What's Your Favorite Poem

[Parche]

When the last war call has sounded
and the fleet will sail no more
when a lasting peace is founded
and no enemy threatens our shore
when at last they write the story
and the reason for victory is seen
you will rise in honored glory
YOU MIGHTY SUBMARINE

:patriot: :patriot: :hi:

[Fox Mulder]

1. "The Raven" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee"

[Rambis]

10. Richard Brautigan: Donner Party

Forsaken, fucking in the cold,
eating each other, lost
runny noses,
complaining all the time
like so many
people
that we know



sorry response it wrong place:)

[Aristus]

2. Mine is a love poem, not a military tribute. e e cummings best:

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

-- e. e. cummings

For my first anniversary, I had this written out in calligraphy and framed. It hangs on the wall of our bedroom.

[Zephyrbird]

43. I love e.e. cummings!

Thanks for posting that. I think only two or three poets have ever touched me, and e.e. is one of them!

Z

[RadiationTherapy]

3. Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

I just finished a poster project for it. Wanna see it? Here we go.

[Inchworm]

4. Depends on who is reading it to me

:)

:hi:

[zingaro]

5. Mine is an e.e. cummings as well

i carry your heart with me


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)

[BarenakedLady]

12. I love that one.

:loveya:

[Parche]

18. what about mine?

:blush: :blush:

:hug:

:hi:

[Burma Jones]

6. In a good mood, Prufrock by TS Eliot, in a sour mood, Second Coming by Yeats

although this is arbitrary........

[KansDem]

23. I was always partial to Eliot's "The Waste Land"

Particularly:

IV. Death by Water

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth,
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.

I used this poem on the first page of my thesis...

[nomorenomore08]

7. William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" would have to be up there.

The key lines (as far as I'm concerned):

"Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night."

So good that Jim Morrison plagiarized it.

Certain poems by Sylvia Plath and Allen Ginsberg also greatly appeal to me, but more for the imagery than the ideas.

[trof]

8. I like Ogden Nash. This one's appropriate for some at DU.

I'm not into 'serious' poetry.

The Purist
by Ogden Nash

I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

[Oeditpus Rex]

9. 'A Carpenter's Daughter'

by Oktoberain.



This memory song is late in coming.
The joiner was broken before his work
was complete; the hammer is silent now.
The saw and the rule are dusty with age,
his workbench torn out two summers past,
but I still know the scent of pinesap and resin
and roofing tar. I am a carpenter's daughter.

My father created cavalries of wood,
sawhorses to hold steady the workday load;
rigid chargers of lumber, emblazoned
by chalk dust, fierce like war-painted steeds.
His children rode recklessly; savages
on mounts of raw pine, a hammersong
of steel like hooves striking flint, singing out.

Across the even span of my youth,
I was enthralled with my father's level.
The forging of alignment, the essence of truth;
a tool that quartered no compromise.
A carpenter trims the world, makes it flush
and planed and square, but now
the bubble is no longer between the lines.

He told me not to weep for the trees
who cleaved for the axe; with honor, with grace.
Their sacrifice sheltered weaker things.
Our homes are gravestones of oak, pine and beech;
Our lives stand as epitaphs and legacies.
The forest bore the weight of his loss,
in the end. I wonder if the trees wept for him.

A grand artisan without a legend, his softwood
hands skillfully held and shaped my childhood.
He never walked with disciples, but I swear
he turned loaf and fish into a feast
every day. No more than a man,
no less than a father, he lived and died
with callous-streaked fingers full of wood.

[Lyric]

46. ...

:loveya: :hug:

[mitchum]

11. Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”

[CTyankee]

13. Everything by Emily Dickinson but this in particular

There's a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.

None may teach it anything,
'Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.

When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, 't is like the distance
On the look of death.

[GCP]

14. The Second Coming (Slouching Towards Bethlehem) by Yeats

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 Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

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
Reel 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?

[OmahaBlueDog]

15. My Favorite American Poem

"Go to jail"
"Go directly to jail"
"Do not pass Go"
"Do not collect two-hundred dollars"

[YankeyMCC]

16. Success

To laught often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to ear the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a better place,
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even on life has breathed easier
because youhave lived.
This is to have succeeded.
Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson but may be by Bessie Stanley, 1904

[hyphenate]

17. I have several

actually. Some of them particularly on an emotional level, but I will share some of them:

How Do I Love Thee?
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


Ulysses - Alfred Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.



Old Ironsides
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
(Being a Bostonian, I can't help but enjoy this poem)

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!
Long has it waved on high,
And many an eye has danced to see
That banner in the sky;
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar; --
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood,
Where knelt the vanquished foe,
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood,
And waves were white below,
No more shall feel the victor's tread,
Or know the conquered knee; --
The harpies of the shore shall pluck
The eagle of the sea!

Oh, better that her shattered hulk
Should sink beneath the wave;
Her thunders shook the mighty deep,
And there should be her grave;
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the god of storms,
The lightning and the gale!



Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
(another instance of my New England background)

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.

[hyphenate]

19. I forgot one:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Dylan Thomas


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And one that really isn't a poem, but one of my favorite pieces:
John Donne


No man is an island, entire of itself
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main
if a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls
it tolls for thee.

[mwdem]

36. The Arab's Farewell To His Steed

by Caroline Norton


My beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by.
With thy proudly-arched and glossy neck, and dark and fiery eye!
Fret not to roam the desert now with all they winged speed:
I may not mount on thee again - thou'rt sold, my Arab steed!

Fret not with that impatient hoof, snuff not the breezy wind,
The farther that thou fliest now, so far am I behind,
The stranger hath thy bridle rein - thy master hath his gold;
Fleet-limbed and beautiful, farewell! - thou'rt sold, my seed, thou'rt sold.

Farewell! Those free, untired limbs full many a mile must roam,
To reach the chill and wintry sky which clouds the stranger's home.
Some other hand, less fond, must now thy corn and bed prepare;
The silky mane I braided once must be another's care.

The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee
Shall I gallop o'er the desert paths, where we were wont to be;
Evening shall darken on the earth and o'er the sandy plain
Some other steed, with slower step, shall bear me home again.

Yes, thou must go!
The wild, free breeze, the brilliant sun and sky,
Thy master's home - from all of these my exiled one must fly.
Thy proud dark eye will grow less proud, thy step become less fleet,
And vainly shalt thou arch they neck thy master's hand to meet.
Only in sleep shall I behold that dark eye glancing bright;
Only in sleep shall I hear again that step so firm and light;
And when I raise my dreaming arm to check or cheer thy speed,
Then must I starting, wake to feel - thou'rt sold, my Arab steed.

Ah, rudely then, unseen by me, some cruel hand may chide,
Till foam-wreaths lie, like crested waves, along thy panting side;
And the rich blood that's in thee swell in they indignant pain,
Till careless eyes, which rest on thee, may count each starting vein.

Will they ill-use thee? If I thought - but no, it cannot be.
Thou art so swift, yet easy curbed; so gentil, yet so free;
And yet, if haply, when thou'rt gone, this lonely heart should yearn,
Can the hand that casts thee from it now command thee to return?

Return! - Alas my Arab steed! what shall thy master do,
When thou, who wert his all of joy, has vanished from his view?
When the dim distance cheats mine eye, and through the gathering tears
Thy bright form, for a moment, like the false mirage appears?

Slow and unmounted shall I roam, with weary step alone,
Where with fleet step and joyous bound thou oft hast borne me on;
And sitting down by that green well, I'll pause and sadly think,
" 'Twas here he bowed his glossy neck when last I saw him drink!' "

When last I saw thee drink! - away! The fevered dream is o'er!
I could not live a day and know that we should meet no more!
They tempted me, my beautiful! for hunger's power is strong-
They tempted me, my beautiful! but I have loved too long.

Who said that I had given thee up? Who said that thou wert sold?
'Tis false! - 'tis false! my Arab steed! I fling them back their gold!
Thus, thus, I leap upon thy back, and scour the distant plains!
Away! who overtakes us now may claim thee for his pains!

Yeah, I've always been a horse lover....

[BarenakedLady]

20. Another cummings one

may i feel said he

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she


(may i touch said he
how much said she
a lot said he)
why not said she


(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)


may i stay said he
(which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she


may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she


but it's life said he
but your wife said she
now said he)
ow said she


(tiptop said he
don't stop said she
oh no said he)
go slow said she


(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)

[Parche]

31. Who is Cumming s ?

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

:hug:

:hi:

[BarenakedLady]

32. both of them

I reckon.

:P

[Parche]

45. On the sperm of the moment?

:hi:

:hug:

[Inchworm]

33. See? You could read that to me and it would be my favorite

:evilgrin:

:rofl:

[lost-in-nj]

21. Funeral blues

by
Auden

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.



and Evangeline by Longfellow
is actually my favorite.....


http://www.cajunculture.com/Other/Evangeline.htm


lost

[JoePhilly]

22. There once was a man from Nantucket ...

Whose post was so obscene he said F**K it!

.... first to go down the dirty limerick path.

:hide:

[Ramsey]

24. "The Hollow Men" TS Eliot

Also, "She Had Some Horses", by Joy Harjo and anything from "Alcools" by Guillaume Apollinaire

Edited to add poem:

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot
Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[stuntcat]

25. one my grandma wrote

Her's are my favorites of any, they sounded so beautiful when she said them.. while waving her fingers in the air :loveya:
I have scans of some of them posted around the house.

(maybe I can blame/thank her for me being an extremist about the environment.)

[stuntcat]

26. (!!!!!!)

(I tried to shrink it! sorry :))

[grannylib]

27. Just about anything from "When We Were Very Young" by A.A. Milne

Daffodowndilly

She wore her yellow sunbonnet
She wore her greenest gown
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead."

[Blue-Jay]

28. "Growing Old" by Mr Folger.

Hello old man in the mirror,
yes you, staring back from the walls.
Time has not been kind to you,
for example, take a look at your balls.
They hang like a loose, fleshy pendulum,
no longer tight, like so long ago.
These days they poke from my pant leg,
how did my balls ever get so low.
They used to be virile and hairy,
a scrotum of world renowned.
Now they're like two shriveled raisins,
made hairless from scraping the ground.
When I go to the gym to do cardio,
which I do every once in a while,
I must wear a jockstrap in the shower,
or my nuts will drag on the tile.
I once took a trip to Italy,
with my ball sack all bound up with tape,
till my invention came undone in a vineyard
and Lucille Ball stomped on my balls like a grape.
So the next time that you're looking downward,
and you see a sight that appalls,
don't step on it, don't touch it, don't pick it up,
it's probably just my balls.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

29. If I may do this without seeming TOO egotistical, one I wrote myself

quite a few years back.


A SPECIAL DREAM

I had a special dream last night--
I dreamed that I could fly
away, beyond the floating clouds--
I danced up in the sky.

The treetops were my stepping stones
to reach the summer air
so clear, so warm and sparkling blue!
I wish I was still there.

My dream was very real to me--
I thought of it all day.
I want to go back to my sky--
I wish there were a way!

To fly; to fly just like a bird!
To laugh at gravity!
It tasted sweet up in the sky--
like summer wine to me.

I had a special dream last night--
I dreamed that I could be
above the mountains; with the stars!
I flew, and I was free!

© 2008 Steven A. Hessler
All Rights Reserved

[hellbound-liberal]

30. Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It's about standing strong and being heroic in the face of adversity. It has a hell of an ending!

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees; all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy,
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[GOPisEvil]

34. The Pitcher, by Robert Francis

His art is eccentricity, his aim

How not to hit the mark he seems to aim at,



His passion how to avoid the obvious,

His technique how to vary the avoidance.



The others throw to be comprehended. He

Throws to be a moment misunderstood.



Yet not too much. Not errant, arrant, wild,

But every seeming aberration willed.



Not to, yet still, still to communicate

Making the batter understand too late.

[otherlander]

35. I can't pick just one...

A few...

In the Baggage Room at Greyhound

Jazzonia

and The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
MoseyWalker posted that one on DU and I read it, like, 20 times, until it got stuck in my brain like a song.

[DarkTirade]

37. Hmm...

When I was younger my favorates were tied between Jabberwocky by Lewis Caroll and The Tiger by William Blake.

Tiger Tiger, burning bright
in the forest of the night
what immortal hand or eye
could frame thy fearful symmetry?


'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe
all mimsy were the borogoves
and the mome raths outgrabe

[Rhythm]

38. Always a sucker for Lord Byron

She Walks in Beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

[Inchworm]

39. Guilt and Sorrow - William Wordsworth

http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww118.html

Well that is one. I have no favorite really. I like long epics though. Dante's Inferno is another I love.

:hi:

PS: I know I answered already but I was eating then. Now my mind is opened. :P

[vixengrl]

40. Musee des Beaux Arts

Musee des Beaux Arts W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
1940

[Orrex]

41. Here's one by an unknown author

Between those fabled rivers once there stood
The garden wherein woman brought to man
Acquaintance both with evil and with good
And innocence thereafter fell to sand.
Today are met commanders and their chief,
Reporting on the rising, bloody tide.
Each death is tallied daily in his brief,
As yesterday, when three Brazilians died.
The President, a man profound of thought
Received this news in dignified repose,
Reflecting on the carnage he has wrought,
The many yet to die before its close.
At last he spoke in words by sorrow touched:
"Remind me--a brazillion is how much?"


:evilgrin:

[Zephyrbird]

42. Invictus

by William Ernest Henley; 1849-1903



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.


Not very romantic, am I? Sorreeeeee, my bad!

Zephyr

[bridgit]

44. Favorite? Well...aren't there just so many; here, for now: Elizabeth Barrett Browning...

X

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worth of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee--in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature's.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

47. My dear Parche...

I love this one of mine:

What is love?

Is it a thing?

An object of desire?

Is it the sea between our shores?

Or is it a bond?

A rope that tightly binds?

I don’t know...

I have no understanding of it...

All I know

Is that I love

And you are the man

Who lives in my heart.

Who occupies my mind

Who has conquered my soul

And when you touch me

With your glance

And your words

All the world falls away

My mouth speaks

But if I were in your arms

There would be no words from me...

Yet I would still be speaking......