Great Regulars: In sight and sound, the poem is plotted to perfection.

With the precision of Hitchcock, Tennyson lets us see the eagle from every angle. We start with a close up of the "crooked hands," pan up to the sun blazing above us, take in a 360 degree tracking shot of the sky, and then gaze down at the sea below us. We return to the eagle (perhaps zooming in on his watchful eye) and then, in a blur of feathers, he disappears.

Alliteration and rhyme help us to taste the scene on our tongue.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'The Eagle' by Lord Alfred Tennyson

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Sir Arthur's name appears to be concocted from King Arthur and a convenient rhyme with Hellvellyn, yet it has a strange ring of truth to it. Like Eleanor Rigby's, his name is so evocative it's hard to believe no such person ever existed.

His grave rests in a secluded spot "by the side of a spring" on "the breast of Helvellyn"--a mountain in the Lake District in the North West of England. Nature, often so vengeful in the Coleridge's work, assumes a comforting maternal aspect.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of "The Knight's Tomb" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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Although it has often been dismissed as dated and jingoistic, I find it far more profound than it may initially appear. Its Latin title translates as "the torch of life," and it describes a light of inspiration that burns in every age.

The poem begins with a cricket match on the green of Newbolt's old school, Clifton College in Bristol, England. However, we could be watching any cricket match in any park across the world, or, for that matter, any game of baseball.

from Christopher Nield: The Epoch Times: The Antidote--Classic Poetry for Modern Life: A Reading of 'Vitae Lampada' by Henry Newbolt

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