Favorite lines of poetry

[A Smug Dill]

A love poem by G. Seferis

Thank you so much! It was a pleasure to see your handwriting of the original poem, and much appreciated that you provided the English translation. Yours is one recent post I'm truly glad I read.

 

I really think it's great that we're sharing our favourite lines of poetry with the community, per the title of this discussion thread, instead of using it as a place for either continual (imagined) engagement with others, or showcasing one's 'tastes' or handwriting every three days or so in the name of sharing one's 'favourites', even though it would sound absolutely ridiculous for someone to say they have a hundred or three hundred 'favourite' poems.

[PaulS]

- those numbers sound a tad high, but if we stop and think for a while I'd bet those of us who love poetry would be surprised at the final count as to how many we really do like - poems are addictive, and the older you are the greater the addiction.

 

Something here from Wendy Cope, a British poet who as far as I know is still with us, and to whose credit there are many popular poems which, like this one, are comments on human nature and our behaviour, and as such make us smile with reflection ...………

 

Giving Up Smoking:

There's not a Shakespeare sonnet

or a Beethoven quartet

that's easier to like than you

Or harder to forget.

 

You think that sounds extravagant?

I haven't finished yet -

I like you more than I would like

to have a cigarette.

[PaulS]

turning a little darker now with William Blake - variously accused of being mystic, poet, visionary, which sentiments have given us some of the best of his work and which is perhaps having a bit of a renaissance just now ………..

 

the first is 'Infant Joy' - some light hearted words in which he gives speech to innocent children speaking in their own right.

'I have no name:

'I am but two days old.'

What shall I call thee?

'I happy am,

'Joy is my name.'

Sweet joy befall thee!

 

Pretty Joy!

Sweet joy but two days old.

Sweet joy I call thee:

Thou dost smile,

I sing the while,

Sweet joy befall thee!

 

then with 'London', his mood is black again, and the realities of an C18 city come crashing in …………..

 

I wander through each chartered street,

near where the chartered Thames does flow,

And mark in every face I meet

Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

 

In every cry of every man,

In every infant's cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind-forged manacles I hear.

 

How the chimney-sweeper's cry

Every blackening church appals;

And the hapless soldier's sigh

Runs in blood down palace walls.

 

But most through midnight streets I hear

How the youthful harlot's curse

Blasts the new-born infant's tear,

And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

Edited October 21, 2018 by PaulS

[ardene]

Thank you so much! It was a pleasure to see your handwriting of the original poem, and much appreciated that you provided the English translation. Yours is one recent post I'm truly glad I read.I really think it's great that we're sharing our favourite lines of poetry with the community, per the title of this discussion thread, instead of using it as a place for either continual (imagined) engagement with others, or showcasing one's 'tastes' or handwriting every three days or so in the name of sharing one's 'favourites', even though it would sound absolutely ridiculous for someone to say they have a hundred or three hundred 'favourite' poems.

Thanks! Well, maybe some people just need a way to use their pens, to practice their handwriting or even to keep reading poetry. Don't be too harsh.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Everyone's passages are superb. You have all great tastes in poetry sirs and madams!

 

Diamine Macassar:

 

 

 

 

[GreyPix]

Everyone's passages are superb. You have all great tastes in poetry sirs and madams!

 

Diamine Macassar:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excellent! Unfortunately, sometimes so true of life

[GreyPix]

Roses ruddy and roses white,
What are the joys that my heart discloses?
Sitting alone in the fading light
Memories come to me here tonight
With the wonderful scent of the big red roses.
Memories come as the daylight fades
Down on the hearth where the firelight dozes;
Flicker and flutter the lights and shades,
And I see the face of a queen of maids
Whose memory comes with the scent of roses.

Visions arise of a scent of mirth,
And a ball-room belle who superbly poses --
A queenly woman of queenly worth,
And I am the happiest man on earth
With a single flower from a bunch of roses.

Only her memory lives tonight --
God in his wisdom her young life closes;
Over her grave may the turf be light,

Cover her coffin with roses white
She was always fond of the big white roses.

Such are the visions that fade away --
Man proposes and God disposes;
Look in the glass and I see today
Only an old man, worn and grey,
Bending his head to a bunch of roses.

Banjo Paterson

[PaulS]

again not sure if we've had this already, or even if I've posted before, but anyway here goes.

 

Leigh Hunt - one of the English romantics and pal of other better known poets such as Byron, Shelly, Keats and much later, apparently, Tennyson ………….. son of an American immigrant preacher he became well known as an editor and writer on issues of the day. As a commentator he pushed his luck - too far on one occasion - and went down for a couple of years in Newgate for scurrilous and alleged slanderous things he'd written about the Prince Regent - later King George IV.

Probably all true and at the time in view of his debauched and hedonistic lifestyle the Prince Regent was more than fair game for everyone and probably deserved all the criticism he received, particularly from the caricaturists Rowlandson and Gillray - who also sailed very close to the wind - but royalty were not amused, and they made an example of Hunt.

 

This then is 'Abou Ben Adhem'.

 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace

And saw, within the moonlight in his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel writing in a book of gold: -

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

'What writest thou?' The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, 'The names of those who love the Lord.'

'And is mine one? said Abou. 'Nay, not so,'

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still; and said, 'I pray then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men.'

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

[PaulS]

overwhelmed completely by the response to Hunt's words, here then to bore everyone again is another from his P51:-) Apparently he'd been very ill with flu and when Carlyle and his wife Jenny visited him there was some fear he might not survive, but survive he did, and after he recovered he returned the favour and paid them a visit. The story goes that the visit was entirely unexpected and on seeing Hunt alive and so well, Jenny leapt up to kiss him, prompting this poem - one of the few I can recite from memory ……

 

'Jenny Kissed Me' -

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me,

Say I'm growing old, but add,

Jenny kissed me.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Well I don't know about the others, but I loved the Hunt poems, the rhythm pattern is so neat and the lines are... how to explain, they're like a frizzy fruit juice, they're playful.

 

A passage from Advice from Rock Creek Part, written with the lovely Diamine Kelly Green (should have written larger though, I apologize).

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Odd mix of inks which lived for a couple of days before I admitted the flow was too awful to stand. rip.

 

[PaulS]

lovely poem - I can just see these Chinese lanterns rising ever higher in the night sky and their light twinkling and receding from us - or do I have that completely wrong?

But - probably just me being thick - what has this scene to do with an armadillo? :-):-)

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

lovely poem - I can just see these Chinese lanterns rising ever higher in the night sky and their light twinkling and receding from us - or do I have that completely wrong?

But - probably just me being thick - what has this scene to do with an armadillo? :-):-)

I posted only a passage from the poem since I write big and didn't have enough space. This is the whole poem:

 

This is the time of year

when almost every night

the frail, illegal fire balloons appear.

Climbing the mountain height,

rising toward a saint

still honored in these parts,

the paper chambers flush and fill with light

that comes and goes, like hearts.

Once up against the sky it's hard

to tell them from the stars—

planets, that is—the tinted ones:

Venus going down, or Mars,

or the pale green one. With a wind,

they flare and falter, wobble and toss;

but if it's still they steer between

the kite sticks of the Southern Cross,

receding, dwindling, solemnly

and steadily forsaking us,

or, in the downdraft from a peak,

suddenly turning dangerous.

Last night another big one fell.

It splattered like an egg of fire

against the cliff behind the house.

The flame ran down. We saw the pair

of owls who nest there flying up

and up, their whirling black-and-white

stained bright pink underneath, until

they shrieked up out of sight.

The ancient owls' nest must have burned.

Hastily, all alone,

a glistening armadillo left the scene,

rose-flecked, head down, tail down,

and then a baby rabbit jumped out,

short-eared, to our surprise.

So soft!—a handful of intangible ash

with fixed, ignited eyes.

Too pretty, dreamlike mimicry!

O falling fire and piercing cry

and panic, and a weak mailed fist

clenched ignorant against the sky!

Cult Pens Deep Dark Purple

[TaylorJ]

Still, she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies,
Never seen by waking eyes.

[TSherbs]

overwhelmed completely by the response to Hunt's words, here then to bore everyone again is another from his P51:-) Apparently he'd been very ill with flu and when Carlyle and his wife Jenny visited him there was some fear he might not survive, but survive he did, and after he recovered he returned the favour and paid them a visit. The story goes that the visit was entirely unexpected and on seeing Hunt alive and so well, Jenny leapt up to kiss him, prompting this poem - one of the few I can recite from memory

 

'Jenny Kissed Me' -

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in;

Time, you thief, who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,

Say that health and wealth have missed me,

Say I'm growing old, but add,

Jenny kissed me.

Anyone still looking for Jenny can reach her at 8675309.

 

[PaulS]

I'd have assumed that a person of Jenny Carlyle's stature would be buried in some auspicious hole in the ground - Highgate Cemetery for example, though I've no idea if Highgate was accepting entries in the early part of the C19. Have to say I've not researched the lady's life and death, and know almost nothing of her o.h. either - not really sure what he was famous for - but famous he certainly was.

 

As an almost unrelated tit-bit (remember the mildly pornographic paper of the same name ) - whenever someone mentions Highgate it brings to mind the true story of Rossetti who buried his unpublished book of poems with the wife Lizzie Siddal, in Highgate, after she'd committed suicide.

Twelve months later and full of egotism and vanity and having recovered from his grief, he went out one night with a lantern and disinterred his late spouse in order to reclaim his poetry.

Edited November 16, 2018 by PaulS

[TSherbs]

....

Twelve months later and full of egotism and vanity and having recovered from his grief, he went out one night with a lantern and disinterred his late spouse in order to reclaim his poetry.

Dang! That's nervy!

[PaulS]

Suspect he had permission - and likely high on chloral hydrate at the time - his favourite pick-me-up followed by whiskey chaser.

Edited November 17, 2018 by PaulS

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

About autumn..

 

Rohrer & Klingner Scabiosa (IG):

 

 

Rohrer & Klingner Cassia (in a very dry pen)

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Some more about autumn...

 

Diamine Macassar.

 

 

Diamine Matador.