Favorite poem?

[mono]

I read this one today, and could only express the greatest admiration:

Oh Yet We Trust (from In Memoriam)

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
that not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last - far off - at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.

Lord Alfred Tennyson

[mono]

This morning, I read "The Triumph Of Life" by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which I have read a few times before, and it gets better and better with each read. For anyone with the determination to read the long terza-rima poem (500+ lines), though unfinished (Shelley never managed to finish the poem before his untimely death), I happened to find a copy online:
http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/d.../poem1912.html

[Themis]

My favourite poem is in german, so, I guess, I´ll have to settle for something else. (But the first one is called "The moon" by Kathinka Zitz)
Some of my other favourites are -
" To the moon" by Percy B. Shelley and "Hope is the thing ..." by Emily Dickinson

[Sarah's_Chanson]

A tie between Plena Timoris by Thomas Hardy, Pibroch by Ted Hughes and Nothing's Changed by Tatumkhulu Afrika.

[Lady19thC]

One of my favourite poems is

To My Books

Silent companions of the lonely hour,
Friends, who can never alter or forsake,
Who for inconstant roving have no power,
And all neglect, perforce, must calmly take,--
Let me return to you; this turmoil ending
Which wordly cares have in my spirit wrought,
And, o'er your old familiar pages bending,
Refresh my mind with many a tranquil thought:
Till, haply meeting there, from time to time,
Fancies, the audible echo of my own,
'Twill be like hearing in a foreign clime
My native language spoke in friendly tone,
And with a sort of welcome I shall dwell
On these, my unripe musings, told so well.

Caroline Norton-1840

[alteredtome]

I just discovered this forum today, hallelujah! I've been reading all of your favorites, sighing with delight, and googling like a crazy chicken (see? even reading these poems has made me poetic). I wanted to share my favorite poem, by Mary Oliver:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I remember the first time that I read the first line, it hit me square in the gut. Then the next two lines washed over me with the most relieving forgiveness. I felt blessed and clean after reading this poem. Such an amazing power, huh? The power of well put together words.

Kristina

[sir]

I love R.M. Rilke...there's a poem's translation...although,german language has more nuances in matter of poetry and filosofy (my opinion)..

-----Love Song------

How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two seperate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.

http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/4027/

[hellodolly]

My new favorite poem is by the gay poet James Schwartz. The poem is called "On Death" and is from his e-book RESH REMIXED (http://reshremixed.tripod.com):

On Death

Have you ever smelled Death?

I have

it ate my mother who was an angel

and it's breath was cancer sweet

Have you ever seen Death?

I have

it's eyes are scarlet and it hides under beds

Have you ever heard Death?

I have

it's the rustle of wet leaves on an autumn day

Have you ever tasted Death?

I have

it tastes like cheap champagne

and is equally intoxicating

although the mornings after may be quite vile.

[Scatterbrain]

I have countless and countless of favourite poems
But the favourite is Rimbaud's Season In Hell

[Xander]

Hey, how are you? My favourite poem is The Raven by E.A. Poe, but it is too long, so I'll type a very beautiful poem, also by E.A. Poe. It is A Dream Within A Dream:

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow -
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand -
How few! Yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep - while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
them with a tighter clasp?
O God! Can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

[the_imp]

I don't have the book in front of me, so I'll just type in what I have memorized.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.
I nodded nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, as of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
'Tis some visitor I muttered, tapping at my chamber door, only this and nothing more.

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow, vainly I had sought to borrow, from my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost lenore.
For the rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named 'Lenore' nameless here for evermore.
...........
I am getting very tired now, can't remember much more, I have to study and get some shut eye. I suggest you read the rest of the poem, it's wonderful. All of Poe's writings are brilliant works of art.

[Satine]

"To A Stranger" Walt Whitman

PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me, as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me, were a boy with me, or a girl with me, 5
I ate with you, and slept with you—your body has become not yours only, nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass—you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you—I am to think of you when I sit alone, or wake at night alone,
I am to wait—I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you


All-time favorite (so far...)

[Nocturnal]

If I had to choose a single poem as my favourite, I would say John Milton's "Paradise Lost", which for obvious reasons I cannot quite quote here.
However, I have a second fave that is as dear as Milton's masterpiece, albeit less monumental:

To-
by Percy Bsysshe Shelly

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heavens reject not,--
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

[Pensive]

She Walks In Beauty Like The Night

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 mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired 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!

Lord Byron

Nice poem Scher... I love this poem.

[Insomnia]

Well, I don't have anything in mind right now... Maybe something fo Robert frost.

I'm more into Arabic poetry No poetry in the world can compete with it. but you have to be an Arabic speaker to appreciate it, translation dosn't work