# Favorite Poem **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 13, 2000, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055 "2000-09-13T18:27:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2000, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/41 "2000-09-17T15:35:14Z")
I have loads of favorites, but the one that immediately leaps to mind is “The Garden of Proserpine” by A. C. Swinburne. [http://www.wsu.edu/~i9538999/poetry/proserpi.htm](http://www.wsu.edu/~i9538999/poetry/proserpi.htm) ---
**Author:** ![evilbeth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/evilbeth/32/2268_2.png) [@evilbeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilbeth)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/42 "2000-09-19T04:27:17Z")
Decisions, decisions…Well, I have to give three. e e cummings “The Cambridge ladies…” John Donne “The Good-Morrow” Robert Burns “To a Mouse…” ---
**Author:** ![Juniper200](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@Juniper200](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Juniper200)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/43 "2000-09-19T05:29:44Z")
I love just about anything by T.S. Eliot, Sylvia Plath, and e.e. cummings, but the all-time favorite poem award goes to [Choose Something Like a Star](http://k12s.phast.umass.edu/~hharg/star.htm) by Robert Frost. ---
**Author:** ![Pergau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7c8e57/32.png) [@Pergau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pergau)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/44 "2000-09-19T15:59:36Z")
The love song of J Alfred Prufrock always bears re-reading, but I like: Surgeons must be careful when they take the knife for beneath their fine incisions stirs the culprit - Life Emily Dickinson ---
**Author:** ![vix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a88e4f/32.png) [@vix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vix)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/45 "2000-09-19T16:15:56Z")
“Mistaking water hemlock for parsley” by Arthur Sze ---
**Author:** ![mega\_the\_roo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@mega\_the\_roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mega_the_roo)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/46 "2000-09-19T18:38:23Z")
Mine is a wee bittle too long to type out, right now… but I have a link… it’s [**A Buried Life**](http://members.wbs.net/homepages/a/n/d/andthedreambecameashamelessawakening/buried.html) by Matthew Arnold. And ah, t’is good. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/47 "2000-09-19T18:54:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LaurAnge \* > \*\*“Stopping by Woods” (as I mentioned before is one of my favorites too, for pretty much the same reason. But in grade 11 by english teacher parsed and analyzed it so hard she made the conclusion that the man was about to commit suicide. I was TERRIBLY upset! Good thing I am… \*\* Hate to say it kids, but the suicide intepretation is certainly a valid one for Stopping by Woods. “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.” OK, on one level it’s a guy stopping to watch the snow fall. On another level the last stanza casts a much more sinister interpretation over the episode. For what it’s worth, an analysis of this poem was my first published work (for a teacher’s textbook when I was in high school). Too many favorite poems to select one… I always did like: ``` Of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again... And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow. ``` And Whenas in silks my Julia goes, ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2000, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/48 "2000-09-19T19:01:43Z")
I just read **The Wanderer** , an anonymous Old English poem. It just zoomed to the top of my list. MR ---
**Author:** ![Emperor\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c2a13f/32.png) [@Emperor\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emperor_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/49 "2000-09-20T03:45:49Z")
I am so happy to see some others mentioning Robert Service. He is my favorite poet(in fact, he is the only poet who I can really sit down and read all night). There are so **many** poems of his that I would like to recommend, but, of these two I am particularly fond: [http://www.ude.net/verse/sun\_lover.html#Euthansia](http://www.ude.net/verse/sun_lover.html#Euthansia) and on a lighter note: [http://www.ude.net/verse/sun\_lover.html#The](http://www.ude.net/verse/sun_lover.html#The) Battle of the Bulge I like these because they showcase his wide range, going from some very touching works to the just plain humorous I would suggest to all those who liked “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and “The Shooting Of Dan McGrew” go and read some more of his works, they only get better. ---
**Author:** ![Kilt-wearin\_man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kilt-wearin\_man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilt-wearin_man)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2000, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/50 "2000-09-20T08:04:05Z")
Of course Jabberwocky has to be listed - for a long time it was the only poem I liked besides the Walrus and the Carpenter. No wonder folks look at me strange… Then I discovered Scotland’s favorite poet, Robert Burns. If you can wade through the dialect (he wrote them as he said them, with a thick accent…) Two of his are two of my favorites: My Love is like a Red Red Rose" (very sappy, I’ll admit, but check this verse out and you tell me: Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun; And I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run. besides that one, there’s “Robert Bruce’s march to Bannockburn” that goes something like this: Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to Victorie! _sigh_ just makes ya wanna pop Braveheart in the VCR and sit back with a good single-malt, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/51 "2000-09-25T05:19:57Z")
Had I the heaven’s 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. ``` William Butler Yeats ``` ---
**Author:** ![dpr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8797f3/32.png) [@dpr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dpr)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2000, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055/52 "2000-09-25T05:30:38Z")
Without doubt \*\* The Hunting of The Snark \*\* by Lewis Carrol. It’s way too long to post, however I highly recommend it to those who have yet to do so. I also like \*\*The Man From Snowy River \*\* . Yes, a tad parochial and patriotic but it tells a great tale. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-poem/33055.md?page=2)