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Favourite Poem?

24

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 347 ✭✭Miss Lizzie Jones


    Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
    Sailed off in a wooden shoe —
    Sailed on a river of crystal light,
    Into a sea of dew.
    "Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
    The old moon asked the three.
    "We have come to fish for the herring fish
    That live in this beautiful sea;
    Nets of silver and gold have we!"
    Said Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

    The old moon laughed and sang a song,
    As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
    And the wind that sped them all night long
    Ruffled the waves of dew.
    The little stars were the herring fish
    That lived in that beautiful sea —
    "Now cast your nets wherever you wish —
    Never afeard are we";
    So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
    Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

    All night long their nets they threw
    To the stars in the twinkling foam —
    Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
    Bringing the fishermen home;
    'Twas all so pretty a sail it seemed
    As if it could not be,
    And some folks thought 'twas a dream they'd dreamed
    Of sailing that beautiful sea —
    But I shall name you the fishermen three:
    Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.

    Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
    And Nod is a little head,
    And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
    Is a wee one's trundle-bed.
    So shut your eyes while mother sings
    Of wonderful sights that be,
    And you shall see the beautiful things
    As you rock in the misty sea,
    Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
    Wynken, Blynken, and Nod.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 824 ✭✭✭Roadtoad


    ...men that saw her
    drank deep and were silent
    ...
    and oh, she was the Sunday in every week.

    AC


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 214 ✭✭scottp68877


    Coopaloop wrote: »
    Mid term break by Seamus Heaney, a very sad poem but one I always remembered from school.

    I sat all morning in the college sick bay 
    Counting bells knelling classes to a close. 
    At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home. 

    In the porch I met my father crying-- 
    He had always taken funerals in his stride-- 
    And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. 

    The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram 
    When I came in, and I was embarrassed 
    By old men standing up to shake my hand 

    And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble,' 
    Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, 
    Away at school, as my mother held my hand 

    In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. 
    At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived 
    With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. 

    Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops 
    And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him 
    For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, 

    Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, 
    He lay in the four foot box as in his cot. 
    No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. 

    A four foot box, a foot for every year.

    A remember studying that in school aswell. That last line gets me every time.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 584 ✭✭✭rorrissey


    From Clearances 3 by Seamus Heaney.

    When all the others were away at Mass
    I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
    They broke the silence, let fall one by one
    Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
    Cold comforts set between us, things to share
    Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
    And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
    From each other's work would bring us to our senses.

    So while the parish priest at her bedside
    Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
    And some were responding and some crying
    I remembered her head bent towards my head,
    Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives--
    Never closer the whole rest of our lives.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,868 ✭✭✭djflawless


    Bobby Sands-weeping winds


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,060 ✭✭✭griffin100


    Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven.
    WB Yeats.

    Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33,779 ✭✭✭✭Princess Consuela Bananahammock


    The Perfect High
    (Shel Silverstien)

    There once was a boy named Gimme-Some-Roy...
    He was nothin' like me or you,
    'cause laying back and getting high was all he cared to do.

    As a kid, he sat in the cellar...sniffing airplane glue.
    And then he smoked banana peels, when that was the thing to do.
    He tried aspirin in Coca-Cola, he breathed helium on the sly,
    and his life became an endless search to find the perfect high.

    Rest of it here because it's kinda long

    Everything I don't like is either woke or fascist - possibly both - pick one.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,299 ✭✭✭✭The Backwards Man


    I'm drunk
    You're a skunk
    Slam dunk


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,725 ✭✭✭Kat1170


    Wouldn't call it my favourite poem, but I learnt this way back in the 70's in National School and for some reason it has stuck in my head ever since.




    Lone Dog


    I'M a lean dog, a keen dog, a wild dog, and lone;
    I'm a rough dog, a tough dog, hunting on my own;
    I'm a bad dog, a mad dog, teasing silly sheep;
    I love to sit and bay the moon, to keep fat souls from sleep.

    I'll never be a lap dog, licking dirty feet,
    A sleek dog, a meek dog, cringing for my meat,
    Not for me the fireside, the well-filled plate,
    But shut door, and sharp stone, and cuff and kick, and hate.

    Not for me the other dogs, running by my side,
    Some have run a short while, but none of them would bide.
    O mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best,
    Wide wind, and wild stars, and hunger of the quest!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,219 ✭✭✭✭biko


    "I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.
    A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself."
    - D. H. Lawrence

    and of course



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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 18,299 ✭✭✭✭The Backwards Man


    Kris Kristofferson is an awesome poet.

    Well I woke up Sunday mornin', with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt
    And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more, for dessert
    Then I fumbled through my closet, for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt
    And I shaved my face and combed my hair and, stumbled down the stairs to meet the day

    I'd smoked my brain the night before on, cigarettes and songs that I'd been pickin'
    But I lit my first and watched a small kid cussin' at a can, that he was kickin'
    Then I crossed the empty street and caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken
    And it took me back to somethin', that I'd lost somehow somewhere along the way

    On the Sunday morning sidewalks, wishin' Lord, that I was stoned
    'Cause there's something in a Sunday, makes a body feel alone
    And there's nothin' short of dyin', half as lonesome as the sound
    On the sleepin' city side walks, Sunday mornin' comin' down

    In the park I saw a daddy, with a laughing little girl who he was swingin'
    And I stopped beside a Sunday school and listened to the song that they were singin'
    Then I headed back for home and somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin'
    And it echoed through the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday

    On the Sunday morning sidewalks, wishin' Lord, that I was stoned
    'Cause there's something in a Sunday, makes a body feel alone
    And there's nothin' short of dyin', half as lonesome as the sound
    On the sleepin' city side walks, Sunday mornin' comin' down





  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,207 ✭✭✭The King of Moo


    The Hollow Men, by T.S Eliot.

    Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

    A penny for the Old Guy

    I
    We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
    Our dried voices, when
    We whisper together
    Are quiet and meaningless
    As wind in dry grass
    Or rats' feet over broken glass
    In our dry cellar

    Shape without form, shade without colour,
    Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

    Those who have crossed
    With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
    Remember us—if at all—not as lost
    Violent souls, but only
    As the hollow men
    The stuffed men.

    II
    Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
    In death's dream kingdom
    These do not appear:
    There, the eyes are
    Sunlight on a broken column
    There, is a tree swinging
    And voices are
    In the wind's singing
    More distant and more solemn
    Than a fading star.

    Let me be no nearer
    In death's dream kingdom
    Let me also wear
    Such deliberate disguises
    Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
    In a field
    Behaving as the wind behaves
    No nearer—

    Not that final meeting
    In the twilight kingdom

    III
    This is the dead land
    This is cactus land
    Here the stone images
    Are raised, here they receive
    The supplication of a dead man's hand
    Under the twinkle of a fading star.

    Is it like this
    In death's other kingdom
    Waking alone
    At the hour when we are
    Trembling with tenderness
    Lips that would kiss
    Form prayers to broken stone.

    IV
    The eyes are not here
    There are no eyes here
    In this valley of dying stars
    In this hollow valley
    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

    In this last of meeting places
    We grope together
    And avoid speech
    Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

    Sightless, unless
    The eyes reappear
    As the perpetual star
    Multifoliate rose
    Of death's twilight kingdom
    The hope only
    Of empty men.

    V
    Here we go round the prickly pear
    Prickly pear prickly pear
    Here we go round the prickly pear
    At five o'clock in the morning.

    Between the idea
    And the reality
    Between the motion
    And the act
    Falls the Shadow
    For Thine is the Kingdom

    Between the conception
    And the creation
    Between the emotion
    And the response
    Falls the Shadow
    Life is very long

    Between the desire
    And the spasm
    Between the potency
    And the existence
    Between the essence
    And the descent
    Falls the Shadow
    For Thine is the Kingdom

    For Thine is
    Life is
    For Thine is the

    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    This is the way the world ends
    Not with a bang but a whimper.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,123 ✭✭✭✭Cienciano


    The reason why
    The reason why
    The reason why I had to die.
    Did I bleed the blood of greed?
    What was my destiny?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 120 ✭✭mayoman ngalway


    mine is from a book i read in school for the Jr cert going back nearly 20 years!!!
    the book was called 'the outsiders'
    the poem was credited to Robert Frost,
    and it goes.........

    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.

    Probably the only thing that has stayed with me from that time!!!!!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,800 ✭✭✭Lingua Franca


    Some of my favourites have already been mentioned here.
    djflawless wrote: »
    Bobby Sands-weeping winds

    Bobby Sands wrote some excellent poems.


    The Rhythm Of Time

    There’s an inner thing in every man,
    Do you know this thing my friend?
    It has withstood the blows of a million years,
    And will do so to the end.

    It was born when time did not exist,
    And it grew up out of life,
    It cut down evil’s strangling vines,
    Like a slashing searing knife.

    It lit fires when fires were not,
    And burnt the mind of man,
    Tempering leadened hearts to steel,
    From the time that time began.

    It wept by the waters of Babylon,
    And when all men were a loss,
    It screeched in writhing agony,
    And it hung bleeding from the Cross.

    It died in Rome by lion and sword,
    And in defiant cruel array,
    When the deathly word was ‘Spartacus’
    Along the Appian Way.

    It marched with Wat the Tyler’s poor,
    And frightened lord and king,
    And it was emblazoned in their deathly stare,
    As e’er a living thing.

    It smiled in holy innocence,
    Before conquistadors of old,
    So meek and tame and unaware,
    Of the deathly power of gold.

    It burst forth through pitiful Paris streets,
    And stormed the old Bastille,
    And marched upon the serpent’s head,
    And crushed it ‘neath its heel.

    It died in blood on Buffalo Plains,
    And starved by moons of rain,
    Its heart was buried in Wounded Knee,
    But it will come to rise again.

    It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes,
    As it was knelt upon the ground,
    And it died in great defiance,
    As they coldly shot it down.

    It is found in every light of hope,
    It knows no bounds nor space
    It has risen in red and black and white,
    It is there in every race.
    It lies in the hearts of heroes dead,
    It screams in tyrants’ eyes,
    It has reached the peak of mountains high,
    It comes searing ‘cross the skies.
    It lights the dark of this prison cell,
    It thunders forth its might,
    It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend,
    That thought that says ‘I’m right!’


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,800 ✭✭✭Lingua Franca


    I'm a fan of the simplistic style of e.e. cummings as well.

    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


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,622 ✭✭✭Ruu


    My favourite by far. Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats.

    I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
    And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
    Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
    And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

    And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
    Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
    There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
    And evening full of the linnet's wings.

    I will arise and go now, for always night and day
    I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
    While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
    I hear it in the deep heart's core.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,992 ✭✭✭_Whimsical_


    I've always liked this one. I love that he searches for the mystical/magical in the simple places, prizes awe of innocence over experience and knowledge.

    Advent by Patrick Kavanagh

    We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
    Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
    But here in the Advent-darkened room
    Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
    Of penance will charm back the luxury
    Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
    The knowledge we stole but could not use.

    And the newness that was in every stale thing
    When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
    Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
    Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
    Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
    You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
    And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

    O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
    For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
    We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
    Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
    And we'll hear it among decent men too
    Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
    Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
    Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
    God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
    The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
    Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
    We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
    Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
    And Christ comes with a January flower.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,940 ✭✭✭ballsymchugh


    favourite poem is always Oíche Nollaig na mBan


    Bhí fuinneamh sa stoirm a éalaigh aréir.
    Aréir oíche Nollaig na mBan,
    As gealt-teach iargúlta ‘tá laistiar den ré
    Is do scréach tríd an spéir chughainn ‘na gealt
    Gur ghíosc geataí comharsan mar ghogallach gé,
    Gur bhúir abhainn slaghdánach mar tharbh,
    Gur mhúchadh mo choinneal mar bhuille ar mo bhéal
    A las ‘na splanc obann an fhearg.

    Ba mhaith liom go dtiocfadh an stoirm sin féin
    An oíche go mbeadsa go lag
    Ag filleadh abhaile ó rince an tsaoil
    Is solas an pheaca ag dul as,
    Go líonfaí gach neomat le liúirigh ón spéir,
    Go ndéanfaí den domhan scuaine scread,
    Is ná cloisfinn an ciúnas ag gluaiseacht fám dhéin,
    Ná inneall an ghluaisteáin ag stad.


    basically it's about s big storm on little Christmas, and the poet wants the same kind of storm on the last night of his life to drown out the silence of death.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,165 ✭✭✭Savage Tyrant


    Zippy and Bungle
    went to the jungle
    To have themselves some fun.
    Zippy got silly
    and whipped out his willy
    And shoved it up Bungles bum!

    A classic, I'm sure you'll all agree.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 212 ✭✭DainBramage


    George and Bungle
    were in the jungle
    Jeffrey was swimming
    with naked women
    And Zippy was picking his bum


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,802 ✭✭✭beks101


    When I was about 12 I sat mesmerized probably along with the entire country when Brendan Kennelly recited this on the Late Late Show, in an effort to console a competition winner who as it transpired had lost her daughter in a tragic accident less than 24 hours before.

    It was awkward, unsettling and incredible to watch and that poem has stuck with me since. Kennelly is a remarkable man and this epitomizes what life is all about to me.


    Begin again

    Begin again to the summoning birds
    to the sight of light at the window,
    begin to the roar of summoning 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 though 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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,711 ✭✭✭Waitsian


    I've got quite a few favourites but ultimately it must be 'An Irish airman foresees his death'

    I know that I shall meet my fate
    Somewhere among the clouds above;
    Those that I fight I do not hate
    Those that I guard I do not love;
    My country is Kiltartan Cross,
    My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
    No likely end could bring them loss
    Or leave them happier than before.
    Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
    Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
    A lonely impulse of delight
    Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
    I balanced all, brought all to mind,
    The years to come seemed waste of breath,
    A waste of breath the years behind
    In balance with this life, this death.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,764 ✭✭✭✭Esel
    Not Your Ornery Onager


    Hurrah for revolution and more cannon-shot!
    A beggar upon horseback lashes a beggar on foot.
    Hurrah for revolution and cannon come again!
    The beggars have changed places, but the lash goes on.

    W.B. Yeats: The Great Day

    I would wager that not many poets have said more in less than four lines.

    Four words: the lash goes on.

    Meet the new boss, same as ...

    Not your ornery onager



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,787 ✭✭✭Aglomerado


    favourite poem is always Oíche Nollaig na mBan


    Bhí fuinneamh sa stoirm a éalaigh aréir.
    Aréir oíche Nollaig na mBan,
    As gealt-teach iargúlta ‘tá laistiar den ré
    Is do scréach tríd an spéir chughainn ‘na gealt
    Gur ghíosc geataí comharsan mar ghogallach gé,
    Gur bhúir abhainn slaghdánach mar tharbh,
    Gur mhúchadh mo choinneal mar bhuille ar mo bhéal
    A las ‘na splanc obann an fhearg.

    Ba mhaith liom go dtiocfadh an stoirm sin féin
    An oíche go mbeadsa go lag
    Ag filleadh abhaile ó rince an tsaoil
    Is solas an pheaca ag dul as,
    Go líonfaí gach neomat le liúirigh ón spéir,
    Go ndéanfaí den domhan scuaine scread,
    Is ná cloisfinn an ciúnas ag gluaiseacht fám dhéin,
    Ná inneall an ghluaisteáin ag stad.


    basically it's about s big storm on little Christmas, and the poet wants the same kind of storm on the last night of his life to drown out the silence of death.

    That takes me back to my Irish Oral. (In a good way.) Amazing poem.

    Here is mine:

    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,635 ✭✭✭Pumpkinseeds


    Robert Frost, 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 sounds 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.
    It's very simple but sums life up.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 49 gesler


    He wishes for the cloths of heavan

    William Butler Yeats

    Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
    Enwrought with golden and silver light,
    The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
    Of night and light and the half-light,
    I would spread the cloths under your feet:
    But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
    I have spread my dreams under your feet;
    Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 43,039 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    'A cold coming we had of it,
    Just the worst time of the year
    For a journey, and such a long journey:
    The ways deep and the weather sharp,
    The very dead of winter.'
    And the camels galled, sorefooted, refractory,
    Lying down in the melting snow.
    There were times we regretted
    The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
    And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
    Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
    and running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
    And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
    And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
    And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
    A hard time we had of it.
    At the end we preferred to travel all night,
    Sleeping in snatches,
    With the voices singing in our ears, saying
    That this was all folly.

    Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
    Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
    With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
    And three trees on the low sky,
    And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
    Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
    Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
    And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
    But there was no information, and so we continued
    And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
    Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory.

    All this was a long time ago, I remember,
    And I would do it again, but set down
    This set down
    This: were we led all that way for
    Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly
    We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
    But had thought they were different; this Birth was
    Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
    We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
    But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
    With an alien people clutching their gods.
    I should be glad of another death.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,301 ✭✭✭A cow called Daisy


    The poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling.

    A bit long to type out via phone and unable to post link.
    Very inspirational poem


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 49 gesler


    The poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling.

    A bit long to type out via phone and unable to post link.
    Very inspirational poem

    If—
    BY RUDYARD KIPLING
    (‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)

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


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