Favorite lines of poetry

[PaulS]

I like the line "the limpid water turbidly ran". Interesting to compare the C19 poetry of BBs method of using a ballad story line with well known fictional characters from legend/mythology to weave her melancholy/emotion - very much a Victorian style where poetry was often written in fairly tale format - with Edna St. Vincent Millay's very powerful sentiments, written in C20 plain speaking.

Here the emotion is raw with nostalgia - very strong - but achieved without recourse to characters from history or other classical sources, allowing all of us, whether we know who Pan was or not, to enjoy the poetry.

But then again some folk no doubt prefer a sprinkling of dragon flies with which to dress up their poetry.

 

Staying with Herrjaeger's choice, here is a part of Edna St. Vincent Millay's reflections on life and lost love ......

 

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet Xliii)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me.

[TSherbs]

I like the line "the limpid water turbidly ran". Interesting to compare the C19 poetry of BBs method of using a ballad story line with well known fictional characters from legend/mythology to weave her melancholy/emotion - very much a Victorian style where poetry was often written in fairly tale format - with Edna St. Vincent Millay's very powerful sentiments, written in C20 plain speaking.

Here the emotion is raw with nostalgia - very strong - but achieved without recourse to characters from history or other classical sources, allowing all of us, whether we know who Pan was or not, to enjoy the poetry.

But then again some folk no doubt prefer a sprinkling of dragon flies with which to dress up their poetry.

 

Staying with Herrjaeger's choice, here is a part of Edna St. Vincent Millay's reflections on life and lost love ......

 

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet Xliii)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain

Under my head till morning; but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,

Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,

Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:

I cannot say what loves have come and gone,

I only know that summer sang in me.

 

Yes, but Millay wrote every line with the full knowledge of the history of the sonnet (and polite poetic allusions to birds and boughs and loves) from several centuries in her mind. And the readers who also know this will enjoy the freshness and verve and daring of this/these sonnet(s) all the more.

[PaulS]

thanks. perhaps my words came across as too much like criticism of BB - they weren't intended to - though if I had to choose between Millay's sonnet and those particular verses from BB, I'd go for the former.

Criticism of history is always a bit pointless - people do what they do at any given time because it's what is considered right or correct at the time.

The Romantics and later Victorian's were keen on flowery allusions - a style of writing not popular in the mid C20, though if you look at lists of the most popular poetry there's always a substantial choice with content involving allusions to birds, boughs and loves.

Perhaps we shouldn't analyse it all too much - just read and enjoy

[TSherbs]

It's all good, Paul! I am a literature teacher, so I am interested in any discussion like this. The art of writing is at the core of my existence.

[inkstainedruth]

I suppose Milligan couldn’t make Lie de Thé or Bekakt Haags work in the rhyme scheme.

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[PaulS]

this one has a particularly strong and poignant connection - written as a memorial. I expect most folk will know the author and origin, but I'll explain if necessary.

 

The life that I have is all that I have and the life that I have is yours,

The love that I have of the life that I have is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have, a rest I shall have, yet death may be but a pause,

for the peace of my years in the long green grass will be yours and yours and yours.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Pilot Pluminix B,

Diamine Shimmertastic Shimmering Seas.

 

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Loved this poem by Dunbar, a poet previously unknown to me.

 

Pilot Pluminix B,

Diamine Shimmertastic Shimmering Seas.

[PaulS]

beautiful, deep and meaningful words - thanks. Lowering the tone to a more humorous offering from Spike Milligan:-

 

'Soldier Freddy':

Soldier Freddy

Was never ready,

But! Soldier Neddy,

Unlike Freddy

Was always ready

and steady,

 

That's why,

When Soldier Neddy

Is-outside-Buckingham-Palace-on-guard-in-the

pouring-wind-and-rain-

being-steady-and-ready,

Freddie-

is home in beddy.

 

quite why the change of spelling to Freddie I've no idea.

[PaulS]

I don't know how popular, or otherwise, the author of 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic' is these days - how many natives of the Sates could tell you whose name is linked with these verses I've no idea ……………… probably the same as the (large) number of British folk who couldn't say who wrote the U.K.s' national anthem.

Born with the proverbial silver spoon, Julia Ward Howe seems to have burned herself out with tireless social causes of suffrage and anti-slavery issues - writing the 'Hymn' in 1862. She was involved later in life in journalism, and is remembered for her book 'Sex and Education'.

 

Possibly not considered poetry by the purists, but slips in - possibly - under the guise of prose ..............and just the first two verses …………

 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;

He hath loosed the fatal lightening of His terrible swift sword,

His truth is marching on.

 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

Edited October 8, 2018 by PaulS

[PaulS]

Don't know if we've had Ernest Dowson before ………… a British Londoner - perhaps poetry's equivalent of Beardsley - and consumptive character who didn't remotely make old bones, and from a family where tragedy was always round the corner, but who left us some cracking lines despite his demise at only 32.

The first offering below provided Neil Simon with the title of a song, but I forget which play, and the other influenced Margaret Mitchell enough to use part of the first line as title for her magnum opus.

 

1) From: Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam.

(The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long - Horace)

 

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

 

2) From: Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae

(I an not as I was under the reign of the good Cynara - Horace)

 

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

beautiful, deep and meaningful words - thanks. Lowering the tone to a more humorous offering from Spike Milligan:-

Also, I didn't know about Ernest Dowson, lovely style.

 

Another stanza by Dunbar written in Diamine Peach Haze.

[PaulS]

the Pilot Pluminix B, coupled with your slightly gothic black letter style, is far more attractive than the Lamy Al-Star - in my humble opinion, of course Perhaps the Pilot flexes slightly?

 

Agree, Dowson wrote some very emotive lines - maybe he knew the end wasn't far away.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

PaulS, the nib of the Pilot Pluminix is a stub nib, it doesn't flex at all. Well. I guess it could flex if I pressed on it. But I have RSI and if I press down as I write it really hurts, so I avoid that.

 

 

Very suggestive verses, written with good old Pelikan 4001 Black.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

Another passage of a poem I love written with the great color Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Golgrdun:

 

 

Quite a powerful poem by Angelou.

Written with Diamine Macassar.

[ardene]

A love poem by G. Seferis

 

 

 

DENIALOn the secret seashorewhite like a pigeonwe thirsted at noon;but the water was brackish.On the golden sandwe wrote her name;but the sea-breeze blewand the writing vanished.With what spirit, what heart,what desire and passionwe lived our life; a mistake!So we changed our life.

 

—English translation byEdmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard

Edited October 13, 2018 by ardene

[JerseyGirl0807]

Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXVI

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! It is an ever fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, those rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

This is my favorite sonnet.

Lorraine

[PaulS]

big stuff, I agree, though his genius of grammar and piling shed loads of meaning into so few lines, makes massive demands on our mental abilities, and is often too big an ask, and I struggle sometimes to understand fully what the guy was getting at. But then I may just be a thickie.

 

My preference is for No. 73 ………….

 

That time of year thou may'st in me behold,

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds san.

In me thou seest the twilight of such a day

As after sunset fadeth in the west;

Which by and by black night doth take away,

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou seest the glowing of such fir,

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie;

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,

To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

 

Could you find a more haunting line ... "Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang" .............. for the sad reflective thoughts on lost life and love - or do I have that interpretation wrong????

 

There are others equally as good, of course.

[RoyalBlueNotebooks]

I'm loving all the new contributions, thank you guys!!

 

 

Rohrer & Klingner Alt-Goldgrun:

[GreyPix]

Ode to Autumn - John Keats

 

It has to be done (if not already. And if so, I care not).

 

"Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."

 

These lines sum Autumn up for me.

 

Keat's wrote, in a letter, "How beautiful the season is now. How fine the air -- a temperate sharpness about it. Really, without joking, chaste weather -- Dian skies. I never liked stubble-fields so much as now -- aye, better than chilly green of the Spring. Somehow, a stubble plain looks warm, in the same way that some pictures look warm."

 

I couldn't sum it up better myself.

 

Ahhhhhh, Autumn

Edited October 20, 2018 by GreyPix