I'm sure this horse is dead by now, but I've recently started to read more and more poems, and I was just wondering what your favorite poems are... All types and shapes are welcome, as long as you provide a link to the poem so the rest of us can read it (I've read the forum rules, and as far as I understood this is not breaking any rules, right?) I'll go first; Lenore - Edgar Allan poe http://www.eapoe.org/works/poems/Lenorea.htm The rhytm and rhyme are... amazing. The whole poem feels liquid, like you arebreathing rather then citing it. The language is amazing, I'm a real sucker for this kind of poems (although my attempts of writing someone like this have been gruesome indeed...) ___________________________________________________________________________________ IMPORTANT NOTE!!! I must insist that IF you post a poem, you MUST name the author of that poem. Copyright is important, especially on a writers forum.
W.B. Yeats: read his poems for free here: http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/. (and other places, of course) Who will go drive with Fergus now, And pierce the deep wood's woven shade, And dance upon the level shore? Young man, lift up your russet brow, And lift your tender eyelids, maid, And brood on hopes and fear no more. And no more turn aside and brood Upon love's bitter mystery; For Fergus rules the brazen cars, And rules the shadows of the wood, And the white breast of the dim sea And all dishevelled wandering stars.... yours in Chaos, Scarlett
Spring and Fall, To a Young Child Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie; And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sorrow's springs are the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for. Gerard Manley Hopkins
Domination Of Black At night, by the fire, The colors of the bushes And of the fallen leaves, Repeating themselves, Turned in the room, Like the leaves themselves Turning in the wind. Yes: but the color of the heavy hemlocks Came striding. And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. The colors of their tails Were like the leaves themselves Turning in the wind, In the twilight wind. They swept over the room, Just as they flew from the boughs of the hemlocks Down to the ground. I heard them cry -- the peacocks. Was it a cry against the twilight Or against the leaves themselves Turning in the wind, Turning as the flames Turned in the fire, Turning as the tails of the peacocks Turned in the loud fire, Loud as the hemlocks Full of the cry of the peacocks? Or was it a cry against the hemlocks? Out of the window, I saw how the planets gathered Like the leaves themselves Turning in the wind. I saw how the night came, Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks I felt afraid. And I remembered the cry of the peacocks. (Wallace Stevens)
Fair warning: Every poem posted here MUST be properly attributed. If I see posts appearing in this thread that are NOT correctly attributed, the thread will be closed. We take copyright very seriously.
By Dr. Suess: My hat is old, my teeth are gold. I have a bird I like to hold. My shoe is off, my foot is cold. My shoe is off, my foot is cold. I have a bird I like to hold. My hat is old, my teeth are gold. And now my story is all told.
My favourite is Robert Browning's Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came. http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Browning_R/Childe.htm "My first thought was, he lied with every word, that hoary cripple, with malicious eye" - gives me chills! That and A.A.Milne's Binker !
Not particularly literary (my favourite literary poem's been taken - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), but I like Spike Milligan's work just for it's silliness and the way it makes me feel like I'm about six again. Nothing better than Baldrick in Blackadder Goes Forth though: Hear the words I sing, War's a horrid thing, So I sing, sing, sing, Ding-a-ling-a-ling.
My favorite is Joyce Kilmer's Trees TREES by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) THINK that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.
Anthem for doomed youth by Wilfred Owen What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds. --- This is one of my favourites.
I just loved "Mask of Anarchy" P.B. Shelley http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic%20Poems/Shelley/the_mask_of_anarchy.htm
Garmar, I totally agree. I don't think it is meant to be understood though... I love nearly anything by Edgar A. Guest, but here's another of my favorites: God Save the Flag, by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming, Snatched from the alters of insolent foes; Burning with starfires, yet never consuming, Flash its broad ribbons of lily and rose. Vainly the prophets of Baal would rend it; Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall. Thousands have died for it, millions defend it; Emblem of justice and mercy to all. Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors, Mercy that comes with her white-handed train, Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors, Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain. Borne on the deluge of old usurpations Drifted our ark o'er the desolate seas, Bearing the rainbow of hope to the nations; Torn from the stormcloud and flung to the breeze. God bless our flag and its loyal defenders While its broad folds o'er the battlefield wave; 'Til the dim starwreath rekindle its spleandors, Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave.
As a Lovecraftian, I found this to be my favourite: THE CITY OF THE END OF THINGS Beside the pounding cataracts Of midnight streams unknown to us ‘Tis builded in the leafless tracts And valleys huge of Tartarus. Lurid and lofty and vast it seems; It hath no rounded name that rings, But I have heard it called in dreams The City of the End of Things. Its roofs and iron towers have grown None knoweth how high within the night, But in its murky streets far down A flaming terrible and bright Shakes all the stalking shadows there, Across the walls, across the floors, And shifts upon the upper air From out a thousand furnace doors; And all the while an awful sound Keeps roaring on continually, And crashes in the ceaseless round Of a gigantic harmony. Through its grim depths re-echoing And all its weary height of walls, With measured roar and iron ring, The inhuman music lifts and falls. Where no thing rests and no man is, And only fire and night hold sway; The beat, the thunder and the hiss Cease not, and change not, night nor day. And moving at unheard commands, The abysses and vast fires between, Flit figures that with clanking hands Obey a hideous routine; They are not flesh, they are not bone, They see not with the human eye, And from their iron lips is blown A dreadful and monotonous cry; And whoso of our mortal race Should find that city unaware, Lean Death would smite him face to face, And blanch him with its venomed air; Or caught by the terrific spell, Each thread or memory snapt and cut, His soul would shrivel and its shell Go rattling like an empty nut. It was not always so, but once, In days that no man thinks upon, Fair voices echoed from its stones, The light above it leaped and shone: Once there were multitudes of men, That built that city in their pride, Until its might was made, and then They withered age by age and died. But now of that prodigious race, Three only in an iron tower, Set like carved idols face to face, Remain the masters of its power; And at the city gate a fourth, Gigantic and with dreadful eyes, Sits looking toward the lightless north, Beyond the reach of memories; Fast rooted to the lurid floor, A bulk that never moves a jot, In his pale body dwells no more, Or mind or soul, -- an idiot! But sometime in the end those three Shall perish and their hands be still, And with the master’s touch shall flee Their incommunicable skill. A stillness absolute as death Along the slacking wheels shall lie, And, flagging at a single breath, The fires that moulder out and die. The roar shall vanish at its height, And over that tremendous town The silence of eternal night Shall gather close and settle down. All its grim grandeur, tower and hall, Shall be abandoned utterly, And into rust and dust shall fall From century to century; Nor ever living thing shall grow, Nor truck of tree, nor blade of grass; No drop shall fall, no wind shall blow, Nor sound of any foot shall pass: Alone of its accursed state, On thing the hand of Time shall spare, For the grim Idiot at the gate Is deathless and eternal there. Archibald Lampman, 1895
I love how Gaiman makes fun of all of the movie cliches - The Day the Saucers Came - by Neil Gaiman That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden, Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes, And the people of Earth stood and stared as they descended, Waiting, dry-mouthed, to find what waited inside for us And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow But you didn’t notice it because That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence, Was the day that the graves gave up their dead And the zombies pushed up through soft earth or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable, Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran, But you did not notice this because On the saucer day, which was the zombie day, it was Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us A ship built of dead-men’s nails, a serpent, a wolf, All bigger than the mind could hold, and the cameraman could Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out But you did not see them coming because On the saucer-zombie-battling-gods day the floodgates broke And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities And charm and cleverness and true brave hearts and pots of gold While giants feefofummed across the land, and killer bees, But you had no idea of any of this because That day, the saucer day the zombie day The Ragnarok and fairies day, the day the great winds came And snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the Computers turned, the screens telling us we would obey, the day Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars, And all the bells of London were sounded, the day Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day, The fluttering capes and arrival of the Time Machine day, You didn’t notice any of this because you were sitting in your room, not doing anything not ever reading, not really, just looking at your telephone, wondering if I was going to call.
And here's a serious Neil Gaiman poem. ------------------------------ Dark Sonnet - Neil Gaiman I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such although I liked a few folk pretty well Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch for brave men died and empires rose and fell for love, girls follow boys to foreign lands and men have followed women into hell In plays and poems someone understands there’s something makes us more than blood and bone And more than biological demands for me love’s like the wind unseen, unknown I see the trees are bending where it’s been I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown I really don’t know what I love you means I think it means don’t leave me here alone .
I have so many favorites, it's hard to choose one. But today I'll choose The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. It's much too long to post. But check it out.
I know it's kind of pedestrian and high-schoolie, but mine would be Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
My favorite would have to be Invictus by William Ernest Henley. I studied it in high school and I will admit it's one of the few pieces that even though we analyzed it to death, I still love. 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. William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903
Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe 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 sepulchre 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 it 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 sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.
To A Historian By: Walt Whitman You who celebrate bygones, Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races, the life ---that has exhibited itself, Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, ---rulers and priests, I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself ---in his own rights, Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the ---great pride of man in himself,) Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be, I project the history of the future.
Just one that springs to mind: The Tiger - William Blake Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize the fire? And what shoulder, and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tiger! Tiger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Good-by and Keep Cold by Robert Frost This saying good-by on the edge of the dark And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark Reminds me of all that can happen to harm An orchard away at the end of the farm All winter, cut off by a hill from the house. I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse, I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse. (If certain it wouldn't be idle to call I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall And warn them away with a stick for a gun.) I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun. (We made it secure against being, I hope, By setting it out on a northerly slope.) No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm; But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm. 'How often already you've had to be told, Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold. Dread fifty above more than fifty below.' I have to be gone for a season or so. My business awhile is with different trees, less carefully nurtured, less fruitful than these, And such as is done to their wood with an ax-- Maples and birches and tamaracks. I wish I could promise to lie in the night And think of an orchard's arboreal plight When slowly (and nobody comes with a light) Its heart sinks lower under the sod. But something has to be left to God.
Sylvia Plath - Ariel I loved Sylvia Plath as a teenager. A favorite of mine was Ariel: Stasis in darkness. Then the substanceless blue Pour of tor and distances. God's lioness, How one we grow, Pivot of heels and knees!--The furrow Splits and passes, sister to The brown arc Of the neck I cannot catch, Nigger-eye Berries cast dark Hooks---- Black sweet blood mouthfuls, Shadows. Something else Hauls me through air---- Thighs, hair; Flakes from my heels. White Godiva, I unpeel---- Dead hands, dead stringencies. And now I Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas. The child's cry Melts in the wall. And I Am the arrow, The dew that flies, Suicidal, at one with the drive Into the red Eye, the cauldron of morning.
I do love me a good e.e. cummings. i carry your heart with me by e.e. cummings: i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
