at is your favourite poem ?

[murraymints]

Mine is Leisure by W H Davies

What life is this if, full of care we have no time to stand and stare ?
no time to stand beneath the boughs, and stare as long as sheep and cows
no time to see, when woods we pass, where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,streams full of stars,like skies at night.
No time to turn at beauty's glance, and watch her feet,how they can dance.
No time to wait 'till her mouth can enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.

[murraymints]

What is your favourite poem ?...what is wrong with this keyboard ?

[boxtops]

Mending Wall - Robert Frost

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html

[paddywak]

Short and to the point
http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/requiem.html

[wolf63]

Philip Larkin - This Be The Verse

They flump 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 wonderfully fluffed 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.

[wolf63]

http://www.artofeurope.com/larkin/lar2.htm

[bookbinder]

Naming of Parts. Henry Reed.
http://allpoetry.com/poem/8498683-Naming_of_Parts-by-Henry_Reed

[murraymints]

some new ones to me !!

[murraymints]

bookbinder..remember reciting that one in English class...did not know what Japonica was at the time !!lol

[bookbinder]

murraymints: it's always struck me as being a thoughtful poem, as if the poet has allowed his mind to drift away for a minute.

[LyndaB]

This one!!!!

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.



You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.



But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.


Purchase this book:

Warning: When I Am an Old Woman I Shall...

[murraymints]

we did naming of parts alongside the war poets..owen et al

[murraymints]

Lynda..do all that now ...lol...!

[Ric.ror]

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But oh my friends
And ah my foes
It gives a lovely light

Actually it's a yeates one but it takes to long to type

[paddywak]

Another favourite, by a man who obviously loved his dogs.

[craft1948]

Funeral Blues by W H Auden...............

[Mojo-Jo-Jo]

Prayer Before Birth

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.
Louis Macneice

[paddywak]

Sorry people I didn't realise I'd not added a link
http://www.petloss.com/poems/maingrp/powerdog.htm

[murraymints]

ahhh..very nive Paddy !

[murraymints]

nice even !

[woofgang]

I love many poems but keep coming back to this one. If you have ever seen London at dawn, you will know that its still very true.

William Wordsworth

Upon Westminster Bridge

EARTH has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!