What is your ALL time favorite line in poetry??

Question

What poem and why??

Answer 1

Caloo Claay, no work today, we're cabbages and kings!

From Lewis Caroll...I hope it speaks for itself, I have always wanted to be a cabbage.

and another line,
"Echoes, dying dying dying"
from Blast of the Bugle, by Lord Alfred Tennyson. Its about a bugle echoe, fading inot the distance. I have a way of quoting it...like, I shout ECHOES...DY--ing...dying d-ie-ing
(very dracomical!)

EDIT

Then I remembered T.S Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. Is it possible for an entire publication to count as one line? Perhaps not...in which case, I'll go with

OOPSA CAT!, from the Adressing of Cats and

"When you notice a cat in profound mediation, the reason I tell you is always the same, His mind is engaged in the rapt contemplation of the thought of his name. His ineffable, effable, Effanineffable, deeply inscrutable, singular name."

Its a lineisn't it? Maybe...sperated by randomly placed full-stops??

Its impossible for me to have one favorite!

Answer 2

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo

This is from the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S Eliot

This is my favorite line in a poem at the moment. The reason is pretty simple, T.S. Eliot is one of the greatest poets that has ever lived ;)

Answer 3

Ok technically it's two lines (but one thought):

'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my works. Ye Mighty, and despair!'

Ozymandias by Shelley.

It just sets such a strong barren tone to the poem. It speaks to the hubris of men. It has just been so original it has stayed with me since I first read it.

Here's the full poem by Shelley:

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 shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled hp 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 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.

Answer 4

This is stretch and i know it- HOWL by Allen Ginsberg. there is no period throughout the whole poem, therefore it's all one line.

Something about the poem really speaks to me- the darkness of 1950 NYC and it's language is still fresh. something about the contrasting feelings of despair and young ginsberg curiosity just is readable over and over again.

Answer 5

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.

Answer 6

"You give me strength when I am weak,
mellowing my soul with your sanctuary.
What else could we do,
when all I am is you?"

Quas Farroway, 'Reflections of a Muse.'

Answer 7

Still i rise