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[–]Anal_Explorer 109 points110 points ago

Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these:

It might have been.

[–]ThisGuyHisOpinion 25 points26 points ago

All my tears, Anal_Explorer, all my tears.

...Weird. Never thought I'd say that again.

[–]HashSlingingSlash3r 37 points38 points ago

The butthole that got away...

[–]RosieJo 572 points573 points ago

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

A boy at my school was stabbed and killed. His favourite teacher read this to the school with tears running down his face.

[–]iclimbthings 61 points62 points ago

This is beautiful. Thank you.

[–]slightlights 23 points24 points ago

My grandfather used to teach in high school, he wrote the following poem when a student of his drowned and over the summer sent it to me after my friend was run over and killed.

"Here is a poem I wrote a long time ago about a student of mine who drowned:

For David S., Who Won’t Know

Drowned. Buried.

Again all promise gone.

Endless these endings.

All fall without regard.

Still we go on building,

Fret the plumbing, blame the cold.

Silly

And grotesque.

Onward the rest.

Ca. ‘73-’74, 5/18/94, 4/22/94"

[–]thebossapplesauce 11 points12 points ago

Wow.

[–]mega1omaniac 4 points5 points ago

Chose this poem to be given out to people at my dad's funeral. Good choice.

[–]Gestaltep 14 points15 points ago

A fantastic poem for anyone who has lost someone close to them. Very beautiful. Was the teacher the author or is this attributed to someone else?

[–]QuickLouis 40 points41 points ago

Mary Elizabeth Frye wrote this in 1932.

[–]brumguvnor 85 points86 points ago

I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And touched the face of God...

[–]raxtich 17 points18 points ago

I know Ronald Reagan used that line in reference to the Challenger disaster. So touching. Is it from a specific poem, or was it actually written for that speech?

[–]cosmicastaway 18 points19 points ago

It's the first and last line from a poem named "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. He was a 19 year old WWII pilot at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee,_Jr.

[–]serfas 12 points13 points ago

The full poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr.:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve 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, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or even[8] eagle flew — And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

[–]VolcanicBakemeat 2 points3 points ago

I just posted High Flight as soon as I saw the question, then scrolled two posts down - great minds!

[–]darkeyesgirl 80 points81 points ago*

William Blake - Auguries of Innocence

"To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour."

edit to add - link to entire poem http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Auguries_of_Innocence

[–][deleted] 173 points174 points ago

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, 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.

[–]estoyelmejor 13 points14 points ago

We read this in English last year and had to analyze it and damn, it is too symbolic for its own good.

[–]mimus 5 points6 points ago

Found it! No, but seriously, this is in my hometown. Our local eccentric billionaire cowboy artist Stanley Marsh 3 (responsible for Cadillac Ranch and other such gems) built this out in a field, and even went so far as to put up a fake historical marker plaque claiming this was the statue Shelley wrote about. He encourages vandalism of his art.

[–]TheFaithie 67 points68 points ago

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses demasked red and white,

But no roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

[–]lionbologna 17 points18 points ago

Bite me alien boy!

Source

[–]Uriniass 62 points63 points ago

I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone.

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]Uriniass 5 points6 points ago

Yep

[–]raxtich 53 points54 points ago

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: a waste of desert sand;
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
Wind 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? 

The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats

[–]Caslon 27 points28 points ago

I'll chime in with Yeats as well -

Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand. For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

So deliciously creepy.

[–]creepfeeteatmeat 10 points11 points ago

Too long a sacrifice

Can make a stone of the heart.

O when may it suffice?

That is Heaven's part, our part

To murmur name upon name,

As a mother names her child

When sleep at last has come

On limbs that had run wild.

What is it but nightfall?

No, no, not night but death;

Was it needless death after all?

For England may keep faith

For all that is done and said.

We know their dream; enough

To know they dreamed and are dead;

And what if excess of love

Bewildered them till they died?

I write it out in a verse -

MacDonagh and MacBride

And Connolly and Pearse

Now and in time to be,

Wherever green is worn,

Are changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

<3!

[–]Greyhaven7 2 points3 points ago

[–][deleted] 216 points217 points ago

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[–]tick_tock_clock 34 points35 points ago

In the right context, this is the scariest poem I have read.

[–]crosky 9 points10 points ago

Read Eliot's "The Waste Land." It has a similar feel and is equally haunting. And masterfully rendered.

[–]fuckingcaptcha 96 points97 points ago

I think all three "This is the way the world ends" are really necessary to get the impact. I always imagine it whispered over a heavy bass beat.

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

[–]DGraups 75 points76 points ago

Building up then silence and then... "Not with a bang but a whimper" WUBWUBWUBWUBWUBWUB

[–]ThisGuyHisOpinion 34 points35 points ago

I would mock you if I didn't want to hear this so badly.

[–]We_Are_The_Romans 5 points6 points ago

I wonder if anyone else read this in the voice of Maxi Jazz from Faithless

[–]happybadger 25 points26 points ago

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

Stanza four of TS Eliot's "The Hollow Men". The whole poem is one of the most brilliant things ever penned, but this is a particularly amazing stanza because of the scene it paints. Our species is there at the end of the world, having rejected anything of substance in our lives and in doing so driven ourselves to the point of ruin, huddled together against a river like common animals pleading for the release of death.

That shift, where death is a force of redemption rather than damnation, is the darkest, most macabre thing I have ever read. It's l'appel du vide when the vide isn't listening, just a beautiful image. It's also very important in setting up your stanza because it represents our abandonment by god (The eyes are not here / There are no eyes here. / ... / Sightless, unless / The eyes reappear).

[–]PrairieHarpy 27 points28 points ago

Pretty much every line from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." One of my favorites, though:

For I have known them all already, known them all:

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

[–]WideAwakeNotSleeping 117 points118 points ago

There aren't a lot of poems I like (I don't like poetry much), but this is one of the few poems I love.

W. H. Auden -- Funeral Blues (Stop All the Clocks)

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.

[–]thenewaddition 16 points17 points ago

I'm not much for poetry, but Auden's Epitaph on a Tyrant really appeals to me.

.

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

[–]astronautas 5 points6 points ago*

I love Auden; 'Spain' has also great lines

And the life, if it answers at all, replies from the heart

And the eyes and the lungs, from the shops and squares of the city:

'0h no, I am not the mover;

Not to-day; not to you. To you, I'm the

'Yes-man, the bar-companion, the easily-duped;

I am whatever you do. I am your vow to be

Good, your humorous story.

I am your business voice. I am your marriage.

'What's your proposal? To build the just city? I will.

I agree. Or is it the suicide pact, the romantic

Death? Very well, I accept, for

I am your choice, your decision. Yes, I am Spain.'

Edited to fix line breaks.

[–]drraspberry 25 points26 points ago

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and 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

W.B. Yeats

[–]julo20 4 points5 points ago

I only know this line because of Equilibrium...

[–]thebossapplesauce 187 points188 points ago

The woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

and miles to go before I sleep

I actually have "miles to go before I sleep" tattooed along the instep of my right foot :)

[–]Loidis 15 points16 points ago

Oh. I've been wanting those exact words, on the instep of my right foot, for the past two years. I was only waiting 'til I get my own place in the summer before I got it done! I feel strange knowing that someone else had that exact same thought as well!

[–]thebossapplesauce 6 points7 points ago

Well it's a great line of poetry and it makes sense to go on the foot, where you put in all your miles! I got mine as a reward for fulfilling my new years resolution last year and getting healthy, fit and losing 40lbs, and to remind myself that fitness is a lifelong journey and I can't just stop now. Here's a picture of mine if you're wondering what it looks like: http://i.imgur.com/gA1WR.jpg

[–]eatthebear 15 points16 points ago

You left off the last line.

[–]paradoxgirl44 9 points10 points ago

This. I think the resonance that the repetition of the last line provides is what makes the poem.

[–]dr_rainbow 8 points9 points ago

I don't know what it is about this poem, but it is haunting. One of my favourites.

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost for those not aware.

[–]s00ngtype 23 points24 points ago*

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

[–]ez_sleazy 45 points46 points ago

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

[–]who_was_me 5 points6 points ago

La Dispute has that one here (hear).

[–]Frost_ 22 points23 points ago

We are the music-makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams.

World-losers and world-forsakers,

Upon whom the pale moon gleams;

Yet we are the movers and shakers,

Of the world forever, it seems.

_

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world's great cities,

And out of a fabulous story

We fashion an empire's glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure

Can trample an empire down.

_

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself with our mirth;

And o'erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world's worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth.

  • Arthur O'Shaughnessy

There are plenty of other wonderful poems, but I had to pick one and this is an old, old favourite that I've known by heart since I was a teenager. Favourite lines? Perhaps the first stanza if that's not too long to be applicable.

[–]thevoiceless 5 points6 points ago

I found out a couple months ago there's actually nine stanzas in this poem:

We are the music makers,

And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

And sitting by desolate streams;—

World-losers and world-forsakers,

On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world's great cities,

And out of a fabulous story

We fashion an empire's glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure

Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying

In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

And Babel itself in our mirth;

And o'erthrew them with prophesying

To the old of the new world's worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration

Is the life of each generation;

A wondrous thing of our dreaming

Unearthly, impossible seeming—

The soldier, the king, and the peasant

Are working together in one,

Till our dream shall become their present,

And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing

Of the goodly house they are raising;

They had no divine foreshowing

Of the land to which they are going:

But on one man's soul it hath broken,

A light that doth not depart;

And his look, or a word he hath spoken,

Wrought flame in another man's heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling

With a past day's late fulfilling;

And the multitudes are enlisted

In the faith that their fathers resisted,

And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,

Are bringing to pass, as they may,

In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,

The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,

Ceaseless and sorrowless we!

The glory about us clinging

Of the glorious futures we see,

Our souls with high music ringing:

O men! it must ever be

That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,

A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning

And the suns that are not yet high,

And out of the infinite morning

Intrepid you hear us cry—

How, spite of your human scorning,

Once more God's future draws nigh,

And already goes forth the warning

That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers

From the dazzling unknown shore;

Bring us hither your sun and your summers;

And renew our world as of yore;

You shall teach us your song's new numbers,

And things that we dreamed not before:

Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,

And a singer who sings no more.

[–]Frost_ 3 points4 points ago

Yeh, I was pretty sure that that would come back to bite me. I considered googling the rest of it, but in the end just wrote the part I know by heart. Took me quite some years to find that out, myself - they usually include only the first three stanzas in anthologies and suchlike. They do make a lovely whole just the three of them, though.

[–]TerminalHappiness 55 points56 points ago

بنى آدم اعضای یک پیکرند

که در آفرینش ز یک گوهرند

چو عضوى به درد آورد روزگار

دگر عضوها را نماند قرار

تو کز محنت دیگران بی غمی

نشاید که نامت نهند آدمی

Translated it means:

Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

If you've no sympathy for human pain,

The name of human you cannot retain

It's from the Persian poet Saadi. One of my favorite all time poets.

[–]CannibalHolocaust 33 points34 points ago

How come it rhymes in English as well?

[–]TerminalHappiness 35 points36 points ago

When translating poetry, authors often phrase the poetry in such a way that it rhymes in the same pattern. This often requires rephrasing though, so translating poetry is a balance between trying to keep the pattern in rhyming and keeping the terminology as close to the original as possible.

I think this specific translation is from an Iranian author actually (can't remember his name), but even English authors like Ralph Waldo Emerson have done translations of Saadi's work.

[–]DFractalH 15 points16 points ago

I wish I could read the original.

[–]AndThenThereWasMeep 6 points7 points ago

I rather enjoy your username

[–]simpsun728 18 points19 points ago

Cliche, but:

"Quoth the raven, nevermore!"

[–]fanimold19 13 points14 points ago

hey someone had to say it

[–]mouseyd 51 points52 points ago

T.S. Eliot is so good. Mine is also from Prufrock:

"Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a Minute will reverse."

[–]kurin 46 points47 points ago

Just eat the damn peach.

[–]astronautas 21 points22 points ago

Prufrock is also one of my favourites.

'In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo. '

[–]tactical_edit 383 points384 points ago

Open the door, get on the floor

Everybody walk the dinosaur

[–]Abed_is_batman_now 87 points88 points ago

Brings a tear to my eye everytime

[–]broshave 160 points161 points ago

like dis if u cri evrityme

[–]llikeafoxx 43 points44 points ago

something something 5ever

[–]chosenmonk 18 points19 points ago

Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me

[–]aimerxoxo 32 points33 points ago

for life's not a paragraph

And death I think is no parenthesis

Link to the whole poem, by e.e. cummings

[–]Revierypone 32 points33 points ago

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

[–]lemonpirate101 43 points44 points ago

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." -Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream Within a Dream

[–]klr4866 14 points15 points ago

I'm going to get this as a tattoo:

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am."

Sylvia Plath

[–]letslive[!] 28 points29 points ago

"Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Dylan Thomas - Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night

[–]imanedrn 28 points29 points ago

"i like my body when it is with your / body. It is so quite new a thing. ... i like kissing this and that of you, / i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz / of your electric fur, and what-it-is comes / over parting flesh...." -- e.e. cummings I love reading (breathing, moaning) this to someone -- esp with the pauses.

[–]americanslang59 26 points27 points ago

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared."

-Tupac Shakur

[–]zsoltika 59 points60 points ago

Well it's a lyric for a great song, but this is my favorite anyway:

Hello darkness, my old friend,

I've come to talk with you again,

Because a vision softly creeping in,

Left its seeds while I was sleeping,

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence.

[–]crosky 3 points4 points ago

My favorite song by Simon and Garfunkel. The first time I heard it I was blown away.

[–]qz002501 26 points27 points ago

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

[–]DFractalH 26 points27 points ago*

My favourite quote:

Wir müssen wissen, wir werden wissen.

By David Hilbert

My favourite poem:

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul. By William E. Henley

[–]KaiserVonScheise 23 points24 points ago

(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

This is the last stanza of ee cummings
"somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond"

[–]CommandNotFound 24 points25 points ago

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

[–]KTFraug 8 points9 points ago

I love that poem so much. Also good is "Tonight I can Write":

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.

And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.

The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.

My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

[–]GiddyGodsTrousers 24 points25 points ago

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, "Is it good, friend?" "It is bitter -- bitter," he answered; "But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart." Stephen Crane

[–][deleted] 33 points34 points ago

"How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently

turn'd over upon me,

And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged

your tongue to my bare stript heart,"

-Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself. Sexy, sexy stuff.

[–]wearsredsox 4 points5 points ago

I took a class on Whitman and was shocked by how sexual he gets. Awesome poet.

[–]Hammythepirate 8 points9 points ago

My English class spent a few weeks studying Whitman and I distinctly remember someone saying "he must have been great in the sack", and everyone agreeing with that sentiment.

[–]llikeafoxx 23 points24 points ago

"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world."

  • Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

[–]bananalouise 18 points19 points ago

"Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

[–]monstehr 5 points6 points ago

absolutely love this. Was once in an argument with a girlfriend who had contradicted her earlier point. When I called her on it, she quoted this. Damn it, I was right and she still won!

[–]LOLKH 24 points25 points ago

"like the fox

I run with the hunted and

if I’m not the happiest

man on earth I’m surely the

luckiest man

alive."

Bukowski is the shit.

[–]Ahnie 18 points19 points ago

“I don’t hate people, I just feel better when they aren’t around.” ~Charles Bukowski

[–]watyousay 22 points23 points ago

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll

[–]laugh-gasm 10 points11 points ago

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. (I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. (I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: Exit seraphim and Satan's men: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said, But I grow old and I forget your name. (I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead; At least when spring comes they roar back again. I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. (I think I made you up inside my head.)"

[–]JNDFANTASY 65 points66 points ago

SHE walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that 's best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies...

"She Walks in Beauty"

Lord Byron

Absolutely beautiful prose.

[–]kama_river 25 points26 points ago

My then girlfriend (now wife) and I were watching something where a character had quoted the poem up to the point where you stopped. I said, "It's not done." to which my girlfriend replied "No, it's Byron."

That is when I knew I loved her.

[–]creepfeeteatmeat 20 points21 points ago

It isn't prose, it is poesy my good (wo)man. Lyrical poesy for that matter.

[–]soxfan17 59 points60 points ago

"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."

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. Sure it may be cliche, but Frost is one of my heroes along with Thoreau and Emerson.

[–]What_Is_X 30 points31 points ago

This is my favourite poem because I don't think it means what most people think it means. While most people think "that has made all the difference" means a positive difference; that the meaning is "don't be afraid to forge your own path" or "don't conform to the same path as others" or whatever, I think it means the opposite. The title is "The Road not Taken", and this is what Frost truly laments - not knowing what might have been if he had taken the other road.

[–]keepoffmylawn 6 points7 points ago

I completely agree, and I thought this was relatively well-known...it's always the interpretation I've read about/been taught.

[–]ewofij 45 points46 points ago

not one line, but short. "This is just to say," by William Carlos Williams.

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

[–]genevieve1917 9 points10 points ago

I keep this on my fridge. I teach English, and my students love to complain that it isn't a poem, but the imagery is fresh to me every time I read it. I can taste the delicious, sweet, cold (and sort of forbidden) plums. Williams wrote a lot of erotic poetry, but I can teach this to 12th graders.

[–]allADD 5 points6 points ago

What about that red wheelbarrow, huh? I'd tap that shit. I'd glaze it with some rain, if you know what I mean.

Sorry.

[–][deleted] 38 points39 points ago

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

[–]asthmaticshroom 26 points27 points ago

Annabel Lee by Poe. Also the entirety of Pale Fire by Nabokov.

[–]HarlequinPanda 22 points23 points ago

"I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me."

Ridiculously beautiful and haunting.

[–]RalphTheCrusher 17 points18 points ago

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee

[–]anderson7 19 points20 points ago

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

from "If" by Rudyard Kipling

[–]Pepperhed 72 points73 points ago

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don't have any kids yourself.

"This be the verse" by Philip Larkin.

[–]jtr99 12 points13 points ago

Thanks for saving me the typing. Larkin was brilliant.

[–]DFractalH 8 points9 points ago

And sometimes - if you're lucky as I am - someone of your closer ancestors manages to throw all of their fucked up faults over-board, and do some decent parenting once in a while.

[–]FadedGiant 17 points18 points ago*

I can't restrict myself to a line or a couple lines, so I will give you my favorite poem.

Digging - By Seamus Heaney

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pin rest; snug as a gun.

.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:

My father, digging. I look down

.

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked,

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner's bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.

[–]jtr99 18 points19 points ago

As someone has done me the favour of already typing in Larkin's excellent "This Be the Verse", I can go with my other favourite: a few well-known lines from John Donne.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

[–]Xani 17 points18 points ago

"My feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping

But I shall go on living."

[–]GetLikeMe 5 points6 points ago

This just broke my heart.

I should not have come in this post after being dumped by the love of my life.

[–]Tobimaru 8 points9 points ago

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                      i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

- E. E. Cummings

[–]getoutndoshit 8 points9 points ago

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]TheElysian 13 points14 points ago

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

[–]PAcheese 20 points21 points ago

We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.” ― Charles Bukowski

[–]jigby61 46 points47 points ago

One fish,two fish,red fish,blue fish.

[–]scherz0 7 points8 points ago

(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

[–]hulk_krogan 11 points12 points ago

I feel like it's a cliche, but from Invictus:

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed

[–]paulinek 19 points20 points ago

When you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,

"Your seeds shall live in my body,

And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,

And your fragrance shall be my breath,

And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."

--Kahlil Gibran

[–]herrproctor 13 points14 points ago

from The Truth The Dead Know, Anne Sexton

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate myself where the sun gutters from the sky, where the sea swings in like an iron gate and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones from the whitehearted water and when we touch we enter touch entirely. No one's alone. Men kill for this, or for as much.

[–]highfiveanorphan 12 points13 points ago

A learned man came to me once.

He said, "I know the way, -- come."

And I was overjoyed at this.

Together we hastened.

Soon, too soon, were we

Where my eyes were useless,

And I knew not the ways of my feet.

I clung to the hand of my friend;

But at last he cried, "I am lost."

-Stephen Crane

[–]luciu_az 12 points13 points ago*

How does one become a butterfly? You must want to learn to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.

[–]the-socially-awkward 5 points6 points ago

February. Get ink, shed tears. Write of it, sob your heart out, sing, While torrential slush that roars Burns in the blackness of the spring.

[–]ides_of_smarch 6 points7 points ago

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,

Lying together there goes back so far,

An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.

Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest

Builds and disperses clouds in the sky,

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.

None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why

At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find

Words at once true and kind,

Or not untrue and not unkind.

"Talking in bed", by Philip Larkin

[–]ConfusingAnswers 4 points5 points ago

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

[–]sibelioz 5 points6 points ago

O love let us be true to one another

For the world which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams

So various so beautiful so new

Hath really neither joy nor love not light

Nor certitude nor peace nor help for pain

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept by confused alarms of struggle and flight

Where ignorant armies clash by night

-Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points ago

Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Bob Dylan- mr tambourine man.

[–]Jbolero 4 points5 points ago

I HAVE met them at close of day

Coming with vivid faces

From counter or desk among grey

Eighteenth-century houses.

I have passed with a nod of the head

Or polite meaningless words,

Or have lingered awhile and said

Polite meaningless words,

And thought before I had done

Of a mocking tale or a gibe

To please a companion

Around the fire at the club,

Being certain that they and I

But lived where motley is worn:

All changed, changed utterly:

A terrible beauty is born.

Easter, 1916- WB Yeats

[–]jenjamina 5 points6 points ago

Голова моя машет ушами,

Как крыльями птица.

In English, it's something

My head flaps its ears

Like a bird its wings.

[–]chop_chop 4 points5 points ago*

Individual lines from "Ozymandias" by Shelley: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings / Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair."

Or, for an entire poem by Ogden Nash: "Behold the hippopotamus! / We laugh at how he looks to us, / And yet in moments dank and grim, / I wonder how we look to him. Peace, peace, thou hippopotamus! / We really look all right to us, / As you no doubt delight the eye / Of other hippopotami."

Edit: Added the Hippopotamus Poem

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points ago

I won't say much for the sea

except that it was, almost,

the color of sour milk

"On the Coast near Sausalito," by Robert Hass.

I don't know why, but I love these lines.

[–]BookFox 4 points5 points ago

I want to tell you that the sea knows this,

that life in its coffers is as wide as the sand,

countless and pure, and amid sanguinary grapes

time has polished the hardness of a petal,

the medusa's light and it has plucked the bouquet

of its coral fibers from a cornucopia of infinite mother-of-pearl.

I'm nothing but the empty net that advances

human eyes, lifeless in that darkness,

fingers accustomed to the triangle,

measurements of an orange's shy hemisphere.

-From The Enigmas by Pablo Neruda

[–]TheKeysToTheZeppelin 5 points6 points ago*

I'm sure Poe have already been posted extensively, but one stanza from the Raven always gets to me:

"'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!'

I shrieked, upstarting-

"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's

Plutonian Shore!

Leave no black plume as token of that lie thy

soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust

above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy

form from off my door!'

Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"

I've added the italics for emphasis. The whole stanza is incredibly powerful, I think, but that one line is surreal. It's angry and despairing and utterly, utterly miserable. Really captures the mood of the poem. Though the entirety of The Raven is excellent, one of my favorite poems ever.

[–]Lyeta 4 points5 points ago*

"when by now and tree by leaf/ she laughed his joy she cried his grief/ bird by snow and stir by still/ anyone's any was all to her/ (and only the snow can begin to explain/ how children are apt to forget to remember/ with up so floating many bells down)"- ee cummings.

I also adore Dorothy Parker. Symptom Recital

I do not like my state of mind;

I'm bitter, querulous, unkind.

I hate my legs, I hate my hands,

I do not yearn for lovelier lands.

I dread the dawn's recurrent light;

I hate to go to bed at night.

I snoot at simple, earnest folk.

I cannot take the gentlest joke.

I find no peace in paint or type.

My world is but a lot of tripe.

I'm disillusioned, empty-breasted.

For what I think, I'd be arrested.

I am not sick, I am not well.

My quondam dreams are shot to hell.

My soul is crushed, my spirit sore;

I do not like me any more.

I cavil, quarrel, grumble, grouse.

I ponder on the narrow house.

I shudder at the thought of men....

I'm due to fall in love again.

[–]zebrake2010 5 points6 points ago

For my purpose is to sail beyond the sunset.

Ulysses, by Tennyson

[–]kurin 3 points4 points ago

All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades forever and forever when I move.

[–]beliefsarerelative 3 points4 points ago

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

--Langston Hughes

[–]estellecat 4 points5 points ago

Nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

  • Somewhere I Have Never Traveled -EE Cummings

[–]pleasehelp69 11 points12 points ago

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish. - Plath

[–]tikitechie 11 points12 points ago

Coleridge - "Xanadu Kubla Khan"

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round: And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean: And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where was heard the mingled measure From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw: It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight 'twould win me That with music loud and long I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed And drunk the milk of Paradise.

[–]Nezn27 9 points10 points ago

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points ago

If seeing is believing and you see what I see

You wouldn't want to see anymore

But I've got a surprise in store...

Because for every man that looks upon me with judgment in his eyes

There's a woman that looks upon me with wetness in her thighs

[–]AnnanNanak 2 points3 points ago

The cow is of the bovine ilk...

[–]Emulah 4 points5 points ago

One end is moo, the other milk...

[–]youhavethenerve 4 points5 points ago

"And just what's the name of your act?"

[–]metaknite 4 points5 points ago

A music heard so deeply that it is not heard, but you are the music while the music lasts.

[–]ignoramusaurus 4 points5 points ago

A moon wrapped in brown paper, it promises you light.

[–]StuntMom 2 points3 points ago

she being Brand

-new;and you know consequently a little stiff I was careful of her and (having

thoroughly oiled the universal joint tested my gas felt of her radiator made sure her springs were O.

K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her

up,slipped the clutch (and then somehow got into reverse she kicked what the hell) next minute i was back in neutral tried and

again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my

lev-er Right- oh and her gears being in A 1 shape passed from low through second-in-to-high like greasedlightning) just as we turned the corner of Divinity

avenue i touched the accelerator and give

her the juice,good

                          (it

was the first ride and believe I we was happy to see how nice and acted right up to the last minute coming back down by the Public Gardens I slammed on the

internalexpanding & externalcontracting breaks Bothatonce and

brought allofher tremB -ling to a:dead.

stand- ;Still)

ee cummings

[–]VolcanicBakemeat 2 points3 points ago

Sunward I've 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.

...

'sunlit silence' is quite possibly the most beautiful, simple and perfect description I have heard or ever will hear for anything.

(High Flight, John Magee)

[–]Badhorse73 3 points4 points ago

An excerpt from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

[–]shortkid123 4 points5 points ago

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Robert Frost

[–]iclimbthings 3 points4 points ago

Pithos by Rita Dove Climb into a jar and live for a while

Chill earth. No stars in this stone sky.

You have ceased to ache

Your spine is a flower

[–]grammatiker 3 points4 points ago

This is my favorite poem. It's by Alexander Blok and was translated from Russian:

 And I lie wordless at the feet
 Of her who is my heart's desire,
 My secret love; a whitewinged fire
 Swift storms across the threshold sweep.

 What pain, what sweet delight, what bliss
 To speak your tender name, to kiss
 Your train by stealth, near you to linger
 While blizzards sing, while loudly sing they!

 In its dark prison ceil benighted,
 The heart in drunken rapture reels.
 Cold, snowy blooms your lashes lightly,
 Your peaceful, silk-soft lashes seal.

 Like one by wild winds overpowered
 That as he runs begin to blow,
 I seem to see a lifeless flower
 Before me rise from out the snow.

 And oft, however sadly, gently,
 The name of my Snow Maiden slips
 Like soft snow from a frozen petal
 In secret from my trembling lips.

While that's my favorite poem overall, some of my favorite lines are at the end of The Song of Wandering Aengus by W. B. Yeats:

 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. 

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]TowelOnChair 3 points4 points ago

After Work

The shack and a few trees

float in the blowing fog

I pull out your blouse,

warm my cold hands

 on your breasts.

you laugh and shudder

peeling garlic by the

 hot iron stove.

bring in the axe, the rake,

the wood

we'll lean on the wall

against each other

stew simmering on the fire

as it grows dark

        drinking wine.

               Gary Snyder

[–]sniper_lad 3 points4 points ago

My father gave me six serving men They taught me all I knew They're names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who

Kipling

[–]sanchogomez 6 points7 points ago

The Victory Explosion by Derrick C. Brown is amazing

Particularly this line: "Maybe God never really wanted perfection if he designed the things he made with an instinct to screw up." I think it really summarizes the overall message of his poetry and is an elegant take on the human condition.

[–]Hyper-bowl 6 points7 points ago

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,-- One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I hear this is supposed to make you a man.

[–]menomenaa 6 points7 points ago

welcome to my wormy hell.

the music grinds off-key.

fish eyes watch from the wall.

this is where the last happy shot was fired.

the mind snaps closed

like a mind snapping

closed.

-Bukowski

[–][deleted] ago

[deleted]

[–]candidkiss 7 points8 points ago

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
They have their entrances and exits, and one man, in his time, plays many parts.

[–]ChiefandFif 7 points8 points ago

My favorite poem (a little off from the OP's question but it's short) is "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" by Keats:

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

[–]curethiscancer 5 points6 points ago

And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering, Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points ago

"Soothe! soothe! soothe! Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close, But my love soothes not me, not me.

Low hangs the moon, it rose late, It is lagging--O I think it is heavy with love, with love.

O madly the sea pushes upon the land, With love, with love."

  • Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking by Walt Whitman.

[–]Kasari 3 points4 points ago

That no life lives forever;

That dead men rise up never;

That even the weariest river

Winds somewhere safe to sea

[–]PaalRyd 5 points6 points ago

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

If all time is eternally present

All time is unredeemable.

What might have been is an abstraction

Remaining a perpetual possibility

Only in a world of speculation.

What might have been and what has been

Point to one end, which is always present.

Footfalls echo in the memory

Down the passage which we did not take

Towards the door we never opened

Into the rose-garden. My words echo

Thus, in your mind.

-- T.S. Eliot

[–]ciano10 4 points5 points ago

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked"

from Howl by Allen Ginsberg

[–]loveleigh 9 points10 points ago

Twas brillig and the slythy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

[–]nullcharstring 2 points3 points ago*

From Such a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation

What force or guile could not subdue,

Thro' many warlike ages,

Is wrought now by a coward few,

For hireling traitor's wages.

The English steel we could disdain,

Secure in valour's station;

But English gold has been our bane-

Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

[–]Child_of_Dust 2 points3 points ago

"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"

  • from The Destruction of Sennacherib by Lord Byron

[–]vangelicsurgeon 2 points3 points ago

I still consider myself very likeable.

[–]fightbcicantfly 2 points3 points ago

Does it count if its from a song? The Horror of Our Love by Ludo. "You're a ghost love, nightgown flowing your body blue and walking along the continental shelf you are a dream among the sharks beautiful and terrifying, lit and restless we dance in dark suspension. And you bury me in the ocean floor beneath you where they'll never hear us scream..."

[–]Noel_is_God 2 points3 points ago

Someone slipped on a cassette as the one you wanted left with someone else but somehow it was cool because as the music filled the shadows, you heard a sound that was a million miles away from fakery and a step away from your heart.

Just like it always did, this sound puts the swagger back into your step, the rush into your blood but somehow, and i don't know how, they had become deeper, wider, soulful, better at their craft, inspired by so many things like a word that is tilting who knows where, and the applause they always knew was theirs but waited so impatiently to receive. Words cut you from all angles, backed up by a monumental sound that rises high, high, and high to crash against your rocks and then changes, majestically and magically to soothe the wounds inside.

As you are dragged inside on this trip abandon, you hear a council estate singing its heart out, you hear the clink of loose change that is never enough to buy what you need, boredom and poverty, hours spent with a burnt out guitar, dirty pubs and cracked up pavements, violence and love, all rolled into one, and now all this.

At the end you flip over and start again because now you are not isolated. They have gone to work so that you can go home. High above the day turns pink and you feel your feet lift above the ground as new roads open in front of you. In this town the jury is always rigged but the people know. They always know the truth. Believe. Belief. Beyond. Their morning glory.

[–]aayaa 2 points3 points ago

We must risk delight -A brief for the defense

“White stone in the white sunlight,” he said as they picked him up. “Not the great fires built on the edge of the world.” His voice grew fainter as they carried him away. “Both the melody and the symphony. The imperfect dancing in the beautiful dance. The dance most of all.”

The arches of her feet are like voices of children calling in the grove of lemon trees, where my heart is as helpless as crushed birds

Those are all Jack Gilbert poems. Yes, indeed, he is a god alongside men.

[–]sacpopblues 2 points3 points ago

From Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita":

The moral sense in mortals is the duty we must pay for moral sense of beauty

[–]dosutono 2 points3 points ago

So when the world knocks at your front door, clutch the knob and open on up, running forward into its widespread greeting arms with your hands before you, fingertips trembling though they may be. Last lines of this poem by Anis Mojgandi

[–]dressup 2 points3 points ago

It's short so I'll post the entire poem. Goodtime Jesus by James Tate:

"Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He had been dream-ing so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it? A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled back, skin falling off. But he wasn't afraid of that. It was a beau-tiful day. How 'bout some coffee? Don't mind if I do. Take a little ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody"

[–]lechatcestmoi 2 points3 points ago

Tuttor ch'eo diro gioi, goiva cosa,

Intenderete che di voi favello.

(When I speak of joy, o thing of joy,

Understand I speak of thee.)

I don't even speak Italian (so apols if I've spelt it wrongly) but I just love the sound of it.

[–]full_of_wit 2 points3 points ago

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

[–]yurmamma 2 points3 points ago

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

[–]dswenson8 2 points3 points ago*

The first two stanzas of Marilyn Hacker's "Villanelle"

"Every day our bodies separate,

exploded torn and dazed.

Not understanding what we celebrate

/

we grope through languages and hesitate

and touch each other, speechless and amazed;

and every day our bodies separate"

[–]darkpl 2 points3 points ago

Once crucified
I would have died
A thousand more times
Just to feel her breath
On my neck as a fervent lover
To drown her sighs
In floods of tears so well refined
And blind from spying her
In the arms of others

[–]bananalouise 2 points3 points ago

Argh, this is such a good topic! I can't choose a favorite, but here's a verse I love. It's from Auden's "The Fall of Rome," but everyone should also read "Under Which Lyre," which is hilarious.

Altogether elsewhere, vast

Herds of reindeer move across

Miles and miles of golden moss,

Silently and very fast.

[–]I_am_Ishmael 2 points3 points ago

"Tall ships and tall kings, three times three.

What brought they from the foundered land over the flowing sea?

Seven stars and seven stones and one white tree."

[–]Pareve 2 points3 points ago

I'm an aspiring poet and English graduate student. This thread makes me happy. Sometimes I think no one reads poetry.

This is a translation I did of Dan Pagis's poem "Testimony," from Modern Hebrew. It is still among my favorites.

Testimony 

No, no. They certainly 
Were human,
Uniforms, boots.
How can I explain?
They were made in the image. 

I was a ghost. 
Another maker made me. 

And He, in his goodness,
Left no surviving thing in me, 
Nothing that could die. 
And I fled to Him,
Went up weightless, blue,
At peace- I would even say, apologizing-
Smoke to omnipotent smoke
Without form or image. 

[–]AwkwardHyperbola 2 points3 points ago

Catullus 85 is short and simple:

odi et amo quare id faciam fortasse requiris
nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior

I hate and I love. How can I do this, you ask?
I do not know, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.

I personally prefer Catullus 76. But some prefer Catullus 16. First line?

I will sodomize you and face-fuck you.    

ಠ_ಠ

[–]Hepcat10 2 points3 points ago

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguished, 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;

Morn came and went -and came, and brought no day,

And men forgot their passions in the dread

Of this their desolation; and all hearts

Were chilled into a selfish prayer for light

-Byron

Chilling

[–]Therabidmonkey 2 points3 points ago

My mind was blown when I opened this with the intention of posting a different line from this same poem.

[–]Poofengle 2 points3 points ago

Not all who wander are lost - J.R.R. Tolkien

[–]everettmarm 2 points3 points ago

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

From the tyger by Blake, though part 5 of eliot's the waste land i think is the most significant to our age.

"these fragments I have shored against my ruins."

Makes me shiver.

[–]Dickfore 2 points3 points ago

Roses are gray
Violets are gray

-Dog

[–]jonskeezy 2 points3 points ago

this Whole poem. Worth the read

[–]fortycakes 2 points3 points ago

But at my back I always hear

Time's winged chariot hurrying near

[–]agladwin 2 points3 points ago

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough."

In a Station of the Metro by Ezra Pound

I'm not big on poetry, and I actually hate Pound, but this is one of my favorite poems. I'm sure I could find a favorite from Howl, but it'd be hard for me to pick. I'm clearly not an expert, but I'm okay with that.

[–]bananabombboy 2 points3 points ago

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.