hearte keen.

And but your word will healen hastily
My hearte's wounde, while that it is green
Your eyen two will slay me suddenly;
I may the beauty of them not sustain.

Upon my truth I say you faithfully
That ye bin of my life and death the queen;
For with my death the truthe shall be seen.
Your eyen two will slay me suddenly;
I may the beauty of them not sustain,
So woundeth it throughout my hearte keen.

The Old English:

Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

And but your word wol helen hastily
My hertes wounde, whyl that hit is grene,
Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene.

Upon my trouthe I sey yow feithfully,
That ye ben of my lyf and deeth the quene;
For with my deeth the trouthe shal be sene.
Your eyen two wol slee me sodenly,
I may the beaute of hem not sustene,
So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene.

Love, love, love those words!