Following on from the write crappy 2 line poems thing in the love thread, I actually sat down last night and got out my old school poetry books.
Here are 3 of my favourites, would be interesting in hearing other people's favourites.

*****
IF - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

*****
The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

*****
I Remember, I Remember - Thomas Hood

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day,
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,
The roses, red and white,
The vi'lets, and the lily-cups,
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then,
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow!

I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heav'n
Than when I was a boy.

*****

two for you here ...

Dulce et decorum est

To His Mistress Going to Bed

a few more:

Robert Frost. "For Once, Then, Something"

Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths--and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.


Carl Sandburg. "Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind"
(the original line formation has not been fully preserved, however)

http://www.bartleby.com/231/0401.html


Vera Pavlova. "If there is something to desire"

If there is something to desire,
there will be something to regret.
If there is something to regret,
there will be something to recall.
If there is something to recall,
there was nothing to regret.
If there was nothing to regret,
there was nothing to desire.

He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven - WB Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, enwrought with golden and silver light, the blue and the dim and the dark cloths, of the night, the light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet, but I, being poor, have only my dreams,
I have spread my dreams under your feet, tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
********

My spelling and punctuation and a few words are probably all wrong, but that's my favourite poem, and from memory

This brings back memories of my well scary english teacher, studied this one for my junior cert

I know beautiful poems but alas, all of them in spanish.

You can only truly speak your heart on your mother tongue ...

Written by Leo Marks for Violette Szabo (of Carve Her Name with Pride fame) to use as a key for code breaking during WWII

Three Times we Parted Breath and I

Three times — we parted — Breath — and I —
Three times — He would not go —
But strove to stir the lifeless Fan
The Waters — strove to stay.

Three Times — the Billows tossed me up —
Then caught me — like a Ball —
Then made Blue faces in my face —
And pushed away a sail

That crawled Leagues off — I liked to see —
For thinking — while I die —
How pleasant to behold a Thing
Where Human faces — be —

The Waves grew sleepy — Breath — did not —
The Winds — like Children — lulled —
Then Sunrise kissed my Chrysalis —
And I stood up — and lived —

Emily Dickinson.

ditto for me too!!!

although i believe i appreciate the meaning far more now than ever before, but then i was only a little kid then

Ahhh poems when you were allowed to make them slightly porno...I like that one.

I don't get this, I need to read it a few more times.

I like this one....
"What will you have?" asked the waiter,
reflectively picking his nose.
"Two boiled eggs ya bastoad,
you can't stick yer fingers in those!"

I quite like this one:

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

There are some classics here, but to this day, the only book of poetry that I own is from Yeats. For me, he is the master...

DEEP in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve’s one star, Sat gray-hair’d Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Not so much life as on a summer’s day Robs not one light seed from the feather’d grass, But where the dead leaf fell, there did it rest. A stream went voiceless by, still deadened more By reason of his fallen divinity Spreading a shade: the Naiad ’mid her reeds Press’d her cold finger closer to her lips.

My Favourite Yeats poem, same book as yours I think.
******

The Song of Wandering Aengus - Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

oooh, and I forgot this Yeats classic. If you like sci fi/fantasy or comics, you might know it already:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

metaphysical poets were the rocks stars of their day. here is some Andrew Marvell :

To his Coy Mistress

OOOoooohh a poetry thread.. thank you, thank you...

I have way too many favourites to add them all and my taste is highly eclectic.

The first that springs to mind is T.S. Eliot's "the love song of J.Alfred Prufrock. For me this poem has a beauty in the melancholy of decay. You can almost smell it... http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/worl...r_2/eliot.html

My second favourite would be Roger Mcgough's " At Lunchtime - A story of Love"

When the bus stopped suddenly to avoid
damaging a mother and child in the road,
the young lady in the greenhat sitting opposite
was thrown across me, and not being one to
miss an opportunity i started to makelove
with all my body.

At first she resisted saying that it was too early in the morning and too soon
after breakfast and that anyway she found
me repulsive. But when i explained that
this being a nuclearage, the world was going
to end at lunchtime, she took off her greenhat,
put her busticket in her pocket
and joined in the exercise.

The buspeople, and there were many of them,
were shockedandsurprised and amused and annoyed, but when the
word got around that the world was coming to an end at
lunchtime, they put their pride in their pockets with their bustickets and
madelove one with the other. And even the busconductor,
being over, climbed into the cab and struck up some sort of
relationship with the driver.

Thatnight, on the bus coming home,
wewere all alittle embarrassed, especially me and the younglady
in the greenhat, and we all started to say in different ways howhasty
and foolish we had been. Butthen, always having been a bitofalad, i stood up and said it was a pity that the world didn;t nearly end every lunchtime and
that we could always pretend. And then it happened.......

Quick asa crash we all changed partners
and soon the bus was acquiver with white
mothballbodies doing naughty things.

And the next day
And everyday
In everybus
In everystreet
In everytown
In everycountry

people pretended that the world was coming
to an end at lunchtime. It still hasn't
Although in a way it has.

I wish something like this would happen on the number 10 tram!!! Wouldn't life be far more interesting?

My third, well I guess it has to be one of mine!

This poem was inspired by an oil painting called Day Dream at York art gallery, it is of a victorian lady laid asleep on a chaise lounge with a letter in her hand...

Dream on, my sweet, for here fantasy and reality do not meet

Away in your slumber no sorrow can break your yielding heart

Yours is tomorrow, for today your repose is secure in the shadow of yesterday’s love

Dream on, my sweet, for here fantasy and reality do not meet

Regally lay in splendour befitting that for which promises are made

Enshrouded by the gloom that hides the missive of disenchantment, grasped tenderly now in soft hands

A posy’s fading scent, cast aside, replaced by the bitter harbinger of sadness, where hope reigned, resplendent, in the blooms that once were held

Many a broken heart heals and lightness replaces grief. When reality and fantasy once again do meet

I have many other poems that I treasure, I will add more when I think about it.

Galatea

Ok a couple more...


Maveric

Maveric Prowles
Had Rumbling Bowles
That thundered in the night.
It shook the bedrooms all around
And gave the folks a fright.
The doctor called;
He was appalled
When through his stethoscope
He heard the sound of a baying hound,
And the acrid smell of smoke.
Was there a cure?
'The higher the fewer'
The learned doctor said,
Then turned poor Maveric inside out
And stood him on his head.
'Just as I though
You've been and caught
An Asiatic flu -
You musn't go near dogs I fear
Unless they come near you.'
Poor Maveric cried.
He went cross-eyed,
His legs went green and blue.
The doctor hit him with a club
And charged him one and two.
And so my friend
This is the end,
A warning to the few:
Stay clear of doctors to the end
Or they'll get rid of you.

Good advice from Spike I think! On a more romantic note...

Eurolove

I cannot
and I will not
No, I cannot love you less
Like the flower to the butterfly
The corsage to the dress

She turns my love to dust
my destination empty
my beliefs scattered: Diaspora!

Who set this course - and why?
Now my wings beat -
without purpose
Yet they speed.............

Spike Milligan

And how can we have a poetry thread without William Blake?

The Tiger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

And for my 3rd I think the Australian, Lesbia Harford is a classic poet, way before her time. A real rebel!!

The Tyrant

When I was a child
I felt the fairies' power
Of a sudden my dry life
Would burst into flower

The skies were my path
The sun my comrade fair
and the night was a dark rose
i work in my hair

But thou camest, love,
Who madest me unfree;
I will dig myself a grave
and hide there from thee

A really interesting person for anyone interested... http://www.takver.com/history/harford.htm

der Koenig

bliss

this is my fav, from Dylan Thomas...

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

"Fleas" by Ogden Nash gets my vote.