Favorite lines of poetry

[TBiley]

Nobody had my favorite poem, or one of my favorite poets.

 

The Flea by John Donne

 

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,

How little that which thou deniest me is ;

It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.

Thou know'st that this cannot be said

A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;

Yet this enjoys before it woo,

And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;

And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

 

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, yea, more than married are.

This flea is you and I, and this

Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.

Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,

And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.

Though use make you apt to kill me,

Let not to that self-murder added be,

And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

 

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?

Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou

Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.

'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;

Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,

Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

[JakobS]

My favorite....

 

If there were in my kalendar

No Emma, Florence, Mary,

What would be my existence now -

A hermit's? - wanderer's weary? -

How should I live and how

Near would be death, or far?

 

Could it have been the other eyes

Might have uplit my highway?

That fond, sad, retrospective sight

Would catch from this dim byway

Prized figures different quite

From those that now arise?

 

With how strange aspect would there creep

The dawn, the night, the daytime,

If memory were not what it is

In song-time, toil, or pray-time. -

O were it else than this,

I'd pass to pulseless sleep!!

[platinumuser]

. . . and my favorite

 

Forgotten in autumn

 

It was half past seven

in autumn

and I was waiting

for someone or other.

Time,

tired of being there with me,

little by little left

and left me alone.

 

I was left with the sand

of the day, with the water,

wrack

of a sad week, murdered away.

 

"What's going on?" the leaves

of Paris asked me. "Who are you waiting for?"

 

And a few times I was humiliated,

first by the light as it left,

then by dogs, cats and policemen.

 

I was left alone

like a solitary horse

which knows no night or day in the grass,

only the salt of winter.

 

I stayed

so alone, so empty

that the leaves were weeping,

the last ones, and later

they fell like tears.

 

Never before

or after

did I feel so suddenly alone.

It was waiting for someone that did it--

I don't remember,

it was crazily,

fleetingly,

suddenly just loneliness,

that moment,

the sense of something

lost along the way,

which suddenly like the shadow itself

spread the long flag of its presence.

 

Later I fled from that

insane corner,

walking as quickly as possible,

as if running away from the night,

from a black and rolling boulder.

What I am telling is nothing,

but it happened to me once while I was waiting

for someone or other.

 

Pablo Neruda

(translated by Alastair Reid)

[runnjump]

I.

 

In April one seldom feels cheerful.

Dry stones, sun, and dust make me fearful.

Commuters distress me,

Clairvoyants depress me,

Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

 

from "Waste Land Limericks" by Wendy Cope

[jstar]

This topic is so engrossing..I don´t normally think of myself as someone who loves poestry, but, you may change my mind yet!

 

 

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife,

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

 

 

 

The mountains are singing, and the Lady comes.

 

 

Evil days our race befallen.

Far and wide the story travelled,

Far away men spread the knowledge

Of the chanting of the hero,

Of the song of Wainamoinen;

To the South were heard the echoes,

All of Northland heard the story.

 

 

The fifth of the five fives followed by this knight

Were beneficence boundless and brotherly love

And pure mine and manners, that none might impeach,

And compassion most precious--these peerless five

Were forged and made fast in him, foremost of men.

[davisgt]

Lord Byron of course:

 

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

 

Canto IV

 

CLXXVIII

 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

 

CLXXIX

 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean -- roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin -- his control

Stops with the shore; -- upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

 

 

Byron rules!

 

Todd

 

[Flourish and Blotts]

Lord Byron of course:

 

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

 

Canto IV

 

CLXXVIII

 

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

 

CLXXIX

 

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean -- roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin -- his control

Stops with the shore; -- upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

 

 

Byron rules!

 

Todd

 

 

Hear, hear!

Byron rules, indeed!

 

Could I remount the river of my years

To the first fountain of our smiles and tears,

I would not trace again the stream of hours

Between their outworn banks of withered flowers,

But bid it flow as now--until it glides

Into the number of the nameless tides.

 

--A Fragment 1830 (Lord Byron, of course)

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest Roy]

From William Shakespeare's As You Like It

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

I would not change it.

 

--Roy

Edited October 29, 2008 by Roy

[ToughHouseRook]

Invictus- William Ernest Henley

 

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

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,

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:

I am the captain of my soul.

 

 

Written from a hospital bed, essentially gives adversity the finger eloquently...

[bushellk]

A lady came into our gallery last night and told my about this poem. Later i googled it and particularly liked these lines. I'll let you guess the title...

 

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

 

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life,

keep peace in your soul.

~Jas

 

That's "Desiderata." There is a bit of a scandal as to its origins.

 

 

[njh1974]

Leda and the Swan

 

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

 

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

How can anybody, laid in that white rush,

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

 

A shudder in the loins, engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead. Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

 

W. B. Yeats

[trencherman]

Conrad Aiken

 

IT is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning

When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,

I arise, I face the sunrise,

And do the things my fathers learned to do.

Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops

Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,

And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet

Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

 

WB Yeats - When You Are Old and Grey

 

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

 

Q. Horatius Flaccus

 

Diffugere nives, redeunt iam gramina campis

.......arboribusque comae;

mutat terra vices et decrescentia ripas

.......flumina praetereunt;

[Flourish and Blotts]

I also must add another of my favorites. I would nominate this for greatest poem of all time. Though written at the end of the 19th century, it fits our era perfectly...

 

 

The Stolen Child

 

 

WHERE dips the rocky highland

Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,

There lies a leafy island

Where flapping herons wake

The drowsy water rats;

There we've hid our faery vats,

Full of berrys

And of reddest stolen cherries.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

 

Where the wave of moonlight glosses

The dim gray sands with light,

Far off by furthest Rosses

We foot it all the night,

Weaving olden dances

Mingling hands and mingling glances

Till the moon has taken flight;

To and fro we leap

And chase the frothy bubbles,

While the world is full of troubles

And anxious in its sleep.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

 

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

 

Away with us he's going,

The solemn-eyed:

He'll hear no more the lowing

Of the calves on the warm hillside

Or the kettle on the hob

Sing peace into his breast,

Or see the brown mice bob

Round and round the oatmeal chest.

For he comes, the human child,

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

 

 

--William Butler Yeats (1886)

 

 

[BerneseMtDogEatsArco]

A lady came into our gallery last night and told my about this poem. Later i googled it and particularly liked these lines. I'll let you guess the title...

 

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

 

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life,

keep peace in your soul.

~Jas

 

I write the Desiderata on the last page of each of my journals. Thanks for citing this one! I first heard it from a woman I was particularly fond of, and each time I read it, I feel young again.

 

[ralphawilson]

One Art

 

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

 

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

 

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

 

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 

-- Elizabeth Bishop

 

 

[Doulton]

It's great to see so much Yeats and the several references to Elizabeth Bishop's stunning "One Art."

 

I have too many cherished lines to label any one poet a "favorite" but high up on my list are Shakespeare, Donne, Keats, Yeats, Wallace Stevens and Philip Larkin. "To His Coy Mistress" by Marvell is great--"Time's winged chariot". Anthony Hecht wrote some knock-out poems. I don't know of anyone alive today who measures up to the best poets who wrote primarily before 1975 or thereabouts.

 

My husband had a professor who wanted to get rid of as many students as possible so he gave them 48 hours to memorize "Lycidas". We spent those two days soaked in the poem.

 

 

[UNDERDOG]

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

[UNDERDOG]

Sorry, just saw someone had already put this in. I was watching the Disney version with my daughter tonight.

 

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

[Coyotebd]

On of my favorites, alongside The Reaper and the Flowers

 

 

O ye dead Poets, who are living still

Immortal in your verse, though life be fled,

And ye, O living Poets, who are dead

Though ye are living, if neglect can kill,

 

Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,

With drops of anguish falling fast and red

From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head

Ye were not glad your errand to fulfill?

 

Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song

Have something in them so divinely sweet,

It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;

Not in the clamour of the crowded street,

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,

But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

 

I used it to start my journal, to remind myself why I write.

[someonesdad]

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.'

 

 

Neither more nor less significant than the first three notes to Beethoven's Fifth...