To ask for your favourite poem

[Rebeccaslicker]

I was just going to post this on the "middle aged woman is too old for fairy lights" thread - but it's being zapped for GF-ery!

So here is one of my favourite poems:

www.barbados.org/poetry/wheniam.htm

I like it because I think the imagery and the humour are fantastic. Anyone else like poetry? What do you like - I love reading poetry so would be great to find some new stuff :)

I have outlived my youthfulness
so a quiet life for me

Where once I used to scintillate,
Now I sin
Till ten past three

Pointy birds
Pointy pointy

Anoint my head
Anointy nointy

Much as I love lots of these poems I can't be doing with all the general misery they evoke

Another vote for Dulce et decorum est, though any war poetry is my 'bag'.

From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (trans Fitzgerald)

The moving finger writes and
Having writ, moves on
Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back
To cancel half a line
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it

(from memory, so punctuation is my own)

Love this thread.

Agree re: Wild Geese by Mary Oliver, also The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry. I have Mumsnet to thank for putting me onto these.

Begin, by Brendan Kennelly is my all time favourite though:

“Begin”

Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of the light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and future
old friends passing though with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.

This is a very sad one

The Recall - Rabindranath Tagore

The night was dark when she went away,
and the slept.
The night is dark now,
and I call for her,
"Come back, my darling; the world is asleep; and no one would know, if you came for a moment while stars are gazing at stars."
She went away when the trees were in bud and the spring was young.
Now the flowers are in high bloom and I call,
"Come back, my darling.
The children gather and scatter flowers in reckless sport.
And if you come and take one little blossom no one will miss it."
Those that used to play are playing still, so spendthrift is life.
I listen to their chatter and call,
"Come back, my darling, for mother's heart is full to the brim with love, and if you come to snatch only one little kiss from her no one will grudge it."

This thread has made my night I too love The Highwayman, and here's another, lesser known poem from the great Alfred Noyes:

The Healing Snow

A pure white mantle blotted out the world I used to know,
There was no scarlet in the sky or on the hills below,
gently as mercy out of heaven came down the healing snow.

The trees that were so dark and bare stood up in radiant white,
And the road forgot its furrowed care as day forgets the night
And the new heaven and the new earth lay robed in dazzling light.

And every flake that fell from heaven was like an angel's kiss
Or a feather fluttering from the wings of some dear soul in bliss
Who gently leaned from that bright world to soothe the pain of this

Maya Angelou's "I know why the caged bird sings" and "Still I Rise"
...
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
And the trade winds soft through
The sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright
Lawn and he names the sky his own.
...
And

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et decorum est".
Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier".
E.E. Cummings' "I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)".
D. H. Lawrences's "Self-Pity".

I'm saving this thread to come back and read more leisurely over the holidays.

Thank you NeganLovesLucille for reminding me of The Listeners. Every Christmas Day of my childhood my Grandad used to recite it to us all from memory, along with The Enchanted Shirt by John Hay.

www.english-for-students.com/the-enchanted-shirt.html

What a memory!

My own favourite:

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

This is just such an amazing thread. Like others I will come back & re-read it over the coming days.

Can I give you another poem?:

Everyone Sang
By Siegfried Sassoon

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

This one is sad too but I like it - I read it in a book and couldn't forget it!

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46557/what-lips-my-lips-have-kissed-and-where-and-why

I also like rose aylmer - for whom "these eyes may weep but never see, a night of memories and of sighs, I consecrate to thee".

This is just such an amazing thread. Like others I will come back & re-read it over the coming days.

Can I give you another poem?:

Everyone Sang
By Siegfried Sassoon

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Fuzzy - yes that one too!! I love Edna st Vincent Millay. Embarrassingly I first came across the one you quoted in "sweet valley high" as a teenager

Sorry for the double post........

I'd also like to add Louis MacNiece - a wonderful & somewhat forgotten poet:

Sleep serene, avoid the backward
Glance; go forward, dreams, and do not halt
(Behind you in the desert stands a token
Of doubt — a pillar of salt).
Sleep, the past, and wake, the future,
And walk out promptly through the open door;
But you, my coward doubts, may go on sleeping,
You need not wake again — not any more.
The New Year comes with bombs, it is too late
To dose the dead with honourable intentions:
If you have honour to spare, employ it on the living;
The dead are dead as Nineteen-Thirty-Eight.
Sleep to the noise of running water
To-morrow to be crossed, however deep;
This is no river of the dead or Lethe,
To-night we sleep
On the banks of Rubicon — the die is cast;
There will be time to audit
The accounts later, there will be sunlight later
And the equation will come out at last.

Pablo Neruda 'I can write the saddest lines tonight..'

Sabrina benaim - explaining my depression to my mother.

This poem felt like she was speaking for me, it’s heartbreaking although i realise it’s not everyone’s taste.

Button poetry have some amazing talent and I follow them on Facebook.

The war poetry is in a class of its own in terms of the emotions it stirs up, I think. Like Rupert Brooke - "these laid the years away, poured out the red, sweet wine of youth... their sons they gave, their immortality"

Or "there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever england".

Had he lived longer, I wonder if his lines would have started to follow those of Sassoon and Owen.

Unending Love by Rabindranath Tagore

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,
Its ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same
Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man’s days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

More Larkin. I adore this one

All my favourite poems are here. Can I add one more. Reminds me of Robert Frost.

Upper Lambourne by John Betjeman

Up the ash tree climbs the ivy,
Up the ivy climbs the sun,
With a twenty-thousand pattering,
Has a valley breeze begun,
Feathery ash, neglected elder,
Shift the shade and make it run -

Shift the shade toward the nettles,
And the nettles set it free,
To streak the stained Carrara headstone,
Where, in nineteen-twenty-three,
He who trained a hundred winners,
Paid the Final Entrance Fee.

Leathery limbs of Upper Lambourne,
Leathery skin from sun and wind,
Leathery breeches, spreading stables,
Shining saddles left behind -
To the down the string of horses
Moving out of sight and mind.

Feathery ash in leathery Lambourne
Waves above the sarsen stone,
And Edwardian plantations
So coniferously moan
As to make the swelling downland,
Far surrounding, seem their own.

I also nominate this entire thread for Mumsnet Classics

Haven't RTFT & looking forward to it, but mine for sentimental reasons is probably the very depressing 'I am' by John Clare.

I was elated when I came across his portrait in the National portrait gallery.

A Drinking Song

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

Aaah, reminds me of the first hazy months with my first love

and Charles Bukowski is my another level -

“I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.”