Favorite Poem

I could have sworn there was a thread on this but I searched and couldn't find one. My current favorite poem is The Triumph of Charis. (Note: Do not post the poem in its entirety if it is not in the public domain. I'd hate to see this thread get deleted.) This poem is just so beautiful. We are doing this poem set to music by Vaughn Williams and it is just gorgeous! Oh and please try to be mature!

The Triumph of Charis.
By Jonson, Benjamin .

See the chariot at hand here of Love,
Wherein my lady rideth!
Each that draws is a swan or a dove,
And well the care love guideth.
As she goes, all hearts do duty
Unto her beauty;
And enamoured, do wish, so they might
But enjoy such a sight,
That they still were to run by her side,
Through swords, through seas, whither she would ride.

Do but look on her eyes; they do light
All that Love's world compriseth!
Do but look on her hair; it is bright
As Love's star when it riseth!
Do but mark, her forehead's smoother
Than words that soothe her!
And from her arched brows, such a grace
Sheds itself through the face,
As alone there triumphs to the life
All the gain, all the good, of the element's strife.

Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touched it?
Ha' you felt the wool o' the beaver?
Or swan's down ever?
Or have smelt o' the bud o' the brier?
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag o'the bee?
O so white, O so soft, O so sweet is she!


Ok now what is your current favorite?

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Updated On: 10/12/04 at 02:21 AM

Always my favorite, probably always will be...

Sonnet #43, From the Portuguese

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints!---I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!---and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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There once was a man from Nantucket...

sorry I couldn't resist.

Quiet Girl, Langston Hughes

I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.


The Dream Keeper, Langston Hughes

Bring me all of your dreams,
you dreamers,
Bring me all your heart melodies,
that I may wrap them in a blue cloud cloth,
Away from the too rough fingers of the world

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This is one of my favorite poems. I usually think of it when someone close to me has died and it brings me a lot of comfort.


Gone From My Sight

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she let my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...


by Henry Van Dyke

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Updated On: 3/2/05 at 05:50 PM

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost:

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

Very short and sweet. The Outsiders had a big impact on me...

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Is that a real poem?

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There is no poem by that name by Shakespeare. I am so glad Dollypop was never my English teacher.

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My favorite poem is Is It Crazy To Want To Unravel, by Wendy Rose.

My role-model sent it to me when I was going through a rough time in my life, and I am now using it for one of my forensics pieces. I love it!

IS IT CRAZY TO WANT TO UNRAVEL
-- Wendy Rose

like a dandelion gone to seed,
leaving nothing behind but a dent
or not even that to touch or burn
or remember.
This is the way
winter begins--
with the angry moth
who grips the window screen
and freezes into an opal.
Well, that's one way to go-
just get harder.

Or I could dissolve
as disobedient women do in the Bible
their solemn salt hands still pointing
to the pleasures of sin.

I could evaporate or liquefy
or become dust or turn sideways
before a funhouse mirror
to become a needle
becoming nothing

I could scream so mightily
that only sound would survive.
(BIG PAUSE)
I could cry myself dry,
be sifted by the desert wind
that burns my summer golden hills.

Or I could fly apart
and watch my whirling blood
form galaxies in the air,
spatter on the men
who hammer to death
the trees and remark
that a woman just
was standing there
and now
poof she is gone.

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Annabel Lee by Mr. Edgar Allan Poe


It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

She was a child and I 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.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me:
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud, chilling
And killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we --
Of many far wiser than we --
And neither the angels in Heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the side of the sea.

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"The Gardener" by Shel Silverstein:

We gave you the chance
To water the plants
We didn't mean THAT way...
Now pull up your pants.

But seriously, I enjoy most of Emily Dickinson's stuff...and "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost.

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Metaphors
by Sylvia Plath

I'm a riddle in nine syllables.
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new-minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.





(NOTE: No, I'm not pregnant. I just happen to like the poem.)

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I can't limit it to one, so I'll just say the collected works of Walt Whitman and Dr. Seuss.