Favorite Poem

Randall Jarrell
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

There's probably ones I like better that I can't think of right now, but this one always stuck with me.

The Raven - Edgar Allan Poe

You can see it here:
http://www.comnet.ca/~forrest/raven.html

The Destruction of Sennacherib
The Destruction of Sennacherib - by Lord Byron


The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

favorite poems
Too many favorites to pick just one - and it's always changing - as I read I'm constantly finding more I love. But these three are favorites right now...

Moonlight -by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff (~1830)
It was as if the Sky
Had silently kissed the Earth,
So that she, in the glimmer of blossoms,
Now had to dream of him.

The breeze passed through the fields,
The ears of grain waved gently,
The forests rustled softly,
So starry-clear was the night.

And my soul spread
Its wings out wide,
And flew through the silent regions
As if it were flying home.

(This was translated from original German)

My Grandmother's Ghost- By James Wright (1927-1980)
She skimmed the yellow water like a moth,
Trailing her feet across the shallow stream;
She saw the berries, paused and sampled them
Where a slight spider cleaned his narrow tooth.
Light in the air, she fluttered up the path,
So delicate to shun the leaves and damp,
Like some young wife, holding a slender lamp
To find her stray child, or the moon, or both.
Even before she reached the empty house,
She beat her wings ever so slightly, rose,
Followed a bee where apples blew like snow;
And then, forgetting what she wanted there,
Too full of blossom and green light to care,
She hurried to the ground, and slipped below.

At Burt Lake- Tom Andrews (1961-2001)
To disappear into the right words
and to be their meanings . . .

October dusk.
Pink scraps of clouds, a plum-colored sky.
The sycamore tree spills a few leaves.
The cold focuses like a lens . . .

Now night falls, its hair
caught in the lake's eye.

Such a clarity of things. Already
I've said too much . . .

Lord,
language must happen to you
the way this black pane of water,
chipped and blistered with stars,
happens to me.

(This stanza just blows me away - this expresses exactly how certain poetry makes me feel - like it's an event - something that happens - to me.

I have lots of favorite poems but i picked some. Most were written by people I know.

Angels
Do you believe in angels?
Who walk upon this earth
Are they here to guide us?
And show what life is worth

Are they just here to love us?
And teach us right from wrong
Is there more to heaven's beings
For on earth do they belong?

They are sent to us when needed
To help us through our pain
To make our lives worth living
To be our sunshine through the rain

Some believe whilst others don't
The question I ask is do you?
I can say I definitely believe
That angels on earth are true

They may not have shining halos
Nor fly with silk white wings
But I have my guardian angel
It's the hope that believing brings

It's not in the form of the living
But the strength that's to given me
To help me through as life goes on
Without my angel I could not be

It's my hope, my love and strength
That will never leave my side
I believe in my guardian angel
My best friend, my angelic guide

Arrogant
My mind is my fortress,
A stronghold of thought,
A battlefield of problems
Where many battles 've been fought.

They think that I'm fair,
But I'm using them as I see fit
Yeah and they think that I care,
But they don't know that I'm faking it.

Oh and what if they'd know?
those pathetic fools;
that underneath my cynicism,
logic still rules.

They can call me selfish,
but why would I share?
They say I'm arrogant,
but why would I care?

And yeah I'm prejudiced,
But they don't know.
Yeah I feel apathy,
But I don't let it show

They think I'm their friend,
But they're too stupid to see,
They are nothing;
And mean nothing to me.

They think they know me,
But I'm sorry they don't.
Yeah and they think I trust them,
But rest assured that I won't.

But with you my love,
With you I want to share,
My body and mind,
Because for you my love;

For you I care...

If we must die
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back

Here is beautiful poem written by one of my favorite Hungarian poets called Sándor Petőfi (1823-1849)


At the End of September

Garden flowers still bloom in the valley,
The poplar is still verdant at the window,
But can you see the winter world over there?
Already the peaks are covered with snow.
My young heart is still filled with summer rays
And within it the whole springtime in blossom.
But lo, my dark hair is flecked with grey
And my head has been struck with winter's frost.
The flower drops and past life races…
Sit, my wife, sit here on my lap now!
Will you, who on my breast her head places,
Not bend over my grave tomorrow?

0, tell me, if I die before you,
Will you cover my body with a shroud - weeping?
And will love of a youth sometime cause you
To abandon my name for his keeping?
If one time you cast oft your widow's veil,
Let it hang from my headstone, a banner!
I will come up from the world of the grave
In the dead of the night and take it with me
To wipe from my face the tears shed for you,
Who has lightly forgotten her devotee,
And to bind the wound in the heart of one,
Who still then in that place, loves you forever.

(Transl. by Paul Desney).



and for those who read Hungarian:

Szeptember végén

Még nyílnak a völgyben a kerti virágok,
Meg zöldel a nyírfa az ablak alatt,
De latod amottan a téli világot?
Már hó el takará a bérci tetôt.
Meg ifju szivemben a lángsugaru nyár
S meg benne virít az egesz kikelet,
De íme, sötét hajam ôszbe vegyül már,
A tel dere már megüté fejemet.
Elhull a virág, eliramlik az élet…
Ülj, hitvesem, ülj az ölembe ide!
Ki most fejedet keblemre tevéd le,
Holnap nem omolsz-e slrom fölibe?

Oh mondd: ha elöbb halok el, tetemimre
Könnyezve boritasz-e szemfödelet?
S rábírhat-e majdan egy ifjú szerelme,
Hogy elhagyod érte az én nevemet?
Ha eldobod egykor az özvegyi fátyolt,
Fejfámra sötét lobogóul akaszd,
En felfövök érte a síri világból
Az éj kösepén oda leviszem azt,
Letörleni vele konnyüimet érted,
Ki könnyedén elfeleded hívedet,
S e szív sebeit bekötözni, ki téged
Meg akkor is, ott is, örökre szeret!

And here is my favorite poem, the most beautiful
poetry from a Hungarian poet who's life ended in a tragic way during the second world war....
He's called Miklós Radnóti.(1909-1944)

How others see this region, I cannot understand:
to me, this little country is menaced motherland
with flames around, the world of my childhood swaying far,
and I am grown from this land as tender branches are
from trees. And may my body sink into this soil in the end.
When plants reach out towards me, I greet them as a friend
and know their names and flowers. I am at home here, knowing
the people on the road and why and where they are going-
and how I know the meaning when by a summer lane
the sunset paints the walls with a liquid flame of pain!
The pilot can't help seeing a war map from the sky,
can't tell below the home of Vörösmarty Mihály;
what can he identify there? grim barracks and factories,
but I see steeples,oxen, farms, grasshoppers and bees;
his lens spies out the vital production plants, the fields,
but I can see the worker, afraid below, who shields
his labour, a singing orchard, a vinyard and a wood,
among the graves a granny mourning her widowhood,
and what may seem a plant or rail line that must be wrecked
is just a signalhouse with the keeper standing erect
and waving his red flag, lots of children around the guard,
a shepherd dog might roll in the dust in a factory yard,
and there's the park with the footprints of past loves
and the flavour
of childhood kisses- the honey, the cranberry I still savour;
and on my way to school, by the kerbside to postpone
a spot-test one certain morning, I stepped upon a stone:
look! there's the stone whose magic the pilot cannot see,
no instrument would merge it in his topography.

True, guilty are we all here, our people as the rest,
we know our faults, we know how and when we have
transgressed,
but there are blameless lives here of toil and poetry and passion,
and infants also, with growing capacity for compassion-
they will protect its glow while in gloomy shelters till
once more our land is marked by the finger of peace:
then they will
respond to our muffled words with new voices fresh and bright.

Spread your great wings above us, protective cloud of night.

January 17 , 1944


************************************

Nem tudhatom...

Nem tudhatom, hogy másnak e tájék mit jelent,
nekem szülőhazám itt e lángoktól ölelt
kis ország, messzeringó gyerekkorom világa.
Belőle nőttem én, mint fatörzsből gyönge ága
s remélem, testem is majd e földbe süpped el.
Itthon vagyok. S ha néha lábamhoz térdepel
egy-egy bokor, nevét is, virágát is tudom,
tudom, hogy merre mennek, kik mennek az úton,
s tudom, hogy mit jelenthet egy nyári alkonyon
a hazfalakról csorgó, vöröslő fájdalom.
Ki gépen száll fölébe, annak térkép e táj,
s nem tudja, hol lakott itt Vörösmarty Mihály;
annak mit rejt e térkép? gyárat s vad laktanyát,
de nekem szöcskét, ökröt, tornyot, szelíd tanyát;
az gyárat lát a látcsőn és szántóföldeket,
míg én a dolgozót is, ki dolgáért remeg,
erdőt, füttyös gyümölcsöst, szöllőt és sírokat,
a sírok közt anyókát, ki halkan sírogat,
s mi föntről pusztítandó vasút, vagy gyárüzem,
az bakterház s a bakter előtte áll s üzen,
piros zászló kezében, körötte sok gyerek,
s a gyárak udvarában komondor hempereg;
es ott a park, a régi szerelmek lábnyoma,
a csókok íze számban hol méz, hol áfonya,
s az iskolába menvén, a járda peremén,
hogy ne feleljek aznap, egy kőre léptem én,
ím itt e kő, de föntről e kő se látható,
nincs műszer, mellyel mindez jól megmutatható.
Hisz bűnösök vagyunk mi, akár a többi nép,
s tudjuk miben vétkeztünk, mikor, hol és mikép,
de élnek dolgozók itt, költők is bűntelen,
és csecsszopók, akikben megnő az értelem,
világít bennük, őrzik, sötét pincékbe bújva,
mig jelt nem ír hazánkra újból a béke ujja,
s fojtott szavunkra majdan friss szóval ők felelnek.

Nagy szárnyadat borítsd ránk virrasztó éji felleg.

when I read this poem, I always cry a little...and feel very proud to be a Hungarian girl.

Not Waving But Drowning
by Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Of course, I can't pick only one, but here are two of my favorites:

"I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud"
William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

In The Desert
Stephen Crane

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter -- bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."


Both very simple poems, and all the more beautiful because of it.

Robert Frost

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

I love that poem! How can I possibly pick just one?!? I think I should just have a list of my top 20, it'd be alot easier.

My favorites List has reshuffled--

FERN HILL

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Dylan Thomas

Edna St. Vincent Millay - 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
A little while, that in me sings no more.


Birches

WHEN I see birches bend to left and right
Across the line of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them 5
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells 10
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust?-
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed 15
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. 20
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows?- 25
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again 30
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away 35
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, 40
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches;
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood 45
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over. 50
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, 55
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. 60

L'Eternité, d'Arthur Rimbaud:
Elle est retrouvée.
Quoi ? - L'Éternité.
C'est la mer allée
Avec le soleil.

Âme sentinelle,
Murmurons l'aveu
De la nuit si nulle
Et du jour en feu.

Des humains suffrages,
Des communs élans
Là tu te dégages
Et voles selon.

Puisque de vous seules,
Braises de satin,
Le Devoir s'exhale
Sans qu'on dise : enfin.

Là pas d'espérance,
Nul orietur,
Science avec patience,
Le supplice est sûr.

Elle est retrouvée.
Quoi ? - L'Éternité.
C'est la mer allée
Avec le soleil.

translation (approximate...)
Eternity

It is rediscovered!
What? Eternity.
It's the sea frayed
With the sun.

My eternal soul,
Observe your vow
In spite of the lonely night
And the day on fire.

So, free yourself
Of human suffrages,
Of common enthusiasms!
You fly depending on...

- Never hope,
No orietur.
Science and patience,
The torture is sure.

More in the morning,
Embers of satin,
Your ardour,
Is duty.

It is rediscovered!
- What? - Eternity.
It is the sea frayed
With the sun.

Requiem for the Croppies
by Seamus Heaney.


.

The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley -
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp -
We moved quick and sudden in our own country
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
.
A people, hardly marching - on the hike -
We found new tactics happening each day:
We'd cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
.
Until, on Vinegar Hill, the fatal conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August the barley grew up out of the grave.
.

hell! who can answer that?

i got loads of favorites. i don't think i have an all time favourite though

I have many favourites.
Here's just one ...

Echo

Christina Georgina Rossetti


Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Favourite poem?? How can i choose? There are so many great poems; but one that i particularly like and one of my favourites, is Prayer Before Birth by Louis MacNeice:

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak to me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

I like Robert Forst poem that reminds me about Miles to go before i sleep