Your favorite poem

[Ninonybox_v1legacy]

Whats your favorite poem, mine is the Jadderwocky poem from Alice in wonderland

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought?
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

I love the first part of it because the Cheshire Cat sings it in the Disney version

 

[CK76]

WHENEVER Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich?yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

----------

I love this poem, so brilliant how the last two lines bring into question our desires and perceptions of others.

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[Umberphoenix]

The Meehoo with an Exactlywatt by Shel Silverstein.

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Me!
Me who?

That's right!
What's right?
Meehoo!
That's what I want to know!

What's what you want to know?
Me, WHO?
Yes, exactly!
Exactly what?
Yes, I have an Exactlywatt on a chain!

Exactly what on a chain?
Yes!
Yes what?
No, Exactlywatt!

That's what I want to know!
I told you - Exactlywatt!
Exactly WHAT?
Yes!
Yes what?

Yes, it's with me!
What's with you?
Exactlywatt - that's what's with me.
Me who?
Yes!

GO AWAY!

Knock knock...

 

[Zacharine]

'Slight Mechanical Destruction' from 'Use Of Weapons' by Iain M. Banks. One of the protagonists of the book, Diziet Sma, writes this after the happenings of the book have taken place.


Zakalwe enfranchised;
Those lazy curls of smoke above the city,
black wormholes in the air of noontime's bright Ground Zero;
Did they tell you what you wanted to be told?
Or rain-skinned on a concrete fastness,
fortress island in the flood;

You walked among the smashed machines,
and looked trough undrugged eyes
for engines of another war,
and an attrition of the soul and the device.
With craft and plane and ship,
and gun and drone and Field you played, and
wrote an allegory of your regress
in other people's tears and blood;

The tentative poetics of your rise
from a mere and shoddy grace.
And those who found you,
took, remade you
('Hey, my boy, it's you and us knife missiles now,
our lunge and speed and bloody secret:
The way to a man's heart is trough his chest!')

- They thought you were their plaything,
savage child; The throwback from wayback,
expedient because
Utopia spawns few warriors.

But you knew your figure cut a cipher
trough every crafted plan,
and playing our game for real
saw trough our plumbing jobs
and wayward glands
to a meaning of your own, in bones.

The catchment of these cultured lives
was not in flesh,
and what we only knew,
you felt,
with all the marrow of your twisted cells.

 

[Lullabye]

Spoiler: EDIT: Found it!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

That's my favorite romantic poem.

Spoiler: Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Is my favorite doom poem.

And though it's actually a song, I like the one done by the Beatles.

Spoiler: Imagine

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

The poem on Nazi Germany:

At first they came for the trade unionists-- but I did not speak out for I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the communists-- I did not speak out, for I was not a communist.
Then the came for the Jews-- I did not speak out for I was not Jewish.
Then they came for me-- but there was no one left to speak out for me.

Not the exact wording.

 

[TheLazyKnight]

Twa Corbies

As I was walking all alane,
I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the tither say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"

"In ahint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And nane do ken that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound an his lady fair."

"His hound is tae the huntin gane,
His hawk tae fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's tain anither mate,
So we may mak oor dinner swate."

"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike oot his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We'll theek oor nest whan it grows bare."

"Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane;
Oer his white banes, whan they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair."

 

[Queen Michael]

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I did not die.

 

[ToMegaTherion]

The Raven or The Conquering Worm by Edgar Allan Poe. I can't descide, but The Raven means alot to me

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

Larkin - This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

Or Ulysses by Tennyson

Spoiler: It's pretty long

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breath were life. Life piled on life
Were all to little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads you and I are old;
Old age had yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

[Mr. Blue Sky]

1. One fine day in the middle of the night,
2. Two dead boys got up to fight,
3. Back to back they faced each other,
4. Drew their swords and shot each other,

5. One was blind and the other couldn't, see
6. So they chose a dummy for a referee.
7. A blind man went to see fair play,
8. A dumb man went to shout "hooray!"

9. A paralysed donkey passing by,
10. Kicked the blind man in the eye,
11. Knocked him through a nine inch wall,
12. Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,

13. A deaf policeman heard the noise,
14. And came to arrest the two dead boys,
15. If you don't believe this story?s true,
16. Ask the blind man he saw it too!

I remember my cousin telling me this when I was little.

 

[Quaxar]

Spoiler: Melancholy by John Fletcher

Melancholy (John Fletcher)

HENCE, all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly!
There 's naught in this life sweet,
If men were wise to see't,
But only melancholy -
O sweetest melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms and fixèd eyes,
A sight that piercing mortifies,
A look that 's fasten'd to the ground,
A tongue chain'd up without a sound!

Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves!
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed, save bats and owls!
A midnight bell, a parting groan -
These are the sounds we feed upon:
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley,
Nothing 's so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.

Also The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

 

[TransMando]

Haiku's are easy
But sometimes they don't make sense
Refrigerator

(it's a shirt on threadless Tees www.threadless.com)

 

[Glassesguy904]

I won't type it up, or go through the challenge of finding it, but one of my faves was actually part of the Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy Series. The poem was something along the lines of not wanting to be teleported.

 

[Regiment]

I'm partial to The Bells, by Poe, and The Hunting of the Snark, by Carroll.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

and

Early Morning at Mount Baldy

Alarm awakened me at 2:30 a.m.:
got into my robes
kimono and hakama
modelled after the 12th-century
archer?s costume:
on top of this the koroma
a heavy outer garment
with impossibly large sleeves:

on top of this the ruksu
a kind of patchwork bib
which incorporates an ivory disc:
and finally the four-foot
serpentine belt
that twists into a huge handsome knot
resembling a braided challah
and covers the bottom of the ruksu:
all in all
about 20 pounds of clothing
which I put on quickly
at 2:30 a.m.
over my enormous hard-on

-Leonard Cohen


Great thread, thanks for creating it.

 

[Chummychanga]

The Raven by Edger Allen Poe.

"Quoth the raven, NEVERMORE!"

 

[Liberaliter]

The Sentry, by Wilfred Owen.

Spoiler: Click To View

We'd found an old Boche dug-out, and he knew,
And gave us hell, for shell on frantic shell
Hammered on top, but never quite burst through.
Rain, guttering down in waterfalls of slime
Kept slush waist high, that rising hour by hour,
Choked up the steps too thick with clay to climb.
What murk of air remained stank old, and sour
With fumes of whizz-bangs, and the smell of men
Who'd lived there years, and left their curse in the den,
If not their corpses. . . .
There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muck --
The sentry's body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
"O sir, my eyes -- I'm blind -- I'm blind, I'm blind!"
Coaxing, I held a flame against his lids
And said if he could see the least blurred light
He was not blind; in time he'd get all right.
"I can't," he sobbed. Eyeballs, huge-bulged like squids
Watch my dreams still; but I forgot him there
In posting next for duty, and sending a scout
To beg a stretcher somewhere, and floundering about
To other posts under the shrieking air.

Those other wretches, how they bled and spewed,
And one who would have drowned himself for good, --
I try not to remember these things now.
Let dread hark back for one word only: how
Half-listening to that sentry's moans and jumps,
And the wild chattering of his broken teeth,
Renewed most horribly whenever crumps
Pummelled the roof and slogged the air beneath --
Through the dense din, I say, we heard him shout
"I see your lights!" But ours had long died out.