I have a Turkish Van cat princess living in the bookcase next to my bed. She has a full, resonant, commanding vocal range (think bleeding eardrums here.) Quite by accident, I discovered that she loves “Jabberwocky” and immediately quiets down to listen any time I start reciting it.
Since she’s not registered, I hereby submit this post on her behalf.
oldbat
There are two that I have memorized and really get to me:
Now hollow fires burn out to black,
And lights are guttering low.
Square your shoulders, lift your pack,
And leave your friends, and go.
Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread,
Look not left nor right:
In all the endless road you tread
There’s nothing but the night.
—A.E. Houseman, “A Shropshire Lad”
And:
So we’ll go no more a’roving,
So late into the night,
Thought the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself must rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a’roving,
By the light of the moon.—“So We’ll Go No More A’Roving,” Lord Byron
I want that one carved on my tombstone.
I like Nash’s Song To Be Sung By The Fathers Of Infant Daughters, too. And Fern Hill.
the calves
Sang to my horn. The foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams…
I always get choked up when I read The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. Wish more elected officials would read it from time to time.
A Capital Ship* for an ocean trip
Was “The Walloping Window-blind”*
I’ve got this one memorized and it never fails to generate howls of laughter from my great-nieces and nephews.
“Tell it again, Uncle Buck! Tell it again!” 
One other that is really special to me! Bobby Kennedy recited this (after nearly 20 minutes of ovation befiorehand…) about his dear departed brother, at the 1964 Democratic Convention, “and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars. And he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night, and pay no worship to the garish sun.” Skakespeare - “Romeo and Juliet”
Linkies:
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
and one more I forgot:
Here’s one I can’t memorize, but love anyway. Can anyone figure out what the monster is saying?
The Loch Ness Monster’s Song
Sssnnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnfl hlf?
Gdroblboblhobnglb gbl gl g g g g glblg.
Drublhaflblhaflubhafggabhafflhafl fl fl-
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gm.
Hovoplodok-doplodovok-plovodokot-doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgraffhatchgabrlgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl-
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp.
-Edwin Morgan
Also, this one.
You took away the all the oceans and all the room
You took away the all the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it.
Where did it get you? Nowhere.
You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence.
-Osip Mandelstam
Now you’re just getting into “Jabberwocky” territorty! “Beware the frumious Bandersnatch! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
SINCE… the Mods won’t let me edit a damn post…I’l quote adamngain!
Now you’re just getting into “Jabberwocky” territorty! “Beware the frumious Bandersnatch! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!”
neruda, cuerpo de mujer.
I know it’s really cliched after it was used in “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, but W H Auden’s “Funeral Blues” is the only poem that has ever made me cry - even when I just read the text I get goosebumps.
I’ve always liked the poem written by Vikram Seth at the beginning of ‘An Equal Music’ as a dedication.
I also love the poem 'The Frivolous Cake" from Gormenghast, that Fuschia reads in her attic:
“The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea
To the beat of a cakey heart
And the sensitive steel of the knife can feel
That love is a race apart.
In the speed of the lingering light are blown
The crumbs to the hake above,
And the tropical air vibrates to the drone
Of a cake in the throes of love”.
As well as many that already been posted
Wallace Stevens, “The Emperor of Ice-Cream”
William Blake, “The Sick Rose”
Seamus Heaney, “Mid-Term Break”
There was one poem that enriched my life for a while, but I lost my only copy of it and cannot remember who wrote it.
It was called Argoed and was written by a Welsh poet in the late 19th or early 20th century. It wasn’t about the one about the battle - that’s a more famous poem with the same name. This Argoed was about a medieval town in a forest that just disappeared.
I’d give almost anything to read it again, it was so beautiful. Google is no good, although I check every so often. I guess it must have been really obscure! Don’t suppose it rings a bell with anyone here?
Nope. Sorry. I need a love poem to recite at my best friend’s wedding. I’m trying to decide. I’m already thinking of Eliot’s A Dedication To My Wife, River-Merchant’s Wife, and cumming’s somewhere i have never traveled. Any more suggestions?
I would submit as absolutely must-reads:
“Song of Myself” and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” by Walt Whitman
“Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Shakespeare sonnet which begins, “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,” (can’t remember the number designation of the top of my head)
The one by Sappho which begins, “Like the very gods to me is he…”
“Cottleston Pie” by Winnie-the-Pooh (as recorded by A.A.Milne)
I’ll probably think of more later, but I’ve got to run now.
There once was a man from Nantucket…
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
Spring and Fall: To a Young Child
Márgarét, are you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
http://www.poemtree.com/poems/SpringAndFall.htm
Many that have already been mentioned, plus…
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now (A.E. Houseman)
On first looking upon Chapman’s Homer , especially the last lines:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific-and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise-
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
(John Keats)
The Day is Done Excerpt:
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
(Henry Longfellow)