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Your favourite poems that you learned at school

124

Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 9,464 ✭✭✭Celly Smunt


    I know that I shall meet my fate
    Somewhere among the clouds above;
    Those that I fight I do not hate,
    Those that I guard I do not love;
    My country is Kiltartan Cross,
    My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
    No likely end could bring them loss
    Or leave them happier than before.
    Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
    Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
    A lonely impulse of delight
    Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
    I balanced all, brought all to mind,
    The years to come seemed waste of breath,
    A waste of breath the years behind
    In balance with this life, this death.

    Yeats :)


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,798 ✭✭✭goose2005


    My friend Billy had a ten-foot willy
    And he showed it to the girl next door.
    She thought it was a snake, so she cut it with a rake
    And now it's only five foot four.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 52 ✭✭needaname


    Emily Dickinson Hope

    Hope is the thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul,
    And sings the tune--without the words,
    And never stops at all,

    And sweetest in the gale is heard;
    And sore must be the storm
    That could abash the little bird
    That kept so many warm.

    I've heard it in the chillest land,
    And on the strangest sea;
    Yet, never, in extremity,
    It asked a crumb of me.

    Brings a tear to my eye everytime


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,184 ✭✭✭3ndahalfof6


    a little fly by the door
    he landed in the grocery store
    he pissed on the cheese
    he siht on the ham
    then wiped his ass on the grocery man.


  • Registered Users Posts: 80 ✭✭nolo1


    We learnt this in primary school. Not sure what class I was in but it always stayed with me:
    Cúl an Tí
    (Seán Ó Ríordáin)


    Tá Tír na nÓg ar chúl an tí,
    Tír álainn trína chéile,
    Lucht cheithre chos ag súil na slí,
    Gan bróga orthu ná léine,
    Gan Béarla acu ná Gaeilge.

    Ach fásann clóca ar gach droím
    Sa tír seo trína chéile,
    Is labhartar teanga ar chúl a’ tí
    Nár thuig aon fhear ach Aesop,
    Is tá sé siúd sa chré anois.

    Tá cearca ann is ál sicín,
    Is lacha righin mhothaolach,
    Is gadhar mór dubh mar namhaid sa tír
    Ag drannadh le gach éinne,
    Is cat ag crú na gréine.

    Sa chúinne thiar tá banc dramhaíl,
    Is iontaisi an tsaoil ann,
    Coinnleoir, búclaí, seanhata tuí,
    Is trúmpa balbh néata,
    Is citeal bán mar ghé ann.

    Is ann a thagann tincéirí
    Go naofa, trína chéile,
    Tá gaol acu le cúl a’ tí,
    Is bíd ag iarraidh déirce
    Ar chúl gach tí in Éirinn.

    Ba mhaith liom bheith ar chúl a’ tí
    Sa doircheacht go déanach
    Go bhfeicinn ann ar cuairt gealaí
    An t-ollaimhín sin Aesop
    Is é in phúca léannta.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,144 ✭✭✭gracehopper


    Ambulances - Philip Larkin

    Closed like confessionals, they thread
    Loud noons of cities, giving back
    None of the glances they absorb.
    Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
    They come to rest at any kerb:
    All streets in time are visited.

    Then children strewn on steps or road,
    Or women coming from the shops
    Past smells of different dinners, see
    A wild white face that overtops
    Red stretcher-blankets momently
    As it is carried in and stowed,

    And sense the solving emptiness
    That lies just under all we do,
    And for a second get it whole,
    So permanent and blank and true.
    The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
    They whisper at their own distress;

    For borne away in deadened air
    May go the sudden shut of loss
    Round something nearly at an end,
    And what cohered in it across
    The years, the unique random blend
    Of families and fashions, there

    At last begin to loosen. Far
    From the exchange of love to lie
    Unreachable insided a room
    The trafic parts to let go by
    Brings closer what is left to come,
    And dulls to distance all we are.


    A bit morbid but I always liked larkin


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,461 ✭✭✭--Kaiser--


    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

    Percy Bysshe Shelley


  • Registered Users Posts: 933 ✭✭✭hal9000


    hey mickey,
    your so fine,
    your so fine,
    you blow my mind,
    hey mickey.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 139 ✭✭Dick Burns


    Jack and jill went up the hill
    so jack could lick jills fanny,
    jack got a shock and a mouthful of c**k,
    as jill was a pre-op tranny.


    :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 141 ✭✭George83


    I have met them at close of day
    Coming with vivid faces
    From counter or desk among grey
    Eighteenth-century houses.
    I have passed with a nod of the head
    Or polite meaningless words,
    Or have lingered awhile and said
    Polite meaningless words,
    And thought before I had done
    Of a mocking tale or a gibe
    To please a companion
    Around the fire at the club,
    Being certain that they and I
    But lived where motley is worn:
    All changed, changed utterly:
    A terrible beauty is born.

    That woman's days were spent
    In ignorant good-will,
    Her nights in argument
    Until her voice grew shrill.
    What voice more sweet than hers
    When, young and beautiful,
    She rode to harriers?
    This man had kept a school
    And rode our winged horse;
    This other his helper and friend
    Was coming into his force;
    He might have won fame in the end,
    So sensitive his nature seemed,
    So daring and sweet his thought.
    This other man I had dreamed
    A drunken, vainglorious lout.
    He had done most bitter wrong
    To some who are near my heart,
    Yet I number him in the song;
    He, too, has resigned his part
    In the casual comedy;
    He, too, has been changed in his turn,
    Transformed utterly:
    A terrible beauty is born.

    Hearts with one purpose alone
    Through summer and winter seem
    Enchanted to a stone
    To trouble the living stream.
    The horse that comes from the road.
    The rider, the birds that range
    From cloud to tumbling cloud,
    Minute by minute they change;
    A shadow of cloud on the stream
    Changes minute by minute;
    A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
    And a horse plashes within it;
    The long-legged moor-hens dive,
    And hens to moor-cocks call;
    Minute by minute they live:
    The stone's in the midst of all.

    Too long a sacrifice
    Can make a stone of the heart.
    O when may it suffice?
    That is Heaven's part, our part
    To murmur name upon name,
    As a mother names her child
    When sleep at last has come
    On limbs that had run wild.
    What is it but nightfall?
    No, no, not night but death;
    Was it needless death after all?
    For England may keep faith
    For all that is done and said.
    We know their dream; enough
    To know they dreamed and are dead;
    And what if excess of love
    Bewildered them till they died?
    I write it out in a verse -
    MacDonagh and MacBride
    And Connolly and Pearse
    Now and in time to be,
    Wherever green is worn,
    Are changed, changed utterly:
    A terrible beauty is born.

    (Easter, WB Yeats)


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,510 ✭✭✭Hazys


    I always loved this one about a dying soldier.


    The Soldier by Rupert Brooke
    If I should die, think only this of me:
    That there's some corner of a foreign field
    That is forever England. There shall be
    In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
    A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
    Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
    A body of England's, breathing English air,
    Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
    And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
    A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
    Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
    Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
    And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
    In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.


  • Registered Users Posts: 724 ✭✭✭cock robin


    Horace. By Monty Python

    Much to his mum and dad's dismay
    Horace ate himself one day
    He did not stop to say his grace
    He just sat down and ate his face
    His eyes his feet his legs his spleen
    He even licked his bottom clean
    Until he was a boy no more
    Just a stomach on the floor


  • Registered Users Posts: 56 ✭✭swarm.of.bees


    Always had a soft spot for the Marrog:

    My desk's at the back of the class
    And nobody, nobody knows
    I'm Marrog from Mars
    With a body of brass
    And seventeen fingers and toes
    Wouldn't they shriek if they knew
    I've three eyes at the back of my head
    And my hair is bright purple
    My nose is deep blue
    My teeth are half yellow, half red
    My five arms are silver and spiked
    With knives on them sharper than spears
    I could go back right now if I liked
    And return in a million light years
    I could gobble them all
    For I'm seven foot tall
    And I'm breathing green flames from my ears
    Wouldn't they yell if they knew
    If they guessed that a Marrog was here?
    Ha-ha they haven't a clue
    Or wouldn't they tremble with fear!
    "Look, look a Marrog!" They'd all scream and SMACK
    The blackboard would fall and the ceiling would crack
    And the teacher would faint, I suppose
    But I grin to myself, sitting right at the back
    And nobody, nobody knows.




  • Registered Users Posts: 1,678 ✭✭✭LambsEye


    If - Rudyard Kipling

    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 imposters 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 hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

    If you can talk with cowards 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!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,107 ✭✭✭✭ejmaztec


    This is the grave of Mary Cox,
    She gave a thousand men the pox,
    Now she's dead, but not forgotten,
    They dig her up and stuff her rotten.


    Unknown.


  • Registered Users Posts: 148 ✭✭christmas2010


    I think it was a shortened version of this I did in school.
    I don't think I fully understood it at the time but it stuck with me nonetheless.
    It's making more sense now as I get older.


    T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). Prufrock and Other Observations. 1917.

    1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock


    S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
    A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
    Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
    Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
    Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
    Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.


    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: 105
    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,305 ✭✭✭Chuchoter


    Although LC English is quietly killing any interest in poetry I had(:mad:), I do like these.
    '"Out, Out-"' by Robert Frost
    The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
    And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
    Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
    And from there those that lifted eyes could count
    Five mountain ranges one behing the other
    Under the sunset far into Vermont.
    And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
    As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
    And nothing happened: day was all but done.
    Call it a day, I wish they might have said
    To please the boy by giving him the half hour
    That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
    His sister stood beside him in her apron
    To tell them "Supper." At the word, the saw,
    As if it meant to prove saws know what supper meant,
    Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap -
    He must have given the hand. However it was,
    Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
    Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
    The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all -
    Since he was old enough to know, big boy
    Doing a man's work, though a child at heart -
    He saw all was spoiled. "Don't let him cut my hand off -
    The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!"
    So. The hand was gone already.
    The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
    He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
    And then - the watcher at his pulse took a fright.
    No one believed. They listened to his heart.
    Little - less - nothing! - and that ended it.
    No more to build on there. And they, since they
    Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
    'Mrs Tilscher's Class' by Carol Ann Duffy
    You could travel up the Blue Nile
    with your finger, tracing the route
    while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
    Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan.
    That for an hour, then a skittle of milk
    and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust.
    A window opened with a long pole.
    The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.

    This was better than home. Enthralling books.
    The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.
    Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley
    faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.
    Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found
    she'd left a gold star by your name.
    The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved.
    A xylophone's nonsense heard from another form.

    Over the Easter term the inky tadpoles changed
    from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs
    hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce,
    followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking
    away from the lunch queue. A rough boy
    told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared at your parents, appalled, when you got back home.

    That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity.
    A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot,
    fractious under the heavy, sexy sky. You asked her
    how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled,
    then turned away. Reports were handed out.
    You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown,
    as the sky split open into a thunderstorm

    LC English is a disaster. You barely even need to read the damn poems, just learn two lines and write a ridiculously long essay. The poetry itself are only points to back up x or y characteristic of a poet.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,593 ✭✭✭karlitob


    There once was a girl from Peru
    Who had nothing else better to do
    Than sit on the stairs
    and count her c**t hairs
    six thousand three hundred and two!!!!



    Love it!


    Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney
    I sat all morning in the college sick bay
    Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
    At two o'clock our neighbors 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 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 the four foot box as in his cot.
    No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

    A four foot box, a foot for every year.

    &
    Bright Star - John Keats

    BRIGHT star! would I were steadfast as thou art -
    Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
    And watching, with eternal lids apart,
    Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
    The moving waters at their priestlike task
    Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
    Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
    Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
    No - yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
    Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
    To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
    Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
    Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
    And so live ever - or else swoon to death.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,194 ✭✭✭housetypeb


    the stag hunt by sir walter scott.

    ...The headmost horseman rode alone.

    Alone,but with unbated zeal,
    That horseman plied the scourge and steel;
    For,jaded now,and spent with toil,
    Embossed with foam,and dark with soil,
    While every gasp with sobs he drew,
    The laboring stag strained full in view.
    Two dogs of black St Huberts breed,
    Unmatched for courage,breath,and speed,
    Fast on his flying traces came,
    And all but won that desperate game;......
    .....


    Always loved the imagery of that poem


  • Registered Users Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Lyra Fangs


    Truth :


    Sticks and stones may break my bones,

    But words can also hurt me.

    Stones and sticks break only skin,

    While words are ghosts that haunt me.


    Slant and curved the word-swords fall

    To pierce and stick inside me.

    Bats and bricks may ache through bones,

    But words can mortify me.


    Pain from words has left its scar

    On mind and heart that's tender.

    Cuts and bruises now have healed;

    It's words that I remember.



    By Barrie Wade


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,739 ✭✭✭johnmcdnl


    The Early Purges by Seamus Heaney

    because he killed the scraggy wee ****s



    and if boards tries to star out s-h-i-t-s I'm going to be annoyed because ****s is an artistic expresion and the only time I was allowed to use bad lanuage in secondary school essay without getting marked down for it was quoting this line


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,740 ✭✭✭chughes


    Mary had a little lamb
    It was full of tricks and frolics
    One day it tried to jump a wall
    But fell and broke it's.......leg

    Anon


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,654 ✭✭✭Alice1


    Oh the mention of "Soundings" is bringing back memories that were asleep! Loved Kavanagh & Yeats but my all time favourite has to be:

    Of all the souls that stand create
    I have elected one
    When sense from spirit files away
    And subterfuge is done
    When that which is and
    That which was
    Apart, intrinsic stand
    And this brief tragedy of flesh
    Is shifted like a sand
    When spirits show their royal front
    And mists are carved away
    Behold the atom I preferred to all the lists of clay.


    Emily Dickinson.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,778 ✭✭✭up for anything


    Macavity, the lovechild of Bertie and Haughey

    Macavity - The Mystery Cat by T S Eliot

    Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw--
    For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.
    He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:
    For when they reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!

    Macavity, Macavity, there's no on like Macavity,
    He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity.
    His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare,
    And when you reach the scene of crime--Macavity's not there!
    You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air--
    But I tell you once and once again, Macavity's not there!

    Macavity's a ginger cat, he's very tall and thin;
    You would know him if you saw him, for his eyes are sunken in.
    His brow is deeply lined with thought, his head is highly doomed;
    His coat is dusty from neglect, his whiskers are uncombed.
    He sways his head from side to side, with movements like a snake;
    And when you think he's half asleep, he's always wide awake.

    Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity,
    For he's a fiend in feline shape, a monster of depravity.
    You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in the square--
    But when a crime's discovered, then Macavity's not there!

    He's outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)
    And his footprints are not found in any file of Scotland Yard's.
    And when the larder's looted, or the jewel-case is rifled,
    Or when the milk is missing, or another Peke's been stifled,
    Or the greenhouse glass is broken, and the trellis past repair--
    Ay, there's the wonder of the thing! Macavity's not there!

    And when the Foreign Office finds a Treaty's gone astray,
    Or the Admiralty lose some plans and drawings by the way,
    There may be a scap of paper in the hall or on the stair--
    But it's useless of investigate--Macavity's not there!
    And when the loss has been disclosed, the Secret Service say:
    "It must have been Macavity!"--but he's a mile away.
    You'll be sure to find him resting, or a-licking of his thumbs,
    Or engaged in doing complicated long division sums.

    Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macacity,
    There never was a Cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
    He always has an alibit, or one or two to spare:
    And whatever time the deed took place--MACAVITY WASN'T THERE!
    And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
    (I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
    Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
    Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,221 ✭✭✭BluesBerry


    Skinny Malink Melodeon legs umbrella feet
    He went to the pictures and couldn't find a seat
    When the movie started Skinny malink farted
    Skinny malink melodion legs umbrella feet


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,090 ✭✭✭livinsane


    Said Hamlet to Ophelia
    I'll draw a sketch of thee
    What pencil shall I use
    2B or not 2B

    Spike Milligan


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,090 ✭✭✭jill_valentine


    Robert Frost was awesome, always.

    Derek Mahon's A Disused Shed in County Wexford is the one poem that always stuck with me, for the last verses:

    http://www.thepoem.co.uk/poems/mahon.htm
    A half century, without visitors, in the dark —
    Poor preparation for the cracking lock
    And creak of hinges. Magi, moonmen,
    Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
    Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
    And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream
    At the flashbulb firing squad we wake them with
    Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms.
    Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
    They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.

    They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
    To do something, to speak on their behalf
    Or at least not to close the door again.
    Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
    'Save us, save us,' they seem to say,
    'Let the god not abandon us
    Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
    We too had our lives to live.
    You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
    Let not our naive labours have been in vain!'


  • Registered Users Posts: 195 ✭✭Warrior011


    We did this poem in JC english and i've loved it ever since
    Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy
    Not a red rose or a satin heart.

    I give you an onion.
    It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
    It promises light
    like the careful undressing of love.

    Here.
    It will blind you with tears
    like a lover.
    It will make your reflection
    a wobbling photo of grief.

    I am trying to be truthful.

    Not a cute card or a kissogram.

    I give you an onion.
    Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
    possessive and faithful
    as we are,
    for as long as we are.

    Take it.
    Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
    if you like.

    Lethal.
    Its scent will cling to your fingers,
    cling to your knife.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,243 ✭✭✭✭Jesus Wept


    I eat my peas with honey;
    I've done it all my life.
    It makes the peas taste funny,
    But it keeps them on the knife.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,381 ✭✭✭Br4tPr1nc3


    i liked the one that was like

    its a mans obligation
    to yaddy yaddy something something about sex.

    it appeared on southpark.

    i liked that one.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 318 ✭✭Lady von Purple


    John Donne. We learned five or six of his poems but I bought a book of his poems after that. My favourite we studied was The Flea but favourite overall is The Will. The Flea is pretty much: 'so you won't sleep with me? look at this flea, it bit you, it bit me, now our blood is intermingled in one being. that's better than marriage. now can we have sex?' It was a bit more poetic than that though...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 721 ✭✭✭Xivilai


    Ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang
    Ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bang-bang
    Ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang
    Ooh-ee-ooh-ah-ah, ting-tang-walla-walla-bang-bang

    There were a few more verses..


  • Posts: 0 ✭✭ [Deleted User]


    It may be very popular but I love The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 318 ✭✭Lady von Purple


    It may be very popular but I love The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

    Good call. I hated it the first time I read it, but when I heard it read aloud properly- somewhere online- I realised how well written it actually is.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,550 ✭✭✭jaffa20


    Hope is the Thing with Feathers

    "Hope" is the thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul
    And sings the tune without the words
    And never stops at all,

    And sweetest in the gale is heard;
    And sore must be the storm
    That could abash the little bird
    That kept so many warm.

    I've heard it in the chillest land
    And on the strangest sea,
    Yet never, in extremity,
    It asked a crumb of me.



    By: Emily Dickinson


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 522 ✭✭✭Gneez




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 17,918 ✭✭✭✭orourkeda


    f*ck poetry


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,573 ✭✭✭pragmatic1


    Br4tPr1nc3 wrote: »
    i liked the one that was like

    its a mans obligation
    to yaddy yaddy something something about sex.

    it appeared on southpark.

    i liked that one.
    Something about the board of education doing a demonstration on the floor.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,573 ✭✭✭pragmatic1


    pragmatic1 wrote: »
    Something about the board of education doing a demonstration on the floor.
    I liked Patrick Kavanagh and Seamus Heaney.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,410 ✭✭✭old_aussie


    Here lies the body of Ezra Pound

    Lost at sea and never found.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 220 ✭✭Jimmy the Wheel


    I always think of this one when the city gets too much for me...


    I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
    And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
    Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
    And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
    And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
    Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
    There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
    And evening full of the linnet's wings.

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day
    I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
    While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
    I hear it in the deep heart's core.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,123 ✭✭✭Spore


    -pure awesomeness... also used to drunkenly text verses of this poem to chicks in work (I had a touch of the ghey).


    1.

    MY heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
    My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
    Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
    One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
    ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, 5
    But being too happy in thine happiness,—
    That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
    In some melodious plot
    Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
    Singest of summer in full-throated ease. 10

    2.

    O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
    Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth,
    Tasting of Flora and the country green,
    Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
    O for a beaker full of the warm South, 15
    Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
    With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
    And purple-stained mouth;
    That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
    And with thee fade away into the forest dim: 20

    3.

    Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
    What thou among the leaves hast never known,
    The weariness, the fever, and the fret
    Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
    Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, 25
    Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
    Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
    And leaden-eyed despairs,
    Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
    Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. 30

    4.

    Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
    Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
    But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
    Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
    Already with thee! tender is the night, 35
    And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
    Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays;
    But here there is no light,
    Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
    Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. 40

    5.

    I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
    Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
    But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
    Wherewith the seasonable month endows
    The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; 45
    White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
    Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves;
    And mid-May’s eldest child,
    The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
    The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. 50

    6.

    Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
    I have been half in love with easeful Death,
    Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
    To take into the air my quiet breath;
    Now more than ever seems it rich to die, 55
    To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
    In such an ecstasy!
    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
    To thy high requiem become a sod. 60

    7.

    Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
    No hungry generations tread thee down;
    The voice I hear this passing night was heard
    In ancient days by emperor and clown:
    Perhaps the self-same song that found a path 65
    Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
    She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
    The same that oft-times hath
    Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
    Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. 70

    8.

    Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
    To toil me back from thee to my sole self!
    Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
    As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf.
    Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades 75
    Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
    Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep
    In the next valley-glades:
    Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
    Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? 80


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,678 ✭✭✭LambsEye


    Spore wrote: »
    -pure awesomeness... also used to drunkenly text verses of this poem to chicks in work (I had a touch of the ghey).

    Entire verses? Respect to your dexterous drunken texting.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,899 ✭✭✭✭BBDBB


    I must go back to the sea again
    to the lonely sea and the sky
    I left my vest and socks there
    I wonder if they're dry?

    Spike Milligan


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 254 ✭✭jillyb


    bigtuna wrote: »
    Funeral Blues by W.H.Auden. True emotion
    stevejr wrote: »
    If you've lost your Dad....very poignant...

    Funeral Blues....WH Auden.

    Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
    Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
    Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
    Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

    Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
    Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
    Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
    Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

    He was my North, my South, my East and West,
    My working week and my Sunday rest,
    My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
    I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

    The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
    Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
    Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
    For nothing now can ever come to any good.

    Yes this one is so moving and was my favourite in school. I haven't lost anyone like the poem but it still evokes emotion!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 816 ✭✭✭Opinicus


    Seamus Heaney - Digging

    I'll never forget the first time I read this poem. Heaney's descriptions were so good that I could actually smell the potato mould!! He's some poet.


    Awesome poem.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,537 ✭✭✭Gyalist


    "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
    The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
    The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
    And leaves the world to darkness and to me."


  • Registered Users Posts: 80 ✭✭nolo1


    My daughter learnt this one in 3rd class recently:

    Timothy Winters

    Timothy Winters comes to school
    With eyes as wide as a football-pool,
    Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters:
    A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters.

    His belly is white, his neck is dark,
    And his hair is an exclamation-mark.
    His clothes are enough to scare a crow
    And through his britches the blue winds blow.

    When teacher talks he won't hear a word
    And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird,
    He licks the pattern off his plate
    And he's not even heard of the Welfare State.

    Timothy Winters has bloody feet
    And he lives in a house on Suez Street,
    He sleeps in a sack on the kithen floor
    And they say there aren't boys like him anymore.

    Old Man Winters likes his beer
    And his missus ran off with a bombardier,
    Grandma sits in the grate with a gin
    And Timothy's dosed with an aspirin.

    The welfare Worker lies awake
    But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake,
    So Timothy Winters drinks his cup
    And slowly goes on growing up.

    At Morning Prayers the Master helves
    for children less fortunate than ourselves,
    And the loudest response in the room is when
    Timothy Winters roars "Amen!"

    So come one angel, come on ten
    Timothy Winters says "Amen
    Amen amen amen amen."
    Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen

    Charles Causley


  • Registered Users Posts: 80 ✭✭nolo1


    Anyone remember this one in Exploring English 3 - the Inter Cert poetry book?

    The Highwayman

    PART ONE

    T[SIZE=-2]HE[/SIZE] wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
    The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    And the highwayman came riding—
    Riding—riding—
    The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

    He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
    A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
    They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
    And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
    His pistol butts a-twinkle,
    His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

    Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
    And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
    He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
    Bess, the landlord's daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

    And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
    Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
    His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
    But he loved the landlord's daughter,
    The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
    Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say—

    "One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
    But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
    Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
    Then look for me by moonlight,
    Watch for me by moonlight,
    I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

    He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
    But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
    As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
    And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
    (Oh, sweet, black waves in the moonlight!)
    Then he tugged at his rein in the moonliglt, and galloped away to the West.

    PART TWO

    He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
    And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
    When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
    A red-coat troop came marching—
    Marching—marching—
    King George's men came matching, up to the old inn-door.

    They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
    But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
    Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
    There was death at every window;
    And hell at one dark window;
    For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

    They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
    They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
    "Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
    She heard the dead man say—
    Look for me by moonlight;
    Watch for me by moonlight;
    I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

    She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
    She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
    They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
    Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
    Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
    The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

    The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
    Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
    She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
    For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
    Blank and bare in the moonlight;
    And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain .

    Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
    Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
    Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
    The highwayman came riding,
    Riding, riding!
    The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!

    Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
    Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
    Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
    Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
    Her musket shattered the moonlight,
    Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.

    He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
    Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
    Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
    How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
    The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
    Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

    Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
    With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
    * * * * * *

    And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
    When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
    A highwayman comes riding—
    Riding—riding—
    A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

    Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
    He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
    He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
    But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
    Bess, the landlord's daughter,
    Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 378 ✭✭Bigtoe107


    By far my favorite poem of my school years is

    The Listeners
    by 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.

    Absolutely fantastic and well remembered simply for the passionate rendition given by my old English teacher


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