# Respond to the last poster by quoting a line of poetry **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 1, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257 "2007-05-01T03:03:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/1 "2007-05-01T03:03:16Z")
Inspired by this great [thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=417584) and in honor of the beginning of May, respond using lines of poetry, any type or style, but preferably a response that relates to the one you’re responding to. Quote the last poster please and try to include who wrote it. I’ll go first: Two in the Campagna I WONDER do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May? – Robert Browning ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/2 "2007-05-01T03:14:02Z")
[QUOTE=5-4-Fighting] Two in the Campagna I WONDER do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May? – Robert Browning [/QUOTE] What a cool idea. Good on you, starting us off with Browning. I’ll quote from Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas. Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising, Nor that riding to sleep I should hear him fly with the high fields And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land. Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/3 "2007-05-01T03:32:43Z")
[QUOTE=Hung Mung] Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea. [/QUOTE] We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Til human voices wake us, and we drown. - T.S. Eliot, “The Love-song of J Alfred Prufrock” ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/4 "2007-05-01T03:56:53Z")
From the Bard: Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that does fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong, Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/2bfe46/32.png) [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/5 "2007-05-01T04:45:25Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] From the Bard: Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong, Hark! Now I hear them – Ding-dong, bell. [/QUOTE] Ding dong dell Pussy’s in the well Hey, don’t blame me! **Skippy** closed the song thread and told everybody to come here. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/6 "2007-05-01T04:51:22Z")
[QUOTE=John Carter of Mars] Ding dong dell Pussy’s in the well [/QUOTE] (I’m in an Eliot mood tonight, so . . .) A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. - T.S. Eliot, “The Waste-land” ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/7 "2007-05-01T04:57:16Z")
[QUOTE=HazelNutCoffee] (I’m in an Eliot mood tonight, so . . .) A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. - T.S. Eliot, “The Waste-land” [/QUOTE] Hear the tolling of the bells - Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people -ah, the people - They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone - They are neither man nor woman - They are neither brute nor human - They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A paean from the bells! –E. A. Poe, “The Bells” ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/8 "2007-05-01T05:55:49Z")
[QUOTE=SmartAleq] They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A paean from the bells! –E. A. Poe, “The Bells” [/QUOTE] The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. -Thomas Gray ---
**Author:** ![Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/9 "2007-05-01T05:56:26Z")
[QUOTE=SmartAleq] Hear the tolling of the bells - Iron bells! What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! In the silence of the night, How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats Is a groan. And the people -ah, the people - They that dwell up in the steeple, All alone, And who tolling, tolling, tolling, In that muffled monotone, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone - They are neither man nor woman - They are neither brute nor human - They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, Rolls A paean from the bells! –E. A. Poe, “The Bells” [/QUOTE] Bells of gray crystal Break on each bough– The swans’ breath will mist all The cold airs now. -Dame Edith Sitwell, from “Bells of Crystal” ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/10 "2007-05-01T12:19:16Z")
[QUOTE=panamajack] The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd winds slowly o’er the lea, The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. -Thomas Gray [/QUOTE] And still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, A highwayman comes riding- Riding-riding- A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door. _The Highwayman_ - Alfred Noyes Si ---
**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:** [May 1, 2007, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/11 "2007-05-01T12:26:07Z")
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we lead all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death. -The Journey of the Magi, Eliot Hey, I like Eliot too. Good game. ---
**Author:** ![Hung\_Mung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hung\_Mung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hung_Mung)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/12 "2007-05-01T16:33:17Z")
[QUOTE=Lissla Lissar] Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we lead all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death. -The Journey of the Magi, Eliot Hey, I like Eliot too. Good game. [/QUOTE] 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 and half at one another’s throats. Man hands misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. –Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/13 "2007-05-01T17:00:40Z")
[QUOTE=Hung Mung] 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 and half at one another’s throats. Man hands misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. –Philip Larkin, This Be The Verse [/QUOTE] Strange planet and strange people on it. They yield to time, but they don’t want to recognize time. They have their ways of expressing resistance. – Wislawa Szymborska, People on the Bridge ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/14 "2007-05-01T17:08:46Z")
There’s a little yellow piss stone To the north of Waterloo And another for the ladies further down Both are run by Sophie Tucker For a shilling you can fuck 'er and a blow job is only half a crown anon Well you never said it had to be a classic ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/15 "2007-05-01T18:21:13Z")
It’s no go the Yogi-Man, it’s no go Blavatsky, All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi. Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather, Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna. It’s no go your maidenheads, it’s no go your culture, All we want is a Dunlop tyre and the devil mend the puncture. The Laird o’ Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober, Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over. Mrs Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion, Said to the midwife ‘Take it away; I’m through with overproduction’. It’s no go the gossip column, it’s no go the Ceilidh, All we want is a mother’s help and a sugar-stick for the baby. – Louis MacNiece, **Bagpipe Music**. ---
**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:** [May 1, 2007, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/16 "2007-05-01T18:46:50Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] Mrs Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion, Said to the midwife ‘Take it away; I’m through with overproduction’. It’s no go the gossip column, it’s no go the Ceilidh, All we want is a mother’s help and a sugar-stick for the baby. [/QUOTE] Tho’ now they ca’ me fornicator, An’ tease my name in kintry clatter, The mair they talk, I’m kent the better, E’en let them clash; An auld wife’s tongue’s a feckless matter To gie ane fash. Welcome! my bonie, sweet, wee dochter, Tho’ ye come here a wee unsought for, And tho’ your comin’ I hae fought for, Baith kirk and queir; Yet, by my faith, ye’re no unwrought for, That I shall swear! Tho’ I should be the waur bestead, Thou’s be as braw and bienly clad, And thy young years as nicely bred Wi’ education, As ony brat o’ wedlock’s bed, In a’ thy station. --RBurns, A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter ---
**Author:** ![ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e9bcb4/32.png) [@ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/17 "2007-05-01T18:51:38Z")
[QUOTE=RealityChuck] It’s no go the Yogi-Man, it’s no go Blavatsky, All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi. Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather, Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna. It’s no go your maidenheads, it’s no go your culture, All we want is a Dunlop tyre and the devil mend the puncture. The Laird o’ Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober, Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over. Mrs Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion, Said to the midwife ‘Take it away; I’m through with overproduction’. It’s no go the gossip column, it’s no go the Ceilidh, All we want is a mother’s help and a sugar-stick for the baby. – Louis MacNiece, **Bagpipe Music**. [/QUOTE] smashed in my carpet forever a reminder of sugar, wasted - Anonymous Peep Haiku ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/18 "2007-05-01T19:02:35Z")
[QUOTE=Humble Servant] Tho’ I should be the waur bestead, Thou’s be as braw and bienly clad, And thy young years as nicely bred Wi’ education, As ony brat o’ wedlock’s bed, In a’ thy station. --RBurns, A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter [/QUOTE] The green catalpa tree has turned All white; the cherry blooms once more. In one whole year I haven’t learned A blessed thing they pay you for. The blossoms snow down in my hair; The trees and I will soon be bare. The trees have more than I to spare. The sleek, expensive girls I teach, Younger and pinker every year, Bloom gradually out of reach. The pear tree lets its petals drop Like dandruff on a tabletop. The girls have grown so young by now I have to nudge myself to stare. This year they smile and mind me how My teeth are falling with my hair. In thirty years I may not get Younger, shrewder, or out of debt. The tenth time, just a year ago, I made myself a little list Of all the things I’d ought to know, Then told my parents, analyst, And everyone who’s trusted me I’d be substantial, presently. I haven’t read one book about A book or memorized one plot. Or found a mind I did not doubt. I learned one date. And then forgot. And one by one the solid scholars Get the degrees, the jobs, the dollars. And smile above their starchy collars. I taught my classes Whitehead’s notions; One lovely girl, a song of Mahler’s. Lacking a source-book or promotions, I showed one child the colors of A luna moth and how to love. I taught myself to name my name, To bark back, loosen love and crying; To ease my woman so she came, To ease an old man who was dying. I have not learned how often I Can win, can love, but choose to die. I have not learned there is a lie Love shall be blonder, slimmer, younger; That my equivocating eye Loves only by my body’s hunger; That I have forces true to feel, Or that the lovely world is real. While scholars speak authority And wear their ulcers on their sleeves, My eyes in spectacles shall see These trees procure and spend their leaves. There is a value underneath The gold and silver in my teeth. Though trees turn bare and girls turn wives, We shall afford our costly seasons; There is a gentleness survives That will outspeak and has its reasons. There is a loveliness exists, Preserves us, not for specialists. W. D. Snodgrass, _April Inventory_ ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/19 "2007-05-01T19:36:05Z")
[QUOTE=Sailboat] The green catalpa tree has turned All white; the cherry blooms once more. In one whole year I haven’t learned A blessed thing they pay you for. The blossoms snow down in my hair; The trees and I will soon be bare. W. D. Snodgrass, _April Inventory_ [/QUOTE] Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? – Gerard Manley Hopkins, _Spring and Fall, to a Young Child_ ---
**Author:** ![descamisado](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257/20 "2007-05-01T23:53:31Z")
[QUOTE=Sternvogel] Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? – Gerard Manley Hopkins, _Spring and Fall, to a Young Child_ [/QUOTE] Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me, Saying that now you are not as you were When you had changed from the one who was all to me, But as at first, when our day was fair. Can it be you that I hear? Let me view you, then, Standing as when I drew near to the town Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then, Even to the original air-blue gown! Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness Travelling across the wet mead to me here, You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness, Heard no more again far or near? Thus I; faltering forward, Leaves around me falling, Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward, And the woman calling. – Thomas Hardy, The Voice [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/respond-to-the-last-poster-by-quoting-a-line-of-poetry/402257.md?page=2)