Poetry, Scripture, & Words to Memorize

Interested in making memorization a more integral part of your household? Below are a few great possibilities. (They were requirements for the Clarkson kids!) All are widely available in literary and historical anthologies or online.

Scripture

  • Psalm 1, 19, 23, 91, 103, 139

  • Isaiah 40

  • John 1

  • Matthew 5

  • Galatians 5:16-25

  • Ephesians 3:14-20

  • Romans 8

  • Hebrews 11

  • Matthew 11:29

Poetry

  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “Ulysses.”

  • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” (Sonnet 43).

  • Dickinson, Emily. “‘Hope’ is the things with feathers.”

  • Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.”

  • Hardy, Thomas. “The Darkling Thrush.”

  • Henley, William Ernest. “Invictus.”

  • Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame.”

  • Keats, John. “Endymion.”

  • Kipling, Rudyard. “If.”

  • Shakespeare, Robert Louis. “Sonnet 29.”

  • Stevenson, Robert Louis. “Requiem.”

  • Whitman, Walt. “A Noiseless Patient Spider.”

  • Wordsworth, William. “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.”

Historical Speeches and Documents

  • Churchill, Winston. “We shall fight on the beaches” speech. Delivered June 4, 1940 to the House of Commons, London.

  • Faulkner, William. Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Delivered December 10, 1950, Stockholm, Sweden.

  • Henry, Patrick. “Give me liberty or give me death” speech. Delivered March 23, 1775, Richmond, VA.

  • Jefferson, Thomas. Preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Final text approved July 4, 1776.

  • King, Martin Luther. “I have a dream” speech. Delivered August 28, 1963, Washington, DC.

  • Lincoln, Abraham. Gettysburg Address. Delivered November 19, 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

  • Wilberforce, William. Abolition speech. Delivered May 12, 1789 to the House of Commons, London.