# Your favourite poem? **URL:** \ **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:** 3
**Author:** ![BJaneDoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@BJaneDoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BJaneDoe)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/41 "2001-10-29T06:47:26Z")
I’m sure that no one really cares…but…my favorite peom happens to be The Owl and the Pussy Cat by Edward Lear. I have always wanted to have it read at my funeral, but then again, I’ve always wanted to be burried in a hope cheast. ---
**Author:** ![Niobium\_Knight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@Niobium\_Knight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Niobium_Knight)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/42 "2001-10-29T07:06:36Z")
that one by Philip Larkin that goes “they fuck you up, your mum and dad…” ---
**Author:** ![Kayeby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kayeby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kayeby)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/43 "2001-10-29T07:11:56Z")
The Owl and the Pussycat. ---
**Author:** ![Katisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bcef8e/32.png) [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/44 "2001-10-29T08:52:11Z")
While we’re talking about Wilfred Owen – I’ve always found this one profoundly chilling. **S.I.W.** _I will to the King, And offer him consolation in his trouble, For that man there has set his teeth to die, And being one that hates obedience, Discipline, and orderliness of life, I cannot mourn him._ W. B. Yeats I The Prologue Patting goodbye, doubtless they told the lad He’d always show the Hun a brave man’s face; Father would sooner him dead than in disgrace,- Was proud to see him going, aye, and glad. Perhaps his mother whimpered how she’d fret Until he got a nice safe wound to nurse. Sisters would wish girls too could shoot, charge, curse… Brothers-would send his favourite cigarette. Each week, month after month, they wrote the same, Thinking him sheltered in some Y. M. Hut, Because he said so, writing on his butt Where once an hour a bullet missed its aim. And misses teased the hunger of his brain. His eyes grew old with wincing, and his hand Reckless with ague. Courage leaked, as sand From the best sandbags after years of rain. But never leave, wound, fever, trench-foot, shock, Untrapped the wretch. And death seemed still withheld For torture of lying machinally shelled, At the pleasure of this world’s Powers who’d run amok. He’d seen men shoot their hands, on night patrol. Their people never knew. Yet they were vile. ‘Death sooner than dishonour, that’s the style!’ So Father said. II The Action One dawn, our wire patrol Carried him. This time, Death had not missed. We could do nothing but wipe his bleeding cough. Could it be accident?-Rifles go off… Not sniped? No (Later they found the English ball.) III The Poem It was the reasoned crisis of his soul Against more days of inescapable thrall, Against infrangibly wired and blind trench wall Curtained with fire, roofed in with creeping fire, Slow grazing fire, that would not burn him whole But kept him for death’s promises and scoff, And life’s half-promising, and both their riling. IV The Epilogue With him they buried the muzzle his teeth had kissed, And truthfully wrote the Mother, ‘Tim died smiling.’ ---
**Author:** ![tavalla](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tavalla/32/89_2.png) [@tavalla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tavalla)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 9:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/45 "2001-10-29T09:05:30Z")
[Five Bells](http://www.geocities.com/kingsideau/PoemFiveBells.html) by Kenneth Slessor. The way time skips and jumps, and how one can recollect, or even relive, whole slabs of (subjective) time in a very short space of (objective) time. I enjoy a lot of his poetry; another favourite is [Beach Burial](http://www.geocities.com/kingsideau/PoemBeachBurial.html). [Ithaca](http://www.geocities.com/kingsideau/PoemIthaca.html) by CP Cavafy. What’s more important, the lessons learned on the journey or the arrival? I’ve got a passing fondness for Laurence Ferlinghetti’s [I Am Waiting](http://www.geocities.com/kingsideau/PoemIAmWaiting.html). [The Man from Snowy River](http://www.geocities.com/kingsideau/PoemSnowy.html). I can’t help it; I’m Australian, and I think we’re born knowing at least the first verse of that poem. It’s a good yarn, and the poem itself has a rollicking kind of rhyme that makes it easy to memorise and recite (okay, I’m a Philistine. That helps :)). I’ll second (or was it third?) “High Flight” too; an expression of joy. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/46 "2001-10-29T12:38:47Z")
I’m not a big fan of poetry, but I do have a weakness for epics and long works. I’d recommend **The Rime of the Ancient Mariner** by S.T. Coleridge. It’s a long poem I actually re-read every now and then (like the Iliad and the Odyssey). Get the Annotated edition, with notes by Martin Gardner, because even in the editions that have Coleridge’s “glosses” you can get hopelessly lost. Even without an albatross around your neck. ---
**Author:** ![Aurora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Aurora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aurora)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/47 "2001-10-29T13:06:08Z")
“Bloody Men” by Wendy Cope Bloody men are like bloody buses You wait for about a year And as soon as one approaches your stop two or three others appear You look at them flashing their indicators offering you a ride You are trying to read the destinations You have not much time to decide If you make a mistake there is no turning back Jump off and you´ll stand there and gaze While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by and the minutes, and hours, and days I LOVE that poem!!! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/48 "2001-10-29T13:22:29Z")
"[The Ballad of Eskimo Nell"](http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~nicholson/eskimo.html#Eskimo%20Nell). A first-class bit of bawdy verse, with not a single verse suitable for anyone under 18. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/49 "2001-10-29T18:37:15Z")
Uke: thanks for the note on variant versions. Yes, Owen’s papers were left in an incomplete state at his death. (A good instance of this is “Strange Meeting”, which people like to think of as a finished poem, but which is in fact clearly incomplete in the manuscript, where Owen has marked in a tentative rearrangement of the lines in preparation for continuation.) The version of the “Dulce et Decorum Est” poem I used was from Stallworthy’s edition, which is nowadays considered the standard one; I see the U of T website version is from the first publication from 1921. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/50 "2001-10-29T20:38:12Z")
Favorite poem: Ozymandias (already mentioned several times) Favorite “fun” poem: The Cremation of Sam McGee Poem I despise more than any other: When I Heard the Learned Astronomer by Walt Whitman When I heard the learned astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wandered off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Looked up in perfect silence at the stars [vitriol] How condescending can you be there, Walt? What makes you think that someone who obviously has such a passion for knowledge and learning that he devotes his entire life to expanding the bounds of human knowledge, and who, I might point out, is part of the great tradition that provided enough modern day conveniences for your books to get bound and shipped and delivered so that you could make enough money to live your bohemian pot-smoking existence, what makes you think that he doesn’t enjoy looking at the stars? And in fact, I’ll be that he enjoys it more than you, because he can enjoy it on so many more levels than your glorying-in-your-own-ignorance ass! [/vitriol] ---
**Author:** ![Timchik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@Timchik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Timchik)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/51 "2001-10-29T21:14:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ianzin \* > > 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. \*\* Let me second this, along with a number of other of Pushkin’s poems. The English translations really don’t - can’t, I’d even say - do justice to the particular ethereal solidity (I know, I know, it’s an oxymoron) of Pushkin’s Russian. This poem (novel in verse, to be pedantic) has a special resonance for me - one of the first times i went on a date with the women now my wife, I mentioned I loved Pushkin, and she proceeded to cite the entire first chapter of _Yevgeny Onegin_ by heart. That may be when I fell in love… That said, I’ll second the nod for e.e. cummings’ “anyone lived in a prettyhow town”, which is equally untranslatable into Russian (I’ve seen an attempt…) and add a vote for “[Fern Hill](http://www.bigeye.com/fernhill.htm)” by Dylan Thomas. ---
**Author:** ![bristlesage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@bristlesage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bristlesage)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/52 "2001-10-29T21:17:04Z")
Browning’s dramatic monologues really do something for me, especially “My Last Duchess” (probably the most famous) and “Porphyria’s Lover”. These works, along with many others, can be found at [http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/browning.html](http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/authors/browning.html) Yeats’ “sailing to Byzantium” is also great, as is his “The Second Coming”. In fact, Yeats is just great. I love that guy. Here’s a bit of Yeats for the unfamiliar: No Second Troy Why should I blame her that she filled my days With misery, or that she would of late Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways, Or hurled the little streets upon the great, Had they but courage equal to desire? What could have made her peaceful with a mind That nobleness made simple as a fire, With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind That is not natural in an age like this, Being high and solitary and most stern? Why, what could she have done, being as she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn? But, as a woman, I must give the women their due. Sappho wrote fantastic poetry, and it’s very sad that more didn’t survive: I SAY You would want few to be carried away. Sweeter. You yourself know but someone forgot. Some might say I will love as long as there is breath in me. I’ll care. I say I’ve been a firm friend. Things grievous, bitter, but know I will love. Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote great stuff, and I think her “Modern Declaration” is probably my favorite poem (Ah hah! We finally get around to it!). I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having wavered In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these loves; Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of those loves; Never when anxious to land a job having diminished them by a conniving smile; or when befuddled by drink Jeered at them through heartache or lazily fondled the fingers of their alert enemies; declare That I shall love you always. No matter what party is in power; No matter what temporarily expedient combination of allied interests wins the war; Shall love you always. Sorry so long, but this is a great thread. Sage ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/53 "2001-10-29T21:57:23Z")
[“The Thinker” by Berton Braley](http://www.cordair.com/apotheosis/poetry/braley/thinker.htm) I memorized it in high school, and can still recite it on a moment’s notice. “How MacPherson Held the Floor” by Robert Service I couldn’t find it online and don’t know it by heart, but it’s a good one, as are almost all of Service’s works. ---
**Author:** ![Orual](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/779978/32.png) [@Orual](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Orual)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/54 "2001-10-29T22:58:29Z")
_The Iliad_ and _The Odyssey_ [sym]Mhnin aeide, Jea, Phlhiadew AcilhoV oulomenhn …[/sym] As Chapman has it: Achilles’ banefull wrath resound, O Goddesse, that imposd Infinite sorrowes on the Greekes and many brave sould losd From breast Heroique - sent them farre to that invisible cave That no light comforts; and their lims to dogs and vultures gave. To all which Jove’s will gave effect; from which first strife begunne Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis’ godlike Sonne. ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/55 "2001-10-29T23:05:20Z")
**Estilicon** - in all honesty, I prefer modern poetry in any language. I’m well-versed on the classics thanks to my 300-level survey classes. I’ve read everything from the Odyssey to Pope to Browning to Pushkin. I definitely appreciate it from an artistic, stylistic viewpoint. However, I prefer modern poetry for several reasons. Most of the superior modern poets do not abide by classic rules of form or structure, but they create their own sort of structure within the work. Whitman, for instance, used repitition, transposed sentences, frequent gerunds, and internal rhymes to create a form in his poetry. Warren’s earlier works maintain a very strict structure and rhyme, but with time he explored structure based on word choice and sentence structure that was more free-flowing but still contained a definite form. Plath had a very unique rhyme scheme in most of her poetry, but you have to look for it. As much as I appreciate a well-formed iambic pentameter couplet (Pope did is best, IMHO), I appreciate creative forms much more. Also, I can understand what modern poets write about, and thus can better apply it to my own life. Now, it’s widely accepted that the aim of twentieth century literature was to explore the self, both in relation to society and culture and in relation to others. The poetry reflects this. I enjoy this type of literature and poetry above all others - historical drama, gothic novels, romance. I like what I can learn from it. > [@](#): > > [vitriol] > How condescending can you be there, Walt? What makes you think that someone who obviously has such a passion for knowledge and learning that he devotes his entire life to expanding the bounds of human knowledge, and who, I might point out, is part of the great tradition that provided enough modern day conveniences for your books to get bound and shipped and delivered so that you could make enough money to live your bohemian pot-smoking existence, what makes you think that he doesn’t enjoy looking at the stars? And in fact, I’ll be that he enjoys it more than you, because he can enjoy it on so many more levels than your glorying-in-your-own-ignorance ass! > [/vitriol] Well, I interpreted this poem totally differently. Whitman isn’t saying that there’s anything wrong with studying astronomy. He is just espousing that there are different sorts of knowledge besides scientific knowledge. He can look at the stars and see something in them that goes beyond the realm of science or man. I believe this. I don’t know much about astronomy, but I love looking at the stars. I’m grateful for electricity and running water, most certainly, but I’d rather use my imagination to enjoy the stars than go over a list of facts that I memorized about them. There’s nothing wrong with that sort of knowledge; I just don’t need it so much in my life. If you look at Whitman’s poetry, and his identity as “the Poet of the Future,” then you can see a life marked by scientific advancements and modernity. I doubt he is the only one that questioned how much these discoveries mattered in the grand scheme of things. Poetry provides a different sort of knowledge than biology. Whitman is simply declaring that both knowledges have worth, and I agree with him. ---
**Author:** ![ndorward](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c2a13f/32.png) [@ndorward](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ndorward)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2001, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/56 "2001-10-29T23:56:23Z")
Since war poets seem to be popular in this thread I thought I’d post a poem by Ivor Gurney, who unlike Owen & Rosenberg survived WWI (though shortly thereafter ended up in an asylum & died young). He was also a major composer of music for voice & piano; those interested in Vaughan-Williams, Finzi, Warlock, &c should search out recordings of his work. – Unlike Owen Rosenberg Sassoon &c Gurney was not just a war poet & I’ll enclose a brief lyric which shows his affinity to Georgian nature poetry, though with an intensity of perception & prosodic delicacy that is far from Georgian. He was, incidentally, one of the first British writers to show a perceptible Whitman influence. SEA MARGE Pebbles are beneath, but we stand softly On them, as on sand, and watch the lacy edge Of the swift sea Which patterns and with glorious music the Sands and round stones. It talks ever Of new patterns. And by the cliff-edge, there, the oakwood throws A shadow deeper to watch what new thing Happens at the marge. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/57 "2001-10-30T01:07:57Z")
This thread is going to the bottomo. Before it goes I would like to thank you all. I discovered a lot of magnificents poems in english (I copied most. I have an ace to focus your attention in this thread at least a bonus to shock americans. One of Ruben Dario’s greatest poems “A Roosevelt” (teddy). Let’s see if you like it. Of course the spanish original is better but the translation will do TO ROOSEVELT The voice that would reach you, Hunter, must speak in Biblical tones, or in the poetry of Walt Whitman. You are primitive and modern, simple and complex; you are one part George Washington and one part Nimrod. You are the United States, future invader of our naive America with its Indian blood, an America that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish. You are strong, proud model of your race; you are cultured and able; you oppose Tolstoy. You are an Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar, breaking horses and murdering tigers. (You are a Professor of Energy, as current lunatics say). You think that life is a fire, that progress is an irruption, that the future is wherever your bullet strikes. No. The United States is grand and powerful. Whenever it trembles, a profound shudder runs down the enormous backbone of the Andes. If it shouts, the sound is like the roar of a lion. And Hugo said to Grant: “The stars are yours.” (The dawning sun of the Argentine barely shines; the star of Chile is rising…) A wealthy country, joining the cult of Mammon to the cult of Hercules; while Liberty, lighting the path to easy conquest, raises her torch in New York. But our own America, which has had poets since the ancient times of Nezahualcóyolt; which preserved the footprint of great Bacchus, and learned the Panic alphabet once, and consulted the stars; which also knew Atlantic (whose name comes ringing down to us in Plato) and has lived, since the earliest moments of its life, in light, in fire, in fragrance, and in love– the America of Moctezuma and Atahualpa, the aromatic America of Columbus, Catholic America, Spanish America, the America where noble Cuauthémoc said: “I am not in a bed of roses”–our America, trembling with hurricanes, trembling with Love: O men with Saxon eyes and barbarous souls, our America lives. And dreams. And loves. And it is the daughter of the Sun. Be careful. Long live Spanish America! A thousand cubs of the Spanish lion are roaming free. Roosevelt, you must become, by God’s own will, the deadly Rifleman and the dreadful Hunter before you can clutch us in your iron claws. And though you have everything, you are lacking one thing: God! Surprise. He was angry after all at that time you had faked a war with cuba, invaded mexico, nicaraua, etc. I always thought it was a bit strong but consider that it was written before 1916. Anyway I hope you enjoyed ---
**Author:** ![Nacho4Sara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Nacho4Sara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nacho4Sara)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/58 "2001-10-30T01:42:49Z")
Since everyone else is posting copyrighted poems, I’m going to jump on the bandwagon, because I want everyone to be able to read these wonderful poems. [Here](http://www.mds.mdh.se/~frv95ihn/lit/warren.htm) is “Birth of Love” by Robert Penn Warren. This is probably my all-time most favorite poem. It’s extraordinary. [This]([http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/brooks/poems-GB.html#the](http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/brooks/poems-GB.html#the) mother) will take you to “the mother” by Gwendolyn Brooks. Here is “Tenderness” by Stephen Dunn: Back then when so much was clear and I hadn’t learned young men learn from women what it feels like to feel just right, I was twenty-three, she thirty-four, two children, a husband in prison for breaking someone’s head. Yelled at, slapped around, all she knew of tenderness was how much she wanted it, and all I knew were backseats and a night or two in a sleeping bag in the furtive dark. We worked in the same office, banter and loneliness leading to the shared secret that to help National Biscuit sell biscuits was wildly comic, which led to my body existing with hers like rain that’s found its way underground to water it naturally joins. I can’t remember ever saying the exact word, tenderness, though she did. It’s a word I see now you must be older to use, you must have experianced the absence of it often enough to know what silk and deep balm it is when at last it comes. I think it was terror at first that drove me to touch her so softly, then selfishness, the clear benefit of doing something that would come back to me twofold, and finally, sometime later, it became reflexive and motiveless in the high ignorance of love. Oh abstractions are just abstract until they have an ache in them. I met a woman never touched gently, and when it ended between us I had new hands and new sorrow, everything it meant to be a man changed, unheroic, floating. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/59 "2001-10-30T02:42:35Z")
My favourite poem is “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe. Looking at the other poster’s favourites, I feel so uneducated. Might as well say it’s “Jabberwocky” or something. ---
**Author:** ![Genseric](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Genseric](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Genseric)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2001, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107/60 "2001-10-30T03:09:51Z")
Okay, okay, one more… > [@](#): > > **Ulysses** by Alfred, Lord Tennyson > > It little profits that an idle king, > By this still hearth, among these barren crags, > Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole > Unequal laws unto a savage race, > That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. > I cannot rest from travel: I will drink > Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy’d > Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those > That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when > Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades > Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; > For always roaming with a hungry heart > Much have I seen and known; cities of men > And manners, climates, councils, governments, > Myself not least, but honour’d of them all; > And drunk delight of battle with my peers, > Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. > I am a part of all that I have met; > Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ > Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades > For ever and forever when I move. > How dull it is to pause, to make an end, > To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! > As tho’ to breathe were life! Life piled on life > Were all too little, and of one to me > Little remains: but every hour is saved > From that eternal silence, something more, > A bringer of new things; and vile it were > For some three suns to store and hoard myself, > And this gray spirit yearning in desire > To follow knowledge like a sinking star, > Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. > > ``` > This is my son, mine own Telemachus, > > ``` > > To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,– > Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil > This labour, by slow prudence to make mild > A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees > Subdue them to the useful and the good. > Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere > Of common duties, decent not to fail > In offices of tenderness, and pay > Meet adoration to my household gods, > When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. > > ``` > There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: > > ``` > > There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, > Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me– > That ever with a frolic welcome took > The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed > Free hearts, free foreheads–you and I are old; > Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; > Death closes all: but something ere the end, > Some work of noble note, may yet be done, > Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. > The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: > The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep > Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, > ‘T is not too late to seek a newer world. > Push off, and sitting well in order smite > The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds > To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths > Of all the western stars, until I die. > It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: > It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, > And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. > Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ > We are not now that strength which in old days > Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; > One equal temper of heroic hearts, > Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will > To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Oh yeah, and **Ode On A Grecian Urn** by John Keats is a great one too, but I think that’s enough from me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favourite-poem/90107.md?page=4)