Favorite Poem

[radhead]

"When You are Old"

(W.B. Yeats)

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

[Inkachu]

Wow, dat's purty, Rad.

 

[Starcradle]

"When You are Old"

(W.B. Yeats)

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I am fond of this poem. It is one among my collection.

Thank you for posting it and refreshing my memory.

 

[white dove]

Jabberwocky! by Lewis Carroll

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

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

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

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

Awww... someone once editted that poem just for me! He was special.


Heh, my favorite poem is one that I wrote.


Gosh, this thread reminds me of how long it's been since I last took out my poetry books. Eesh. I think I have some Sylvia Plath, Yeats and Poe.

 

[Wren]

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

This one is my favorite

 

[namelessjuan]

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

 

[radhead]

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

Lovecraft. One of my favorite writers.

 

[Inkachu]

I once quoted poetry to my b/f, thinking I was being all romantic and captivating.

He told me my breath stank.

 

[crishmael]

I once quoted poetry to my b/f, thinking I was being all romantic and captivating.

He told me my breath stank.

Woo, that's pretty brutal...















Kinda funny though...

 

[Inkachu]

Yeah, I appreciate honesty, but...ouch lol.

I'll think twice before quoting Shakespeare to a guy again

 

[radhead]

It's all in the presentation.

 

[Jerimi]

Yeah, I appreciate honesty, but...ouch lol.

I'll think twice before quoting Shakespeare to a guy again

Just remember to bring gum.

 

[Bitnd12]

The song I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days in stringing and unstringing my instrument.

The time has not come to pass, the words have not been rightly set;
There is only the agony of wishing in my heart.

I have not seen his face, nor have I listened to his voice;
Only have I heard his gentle footsteps, from the road before my house.

The lamp has not been lit, and I cannot ask him into my house;
I live in the hope of meeting him; but this meeting is not yet.

"Waiting" by Rabindranath Tagore


In one salutation to thee, my God,
Let all my senses spread out
And touch this world at thy feet.

Like a rain-cloud of July,
Hung low with its burden of unshed showers,
Let all my mind bend down at thy door in one salutation to thee.

Let all my songs gather together,
Their diverse strains into a single current,
And flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee.

Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day
Back to their mountain nests,
Let all my life take the voyage to its eternal home
In one salutation to thee.

"Salutation" by Rabindranath Tagore

EDIT: One more.

At midnight the would-be ascetic announced:
"This is the time to give up my home and seek for God.
Ah, who has held me so long in delusion here?"

God whispered, "I,"
But the ears of the man were stopped.
With a baby asleep at her breast lay his wife,
Peacefully sleeping on one side of the bed.

The man said, "Who are ye that have fooled me so long?"
The voice said again, "They are God," but he heard it not.
The baby cried out in its dream, nestling close to its mother.
God commanded, "Stop, fool, leave not thy home," but still he heard not.

God sighed and complained,
"Why does my servant wander to seek me,
Forsaking me?"

"At Midnight" again by Tagore

 

[Gwendolyn]

Mariana
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

'Mariana in the moated grange' (Measure for Measure)

WITH blackest moss the flower-plots
Were thickly crusted, one and all:
The rusted nails fell from the knots
That held the pear to the gable-wall.
The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:
Unlifted was the clinking latch;
Weeded and worn the ancient thatch
Upon the lonely moated grange.
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

Her tears fell with the dews at even;
Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;
She could not look on the sweet heaven,
Either at morn or eventide.
After the flitting of the bats,
When thickest dark did trance the sky,
She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glanced athwart the glooming flats.
She only said, 'The night is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl crow:
The [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] sung out an hour ere light:
From the dark fen the oxen's low
Came to her: without hope of change,
In sleep she seem'd to walk forlorn,
Till cold winds woke the gray-eyed morn
About the lonely moated grange.
She only said, 'The day is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

About a stone-cast from the wall
A sluice with blacken'd waters slept,
And o'er it many, round and small,
The cluster'd marish-mosses crept.
Hard by a poplar shook alway,
All silver-green with gnarled bark:
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

And ever when the moon was low,
And the shrill winds were up and away,
In the white curtain, to and fro,
She saw the gusty shadow sway.
But when the moon was very low,
And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell
Upon her bed, across her brow.
She only said, 'The night is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!'

All day within the dreamy house,
The doors upon their hinges creak'd;
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shriek'd,
Or from the crevice peer'd about.
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices call'd her from without.
She only said, 'My life is dreary,
He cometh not,' she said;
She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,'
I would that I were dead!'

The sparrow's chirrup on the roof,
The slow clock ticking, and the sound
Which to the wooing wind aloof
The poplar made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the hour
When the thick-moted sunbeam lay
Athwart the chambers, and the day
Was sloping toward his western bower.
Then, said she, 'I am very dreary,
He will not come,' she said;
She wept, 'I am aweary, aweary,
O God, that I were dead!'

 

[AFallingStar]

Two of my favorite poems are too long to post here (The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and Howl by Allen Ginsberg), so here is Entre irse y quedarse (Between Leaving and Staying) by Octavio Paz:

Entre irse y quedarse el día se inmoviliza,
bloque de congelada transparencia.

Todo es visible y todo es elusivo:
el horizonte es una cercanía intocable.

Papeles en la mesa, un libro, un vaso:
reposan a la sombra de sus nombres las cosas.

Asciende por mis venas la sangre más despacio
y repite en mi sien su sílaba obstinada.

La luz indiferente transfigura
muros opacos, tiempo sin historia.

Se ha ensanchado la tarde: ya es bahía
y en su quieto vaivén se mece el mundo.

No estamos ni dormidos ni despiertos:
estamos, nada más estamos.

Se desprende el instante de si mismo:
arrancamos, son tránsitos las pausas.

English:

A solid transparence, the day
is caught between leaving and staying,

all of it seen but elusive,
the horizon an untouchable nearness.

Papers on the table, a book, a glass--
things rest in the shadow of their names.

The blood in my veins rises more and more slowly
and repeats its obstinate syllable within my temples.

The light makes no choices, now changing a wall
that merely exists in time without history.

The afternoon spreads, is already a bay;
its quiet motions are rocking the world.

We are neither asleep nor awake:
we merely are, merely stay.

The moment is falling from itself, pausing,
becoming the passage through which we continue.

 

[Steph2012]

Good topic this.

Here`s mine :

This life that I have
is all that I have
and the life that I have
is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

Leo Marks.

 

[white dove]

Two of my favorite poems are too long to post here (The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot and Howl by Allen Ginsberg), so here is Entre irse y quedarse (Between Leaving and Staying) by Octavio Paz:

Entre irse y quedarse el día se inmoviliza,
bloque de congelada transparencia.

Todo es visible y todo es elusivo:
el horizonte es una cercanía intocable.

Papeles en la mesa, un libro, un vaso:
reposan a la sombra de sus nombres las cosas.

Asciende por mis venas la sangre más despacio
y repite en mi sien su sílaba obstinada.

La luz indiferente transfigura
muros opacos, tiempo sin historia.

Se ha ensanchado la tarde: ya es bahía
y en su quieto vaivén se mece el mundo.

No estamos ni dormidos ni despiertos:
estamos, nada más estamos.

Se desprende el instante de si mismo:
arrancamos, son tránsitos las pausas.

Reciting this would be purely breathtaking...

I love reciting poetry (especially in Spanish), even if it is only to myself. There is something to be said for written art being spoken aloud.

Had you posted this one before at another time? It seems familiar to me...

 

[JennyKatz]

Several of my favorites have already been mentioned (The Lady of Shalott, The Road Less Traveled, The Raven, Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Jabberwocky).
One of my favorites is actually very short. It's called The First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But ah my foes! And oh my friends!
It gives a lovely light!

Sonnet 130 is always entertaining:
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

And some more Poe, this is Annabelle Lee:
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

 

[white dove]

Ahhh... Annabel Lee.....

 

[Niels]

IF

By Rudyard Kipling


If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!