Favorite lines of poetry

[runnjump]

We live in a very prosaic world, yet Frost astutely noted that the poet's job was to lodge a few lines where they will be hard to get rid of. What lines have been most memorable to you?

 

ID the lines if you like, but it's more fun to let others guess.

 

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Poetry:

I, too, dislike it.

Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it,

One discovers in it, after all, a place for the genuine.

 

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The art of losing isn't hard to master.

 

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One can think of no devotion

greater than being shore to the ocean,

holding the curve of one position

counting an endless repetition.

Edited June 13, 2008 by runnjump

[Clydesdave]

"Charge for the guns!" he said:

 

I use this line in speaking from time to time. It means a couple of things. To some it means just what it says; "Charge for the guns!". For those who know the poem, and the context from which it flows, it might mean something else.

[Ondina]

Amor constante más allá de la muerte

Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera

sombra que me llevare el blanco día,

y podrá desatar esta alma mía hora a su afán ansioso lisonjera;

 

mas no, de esotra parte, en la ribera,

dejará la memoria, en donde ardía:

nadar sabe mi llama la agua fría,

y perder el respeto a ley severa.

 

Alma a quien todo un dios prisión ha sido,venas que humor a tanto fuego han dado,

medulas que han gloriosamente ardido:

 

su cuerpo dejará, no su cuidado;

serán ceniza, mas tendrá sentido;

polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado.

 

Love constant beyond Death

Perhaps whatever final shadow that the shining day may bring could close my eyes,

and this my soul may well be set aflight

by time responding to its longing sighs;but it will not, there on the farther shore

its memory leave behind, where once it burned:

my flame the icy current yet can swim,

and so severe a law can surely spurn.

 

Soul by no less than a god confined,veins that such a blazing fire have fueled,

marrow to its glorious flames consigned:

 

The body will abandon, not its woes;

will soon be ash, but ash that is aware;

dust will be, but dust whose love still grows.

 

Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas. 1580-1645. Who says a satiric cynic can't fall in love?

[Songwind]

Speaking of Frost "The Road Less Traveled":

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

I took the one lest traveled by,

And that has made all the difference!

 

"Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep.

(Thankfully, this one is no longer so significant to me as it once was. It stood out to me for reason of the widely accepted interpretation of the imagery.)

 

e e cummings, "Annie Died the othe Day":

Saints and sinners, go your way.

Youths and maidens, let us pray.

 

Song lyrics, but they are often poetry, for my money. Pink Floyd, from The Wall:

In ones and in twos, the ones who really love you

Walk up and down outside the wall.

Some hand in hand, and some gathered together in bands

The bleeding hearts and the artistes make their stand.

And when they've given their all, some stagger and fall.

After all, it's not easy

Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall.

 

Kipling "Tree Song":

Do not tell the priest our plight

For he would call it a sin,

But we have been out in the woods all night,

A-conjuring summer in!

And we bring you good news by word of mouth,

Good news for cattle and corn.

Now is the sun come up in the south,

By oak, and ash, and thorn!

 

[Ray]

Shakespeare's Sonnet 20:

 

A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted

Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;

A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted

With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;

An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,

Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;

A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,

Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.

And for a woman wert thou first created;

Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,

And by addition me of thee defeated,

By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.

But since she (soapy mouth)'d thee out for women's pleasure,

Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

 

Ray

[jon]

Juventud, divino tesoro,

Ya te vas para no volver.

Cuando quiero llorar, no lloro,

Y a veces lloro sin querer.

 

Rubén Darío--"Canción de otoño en primavera"

 

Youth, divine treasure,

already you leave to not return!

When I want to cry, I do not cry. . .

and at times I cry without wanting to. . .

 

Rubén Darío--"Song of Autumn in Spring"

 

Sounds much better in the original Spanish...

[the joan collins special]

Bukowski - i met a genius

 

I met a genius on the train

today

about 6 years old,

he sat beside me

and as the train

ran down along the coast

we came to the ocean

and then he looked at me

and said,

it's not pretty.

 

it was the first time I'd

realized

that.

 

it's ours

...

that space

there

before they get to us

ensures

that

when they do

they won't

get it all

 

ever.

 

Eliot is played out, but I still like the closing of this one

...

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

 

I do not think that they will sing to me.

 

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

 

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

 

edit.

Oh yeah, and this one. Anyone familiar with it?

...

It's the light they believe kills.

 

We drink and load again, let them crawl

 

for all they're worth into the darkness we're headed for.

 

Edited June 13, 2008 by the joan collins special

[Richard]

From the Codex Burensis:

 

Omnia sol temperat

purus et subtilis;

novo mundo reserat

faciem Aprilis,

ad amorem properat

animus herilis,

et iocundis imperat

deus puerilis.

 

Rerum tanta novitas

in solemni vere

et veris auctoritas

iubet nos gaudere;

vias praebet solitas;

et in tuo vere

fides est et probitas

tuum retinere.

 

Ama me fideliter!

fidem meam nota;

de corde totaliter

et ex mente tota

sum praesentialiter

absens in remota.

Quisquis amat taliter,

volvitur in rota.

 

(Written by an unknown Goliardic poet in the 13th century)

 

========

 

The sun, pure and simple, moderates all.

Out of a new world it reveals the face of April.

The spirit of the master hastens to love,

And a boyish god rules among the pleasant folk.

 

So great a renewal of nature in festive spring!

And the influence of spring commands us to rejoice.

It shows us the accustomed ways, and in your spring

It is faith and honesty to keep the one who is yours.

 

Love me faithfully, mark my promise.

In my full heart and my whole mind

I am with you even though absent at a distance.

Whoever loves in such a way is turned on the wheel.

 

(My translation, with no attempt to do more than render the Latin into English. Poetical rendering is left as an exercise for the student.)

[Rufus]

My two favourite poems are "Vitae Lampada" by Lord Tennyson and "The Donkey" by G.K. Chesterton. "The Charge of the Light Brigade" is up there too. I love all three of them in their entirety.

[Splicer]

I'd be very pleased to learn who can ID these from memory:

 

Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me

There lie they and here lie we

Under the spreading chestnut tree.

 

and (very different source):

 

The people and the leaders walk hand in hand

The people and the leaders walk hand in hand

They're on the right road!

They're going the wrong direction.

[Shangas]

My friend, you would not tell, with such high zest,

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old lie: *Dulce Et Decorum Est,

Pro Patria Mori*

 

Latin: "It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country".

Edited June 14, 2008 by Shangas

[the joan collins special]

I'd be very pleased to learn who can ID these from memory:

 

Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me

There lie they and here lie we

Under the spreading chestnut tree.

 

not really a poem, is it?

1984?

[sumgaikid]

From Robert Frost(Fire and Ice):

 

Some say the world will end in fire

And some say ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

 

John

 

[Silas]

"Tis strange, but oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles

To betray us in deepest consequence."

 

Banquo to Macbeth on believing the prophecies of the 3 witches.

[MissIveniv]

"Thy only love sprung from thy only hate/ too early seemed unknown, but known too late." - Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.

 

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[Splicer]

I'd be very pleased to learn who can ID these from memory:

 

Under the spreading chestnut tree

I sold you and you sold me

There lie they and here lie we

Under the spreading chestnut tree.

 

not really a poem, is it?

1984?

 

I think it's really a poem; just one that comes from a fictional prose context. And yes, 1984.

[Philip1209]

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" is one of my favorites.

The first stanza kicks literary butt:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -

Only this, and nothing more.'

 

And the last line of the later stanzas is unforgettable:

Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

 

 

[Bananafish]

Used to like this before I outgrown the macabre:

 

...

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

...

 

 

Now I like this:

 

...

So long as men can breath or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

...

[DanF]

One of my favorites, from David Tucker, a former US Poet laureate:

 

 

The Dancer

 

Class is over, the teacher

and the pianist gone,

but one dancer

in a pale blue

leotard stays

to practice alone without music,

turning grand jetes

through the haze of late afternoon.

Her eyes are focused

on the balancing point

no one else sees

as she spins in this quiet

made of mirrors and light-

a blue rose on a nail-

then stops and lifts

her arms in an oval pause

and leans out

a little more, a little more,

there, in slow motion

upon the air.

 

David Tucker

 

 

And here is a link to a great poem by Billy Martin, another former US Poet Laureate

 

The Lanyard:

 

http://www.bestcigarette.us/2004/09/the_lanyard.html

 

 

Or the Youtube version, if you like to watch and listen.

 

Dan

Edited June 16, 2008 by DanF

[runnjump]

Mayflies,

whose cellophane wings refract

like their hundred eyes the repetitious sun,

have so little power to abstract

they taste each pleasure new, one by one,

 

-Robert Galloway Kirkpatrick