# What is your favorite poem? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 8, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802 "2008-02-08T15:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/1 "2008-02-08T15:39:31Z")
Please tell us all ‘bout your favorite poem. What is it that makes it really hit home? It can be short or it can be long (But please don’t use lyrics you found in a song). It could be by Shakespeare or Shelley or Dunne Or maybe a poet with a fan base of one. It could be free verse or with rhyming scheme Or any variant you find in between. It could be a haiku, a limerick or sonnet. Please share so we can ponder upon it. Sorry I put this OP in verse. I better quit now before it gets worse. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/2 "2008-02-08T15:41:03Z")
“There once was a man from Nantucket…” ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/3 "2008-02-08T15:55:41Z")
Tie between these two: Now hollow fires burn out to black, And lights are guttering low. Square your shoulders, lift your pack, And leave your friends, and go. Oh never fear, man, nought’s to dread, Look not left nor right: In all the endless road you tread There’s nothing but the night. —A.E. Houseman, “A Shropshire Lad” and 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:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/4 "2008-02-08T15:55:50Z")
I’m rather partial to [Evolution](http://monado2.blogspot.com/2006/02/when-you-were-tadpole-and-i-was-fish.html) by Langdon Smith. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/5 "2008-02-08T16:03:21Z")
A man said to the universe: “Sir I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” ``` -- Stephen Crane ``` ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/6 "2008-02-08T16:07:51Z")
As a compliment to this thread, people may want to check out the website of the Favorite Poem project: [www.favoritepoem.org/](http://www.favoritepoem.org/) I have found some wonderful poems through this great website, and the books published through it. Check it out! I have so many favorites. I’ll come back when I decide on one. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/7 "2008-02-08T16:10:14Z")
I think Byron’s “Oh! Snatched Away in Beauty’s Bloom.” I like melancholy, for some reason. Oh! snatched away in beauty’s bloom, On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom: And oft by yon blue gushing stream Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, And feed deep thought with many a dream, And lingering pause and lightly tread; Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed the dead! Away! ye know that tears are vain, That death nor heeds nor hears distress: Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou -who tell’st me to forget, Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet. ---
**Author:** ![bbs2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/8 "2008-02-08T16:17:18Z")
Top three, in order? I’m boring so here it goes… Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks, And You . . . - Bukowski Atlantis - WH Auden Song of Myself - Whitman > [@](#): > > in the most decent sometimes sun > there is the softsmoke feeling from urns > and the canned sound of old battleplanes > and if you go inside and run your finger > along the window ledge you’ll find > dirt, maybe even earth. > and if you look out the window > there will be the day, and as you > get older you’ll keep looking > keep looking > sucking your tongue in a little > ah ah no no maybe > > some do it naturally > some obscenely > everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/9 "2008-02-08T16:20:32Z")
I’ve always been fond of _Ozymandias_, and often think of it when visiting ruins in “antique lands”. ---
**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:** [February 8, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/10 "2008-02-08T16:31:49Z")
My favorite poem is **Sitting in a Small Screenhouse on a Summer Morning** , by James Wright, but I can’t find a direct link, so I’ll go with my second favorite, [**The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina**](http://www.geocities.com/bjlandry_00/Otherwriters/williamsshrinkingsestina.html), by Miller Williams. Sestina’s are like Rubik’s cubes – the hardest poem in the world to write and this one is just plain brilliant. The structure of the poem amazed me (each stanza really shrinks as the poem progresses). It’s beautiful, fascinatingly intricate, made me laugh for a moment and then broke my heart. What more can you ask? I think I actually gasped the first time I read it. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/11 "2008-02-08T16:39:09Z")
**Imperial** _Don Paterson_ Is it normal to get this wet? Baby, I’m frightened– I covered her mouth with my own; She lay in my arms till the storm-window brightened And stood at our heads like a stone After months of jaw jaw, determined that neither Win ground, or be handed the edge We gave ourselves up, one to the other Like prisoners over a bridge And no trade was ever so fair or so tender; So where was the flaw in the plan, The night we lay down on the flag of surrender And woke on the flag of Japan (Courtesy **roboto** - belated thanks!) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/12 "2008-02-08T16:45:59Z")
_The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_, by T.S. Eliot. Great imagery, wonderful language and sound, and it just connects with me on a deep level. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/13 "2008-02-08T16:46:08Z")
My favorites are so totally literature anthology, but I’ve always been very fond of “Dulce et Decorum Est”: Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of disappointed shells that dropped behind. GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And floundering like a man in fire or lime.– Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,– My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. And I also love that old saw, “This is Just to Say”: I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast. Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold. ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/14 "2008-02-08T17:04:21Z")
[QUOTE=koeeoaddi] …so I’ll go with my second favorite, [**The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina**](http://www.geocities.com/bjlandry_00/Otherwriters/williamsshrinkingsestina.html), by Miller Williams. [/QUOTE] That poem just made me cry. My favorite poem changes depending on my mood. I love a bunch of the ones already mentioned here, but one of my favorite poems for a long time has been [Birches](http://www.bartleby.com/104/66.html) by Robert Frost. Mainly because when I read it in college, this part: > [@](#): > > It’s when I’m weary of considerations, > And life is too much like a pathless wood > Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs > Broken across it, and one eye is weeping > From a twig’s having lashed across it open. > I’d like to get away from earth awhile > And then come back to it and begin over. described exactly how I felt at that point in my life. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/15 "2008-02-08T17:12:02Z")
The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled His Mum had told him what to do But he’s forgotten what she’d said. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/16 "2008-02-08T17:16:28Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_, by T.S. Eliot. Great imagery, wonderful language and sound, and it just connects with me on a deep level. [/QUOTE] Mr. Prufrock can’t decide what to do: Dare I eat? Dare I speak? Dare I screw? I shall sing of sweet peaches And walks along beaches And my heart which is laden with rue. Ooops, wrong thread. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/17 "2008-02-08T17:34:54Z")
**The Eve of St. Agnes** by John Keats. Keats at the height of his powers, choosing to work within an immensely challenging format _because he could_, choosing a good story to tell and telling it well, with beautiful language throughout and a wonderful sense of both narrative and atmosphere. As deeply romantic as anything else ever written, and at the same time rather racy for its day (his first publishers wouldn’t touch it because they thought certain passages were immoral bordering on obscene - and they weren’t wrong). Richly expressive, rhythmically seductive almost to the point of being hypnotic, almost epic in scale and a technical masterpiece that comes close to being on a par with, say, Pushkin’s _Onegin_. **The Listeners** by Walter de le Mere. Not so much for the beautiful language, although it’s certainly a masterpiece on that score, but because it’s such a clever idea and I’m not aware of many other works that manage the same trick. It’s a poem story in miniature, in which the reader is only shown the final scene. The poem is full of intrigue and mystery, with the entire back story left to the reader’s imagination, guided only by a few paltry clues. Plus, of course, it’s a ghost story, and very satisfyingly spooky. Well worth reading aloud by candlelight on Hallowe’en. If you want to scare your friends silly, that is. ---
**Author:** ![Slypork](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc29f/32.png) [@Slypork](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slypork)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/18 "2008-02-08T17:35:25Z")
[QUOTE=glee] The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled His Mum had told him what to do But he’s forgotten what she’d said. [/QUOTE] The first time I heard this was on Benny Hill: > [@](#): > > The boy stood on the burning deck > The flames were rising higher > He was so scared he wet his pants > And so put out the fire. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/19 "2008-02-08T17:45:11Z")
[QUOTE=Slypork] The first time I heard this was on Benny Hill: [/QUOTE] I’m glad I didn’t offend. I happen to like doggerel, limericks and nonsense verse (e.g. Edward Lear). There was an orthodox poem I liked too: [Lepanto by GK Chesterton](http://www.poetry-online.org/chesterton_lepanto.htm) (Don John of Austria is going to the war.) 🆒 ---
**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:** [February 8, 2008, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802/20 "2008-02-08T17:47:42Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] And I also love that old saw, “This is Just to Say”: [/QUOTE] Was going to mention that one. An amazing poem. With that taken, I’ll go with Louis Macneice’s [Bagpipe Music](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/18.html). I love the way every line _almost_ rhymes. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-your-favorite-poem/436802.md?page=2)