# Post your favorite poems **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 4, 2006, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974 "2006-02-04T07:03:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Arien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arien)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/1 "2006-02-04T07:03:59Z")
There have been a couple threads in the Pit lately concerning poetry, which reminded me again how little of it I’ve read, beyond what I studied in high school english class. I know that if I checked out a poetry anthology from the library I would never actually read it so please post your favorite poems (unless they’re under copyright or something) in easy-to-read post form. Uh, if your favorite poem is Paradise Lost, then just post your favorite passage, I guess. 😉 I don’t have a favorite poem but here’s one I just came across and liked. The City You said, "I will go to another land, I will go to another sea. Another city will be found, better than this. Every effort of mine is condemned by fate; and my heart is – like a corpse – buried. Constantine P. Cavafy (1910) ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRamenMonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@FlyingRamenMonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRamenMonster)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/2 "2006-02-04T11:21:00Z")
Slough (John Betjeman) Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now, There isn’t grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/3 "2006-02-04T12:41:59Z")
Too long to post, so I’ll link instead, [Ash-Wednesday by T S Eliot](http://www.pmms.cam.ac.uk/~gjm11/poems/ashwed.html) Woo-hoo 500 posts 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/4 "2006-02-04T13:25:59Z")
So we’ll go no more a’roving, So late into the night, Thought the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself must 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.—“So We’ll Go No More A’Roving,” Lord Byron ---
**Author:** ![Gail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Gail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gail)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2006, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/5 "2006-02-04T13:28:46Z")
\*\*We Real Cool \*\* _The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel._ We real cool. We Left school. by Gwendolyn Brooks ---
**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:** [February 4, 2006, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/6 "2006-02-04T23:40:29Z")
> [@Arien](#): > > Uh, if your favorite poem is Paradise Lost, then just post your favorite passage, I guess. 😉 And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th’ upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou know’st; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad’st it pregnant: What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great Argument I may assert th’ Eternal Providence, And justifie the wayes of God to men.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jennshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/7 "2006-02-05T00:04:58Z")
Elizabeth Bishop One Art The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/278dde/32.png) [@Runs\_With\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Runs_With_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/8 "2006-02-05T01:40:37Z")
MY heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began, So is it now I am a man, So be it when I shall grow old 5 Or let me die! The child is father of the man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety. William Wordsworth ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/9 "2006-02-05T02:03:13Z")
I don’t know how anyone can have _one_ favorite poem, but this one comes to mind as a little-cited example from **a** favorite poet: a man who had fallen among thieves lay by the roadside on his back dressed in fifteenthrate ideas wearing a round jeer for a hat **e. e. cummings** ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/10 "2006-02-05T02:10:48Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > **e. e. cummings** [_nitpick_] **E.E. Cummings** [/_nitpick_] ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/11 "2006-02-05T02:14:14Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > [_nitpick_] **E.E. Cummings** [/_nitpick_] Who pays any attention to the syntax of things? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/12 "2006-02-05T02:14:38Z")
[**Cinderella**](http://plagiarist.com/poetry/564/) Anne Sexton You always read about it: the plumber with the twelve children who wins the Irish Sweepstakes. From toilets to riches. That story. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/13 "2006-02-05T02:16:26Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > Who pays any attention to the syntax of things? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/14 "2006-02-05T02:22:43Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > 😕 [since feeling is first](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem162.html) I use the non-capitalized name because that’s the familiar form for most Americans. If it offends you, I apologize. Cummings, I think, would not have been bothered. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/15 "2006-02-05T02:32:27Z")
> [@xenophon41](#): > > [since feeling is first](http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~richie/poetry/html/aupoem162.html) > > I use the non-capitalized name because that’s the familiar form for most Americans. If it offends you, I apologize. Cummings, I think, would not have been bothered. Ah. didn’t recognize the quote. I was just responding to the [myth](http://www.gvsu.edu/english/cummings/caps.htm) that Cummings wrote his name without capitals. That was a convention picked up from the graphic designer of one of his early books, to reflect Cummings’s unconventional syntax; Cummings himself was kind of annoyed by it. (And not offended; that’s why I used the “nitpick” tags, to acknowledge that it really was not a large issue.) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/16 "2006-02-05T02:38:40Z")
I’m going to post a link here, just because the poem would make for a very long post. But here’s [The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot.](http://www.bartleby.com/198/1.html) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/17 "2006-02-05T02:49:08Z")
“'Twas brilling and…” besides that one: _The golf links lie so near the mill, That almost every day, The laboring children can look out, And watch the men at play_ Sarah Norcliffe Cleghorn ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/18 "2006-02-05T03:21:22Z")
I’ve always loved Pushkin. I studied Russian specifically to read both him and Dostoevski. One of my favorites of Pushkin is The Talisman. Where the sea forever dances Over lonely cliff and dune, Where sweet twilight’s vapor glances In a warmer-glowing moon It’s even better in Russian. Dark and beautiful. Bittersweet with more than a hint of gothic terror. I cannot believe mere human beings can write like this. ---
**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:** [February 5, 2006, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/19 "2006-02-05T03:35:10Z")
[somewhere i have never travelled](http://deadparrot.home.pipeline.com/poetry/eec/eec15.htm) by E. E. cummings, [Fern Hill](http://www.bigeye.com/fernhill.htm), by Dylan Thomas, and all the _Four Quartets_, by T. S. Eliot. Also the _Song of the Master and the Boatswain_, by W. H. Auden. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974/20 "2006-02-05T04:00:51Z")
Because I am ever-so-slightly evil and believe in having my cake and eating it too, I’m going to post links to four. Ha ha! I also humbly request that my fellow posters, in order to save our dear Café Society moderators considerable stress, link to poems that you even suspect are still under copyright. [Funeral Blues](http://www.npr.org/programs/death/readings/poetry/aude.html) by WH Auden “He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.” [by WH Auden "As I walked out one evening, Walking down Bristol Street, The crowds upon the pavement Were fields of harvest wheat. And down by the brimming river I heard a lover sing Under an arch of the railway: 'Love has no ending. . . ." [url=http://www.poetry-archive.com/t/the\_ballad\_of\_bouillabaisse.html]The Ballad of Bouillabaise](]As I Walked Out One Evening[/url) by WM Thackeray “A street there is in Paris famous, For which no rhyme our language yields, Rue Neuve des Petits Champs its name is– The New Street of the Little Fields; And here’s an inn, not rich and splendid, But still in comfortable case; The which in youth I oft attended, To eat a bowl of Bouillabaisse.” [Goblin Market](http://users.crocker.com/~lwm/goblin.html) by Christina Rossetti "Morning and evening Maids heard the goblins cry: “Come buy our orchard fruits, Come buy, come buy . . .” I have a major weakness and that is Victorian poetry. (Well, that excludes Auden, but him too.) Some day I shall conquer it, but (please, Lord!) not yet. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-favorite-poems/342974.md?page=2)