Urgent - I need a verse from your favourite poem please!

[MirandaGoshawk]

I've go to get some work in on Tuesday & it involves looking at lots of poems and picking them to bits looking at rhyming patterns, seeing why the author has chosen particular words etc.

I've used up all my favourites, Old Possums' Cats, Beowulf, Poe, Kipling etc etc and run out of ideas, decided I needed something modern, but all I can find is blank verse & it's all miserable.

Can you help? I need a verse & authors name.

TIA

OP you're students should love my fav poem then "Leisure" further up.

Haven't had a chance to rtf, so this may be redundant, but one of my favourite rhyming poems is;

A politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man. (ee cummings)

Just remembered another;

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

(Dorothy Parker)

Lyrics, rather than poems - but "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" by Arctic Monkeys, or something by The Smiths, Shoplifters Of The World Unite perhaps?

Unknown

Have you ever felt alone in life,
Felt no one cared for you?
Or been out with a group of friends,
And felt alone then too?
Have you ever had a broken heart,
You felt couldn't be repaired?
Or tried to touch somebody with your words,
But knew nobody cared?
Have you ever needed good advice,
But were too afraid to call?
Or felt separated from the world,
Surrounded by a brick wall?
Have you ever been asked about your future,
And said you couldn't care less?
Or tried to pick up the pieces but,
They make just one giant mess?
Have you ever felt so confused,
That you couldn't even cry?
Have you ever felt so damn depressed;
Have you ever wished to die?

Talking of the Liverpool poets -Brian patten's poem.

I caught a train that passed the town where you live.
On the journey I thought of you.
One evening when the park was soaking
You hid beneath trees, and all around you dimmed itself
As if the earth were Lit by gaslight.
We had faith that love would last forever.

I caught a train that passed the town where you live.

And, of course, "Oh western wind ..."

How modern?

W.H.Auden's 'Death's echo'.

Dance, dance for the figure is easy,
The tune is catching and will not stop;
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters;
Dance, dance, dance till you drop.

the soldier
IF I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven

Rupert brpole

The solider Rupert brooke.
IF I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven

Double post. Sorry

If it's A Levels try Roger McGough. They'll like this one, I reckon.

Let Me Die A Youngman's Death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death

Roger McGough

the boy stood on the burning deck
his feet were full of blisters.
the flames came up and burnt his pants
so now he wears his sisters.

or just

nature's first green is gold
her hardest hue to hold.
her early leaf's a flower
but only so an hour.
so leaf subsides to leaf
so Eden sank to grief
so dawn goes down to day
nothing gold can stay.

I can't remember who wrote tgat one byt it was in the Outsiders

Or if you think you'll get away with it, this one:-

Today is Not a Day for Adultery

Today is not a day for adultery.
The sky is a wet blanket
Being shaken in anger. Thunder
Rumbles through the streets
Like malicious gossip.

Take my advice: braving
The storm will not impress your lover
When you turn up at the house
In an anorak. Wellingtons,
Even coloured, seldom arouse.

Your umbrella will leave a tell-tale
Puddle in the hall. Another stain
To be explained away. Stay in,
Keep your mucus to yourself.
Today is not a day for sin.

Best pick up the phone and cancel.
Postpone until the weather clears.
No point in getting soaked through.
At your age, a fuck?s not worth
The chance of catching a ?flu.

by Roger McGough

nothing golcan sray is robert frost.

and the boy stood... is shel silverstein

nothing gold can stay

If it is rhyme and rhythm, perhaps look at Betjemen. I learned about twenty of his off by heart for O level (I am a sad old bat). Auden is one I remember happily. Wilfred Own used para rhyme (iirc from my O level days) The Village Inn is good, I think it uses two types of rhyme for effect. I loved Welsh Landscape by RS Thomas but that may have been a phase I was going through.

All time favourite with rhyme, The Cloud by Shelly ending,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph
And out of the caverns of rain
Like a ghost from a tomb, like a child from a womb
I arise and unbuild it again.

To add, I am loving reading all the suggestions

My favourite children's one is this:

My Uncle Jehosephat

My uncle Jehosephat had a pig,
A pig of high degree.
The pig, it wore a brown scratch wig,
Most beautiful for to see.
My uncle Jehosephat loved that pig,
And the piggy-wig, he loved him.
They both jumped into the lake one day
To see who best could swim.
My uncle Jehosephat, he swam up,
and the piggy-wig, he swam down.
And so they both did win the prize,
Which was a purple gown.

Not sure who it is by, and I realise it is totally irrelevant to your purpose, but I had to share :o

I came on here to do High Flight, but as it's been done already I give you:

John Masefield's Sea Fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

The seed shop by muriel Stuart

Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
That will drink deeply of a century's streams;
These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

Oh, and if it's rhyme you want, how about this:

GLORY be to God for dappled things?
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches? wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced?fold, fallow, and plough; 5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: 10
Praise him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins - Pied Beauty. The big thing with him is his use of alliteration as well as rhyme.

Another by Robert Frost: the entire poem is this couplet:

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee,
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me

But I like it
Because it is bitter
And because it is my heart

From In the desert By Stephen Crane.

Also like the lady of Shallot by Tennyson
The sunlight on the garden by Louis MacNeice

And Vers de societe by Philip Larkin, first two lines:
My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
To come and waste their time and ours

The sunlight on the garden by Louis MacNeice

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

Andrea Gibson - Photograph

I wish I was a photograph
tucked into the corners of your wallet
I wish I was a photograph
you carried like a future in your pocket
I wish I was that face you show to strangers
when they ask you where you come from
I wish I was that someone that you come from
every time you get there
and when you get there
I wish I was that someone who got phone calls
and postcards saying
wish you were here

I wish you were here
autumn is the hardest season
the leaves are all falling
and they're falling like they're falling in love with the ground
and the trees are naked and lonely
I keep trying to tell them
new leaves will come around in the spring
but you can't tell trees those things
they're like me they just stand there
and don't listen

I wish you were here
I've been missing you like crazy
I've been hazy eyed
staring at the bottom of my glass again
thinking of that time when it was so full
it was like we were tapping the moon for moonshine
or sticking straws into the center of the sun
and sipping like icarus would forever kiss
the bullets from our guns

I never meant to fire you know
I know you never meant to fire lover
I know we never meant to hurt each other
now the sky clicks from black to blue
and dusk looks like a bruise
I've been wrapping one night stands
around my body like wedding bands
but none of them fit in the morning
they just slip off my fingers and slip out the door
and all that lingers is the scent of you
I once swore if I threw that scent into a wishing well
all the wishes in the world would come true
do you remember

do you remember the night I told you
I've never seen anything more perfect than
than snow falling in the glow of a street light
electricity bowing to nature
mind bowing to heartbeat
this is gonna hurt bowing to I love you
I still love you like moons love the planets they circle around
like children love recess bells
I still hear the sound of you
and think of playgrounds
where outcasts who stutter
beneath braces and bruises and acne
are finally learning that their rich handsome bullies
are never gonna grow up to be happy
I think of happy when I think of you

so wherever you are I hope you're happy
I really do
I hope the stars are kissing your cheeks tonight
I hope you finally found a way to quit smoking
I hope your lungs are open and breathing your life
I hope there's a kite in your hand
that's flying all the way up to orion
and you still got a thousand yards of string to let out
I hope you're smiling
like god is pulling at the corners of your mouth
cause I might be naked and lonely
shaking branches for bones
but I'm still time zones away
from who I was the day before we met
you were the first mile
where my heart broke a sweat
and I wish you were here
I wish you'd never left
but mostly I wish you well
I wish you my very very best

Can't help but love this....

Abroad as I was walking one evening in the spring
I heard a maid in Bedlam who mournfully did sing
Her chains she rattled on her hands, and thus replied she
"I love my love because I know my love loves me

Oh cruel were his parents who sent my love to sea
And cruel was the sailing ship that bore my love from me
Yet I love his parents since their his, although they've ruined me
I love my love because I know my love loves me

With straw I'll weave a garland, I'll weave it wondrous fine
With roses, lilies, daisies I'll mix the eglantine
And I'll present it to my love when he returns from sea
I love my love because I know my love loves me"

Just as she sat there weeping, her love, he came on land
Then hearing she was in Bedlam he ran straight out of hand
He flew into her snow-white arms, and thus replied he
"I love my love because I know my love loves me"

She said, "My love, don't frighten me, are you my love or no?"
"Oh yes, my dearest Nancy, I am your love also
I am returned to make amends for all your injury
I love my love because I know my love loves me
I love my love because I know my love loves me"