Classical and Modern Poetry - Pin your favourite!

Discussion in 'Education & Personal Growth' started by Aria, Jun 28, 2014.

  1. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Creating this thread to discuss classical and modern poetry - Marlowe, Shakespeare, Romantics or Modern poets, post your favourite verses here.


    I was watching 'How I Met your Mother' re-run this morning and at the mention of Pablo Neruda, digged this poem. Beautiful! Simply beautiful!

    I want you to know
    one thing.

    You know how this is:
    if I look
    at the crystal moon, at the red branch
    of the slow autumn at my window,
    if I touch
    near the fire
    the impalpable ash
    or the wrinkled body of the log,
    everything carries me to you,
    as if everything that exists,
    aromas, light, metals,
    were little boats
    that sail
    toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

    Well, now,
    if little by little you stop loving me
    I shall stop loving you little by little.

    If suddenly
    you forget me
    do not look for me,
    for I shall already have forgotten you.

    If you think it long and mad,
    the wind of banners
    that passes through my life,
    and you decide
    to leave me at the shore
    of the heart where I have roots,
    remember
    that on that day,
    at that hour,
    I shall lift my arms
    and my roots will set off
    to seek another land.

    But
    if each day,
    each hour,
    you feel that you are destined for me
    with implacable sweetness,
    if each day a flower
    climbs up to your lips to seek me,
    ah my love, ah my own,
    in me all that fire is repeated,
    in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
    my love feeds on your love, beloved,
    and as long as you live it will be in your arms
    without leaving mine.


    Pablo Neruda
     
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  2. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    My all time favourite -read it at leisure, in a hurry, scroll through or peruse, the affect is palpable.

    I read it for the first time in my school, since then remained close to my heart.

    If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
    If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too:
    If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
    Or being hated don't give way to hating,
    And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

    If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
    If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same:.
    If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
    Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

    If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
    And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
    And never breathe a word about your loss:
    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

    If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
    If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much:
    If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
    Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!


    Rudyard Kipling
     
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  3. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    I found out very late about Emily Dickinson , in my 20s and was not initially impressed, few more more reads and you are hooked.

    poetrysoup.com/famous/poems/best/emily_dickinson


    My favourite

    Hope is the thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul,
    And sings the tune without the words,
    And never stops at all,

    And sweetest in the gale is heard;
    And sore must be the storm
    That could abash the little bird
    That kept so many warm.

    I've heard it in the chillest land,
    And on the strangest sea;
    Yet, never, in extremity,
    It asked a crumb of me.

    -Emily Dickinson
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2014
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  4. Gauri03

    Gauri03 Moderator Staff Member IL Hall of Fame

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    Aria (old friend in new avatar?), 'IF' by Kipling has been a long time favorite of mine. Such inspiring verse! It is one of the few poems I can recite by heart. I am not much of a poetry aficionado. The last poetry I read was part of my school's curriculum. It's funny because I have always enjoyed poetry, just never got around to picking up a book and reading some. Another poem in the same vein as 'IF' is 'Invictus' by William Henley. The feelings this one stirs in me are indescribable. Sheer brilliance!

    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.
     
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  5. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Gauri,

    Good to see you! I'm tempted to ask what busted me -the vociferousness, inkhorn glyphs , or the utterly mutilated interjections!

    Oh, the outlandishness of creating unsensational threads, who reads these kind of threads here, :)

    Sending your way ...


    Ithaca


    When you set out for Ithaka
    ask that your way be long,
    full of adventure, full of instruction.
    The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
    angry Poseidon - do not fear them:
    such as these you will never find
    as long as your thought is lofty, as long as a rare
    emotion touch your spirit and your body.
    The Laistrygonians and the Cyclops,
    angry Poseidon - you will not meet them
    unless you carry them in your soul,
    unless your soul raise them up before you.

    Ask that your way be long.
    At many a Summer dawn to enter
    with what gratitude, what joy -
    ports seen for the first time;
    to stop at Phoenician trading centres,
    and to buy good merchandise,
    mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
    and sensuous perfumes of every kind,
    sensuous perfumes as lavishly as you can;
    to visit many Egyptian cities,
    to gather stores of knowledge from the learned.

    Have Ithaka always in your mind.
    Your arrival there is what you are destined for.
    But don't in the least hurry the journey.
    Better it last for years,
    so that when you reach the island you are old,
    rich with all you have gained on the way,
    not expecting Ithaka to give you wealth.
    Ithaka gave you a splendid journey.
    Without her you would not have set out.
    She hasn't anything else to give you.

    And if you find her poor, Ithaka hasn't deceived you.
    So wise you have become, of such experience,
    that already you'll have understood what these Ithakas mean.


    Constantine P. Cavafy
     
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  6. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Beautiful verse! There are few poems that every time one reads , it ensures that indelible print is renewed.


    A child said, What is the grass?


    A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
    hands;
    How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
    is any more than he.

    I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
    green stuff woven.

    Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
    A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
    Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
    may see and remark, and say Whose?

    Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe
    of the vegetation.

    Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
    And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
    zones,
    Growing among black folks as among white,
    Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
    same, I receive them the same.

    And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

    Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
    It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
    It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
    It may be you are from old people and from women, and
    from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
    And here you are the mother's laps.

    This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
    mothers,
    Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
    Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

    O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues!
    And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
    for nothing.

    I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
    and women,
    And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
    taken soon out of their laps.

    What do you think has become of the young and old men?
    What do you think has become of the women and
    children?

    They are alive and well somewhere;
    The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
    And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
    at the end to arrest it,
    And ceased the moment life appeared.

    All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
    And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
    luckier.


    Walt Whitman
     
  7. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Last year one of my friends used 'tuffet' in a conversation, and I queried - 'Whats that'?

    "What? You have never read Miss Muffet"

    I had to read this rhyme again to realize how rich is the vocabulary even in nursery rhymes.

    Or the richness is the vocabulary, short, sweet, and elegant.


    View attachment 210034
     
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  8. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    Poems for children seriatim, another of my favorites, recite to kids and enjoy the emanating laughter. I heard the first time in my local library where the librarian was reciting to bunch of kids trying to check if there are noses can still smell pocket full of posies.


    Be Glad Your Nose is on Your Face


    Be glad your nose is on your face,
    not pasted on some other place,
    for if it were where it is not,
    you might dislike your nose a lot.

    Imagine if your precious nose
    were sandwiched in between your toes,
    that clearly would not be a treat,
    for you'd be forced to smell your feet.

    Your nose would be a source of dread
    were it attached atop your head,
    it soon would drive you to despair,
    forever tickled by your hair.

    Within your ear, your nose would be
    an absolute catastrophe,
    for when you were obliged to sneeze,
    your brain would rattle from the breeze.

    Your nose, instead, through thick and thin,
    remains between your eyes and chin,
    not pasted on some other place--
    be glad your nose is on your face!


    Jack P
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2014
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  9. Srama

    Srama Finest Post Winner

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    Aria!! When you do these incredible things like starting such lovely threads, shouldn't you think of your old friends (meaning me and just me :) ) and ping me on what you are up to? I simply could benefit from reading what you and the likes of Gauri share here.

    But I am glad, I found the thread and now that I have found this thread, I will be popping in and often and make myself more conversant with poetry. Never been much into poetry. Let me rephrase it, never been much in to English Poetry....it has always been Sanskrit prose and some poetry! So a big thank you.

    OKay, now in the recent past, I have been kind of obsessed with this poem. I cannot stop thinking about it. So here it is -

    What if you slept ...Samuel Coleridge (Supposedly!)

    What if you slept
    And what if
    In your sleep
    You dreamed
    And what if
    In your dream
    You went to heaven
    And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
    And what if
    When you awoke
    You had that flower in you hand
    Ah, what then?

    Beautiful no? and follow you I shall :biggrin2:

    PS: I do love 'How I met your mother' and now love it even more for it brought us this thread.
     
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  10. Aria

    Aria New IL'ite

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    We are already endangered tribe seeking refuge under Protection Act IL 398B and this forum is our final bastion. How can we afford to lose you or cut you off, temme? Whoo whooo, glad to see the old gang back! Gauri back in the groove is renascence of an era that flourished with coruscating grey. I still miss that quiz thread so much (frown).


    'Invictus' is that poem that would have inspired people to clamber, stagger and stand to fight one last battle, no wonder it impressed Obama to quote it in memorial of Nelson Mandela.

    Nelson Mandela memorial: Barack Obama wins loudest roar of approval from restless crowd - Telegraph



    And reading it playing Chariots of Fire in the background, pumps you to pit against all odds in life (well, it sounds equally prepped listening to Dr Who theme)


    Srama, I love your selection and simple yet potent verses. My association with Samuel Taylor Coleridge is winding. Orson Welles --> Citizen Kane--> Xanadu mansion --> Kubla Khan --> written by S.T Coleridge.

    Kubla Khan


    In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
    A stately pleasure-dome decree :
    Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
    Through caverns measureless to man
    Down to a sunless sea.
    So twice five miles of fertile ground
    With walls and towers were girdled round :
    And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
    Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
    And here were forests ancient as the hills,
    Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.


    But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
    Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
    A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
    As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
    By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
    And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
    As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
    A mighty fountain momently was forced :
    Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
    Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
    Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
    And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
    It flung up momently the sacred river.
    Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
    Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
    Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
    And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
    And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
    Ancestral voices prophesying war !
    The shadow of the dome of pleasure
    Floated midway on the waves ;
    Where was heard the mingled measure
    From the fountain and the caves.
    It was a miracle of rare device,
    A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !


    A damsel with a dulcimer
    In a vision once I saw :
    It was an Abyssinian maid,
    And on her dulcimer she played,
    Singing of Mount Abora.
    Could I revive within me
    Her symphony and song,
    To such a deep delight 'twould win me,
    That with music loud and long,
    I would build that dome in air,
    That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
    And all who heard should see them there,
    And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
    His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
    Weave a circle round him thrice,
    And close your eyes with holy dread,
    For he on honey-dew hath fed,
    And drunk the milk of Paradise.


    Samuel Taylor Coleridge
     
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