Post your favorite poem (by yourself or others)

[Irieguy]

Great thread, suzzer.

Like my favorite song, my favorite poem changes every day. But if I were asked this question a hundred times, I imagine Edwin Arlington Robinson would be the author of the poem I chose more often than anyone else. Mr. Flood's Party has always been my favorite of his, but oddly today I prefer Richard Cory.


Richard Cory


Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean-favoured and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good Morning!" and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich, yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine -- we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked and waited for the light,
And went without the meat and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet in his head.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

[skipperbob]

GOD SPEAKS WITH HIS ANGEL
A non-classical version

God was out for a walk one day, Just taking a pleasant stroll;
He needed a break from the pressure of having the Universe to control ..

"Why do I walk from place to place, when I am already everywhere about?”
These are the kind of questions that even God can't figure out ..

He wasn't long in this airy reverie when He became omnipotently aware;
Of the presence of the First Assistant Angel in charge of Earth Affairs.

The angel's given name was Jack and he used the usual "Good Morning Mr. G”
When you work in Heaven for ten trillion years you gain a certain familiarity...

"What's new, Jack?" said God, as He thought of His terrestrial mistake;
"Is there any good afoot down there? You know I was drunk the day I made the place!”

"Things are pretty quiet, Mr.G ". Jack's voice had that annoying angelic ring;
"But we'da been a lot better off, if You woulda skipped that man / woman thing!”

"Well, Jack! I move in mysterious ways." God took his usual imperious stance;
"What's on your mind today?"..As though He didn't know in advance.

"Do You remember that guy, the one they call the Skip ?"
"Well he's been awfully good awhile, I thought I'de lighten his load, a bit."

God's mind really wasn't focused, He was having a crisis in mid-eternity;
So he only heard a part of Jack's report; the part about sending some serenity.

"[censored] the Skipper!" was God's retort, it was clear that He was a little upset.
"That guy screwed with us for years, do you think I just Forgive and Forget ?"

"Jack, sometimes I think you're losing it!" Now God was getting on a roll.
"You're never going to move up, around here if you can't recognize a truly lost soul ! !

"Here's what you do with the Skipper ! Put a woman in his path ..make sure she fits!"
"Make her intelligent and charming and beautiful.And, throw in some glorious [censored]”..







"Jack ! What was that Eighth Commandment ?" God's lapses of memory were becoming ever more prone.
"Oh yeah ! Let's make sure she's married. We might as well kill two birds with one stone."

Jack asked about falling in love.."Sure" said the Lord, looking for a little get even
"Have 'em both fall in love, then begin acting like two little children…

"I know the one I'll use." said Jack, as he began to warm to the task.
"That deal I screwed-up eleven years ago, The one I gave so much happiness!'

"O.K." said God "When the Skipper [censored] thing up."
They both grinned at that prescient advice;
"Let Adriene off with a warning, But make sure that he pays an adequate price!"

"Leave a note with Pete at the Gate The Skipper does not get in !
Send him immediately down to Lucy, so he can begin paying for his sins!"

"You know, Mr.G, making the devil a woman was an act of your clever Hand.
Those ignorant [censored] on earth, still think that Lucifer is a man."

"Jack, you've confused the sequence again, I created the Devil first and best;
Then She showed me the pattern, and then I created Eve and all the rest."

This whole conversation in heaven took only a dodecananosecond of time;
God can't be late for a meeting, but He was running a little behind.

So, in the blink of an eyelash two lover's fates were sealed;
For one, an uncomfortable experience For the other, some wounds that will never heal.

[suzzer99]

[ QUOTE ]
T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", accompanied with Eliot's original notes and supplementary notes.

possibly my favorite work of any kind in the English language.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice job. I was afraid someone was going to try to post this inline. [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

I'll add his other standard, but still one of my all time favorites. Maybe some haven't been exposed to this. This poem still blows me away everytime I read it.


The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T.S. Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--
[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--
[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all;
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all --
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--
Ars that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
. . . . .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . tired . . or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have thestrength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a
platter,
I am no prophet -- and here's no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some ta of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say, "That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along
the floor --
And this, and so much more? --
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
"That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, atall."
. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or to
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the cambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Til human voices wake us, and we drown.

[ViolentGandhi]

From the trees they fall
I crush them as I walk by,
Feeling the cold wind.

[Irieguy]

If you are a Jeff Buckley and/or E.A. Poe fan... you really should listen to his recording of Ulalume. Cool stuff.

While I'm not a giant Poe fan, this is one of my favorite passages from any poem:

Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom-
And conquered her scruples and gloom



I didn't want to post the whole thing due to it's length, but if you've never read it, it's worth your time:

Ulalume

Irieguy

[centaurmyth]

Ulysses - Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[HorridSludgyBits]

Maybe not the best of poems by literary standards, but it's so haunting and gives me a chill every time I read it. Knowing that the poet was on the front lines in WWI caring for dying soldiers makes it even more so.


In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

[Devil Duq]

My high school yearbook quote:

I watch the hand wind 'round the dial
As I sit here, all the while
Trying my best to feign fascination
While perfecting the craft of procrastination

[MoistToes]

Robinson Jeffers

The House Dog's Grave
(Haig, an English bulldog)

I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the nights through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read- and I fear often grieving for me-
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying.
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dears, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided….
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

[MoistToes]

[ QUOTE ]
W.B. Yeats - The Second Coming


Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[/ QUOTE ]

This poem hit me hard the first time I read it. I had no idea what it meant to me then, but it was very powerful. It was as if the poem was speaking to something deep inside me, a part of me I wasn't aware existed.

That is the mark of a great poem.