# What is your favorite poem? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 21, 2004, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401 "2004-05-21T18:37:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kymodoce](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8797f3/32.png) [@Kymodoce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kymodoce)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/21 "2004-05-21T21:50:31Z")
Like many people, I suspect, my favourite poem changes with time. One which often appears right at the top of my list is “To his coy mistress” by Andrew Marvell. I don’t know why, but it appeals to me. I think it is the way he changes… how he loses the plot, so to speak… his not-so-subtle manoeuvering. The grave 's a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Excellent stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/22 "2004-05-21T22:42:23Z")
Twenty-one posts, and no mention yet of Vogon poetry? We’re slipping. \*Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me As plurdled gabbleblotchits On a lurgid bee. Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles, Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon See if I don’t. \* ---
**Author:** ![Chotii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@Chotii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chotii)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/23 "2004-05-21T23:27:02Z")
I do not know who wrote this poem. I heard it on AmberMUSH in about 1993 from a young man who was killed in a car wreck in December of that year. His character claimed she wrote it. I have never been able to find it in any poetry anthology, nor quoted anywhere on the 'net. So here is my favorite, for reasons of nostalgia: _The mercenary soldier takes his pay, And saves the sum of things for someone else: Counts up the butcher’s bill and goes away. His contract states he never states who hired him, The foe, or what the reason might have been; So signed, so sealed, so lawfully endowed: A paper shroud to wind an army in. He says things must be so, perhaps they must. A war’s a war, a fight’s by God a fight, It profits nothing to be fair, nor just, Or cloud the brain with thoughts of who was right. For bombs and bullets speak just what they mean. Of politics at least, his hands… are clean._ ---
**Author:** ![\_xiao\_wenti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b782af/32.png) [@\_xiao\_wenti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_xiao_wenti)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2004, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/24 "2004-05-21T23:46:02Z")
En sevilla no hay naranjas, Ni tiene madrid amor Federico Garcia Lorca – executed (taken from the world) at a very early age by the repubicans during the Spanish civil war. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/25 "2004-05-22T00:29:56Z")
[http://are.berkeley.edu/~atanu/Poemsongs/welsh\_incident.html](http://are.berkeley.edu/~atanu/Poemsongs/welsh_incident.html) > [@](#): > > No, but a very loud, respectable noise > — Like groaning to oneself on Sunday morning > In Chapel, close before the second psalm. And: > [@](#): > > Fuck you fuck you fuck > You fuck you fuck you fuck you > Fuck you fuck you snow. from somewhere online. ---
**Author:** ![Archergal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/26 "2004-05-22T02:38:31Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Here is my favorite, > > [Ulysses](http://charon.sfsu.edu/TENNYSON/ULYSSES.HTML) > > I can hear them fighting in the lines: > > And drunk delight of battle with my peers, > Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. > > So, sue me! 🙂 I console myself sometimes with these lines: > [@](#): > > Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ > We are not now that strength which in old days > Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,– Well, it’s consoling to me, anyway! I’m also pretty fond of Ogden Nash. How could you not love a poet who writes lines like these: > [@](#): > > This is my dream, > It is my own dream, > I dreamt it. > I dreamt that my hair was kempt. > Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it. And that’s just a small example of his charm. I have simple tastes. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/27 "2004-05-22T02:49:16Z")
Edna St. Vincent Millay’s [“If I should learn in some quite casual way.”](http://sonnets.org/millay.htm#105) ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/28 "2004-05-22T03:03:06Z")
Dirge Without Music, Edna St. Vincent Milay ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/29 "2004-05-22T03:41:55Z")
I’ve always loved [_In Flanders Fields_](http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/LostPoets/McCrae.html) by John McCrae. Very simple, but it moves me. I can also read Tennyson till my eyes fall out. [_The Splendor Falls_](http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/tennyson/splendor_falls_on_castle.html) is my favorite, I think. But my answer changes every time I’m asked. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/30 "2004-05-22T04:00:25Z")
My real answer is _Do not go gentle into that good night_, but I guess that doesn’t earn any points for originality. Still, there’s never been anything like that last stanza to reduce a man to a blubbering mess. I like [The Man He Killed](http://www.poetry-archive.com/h/the_man_he_killed.html) by Thomas Hardy, too. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/31 "2004-05-22T04:33:18Z")
_An American Prayer_, written by one James Douglas Morrison. “Do you know the warm progress under the stars? Do you know we exist? Have you forgotten the keys to the Kingdom? Have you been borne yet and are you alive?” And even more poignant and appropriate to the moment, later in the same poem: "Did you know freedom exists in a school book Did you you know madmen are running our prison Within a jail Within a gaol Within a white free Protestant Maelstrom We’re perched headlong On the edge of boredom We’re reaching for death On the end of a candle We’re trying for something That’s already found us" Jim was a great friggin’ poet, I don’t care what anyone says. ---
**Author:** ![emekthian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecae2f/32.png) [@emekthian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emekthian)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/32 "2004-05-22T04:37:35Z")
[Abdul Abulbul Amir](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/358.html) ---
**Author:** ![Old\_Goat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/5daacb/32.png) [@Old\_Goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Old_Goat)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/33 "2004-05-22T04:37:54Z")
Wow, thanks folks for reviving my old memories. Lots of favorites: WH Auden’s **Musee des Beaux Arts** for illuminating painting through poetry WH Auden’ s **In Memory of WB Yeats** for illiuminating poetry itself Wallace Stevens \*\*The idea of Order at Key West \*\* for capturing the rhythm of the sea Wallace Stevens **Peter Quince at the Clavier** Andrew Marvell **To His Coy Mistress** Lots of poems with memorable lines, but these five stand out in their exquisite completeness (IMHO) ---
**Author:** ![jastu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/43a26b/32.png) [@jastu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jastu)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/34 "2004-05-22T04:47:22Z")
I loved poetry when I was younger, but really as an adult haven’t taken much interest in it at all. Back then I liked the Australian poet/story tellers like Banjo Patterson, especially his [The Man from Snowy River](http://oldpoetry.com/poetry/5328) and [Clancy of the Overflow](http://oldpoetry.com/poetry/5334). I also liked [John Masefield’s](http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/masef01.html) West Wind and Sea Fever. One I remember having to learn by heart while at school was [The Highwayman](http://www.love-poems.me.uk/noyes_the_highwayman.htm) by Alfred Noyes. I think I could still recite the entire poem today even after all this time. ---
**Author:** ![xcheopis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/bc8723/32.png) [@xcheopis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xcheopis)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/35 "2004-05-22T04:50:42Z")
_The Perfect High ~or~ The Quest of Gimmesome Roy_ by Shel Silverstein. I also favour Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and Edward Gorey. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/36 "2004-05-22T05:10:34Z")
Oooooh…poetry… As if I could pick just one favorite. 😉 A few that I’m particularly fond of, confining these to fairly short poems rather than epic length… [“Ben Jonson Entertains a Man From Stratford,”](http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1728.html) by E.A. Robinson [“A Hymn to God My God, In My Sickness,”](http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem665.html) by John Donne [“The Sun Rising,”](http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem680.html) also by Donne [“On My First Son,”](http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem1105.html) by Ben Jonson [“The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse”](http://www-instruct.nmu.edu/english/zthundy/COMPLAINT.HTM) [“Denial,”](http://www.ccel.org/h/herbert/temple/Deniall.html) by George Herbert [“At a Calvary Near the Ancre,”](http://www.hcu.ox.ac.uk/jtap/warpoems.htm#28) by Wilfred Owen (this is a GREAT site, btw) ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/37 "2004-05-22T05:11:50Z")
Not my favourite poem, but one that I wish more people would esteem, is [Naming of Parts](http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html) by Henry Reed. My favourite is Prufrock. What else? ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/38 "2004-05-22T05:16:51Z")
Since **Hal Briston** beat me to the Vogon selection, I’ll have to go with my real favorite poem. This one, by James Wright: \*\*Sitting in a Small Screenhouse on a Summer Morning \*\* _Ten more miles, it is South Dakota. Somehow, the roads there turn blue, When no one walks down them. One more night of walking, and I could have become A horse, a blue horse, dancing Down a road, alone…_ Don’t miss the gorgous last line! [You can find the rest of the poem here (scroll about half way down the page.)](http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/docs/01_03_26.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/39 "2004-05-22T05:27:03Z")
Hands down my favorite: [William Blake’s The Tiger](http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Blake/PoemsOfWilliamBlake/PoemsOfWilliamBlake1.html). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2004, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401/40 "2004-05-22T06:09:28Z")
Moving this to Cafe Society. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/246401.md?page=3)