Speak to me in verse

[Seabound]

Do you like poetry? Do you write poems? Then share your favorite poems (or a stanza from a poem) and poets with us! Funny, sad, edgy, profound, mundane, contemporary, ancient--whatever it is, if it speaks to you, then post it here. I, for one, would like to know about your favorites. (Pay attention to copyright restrictions, though.)

Oh, and it is also National Poetry Month in the US.

One of my favorite poets is Emily Jane Brontë (No coward soul is mine). She was the poet among the three sisters, and she hid her poetry even from Charlotte. Like Wuthering Heights, her poems tend to be unapologetically romantic, gloomy, foreboding, intense, and do not try to hide the unhappy side of life. Here is one of my favorites from her:


I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born

In secret pleasure -- secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings not subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were

First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy's rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew

'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere --
Bur worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there


(May 17, 1839, at the age of twenty.)

[Jill75]

I dont have much verse to have a favorite but I like music so much and like music that I can relate with and music lyrics are very much poetry with tunes. I like what artists have made so far in expressing feelings.

[Seabound]

Originally Posted by Jill75

I dont have much verse to have a favorite but I like music so much and like music that I can relate with and music lyrics are very much poetry with tunes. I like what artists have made so far in expressing feelings.

That is so very true! Maybe you can post some of your favorite lines from songs, if you are so inclined and have time. Poems and songs, same thing, really. I learned a while ago that one has to have a sense of rhythm to write good poetry.

[montsnmags]

One of my favourites, by Emily Dickinson:

After great pain, a formal feeling comes —
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round —
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

[Donnageddon]

More Emily...



Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---

[BenG]

Ben Johnson-
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make Man better be;
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.

[sirbruce]

Almost all of Emily Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas". Okay, montsnmags' can't, but Donnageddon's demonstrates the common rhyme scheme very well.

[Donnageddon]

Almost all of Emily Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas". Okay, montsnmags' can't, but Donnageddon's demonstrates the common rhyme scheme very well.

Why, oh why, would you assassinate Emily Dickinson with such slander? (or is it libel? I always confuse the two)

Fortunately, I do not know the tune to "The Yellow Rose of Texas", and I will endeavor to never.

[Donnageddon]

**Post Self removed... I am unsure whether the poem I posted is in the public domain.***

Just Something to consider in this thread.

[Seabound]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

Fortunately, I do not know the tune to "The Yellow Rose of Texas", and I will endeavor to never.

Me neither. Phew!

I love Emily Dickinson. And I have only begun to scratch the depths of her poetry.

Wild nights!

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by sirbruce

Almost all of Emily Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas". Okay, montsnmags' can't, but Donnageddon's demonstrates the common rhyme scheme very well.

If you don't know "The Yellow Rose of Texas" you can use the "Gilligan's Island Theme" instead.

Xenophon

[Seabound]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

**Post Self removed... I am unsure whether the poem I posted is in the public domain.***

Just Something to consider in this thread.

Good point. I've added a note about copyright in my original post.

[Seabound]

Here's the "wild nights" poem by Dickinson:


Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,—
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

[Stitchawl]

....So I'll meet 'im later on
In the place where 'e is gone—
Where it's always double drill and no canteen;
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to pore damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din!

Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

He might have looked like Ben Casey's boss but to me Sam Jaffe was always Gunga Din!


Stitchawl

[Detour]

Enjoying this thread very much. Thank you to all who have contributed so far. I had the great honor and extreme pleasure of listening to Leonard Cohen recite verses (including new verses) from "A Thousand Kisses Deep" a few nights ago in Dallas. Someone posted video of that on youtube. A favorite of mine for sure, but I won't post it here because I'm certain it would violate copyright.

Here's a favorite bit of verse that fits my mood as I bask in the glow of that memory:

Go, lady! lean to the night-guitar,
And drop a smile to the bringer;
Then smile as sweetly, when he is far,
At the voice of an in-door singer.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning
from "A Woman's Shortcomings"