Your Favorite Poetry

by compound complex 23 Replies latest jw friends

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  compound complex

  Thank you, Dear Friends, for expressing your thoughts today on the importance of the arts in your lives.

  Many years ago, a number of threads were devoted to poetry, literature, even English grammar. Rather than resurrect an old thread -- usually with zero results -- I would like to introduce a new post, asking you to add some of your favorite verse.

  The old threads often were numerous pages long.

  Gratefully,

  CoCo

  NOT IN VAIN

  If I can stop one heart from breaking,
  I shall not live in vain:
  If I can ease one life the aching,
  Or cool one pain,
  Or help one fainting robin
  Unto his nest again,
  I shall not life in vain.

  Emily Dickinson
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  Wasanelder Once

  Some consider his work a bit banal, I think of his work as uncommon beats for the common man.

  Forgetfulness
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  Xanthippe

  The Lake Isle of Innisfree

  BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

  I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

  And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

  Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

  And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

  
  

  And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

  Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

  There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

  And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

  
  

  I will arise and go now, for always night and day

  I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

  While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

  I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
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  Anders Andersen

  The following poem has always been my favorite.

  And being reminded of it now (thinks for that), gives it a whole new meaning, fresh ex-JW.

  Whenever I read it, it is accompanied by this song playing in my head.

  I just love that melancholic feeling of making a choice and then not knowing what you're missing from the other options you had.

  Isn't that appropriate....

  
  

  The Road Not Taken

  BY ROBERT FROST
  
  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
  And sorry I could not travel both
  And be one traveler, long I stood
  And looked down one as far as I could
  To where it bent in the undergrowth;
  
  Then took the other, as just as fair,
  And having perhaps the better claim,
  Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
  Though as for that the passing there
  Had worn them really about the same,
  
  And both that morning equally lay
  In leaves no step had trodden black.
  Oh, I kept the first for another day!
  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
  I doubted if I should ever come back.
  
  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.

  
  
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  slimboyfat

  I love Yeats too, especially a poem that starts "when my arms wrap your round I press..."

  Robert Frost is good too, my favourite is "Lost Love".

  One of my favourite poets is Stevie Smith. Short and too the point. Fafnir and Knights, Not Waving But Drowning, Was He Married? Count Flanders. All great stuff.

  Auden too.
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  Xanthippe

  Here it is SBF.

  He remembers forgotten Beauty - W B YEATS

  1. When my arms wrap you round I press
     My heart upon the loveliness
     That has long faded from the world;
     The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled
     In shadowy pools, when armies fled;
     The love-tales wrought with silken thread
     By dreaming ladies upon cloth
     That has made fat the murderous moth;
     The roses that of old time were
     Woven by ladies in their hair.
     The dew-cold lilies ladies bore
     Through many a sacred corridor
     Where such gray clouds of incense rose
     That only the gods' eyes did not close:
     For that pale breast and lingering hand
     Come from a more dream-heavy land,
     A more dream-heavy hour than this;
     And when you sigh from kiss to kiss
     I hear white Beauty sighing, too,
     For hours when all must fade like dew,
     All but the flames, and deep on deep.
     Throne over throne where in half sleep.
     Their swords upon their iron knees,
     Brood her high lonely mysteries.
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  Anders Andersen

  @SBF,

  Tried to find the LostLove poem. I can only find one by Robert Graves.

  
  Is this the one you meant?

  His eyes are quickened so with grief,
  He can watch a grass or leaf
  Every instant grow; he can
  Clearly through a flint wall see,
  Or watch the startled spirit flee
  From the throat of a dead man.
  ...

  
  
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  sparky1

  "Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee

  And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me." - Robert Frost
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  sowhatnow

  how about this one?......

  All of us have questions
  that have no answers
  and memories that hurt.
  An unknown future.
  A past that haunts.
  Lost time
  Lost love
  Lost friends
  Lost chances
  Mistakes we cannot fix.
  Things we need are out of reach.
  We're tired and cant find Home.
  We put on a shell, put up a wall,
  to protect our heart.
  It hurts too much to dwell
  It drains our energy to grieve.
  We need to go on living...
  Behind every face is a mind full of stories,
  hurts and joys and trials.
  The world is always changing.
  The greatest gift a god could give,
  Other than life itself,
  Would be the Ability,
  to go back and change the past.
  Fix mistakes, and take those chances,
  To make the future brighter.
  But one Gift we already have
  is the Gift of choice.
  We can choose to turn away from the
  negative, and seek with determination
  The positive.
  Take with us knowledge.
  Keep the flame in our heart lit.
  We must present to others as much
  of the Gift of joy as we can
  Even if it be for a little while.
  For it is life's water .
  For every one we meet,
  A sunny smile is sometimes
  All we may have to give.
  And hope our sunny smile will help
  The Garden Of Life grow .

  written
  by
  me.
  
  
  
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  Ucantnome

  The Walker of the Snow, Charles Dawson Shanly.