One single line of poetry....

[Clawdy]

that stays with you? Not necessarily your favourite poem but sometimes just one line....for me it's " What will survive of us is love " from the Philip Larkin poem.

Another Yeats fan here:

"But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
And loved the sorrows of your changing face"

I have loved the stars too fondly to fearful of the night
Sarah Williams

O Western Wind when wilt thou blow, that the small rain down can rain?

Ain't I a Woman!

Sojourner Truth...a freed slave, very powerful poem.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
(Byron)

I know not if there is a reason,
Why I am so sad of heart,
The legend of bygone ages,
Haunts me and will not depart

(Heinrich Himmel, Lorelei)

Translated from Subh Milis by Seamus O'Neill

There was jam
On the doorhandle
But I pushed away the feelings
That rose up in me,
Because I thought of the day
That the doorhandle would be clean
And the little hand
Would be gone.

And from Padraig Pearse's The Wayfarer

"The beauty of this world has made me sad..."

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

From Carol Ann Duffy 'Prayer'

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

An infernal mass, a black, horrific army I'll not succumb to Satan's origami

(About crows)

Roger McGough
Such an evocative image.

I also like:
Where once I used to scintillate now I sin till ten past three

And Ivor Cutlers
Socks are more cunning than they let on.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew

La Belle Dame Sans Merci (Keats)

Most things are never meant.
From Larkin's Going, going.

This is one moment,
But know that another
Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.

T S Eliot

So many of my favourites already on this thread. I feel a little triumphant that I have one that hasn't been mentioned.

'Love poem' by John Nims to his 'clumsiest dear who's hand shipwrecks glasses'.

The last line being ' for if your hands fall white and empty, all the toys of the world would break'

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Gray: Elegy written in a country churchyard

also the opening lines

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

And by Ernest Dowson

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate;
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses,
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

'Time is the fire in which we burn' - Delmore Schwartz, as used in Star Trek, Generations :)

I gave what other women gave
That stepped out of their clothes.
But when this soul, its body off,
Naked to naked goes,
He it has found shall find therein
What none other knows,

Yeats A Last Confession

Also loved Full Moon and Little Frieda by Hughes which reminded if his poem Wind which has many fantastic lines and starts -

This house has been far out at sea all night

Also because my dad read it to us and I now read it to my girls in the days running up to Christmas

King John was not a good man
He had his little ways
And sometimes no one spoke to him for days and days and days...

He met her at the Surrey Docks, Saturday was the colour of his socks,

Dulche et decorum est pro patria mori.

Latin for "it is a sweet and fitting thing to die for ones country".

From Dulce et Decorum Est- Wilfred Owen

"Valerie fondles lovers like a mousetrap fondles mice"
(Roger Mcgough, Discretion)

There is freedom waiting for you
on the breezes of the sky
And you ask 'what if I fall?'
Oh, but my darling
was
What if you fly?

All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

WB Yeats