Do you have a favorite poem?

Taleisin

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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

View attachment 74272
Is this written in Anglo-Saxon English?
 
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Jade

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Taleisin

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I have to correct you here. "The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon" is NOT a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The original poem is called The Beginnings, and reads:

THE BEGINNINGS
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.
Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.

The altered version is published primarily on white supremacist websites, and misrepresents the original which was written post-WW1.
 
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Jade

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I have to correct you here. "The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon" is NOT a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The original poem is called The Beginnings, and reads:

THE BEGINNINGS
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.
Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.

The altered version is published primarily on white supremacist websites, and misrepresents the original which was written post-WW1.
oh huh, I actually didn't know this. Thanks!
 
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grap

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This one is e.e. cummings:


i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.
 

greyetch

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Not really, but in high school we had to write a haiku and read it in front of the class. We were allowed one curse word per project in this class, because there was a lot of creative writing.

My haiku:

>thrusting in and out

>I'm cumming, fuck, I'm cumming

>Totally nutted

And I've always been pretty proud of that one

Michael Jordan Yes GIF
 
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jaedaen

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I love this thread. I have a sober response contrary to my post here from a while back. I bought a 'best of' type poetry book of classic poets at the thrift store a while back (Harvard Classics: Volume 3, Tennyson to Whitman) and here's my favorite among them. Coincidentally, Aphex Twin sampled this in one of his classic Selected Ambient Works (89-92)
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIXYPjIWPGY


I like this one because it talks about the eternal struggle between the established order of the world and that which rebels against it, creating their own established order to begin the cycle all over again.

Ode BY ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY (1873)

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming —
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man's soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man's heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day's late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry —
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God's future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song's new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.
 
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