Hey! My post got split in the middle and lizardling snuck in there! What happened?
More Prufrock:
More Coleridge:
Stevens:
Shelley:
Robert Browning:
and
and much of the rest of “Childe Roland,” actually.
Atwood:
Wordsworth:
The poem is so short that the “image” is more than half of it:
I came in to mention that one as well. A restored B17 Flying Fortress paid a visit to my local airfield; that poem was screaming in my head when I saw it.
Also (can’t do the spacing right, so sorry):
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
Another ee cummings, Buffalo Bill’s Defunct. I always liked that imagery.
The most amazing poem I’ve ever read. It says so much while seemingly saying nothing, and the image it gives is vivid and touching.
I’m also fond of this, especially when I learned about the pun:
“And your quaint honor turn to dust.”
[spoiler]“quaint” was a pun, pronounced like a four-letter word for a bit of female anatomy.
[/quote]
andros, your Atwood quotation reminded me of Merwin’s Separation:
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
My favorite is probably Meredith’s The Illiterate. The whole poem is great, with the image that it evokes of a person afraid, ashamed, confused, and hopeful all at once.
Touching your goodness, I am like a man
Who turns a letter over in his hand
And you might think that this was because the hand
Was unfamiliar but, truth is, the man
Has never had a letter from anyone;
And now he is both afraid of what it means
And ashamed because he has no other means
To find out what it says than to ask someone.
That’s the first one I thought of when I read the thread title!
I’m also very fond of this, courtesy of Lord Byron:
She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
Oh, and this one has always haunted me, thank you Mr. Stephen Crane:
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.”
*
My first thought was Ozymandias, but there are lots more, many mentioned above.
Even better:
Best of all:
Love it! Keep 'em coming:
Here are some old friends:
Eugene Field:
We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!
Coleridge:
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams
And still my body drank.
Anon:
Westron wind, when wilt thou blow
That small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!
Nash:
*The pirate gaped at Belinda’s dragon,
And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,
He fired two bullets but they didn’t hit,
And Custard gobbled him, every bit. *
And to keep things fresh, here’s one I’ve never posted before:
Neruda:
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
I love these lines from “Ode to a Nightingale,” by John Keats:
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Wordsworth again:
*When oft upon my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood. *
Perfect!
I agree with “…Snowy Evening.” The exact lines are thus:
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
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.
From Aubade, by Philip Larkin:
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can’t escape,
Yet can’t accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
From Why Did I Dream of You Last Night?, by Larkin:
So many things I had thought forgotten
Return to my mind with stranger pain:
–Like letters that arrive addressed to someone
Who left the house so many years ago.
From i sing of Olaf glad and big, by e.e. cummings
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments-
Olaf (being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds, without getting annoyed
“I will not kiss your fucking flag”
…
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skillfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat-
Olaf (upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
“there is some shit I will not eat”
**Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands
Oh where hae you been?
They hae slay the Earl of Murray,
And Lady Mondegreen. **
I know, I know. But it is a lovely image.
My favorite poem is A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes, because every image in there has so much impact.
I like
because it’s so unexpected. Not rage or frustration or resentment, but the perfect sense of disappointment and despair, something perfect turned rotten.
From The Garden of Proserpine by Swinburne:
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be:
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
I just discovered ee cummings’ the boys i mean are not refined (warning: profanity).
That last line kills me:
they shake the mountains when they dance
Looks like e e cummings is getting a lot of play:
Burns:
or
Finally, just about anything by Stephen Crane -
Poe’s been with me all day:
From Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, by Dylan Thomas
“Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lighting they
Do not go gentle into that good night.”
Can’t believe I forgot Dylan Thomas. Can’t believe I’m only the second person to bring him up.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Ulysses
Rembering the Trojan War:
“And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.”
I can hear the steel (well, bronze) weapons striking.
An old warrior compared to a sword hanging on the wall:
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!”