Poetry by famous people

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=purple,2,300]Here is a poem to ponder over. I thought it was just a quote, so I looked for it & I discover it was a poem.

Love And Friendship
by: Emily Bronte (1818 - 1848)

Love is like the wild rose-briar,
Friendship like the holly-tree--
The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms
But which will bloom most constantly?

The wild rose-briar is sweet in spring,
Its summer blossoms scent the air;
Yet wait till winter comes again
And who will call the wild-briar fair?

Then scorn the silly rose-wreath now
And deck thee with the holly's sheen,
That when December blights thy brow
He still may leave thy garland green
[/glow]

[AdventDelirium]

That is absolutely beautiful...at the risk of sounding melodramatic, I could almost smell the flowers. Loved its references to nature and all.

[Faithy]

That is a good poem Frenchy. I might add that to the famous poems list in my site. Thanks for sharing it! *hugs*
Ciao

[Xander Snaps]

;DLol, you better add that to your site. Lol, just kidding. Oooooh by the way, yay for Faithy, she got exactly 100 posts now. *throws confetti around and sings and jumps up and down screaming like a girl at a Backstreet Boys concert.

[Frenchy Faith]

Glad ya like it guys ! Me liking when I share thing & when ppl like, lol
Here is another one, actually, I'm looking for poetry lately so I'll prolly post some more later if I find anything I like.
Oh, & ya know what ? I learnt the first poem by Shakespeare in ur site Faithy, & now, I can tell it without reading, yay, lol, I try to find a way to make my memory be better, lmao

I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud by William Wordsworth.

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=purple,8,1500]A poem someone show me, from the class, & I find it great :

Lines On A Young Lady's Photograph Album -Philip Larkin

At last you yielded up the album, which
Once open, sent me distracted. All your ages
Matt and glossy on the thick black pages!
Too much confectionery, too rich:
I choke on such nutritious images.

My swivel eye hungers from pose to pose --
In pigtails, clutching a reluctant cat;
Or furred yourself, a sweet girl-graduate;
Or lifting a heavy-headed rose
Beneath a trellis, or in a trilby-hat

(Faintly disturbing, that, in several ways) --
From every side you strike at my control,
Not least through those these disquieting chaps who loll
At ease about your earlier days:
Not quite your class, I'd say, dear, on the whole.

But o, photography! as no art is,
Faithful and disappointing! that records
Dull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds,
And will not censor blemishes
Like washing-lines, and Hall's-Distemper boards,

But shows a cat as disinclined, and shades
A chin as doubled when it is, what grace
Your candour thus confers upon her face!
How overwhelmingly persuades
That this is a real girl in a real place,

In every sense empirically true!
Or is it just the past? Those flowers, that gate,
These misty parks and motors, lacerate
Simply by being you; you
Contract my heart by looking out of date.

Yes, true; but in the end, surely, we cry
Not only at exclusion, but because
It leaves us free to cry. We know what was
Won't call on us to justify
Our grief, however hard we yowl across

The gap from eye to page. So I am left
To mourn (without a chance of consequence)
You, balanced on a bike against a fence;
To wonder if you'd spot the theft
Of this one of you bathing; to condense,

In short, a past that no one now can share,
No matter whose your future; calm and dry,
It holds you like a heaven, and you lie
Unvariably lovely there,
Smaller and clearer as the years go by.

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[Frenchy Faith]

What Should I Say - Sir Thomas Wyatt

What should I say,
Since faith is dead,
And truth away
From you is fled?
Should I be led
With doubleness?
Nay, nay, mistress!

I promised you,
And you promised me,
To be as true
As I would be.
But since I see
Your double heart,
Farewell my part!

Though for to take
It is not my mind,
But to forsake
I am not blind
And as I find,
So will I trust:
Farewell, unjust!

Can ye say nay?
But you said
That I alway
Should be obeyed?
And thus betrayed
Or that I wist--
Farewell, unkissed.

*******
After Great Pain Emily Dickinson - <= (ack Faithy, I had to change the censored words part, lol, coz it changed the name in thingyinson, ha ha ha)

After great pain, a formal feeling comes
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Toombs
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone

This is the Hour of Lead
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow
First-Chill-then Stupor-then the letting go

********
And finally, a french one, coz Baudelaire, well, it's a master in poetry, nobody can deny it!

The Clock
Clock! Sinister god, frightening, impassive,
Whose finger threatens us and says: "Remember!,
Soon throbbing Pain will pierce your
Fearful heart, like a bull's-eye;

Vaporous Pleasure will flee toward the horizon,
Like a sylph running backstage;
Each instant devours a morsel of the delight
Accorded each man for his entire season.

Three thousand six hundred times per hour, the Second
Whispers: Remember! -- Quick, with its
Insect voice, Now says: I am Formerly,
And I have pumped away your life with my filthy snout!

Souviens-toi! Remember! Prodigal! Esto memor!
(My metal throat speaks every language.)
Minutes, playful mortal, are the ore you must not
Let go until you have extracted all its gold!

Remember that Time is a greedy gambler
Who wins without cheating, every time! That's the law.
The day wanes; night waxes; remember!
The abyss is always thirsty; the water-clock empties.

Soon the hour will strike when divine Chance,
When august Virtue, your still virgin bride,
When even Repentance (oh! the last inn of refuge!),
When everything will tell you: Die, old coward! It is too late!"

[Xander Snaps]

Lmfao @ thingyinson. ;D ;D

[Frenchy Faith]

We are studying poetry in Literature lately, & I gave to the prof a few poems I'd like & she was ok to make us work on a Dickinson one, the following one, & the The Road not Taken by Frost. So I though to post it here :

Poem 712 - Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop for Death--
He kindly stopped for me--
The Carriage held but just Ourselves--
And Immortality.

We slowly drove--He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility--

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess--in the Ring--
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain--
We passed the Setting Sun--

Or rather--He passed us--
The Dews drew quivering and chill--
For only Gossamer, my Gown--
My Tippet--only Tulle--

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground--
The Roof was scarcely visible--
The Cornice--in the Ground--

Since then--'tis Centuries--and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity--

[winniethepoohjr2002]

I Heard a Fly Buzz by Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died --
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air --
Between the Heaves of Storm --

The Eyes around -- had wrung them dry --
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset -- when the King
Be witnessed -- in the Room --

I willed my Keepsakes -- Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable -- and then it was
There interposed a Fly --

With Blue -- uncertain stumbling Buzz --
Between the light -- and me --
And then the Windows failed -- and then
I could not see to see --

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=blue,2,900000]Nice one Gregg, thanky for sharing !
Here is one I had to work on for the literature test, I liked it :

THE FORCE THAT THROUGH THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER by Dylan Thomas


The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
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[Frenchy Faith]

Extract from The Ballad of East and West- Rudyard Kipling

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face,
tho' they come from the ends of the earth!

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=purple,2,90000]About poets :
The Albatross - Charles Baudelaire

Often to pass the time on board, the crew
will catch an albatross, one of those big birds
which nonchalently chaperone a ship
across the bitter fathoms of the sea.

Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space,
as if embarrassed by its clumsiness,
pitiably lets its great white wings
drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars.

How weak and awkward, even comical
this traveller but lately so adoit -
one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak,
another mocks the cripple that once flew!

The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds
riding the storm above the marksman's range;
exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered,
he cannot walk because of his great wings.
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[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=navy,2,90000]Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part One: Life

LX

A SHADY friend for torrid days
Is easier to find
Than one of higher temperature
For frigid hour of mind.

The vane a little to the east
Scares muslin souls away;
If broadcloth breasts are firmer
Than those of organdy,

Who is to blame? The weaver?
Ah! the bewildering thread!
The tapestries of paradise
So notelessly are made!

Verlaine :

Moonlight
Your soul is like a landscape fantasy,
Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise,
Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be
Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise.

Singing in minor mode of life's largesse
And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite
Reluctant to believe their happiness,
And their song mingles with the pale moonlight,

The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming,
Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees,
And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming--
Slender jet-fountains--sob their ecstasies.


"Like city's rain, my heart . . ."
The rain falls gently on the town.
Arthur Rimbaud

Like city's rain, my heart
Rains teardrops too. What now,
This languorous ache, this smart
That pierces, wounds my heart?

Gentle, the sound of rain
Pattering roof and ground!
Ah, for the heart in pain,
Sweet is the sound of rain!

Tears rain-but who knows why?-
And fill my heartsick heart.
No faithless lover's lie? . . .
It mourns, and who knows why?

And nothing pains me so--
With neither love nor hate--
A simply not to know
Why my heart suffers so.

For Charles Baudelaire

I do not know you now, or like you, nor
Did I first know or like you, I admit.
It's not for me to furbish and restore
Your name: if I take up the cause for it,

It's that we both have known the exquisite
Joys of two feet together pressed: His, or
Our whores'! He, nailed; they, swooning in love's fit,
Madly anointed, kissed, bowed down before!

You fell, you prayed. And so did I, like all
Those souls whom thirst and hunger, yearningly,
Shining with hope, urged on to Calvary!

--Calvary, righteous, where--here, there--our fall,
In art-contorted doubts, weeps its chagrin.
A simple death, eh? we, brothers in sin.

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[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=purple,2,90000]

Arthur Rimbaud (he wrote most of his poems when he was only 17 ! )

Sensation

On the blue summer evenings, I shall go down the paths,
Getting pricked by the corn, crushing the short grass :
In a dream I shall feel its coolness on my feet.
I shall let the wind bathe my bare head.

I shall not speak, I shall think about nothing :
But endless love will mount in my soul ;
And I shall travel far, very far, like a gipsy,
Through the countryside - as happy as if I were with a woman[/glow]

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=navy,4,9000000]We have 4 english books to read & that we will study next year. Among them is one of poetry, the Lord Byron Don Juan - Canto 1. I liked the lil I read so here is a tiny part of it (the 3rd stanza before the end)

But I being fond of true philosophy,
Say very often to myself, 'Alas!
All things that have been born were born to die,
And flesh (which Death mows down to hay) is grass;
You 've pass'd your youth not so unpleasantly,
And if you had it o'er again - 't would pass -
So thank your stars that matters are no worse,
And read your Bible, sir, and mind your purse.'


[/glow]

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=blue,2,9000000]Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

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's 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's 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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[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=purple,3,9000000]D.H Lawrence ~ What would you fight for?

I am not sure I would always fight for my life.
Life might not be worth fighting for.

I am not sure I would always fight for my wife.
A wife isn't always worth fighting for.

Nor my children, nor my country, nor my fellow-men.
It all deprnds whether I found them worth fighting for.

The only thing men invariably fight for
Is their money. But I doubt if I'd fight for mine, anyhow
not to shed a lot of blood over it.

Yet one thing I do fight for, tooth and nail, all the time.
And that is my bit of inward peace, where I am at one
with myself.

And I must say, I am often worsted.

[/glow]

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=teal,3,9000000]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 imposters 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 wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never 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!

[/glow]

[Frenchy Faith]

[glow=teal,2,9000000]Arthur Rimbaud ~ Sensation

On the blue summer evenings, I shall go down the paths,
Getting pricked by the corn, crushing the short grass :
In a dream I shall feel its coolness on my feet.
I shall let the wind bathe my bare head.

I shall not speak, I shall think about nothing :
But endless love will mount in my soul ;
And I shall travel far, very far, like a gipsy,
Through the countryside - as happy as if I were with a woman.

March, 1870

****

Romance

I

When you are seventeen you aren't really serious.
- One fine evening, you've had enough of beer and lemonade,
And the rowdy cafes with their dazzling lights !
- You go walking beneath the green lime trees of the promenade.

The lime trees smell good on fine evenings in June !
The air is so soft sometimes, you close your eyelids ;
The wind, full of sounds, - the town's not far away -
Carries odours of vines, and odours of beer...

II

- Then you see a very tiny rag
Of dark blue, framed by a small branch,
Pierced by an unlucky star which is melting away
With soft little shivers, small, perfectly white...

June night ! Seventeen ! - You let yourself get drunk.
The sap is champagne and goes straight to your head...
You are wandering ; you feel a kiss on your lips
Which quivers there like something small and alive...

III

Your mad heart goes Crusoeing through all the romances,
- When, under the light of a pale street lamp,
Passes a young girl with charming little airs,
In the shadow of her father's terrifying stiff collar...

And because you strike her as absurdly naif,
As she trots along in her little ankle boots,
She turns, wide awake, with a brisk movement...
And then cavatinas die on your lips...

IV

You're in love. Taken until the month of August.
You're in love - Your sonnets make Her laugh.
All your friends disappear, you are not quite the thing.
- Then your adored one, one evening, condescends to write to you...!

That evening,... - you go back again to the dazzling cafes,
You ask for beer or for lemonade...
- You are not really serious when you are seventeen
And there are green lime trees on the promenade...

September 29, 1870

Translated by Oliver Bernard : Arthur Rimbaud, Collected Poems (1962)

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