A poem is like a radio that can broadcast continuously for thousands of years. –Allen Ginsburg

Thousands of years? Well, I’ve already gone back to the psalms, dated about 1000 B.C. Are there any modern poems that you think will still be read 3000 years from now? OK, so the psalms are also God’s Word, preserved, I believe, by His hand. So let’s make it a little easier. Are there any modern poems that you believe will still be quoted and read 100 years from now? Maybe this one is immune to changes in the English language, anyway:

JABBERWOCKY by Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son,
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch.
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious bandersnatch.’
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought.
Then rested he by the tum-tum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One! two! one! two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snickersnack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Calooh! Calay!’
He chortled in his joy.
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.