I'm looking for any poems which demonstrate the power of either one person over another or one person/group over a large number of people. Any help would be apprechiated, thanks.

Try "my last duchess" of Robert Browning. The speaker wished to have power over his late wife, but as he felt he didn't have enough, he had her killed.

I'm thinking one could go in many directions with such an assignment. Lots of Shakespeare's sonnets, for example:

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Peacock's War Song shows a hateful use of power:

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Browning's Pied Piper has power over rats and children. Keats's La Belle Dame has power over her palely loitering knight. And, as Desi notes, many of Browning's Monologues show one person's power over another (Porphyria's Lover and The Laboratory for examples).

Hugh is correct of course, the assignment could take many interpretations, even this:

Sympathy
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know what the caged bird feels.
Ah me, when the sun is bright on the upland slopes,
when the wind blows soft through the springing grass
and the river floats like a sheet of glass,
when the first bird sings and the first bud ops,
and the faint perfume from its chalice steals.
I know what the caged bird feels.

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
till its blood is red on the cruel bars,
for he must fly back to his perch and cling
when he fain would be on the bow aswing.
And the blood still throbs in the old, old scars
and they pulse again with a keener sting.
I know why he beats his wing.

I know why the caged bird sings.
Ah, me, when its wings are bruised and its bosom sore.
It beats its bars and would be free.
It's not a carol of joy or glee,
but a prayer that it sends from its heart's deep core,
a plea that upward to heaven it flings.
I know why the caged bird sings.

Les

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2005 01:02AM by lg.