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Your favourite poems that you learned at school
Comments
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On Raglan Road - Patrick Kavanagh.0
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wow, that is one of my favs too! along with stoney grey soil
It's like we only studied PK forever
like... you, searge. and I are all PK groupies how original:)0 -
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I don't remember it off by heart by the way, had to find it to read it again....I remember 4c boy alright, that was about hte handicapped kid.
I used to know this poem by heart and it influenced me when I had to make some life changing decisions in my youth.0 -
Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I should
Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could
Little things I should've said and done, I never
took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Maybe I didn't hold you all those lonely, lonely
times
And I guess I never told you, I'm so happy that
you're mine
If I made you feel second best, I'm so sorry, I
was blind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasn't died
Give me one more chance to keep you satisfied
Satisfied
Little things I should've said and done, I never
took the time
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Tell me, tell me that your sweet love hasn't died
Give me one more chance to keep you satisfied
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
Maybe I didn't treat you quite as good as I
should
Maybe I didn't love you quite as often as I could
Maybe I didn't hold you all those lonely, lonely
times
And I guess I never told you, I'm so happy that
you're mine
(Maybe I didn't love you...)0 -
Yeat, I adored everything he wrote. September 1913 was a personal favourite!
I thought Plath had some good poetry, even if she was as mad as a hatter!
The Arrival of the Beebox is a good one
The Arrival of the Bee Box
I ordered this, clean wood box
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
I would say it was the coffin of a midget
Or a square baby
Were there not such a din in it.
The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can't keep away from it.
There are no windows, so I can't see what is in there.
There is only a little grid, no exit.
I put my eye to the grid.
It is dark, dark,
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.
How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appalls me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!
I lay my ear to furious Latin.
I am not a Caesar.
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
They can be sent back.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.
I wonder how hungry they are.
I wonder if they would forget me
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.
There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,
And the petticoats of the cherry.
They might ignore me immediately
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.
The box is only temporary.
And then there was Michael Longley. I liked his poetry as it depicted the thoughts of those in the North. There was the Badger
ushing the wedge of his body
Between cromlech and stone circle,
He excavates down mine shafts
And back into the depths of the hill.
His path straight and narrow
And not like the fox's zig-zags,
The arc of the hare who leaves
A silhouette on the sky line.
Night's silence around his shoulders,
His face lit by the moon, he
Manages the earth with his paws,
Returns underground to die.
2
An intestine taking in
patches of dog's-mercury,
brambles, the bluebell wood;
a heel revolving acorns;
a head with a price on it
brushing cuckoo-spit, goose-grass;
a name that parishes borrow.
3
For the digger, the earth-dog
It is a difficult delivery
Once the tongs take hold,
Vulnerable his pig's snout
That lifted cow-pats for beetles,
Hedgehogs for the soft meat,
His limbs dragging after them
So many stones turned over,
The trees they tilted.
And Finally his poem Wounds
Wounds
Here are two pictures from my father's head--
I have kept them like secrets until now:
First, the Ulster Division at the Somme
Going over the top with '**** the Pope!'
'No Surrender!': a boy about to die,
Screaming 'Give 'em one for the Shankill!'
Wilder than Gurkhas' were my father's words
Of admiration and bewilderment.
Next comes the London-Scottish padre
Resettling kilts with his swagger-stick,
With a stylish backhand and a prayer.
Over a landscape of dead buttocks
My father followed him for fifty years.
At last, a belated casualty,
He said--lead traces flaring till they hurt--
'I am dying for King and Country, slowly.'
I touched his hand, his thin head I touched.
Now, with military honours of a kind,
With his badges, his medals like rainbows,
His spinning compass, I bury beside him
Three teenage soldiers, bellies full of
Bullets and Irish beer, their flies undone.
A packet of Woodbines I throw in,
A lucifer, the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Paralysed as heavy guns put out
The night-light in a nursery for ever:
Also a bus-conductor's uniform--
He collapsed beside his carpet-slippers
Without a murmur, shot through the head
By a shivering boy who wandered in
Before they could turn the television down
Or tidy away the supper dishes.
To the children, to a bewildered wife,
I think 'Sorry Missus' was what he said0 -
Surprised this wasn't mentioned
Mise Raifteirí, an file,
lán dóchais is grá
le súile gan solas,
ciúineas gan crá
Dul siar ar mo aistear,
le solus mo Chroidhe,
Fann agus tuirseadh,
go deireadh mo shlighe
Feach anois mé
mo aghaidh ar bhalla,
Ag seinm ceoil
le pocaibh falamh.0 -
About 30 years ago. Found a book of these types of "poems" that had blown onto the road on bin day. At the end of the day, there was not a child who could not recite this one from start to finish.
The Doggies Meeting
The doggies held a meeting,
They came from near and far,
Some came by motor cycle,
And some by motor car
Each doggie paid his entrance fee,
Each doggie signed the book
And each unziipped his arsehole
And hung it on a hook.
One dog was not invited
It sorely raised his ire
He ran into the meeting hall
And loudly shouted "Fire!"
It threw them in confusion
And without a second look
Each grabbed another’s arsehole
From off another hook
And that's the reason why sir,
When walking down the street
And that's the reason why sir,
When doggies chance to meet
And that's the reason why sir,
On land or sea or foam
They sniff each other's arsehole...
To see if it's their own.0 -
I went to the pictures tomorrow
I took a front seat at the back
I fell from the pit to the gallery
And broke a front bone in my back
They took me home in a taxi
I walked every step of the way
I had a plain bun with currants in
I ate it and threw it away .
And another one.
One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead boys got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
One was blind and the other couldn't see
So they chose a dummy for a referee
A blind man went to see fair play
A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"
A paralyzed donkey passing by
Kicked the blind man in the eye
Knocked him through a 9 inch wall
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all
A deaf policeman heard the noise
And came to arrest the 2 dead boys
If you don't believe this story's true
Ask the blind man, he saw it, too!0 -
There was a girl from Madrid,
who thought she had never been rid,
along came an Italian,
with balls like a stallion,
and rode her like billy the kid.
Mary had a little sheep,
and with that sheep,
she went to sleep,
the sheep turned out to be a ram,
and Mary had a little lamb!
How do I remember this! :rolleyes:
Mary had a little lamb
The midwife was surprised
Old MacDonald had a farm
The midwife nearly died0 -
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Wordsworth- Composed Upon Westminster Bridge
EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
I'd have to say I was never a fan. But, credit where credit's due, the fcuker knew a thing or two about punctuation.0 -
This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold0 -
eightyfish wrote: »Most memorable poem from school was:
September 1913.
What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry, 'Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.
William Butler Yeats
Beautiful. And more applicable today than it ever was.0 -
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!0 -
A song which nearly broke my heart
A tramp lay dying in the park.
I knelt beside him to hear him speak
And the words he spoke, they were oh so weak.
He told me a story of long since past,
Of a sailing ship with its long grey mast,
Of his captain's cap with it's shining braid
And the wonderful voyages that he'd made.
"Silent Annie" was his great ship's name.
Like a token of love he spoke her name.
She sailed 'round the Horn, aye, more that once.
She could cut through the waves like a sharpened lance.
"Believe me," he said. His eyes filled with tears
Like a drunk on a corner, trying to remember his years.
He reached out his hand and I took it in mine.
"I believe you," I said, and he gave a sad smile.
"I remember the day when they towed her away.
Her sides they were sore from the sea's angered spray.
They said she's unfit for to sail out once more
(And they towed her more inward from her own sandy shore)?
And as they broke my Silent Annie. I watched with a sigh.
I remembered her beauty when I was a boy.
She was my one love, my life's only dream,
When we sailed out together as captain and queen."
It started to drizzle, and I felt my hand tight
And he squeezed even harder as he ended the fight.
And a crowd they had gathered, and they watched with dismay
As some ambulance men came, and they took him away.
So I got to my feet, and I walked through that park.
The sun it was gone, but it was not yet dark.
My body was wet, and my clothes were not many,
But my mind was aroused by the ship Silent Annie.0 -
Mid-Term Break
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying -
He had always taken funerals in his stride -
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'
Whispers informed strangers that I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple.
He lay in a four foot box, as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
###########
As mentioned before, Mid-Term Break in its entirety, brilliant poem.
###########
Pat Ingoldsby was some man too, very hard to find his poetry though unless you actually meet him personally and buy his books.
The poems about him cutting himself and him being alone were depressingly sad but brilliant but he had some very funny poems, like the one for ordering coffee, his record player and the bedlam poem. Great stuff.
My teacher in 6 th class was a big fan of his poetry and we were too so we all wrote to him telling him what our favourite poem of his was and how great we thought he was. Our teacher didn't think we would get a response from him in time because we wrote to him in the last week or two of school but lo and behold a few days before the end of term and primary school we received a poster from the man himself, signed and all thanking us for out kind words. The teacher was speechless and it was great to get a response from the man himself.0 -
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Never a huge fan of poetry, brevity is overrated.
But I remember Patrick Kavanagh.
You clogged the feet of my boyhood
And I believed that my stumble
Had the poise and stride of Apollo
And his voice my thick-tongued mumble.
You told me the plough was immortal!
O green-life-conquering plough!
Your mandril strained, your coulter blunted
In the smooth lea-field of my brow.
You sang on steaming dunghills
A song of coward's brood,
You perfumed my clothes with weasel itch,
You fed me on swinish food.
You flung a ditch on my vision
Of beauty, love and truth.
O stony grey soil of Monaghan
You burgled my bank of youth!
Mullahinsha, Drummeril, Black Shanco
Wherever I look I see
In the stoney grey soil of Monaghan
Dead loves that were born for me
Or something like that, yup, pat kavanagh was a legend.0 -
"If I was a dog
and you were a flower
I'd lift up my leg
and give you a shower."
Poet: Unknown.0 -
I didn't like a lot of them, but
"dulce et decorum est
pro patria mori"
always stuck with me.
I loved keats too.
My favourite poems are the raven (cliche I'm sure) and "hope is the thing with feathers" by dickinson0 -
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".
or this one by Ogden Nash
The cow is of the bovine ilk: One end is moo, the other, milk.0 -
Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop
(to add to daffodils, road not taken and September 1913)0 -
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Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop
(to add to daffodils, road not taken and September 1913)0 -
Michael Longley, "Ceasefire"
I
Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears
Achilles took him by the hand and pushed the old king
Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and
Wept with him until their sadness filled the buidling.
II
Taking Hector's corpse into his own hands Achilles
Made sure it was washed and, for the old king's sake,
Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry
Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.
III
When they had eaten together, it pleased them both
To stare at each other's beauty as lovers might,
Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still
And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:
IV
'I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son.'0 -
But You Didn't
Remember the time you lent me your car and I dented it?
I thought you'd kill me...
but you didn't.
Remember the time I forgot to tell you the dance was formal
and you came in jeans?
I thought you'd hate me...
But you didn't
Remember the times I'd flirt with other boys
just to make you jealous, and you were?
I thought you'd drop me...
But you didn't.
There were plenty of things you did to put up with me,
to keep me happy, to love me and there are so many things
I wanted to tell you when you returned from Vietnam...
But you didn't.
by: Merrill Glass0 -
Glad to see Yeats getting a lot of love in this thread, my favourite of his: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 Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
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
Wind 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?0 -
This has always been a favourite for me.
Inniskeen Road: July Evening
The bicycles go by in twos and threes -
There's a dance in Billy Brennan's barn to-night,
And there's the half-talk code of mysteries
And the wink-and-elbow language of delight.
Half-past eight and there is not a spot
Upon a mile of road, no shadow thrown
That might turn out a man or woman, not
A footfall tapping secrecies of stone.
I have what every poet hates in spite
Of all the solemn talk of contemplation.
Oh, Alexander Selkirk knew the plight
Of being king and government and nation.
A road, a mile of kingdom, I am king
Of banks and stones and every blooming thing.
Patrick Kavanagh0 -
Came here to post that same Kavanagh poem. I love his work, especially that. His resignation to being nothing more than an observer.0
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Forget the poem/poet, but one line is something like -
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born"
More because the poet was an absolute nutjob (but not in a Sylvia Plath way, blergh) than for the poem itself.
W.B. Yeats. He was completely, batshit crazy by the time he wrote that.0 -
Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse.
They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were ****ed up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.0 -
Join Date:Posts: 12051
A Ballad of Athlone
by Aubrey DeVereDoes any man dream that a Gael can fear?-
Of a thousand deeds let him learn but one!
The Shannon swept onward broad and clear,
Between the leaguers and broad Athlone
Break down the bridge!"- Six warriors rushed
Through the storm of shot and the storm of shell:
With late but certain victory flushed
The grim Dutch gunners eyed them well
They wrench’d at the planks’mid a hail of fire:
They fell in death, their work half done:
The bridge stood fast; and nigh and nigher
The foe swarmed darkly, densely on.
"Oh, who for Erin will strike a stroke?
Who hurl yon planks where the waters roar?"
Six warriors forth from their comrades broke,
And flung them upon that bridge once more
Again at the rocking planks they dashed;
And four dropped dead: and two remained:
The huge beams groaned, and the arch down-crashed;-
Two stalwart swimmers the margin gained]
St Ruth is his stirrups stood up and cried,
"I have seen no deed like that in France!"
With a toss of his head, Sarsfield replied,
"They had luck, the dogs! "Twas a merry chance!"
Many a year, upon Shannon’s side,
They sang upon moor and they sang upon health,
Of the twain that breasted that raging tide,
And the ten that shook bloody hands with Death
The Ballad Of Father Gilligan by William Butler Yeats
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Was weary night and day;
For half his flock were in their beds,
Or under green sods lay.
Once, while he nodded on a chair,
At the moth-hour of eve,
Another poor man sent for him,
And he began to grieve.
'I have no rest, nor joy, nor peace,
For people die and die';
And after cried he, 'God forgive!
My body spake, not I!'
He knelt, and leaning on the chair
He prayed and fell asleep;
And the moth-hour went from the fields,
And stars began to peep.
They slowly into millions grew,
And leaves shook in the wind;
And God covered the world with shade,
And whispered to mankind.
Upon the time of sparrow-chirp
When the moths came once more.
The old priest Peter Gilligan
Stood upright on the floor.
'Mavrone, mavrone! the man has died
While I slept on the chair';
He roused his horse out of its sleep,
And rode with little care.
He rode now as he never rode,
By rocky lane and fen;
The sick man's wife opened the door:
'Father! you come again!'
'And is the poor man dead?' he cried.
'He died an hour ago.'
The old priest Peter Gilligan
In grief swayed to and fro.
'When you were gone, he turned and died
As merry as a bird.'
The old priest Peter Gilligan
He knelt him at that word.
'He Who hath made the night of stars
For souls who tire and bleed,
Sent one of His great angels down
To help me in my need.
'He Who is wrapped in purple robes,
With planets in His care,
Had pity on the least of things
Asleep upon a chair.'
Anseo i lár an ghleanna
Bhí an tAifreann léite is gach rud déanta,
Bhí pobal Dé ag scaipeadh
Nuair a chualamar gleo ag teacht 'nár dtreo
Anseo i lár an ghleanna.
"Cén gleo é siúd ag teacht 'nár dtreo?"
"Sin torann cos na gcapall."
"Seo chugainn saighdiúirí airm an rí
Anseo i lár an ghleanna."
Do chas an seanfhear Brian Ó Laoi
Is shiúil i dtreo an tsagairt,
Is chuir sé cogar ina chluais
Anseo i lár an ghleanna.
"Ó a Athair Seán, Ó a Athair Seán.
Seo chugainn na cótaí dearga;
Ní féidir leatsa teitheadh anois
Anseo i lár an ghleanna."
"Tá tusa óg, a Athair Séan,
Táim féin i ndeireadh beatha;
Déan malairt éadaigh liom anois
Anseo i lár an ghleanna."
Do deineadh malairt gan ró-mhoill
I gcoinne toil an tsagairt,
Is shíl sé deora móra bróin
Anseo i lár an ghleanna.
Do ghaibh na Sasanaigh Brian Ó Laoi,
Is d'imigh saor an sagart;
Do chroch siad Brian ar chrann caol ard
Anseo i lár an ghleanna.
Ach mairfigh cáil an tsean-fhir áigh
Fad fhásfaidh féar ar thalamh;
Beidh a scéal á ríomh ag fearaibh Fáil,
Is anseo i lár an ghleanna.
Seamus Heaney - Requiem for the Croppies
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley..
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp...
We moved quick and sudden in our own country
.The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching... on the hike..
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown
.Until... on Vinegar Hill... the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August... the barley grew up out of our grave0 -
The Lady of Shalott
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Through the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four grey walls, and four grey towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
.... another seventeen verses.0 -
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We were taught this in 6th class, I can still remember it word for word.
An Old Woman of the Roads
by Padraic Colum
O, to have a little house!
To own the hearth and stool and all!
The heaped up sods upon the fire,
The pile of turf against the wall!
To have a clock with weights and chains
And pendulum swinging up and down!
A dresser filled with shining delph,
Speckled and white and blue and brown!
I could be busy all the day
Clearing and sweeping hearth and floor,
And fixing on their shelf again
My white and blue and speckled store!
I could be quiet there at night
Beside the fire and by myself,
Sure of a bed and loth to leave
The ticking clock and the shining delph!
Och! but I'm weary of mist and dark,
And roads where there's never a house nor bush,
And tired I am of bog and road,
And the crying wind and the lonesome hush!
And I am praying to God on high,
And I am praying Him night and day,
For a little house—a house of my own—
Out of the wind's and the rain's way.0 -
The Listeners - Walter de la Mare
‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
Sea Fever - John Masefield (one of my favs)
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
Rudyard Kipling's Mandalay, Poe's The Raven0 -
Child of our time by Eavan Boland - Read it first time and didn't think it was great, read it a second time, slowly and actually thought about the story behind it and I just found it so powerful.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Yesterday I knew no lullaby
But you have taught me overnight to order
This song, which takes from your final cry
Its tune, from your unreasoned end its reason;
Its rhythm from the discord of your murder,
Its motive from the fact you cannot listen.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]We who should have known how to instruct
With rhymes for your waking, rhythms for your sleep
Names for the animals you took to bed,
Tales to distract, legends to protect,
Later an idiom for you to keep
And living, learn, must learn from you, dead.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]To make our broken images rebuild
Themselves around your limbs, your broken
Image, find for your sake whose life our idle
Talk has cost, a new language. Child
Of our time, our times have robbed your cradle.
Sleep in a world your final sleep has woken.[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/FONT]0 -
Primary School teacher was a huge Roald Dahl fan.
Roald Dahl
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How does your garden grow?
'I live with my brat in a high-rise flat,
So how in the world would I know.'0 -
Invictus by William Henley
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.
Didn't actually study it for the leaving or anything, but it's still a fantastic piece.0 -
One that always stuck in my mind was a Heaney poem about a supposed entry in one of the Annals regarding an encounter between some monks and a ship of possibly divine or extraterrestrial origin. Or something like that.
From Lightenings: VIII
The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.
The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,
A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
‘This man can’t bear our life here and will drown,’
The abbot said, ‘Unless we help him.’ So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.0 -
The Dong with the luminous nose by Edward Lear.Really got to this pubescent 12 yr old
[SIZE=+2]W[/SIZE]hen awful darkness and silence reign
Over the great Gromboolian plain,
Through the long, long wintry nights;--
When the angry breakers roar
As they beat on the rocky shore;--
When Storm-clouds brood on the towering heights
Of the Hills of the Chankly Bore:--
Then, through the vast and gloomy dark,
There moves what seems a fiery spark,
A lonely spark with silvery rays
Piercing the coal-black night,--
A Meteor strange and bright:--
Hither and thither the vision strays,
A single lurid light.
Slowly it wanders,--pauses,--creeeps,--
Anon it sparkles,--flashes and leaps;
And ever as onward it gleaming goes
A light on the Bong-tree stems it throws.
And those who watch at that midnight hour
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as the wild light passes along,--
'The Dong!--the Dong!
'The wandering Dong through the forest goes!
'The Dong! the Dong!
'The Dong with a luminous Nose!'
Long years ago
The Dong was happy and gay,
Till he fell in love with a Jumbly Girl
Who came to those shores one day,
For the Jumblies came in a sieve, they did,--
Landing at eve near the Zemmery Fidd
Where the Oblong Oysters grow,
And the rocks are smooth and gray.
And all the woods and the valleys rang
With the Chorus they daily and nightly sang,--
'Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.'
Happily, happily passed those days!
While the cheerful Jumblies staid;
They danced in circlets all night long,
To the plaintive pipe of the lively Dong,
In moonlight, shine, or shade.
For day and night he was always there
By the side of the Jumbly Girl so fair,
With her sky-blue hands, and her sea-green hair.
Till the morning came of that hateful day
When the Jumblies sailed in their sieve away,
And the Dong was left on the cruel shore
Gazing--gazing for evermore,--
Ever keeping his weary eyes on
That pea-green sail on the far horizon,--
Singing the Jumbly Chorus still
As he sate all day on the grassy hill,--
'Far and few, far and few,
Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue
And they went to sea in a sieve.'
But when the sun was low in the West,
The Dong arose and said;--
--'What little sense I once possessed
'Has quite gone out of my head!'--
And since that day he wanders still
By lake or forest, marsh and hill,
Singing--'O somewhere, in valley or plain
'Might I find my Jumbly Girl again!
'For ever I'll seek by lake and shore
'Till I find my Jumbly Girl once more!'
Playing a pipe with silvery squeaks,
Since then his Jumbly Girl he seeks,
And because by night he could not see,
He gathered the bark of the Twangum Tree
On the flowery plain that grows.
And he wove him a wondrous Nose,--
A Nose as strange as a Nose could be!
Of vast proportions and painted red,
And tied with cords to the back of his head.
--In a hollow rounded space it ended
With a luminous Lamp within suspended,
All fenced about
With a bandage stout
To prevent the wind from blowing it out;--
And with holes all round to send the light,
In gleaming rays on the dismal night.
And now each night, and all night long,
Over those plains still roams the Dong;
And above the wall of the Chimp and Snipe
You may hear the sqeak of his plaintive pipe
While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain
To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;
Lonely and wild--all night he goes,--
The Dong with a luminous Nose!
And all who watch at the midnight hour,
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
Moving along through the dreary night,--
'This is the hour when forth he goes,
'The Dong with a luminous Nose!
'Yonder--over the plain he goes,
'He goes!
'He goes;
'The Dong with a luminous Nose!'0 -
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.0 -
The wind that shakes the barley (Robert dwyer joyce)
I sat within a valley green
I sat me with my true love
My sad heart strove to choose between
The old love and the new love
The old for her, the new that made
Me think on Ireland dearly
While soft the wind blew down the glade
And shook the golden barley
Twas hard the woeful words to frame
To break the ties that bound us
But harder still to bear the shame
Of foreign chains around us
And so I said, "The mountain glen
I'll seek at morning early
And join the bold United Men
While soft winds shake the barley"
While sad I kissed away her tears
My fond arms 'round her flinging
The foeman's shot burst on our ears
From out the wildwood ringing
A bullet pierced my true love's side
In life's young spring so early
And on my breast in blood she died
While soft winds shook the barley
I bore her to some mountain stream
And many's the summer blossom
I placed with branches soft and green
About her gore-stained bosom
I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse
Then rushed o'er vale and valley
My vengeance on the foe to wreak
While soft winds shook the barley
But blood for blood without remorse
I've taken at Oulart Hollow
And laid my true love's clay-cold corpse
Where I full soon may follow
As 'round her grave I wander drear
Noon, night and morning early
With breaking heart when e'er I hear
The wind that shakes the barley
[edit]0 -
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ADORED this...
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised 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
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is 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 the strength 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 talk 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, at all.”
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 two,
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 that 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 chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.0 -
ADORED this...
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised 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
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is 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 the strength 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 talk 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, at all.”
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 two,
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 that 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 chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
My favourite from school without a doubt, I still count my copy of soundings with my scribbly notes as a huge loss.
And it came up in my leaving sert paper too, gift!0 -
Who ever thought there would be a serious poetry thread on AH?0
-
The Fly
God in his wisdom made the fly
but then forgot to tell us why.
The Baby
A bit of talcum
is always walcum
0 -
Patrick Kavanagh - Canal Bank Walk
Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven0 -
The Little Man Who Wasn't There by Hughes Mearns
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...
When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away
Loved this poem from primary school can't remember what class I was in but it always stuck in my head0 -
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Patrick Kavanagh was supposed to have been an awful miserable sod, but man was that the making of some great poetry.Parliament Hill Fields, by Sylvia Plath.
"On this bald hill the new year hones its edge.
Faceless and pale as china,
The round sky goes on minding its business.
Your absence is inconspicuous;
Nobody can tell what I lack..."
Subh Milis, by Séamus Ó Néill.
"Bhí subh milis
Ar bhaschrann an dorais
Ach mhúch mé an corraí
Ionam d'éirigh,
Mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá
A bheas an baschrann glan,
Agus an láimh bheag
Ar iarraidh."
I've always really loved that one.0 -
I could probably mention all of Heaneys, Mid-term break has already been mentioned a couple of times and that would have been the first I thought of, especially the last line
I love this one too, I could always picture my own reflection as the big-eyed narcissus
Personal Helicon
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.
Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.0 -
Learned this in Junior Infants
Cos cos eile a haon a dó
Súil súil eile a haon a dó
Can't remember the rest but the last line was
Agus fiacla bán i no bhéal istigh0 -
wurzlitzer wrote: »He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven
by William Butler Yeats
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
My favourite poem ever. It describes perfectly the way I wear my heart on my sleeve when I'm in a relationship, I know I shouldn't but I can't help it. If I really like someone I'm a disaster, I'd do anything for them.
The first night I met the first man I truely loved, we discussed our mutual love of Yeats' poetry, I told him this was my favourite poem. He still tread all over my dreams though
I also loved Subh Milis, and The Famine Road by Eavan Boland0 -
Disturbing as hell, but powerful and unforgettable - Heaney poem about a boy imprisoned in a barn by his parents (and it really happened...)
When the lamp glowed
a yolk of light
In their back window,
The child in the henhouse
put his eye to the chink
Little henhouse boy,
Sharp faced as new moons
Remembered your photo still
Glimpsed like a rodent
On the floor of my mind.
Little moon man,
Kennelled and faithful
At the foot of the yard,
Your frail shape luminous
Weightless, is stirring the dust,
The cobwebs, old droppings
under the roosts
And dry smells from scraps
She put through your trapdoor,
morning and evening.
After these footsteps, silence,
Vigils, solitudes, fasts,
Unchristened tears,
A puzzled love of the light,
But now you speak at last.
With a remote mime
of something beyond patience,
Your gaping wordless proof
of Lunar distances
Travelled beyond love.0 -
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