Do you have a favourite poem?

Question

What is it? and why do you love it so?

Answer 1

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced on the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun split clouds-and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of-wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air
Up, up the long, delerious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespased sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee Jr. was an American who joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940 to defend England, where he went to high school.
A few days after his first combat mission he began writing this poem while on a high altitude mission. He sent it to his parents, and about to months later he died in an aircraft colision. He was 19 years old.
He was a young man in a high performance fighter plane. He was taught the manuvers needed to fly air combat missions: diving, turning, and all other moves used to preserve his life while defeating the enemy in an aerial ballet of death.
Even though he was trained as an air warrior, he saw the beauty of flight too.
I always wanted to learn how to fly, but have only done so in simulations. I would love to experience the feeling of complete freedom that you can get from flying a high performance plane. Performing manuvers that even eagles can't do and fly high enough to touch the face of God.

Answer 2

I think if I had to chose a favorite right now (it really varies depending on when I'm asked) I'd pick:

"I Have Been One Acquainted With The Night"

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain--and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

--Robert Frost

Answer 3

I am a fan of Tennyson. His poetry is so heroically beautiful. An example is "Crossing the Bar";

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.


In these words the poet's voice is demanding a life well-lived so there will be no regrets or fears when it ends.

Tennyson wrote of the Arthurian legends with passion and evocative musicality.

Answer 4

Mine is The Witch by Adelaide Crapsey. Think about it; what happened to the people in Salem who were accused of being witches? It's about intolerance, and that kind of persecution can happen again. To anybody. It's pretty scary when you think about it.


When I was a girl by Nilus stream
I watched the desert stars arise;
My lover, he who dreamed the Sphinx,
learned all his dreaming from my eyes.
I bore in Greece a burning name,
And I have been in Italy
Madonna to a painter-lad,
And mistress to a Medici.

And have you heard (and I have heard)
Of puzzled men with decorous mein.
Who judged--the wench knows far too much--
And hanged her on the Salem green.

Answer 5

I love many poems. Poe, Tennyson, and so many more, but in college my eyes were opened to modern poetry; something I had never really given any thought to. e. e. cummings was one of the first modern poets to have any influence with me, and this particular poem greatly touched my own writing. It is beautifully written. I fell in love with his imagery, line breaks, word play, and how something so light and "airy" feeling could convey an image so deep.

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

-- e. e. cummings


I know its not nearly as good, but this was the first of my writings that was inspired by his work if you are interested:
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/43735439/
not a plug by any means, just for reference as to just how much his work touched me.

Answer 6

Louise Gluck

First Memory

Long ago, I was wounded. I lived
to revenge myself
against my father, not
for what he was -
for what I was: from the beginning of time,
in childhood, I thought
that pain meant
I was not loved.
It meant I loved.

Answer 7

It would have to be John Donne's Holy Sonnet X. After reading it, it has stayed with me for a very long time. "Death, be not so proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so . . . Can anything beat that!


Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell'st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.

Answer 8

Aw, Hollis took mine; it's also "I Have Been One Acquainted With The Night".

Answer 9

Yes! my favorite one is "Annabel Lee" by Egar Allan Poe, I love it cause it's sweet and tender. Try to read it you'll see it's true

Answer 10

quote the raven by Edgar Allan Poe, so freaky