# 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:** 15\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/141 "2016-12-14T16:52:00Z")
Another family favorite I often heard recited at my house as a child: The Moon’s the North Wind’s cookie. He bites it, day by day, Until there’s but a rim of scraps, That crumble all away. The South Wind is a baker. He kneads clouds in his den, And bakes a crisp new moon That greedy North Wind eats again! – _Vachel Lindsay_ ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2016, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/142 "2016-12-14T19:16:55Z")
John Donne, especially the bolded part: _Thou hast made me, and shall thy work decay? Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste, I run to death, and death meets me as fast, And all my pleasures are like yesterday; I dare not move my dim eyes any way, Despair behind, and death before doth cast Such terror, and my feebled flesh doth waste By sin in it, which it towards hell doth weigh. **Only thou art above, and when towards thee By thy leave I can look, I rise again; But our old subtle foe so tempteth me, That not one hour I can myself sustain; Thy grace may wing me to prevent his art, And thou like adamant draw mine iron heart.**_ ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/143 "2016-12-16T05:19:04Z")
What a great idea for a thread! My father grew up in the 1920s and was required to memorize lots of poetry. Over 60 years later he could still recite many of his favorites including “Casabianca” by Felicia Hemans The Boy stood on the burning deck Whence all but he had fled; The flame that lit the battle’s wreck Shone round him o’er the dead. And Longfellow’s _Evangeline_: This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of old, with voices sad and prophetic, Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms. Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest. One he really loved was Christina Rossetti’s “The Wind”; I heard him recite it many times and love it too. Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by. One of my mother’s favorites which I share with her is Yeats’s “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee, And live alone in the bee loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet’s wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core. Three of my favorite poems are luminous ones reflecting on mortality, immortality and infinity Here’s a favorite verse from William Blake To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day by Delmore Schwartz Calmly we walk through this April’s day, Metropolitan poetry here and there, In the park sit pauper and rentier, The screaming children, the motor-car Fugitive about us, running away, Between the worker and the millionaire Number provides all distances, It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now, Many great dears are taken away, What will become of you and me (This is the school in which we learn …) Besides the photo and the memory? (… that time is the fire in which we burn.) (This is the school in which we learn …) What is the self amid this blaze? What am I now that I was then Which I shall suffer and act again, The theodicy I wrote in my high school days Restored all life from infancy, The children shouting are bright as they run (This is the school in which they learn …) Ravished entirely in their passing play! (… that time is the fire in which they burn.) Avid its rush, that reeling blaze! Where is my father and Eleanor? Not where are they now, dead seven years, But what they were then? No more? No more? From Nineteen-Fourteen to the present day, Bert Spira and Rhoda consume, consume Not where they are now (where are they now?) But what they were then, both beautiful; Each minute bursts in the burning room, The great globe reels in the solar fire, Spinning the trivial and unique away. (How all things flash! How all things flare!) What am I now that I was then? May memory restore again and again The smallest color of the smallest day: Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn. “The Truly Great”, Stephen Spender I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns, Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song. And who hoarded from the Spring branches The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms. What is precious, is never to forget The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth. Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light Nor its grave evening demand for love. Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog, the flowering of the spirit. Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields, See how these names are fêted by the waving grass And by the streamers of white cloud And whispers of wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun And left the vivid air signed with their honour. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/144 "2016-12-16T15:06:52Z")
I through love have learned three things, Sorrow, sin and death it brings. Yet day by day my heart within Dares shame and sorrow, death and sin…-Ferguson ---
**Author:** ![Teuton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teuton/32/3864_2.png) [@Teuton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Teuton)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/145 "2016-12-16T19:17:10Z")
What a great thread! I’ve always been partial to a bit of Kipling: Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap. An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit. Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, 'ow’s yer soul? " But it’s " Thin red line of 'eroes " when the drums begin to roll ---
**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 16, 2016, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/146 "2016-12-16T20:10:44Z")
Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus” \*Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!\*” ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2016, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/147 "2016-12-16T22:58:13Z")
> [@gkster](#): > > What a great idea for a thread! > > My father grew up in the 1920s and was required to memorize lots of poetry. Over 60 years later he could still recite many of his favorites including “Casabianca” by Felicia Hemans > The Boy stood on the burning deck > Whence all but he had fled; > The flame that lit the battle’s wreck > Shone round him o’er the dead. . . . Or, as it is often rendered: The boy stood on the burning deck Eating peanuts by the peck I don’t care, he loudly boasted Because I like my peanuts roasted. ---
**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 17, 2016, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/148 "2016-12-17T05:22:19Z")
“O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman: \*O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; Here Captain! dear father! This arm beneath your head! It is some dream that on the deck, You’ve fallen cold and dead. My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; Exult O shores, and ring O bells! But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.\* ---
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/149 "2016-12-18T03:08:47Z")
[The Raven](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/48860) by Poe. My favorite lines are - Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door— Perched, and sat, and nothing more. Pallas, being one of the second generation of Titans in Greek mythology. For the Raven to perch on the bust of Pallas is to treat it and all human affairs with complete disinterest. They are of no consequence. There was simply no room in the Raven’s agenda for such silliness. ---
**Author:** ![Noel\_Prosequi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b19c9b/32.png) [@Noel\_Prosequi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noel_Prosequi)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/150 "2016-12-18T05:32:27Z")
I am feeling in a brief mood. My favourite line of Poe’s is a single sentence he wrote in the devastating grief of the loss of his daughter: _Wherever she was, there was Eden_. And a piece by Houseman engraved on a war memorial: \*Here dead we lie because we did not choose to live, and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose, But young men think it is, and we were young.\* And another haiku from, I think, Basho (the 5-7-5 form is lost in translation): _Girl cat! So thin on barley and love._ ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/151 "2016-12-18T06:37:45Z")
Jenny Kiss’d Me By Leigh Hunt > [@](#): > > Jenny kiss’d me when we met, > Jumping from the chair she sat in; > Time, you thief, who love to get > Sweets into your list, put that in! > Say I’m weary, say I’m sad, > Say that health and wealth have miss’d me, > Say I’m growing old, but add, > Jenny kiss’d me. Dunno, I’ve just always loved that. Something quite different: Sohrab and Rustum > [@](#): > > And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:— > “Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. > Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! > No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. > For were I match’d with ten such men as thee, > And I were that which till to-day I was, > They should be lying here, I standing there. > But that belovéd name unnerved my arm— > That name, and something, I confess, in thee, > Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield > Fall; and thy spear transfix’d an unarm’d foe. > And now thou boastest, and insult’st my fate. > But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear: > The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death! > My father, whom I seek through all the world, > He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!” I guess I’m a sucker for melodrama > [@](#): > > Say not the struggle nought availeth, > The labour and the wounds are vain, > The enemy faints not, nor faileth, > And as things have been they remain. > > If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; > It may be, in yon smoke concealed, > Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, > And, but for you, possess the field. > > For while the tired waves, vainly breaking > Seem here no painful inch to gain, > Far back through creeks and inlets making, > Comes silent, flooding in, the main. > > And not by eastern windows only, > When daylight comes, comes in the light, > In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, > But westward, look, the land is bright. ---
**Author:** ![DrumBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@DrumBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrumBum)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2016, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/152 "2016-12-18T14:57:48Z")
My father was a fan of Rudyard Kipling and he gave me several pieces of his work. One of my favorites is “If.” \*\* If\*\* If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same:. If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!” If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son! ---
**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 20, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/153 "2016-12-20T16:18:48Z")
“The dreamer, the unwoken fool. In dreams, no pain will kiss the brow. The love of ages fills the head, the days that linger there in prey of emptiness, of burned-out dreams. The minutes calling through the years. The universal dreamer rises up above his earthly burden, journeys to the dead of night, high on a hill in Eldorado…” Electric Light Orchestra, “Overture,” _Eldorado_ ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/154 "2016-12-30T07:19:49Z")
That reminds me of the favorite poem of one of my favorite teachers: Eldorado by Edgar Allan Poe Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. But he grew old— This knight so bold— And o’er his heart a shadow— Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow— ‘Shadow,’ said he, ‘Where can it be— This land of Eldorado?’ ‘Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride,’ The shade replied,— ‘If you seek for Eldorado!’ ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2016, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116/155 "2016-12-30T07:31:04Z")
The great lines from Virgil’s Aeneid, Bk 6, ll. 124-129 > [@](#): > > Talibus orabat dictis, arasque tenebat, > cum sic orsa loqui vates: `Sate sanguine divom, > Tros Anchisiade, facilis descensus Averno; > noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis; > sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras, > hoc opus, hic labor est. Translated brilliantly by John Dryden. > [@](#): > > Then thus replied the prophetess divine: > "O goddess-born of great Anchises’ line, > The gates of hell are open night and day; > Smooth the descent, and easy is the way: > But to return, and view the cheerful skies, > In this the task and mighty labor lies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-passage-of-poetry/774116.md?page=7)