# /research/top1000/poetry.htm

originally: http://www.oclc.org/research/top1000/poetry.htm

# 2005 Poetry This updated list includes all non-dramatic works originally written entirely or partially in verse, either lyric or epic. We define the category to include works for which the English equivalent may not be in verse or for those generally classified in non-poetry sections of the library (for example, Nostradamus' Prophecies).
#1 | Mother Goose Library holdings: 67,663 Bibliographic records: 2,036 Rank on complete list: 3
#2 | Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri Library holdings: 62,414 Bibliographic records: 2,917 Rank on complete list: 4
#3 | Odyssey Homer Library holdings: 45,551 Bibliographic records: 2,087 Rank on complete list: 5
#4 | Iliad Homer Library holdings: 44,093 Bibliographic records: 2,526 Rank on complete list: 6
#5 | Beowulf Library holdings: 37,914 Bibliographic records: 564 Rank on complete list: 12
#6 | Night Before Christmas Clement Clarke Moore Library holdings: 33,343 Bibliographic records: 846 Rank on complete list: 14
#7 | Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer Library holdings: 27,863 Bibliographic records: 690 Rank on complete list: 25
#8 | Aeneid Virgil Library holdings: 23,553 Bibliographic records: 1,357 Rank on complete list: 40
#9 | Rubáiyát Omar Khayyám Library holdings: 22,382 Bibliographic records: 1,994 Rank on complete list: 44
#10 | Sonnets William Shakespeare Library holdings: 22,128 Bibliographic records: 800 Rank on complete list: 46
#11 | Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman Library holdings: 21,749 Bibliographic records: 634 Rank on complete list: 49
#12 | Tao Te Ching (Way) Laozi Library holdings: 21,069 Bibliographic records: 750 Rank on complete list: 53
#13 | Metamorphoses Ovid Library holdings: 20,368 Bibliographic records: 1,138 Rank on complete list: 56
#14 | Paradise Lost John Milton Library holdings: 18,748 Bibliographic records: 1,026 Rank on complete list: 68
#15 | Song of Roland Library holdings: 17,078 Bibliographic records: 603 Rank on complete list: 79
#16 | Child's Garden of Verses Robert Louis Stevenson Library holdings: 13,977 Bibliographic records: 435 Rank on complete list: 130
#17 | Fables Jean de La Fontaine Library holdings: 12,708 Bibliographic records: 1,133 Rank on complete list: 149
#18 | Piers Plowman William Langland Library holdings: 12,559 Bibliographic records: 208 Rank on complete list: 156
#19 | Sir Gawain and the Grene Knight Library holdings: 12,509 Bibliographic records: 181 Rank on complete list: 159
#20 | Nibelungenlied Library holdings: 11,975 Bibliographic records: 652 Rank on complete list: 177
#21 | Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire Library holdings: 11,086 Bibliographic records: 628 Rank on complete list: 203
#22 | Poem of the Cid Library holdings: 10,896 Bibliographic records: 552 Rank on complete list: 210
#23 | Song of Hiawatha Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Library holdings: 10,209 Bibliographic records: 327 Rank on complete list: 243
#24 | Carmina Horace Library holdings: 9,174 Bibliographic records: 650 Rank on complete list: 295
#25 | Prophet Kahlil Gibran Library holdings: 8,922 Bibliographic records: 410 Rank on complete list: 315
#26 | Epigrams Martial Library holdings: 8,614 Bibliographic records: 383 Rank on complete list: 339
#27 | Whole Book of Psalms Thomas Sternhold Library holdings: 8,461 Bibliographic records: 452 Rank on complete list: 352
#28 | Spoon River Anthology Edgar Lee Masters Library holdings: 8,361 Bibliographic records: 121 Rank on complete list: 361
#29 | Prophecies Nostradamus Library holdings: 8,082 Bibliographic records: 122 Rank on complete list: 379
#30 | Owl and the Pussycat Edward Lear Library holdings: 8,053 Bibliographic records: 91 Rank on complete list: 385
#31 | Gilgamesh Library holdings: 7,641 Bibliographic records: 186 Rank on complete list: 429
#32 | Cat in the Hat Dr. Seuss Library holdings: 7,511 Bibliographic records: 91 Rank on complete list: 444
#33 | Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge Library holdings: 7,329 Bibliographic records: 253 Rank on complete list: 464
#34 | Casey at the Bat Ernest Lawrence Thayer Library holdings: 7,225 Bibliographic records: 56 Rank on complete list: 481
#35 | Elder Eddas Library holdings: 7,222 Bibliographic records: 362 Rank on complete list: 482
#36 | Rime Francesco Petrarch Library holdings: 7,217 Bibliographic records: 675 Rank on complete list: 484
#37 | English Reader or Pieces in Prose and Poetry: Selected from the Best Writers Designed to Assist Young Persons to Read Lindley Murray Library holdings: 7,160 Bibliographic records: 155 Rank on complete list: 491
#38 | Paul Revere's Ride Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Library holdings: 6,969 Bibliographic records: 43 Rank on complete list: 530
#39 | John Brown's Body Stephen Vincent Benét Library holdings: 6,892 Bibliographic records: 76 Rank on complete list: 545
#40 | Idylls of the King Alfred Lord Tennyson Library holdings: 6,556 Bibliographic records: 258 Rank on complete list: 609
#41 | Troilus and Criseyde Geoffrey Chaucer Library holdings: 6,556 Bibliographic records: 109 Rank on complete list: 610
#42 | Eclogues Virgil Library holdings: 6,553 Bibliographic records: 497 Rank on complete list: 614
#43 | Gerusalemme Liberata Torquato Tasso Library holdings: 6,514 Bibliographic records: 640 Rank on complete list: 621
#44 | Book of Good Love Juan Ruiz Library holdings: 6,503 Bibliographic records: 243 Rank on complete list: 624
#45 | Orlando Furioso Lodovico Ariosto Library holdings: 6,495 Bibliographic records: 553 Rank on complete list: 629
#46 | Elegies Sextus Propertius Library holdings: 6,490 Bibliographic records: 201 Rank on complete list: 632
#47 | Pearl [Middle English poem] Library holdings: 6,281 Bibliographic records: 80 Rank on complete list: 671
#48 | Martín Fierro José Hernández Library holdings: 6,268 Bibliographic records: 561 Rank on complete list: 675
#49 | Eugene Onegin Aleksandr Pushkin Library holdings: 6,251 Bibliographic records: 279 Rank on complete list: 683
#50 | Seasons James Thomson Library holdings: 6,204 Bibliographic records: 512 Rank on complete list: 692
#51 | Romance of the Rose Guillaume de Lorris Library holdings: 6,105 Bibliographic records: 181 Rank on complete list: 727
#52 | Essay on Man Alexander Pope Library holdings: 5,985 Bibliographic records: 468 Rank on complete list: 755
#53 | Old Mother Hubbard Sarah Catherine Martin Library holdings: 5,977 Bibliographic records: 178 Rank on complete list: 758
#54 | Aucassin and Nicolette Library holdings: 5,883 Bibliographic records: 317 Rank on complete list: 798
#55 | Consolation of Philosophy Boethius Library holdings: 5,838 Bibliographic records: 348 Rank on complete list: 811
#56 | New Life Dante Alighieri Library holdings: 5,727 Bibliographic records: 312 Rank on complete list: 842
#57 | Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Bill Martin Library holdings: 5,654 Bibliographic records: 42 Rank on complete list: 860
#58 | Sonnets from the Portuguese Elizabeth Barrett Browning Library holdings: 5,587 Bibliographic records: 234 Rank on complete list: 885
#59 | House that Jack Built Library holdings: 5,510 Bibliographic records: 142 Rank on complete list: 913
#60 | Lady of the Lake Sir Walter Scott Library holdings: 5,497 Bibliographic records: 442 Rank on complete list: 918
#61 | Shropshire Lad A. E. Housman Library holdings: 5,434 Bibliographic records: 194 Rank on complete list: 945