I love William Carlos Williams, Poe, Emily Dickinson, and these,
The Cremation of Sam McGee Robert Service
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.
Another vote for A.E. Housman:
Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poison
And the hot knife at her neck,
The Queen of air and darkness
Began to shrill and cry,
“Oh young man, oh my slayer,
Tomorrow you shall die.”
Oh Queen of air and darkness,
I think 'tis truth you say,
And I will die tomorrow,
But you will die today.
And Stevie Smith:
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
A fun poetry site is The Poetry Project, found here
I had considered posting from “The Faerie Queene” which isn’t Middle English but can still make reading fun.
And then I realized that I love the whole damn poem, and quoting the whole damn thing would take a while!
Julie
While I was walking up the stairs, I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today, I wish, I wish, he’d would go away.
– Idenity (Movie 5/29/03)
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want;
he makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff,
they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for ever.
http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/r/rsv/rsv-idx?type=DIV2&byte=2193138
Anything from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, especially Macavity the Mystery Cat.
I’m delighted to see that someone has already mentioned “The Garden of Proserpine” (although it is much easier to read with stanza breaks) and “On My First Son.”
My nomination would be Strange Meeting, by Wilfred Owen.
**That is a nifty site. It includes the poem that is being parodied by the Pound poem rjk linked to.
I just read this somewhere because someone I was reading quoted it (in translation). Does it have anything to do with the Tale of Taliesin?
He did Philip Sparrow too, right? Bit of a bird issue with him, what?
**That is a nifty site. It includes the poem that is being parodied by the Pound poem rjk linked to.
I just read this somewhere because someone I was reading quoted it (in translation). Does it have anything to do with the Tale of Taliesin?
He did Philip Sparrow too, right? Bit of a bird issue with him, what?
Holy hamster hairballs.
Doubleposted and it still didn’t bump the flippin’ thread.
We toil under cruel difficulties.
ElDorado. And The Road not Taken
He certainly did! It’s his best-known poem, probably followed by “Colin Cloute.”
Actually, “Colin Cloute” and “Speak, Parrot” are both satirical attacks on Cardinal Wolsey, which sorta continues the bird theme… 
Not sure on Deor and the Tale of Taliesin. I’ve done some background reading on the poem, but it was a couple of years ago and I’ve forgotten most of it.
I found it, annotated with a bit of commentary.
My first two choices, The Second Coming and My Last Duchess, have already been nominated. Here are a few not quite up to that level, but memorable nevertheless:
John Updike’s “Ex-Basketball Player”
Every time I see lobsters in a supermarket I think of this dreamy poem 
I’ll post the first few lines here. The link to the poem is located at the bottom and is in the middle of that page.
"Lobsters," by Howard Nemerov
Here at the Super Duper, in a glass tank
Supplied by a rill of cold fresh water
Running down a glass washboard at one end
And siphoned off at the other, and so
Perpetually renewed, a herd of lobster
Is made available to the customer
Who may choose whichever one he wants
to carry home and drop into boiling water
And serve with a sauce of melted butter.
Meanwhile, the beauty of strangeness marks
These creatures, who move (when they do)
With a slow, vague wavering of claws,
The somnambulist’s effortless clambering
As he crawls over the shell of a dream
Resembling himself. Their velvet colors,
Mud red, bruise purple, cadaver green
Speckled with black, their camouflage at home,
Make them conspicuous here in the strong
Day-imitating light, the incommensurable
Philosophers and at the same time victims …
My favorites:
The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens. I just love the phrase “concupiscent curds.”
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Eliot really was in a class by himself.
And where would a favourite poem thread be without mention of Federico García Lorca’s Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias?
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
I sing of Olaf by e.e. cummings
The City in the Sea by E.A. Poe
I Am Not Yours by Sarah Teasdale
The Truth the Dead Know, Snow White, Letter Written on a Ferry While Crossing Long Island Sound by Ann Sexton
Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plaith
Macbeth by Willie the Shake
Chicago, Four Preludes On Playthings of the Wind by Carl Sandburg
Too many, I’ll be here all night.
“Somewhere I have never travelled…” by ee cummings. Was cut to the quick when Michael Caine used it as part of an oily seduction in “Hannah and her Sisters”…or was it the shock of recognition?
I memorised somewhere i have never traveled for my best friend’s wedding this summer. Welcom to the SDMB, Dhuwhap.
You took away 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.
Don’t remember the poet, sorry. Wait! Osip Mandlestrom, I think!
I love The Pulley and practically anything Eliot. I think I heard anyone lived in a pretty how town recited about fifty times this summer. It’s good, too.