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Post your favorite Poem.
Posted by LazarusDrealamant • 8/24/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: christina rossetti, poem, poetry
I love this poem so much. I read it once when I was little and coulnd't find it 'till today:
REST
by: Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
O earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
She hath no questions, she hath no replies,
Hush'd in and curtain'd with a blessèd dearth
Of all that irk'd her from the hour of birth;
With stillness that is almost Paradise.
Darkness more clear than noonday holdeth her,
Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of Eternity
Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
And when she wakes she will not think it long.
User Comments
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lovely piece right there, an excellent choice to post. i've never read it before nor heard of it but i'm going to add it to my ever growing list of faves.
i'd post my favourite poems in text, but i'd be here all day. instead, i offer two links to the full poems.
1. The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare (it goes on forever, i swear that man could just ramble on and on)
www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/shake/rl.html
2. Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came by Robert Browning (another long one, but oh so very strange and worth reading to the end). This poem was also the inspiration for Stephen King's Dark Tower series. (the series is long and rambles on and on too)
classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/rbrowning/bl-rbrown-childe.htm-
Good choices!
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i dream about you and i lost my breath, i saw you and i lost my nerve.
i gave you my heart and i lost my hope, i gave you my love and i almost lost my life. ~ I Lost Everything ~
www.luckyless.blogspot.com -
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain
Before high-piled books in charactery
Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain.
When I behold upon the night's starred face
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance
And think that I shall never live to trace
Their magic shadows with the hand of chance.
And when I feel fair creature of an hour
That I shall never look upon thee more
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love. Then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone and think
Till Fame and Love to nothingness do sink.-
Who wrote this? Really great by the way...
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John Keats
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John Keats is one of my favorite poets and somehow I never read this one... odd... I thought I read his entire poetry book...
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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_I_have_Fears_that_I_may_Cease_to_Be
Here it is... by John Keats... -
People are more familiar with his odes than his sonnets.
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I have many favorites, but here's one:
HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams-
Yeats. My favorite poet when I was in my 20s.
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Love that one...
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The deep pool is glass.
Heal the green corduroy sky of ferocious air.
Picture the sad boy!
Say "change" and surround,
my vast liquid ocean of concrete grass,
In hot blue life.-
Is that yours, Polybore?
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Good. Who wrote it?
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It is a polybore poem. The only one ever in fact. Thanks.
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I really like all of those.-
What is your favorite poem, Holly?
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I wish I could say. I don't really read poetry. Well until I stareted reading blogs,I guess you could say my favorite poet is nothing profound. I love reading edgar allen poe,but he isn't my fav. I like whitman,but he isn't my fav either. So yea you could say nothing profound is my fav writer,at the moment that is.
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TIME
Time like a lake breeze
Touched his face.
All thought left his mind.
One morning the sun, menacing,
Rose from behind a mountain,
Singeing-like hope- the trees.
Fully awakened, he lit his pipe
And assumed the sun-inhaling pose:
Time poured down-like rain, like fruit.
He glanced back and saw a ship
Moving toward the past. In one hand
He gripped the sail of eternity,
And stuffed the universe into his eyes.
Takahashi -
Seekin' The Cause
he was Dead
he never Lived
died
died
he died seekin' a Cause
seekin' the Cause
because he said he never saw the cause
but he heard the cause
heard the cryin' of hungry ghetto children
heard the warnin' from Malcolm
heard the tractors pave new routes to new prisons
died seekin' the Cause
seekin' a Cause
he was dead on arrival
he never really Lived uptown . . . downtown . . . crosstown
body was round all over town
seekin' the Cause
thinkin' the Cause was 75 dollars & gator shoes
thinkin' the Cause was sellin' the white lady to black children
thinkin' the cause is to be found in gypsy rose or j. b.
or dealin' wacky weed
and singin' du-wops in the park after some chi-chiba
he died seekin' the Cause
died seekin' a Cause
and the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
and the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
and the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
he wanted a color t. v.
wanted a silk on silk suit
he wanted the Cause to come up like the mets & take the world series
he wanted . . . he wanted . . . he wanted . . .
he wanted to want more wants
but he never gave he never gave
he never gave his love to children
he never gave his heart
to old people & never did
he ever give his soul to his people
he never gave his soul to his people because
he was busy seekin' a cause busy
busy perfectin' his voice to harmonize the national anthem
with spiro t agnew
busy perfectin' his jive talk so that his flunkiness wouldn't show
busy perfectin'
his viva-la-policia speech downtown . . . uptown . . . midtown . . . crosstown
his body was found all over town
seekin' a Cause
seekin' the Cause
found in the potter fields of an o. d.
found in the bowery with the d. d. t.'s
his legs were left in viet-nam
his arms were found in sing-sing
his scalp was on Nixon's belt
his blood painted the streets of the ghetto
his eyes were still lookin' for jesus to come down on some cloud
& make everything ok
when jesus died in attica
his brains plastered all around the frames of the pentagon
his voice still yellin' stars & stripes 4 ever riddled with the police bullets
his taxes bought
he died seekin' a Cause
seekin' the Cause
while the Cause was dyin' seekin' him
he died yesterday
he's dyin' today
he's dead tomorrow
died seekin' a Cause
died seekin' the Cause & the Cause
was in front of him
& the Cause was in his skin
& the Cause was in his speech
& the Cause was in his blood
but he died seekin' the Cause
he died seekin' a Cause
he died deaf
dumb
& blind
he died & never found his Cause
because
you see he never
never knew
that he was the Cause.
by Miguel Pinero
seekinthecause.blogspot.com/
See the video on my blog
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Really really really really really good! I'm printing that one out
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"it's ours"
there is always that space there
just before they get to us
that space
that fine relaxer
the breather
while say
flopping on a bed
thinking of nothing
or say
pouring a glass of water from the
spigot
while entranced by
nothing
that
gentle pure
space
it’s worth
centuries of
existence
say
just to scratch your neck
while looking out the window at
a bare branch
that space
there
before they get to us
ensures
that
when they do
they won’t get it all
ever.
–by Charles Bukowski -
Oh wow!!!!!!!
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THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
By: Robert Lee Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. -
I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD
By: William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. -
in english that I remember
If
Rudyard Kipling
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!-
I am speechless to that. That's hard 2 do
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I have inherited many old unidentified family photographs. I wish I could time travel.
Pamela Harazim wrote this poem when her mother had dementia. She realised the stories her mother loved to tell her about her own youth and family was now locked away inside her.
Strangers in the Box
Come, look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.
I wish I knew the people,
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.
I wonder what their lives were like.
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.
If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where, when,
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.
Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be tossed away?
Make time to save your pictures,
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The strangers in the box. -
T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) His work was interesting to me.
Sweeney Erect
And the trees about me,
Let them be dry and leafless; let the rocks
Groan with continual surges; and behind me
Make all a desolation. Look, look, wenches!
Paint me a cavernous waste shore
Cast in the unstilled Cyclades,
Paint me the bold anfractuous rocks
Faced by the snarled and yelping seas.
Display me Aeolus above
Reviewing the insurgent gales
Which tangle Ariadne’s hair
And swell with haste the perjured sails.
Morning stirs the feet and hands
(Nausicaa and Polypheme).
Gesture of orang-outang
Rises from the sheets in steam.
This withered root of knots of hair
Slitted below and gashed with eyes,
This oval O cropped out with teeth:
The sickle motion from the thighs
Jackknifes upward at the knees
Then straightens out from heel to hip
Pushing the framework of the bed
And clawing at the pillow slip.
Sweeney addressed full length to shave
Broadbottomed, pink from nape to base,
Knows the female temperament
And wipes the suds around his face.
(The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun.)
Tests the razor on his leg
Waiting until the shriek subsides.
The epileptic on the bed
Curves backward, clutching at her sides.
The ladies of the corridor
Find themselves involved, disgraced,
Call witness to their principles
And deprecate the lack of taste
Observing that hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood;
Mrs. Turner intimates
It does the house no sort of good.
But Doris, towelled from the bath,
Enters padding on broad feet,
Bringing sal volatile
And a glass of brandy neat. -
Roses are red
Violets are blue
And all my base
Are belong to you
Probably the best I've read.-
LOL
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"In A Station Of The Metro" by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough. -
Dawn by Juan Ramon Jimenez
The sky in the oblivion
of my sleep, had
forgotten to be what it is.
Quickly, I opened
and raised my eyes, and a glory
also opened, a garland of green,
pure, blue secrets
touched my wakened forehead.
The sky was not a name,
but the sky. -
Okay. It's not my favourite (too tricky), but a number of thins that have happened recently reminded me of this. It also, in some ways recalls to my mind one of several tones out of which emerges the melodies of our good friend, N.P.
And yes, I know, people think Tennyson and maybe this poem in particular is god-awful Victorian kitsch. I used to think something like this myself, but then I have at various times in my life been a bit of a prat.
So, then, with no apologies, this:
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. -
Women... From Seed to Flower
A Flower among flowers sprouts from the most delicate seed.
Her sweet innocence is a breath of fresh air to a World in need.
She asks all the questions that leap through her curious mind,
for what we have ceased to ask, is what she still seeks to find.
As she unveils herself to this new found World, her dreams will begin to unfold.
This blossoming Flower craves for attention, but refuses to do as she is told.
She’s now found more Flowers and bonding together, they share what they know:
Those bees they see flying, do seek their honey, and will probably always do so.
Setting her sight on new horizons this Flower now gazes beyond her own sphere.
It is time to leave her Garden and challenge this World she has learned not to fear.
Aware of her beauty, she will choose her new path and stand strong on her ground.
Gone are the times when she went astray, the moment has come for her to be found.
She will plant her own seed and a journey through motherhood will begin,
Seeking for herself she is destined to understand the beauty from within.
A new bond is formed and the love that she feels has no definition.
It’s time to acknowledge her most primal instinct, a mother’s intuition.
Most dreams that she dreamt when she was blossoming have now become true.
She knows where she stands and the lessons she learned are her point of view.
The time has now come for the Flower to let its own seeds flourish and grow,
confident in her heart that she has taught them all they were willing to know.
The Flower has lived, laughed and cried and now looks back with no regret,
for her seeds will blossom, carry on her teachings and allow no one to forget.
From seed to Flower, she has lived how to learn and will always keep true,
This Flower I speak of is a Mother, a Wife, a Girlfirend, a Sister, this flower is YOU!
can someone guess the author?-
How in the hell did I miss that one....I LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED IT!!!
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i can't remember any in English :S Just in Portuguese-
Put some nice poem that you like it, maybe with my spanish can understand something o part of the poem.
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IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
Kipling -
My favorite poem's too long to reproduce here, but here's the first part:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy. -
WHEN I AM DEAD
By: Christina G. Rossetti
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me:
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget. -
TREES
By: Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree. -
"If a Poem Was Just" by Jesus Manuel Santiago, Filipino poet.
If a poem was just
a bouquet of flowers,
I'd rather be given
a bundle of swamp shoots
or a bundle of sweet potato tops
gathered from a mud puddle
or filched from the bamboo tray
of a vegetable vendor,
because I hunger
and my innards have not a nose,
they have no eyes.
Want has long benumbed
my taste buds,
so don't, revered poets of my country,
don't offer me verses
if a poem was just
a bouquet of flowers. -
My husband wrote this for his daughter when his ex wife took off to Israel with her years ago. I always love it.
Breathe the air,read Shakespeare,
writing letters home.
I was there, once before,
do you know who I am? And where I belong?
You were young,years ago,I remember,
We had played,with your toys,
Now it's silk and perfume,
Do you know who I am?
Growing up with no man,isn't easy,
Am I too late to take your hand,
And give my love to you?
Do you know who I am?
I am the man-of a faded memory.
I am the man-who rode you on his knee.
I am the man-who seeks your company.
I am the man-you should call daddy.
Breathe the air...
More of his poetry / lyrics
www.poetry.com/user/12437077/ -
I have many favorite poems but this is one...
O Me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. -
A Video Poem Inspired By The NASA Astronaut Jose M. Hernandez
Once a child laborer who trekked from Mexico to the fields of California to pick strawberries, Jose Hernandez recently traveled into space as an astronaut on the Discovery space shuttle. His story honors both the desperate struggle of immigrants and the greatness of which they are capable. These words and this movie are my attempt to honor him.
Astronaut Goes From Migrant Fields To Outer Space
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeL4IS5iTsI -
IF by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!
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