Whats your favorite poem

[catsraven]

This ones mine

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas - 1914-1953



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 the 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.

 

[catsraven]

Oh come on people. Nobody?

 

[Morgan101]

Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier. Almost the very end it contains my favorite verse from poetry.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these: "It might have been!"

 

[Bacpacker]

I'm big on quotes, just not so much on poems.

 

[zoomzoom]

There once was a man named Dave...

 

[LadyLocust]

Not exactly a poem, but
 “Doubt thou the stars are fire,
  Doubt that the sun doth move,
  Doubt truth to be a liar,
  But never doubt I love.
Wm Shakespeare (Hamlet)

Also like "The Highwayman" by A Noyes and "The Road Not Taken" by R Frost. And many others.

 

[Tacotom]

If. By Rudyard Kipling

 

[Morgan101]

If. By Rudyard Kipling

Excellent choice!

 

[Tacotom]

My dad's favorite Morgan

 

[Solar Geek]

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

Langston Hughes

 

[Meerkat]

I'm big on quotes, just not so much on poems.

Me too and I'm looking for one to like now.

 

[Meerkat]

 

[Duncan]

Oh come on people. Nobody?

Well, I like Dylan Thomas too, and my favorite poem of his is "Fern Hill".
But this is probably my favorite poem; even though it's not very good, it is a step or so above "There once was a fellow named Dave..."

The Bigot

He'd an earnest expression and horn-rimmed glasses
When he asked what I thought of reunification
(With the Brandenburg Gate breached, and rich West Germans
Owning a piece of the now-defunct wall).
Hell, even the French and the Russians admit
That it's finally time for one German nation,
His eyes kind of glittered but he looked real earnest
As he asked my opinion — that's all.

"We should A-bomb those bastards at least once a year,
"Just to remind them of those that we missed,"
The glitter was bright now, his face was intense,
His voice became shaky and a little bit harassed,
I saw non-Aryan versions of gotterdammerung
In the unconscious clenching of manicured fists
But I leaned back and sipped my cappuccino;
My companion looked down and was somewhat embarrassed.

Who knows what's happening in this man's mind?​

If I looked too closely, what would I find?​

Maybe the anschluss of a time long past,​

The summer nights of breaking glass,​

The hakenkreuz flag flying higher and higher,​

Setting the rabbis' beards on fire,​

The endless trains for "relocations",​

Mein Gott! They had good public relations!​

I was six months born when crazy old Adolf
Killed Blondi and Eva, then blew out his brains.
I was less than a year when Colonel Paul Tibbetts
Climbed into the cockpit of the Enola Gay.
But maybe Mister Earnest couldn't shake from his mind
The eastward rolling of Nazi trains,
To the point where they drowned out the flash and the shockwave
From Freedom's Mushroom on Hiroshima Bay.

 

[Cabin Fever]

The Cremation of Sam McKee by Robert W. Service simply because my wife can recite the entire poem from memory.

 

[Tacotom]

 

[Frodo]

On Love
BY KAHLIL GIBRAN
Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.
And he raised his head and looked upon
the people, and there fell a stillness upon
them. And with a great voice he said:
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to
him,
Though the sword hidden among his
pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in
him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he
crucify you. Even as he is for your growth
so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and
caresses your tenderest branches that quiver
in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and
shake them in their clinging to the earth.
•
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto
himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred
fire, that you may become sacred bread for
God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you
that you may know the secrets of your
heart, and in that knowledge become a
fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only
love’s peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover
your nakedness and pass out of love’s
threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you
shall laugh, but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears.


Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, ‘God is in my heart,’ but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God.’
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;




And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

 

[Frodo]

Poem by Unknown Confederate Soldier

I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

Written by: Unknown Confederate Soldier,

 

[zoomzoom]

More of a quote than a poem but definitely worth the read by John Stuart Mill.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.”

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

My high school English teacher submitted this to the annual club which had a poetry section written by students.

His name is Greedom
He has no freedom
We keep him a cage
And try not to feed him.

 

[Patchouli]

Can't remember the ones adults prefer, but I have loved and memorized a few children's story books that read like poetry.
Margaret Wise Brown.
I had Jabberwocky memorized when I was in high school.


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The poem makes a lot of use of ‘portmanteaus’: a word that is made up of other words.

Taken from "Through the Looking Glass," by Lewis Carroll
https://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/analysis/poem-origins/jabberwocky/
Explanations of the meanings of the words can be found at the link above.

 

[Frodo]

from my school yard days

Roses are red and violets are blue
my feet stink and so do you

mike and amy sitt'n in a tree
k -i-s-s-i-n-g
first comes love then comes marriage
then come amy pushing a baby carriage

 

[Peanut]

Not into poetry but I stumbled across this poem tonight. Seems appropriate for the days in which we live...

Paul Revere’s Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1807-1882

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war:
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black, that bends and floats
On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns!

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders, that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river-fog,
That rises when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When be came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket-ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read,
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

 

[Morgan101]

Great minds think alike. I just read this poem yesterday. It does seem appropriate for today. Instead of the British we should warn each other about ANTIFA and BLM.

 

[Bacpacker]

Been a long time since I read that. Its a good one for sure
Thanks for posting it.

 

[Duncan]

Here's another poem I like: "Northern Heading"

Northern Heading​

Walking through the aspens with the new snow fresh-fallen,
With the sun behind the west cliffs now for seven hours past,
The wind's picked up, and flurries softly sifting through the treetops,
And scudding clouds sometimes impair my vision of the sky.

Yet when I feel I've veered my course, and lost my northern heading,
The dark clouds part for long enough to see above the hills,
The Big Bear and Polaris in their slow and constant rolling
Are shining soft upon my heart — I know I'm heading home.

**************************************************************
Fighting on a beam reach in my sloop in heavy weather,
Trying for my anchorage at midnight (if I can),
A line squall out of God-knows-where's blown in from the horizon,
And flying scud and wind-whipped waves have blinded me again.

Yet when I feel I've veered my course and lost my northern heading,
A break shows up between the waves and I see far away
The headland by the anchorage, the weather-beaten lighthouse
Whose light is soft upon my heart — I know I'm heading home.

**************************************************************
Living through a lifetime with a cheap defective compass,
I've followed every headland and grasped at every lead,
Tracking first a forest, a mountaintop, a desert
I circle back and see my footprints in the sand again.

Yet though I know I've veered my course and lost my northern heading,
My soul tells me there is just one true course I can take,
The headland with the lighthouse, the cabin in the aspens
Your light is soft upon my heart — and I'll be heading home.

 

[LadyLocust]

"Kublai Kahn" is interesting of course. And a very sweet one "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" by E Field. IMO brilliant in its simplicity.
Patch - Jabberwoky! I completely forgot about that one. LC might have been an interesting character, but he could sure nail it with imagery.

 

[Neb]

"Kublai Kahn" is interesting of course. And a very sweet one "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" by E Field. IMO brilliant in its simplicity.
Patch - Jabberwoky! I completely forgot about that one. LC might have been an interesting character, but he could sure nail it with imagery.

Ditto the jabberwoky. My better can recite it on demand and I demand it often just to show her off.

Gods of the Copybook Heading - R Kipling

Annabelle Lee by Poe. I had its memorized when my memory used to work.

Ben

 

[Morgan101]

I probably haven't read this since High School, maybe Junior High. Nice to hear it again.

 

[SeventiesWreckers]

The Rime of The Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1797-98

 

[RidgeRunner]

I dabble in writing. Here is a poem I wrote:

Get On Your Knees by Rick Hester

Don’t reach for an egg….there might be a snake

Don’t run for the hills…for goodness sake.

You’ll never know what lies ahead

So plan your life…not just pray in bed.


The Bible says it’s coming to an end

And that’s the truth my dear long friend.


Chickens in the yard and a rabbit or two

That don’t mean God’s gonna save you.

A bucket of water and a loaded gun

You’re still gonna need the Savior Son.


Cast your heart and your eyes

to the clear bright sky, don’t tell no lies.

The Lord knows your heart and he can tell

Exactly who’s lying and who’s going to hell.


Forget the things you want to hold,

Gold, silver, and wealth untold.

Be honest with the Lord and give Him your heart

And by your side he will never part.


Glory be to God on High,

For His Kingdom is drawing neigh.

So if it’s God you want to please

For your own salvation…get on your knees!