# Poetry that grabs you by the throat. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 23, 2000, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188 "2000-03-23T17:58:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/21 "2000-03-24T02:43:00Z")
No whole poems, just my favorite chilling lines. “And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming.” -E.A. Poe, _The Raven_ “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” -T.S. Eliot, _The Waste Land_ “And silent as stone he rode down alone from the floor of the double-damned.” -Ogden Nash, _A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor_ Well, it’s a start… ---
**Author:** ![lvick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d07c76/32.png) [@lvick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lvick)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/22 "2000-03-24T17:11:00Z")
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee and the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee * * * ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/23 "2000-03-24T17:16:00Z")
I won’t quote any (too long), but I adore penny-dreadful Victorian poems. “The Face on the Floor,” “Over the Hill to the Poorhouse,” “The Glacier Bed” (makes me sob helplessly, that one). I have been known to throw myself backwards out of a chair while reciting “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” ---
**Author:** ![cygnus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e0b2c6/32.png) [@cygnus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cygnus)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/24 "2000-03-24T17:21:00Z")
Can I offer two? When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defac’d The rich-proud cost of outworn buried age; When sometime lofty towers I see down-ras’d, And brass eternal, slave to mortal rage; When I have seen the hungry ocean gain Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main Increasing store with loss, and loss with store; When I have seen such interchange of state, Or state itself confounded to decay; Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate – That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose. * * * Nature’s first green is gold Her hardest hue to hold Her early leaf’s a flower But only so an hour Then leaf subsides to leaf So Eden sank to grief So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay * * * But I don’t want to pay the penalty. I just want to go home. ---
**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:** [March 24, 2000, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/25 "2000-03-24T17:46:00Z")
Wow, what a morbid thread. I feel right at home. Hark, now every thing is still, The screech-owl and the whistler shrill Call upon our dame aloud, And bid her quickly don her shroud. Much you had of land and rent; Your length in clay’s now competent. A long war disturbed your mind; Here your perfect peace is signed. Of what is’t fools make such vain keeping? Sin their conception, their birth weeping; Their life, a general mist of error, Their death, a hideous storm of terror. Strew your hair with powders sweet; Don clean linen, bathe your feet, And, the foul fiend more to check, A crucifix let bless your neck. 'Tis now full tide 'tween night and day, End your groan, and come away. – John Webster * * * “I can’t think why fancy religions should have such a ghastly effect on one’s grammar.” – Dorothy L. Sayers ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/26 "2000-03-25T06:11:00Z")
since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are a better fate than wisdom lady I swear by all flowers. Don’t cry -the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids’ flutter which says we are for each other: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life’s not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis – e.e.cummings For my money, the finest poem ever written, and appropriate for the season, don’t you think? Maybe I should have posted this one in the “Flirting” thread… ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/27 "2000-03-25T06:11:00Z")
**Not Waving but Drowning** 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. –Stevie Smith ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/28 "2000-03-25T06:24:00Z")
It’s certainly not the most profound piece ever written, but it was the first poem I deemed “memorizable” in the fourth grade. _Dreams_ Langston Hughes Hold fast to dreams For when dreams die, Life is broken-winged bird That can not fly. Hold fast to dreams For when dreams go, Life is a barren field Frozen with snow. When I look back at the times in my life when I was the most hopeless, it was because I had lost hope in my dreams. So as simplistic as it is, I think Langston was on to something. ---
**Author:** ![Bluepony](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Bluepony](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bluepony)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/29 "2000-03-25T06:36:00Z")
I don’t know who wrote the whole poem, but parts of it still stick in my mind from one of my college lit courses. \*…the King with half the east at heel has marched from lands of morning. His soldiers drink the rivers up, Their shafts bedight the air. And he that stands will die for nought, And home, there’s no returning. The Spartans, on that sea-wet rock, Sat down and combed their hair.\* * * * _…send lawyers, guns, and money…_ ``` Warren Zevon ``` ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2000, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/30 "2000-03-25T06:43:00Z")
So we’ll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright! For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul outwears the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we’ll go no more a roving By the light of the moon. –Lord Byron ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/31 "2000-03-24T19:18:00Z")
Hey **cygnus** - Whose lines are those? It sounds like something **Byron Herbert Reese** might have written. Izzit? I’m with you on the Langston Hughes, SwimmingRiddles. Didn’t he also do “Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note”? I remember that one getting to me when I first read it in Junior High. ---
**Author:** ![SwimmingRiddles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SwimmingRiddles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SwimmingRiddles)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/32 "2000-03-24T19:31:00Z")
Nope, that was [Amiri Baraka](http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/baraka.htm). ---
**Author:** ![TheNerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/858c86/32.png) [@TheNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheNerd)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/33 "2000-03-24T19:48:00Z")
I doubt anyone is still reading this thread with a keen eye, but if you are, read this. Remember my post in the "Brush with Greatness " thread? This is by that girl I mentioned. The title is “Slumber” > [@](#): > > i splayed on that horrid yellow couch that refuses to die > everyone had gone: the meeting was over > she sat opposite, in clothes that made the men say, > “I couldn’t keep my eyes off her…” > i was too scared to say, “i know” > still, we can always talk, even if just on limited subjects, > maybe because i’ve never really broken her trust > unrepairably > and we reminisced, and prophesized > she told me the gospel, and i knew it to be so > i told of vacation, and she only said, > “playboy? Gross!” > i had no response to give. > > when tomorrow’s bread was turned over to cool > (oh, we are all just little housewives looking for our kitchens) > and the lights had gone out across the yard > i yawned and stood up > to lead the way up the stairs, > burning out lights as i went > undressed, i curled under the cover > she was brushing her teeth, > scrubbing her face with the expensive soap > i can never afford- > i waited for her return > the time a chocolate cherry dissolving in my mouth > and this time > the light was no quick edison-switch > to sense-limiting blackness: > it really did fade out like the sun > > slept, woke, half-remembered > dreams of the person beside me > flipped my stomach with guilt > as the clouds of sleep blew away, they hid > the full moon of my morality > long enough for me to grasp her foot, > cut off at the ankle by the sheets, > for two droning heart beats > and it felt like holding gold, > like strolling around a boutique dressing room > barefoot in a thousand dollar dress > the touch stayed on my hands all through > the next morning > i left before she woke ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/34 "2000-03-24T20:06:00Z")
I lost my life this morning; It just left me without warning. Now I don’t know where to go Or what to do. I see my body lying In a box, and people crying. But I don’t know where to go Or what to do. The lid is softly closing; Must be dark in there, reposing. And I don’t know where to go Or what to do. Can’t hear what the preacher’s saying But I think he’s finished praying. Still I don’t know where to go Or what to do. The people that I’m leaving Are best left now to their grieving. I just don’t know where to go Or what to do. The box is lowered slowly And the earth recieves me wholly. Yet I don’t know where to go Or what to do. I hear voices - getting stronger; “Come with us, and wait no longer!” Yes, I think that’s where I’ll go And what I’ll do. * * * Sig! Sig a Sog! Sig it loud! Sig it Strog! – Karen Carpenter with a head cold ---
**Author:** ![Catrandom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@Catrandom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catrandom)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/35 "2000-03-24T20:17:00Z")
What a happy crew we are! In the spirit of the thread: Little Boy Blue Eugene Field The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he stands, The little tin soldier is red with rust, And his musket moulds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was passing fair, And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue, Kissed them and put them there. “Now don’t you go till I come,” he said, “And don’t you make any noise,” And, toddling off to his trundle-bed, He dreamt of the pretty toys. And while he was dreaming an angel-song, Awakened our Little Boy Blue, The years are many, the years are long, But the little toy friends are true. Faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand, Each in the same old place, Awaiting the touch of a little hand, The smile of a little face, And they wonder, as waiting the long years through, In the dust of that little chair, What has become of our Little Boy Blue, Since he kissed them and put them there. Catrandom ---
**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/36 "2000-03-24T21:44:00Z")
Hey, Gaudere, you ever listen to _Not drowning, Waving_? Claim is a great album. Oh yeah, the OP. _Ozymandias_ anyone? * * * - The best lack all conviction The worst are full of passionate intensity. \* ---
**Author:** ![Gaudere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e495f1/32.png) [@Gaudere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaudere)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/37 "2000-03-24T21:57:00Z")
No, I haven’t. Is it based on the poem? I have a $5 gift certificate to Amazon that’s buring a hole in my pocket, so maybe I’ll see if they have it in stock. ---
**Author:** ![MadPoet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8c91f0/32.png) [@MadPoet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MadPoet)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/38 "2000-03-24T22:30:00Z")
To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a-flying : And this same flower that smiles to-day To-morrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he’s to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer ; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while ye may go marry : For having lost but once your prime You may forever tarry. ## -Robert Herrick Duty to Tyrants GOOD princes must be pray’d for ; for the bad They must be borne with, and in rev’rence had. Do they first pill thee, next pluck off thy skin? Good children kiss the rods that punish sin. Touch not the tyrant ; let the gods alone To strike him dead that but usurps a throne. -Robert Herrick * * * [http://www.madpoet.com](http://www.madpoet.com) “I never meant to hurt you,” you said, And buried yourself in lies instead. Next time I would rather be slain, Than forced to bear your mercy again. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/39 "2000-03-24T22:50:00Z")
Well, as long as we’re on the Cavalier poets: (From: “To Lucasta, Upon Going to the Wars”) **Yet this inconstancy is such As thou, too, shalt adore; I could not love thee, Dear, so much, Loved I not honor more!** (By Lovelace, I believe.) (This is from memory, so I may be off a hair.) Oh yeah, and: **Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and quiet take That for an hermitage.** ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2000, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188/40 "2000-03-24T22:54:00Z")
A couple more Cavalier relics kicking around my head: **Why so pale and wan, young lover? Prithee, why so pale? If looking well won’t win her Will looking ill prevail? Prithee, why so pale?** and: **Out! Out upon it! I have loved thee three whole days together! And am apt to love thee three more (If it should prove fair weather).** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poetry-that-grabs-you-by-the-throat/15188.md?page=3)