Favourite Poem?

[electricladyland]

excerpt form tennyson

LOVE

[FONT=Times New Roman,Times][SIZE=-0]To know thee is all wisdom, and old age
Is but to know thee: dimly we behold thee
Athwart the veils of evils which infold thee.
We beat upon our aching hearts in rage;
We cry for thee; we deem the world thy tomb.
As dwellers in lone planets look upon
The mighty disk of their majestic sun,
Hollowed in awful chasms of wheeling gloom,
Making their day dim, so we gaze on thee.
Come, thou of many crowns, white-robéd Love,
Oh! rend the veil in twain: all men adore thee;
Heaven crieth after thee; earth waiteth for thee;
Breathe on thy wingéd throne, and it shall move
In music and in light o’er land and sea.

[/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[ShuggaStiletto]

I keep my paintbrush with me,
Wherever I may go,
In case I need to cover up,
So the real me doesn't show.

I'm so afraid to show me to you,
Afraid of what you'll do,
That you might laugh or say mean things,
I'm afraid I might lose you.
I'd like to remove all of my paint coats,
To show you the real, true me,
But I want you to try and understand,
I need you to accept what you see.

Now my coats are all stripped off,
I feel naked, bare and cold,
And if you still love me with all that you see,
You're my friend pure as gold.

I need to keep my paintbrush with me,
And hold it in my hand.
I want to keep it handy,
In case somebody doesn't understand.
So please protect me, my dear friend
And thanks for loving me true.
But I need to keep my paintbrush with me,
Until I love me too.

 

[La bordélique]

Not my favourite, but a very lovely poem.

Suicide in the Trenches (Siegfried Sassoon [SIZE=-1]1886–1967[/SIZE])

I [SIZE=-1]KNEW[/SIZE] a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go

 

[maximus]

Lines Written In Early Spring by Wordsworth

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did Nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played,
Their thoughts I cannot measure: --
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature's holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?

 

[PrinceOfCats]

excerpt form tennyson

A quite famous excerpt from Tennyson:

Only reapers, reaping early
In amond the bearded barley;
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly
Down to tower'd Camelot
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, ''Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott.'

And I wrote that out from memory, you can tell I've sat a few too many exams on Tennyson...

 

[electricladyland]

Lady of Shalott

source: wikipedia

 

[jennifer~]

A quite famous excerpt from Tennyson:

Only reapers, reaping early
In amond the bearded barley;
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly
Down to tower'd Camelot
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers, ''Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott.'

And I wrote that out from memory, you can tell I've sat a few too many exams on Tennyson...

God knows why, but I have memorized:

'You, Dr. Martin
Walk from breakfast to madness
Late August, we speed through the antiseptic tunnel, where the moving dead still talk of pushing their bones against the thrust of cure
And I am queen of this summer hotel, or a laughing bee on the stalk
Of death'

And then I forget everything, up 'til:

'Prince of all the foxes'

 

[PrinceOfCats]

Anne Sexton, no? I heard she was in a jazz band. Reciting poetry to jazz, very Jean Cocteau, I approve...

Lady of Shalott

That's Waterhouse's Shalott isn't it? I wrote about Holman Hunt's last Monday too... (Along with lots of sex and Annie Lennox). I think one of the many Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Shalotts may be in fair Newcastle, where I make my abode.

 

[laurlaur]

My favorite from when I was a kid

Wild Strawberries - Shel Silverstein

Are Wild Strawberries really wild?
Will they scratch an adult, will they snap at a child?
Should you pet them, or let them run free where they roam?
Could they ever relax in a steam-heated home?
Can they be trained to not growl at the guests?
Will a litterbox work or would they leave a mess?
Can we make them a Cowberry, herding the cows,
Or maybe a Muleberry pulling the plows,
Or maybe a Huntberry chasing the grouse,
Or maybe a Watchberry guarding the house,
And though they may curl up at your feet oh so sweetly,
Can you ever feel that you trust them completely?
Or should we make a pet out of something less scary,
Like the Domestic Prune or the Imported Cherry,
Anyhow, you've been warned and I will not be blamed
If your Wild Strawberry cannot be tamed.

 

[Multitudes]

Leaning Into The Afternoons Pablo Neruda

"Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man's.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that smell like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that is thrashed by your oceanic eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land"

 

[pazzaperleborse]

weighing the dog

It is awkward for me and bewildering for him
as I hold him in my arms in the small bathroom,
balancing our weight on the shaky blue scale,

but this is the way to weigh a dog and easier
than training him to sit obediently on one spot
with his tongue out, waiting for a cookie.

With pencil and paper I subtract my weight
from our total to find out the remainder that is his,
and I start to wonder if there is an analogy here.

It could not have to do with my leaving you
though I never figured out what you amounted to
until I subtracted myself from our combination.

You held me in your arms more than I held you
through all those awkward and bewildering months
and now we are both lost in strange and distant neighborhoods.

(billy collins)

 

[jennifer~]

My worthiness is all my doubt,
His merit all my fear,
Contrasting which, my qualities
Do lowlier appear;

Lest I should insufficient prove
For his beloved need,
The chiefest apprehension
Within my loving creed.

So I, the undivine abode
Of his elect content,
Conform my soul as 't were a church
Unto her sacrament.

Emily Dickinson

 

[cutxpaste]

My uncle wrote this in caligraphy when I was born:

The Song Of Wandering Angus
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 turned to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one 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.

 

[PrinceOfCats]

One morn before me were three figures seen,
With bowed necks, and joined hands, side-faced;
And one behind the other stepp'd serene,
In placid sandals, and in white robes graced:
They pass'd, like figures on a marble urn,
When shifted round to see the other side;
They came again; as when the urn once more
Is shifted round, the first seen shades return;
And they were strange to me, as may betide
With vases, to one deep in Phidian lore.


How is it, shadows, that I knew ye not?
How came ye muffled in so hush a masque?
Was it a silent deep-disguised plot
To steal away, and leave without a task
My idle days? Ripe was the drowsy hour;
The blissful cloud of summer-indolence
Benumb'd my eyes; my pulse grew less and less;
Pain had no sting, and pleasure's wreath no flower.
O, why did ye not melt, and leave my sense
Unhaunted quite of all but - nothingness?


A third time pass'd they by, and, passing, turn'd
Each one the face a moment whiles to me;
Then faded, and to follow them I burn'd
And ached for wings, because I knew the three:
The first was a fair maid, and Love her name;
The second was Ambition, pale of cheek,
And ever watchful with fatigued eye;
The last, whom I love more, the more of blame
Is heap'd upon her, maiden most unmeek, -
I knew to be my demon Poesy.


They faded, and, forsooth! I wanted wings:
O folly! What is Love? and where is it?
And for that poor Ambition - it springs
From a man's little heart's short fever-fit;
For Poesy! - no, - she has not a joy, -
At least for me, - so sweet as drowsy noons,
And evenings steep'd in honied indolence;
O, for an age so shelter'd from annoy,
That I may never know how change the moons,
Or hear the voice of busy common-sense!


A third time came they by: - alas! wherefore?
My sleep had been embroider'd with dim dreams;
My soul had been a lawn besprinkled o'er
With flowers, and stirring shades, and baffled beams:
The morn was clouded, but no shower fell,
Though in her lids hung the sweet tears of May;
The open casement press'd a new-leaved vine,
Let in the budding warmth and throstle's lay;
O shadows! 'twas a time to bid farewell!
Upon your skirts had fallen no tears of mine.

So, ye three ghosts, adieu! Ye cannot raise
My head cool-bedded in the flowery grass;
For I would not be dieted with praise,
A pet-lamb in a sentimental farce!
Fade softly from my eyes, and be once more
In masque-like figures on the dreary urn;
Farewell! I yet have visions for the night,
And for the day faint visions there is store;
Vanish, ye phantoms, from my idle spright,
Into the clouds, and never more return!

 

[jennifer~]

"Elegy for Jane"

I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,

A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.

Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.

My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.

If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.

 

[Candice89102]

"i carry your heart" 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 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)

 

[livy]

i enjoyed reading all those wonderful poems so much that i want to share my favorite one with you, too.
i will not translate it into english, because otherwise i would absolutely ruin it

klärchen
johann wolfgang goethe

Freudvoll
Und leidvoll,
Gedankenvoll sein,
Hangen
Und bangen
In schwebender Pein,
Himmelhoch jauchzend,
Zum Tode betrübt-
Glücklich allein
Ist die Seele, die liebt.

 

[scatterak]

I don't know who this is by, but I found it when I was younger and put it in a journal.



I counted 1, 2, 3, to thirty-nine
And realized my waking life didn't compare
To the thirty-nine dreams I had of you
Then I found you in the 40th
But everything was underwater

 

[Miss Dalloway]

Sarah Teasdale!

"Like Barley Bending"

Like barley bending
In low fields by the sea,
Singing in hard wind
Ceaselessly;

Like barley bending
And rising again,
So would I, unbroken,
Rise from pain;

So would I softly,
Day long, night long,
Change my sorrow
Into song.
​

 

[Miss Dalloway]

Did any of you guys ever heard of Sarah Teasdale? In my opinion she was one of the greatest poets that ever lived,but unfortunately not a lot of people have heard about her.Wich is so unfair her peoms are magical and sad i never understood why Emily D. got all the praises but Sarah never did!So sad like her tragic life!
If anyone is interested in this magnificant woman here are the links:
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/t/poet.asp?poet=3104

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Teasdale

http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/sarah_teasdale_2004_9.pdf#search='sarah%20teasdale%20poems'