Do you have a favorite poem?

chansei_03

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A poem that you listen everytime when you need to feel comfortable and accepted again? A poem that heals you from inside out?

My favorite poem is "Quando vier a primavera" from "Alberto Caeiro" one of the many personalities from Fernando Pessoa.

and yours?
 
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jaedaen

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Good topic. When it comes to the best poetry from my perspective, the rhythm of it has to have a certain cadence that sounds pleasing to say out loud (why I'm partial to the classics), and of course, it also has to speak to me emotionally. I like a lot of poetry, but I've always been partial to Robert Frost, particularly 'Fire and Ice' and 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'. You can find these ones easily enough though, they're very popular. It's really too hard to pick any one favorite though.

If there are any Crusader Kings 2 fans out there, I ran across a pretty badass translation of 'In Taberna Quando Sumus' (When we are in the tavern) by someone named Carol Anne Perry Lagemann (you rock Carol). This is an anonymous Goliardic poem written in the middle ages in Latin. I like it because, even though it's very far in the past now, it's very relatable. Standards may have gotten better since then; no one now is going to lose so hard at gambling that anyone will take the clothes they have on. Still, humans don't really change at all throughout history, only the culture around us does.

I did tweak the translation a little bit to fix the meter and the rhyming slightly.

When we're in the tavern drinking,
Mighty thoughts no one is thinking.
We run over to the table,
Betting, sweating, and unstable.
If you ask me, then you can learn
Just what happens in the tavern,
Money hosting, people paying:
Listen to what I am saying.

Some folks gamble, some are aimless,
Some are slutty, loud, and shameless.
Those who lose the coin they gamble
Exit nakedly to ramble.
Those who win a few more rounds will
End up wearing sacks and towels.
Death forgotten, nothing shocks us,
Dicing in the name of Bacchus.

First we take the dice and cast them,
Drunks with wine enough to last them;
Then drink twice for those in prison;
Drink three times for all the living;
Four to Christian souls pure-hearted;
Five to those who've long-departed;
Six to nuns with loosened habits;
Seven times to forest bandits.

Eight we drink to priests who fondle
Nine to monks who naught but wander
Ten to those who sail the ocean;
Eleven, those who cause commotion;
Twelve to those who do their penance;
Thirteen, rovers and dependents.
Pope and King in acclamation
Toast with all immoderation.

Drinks the mistress, drinks the master,
Drinks the guard, the cleric faster,
Drinks he and she, so free and fervent,
Drinks the maid beside the servant,
Drinks the worker, drinks the sluggard,
Drinks white and black and every color,
Drinks the constant, drinks the fickle,
Drinks the wise man and the simple.

Drinks the poor, the sick in danger,
Drinks the outcast, drinks the stranger,
Drinks the child, drinks the elder,
Drinks the prelate and his helper,
Drinks the sister, drinks the brother,
Drinks the grandma, drinks the mother,
Drinks this one and that, carousing,
Drink by hundreds, drink by thousands.

All our coin in dissipation
Spent where with immoderation
All are drinking without measure,
But our drinking brings us pleasure.
Everybody scolds us bluntly,
And we're always short of money.
Sober critics who won't buy in:
Fuck em, I say. No one likes em!
 
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xdsoftware

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A poem that you listen everytime when you need to feel comfortable and accepted again? A poem that heals you from inside out?

My favorite poem is "Quando vier a primavera" from "Alberto Caeiro" one of the many personalities from Fernando Pessoa.

and yours?

"
As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"

- Rudyard Kipling, The Gods of the Copybook Headings
 
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Aral

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A poem by Konstantin Simonov. "Жди меня, и я вернусь", literally "wait for me and I'll return".
I'm going to paste the translation I found here:

Wait for me, I will return.
Wait for all you're worth.
Wait, when sulphurous rains they burn
Snuffing out all mirth,
Wait, as drifting snow it drops,
Wait, when heat's too much.
Wait, when wait for others stops,
Past has lost its clutch.
Wait, when from that distant land
Letters do not come.
Wait, when all are weary and
Leave the wait to some.

Wait for me, I will return,
Don't indulge the rest
Who too quick their thoughts adjourn,
Feel amnesia's best.
Let my son and mother think
That I'm lost in mire,
Let my friends from waiting shrink,
Sitting by the fire,
Let them drink wine's bitter cup,
Toast abandoned wait...
Wait. Refuse with them to sup,
Don't bemoan my fate.

Wait for me, I will return,
Spiting death with pluck.
Let them say, who waiting spurn,
"It's his happy luck."
Those un-waiting ones won't get
That amidst the flames
'Twas your yearning saved me yet,
Vanquished mortal claims.
I survived, we both shall know –
Only you and I –
Just because you waited so,
Wouldn't let me die.
 
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Taleisin

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I don't know exactly if it's my favourite, but I love this one. It's in my sig for this reason.


On Talking (from "the prophet"), by Kahlil Gibran

And then a scholar said, Speak of Talking.
And he answered, saying:
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.

When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
When the colour is forgotten and the vessel is no more.
 
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7Pebbles

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A poem that you listen everytime when you need to feel comfortable and accepted again? A poem that heals you from inside out?

My favorite poem is "Quando vier a primavera" from "Alberto Caeiro" one of the many personalities from Fernando Pessoa.

and yours?

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave 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 grieve 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.
.
Aside from the beautiful meanings that it holds as Dylan Thomas speaking to his dying father, I quite like it for the message that it conveys to us all. Don't give in. Never give in to death. I especially love it in Interstellar as it fits so perfectly with Dr. Mann talking to Cooper about how he will keep fighting, even as he is asphyxiating light years away on the edge of a black hole, to see his children again. I'm closer to having kids than I am to dying of old age, so I suppose that it makes sense to me that that resonates more with me than its original meaning.
I've also been through some darker times in my own mind (as I'm sure we all have) and its this sort of thing that has kept me going. I want to see what happens next. I don't want to let death win. If for nothing else, I'd like to keep living, just to spite my enemies. I wouldn't quite classify it as making me feel accepted, but it certainly speaks to my soul on some level.
 
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Cobalt

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The Song of the Vermonters, by John Whittier 1833

Ho–all to the borders! Vermonters, come down,
With your breeches of deerskin and jackets of brown;
With your red woollen caps and your moccasins come,
To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum.

Come down with your rifles!
Let gray wolf and fox
Howl on in the shade of their primitive rocks;
Let the bear feed securely from pig-pen and stall;
Here's two-legged game for your powder and ball.

On our south came the Dutchmen, enveloped in grease;
And arming for battle while canting of peace;
On our east crafty Meshech has gathered his band
To hang up our leaders and eat up our land.

Ho–all to the rescue! For Satan shall work
No gain for his legions of Hampshire and York!
They claim our possessions–the pitiful knaves–
The tribute we pay shall be prisons and graves!

Let Clinton and Ten Broek with bribes in their hands,
Still seek to divide and parcel our lands;
We've coats for our traitors, whoever they are;
The warp is of feathers–the filling of tar:

Does the 'old Bay State' threaten?
Does Congress complain?
Swarms Hampshire in arms on our borders again?
Bark the war dogs of Britain aloud on the lake–
Let 'em come; what they can they are welcome to take.

What seek they among us?
The pride of our wealth
Is comfort, contentment, and labor, and health,
And lands which, as Freemen we only have trod,
Independent of all, save the mercies of God.

Yet we owe no allegiance, we bow to no throne,
Our ruler is law and the law is our own;
Our leaders themselves are our own fellow-men,
Who can handle the sword, or the scythe, or the pen.

Our wives are all true, and our daughters are fair,
With their blue eyes of smiles and their light flowing hair,
All brisk at their wheels till the dark even-fall,
Then blithe at the sleigh-ride the husking and ball!

We've sheep on the hillsides, we've cows on the plain,
And gay-tasselled corn-fields and rank-growing grain;
There are deer on the mountains, and wood-pigeons fly
From the crack of our muskets, like clouds on the sky.

And there's fish in our streamlets and rivers which take
Their course from the hills to our broad bosomed lake;
Through rock-arched Winooski the salmon leaps free,
And the portly shad follows all fresh from the sea.

Like a sunbeam the pickerel glides through the pool,
And the spotted trout sleeps where the water is cool,
Or darts from his shelter of rock and of root,
At the beaver's quick plunge, or the angler's pursuit.

And ours are the mountains, which awfully rise,
Till they rest their green heads on the blue of the skies;
And ours are the forests unwasted, unshorn,
Save where the wild path of the tempest is torn.

And though savage and wild be this climate of ours,
And brief be our season of fruits and of flowers,
Far dearer the blast round our mountains which raves,
Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves!

Hurrah for Vermont! For the land which we till
Must have sons to defend her from valley and hill;
Leave the harvest to rot on the fields where it grows,
And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes

From far Michiscom's wild valley, to where
Poosoonsuck steals down from his wood-circled lair,
From Shocticook River to Lutterlock town
Ho–all to the rescue! Vermonters come down!

Come York or come Hampshire, come traitors or knaves,
If ye rule o'er our land ye shall rule o'er our graves;
Our vow is recorded–our banner unfurled,
In the name of Vermont we defy all the world!
 
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qwerty

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Wild Geese by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
 
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mauisun_user237

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I have two favorites that come to mind, this first one by D.H. Lawrence:

Terra Incognita​


There are vast realms of consciousness still undreamed of
vast ranges of experience, like the humming of unseen harps,
we know nothing of, within us.
Oh when man has escaped from the barbed-wire entanglement
of his own ideas and his own mechanical devices
there is a marvellous rich world of contact and sheer fluid beauty
and fearless face-to-face awareness of now-naked life
and me, and you, and other men and women
and grapes, and ghouls, and ghosts and green moonlight
and ruddy-orange limbs stirring the limbo
of the unknown air, and eyes so soft
softer than the space between the stars,
and all things, and nothing, and being and not-being
alternately palpitant,
when at last we escape the barbed-wire enclosure
of Know Thyself, knowing we can never know,
we can but touch, and wonder, and ponder, and make our effort
and dangle in a last fastidious fine delight
as the fuchsia does, dangling her reckless drop
of purple after so much putting forth
and slow mounting marvel of a little tree
 
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And this one by Lady Mary Montagu:

A Hymn to the Moon

Thou silver deity of secret night,
Direct my footsteps through the woodland shade;
Thou conscious witness of unknown delight,
The Lover's guardian, and the Muse's aid!
By thy pale beams I solitary rove,
To thee my tender grief confide;
Serenely sweet you gild the silent grove,
My friend, my goddess, and my guide.
E'en thee, fair queen, from thy amazing height,
The charms of young Endymion drew;
Veil'd with the mantle of concealing night;
With all thy greatness and thy coldness too.
 
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ECHETLAEUS

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I dont read poetry but i like writing some of them.

Love hurts
Everything good has its cost
Without pain and the rain nothing matters
Find the light while you are in the dark lost.

Lust and pleasures
Addictions in camos
Non humane filthy creatures
Im in love with you
In my mind vivid pictures
But i have my purpose, i'll come late my mistress.

I feel your soul
The only peaceful place to be
Dont play with bodies
Dangerous bond
I love your aura and feel free
Dont cry my woman, i wont leave you alone
Dont shed a tear
I wont touch you im a warrior
And i want you to live with me
A life in peace and love
And fear free.

I dont want to misuse you
Till the days come
The best things always come after working hard
I love you my queen
But i dont tell you
Nothing better than warming your heart
The horniest thing is the platonic love.
 
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h00

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Great thread! I haven't gotten too much into poetry but everything posted in here so far is a good jumping off point.
I like Robert Frost's romanticization of the woods and winter, this one's my favorite:
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
 
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Upstairs from us, a grand ball!

Devious angels dance in disorder, and out of their steps fall
shards of deathly white snow.

Death is among the holly leaves. Crawling quietly in the attic.
Gnawing at my finger. Anxiously. And then at midnight - it falls
at the storefront of the glass shop, exposing its stark white back.

Old love and time are buried, and the earth devours them.

It is snowing by Chika Sagawa
 

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Probably Deor. It's a melancholy poem but it's also very hopeful.
Fun fact, it was a big inspiration for many of the themes in LOTR

Wēlund him be wurman wræces cunnade,
anhȳdig eorl earfoða drēag,
hæfde him tō gesīþþe sorge ond longaþ,
wintercealde wræce; wēan oft onfond,
siþþan hine Niþhad on nēde legde,
swoncre seonobende on syllan monn.
Þæs oferēode, þisses swā mæg.

Beadohilde ne wæs hyre brōðra dēaþ
on sefan swā sār swā hyre sylfre þing,
þæt hēo gearolīce ongieten hæfde
þæt hēo ēacen wæs; ǣfre ne meahte
þrīste geþencan, hū ymb þæt sceolde.
Þæs oferēode, þisses swā mæg.

Wē þæt Mæþhilde monge gefrugnon
wurdon grundlēase Gēates frīge,
þæt him sēo sorglufu slǣp ealle binom.
Þæs oferēode, þisses swā mæg.

Þēodrīc āhte þrītig wintra
Mǣringa burg; þæt wæs monegum cūþ.
Þæs oferēode, þisses swā mæg.

Wē geāscodan Ēormanrīces
wylfenne geþōht; āhte wīde folc
Gotena rīces. Þæt wæs grim cyning.
Sæt secg monig sorgum gebunden,
wēan on wēnan, wyscte geneahhe
þæt þæs cynerīces ofercumen wǣre.
Þæs oferēode, þisses swā mæg.

Siteþ sorgcearig, sǣlum bidǣled,
on sefan sweorceþ, sylfum þinceþ
þæt sȳ endelēas earfoða dæl.
Mæg þonne geþencan, þæt geond þās woruld
wītig dryhten wendeþ geneahhe,
eorle monegum āre gesceawaþ,
wīslīcne blǣd, sumum wēana dǣl.
Þæt ic bi mē sylfum secgan wille,
þæt ic hwīle wæs Heodeninga scop,
dryhtne dȳre. Mē wæs Dēor noma.
Āhte ic fela wintra folgaþ tilne,
holdne hlāford, oþþæt Heorrenda nū,
lēoþcræftig monn londryht geþāh,
þæt mē eorla hlēo ǣr gesealde.
Þæs oferēode, þisses swā mæg.

Honorable mention goes to 'The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon' by Rudyard Kipling

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