Your Favourite Poetry?

TriggerHappy

TriggerHappy

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I saw this thread on another forum and really liked the idea as I'm a bit partial to some poetry. So what are you favourite poems?

My favourite of all time has to be:

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

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.


Closely followed by:

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage 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.
 
The fly

Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

London

I wander thro' each charter'd street,
Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.


both by William Blake
 
Ah, William Blake takes me back to my English Literature A-Level! Excellent choices (y)
 
Someone's got to chuck in Larkin's 'This be the verse' ... so useful so often :LOL:, even now when I've grown old and wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled ;)
 
Without doubt, John Lillison, England's greatest one-armed poet.

He wrote 'In Dillman's Grove' and 'Pointy Birds.'

O pointy birds, o pointy pointy, anoint my head, anointy-nointy.
 
TriggerHappy said:
Ah, William Blake takes me back to my English Literature A-Level! Excellent choices (y)
Click to expand...

Some of Blake's stuff is awesome, although poetry is not really my thing most of the time. I failed my Eng Lit 'O' level! :LOL:. Passed all the others. I was absolutely hopeless and to this day still can't go near Shakespeare. Nearly put me off reading fiction for life, and to see the bookshelves which dominate my lounge, that would suprise most people.

Our "poetry" that we studied for the exam was the frankly incomprehensible prologue to the Canterbury tales. I'm sure it's a classic, but given that it is ENGLISH Lit, having to translate the text seems wrong!

I'm only glad that we did not study any Austen or Hardy at school, as I'd probably still not have read Emma or Jude the Obscure even now. I only came back to read Great Expectations and To kill a mockingbrid a couple of years ago, more than 25 years after reading them at school.

(pet subject, sorry for the rant)


Can I add another?

Celia, Celia

When I am sad an weary,
When I think all hope has gone,
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on

by Adrian Mitchell

That one I saw on a tube station wall, when London Underground were running Poetry on the Underground in the early 1990s.
 
One by my friend Mat Lloyd

2 Inches to the Right by Mat Lloyd

There was a murder last night

Cause it was two inches to the left

You wouldn't have heard of last night

But it was two inches to the left!

They blame it on boredom

Getting drunk in the park

They blame it on boredom

Terrorising people in dark

This particular cold dark night

They picked their usual path

They were stupid, drunk and bored

Someone was going to feel their wrath

In the dark they chose their victim

It was easy, a random choice

They were stupid drunk and bored

Someone was going to hear their voice

Head idiot swung his instrument

With all his friends running in tow

He wasn't quite sure why it was cool

But at least his mates said so

As it cracked the head of RANDOM

He stumbled to the floor

He was dead before he hit it

They didn't need to hit him more

Witness's screamed and hollered

But idiot ran off into the night

Whilst random up and left this earth

And walked into the light

As the judge handed down the sentence

It sounded a lot like 'LIFE'

He said, "Get this idiot shackled"

"And in a cage tonight!"

His lawyer said, "If you hadn't killed him"

"You would have been alright!"

"Probably got community service"

"And been in your own bed tonight!"

Now idiot, still an idiot

Realises it's not so cool to fight

Sits there in his handcuffs and chains

And wishes he'd hit 2 inches to the right
 
Dont know a lot of poetry so therefore like "popular" stuff.
Of those, this is my favourite

The Listeners
by Walter De La Mare

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

--

Makes the hairs on my neck tingle even now
 
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While studying poetry this year in English class, I found this tidy little poem. I think it's my favorite, even if it is slightly morbid :)

Suicide's Note

The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.

-By Langston Hughes
 
Oh my, my hat, my hat my hat.

Looking glass offered.

Dirty big ******* rat!






Copyright Vantage:LOL:
 
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The German Guns by Baldric...

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom,
Boom, Boom, Boom,
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM,
Boom, Boom, Boom.



On a more serious note, lots of the War Poet's works send shivers up and done my spine.
 
Personally prefer the poem's from the ones that were there, so Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Binyon who has epitomised every Armistace day since...

SO much passion, feeling and description....

not forgetting.. McCraw and "In Flanders fields..."
 
*Entirely Not Safe For Work*

I fell in love with poetry when at 14 years of age my uber-cool English teacher unleashed this on us. It was when I first realised poetry didn't have to be about flowers and clouds and unrequited teen yearnings, but could speak to a boy growing up with no apparent future in a *****hole (ex) mining town devastated by Th*tcher's regime.

Evidently Chickentown - John Cooper-Clarke.

http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/chicktow.html
 
ah i love that invictus poem, beautiful. i think william blake is one of my favourites but i also love henry longfellow
 
I'm not much of a poetry reader but sometimes something just catches your attention, this short verse was one of them :

After Nam

After Nam,
it took me a long time to realize
that every time it thundered,
somebody did not have to die.

- Pete "Doc" Fraser -

This guy Pete Fraser has written lots of 'anti' war poetry, I think a lot of it would strike a chord with our serving troops today.
 
NickD said:
Evidently Chickentown - John Cooper-Clarke.
Click to expand...

I remember the days when he was on tv and radio a lot, I always enjoyed hearing him read his stuff.
 
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