# Poems or lines that bring a lump to your throat. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 9, 2002, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618 "2002-04-09T04:13:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/1 "2002-04-09T04:13:20Z")
What’s your favourite saddest lines/poems that invariably set your waterworks going or put a lump the size of a baseball in your throat? Mine’s: Judgement is simply trying to reject A part of what we are, because it hurts. The living cannot call the dead, collect, They won’t accept the charge, and it reverts. It’s my own judgement day that I draw near Descending in the past, without a clue, Down to that central deadness, the despair, Older than any hope I ever knew. (From: _Because_ by James McCauley ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/2 "2002-04-09T04:41:03Z")
[In Flanders Fields](http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/LostPoets/McCrae.html) by John McCrae. ---
**Author:** ![Nocturne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9fc348/32.png) [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/3 "2002-04-09T04:42:28Z")
“If equal affection cannot be/Let the more loving one be me.” –W.H. Auden ---
**Author:** ![Creaky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e68b1a/32.png) [@Creaky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Creaky)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/4 "2002-04-09T05:07:52Z")
_Lament_, by Edna St. Vincent Millay **"Listen, children: Your father is dead. From his old coats I’ll make you little jackets; I’ll make you little trousers From his old pants. There’ll be in his pockets Things he used to put there, Keys and pennies Covered with tobacco…"** ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/5 "2002-04-09T05:17:33Z")
aaarggh!! ive spent the last hour fruitlessly looking online for a poem called ‘the brothers.’ unfortunately, i dont remember the author, and my norton anthology is in any one af twenty big boxes. can anyone help? ---
**Author:** ![Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/soul_brother_number_two/32/3515_2.png) [@Soul\_Brother\_Number\_Two](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul_Brother_Number_Two)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/6 "2002-04-09T05:22:01Z")
heres one from philip larkin thats always kicked my ass. This Be The Verse They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/7 "2002-04-09T06:16:18Z")
If memory serves “The Brothers” is a narrative poem by Wordsworth. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/8 "2002-04-09T06:24:25Z")
Standing by the window I heard it, while waiting for the turn. In hot light and chill air it was the crossing flow of even life, hurt in the mouth but exhausted with passion and joy. Free to leave at either side, at the fold line found in threats like herbage, the watch is fearful and promised before. The years jostle and burn up as a trust plasma. Beyond help it is joy at death itself: a toy hard to bear, laughing all night. \*–last section of J.H. Prynne, \*The Oval Window ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/9 "2002-04-09T06:40:08Z")
At Gallipoli, a place sacred to most Australians and New Zealanders, and the scene of a terrible allied defeat in the Great War, there is a memorial erected by the Turkish Government which bears these words: _“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…you are now lying of the soil of a friendly country, therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.”_ -Kemal Ataturk [sup]Total casualties of the Gallipoli Campaign Approximate allied casualties . . . 250,000 (incl. French forces) Approximate allied deaths . . . 50,000 Turkish casualties . . . over 300,000 The suffering of the wounded was terrible and the facilities for dealing with them were hopelessly inadequate. Death came in horrible ways. Men were killed in action, sniped or shelled. Some died of wounds, dysentery or disease, others were drowned or died of exposure. Men were both burned and frozen to death. Walker, R W: To What End did they Die?: Officers killed at Gallipoli: The Author: Worcester, England: 1985: pp. 1 & 4[/sup] ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/10 "2002-04-09T07:30:50Z")
The old lie: Dulci et decorum est Pro patria mori ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/11 "2002-04-09T07:48:59Z")
Thanks, **essvee** , for the Philip Larkin. I’ve got another of his. In fact, I seem to recall being recently very drunk and posting this in a different thread. No matter, it bears repeating. It is called ‘Wants.’ Beyond all this, the wish to be alone: However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards However we follow the printed directions of sex However the family is photographed under the flagstaff– Beyond all this, the wish to be alone. Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites, The costly aversion of the eyes from death– Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs. And I have one more, this one from W. B. Yeats, titled ‘A Drinking Song’: Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Until we grow old and die. I raise the glass to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh. Thank God for poetry! ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/12 "2002-04-09T08:09:29Z")
Indeed, thank God for poetry… and wine!! Hey TLD, ever listened to Eric Bogle stuff about the diggers of WW1 (especially ‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ and one…I’m not sure if it’s called ‘The Flutes of the Forest’ but it goes… Well how’d you do Private William McBride D’ya mind if I sit here down by your graveside I’ll rest for a while in the warm summer sun I’ve been walking all day, lord, and I’m nearly done. And I see by your gravestone you were only nineteen When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916 Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene. Did they beat the drum slowly, did they sound the fife lowly? Did the rifles fire o’er ye as they lowered you down? Did the bugles sing the ‘Last Post’ in chorus? Did the pipes play the "Flutes of the Forest’? (Well, that’s the first verse and chorus anyway…) ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/13 "2002-04-09T08:18:32Z")
Yup, **kambuckta** , sure have. The one you quoted is a particular favourite of mine. > [@](#): > > Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean > Or Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene. I’ve always particularly loved the above lines because, hearing the first, you think it’s just another sabre-rattling, war-glorifying song. Then you hear the second. The reality. That one chills me. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/14 "2002-04-09T09:43:14Z")
“Reuben Bright” by Edwin Arlington Robinson. That second quatrain always breaks my heart: Because he was a butcher and thereby Did earn an honest living (and did right), I would not have you think that Reuben Bright Was any more a brute than you or I; For when they told him that his wife must die, He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright, And cried like a great baby half that night, And made the women cry to see him cry. And after she was dead, and he had paid The singers and the sexton and the rest, He packed a lot of things that she had made Most mournfully away in an old chest Of hers, and put some chopped-up cedar boughs In with them, and tore down the slaughter-house. ---
**Author:** ![tsarina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f4b2a3/32.png) [@tsarina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tsarina)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/15 "2002-04-09T13:14:04Z")
Gotta be “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke: If I should die, think only this of me; That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England’s breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. I’m not even English, it it still gets me. Another one would have to be lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner”; if you don’t just sing it mechanically and actually stop and think about the words, you’ll get a lump in your throat too. ---
**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:** [April 9, 2002, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/16 "2002-04-09T14:27:33Z")
“On My First Son” by Ben Jonson _Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy: Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, Exacted by thy fate, on the just day. O could I lose all father now! For why Will man lament the state he should envy, To have so soon 'scaped world’s and flesh’s rage, And if no other misery, yet age. Rest in soft peace, and asked, say, “Here doth lie Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry.” For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such As what he loves may never like too much._ ---
**Author:** ![Magickly\_Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magickly\_Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magickly_Delicious)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/17 "2002-04-09T14:28:20Z")
Buy the soundtrack to _The Civil War_, the PBS documentary by Ken Burns. Flip to the last track, which is an actor reading the last letter of Sullivan Ballou to his wife. He reads that, over a fiddle and guitar playing Ashokan Farewell. I have found that I am physically incapable of listening to this track without tearing up. The words are [here.](http://www.jayandmolly.com/ballouletter.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Legomancer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/779978/32.png) [@Legomancer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legomancer)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/18 "2002-04-09T14:31:44Z")
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me or which i cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers you open always petal by petal myself as spring opens (touching skilfully, misteriously) her first rose or if your wish be to close me, i and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending nothing we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility; whose texture compels me with the colour of its countries rendering death and forever with each breathing (i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain has such small hands – e. e. cummings ---
**Author:** ![Simetra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Simetra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simetra)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2002, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/19 "2002-04-09T14:40:35Z")
Well… I’m gonna get laughed at for this… but, the line that has gotten me was from Moulin Rouge. “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” Yeah, I know, everyone else here is cultured and I’m not. Just to save a little face, one of my favs: Life is real. Life is earnest, and the grave is not it’s goal. Dust thou art. To dust returnest was never spoken of the soul. ~HWL ---
**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:** [April 9, 2002, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618/20 "2002-04-09T15:56:02Z")
Thank you, **kambuckta**. I always enjoy these threads and the chance to read new stuff. Death in Battle Open the gates for me, Open the gates of the peaceful castle, rosy in the West, In the sweet dim Isle of Apples over the wide sea’s breast, Open the gates for me! Sorely pressed have I been And driven and hurt beyond bearing this summer day. But the heat and the pain together suddenly fall away, All’s cool and green. But a moment agone, Among men cursing in fight and toiling, blinded I fought, But the labour passed on a sudden even as a passing thought, And now–alone! Ah, to be ever alone, In flowery valleys among the mountains and silent wastes untrod, In the dewy upland places, in the garden of God, This would atone! I shall not see The brutal, crowded faces around me, that in their toil have grown Into the faces of devils–yea, even as my own– When I find thee, O Country of Dreams! Beyond the tide of the ocean, hidden and sunk away, Out of the sound of battles, near to the end of day, Full of dim woods and streams. –C.S. Lewis [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poems-or-lines-that-bring-a-lump-to-your-throat/102618.md?page=2)