Your Favorite Poem.

[Scott6373]

Good poetry is like good art:  Completely subjective, and as individual a taste as fingerprints are singular.  I thought it would be good to start a thread, where we could share and compile our favorite poems.  They don't have to be BBM related, but they have to speak to you:  to your heart and soul.  if you feel so inclined, feel free to say a little about why the poem means so much to you.  I'll go first.

[Ellemeno]

Cool idea.  I have more than one favorite poem of course.  Here's another Frost:

The way a crow shook down on me
The dust of snow from a hemlock tree
Has given my heart a change of mood
And saved some part of a day I had rued.

[moremojo]

O evening star,
You gather back all that dawn scattered,
Calling the lamb to the fold, the goat to the pen, the child to her mother.--Sappho

Sappho is one of my favorites. Her humane, gracious voice speaks calmly and surely across the centuries, reminding us of what is truly important, of why we live. I wish more people would live with the spirit of Sappho in their hearts.

More:

Some would say that no fairer thing can be seen on this dark earth
Than a massed, glittering army, or a swelling fleet of ships--
Not I; I would say it is whatever brings love to life.

And the end:

The moon has sunk, the Pleiades too;
Long night's midnight watches my solitary repose.

[Meryl]

I've had a fondness for Edna St. Vincent Millay's verses ever since Jr. High School.  Here's an old favorite that I thought of often when we were in Alberta this summer:

God’s World
 
O WORLD, I cannot hold thee close enough!   
    Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!   
  Thy mists, that roll and rise!   
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag   
And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag          
To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff!   
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!   
 
Long have I known a glory in it all,   
              But never knew I this;   
              Here such a passion is          
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear   
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year;   
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall   
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.   
 

[Shasta542]

ENNUI

It's such a bore
Being always poor.

Langston Hughes

[Ellemeno]

I've had a fondness for Edna St. Vincent Millay's verses ever since Jr. High School.  Here's an old favorite that I thought of often when we were in Alberta this summer:

God?s World
 

Meryl, I posted that one too, in another thread! 
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,5184.msg256234.html#msg256234

[Ellemeno]

Here's one that sums up my duality really well.  Sometimes I'm sure the first part I bolded is true (those aren't the fun times).  Sometimes I know the second part I bolded is true.  And I purtied up a particularly beautiful line.

The Tuft of Flowers
 by Robert Frost
 
I WENT to turn the grass once after one   
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.   
 
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen   
Before I came to view the leveled scene.   
 
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;           5
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.   
 
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,   
And I must be, as he had been,—alone,   
 
‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart,   
‘Whether they work together or apart.’           10
 
But as I said it, swift there passed me by   
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,   
 
Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night   
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.   
 
And once I marked his flight go round and round,           15
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.   
 
And then he flew as far as eye could see,   
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.   
 
I thought of questions that have no reply,   
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;           20
 
But he turned first, and led my eye to look   
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,   
 
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared   
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.   
 
I left my place to know them by their name,           25
Finding them butterfly weed when I came.   
 
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,   
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,   
 
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.   
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.           30
 
The butterfly and I had lit upon,   
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,   
 
That made me hear the wakening birds around,   
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,   
 
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;           35
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;   
 
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,   
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;   
 
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech   
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.           40
 
‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,   
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

[Lynne]

Nice, Elle! 

[Lynne]

Arcady Lost

The cherry bloom and robin time of year
Again is come; and we that shepherd still
Among less heavenly pastures feel the fear
Of spring again, and all the tears that thrill
But never fall.  Last night, across the shine
Of iris-tinted skies, I heard the dim
Enraptured song we knew, the dire divine
Music, that once, beyond the violet rim
Of pain, could waft us clear to where, our own,
Th'unstable faery shores of ecstasy
Burn in the twilight of an April sea.
Our music came last night to me alone.
No more may song nor petalled fluttering
Upbreathe frail, frail delight as in the days
We clung together here.  Instead, they bring
The pain of hearts that, glamourous still with spring,
Break, and the dread of star-lit, lonely ways
Where once, O comrade mine, we heard them sing.

**William Alexander Percy was a Sewanee graduate, and it is thought that this poem is about him leaving his lover behind after the end of a spring term.

[ifyoucantfixit]

The Happiest Day, The Happiest Hour by Edgar Allan Poe.
The Happiest Day, the Happiest Hour
by Edgar Allan Poe

The happiest day - the happiest hour
My sear'd and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.

Of power! said I? yes! such I ween;
But they have vanish'd long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been -
But let them pass.

And, pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may even inherit
The venom thou hast pour'd on me
Be still, my spirit!

The happiest day - the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see - have ever seen,
The brightest glance of pride and power,
I feel - have been:

But were that hope of pride and power
Now offer'd with the pain
Even then I felt - that brightest hour
I would not live again:

For on its wing was dark alloy,
And, as it flutter'd - fell
An essence - powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.

[bec]

this poem was read at my grandfathers funeral and i recently seen it again posted on a IMDB tribute to heath message board.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
(Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!
- Mary Frye (1932)

this one was also posted as a tribute,tho both made me cry when i read them.


I'll lend him for a little while
A child of mine, God said
For you to love him while he lives
And mourn for when he's dead

It may be six or seven years
Or twenty two or three
But will you, til I call him back
Take care of him for me

He'll bring his charms to gladden you
And shall his stay be brief
You'll have his lovely memories
As solace for your grief

I cannot promise he will stay
Since all from earth return
But there are lessons taught down there
I want this child to learn

Ive looked the wide world over
In my search for teachers true
And from the throngs, that crowd life's lane
I have selected you

Now will you give him all your love
Nor think the labour vain
Nor hate me when I come to call
To take him back again

I fancy that, I heard him say
Dear Lord thy will be done
For all the joy this child shall bring
The risk of grief will run

We'll shelter him with tenderness
We'll love him while we may
And for the promises we've known
Forever grateful stay

And shall the angels call for him
Much sooner than we've planned
We'll brave the bitter grief that comes
And try to understand.

Dont mean to be depressing 

[Anya_Angie]

My all-time FAVORITE:

JABBERWOCKY
by Lewis Carroll
First found in "Through The Looking-glass (And What Alice Found There)" which is the continuing story of "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland."

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arm, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe

[Kerry]

Green Carnations

Noel Coward

Pretty boys, witty boys,
You may sneer
At our disintegration.
Haughty boys, naughty boys,
Dear, dear, dear!
Swooning with affectation ...
And as we are the reason
For the Nineties being gay,
We all wear a green carnation.

[Mandy21]

Sue, I was always moved by that Richard Cory poem as well.  If you haven't heard of it, but I'm guessing you have, check out the book Spoon River Anthology, by Edgar Lee Masters.  It's from 1915, I picked it up as a paperback at a used bookstore 20 years ago.  It's all epitaphs of people, similar to the Richard Cory theme.  It's quite horribly depressing to read, so pick one of your happier days to delve into it:)  Now that I've got it in my hands, I think I'll go out to my patio and re-read it.  Will post my fave of them later.

Wish we could have spent more time talking and getting to know each other at Fiona's in December.  You're quite an interesting, multi-layered character, who never ceases to surprise me.  Take care.

[Mandy21]

Okay, Sue, here's my fave from that book.  I couldn't in a bazillion years pic a fave poem of all time, as I've got about 11 notebooks filled with them, so I'll just pass on my fave from this particular book, kinda reminds me of Ennis:

George Gray

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me --
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire --
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.