# Favourite poems **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 10, 2002, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662 "2002-10-10T12:53:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sebhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@Sebhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sebhal)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/1 "2002-10-10T12:53:20Z")
In honour of National Poetry day (in the UK), I’m asking, what’s your favourite poem and why? I’ve asked this question of many people, and I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t have one, so I’m turning to you, erudite Dopers, to restore my faith. One request for posters, can we have a link to the poem in each case? With someone discussing a poem close to their heart you want to know what they’re talking about. OK, here’s my offering: [‘High Flight’, John G. Magee](http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/history/prewwii/jgm.htm) I love the imagery of this poem. I’ve done a bit of flying and I think it evokes beautifully the feelings and the sights. I don’t think that he has a word out of place. It’s not just the feelings of flying either, it’s the fact that he knows he’s the only one there, that feeling of being alone in the ‘long, delirious burning blue’. Made all the more poignant because he died a few months later. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/2 "2002-10-10T14:32:24Z")
Some primal termite knocked on wood, tasted it, and found it good, and that is why your cousin May fell through the parlor floor today. –Ogden Nash ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/3 "2002-10-10T15:50:27Z")
Favorite Limerick: One day I went to the zoo, For I wanted to see the old gnu. But the old gnu was dead And the new gnu they said Was too new a new gnu to view. Favorite Sentimental Poem to be Read in a Scottish Accent: The bairnies cuddle doon at nicht Wi’ muckle fash an’ din. Oh, try and sleep, ye waukrife rogues; Your faither’s comin’ in. They never heed a word I speak. I try to gie a froon; But aye I hap them up, an’ cry, Oh, bairnies, cuddle doon! Wee Jamie wi’ the curly heid- He aye sleeps next to wa’- Bangs up an’ cries, I want a piece- The rascal starts them a’. I rin an’ fetch them pieces, drinks- They stop awee the soun’- Then draw the blankets up, an’ cry, Noo, weanies, cuddle doon! –Alexander Anderson (I won’t inflict my favorite poem on the board again as I’ve already posted it a half dozen times.) I like the Magee and the Nash too (I had never read Nash’s _Custard the Dragon_ until someone posted it here in a favorite poem thread, and it is now my son’s favorite poem–he can recite the whole thing–so a belated thanks to whoever posted that). ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/4 "2002-10-10T15:58:48Z")
[_Invictus_](http://www.bartleby.com/103/7.html) by William Ernest Henley [_Ozymandius_](http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~benjamin/316kfall/316ktexts/ozymandius.html) by Percy Bysshe Shelley (the only thing shelley wrote that I liked) I’m sure my choices say something profound about my philosophy, but I’m not sure what. 🙂 Since **Humble Servant** has started the limericks, I’ll include my favorite as well. I first read it in one of David Gerrold’s _Chtorr_ novels, but I doubt that it was original. It’s the definition of a limerick: A limerick of classic proportion Must have rhyme, meter, and a portion Of humor quite lewd And a frightfully crude Impossible sexual contortion. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/5 "2002-10-10T16:09:43Z")
I have a weakness for penny-dreadful Victorian poems, like _The Ice Floe, Will New Year’s Come Tonight?_ and _The Face on the Bar-Room Floor_. Great for Declaiming in Stentorious Tones. I have been known to throw myself backwards out a chair reciting _The Charge of the Light Brigade_. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/6 "2002-10-10T16:24:01Z")
Ooooooh, **Eve** , do you have a copy of Michael J. Turner’s _Victorian Parlour Poetry_ (Dover, 1992), first published as _Parlour Poetry: A Casquet of Gems_ (Viking, 1969)? Best…anthology…EVAHHH! “Five cents a glass!” Does anyone think That this is really the price of a drink? “Five cents a glass,” I hear you say, “Why, that isn’t very much to pay.” Ah, no, indeed; 'tis a very small sum You are passing over with finger and thumb; And if that were all that you gave away It wouldn’t be very much to pay. The price of a drink! Let him decide Who has lost his courage and lost his pride, And lies a groveling heap of clay Not far removed from a beast today… – fron Josephine Pollard, “Price of a Drink” ---
**Author:** ![dragongirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b38774/32.png) [@dragongirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dragongirl)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/7 "2002-10-10T16:25:29Z")
_Annabelle Lee_ by Edgar Allen Poe. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/8 "2002-10-10T16:36:23Z")
Is that the one you once gave me a copy of? “Over the hill to the poor-house I’m trudgin’ my weary way— I, a woman of seventy, and only a trifle gray— I, who am smart an’ chipper, for all the years I’ve told, As many another woman that’s only half as old.” ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@Lady\_of\_the\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_of_the_Lake)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/9 "2002-10-10T18:08:19Z")
**The world is too much with us** The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathéd horn. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/10 "2002-10-10T18:27:22Z")
I like epic poetry, and very little else (although I have to agree with **Balance** ’s choice of **Ozymandias** ). So i like the translations of **The Iliad** and **The Odyssey**. In English poems, I like Samuel Tayler Colerdige’s **The Rime of the Ancient Mariner**. Interestingly enough, I’m reading it right now at bedtime – the annotated edition, with notes by Martin Gardner. ---
**Author:** ![MSU\_1978](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@MSU\_1978](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MSU_1978)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/11 "2002-10-10T18:35:38Z")
Hey look! My first post! My favorite poem is T.S. Eliot’s The Journey of the Magi. Sorry I could not provide a link, but apparently copyright restrictions apply in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/12 "2002-10-10T19:45:27Z")
Welcome to the boards, **MSU 1978**. Excellent choice for a first post. [Here’s a link to the Journey of the Magi](http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/eliot.htm#Poem). You’re right that some of Eliot’s stuff appears to remain under copyright and some not; since this link goes to a university website established in 1996, I’m willing to think that they got permission to post. I like Eliot too. Here’s a lesser-known one: [Sweeney Among the Nightingales](http://www.deathclock.com/thunder/framer/cfm?frame=http://www.bartleby.com/199/24.html). I like Rime of the Ancient Mariner a lot now too, although I quite hated it when I first read it in high school. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/13 "2002-10-10T20:15:25Z")
Ok, this is funny since I’m an atheist, but one of my favorite poems is God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I think it is beautiful and can be interpreted symbolically and appreciated from a secular viewpoint. God’s Grandeur, by Gerard Manley Hopkins The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; Bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs– Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/14 "2002-10-10T22:23:50Z")
Mmmmm…poetry… That’s one of my favorites too, **Tangent**. I could probably come up with a really long list – I’ll try to keep it relatively brief (and exclude stuff like verse drama and epic ;))… [On My First Son](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/jonson7.html), Ben Jonson [Hymn to God My God, In My Sickness](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/donne33.html), John Donne [Caliban upon Setebos](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/browning17.html), Robert Browning [Dulce et decorum est](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/owen4.html), Wilfrid Owen [Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/keats14.html), John Keats (Swooniest. Poem. Ever.) [Denial](http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Herbert/Denial.htm), George Herbert ---
**Author:** ![Kaitlyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/73ab20/32.png) [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/15 "2002-10-10T23:21:05Z")
Ozymandias is one of my favorites, too. It makes a great memorize and recite aloud poem. [This Is Just To Say](http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=1048) by William Carlos Williams [Birches](http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=688) by Robert Frost [Goblin Market](http://65.107.211.206/crossetti/gobmarket.html) by Christina Rossetti [The Waste Land](http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=1200) by T. S. Eliot [A Poison Tree](http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=1815) by William Blake [My Last Duchess](http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/) by Robert Browning [The Pied Piper of Hamelin](http://www.plagiarist.com/poetry/?wid=5859) by Robert Browning [The Gettysburg Address](http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/Lincoln/gettysburg.html) by Abraham Lincoln. And this, which I got from, IIRC, a Seven Up commercial: Off in the distance, the game’s dragging on. There’s strikes on the batter, some runners are on. When suddenly everyone’s looking at me. My mind has been wandering, what could it be? I look all around, then I look up above, And a baseball falls into my glove. I play right field, it’s important, you know, You gotta know how to catch, you gotta know how to throw. That’s why I play in right field, Way out, where the dandelions grow. ---
**Author:** ![Novus\_Opiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/858c86/32.png) [@Novus\_Opiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novus_Opiate)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2002, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/16 "2002-10-10T23:49:52Z")
With rue my heart is laden For golden friends I had, For many a rose-lipt maiden And many a lightfoot lad. By brooks too broad for leaping The lightfoot boys are laid; The rose-lipt girls are sleeping In fields where roses fade. Solid comment on the fragile nature of our friendships and out lifes. Kinda makes you want to appreciate them a little more. AND When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, `Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.’ But I was one-and-twenty No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, `The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; ‘Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue.’ And I am two-and-twenty And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true. The bell-headed nature of youth and how easily one is stricken with love at such a young age. Warning people (especially young ones) to guard their feelings does no good at all. 🙂 Novus ---
**Author:** ![Novus\_Opiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/858c86/32.png) [@Novus\_Opiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novus_Opiate)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/17 "2002-10-11T00:00:48Z")
Um, also I think that should be “bull-headed”. Hmmmm. Novus ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/18 "2002-10-11T01:19:44Z")
A) I am _quite_ aware at how this poem has not…um…aged…well. It’s racist as hell by today’s standards, and while I think his heart was in the right place, his head was firmly up his rectum it wasn’t all that enlightened by his own time’s standards. W.E.B. Dubois had some unkind and very thoughtful [things to say about it](http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/lindsay/congo.htm) “All of which is well meant, but some of it is nonsense. Mr. Lindsay knows little of the Negro, and that little is dangerous.”) but nonetheless… B) If you put the subject matter aside, this is an amazingly fun poem to read out loud…read properly, it rolls like thunder off the tongue. (the part _italics_ are Lindsay’s instructions tot the reader.) Vachel Lindsay’s [The Congo](http://www.bartleby.com/104/81.html) (this is only the first part that I’m quoting…it’s about 3 times longer) > [@](#): > > I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY > > FAT black bucks in a wine-barrel room, > Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, > Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, > > \*A deep rolling bass. \* > > Pounded on the table, > Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, > Hard as they were able, > Boom, boom, BOOM, > With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom, > Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM. > THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision. > I could not turn from their revel in derision. > THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK, > > \*More deliberate. Solemnly chanted. \* > > CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK. > Then along that riverbank > A thousand miles > Tattooed cannibals danced in files; > Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song > And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong. > > \*A rapidly piling climax of speed and racket. \* > > And “BLOOD” screamed the whistles and the fifes of the warriors, > “BLOOD” screamed the skull-faced, lean witch-doctors, > “Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle, > Harry the uplands, > Steal all the cattle, > Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle, > Bing! > Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM,” > A roaring, epic, rag-time tune > > \*With a philosophic pause. \* > > From the mouth of the Congo > To the Mountains of the Moon. > Death is an Elephant, > Torch-eyed and horrible, > > \*Shrilly and with a heavily accented meter. \* > > Foam-flanked and terrible. > BOOM, steal the pygmies, > BOOM, kill the Arabs, > BOOM, kill the white men, > > \*Like the wind in the chimney. \* > > HOO, HOO, HOO. > Listen to the yell of Leopold’s ghost > Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host. > Hear how the demons chuckle and yell > Cutting his hands off, down in Hell. > Listen to the creepy proclamation, > Blown through the lairs of the forest-nation, > Blown past the white-ants’ hill of clay, > Blown past the marsh where the butterflies play:— > "Be careful what you do, > Or Mumbo-Jumbo, God of the Congo, > > \*All the o sounds very golden. Heavy accents very heavy. Light accents very light. Last line whispered. \* > > And all of the other > Gods of the Congo, > Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, > Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you, > Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-doo you." I love the guy’s use of meter and raw power of the rhythm in the poem. The subject matter, not so much. Also, I’m getting into [Robert W. Service](http://www.robertwservice.com/verse/men_that_dont.html), especially his Yukon stuff like **Dangerous Dan McGrew** (note again, I’m only quoting part of it.) > [@](#): > > A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon; > The kid that handles the music-box was hitting a jag-time tune; > Back of the bar, in a solo game, sat Dangerous Dan McGrew, > And watching his luck was his light-o’-love, the lady that’s known as Lou. > When out of the night, which was fifty below, and into the din and glare, > There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks, dog-dirty, and loaded for bear. > He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse, > Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar, and he called for drinks for the house. > There was none could place the stranger’s face, though we searched ourselves for a clue; > But we drank his health, and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew. > > There’s men that somehow just grip your eyes, and hold them hard like a spell; > And such was he, and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell; > With a face most hair, and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done, > As he watered the green stuff in his glass, and the drops fell one by one. > Then I got to figgering who he was, and wondering what he’d do, > And I turned my head–and there watching him was the lady that’s known as Lou. > > His eyes went rubbering round the room, and he seemed in a kind of daze, > Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze. > The rag-time kid was having a drink; there was no one else on the stool, > So the stranger stumbles across the room, and flops down there like a fool. > In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat, and I saw him sway, > Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands–my God! but that man could play. > > Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear, > And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear; > With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold, > A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold; > While high overhead, green, yellow, and red, the North Lights swept in bars?– > Then you’ve a hunch what the music meant . . . hunger and night and the stars. In the same vein as Service is a poem called [The Ballad of Eskimo Nell](http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~nicholson/eskimo.html) which is hysterical. And filthy. Filthy enough that I had to hunt down a url that followed the “two click” rule. A tiny fragment ( just about _every_ stanza is doity, so I can’t easily quote much) goes: > [@](#): > > When Dick walked in to a house of sin, > The whores all cursed their luck, > Not even a tart dared let out a fart, > When he said - “I want to f\*ck!” > > The girls they knew of his playful ways > Down on the Rio Grande, > And forty whores pulled down their drawers > At Dead-eye Dick’s command. > For they saw the finger of Mexican Pete > Move on the trigger grip, > So they didn’t wait and at a fearful rate > Those whores began to strip. > > Now, Dead-Eye Dick was breathing quick > With lecherous snorts and grunts, > So forty butts were bared to view, > And likewise forty… Um…I think, even if I \* out the vowel in the final word, **Euty** ’ll slap me around. Suffice it to say that the last word is _exactly_ what you think it is. 😃 Basically, I like stuff that rhymes, has rhythm, is fun to read aloud and (if possible) tells a story. ---
**Author:** ![Sebhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@Sebhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sebhal)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/19 "2002-10-11T12:20:02Z")
And _Eskimo Nell_ certainly tells a story! ---
**Author:** ![Martiju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Martiju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martiju)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2002, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662/20 "2002-10-11T12:52:02Z")
I can’t believe we’ve got this far without mentioning the best poet of all…William McGonagall. [www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/index.shtml](http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk/index.shtml) Hard to pick one favourite but I guess the ultimate is the Tay Bridge Disaster…makes you weep! [http://www.spda.com/mcgonagall/lexicon3.cfm?title=The%20Tay%20Bridge%20Disaster](http://www.spda.com/mcgonagall/lexicon3.cfm?title=The%20Tay%20Bridge%20Disaster) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favourite-poems/131662.md?page=2)