Favorite poem?

hi. I'm new to this forum and would like to share a poem by Filipino poet Jose Garcia Villa

First, A Poem Must Be Magical
By Jose Garcia Villa

First, a poem must be magical,
Then musical as a seagull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird’s flowering
It must be slender as a bell,
And it must hold fire as well.
It must have the wisdom of bows
And it must kneel like a rose.
It must be able to hear
The luminance of dove and deer.
It must be able to hide
What it seeks, like a bride.
And over all I would like to hover
God, smiling from the poem’s cover.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Aurora Ariel

I try to make these lists of my favourite works by each poet all the time, and recently I was reading quite a few favourites by W.B Yeats.The poem right below is one of the first poems I ever read by him, and remains one of my favourites from this particular poet.

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Always a good reason to read W.B. Yeats. Nice choices, Aurora.

Time for me to post a new "favorite":

Shadows by D.H. Lawrence

And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new created.

And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft, strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together now the moon's in shadow.

And if, as autumn deepens and darkens,
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding, folding
around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
and the silence of short days the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth's lapse and renewal.

And if, in the charming phases of man's life,
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:

and still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me--

then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unkown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.

Aw man, this sucks. I have the best portuguese poems by Fernando Pessoa! *makes a wave with the wand and everyone understands the language*
It's a beautiful poem.... :nod:

Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes -
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world by over-wise
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fontainhas

Aw man, this sucks. I have the best portuguese poems by Fernando Pessoa! *makes a wave with the wand and everyone understands the language*
It's a beautiful poem.... :nod:

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If you pick a short one, why not post it in Portuguese and then try to translate it for us?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Virgil

If you pick a short one, why not post it in Portuguese and then try to translate it for us?

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Okay.... here it goes:

Onda que enrolada tornas, pequena
Ao mar que te trouxe.
E ao recuar te transtornas
Como se o mar nada fosse.

Porque é que levas contigo
só a tua cessação?
E ao voltar ao mar antigo
não levas meu coração?

Á tanto tempo que o tenho
que me pesa de o sentir
Leva-o no som sem tamanho
Com que te oiço fugir!

You're going to have to wait awhile until I get this translated though.

This is one of my favorite poems. It's by Emily Dickinson.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Toombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone

This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go

Quote:

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Originally Posted by malwethien

This is one of my favorite poems. It's by Emily Dickinson.

After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Toombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone

This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go

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Yeah, that's one of the great ones. I love it too. "This is the hour of lead." You can't find a better line than that.

XVII: Cien sonetos de amor
Pablo Neruda

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de chaveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de si, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que acendio de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber como, ni cuando, ni de donde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
asi te amo porque no se amar de otra manera,

sino asi de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mia,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueno.

W.C. Williams
Spring and All


By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast — a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees

All along the rood the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines —
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches —

They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind —

Now the grass, to-morrow
the stiff curl of wild-carrot leaf

One by one objects are defined —
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of
entrance — Still, the profound change
has come upon them; rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken

That's a really nice poem, jp. One of my favorites too. I was just thinking of it the other day when we got a touch of spring weather and I noticed my crocuses poping up.

I don't know if this has already been done, but I'd like to post my translations of some of Catullus' love poetry. Here's # 5 to start out:

VIVAMUS mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus invidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live and let us love, my Lesbia,
And let us value all the gossip of cruel old men at a single as.*
Suns can die and be born again,
But for us, when the brief light dies,
The night is a perpetual sleep.
Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
Then anothe thousand, and a second hundred,
Then even another thousand, and a hundred more.
Then, when we have had many thousands,
We will mix them together, lest we know,
Or lest some evil person will curse us
When he knows how many kisses there are.

* as - a coin of a very low denomination

Thanks for posting your translation, Geochelonian. I'd definitely enjoy reading more of your translations of Catullus.

For those who don't already know, there are a couple of other translations at www.perseus.tufts.edu

It's very interesting to read the Lesbia poems in order, and see how Catullus' feelings for her change over time. Compare #5 with #85, possibly the best 2 line poem ever written:

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio. Sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do it.
I don't know. But I feel it happens (to me), and I am tortured.


The parenthetical 'to me' is my own interpolation, which I feel is strongly implied by the content of many of the earlier Lesbia poems. I once got into a disagreement with a professor at the University of South Carolina regarding that. I couln't convince him, but he couldn't convince me either. :p