P.S. That poem I mentioned above as always reducing me to sobs is actually The Glacier Bed by Emila Aylmer Blake. Cannot find any links to it, so I guess I’m the only one who likes it!
Erlkoenig, (1780), Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.
»Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?« -
»Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron und Schweif?« -
»Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.« -
»Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel ich mit dir;
Manch bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.«
»Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?« -
»Sie ruhig, bliebe ruhig, mein Kind:
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.« -
»Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.«
»Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort?« -
»Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh es genau:
Es scheinen die altern Weiden so grau.« -
»Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.«
»Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!« -
Dem Vater grausets, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not:
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.
Here is a passable translation:
Who rides so late through night and wind?
It is the father with his child;
He holds the boy safe in his arms,
He grasps him surely, he keeps him warm.
"My boy, why do you hide your face in fear?
"Don’t you, father, sea the Erl-king there
The Erl-king with crown and tail?’
“My son, it’s but a sheet of mist”
"‘You sweetest child, come, go with me!
Some fine games I shall play with you;
Many a gay flower grows on the shore,
My mother has many a garment of gold.’
“My father, my father, do you not hear,
What promises Erl-king’s whispering to me?”
“Be calm, stay calm, my child:
In dry leaves rustles the wind.”
Will you, gentle boy, now come with me?
My danghters shall wait upon you;
My daughters lead the nightly round,
They’ll rock and dance and sing you to sleep."
“My father, my father, and don’t you, there see
Erl-king’s daughters in the unholy spot?”
“My son, my son, I see it quite clear:
It is the old willows that seem so grey.”
“I love you, I’m attracted by your lovely youth
And if you aren’t willing, I shall use force”
“My father, my father, he’s touching me now
Erl-king has done me grievous harm”
The father shudders, he now rides fast,
In his arms he holds the groaning boy,
He reaches the farm with his last strength:
In his arms the child was dead.
London by William Blake. Packs an incredible wallop in sixteen short lines.
And a month doesn’t go by that I don’t reread Kublan Khan and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
I know it’s kind of trendy to like Edna right now, but I really like that poem. She’s got another (Bluebeard) that ends:
Chilling, if you ask me.
For Eve: Love’s the Boy Stood on the Burning Deck by Elizabeth Bishop.
For myself, I have too many favorite poems to name, but one I’m really enjoying at the moment is Little Elegy for a Child Who Skipped Rope by X.J. Kennedy.
Ugh. In that 2nd link the first line should say “Here lies resting” not “Here she lies”. That’ll teach me to just use the first Google link.
“Invictus,” by
W.E.Henley has always been a favorite of mine.
You have no idea how eternally pissed I was when it was forever tainted by Timothy McVeigh using it as his last words.
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
— William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)Invictus Invictus
I could have lived out my life not knowing that, Muad’Dib, and been happier for it.
Oh, well. I still have Ozymandius.
http://groups.msn.com/TheCaptainsWalk/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=2&LastModified=4675337649874714755
try this link
share what you think
Mycroft Holmes
Be sure to listen to Schubert’s musical version (lied) of Erlkoenig.
I sang that one, back in the days…
Wow, Muad’Dib, that was great. I’ll have to read more of his work.
Novus
Nerrie I think poems are best read aloud. Every once in a while we used to do just that while sitting around the family dinner table. I first heard each of the following childhood poems during those sessions. Want to play a game? Can you guess any of the story poems’ titles by reading these lines? I’ll try to post links later.
-
An’ the gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out! -
But there is no joy in Mudville-
-
“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head
But spare your county’s flag,” she said. -
Listen my children and you shall hear
-
“Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,” he said. -
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea -
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way! -
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
-
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears, -
Oh, mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!
- An’ the gobble-uns 'll git you
Ef you
Don’t
Watch
Out!
Little Orphan Annie
- But there is no joy in Mudville-
Casey at the Bat (I don’t even like baseball, but I recognize this one.)
- “Shoot, if you must, this old gray head
But spare your county’s flag,” she said.
Barbara [something] (I can’t remember the last name.)
- Listen my children and you shall hear
Paul Revere’s Ride
- “Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,” he said.
The Listeners (Fair gave me the creeps when I was a lad.)
- I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea
Annabel Lee
- Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
The Highwayman (Have you heard Loreena McKennet sing this one? It’s on the "Book of Secrets* album, and it is truly a thing of beauty.
- Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Jabberwocky (I memorized this, along with The Walrus and the Carpenter and, of all things, The Raven when I was five. My parents encouraged recitations, but a five-year-old reciting Poe tends to unnerve people.)
- When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
The Tyger (Frankly, I always found this a bit trite. It sounds like doggerel a clever child might cobble together for homework. It is very recognizable, though.)
- Oh, mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!
Lone Dog (I can identify with this one. I know the lone trail well.)
I agree, by the way, that poems are best spoken aloud. I prefer recitation, rather than reading, because I’ve heard far too many faltering, one-word-at-a-time readings. In my experience, people maintain the rhythm better in recitation.
Y’all keep in mind that posting entire poems is in the same realm as posting the complete lyrics to songs, unless they’ve entered the public domain, I believe. Anyway:
My favorite poem has been “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes, ever since I first read it in high school. It’s exactly what a poem should be – economy of words and phrases, each one chosen perfectly and full of meaning. It doesn’t use flowery language but still manages to be perfectly evocative. And the last line is extremely powerful.
Other than that, just about any poem by Roy Blount, Jr. They’re all nonsense, of course, along the lines of “I could do some damage/To a ham-and-cheese samich”.
Y’all keep in mind that posting entire poems is in the same realm as posting the complete lyrics to songs, unless they’ve entered the public domain, I believe. Anyway:
My favorite poem has been “A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes, ever since I first read it in high school. It’s exactly what a poem should be – economy of words and phrases, each one chosen perfectly and full of meaning. It doesn’t use flowery language but still manages to be perfectly evocative. And the last line is extremely powerful.
Other than that, just about any poem by Roy Blount, Jr. They’re all nonsense, of course, along the lines of “I could do some damage/To a ham-and-cheese samich”.
1 Had we but world enough, and time,
2 This coyness, lady, were no crime.
3 We would sit down and think which way
4 To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
5 Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
6 Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
7 Of Humber would complain. I would
8 Love you ten years before the Flood;
9 And you should, if you please, refuse
10 Till the conversion of the Jews.
11 My vegetable love should grow
12 Vaster than empires, and more slow.
13 An hundred years should go to praise
14 Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
15 Two hundred to adore each breast,
16 But thirty thousand to the rest;
17 An age at least to every part,
18 And the last age should show your heart.
19 For, lady, you deserve this state,
20 Nor would I love at lower rate.
21 But at my back I always hear
22 Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
23 And yonder all before us lie
24 Deserts of vast eternity.
25 Thy beauty shall no more be found,
26 Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
27 My echoing song; then worms shall try
28 That long preserv’d virginity,
29 And your quaint honour turn to dust,
30 And into ashes all my lust.
31 The grave’s a fine and private place,
32 But none I think do there embrace.
33 Now therefore, while the youthful hue
34 Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
35 And while thy willing soul transpires
36 At every pore with instant fires,
37 Now let us sport us while we may;
38 And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
39 Rather at once our time devour,
40 Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
41 Let us roll all our strength, and all
42 Our sweetness, up into one ball;
43 And tear our pleasures with rough strife
44 Thorough the iron gates of life.
45 Thus, though we cannot make our sun
46 Stand still, yet we will make him run.
The Red Wheelbarrow
by William Carlos Williams
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
A little more Ezra:
In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Whoever said brevity was the source of all…good poetry?
isfetau
Mine is W.H Auden’s Musee des Beauz Artes. Here goes (and mods, if it is still copyrighted, please remove it and I’ll find a link).
I love this poem - we did it in English in yr11 and it’s meant so much to me ever since.
*About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.*
And a link to Breughel’s Icarus (scroll to the bottom of the page).