What Poems stick out in your mind?

[roxie_09]

One poem that I will never forget is "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen. I read it while in year 6 at school so aged 10-11. Has stayed with me ever since xx

[mickrog]

http://en.wikisource....d_Meg_she_was_a_gipsy

[Noraq]

A Terrrible Beauty is Born...W>B>Yates. All time favourite for me.

I'll stop after this: =)

Auden (again)

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[mickrog]

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/abou-ben-adhem/

[notasyoungasiwas]

Jenny kissed me - Leigh Hunt

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who loves to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,

Jenny kissed me...

(I adapted this to Margie kissed me for Dad on their Diamond Wedding.)

[rsvp]

tithonus by tennyson - The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, the vapours weep their berthen to the ground, me only, cruel immortality consumes - just loved everything it meant (and had to learn it verbatim so it was perhaps as well I enjoyed it!)

[shaneystar2]

Anything by Masefield especailly Sea Fever which I read at my fathers funeral .
I have a fondness for Auden ..The Night Mail .
I like Betjeman which was drummed into us at school .The one that sticks in my mind being Death in Leamington
Chintzy chintzy cheeriness .We all used to giggle at the alliteration ,but when you read it now ..it's such a sad poem .

[rsvp]

shaney star - Sea Fever - I must got down to the sea again. to the lonely sea and the sky, and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by. Have just dredged that up from somewhere - is it right?

[ladybirder]

Shaney Death in Leamington always has stuck in my mind, you could just feel it in that room.

[shaneystar2]

Yes that's the one rsvp .
As silly schoolgirls we used to chant
I must go down to the sea again
The lonely sea and sky
I left my vest and knickers there
I wonder if they're dry ?

Not many years later when my dad died I read the proper version for him .He spent most of his life at sea and it seemed very appropriate .

[rsvp]

shaneystart that's the same version attributed to Spike Milligan - the original is such a brilliant piece for you father - it is just so evocative of the sea.

[rsvp]

another one which has just come to mind (after nearly sixty years!) is....
If I should lie in lonely state
and round my bed relations wait
with sniffling noses, bated breath
for my expected tardy death.
I wonder what my thoughts will be
in that last sad extremity
Then it goes on to mention pleasures left untasted but I can't recall anymore - maybe I'll google it.

[shaneystar2]

Kubla Khan by Coleridge is another one I like
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan,a stately pleasure-dome decree,
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran,
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea.
It always makes me shiver especially when it was read on a record at school by that man with the wonderful voice Richard Burton .He even made the Ancient Mariner interesting :)

[Bambiagain]

Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress.

And on a lighter note, there are a few poems I have memorised, including The Walrus and the Carpenter, which I found myself quoting yesterday to illustrate a point about the gender of things (in this case the Sun and the moon, which in German are respectively feminine and masculine, but:

The Sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might,
And that was odd because it was the middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there after the day was done).

[rsvp]

richard burton could recite a cafe menu and send shivers down any real woman's spine!