A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

ilovenerds

Mending Wall by Robert Frost

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 neighbor 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 neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? 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 neighbors."

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

All legendary obstacles lay between
Us, the long imaginary plain,
The monstrous ruck of mountains
And, swinging across the night,
Flooding the Sacramento, San Joaquin,
The hissing drift of winter rain.
All day I waited, shifting
Nervously from station to bar
As I saw another train sail
By, the San Francisco Chief or
Golden Gate, water dripping
From great flanged wheels.

At midnight you came, pale
Above the negro porter's lamp.
I was too blind with rain
And doubt to speak, but
Reached from the platform
Until our chilled hands met.

You had been travelling for days
With an old lady, who marked
A neat circle on the glass
With her glove, to watch us
Move into the wet darkness
Kissing, still unable to speak.

-John Montague 'All Legendary Obstacles'

Chinafoot

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

marienbad

Chinafoot wrote: »

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

One of my favourites but even better is Thunder Road by the one and only

Well. the night's busted open
these two lanes will take us anywhere
we got one last chance to make it real
to trade in these wings on some wheels
climb in back, Heavens waiting down the tracks

Well, oh ,oh, take my hand
we're riding out tonight to case the promised land.
oh oh Thunder road, oh Thunder road, oh Thunder road

marienbad

The Fairies In New Ross

''When moonlight
Near midnight
Tips the rock and waving wood;
When moonlight
Near midnight
Silvers o'er the sleeping flood;
When yew-tops
With dew-drops
Sparkle o'er deserted graves;
'Tis then we fly
Through the welkin high,
Then we sail o'er yellow waves.''

Anonymous (early 19th century)

yeppydeppy

I hope you enjoy this, it always bring a smile to my face:


Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
By Jenny Joseph



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.

aodh90

Our own Mr Yeats at his very best:

The Indian Upon God

I PASSED along the water's edge below the humid trees,
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moor-fowl pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?
I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:
Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

Amazotheamazing

The Young May Moon

by Thomas Moore

The young May moon is beaming, love,
The glow-worm's lamp is gleaming, love,
How sweet to rove
Through Morna's grove,
When the drowsy world is dreaming, love!
Then awake! the heavens look bright, my dear!
'Tis never too late for delight, my dear!
And the best of all ways,
To lengthen our days,
Is to steal a few hours from the night, my dear!

Now all the world is sleeping, love,
But the sage, his star-watch keeping, love,
And I, whose star,
More glorious far,
Is the eye from that casement peeping, love.
Then awake! -- till rise of sun, my dear!
The sage's glass we'll shun, my dear;
Or, in watching the flight
Of bodies of light,
He might happen to take thee for one, my dear.

Amazotheamazing

I Loved You
~ Alexander Pushkin



I loved you;
even now I may confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.

Hopeless and tongue-tied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so.

marienbad

Pushkin certainly knew about love,in a way he died for it I suppose.

Amazotheamazing

marienbad wrote: »

Pushkin certainly knew about love,in a way he died for it I suppose.

There's a few different translations of that poem, think that's my favourite though. Fairly legendary way to go out, fight a duel, get shot in the stomach, manage to wound the other guy and then forgive him. It's Dangerous Liaisons all over again.

marienbad

Amazotheamazing wrote: »

There's a few different translations of that poem, think that's my favourite though. Fairly legendary way to go out, fight a duel, get shot in the stomach, manage to wound the other guy and then forgive him. It's Dangerous Liaisons all over again.

And all for the love of a woman. My favourite translation also , some of the others are a bit clunky if you know what I mean. Fine art to translate poetry correctly is'nt it. To convey the meaning but retain the poetry .

Amazotheamazing

marienbad wrote: »

And all for the love of a woman. My favourite translation also , some of the others are a bit clunky if you know what I mean. Fine art to translate poetry correctly is'nt it. To convey the meaning but retain the poetry .

There is a real, subtle art to translation that all too frequently gets overlooked, imo.

tomasocarthaigh

Robert Burns



ON SEEING ONE ON A LADY'S BONNET AT CHURCH Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie! Your impudence protects you sairly: I canna say but ye strunt rarely Owre gauze and lace; Tho' faith, I fear ye dine but sparely On sic a place. Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner, Detested, shunned by saunt an' sinner, How daur ye set your fit upon her, Sae fine a lady! Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner, On some poor body. Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle; There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle Wi' ither kindred, jumpin cattle, In shoals and nations; Whare horn or bane ne'er daur unsettle Your thick plantations. Now haud ye there, ye're out o' sight, Below the fatt'rels, snug an' tight; Na faith ye yet! ye'll no be right Till ye've got on it, The vera tapmost, towering height O' Miss's bonnet. My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, As plump an' grey as onie grozet: O for some rank, mercurial rozet, Or fell, red smeddum, I'd gie ye sic a hearty dose o't, Wad dress your droddum! I wad na been surprised to spy You on an auld wife's flainen toy; Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, On's wyliecoat; But Miss's fine Lunardi!—fie! How daur ye do't? O Jenny, dinna toss your head, An' set your beauties a' abread! Ye little ken what cursed speed The blastie's makin! Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread, Are notice takin! O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us An' foolish notion: What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, And ev'n Devotion!

mikeyboy

A Belgian Orphan"

Daddy was a Belgian and so was Mammy too,
And why I'm now in Larne I want to tell to you:
Daddy was a soldier and fought his level best
For both his King a Country, and I'll tell you the rest.
Our home was snug and cosy and how happy we were all,
Until Daddy he was ordered to obey his country's call. . . .

One day a short time after, a troop of Germans came,
While we sat around the table, playing a childish game;
Mammy was busy baking bread for all our tea,
When the door was flung wide open and in stepped Germans three.

One spoke to mammy saying, "Stay your labour for your kids,
Give to us all this bread! or we'll stab your bony ribs!"
And raising high his glittering sword one cut off Mammy's head,
Her body fell upon me, while her poor neck bled and bled!

Three shots soon followed after, and my dear wee brothers three
Fell dead across poor Mammy whose neck bled on my knee;
I screamed, "Oh sirs wee Hors is shot, and Buhn and Wilhelm too!"
Then on my knees I fell and begged they'd spare wee brother Dhu;

Just then they raised the little lad and threw him on the fire,
And wreathed in smiles they watched him burn until he did expire;
My poor wee sisters screamed and cried, and clutched dead Mammy's hands,
When lo! they cut off baby's head and also her wee hands.

Ah sirs, I begged, just kill me now, else I shall die with fear.
One drew his sword - cut off my hand, I reached the other out,
"Cut this off too, ye cowards?" I then began to shout.
In rushed some neighbor women with knives both bright and sharp
And stabbed the Kaiser's butchers into their very hearts.

Take warning all ye British Boys, turn out in thousands strong;
Go fight for King and Country and France will aid you on!
If you should meet the Kaiser, cut off his only arm,
For his "wee one," it won't matter, it can't do any harm.

I've just heard Daddy, too, is killed, so all alone I'm left,
Of brothers, sisters, parents dear, I have been made bereft.
Some day I'll die and meet them all, 'twill be a joyous sight,
For us to live in glory, and view the Kaiser's plight -
Tortured with remorseful flames, he won't have power to quell
If nobody conquer him on earth the devil will in hell

Amanda McKittrick Ros.

cailinoBAC

I've been looking for love poems, but I don't think you could quite describe this as one...I do like it though!

He loved three things alone:

White peacocks, evensong,
Old maps of America.

He hated children crying,
And raspberry jam with his tea,
And womanish hysteria.

… And he had married me

Anna Akhmatova

marienbad

cailinoBAC wrote: »

I've been looking for love poems, but I don't think you could quite describe this as one...I do like it though!

He loved three things alone:

White peacocks, evensong,
Old maps of America.

He hated children crying,
And raspberry jam with his tea,
And womanish hysteria.

… And he had married me

Anna Akhmatova

Oh it is a love poem allright and by one of the greatest , No one knew love and loss better the Akhmatova

cailinoBAC

Oh I've read plenty about Akhmatova (and this one somewhere along the way) but only reading her poetry by itself now, as opposed to quotes in other reading. I know that it is about love...but more the loss of it, than the love itself, I think.
I haven't read much poetry in a while and I am looking for, I suppose, more optimistic love poetry at the moment, but in buying some books, I just had to pick up a book of hers and of course it's the first one I'm reading.

Harry Angstrom

The Waste Land: Five Limericks (by Wendy Cope)

I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyants distress me,
Commuters depress me
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV
A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V
No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

marienbad

Harry Angstrom wrote: »

The Waste Land: Five Limericks (by Wendy Cope)

I
In April one seldom feels cheerful;
Dry stones, sun and dust make me fearful;
Clairvoyants distress me,
Commuters depress me
Met Stetson and gave him an earful.

II
She sat on a mighty fine chair,
Sparks flew as she tidied her hair;
She asks many questions,
I make few suggestions--
Bad as Albert and Lil--what a pair!

III
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.

IV
A Phoenician named Phlebas forgot
About birds and his business--the lot,
Which is no surprise,
Since he'd met his demise
And been left in the ocean to rot.

V
No water. Dry rocks and dry throats,
Then thunder, a shower of quotes
From the Sanskrit and Dante.
Da. Damyata. Shantih.
I hope you'll make sense of the notes.

Brilliant, just brilliant- T.S pompous git will not be pleased

bain_triail_as

e.e. cummings - anyone lived in a pretty how town

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/eecummings/11880

Harry Angstrom

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (Dylan Thomas)

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 that 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.

_Whimsical_

cailinoBAC wrote: »

I've been looking for love poems...

A more on the nose love poem despite being called "I do not love you":)



I do not love you... (Pablo Neruda)


I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.


Check Neruda out if you are looking for love poems. There are even some very sensuous raunchy ones!

Harry Angstrom

Days (Philip Larkin)

What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

mikeyboy

Morning Dictation

Come in, Miss Jones, and take a letter,
How’s your mother, hope she’s better?
Now let’s see, ah, Gunn and Frame,
Their plea for time, it is quite lame,
So, my dear sirs, I do regret,
I must foreclose, I won’t forget,
I want the farm, the pigs, the corn,
Please do vacate by Monday morn.
That’s all dealt with, now let’s see,
I think we’ll take our morning tea,
Then we’ll write to Freddie Mann
And repossess his caravan,
Then send a bill to Dewar’s garage,
His profits I can duly ravage,
Foreclose the deal and repossess,
You do look lovely in that dress,
Then go kick out old Uncle Tom
And pile his stuff out on the lawn.
Ah, Miss Jones, Miss Jones, would you marry me,
And bring me up my morning tea?
I know it’s sudden, please don’t mind,
But I am solvent, warm and kind,
What’s that, my love, you spurn this banker?
And where did you learn a word like…?



Max Scratchman

fisgon

from The Song of Myself - Walt Whitman

The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.Listener up there! what have you to confide to me? Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening, (Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)I concentrate toward them that are nigh, I wait on the door-slab.Who has done his day's work who will soonest be through with his supper? Who wishes to walk with me?Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?

This poem is half a book long, the above is only one small part, part 51. A stunning work, containing one of the greatest lines in literature - "I am large, I contain multitudes". A work of genius.

Amirani

Living in Sin

"She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman's tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night's cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf among the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own---
envoy from some village in the moldings . . .
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs."

Adrienne Rich

marienbad

From The Waste Land

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,
The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Out of the window perilously spread
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest—
I too awaited the expected guest.
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,
One of the low on whom assurance sits
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire,
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Which still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;
Exploring hands encounter no defence;
His vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of indifference.
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all
Enacted on this same divan or bed;
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)
Bestows one final patronising kiss,
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit. . .
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,
Hardly aware of her departed lover;
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
"Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over."
When lovely woman stoops to folly and
Paces about her room again, alone,
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,
And puts a record on the gramophone.

T.S.Eliot

marty1985

George Orwell 1982 wrote: »

Brendan Kennelly - Begin
Begin again to the summoning birds
to the sight of light at the window,
begin to the roar of morning traffic
all along Pembroke Road.
Every beginning is a promise
born in light and dying in dark
determination and exaltation of springtime
flowering the way to work.
Begin to the pageant of queuing girls
the arrogant loneliness of swans in the canal
bridges linking the past and the future
old friends passing through with us still.
Begin to the loneliness that cannot end
since it perhaps is what makes us begin,
begin to wonder at unknown faces
at crying birds in the sudden rain
at branches stark in the willing sunlight
at seagulls foraging for bread
at couples sharing a sunny secret
alone together while making good.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
that always seems about to give in
something that will not acknowledge conclusion
insists that we forever begin.

One night on The Late Late Show, Gay Byrne rang a woman to tell her she had won a car. The jovial atmosphere came to a sudden halt when she responded to his teasing about her not being in a good mood with "my daughter died last night."

The rest, was television history. Gay handled it superbly, and turned to his guest Brendan Kennelly to offer some words of support. Keeping calm, Brendan, from memory, recited the above poem and ended it with "that's for you."

marty1985

Though There Are Torturers
by Michael Coady

Though there are torturers in the world
There are also musicians.
Though, at this moment,
Men are screaming in prisons,
There are jazzmen raising storms
Of sensuous celebration,
And orchestras releasing
Glories of the Spirit.

Though the image of God
Is everywhere defiled,
A man in West Clare
Is playing the concertina,
The Sistine Choir is levitating
Under the dome of St. Peter's,
And a drunk man on the road
Is singing, for no reason.