# Your favourite poem?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 28, 2001, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107 "2001-10-28T16:16:14Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/1 "2001-10-28T16:16:14Z")
Ok I don’t know if anybody did this before but I thought I would be a great thing to share our favourites poems. Please don’t post a poem that you wrote (use another thread) but the one you love the most. My favourites are in spanish (after all english is not very romantic :)) Anyway here is one by Sir Walter Raleigh. Hope to see this grow.
```
Conclussion
EVEN such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wander'd all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days;
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
```
---
### Author:  [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/2 "2001-10-28T16:41:19Z")
Invictus, by William Ernest Henley.
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### Author:  [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/3 "2001-10-28T16:54:23Z")
Please post the poem. That’s the interesting thing. Not just the name but the poem itself
---
### Author:  [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/4 "2001-10-28T16:56:45Z")
William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903
1. Invictus
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance 5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade, 10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate: 15
I am the captain of my soul.
---
### Author:  [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/5 "2001-10-28T17:25:53Z")
Don’t think you’re supposed to post the entire poem; copyright laws and all that. Unless it’s an uncopyrighted poem.
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### Author:  [@Skip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skip)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/6 "2001-10-28T18:05:58Z")
by **Jacob Bronowski**
I, having built a house, reject
The feud of eye and intellect,
And find in my experience proof
One pleasure runs from root to roof,
One thrust along the streamline arches
The sudden star, the budding larches
The force that makes the winter grow
It’s feathered hexagons of snow,
And drives the bee to match at home
Their calculated honeycomb,
Is abacus and rose combined.
An icy sweetness fills my mind.
A sense that under thing and wing
Lies, taut yet living, coiled, the spring.
---
### Author:  [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/7 "2001-10-28T19:17:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by racinchikki \*
> \*\*Don’t think you’re supposed to post the entire poem; copyright laws and all that. Unless it’s an uncopyrighted poem. \*\*
First of all, I think that people will post uncopyrighted poems (if they post at all) because modern poetry tastes like crap.
Second, you can download music, movies I don’t think anybody will care about a poem
---
### Author:  [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/8 "2001-10-28T19:30:41Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Estilicon \*
> \*\*Second, you can download music, movies I don’t think anybody will care about a poem \*\*
Yes, but you can’t do that legally. Same thing with posting copyrighted material–the registration agreement you signed says you won’t do that. And the mods here will care about poems.
My favorite poem (at the moment, anyway) is _The Raven_, by Edgar Allan Poe. I like the poetry Tim Burton has done, but nothing comes to mind that’s a singular masterpiece.
---
### Author:  [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/9 "2001-10-28T19:35:47Z")
There once was a man from Nantucket…
or,
My name is Ozymandius.
Look on my works ye mighty,
And despair.
---
### Author:  [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/10 "2001-10-28T20:15:26Z")
Ozymandias
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### Author:  [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/11 "2001-10-28T20:17:50Z")
**September 1, 1939** by Auden
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### Author:  [@Nocturne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nocturne)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/12 "2001-10-28T20:22:26Z")
I have a handful:
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “The Hollow Men,” and “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” by T. S. Eliot.
“Fire and Ice,” “Acquainted with the Night,” and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost.
“Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims.
“At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners” by John Donne.
---
### Author:  [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/13 "2001-10-28T20:22:27Z")
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
W.H. Auden
(Seymour H. Auden of Bayonne, New Jersey, requested that we delete the text of his great-uncle’s poem, as it is still under copyright and earns him literally dozens of dollars a year. – Uke)
[Edited by Ukulele Ike on 10-28-2001 at 07:42 PM]
---
### Author:  [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/14 "2001-10-28T21:07:18Z")
_London_ by William Blake:
I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow.
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear
How the Chimney-sweepers cry
Every blackning Church appalls,
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlots curse
Blasts the new-born Infants tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse
And since _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is too long to post in its entirety here, I’ll just give you a couple of my favorite verses:
And those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman’s mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
---
### Author:  [@daffodil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/daffodil)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/15 "2001-10-28T21:30:38Z")
I love Auden’s “Funeral Blues”
Here’s another favourite by \*\* e.e.cummings\*\*
anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn’t he danced his did
Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn’t they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain
children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more
when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone’s any was all to her
someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream
stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)
one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was
all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.
Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain
---
### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/16 "2001-10-28T21:54:48Z")
Can’t really pick one, but some favorites include:
“[To His Coy Mistress,](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/marvell1.html)” by Andrew Marvell. The language’s greatest poem on seduction – basically saying, “Let’s screw” in the most romantic and poetic terms every used. BTW, the notes of this version are dead wrong about the meaning of the word “quaint” in the poem. It was a very bawdy pun on a vulgar word for a portion of a woman’s intimate anatomy (hint: begins with “c”). With a higher percentage of quoted lines (especially for book titles) than any other poem.
“[This is Just to Say](http://www.wmich.edu/english/tchg/lit/pms/wcw.plums.html),” by William Carlos Williams. Doesn’t seem like all that much at first glance, but it manages to tell the story of a long-term relationships in a marvelously oblique way.
“[pity this busy monster,manunkind,](http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~ejr/poetry/e.e._cummings/pity_this_busy_monster,manunkind,.html)” by e.e. cummings. Also often quoted. The remarkable thing is that it’s a sonnet (counting the title as the first line) and no one seems to notice.
“[Bagpipe Music](http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/18.html)” by Louis Macneice. Great use of words that nearly rhyme, but do not (python & bison), and a fine sense of rhythm.
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### Author:  [@Eutychus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eutychus)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/17 "2001-10-28T22:11:05Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Estilicon \*
> \*\*Second, you can download music, movies I don’t think anybody will care about a poem \*\*
Wrong.
We care because we’re culpable if we allow copyrighted work to be republished here. Please be aware of this if you post anything here which you even suspect may be copyrighted.
Thank you.
---
### Author:  [@Manach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manach)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/18 "2001-10-28T22:43:16Z")
“An Irish Airman Foresees His Death”, by WB Yeats
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### Author:  [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/19 "2001-10-28T22:44:57Z")
> [@](#):
>
> modern poetry tastes like crap
Now that’s a cogent critique :rolleyes:…
I should point out that Auden’s “September 1st 1939” is indeed still within copyright.
---
### Author:  [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2001, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/20 "2001-10-28T22:49:53Z")
Two favourites and one frustration.
1. **The Eve of St. Agnes** by John Keats. (Far too long to post here.)
A technically audacious piece of work by an artist at the peak of his powers, telling one of the most searingly romantic tales in all of English literature. This has everything - complete mastery of form sustained throughout its considerable length (42 9-line stanzas), stunning imagery, overwhelmingly beautiful expression and language, atmosphere, marvellous narrative and story-telling skills, and delightful inventiveness.
What’s more, just to whet the appetites of Dopers, it contains probably the most poetic expression for penetrative sex ever written! Keats wrote the poem in 1819, and the expression he used shocked his publishers, who wrote to him suggesting it was immoral and should be censored.
1. **The Listeners** by Walter de la Mere. (Easily found in anthologies).
A sort of ‘Blair Witch Project’ of its day! One of the most haunting, evocative and mysterious stories ever told, wrapped in stunningly beautiful language, and intentionally tantalising. The author leaves you to speculate about what happened. If you like spooky stuff, read this out loud by candlelight among friends late at night.
1. **Onegin** by Alexander Pushkin.
I’ve seen the _wonderful_ movie, read English translations and been told about it by someone who could read it in the original Russian. I gather it must be one of the most glorious poems to be able to read, but I can’t read Russian and I’m not going to learn now. The English translations are good, but you can tell they struggle to convey even a fraction of Pushkin’s brilliance.
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