# Poems that make you shiver



## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 8, 2004)

I'm not talking about scared. When I first read _The Tyger_ aloud, I practically couldn't stand up it was so good. What poems have moved you like this?

_As I Walked Out One Morning_ by Auden, _The Hollow Men_ by T.S. Eliot. I'm sure more will come to me.

EDIT: _The Second Coming_.


----------



## Thorntangle (Dec 8, 2004)

Many, many poems do this.  Whitman always gives me the cosmic shivers.  Randal Jarrell gave me the shock shiver when I was 12 or so.  


From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.


----------



## Felix (Dec 8, 2004)

Ah, _Death of the Ball Turret Gunner_. Classic. And I'll be seconding Whitman.

That guy was a bona fide wordsmith, even if he did use "love-root" in one of his works.


----------



## Pielorinho (Dec 8, 2004)

_Each night, father fills me with dread_
_When he sits at the foot of my bed._
_I'd not mind that he speaks_
_in gibbers and squeaks_
_But for seventeen years, he's been dead._

Gotta love Ed Gorey.

Serious poems that chill me?  There's a poem by e.e. cummings that begins
_no time ago_
_or else a lifetime_

I'll let folks look it up.
Daniel


----------



## Pielorinho (Dec 8, 2004)

Ooh, another e.e. cummings poem:
_in a middle of a room_
_stands a suicide_

The final stanza of it--after a suicide discusses the possibility of happiness existing elsewhere--is beautiful and terrible:
_(a moon swims out of a cloud_
_a clock strikes midnight_
_a finger pulls a trigger_
_a bird flies into a mirror)_
Daniel


----------



## nakia (Dec 8, 2004)

I'll second Yeats and "The Second Coming".  Part of that poem will be an epigram for my dissertation: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

I am also a big fan of Whitman.  I love "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."

And poor Mr. Prufrock, as well as "The Waste Land."

Recently, I have been reading some Rita Dove.  If you are ever feeling sorry for yourself, check out "Against Self Pity" in _On the Bus with Rosa Parks_.


----------



## Wombat (Dec 8, 2004)

Ah, poetry,

When I was a kid, I thought I hated poetry, though I had memorized dozens of them (and song lyrics besides).  Even when I started writing poetry, I thought I disliked poetry.  Crazy, huh?

Then I went to college.  There I met Don Sheehan.

Don taught me that I didn't dislike poetry, but that there were specific poems I didn't like.  This allowed me to turn my thoughts around.  I came to love Langston Hughs, Carl Sandburg, Geoffrey Chaucer, Margaret Atwood, and many, many others.  And I learned to like my own writing and churn out quite a bit (although most of it is so personal/self-referential that they make no sense to anyone except me).  

Don had a simple rule for poetry.  "Read it.  Do you like it?  If so, it is a good poem.  If you don't like it, it isn't.  Of course, your opinion may change over time..."  Thanks, Don  

Poems that make me shivver?  How about "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden?  "I Sing The Body Electric" by Walt Whitman.  The slowly building and sad splendour of "Spoon River Antholgy" by Edgar Lee Masters.  "The Raven" and "The Bells" by Poe.  

Ooo... gotta go read more poems!


----------



## Rodrigo Istalindir (Dec 8, 2004)

"The Waste Land" and "The Hollow Men", Eliot
"Ozymandias", Shelley
"Annabelle Lee", "The Raven", Poe
"Rime of the Ancient Mariner", "Kubla Khan", Coleridge


----------



## Hypersmurf (Dec 8, 2004)

Blake, from the Prologue for King Edward the Fourth:
_When Sin claps his broad wings over the battle, 
and sails rejoicing in the flood of Death; 
When souls are torn to everlasting fire, 
and fiends of Hell rejoice upon the slain, 
O who can stand?_

Blake, Jerusalem:
_Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Brig me my spear - O, clouds unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!_

Noyes, The Highwayman:
_Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky, 
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high! 
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon, wine-red was his velvet coat 
When they shot him down in the highway, 
Down like a dog in the highway, 
And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat._

-Hyp.


----------



## Pielorinho (Dec 8, 2004)

Margaret Atwood!

Around the time I started dating the woman that would become my wife, I got a book of Atwood poetry and was reading it.  Partly, of course, I was reading it to find gooey romantic poems with which to woo this wonderful woman.

Atwood's the wrong place to look for that sort of thing.

There's one poem in particular that I remember from that collection.  Not because it was relevant to the situation, but because it's short and sweet, almost Hallmarkian in its elegance:

_We fit together_
_like hook and eye._
_A fish hook_
_An open eye._

Daniel


----------



## Berandor (Dec 8, 2004)

At least two of them very nicely set to music by Loreena McKennitt.
ETA: That refers to Hypersmurf's poems.

Well, Rainer Maria Rilke has done some fabulous poems, in German and French:


> Herr: es ist Zeit. Der Sommer war sehr groß.
> Leg deinen Schatten auf die Sonnenuhren,
> und auf den Fluren laß die Winde los.
> 
> ...



Of course, there's Shiller, Goethe and the like.

I've got books with poems by John Keats and Robert Burns, but I've never read them. Any hints on what I should try? 

Oh, and "The Raven" is classic.


----------



## replicant2 (Dec 9, 2004)

From _Ulysses_, by Alfred Tennyson:

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, --
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.


----------



## Hypersmurf (Dec 9, 2004)

Berandor said:
			
		

> At least two of them very nicely set to music by Loreena McKennitt.




Tell me something I don't know 

And, of course, Jerusalem is also set to music... just not by Loreena 

-Hyp.


----------



## mhacdebhandia (Dec 9, 2004)

*From Advice to Young Ladies by A.D. Hope:*

Historians spend their lives and lavish ink
Explaining how great commonwealths collapse
From great defects of policy – perhaps
The cause is sometimes simpler than they think.

It may not seem so great an act to break
Postumia’s spirit as Galileo’s, to gag
Hypatia as crush Socrates, or drag
Joan as Giordano Bruno to the stake.

Can we be sure? Have more states perished, then,
For having shackled the inquring mind,
Than those who, in their folly not less blind,
Trusted the servile womb to breed free men?

*From Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen:*

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues –
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: _Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori_.

*From Inscription For A War by A.D. Hope:*

Linger not, stranger; shed no tear;
Go back to those who sent us here.

We are the young they drafted out
To wars their folly brought about.

Go tell those old men, safe in bed,
We took their orders and are dead.

*From The Black Riders and Other Lines by Stephen Crane:*

XXIV
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never –”

“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.


----------



## kolvar (Dec 9, 2004)

"Poem for an adopted Child" does it to me. I am not adopted, but still. (Not sure, if I remember it right):

Not blood of my blood,
nor bone of my bone,
but still, miracoulusly,
my own

Never forget,
not for a minute
you did not grow under my heart
but in it.


----------



## devilish (Dec 9, 2004)

"For the Anniversary of My Death" by W. S. Merwin


Every year without knowing it I have passed the day 
When the last fires will wave to me 
And the silence will set out 
Tireless traveller 
Like the beam of a lightless star 

Then I will no longer 
Find myself in life as in a strange garment 
Surprised at the earth 
And the love of one woman 
And the shamelessness of men 
As today writing after three days of rain 
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease 
And bowing not knowing to what


----------



## The Other Librarian (Dec 9, 2004)

This Be The Verse
-Phillip Larkin

They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f*cked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don't have any kids yourself.


----------



## drnuncheon (Dec 9, 2004)

Since my big faves have been mentioned (Ozymandias, Ulysses and The Highwayman) I'll add some genre stuff here instead:

_ "Beyond the River of the Blessed, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Avalon. Our swords were shattered in our hands and we hung our shields on the oak tree. The silver towers were fallen, into a sea of blood. How many miles to Avalon? None, I say, and all. The silver towers are fallen." 

 (Roger Zelazny's Amber)

 And from The Two Towers, this always gives me chills:

_Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing? They have passed like rain on the mountain, like wind in the meadow. The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.


----------



## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 9, 2004)

Ozymandias, the Highwayman, Excelsior, and the songs the Eomer and Theoden sing are all great.


----------



## Captain Howdy (Dec 10, 2004)

*Lester*
By: Shel Silverstein

Lester was given a magic wish
By the goblin who lives in the banyan tree
And with his wish he wished for two more wishes-
So now instead of just one wish, he cleverly had three.
And with each of these
He simply wished for three more wishes,
Which gave him three old wishes, plus nine new.
And with each of these twelve
He slyly wished for three more wishes,
Which added up to fourty-six---or is it fifty-two?
Well anyway, he used each wish
To wish for wishes till he had
Five billion, seven million, eighteen thousand thirty-four.
And then he spread them on the ground
And clapped his hands and danced around
And skipped and sang, and then sat down
And wished for more.
And more... and more... they multiplied
While other people smiled and cried
And loved and reached and touched and felt.
Lester sat amid his wealth
Stacked mountain-high like stacks of gold,
Sat and counted--and grew old.
And then one Thursday night they found him
Dead-- with his wishes piled around him.
And they counted the lot and found that not
A single one was missing.
All shiny and new-- here, take a few
And think of Lester as you do.
In a world of apples and kisses and shoes
He wasted his wishes on wishing.


----------



## The Grumpy Celt (Dec 10, 2004)

No other poem, for me at least, sums up the perpetual snare that is human existence. A statement that is true at all times, everywhere. 

_"The Second Coming" by W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 
The best lack all convictions, while the worst 
Are full of passionate intensity. 


Surely some revelation is at hand; 
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out 
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert 
A shape with lion body and the head of a man, 
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. 
The darkness drops again; but now I know 
That twenty centuries of stony sleep 
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?_

-And what is that rough beast, its hour come round at last, that slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? The sullen morality of those who lack all conviction and the hypocrisy of those full of passionate conviction but lacking all morality. The rough beast is you and I.


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Dec 11, 2004)

Hmmm, Rudyard Kipling: IF

        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 all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
        And lose, and start again at your beginnings
        And never breath 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



Robert W. Service:The Lone Trail

Ye who know the Lone Trail fain would follow it,
Though it lead to glory or the darkness of the pit.
Ye who take the Lone Trail, bid your love good-by;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow till you die.

The trails of the world be countless, and most of the trails be tried;
You tread on the heels of the many, till you come where the ways divide;
And one lies safe in the sunlight, and the other is dreary and wan,
Yet you look aslant at the Lone Trail, and the Lone Trail lures you on.
And somehow you're sick of the highway, with its noise and its easy needs,
And you seek the risk of the by-way, and you reck not where it leads.
And sometimes it leads to the desert, and the tongue swells out of the mouth,
And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth.
And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire,
And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of hunger-goaded desire.
And sometimes it leads to the Southland, to the swamp where the orchid glows,
And you rave to your grave with the fever, and they rob the corpse for its clothes.
And sometimes it leads to the Northland, and the scurvy softens your bones,
And your flesh dints in like putty, and you spit out your teeth like stones.
And sometimes it leads to a coral reef in the wash of a weedy sea,
And you sit and stare at the empty glare where the gulls wait greedily.
And sometimes it leads to an Arctic trail, and the snows where your torn feet freeze,
And you whittle away the useless clay, and crawl on your hands and knees.
Often it leads to the dead-pit; always it leads to pain;
By the bones of your brothers ye know it, but oh, to follow you're fain.
By your bones they will follow behind you, till the ways of the world are made plain.

Bid good-by to sweetheart, bid good-by to friend;
The Lone Trail, the Lone Trail follow to the end.
Tarry not, and fear not, chosen of the true;
Lover of the Lone Trail, the Lone Trail waits for you.

Edna St. Vincent Millay: The Singing-Woman From The Wood's Edge

What should I be but a prophet and a liar,
Whose mother was a leprechaun, whose father was a friar?
Teethed on a crucifix and cradled under water,
What should I be but the fiend's god-daughter?

And who should be my playmates but the adder and the frog,
That was got beneath a furze-bush and born in a bog?
And what should be my singing, that was christened at an altar,
But Aves and Credos and Psalms out of the Psalter?

You will see such webs on the wet grass, maybe,
As a pixie-mother weaves for her baby,
You will find such flame at the wave's weedy ebb
As flashes in the meshes of a mer-mother's web,

But there comes to birth no common spawn
From the love of a priest for a leprechaun,
And you never have seen and you never will see
Such things as the things that swaddled me!

After all's said and after all's done,
What should I be but a harlot and a nun?

In through the bushes, on any foggy day,
My Da would come a-swishing of the drops away,
With a prayer for my death and a groan for my birth,
A-mumbling of his beads for all that he was worth.

And there sit my Ma, her knees beneath her chin,
A-looking in his face and a-drinking of it in,
And a-marking in the moss some funny little saying
That would mean just the opposite of all that he was praying!

He taught me the holy-talk of Vesper and of Matin,
He heard me my Greek and he heard me my Latin,
He blessed me and crossed me to keep my soul from evil,
And we watched him out of sight, and we conjured up the devil!

Oh, the things I haven't seen and the things I haven't known,
What with hedges and ditches till after I was grown,
And yanked both ways by my mother and my father,
With a "Which would you better?" and a "Which would you rather?"

With him for a sire and her for a dam,
What should I be but just what I am?

The Auld Grump


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Dec 11, 2004)

And one from an odd source, but I remember theffeling when I read it as a rather younger creature than I am now...

Green Hills of Earth
Words by Robert A Heinlein and Jacob Sommer
music by Jacob Sommer

We rot in the molds of Venus,
We retch at her tainted breath.
Foul are her flooded jungles,
Crawling with unclean death.

    Chorus:
    We've tried each spinning space mote
    And reckoned its true worth:
    Take us back again to the homes of men
    On the cool, green hills of Earth. 

The harsh bright soil of Luna,
It shines for all to view.
Her cold and sterile craters
All lack the morning dew.

    (Chorus) 

Saturn's rainbow rings are precious,
A guide in the depths of space.
Her dust and rocks form colors bright,
Unique chromatic grace.

    (Chorus) 

In the frozen night of Titan,
We shiver in empty cold.
Her frozen shrouded cloudbanks
Hide mysteries yet untold.

    (Chorus) 

The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
All hands! Stand by! Free falling!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps the race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet.

We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.

copyright Robert A Heinlein, 1947
Additional words Jacob Sommer, March 20 2001


----------



## Dismas (Dec 11, 2004)

I'll add The Highwayman to the list. I had an English teacher when I was eleven that had a list of poems that he believed your should hear and he used to fill spare time in the lesson reading them, Blake, Colleridge, Noyes, De La Mare. I was also doing drama lessons the weekend covering the metaphysical poets.

Later I studied the Poets of WWI

Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then ,as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall, -
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand pains that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
'Strange friend,' I said, 'here is no cause to mourn.'
'None,' said that other, 'save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled,
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now...'


Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
 -Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
 Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
 Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
 And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
 Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
 The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.


----------



## trowizilla (Dec 12, 2004)

I'll add <i>The Destruction of Sennacherib</i> by Lord Byron...the first stanza got itself stuck in my head years ago and never got unstuck:

<i>The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
While the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. </i>

Also, Yeats's <i>The Stolen Child</i> always makes my spine go brrrr, especially the third stanza:

<i>Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. </i>

There are other ones, too, but I'm too sleepy to post more right now.


----------



## Krieg (Dec 12, 2004)

The one that has always touched me, moreso as the years pass:


----------



## Krieg (Dec 12, 2004)

I have always enjoyed Longfellow, but one of his works in particular rubs a primordial cord deep within me...

The Skeleton in Armor (short exerpt)

I was a Viking old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,
No Saga taught thee!
Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;
For this I sought thee.

The last stanza of Kipling's The Young British Soldier is about as brutal as they come...


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Dec 13, 2004)

Dismas said:
			
		

> Later I studied the Poets of WWI
> 
> Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen




Dulce et Decorum Est is the one I remember best of Wilfred Owens. The fact that he died weeks before the war ended always struck me as bitter irony. 

Dylan Thomas: DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

        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 grieved 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. 

The Auld Grump


----------



## Raven Crowking (Dec 13, 2004)

*The Erk King by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe* 


Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?"
"My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
 Full many a game I will play there with thee;
 On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?"
"Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
 'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care.
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?"
"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
 'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.


*The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot*

_S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
	A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
	Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
	Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
	Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
	Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo._


LET us go then, you and I,	
When the evening is spread out against the sky	
Like a patient etherised upon a table;	
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,	
The muttering retreats	     
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels	
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:	
Streets that follow like a tedious argument	
Of insidious intent	
To lead you to an overwhelming question …	        
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”	
Let us go and make our visit.	

In the room the women come and go	
Talking of Michelangelo.	

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-pane,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes	
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,	
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,	
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,	
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,	    
And seeing that it was a soft October night,	
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.	

And indeed there will be time	
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,	
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;	      
There will be time, there will be time	
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;	
There will be time to murder and create,	
And time for all the works and days of hands	
That lift and drop a question on your plate;	        
Time for you and time for me,	
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,	
And for a hundred visions and revisions,	
Before the taking of a toast and tea.	

In the room the women come and go	        
Talking of Michelangelo.	

And indeed there will be time	
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”	
Time to turn back and descend the stair,	
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—	        
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]	
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,	
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—	
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]	
Do I dare	        
Disturb the universe?	
In a minute there is time	
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.	

For I have known them all already, known them all:—	
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,	        
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;	
I know the voices dying with a dying fall	
Beneath the music from a farther room.	
  So how should I presume?	

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—	        
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,	
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,	
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,	
Then how should I begin	
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?	        
  And how should I presume?	

And I have known the arms already, known them all—	
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare	
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]	
It is perfume from a dress	        
That makes me so digress?	
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.	
  And should I then presume?	
  And how should I begin?
      .      .      .      .      .	
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets	        
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes	
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…	

I should have been a pair of ragged claws	
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
      .      .      .      .      .	
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!	        
Smoothed by long fingers,	
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,	
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.	
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,	
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?	        
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,	
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,	
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;	
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,	
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,	        
And in short, I was afraid.	

And would it have been worth it, after all,	
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,	
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,	
Would it have been worth while,	        
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,	
To have squeezed the universe into a ball	
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,	
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,	
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—	        
If one, settling a pillow by her head,	
  Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.	
  That is not it, at all.”	

And would it have been worth it, after all,	
Would it have been worth while,	        
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,	
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—	
And this, and so much more?—	
It is impossible to say just what I mean!	
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:	        
Would it have been worth while	
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,	
And turning toward the window, should say:	
  “That is not it at all,	
  That is not what I meant, at all.”
      .      .      .      .      .	        
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;	
Am an attendant lord, one that will do	
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,	
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,	
Deferential, glad to be of use,	       
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;	
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;	
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—	
Almost, at times, the Fool.	

I grow old … I grow old …	        
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.	

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?	
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.	
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.	

I do not think that they will sing to me.	        

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves	
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back	
When the wind blows the water white and black.	

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea	
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown	        
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.


*The Fairies by William Aillingham*

Up the airy mountain
     Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
     For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
     Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
     And white owl's feather.
Down along the rocky shore
     Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
     Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
     Of the black mountain-lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
     All night awake.

High on the hill-top
     The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
     He's nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
     Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
     From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music,
     On cold starry nights,
To sup with the Queen,
     Of the gay Northern Lights.

They stole little Bridget
     For seven years long;
When she came down again
     Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back
     Between the night and morrow;
They thought she was fast asleep,
     But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
     Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag leaves,
     Watching till she wake.

By the craggy hill-side,
     Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn trees
     For pleasure here and there.
Is any man so daring
     As dig them up in spite?
He shall find the thornies set
     In his bed at night.

Up the airy mountain
     Down the rushy glen,
We daren't go a-hunting,
     For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
     Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
     And white owl's feather.


----------



## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 13, 2004)

In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the movie), when the peddler recites the first bit of _The Fairies_, it freaked me out. I was younger then, of course, but it's still a great poem.


----------



## devilish (Dec 13, 2004)

Raven Crowking said:
			
		

> *The Erk King by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe*




Wow!  I love how Schubert did this in Erlkonig.  If anyone has a chance,
listen to it -- in it is where we get the traditional villain-theme music that
you find in old cartoons.  To hear one person do the 3 voices (Father, son, and
Elf King) in a good rendition is ***HAUNTING****!

-D


----------



## Swoop109 (Dec 13, 2004)

Being both a gamer and a fan of Robert E. Howard, this one has special meaning to me.

Recompense,

I have not heard lutes beckon me, nor the brazon bugles call, 
But once in the dim of a haunted lea I heard the silence fall.
I have not heard the regal drum, nor seen the flags unfurled,
But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world.

I have not seen the horsemen fall before the hurtling host,
But I have paced a silent hall where each step waked a ghost.
I have not kissed the tiger-feet of a strange-eyed golden god,
But I have walked a city's street where no man else has trod.

I have not raised the canopies that shelter revelling 
kings,
But I have fled from crimson eyes and black unearthly wings.
I have not knelt outside the door to kiss a pallid
queen,
But I have seen a ghostly shore that no man else has seen.

I have not seen the standards sweep from keep and castle wall, 
But I have seen a woman leap from a dragons's crimson stall,
And I have heard the strange surges boom that no man heard before, 
And seen a strange black city loom on a mystic night-black shore.

And I have felt the sudden blow of a nameless wind's cold breath,
And watched the grisly pilgrims go that walked the roads of Death,
And I have seen black valleys gape, abysses in the 
gloom,
And I have fought the deathless Ape that guards the Doors of Doom.

I have not seen the face of Pan, nor mocked the Dryad's haste, 
But I have trailed a dark-eyed Man across a windy 
waste.
I have not died as men may die, nor sinned as man have sinned,
But I have reached a misty sky upon a granite 
wind.


----------



## Lady Mer (Dec 13, 2004)

Lots of poems already mentioned. One not mention yet is e.e. cummings' maggie and milly and molly and may.

maggie and milly and molly and may.
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly
she couldn't remember her troubles,
and milly befriended a stranded star 
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:
and may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone
for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea


----------



## kirinke (Dec 14, 2004)

*A Soulless Well*

Deep in a shadow filled well
Are fires so deep, a ripping hell. . .
Lighting the night, fire so bright 
Swinging an dancing in the height. . .
In the nothing is a plain- 
For the true insane... 
Stalking the night like a cat's black form, 
Is a sword of night that's never warm. . .
Shining so bright, yet forever dark, 
Wandering through time till it strikes the 
heart. The soul is set free, But at great cost. 

I wrote this when i was still in high-school.


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Dec 14, 2004)

I used these two in games more than once...

Tom O'Bedlam's Song

From the hag and hungry goblin 
That into rags would rend ye,
The spirit that stands by the naked man
In the Book of Moons, defend ye.
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon,

     While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd.
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips, ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty,

     And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With a thought I took for Maudlin,
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never wakèd,
Till the roguish boy of love where I lay
Me found and stript me nakèd.

     While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

When I short have shorn my sow's face
And swigged my horny barrel,
In an oaken inn, I pound my skin
As a suit of gilt apparel;
The moon's my constant mistress,
And the lovely owl my marrow;
The flaming drake and the night crow make
Me music to my sorrow.

     While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The palsy plagues my pulses
When I prig your pigs or pullen
Your culvers take, or matchless make
Your Chanticleer or Sullen.
When I want provant, with Humphry
I sup, and when benighted,
I repose in Paul's with waking souls,
Yet never am affrighted.

     But I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft when he lies sleeping
I see the stars at mortal wars
In the wounded welkin weeping.
The moon embrace her shepherd,
And the Queen of Love her warrior,
While the first doth horn the star of morn,
And the next the heavenly Farrier.

     While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The Gypsies, Snap and Pedro,
Are none of Tom's comradoes,
The punk I scorn, and the cutpurse sworn
And the roaring boy's bravadoes.
The meek, the white, the gentle,
Me handle not nor spare not;
But those that cross Tom Rynosseross
Do what the panther dare not.

     Although I sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With an host of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end:
Methinks it is no journey.

     Yet I will sing, Any food, any feeding,
     Feeding, drink or clothing;
     Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
     Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Meg Maudlin's Song

For to see mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand years I'll travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
for to save her shoes from gravel

(Chorus) Still I sing bonny boys,
bonny mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonny
For they all go bare and they
live by the air......
And they want no drink nor money

Now I repent that ever
Poor Tom was so Disdain'd
My wits were lost when him I cross't
Which makes me go thus chain'd

_Chorus_

My staff has murder'd giants
My bag a long knife carries
For to cut mince pies from children's thighs
And feed them to the fairies

_Chorus_

My horn is made of thunder
I stole it out of heaven
The rainbow there is this I wear
For which I thence was driven

_Chorus_

I went down to Pluto's kitchen
for to get me food one morning
and there I got souls piping hot
all on the spit a-turning

_Chorus_

Then I took up a cauldron
where boil'd ten thousand 'Tornies
'Twas full of flame, yet I drank the same
and wished them happy journeys

_Chorus_

The spirits white as lightning
Would on my travels guide me
the stars would shake and the moon would quake
Whenever they espied me

_Chorus_

And now that I have gotten
A lease than doomsday longer
To live on earth with some in mirth
Ten whales shall find my hunger

_Chorus_

No Gypsy, slut, or doxy
Shall win my mad Tom from me
We'll weep all night and with stars fight
the fray will well become me

_Chorus_

And when that I have beaten
The man i' the moon to a powder
His dog I'll take and him I'll make
Bark as no daemon louder

_Chorus_

A health to Tom of Bedlam
Go Fill the seas in a barrel
I'll drink it all, well brewed with gall
And maudlin drunk I'll quarrel.

_Chorus_

For to see mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand miles I'll travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
for to save her shoes from gravel

_Chorus_


Technically songs, the original tunes re I believe long lost.

The Auld Grump


----------



## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 15, 2004)

There's a Rammstein song based in part off The Erl King. I think it's called Dalai Lama.


----------



## Krieg (Dec 15, 2004)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> Dylan Thomas: DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT
> 
> The Auld Grump




FWIW There is an MP3 of Dylan Thomas reciting it himself on a few poetry web pages.


----------



## mhacdebhandia (Dec 15, 2004)

A few stanzas from _*Dolores*_ by Algernon Charles Swinburne, because it reminds me so much of my love:

By the hunger of change and emotion,
By the thirst of unbearable things,
By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
By the pleasure that winces and stings,
The delight that consumes the desire,
The desire that outruns the delight,
By the cruelty deaf as a fire
And blind as the night,

By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
Through the kisses that blossom and bud,
By the lips intertwisted and bitten
Till the foam has a savour of blood,
By the pulse as it rises and falters,
By the hands as they slacken and strain,
I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,
Our Lady of Pain.


----------



## Klaus (Dec 16, 2004)

I was going to add "If" by Rudyard Kipling, but Auld Grump beat me to it...

I first read it in a DC comic that featured Wally West at his therapist's office, trying to find a reason why he couldn't run as fast as he did when he was Kid Flash. The therapist quotes the "distance run" part of "If" and Wally says it was framed over Barry Allen's desk when he was alive, and that Wally never understood what it meant. The final page is Wally crying alone in the therapist's office, holding pictures of him and Barry, and "If" written out in its entire glory.


----------



## shilsen (Dec 16, 2004)

Lots of my favourites are already posted, so here's a little-known one, by Arthur Hugh Clough (IIRC, it was written as a response to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach", which is another beautiful poem):

Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

Say not the struggle nought availeth, 
The labour and the wounds are vain, 
The enemy faints not nor faileth, 
And as things have been, things remain; 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd, 
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers-- 
And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves vainly breaking 
Seem here no painful inch to gain, 
Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 
Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 
When daylight comes, comes in the light, 
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 
But westward, look! the land is bright. 

Someday I'll get to play a D&D bard, singing this in the middle of a stricken field.


----------



## Sheridan (Dec 16, 2004)

My two favorite poets, Robert Service and Edgar Allen Poe, have already been mentioned, so I'll skip those.  The following was on a John Denver album back in the early/mid 1970's and I found it quite haunting (hey, I was less than 6 years old at the time).  Actually, I still do.

*The Box (by Lascelles)*

Once upon a time in the land of hush-a-bye,
around about the wondrous days of yore,
I came across a sort of box
bound up with chains and locked with locks
and labelled, "Kindly do not touch...

...It’s war." 

Well, a decree was issued round about
all with a flourish and a shout
and a gaily coloured mascot tripping lightly on before:
"Don’t fiddle with this deadly box
or break the chains or pick the locks.
And please, don’t ever play about with war." 

Well, the children understood,
Children happen to be good,
And they were just as good around the time of yore
They didn’t try to pick the locks,
or break into that deadly box
They never tried to play about with war

Mommies didn’t either
Sisters, aunts, grannies neither
‘Cause they were quiet and sweet and pretty
in those wondrous days of yore
Well, very much the same as now,
They're not the ones to blame somehow
For opening up that deadly box of war

But someone did.

Someone battered in the lid
And spilled the insides out across the floor
A sort of bouncy, bumpy ball
made up of guns and flags and all
the tears and horror and the death that goes with war.

It bounced right out
And went bashing all about
And bumping into everything in store
And what was sad and most unfair
is that it didn’t seem to care much who it bumped...

...or why

...or what

...or for.

It bumped the children mainly.

And I’ll tell you this quite plainly
It bumps them every day, and more and more, and leaves them
dead and burned and dying
Thousands of them, sick and crying
'Cause when it bumps, it’s really very sore

Now there’s a way to stop the ball
It isn’t difficult at all
All it takes is wisdom 
I’m absolutely sure that we could get it back into the box
And bind the chains and lock the locks
But no one seems to want to save the children any more

Well, that’s the way it all appears
'Cause it’s been bouncing round for years and years
In spite of all the wisdom wiz since those wondrous days of yore
Since the time they came across the box
Bound up with chains and locked with locks
And labelled:
"Kindly do not touch...

It’s war"

*Sheridan


----------



## Sheridan (Dec 16, 2004)

Here's one more, from an anonymous author - I remember it from back when I was a kid.

You got it from your father,
It was all he had to give.
So, it's yours to use and cherish,
for as long as you may live.

If you lose the watch he gave you,
It can always be replaced,
But a mark on your name, son,
Can never be erased.

It was clean the day you took it,
And a worthy name to bear.
When you got it from your father,
There was no dishonor there.

So make sure you guard it wisely,
'Casue after all is said and done,
You'll be glad your name is spotless
When you give it to your son.

*Sheridan


----------



## John Q. Mayhem (Dec 16, 2004)

This Rammstein song does it for me:

Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein acht
ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen
ich hab euch etwas mitgebracht
hab es aus meiner Brust gerissen
mit diesem Herz hab ich die Macht
die Augenlider zu erpressen
ich singe bis der Tag erwacht
ein heller Schein am Firmament
Mein Herz brennt

Sie kommen zu euch in der Nacht
Damonen Geister schwarze Feen
sie kriechen aus dem Kellerschacht
und werden unter euer Bettzeug sehen

Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein acht
ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen
ich hab euch etwas mitgebracht
ein heller Schein am Firmament
Mein Herz brennt

Sie kommen zu euch in der Nacht
und stehlen eure kleinen hei?en Tranen
sie warten bis der Mond erwacht
und drucken sie in meine kalten Venen

Nun liebe Kinder gebt fein acht
ich bin die Stimme aus dem Kissen
ich singe bis der Tag erwacht
ein heller Schein am Firmament
Mein Herz brennt​
It's better to music, but still...


----------



## Particle_Man (Jan 6, 2005)

What would that be in English?


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Jan 6, 2005)

My German is very rusty after twenty years or so of disuse...

But it seems to be about something creeping up on you in the night while you are in your bed when you are a child and singing to you about the dawn...

Sending it to Babelfish....

Wow! This is worse than a useless translation! I have to share:

Now dear children give finely eight I are the voice from the cushion 
I have you somewhat bring along it from my chest with this heart have I power the lids to extort 
I sing clever to the day awakes a bright light at the Firmament my heart burns 
They come to you in the night Damonen of spirit black Feen it creep from the cellar pit and under your bed things will see 
Now dear children give finely eight I are the voice from the cushion I have you somewhat bring along a bright light at the Firmament my heart burns They come to you in the night and steal your small hei?en tranen them wait to the moon awaked and print them into my cold Venen 
Now dear children give finely eight I are the voice from the cushion 
I sing to the day awakes a bright light at the Firmament my heart burns

I actually understand less than I did when I started! 

Here's one in English, with no relation to the other...
 By William Ernest Henley (1849-1903) 

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. 

The Auld Grump, _brain... getting... smaller... must fight... Babelfish... contagion...._

*EDIT* But I will have to find a way to use the line 'I are the voice from the cushion'...


----------



## ajanders (Jan 6, 2005)

*Other good poems*

(Unfortunately too long to repeat here, but we will try some links)

Christina Ricci's The Goblin Market

The poetry and songs from TH White's The Once and Future King, especially the falcon's challenge hymn:

Life is blood, shed and proffered.
The eagle's eye can face this dree.
To beasts of chase the lie is proffered:
Timor mortis conturbat me.

The beast of foot sings Holdfast only,
For flesh is bruckle and foot is slee.
Strength to the high and the lordly and lonely:
Timor mortis exultat me.

Shame to the slothful and woe to the weak one.
Death to the coward who turns to flee.
Blood to the tearing, the talon'd, the beak'd one.
Timor mortis are we.

And all the interstitial poems from Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Faeries.


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Jan 6, 2005)

ajanders said:
			
		

> (Unfortunately too long to repeat here, but we will try some links)
> 
> Christina Ricci's The Goblin Market
> 
> ...





*_Pssst, Ajanders... It's Christina Rossetti... not Ricci...  _

The Auld Grump, the sub text on Goblin Market is... odd... But there are lines that I have used in my game more than once.


----------



## shilsen (Jan 6, 2005)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> *_Pssst, Ajanders... It's Christina Rossetti... not Ricci...  _


----------



## Wombat (Jan 6, 2005)

Yeah, but I could see Christina Ricci doing a film of the poem


----------



## ivocaliban (Jan 7, 2005)

A great collection so far, but a few of my favourite poets have yet to be mentioned. Most notably Charles Baudelaire:


*Be Drunken*

_Be drunken, always. That is the point; nothing else matters. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time weigh you down and crush you to the earth, be drunken continually.​Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please. But be drunken.​And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, or on the green grass in a ditch, or in the dreary solitude of your own room, you should awaken and find the drunkeness half or entirely gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the clock, of all that flies, of all that sighs, of all the moves, of all that sings, of all that speaks, ask what hour it is; and wind, wave, star, bird, or clock will answer you: "It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be the martyred slaves of Time; be drunken continually! With wine, with poetry or with virtue, as you please."​_-Charles Baudelaire (trans. by Arthur Symons)



*Metamorphoses of the Vampire*

_Meanwhile, from her red mouth the woman, in husky tones,
Twisting her body like a serpent upon hot stones
And straining her white breasts from their imprisonment,
Let fall these words, as potent as a heavy scent:
"My lips are moist and yielding, and I know the way
To keep the antique demon of remorse at bay.
All sorrows die upon my bosom. I can make
Old men laugh happily as children for my sake.
For him who sees me naked in my tresses, I
Replace the sun, the moon, and all the stars of the sky!
Believe me, learned sir, I am so deeply skilled
That when I wind a lover in my soft arms, and yield
My breasts like two ripe fruits for his devouring-both
Shy and voluptuous, insatiable and loath-
Upon his bed that groans and sighs luxuriously
Even the impotent angels would be damned for me!"

When she drained me of my very marrow, and cold
And weak, I turned to give her one more kiss-behold,
There at my side was nothing but a hideous
Putrescent thing, all faceless and exuding pus.
I closed my eyes and mercifully swooned till day:
Who seemed to have replenished her arteries from my own,
The wan, disjointed fragments of a skeleton
Wagged up and down in a new posture where she had lain;
Rattling with each convulsion like a weathervane
Or an old sign that creaks upon its bracket, right
Mournfully in the wind upon a winter's night.​_-Charles Baudelaire (trans. by Edna St. Vincent Millay)


----------



## ivocaliban (Jan 7, 2005)

A few more modern fellows who give me shivers in an entirely different way:


*The Waking*

_I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.​_-Theodore Roethke




*Dream Song 14*

_Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. 
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, 
we ourselves flash and yearn, 
and moreover my mother told me as a boy 
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored 
means you have no 
Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no 
inner resources, because I am heavy bored. 
Peoples bore me, 
literature bores me, especially great literature, 
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes 
as bad as Achilles, 

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me. 
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag 
and somehow a dog 
has taken itself & its tail considerably away 
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving 
behind: me, wag.​_-John Berryman




*beasts bounding through time--*

_Van Gogh writing his brother for paints 
Hemingway testing his shotgun 
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine 
the impossibility of being human 
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief 
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town 
the impossibility of being human 
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun 
Mailer stabbing his 
the impossibility of being human 
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat 
Dostoevsky lined up against a wall to be shot 
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller 
the impossibility 
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato 
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun 
Lorca murdered in the road by Spanish troops 
the impossibility 
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench 
Chatterton drinking rat poison 
Shakespeare a plagarist 
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness 
the impossibility the impossibility 
Nietzsche gone totally mad 
the impossibility of being human 
all too human 
this breathing 
in and out 
out and in 
these punks 
these cowards 
these champions 
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward
us
impossibly.​_-Charles Bukowski


----------



## Wombat (Jan 7, 2005)

WINTERHYRN


Is this the womb from which the world will be reborn?
This shrouding of thick and silky grey covering clouds?
Harvest is gone, so the time of Saturn arrives
And another sad year sees its end;
Samhain is in my blood.
You, Mother, must now await your husband's warm return,
Sitting, waiting, all blanketed in.
No sounds of the children now; they've gone elsewhere.
But now Hecate, trivisaged and dark,
Rules the hour which used to be yours and yours alone.
Then the stars held their breath.
Then the Walls gave way.
Now there is uncheering cold in the bones with no relief at hand.
The season of patience, hope, and stillness
Has given way to the long, cruel, and evil-iron days
During which all is dead.


----------



## John Q. Mayhem (Jan 8, 2005)

Now dear children, pay attention.
I am the voice from the pillow
I have brought you something;
I tore it from my chest.
With this heart I have the power
to keep you from your sleep*. 
I sing until the day awakens;
A bright light on the sky.
My heart burns!

They come for you in the night,
Demons, genies, black faeries.
Creeping out of the celler-shaft
They want to peek under your covers.

Now dear children, pay attention.
I am the voice from the pillow.
I have brought you something;
A bright light on the sky.
My heart burns!

They come for you in the night
And steal your small, hot tears
Waiting until the moon awakens
To drip them into my cold veins.

Now dear children, pay attention.
I am the voice from the pillow.
I sing until the day awakens;
A bright light on the sky.
My heart burns!

* literally, "to blackmail your eyelids."


EDIT: The Friendly's Recruiting Song from _Soldier, Ask Not_. It's in my sig but I'll probably change it soon so here it is:


Soldier, ask not now, or ever,
 Where to war your banners go.
 Anarch's legions all surround us.
 Strike! and do not count the blow!

 Glory, honor, praise and profit,
 Are but toys of tinsel worth.
 Render up your work, unasking,
 Leave the human clay to earth.

 Blood and sorrow, pain unending,
 Are the portion of us all.
 Grasp the naked sword, opposing,
 Gladly in the battle fall.

 So shall we, anointed soldiers,
 Stand at last before the Throne,
 Baptized in our wounds, red-flowing,
 Sealed unto our Lord, alone!​


----------



## TheAuldGrump (Jan 8, 2005)

Wombat said:
			
		

> Yeah, but I could see Christina Ricci doing a film of the poem




Gah! Get it out of my brain! Get it out of my brain!

The Auld Grump, actually so can I and it's not that bad...


----------



## Prince of Happiness (Jan 8, 2005)

By Sunao (1887-1926), it's a _jizei_ or death poem that one gives in your final moments. Funny how something like dying can make everything else seem trivial:

"Spitting blood

clears up reality

and dream alike."


----------



## Sephiroth no Miko (Jan 8, 2005)

There are a great many poems already mentioned that I like-- The Bells (Poe), Dolores (Swinburne), Destruction of Sennacherib (Byron), If (Kipling)-- just to name a few but none have haunted me as deeply as this one (original is written in Hebrew):

*Out of Three or Four People in a Room*
Yehuda Amichai

Out of three or four people in a room
One always stands at the window.
Has to see the evil among thorns
And the fires on the hill.
And how people who went out whole,
Are returned in the evening
Like small change to their homes.

Out of three or four people in a room
One always stands at the window.
His hair dark above his thoughts.
Words stand behind him.
Before him, voices straying without a kit bag,
Hearts without rations, prophecies without water,
And big stones returned
But left sealed like letters with no
Address and no receiver.


----------

