NationStates Jolt Archive

For a change of pace, let's post some of our favorite poetry. (Of the non-flaming variety, please.) Here's something I found in a book I was reading; I don't know if the author made it up or dug it up somewhere.
To JayKae: Life Stinx pg. 149

Listening

When I ask you to listen to me and you change the subject, I feel I am alone.
When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving advice, you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do something to solve my problem, you have failed me, strange as it may seem.
Listen! All I asked was that you listen, not talk or do-just hear me.
Advice is cheap: twenty-five cents will get you both Dear Abby and Billy Graham in the same newspaper.
All I can do for myself. I am not helpless. Maybe discouraged and faltering but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can and need to do for myself, you contribute to my inadequacy.
But, when you accept the simple fact that I feel what I feel, no matter how distressful, then I can get about the business of understanding what's behind this feeling.

Now, more than ever I need to talk.

And I will listen to you. It will go much better for us.

We will be closer.

-Anonymous Cancer Patient

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no man lives forever,
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.

I play it cool, and dig all jive,
that's the way I stay alive.
And my motto, as I live and learn?
Dig, and be dug in return.

Langston Hughes, Motto

I play it cool, and dig all jive,
that's the way I stay alive.
And my motto, as I live and learn?
Dig, and be dug in return.

Langston Hughes, Motto
I did a report on Langston Hughes for Black History Month in 6th grade. Then for the Roaring 20's celebration we had, I had to dress up like him. (Me being female, it was a bit odd.) The scary part? All my friends recognized me. :D

I did a report on Langston Hughes for Black History Month in 6th grade. Then for the Roaring 20's celebration we had, I had to dress up like him. (Me being female, it was a bit odd.) The scary part? All my friends recognized me. :D
Nice

I recomend if you can find it the recording done with Charles Mingus. Extra quality.

imo, Robert Frost was the best American and one of the world's best poets... and here's one of his (and America's) best poems:


------

The Road Not Taken


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

kinda religous for an atheist but


Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.


oops john donne C1609

...and another by Frost:
---------------

Mending Wall


Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

...and yet more Frost (hehe):
------

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
--------------------------------------

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
--------------------------------------------------

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

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

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

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

“Astronomy 101”

Last night I stepped outside my door
To gaze upon the night;
But as my eyes searched for the stars
I found none were in sight.

I frowned and looked inside my mind
To find a reason why
The glorious Heavens had denied
To grant a wondrous sky.

And as I wondered, my mind strayed
To perfect thoughts of you;
And with this I soon understood
The sky’s empty black view.

The stars were never missing,
They’d just moved from the skies
To find a much more rightful place
Set in your sparkling eyes.

So smiling I stepped inside
And with the Heav’ns agreed;
The stars I gaze upon in you
Are all I’ll ever need.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said,Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

this one makes me cry...

Ten years living and dead have drawn apart
I do nothing to remember
But I can not forget
Your lonely grave a thousand miles away ...
Nowhere can I talk of my sorrow --
Even if we met, how would you know me
My face full of dust
My hair like snow?

In the dark of night, a dream: suddenly, I am home
You by the window
Doing your hair
I look at you and can not speak
Your face is streaked by endless tears
Year after year must they break my heart
These moonlit nights?
That low pine grave?

Su Shi (Su DongPo)

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron (1809–92)

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Mes yeux, vous m’êtes superflus

Mes yeux, vous m'êtes superflus ;
Cette beauté qui m'est ravie,
Fut seule ma vue et ma vie,
Je ne vois plus, ni ne vis plus.
Qui me croit absent, il a tort,
Je ne le suis point, je suis mort.

O qu'en ce triste éloignement,
Où la nécessité me traîne,
Les dieux me témoignent de haine,
Et m'affligent indignement.
Qui me croit absent, il a tort,
Je ne le suis point, je suis mort.

Quelles flèches a la douleur
Dont mon âme ne soit percée ?
Et quelle tragique pensée
N'est point en ma pâle couleur ?
Qui me croit absent, il a tort,
Je ne le suis point, je suis mort.

Certes, où l'on peut m'écouter,
J'ai des respects qui me font taire ;
Mais en un réduit solitaire,
Quels regrets ne fais-je éclater ?
Qui me croit absent, il a tort,
Je ne le suis point, je suis mort.

Quelle funeste liberté
Ne prennent mes pleurs et mes plaintes,
Quand je puis trouver à mes craintes
Un séjour assez écarté ?
Qui me croit absent, il a tort,
Je ne le suis point, je suis mort.

Si mes amis ont quelque soin
De ma pitoyable aventure,
Qu'ils pensent à ma sépulture ;
C'est tout ce de quoi j'ai besoin.
Qui me croit absent, il a tort,
Je ne le suis point, je suis mort.


François de Malherbe

Translation will follow. I tried my best to do a rhyming translation, so it's not completely true to the poem... and in some places it plain doesn't make sense.

My eyes, you are worthless to me

My eyes, you are worthless to me;
This beauty which did my soul delight
Was alone my life; alone my sight,
Yet no longer do I live, no more do I see.
Who thinks me absent is mislead,
I am not absent, I am dead.

Oh, that in this woeful distance,
Where I am trailed by need so great,
The Gods bear witness to my hate
And unworthily punish my existence.
Who thinks me absent is mislead,
I am not absent, I am dead.

What arrows marred with pain
Have pierced my soul?
And what tragic thought now takes its toll
On colour, my life to drain.
Who thinks me absent is mislead,
I am not absent, I am dead.

Of course, where one can hearken,
I have respects which stop my tongue,
But in my solitary room among
My regrets, I make them burst, or else darken.
Who thinks me absent is mislead,
I am not absent, I am dead.

What disastrous salvation
Comes to my complaints and tears,
When then I find, with my fears,
A rather isolated vacation?
Who thinks me absent is mislead,
I am not absent, I am dead.

If my friends give any heed
To my pitiable adventure,
Let them think of my sepulture;
That’s all I need.
Who thinks me absent is mislead,
I am not absent, I am dead.

François de Malherbe

I'd be grateful if any native french speakers could help me clear up the bits I got completely wrong.

John Keats:


To My Brothers

Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,
And their faint cracklings o’er our silence creep
Like whispers of the household gods that keep
A gentle empire o’er fraternal souls.
And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,
Your eyes are fix’d, as in poetic sleep,
Upon the lore so voluble and deep,
That aye at fall of night our care condoles.
This is your birth-day Tom, and I rejoice
That thus it passes smoothly, quietly.
Many such eves of gently whisp’ring noise
May we together pass, and calmly try
What are this world’s true joys,—ere the great voice,
From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.

-------------------------------------------------

When I Have Fears That I May Cease To Be

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love! - then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

maggie and milly and molly and may
by E. E. Cummings



10

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



This is one of my favorite poems although generally I don't care for Cummings so much. More of a T.S. Elliot/ W. B. Yeats kinda guy.