Favorite lines of poetry

[KiriBean]

Yet more Kipling:

 

'They have cast their burden upon the Lord, and - the Lord He lays it on Martha's Sons.'

 

-Kiri.

[gyasko]

古池や蛙飛込む水の音

[JAPeN]

In Australia we have a recent issue where laws will be provided to minimise the criminal activities of motorcycle clubs.

To gain public sympathies a number of bizarre PR exercises have been presented by the clubs.

 

From Today news .....

REBELS bikies have begun a "freedom ride" through Adelaide suburbs - after the gang's national president addressed the media with a poem.

Members have rallied from around the country for a protest against the state's anti-bikie legislation.

 

But, before they set off, Alex Vella recited a poem to the media gathered at the club's southern headquarters at Old Noarlunga.

 

This is the freedom ride

We will not go and hide

We have just come over here

To keep the public occupied

We are going to ride

Around the Adelaide Hills

We are hardworking people

Who pay the bills

He then denied bikie gangs were havens for criminals.

 

I really like this poem because it made me holler with laughter

 

 

[ChristineB]

Thank you for this thread; here's my contribution:

 

Three Shadows

 

I looked and saw your eyes

In the shadow of your hair,

As a traveller sees the stream

In the shadow of the wood;

And I said, "My faint heart sighs,

Ah me! to linger there,

To drink deep and to dream in that sweet solitude."

 

I looked and saw your heart

In the shadow of your eyes,

As a seeker sees the gold

In the shadow of the stream;

And I said, "Ah me! what art

Should win the immortal prize,

Whose want must make life cold

And Heaven a hollow dream?"

 

I looked and saw your love

In the shadow of your heart,

As a diver sees the pearl

In the shadow of the sea;

And I murmured, not above

My breath, but all apart, --

"Ah! you can love, true girl,

And is your love for me?"

 

 

Before I identify the source, I'll leave readers a chance to identify.

 

 

[ccajackson]

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...

 

 

I was also going to post this poem, but with the comment that while it is not my favorite poem, the last two lines are my favorite lines of poetry.

 

This poem is the only one that I know by heart and is/was a favorite of my father/grandfather, as well. My dad printed out the poem and had it framed for me as a college graduation gift; it sits over my desk at work now. It remains a go-to read for me. I find it wonderful that others take inspiration from it also.

 

Cheers!

C-C

[penswrite]

I will

shoot

my

last

arrow

at this animal,

or the next.

 

 

 

---George Potawatomi

 

 

(edited for mistranslation)

Edited May 6, 2009 by penswrite

[dandelion]

For everything you hate about yourself - forgive yourself

For everything you love about yourself - forgive yourself

For everything you are ashamed of.

For everything you are proud of.

For everything you want to hide.

For everything you want to show.

For everything that did'nt turn out as is should have.

For everything you are.

For everything you wanted to be.

 

Forgive yourself.

 

(My own translation of the Swedish writer Jonas Gardell's poetic prose.)

Edited May 5, 2009 by dandelion

[deauville]

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

 

Christina Rossetti

[Jade]

A Serious Poem

 

This is a serious poem

It wears a serious face

It will not fritter away the words

It knows its place.

 

Perfectly balanced

Neither too long nor too short

It gazes solemnly heavenwards

Like a real poem ought.

 

Familiar with the classics

It drops names with ease.

Here comes Plato with Lycidas

And look, there's Demosthenes!

 

A serious poem will often end

With two lines that rhyme.

But not always.

 

The wonderful... Roger McGough

[Jade]

You're

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools' Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

Sylvia Plath

[Titivillus]

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

but merely vans to beat the air

The air which is not thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will

Teach us to care and not to care

Teach us to sit still.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

 

[YNY]

Western wind, when wilt thou blow?

The small rain down can rain,-

Christ, if my love were in my arms

And I in my bed again!

 

Anonymous.

 

[dandelion]

If you are the amber mare

I am the road of blood

If you are the first snow

I am he who lights the hearth of dawn

If you are the tower of night

I am the spike burning in your mind

If you are the morning tide

I am the first bird's cry

If you are the basket of oranges

I am the knife of the sun

If you are the stone altar

I am the sacrilegious hand

If you are the sleeping land

I am the green cane

If you are the wind's leap

I am the buried fire

If you are the water's mouth

I am the mouth of moss

If you are the forest of the clouds

I am the axe that parts it

If you are the profaned city

I am the rain of consecration

If you are the yellow mountain

I am the red arms of lichen

If you are the rising sun

I am the road of blood

 

(Motion, by Octavio Paz 1914-1998)

[girl alokhdood]

thanks

 

Your words are very beautiful

[daveyp]

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

And you, my father, there on that sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

By Dylan Thomas.

[runnjump]

It’s a strange courage

you give me ancient star:

 

Shine alone in the sunrise

toward which you lend no part!

[ebargoum]

Perhaps not my favourite poem, but certainly my favourite lines:

 

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night

 

- Sarah Williams, The old astronomer to his pupil.

[beautysmuse]

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

-----

 

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful, a faery's child:

Her hair was long, her foot was ligh,

And her eyes were wild.

 

-----

 

There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colors gay.

And she hath heard a whisper say

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot.

[ZeissIkon]

Perhaps my favorite poem by an author not best known for his poetry, the most commonly quote version of which goes like this:

 

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

 

Various versions speak of both leaving and returning home, and refer both to enjoying and tiring of adventures.

[Terry Brack]

The last lines of this poem have stuck with me. Here is the whole poem

 

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your

head.

Arithmetic tell you how many you lose or win if you know how

many you had before you lost or won.

Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven -- or five

six bundle of sticks.

Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand

to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.

Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and

you can look out of the window and see the blue sky -- or the

answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again

and see how it comes out this time.

If you take a number and double it and double it again and then

double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger

and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you

what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.

Arithmetic is where you have to multiply -- and you carry the

multiplication table in your head and hope you won't lose it.

If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you

eat one and a striped zebra with streaks all over him eats the

other, how many animal crackers will you have if somebody

offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say

Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?

If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she

gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is

better in arithmetic, you or your mother?

 

Carl Sandburg