# Your favorite poetry image(s) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2005, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314 "2005-07-20T16:41:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/41 "2005-07-22T02:27:02Z")
Also on the subject of recalling the Trojan War: the second part of _Menelaus and Helen_ by **Rupert Brooke** : \*So far the poet. How should he behold That journey home, the long connubial years? He does not tell you how white Helen bears Child on legitimate child, becomes a scold, Haggard with virtue. Menelaus bold Waxed garrulous, and sacked a hundred Troys 'Twixt noon and supper. And her golden voice Got shrill as he grew deafer. And both were old. Often he wonders why on earth he went Troyward, or why poor Paris ever came. Oft she weeps, gummy-eyed and impotent; Her dry shanks twitch at Paris’ mumbled name. So Menelaus nagged; and Helen cried; And Paris slept on by Scamander side.\* ---
**Author:** ![Elysian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c77e96/32.png) [@Elysian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elysian)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/42 "2005-07-22T02:33:04Z")
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams so much depends upon a red wheel barrow glazed with rain water beside the white chickens. ---
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/43 "2005-07-22T03:04:28Z")
A couple more: [_Naming of Parts_](http://www.solearabiantree.net/namingofparts/namingofparts.html) by Henry Reed. The contrast between the gun and the tree, given in a cold, analytical tone, always gets me. A snippet: _This is the lower sling swivel. And this Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see, When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel, Which in your case you have not got. The branches Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures, Which in our case we have not got._ And [_The Death of the Hired Man_](http://www.bartleby.com/118/3.html) by Robert Frost, how much of a dreamer she is, compared to her husband’s practicality: \*Part of a moon was falling down the west, Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, As if she played unheard the tenderness That wrought on him beside her in the night. “Warren,” she said, “he has come home to die: You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.” \* ---
**Author:** ![uglybeech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/82dd89/32.png) [@uglybeech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uglybeech)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/44 "2005-07-22T03:36:50Z")
You can’t beat the last stanza of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” Especially the last three lines for imagery. _Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; **And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.**_ ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/45 "2005-07-22T03:49:37Z")
James Dickey _And I to my motorcycle Parked like the soul of the junkyard Restored, a bicycle fleshed With power, and tore off Up Highway 106 continually Drunk on the wind in my mouth Wringing the handlebar for speed Wild to be wreckage forever_ ---
**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:** [July 22, 2005, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/46 "2005-07-22T03:49:42Z")
**Campion** , Henry Reed is great. Do you also like “Judging Distances”? I’d like to add two little **Eliot** snippets: > [@](#): > > Death shall come to you as a mild surprise > A momentary shudder in a vacant room. and > [@](#): > > Here I am > An old man in a dry month > Being read to by a boy > Waiting for rain ---
**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:** [July 22, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/47 "2005-07-22T04:36:55Z")
I love all the horse imagery in **Sitting in a Small Screenhouse on a Summer Morning** , by James Wright. Especially this bit from the last verse: \*It is so still now, I hear the horse Clear his nostrils. He has crept out of the green places behind me … ``` Last night I paused at the edge of darkness, And slept with green dew, alone. I have come a long way, to surrender my shadow To the shadow of a horse. * ``` ---
**Author:** ![SLingshot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7cd45c/32.png) [@SLingshot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SLingshot)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/48 "2005-07-22T04:38:41Z")
So many have posted great ones! I’ll skip the repetion of Cummings and Eliot. Here are a couple of my faves: **The Unquiet Bed - Dorothy Livesay** The woman I am Is not what you see I’m not just bones And crockery. **A Note on the Public Transportation System - Alden Nowlan** You can stop talking but you can’t forget the broken wires dangling there between you. **As I Walked Out One Evening - W.H. Auden** 'O plunge your hands in water, Plunge them in up to the wrist; Stare, stare in the basin And wonder what you’ve missed. … ‘O stand, stand at the window As the tears scald and start; You shall love your crooked neighbour With your crooked heart.’ ---
**Author:** ![Campion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@Campion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Campion)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/49 "2005-07-22T04:50:35Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > **Campion** , Henry Reed is great. Do you also like “Judging Distances”? I had forgotten that one; but I do like it, for the same reason. You get the impression that he’s so torn about doing his job. The line about the distance between him and the couple making love under the tree is almost painful. _There may be dead ground in between; and I may not have got The knack of judging a distance; I will only venture A guess that perhaps between me and the apparent lovers, (Who, incidentally, appear by now to have finished,) At seven o’clock from the houses, is roughly a distance Of about one year and a half._ ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/50 "2005-07-22T05:01:51Z")
_The Second Coming_, WB Yeats “The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.” _The Sea of Sunset_, Emily Dickinson “Night after night her purple traffic Strews the landing with opal bales; Merchantmen poise upon horizons, Dip, and vanish with fairy sails.” _The Lake Isle of Innisfree_, W.B. Yeats "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 gray, I hear it in the deep heart’s core." _Dulce Et Decorum Est_, Wilfred Owen “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.” ---
**Author:** ![Stinkum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Stinkum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stinkum)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/51 "2005-07-22T05:47:17Z")
I’m doing this from memory, forgive inaccuracies: Prufrock (again!?! but this bit makes me cry) I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall where white trousers and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think they will sing to me. e.e. cummings (sets the scene so beautifully) anyone lived in a pretty how town with up so floating many bells down Ferlinghetti (anything from Coney Island of the Mind is fab ) The dog trots freely in the streets and the things he sees are bigger than himself ---
**Author:** ![Stinkum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Stinkum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stinkum)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/52 "2005-07-22T05:48:32Z")
Oops. That should be “wear” rather than “where” in Prufrock. Ok, I’m tired. So sue me! ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/53 "2005-07-22T15:08:39Z")
Yup, more e. e. cummings, but you have to hand it to the man for sheer imagery. I find this entire poem incredibly touching, but I’ll try to pare it down: > [@](#): > > if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have > one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor > a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but > it will be a heaven of blackred roses > > my father will be(deep like a rose > tall like a rose) > … > > which whisper > This is my beloved my > > ``` > (suddenly in sunlight > > ``` > > he will bow, > > & the whole garden will bow) ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/54 "2005-07-22T16:22:58Z")
I need to read more poetry, I bring up the same few poems any time one of these threads creeps around. My absolute favorite image is the most gorgeous picture of anticipation that I have ever read (granted, translated into English), Pablo Neruda “Alliance (Sonata)” > [@](#): > > Between lips and lips there are cities > of great ash and moist crest, > drops of when and how, indefinite > traffic: > between lips and lips, as if along a coast > of sand and glass, the wind passes And I could very well just quote my favorite poem in entirety, since it is only 55 words (for reference, the quote above is 36), most monosyllabic. It is an exercise in simplicity, one or two images making up the entire poem: Mark Strand “[Keeping Things Whole](http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/id75.html)” (note: as short as it is, I am not directly quoting since it is an entire work and I do not wish to run afoul of the mods or copyright) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/55 "2005-07-22T16:49:01Z")
> [@Only Mostly Dead](#): > > \ It is an exercise in simplicity, one or two images making up the entire poem: Mark Strand “[Keeping Things Whole](http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/id75.html)” Thanks for this link. I really do like that poem; both it and the poet are new to me. That’s the kind of image I had in mind when I posted the OP. In an earlier post **koeeoaddi** had: “I have come a long way, to surrender my shadow To the shadow of a horse.” Somehow, those images involving shadows, echoes, emptiness, and the absence of stimuli in general appeal to something in me that I find it hard to define. Another example that really needs the entire poem for the image to make sense (at least for me) is Louise Bogan’s [Medusa](http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/2001/bogan0102.html). Perhaps it took the awareness of who/what Medusa was all about for the chill to run through my bones on those last two lines, but the effect is there still. Can you think of other such things, or is my description still too vague? ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/56 "2005-07-22T16:56:49Z")
The lament of Marcellus, from Aeneid VI. Dryden’s translation. It is not a short selection, but the poem itself is immense and freely[available](http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_vergil_aeneid_vi.htm). > [@](#): > > He paus’d; and, while with wond’ring eyes they view’d > The passing spirits, thus his speech renew’d: > “See great Marcellus! how, untir’d in toils, > He moves with manly grace, how rich with regal spoils! > He, when his country, threaten’d with alarms, > Requires his courage and his conqu’ring arms, > Shall more than once the Punic bands affright; > Shall kill the Gaulish king in single fight; > Then to the Capitol in triumph move, > And the third spoils shall grace Feretrian Jove.” > AEneas here beheld, of form divine, > A godlike youth in glitt’ring armor shine, > With great Marcellus keeping equal pace; > But gloomy were his eyes, dejected was his face. > He saw, and, wond’ring, ask’d his airy guide, > What and of whence was he, who press’d the hero’s side: > “His son, or one of his illustrious name? > How like the former, and almost the same! > Observe the crowds that compass him around; > All gaze, and all admire, and raise a shouting sound: > But hov’ring mists around his brows are spread, > And night, with sable shades, involves his head.” > “Seek not to know,” the ghost replied with tears, > “The sorrows of thy sons in future years. > This youth (the blissful vision of a day) > Shall just be shown on earth, and snatch’d away. > The gods too high had rais’d the Roman state, > Were but their gifts as permanent as great. > What groans of men shall fill the Martian field! > How fierce a blaze his flaming pile shall yield! > What fun’ral pomp shall floating Tiber see, > When, rising from his bed, he views the sad solemnity! > No youth shall equal hopes of glory give, > No youth afford so great a cause to grieve; > The Trojan honor, and the Roman boast, > Admir’d when living, and ador’d when lost! > Mirror of ancient faith in early youth! > Undaunted worth, inviolable truth! > No foe, unpunish’d, in the fighting field > Shall dare thee, foot to foot, with sword and shield; > Much less in arms oppose thy matchless force, > When thy sharp spurs shall urge thy foaming horse. > Ah! couldst thou break thro’ fate’s severe decree, > A new Marcellus shall arise in thee! > Full canisters of fragrant lilies bring, > Mix’d with the purple roses of the spring; > Let me with fun’ral flow’rs his body strow; > This gift which parents to their children owe, > This unavailing gift, at least, I may bestow!” > Thus having said, he led the hero round > The confines of the blest Elysian ground; > Which when Anchises to his son had shown, > And fir’d his mind to mount the promis’d throne, > He tells the future wars, ordain’d by fate; > The strength and customs of the Latian state; > The prince, and people; and forearms his care > With rules, to push his fortune, or to bear. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/57 "2005-07-22T16:58:36Z")
Ok, in retrospect, that was probably way too long. Please feel free to truncate at will and with no hard feelings. The entire lament is really worth reading if epic is your thing. ---
**Author:** ![Devushka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ea666f/32.png) [@Devushka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Devushka)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/58 "2005-07-22T18:09:06Z")
Some John Keats that stirred my insides: This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm’d - see here it is - I hold it towards you. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2005, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314/59 "2005-07-31T12:44:36Z")
Ruth Comfort Mitchell _The Vinegar Man is a long time dead; he died when he tore his valentine._ John Ciardi _Whenever Silence sits down with boys, He looks over his shoulder and here comes NOISE!_ Harold Monro \*Nymph, nymph, what are your beads? Green glass, goblin. Why do you stare at them? Give them me. Give them me. No.\* [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-poetry-image-s/313314.md?page=2)