Speak to me in verse

[sirbruce]

One of my favorites I discovered in High School:

Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes

TWAS on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purr'd applause.

Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The Genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Thro' richest purple to the view
Betray'd a golden gleam.

The hapless Nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretch'd in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What Cat 's averse to fish?

Presumptuous Maid! with looks intent
Again she stretch'd, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled.)
The slipp'ry verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood
She mew'd to ev'ry wat'ry god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No Dolphin came, no Nereid stirr'd:
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A Fav'rite has no friend!

From hence, ye Beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wand'ring eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters, gold.

[Seabound]

Oh, poor kitty!

I'm enjoying your contributions--please keep them coming.

Here's a fave from Robert Burns. It's the third and last stanza from O, Were I on Parnassus Hill:


By night, by day, a-field, at hame,
The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame,
And ay I muse and sing thy name--
I only live to love thee.
Tho' I were doom'd to wander on,
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,
Till my last weary sand was run,
Till then--and then--I'd love thee!

[Seabound]

To celebrate National Poetry Month, The New York Review of Books this month is posting 30 poems--one poem per day--chosen from their archives:

http://www.nybooks.com/poetry-month/

You can also follow NYRB on twitter:

http://twitter.com/nybooks

[Moejoe]

Dorothy Parker (not just because I fancy Jennifer Jason Leigh in Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle )

Coda

There's little in taking or giving,
There's little in water or wine;
This living, this living, this living
Was never a project of mine.
Oh, hard is the struggle, and sparse is
The gain of the one at the top,
For art is a form of catharsis,
And love is a permanent flop,
And work is the province of cattle,
And rest's for a clam in a shell,
So I'm thinking of throwing the battle-
Would you kindly direct me to hell?

You can get this and loads of other poetry in PDF download from http://www.poemhunter.com

EDIT: Looks like the Poemhunter downloads are DRM'd

[Seabound]

An excerpt from T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:


And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

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

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

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?


....

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Seabound

An excerpt from T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
...

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Prufrock and Other Observations was one of the first ebooks I downloaded from MR. The entire poem (I can understand why you didn't post the whole thing )...magic.

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."

Thanks, Seabound.

Cheers,
Marc

[Seabound]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Prufrock and Other Observations was one of the first ebooks I downloaded from MR. The entire poem (I can understand why you didn't post the whole thing )...magic.

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas."

Thanks, Seabound.

Cheers,
Marc

I agree, Marc--it is wonderful! Incredibly wonderful!