The Stand Still, Stay Silent Fan-Forum

Creative Corner => Writing Board => Topic started by: Laufey on August 06, 2016, 01:40:12 PM

Title: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Laufey on August 06, 2016, 01:40:12 PM
I looked around and didn't see a thread for sharing poetry written by someone else than forumites themselves yet, so here we go. The poems don't have to have anything to do with SSSS but if you know one that seriously reminds you of some person or a scene that's most best and awesomest (keep in mind that this thread is meant for poems that are not your own, so don't forget to credit the original author)! I'll start with one of my eternal favourites that always reminds me of itself around this time of the year:



Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

~Rainer Maria Rilke
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Windfighter on August 06, 2016, 01:49:34 PM
One of my favorites is a poem I found when I was in a kinda low point in life and considered just giving up on everything, and while it didn't use to remind me about SSSS, after I forced it into an SSSS-story (which can't be linked because it's mature, sorry) I can't stop connecting it to my favorite torture toy Emil <3 (I'm sorry Emil, you know I love you!)

Resumé

Razorz pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp;
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

- Dorothy Parker
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: BlueSkyVail on August 06, 2016, 01:52:11 PM
A poem I found while looking for something for a class that I just fell in love with.

Words

The simple contact with a wooden spoon and the word   
recovered itself, began to spread as grass, forced   
as it lay sprawling to consider the monument where   
patience looked at grief, where warfare ceased   
eyes curled outside themes to search the paper   
now gleaming and potent, wise and resilient, word   
entered its continent eager to find another as   
capable as a thorn. The nearest possession would   
house them both, they being then two might glide   
into this house and presently create a rather larger   
mansion filled with spoons and condiments, gracious
as a newly laid table where related objects might gather   
to enjoy the interplay of gravity upon facetious hints,   
the chocolate dish presuming an endowment, the ladle   
of galactic rhythm primed as a relish dish, curved   
knives, finger bowls, morsel carriages words might   
choose and savor before swallowing so much was the   
sumptuousness and substance of a rented house where words   
placed dressing gowns as rosemary entered their scent   
percipient as elder branches in the night where words   
gathered, warped, then straightened, marking new wands.

- Barbara Guest
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Olga Veresk on August 06, 2016, 03:37:09 PM
The Song of Wandering Aengus by William Butler Yeats

I WENT out to the hazel wood,   
Because a fire was in my head,   
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,   
And hooked a berry to a thread;   
And when white moths were on the wing,            
And moth-like stars were flickering out,   
I dropped the berry in a stream   
And caught a little silver trout.   
 
When I had laid it on the floor   
I went to blow the fire a-flame,    
But something rustled on the floor,   
And someone called me by my name:   
It had become a glimmering girl   
With apple blossom in her hair   
Who called me by my name and ran   
And faded through the brightening air.   
 
Though I am old with wandering   
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,   
I will find out where she has gone,   
And kiss her lips and take her hands;    
And walk among long dappled grass,   
And pluck till time and times are done,   
The silver apples of the moon,   
The golden apples of the sun.

Those Dancing Days Are Gone by William Butler Yeats

COME, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,
All that silk and satin gear;
Crouch upon a stone,
Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?
I carry the sun in a golden cup.
The moon in a silver bag.

I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick,
May sing, and sing until he drop,
Whether to maid or hag:
I carry the sun in a golden cup,
The moon in a silver bag.

The Withering of the Boughs by William Butler Yeats

I CRIED when the moon was mutmuring to the birds:
'Let peewit call and curlew cry where they will,
I long for your merry and tender and pitiful words,
For the roads are unending, and there is no place to my mind.'
The honey-pale moon lay low on the sleepy hill,
And I fell asleep upon lonely Echtge of streams.

No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

I know of the leafy paths that the witches take
Who come with their crowns of pearl and their spindles of wool,
And their secret smile, out of the depths of the lake;
I know where a dim moon drifts, where the Danaan kind
Wind and unwind their dances when the light grows cool
On the island lawns, their feet where the pale foam gleams.

No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.

I know of the sleepy country, where swans fly round
Coupled with golden chains, and sing as they fly.
A king and a queen are wandering there, and the sound
Has made them so happy and hopeless, so deaf and so blind
With wisdom, they wander till all the years have gone by;
I know, and the curlew and peewit on Echtge of streams.

No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind;
The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.


P.S. I don't see any reason to share my favourite poems in Russian. But if anyone is interested, please let me know, I'll post them.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Keeper on August 06, 2016, 04:09:48 PM
When I was young I connected with this poem by Rudyard Kipling:

When Earth's last picture is painted
And the tubes are twisted and dried
When the oldest colors have faded
And the youngest critic has died
We shall rest, and faith, we shall need it
Lie down for an aeon or two
'Till the Master of all good workmen
Shall put us to work anew
And those that were good shall be happy
They'll sit in a golden chair
They'll splash at a ten league canvas
With brushes of comet's hair
They'll find real saints to draw from
Magdalene, Peter, and Paul
They'll work for an age at a sitting
And never be tired at all.
And only the Master shall praise us.
And only the Master shall blame.
And no one will work for the money.
No one will work for the fame.
But each for the joy of the working,
And each, in his separate star,
Will draw the thing as he sees it.
For the God of things as they are!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yuuago on August 06, 2016, 06:10:49 PM
Whenever the subject of poetry comes up, I end up gushing about Olav H Hauge, but... I really love his work. xD

Here's one of my favourites (translated by Robert Hedin):

Conch

You build a house for your soul,
and wander proudly
in starlight
with a house on your back,
like a snail.
When danger is near,
you crawl inside
and are safe
behind your hard
shell.

And when you are no more,
the house will
live on,
a testament
to your soul's beauty.
And the sea of your loneliness
will sing deep
inside.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Ana Nymus on August 06, 2016, 06:25:03 PM
This is a silly one from a book I had as a child, but it's still one of my favorites  ^-^

Woulda Shoulda Coulda by Shel Silverstein

All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' bout the things
They woulda-coulda-shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little did.

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Laufey on August 07, 2016, 04:57:22 AM
These poems are all wonderful and I'm so glad I started this thread! <3


Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

~Shel Silverstein
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Lazy8 on August 07, 2016, 08:57:06 AM
I love the use of sound so much in this one I don't want to read it out loud because a mere human voice will never be able to capture the perfection that is the way the words are put together.

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

Hear the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells -
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! -how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now -now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells,
Of the bells -
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Ana Nymus on August 07, 2016, 09:37:54 AM
I love the use of sound so much in this one I don't want to read it out loud because a mere human voice will never be able to capture the perfection that is the way the words are put together.

Ooh, Edgar Allan Poe is the best for reading aloud (even if the mere human voice can't do it justice!) Sometimes when I'm alone in my house I'll just read "The Raven" aloud because I like to hear it so much  ;D
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Tr on August 07, 2016, 10:12:08 AM
This thread is amazing and I love it.
I like The Raven, but I also really like The City in the Sea.

Spoiler: show
The City in the Sea by Edgar Allen Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Among other things, I really like the line, "The hours are breathing faint and low."
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: BlueSkyVail on August 07, 2016, 01:11:01 PM
I really like this poem... It's just a really interesting poem to me.

Cartoon Physics, part 1

Children under, say, ten, shouldn't know
that the universe is ever-expanding,   
inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies

swallowed by galaxies, whole

solar systems collapsing, all of it
acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning

the rules of cartoon animation,

that if a man draws a door on a rock
only he can pass through it.   
Anyone else who tries

will crash into the rock. Ten-year-olds
should stick with burning houses, car wrecks,   
ships going down—earthbound, tangible

disasters, arenas

where they can be heroes. You can run
back into a burning house, sinking ships

have lifeboats, the trucks will come
with their ladders, if you jump

you will be saved. A child

places her hand on the roof of a schoolbus,   
& drives across a city of sand. She knows

the exact spot it will skid, at which point
the bridge will give, who will swim to safety
& who will be pulled under by sharks. She will learn

that if a man runs off the edge of a cliff
he will not fall

until he notices his mistake.

- Nick Flynn
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Windfighter on August 08, 2016, 03:01:33 PM
I saw the first part of this poem in a ghost story collection and fell in love. The whole thing was even awesomer!

Antigonish

    Yesterday upon the stair
    I met a man who wasn’t there
    He wasn’t there again today
    I wish, I wish he’d go away

    When I came home last night at three
    The man was waiting there for me
    But when I looked around the hall
    I couldn’t see him there at all!
    Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
    Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door

    Last night I saw upon the stair
    A little man who wasn’t there
    He wasn’t there again today
    Oh, how I wish he’d go away

- Hughes Mearns

(also this reading (https://youtu.be/42udM_TEKlE) of it was awesome!)
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: BlueSkyVail on August 08, 2016, 03:31:18 PM
More poem! I had to choose one to memorize for our class poetry competition, and I chose this one. Let's see if I still remember it...

The End of The World
by Dana Gioia

“We're going,” they said, “to the end of the world.”   
So they stopped the car where the river curled,   
And we scrambled down beneath the bridge   
On the gravel track of a narrow ridge.

We tramped for miles on a wooded walk
Where dog-hobble grew on its twisted stalk.
Then we stopped to rest on the pine-needle floor   
While two ospreys watched from an oak by the shore.

We came to a bend, where the river grew wide   
And green mountains rose on the opposite side.   
My guides moved back. I stood alone,
As the current streaked over smooth flat stone.

Shelf by stone shelf the river fell.
The white water goosetailed with eddying swell.   
Faster and louder the current dropped
Till it reached a cliff, and the trail stopped.

I stood at the edge where the mist ascended,   
My journey done where the world ended.
I looked downstream. There was nothing but sky,   
The sound of the water, and the water’s reply.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Lazy8 on August 08, 2016, 03:53:01 PM
Of course, if we're talking about poetry there's no forgetting this classic:

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!
Beward the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while 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 snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He came galumphing back.

"And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimbol in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.



A fun poem under any circumstances, but to someone with audio-visual synesthesia, it's an absolute delight. "What do you mean, 'nonsense'? It made perfect sense to me!" (And yes, I wrote that whole thing up from memory, and only looked it up to double-check spelling and punctuation.)
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Windfighter on August 08, 2016, 04:28:12 PM
Of course, if we're talking about poetry there's no forgetting this classic:

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll



A fun poem under any circumstances, but to someone with audio-visual synesthesia, it's an absolute delight. "What do you mean, 'nonsense'? It made perfect sense to me!" (And yes, I wrote that whole thing up from memory, and only looked it up to double-check spelling and punctuation.)

Dear lords, I read this poem just today, but I didn't really got that it was the famous Jabberwock Poem!

Of course, I read it in Swedish, but still. Here, have the Swedish translation:

Spoiler: show
Tjatterskott

Det bryning var, och slimiga tovar
i styckern gyrade och norrade.
Smändiga var alla borogovar,
och vilna rator skrorrade.

"För Tjatterskott se upp, min son,
för tand som biter, klo så vass!
Sky jubjubfågeln, fly ifrån
den vilskna banderryckens tass!"

Han tog sitt stunga svärd i hand
och irrade och snubblade.
Så kom han till ett tamtamträd
och stod en stund och grubblade.

Och bäst han stod där, ljöd ett skrak,
och Tjatterskott med blick i brand
kom frustrande med väldigt brak
och visade varenda tand.

Ett, två! Ett, två! Och in och ut
han stack sitt stunga svärd.
Och Tjatterskottets huvud tog
han med till hemmets härd.

"Du Tjatterskott har fällt, min son!
Kom i min famn, mitt hjärtlingsgryn!
O sköna dag! Hurra! Hurra!"
han jublade mot skyn.

Det bryning var, och slimiga tovar
i styckern gyrade och norrade.
Smändiga var alla borogover,
och vilna rator skrorrade.


It is indeed a delightul poem, both in Swedish and English <3
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Antillanka on August 08, 2016, 10:38:40 PM
My favorite poem, by far, is this elegy Miguel Hernández wrote for a dear friend that died unexpectedly... I drips so much pain and wrath and tenderness.... 

ELEGIA A RAMÓN SIJÉ
El rayo que no cesa, 1936
.
(En Orihuela, su pueblo y el mío, se me ha
muerto como del rayo Ramón Sijé, con quien
tanto quería.)
.
Yo quiero ser llorando el hortelano
de la tierra que ocupas y estercolas,
compañero del alma, tan temprano.
.
Alimentando lluvias, caracoles
Y órganos mi dolor sin instrumento,
a las desalentadas amapolas
.
daré tu corazón por alimento.
Tanto dolor se agrupa en mi costado,
que por doler me duele hasta el aliento.
.
Un manotazo duro, un golpe helado,
un hachazo invisible y homicida,
un empujón brutal te ha derribado.
.
No hay extensión más grande que mi herida,
lloro mi desventura y sus conjuntos
y siento más tu muerte que mi vida.
.
Ando sobre rastrojos de difuntos,
y sin calor de nadie y sin consuelo
voy de mi corazón a mis asuntos.
.
.Temprano levantó la muerte el vuelo,
temprano madrugó la madrugada,
temprano estás rodando por el suelo.
.
No perdono a la muerte enamorada,
no perdono a la vida desatenta,
no perdono a la tierra ni a la nada.
.
En mis manos levanto una tormenta
de piedras, rayos y hachas estridentes
sedienta de catástrofe y hambrienta
.
Quiero escarbar la tierra con los dientes,
quiero apartar la tierra parte
a parte a dentelladas secas y calientes.
.
Quiero minar la tierra hasta encontrarte
y besarte la noble calavera
y desamordazarte y regresarte
.
Volverás a mi huerto y a mi higuera:
por los altos andamios de mis flores
pajareará tu alma colmenera
.
de angelicales ceras y labores.
Volverás al arrullo de las rejas
de los enamorados labradores.
.
Alegrarás la sombra de mis cejas,
y tu sangre se irá a cada lado
disputando tu novia y las abejas.
.
Tu corazón, ya terciopelo ajado,
llama a un campo de almendras espumosas
mi avariciosa voz de enamorado.
.
A las aladas almas de las rosas...
de almendro de nata te requiero,:
que tenemos que hablar de muchas cosas,
compañero del alma, compañero.

or the translation (I haven't found one that does justice to the Spanish version yet):

Spoiler: show

(In Orihuela, his town and mine, Ramón Sijé, whom I loved dearly, has died as though as struck by lightning)
 
I want to be the weeping gardener
of the land you occupy and fertilize,
oh my soulmate, so soon.
 
Feeding rains, snails
and organs, my aimless pain,
to the downtrodden poppies
 
I´ll give your heart as nourishment.
So much pain converges on my sides
that even my breath is fraught with it.
 
A harsh slap, an icy blow,
an invisible, killing axe cut
a brutal shove has felled you.
 
There´s no expanse greater than my wound,
I cry my misfortune and its ramifications,
and I feel your death more acutely than my life.
 
I walk over the remnants of the dead,
without anyone´s warmth, without relief
I go from my heart to my earthly concerns.
 
Soon did Death take flight,
soon did the dawn got up early,
soon you rolled on the ground.
 
I won´t forgive the lovestruck Death,
I won´t forgive the uncaring life,
I won´t forgive the earth, nor the nothingness.
 
On my hands I raise a storm
of stones, lightning and strident axes,
thirsting for catastrophes, and hungry.
 
I want to dig into the earth with my teeth,
I want to part the ground, side to side
with curt, hot bites.
 
I want to dig in the earth until I find you,
and kiss your noble skull
and get you out of the burial robes and return you.
 
You´ll come back to my orchard and my fig tree:
through the flower´s high scaffoldings
your soul linger playfully, like a bee
 
making heavenly waxes and labors.
You will return to the lull of the fences
of the loving peasants.
 
You´ll lighten the shadow of my brows,
and your blood will part, side to side,
conflicted between your girlfriend and the bees.
 
Your heart, now faded velvet,
is called to a field of foaming almond flowers
by my greedy lover´s voice.
 
To the winged souls of the roses
of almond trees I am calling you:
for there are many things we need to talk about,
oh my soulmate, my companion.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Laufey on August 09, 2016, 02:20:58 AM
Time for some Patrick Woodroffe, one of my all-time favourite artist and poets.


The Mystery of Flight

"Did you know",
Said the crow,
"That a condor can go
With never a flap of his wing?"

"But the moon,"
Said the fly,
"Can remain in the sky
With nary a flap of a thing."

"How, rather than fall,
Can you stay up at all
Is a puzzle to me."
Said the flea.

~Patrick Woodroffe
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: urbicande on August 09, 2016, 08:42:43 AM
Wow, so many good poems.  Here are a few of mine.

This is one that I wrote a song from because I like it so much
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Spoiler: show

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”



The Listeners
Walter de la Mare
Spoiler: show

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   
   Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   
   Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,   
   Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;   
   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;   
   No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   
   Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners   
   That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   
   To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   
   That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   
   By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   
   Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   
   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even   
   Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   
   That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,   
   Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   
   From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   
   And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,   
   When the plunging hoofs were gone.



The Witch
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
Spoiler: show

I have walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart’s desire.
She came—she came—and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.


I'll be nice to people and not post The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43997) or The Hunting of the Snark (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43909) or all 22 parts of The Song of Hiawatha (http://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=62).
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on August 09, 2016, 08:45:49 AM
All these are excellent.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: viola on August 09, 2016, 11:13:32 AM
One of my favourite poems is one I actually set to music for a school project.

Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.


- Emily Dickenson
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: urbicande on August 09, 2016, 11:15:11 AM
One of my favourite poems is one I actually set to music for a school project.

Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.


- Emily Dickenson

And, like all of her poems, it can be sung to "The Yellow Rose of Texas"
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Purple Wyrm on August 09, 2016, 03:15:36 PM
And, like all of her poems, it can be sung to "The Yellow Rose of Texas"

I just tried singing that to "Deep in the Heart of Texas" and was very confused until I realised my mistake :)

Antigonish

The poem is actually based on a haunting case in Antigonish Nova Scotia. My favourite version is...

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I think he's from the CIA,

 ;D

This is one that I wrote a song from because I like it so much
Ozymandias

Ozymandias is the result of a contest between Shelley and his friend Horace Smith. Smith's poem (also called "Ozymandias") isn't bad, but Shelley's blows it out of the water...

Spoiler: show
In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chase,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place


But on to my favourite poems (that haven't been mentioned yet).

"Dulce et Decorum Est" by one of England's greatest First World War poets Wilfred Owen (who was killed in action one week before the war ended)

Spoiler: show

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


And G.K.Chesterton's "The Old Song". I've known it for years and still only partly understand it, but I love the language...

Spoiler: show

A livid sky on London
And like the iron steeds that rear
A shock of engines halted
And I knew the end was near:
And something said that far away, over the hills and far away
There came a crawling thunder and the end of all things here.
For London Bridge is broken down, broken down, broken down,
As digging lets the daylight on the sunken streets of yore,
The lightning looked on London town, the broken bridge of London town.
The ending of a broken road where men shall go no more.

I saw the kings of London town,
The kings that buy and sell,
That built it up with penny loaves
And penny lies as well:

And where the streets were paved with gold the shrivelled paper shone for gold,
The scorching light of promises that pave the streets of hell.
For penny loaves will melt away, melt away, melt away,
Mock the men that haggled in the grain they did not grow;
With hungry faces in the gate, a hundred thousand in the gate,
A thunder-flash on London and the finding of the foe.

I heard the hundred pin-makers
Slow down their racking din,
Till in the stillness men could hear
The dropping of the pin:
And somewhere men without the wall, beneath the wood, without the wall,
Had found the place where London ends and England can begin.
For pins and needles bend and break, bend and break, bend and break,
Faster than the breaking spears or the bending of the bow,
Of pagents pale in thunder-light, 'twixt thunderload and thunderlight,
The Hundreds marching on the hills in the wars of long ago.

I saw great Cobbett riding,
The horseman of the shires;
And his face was red with judgement
And a light of Luddite fires:
And south to Sussex and the sea the lights leapt up for liberty,
The trumpet of the yeomanry, the hammer of the squires;
For bars of iron rust away, rust away, rust away,
Rend before the hammer and the horseman riding in,
Crying that all men at the last, and at the worst and at the last,
Have found the place where England ends and England can begin.

His horse-hoofs go before you
Far beyond your bursting tyres;
And time is bridged behind him
And our sons are with our sires.

A trailing meteor on the Downs he rides above the rotting towns,
The Horseman of Apocalypse, the Rider of the Shires.
For London Bridge is broken down, broken down, broken down;
Blow the horn of Huntington from Scotland to the sea --
...Only flash of thunder-light, a flying dream of thunder-light,
Had shown under the shattered sky a people that were free.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: BlueSkyVail on August 09, 2016, 06:11:44 PM
I like the way this poems... sounds, I guess. I love the imagery and sound.

January

Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
                                  Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
                                  And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.

~William Carlos Williams
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Windfighter on August 10, 2016, 03:56:10 PM
This poem is an early favorite of mine and was the first one (except my own) that I learned by heart. I don't know why this poem made such a strong impression on me though, it was something with how it felt to read it I think, how it sounded when I read it out loud.

I apologize about it being in Swedish though :P

Sommarnatten

På den lugna skogssjöns vatten
Satt jag hela sommarnatten,
Och för böljans tropp, ur båten,
Slängde tanklös ut försåten.
Men en talltrast sjöng på stranden,
Att han kunnat mista anden,
Tills jag halvt förtörnad sade:
"Bättre, om din näbb du lade
Under vingen, och till dagen
Sparde tonerna och slagen."
Men den djärve hördes svara:
"Gosse, låt ditt metspö vara.
Såg du opp kring land och vatten,
Kanske sjöng du själv om natten."
Och jag lyfte opp mitt öga,
Ljus var jorden, ljust det höga,
Och från himlen, stranden, vågen
Kom min flicka mig i hågen.
Och, som fågeln spått i lunden,
Sjöng jag denna sång på stunden.


- Johan Ludvig Runeberg
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Laufey on August 10, 2016, 04:41:15 PM
THE VASTEST THINGS ARE THOSE WE MAY NOT LEARN

The vastest things are those we may not learn.
We are not taught to die, nor to be born,
Nor how to burn
With love.
How pitiful is our enforced return
To those small things we are the masters of.

~Mervyn Peake
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Athena on August 10, 2016, 05:11:56 PM
I love the use of sound so much in this one I don't want to read it out loud because a mere human voice will never be able to capture the perfection that is the way the words are put together.

The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

This thread is amazing and I love it.
I like The Raven, but I also really like The City in the Sea.

Spoiler: show
The City in the Sea by Edgar Allen Poe

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently-
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free-
Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls-
Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls-
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers-
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye-
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass-
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea-
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave- there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide-
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow-
The hours are breathing faint and low-
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Among other things, I really like the line, "The hours are breathing faint and low."

Oh my various deities yes! I love Edgar Allen Poe! ;D My favourite poem is definitely The Raven is so creepy and I love it. I actually have a book called "Steampunk Poe", which is a collection of his poems and short stories with steampunk-style illustrations to go with each one. The book looks like this, if you ever see it I would highly recommend buying it its really cool:
(http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344668167l/10339809.jpg)
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: BlueSkyVail on August 11, 2016, 07:59:59 PM
I love, love, love the words used in this one.

An Autumn Sunset
By Edith Wharton

I

Leaguered in fire
The wild black promontories of the coast extend
Their savage silhouettes;
The sun in universal carnage sets,
And, halting higher,
The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats,
Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned,
That, balked, yet stands at bay.
Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day
In wind-lustrated hollows crystalline,
A wan Valkyrie whose wide pinions shine
Across the ensanguined ruins of the fray,
And in her hand swings high o’erhead,
Above the waster of war,
The silver torch-light of the evening star
Wherewith to search the faces of the dead.


II

Lagooned in gold,
Seem not those jetty promontories rather
The outposts of some ancient land forlorn,
Uncomforted of morn,
Where old oblivions gather,
The melancholy unconsoling fold
Of all things that go utterly to death
And mix no more, no more
With life’s perpetually awakening breath?
Shall Time not ferry me to such a shore,
Over such sailless seas,
To walk with hope’s slain importunities
In miserable marriage? Nay, shall not
All things be there forgot,
Save the sea’s golden barrier and the black
Close-crouching promontories?
Dead to all shames, forgotten of all glories,
Shall I not wander there, a shadow’s shade,
A spectre self-destroyed,
So purged of all remembrance and sucked back
Into the primal void,
That should we on the shore phantasmal meet
I should not know the coming of your feet?
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Laufey on August 12, 2016, 06:08:38 PM
Before Summer Rain

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something - you don't know what - has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

~Rainer Maria Rilke
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: BlueSkyVail on August 12, 2016, 08:27:57 PM
Another poem I like, just for the imagery. I will post a poem every day this week. I WILL.

Four Glimpses of Night
By Frank Marshall Davis
I

Eagerly
Like a woman hurrying to her lover
Night comes to the room of the world
And lies, yielding and content
Against the cool round face
Of the moon.
 
II
 
Night is a curious child, wandering
Between earth and sky, creeping
In windows and doors, daubing
The entire neighborhood
With purple paint.
Day
Is an apologetic mother
Cloth in hand
Following after.
 
III
 
Peddling
From door to door
Night sells
Black bags of peppermint stars
Heaping cones of vanilla moon
Until
His wares are gone
Then shuffles homeward
Jingling the gray coins
Of daybreak.
 
IV
 
Night’s brittle song, sliver-thin
Shatters into a billion fragments
Of quiet shadows
At the blaring jazz
Of a morning sun.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Jerzy_S on August 30, 2016, 05:59:21 PM
Here is my fovourite poem. I wish you all were able to read it in original version. It's much better  :(

The day after -- without us

The morning is expected to be cloud and foggy.
Rainclouds
will move from the west.
Poor visibility.
Slick highways.

Gradually as the day progresses
high pressure fronts from the north
make local sunshine likely.
Due to winds, though, sometimes strong and gusty,
sun may give way to storms.

At night
clearing across the country,
with a slight chance of precipitation
only in the southeast.
Temperatures will drop sharply,
while barometric readings rise.

The next day
promises to be sunny,
altough those still living
should bring umbrellas.

  - Wisława Szymborska
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Sunflower on August 31, 2016, 04:12:02 AM
Wow, what a great thread!  I wish I'd spotted it sooner.

I'm going to share a couple of my favorites -- though just one in this first post.  It's fairly long, so I'm just going to quote excerpts.  Here's the full version: http://ag.arizona.edu/~steidl/Liberation.html

Manifesto:  The Mad Farmer Liberation Front 
by Wendell Berry
[I like this even though, or maybe because, I work in the computer software industry...]
 
Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

[...]

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
 
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Sunflower on August 31, 2016, 04:37:38 AM
I studied Latin in college, and became particularly fond of the poetry of Catullus, a fellow who no doubt would have become a Stephen Sondheim-esque songwriter in modern times. 

This is #8 (untitled) - (http://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/VRomaCatullus/008.html)- or rather, VIII in the collection of his surviving poems.  Scholars think he wrote it about his on-and-off girlfriend, Clodia, a married Roman aristocrat.
The limping rhythm of the Latin version emphasizes the mood of obsessive heartbreak.

Miser Catulle, desinas ineptire,
et quod vides perisse perditum ducas.
fulsere quondam candidi tibi soles,
cum ventitabas quo puella ducebat
amata nobis quantum amabitur nulla.
ibi illa multa tum iocosa fiebant,
quae tu volebas nec puella nolebat.
fulsere vere candidi tibi soles.
nunc iam illa non vult: tu quoque, impotens, <noli,>
nec quae fugit sectare, nec miser vive,
sed obstinata mente perfer, obdura.
vale, puella. iam Catullus obdurat,
nec te requiret nec rogabit invitam:
at tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla.
scelesta, vae te! quae tibi manet vita?
quis nunc te adibit? cui videberis bella?
quem nunc amabis? cuius esse diceris?
quem basiabis? cui labella mordebis?
at tu, Catulle, destinatus obdura.


My translation:

Poor old Catullus, stop playing the fool,
And when you've lost something, consider it gone for good.

Once the sun shone brightly on you,
When you used to go wherever the girl led.
She was loved as nobody has ever been loved.
Back then you had so many joys,
Anything you wanted, and she wasn't unwilling.
Truly, the sun shone brightly on you then.

Now she doesn't want you; you shouldn't want her either, poor fool --
Don't tag along after her, nor live in misery,
But endure, make up your mind to hold firm.

So long, girl.  Now Catullus is standing fast. 
He won't ask after you or seek you against your will.
But you'll be sorry, when nobody comes asking for you.
You heartbreaker!  What kind of life can you still have? 
Who will visit you now?  Who will think you're pretty?
Who will you love now?  Whose will you be called?
Who will you kiss?  Whose lips will you bite?
...Wait.  You, Catullus, need to hold firm. 
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Sunflower on August 31, 2016, 04:50:34 AM
OK, one more Catullus poem.  He could be humorous, too.  Here he's publicly shaming someone in his social circle with a little kleptomania problem.  (In 1st-century BC Rome, people brought their own napkins to dinner parties, and a nice linen napkin could be expensive.)

I picture Marrucinus as looking kind of like Bobby Moynihan on "Saturday Night Live."

Marrucine Asini, manu sinistra
non belle uteris: in ioco atque vino
tollis lintea neglegentiorum.
Hoc salsum esse putas? Fugit te, inepte:
quamvis sordida res et invenusta est.
Non credis mihi? Crede Pollioni
fratri, qui tua furta vel talento
mutari velit - est enim leporum
differtus puer ac facetiarum.
Quare aut hendecasyllabos trecentos
exspecta, aut mihi linteum remitte,
quod me no movet aestimatione,
verum est mnemosynum mei sodalis.
Nam sudaria Saetaba ex Hiberis
miserunt mihi muneri Fabullus
Et Veranius; haec amem necesse est
ut Veraniolum meum et Fabullum.

My translation:
Marrucinus Asinus, with your left hand
You did something tacky.  While we were all drinking and having fun,
You stole the napkins of anyone too drunk to notice.
Did you think that was funny?  Far from it, you dork.
That was about the lamest thing you could have done.
If you don't believe me, believe your brother Pollio,
Who'd pay a fortune to make your thefts go away --
And he's a good kid, bright and charming enough to make up for you.
So expect a curse in 300 lines of 11-syllable poetry to be shamed on social media
Unless you return my napkin.  Which didn't cost that much,
But it was a souvenir my friends Fabullus and Veranius
Sent me from Spain, so it's dear to me.
[Lots of sentimental emojis]
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on August 31, 2016, 05:05:33 AM
You know, Sunflower, I sincerely hope that we will at some point have the chance to meet in real life! It is said that you can tell a great deal about the nature of a person by their taste in poetry, and your choices suggest to me that we would get on very well indeed. Wendell Berry and Catullus, heh!

What do you think of the work of Judith Wright?
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Sunflower on August 31, 2016, 05:09:54 AM
You know, Sunflower, I sincerely hope that we will at some point have the chance to meet in real life! It is said that you can tell a great deal about the nature of a person by their taste in poetry, and your choices suggest to me that we would get on very well indeed. Wendell Berry and Catullus, heh!

What do you think of the work of Judith Wright?

Aww, that's very kind of you to say!  I have often thought the same thing.  Maybe someday my travels will take me to Australia.  I've already had a couple of Minnions here to visit.

I confess, I have never heard of Judith Wright.  I could Google her, of course, but maybe you could share some of her poetry?
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Lazy8 on August 31, 2016, 08:41:12 AM
Ooooooooooh yes, I remember Catullus. Not a big fan of his love poems, but I do remember he could be quite the snarker. (He wrote some pretty dirty stuff too, if memory serves. >:D )
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Juniper on September 22, 2016, 06:07:08 AM
Maybe because I had the last stanza of it as my signature for a while I could share 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, because it is pretty great. Frost is where it's at ~

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

I'm trying to find this one poem about Echo and Narcissus but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Which is a shame, I thought it was really cleverly written where it would have a line of dialogue, and then the line after that would be Echo echoing that line back but only using select words and sounds from the previous line so that her line had a completely different meaning.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on September 22, 2016, 07:00:21 AM
Juniper, I remember once seeing such a poem; I think the author was Fred Chappell? I don't have a copy, but given his name you might be able to find it?
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yuuago on September 22, 2016, 07:47:19 AM
Grammar Lesson
by Richard Wagamese

There's a silence words
leave in their wake
once they're spoken
that's the true punctuation
of our lives

like
when I said "I love you"
the full colon stop
made my heart ache
until you continued
the phrase and said
            dash
"I love you too"

period
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: urbicande on September 22, 2016, 10:41:55 AM
We need a little Shakespeare!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Anna on September 23, 2016, 10:12:13 PM
I'm trying to find this one poem about Echo and Narcissus but I can't seem to find it anywhere. Which is a shame, I thought it was really cleverly written where it would have a line of dialogue, and then the line after that would be Echo echoing that line back but only using select words and sounds from the previous line so that her line had a completely different meaning.
Is it this one you're looking for?

"Narcissus and Echo" by Fred Chappell

Shall the water not remember   Ember
my hand’s slow gesture, tracing above   of
its mirror my half-imaginary   airy
portrait? My only belonging   longing,
is my beauty, which I take   ache
away and then return as love   of
of teasing playfully the one being   unbeing.
whose gratitude I treasure   Is your
moves me. I live apart   heart
from myself, yet cannot  not
live apart. In the water’s tone,   stone?
that shining silence, a flower   Hour,
whispers my name with such slight  light:
moment, it seems filament of air,  fare
the world become cloudswell.   well.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Guizguiz on January 19, 2018, 05:44:47 PM
This topic seems a little bit deserted but I'd like to share my favorite poem too!

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid

It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishements the scroll
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

W. E. Henley

But my favorite poet is W. H. Auden
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Ana Nymus on January 19, 2018, 06:35:06 PM
Wow, I forgot we had a thread like this! My favorite short poem:

Fog
by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on January 19, 2018, 09:46:41 PM
Ana, that's one of Sandburg's better poems.

And Guizguiz: Hooray, Invictus. I love that poem. It could be my theme song.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Guizguiz on January 20, 2018, 04:29:55 AM
Ròisìn (the accent are not in right way but I don't know how to make them right with a french keyboard): me too! I know it by heart and recite it in my head when I need confidence (which is always)
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: JoB on January 20, 2018, 05:42:36 AM
(the accent are not in right way but I don't know how to make them right with a french keyboard)
[stops himself from going into another rant about how to type in special characters varies between various OSes and language settings (http://sssscomic.wikia.com/wiki/Nordic_Alphabets#Entering_Nordic_Characters_Without_a_Matching_Keyboard) while transmitting and displaying them has been effectively standardized with Unicode]

... use your mouse to mark one of the "Róisín"s in/alongside her own post, copy, paste ... :3
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on January 20, 2018, 07:03:45 AM
Thanks, JoB, I didn't know that (not very computer literate, I'm afraid!)
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Guizguiz on January 21, 2018, 02:10:16 PM
thanks I'll do that in the future ^^
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Iceea on January 22, 2018, 12:50:41 PM
On a "standard" Windows keyboard and PC, Róisín is R-Alt162->ó-i-s-Alt161->í-n. (To get the alternate characters hold the Alt key down and use the keypad)
Méluse is M-Alt130->é-l-u-s-e

Though as Job so succinctly points out, copy and paste works just fine also. Probably quicker ;)
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Olga Veresk on January 22, 2018, 02:01:21 PM
I'm not sure about if I can post Russian poems here. As for the poems on any other languages, I love several of them, but now I can remember that one which I particularly love because of rhythm.

A Man of Words and Not Deeds

A man of words and not of deeds
Is like a garden full of weeds
And when the weeds begin to grow
It's like a garden full of snow
And when the snow begins to fall
It's like a bird upon the wall
And when the bird away does fly
It's like an eagle in the sky
And when the sky begins to roar
It's like a lion at the door
And when the door begins to crack
It's like a stick across your back
And when your back begins to smart
It's like a penknife in your heart
And when your heart begins to bleed
You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on January 22, 2018, 05:01:43 PM
That looks like a strange version of 'The Man of Double Deed', a rhyme I heard as a child. Ah, the folk process! I have to go and tutor someone shortly, but I'll come back later if I can find it.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Sunflower on January 24, 2018, 04:30:45 AM
Ooh, fun!  These are all great choices.  I was familiar with most of them (especially the Robert Frost -- I had the great good luck to take a class on his poetry with Joseph Brodsky before he became Poet Laureate).  But I had never even heard of Fred Chappell, much less read the wonderful "Narcissus and Echo."

I will try not to spam this thread.  How to narrow down to just one choice?  I'll make it "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" by farmer-poet Wendell Berry, which I love even though (or maybe because) I work in an industry that is all about "creating a window in your head" through data analytics.

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it....


[The poem continues for another 3 1/2 stanzas:  https://bookpeopleblog.com/2011/04/05/poem-of-the-day-manifesto-the-mad-farmer-liberation-front/]

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Sunflower on January 24, 2018, 04:34:43 AM
And on a more cheerful note, "The Lobster Quadrille," by Lewis Carroll, in a musical setting by Carly Simon (the '70s pop singer) and her sister Lucy Simon (composer of the musical "The Secret Garden").

/>
"The further off from England, the nearer 'tis to France!
So turn not pale, beloved snail,
But come and join the dance!"
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Glory on March 01, 2018, 09:57:54 PM
For me, it's gotta be "Invictus" by Wiliiam Ernest Henley.

INVICTUS

Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.


The last two lines always send shivers down my spine....for me, this poem always represented my ideal human spirit, and those final lines just ram home that message so perfectly. Just amazing.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on March 01, 2018, 11:05:23 PM
Glory, that's a favourite poem of mine! And of Guizguiz's too.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Guizguiz on March 03, 2018, 06:04:07 AM
Yes Invictus!
It helped me go through difficult times, it's just that powerful for me
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: thorny on March 03, 2018, 09:14:55 PM
I think I'm just going to drop a link here, to the last thing posted on Ursula Kroeber LeGuin's blog.

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/Blog2017.html#New
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on March 03, 2018, 10:32:07 PM
Oh, thorny. That made me cry, in a good way.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Iceea on March 04, 2018, 01:16:31 AM
As one who will be looking at their 70th year in a few weeks, that resonates very deeply on many levels. But then Ursula k LeGuin's writing always did have that quality.

Thank you thorny, thank you indeed.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: thorny on March 04, 2018, 10:37:32 AM
A number of different things in there (as there so often are with LeGuin); but among them maybe a kind of . . . reply to Invictus?

You don't need to be unconquerable to be worth listening to.

(And I do have to quibble with one thing in there. Hers certainly wasn't a scrap of rayon. Spiderweb silk, maybe? Filling up the basements, where nobody is looking. People think of it as fragile; but it's one of the strongest things on earth.)
Title: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Yastreb on May 25, 2020, 08:52:43 AM
(The previous thread for this topic was over two years old, so I started a new one.)

In a conversation with Róisín not long ago, I mentioned two poems about the Dardanelles campaign in the Great War, written from different viewpoints; one a sad lament, the other a remembrance of the price paid for victory. They came back to memory today, and I am moved to share them now.

ANZAC COVE (Leon Gellert)

There's a lonely stretch of hillocks
There's a beach asleep and drear:
There's a battered broken fort beside the sea.
There are sunken trampled graves:
And a little rotting pier:
And winding paths that wind unceasingly.

There's a torn and silent valley:
There's a tiny rivulet
With some blood upon the stones beside its mouth.
There are lines of buried bones:
There's an unpaid waiting debt:
There's a sound of gentle sobbing in the South.

TO A TRAVELLER (Necmettin Halil Onan)

Stop traveller! Unbeknownst to you this ground
You come and tread on, is where an epoch lies;
Bend down and lend your ear, for this silent mound
Is the place where the heart of a nation sighs.

To the left of this deserted shadeless lane
The Anatolian slope now observe you well;
For liberty and honour, it is, in pain,
Where wounded Mehmet laid down his life and fell

This very mound, when violently shook the land,
When the last bit of earth passed from hand to hand,
And when Mehmet drowned the enemy in flood,
Is the spot where he added his own pure blood.

Think, the consecrated blood and flesh and bone
That make up this mould, is where a whole nation,
After a harsh and pitiless war; alone
Tasted the juice of freedom with elation.
Title: Re: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Yastreb on July 15, 2020, 07:59:44 PM
I chanced upon this poem in the memoirs of Peter Dickens (great-grandson of Charles), who served in the Royal Navy in the Second Worid War, commanding motor torpedo boats in the English Channel. The poem was penned by an officer who was less than impressed with the reliability of the torpedo boats.

On Returning from an Operation
By James L. Fraser (with apologies to John Masefield)

Orange-box of Beehive, from distant Hunnish shore
Rowing home to haven for engine-lifting time
With a cargo of troubles
Purolator bubbles
Overheating thrust-blocks and boost plus nine
Title: Re: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Róisín on July 15, 2020, 10:07:25 PM
Much amused by that. Though I think it should be ‘haven’ rather than ‘have’. And I like the last verse of the original: ‘Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smokestack/Butting through the Channel in the mad March days/With a cargo of Tyne coal, road-rail, piglead/ Firewood, ironware and cheap tin trays.’ That always makes me laugh after the displays of Wealth and Glory of the earlier verses.
Title: Re: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Yastreb on July 23, 2020, 12:12:10 AM
OH WHAT IS THAT SOUND

Oh what is that sound which so thrills the ear
Down in the valley drumming, drumming?
Only the scarlet soldiers, dear,
The soldiers coming.

Oh what is that light I see flashing so clear
Over the distance brightly, brightly?
Only the sun on their weapons, dear,
As they step lightly.

Oh what are they doing with all that gear,
What are they doing this morning, this morning?
Only their usual manoeuvres, dear,
Or perhaps a warning.

Oh why have they left the road down there,
Why are they suddenly wheeling, wheeling?
Perhaps a change in their orders, dear.
Why are you kneeling?

Oh haven't they stopped for the doctor's care,
Haven't they reined their horses, their horses?
Why, they are none of them wounded, dear,
None of the forces.

Oh is it the parson they want, with white hair,
Is it the parson, is it, is it?
No, they are passing his gateway, dear,
Without a visit.

Oh it must be the farmer who lives so near.
It must be the farmer so cunning, so cunning?
They have passed the farmyard already, dear,
And now they are running.

O where are you going? Stay with me here!
Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving?
No, I promised to love you, dear,
But I must be leaving.

Oh it's broken the lock and splintered the door,
O it's the gate where they're turning, turning;
Their boots are heavy on the floor
And their eyes are burning.

W. H. Auden

Title: Re: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Róisín on July 23, 2020, 05:56:03 AM
One of Auden’s darker pieces. But darkly beautiful.
Title: Re: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Yastreb on August 10, 2020, 04:23:15 AM
Kubla Khan    By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round.
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree.
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves.
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Title: Re: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Yastreb on August 11, 2020, 10:48:30 AM
And now, a couple of poems that I'm willing to bet are known to very few. They were both written by officers serving in US submarines during WW2.

Douglas Rhymes, an officer on board USS Sargo, was inspired by complaints that he had heard about certain submarine commanders to pen this poem in 1942:

THE FEARLESS SKIPPER

The Captain is a rugged guy
With hair upon his chest.
O'er a glass of beer in peacetime
He's at his fighting best.

He scorns far distant danger
With a scornful, scornful leer
And never runs for cover
When everything is clear.

He swings around the periscope
With firm and steady hands;
When the ship is unescorted
He has no fear of cans.1

In eyes so gray and piercing
There shines a reckless gleam
As he takes his sip of coffee
And adds a little cream.

With conversational courage
He talks a fearless fight.
He's a rough, tough hombre
When nothing is in sight.

All hazards of navigation
Cause him no loss of sleep.
He cruises along most calmly
In water one mile deep.

His nerves are surely made of steel,
His voice has a confident sound,
And he never gets excited
When danger's not around.

Arthur Taylor, commander of USS Haddock, took out his resentment of personnel back at base in a poem written during his first war patrol as commander.

SQUAT DIV ONE

They're on their duff from morn till nite
They're never wrong, they're always right
To hear them talk they're in the fight
Oh, yeah?

A boat comes in off a patrol
The skipper tallies up his toll
And writes it up for all concerned
He feels right proud of the job he's done
But the staffies say he shoulda used his gun!
Three fish for a ship of two score ton?
Outrageous! He should have used but one!
A tanker sunk in smoke and flame
But still he's open wide to blame
His fish were set for twenty right
That proves he didn't want to fight!
Oh, yeah?

The freighter he sunk settled by the stern
With depth set right she'd split in two!
So tell me, what is the skipper to do?
He's on the spot and doing his best
But that's not enough by the acid test
The staff must analyze his case
And pick it apart to save their face
Just because you sink some ships
Doesn't mean you win the chips
You've got to do it according to Plan
Otherwise you're on the pan!

So here’s to the staff with work so tough
In writing their endorsement guff
Whether the war is lost or won
Depends entirely on "Squat Div One"2
Oh, yeah?


1. Cans (also "tin cans"); destroyers and similar escort ships
2. Staff officers who would evaluate the performance of submarines and their crews; resented particularly because they wrongly blamed the submariners for the failures of torpedoes to sink Japanese ships, whereas the torpedoes themselves were at fault.


Title: Re: Sharing Your Favourite Poems
Post by: Róisín on August 11, 2020, 10:54:08 AM
Those are good,and remind me of‘The Little Lance-Corporal on the Headquarters Staff’. There are many soldier’s songs with that theme.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: danckert on June 09, 2021, 05:44:52 AM
My very favourite poems are Norwegian, in books buried in cardboard boxes after our last move. Some of my English favourites have already been mentioned. But there's one more by Walter De La Mare that I really love:

Mistletoe

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen—and kissed me there.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on June 09, 2021, 03:55:59 PM
Wow, a De La Mare poem I never heard! Thank you!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Maglor on June 17, 2021, 06:04:40 AM
What's youor oppinion on Emily Dickinson?
Found her lyrics recently, and it's fantastic! The metaphoes are especially great (though it's just one more thing she sacrificed a technique for). And pretty similiar to one of my favorite Russian authors.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on June 17, 2021, 06:44:57 AM
It wasn't just incompetent commanders of submarines that inspired some classic doggerel. Pilots and crew of the Fairey Barracuda, an aircraft flown off Royal Navy fleet carriers in WW2, made their feelings about the Barracuda fairly clear in verse.

The Barracuda 2 Blues

Any old iron
Any, any old iron,
Down at Lee*
You get them free
Built by Fairey, for a crew of three
Not much use,
No damn juice
An air frame you can’t rely on
There’s nothing new in this Bara 2
She’s all old iron.


* Main Fleet Air Arm Base

The Barracuda Blues Song (sung to "The Blues in the Night")

My skipper done tol' me
When I was in Stringbags*
My skipper done tol' me
Son, that Barra's a bastard
She looks like a sleek job
But when the mods are done,
That Barra's a bastard
She’s a dirty old b****
She'll give you the twitch
And the blues in the night.
Hear that Merlin moaning,
Hear that airframe groaning,
See the struts abending
See the tail plane rending
Whoo-ee Whoo-ee
A dirty old b****
She'll give you the twitch-
And the blues in the night.


* Stringbags; the nickname for the Swordfish, a fabric-covered biplane that preceded the Barracuda

The Barracuda 2

Any old iron! Any old iron! Any any any old iron!
Talk about a treat
Torpedoing a fleet
Any old cruiser or battleship you meet
Weighs six tons, no front guns
---- all to rely on
You know what you can do
With your Barracuda 2
Old iron, old iron!

Any old iron! Any old iron! Any any any old iron!
The engine is a ----- Rolls Royce
A Merlin V-12, and it ain't our choice!
Open up the throttle
And the whole ----ing lot'll
Wail like an air-raid siren
You know what you can do
With your Barracuda 2
Old iron, old iron!


The first two poems were taken from this site: http://www.spiritofcanada.com/veterans/stories/open.php?type=rcn&target=don_currie (http://www.spiritofcanada.com/veterans/stories/open.php?type=rcn&target=don_currie).
The last poem was in a book I've been unable to trace; For God's Sake Don't Send Me! I had to write iT from memory, but I think I've recalled it fairly accurately.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Keep Looking on July 13, 2021, 08:11:48 AM
Jumping into this thread to share what is my favourite poem right now.

My mum owns a book of Nazim Hikmet's poetry (translated into English - he's Turkish) and I was flicking through it just then and his poem 'Things I Didn't Know I Loved' really hit me. It just captures a certain feeling.

Here's a link (it's a fairly long poem) https://allpoetry.com/Things-I-Didn't-Know-I-Loved (https://allpoetry.com/Things-I-Didn't-Know-I-Loved)

And here are my favourite stanzas:

and here I've loved rivers all this time
whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills
European hills crowned with chateaus
or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see
I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before
                        and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before
                        and will be said after me


...

I have some questions for the cosmonauts
were the stars much bigger
did they look like huge jewels on black velvet
                            or apricots on orange
did you feel proud to get closer to the stars
I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't
  be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract
  well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to
  say they were terribly figurative and concrete
my heart was in my mouth looking at them
they are our endless desire to grasp things
seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad
I never knew I loved the cosmos
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Jitter on July 13, 2021, 02:58:06 PM
Thank you Keep, that was beautiful!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on July 16, 2021, 08:23:27 AM
THE RENDEZVOUS

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath
It may be I shall pass him still
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath
Where hushed awakenings are dear
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town
When Spring trips north again this year
And I to my pledged word am true
I shall not fail that rendezvous

Legionnaire 1st Class Alan Seeger, Foreign Legion
Killed In Action 4 July 1916; no known grave


SONNET: PEACE (Rupert Brooke)
Now God be thanked who has matched us with His hour
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary
And all the little emptiness of love!

Oh! we who have known shame, we have found release there
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending
Nought broken save this body, lost but breath
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on September 13, 2021, 07:55:40 AM
Now for some doggerel courtesy of a friend of a former flatmate (excuse the alliteration). Said FOAFF was of a slightly nihilistic mindset...

Iron Age
Bronze Age
Stone Age
Man!
Nuke 'em back
Nuke 'em back
Blam! Blam! Blam!
Nuke 'em back
Nuke 'em back
Waaaaay back!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on September 13, 2021, 07:58:45 AM
May I ask who made that one?
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on September 13, 2021, 09:19:48 AM
The one known as Groo - you may not have been told of his comment about the movie Koyaanisqatsi; "The only good part were the nukes, and they were only tests!"
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on September 13, 2021, 06:28:19 PM
Oh yeah, I remember him. Poetry is unexpected!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: crowbarrd on October 24, 2021, 11:50:46 PM
Here's one that I found by way of internet. When I think about it, I cry a bit sometimes

Two-Headed Calf, by Laura Gilpin

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.

But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect
summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass. And
as he stares into the sky, there are
twice as many stars as usual.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Jitter on October 25, 2021, 11:23:40 AM
Oh crowbarrd that is such a touching poem! Thank you for sharing it!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on October 26, 2021, 05:59:51 AM
'When the crocus blossoms,’
Hiss the women in Berlin
‘He will press the button
And the battle will begin.
When the crocus blossoms
Up the German knights will go
And flame and fume and filthiness
Will terminate the foe…
When the crocus blossoms
Not a neutral will remain.’

Spring Song (A. P. Herbert)

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on January 29, 2022, 08:44:04 PM
A. P. Herbert wrote another poem in 1940, making fun of Allied inactivity during the "Phony War" and plans to attack Nazi Germany by bombing... Soviet oilfields?

BAKU, OR THE MAP GAME

It's jolly to look at the map
And finish the foe in a day
It's not easy to get at the chap
The neutrals are so in the way
But if you say "What would you do
To fill the aggressor with gloom?"
Well, we might drop a bomb on Baku
And how about bombs on Batum?"

I'm all for some bombs on Baku
And of course a few bombs on Batum


The scale of the map should be small
If you're winning the war in a day
It mustn't show mountains at all
For mountains may be in the way
But taking a statemanslike view
And sitting at home in a room
I'm all for some bombs on Baku
And of course a few bombs on Batum

I'm all for some bombs on Baku
And of course a few bombs on Batum

 
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on January 30, 2022, 01:24:30 AM
That is blackly amusing. Armchair generals.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on February 05, 2022, 11:43:27 PM
Actually I found the complete Baku, or the Map Game by better use of Google-fu. I thought the poster's comments (in italics below) worth quoting... and there's a new book to find!

So, I'm reading Operation Pike, a book about British plans to attack the Soviet Union during the Second World War during the period of German-Soviet nonaggression. The British spent an astonishing amount of time and energy plotting how to destroy the Soviet Union, which, up until Barbarossa, much of Britan's leadership saw as the serious threat. As a result, a great deal of planning went into destroying the Baku oil fields, perceived to be the USSR's achilles heel, and an easier way of knocking out Germany and the USSR than a brutal slog across Germany.

Most of the plans, frankly, were a tad absurd, envisioning a couple squadrons of bombers taking out a major network of oil wells and refineries. Nevertheless, since it was well known the Soviets were so incompetent that they couldn't even beat Finland, it was envisioned that it would be easy to knock themn out. The real concern, in the eyes of some planners, was that if the USSR was attacked they'd invite the Germans in to reorganize their economy along more efficient, German lines, creating, as one planner joked, "Teutoslavia." Some people recognized that this was a terrible idea, notably A.P. Herbert, the PM for Oxford, who wrote a poem criticizing the ideas.


Baku, or the Map Game

Its Jolly to look at the map
And finish the foe in a day
Its not easy to get at the chap
These neutrals are so in the way
But what if you say 'what would you do
To fill the aggressor with gloom?'
Well, we might drop a bomb on Baku
Or what about bombs on Batum?

Other methods, of course, may be found
We might send a fleet up the Inn
We might burrow far underground
And come up in the heart of Berlin
But I think a more promising clue
To the Totalitarian doom
is the dropping of bombs on Baku
And perhaps a few bombs on Batum

The scale of the map should be small
If you're winning the war in a day
It mustn't show mountains at all
For mountains may be in the way
But, taking a statesmanlike view
And sitting at home in a room,
I'm all for some bombs on Baku
And, of course, a few bombs on Batum

Sometimes I invade the dear Dutch
Sometimes I descend on the Danes
They oughtn't to mind very much
And they don't seem to have any planes
I slip through the Swiss and say 'Boo!'
I pop over the Alps and say 'Boom!'
But I still drop a few bombs on Baku
And I always drop bombs on Batum

Vladivostok is not very far
Sometimes I attack him from there
With the troops in a rather fast car
I am on him before he's aware
And then, it's so hard to say who
Is fighting, precisely, with whom,
that I know about bombing Baku
I insist upon bombing Batum

During the war, this poem was classified Most Secret, and it's such a great criticism of wargaming that I thought I'd share it.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on July 29, 2022, 07:31:18 AM
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew –
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

High Flight (John Gillespie Magee)

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: dmeck7755 on July 29, 2022, 07:53:34 AM
This a co-worker posted on one of our slack channels recently.  I like this...

Mary Oliver
Wild  Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on October 02, 2022, 02:09:38 AM
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.
 
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
 
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Sea Fever (John Masefield)

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on August 14, 2023, 07:33:40 AM
Naming of Parts

Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens,
And today we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For today we have naming of parts.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on August 14, 2023, 09:11:58 AM
I know that poem. Heartbreaking.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on August 21, 2023, 07:32:45 AM
Randall Jarrell is another poet whose verses on war have resonated with me.

Eighth Air Force

If, in an odd angle of the hutment,
A puppy laps the water from a can
Of flowers, and the drunk sergeant shaving
Whistles O Paradiso!--shall I say that man
Is not as men have said: a wolf to man?

The other murderers troop in yawning;
Three of them play Pitch, one sleeps, and one
Lies counting missions, lies there sweating
Till even his heart beats: One; One; One.
O murderers! . . . Still, this is how it's done:

This is a war . . . But since these play, before they die,
Like puppies with their puppy; since, a man,
I did as these have done, but did not die--
I will content the people as I can
And give up these to them: Behold the man!

I have suffered, in a dream, because of him,
Many things; for this last saviour, man,
I have lied as I lie now. But what is lying?
Men wash their hands, in blood, as best they can:
I find no fault in this just man.

The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.


Mail Call

The letters always just evade the hand
One skates like a stone into a beam, falls like a bird.
Surely the past from which the letters rise
Is waiting in the future, past the graves?
The soldiers are all haunted by their lives.
Their claims upon their kind are paid in paper
That established a presence, like a smell.
In letters and in dreams they see the world.
They are waiting: and the years contract
To an empty hand, to one unuttered sound --
The soldier simply wishes for his name.

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: thegreyarea on August 24, 2023, 07:28:46 PM
So many wonderful poems in this thread! :) I love it!

There are some poems that I love in Portuguese. It's not easy to translate, but I had the luck to stumble upon a particularly well-done version of one, called "Pedra Filosofal" - "Philosopher's stone", by Antonio Gedeão.
Of course it sounds better in the original, but the translator, a brazilian named Jonice, managed to keep most of its magic.

Philosopher's stone

They do not know that dreaming
is a constant in life
as concrete and outlined
as any other thing,
like this grayish stone
where I sit to rest,
like this calm creek
in its easy startles,
like these high pine trees
that in green and gold sway,
like these birds that crow
in drunkenness of blue.
They do not know that dreaming
is wine, is foam, is yeast,
a joyous thirsty little animal
whose sharp snout
pokes through everywhere
in endless restlessness.
They do not know that dreaming
is canvas, is colour, is paintbrush,
base, pole, shaft,
ogive arc, stained glass window,
a cathedral vault,
counterpoint, symphony,
Greek mask, magic,
that it is the alchemist's retort,
distant lands chart,
wind rose, infant,
sixteenth century vessel,
that it is Cape of Good Hope,
gold, cinnamon, ivory,
a swordsman’s foil,
it is backstage, is dance step,
Colombina and Arlequim,
huge flappy flying bird,
lightning-rod, locomotive,
a glorious prow boat,
furnace, energy generator,
split of the atom, radar,
ultrasound, television,
a rocket landing
on the surface of the moon.
They do not know, nor dream of,
that dreaming commands life.
That whenever a man dreams
the world leaps forth
like a colourful ball
into a child’s little hands.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on October 12, 2023, 07:16:25 AM
Australia has a reputation for the lethality of its wildlife. The creatures of Aboriginal folklore can be deadly also, especially if angered or disrespected. Here's a striking poem about one of the best known.

The Bunyip And The Whistling Kettle

I knew a most superior camper
Whose methods were absurdly wrong,
He did not live on tea and damper
But took a little stove along.

And every place he came to settle
He spread with gadgets saving toil,
He even had a whistling kettle
To warn him it was on the boil.

Beneath the waratahs and wattles,
Boronia and coolibah,
He scattered paper, cans and bottles,
And parked his nasty little car.

He camped, this sacrilegious stranger
(The moon was at the full that week),
Once in a spot that teemed with danger
Beside a bunyip-haunted creek.

He spread his junk but did not plunder,
Hoping to stay the weekend long;
He watched the bloodshot sun go under
Across the silent billabong.

He ate canned food without demurring,
He put the kettle on for tea.
He did not see the water stirring
Far out beside a sunken tree.

Then, for the day had made him swelter
And night was hot and tense to spring,
He donned a bathing-suit in shelter,
And left the firelight’s friendly ring.

He felt the water kiss and tingle.
He heard the silence—none too soon!
A ripple broke against the shingle,
And dark with blood it met the moon.

Abandoned in the hush, the kettle
Screamed as it guessed its master’s plight,
And loud it screamed, the lifeless metal,
Far into the malicious night.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Keep Looking on October 12, 2023, 08:20:35 AM
As he deserved, for littering in the bush! A very funny poem
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on October 12, 2023, 08:25:01 AM
I really like both of these poems. Yastreb, who wrote the one you referenced? By the way, anent poems and stories about weirds in billabongs, did I ever send you a copy of that short story I wrote years ago about the young man who discovers that his grandmother was a rivergirl? I was looking for it the other day to show to somebody from the library writers group who wanted to reread it, and discovered that I can’t find my copy. Dammit!

And still further on the subject of Australian water weirds, have you ever read Douglas Stewart’s poem ‘The Dosser in Springtime’? Or ‘The Man From Adaminaby’ by the same author? Well worth the time to read.

Grey, that ‘Philosophers Stone’ poem is truly lovely! Thank you both!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on October 12, 2023, 09:03:35 AM
The Bunyip And The Whistling Kettle was written by John Streeter Manifold. I found a tribute to him that was written in clerihew form.

John Manifold was an Australian poet worthy of praise
He helped keep alive the Australian songs of convict days
His original poem 'The Bunyip and the whistling Kettle' remains as an Aussie great
Poem of the twentieth century like all good rhyme poems one that does not have a use by date
He helped to keep the old ballads of Australia alive
And thanks to people like John Manifold such songs still survive
A Communist and a socialist at heart
From most others he was surely one apart
A renowned poet and preserver of old ballads in Australian literature he remains as one of note
He helped to keep alive Australia's literary forgotten names such as the convict bard the renowned Frank The Poet
Yet he is not seen as an Australian great
And his is not a name we wish to celebrate
But his contribution to Australian literature and culture was far from small
And for that his is a name well worthy of recall.
Francis Duggan
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: dmeck7755 on October 12, 2023, 09:09:33 AM
Here is one
by John Ciardi

A widgeon in a wicopy
In which no widgeon ought to be
A widowed widgeon was.

While in a willow wickiup
A Wichitaw sat down to sup
With other Wichitaws.

And what they whittled as they ate
Included what had been of late
A widgeon's wing. 'Twas thus

The widgeon in the wicopy
In which no widgeon ought to be
A widowed widgeon was.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on October 12, 2023, 12:13:35 PM
dmeck, that is an interesting verseform!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: dmeck7755 on October 12, 2023, 12:22:38 PM
dmeck, that is an interesting verseform!

I still can recite this poem from memory.  It was in a third or fourth grade reader.  I remember looking up all of those W's.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on November 01, 2023, 07:10:17 AM
I first read this poem at school, and it stuck with me. I've often thought of writing a story based on it.

Reported Missing

With broken wing they limped across the sky
caught in late sunlight, with their gunner dead,
one engine gone - the type was out-of-date, -
blood on the fuselage turning brown from red:

knew it was finished, looking at the sea
which shone back patterns in kaleidoscope
knew that their shadow would meet them by the way,
close and catch at them, drown their single hope:

sat in this tattered scarecrow of the sky
hearing it cough, the great plane catching
now the first dark clouds upon her wing-base, -
patching the great tear in evening mockery.

So two men waited, saw the third dead face,
and wondered when the wind would let them die.

John Bayliss
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on November 01, 2023, 09:10:22 AM
Yastreb, that is chilling and beautiful.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on November 04, 2023, 06:08:38 AM
This is a poem with a strange and haunting origin. I'll put the details in spoilers.

Was That Me?

Waves hypnotising me
With green beckoning fingers

A dream of spaceflight, weightlessness

Air rushes past to fill a vacuum

Progressive holes that must be filled

Lee Campbell


Spoiler: show
Lee Campbell was a young New Zealander who was among nine people killed when United Airlines Flight 811, a Boeing 747, suffered a structural failure and decompressed at 22,000 feet after departing from Honolulu, hurling them to their deaths. This poem was found by his parents.
The story of this disaster may be of interest both for the skill and courage of the flight crew who brought the damaged aircraft back to a safe landing, and for the dogged investigation by Lee's parents as they sought the true cause of the accident, and were finally vindicated. An excellent account can here found here.
https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/violent-night-the-near-crash-of-united-airlines-flight-811-ba72b3349ff0 (https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/violent-night-the-near-crash-of-united-airlines-flight-811-ba72b3349ff0)



 
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on November 04, 2023, 08:30:00 AM
That is horrific. The worst I have personally experienced was a window next to me blowing out as a plane took off. This would have been far worse!
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on November 27, 2023, 05:09:28 AM
Ben Hall was a bushranger, one of the most celebrated in Australia folklore, and the subject of many poems and ballads. This is perhaps the finest of them.

THE DEATH OF BEN HELL by Williams Henry Ogilvie

Ben Hall was out on the Lachlan side
With a thousand pounds on his head,
A score of troopers were scattered wide,
And a hundred more were ready to ride
Wherever a rumour led.

They had followed his track from the Weddin’ heights,
And north by the Weelong yards;
Through dazzling days and moonlit nights
They had sought him over their rifle sights,
With their hands on the trigger-guards.

The outlaw stole like a hunted fox,
Through the scrub and stunted heath
And peered like a hawk from his eyrie rocks
Through the waving boughs of the sapling box
On the troopers riding beneath.

His clothes were rent by the clutching thorn,
And his blistered feet were bare;
Ragged and torn, with his beard unshorn,
He hid in the woods like a beast forlorn,
With a padded path to his lair.

But every night when the white stars rose
He crossed by the Gunning Plain
To a stockman’s hut where the Gunning flows,
And struck on the door three swift light blows,
And a hand unhooked the chain.

And the outlaw followed the lone path back
With food for another day;
And the kindly darkness covered his track,
And the shadows swallowed him deep and black,
Where the starlight melted away.

But his friend had read of the Big Reward,
And his soul was stirred with greed,
He fastened his door and window-board,
He saddled his horse and crossed the ford,
And spurred to the town at speed.

You may ride at a man’s or a maid’s behest
When honour or true love call.
And steel your heart to the worst or best,
But the ride that is taken on a traitor’s quest,
Is the bitterest ride of all.

A hot wind blew from the Lachlan bank
And a curse on its shoulder came;
The pine trees frowned at him, rank on rank;
The sun on a gathering storm-cloud sank
And flushed his cheek with shame.

He reined at the Court, and the tale began
That the rifles alone should end;
Sergeant and trooper laid their plan
To draw the net on a hunted man
At the treacherous word of a friend.

False was the hand that raised the chain
And false was the whispered word:
“The troopers have turned to the south again,
You may dare to camp on the Gunning Plain,”
And the weary outlaw heard.

He walked from the hut but a quarter mile,
Where a clump of saplings stood,
In a sea of grass like a lonely isle;
And the moon came up in a little while
Like silver steeped in blood.

Ben Hall lay down on the dew-wet ground
By the side of his tiny fire;
And a night-breeze woke, and he heard no sound
As the troopers drew their cordon round —
And the traitor earned his hire.

And nothing they saw in the dim grey light,
But the little glow in the trees;
And they crouched in the tall cold grass all night,
Each one ready to shoot at sight,
With his rifle cocked on his knees.

When the shadows broke and the Dawn’s white sword
Swung over the mountain wall,
And a little wind blew over the ford
A Sergeant sprang to his feet and roared:
“In the name of the Queen, Ben Hall.”

Haggard, the outlaw leapt from his bed
With his lean arms held on high,
“Fire” and the word was scarcely said
When the mountains rang to a rain of lead
And the dawn went drifting by.

They kept their word and they paid his pay
Where a clean man’s hand would shrink;
And that was the traitor’s master-day,
As he stood by the bar on his homeward way,
And called on the crowd to drink.

He banned no creed and barred no class,
And he called to his friends by name
But the worst would shake his head and pass,
And none would drink from the blood-stained glass
And the goblet red with shame.

And I know when I hear the last grim call,
And my mortal hour is spent,
When the light is hid and the curtains fall
I would rather sleep with the dead Ben Hall
Than go where that traitor went.

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on November 27, 2023, 06:25:25 AM
I sing that one sometimes. It’s very fine. There are some excellent Ben Hall ballads. People found him a heroic figure, because he dealt bravely with a situation he couldn’t avoid. He was a farmer, not a bushranger, until a crooked cop who fancied Hall’s wife set him up.

The song about Hall that I like best is the one that starts: ‘Ben Hall was out on the Lachlan side/ With a thousand pound on his head./ A score of troopers were scattered wide/ With a hundred more all ready to ride/ Wherever a rumour led.’. It’s a fine dark song and it suits my voice.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Keep Looking on November 28, 2023, 03:42:20 AM
That's an excellent ballad. It's also interesting to hear some of its history.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: thegreyarea on March 09, 2024, 05:40:42 AM

I

We pass and dream. Earth smiles. Virtue is rare.
Age, duty, gods weigh on our conscious bliss.
Hope for the best and for the worst prepare.
The sum of purposed wisdom speaks in this.

Fernando Pessoa, Inscriptions
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on March 09, 2024, 06:42:15 AM
Exactly that, Grey! Wise words indeed.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on March 09, 2024, 07:58:04 AM
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: JoB on March 09, 2024, 08:05:40 AM
... I forget, did someone list The Chaos (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos) already?
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Róisín on March 09, 2024, 08:53:25 AM
JoB, what a delight! I love poems that play with pronunciation.
And Yastreb, that whole sequence around ‘Sailing to Byzantium’ is amazing.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on July 07, 2024, 04:24:42 AM
Given my interest in military history, it's not surprising that I'm drawn to Rudyard Kipling's poems. And this is one that gets quoted for all the wrong reasons; namely, the first line of the opening and closing verses, used to justify bigotry. But read in full, it tells a different story.

THE BALLAD OF EAST AND WEST

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, though they come from the ends of the earth!


Kamal is out with twenty men to raise the Border side,
And he has lifted the Colonel's mare that is the Colonel's pride.
He has lifted her out of the stable-door between the dawn and day
And turned the calkins upon her feet, and ridden her far away.

Then up and spoke the Colonel's son that led a troop of the Guides
"Is there never a man of all my men can say where Kamal hides?"
Then up and spoke Mohammed Khan, the son of the Ressaldar:
"If ye know the track of the morning-mist, ye know where his pickets are.
"At dusk he harries the Abazai, at dawn he is into Bonair,
"But he must go by Fort Bukloh to his own place to fare.
"So if ye gallop to Fort Bukloh as fast as a bird can fly,
"By the favour of God ye may cut him off ere he win to the Tongue of Jagai.
"But if he be past the Tongue of Jagai, right swiftly turn ye then,
"For the length and the breadth of that grisly plain is sown with Kamal's men.
"There is rock to the left, and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,
"And ye may hear a breech-bolt snick where never a man is seen."

The Colonel's son has taken horse, and a raw rough dun was he,
With the mouth of a bell and the heart of Hell and the head of a gallows-tree.
The Colonel's son to the Fort has won, they bid him stay to eat
Who rides at the tail of a Border thief, he sits not long at his meat.
He's up and away from Fort Bukloh as fast as he can fly,
Till he was aware of his father's mare in the gut of the Tongue of Jagai,
Till he was aware of his father's mare with Kamal upon her back,
And when he could spy the white of her eye, he made the Pistol crack.
He has fired once, he has fired twice, but the whistling ball went wide.
"Ye shoot like a soldier," Kamal said. "Show now if ye can ride!"
It's up and over the Tongue of Jagai, as blown dust-devils go
The dun he fled like a stag of ten, but the mare like a barren doe.
The dun he leaned against the bit and slugged his head above,
But the red mare played with the snaffle-bars, as a maiden plays with a glove.
There was rock to the left and rock to the right, and low lean thorn between,
And thrice he heard a breech-bolt snick tho' never a man was seen.

They have ridden the low moon out of the sky, their hoofs drum up the dawn,
The dun he went like a wounded bull, but the mare like a new-roused fawn.
The dun he fell at a water-course - in a woeful heap fell he,
And Kamal has turned the red mare back, and pulled the rider free.
He has knocked the pistol out of his hand; small room was there to strive,
'Twas only by favour of mine," quoth he, "ye rode so long alive:
"There was not a rock for twenty mile, there was not a clump of tree,
"But covered a man of my own men with his rifle cocked on his knee.
"If I had raised my bridle-hand, as I have held it low,
"The little jackals that flee so fast were feasting all in a row.
"If I had bowed my head on my breast, as I have held it high,
"The kite that whistles above us now were gorged till she could not fly."
Lightly answered the Colonel's son: "Do good to bird and beast,
"But count who come for the broken meats before thou makest a feast.
"If there should follow a thousand swords to carry my bones away.
"Belike the price of a jackal's meal were more than a thief could pay.
"They will feed their horse on the standing crop, their men on the garnered grain.
"The thatch of the byres will serve their fires when all the cattle are slain.
"But if thou thinkest the price be fair, thy brethren wait to sup,
"The hound is kin to the jackal-spawn, howl, dog, and call them up!
"And if thou thinkest the price be high, in steer and gear and stack,
"Give me my father's mare again, and I'll fight my own way back! "

Kamal has gripped him by the hand and set him upon his feet.
"No talk shall be of dogs," said he, "when wolf and grey wolf meet.
"May I eat dirt if thou hast hurt of me in deed or breath;
"What dam of lances brought thee forth to jest at the dawn with Death?"
Lightly answered the Colonel's son: "I hold by the blood of my clan:
Take up the mare for my father's gift. By God, she has carried a man!"
The red mare ran to the Colonel's son, and nuzzled against his breast;
"We be two strong men," said Kamal then, "but she loveth the younger best.
"So she shall go with a lifter's dower, my turquoise-studded rein,
"My 'broidered saddle and saddle-cloth, and silver stirrup twain."
The Colonel's son a pistol drew, and held it muzzle-end,
"Ye have taken the one from a foe," said he. "Will ye take the mate from a friend? "
"A gift for a gift," said Kamal straight; "a limb for the risk of a limb.
"Thy father has sent his son to me, I'll send my son to him!"
With that he whistled his only son, that dropped from a mountain-crest
He trod the ling like a buck in spring, and he looked like a lance in rest.
"Now here is thy master," Kamal said, "who leads a troop of the Guides,
"And thou must ride at his left side as shield on shoulder rides.
"Till Death or I cut loose the tie, at camp and board and bed,
"Thy life is his - thy fate it is to guard him with thy head.
"So, thou must eat the White Queen's meat, and all her foes are thine,
"And thou must harry thy father's hold for the peace of the Border-line.
"And thou must make a trooper tough and hack thy way to power
"Belike they will raise thee to Ressaldar when I am hanged in Peshawur! "

They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault.
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,
On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.

The Colonel's son he rides the mare and Kamal's boy the dun,
And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one.
And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear
There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer.
"Ha' done! ha' done! " said the Colonel's son. "Put up the steel at your sides!
"Last night ye had struck at a Border thief - to-night t'is a man of the Guides!"

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth!


In other words; when it comes to the finest qualities, to courage and honour, race and class and country do not matter.
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: thegreyarea on July 12, 2024, 05:56:56 PM
this of wanting
to be exactly what
we are
will still
take us further

(My translation from the Portuguese original, beliow)

isso de querer
ser exatamente aquilo
que a gente é
ainda vai
nos levar além

Incenso fosse música, from Paulo Leminski
Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on July 24, 2024, 05:44:27 AM
This is a poem that I first encountered on the 75th anniversary of the loss of HMAS Sydney, sunk with all hands.

Part II of 'The Song of the Dead' (Rudyard Kipling)

We have fed our sea for a thousand years
And she calls us, still unfed,
Though there's never a wave of all her waves
But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid in full!

There's never a flood goes shoreward now
But lifts a keel we manned;
There's never an ebb goes seaward now
But drops our dead on the sand --
But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,
From the Ducies to the Swin.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' paid it in!

We must feed our sea for a thousand years,
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,
Or the wreck that struck last tide --
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef
Where the ghastly blue-lights flare.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!

Title: Re: Share your favourite poems
Post by: Yastreb on March 03, 2025, 05:28:32 AM
This is a poem I found in a collection I read at school, and couldn't find in any book since then; a chilling account of revenge sought and thwarted... then redirected.
Finally I found it via Google, though it didn't identify the author.

MOONRISE

I peered between the ferny cowls; I clasped my hands above
The heart that ached to cry aloud thanksgiving for its love.
I saw him black against the red. How blood-red was the moon!
And more of summer was the air than like a night in June,
A frosty night. And clear the sound of hoof-beats on the track:
And he a target on the moon, the red beyond the black.

A curlew whistled from the plain; a mopoke flapped; and then—
The night was full of spitting oaths, and pistol shots, and men.
I thought the troopers watched the hills. Ah, God, how could I know
Among the laces of the fern they, too, were crouching low?
I saw a trooper's grim-set face across a fallen log.
My Man? Among the shattered gorse they trapped him like a dog!

The sergeant got his stripes for this. My man hanged yesterday.. . .
The sergeant with his new-won stripes to-night will pass this way.
The red moon will be full to-night, and very bright and big
Across her face the boughs will stand, clean-cut in every twig;

And I shall creep among the fern—I know the old trail well,
It is the road that lies between the walls of Heaven and Hell—
With rifle laid across my knees I'll watch the dewy track:
The sergeant 'twixt me and the moon, a silhouette in black. . .