# Poetry rally: respond to the previous poster by quoting a related piece of poetry **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 27, 2008, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894 "2008-07-27T02:05:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/41 "2008-07-30T15:32:30Z")
[QUOTE=Sternvogel] I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints The sinners are much more fun – [William Martin Joel](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Only-The-Good-Die-Young-lyrics-Billy-Joel/956D520953E906A248256870001B64DD) [/QUOTE] Dark blood flowed in the fosse, Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides Of youths and of the old who had borne much; Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender, Men many, mauled with bronze lance heads, Battle spoil, bearing yet dreory arms, These many crowded about me; with shouting, Pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts; Slaughtered the herds, sheep slain of bronze; Poured ointment, cried to the gods, To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine; Unsheathed the narrow sword, I sat to keep off the impetuous impotent dead, Till I should hear Tiresias. –Ezra Pound, Canto I ---
**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:** [July 30, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/42 "2008-07-30T16:14:29Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead, of brides Of youths and of the old who had borne much; Souls stained with recent tears, girls tender, [/QUOTE] Still Ezra, eh? Very like Aeneas in Hades, no? Sometimes I see alone coffins under sail, embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair, with bakers who are as white as angels, and pensive young girls married to notary publics, caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead, the river of dark purple, moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death, filled by the sound of death which is silence… it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets, and the beds go sailing toward a port where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral. –Pablo Neruda, Nothing But Death ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/43 "2008-07-30T16:23:33Z")
This is the garden. Time shall surely reap and on Death’s blade lie many a flower curled, in other lands where other songs be sung; yet stand They here enraptured,as among the slow deep trees perpetual of sleep some silver-fingered fountain steals the world. – e. e. cummings ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/44 "2008-07-30T16:29:07Z")
[QUOTE=Humble Servant] Still Ezra, eh? Very like Aeneas in Hades, no? [/quote] Boy, was I hoping you would punt this! Plenty of other poets out there aside from Ezra. He just makes up for his unevenness with sheer volume. > [@](#): > > Sometimes I see alone > coffins under sail, > embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair > [@](#): > > The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning; > Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air, > And he that stands will die for nought, and home there’s no returning. > The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair. AE Housman, The Oracles. ---
**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:** [July 30, 2008, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/45 "2008-07-30T17:59:19Z")
> [@](#): > > in other lands where other songs be sung; > [@](#): > > The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. –TSEliot again, Prufrock A two-fer! Thanks for the straight lines. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/46 "2008-07-30T18:07:03Z")
On this road that I have taken while out walking, I awaken. Amazed to see how far I’ve come, where I’m going; where I’m from. D.Koontz ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/47 "2008-07-30T18:21:54Z")
A two-fer is a great idea. > [@](#): > > I have seen them riding seaward on the waves > [@](#): > > Amazed to see how far I’ve come, > where I’m going; where I’m from The rock wave-surrounded, by great arrangement, Will convey for us a defence, a protection from the enemy. The rock of the chief proprietor, the head of tranquillity. The intoxication of meads will cause us to speak. I am a cell, I am a cleft, I am a restoration, I am the depository of song; I am a literary man; I love the high trees, that afford a protection above, And a bard that composes, without earning anger; I love not him that causes contention; He that speaks ill of the skilful shall not possess mead. –Taliesin, the Fold of the Bards ---
**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:** [July 30, 2008, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/48 "2008-07-30T19:12:20Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] The intoxication of meads will cause us to speak. I am a cell, I am a cleft, I am a restoration, I am the depository of song; I am a literary man; I love the high trees, that afford a protection above, And a bard that composes, without earning anger; I love not him that causes contention; He that speaks ill of the skilful shall not possess mead. [/QUOTE] Hmm–that sounds like Whitman with all those "I am"s, but you can’t go wrong with the mead thing: Less good than belief would have it Is mead for the sons of men: A man knows less the more he drinks, Becomes a befuddled fool. “I forget” is the name men give the heron Who hovers over the feast: Fettered I was in his feathers that night, When a guest in Gunnlod’s court. Drunk I got, dead drunk, When Fjalar the wise was with me: Best is the banquet one looks back on after, And remembers all that happened. Drink your mead, but in moderation, Talk sense or be silent: No man is called discourteous who goes To bed at an early hour. –from those hard-drinking Vikings and their poetic Edda ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/49 "2008-07-30T19:31:03Z")
[QUOTE=Humble Servant] Hmm–that sounds like Whitman with all those "I am"s [/quote] It definitely does. There are some hypotheses that trace some of Whitman’s transcendentalism to the Celtic Revival. They are just hypotheses, sure, but they are pretty interesting. Apparently Whitman received a copy of Sir Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border when he was a wee lad, and it made a pretty big impact. > [@](#): > > Less good than belief would have it > Is mead for the sons of men: > A man knows less the more he drinks, > Becomes a befuddled fool. Poet-as-prophet and beer together? It can be done. > [@](#): > > Let me bring you all things refined: > galliards and lute songs served in chilling ale. > Greetings well met fellow, hail! > I am the wind to fill your sail. > I am the cross to take your nail: > A singer of these ageless times. > With kitchen prose and gutter rhymes. > Songs from the wood make you feel much better. –Jethro Tull, Songs From the Wood ---
**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:** [July 30, 2008, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/50 "2008-07-30T20:00:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Let me bring you all things refined: > galliards and lute songs served in chilling ale. > Greetings well met fellow, hail! > I am the wind to fill your sail. > I am the cross to take your nail: > A singer of these ageless times. > With kitchen prose and gutter rhymes. > Songs from the wood make you feel much better. For oak and elm have pleasant leaves That in the spring-time shoot: But grim to see is the gallows-tree, With its adder-bitten root, And, green or dry, a man must die Before it bears its fruit! It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air! –Oscar Wilde, the Ballad of Reading Gaol A galliard, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/51 "2008-07-30T21:08:17Z")
[QUOTE=Humble Servant] It is sweet to dance to violins When Love and Life are fair: To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes Is delicate and rare: But it is not sweet with nimble feet To dance upon the air! –Oscar Wilde, the Ballad of Reading Gaol A galliard, indeed. [/QUOTE] How about a bit of ballet? And more dancing (clawing) upon the air? I cannot dance upon my Toes – No Man instructed me – But oftentimes, among my mind, A Glee possesseth me, That had I Ballet knowledge – Would put itself abroad In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe – Or lay a Prima, mad, And though I had no Gown of Gauze – No Ringlet, to my Hair, Nor hopped to Audiences – like Birds, One Claw upon the Air, Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls, Nor rolled on wheels of snow Till I was out of sight, in sound, The House encore me so – Nor any know I know the Art I mention – easy – Here – Nor any Placard boast me – It’s full as Opera – –Emily Dickinson, I Cannot Dance Upon My Toes ---
**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:** [July 30, 2008, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/52 "2008-07-30T22:05:47Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] Nor hopped to Audiences – like Birds, One Claw upon the Air, [/QUOTE] “I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven,” sayeth Miss Emiily, who uses birds in loads of her poems: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune–without the words, And never stops at all [and props full circle to **melodyharmonius** in post 26 and the ensuing birders] ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 8:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/53 "2008-07-31T08:57:44Z")
A word from Alexander Pope (Dunciad, Bk. IV) Then thus. "Since man from beast by words is known, Words are man’s province, words we teach alone. When reason doubtful, like the Samian letter, Points him two ways, the narrower is the better. Plac’d at the door of learning, youth to guide, We never suffer it to stand too wide. To ask, to guess, to know, as they commence, As fancy opens the quick springs of sense, We ply the memory, we load the brain, Bind rebel Wit, and double chain on chain, Confine the thought, to exercise the breath; And keep them in the pale of words till death. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/54 "2008-07-31T12:17:40Z")
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years— Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres Trying to use words, and every attempt Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure Because one has only learnt to get the better of words For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate With shabby equipment always deteriorating In the general mess of imprecision of feeling, Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer By strength and submission, has already been discovered Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope To emulate—but there is no competition— There is only the fight to recover what has been lost And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. Eliot, _East Coker_ ---
**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:** [July 31, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/55 "2008-07-31T15:16:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Then thus. "Since man from beast by words is known, > Words are man’s province, words we teach alone. > [@](#): > > Trying to use words, and every attempt > Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure > Because one has only learnt to get the better of words Words, words, words. –WShakespeare, Hamlet And since that doesn’t give much purchase: A word fitly spoken is like golden apples in silver settings. –Proverbs, 25:11 ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/56 "2008-07-31T15:35:29Z")
[QUOTE=Humble Servant] Words, words, words. –WShakespeare, Hamlet And since that doesn’t give much purchase: A word fitly spoken is like golden apples in silver settings. –Proverbs, 25:11 [/QUOTE] Dangit, I raced in here to post words, words, words, and you beat me. But how do you like them apples? Then Neptunes issue prayd With carefull hart and voyce to mee, and thus devoutly sayd: O Venus, favour myne attempt, and send mee downe thyne ayd To compasse my desyred love which thou hast on mee layd. His prayer movd mee (I confesse,) and long I not delayd Before I helpt him. Now there is a certaine feeld the which The Cyprian folk call Damasene, most fertile and most rich Of all the Cyprian feelds: the same was consecrate to mee In auncient tyme, and of my Church the glebland woont to bee. Amid this feeld, with golden leaves there growes a goodly tree The crackling boughes whereof are all of yellew gold. I came And gathered golden Apples three: and bearing thence the same Within my hand, immediatly to Hippomen I gat Invisible to all wyghts else save him and taught him what To doo with them. The Trumpets blew: and girding forward, both Set foorth, and on the hovering dust with nimble feete eche goth. –Ovid, Metamorphoses X, tr. Arthur Golding. ---
**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:** [July 31, 2008, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/57 "2008-07-31T18:45:44Z")
[QUOTE=Maeglin] Amid this feeld, with golden leaves there growes a goodly tree The crackling boughes whereof are all of yellew gold. I came And gathered golden Apples three: [/QUOTE] I bet there was a worm in them, or maybe a snake in the apple tree: I found The new created world, which fame in Heaven Long had foretold, a fabrick wonderful Of absolute perfection! therein Man Placed in a Paradise, by our exile Made happy: Him by fraud I have seduced From his Creator; and, the more to encrease Your wonder, with an apple; he, thereat Offended, worth your laughter! hath given up Both his beloved Man, and all his world, To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us, Without our hazard, labour, or alarm; To range in, and to dwell, and over Man To rule, –Milton, Paradise Lost ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/58 "2008-07-31T19:24:50Z")
Such was that happy garden-state, While man there walked without a mate : After a place so pure and sweet, What other help could yet be meet! But 'twas beyond a mortal’s share To wander solitary there : Two paradises 'twere in one To live in Paradise alone. Marvell, from _The Garden_ (I’m sure his wife or mistress appreciated those last lines!) ---
**Author:** ![PastAllReason](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@PastAllReason](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastAllReason)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/59 "2008-07-31T19:42:21Z")
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again And the sun grew round that very day. So it must have been after the birth of the simple light In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm Out of the whinnying green stable On to the fields of praise. Dylan Thomas “Fern Hill” ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2008, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894/60 "2008-07-31T23:15:54Z")
There’s a certain slant of light Winter afternoons That oppresses, like the heft Of cathedral tunes. Heavenly hurt it give us We can find no scar But internal difference Where the meanings are. -Emily Dickinson [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-rally-respond-to-the-previous-poster-by-quoting-a-related-piece-of-poetry/457894.md?page=4)