Share your favourite poems

[thorny]

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.)

[Yastreb]

(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.

[Yastreb]

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

[Róisín]

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.

[Yastreb]

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

[Róisín]

One of Auden’s darker pieces. But darkly beautiful.

[Yastreb]

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.

[Yastreb]

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.

[Róisín]

Those are good,and remind me of‘The Little Lance-Corporal on the Headquarters Staff’. There are many soldier’s songs with that theme.

[danckert]

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.

[Róisín]

Wow, a De La Mare poem I never heard! Thank you!

[Maglor]

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.

[Yastreb]

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.
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.

[Keep Looking]

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

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

[Jitter]

Thank you Keep, that was beautiful!