What is your favourite poem?

Answer 1

"Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life; though unreal shapes be pictured there
And it but mimic all we would believe
Behind, lurk Fear and Hope, twin destinies
Who ever weave their shadowsw over the Chasm,
Sightless and drear. I one who had lifted it;
He sought, for his lost heart was tender,
For things to love, but found them not, alas!
Nor was there aught the world contained
the which he would approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a spirit that strove for truth
And like the Preacher found it not."

A Sonnet, Percy B. Shelley

Answer 2

Great question. I have a lot of favourite poems - Carol Ann Duffy's 'The Laughter of Stafford Girls High' always pleases me. Plenty of other noble contenders here - If and the one that starts with 'stop all the clocks' particularly. But oddly enough, the one that I always immediately think of when people ask me my favourite poem is not some moving tale of human emotion, but rather, a slightly embarrasing admission, like being on a picket line and admitting you read the Daily Mail.

My favourite poem of all time is by Alfred Lord Tennysson, and it's the story of a sea battle.

It's called The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet, and the link below will take you to it.
I'm very very sorry!

Answer 3

I like Frost's "The Road Not Taken," too, but here's another I really like. It's written in a somewhat unusual poetry form known as a villanelle:

If I Could Tell You


Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose all the lions get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

W. H. Auden
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But this one might really be my favorite:

Ask Me


Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

William Stafford

Answer 4

Here are a couple of mine. I like the 1st one because of the rythm it makes - like a steam train!

From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows, the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away on the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

or try this one the imagery is fantastic

A Smuggler's song By Rudyard Kipling

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!


Five-and-twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk;
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!


Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine;
Don't you shout to come and look, nor take 'em for your play;
Put the brushwood back again,—and they'll be gone next day!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm—don't you ask no more!


If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you ‘pretty maid,’ and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been!


Knocks and footsteps round the house—whistles after dark—
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie—
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!


If you do as you've been told, likely there's a chance
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood—
A present from the Gentlemen, along o' being good!


Five-and-twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark—
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie—
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Answer 5

'Funeral Blues' by WH Auden. The first time I read it I was moved to tears.

I hope you don't mind if I post it:

Funeral Blues (Song IX / from Two Songs for Hedli Anderson)

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 in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe 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 forever, 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.

I prefer not to have 'favourite poems' but rather class them by how they affect me. 'The Desiderata' is a poem that affects me profoundly. It renews my spirit everytime I read it.

Give it a whirl:
http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm

Answer 6

She Was Pure But She Was Honest

She was pure, but she was honest,
Victim of the Squire's whim:
First he loved her, then he left her,
And she lost her honest name.

Then she ran away to London,
For to hide her grief and shame;
There she met another squire,
And she lost her name again.

See her riding in her carriage,
In the Park and all so gay:
All the nibs and nobby persons
Come to pass the time of day.

See the little old-world village
Where her aged parents live,
Drinking the champagne she send them;
But they never can forgive.

In the rich man's arms she flutters,
Like a bird with broken wing:
First he lover her, then he left her,
And she hasn't got a ring.

See him in the splendid mansion,
Entertaining with the best,
While the girl that he has ruined,
Entertains a sordid guest.

See him in the House of Commons,
Making laws to put down crime,
While the victim of his passions
Trails her way through mud and slim.

Standing on the bridge at midnight,
She says 'Farewell, blighted Love',
There's a scream, a splash - Good Heavens!
What is she a-doing of?

Then they drag her from the river,
Water from her clothes they wrang,
For they thought that she was drownded;
But the corpse got up and sang;

'It's the same the whole world over;
It's the poor that gets the blame,
It's the rich that gets the pleasure.
Isn't it a blooming shame?'

ANON




Celia Celia

When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on.

Adrian Mitchell

Answer 7

Ode to the West Wind by Percy Shelley. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot comes in at a close second.

ETA: And for some reason the rest of the 20th century slipped my mind. Ginsberg's Howl and Levertov's In Mind, also.

Answer 8

He wishes for the cloths of heaven by Yeats and The Good Morrow by Donne - both of which we had read at our wedding. The Flea by John Donne is also a marvel of form and persuasion (I'm an English Teacher!) but hardly romantic . . . Simon Armitage's Killing Time is very clever and as a collection, I do like Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife. Could go on . . .

Answer 9

I like the old ballads. Some of my favourites are:

La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
Barbara Allen (Anonymous)
Lord Randall (Anonymous)

Answer 10

Nobility by Alice Cary has a lot of philosophy, Great.
If you like tear-jerkers, a poem about poor ladies who were paid for sewing shirts. It was called "cottage industry". Bundles of garment parts were brought to private homes to be sewn together by hand. The piece rate was so low that the women couldn't stop for even an hour or two, or they wouldn't earn enough for their meager food. If you like tear jerkers look up
Song of the Shirt by Thomas Hood.