Favorite Stanzas of Poetry

[Todash]

Last one for a bit, although I could keep going all night. I don't know if this has a name, but I call it "Come Now My Child." It's by Kenneth Patchen.

Come now my child
if we were planning to harm you
do you think
we'd be lurking here
beside the path
in the very darkest part of the forest?

 

[FlakeNoir]

When the night has been too lonely,
and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes
The Rose.
~ Amanda McBroom, The Rose

My Mum wants this played at her funeral... (So of course, I cry now every time I hear it. It is beautiful.)

 

[Todash]

i have found what you are like
the rain,
(Who feathers frightened fields
with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields
easily the pale club of the wind
and swirled justly souls of flower strike
the air in utterable coolness
deeds of green thrilling light
with thinned
newfragile yellows
lurch and.press
-in the woods
which
stutter
and
sing
And the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms;but
i should rather than anything
have(almost when hugeness will shut
quietly)almost,
your kiss

(sighs...........)...........wow.

Right? What could you possibly deny someone who wrote that for you? Nothing, that's what.

 

[VampireLily]

Right? What could you possibly deny someone who wrote that for you? Nothing, that's what.

no, i couldn't... it is, quite simply.... perfect~

 

[krwhiting]

Here dead we lie, by A. E. Housman
Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.
Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.

 

[krwhiting]

In Flanders Fields, by John McRae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

 

[krwhiting]

Autumn by Rainer Maria Rilke


Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one
anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long
time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the avenues, up and down,
restlessly, while the leaves are blowing.

 

[krwhiting]

No Man is an Island, John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

 

[krwhiting]

Shakespeare's St. Crispin's Day Speech by Henry V

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 

[Haunted]

"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 -- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

One of my very favorites, he so much wants to rest but there is so much further to go, like life, eh?

 

[CoriSCapnSkip]

My Mum wants this played at her funeral... (So of course, I cry now every time I hear it. It is beautiful.)

"The Rose" was played at a friend's funeral so now I can't listen to it!

 

[CoriSCapnSkip]

From Robert Burns, "To a Mouse":

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

 

[muskrat]

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree,
Where Alph the sacred river ran,
Thru caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea

Coleridge, course. Hang on, I've a visitor knocking at the door.

 

[skimom2]

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.

When You Are Old-W.B.Yeats

 

[CoriSCapnSkip]

Coleridge, course. Hang on, I've a visitor knocking at the door.

Person from Porlock? Selling anything, were they?

 

[muskrat]

Yep, a salesman from Porlock, selling albatross. "ALBATROSS! Get your Albatross here! Albatross!"

 

[muskrat]

...but when the rising moon begins to climb
It's topmost arch and gently pauses there,
When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,
And the low night breeze waves along air
This garland forest which the grey walls wear,
Like laurels on the bald first Caesar's head
Went the light shines serene but doth not glare,
Then in this magic circle raise the dead
--heroes have trod this spot, it's on their dust ye tread

--Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

 

[CoriSCapnSkip]

 

[muskrat]

With false ambition what had I to do?
Little with love, and least of all with fame
Yet they came unsought, and with me grew
And made me all which they can make--a name.

--Lord Byron

 

[Kurben]

The wretched parents all that night
Went shouting far and wide
But there was neither sound nor sight
To serve them as a guide

They wept, and turning homeward cried,
"In heaven we all shall meet"
When in the snow the mother spied
The print of Lucys feet

Then downwards from the steep hills edge
They tracked the footsteps small
And through the broken hawthorn hedge
And by the long stonewall

And then an open field they crossed;
The marks were still the same
They tracked then on and never lost
And to the bridge they came

They followed from the snowy bank
these footmarks one by one
into the middle of the plank
And further there were none!

(parts of "Lucy Grey" by William Wordsworth. One of Englands finest poets to my thinking.