# Your Favorite Passage of Poetry **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 7, 2016, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116 "2016-12-07T16:10:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/101 "2016-12-09T18:58:09Z")
As someone who has struggled with depression throughout much of my adult life, the poem ‘Richard Cory’ has always resonated strongly. > [@Edwin Robinson](#): > > Whenever Richard Cory went down town, > We people on the pavement looked at him; > He was a gentleman from sole to crown, > Clean favored, and imperially slim. > > And he was always quietly arrayed, > And he was always human when he talked; > But still he fluttered pulses when he said, > “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked. > > And he was rich - yes, richer than a king, > And admirably schooled in every grace; > In fine, we thought that he was everything > To make us wish that we were in his place. > > So on we worked, and waited for the light, > And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; > And Richard Cory, one calm summer night, > Went home and put a bullet through his head ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/102 "2016-12-09T19:15:01Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > As someone who has struggled with depression throughout much of my adult life, the poem ‘Richard Cory’ has always resonated strongly. Yeah, that’s a heavy! Happy you are winning the battle. It’s worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/103 "2016-12-09T19:18:04Z")
I can’t believe there’s been no love for _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_: \*And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? \* and \* Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet — and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. \* ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/104 "2016-12-09T20:06:45Z")
> [@Sefton](#): > > I can’t believe there’s been no love for _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_: > … Posts #58, #59 and #65. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/105 "2016-12-09T20:14:55Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > Posts #58, #59 and #65. Oh dear. I really did look for it, just not closely enough. ---
**Author:** ![Theodore\_Striker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@Theodore\_Striker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Theodore_Striker)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/106 "2016-12-09T21:07:33Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Terrific idea for thread. Well done. Thanks, it’s by far my most successful thread! I’ve wanted to do it for a while, just never got around to it. I am really glad so many people are enjoying it, and there’s been such a great variety of work mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Zuzu\_s\_Petals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@Zuzu\_s\_Petals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zuzu_s_Petals)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/107 "2016-12-09T21:29:08Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > As someone who has struggled with depression throughout much of my adult life, the poem ‘Richard Cory’ has always resonated strongly. One of my favourites. A stunner. 🙂 More Frost from me. His simplicity is so deceptive, so perfect. 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. And: Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. ---
**Author:** ![DaphneBlack](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daphneblack/32/5389_2.png) [@DaphneBlack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DaphneBlack)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/108 "2016-12-09T22:50:43Z")
> [@Zuzu\_s\_Petals](#): > > Some say the world will end in fire, > Some say in ice. > From what I’ve tasted of desire > I hold with those who favor fire. > But if it had to perish twice, > I think I know enough of hate > To say that for destruction ice > Is also great > And would suffice. I’m not a big fan of Frost, but I love this one! Something about the rhythm. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/109 "2016-12-09T22:55:34Z")
My favorite love poems ee cummings: i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) Elizabeth Barrett Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right. I love thee purely, as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. ========================== And another ee one honour corruption villainy holiness riding in fragrance of sunlight(side by side all in a singing wonder of blossoming yes riding)to him who died that death should be dead humblest and proudest eagerly wandering (equally all alive in miraculous day) merrily moving through sweet forgiveness of spring (over the under the gift of the earth of the sky knight and ploughman pardoner wife and nun merchant frere clerk somnour miller and reve and geoffrey and all)come up from the never of when come into the now of forever come riding alive down while crylessly drifting through vast most nothing’s own nothing children go of dust ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2016, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/110 "2016-12-09T23:08:42Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > **Sternvogel:** I find this choice very interesting, because I’m a person who can be very happy with small things and everyday joys. Do you think, as Browning seems to impliy, that there is something offputting about this quality? Or is it just that the lady in question lacked a sense of perspective or proportion? My reading (influenced by the professor in whose class I first encountered the poem) is that the “last duchess” was one of those people whose obituaries feature such lines as “she treated everybody with the same courtesy, whether the CEO or the janitor.” The duke, meanwhile, is so pompous that he figures his “favor at her breast” should outweigh anything from the “bough of cherries some officious fool/ Broke in the orchard for her” to the beauty of a sunset. While the actions of those you love should be seen as special, the duke’s marriages have not been romantic, but motivated by money and status. It’s no accident that the narrator’s parting words refer to an object – the man has already mentally “moved on” from his last duchess as he focuses on flaunting, and adding to, his wealth. ---
**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:** [December 10, 2016, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/111 "2016-12-10T03:34:01Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > James Dickey [Cherrylog Road](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cherrylog-road/). Best poem ever written about a junkyard. I humbly present a competitor: [_Junk_, by Richard Wilbur](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43045) Really, the whole poem as a unit, but since I can’t quote whole works, here’s a sample: ```auto Haul them off! Hide them! The heart winces For junk and gimcrack, for jerrybuilt things And the men who make them for a little money, Bartering pride like the bought boxer Who pulls his punches, or the paid-off jockey Who in the home stretch holds in his horse. Yet the things themselves in thoughtless honor Have kept composure, like captives who would not Talk under torture. ``` Someone else mentioned the old Anglo-Saxon strong-stress rhythm and alliteration, this is a wonderful example. * * * [_Hurt Hawks_, by Robinson Jeffers](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hurt-hawks/): > [@](#): > > I’d sooner, except the penalties, kill a man than a hawk; > but the great redtail > Had nothing left but unable misery > From the bone too shattered for mending, the wing that trailed under his talons when he moved. > > We had fed him six weeks, I gave him freedom, > He wandered over the foreland hill and returned in the evening, asking for death, > Not like a beggar, still eyed with the old > Implacable arrogance. > > I gave him the lead gift in the twilight. > What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what > Soared: the fierce rush: the night-herons by the flooded river cried fear at its rising > Before it was quite unsheathed from reality. Look at the key transition: > [@](#): > > What fell was relaxed, Owl-downy, soft feminine feathers; but what > Soared: the fierce rush: The line break is perfect (helped by the capitalization of “Soared”) for conveying the rising sound of the shot and the simultaneous release of spirit of the bird. * * * Gerard Manley Hopkins has been mentioned. He is a guilty pleasure of mine – I’d disagree with his theology, and yes, he can be “quaint” and sentimental, but I love his total abandon when using language. Or, more precisely, the way his carefully-controlled language gives way, when he reaches a crescendo, to his love of sound and rhythm. He makes up words and phrases and practically babbles and it’s so, so good. [_The Windhover_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/resources/learning/core-poems/detail/44402) is the most famous example: > [@](#): > > Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here > Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion > Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier! …and how’s this for a description of a soaring raptor’s flight (read it fast for best effect): > [@](#): > > …in his riding > Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding Hopkins also wrote a wonderfully world-weary passage in [_God’s Grandeur_](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44395)…but again, the flow of the language is just so…well, look: > [@](#): > > Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; > And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; > And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil > Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. * * * Speaking of words, here’s another poem that really has to be enjoyed in its entirety: [_Meditation at Lagunitas_, by Robert Haas.](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/47553) It’s about the meaning of words, and he takes a word, and by telling you a story, gives that word new layers of meaning. . > [@](#): > > …Or the other notion that, > because there is in this world no one thing > to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds, > a word is elegy to what it signifies. > We talked about it late last night and in the voice > of my friend, there was a thin wire of grief, a tone > almost querulous. After a while I understood that, > talking this way, everything dissolves: _justice, > pine, hair, woman, you_ and _I_. There was a woman > I made love to and I remembered how, holding > her small shoulders in my hands sometimes, > I felt a violent wonder at her presence… * * * Sharon Olds. I love a lot of her work…except for the extensive “I hated my father” series of poems, that is. But with everything else she’s so good, so direct…she “goes there” instead of tiptoeing around the truth. She’s unafraid to look at things we’d rather not. An example: [_Gerbil Funeral_, by Sharon Olds](https://books.google.com/books?id=F12HKI7tY08C&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=Sharon+olds+%22gerbil+funeral%22&source=bl&ots=6BIsGSa4UD&sig=2n9-vtN7qfbqRxHXyiBqsYvl1pQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj5sord1ejQAhXryVQKHTHcCx8Q6AEIGzAA#v=onepage&q=Sharon%20olds%20%22gerbil%20funeral%22&f=false) (hope the link works…it’s hard to find online…that’s a Google Books sample page. She is watching her daughter burying beloved pet gerbils: > [@](#): > > …It is over, they are > dead, then, curled in the box with its > scarlet velvet lining on a bed of > sunflower seeds for the other side, > and where is she? And the love she poured into them, > where is it, now? Dead? She turns and > walks to the house, her heart cold and > hard in her chest as a bulb in the winter ground. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/112 "2016-12-10T03:38:21Z")
Nice to see **Robinson Jeffers** in a thread like this. I love his work, and he seems largely forgotten. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/113 "2016-12-10T04:01:32Z")
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer Are you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole? O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, How can we know the dancer from the dance? – William Butler Yeats, “Among School Children” Beyond a mortal man impassioned far At these voluptuous accents, he arose Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star Seen 'mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose Blended its odor with the violet, – Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window panes; St. Agnes moon hath set. – John Keats, “The Eve of Saint Agnes” BEST FUCK STANZA IN POETRY FORM ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/114 "2016-12-10T04:31:04Z")
The famous epitaph of Simonides of Ceos for the heroic Greek dead at Thermopylae: _Tell them in Sparta, passerby, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie._ ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/115 "2016-12-10T06:45:12Z")
“None of them knew the color of the sky.” Crane is not normally thought of as a poet, but here he burned his viewpoint into eight words. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/116 "2016-12-10T08:47:30Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > As someone who has struggled with depression throughout much of my adult life, the poem ‘Richard Cory’ has always resonated strongly. Your lordship, your depression is deserved ;): Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! “Charge for the guns!” he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. If it’s any comfort, dropmom thought this was suitable bedtime fare. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![eulalia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eulalia/32/457_2.png) [@eulalia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eulalia)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/117 "2016-12-10T10:13:09Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > High Flight > > Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, > And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; > Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth > Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things > You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung > High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there > I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung > My eager craft through footless halls of air… > Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue > I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace > Where never lark or even eagle flew – > And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod > The high untrespassed sanctity of space, > Put out my hand, and touched the face of God. > > John Gillespie Magee, Jr This was my Dad’s favorite, we had it read at his funeral in June. I love it too. ---
**Author:** ![crucible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@crucible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crucible)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/118 "2016-12-10T12:49:14Z")
My Mom’s favorite was an excerpt: The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. – _Robert Frost_ [/QUOTE] and, Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. ---
**Author:** ![crucible](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@crucible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crucible)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/119 "2016-12-10T12:58:18Z")
I’ve seen fire, and I’ve seen rain, I’ve seen sunny days I thought would never end. I’ve seen days when I could not find a friend, But I never thought I’d never see you again… Song lyric writers should not be ignored ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/120 "2016-12-10T16:02:53Z")
I can’t believe I forgot about Mary Oliver. From “Hallelujah”: > [@](#): > > Everyone should be born into this world happy and loving everything, > Bu in truth it rarely works that way. > For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it. > Hallelujah, anyway I’m not where I started! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116.md?page=7)