posted October 29, 2003 03:04 PM         

Just out of interest, what is everyone's fav poem?

Mine is EATH BE NOT PROUD by JOHN DONNE

posted October 29, 2003 04:04 PM         

Untitled
by Aphrodite Sky
October 12, 2003

posted October 29, 2003 04:16 PM         

STRANGE fits of passion have I known
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening-moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over wide lea
With quickening pace my
horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts
will slide Into a Lover's head!
"O mercy!" to myself I cried,
"If Lucy should be dead!"

And...

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.

posted October 29, 2003 11:23 PM         

Surrender
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Love, when we met, 'twas like two planets meeting.
Strange chaos followed; body, soul, and heart
Seemed skaken, thrilled, and startled by that greeting.
Old ties, old dreams, old aims, all torn apart
And wrenched away, left nothing there the while
But the great shining glory of your smile.

I knew no past; 'twas all a blurred, bleak waste;
I asked no future; 'twas a blinding glare.
I only saw the present: as men taste
Some stimulating wine, and lose all care,
I tasted Love's elixir, and I seemed
Dwelling in some strange land, like one who dreamed.

It was a godlike separate existence;
Our world was set apart in some fair clime.
I had no will, no purpose, no resistance;
I only knew I loved you for all time.
The earth seemed something foreign and afar,
And we two, sovereigns dwelling in a star!

It is so sad, so strange, I almost doubt
That all those years could be, before we met.
Do you not wish that we could blot them out?
Obliterate them wholly, and forget
That we had any part in life until
We clasped each other with Love's rapture thrill?

My being trembled to its very centre
At that first kiss. Cold Reason stood aside
With folded arms to let a grand Love enter
In my Soul's secret chamber to abide.
Its great High Priest, my first Love and my last,
There on its altar I consumed my past.

posted October 29, 2003 11:44 PM         

I long for scenes which man hath never trod,
A place where woman never smiled or wept,
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubled and untroubling, where I lie,
The grass below-- above, the vaulted sky.
-- John Clare

That poem, btw, was written by a lunatic in an insane asylum.

posted October 30, 2003 05:42 PM           

i thank You God for most this
amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything
which is natural which
is infinite
which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;
this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings:
and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
~~~~~
may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
what ever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them
men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right
they are not young
and may my self do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been
quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

e.e. cummings

----------------
And, heh - this is one heck of a poem for a girl that ended-up marrying an Army guy to like, but I've done so since I read it aloud back as a H.S. Freshman for a presentation; I read it with such apparent force and emotion that my classmates sat mute for a few beats, and then erupted into a long applause:

"War Is Kind"

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom --
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.