Favourite Poem

POSTED BY: kpo
UPDATED: Saturday, June 19, 2010 03:04
VIEWED: 8120
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GEEZER

Sunday, June 13, 2010 2:52 AM

A couple more of Kipling's are among my favorites.

"By the Hoof of the Wild Goat"

By the Hoof of the Wild Goat uptossed
From the cliff where she lay in the Sun
Fell the Stone
To the Tarn where the daylight is lost,
So she fell from the light of the Sun
And alone!

Now the fall was ordained from the first
With the Goat and the Cliff and the Tarn,
But the Stone
Knows only her life is accursed
As she sinks from the light of the Sun
And alone!

Oh Thou Who hast builded the World,
Oh Thou Who hast lighted the Sun,
Oh Thou Who hast darkened the Tarn,
Judge Thou
The sin of the Stone that was hurled
By the goat from the light of the Sun,
As she sinks in the mire of the Tarn,
Even now--even now--even now!

"The Grave of the Hundred Head"

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

A Snider squibbed in the jungle,
Somebody laughed and fled,
And the men of the First Shikaris
Picked up their Subaltern dead,
With a big blue mark in his forehead
And the back blown out of his head.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Jemadar Hira Lal,
Took command of the party,
Twenty rifles in all,
Marched them down to the river
As the day was beginning to fall.

They buried the boy by the river,
A blanket over his face--
They wept for their dead Lieutenant,
The men of an alien race--
They made a samadh in his honor,
A mark for his resting-place.

For they swore by the Holy Water,
They swore by the salt they ate,
That the soul of Lieutenant Eshmitt Sahib
Should go to his God in state;
With fifty file of Burman
To open him Heaven's gate.

The men of the First Shikaris
Marched till the break of day,
Till they came to the rebel village,
The village of Pabengmay--
A jingal covered the clearing,
Calthrops hampered the way.

Subadar Prag Tewarri,
Bidding them load with ball,
Halted a dozen rifles
Under the village wall;
Sent out a flanking-party
With Jemadar Hira Lal.

The men of the First Shikaris
Shouted and smote and slew,
Turning the grinning jingal
On to the howling crew.
The Jemadar's flanking-party
Butchered the folk who flew.

Long was the morn of slaughter,
Long was the list of slain,
Five score heads were taken,
Five score heads and twain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back to their grave again,

Each man bearing a basket
Red as his palms that day,
Red as the blazing village--
The village of Pabengmay,
And the "drip-drip-drip" from the baskets
Reddened the grass by the way.

They made a pile of their trophies
High as a tall man's chin,
Head upon head distorted,
Set in a sightless grin,
Anger and pain and terror
Stamped on the smoke-scorched skin.

Subadar Prag Tewarri
Put the head of the Boh
On the top of the mound of triumph,
The head of his son below,
With the sword and the peacock-banner
That the world might behold and know.

Thus the samadh was perfect,
Thus was the lesson plain
Of the wrath of the First Shikaris--
The price of a white man slain;
And the men of the First Shikaris
Went back into camp again.

Then a silence came to the river,
A hush fell over the shore,
And Bohs that were brave departed,
And Sniders squibbed no more;
For the Burmans said
That a kullah's head
Must be paid for with heads five score.

There's a widow in sleepy Chester
Who weeps for her only son;
There's a grave on the Pabeng River,
A grave that the Burmans shun,
And there's Subadar Prag Tewarri
Who tells how the work was done.

"Keep the Shiny side up"

ASORTAFAIRYTALE

Sunday, June 13, 2010 3:28 AM

I'm not a huge fan of poetry in general, but I do enjoy Robert Browning's poems. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" is an especially good one, although a bit long:

http://www.bartleby.com/246/654.html

Along the same line of longish and dark poems is the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge, which I think is a really cool story.
http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/

MINCINGBEAST

Sunday, June 13, 2010 3:37 AM

The Kraken, Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

also note that poetry is for the affected and the dreary. fart jokes are more thoughtful and honest.

FEARTHEBUNNYMAN

Sunday, June 13, 2010 4:58 AM

I love this poem b/c I love flying and it also reminds me of my father, who was a bomber pilot.

"High Flight"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

also like "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Elliot, "A Leave-Taking" by Algernon Swinburne, and the usual suspects (Poe, Donne, Plath, Emily Dickenson, etc)

Enjoying reading others' selections here.

ASORTAFAIRYTALE

Sunday, June 13, 2010 6:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by fearthebunnyman:

also like "The Hollow Men" by T.S. Elliot

T.S. Eliot is another great one! I like "The Wasteland" by him.
I love his extremely desolate view of the world.

CHAPTERANDVERSE

Sunday, June 13, 2010 9:43 PM

KPO, I love Edna St. Vincent Millay! She is hugely underappreciated.
My personal favourite:

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

OUT2THEBLACK

Monday, June 14, 2010 12:44 AM

"Old Inuit Song"

'...I think over again
My small adventures
My fears
Those small ones that seemed so big
For all the vital things
I had to get and to reach
And yet there is only one great thing
The only thing
To live to see the great day that dawns
And the light that fills the world.'

NEWOLDBROWNCOAT

Monday, June 14, 2010 1:12 AM

Chris, thanx for Stopping By Woods. I was gonna post it myself, but couldn't recall it exactly by memory, which I used to be able to do, and hadn't got around to digging it up.
Frost was a genius- short poem, lovely images and music in the words, he's playing a little game with the rhyme scheme, and a serious, generalized theme.

CHRISISALL

Monday, June 14, 2010 1:32 AM

It's always been my favourite! Glad you love it as well.

The laughing Chrisisall

OUT2THEBLACK

Monday, June 14, 2010 11:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by asortafairytale:

Along the same line of longish and dark poems is the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Coleridge, which I think is a really cool story.

http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/

Must be why Joss referenced it in the BDM...

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