A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

Denerick · 07-01-2010 2:25pm #1

OK, here are the basic rules:

One poem per day. Whoever is up after midnight will get first dibs.

Everyone else should give their thoughts on that poem.

The poem can be about whatever you like; it can be mystical, melancholy, humourous, witty, even a dirty limerick if you like.

Ideally the poem would be from someone we'd all be familiar with, but something new would be nice every so often.

Here's an easy one for starters

Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth

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!

diddlybit · 08-01-2010 2:08am

I cannot admit to being the greatest Wordsworth fan. Wonderful to read out, but for myself, I find them very hard to relate to. I had a course in college on wordsworth and the sublime and detested him more once it had finished. I'm possibly a little too introspective when it comes to my taste in poetry though which is deeply unfashionable:p. I expose my own prejudices by shunning the dead, white guys. Here is my offering though...a copy and paste job, very sorry but I can't feel my hands in the cold anymore.

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning by Adrienne Rich

My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.

I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control

A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.

A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.

To do something very common, in my own way.

buck65 · 08-01-2010 9:36am

Good poem there by A Rich.

D. H. Lawrence
Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
i o And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923

diddlybit · 08-01-2010 1:47pm

Buck65, I have not read that before but it's great. One question though- "What would Freud say?"

buck65 · 08-01-2010 1:50pm

Good question!

Eliot Rosewater · 12-01-2010 12:20am

I just saw "Tom Crean" the stage show there. And its snowing. So heres a poem by Derek Mahon about the suicide of crippled Lawrence Oates, who gave his life so that the other 3 men of his South Pole expedition might make it back to the home camp alive, unburdened by his injury. He walked out of the tent into the cold in the middle of the night.

Antarctica
‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’
The others nod, pretending not to know.
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.

He leaves them reading and begins to climb,
Goading his ghost into the howling snow;
He is just going outside and may be some time.

The tent recedes beneath its crust of rime
And frostbite is replaced by vertigo:
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.

Need we consider it some sort of crime,
This numb self-sacrifice of the weakest? No,
He is just going outside and may be some time

In fact, for ever. Solitary enzyme,
Though the night yield no glimmer there will glow,
At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime.

Denerick · 12-01-2010 12:25am

Thats a powerful poem!

dolliemix · 12-01-2010 12:27am

diddlybit wrote: »

Buck65, I have not read that before but it's great. One question though- "What would Freud say?"

Now I have to read it again!

Great thread OP

Eliot Rosewater · 12-01-2010 12:35am

The back story to Antarctica is interesting. By the time of the scene the poem describes 4 of the 5 British men who had reached the South Pole were left. Oates had gotten a serious injury to one of his legs and had to be carried on sleigh by the others. They wouldn't leave him behind even though he was slowing them up. So in the middle of the night he got up and left the tent. He probably died within an hour.

The other 3 continued their trek towards the camp where the rest of the crew were based. The camp and the South Pole were something like 900 miles apart. They got within a paltry 11 miles of the camp before getting stuck in a blizzard and freezing to death. Their bodies were only found a few months later after the winter had ended.

The whole Tom Crean story is worth consideration! The book comes recommended, as does the one man monologue stage show which is playing at the Everyman Theatre Cork at the moment.

enry · 12-01-2010 1:00am

You will all know this one; but I don’t care I decided to put it up anyway. I love this poem I love it because it’s a testament to the human sprit.
Henley suffered from tuberculosis for almost his whole life. He wrote this poem while lying in his hospital bed after having part of his leg removed.
The day I heard this poem I went and learnt it off by heart. I’m a boring individual and I often learn pieces of literature, poetry etc off by heart, however, I repeat this to myself more then anything else.
Invictus is the Latin word for unconquerable
.
Invictus
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 bludgeoning 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.

William Ernest Henley.
I’ve often put this link up on boards and I’m going to put it up again, simply because I believe you deserve to have something nice to listen to while you reading.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2MycU_N634

Denerick · 12-01-2010 11:23pm

That poem is beautiful. I'm afraid I'm running out of superlatives here! I find that I'm incapable of breaking a poem down line by line; I actually feel you lose the overall sentiment. Although I only dabble and don't read poetry with any great insight or seriousness, I think poetry amounts to a 'feeling' of sorts. Its semi mystic. Its not literature at all I don't think, its a way of conveying the inexpressible with words. Hence it should have an emotional, not an analytical response. Though I may be wrong! Invictus makes me think of themes, and allows me to empathise, but at the end of the day it is the emotional response that leaves the greatest resonance with the reader.

And here's my poem for the day:

Canal Bank Walk by Patrick Kavanagh

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 proven.

P.S- Any chance we can have this stickied?

Eliot Rosewater · 13-01-2010 12:34am

Denerick wrote: »

P.S- Any chance we can have this stickied?

What does Patrick Kavanagh mean in this line I wonder?

Back in school our teacher liked us to line-by-line dissect poems. I think this has had a negative effect on me personally as I'm now nervous of reading poetry lest I don't understand everything the poet is saying.

Of the very limited amount of poems I have read I know that some had to be scrutinized before they made sense though.

As regards the sticking, iI say leave it for the moment. If this thread is deserving of being stuck, then it (ironically) should be able to keep on the front page itself, imo.

Which Im hoping it will.

Plowman · 13-01-2010 2:44pm

This post has been deleted.

Quality · 13-01-2010 8:48pm

I like Kavanaghs work, I can just picture him sitting on the bench by the canal.

ally2 · 14-01-2010 7:11pm

I love this poem by Rimbaud, especially the last two lines.

The Louse Catchers

When the child's brow, red with raging turmoil,
Implores the white swarm of shadowy dreams,
Close to the bed come two tall sisters,
charmers,
With gossamer fingers, silvery-nailed.
They seat him by a window opened wide,
Where blue air bathes a web of tangled blossom,
And in his heavy hair on which the dew drips down,
Run their dread fingers, delicate, bewitching.
He hears the flick
Of their black lashes; through his grey langour
The regal nails and soft electric fingers
Crackle to death the scores of tiny lice.

Notorious · 15-01-2010 11:42am

I've always liked this poem since I did it for my Leaving Cert back in the day, especially the last two stanzas. Supposedly Dickinson has never gotten drunk.

Emily Dickinson

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!

Amazotheamazing · 15-01-2010 6:41pm

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

The back story to Antarctica is interesting. By the time of the scene the poem describes 4 of the 5 British men who had reached the South Pole were left. Oates had gotten a serious injury to one of his legs and had to be carried on sleigh by the others. They wouldn't leave him behind even though he was slowing them up. So in the middle of the night he got up and left the tent. He probably died within an hour.

The other 3 continued their trek towards the camp where the rest of the crew were based. The camp and the South Pole were something like 900 miles apart. They got within a paltry 11 miles of the camp before getting stuck in a blizzard and freezing to death. Their bodies were only found a few months later after the winter had ended.

The whole Tom Crean story is worth consideration! The book comes recommended, as does the one man monologue stage show which is playing at the Everyman Theatre Cork at the moment.

Afaik, new evidence has questioned whether there was a blizzard or not. Apparently Scott was too weak to continue and the two remaining men refused to leave him, and lied to Scott about the weather so he wouldn't order them to leave. Brave guys, whatever the truth.

fontinalis · 15-01-2010 9:17pm

Predictable, but what the hell.

WHERE dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand. For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed - He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest For he comes the human child To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand From a world more full of weeping than he can understand

fontinalis · 15-01-2010 9:25pm

Think this is called the parable of the old man and the young by Wilfred Owen.

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold.
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Quality · 18-01-2010 11:30am

The Planters Daughter
When night stirred at sea,
An the fire brought a crowd in
They say that her beauty
Was music in mouth
And few in the candlelight
Thought her too proud,
For the house of the planter
Is known by the trees.

Men that had seen her
Drank deep and were silent,
The women were speaking
Wherever she went --
As a bell that is rung
Or a wonder told shyly
And O she was the
Sunday In every week.

Lizzykins · 18-01-2010 4:42pm

fontinalis wrote: »

Think this is called the parable of the old man and the young by Wilfred Owen.

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold.
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

I haven't ever seen that poem before. It's amazing.

Eliot Rosewater · 18-01-2010 6:25pm

Nice poem Quality! I recognized it from a TV ad, either alcohol or firelighters I think. Its interesting when poetry is used as the basis for an ad. Consider the G.A.A. one earlier this year:

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!

The irony is that that poem If was written by Rudyard Kipling, who was a devout imperialist and certainly would have disagreed with the political aspect of the G.A.A.

If, by Rudyard Kipling

fontinalis · 19-01-2010 6:47pm

Lizzykins wrote: »

I haven't ever seen that poem before. It's amazing.

Powerful isn't it.

Plowman · 20-01-2010 7:06pm

This post has been deleted.

Denerick · 21-01-2010 11:38am

Heany comes across as elementary to me. This is not an insult. I think he see's the majestical in commonplace, domestic situations.

corriblight · 22-01-2010 9:52pm

Cause And Effect by Charles Bukowski

The best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

mackthefinger · 25-01-2010 2:54pm

Have always like this one.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

nialljf · 26-01-2010 1:03pm

"A Poison Tree"

by William Blake

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

corriblight · 26-01-2010 6:16pm

I am not incredibly familiar with Blake but this one is a gem. It celebrates in sheer delight, trust in oneself and in nature to overcome 'thy foe'. Thanks for posting it, gonna read more of Blake's poems..

liogairmhordain · 27-01-2010 4:40pm

In your pink wool knitted dress
Before anything had smudged anything
You stood at the altar. Bloomsday.
Rain—so that a just-bought umbrella
Was the only furnishing about me
Newer than three years inured.
My tie—sole, drab, veteran RAF black—
Was the used-up symbol of a tie.
My cord jacket—thrice-dyed black, exhausted,
Just hanging onto itself.
I was a post-war, utility son-in-law!
Not quite the Frog Prince. Maybe the Swineherd
Stealing this daughter’s pedigree dreams
From under her watchtowered searchlit future.
No ceremony could conscript me
Out of my uniform. I wore my whole wardrobe—
Except for the odd, spare, identical item.
My wedding, like Nature, wanted to hide.
However—if we were going to be married
It had better be Westminster Abbey. Why not?
The Dean told us why not. That is how
I learned that I had a Parish Church.
St George of the Chimney Sweeps.
So we squeezed into marriage finally.
Your mother, brave even in this
US Foreign Affairs gamble,
Acted all bridesmaids and all guests,
Even—magnanimity—represented
My family
Who had heard nothing about it.
I had invited only their ancestors.
I had not even confided my theft of you
To a closest friend. For Best Man—my squire
To hold the meanwhile rings—
We requisitioned the sexton. Twist of the outrage:
He was packing children into a bus,
Taking them to the Zoo—in that downpour!
All the prison animals had to be patient
While we married.
You were transfigured.
So slender and new and naked,
A nodding spray of wet lilac.
You shook, you sobbed with joy, you were ocean depth
Brimming with God.
You said you saw the heavens open
And how riches, ready to drop upon us.
Levitated beside you, I stood subjected
To a strange tense: the spellbound future.
In that echo-gaunt, weekday chancel
I see you
Wrestling to contain your flames
In your pink wool knitted dress
And in your eye-pupils—great cut jewels
Jostling their tear-flames, truly like big jewels
Shaken in a dice-cup and held up to me.

---- Ted Hughes

fontanalis · 27-01-2010 6:32pm

That Blake one is great, got reading this one by him aswell, really like the bit in bold.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove house fill’d with doves and pigeons
Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.
A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fiber from the Brain does tear.

He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar.
The Beggar’s Dog and Widow’s Cat,
Feed them and thou wilt grow fat.
The Gnat that sings his Summer song
Poison gets from Slander’s tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy’s Foot.

A truth that’s told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent.
It is right it should be so;
Man was made for Joy and Woe;
And when this we rightly know
Thro’ the World we safely go.

Every Night and every Morn
Some to Misery are Born.
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight.
Some are Born to sweet delight,
Some are Born to Endless Night

Eliot Rosewater · 27-01-2010 11:45pm

The last few lines of that William Blake poem actually feature in a song End of the Night by The Doors!

walter sobchak · 29-01-2010 12:53pm

fontinalis wrote: »

Think this is called the parable of the old man and the young by Wilfred Owen.

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold.
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

On the same theme, is The Story of Isaac by Leonard Cohen.... it's a song, but I think his work still counts as poetry...

Well, the door it opened slowly,
my father he came in,
I was nine years old.
He stood so tall above me,
and his blue eyes they were shining
and his voice was very cold.
He said, "I've had a vision
and you know I'm strong and holy,
I must do what I've been told."
So we started up the mountain,
I was running, he was walking,
and his axe was made of burning gold.

Well, the trees they got much smaller,
yes, the lake was just like a lady's mirror
when we stopped to drink some wine.
When he threw the bottle over,
I heard it break one minute later
and he put his hand on mine.
Thought I saw an eagle
but it might have been a vulture,
I never could decide.
Then my father built an altar,
he looked once behind his shoulder,
I guess he knew I would not hide.

You who build these altars now
to sacrifice our children,
you must not do it anymore.
Your scheme is not a vision
and you never ever have been tempted
by a demon let alone a god.
You who stand above them now,
your hatchets blunt and bloody,
you were not there before.
When I lay upon the mountain
and my father's hand was trembling
with the beauty, I mean the beauty of the word.

And if you call me brother now,
forgive me but I must inquire,
"Just according to whose plan?"
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I'll kill you if I can.
And have mercy, mercy on our uniforms,
the man of peace, the man of war.
The peacock spreads his deadly fan.

(from a live version, slight changes to the recorded version)

liogairmhordain · 31-01-2010 11:31pm

Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
Whatever they are,
As bribes to teach them how to execute
Sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
This makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
Jive at the Mecca, use deodorants, and
On Saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
By private car.

Such uncorrected visions end in church
Or registrar:
A mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
Nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme
With money; illness; age. So absolute
Maturity falls, when old men sit and dream
Of naked native girls who bring breadfruit,
Whatever they are.

(Philip Larkin)

Monkeybonkers · 01-02-2010 12:15am

I never read poetry but this was one of my favourites from school and I still like it today:

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

I think there's a nice bit of mystery to this poem. Who is the man? To whom did he make the promise? Who are the listeners?
One of the few poems that I remember and can still quote passages from.
Also honourable mention must go to 'If' by Rudyard Kipling. I know Eliot has mentioned it already but I think it deserves another. I only read it out for my friend and his mother recently. It's a classic!

Apologies for the dark writing. When I copied the poem it turned this colour.

Great idea for a thread btw

asea · 01-02-2010 12:28am

I haled me a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the model's seat
And I painted her sitting there.

I hid all trace of her heart unclean;
I painted a babe at her breast;
I painted her as she might have been
If the Worst had been the Best.

She laughed at my picture and went away.
Then came, with a knowing nod,
A connoisseur, and I heard him say;
"'Tis Mary, the Mother of God."

So I painted a halo round her hair,
And I sold her and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of Saint Hillaire,
Where you and all may see.

Robert W Service

Siobhers · 03-02-2010 4:22am

i carry your heart with me - E. E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Red_Marauder · 03-02-2010 4:33am

Just a short one, by Coleridge, and one of my favourites.

What If You Slept...

What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in you hand
Ah, what then?

I heard John Burnside quote it recently. He talked about how in his life, through psychiatric problems and other life stresses, he often awoke from bad experiences clutching a metaphorical flower. It is important to remember that all of our experiences, no matter how negative, no matter how detached or lonely they seem at the time, can have positive repercussions, just like waking up with a flower from a dream.

hermunkla · 20-02-2010 12:56am

I only became aware of this beautiful poem when attention was given to the movie of the same name. It inspires hope and, perhaps, courage. This is a reference to `iNVICTUS` in an earlier thread.

Eliot Rosewater · 21-02-2010 1:53am

The rhyming scheme in this one is pretty interesting. Initially the rhyming lines are self-contained, ie a few lines will rhyme and then that rhyme will be finished with and replaced. However as the poem develops the rhymes become entangled. Ok, its hard to explain!

After Apple Picking - Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

pretentiouslad · 21-02-2010 3:56am

Regarding Invictus, I think i'll learn it off too, never heard of that poem before but it's amazingly accessible and easy to relate to! brilliant!

BossArky · 24-02-2010 6:15am

Great last verse in this one:

On Raglan Road - Patrick Kavanagh

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;
I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,
And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge
Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,
The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -
O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone
And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.
With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now
Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow
That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -
When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day

OxfordComma · 25-02-2010 5:51pm

Ceasefire by Michael Longley

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 building.

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.

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:

'I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]'[/FONT]

Denerick · 26-02-2010 2:35pm

1fahy4 wrote: »

Ceasefire by Michael Longley

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 building.

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.

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:

'I get down on my knees and do what must be done
And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]'[/FONT]

I think I wrote about this poem in my Leaving cert. beautiful.

PADRAGON · 27-02-2010 1:18am

Come to the edge
im afraid
come to the edge
i will fall
come to the edge
and she came
and he pushed her
and she flew

No idea who wrote this but wow.

Blush_01 · 28-02-2010 1:43am

Gacela of the Dark Death

I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to withdraw from the tumult of cemetries.
I want to sleep the dream of that child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.

I don't want to hear again that the dead do not lose their blood,
that the putrid mouth goes on asking for water.
I don't want to learn of the tortures of the grass,
nor of the moon with a serpent's mouth
that labors before dawn.

I want to sleep awhile,
awhile, a minute, a century;
but all must know that I have not died;
that there is a stable of gold in my lips;
that I am the small friend of the West wing;
that I am the intense shadows of my tears.

Cover me at dawn with a veil,
because dawn will throw fistfuls of ants at me,
and wet with hard water my shoes
so that the pincers of the scorpion slide.

For I want to sleep the dream of the apples,
to learn a lament that will cleanse me to earth;
for I want to live with that dark child
who wanted to cut his heart on the high seas.

Federico García Lorca

I originally read this in a different translation, but I can't find it. I think it's so impressive and beautiful - I'll keep hunting for the original translation I read.

Joe Cool · 01-03-2010 2:38am

Porphyria's Lover

The rain set early in to-night,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
And did its worst to vex the lake:
I listen'd with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneel'd and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soil'd gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And call'd me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me for ever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I look'd up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipp'd me; surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laugh'd the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untighten'd next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blush'd bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propp'd her head up as before,
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorn'd at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gain'd instead!
Porphyria's love: she guess'd not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirr'd,
And yet God has not said a word!

Robert Browning

useurename · 12-03-2010 1:13am

no other word will do.for thats what it was.gravy
gravy these past ten years
alive,sober,working,loving and
being loved by a good woman.eleven years
ago he was told he had ten months to live
at the rate he was going. and he was going
nowhere but down.so he changed his ways
somehow.he quit drinking! and the rest
after that it was all gravy,every minute
of it,up to and incuding when he was told about,
well,somethings that were breaking down and
building up inside his head."don't weep for me"
he said to his friends."i'm a lucky man.
i've had ten years longer than i or anyone
expected.pure gravy.and don't forget it

"gravy" by raymond carver
i really love this poem.

ulysses32 · 14-03-2010 12:11am

In my Craft or sullen Art
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art

Dylan Thomas

A fabulous poem that reminds me of what the word "work" really means!

Denerick · 19-03-2010 1:58pm

I think this may have been posted before, but I'm not sure. Either way I don't care. Its one of my favourite poems.

Rudyard Kipling
If

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 wornout 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 breath 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!

pog it · 22-03-2010 10:33pm

One of my favourite writers, she is a member of the Aosdána: This one is from the collection 'Carrying the Songs'.

Hazelnuts

I thought that I knew what they meant
when they said that wisdom is a hazelnut.
You have to search the scrub
for hazel thickets,
gather the ripened nuts,
crack the hard shells,
and only then taste the sweetness at wisdom's kernel.

But perhaps it is simpler.
Perhaps it is we who wait in thickets
for fate to find us
and break us between its teeth
before we can start to know anything.

A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

Comments