Favorite lines of poetry

[PaganArcher]

A bit that has always resonated deep in my soul.

 

 

NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,

And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.

 

As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk, the law runneth forward and back;

For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

 

Rudyard Kipling

[vjones]

dusk: the temple bell quiets,

fragrance rings

night-struck from flowers

 

Matsuo Bashō

Edited January 5, 2018 by vjones

[Doulton]

"Orchard Trees, January"

Richard Wilbur

It's not the case, though some might wish it so
Who from a window watch the blizzard blow

White riot through their branches vague and stark,
That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark.

They take affliction in until it jells
To crystal ice between their frozen cells,

And each of them is inwardly a vault
Of jewels rigorous and free of fault,

Unglimpsed until in May it gently bears
A sudden crop of green-pronged solitaires.

I love the images this poem conjures up. I really admire and in some cases cherish the generation of poems born during the 1920's: Anthony Hecht, Ammons, Creeley, Carolyn Kizer, James Wright, Elizabeth Jennings, Donald Justice, Donald Hall, Larkin, Kumin, John Hollander, and, of course, Richard Wilbur.

[Carrau]

"Orchard Trees, January"

Richard Wilbur

 

 

 

It's not the case, though some might wish it so

Who from a window watch the blizzard blow

White riot through their branches vague and stark,

That they keep snug beneath their pelted bark.

They take affliction in until it jells

To crystal ice between their frozen cells,

And each of them is inwardly a vault

Of jewels rigorous and free of fault,

Unglimpsed until in May it gently bears

A sudden crop of green-pronged solitaires.

 

 

 

I love the images this poem conjures up. I really admire and in some cases cherish the generation of poems born during the 1920's: Anthony Hecht, Ammons, Creeley, Carolyn Kizer, James Wright, Elizabeth Jennings, Donald Justice, Donald Hall, Larkin, Kumin, John Hollander, and, of course, Richard Wilbur.

 

Agreed, very nice imagery, simple, and requiring some thought.

[vjones]

That's a nice one. I'll have to read more of Richard Wilbur's work. I'm familiar with James Wright, but not the others, so this looks like a promising list to work from.

[hh1990]

For the night -- tho' clear -- shall frown --

And the stars shall look not down,

From their high thrones in the Heaven,

With light like Hope to mortals given --

But their red orbs, without beam,

To thy weariness shall seem

As a burning and a fever

Which would cling to thee for ever :

-Edgar Allan Poe, Spirits of the Dead

[Bookman]

If We Must Die

by Claude McKay

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursed lot.

If we must die, O let us nobly die,

So that our precious blood may not be shed

In vain; then even the monsters we defy

Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!

Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,

And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!

What though lies before us but the open grave?

Like men, we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,

Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

[Doulton]

Thank you for posting that. I have never read this particular sonnet before, but I have read other poems by McKay that share its excellence.

[Tas]

Loves times beggar, but even a single hour,

bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.

We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers

or wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.

For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hair

like treasure on the ground; the Midas light

turning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for here

we are millionaires, backhanding the night

so nothing dark will end our shining hour,

no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spit

hung from the blade of grass at your ear,

no chandelier or spotlight see you better lit

than here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,

but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.

 

CAROL ANN DUFFY

[Jasper]

From a Mary Oliver poem that i can't remember the title of:

 

 

It is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world.

 

 

[Chrissy]

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

 

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

 

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

 

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

 

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

[Chrissy]

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

[abstract49]

The Careless Little Spy

 

There was a careless little spy

Who carried the Secret Code in the same briefcase

With the Master Plan and a wad of dancehall tickets;

Which may explain why some very Big Wheels

Are running about on their rims this morning.

Patchen, Kenneth. Selected Poems

[Doulton]

Everybody Made Soups

 

by Lisa Coffman

After it all, the events of the holidays,
the dinner tables passing like great ships,
everybody made soups for a while.
Cooked and cooked until the broth kept
the story of the onion, the weeping meat.
It was over, the year was spent, the new one
had yet to make its demands on us,
each day lay in the dark like a folded letter.
Then out of it all we made one final thing
out of the bounty that had not always filled us,
out of the ruined cathedral carcass of the turkey,
the limp celery chopped back into plenty,
the fish head, the spine. Out of the rejected,
the passed over, never the object of love.
It was as if all the pageantry had been for this:
the quiet after, the simmered light,
the soothing shapes our mouths made as we tasted.

I had not heard of this poet before, but I thought this poem had some delightful images. "The ruined cathedral carcass of the turkey" and "each day lay in the dark like a folded letter".

[hh1990]

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.

My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.

Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.

Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms

my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer

and these the last verses that I write for her.

- Pablo Neruda, Tonight I Can Write

[Runnin_Ute]

 

Eldorado

 

Gaily bedight,

A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,

Had journeyed long,

Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

 

But he grew old—

This knight so bold—

And o'er his heart a shadow

Fell as he found

No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

 

And, as his strength

Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—

"Shadow," said he,

"Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?"

 

"Over the Mountains

Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,

Ride, boldly ride,"

The shade replied—

"If you seek for Eldorado!"

 

"Eldorado" is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in April 1849.

 

Most people however, know it from the 1967 movie of the same name with John Wayne, James Caan (who speaks it) and Robert Mitchum.

[Panos_S]

Listen. Speech is the prudence of the aged
And time is a passionate sculptor of men
And the sun stands over it, a beast of hope
And you, closer to it, embrace a love
With a bitter taste of tempest on your lips.

 

 

Marina of the rocks by Odysseus Elytis

[Doulton]

Norroway in February

BY HANNAH SANGHEE PARK

 

The glassy hill I clomb for thee

For surefooted step, hooves behoove the haver.

The sky redid blue, the woman wavered,

 

and the black bull (the vanquisher), vanished.

She called out to nothing, and in vain shed

 

tears until she reached the glass hill’s impasse.

Served her standard fairy tale penance, passim,

 

served her seven to be given iron

shoes to — at last — scale the hill, the earned

 

neared end. Each step conquered territory,

at last, the sleeping prince-once-bull, torrid tearing

 

of clothes, tearing on one’s clothes, three nights of this

until the prince awakes. How she, exhausted,

 

must have felt in the at long last, the ever after.

Happily, I guess, but a long time until laughter.

 

Source: Poetry (November 2013)

 

I really like the sound and the imagery of this poem. If you want to read the source material it's at Wikipedia at:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Bull_of_Norroway

[EricTheRed]

Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

— Macbeth

 

Everyone should fully enjoy their life and not take it too seriously...

[hh1990]

O, why should wrath be mute, and fury dumb?

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers

I should repent the evils I have done:

Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did

Would I perform, if I might have my will;

If one good deed in all my life I did,

I do repent it from my very soul.

-Aaron,

Titus Andronicus,

Scene 3, Act 5