To ask for your favourite poem

[user365241987]

Just because. Do post the words as well if you can...

Op I love that one too - far more cheerful than my lament. Always makes me hope for a colourful retirement

Down with Fanatics - Roger Woddis, in which a fanatic-hater becomes a fanatic himself.

If I had my way with violent men
I’d simmer them in oil,
I’d fill a pot with bitumen
And bring them to the boil.
I execrate the terrorist
And those who harbour him,
And if I weren’t a moralist
I’d tear them limb from limb.

Fanatics are an evil breed
Whom decent men should shun;
I’d like to flog them till they bleed,
Yes, every mother’s son,
I’d like to tie them to a board
And let them taste the cat,
While giving praise, oh thank the Lord,
That I am not like that.

For we should love the human kind,
As Jesus taught us to,
And those who don’t should be struck blind
And beaten black and blue;
I’d like to roast them in a grill
And listen to them shriek,
Then break them on the wheel until
They turned the other cheek.

A different WB Yeats from me: Whn You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Oooh Woofygoldberg, I adore Wilfred Owen too.

And if you liked that, you'll love this...one of my faves ever. So clever and bittersweet and terribly, terribly sad...

Last Post - Carol Ann Duffy

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too -
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.
Just brilliant.

The Way through the Woods, by Rudyard Kipling

THEY shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods.
But there is no road through the woods.

I can't choose one favourite, but this is a current one. Deceptively simple, matter-of-fact and utterly heartbreaking, it gets me every time.

What a brilliant thread! I was going to post Pied Beauty but since someone beat me to it, I'll give you another Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The Windhover

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

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 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.

FakeMews I love your choice! I've never heard it before but I'm definitely writing it down - it's beautiful.

TS Eliot's Skimbleshanks also always makes me smile - especially since my 7yr old DD got the picture book version and started to read it and perform it with such joy! Reading doesn't come easily to her and poetry has been a really great way of breaking down barriers and fears for her. Skimbleshanks has become a firm favourite of hers.

Skimbleshanks

There's a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can't start."
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster's daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can't go."

At 11.42 then the signal's nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man--
Then Skimble will appear and he'll saunter to the rear:
He's been busy in the luggage van!
He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
And the signal goes "All Clear!"
And we're off at last for the northern part
Of the Northern Hemisphere!

You may say that by and large it is Skimble who's in charge
Of the Sleeping Car Express.
From the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards
He will supervise them all, more or less.
Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and the Third;
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he'd know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it's certain that he doesn't approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on the move.

You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks!
He's a Cat that cannot be ignored;
So nothing goes wrong on the Northern Mail
When Skimbleshanks is aboard.

Oh, it's very pleasant when you have found your little den
With your name written up on the door.
And the berth is very neat with a newly folded sheet
And there's not a speck of dust on the floor.
There is every sort of light-you can make it dark or bright;
There's a handle that you turn to make a breeze.
There's a funny little basin you're supposed to wash your face in
And a crank to shut the window if you sneeze.
Then the guard looks in politely and will ask you very brightly
"Do you like your morning tea weak or strong?"
But Skimble's just behind him and was ready to remind him,
For Skimble won't let anything go wrong.
And when you creep into your cosy berth
And pull up the counterpane,
You ought to reflect that it's very nice
To know that you won't be bothered by mice--
You can leave all that to the Railway Cat,
The Cat of the Railway Train!

In the watches of the night he is always fresh and bright;
Every now and then he has a cup of tea
With perhaps a drop of Scotch while he's keeping on the watch,
Only stopping here and there to catch a flea.
You were fast asleep at Crewe and so you never knew
That he was walking up and down the station;
You were sleeping all the while he was busy at Carlisle,
Where he greets the stationmaster with elation.
But you saw him at Dumfries, where he speaks to the police
If there's anything they ought to know about:
When you get to Gallowgate there you do not have to wait--
For Skimbleshanks will help you to get out!
He gives you a wave of his long brown tail
Which says: "I'll see you again!
You'll meet without fail on the Midnight Mail
The Cat of the Railway Train.

And this one - purely because every time I watch Four Weddings I weep at this scene.

Funeral Blues - WH Auden

Stop all the clocks, turn off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with the juicy bone.
Silence the pianos and, with muffled drum,
Bring out the coffin. Let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message: “He is dead!”
Put crepe bows around 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 Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.
I thought that love would last forever; 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 come to any good.

Tonight You Being From Me – Aonghas Macneachail
[Scottish]

Although the journey of stars
Were between you and me
The thread of silk will not decay
That bound you to me
That tied me to you,
and tonight you being from me
I am in darkness
sending words to you
my heart’s cargo
heavy dark words without shape,
vowel and consonant
Multiplying to sense
as the foliage of trees
bends their branches
in darkness
in the breeze
leaves sporting their green
first flicker of dawn.

('It was your lightness that drew me, / The lightness of your talk and your laughter, / The lightness of your cheek in my hands, / Your sweet gentle modest lightness; / And it is the lightness of your kiss / That is starving my mouth, / And the lightness of your embrace / That will let me go adrift', trs Meg Bateman)

No smoke without you, my fire.
After you left,
your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray
and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey
I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal
of so much love. One cigarette
in the non-smoker's tray.
As the last spire
trembles up, a sudden draught
blows it winding into my face.
Is it smell, is it taste?
You are here again, and I am drunk on your tobacco lips.
Out with the light.
Let the smoke lie back in the dark.
Till I hear the very ash
sigh down among the flowers of brass
I'll breathe, and long past midnight, your last kiss.

by Edwin Morgan

And many more

Good Bones by Maggie Smith. Just beautiful.

Hobbes8 - came on to post that exaxt poem - I love Yeats such beautiful words, and so passionate about his country

I love this - read it at my mother's funeral (which was 5 weeks before my fathers). It comforted me that she was still close

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,

Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.

Alone, Edgar Allen Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e e cummings

That's another of my favourites @SmartiesMakeMeNaughty, fabulous poem.

Well, so many, most of the classic poems like ‘If’, for example, because, well, that’s why they’re classics. Favourite? Too hard to define for me, but, most affecting? Well, sorry it’s distinctly not highbrow, but even today, at 47, I often get comments on my ‘perfect teeth’. I like to think it’s got something to do with the effect this had on me when I learnt it in primary school in the ‘70’s

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth,
And spotted the dangers beneath
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food.
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

I wish I’d been that much more willin’
When I had more tooth there than fillin’
To give up gobstoppers,
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin’.

When I think of the lollies I licked
And the liquorice allsorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My mother, she told me no end,
‘If you got a tooth, you got a friend.’
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’
And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin’s,
Injections and drillin’s,
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lie in the old dentist’s chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine
In these molars of mine.
‘Two amalgam,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there.’

How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s methey are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

Pam Ayres.

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill which I read for drama exams 30yrs ago:

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea

and Afterglow by Helen Lowrie Marshall which my 8yo DS read at my Granny's funeral a month ago:

I’d like the memory of me to be a happy one.
I’d like to leave an afterglow of smiles when life is done.
I’d like to leave an echo whispering softly down the ways,
Of happy times and laughing times and bright and sunny days.
I’d like the tears of those who grieve, to dry before the sun;
Of happy memories that I leave when life is done.

Billy's Rose. By George R Sims

I've got a CD with Judi Dench reading this - and if I'm driving I have to turn it off or pull up, as I always always cry at the ending...

Billy's dead and gone to glory - so has Billy's sister Nell:
There's a tale I know about them were I poet I would tell
Soft it comes, with perfume laden like a breath of country air
Wafted down that filthy alley bringing fragrant odours there

In that vile and filthy alley, long ago one winter's day
Dying quick of want and fever, hapless, patient Billy lay
While beside him sat his sister, in the garret's dismal gloom
Cheering with her gentle presence Billy's pathway to the tomb

Many a tale of elf and fairy did she tell the dying child
Till his eyes lost half their anguish and his worn, wan features smiled
Tales herself she heard hap-hazard, caught amid the Babel roar
Lisped about by tiny gossips playing round their mother's door

Then she felt his wasted fingers tighten feebly as she told
How beyond this dismal alley lay a land of shining gold,
Where when all the pain was over - when all the tears were shed -
He would be a white frocked angel, with a gold thing on his head.

Then she told some garbled story of a kind-eyed Savior's love
How he built for little children great big playgrounds up above
Where they sang and played at hop-scotch and at horses all the day
And where the beadles or policemen never frightened them away.

This was Nell's idea of heaven - just a bit of what she'd heard,
With a little bit invented, with a little bit inferred.
But her brother lay and listened, and he seemed to understand,
For he closed his eyes and murmured he could see the Promised Land.

"Yes" he whispered "I can see it -I can see it sister Nell;
Oh the children look so happy, they are all so strong and well;
I can see them there with Jesus - He is playing with them too!
Let us run away and join them, if there's room for me and you"

She was eight this little maiden, and her life had all been spent
In the garret and the alley where they starved to pay the rent
When a drunken father's curses and a drunken mother's blows
Drove her forth into the gutter from the day's dawn to its close.

But she knew enough, this outcast, just to tell the sinking boy,
"You must die before you're able all these blessings to enjoy.
You must die," she whispered,"Billy, and I am not even ill;
But I'll come to you dear brother, - yes, I promise that I will.

"You are dying, little brother, you are dying, oh so fast;
I heard father say to mother that he knew you couldn't last
They will put you in a coffin, then you'll wake and be up there
While I'm left alone to suffer, in this garret bleak and bare."

"Yes I know it," answered Billy. "Ah - but sister I don't mind.
Gentle Jesus will not beat me - He's not cruel or unkind.
ButI can't helpthinking Nelly, I should like to take away
Something sister that you gave me I might look at every day.

"In the Summer you remember how the mission took us out
To that great green lovely meadow, where we played and ran about
and the van that took us halted by a bright green patch of land,
Where the fine red blossoms grew dear, half as big as mother's hand.

"Nell I asked the good kind teacher what they called such flowers as those
And I remember that he told me that the pretty name was Rose
I have never seen them since, dear- how I wish that I had one
Just to keep and think of you dear, when I'm up beyond the sun."

Not a word spoke little Nelly but at night when Billy slept,
On she flung her scanty garments and then down the stairs she crept.
Through the silent streets of London running nimbly as a fawn,
Running on and running ever till the night had changed to dawn.

When the foggy sun had risen, and the mist had cleared away,
All around her, wrapped in snowdrift, there the open country lay
She was tired, her limbs were frozen, and the roads had cut her feet,
But there came no flowery gardens her poor tearful eyes to greet.

She had found the road by asking, she had learnt the way to go
She had found the verdant meadow - it was wrapped in cruel snow,
Not a buttercup or daisy not a single verdant blade
Showed its head above its prison. Then she knelt her down and prayed.

With her eyes up cast to heaven, down she sank upon the ground
And she prayed to God to tell her where the roses might be found
Then the cold blast numbed her senses, and her sight grew strangely dim;
And a sudden awful tremor seem to seize her every limb.

"Oh, a rose!" she moaned, "good Jesus - just a rose to take to Bill !"
And as she prayed a chariot came a'thundering down the hill.
And a lady sat there toying -with a red rose rare and sweet;
As she passed she flung it from her, and it fell at Nelly's feet.

Just a word her lord had spoken caused her ladyship to fret
And the rose had been his present, so she flung it in a pet.
But the poor half blinded Nelly thought it fallen from the skies
And she murmured, "Thank you Jesus!" as she clasped the dainty prize.

Lo; that night from out the alley did a child's soul pass away,
From dirt and sin and misery to where God's children play
Lo; that night, a wild fierce snowstorm burst in fury o'er the land
And at morn they found Nell frozen, with the red rose in her hand.

Billy's dead and gone to glory - so has Billy's sister Nell;
Am I bold to say this happened in the land where angels dwell :-
That the children met in heaven after all their earthly woes,
And that Nelly kissed her brother and said, "Billy - here's your rose"

So many summers

Beside one loch, a hind's neat skeleton,
Beside another, a boat pulled high and dry:
Two neat geometries drawn in the weather:
Two things already dead and still to die.

I passed them every summer, rod in hand,
Skirting the bright blue or the spitting gray,
And, every summer, saw how the bleached timbers
Gaped wider and the neat ribs fell away.

Time adds one malice to another one–
Now you'd look very close before you knew
If it's the boat that ran, the hind went sailing.
So many summers, and I have lived them too.

-Norman MacCaig

----

STRAWBERRIES

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held in mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurrying the feast
for one to come
the empty plates
laid on the stone together
with the two forks crossed
and I bent towards you
sweet in that air
in my arms
abandoned like a child
from your eager mouth
the taste of strawberries
in my memory
lean back again
let me love you

let the sun beat
on our forgetfulness
one hour of all
the heat intense
and summer lightning
on the Kilpatrick hills

let the storm wash the plates

-Edwin Morgan

Marked with D by Tony Harrison
When I first read it I got goose bumps when I realized what kind of over Harrison was referring to.

When the chilled dough of his flesh went in an oven
not unlike those he fuelled all his life,
I thought of his cataracts ablaze with Heaven
and radiant with the sight of his dead wife,
light streaming from his mouth to shape her name,
'not Florence and not Flo but always Florrie.'
I thought how his cold tongue burst into flame
but only literally, which makes me sorry,
sorry for his sake there's no Heaven to reach.
I get it all from Earth my daily bread
but he hungered for release from mortal speech
that kept him down, the tongue that weighed like lead.
The baker’s man that no one will see rise
and England made to feel like some dull oaf
is smoke, enough to sting one person’s eyes
and ash (not unlike flour) for one small loaf.

The baker's man that no one will see rise
and England made to feel like some dull oaf
is smoke, enough to sting one person's eyes
and ash (not unlike flour) for one small loaf

Desiderata
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.

@Amonk3ysButler . A Poison Tree by William Blake. One of my favourite poems, too. Hence my username.