Favourite poems

[ipanemagirl]

Poem lyrics of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I LOVE this poem and the last line reminds me to go to bed!

for Yellowvan, if she's still reading this thread:

When lovely woman stoops to folly
The evening can be awfully jolly.

She had a stillbirth but considers that as her child will not have to suffer all the bad things they might experience then death is better than life.

Really quite sad

"LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,"

"love set you going like a fat gold watch"

I had never noticed that before.

Sorry Quattro...Xposts there

grouchyoscar

PandaG,it's lovely isn't it. It's the bit about the railway station and no money for the telephone that gets me.

And Jessicat, I've always loved that George Herbert one. And Madonna sampled it in one of her songs:

I think it's called Love Tried to Welcome Me. Now obviously she takes gold and turns it into dross but still, that poem does have amazing resonance...

Love tried to welcome me
But my soul drew back
Guilty of lust and sin
Love tried to take me in

These are my lips, but they whisper sorrow
This is my voice, but it's telling lies
I know how to laugh, but I don't know happiness
And I must confess, instead of spring, it's always winter
And my heart has always been a lonely hunter, but still

Xanthipi- Alice Oswald is my one of my favourite poets at the moment too. I looked at that particular one when I was choosing readings for my wedding in April but in the end I went for my favourite ever one by her called Mountains from The Thing in the Gap Stone Stile.

I can't see it online so I can't paste it in but I'll look for the book and may type it up if I get time!

I heard this for the first time recently at a wedding and I loved it:

Scaffolding

by Seamus Heaney

Masons, when they start upon a building,

Are careful to test out the scaffolding;

Make sure that planks won?t slip at busy points,

Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job?s done

Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.

So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be

Old bridges breaking between you and me

Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall

Confident that we have built our wall.

Oh yes Seamus Heaney, that reminds me one of my other faves is Paul Muldoon, a pupil of Heaney.

Life is beautiful, my child,
Though many things go wrong,
And you may hear much sadness in
Its strange and lovely song.

Though friends and loved ones die, my child,
They're never really gone.
Nor more nor less than yesterday,
In you they will live on.

They will live on in you, my child,
As everything you see,
Though it must vanish, will remain
Alive in memory.

Alive in what you think and feel
And dream and say and do,
For all who ever were still are
Upon this earth in you.

I put this in my neices christening card, she was born only 8 weeks after her older sister died age 19 months.

Howling again and at the same time

Alphabets - Seamus Heaney

[I can't do links, etc. Sorry]

Oh Panda, this thread is lovely but has made me very snuffly.

ATLAS by U.A. Fanthorpe

There is a kind of love called maintenance
Which stores the WD40 and knows when to use it

Which checks the insurance, and doesn?t forget
The milkman; which remembers to plant bulbs;

Which answers letters; which knows the way
The money goes; which deals with dentists

And Road Fund Tax and meeting trains,
And postcards to the lonely; which upholds

The permanently rickety elaborate
Structures of living, which is Atlas.

And maintenance is the sensible side of love,
Which knows what time and weather are doing
To my brickwork; insulates my faulty wiring;
Laughs at my dryrotten jokes; remembers
My need for gloss and grouting; which keeps
My suspect edifice upright in air,
As Atlas did the sky.

Happiness

Happiness is silent, or speaks equivocally for friends,
Grief is explicit and her song never ends,
Happiness is like England, and will not state a case,
Grief, like Guilt, rushes in and talks apace.

Stevie Smith whatawoman.

OOH Stevie Smith. Someone already mentioned this so will post it. IG you are a complete star for starting this thread.

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

The butterfly, a cabbage-white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight,
Yet has- who knows so well as I?-
A just sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the acrobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked gift.

Robert Graves

Minnie, I love that. I don't know Graves at all he is a gap of mine.

Quattrocento, I love this thread too - I op-ed hesitantly because it felt a little pretentious honestly but I needn't have worried we are legion!

I LOVE not waving but drowning - it is a modern poetry masterclass don't you think? Just perfect, funny and tragic, I don't know how she did it. I just found it on the poetryarchive and you can hear her reading it - haven't listened yet need to unpack monster shop.

what a fab thread ipa

this will come to us all....

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There's something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate -
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

Quattro

I love that Stevie Smith one.

I try and live my life on this basis.

First They Came for the Jews
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

Two children (small), one Four, one Five,
Once saw a bee go in a hive,
They'd never seen a bee before!
So waited there to see some more.
And sure enough along they came
A dozen bees (and all the same!)
Within the hive they buzzed about;
Then, one by one, they all flew out.
Said Four: 'Those bees are silly things,
But how I wish I had their wings!'

Minnie, I had to learn your butterfly poem when I was little- so nice to see it again!

Nobody has mentioned Rupert Brooke yet I don't think:

The Jolly Company

The stars, a jolly company,
I envied, straying late and lonely;
And cried upon their revelry:
'O white companionship! you only
In love, in faith unbroken dwell,
Friends radiant and inseparable!'

Light-heart and glad they seemed to me
And merry comrades (even so
God out of Heaven may laugh to see
The happy crowds; and never know
That in his lone obscure distress
Each walketh in a wilderness).

But I, remembering, pitied well
And loved them, who, with lonely light,
In empty infinite spaces dwell,
Disconsolate. For, all the night,
I heard the thin gnat-voices cry,
Star to faint star, across the sky.

wheeldog - love it

I know DH loves me, he says it little, yet proves it daily, in oh so many small ways. That poem has really moved me.

Virginia Shopshall, 'Comes the Dawn', says it all! Been re-reading it a lot recently as I've turned 40 and it strikes a few chords.