Can anyone reccomend a couple of great must read poems?

Question

I'd prefer they be dark (maybe something by Baudelaire) but more off the beaten track, not completely famous like the Raven

Answer 1

Miniver Cheevy
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Edwin Arlington Robinson had a crappy life. He was the last-born of a ton of kids, and his parents didn't really want another kid and had been hoping for a girl, and so they pretty much ignored him as much as possible after he arrived. They didn't even NAME him. When he was 2 years old, some guests at the hotel they operated decided that he needed a name, and they put a bunch of names in a hat and picked out two, and that's how he got his name - Edwin was someone's dad, and Arlington was someone's hometown. He grew up a dreamer and a poet and an alcoholic.

Miniver Cheevy is a sort of autobiographical poem. It's about a guy who dreams of greatness and romance and chivalry and heroism, but can't even put down his drink. He tells himself that he'd love to live in the days of old, but if he did, he wouldn't like it. He tries to scorn material wealth, but he's annoyed that he hasn't got any.

It's an awesome poem, and it's still so applicable today. It always reminds me of an ex-boyfriend of mine who was a video game addict who lived in his own fantasy world where he called himself a knight or a prince and longed to do great deeds and make sacrifices and marry me, his "princess"... when in reality, he was an unemployed jerk living with his parents and cheating on me.

Answer 2

W. 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.

Answer 3

Have you tried Roethke? Check out In A Dark Time (first link below).

"What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or a winding path? The edge is what I have..."

--

My personal favorite poet is Rainer Maria Rilke, especially his Duino Elegies (link 2):

"Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in our interpreted world...."

--

Darkness, by Lord Byron (link 3)
"I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air..."

Answer 4

I love this short one, by James Elroy Flecker who died in ww1.

Tenebris Interlucentem

A linnet who had lost her way
Sang on a blackened bough in Hell,
Till all the ghosts remembered well
The trees, the wind, the golden day.

At last they knew that they had died
When they heard music in that land,
And someone there stole forth a hand
To draw a brother to his side.

Answer 5

I

Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And an in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now–now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV

Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron Bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people–ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All Alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells-
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells:
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

Answer 6

the two you rhyme or you do not, there is not any in-between you may desire to alter the form somewhat for it to glean The subject is extremely inspiring, inspite of the indisputable fact that, and the imagery is concise some words like "brindled", "hedgerow", "cowslip", makes it much less precise Poetry 4/10 subject 8/10 Edit - i did not prefer to pass into information as i've got been warned for being too extreme. i assumed i'd be like all of us else, purely so boringly customary. in line with danger I could get rid of my score as this could be a reason for most of the hating. yet, in case you insist, right here is my assessment, the unquestionably. 1st verse - "warmth haze hovers" is a tongue tornado L2 & L4 are rhymed 2nd verse - L1 & 3, L2 & 4 have matching rhyme. bleached. look. scorched brook. third Verse - L2 & 4 do not rhyme arch & parched 4th Verse rose-bay willow herb: The Willow-herbs (Epilobium), 9 species of that are natives of super Britain "in cowslip" ?? Cowslip would consult from: plant life. Primula veris, a flowering plant many times primary as cowslip and primrose; Cowslip ( Primula veris ) is community for the duration of maximum of temperate Europe and Asia. In northern Belgium 5th verse - To be pedantic L1 & 3, L2 & 4 rhymed using "final letter" rhyming scheme. Edit (2) - ok, the herbs became in straightforward terms stated because of the fact it did not look available. Prof challenge has tiptoed for the duration of the tulips to offer you harsh grievance. Edit (3) - i'd desire to confess, inspite of the indisputable fact that i did not see it before everything, you have a variety not usual to me. The putting of the information "and" in Line 3 of each and every verse, is many times considered as superfluous and undesirable because it ruins the direction of poetical pass. New score (hehehe) Poetry 8/10 subject 8/10

Answer 7

Well, sticking with Poe you can try "The Bells" (not dark but still a very good poem) and "The Conqueror Worm."

Answer 8

Kublai Khan - completely famous, but completely great