Favorite Poems

Cafe Society
1

I was wondering what poems the people of Straightdope enjoy. Since I first read Death of a Son – by Jon Silkin – that poem has been my favorite - it made the biggest impression when I first read it. Since I understand that copyright law may be an issue – I will only post the first lines of the poem and then the link where the entire poem can be read. I hope to read some favorite poems of others. The LINK to the entire poem is at the bottom –
Death of a Son (who died in a mental hospital aged one), By Jon Silkin

Something has ceased to come along with me.
Something like a person: something very like one.
And there was no nobility in it
Or anything like that.

Something was there like a one year
Old house, dumb as stone. While the near buildings
Sang like birds and laughed
Understanding the pact

They were to have with silence. But he
Neither sang nor laughed. He did not bless silence
Like bread, with words.
He did not forsake silence.

But rather, like a house in mourning
Kept the eye turned in to watch the silence while
The other houses like birds
Sang around him. …

http://www.spoem.com/english_p8/silkin1.htm

2

Too many to choose just one:

[To His Coy Mistress** by Andrew Marvel. Sexy and seductive. Note: the use of “quaint” is a bawdy pun.

[url="http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/williams/thisis.shtml]“This is Just to Say”](http://www.bartleby.com/101/357.html) by William Carlos Williams. Absolutely amazing. Tells the entire story of a relationship without ever mentioning it.

“The Ballad of Eskimo Nell” (author unknown). One of the greatest pieces of light verse in the English language. Also, the dirtiest – a quote of any one of its verses would get me kicked off the board. I won’t even post a link, but you’ll find it if you Google “Eskimo Nell.”

“The Bat” by Ogden Nash. Nash is one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century, but because he wrote light verse, he’s criminally overlooked. He’s best known for his extremely long lines that eventually rhyme, though “The Bat” is short.

“Bagpipe Music” by Louis MacNeice. Great poem about the toil of everyday life. What’s amazing is that it uses near-rhymes: rickshaw/peepshow, python/bison, sofa/poker, etc.

“Goodbat Nightman” by Roger McGough. How could you resist a poem that begins “God bless all policeman and fighters of crime/may crooks go to jail for a very long time.”? Side note: the words were set to music by McGough’s group Scaffold and was a minor hit in GB. McGough’s "The Newly Pressed Suit is also a favorite.

Just about any of the “Archy and Mehitibel” poems by Don Marquis, but especially “The Lesson of the Moth”.

3

The poem is in the public domain –so I’ll post the entire poem here –
The Garden of Proserpine – by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 - 1909)

Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds’ and spent waves’ riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds and barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale buds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes,
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name and number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pain in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes,
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love’s who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man’s lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of water shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

http://mapage.noos.fr/matushan/swinburne%20proserpine.html

4

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
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”

5

This isn’t my favorite peom of all time. In fact, I just found it looking for something else. But it has a perfectly great ending. So perfect that I’m putting it in a spoiler box in case you want to read it in the context of the whole poem. It’s called Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn.

<snip>

And if you’re not asleep
by now, or bored beyond sense,
the poem wants you to laugh. Laugh at
yourself, laugh at this poem, at all poetry.
Come on:

Good. Now here’s what poetry can do.

Imagine yourself a caterpillar.
There’s an awful shrug and, suddenly,
You’re beautiful for as long as you live.

6

Favorite poems of mine.

Ozymandius by Percy Blythe Shelley
Our Bog is Dood by Stevey Smith
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dillan Thomas

And at the top of my list for favorites as of now:

Feeling Fucked Up by Etheridge Knight

7

Burning of a Dream by Charles Bukowski

Happiness by Raymond Carver

Passengers by Billy Collins

Because I could not stop for death by Emily Dickinson

and

she being Brand by e. e. cummings.

8

My two favorite poems are by Poe and Shelley… which is pretty weird. :smiley:

9

Mmmmm, poetry…I love a little poetry after supper!

A few lines from my favourites:

Jenny Kiss’d Me by Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you theif, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
The Tyger by William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Most everything by Poe

The Charge of the Light Brigade by Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti

a snippet:

We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?

I also love Ogden Nash but don’t remember the name of my favourite - it went like this:

A primal termite knocked on wood,
Tasted it, and found it good

10

Robert Frost: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening -

… But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep
And miles to go before I sleep

11

The Termite

A primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it and found it good!
And that is why your cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.

BOW BEFORE MY UBERNESS HDS!!! :smiley:

Sanscour

12

I have a weakness for penny-dreadful Victorian poetry. I can throw myself backwards out of a chair reciting The Charge of the Light Brigade, and I also enjoy such selections as Over the Hill to the Poor House, The Glacier-Bed, The Lady of Shallot, and Gunga Din.

13

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Goodnight has been one of my favorites ever since I saw “Dangerous Minds”.

I also like Because I could Not Stop for Death because it can be sung to the tune of that song from the Lone Ranger. :smiley:
MetalMaven

14

Billy Collins - any poem (current poet laureate of the US)

15

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I wish to again express my sincere gratitude for your participation in poetry threads. Your choices, as usual, are excellent. Just to single out the ones that gave me a thrill and that I hadn’t read before:

The Silkin!
The McGough!
The Dunn!

Please do not forget to link.

MetalMaven–I have usually heard Emily Dickinson accused of writing to the beat of The Yellow Rose of Texas–scurrilous accusations either way.

Here is one by Oscar Wilde that I read recently, The Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Here is another favorite by Bobby Burns, A Poet’s Welcome to his Love Begotten Daughter.

I hope you enjoy them.

Sincerely,

Your HS

16

I’ve liked this since first finding it years ago in a book of Earth prayers.

Author: Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it love.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile, the world goes on.
Meanwhile, the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile, the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

17

It may be trite, but “Jabberwocky” has always been a favorite. Even though the words are, by and large, completely made up they still manage to fire-off images and atmosphere.

'Twas brillig
and the slythy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe

I know just what that looks like, feels like, and smells like.

18

I agree whole-heartedly with Humble Servant on the Jon Silkin. Why haven’t I heard of this poet before today? Such gaps, so many gaps in my reading.

You know, every time I open the Cafe Society page I’m hoping to see a poetry thread.

Here are three Milton Acorn poems.

Also (and Libertarian might be particularly interested in this, but this and Herbert’s other works are well worth spending time with for anyone interested in poetry rife with wit and wordplay) The Pulley by George Herbert. The Works of George Herbert.

And, last but not least by any stretch of the imagination, Anne Carson. Scroll down the page, you’ll find something that touches you. Can’t say if you’ll love it or hate it…

19

two favorites that stick out in my mind–

<i>l(a)</i> by ee cummings, 1958:

l(a

le
af

fa
ll
s)

one
l
iness

and
<i>American Rhapsody (#4)</i> by Kenneth Fearing:
First you bite your fingernails. And then you comb your hair
again. And then you wait. And wait.
(They say, you know, that first you lie. And then you steal,
they say. And then, they say, you kill.)

Then the doorbell rings. Then Peg drops in. And Bill. And
Jane. And Doc.
And first you talk, and smoke, and hear the news and have a
drink. Then you walk down the stairs.
And you dine, then, and go to a show after that, perhaps, and
after that a night spot, and after that come home again,
and climb the stairs again, and again go to bed.

But first Peg argues, and Doc replies. First you dance the
same dance and you drink the same drink you always
drank before.
And the piano builds a roof of notes above the world.
And the trumpet weaves a dome of music through space. And the
drum makes a ceiling over space and time and night.
And then the table-wit. And then the check. Then home
again to bed.
But first, the stairs.

And do you now, baby, as you climb the stairs, do you still
feel as you felt back there?
Do you feel again as you felt this morning? And the night
before? And then the night before that?
(They say, you know, that first you hear voices. And then you
have visions, they say. Then, they say, you kick and
scream and rave.)

Or do you feel: What is one more night in a lifetime of
nights?
What is one more death, or friendship, or divorce out of two,
or three? Or four? Or five?
One more face among so many, many faces, one more life
among so many million lives?

But first, baby, as you climb and count the stairs (and they
total the same), did you, sometime or somewhere, have
a different idea?

Is this, baby, what you were born to feel, and do, and be?

20

[First, a bit of backstory to why I’ve been thinking of this poem lately. Mr. Pug just landed a job where he’s doing the piping and plumbing design for a mansion that Larry Ellison is building in the bay area. Ellison is constructing a massive Japanese castle set on an estate which encompasses pleasure grounds, lakes, fountains, Japanese gardens, and what have you. It’s supposed to be indescribably beautiful, but I can’t see it because it’s closely guarded. Now, on with the poem. I present:]

XANADU

THE BALLAD OF KUBLAI KHAN

By SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

In Xanadu did Kublai Khan
a stately pleasure-dome decree,
where Alph, the sacred river, ran
through caverns measureless to man
down to a sunless sea,
so twice five miles of fertile ground
with walls and towers were girdled round.
and there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
where blossom’d many an incense-bearing tree.
And here were forests as ancient as the hills,
enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But O! That deep romantic chasm which slanted,
down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover.
A savage place! As holy and enchanted
as e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
by woman wailing for her demon lover.
In from that chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
as if this Earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
a mighty fountain momently was forced,
amid who’s swift half-intermitted burst,
huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail,
and 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever,
it flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,
through wood and dale the sacred river ran.
Then reach’d the caverns measureless to man,
and sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean.
And 'mid this tumult Kublai heard from afar
ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
floated midway on the waves
Where was heard the mingled measure
from the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device
a sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice.

A damsel with a dulcimer
in a vision once I saw.
It was an Abyssinian maid,
and on her dulcimer she played,
singing of mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
her symphony and song.
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
that with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air!
Thy sunny dome! Those caves of ice!
and all who heard should see them there!
and all should cry, Beware! Beware!
his flashing eyes! his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
and close your eyes with holy dread!
for he on honey-dew hath fed,
and drunk the milk of Paradise.