Favorite poem?

[Sally Brown]

Another poem from my country - Italy - by Cesare Pavese.

DEATH WILL COME WITH YOUR EYES

Death will come with your eyes—
this death that accompanies us
from morning till night, sleepless,
deaf, like an old regret
or a stupid vice. Your eyes
will be a useless word,
a muted cry, a silence.
As you see them each morning
when alone you lean over
the mirror. O cherished hope,
that day we too shall know
that you are life and nothing.

For everyone death has a look.
Death will come with your eyes.
It will be like terminating a vice,
as seen in the mirror
a dead face re-emerging,
like listening to closed lips.
We'll go down the abyss in silence.

Bye,
Sally

[Scheherazade]

The World is Too Much With Us

The World is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours
And are up-gather'd now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

William Wordsworth


I love this poem... The first four lines haunt me... Really wish I knew what Wordsworth was thinking when he wrote them.

[Bix12]

My favorite poem? Oh good grief...impossible request. Here's one of my favorites, one of a very, very many. O, btw, Scheherazade, you were wondering what Wordsworth was talking about? I'll venture a guess, and say that he is lamenting the onset of the industrial revolution, remember the age in which Wordsworth was alive. The lines carry a tone of grieving, of loss. He sees a change occurring, one he doesn't care for. He notes the ease in which his fellow man has so cold-heartedly exploited nature in the greedy pursuit of material wealth, and it's breaking his heart. Just an opinion....now, the poem:


SUDDEN LIGHT


I have been here before,
But when or how I cannot tell:
I know the grass beyond the door,
The sweet keen smell,
The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

You have been mine before,--
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turn'd so,
Some veil did fall,--I knew it all of yore.

Has this been thus before?
And shall not thus time's eddying flight
Still with our lives our love restore
In death's despite,
And day and night yield one delight once more?

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

[Scheherazade]

O, btw, Scheherazade, you were wondering what Wordsworth was talking about? I'll venture a guess, and say that he is lamenting the onset of the industrial revolution, remember the age in which Wordsworth was alive. The lines carry a tone of grieving, of loss. He sees a change occurring, one he doesn't care for. He notes the ease in which his fellow man has so cold-heartedly exploited nature in the greedy pursuit of material wealth, and it's breaking his heart. Just an opinion....now, the poem:

Hello, Bix12! I am familiar with the popular interpretation of Wordworth's poem; i.e., the burdens Industrial revolutions put on the shoulder of humanity. However, as I said, I love the opening lines of this poem and, I believe, when read seperately, they can be interpreted differently, without being as specific as Industrial Revolution... which is why I wonder what was going through Wordsworth's mind exactly. Was he only thinking about the industrialist world or were there other worries on his mind? Just a thought... Or maybe a wish that he did

Welcome to the Forum, by the way!

[Bix12]

Thank you, Scheherazade! I really like it here...too bad it's not more lively, though...but not everyone has as much freetime as I do, either...anyway...I didn't mean to sound presumptuous in my comments regarding Mr. Wordsworth, it definitely wasn't my intent.


Here's another one of my favorites:

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?

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

I've felt exactly like that before....<sigh>

[Bix12]

Sarah Teasdale is another one of my favorites poets, and this is one of my favorite poems by her:

"Did You Never Know?"


Did you never know, long ago, how much you loved me --
That your love would never lessen and never go?
You were young then, proud and fresh-hearted,
You were too young to know.

Fate is a wind, and red leaves fly before it
Far apart, far away in the gusty time of year --
Seldom we meet now, but when I hear you speaking,
I know your secret, my dear, my dear.


Sarah Teasdale

[Bix12]

Good day all!

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 separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song

Rainer Maria Rilke

[mono]

Love Song
. . .
Rainer Maria Rilke

Oh, I love Rilke!
Two of my favorites:

Childhood

It would be good to give much thought, before
you try to find words for something so lost,
for those long childhood afternoons you knew
that vanished so completely -and why?

We're still reminded-: sometimes by a rain,
but we can no longer say what it means;
life was never again so filled with meeting,
with reunion and with passing on

as back then, when nothing happened to us
except what happens to things and creatures:
we lived their world as something human,
and became filled to the brim with figures.

And became as lonely as a sheperd
and as overburdened by vast distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us.

(Translated by Edward Snow)

-----

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

(Translated by Robert Bly)

[Scheherazade]

Although only recently I discovered this poem, it is one of my favorites. I am almost jealous that Donne is the one who wrote it instead of me.

The Will

BEFORE I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,
Great Love, some legacies ; I here bequeath
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ;
If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee ;
My tongue to Fame ; to ambassadors mine ears ;
To women, or the sea, my tears ;
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore
By making me serve her who had twenty more,
That I should give to none, but such as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give ;
My truth to them who at the court do live ;
My ingenuity and openness,
To Jesuits ; to buffoons my pensiveness ;
My silence to any, who abroad hath been ;
My money to a Capuchin :
Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me
To love there, where no love received can be,
Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics ;
All my good works unto the Schismatics
Of Amsterdam ; my best civility
And courtship to an University ;
My modesty I give to soldiers bare ;
My patience let gamesters share :
Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me
Love her that holds my love disparity,
Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those
Which were my friends ; mine industry to foes ;
To schoolmen I bequeath my doubtfulness ;
My sickness to physicians, or excess ;
To nature all that I in rhyme have writ ;
And to my company my wit :
Thou, Love, by making me adore
Her, who begot this love in me before,
Taught'st me to make, as though I gave, when I do but restore.

To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls,
I give my physic books ; my written rolls
Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give ;
My brazen medals unto them which live
In want of bread ; to them which pass among
All foreigners, mine English tongue :
Though, Love, by making me love one
Who thinks her friendship a fit portion
For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I'll give no more, but I'll undo
The world by dying, because love dies too.
Then all your beauties will be no more worth
Than gold in mines, where none doth draw it forth ;
And all your graces no more use shall have,
Than a sun-dial in a grave :
Thou, Love, taught'st me by making me
Love her who doth neglect both me and thee,
To invent, and practise this one way, to annihilate all three.

John Donne

[Bix12]

Ah yes, John Donne...not only was he a brilliant poet, but a fiery & spellbinding sermonizer. It could be argued that, in his day, he was more well known for his work from the pulpit, than any fame his poetry brought...of course, he's remember'd now almost exclusively for his wonderful poetry.

Here's a particular favorite of mine by Donne, and certainly one of his best known, if not one of his best, poems:

Aire And Angles


Twice or thrice had I lov'd thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp'd be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.

Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love's pinnace overfraught;
Ev'ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt'ring bright, can love inhere;
Then, as an angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,
So thy love may be my love's sphere;
Just such disparity
As is 'twixt air and angels' purity,
'Twixt women's love, and men's, will ever be.

John Donne

[Bix12]

Here's the poem I came here to post, before I was sidetrack'd by Donne, (pleasantly so). This poem, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is one of my all-time ever favourites...to me, this is the very definition of happiness. This poem illustrates the genius of Ferlinghetti through it's brevity, and clean, concise lines.To look at it, one would think that there isn't much there, but it conveys (to me, at least), a scene almost real enough to touch, and I feel as if I'm actually there.


Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace


One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day.


Lawrence Ferlinghetti

[mono]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]Here's the poem I came here to post, before I was sidetrack'd by Donne, (pleasantly so). This poem, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is one of my all-time ever favourites...to me, this is the very definition of happiness . . .

Very nice, Bix12. How pleasant to have another big poetry fan on the forum!
Unfortunately, I have not encountered a lot of Ferlinghetti's poetry until months ago, and, ever since, he has become one of my favorites. I posted a few of his poems that I thought especially high of here:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ead.php?t=4254

[Bix12]

Not to brag, or anything...hee hee....but I happen to know Lawrence Ferlinghetti. I've been to his bookstore several times (City Lights, San Francisco), and I've also attended a few parties where he happened to be in attendance...he is a sweetheart of a man.


That's Lawrence on the left, in front of his book store...the other guy is a Cuban poet, whose name escapes me just now



Driving a cardboard automobile without a license


Driving a cardboard automobile without a license
at the turn of the century
my father ran into my mother
on a fun-ride at Coney Island
having spied each other eating
in a French boardinghouse nearby
And having decided right there and then
that she was right for him entirely
he followed her into
the playland of that evening
where the headlong meeting
of their ephemeral flesh on wheels
hurtled them forever together


And I now in the back seat
of their eternity
reaching out to embrace them

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

[amuse]

i like his "Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace" poem. very crisp and strong.

come to think of it, he reminds me of Brautigan, without the extreme oddities.

[Bix12]

Hi amuse! yessssss...I love that poem. I just posted it up above...I wanna go there.