Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song
A medley of extemporanea
And love is a thing that can never go wrong
And I am Marie of Roumania
Dorothy Parker
There`s a also a great poem by the scientist J B S Haldane, which he wrote as he was dying of cancer: too long to quote here, but the opening couplet is
I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of rectal carcinoma
I’m with pepperlandgirl and Ra Cha’ar on Prufrock. Two other favorites, in addition to some already mentioned, are Philip Larkin’s Aubade and Next, Please.
If by Rudyard Kipling
…
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!
The Genuis of the crowd By Charles Bukowski
Shakespeare’s 29th Sonnet:
When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate,
For thy sweet love rememb’red such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,–but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, –
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses.
Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know.
But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
I was going to add that I also love Shakespeare’s Sonnets, especially numbers 29 and 30, but I see Dr. Rieux has beaten me to it.
In the desert
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
"But I like it
"Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
—Stephen Crane
Two of my favorites have already been listed–The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night .
Here are my other two favorites:
She Walks in Beauty by George Gordon, Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
AND
Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things–
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landsacpe plotted and pieced–fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
AND
The Suicide by Edna St. Vincent Millay but since it’s quite long I won’t type it in here.
It would be something by Coleridge; either Kubla Khan or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
The last lines of Kubla Khan give me shivers:
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
But then, so do these verses from Ancient Mariner:
The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.
At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist ;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared :
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.
At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship ; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail ;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!
I can’t resist a poem thread–I love the Eliot, the Lewis Carroll and the Keats. I was also particularly struck by the Donne and the Millay today–I’ve always thought that Donne sounds so modern–maybe he should have been born in this century.
Trying hard not to repost stuff I’ve posted before, I offer:
Western wind, when wilt thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!
–Anon.
Also here’s Eugen Field’s Wynken, Blynken and Nod which I read to my kids last night. Last verse:
Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fisherman three:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.
I want to fish for the herring fish and see the beautiful things too.
Alone by Edgar Poe
FROM childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then - in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view
Love the Crane, too.
I’m also a fan of Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress, a poem of seduction (BTW, the footnote doesn’t correctly explain the bawdy pun Marvell was making when he used the phrase “Your quaint honor.”)
Stephen Crane’s:
My two favorite poems (listed, incidentally, in opposite order here) by any poet, and they are the by the same poet. What a guy.
Not my favorite poet, however. But I don’t read much poetry.
hmm, and yet it seems someone else likes the desert/heart poem, too. It is good stuff, IMO. 
Here’s another we like, from the greatest writer ever “anon”
Anon.
“Two Little Shadows”
I saw a young mother
With eyes full of laughter
And two little shadows
Came following after.
Wherever she moved,
They were always right there
Holding onto her skirts,
Hanging onto her chair.
Before her, behind her -
An adhesive pair.
“Don’t you ever get weary
As, day after day,
your two little tagalongs
Get in your way?”
She smiled as she shook
Her pretty young head,
And I’ll always remember
The words that she said.
“It’s good to have shadows
That run when you run,
That laugh when you’re happy
And hum when you hum -
For you only have shadows
When your life’s filled with sun.”
I’m a big fan of Wendy Cope. Here are some that are especially good:
Wasteland Limericks, for all you Eliot fans.
Bloody Men- with a helpful Italian translation!
I also like “Another Unfortuante Choice” and “Faint Praise”, but I can’t find either online in convenient linkable form, and they’re so short I think any coherent quote would go beyond fair use.
(While I was looking for the others, I came across this: A Poetic Way to Fight Some Ignorance)
Dr. Rieux already posted my favorite, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.
Labdad beat me to the punch for Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Richard Brautigan’s Your Catfish Friend
If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, “It’s beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,”
I’d love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.”
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them
They think I’m telling lies.
I say
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips
The stride of my steps
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please
And to a man
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees
Then they swarm around me
A hive of honey bees.
I say
It’s the fire in my eyes
And the flash of my teeth
The swing of my waist
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say
It’s in the arch of my back
The sun of my smile
The ride of my breasts
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud…
I say
It’s in the click of my heels
The bend of my hair
The palm of my hand
The need for my care.
'Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally
Phenomenal woman
That’s me.