Could you please tell me a poem you love?

Question

"A person should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul." Goethe

Sounds like a good idea to me. Please help to restore my soul after an hour on YA. Thank you.

Answer 1

roses r red
cole is black
why is your chest
as flat as your back

Answer 2

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.
Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A Child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost -- how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.

This world is wild as an old wives' tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

"The House of Christmas" by G.K. Chesterton

Answer 3

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph

also


Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Answer 4

"A small dragon" by Brian Patten. I met it long ago and as a primary teacher shared it with all my classes. Sadly, a couple of years ago at a poetry reading in Market Rasen when I met Brian Patten he went away with the mistaken idea that I made them study the poem. I was too overawed to put him right. I did no such thing - the kids and I just enjoyed it and chatted about it. Anyway, it starts:-
"I found a small dragon in the woodshed..." It's essentially a love poem but can be enjoyed on many levels. I'm pretty sure he has a website site or you could just Google it (if I'm allowed to say that on a Yahoo website). ENJOY. Sorry to sound dense but what is YA?

Answer 5

No apologies, is a poem for kids. This is the first poem I can remember reading over and over for enjoyment and learning by heart, and it's great fun to recite and do lots of mimes and get all excited as the action ramps up. I love it!

Matilda
By Hilaire Belloc

Matilda told such dreadful lies,
It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes;
Her aunt, who, from her earliest youth,
Had kept a strict regard for truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not she
Discovered this infirmity.
For once, towards the close of day,
Matilda, growing tired of play
And finding she was left alone,
Went tiptoe to the telephone
And summoned the immediate aid
Of London's nobel Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the gallant band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs and Bow,
With courage high and hearts a-glow
They galloped, roaring though the town,
"Matilda's house is burning down"
Inspired by British cheers and loud
Proceeding from the frenzied crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the ball-room floor;
And took peculiar pains to souse
The pictures up and down the house,
Until Matilda's aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed
And even then she had to pay
To get the men to go away!
. . . . .
It happened that a few weeks later
Here aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that interesting play
The Second Mrs Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her niece
To hear this entertaining piece:
A deprivation just and wise
To punish her for telling lies.
That night a fire did break out-
You should have heard Matilda shout!
You should have heard her scream and bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To people passing in the street-
(The rapidly increasing heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence)-but all in vain!
For every time she shouted "Fire!"
They only answered "Little Liar!"
And therefore when her aunt returned,
Matilda, and the house, were burned.

Answer 6

No matter where I go, I always feel my home, pulling at my heart - this poem reminds me of that and helps to make my heart sing...so, just because....

The Lake Isle Of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Answer 7

High Windows
by Philip Larkin


When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's ******* her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

Answer 8

Ozymandius
by: Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler 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 shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandius, 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.

Sea-Fever
John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.


I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.


I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like
a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Walt Whitman
Song of the Open Road
15

Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe — I have tried it — my own feet have tried it well — be not detain'd!

Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.

Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourselp. will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

Answer 9

With 'no admittance' printed on my heart
I go abroad and play my public part
And win applause.
I have no cause to be ashamed
Of this great self that others see
But how can I reveal to you
And you
My real self's hidden and unlovely hue?
How can I undeceive?
How end despair of this intolerable make-believe?

Sorry, don't know the poet but any of us could have written it, I suppose.

Another one:

A centipede was happy, quite,
Until a frog, in fun, said:
'Hey, which leg comes after which?'
This raised her mind to such a pitch
She lay distracted in a ditch
Considering how to run.

My favourite poem is The Listeners by Walter de La Mare.
I won't write it here but read it sometime. It's great.

Answer 10

This poem has stayed with me since I first read it in high school:
The Fool's Prayer by Edward Rowland Sill

The royal feast was done; the King
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: " Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the Monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: " O,Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool !

"No pity Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin: but Lord
Be merciful to me, a fool!

" Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
Tis by our follies that so long
We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet,still in the mire,
Go crushing blossoms without end;
These hard,well-meaning hands we thrust
Among the heartstrings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say-
Who knows how grandly it had rung!

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,
The chastening stripe must cleanse them all;
But for our blunders - oh in shame
Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
Men crown the knave,and scourge the tool
That did his will; but Thou,O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool.

The room was hushed,in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool'
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

Answer 11

Sticks and Stones
May Break Your Bones,
But Some Bad Poetry,
Just Might Incite you!

By Mama Mia