Looking for a good poem, for my exam???

Question

For my dram exam i need to recite a poem, by a well known poet, it needs to be 16 stanzas or more or it can even be the extract of a poem. PLZ HELP

also cant be childish but can be funny, sppoky, sad.
I was also wondering if any body new the poem about cristabel(i think) and the woman in white, if so where can i find it and can i have the full name and poet please

Answer 1

try this one:

http://www.lindaslyrics.com/The%20Dash%20Poem.html

Answer 2

Here are two of my favourite poems -

Stop all the clocks by, cut off the telephone
byW. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.



Warning
by Jenny Joseph

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 sandals, 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 beer mats 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.

Answer 3

Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish is awesome.....but not really long enough - here is is, however.

Ars Poetica

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown -

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind -

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea -

A poem should not mean
But be

-- Archibald MacLeish

Answer 4

Hey Zullie,

This comes from a question I answered this morning:

Robert Frost did not write about sex, (even if it sounds it).
------------------------------...
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

------------------------------...
Frost isn't a poet who writes about sex, it may sound like it has sexual connotations but he was a nature lover, hence, all of his other poems about nature. He had an immense love for nature itself, and can only describe this as 'burning' love.

The poem itself is about the simple pleasures in life that the average person takes for granted.

Frost also mentions the apple here (like in many other of his poems), which represents his greed and passion for nature itself (reference to Eden here, like in Nothing Gold Can Stay and Mending Wall).

Answer 5

Try Orpheus and Eurydice by Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke is relatively well-known, and it's beautiful.

Answer 6

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes is always a great one to know.