Post your favourite poem...

Droevig

The Highwayman
By Alfred Noyes

Part One
I
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding-
Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV
And dark in the old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say-

V
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.

Part Two
I
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching-
Marching-marching-
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

II
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement, the road that he would ride.

III
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say-
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till here fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like
years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

VI
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs
ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did
not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up strait and still!

VII
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night
!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.

VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

* * * * * *

X
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding-
Riding-riding-
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.







Always my fav... it makes me cry everytime I read it... every time

justam

There's something deep about that image and sound.

There's a great Schubert song called the Erlkonig with a man galloping away from death with his ill child in his arms and it can be really moving because of the sound and the sad content.

justam

The Erlking
(German poem: Goethe, English translation and new music: Dolce)

Who rides so late through the windy night?
It's a father with a child;
He holds his son in his arms,
To keep the boy so close and warm.
"My son, why hide your face in fear?"
Father, don't you see the Erlking?
The Erlking's Crown and flowing Robe?
"My son, it's just a wisp of fog."
"O, you dear child, come along with me!
Such a lovely game we'll play!
Fragrant flowers the shores abound,
My mother's made you a Golden Gown ."
Father, father, do you not hear
What the Erlking has promised me ?
"Be quiet, my child, be still;
'Tis but the dry leaves rustling."
"Won't you come along with me, fine boy?
My girls will tend your keeping.
The Daughters dance such lullabies,
'Twill sing you off to sleeping."
O father, father, why can't you see
The Erlking's daughters dark and gay?
"My son, my son, there's no one there
But Willow trees twisted and grey."
"I love you, boy; your charming face;
But if you're not willing, then I'll use force."
Father, father, he's grabbing me!
The Erlking is hurting me!
The father shudders and rides so fast,
He holds his moaning child.
To the courtyard swiftly his horse has sped,
But in his arms . . . the child was dead.

justam

(I didn't think the one I found last night was quite right!)


Poems of Goethe

THE ERL-KING.

WHO rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.

"My son, wherefore seek'st thou thy face thus to hide?"
"Look, father, the Erl-King is close by our side!
Dost see not the Erl-King, with crown and with train?"
"My son, 'tis the mist rising over the plain."

"Oh, come, thou dear infant! oh come thou with me!
Full many a game I will play there with thee;
On my strand, lovely flowers their blossoms unfold,
My mother shall grace thee with garments of gold."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not hear
The words that the Erl-King now breathes in mine ear?"
"Be calm, dearest child, 'tis thy fancy deceives;
'Tis the sad wind that sighs through the withering leaves."

"Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there?
My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care
My daughters by night their glad festival keep,
They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep."

"My father, my father, and dost thou not see,
How the Erl-King his daughters has brought here for me?"
"My darling, my darling, I see it aright,
'Tis the aged grey willows deceiving thy sight."

"I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy!
And if thou'rt unwilling, then force I'll employ."
"My father, my father, he seizes me fast,
Full sorely the Erl-King has hurt me at last."

The father now gallops, with terror half wild,
He grasps in his arms the poor shuddering child;
He reaches his courtyard with toil and with dread,--
The child in his arms finds he motionless, dead.

1782.*

NuclearTreeFrog

To Himself
by: Giacomo Leopardi


Now will you rest forever,
My tired heart. Dead is the last
deception,
That I thought eternal. Dead. Well I
feel
In us the sweet illusions,
Nothing but ash, desire burned out.
Rest forever. You have
Trembled enough. Nothing is worth
Thy beats, nor does the earth
deserve
Thy sighs. Bitter and dull
Is life, there is nought else. The
world is clay.
Rest now. Despair
For the last time. To our kind, Fate
Gives but death. Now despise
Yourself, nature, the sinister
Power that secretly commands our
common ruin,
And the infinite vanity of
everything.

Delyth

Daddy
by: Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
From "Ariel", 1966

or

Marina Tsveateva (from the 'Girlfriend' series of poems)

You’re happy then! You won’t admit it! – Hardly!

Well, let it be!

You’re simple kissed, methinks, too many people

And hence – your grief.



I see in you the heroines of Shakespeare’s

Tragic plays

You are the tragic youthful lady

Whom no one saves.



You ate so tired mouthing love’s recurrent

Recitative

The iron bruise there on your bloodless hand speaks

Expressively.



- I love you! – Like a cloud of thunder over

You hangs – a pall!

Because you are sarcastic, searing hot, and

The best of all.



Because in darkness of the roads differ

Our lives and we,

For your inspired enticement and

Dark destiny,



Because to you, my steep-browed demon, surely

I’ll say goodbye,

Because – despite all efforts mad to save you! –

You still shall die!



Because this thrill I feel, because of – surely

It’s not a dream!

Because of the ironic charm in knowing

You’re not – a he.



16 October 1914

mariposa

A Dream Within A Dream
Edgar Allan Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

***


The Letter on the Road (La Carta en el Camino)
Pablo Neruda

Farewell, but within me
you exist, travelling inside
a drop of blood that circulates my veins
or outside, a kiss that clasps my face
or a belt of flame across my waist.

My sweet, accept
the great love that sprang from my life
and that in you found no territory
like the explorer lost
in the isles of bread and of honey.
I found you after
the storm,
the rain bathed the air
and in the water
your sugary feet shone like silverfish.

Darling, I'm off to my fighting.

I shall scratch you a cave from the Earth,
and there, your Captain
awaits you with flowers on the bed.
Think no more, my sweet,
of the anguish
that's passed between us
like a bolt of phosphorus
leaving us perhaps its burning scars.
Peace descends as well for I return
to my land for battle,
and as my heart is whole
with the blood you've apportioned me
forever,
and as
I have
my hands suffused with your nude being,
look at me,
look at me,
look at me towards the sea, for I go radiant,
look at me across the night through which I sail,
and sea and night are those eyes of yours.
I have not left your being when I go away.
Now, I am going to tell you:
my land will be yours,
I will conquer it,
not only to give to you,
but for everyone,
for all my people.
The thief will leave his tower someday.
And the invader will be driven away.
All the fruits of life
will thrive in my hands
accustomed once to powder.
And I shall know to caress the new blossoms
for you taught me tenderness.
My sweet darling,
you shall be with me in clashes of body to body
because your kisses live in my heart
like red banners,
and should I fall, not only
will the earth cover me
but the great love you've brought me
that in my blood lived coursing.
You shall come to be with me,
in that hour I wait for you,
at that hour and at every hour,
every hour I wait for you.
And when the sadness I loathe arrives,
to knock at your door,
tell him I am waiting for you
and when the loneliness wants you to change
the ring in which my name is written,
tell the loneliness to talk with me,
that I had to take leave,
for I am a soldier,
and that there where I am,
beneath the rain or
under fire,
my love, I wait for you.
I await you in the harshest desert
and beside the flowering lemon tree,
in all regions where there is life.
where spring is being born,
my love, I wait for you.
When they tell you: "That man
does not love you," remember
that my feet are alone that night, and they seek
the sweet and dainty feet that I adore.
Love, when they say
I've forgotten you, and even when
it was I who has said it,
do not believe me,
who could and how could anyone
rip you from my breast,
and who would receive
my blood
when towards you I came bleeding?
But, I can neither
forget my people.
I shall fight in each street,
behind each and every stone.
Your love also aids me:
it is a sealed flower,
that fills me each moment with its aroma
and that is quick to burst open
within me like an immense star.

My love, it is night.

The dark water, the world
asleep, it surrounds me.
The dawn will soon come,
and meanwhile I write you
to tell you: "I love you."
To say "I love you," care for,
clean, cultivate,
defend
our love, my soul.
I leave it with you as I would leave
a handful of soil with seeds.
Lives will be borne by our love.
In our love they will drink water.
Perhaps a day will come
when a man
and a woman, the same
as us,
will touch upon this love that yet holds strength
enough to burn the hands that touch it.
Who were we? What does it matter?
They shall touch this fire
and the fire, my sweet, shall speak your simple name
and mine, the name
that you alone knew, for you alone
on the earth's surface knows
who I am, for no one knew me like one,
like just one of your hands,
because no one
knew how or when
my heart was burning:
only
your great dark eyes knew,
your wide mouth,
your skin, your breasts,
your belly, your viscera,
and your soul that I awoke
so that it would remain
singing until the end of life.

Love, I wait for you.

Farewell, love, I wait for you.

Love, love, I wait for you.

And so this letters ends
without a single sorrow:
my feet are firm upon the earth,
my hand writes this letter en route
and amidst life I shall be
forever
with friend, facing the enemy,
with your name in my mouth
and a kiss that never
broke away from yours.

karma defect

The cercopes

For once the father of the gods, thoroughly disgusted
by the deceitful, bible-banging Cercopes,
and their murderous ways, wanted to change them
into screeching monkeys, but hesitated,
grew uncertain, considered jackals instead,
clucking hens, thinking perhaps a greasy rat
on the kitchen wall would suit the loudmouths better,
In fact: going from A to Z in the Bestiary
without finding a single species to even approximate
the thieving sneaks with their lying tongues,
not even among the shithouse flies and graveyard worms
who are far more truthful and noble,
Make no mistake, in their conduct and in their grit.



-Charles Simic-