Whats your favourite poem and why?

[swallowsandamazons]

I found a book today with this poem in,
My Madonna
I haled my a woman from the street,
Shameless, but, oh, so fair!
I bade her sit in the models 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 laughted 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 sold her, and took my fee,
And she hangs in the church of saint Hilaire,
Where you and all may see.

My Granddad use to read this to me and when i read it i can hear his voice.

I think it tell you to look for the good in all people.

I also love Ricks By Janet Rand
First line being,
To Laugh is to rick appearing the fool

So come on whats your favourite and why???

bit morbid but Remember by christina rossetti.

it just sums up that you shouldn't be sad when someone dies but be happy taht you've had that person in your life.

Also love hug chunks of The Prophet by Kahil Gibran, particularly the bit about children.

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom sai, Speak t ous of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
they come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

you may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
you may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

you are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer seeks the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your benging in teh Archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He lows also the bow that is stable.

I like A man of words and not of deeds

I like The Walrus and the Carpenter
because I chose to learn it, wasn't made to;
and because it has the memorable lines:
The time has come, the Walrus said,
to talk of many things;
of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax,
of cabbages and kings;
of why the sea is boiling hot
and whether pigs have wings.

But I like the OP's one as well.

The Man from Ironbark - because:

I learned it as a child - loved it then
Its funny, clever and accessible
Its quintessentially Australian

THE MAN FROM IRONBARK by A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,
He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.
He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,
Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.
"'Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,
I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark."

The barber man was small and flash, as barbers mostly are,
He wore a strike-your-fancy sash, he smoked a huge cigar;
He was a humorist of note and keen at repartee,
He laid the odds and kept a "tote", whatever that may be,
And when he saw our friend arrive, he whispered, "Here's a lark!
Just watch me catch him all alive, this man from Ironbark."

There were some gilded youths that sat along the barber's wall.
Their eyes were dull, their heads were flat, they had no brains at all;
To them the barber passed the wink, his dexter eyelid shut,
"I'll make this bloomin' yokel think his bloomin' throat is cut."
And as he soaped and rubbed it in he made a rude remark:
"I s'pose the flats is pretty green up there in Ironbark."

A grunt was all reply he got; he shaved the bushman's chin,
Then made the water boiling hot and dipped the razor in.
He raised his hand, his brow grew black, he paused awhile to gloat,
Then slashed the red-hot razor-back across his victim's throat:
Upon the newly-shaven skin it made a livid mark -
No doubt it fairly took him in - the man from Ironbark.

He fetched a wild up-country yell might wake the dead to hear,
And though his throat, he knew full well, was cut from ear to ear,
He struggled gamely to his feet, and faced the murd'rous foe:
"You've done for me! you dog, I'm beat! one hit before I go!
I only wish I had a knife, you blessed murdering shark!
But you'll remember all your life the man from Ironbark."

He lifted up his hairy paw, with one tremendous clout
He landed on the barber's jaw, and knocked the barber out.
He set to work with nail and tooth, he made the place a wreck;
He grabbed the nearest gilded youth, and tried to break his neck.
And all the while his throat he held to save his vital spark,
And "Murder! Bloody murder!" yelled the man from Ironbark.

A peeler man who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
And when at last the barber spoke, and said "'Twas all in fun?
'Twas just a little harmless joke, a trifle overdone."
"A joke!" he cried, "By George, that's fine; a lively sort of lark;
I'd like to catch that murdering swine some night in Ironbark."

And now while round the shearing floor the list'ning shearers gape,
He tells the story o'er and o'er, and brags of his escape.
"Them barber chaps what keeps a tote, By George, I've had enough,
One tried to cut my bloomin' throat, but thank the Lord it's tough."
And whether he's believed or no, there's one thing to remark,
That flowing beards are all the go way up in Ironbark.

The Bulletin, 17 December 1892.

I also love 'The sun rising' by John Donne - witty and beautiful.