Here is a sampler of various English-language poetry which, I hope, will give non-readers of poetry, in particular, the impetus to follow through and discover the joys of poetry for themselves.
The samples I have included are representative of the development of poetry over some 800 years, but without going into technical or critical detail; that is to say, I have tried to provide examples that may, notwithstanding any deeper meaning, be appreciated at face value.
Note that the list is fairly traditional, in that there are no examples of ethnic verse. This is purely for the reason that I have limited my selections to works with which I am familiar (ie. largely British and, to a lesser extent, American). It was extremely difficult restricting the list to the 20 excerpts detailed below and, whilst literary merit was my primary criteria, (arguably) my one indulgence was the William Carlos Williams poem.
If your own favourite is not here, tell us about it.
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And springeth the wude nu –
Sing cuccu!
Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!
[Loose translation]
Summer has arrived,
Sing loudly, Cuckoo!
Seeds grow and meadows bloom
And the forest springs anew
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow lows after the calf.
The bullock leaps, the buck farts,
Sing merrily, Cuckoo!
This wonderful lyric is one of the most famous examples of Middle English (1066-1450) and, although it was traditionally sung as a “round”, is also commonly taught as an introduction to Middle English literature. It is thought to be written in the Wessex Dialect. W. de Wycombe, a late 13th century English composer and copyist has been suggested as being the author, but there is little evidence to support this. It is typically attributed as Anonymous.
Note that a round is a musical piece in which two or more voices repeatedly sing the same melody, but with each voice starting at a different time. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is an example of a round that most people will be familiar with.
Interesting fact: whilst some commentators translate verteth as “twisting” (or whatever) the word is, in fact, the earliest written example of vert, the Middle English version of fart!
And here is a very nice choral version for your listening pleasure, in counterpoint.
Image: Shakespeare’s First Folio, 1623
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 dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed:
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.
Shakespeare who? A great sonnet from the nonpareil!
Interesting fact: Shakespeare ultimately had no descendents – apparently, his grandchildren all died!
Before rude hands have touch’d it?
Have you mark’d but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutch’d it?
Have you felt the wool of beaver,
Or swan’s down ever?
Or have smelt o’ the bud o’ the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!
I was so tempted to quote Jonson’s famous Song : To Celia, which includes the famous line “Drink to me only with thine eyes”, but this lesser known example of his work is typical of his lyricism. It was published as one of ten linked pieces in 1623. A friend of William Shakespeare, Jonson was a complex character; he apparently liked an argument and could be arrogant, but was also noted for his sense of honour and integrity. Not quite a genius…but still one of the giants of English literature.
Interesting fact: Jonson is the only person buried standing up in Westminster Abbey (London). His grave bears the famous epitaph “O Rare Ben Johnson” – yes, the inscription erroneously includes an “h” in his name – the engraver made a mistake!
According to Westminster Abbey:
In 1849, the place was disturbed by a burial nearby and the clerk of works saw the two leg bones of Jonson fixed upright in the sand and the skull came rolling down from a position above the leg bones into the newly made grave. There was still some red hair attached to it.
Entire of itself.
Each 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 thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
These famous words by John Donne (pronounced “Dunn”) were not originally written as a poem – the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose. The final 3 lines are possibly amongst the most quoted excerpts of English verse.
Interesting fact: Donne was Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral (London)
Old Times is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
Born in London’s Cheapside, Herrick was the seventh child and fourth son of Nicholas Herrick, a prosperous goldsmith, who committed suicide when Robert was a year old. He ultimately took religious orders, and became vicar of the parish of Dean Prior, Devon in 1629, a post that carried a term of thirty-one years. It was in the secluded country life of Devon that he wrote some of his best work.
The over-riding message of Herrick’s work is that life is short, the world is beautiful, love is splendid, and we must use the short time we have to make the most of it (“carpe diem”). He is also renowned for frequent references to lovemaking and the female body.
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.
Richard Lovelace was born a nobleman, being the firstborn son of a knight. On April 30, 1642, on behalf of Royalists in Kent, he presented to Parliament a petition asking them to restore the Anglican bishops to Parliament; as a result he was immediately imprisoned in Westminster Gatehouse where, whilst serving his time, wrote “To Althea, From Prison”, which contains – as per the excerpt given – one of the more famed lines of English verse “Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage”. Basically, Lovelace is saying that physical imprisonment/oppression cannot stifle his imagination or spirit.
Interesting fact: While in prison, Lovelace worked on a volume of poems, titled Lucasta, which was considered to be his best collection. The “Lucasta” to whom he dedicated much of his verse was Lucy Sacheverell, whom he often called Lux Casta. Unfortunately, she mistakenly believed that he died at the Battle of Dunkirk in 1646 and so married somebody else. Oops!
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, Heav’nly Muse, that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
In the beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos;
Milton ! Another literary giant. Possibly ranked, in terms of sheer literary genius, second to Shakespeare. Paradise Lost is an epic, dealing with the fall and subsequent salvation of Man. So great was the contemporary acclaim for Milton’s poetic epics, that other writers began to avoid writing long poetical works…which contributed to the birth of the novel as a literary genre.
Interesting fact: Milton became blind, and most of his prodigious works were dictated to a secretary.
Also: as a student at Cambridge University, Milton was so vain about his appearance that he was nicknamed “the Lady of Christ’s College”.
Image: Inscription on the Church at Stoke Poges refering to Gray’s Elegy
The lowing Herd winds slowly o’er the Lea,
The Plowman homeward plods his weary Way,
And leaves the World to Darkness, and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds.
Gray’s Elegy (an elegy commemorates death) was written after the passing of one of Gray’s close friends, and is a meditation on the mortality of man. Gray was Professor of History and Modern Languages at Cambridge and, despite not being a prolific writer, was one of the most prominent poets of his day He was buried in Stoke Poges (near Windsor, England) the village whose churchyard was where he composed the Elegy.
Interesting fact: although he became a literary giant of his age, Gray only published 1,000 lines of poetry during his lifetime – this was due, largely, to his acute fear of failure.
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
This is a good example of a poem having as many dimensions as you might like to afford it. On the one hand, there is no certainty as to exactly what Coleridge is talking about. However, it is also deemed by many critics to be profoundly symbolic (art v nature etc.). The poem does appear to most to have obvious sexual imagery, though Coleridge himself did not elaborate on any hidden depths or symbolic undertones. Kubla Khan was, upon its publication, widely denigrated by contemporary critics. Today, it is viewed as a work of genius.
Interesting fact: Coleridge (possessor of an egregious opium addiction) stated that he woke one morning having had a dream/vision of the entire text of Kubla Khan. The poem remained unfinished because, as he was in the midst of writing it down, he was interrupted by a knock at the door – it was a local village tradesman. After some small talk the villager departed, but Coleridge had now lost his train of thought and could not remember the rest of the poem! Bummer!
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Much of Wordsworth’s poetry was concerned with nature. He was a well-traveled individual, accompanied on his excursions by his sister, and lifelong companion, Dorothy. He was a prolific poet, and every school pupil will probably be familiar with his poem Daffodils.
Interesting fact: Wordsworth was born in a town with the improbable name of Cockermouth.
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
George Gordon Byron (the 6th Lord Byron) was an egotistical and temperamental person who during his own lifetime witnessed his reputation as an individual and as a poet reach lofty heights for a time only to plummet due, in no small part, to his scandalous private life (he married a wealthy heiress who left him after a year of marriage for reasons that were greatly speculated upon but never divulged). In fact, his poetry was thereafter belittled so much he left England, never to return. His literary reputation has, of course, been more than restored since his death.
She Walks in Beauty was inspired by his being smitten at the beauty of his first-cousin, whom he met at a funeral – she being dressed in black mourning attire.
Interesting fact: Byron had a club foot, and his sensitivity to this is reflected in some of his works.
Image: Keats’ deathmask
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,-
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
Having already lost both parents, Keats wrote these soulful lines upon learning that his brother was dying and that he himself was suffering from tuberculosis. He views the nightingale’s song as lasting and eternal, and as a counterpoint to his own deeply-felt mortality. Having said this, Keats could also turn his hand to some of the most beautiful lines in the English language eg. To Autumn).
Interesting fact: Keats was a doctor who was tormented by operations carried out – as was the norm in his day – without anaesthetic.
Also, it seems that our friend Lord Byron was a little jealous of Keats’ obvious poetic talents. In letters to contemporaries he described Keats’ works as “mental masturbation”, and wrote of “Johnny Keats’ piss-a-bed poetry” Charming! To be fair, he wrote generously of Shelley (well, of his personality, if not of his works).
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England – now!
Wonderful words imaginatively expressing an ex-patriate’s nostalgia for his home country
Interesting fact: Stephen King’s Dark Tower series was inspired by Browning’s famous work “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came”.
Also… Browning was the first person ever whose voice was able to be heard after his death ! He attended a dinner party in 1889 (the year he died) and was persuaded to talk into a phonogram (a wax-cylinder recording device). He (somewhat falteringly) read his famous work How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix, which you can listen to here .
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was the wife of the poet Robert Browning and, though the theme of her works was often social injustice, she shows in these well-known lines that she could turn her hand to romantic poetry – a fact well understood by her husband, who had to insist that she publish them. I think the words speak for themselves, and that it is fairly pointless to try and attribute any profound meaning to them.
Interesting fact: Barrett-Browning, having never been unwell, was prescribed opium at age 15 and suffered from unknown illnesses (so called “nervous disorders”) for the rest of her life.
Image: Fitzgerald’s grave.
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!
Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyát is a (loose) translation of the work of 11th century Persian poet Omar Khayyam. It’s not a particularly consistent translation, but was a staple text for English students for many years (not so much today). It has been pointed out that the “thou” to which Fitzgerald refers in the second line of the famous tract, above, refers to a male (given that there does not appear to be any reference to women in this work).
Interesting fact: Fitzgerald was a vegetarian who, erm, apparently hated vegetables. He mostly lived off of bread and butter and fruit.
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—
Another who is commonly held to merit the title “genius.” This poem is reflecting, in a remarkably nonchalant manner, upon death. This particular poem has been described as “flawless to the last detail” by at least one eminent critic.
Interesting fact: reclusive in nature, only 2 of Dickinson’s 1,000+ poems were published during her lifetime – and these 2 without her permission!
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
from The Road Not Taken (1916)
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Just a few lines from two of Robert Frost’s more famous works. Frost remains one of America’s pre-eminent poets, and there is often a genial simplicity in his words that continues to make his poetry accessible. Although a common theme in Frost is individuality or independence, I cannot help but think that he doesn’t follow through enough.
Listen to Frost read The Road Not Taken.
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
I’m not sure what is so compelling about this; maybe it is the simplicity of a writer who liked to create imagery about everyday people in their everyday lives. Whatever the case…I do know that most people, after a few readings, come to also love this short poem without really knowing why.
Interesting fact: Williams was a doctor.
Listen to him read one of his other works (Elise)
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
…
And you, my father, there on the 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.
Dylan Thomas, one of the 20th century’s more influential poets, wrote this to commemorate the death of his father. The poem (which in its entirety has 19 lines) has only 2 rhymes throughout.
Interesting facts: it is widely held that Robert Zimmerman adopted the name Bob Dylan as a homage to Dylan Thomas, who was somewhat of a Bohemian cult figure in the USA.
Widely believed to be an alcoholic (a rumor that Thomas himself “promoted”), there is much evidence to suggest that this was not the case (including the state of his autopsied liver).
Listen to Dylan Thomas, himself, reading the above poem.
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.
Who said modern poetry is dead! Undoubtedly Larkin’s best known poem, according to wikipedia “It appears in its entirety on more than a thousand web pages. It is frequently parodied. Television viewers in the United Kingdom voted it one of the Nation’s Top 100 Poems”. Cynical..yes, but also memorable.
Interesting fact: Larkin’s reputation was tarnished after his death. A biography based on his papers suggested that he was preoccupied with pornography and racism.
Contributor: kiwiboi
Interesting list… some of my favorites.
Larkin’s poem comes off as whining to me, however. I feel sorry for him in a way, maybe he had a traumatic childhood…
I also will say with great certainty that being the father to my son is the joy of my life.
Yes, i shall surely ‘bloweth some med’
kiwiboi:
Excellent List!
And the ‘Interesting Facts’ are add so much.
Thank You.
* are great and add so much*
There is one I like called “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Sara Teasdale:
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
I would like to add “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen.
“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping softly behind…
Kiwiboi; I am impressed. Very good job. I kind of have a thing for Don Marquis, since grade 6;
“i was talking to a moth
the other evening
he was trying to break into
an electric light bulb
to fry himself on the wires”
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/36.html
he does classical rhyme and was a pithy writer, of Archy and Mehitable fame.
That was really interesting! I am ZERO knowledge on things like this, and I think its great to learn a little about everything! great list!
You’ve listed all but one of my favorites here. The one you didn’t list follows below.
“The Second Coming”
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
– William Butler Yeats, January 1919
Everyone I know who has read this poem insists that Yeats was referencing the birth of the antichrist with this poem. I personally think he was referencing the birth of Christ, but that’s just me.
I am extremely disappointed that Pablo Neruda and Walt Whitman aren’t on here.
Leaves of Grass is practically my poetic Bible for imagery and self *****ysis. And nobody can capture sensuality and intimacy like Pablo Neruda.
Also Allen Ginsberg for his uninhibited exuberance, god that man knew no bounds.
Not a bad list, really. Can’t say the Wordsworth selection was the best from that venerable old poet. Didn’t realize there was such a horrible photo (or a photo of all) of Browning available.
Oh, and the Barrett Browning piece is tripe and generally recognized as such by those who read more than greeting cards, no?
Also, WCW was a hack, and a pretentious one at that, being the worst kind of hack.
What about the Divine Comedy?
stevenh – “And the Interesting Facts add so much.” Actually, the list started out as being about interesting facts about poets; but their works took over the process, so I kinda tried to accommodate both.
Shadow – heh, I agonized over who to leave out when the list had, like, 40 poems. Yeats was one of the last I dropped (Innisfree). Glad to find another Yeats admirer.
Ginger – Leaves of Grass is a great work but, again, I wanted to try and use either eminently accessible works, or masterpieces that…just, well, belonged. Sorry about that! As for Neruda, I don’t know anything about him (another limitation of my list) but I will make a point of looking some of his works up.
Bob – there are plenty who would disagree about Barrett-Browning. Remember, too, the list is just as much about introducing people to some poetry; it is not a “Top 20″. Regarding WCW..I disagree to an extent. However, I explained the reason I chose his poem. Wordsworth ? Again, there might be “better” works, but the one I chose certainly stands on its merits IMHO.
erickrn – Divine Comedy ? A great work indeed. However, I think that Dante preferred to write in Italian; the introduction mentions that the list is confined to English language works…sorry
To all the others contributing their own suggestions…Great! Keep ‘em coming! there’s some interesting stuff there
What about Ogden Nash!
Always Marry An April Girl
Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true –
I love April, I love you.
This might be a bit cliched, but I’ve always found Byron’s “Darkness” very beautiful, yet sad.
“She was the universe.” What an ending.
“There once was a man from Nantucket…”
Just kidding, just kidding!
I only know two of these…Emily Dickinson’s and Dylan Thomas’s. I should definitely check into the others, good list!
Eh. Poetry still sucks.
Bullhockey! Good list, but the entire time I was reading it I was holding out for an entry from Dorothy Parker!! No Dorothy Parker??
I agree with Bob about WCW. Sounds like he’s leaving notes on the refrigerator to his wife on a very narrow paper or dry erase board.
Number one was awesome.
oh man, i love poems and writing them as well…I have to say this is my fave list..
Here’s one from Pablo Neruda. Extremely heart wrenching…
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, ‘The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tries to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another’s. She will be another’s. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
No offence but there is nothing/no one in this world that can get me to like poetry…
My dearest Cummings is absent.
Nice effort, but I think I would have moved away from the classic “everyone’s heard of these” poems. (Though to be fair, if you’re giving people a sampling of poetry over the ages, it’s kind of hard to avoid all the “old favorites.”)
I also agree with Bob on the Brownings.
I would have used some Yeats in here, and some Marianne Moore… Andrew Marvell also…
But for a quick contribution, I like Stevie Smith’s:
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.
Another one:
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell
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 the 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.
interesting fact:
#5 was incorporated into the Dream Theater song “A Change of Seasons.”
Also, Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”…. ALL of which is a treasure to read…. but just a small snippet:
I grow old . . .I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
What? No Plath, Heaney, Yeats or Kavanagh?!
Daithi you must have done the same LC syllabus as I did!!
I like a bunch of what’s posted, but I like John Donne’s poem, “Death Be Not Proud” also. There’s another one, I don’t know who it’s by, but I have liked it since childhood. It goes like like this:
I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I shall tell you anyhow
I’d rather see than be one!
Humanity i love you (E. E. Cummings)
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shops and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
im gonna be honest, i couldn’t even finish the first one.
What, no “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot? Here’s a slightly strange but somehow enchanting mahsup of the recording of him reading it to Portishead.
http://www.hyperlexic.com/ts_eliot_portishead.php
No way, The Beatles were way better than Led Zeppelin
EricB-I saw that! You don’t happen to go to UTA do you?
Hehe…the buck farts…
No offense to anyone here, but I hate poetry sooo much! I appreciate people who appreciate it though!
I love poetry, and I happen to be one of those who feel poems should rhyme to be good. Not that other poems can’t be good if they don’t rhyme but rhyming gives such a nice ring to it.
This was my 9th grade English teacher’s favorite poem and after reading it, one of mine too. Enjoy =).
To an Athlete Dying Young
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields were glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
This is a fabulous list! And manashiori, I love the Neruda peom as well – it is very sad. My favorite, which would not have met the criteria and so would not appear on the list, is Sappho’s Poem of Jealousy (this translation by Mary Barnard):
He is more than a hero
He is a god in my eyes —
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you — he
who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing
laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can’t
speak — my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,
hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body
and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn’t far from me.
Sylvia Plath is one of my favorites.
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B.Yates
I just noticed there aren’t any of Edgar Allan Poe’s works listed. I thought he wrote some poetry?
What about the good ole bathroom stall poets?
Here I sit in a cloud of vapor,
And I see no toilet paper.
How much longer shall I linger,
Before I have to use my finger?
How can you bring up the “Cuckoo Song” without mentioning Ezra Pound’s parody, “Ancient Music”:
Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
and how the wind doth ramm,
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ‘gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm,
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
Thank you, Mathilda, for reminding us of Sappho, and the Greeks in general… my favorites.
Sappho:
Some say horsemen, some say warriors,
Some say a fleet of ships is the loveliest
Vision in this dark world, but I say it’s
What you love.
It’s easy to make this clear to everyone,
Since Helen, she who outshone
All others in beauty, left
A fine husband,
And headed for Troy
Without a thought for
Her daughter, her dear parents…
Led astray….
And I recall Anaktoria, whose sweet step
Or that flicker of light on her face,
I’d rather see than Lydian chariots
Or the armed ranks of the hoplites.
And Sappho’s most touching, I think:
I have a daughter, golden,
Beautiful, like a flower -
Kleis, my love -
And I would not exchange her for
All the riches of Lydia……
and my personal favorite of hers: (my own translation)
The Moon is down,
The Pleiades have set at midnight.
The hours go on,
and I lie here, alone.
Also, the old favorite from Archilochus:
Well, what if some barbaric Thracian glories
in the perfect shield I left under a bush?
I was sorry to leave it–but I saved my skin.
Does it matter? O hell, I’ll buy a better one.
No Roman would have written that…. I love the Greeks. Much more human, much more likely to delight in simply being alive.
Ozymandias and the Raven are my two favorite poems. Also has anyone ever looked at Calvin and Hobbes’s poetry? It is some of my favorite literature.
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I hate Shakespeare. He was responsible for too many English lessons that seemed to las forever.
Here’s a nice piece of war poetry that’s stuck with me:
As another soldier gets to Heaven,
To St. Peter he will tell;
“Another soldier reporting, Sir,
I’ve served my time in Hell.”
Thats really good whose it by
Here’s Poe:
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
I really enjoyed this break from work to read this list. My fiance and is knee deep in studying paradise lost. milton’s view on the Bible is extroadinarily close to mine. It is difficult to get apast the language of the poem since it is huge, but not to the trained eye, like hers and not mine. I have to have her explain much of it to me because I miss the subtle points. Damn math brain!
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan’t crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
-Dylan Thomas
Also you should put a note that Bob Dylan is an amazing poet who uses song rather than just literature. He is one of my favorites.
It always seems to be that Poe’s work is usually considered horrible by critics. Like maybe something too immature to be given credit. According to Wikipedia, other writers didn’t like him either. T.S. Eliot said he had “the intellect of a highly gifted person before puberty”
Regardless, I always liked Eldorado.
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old,
This knight so bold,
And o’er his heart a shadow,
Fell as he found,
No spot of ground,
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength,
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
“Shadow,” said he,
“Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?”
“Over the mountains of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,”
The shade replied,
“If you seek for Eldorado!”
Great list, Kiwiboi!!
Loved the Interesting facts after each poem. Jfrater better watch out!!!
i what is probably just a nod to my ignorance i will ask the obvious question…
what defines poetry? meaning, why is something called a poem instead of a short story. as a child, and probably still today, i thought it had to rhyme to be considerd a poem. therefore, no rhyming = not a poem in my early estimation.
skeev:
Yeah, Poe is a little sophomoric. Though the French had a particular fondness for him (Baudelaire is largely responsible for promoting Poe in the world). But then the French are also known for sophomoric poetry… depending on your personal taste, Rimbaud and Verlaine and their ilk fall into that category.
DiscHuker:
A poem most definitely does NOT have to rhyme. The ancient Greeks didn’t bother with it (whenever you see a translation of an ancient Greek poem that rhymes, it’s WRONG).
A poem is verse, it’s written in a meter. Prose is written sans meter. Simple as that.
Of course, there are such things as “prose poems,” but let’s not confuse the issue too much.
(There’s also poetic prose, but further confusion is just nasty).
So Randall, a poem is like lyrics to a song but without music?
Great list but I would have put Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” in it. “Howl” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” are my favorite poems.
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”
Jakooooob:
In essence, yes, though songs don’t always translate that well as poetry. The rhythm and melody of music aren’t always exactly the same.
But the Greeks originally wrote their poetry as songs. So the “poems” we know of today, of Homer, Sappho, etc.—they were originally *sung.*
Hey jfrater put some spanish poems that have been translated to English and put them here.
For example: Poem 20,Poem 15 and Sonnet XVII all of them of Pablo Neruda.
I think after reading them people will enjoy poetry.
Great list Kiwiboi…a lot of ‘one liners’ I recognise. “If I should die think only this of me…”
Nice list, I’m really into poetry so I like it!