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I confess myself far more interested in "that Latin stuff" than in Pound.
Browning "My Last Duchess" and "Porphyria's Lover" are definitely up there as well as anything by William Blake and am currently studying Dante in the original tongue and terza rima. Good stuff.
personally Ill always be a fan of Arthur Rimbaud:
Departure
Enough seen. The vision has been met in every air.
Enough had. Distant sounds of cities, in the evening,
and in the sun, and always.
Enough known. Life's injunctions. O sounds and visions!
Departure in new affection and new noise.
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
Simple, but says it all.
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.
:nod:Thank you for the reminder of this wonderful poem; a favorite of mine since childhood.
Do not go gentle into that good night by. Dylan Thomas
The first time I encountered this poem was while listening to a radio program. The program was a live to air from Toronto a day or so after the assassination of John Lennon. It was a candlelight vigil. One of the readers was Long John Baldry and he read the best version that I have ever heard of Do not go gentle into that good night. It was fantastic! I wish I could get a copy of that.
Do not go gentle into that good night
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 that 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.
I also loved Ode to a mouse by Robbie Burns. My grandfather use to recite it to me when I was a wee lad . I thought it was a horror story! I guess I was too young to understand the language e.g Wee sleekit cowrin tim'rous beastie. Too funny!!!
There are great the poets that I like, especially Spanish speakers, since still I can´t read well in other languages and believe that the poetry ... loses with the translations.
Between the poets of my country, Spain, that I recommend... the great Lorca, Miguel Hernández, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Leopoldo Maria Panero, Pedro Salinas...
Out of my Language I give up myself to Poe, Rilke, Paul Valery, Rimbaud and Baudelaire among different many...
A Francisco
Suave como el peligro atravesaste un día
con tu mano imposible la frágil medianoche
y tu mano valía mi vida, y muchas vidas
y tus labios casi mudos decían lo que era el pensamiento.
Pasé una noche a ti pegado como a un árbol de vida
porque eras suave como el peligro,
como el peligro de vivir de nuevo.
L. Mª Panero
Posesión del miedo
¿A qué fuerza convoco, yo que un tiempo hice brotar
los tallos con mi aliento y ahuyenté las sombras?
Hoy esta sal en los labios, ¿de qué mar la traigo?
¿De dónde este temblor que me desarma?
Conozco tu perfil: eres el miedo
que vive agazapado en la quimera.
Y llamo al amor, a sus huestes de plata, a sus naves
de fuego que surcan seguras
las aguas encrespadas de un espejo.
Voy a hacer el amor con mi miedo,
a inventarle un cuerpo firme, a penetrarlo
a hacerle gemir de deseo.
Quiero al miedo desnudo, rendido, tendido en el suelo,
excitado, sudoroso, imberbe.
Quiero una fiesta de carne con el espíritu aterido,
el intruso que ciega las ventanas.
Que se vuelva boca abajo y se ofrezca
rogando fuerza en su flaqueza.
Entrar y salir. Dentro y fuera. Dar y amagar con quitar
y que la auténtica paz sea la guerra.
Y liberar mi alma prisionera
con gritos de placer en sus entrañas.
De "La posesión del miedo" 1996
I´m sorry, I suppose that is difficult to many of you to read spanish
Me gusta espanol! LOL! And Dylan Thomas is awesome!
I am a big fan of Thomas Dylan :)
"Never and never, my girl riding far and near
In the land of the hearthstone tales, and spelled asleep,
Fear or believe that the wolf in the sleepwhite hood
Loping and bleathing roughly and blithely shall leap,
My dear, my dear
Out of a lair in the flocked leaves in the dew dipped year
To eat your heart in the house in the rosy wood.
Sleep good, for ever, slow and deep, spelled rare and wise,
My girl ranging the night in the rose and shire
Of the hobnail tails: no gooseherd or swine will turn
Into a homestall king or hamlet of fire
And prince of ice
To court the honeyed heart from your side before sunrise
In a spinney of ringed boys and ganders, spike and burn,
Nor the innocent lie in the rooting dingle wooed
And staved, and riven among plumes my rider weep.
From the broomed witch's spume you are shielded by fern
And flower of country sleep and the greenwood keep.
Lie fast and soothed,
Safe be and smooth from the bellows of the rushy brood."
Tintern Abbey is one of my favourite poems as well! It's so powerfully emotional, even now having read it many times and memorised it, I can still feel its pull.
I also really like Yeat's 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' (it reminds me a little of Thoreau's philosophy of life in 'Walden' which I have just finished); Thomas Hardy's 'The Darkling Thrush' which always cheers me up; 'Ode to a Nightingale' by Keats; and another of Wordsworth's which makes me ache in sympathy with his grief--'Surprised by Joy'.
Not thou but I by Philip Bourke
Anyone likes this poem? Or has anyone got an opinion- positive or negative- about that?
Between Destiny and Circumstance
the Human Voice speaks ...
and when it is muted
the Fingers speak ....
and when they are lamed
the Eyes speak ...
and when they are blinded
the Heart speaks ...
in Ice ... and in Flames
until the last Beat
a prosa poem by a danish poet .. in my translation
Olegro
A Hymn to Venus
by Sappho
O Venus, beauty of the skies,
To whom a thousand temples rise,
Gaily false in gentle smiles,
Full of love-perplexing wiles;
O goddess, from my heart remove
The wasting cares and pains of love.
If ever thou hast kindly heard
A song in soft distress preferred,
Propitious to my tuneful vow,
A gentle goddess, hear me now.
Descend, thou bright immortal guest,
In all thy radiant charms confessed.
Thou once didst leave almighty Jove
And all the golden roofs above:
The car thy wanton sparrows drew,
Hovering in air they lightly flew;
As to my bower they winged their way
I saw their quivering pinions play.
The birds dismissed (while you remain)
Bore back their empty car again:
Then you, with looks divinely mild,
In every heavenly feature smiled,
And asked what new complaints I made,
And why I called you to my aid?
What frenzy in my bosom raged,
And by what cure to be assuaged?
What gentle youth I would allure,
Whom in my artful toils secure?
Who does thy tender heart subdue,
Tell me, my Sappho, tell me who?
Though now he shuns thy longing arms,
He soon shall court thy slighted charms;
Though now thy offerings he despise,
He soon to thee shall sacrifice;
Though now he freezes, he soon shall burn,
And be thy victim in his turn.
Celestial visitant, once more
Thy needful presence I implore.
In pity come, and ease my grief,
Bring my distempered soul relief,
Favour thy suppliant's hidden fires,
And give me all my heart desires.
anything that edgar allen poe does.
I think this one by Matthew Arnold is one of my favorites.
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
Emily Dickinson
This is great! I have never read this one before!Quote:
Originally Posted by Monica
I really can’t say that I have a favorite poem that I would put over others. As one comes to mind so do many others.
The following poems I enjoy equally for different reasons.
Resolution and Independence by William Wordsworth
Do not go Gentle into that Goodnight by Dylan Thomas
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
A Hymn to God the Father by John Donne
And
The Great Lover by Rupert Brooke
…These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such --
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .
Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me!…
Check out Taylor Mali. He is most awesome.
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
Hi,
My favorite poem is, A moments Indulgence by Rabindranath Tagore.
A Moments Indulgence
I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.
Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.
Rabindranath Tagore
MarkC
Currently, it's:
If You Are a Man
D.H. Lawrence
If you are a man, and believe in the destiny of mankind
then say to yourself: we will cease to care
about property and money and mechanical devices,
and open our consciousness to the deep, mysterious life
that we are now cut off from.
The machine shall be abolished from the earth again;
it is a mistake that mankind has made;
money shall cease to be, and property shall cease to perplex
and we will find the way to immediate contact with life
and with one another.
To know the moon as we have never known
yet she is knowable.
To know a man as we have never known
a man, as never yet a man was knowable, yet still shall be.
e.e. cummings - the bigness of cannon
the bigness of cannon
is skilful,
but i have seen
death’s clever enormous voice
which hides in a fragility
of poppies….
i say that sometimes
on these long talkative animals
are laid fists of huger silence.
I have seen all the silence
full of vivid noiseless boys
at Roupy
i have seen
between barrages,
the night utter ripe unspeaking girls.
I would like to add a new favorite poem, Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
I ran across this poem while playing the "let's pick random books off the shelves" game at my university's library. I fell in love.
Rob Loewinsohn- Pastoral
Death.
The death of a million
honeydew melons
festering in the fields
east of Tracy.
The scent of death
narcotic in its sweetness
which we mistook for the smell
of fresh-churned butter
until I ran across the road
into the field
& was attacked by flies,
Later
on another road, I smelled myself
the fetor of the living
like locker rooms & loving beds.
& thought about the mutilated melons
which from a distance looked like
a field of wild buttercups.
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.
...just one? Well, I might go for Prufrock, or some cummings, a Frost or a Graves, or one of Harsent's Punch sequence.
But today - and tomorrow it might be different - I'll choose this...
Musee des Beaux Arts - 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
One of my favorite poems is a fairly simple one (but I think it is better for that) It is by Leigh Hunt:
Jenny Kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
I have many other poems that I love, but for some reason this one has stayed with me.
why, this thread is addictive...
A beautiful poem indeed, I must add. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by GypsyDream
Sestina: Altaforte by Ezra Pound
LOQUITUR: En Bertans de Born. Dante Alighieri put this man in hell
for that he was a stirrer up of strife. Eccovi! Judge ye! Have I dug
him up again? The scene is at his castle, Altaforte. "Papiols" is his
jongleur. "The Leopard," the device of Richard Coeur de Lion.
I
Damn it all! all this our South stinks peace.
You whoreson dog, Papiols, come! Let's to music!
I have no life save when the swords clash.
But ah! when I see the standards gold, vair, purple, opposing
And the broad fields beneath them turn crimson,
Then howl I my heart nigh mad with rejoicing.
II
In hot summer I have great rejoicing
When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace,
And the lightning from black heav'n flash crimson,
And the fierce thunders roar me their music
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,
And through all the riven skies God's swords clash.
III
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
And the shrill neighs of destriers in battle rejoicing,
Spiked breast to spiked breat opposing!
Better one hour's stour than a year's peace
With fat boards, bawds, wine and frail music!
Bah! there's no wine like the blood's crimson!
IV
And I love to see the sun rise blood-crimson.
And I watch his spears through the dark clash
And it fills all my heart with rejoicing
And pries wide my mouth with fast music
When I see him so scorn and defy peace,
His long might 'gainst all darkness opposing.
V
The man who fears war and squats opposing
My words for stour, hath no blood of crimson
But is fit only to rot in womanish peace
Far from where worth's won and the swords clash
For the death of such sluts I go rejoicing;
Yea, I fill all the air with my music.
VI
Papiols, Papiols, to the music!
There's no sound like to swords swords opposing,
No cry like the battle's rejoicing
When our elbows and swords drip the crimson
And our charges 'gainst "The Leopard's" rush clash.
May God damn for ever all who cry "Peace!"
VII
And let the music of the swords make them crimson!
Hell grant soon we hear again the swords clash!
Hell blot black for always the thought "Peace!"
This might have already been posted in this thread, but I'm not going through 45 pages, so I'll just post it anyway :)
I haven't really read that much poetry to be honest, but my favourite I've read so far is Ted Hughes' Thistles, as you may be able to tell from my signature. The poem in full:
Quote:
Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of men
Thistles spike the summer air
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure.
Every one a revengeful burst
Of resurrection, a grasphed fistful
Of splintered weapons and Icelandic frost thrust up
From the underground stain of a decayed Viking.
They are like pale hair and the gutturals of dialects.
Every one manages a plume of blood.
Then they grow grey like men.
Mown down, it is a feud. Their sons appear
Stiff with weapons, fighting back over the same ground.
I like Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost....
Don't know much on poetry,lol.Rhime Of The Ancient Mariner,Beowulf,the Robert Frost poem I quoted from below,The Boy Who Laughed At Santa Claus,Casey At The Bat,Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven and To Helen.That's about my limit.Oh and Four Ruthless Rhymes,but I only remember three of them
Making toast by the fireside Nurse fell in the grate and died
But what makes it ten times worse All the toast was burnt with nurse.
There's been an accident they said Your servant's cut in half,He's dead
Oh that is terrible but please Send me the half that's got my keys.
Billy in one of his nice new sashes Fell in the fire and was burned to ashes
Now although the room groes chilly I haven't the heart to poke up Billy.
Oh yes - I remember scraps -
Always hold on tight to nurse
For fear of finding Something Worse
good advice.
Keats' Ode To A Nightingale is one that I'm fond of, but also, Whitman's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. Someone referenced William Carlos Williams earlier, but I never could enjoy his work. Another antiquated and overlooked poem is Timor Mortis Conturbat Me. I suggest everyone check it out.
Blackberrying by Sylvia Plath
Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries,
Blackberries on either side, though on the right mainly,
A blackberry alley, going down in hooks, and a sea
Somewhere at the end of it, heaving. Blackberries
Big as the ball of my thumb, and dumb as eyes
Ebon in the hedges, fat
With blue-red juices. These they squander on my fingers.
I had not asked for such a blood sisterhood; they must love me.
They accommodate themselves to my milkbottle, flattening their sides
Overhead go the choughs in black, cacophonous flocks --
Bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.
Theirs is the only voice, protesting, protesting.
I do not think the sea will appear at all.
The high, green meadows are glowing, as if lit from within.
I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies,
Hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen.
The honey-feast of the berries has stunned them; they believe in heaven.
One more hook, and the berries and bushes end.
The only thing to come now is the sea.
From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me,
Slapping its phantom laundry in my face.
These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt.
I follow the sheep path between them. A last hook brings me
To the hills' northern face, and the face is orange rock
That looks out on nothing, nothing but a great space
Of white and pewter lights, and a din like silversmiths
Beating and beating at an intractable metal
It Is the Hour 此刻 --George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour -- when lover's vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word;
And gentle winds and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the Heaven that clear obscure
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
That follows the decline of day
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
Great thread! Can't figure out why my computer won't let me get to the last page here:crash:
I have so many favorites, but here are two Milton poems that I've been obsessed with lately, and I bet no one has posted. Very religious, I know, but they are so packed with meaning on music, poetry, and humanity. And besides that, I just love the flow and choice of words. You can judge if they deserve the attention I'm giving them.
At A Solemn Music
Blest pair of sirens, pledges of heaven's joy,
Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce,
And to our high-raised fantasy present
That undisturbed song of pure concent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured throne
To him that sits thereon,
With saintly shout and solemn jubilee;
Where the bright seraphim in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel-trumpets blow,
And the cherubic host in thousand choirs
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly.
That we on earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportioned sin
Jarred against nature's chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
O may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with him, and sing in endless morn of light.
Has anyone put this one up yet? Sailing to Byzantium by W.B. Yeats.
My favorite bit is the first half on the second stanza.
THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come
this has always been a personal favourite.
it is exceptionally beautiful in its simplicity.
On a Discovered Curl of Hair
When your soft welcomings were said,
This curl was waving on your head,
And when we walked where breakers dinned
It sported in the sun and wind,
And when I had won your words of grace
It brushed and clung about my face.
Then, to abate the misery
Of absentness, you gave it me.
Where are its fellows now? Ah, they
For brightest brown have donned a gray,
And gone into a caverned ark,
Ever unopened, always dark!
Yet this one curl, untouched of time,
Beams with live brown as in its prime,
So that it seems I even could now
Restore it to the living brow
By bearing down the western road
Till I had reached your old abode.
February 1913.
By Thomas Hardy, in memory of his darling Emma