Ah, I'm surprised I didn't think of this sooner--a justification for reading some of these old chestnuts that not many people care about any longer: cultural literacy. There, class, that is why we need to read Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade."

1.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

So, the English teacher in you comes out. I am grateful this poem is among the 500. I've never read it before, but definitely picked up many pop cultural references. I even enjoyed this poem. It reminds me of The Highwayman by Noyes.

Gee, maybe you could say more about Charge of the Light Brigade and make me more culturally literate.

No, I'll get out of that duty by saying that cultural literacy is about a "Jeopardy" level of knowledge. So you already have that. You make the English teacher seem like some kind of Mr. Hyde. Not far off.

283. "The Deacon's Masterpiece: or, The Wonderful 'One-Hoss Shay': A Logical Story." You have to give credit to the title. I suppose that most people, just hearing "Oliver Wendell Holmes" picture a stodgy old Yankee who wrote...something they're not interested in. Either that or they think of OWH Jr., who was the famous jurist. But OWH was really a titanic figure of the New England Renaissance, with amazing brilliance and range. In an age of specialization, we can't any longer raise such a person--doctor, professor, man of letters.

I've included some notes on the poem. It might be a bit more in the philosophical vein than it first appears. Good Americana, at the least.

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it -- ah, but stay,
I'll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, --
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive, --
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock's army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, --
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, -- lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will, --
Above or below, or within or without, --
And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,
A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
'N' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it could n' break daown:
"Fur," said the Deacon, "'t 's mighty plain
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;
'N' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,
Is only jest
T' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, --
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,
The panels of white-wood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;
The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum," --
Last of its timber, -- they could n't sell 'em,
Never an axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through."
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren -- where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; -- it came and found
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hundred increased by ten; --
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; --
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arrive,
And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundreth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. -- You're welcome. -- No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER, -- the Earthquake-day, --
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There could n't be, -- for the Deacon's art
Had made it so like in every part
That there was n't a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whipple-tree neither less nor more,
And the back crossbar as strong as the fore,
And spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys, get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-horse shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson. -- Off went they.
The parson was working his Sunday's text, --
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the -- Moses -- was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, --
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet'n-house clock, --
Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!
What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you're not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once, --
All at once, and nothing first, --
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That's all I say.

Notes

1] "`The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay' is a perfectly intelligble conception, whatever material difficulties it presents. It is conceivable that a being of an order superior to humanity should so understand the conditions of matter that he could construct a machine which should go to pieces, if not into its constituent atoms, at a given moment of the future. The mindmay take a certain pleasure in this picture of the impossible. The event follows as a logical consequence of the presupposed condition of things.

There is a practical lesson to be got out of the story. Observation shows us in what point any particular mechanism is most likely to give way. In a wagon, for instance, the weak point is where the axle enters the hub or nave. When the wagon breaks down, three times out of four, I think, it is at this point that the accident occurs. The workman should see to it that this part should never give way; then find the next vulnerable place, and so on, until he arrives logically at the perfect result attained by the deacon." [Holmes' comment, prefacing "an illustrated edition."]

one-hoss shay: one-horse-drawn chaise or carriage.

10] Georgius Secundus: George II, king of England (1683-1760).

12] Lisbon-town: the Lisbon earthquake took place November 1, 1755, and took as many as 60,000 lives.

14] Braddock: Edward Braddock (1695-1755), British general killed by a French and Indian army near Fort Duquesne, Pennsylvania.

20] felloe: wheel-rim.

22] thoroughbrace: leather braces connecting the front and back C-springs of the coach and holding it up.

41] thills: pair of shafts attaching the horse to the vehicle.

45] Settler's ellum: the original elms harvested by the settlers?

99] bay: brown horse.

100] Huddup: giddap, "get up."

Gee, the rhythm, the horse's gait, is lively, cheerful, a real ditty. And the ryhme!
And then look at the content! Similar to singing a toe-tapping, knee-slapping, swing-your-partner-round-and-round dirge at a funeral.
I like it!

Mr. Hyde??? You mis-read me. From high school on I loved my English teachers.

Since we're getting near the halfway mark, I was just wondering if any of the poems could be said to remain a constant compainion to any of us? Or did we read them, comment on them and then put them into a locker?
(There were certainly a couple I am still chewing on and some I will take with me)

Nice to hear. I was thinking it would be fun to make a list of our favorites from each set of 100. We sort of did that for the first 100 (500-401). Let's have nominations for our list! I'll have to go back over a look. I definately have a few that I'll keep with me.

My attempts to be funny fall flat pretty often. But I do think that, statistically, the English teacher is the most likely to be whacko, out of all teachers hanging out in the lounge.

Dirge at a funeral? I like the 4th stanza where Holmes gives us the Deacon's dialect. This is a snappy poem, to use Saffron's word, but it's a good snappy. I suspect that readers got a kick out of the intimate knowledge Holmes has of the construction of a shay. They'd like that the poem was about an object familiar to them. I'd put this poem on one extreme and on the other put Eliot's "The Waste Land."

Exactly why I like them!

I wish that others besides Saffron and I had Harmon's book at hand, or rather the list of the 500 that appears in the back. Without having this, it's hard for others to browse through past titles. I considered some way of scanning the list onto one of our threads, but my tech ability is pathetic so I must ask for Saffron's help. Saffron?

One challenge I might give myself is to have a recall of each poem's character by a glance at the title. Or maybe not.

Well, I have some minutes, so here is my list so far of constant companions, in oblivion's nice alliterative phrase. Some of these surprise me. (Note: I'd thought to have a more compact list, but just can't be ruthless, so I'm going to cover only the last--for us, the first--100.)

500. "Luke Havergal," by E.A. Robinson
498. "The Song of the Wandering Aengus," by W. B. Yeats
496. "On Wenlock Edge," by A. E. Housman

(Oh, boy, so far I'm doing a poor job of culling. Or maybe I favor the also-rans of the 500.)

491. "Carrion Comfort," by G. M. Hopkins
489. "Nightingales," by Robert Bridges
488. "During Wind and Rain," by Thomas Hardy
483. "The Woodspurge," by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
472. "Holy Willie's Prayer," by Robert Burns

(See, I'm doing much better)

444. "Whoso List to Hunt," by Sir Thomas Wyatt
440. General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, (Middle English version only)
438. "In a Dark Time," Theodore Roethke
432. "A Grave," by Marianne Moore
429. "Terence, This Is Stupid stuff," by A. E. Housman
428. "The Voice," by Thomas Hardy
427. "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," by Emily Dickinson
426. "Thus Piteously Love Closed What He Begat," by George Meredith
424. "Two in the Campagna," by Robert Browning
414. "Frost at Midnight," by S. T. Coleridge

Result: I came in at slightly less than 20% of the total. I'd like it to be less than 10%. Maybe next 100.

I got it handled (almost). Google books! Use the link below and it will take you to the book. You will need to scroll through the Table of contents and click on the page with the list of poems by popularity or scroll to page 1091. Here is the problem: this is a preview and not the full book. The list begins at number 468.

http://books.google.com/books?id=nXmPoi ... &q&f=false

I think I may have solved the problem with the missing poems 469-500