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Your Favorite Poem.

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Ellemeno:

--- Quote from: Meryl on October 21, 2007, 12:28:21 am ---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
 

--- End quote ---


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.

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