BS: Favorite Poem?

Subject: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 10:49 AM

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.



from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: number 6
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 10:57 AM

I'm a fan if W.H. Auden

Epitaph on a Tyrant           

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

............. by W.H. Auden

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 11:05 AM

I am Jesus' little lamb
He has made me what I am.
He will wash me white as snow
What a dirty job for little Jesus.
                -- Folk Tradition

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Azizi
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 11:36 AM

One of my favorite poems is:

Desiderata

[written by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s]

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

-snip-

Source for words:

http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm

**

My introduction to this poem was through a 1971 record by Les Crane. Here's the link to a music YouTube video of that part of that record {produced along with a photo collage}

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqqsJJ08-uQ

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Azizi
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 11:38 AM

A number of great poems are listed & posted on this Mudcat thread:

thread.cfm?threadid=105603&messages=208
BS: Poems that speak to you.

**

My posting that link does not mean that the same great poems or more great poems {or favorite poems that others might not consider great} can't be listed on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Emma B
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:09 PM

There are so many wonderful poems that 'speak' to me it's impossible to select a 'favourite'

However, while listening to a friend's song recently I was reminded of this one....

Cloth of Heaven
W.B. 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.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:28 PM

Jabberwocky - Lewis Carroll - one of the few I can rattle off from memory - And virtually ALL of Ogden Nash's four liners !

SURE !! Deck thy limbs in pants my love

Thine are the limbs my sweeting

You look Divine as you advance

Have you seen yourself retreating ?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 12:52 PM

Whan that Aprille with his showres sote,
And the drocht of Marche hath perced to the rote.

Chaucers Canterbury Tales in olde Englishe of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 01:08 PM

Number 6, we're informed, is a great fan of W. H. Auden.   Okay, here's my favorite W. H. Auden poem:

As I Walked Out One Evening
    –W. H. Auden

As I walked out one evening,
       Walking down Bristol Street,
The crowds upon the pavement
       Were fields of harvest wheat.

And down by the brimming river
       I heard a lover sing
Under an arch of the railway:
       "Love has no ending.

"I'll love you, dear, I'll love you
       Till China and Africa meet
And the river jumps over the mountain
       And the salmon sing in the street.

"I'll love you till the ocean
       Is folded and hung up to dry
And the seven stars go squawking
       Like geese about the sky.

"The years shall run like rabbits
       For in my arms I hold
The Flower of the Ages
       And the first love of the world."

But all the clocks in the city
       Began to whirr and chime:
"O let not Time deceive you,
       You cannot conquer Time.

"In the burrows of the Nightmare
       Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
       And coughs when you would kiss.


"In headaches and in worry
       Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
       To-morrow or to-day.

"Into many a green valley
       Drifts the appalling snow;
Time breaks the threaded dances
       And the diver's brilliant bow.

"O plunge your hands in water,
       Plunge them in up to the wrist;
Stare, stare in the basin
       And wonder what you've missed.

"The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
       The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
       A lane to the land of the dead.

"Where the beggars raffle the banknotes
       And the Giant is enchanting to Jack,
And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer
       And Jill goes down on her back.

"O look, look in the mirror,
       O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
       Although you cannot bless.

"O stand, stand at the window
       As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
       With your crooked heart."

It was late, late in the evening,
       The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming
       And the deep river ran on.
-----------------
Quoth I: "Doesn't get much better than that!"
Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 02:04 PM

My personal favorite is 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.' I read it (aloud) about once a year.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: bassen
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 02:26 PM

A couple of years ago, during a very trying time at work, I tacked the following poem to my office wall as a silent statement of intent. It was and is my favorite:


    Further Notice

    I can't live in this world
    And I refuse to kill myself
    Or let you kill me

    The dill plant lives, the airplane
    My alarm clock, this ink
    I won't go away

    I shall be myself --
    Free, a genius, an embarrassment
    Like the Indian, the buffalo

    Like Yellowstone National Park.

                         -- Philip Whalen

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: autolycus
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 04:38 PM

Already quoted on the other thread - Ozymandias - Shelley

Post 1900 - The Naming of Parts by Henry Reedi


I. NAMING OF PARTS

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
          And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
          Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
          Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
          They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
          For to-day we have naming of parts.


Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: number 6
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 04:44 PM

Ah ... yes Dave O ... very good one.

"Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun"

Here's the whole poem, and I would have to say my my favourite work from Auden, if not for that one line.

Funeral Blues

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.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: number 6
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 04:54 PM

Leadfingers ... yes, jabberwocky !

" One, Two! One, Two! and through and through
the vorpal blade went snicker-snack
He left it dead, and went in it's head
He went galumping back"

another from Lewis Carol ..

"In wondeerland they lie
Dreaming as the days go by
Dreaming as the summers die

Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleem
Life, what is it but a dream"

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: RangerSteve
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 06:47 PM

Rime of the Ancient Mariner - I have a copy with the original Gustav Dore illustrations. I don't know which I like better, the poem or the pictures.

Jabberwockie is the only poem I know by heart, not including really short Ogden Nash poems.   

The Highwayman is another favorite.

Anything by Robert Service.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 07:07 PM

I have a paperback copy of Coleridge sans illustrations, but do have large poster reproduction of the ship by Dore. It is properly eerie.

BTW, does anyone else read poetry aloud even when alone?

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Slag
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 07:07 PM

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot, much to long to reproduce here but very findable with Google, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 07:29 PM

I have a plethora of favorite poems, just as I have of favorite songs and favorite music. And some things, written as something else, fit into my personal definition of poetry. "What a piece of work is Man" from "Hamlet" and "Our revels now are ended" from "The Tempest" are two examples.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:07 PM

This appeared in "Atlantic" late sixties/early seventies.

            Jammerwock

Es brillig war. Die schlictentoven Twas brillig & the slithy-toves,
Wirten und wimmelten im waben,       Did gyre and gimbel in the wabe
Und alle muemsige vergoven          All mimsy were the borogroves
Das momemrath ausgraben.             Etc......

Beware du for Jammerwoch!
Die zane* knirschen; krallen kratzen!   *Teeth--is that right?
Bewar' fur Jub-Jubfogel,
Und frumiosen Banderschnatzen.

Er griff sein vorpal schwerzen zu--
Er sichte lang das manchsome ding,
Denn stehend unter'm Tum-Tum-baum
Er anzudenkenfing.

Als stand er tief im andacht auf
Das Jammerwock mit augenfeuer
Durch Turgenwald mit wiffeln kam,
Und burblent ungeheuer.

Ein, zwei! Ein, zwei! Und durch und durch
Das vorpal schwert zerschnifferschnuck!
Das bleib ist todt! Mit kopf im hand
Galaufig zog-zuruck.

Und schlugst du ja dem Jammerwock?
Umarme mich, mein biemsches kind!
O halloo-tag! O-freuden-schlag!
Er chortelt froh-gesint.

Es brillig war. Die schlichtentoven
Wirten und wimmelten im waben,
Und alle muemsige bergoven
Das momenrath ausgraben.

Sorry if there are mistakes in the real part of the German; I think the best part is the renditions of LC's nonsense bits, like Turgenwald for Tulgey wood, etc.

CC

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 08:28 PM

...Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air.
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep....

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Kent Davis
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 09:09 PM

Nothing Gold Can Stay

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.

Robert Frost

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 09:20 PM

... Let Sporus tremble — "What? that thing of silk,
Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?
Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?
Who breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?"
Yet let me flap this Bug with gilded wings,
This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings;
Whose Buzz the Witty and the Fair annoys,
Yet Wit ne'er tastes, and Beauty ne'er enjoys,
So well-bred Spaniels civilly delight
In mumbling of the Game they dare not bite.
Eternal Smiles his Emptiness betray,
As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Whether in florid Impotence he speaks,
And, as the Prompter breathes, the Puppet squeaks;
Or at the Ear of Eve, familiar Toad,
Half Froth, half Venom, spits himself abroad,
In Puns, or Politicks, or Tales, or Lyes,
Or Spite, or Smut, or Rymes, or Blasphemies.
His Wit all see-saw between that and this,
Now high, now low, now Master up, now Miss,
And he himself one vile Antithesis.
Amphibious Thing! that acting either Part,
The trifling Head, or the corrupted Heart!
Fop at the Toilet, Flatt'rer at the Board,
Now trips a Lady, and now struts a Lord.
Eve's Tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest,
A Cherub's face, a Reptile all the rest;
Beauty that shocks you, Parts that none will trust,
Wit that can creep, and Pride that licks the dust.

                     --Pope, Epistle to Arbuthnot

Not all poetry I like is pleasant, but it is truthful.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Mar 08 - 09:27 PM

Gene, Gene, built a machine.
Frank, Frank, turned the crank.
Joe, Joe, made it go.
Art, Art, ripped a fart...
And blew the whole damn thing apart.


Geeziz, what pathos! What a life lesson. What honesty.

Makes me weep every time I read it....................I get a boner too......................

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: mrdux
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 01:18 AM

THE SECOND COMING

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-- W. B. Yeats

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: number 6
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 05:44 AM

The Weird Sisters, hand in hand,
Posters of the sea and land,
Thus do go about, about
Thrice to thine and thrice to mine,
and thrice again, to make up nine.
Peace, the charms wound up.

....... william shakespeare

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 07:25 AM

William McGonagle,

On yonder hill there stands a coo,
It must have gone, it's not there noo.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: GUEST,Appaloosa Lady
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 09:38 AM

Leisure - by W.H. Davies

WHAT is this life 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



Time, for a little while at least, to stand and stare, as nature and Ralph Vaughan Williams soothe your soul

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 10:26 AM

Anything by Yeats, especially "The Second Coming". Cargoes by John Masefield and loads of Kipling..oh so much. Yes, I read poetry outloud to my cat, she loves it, purrs the whole time.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 10:33 AM

Talking of (or even to) cats.....

To a Cat

Mirrors are not more wrapt in silences
nor the arriving dawn more secretive ;
you, in the moonlight, are that panther figure
which we can only spy at from a distance.
By the mysterious functioning of some
divine decree, we seek you out in vain ;
remoter than the Ganges or the sunset,
yours is the solitude, yours is the secret.
Your back allows the tentative caress
my hand extends. And you have condescended,
since that forever, now oblivion,
to take love from a flattering human hand.
you live in other time, lord of your realm -
a world as closed and separate as dream.

        -- Jorge Luis Borges

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 11:56 AM

Thank you Emma B. I shall read it to herself, I am sure she will purr all the louder.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 06:00 PM

XXXI
A.E.Houseman

Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
'Good-bye,' said you, `forget me.'
'I will, no fear', said I.

If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Mar 08 - 06:01 PM

"The Deserted Village" by Oliver Goldsmith...

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Micca
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 04:27 AM

Into my heart an air that kills
   From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
   What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
   I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
   And cannot come again.
A.E. Housman
From A Shropshire Lad

and I love the version with additions that Linda Kelly does on Hissyfits CD "Sweet Minerva"

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Emma B
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:30 AM

Those remembered hills also reminds me of this evocation of childhood, another favourite of Sorcha's too I think...

FERN HILL

    Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
    About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
       The night above the dingle starry,
         Time let me hail and climb
       Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
    And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
    And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
         Trail with daisies and barley
       Down the rivers of the windfall light.

    And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
    About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
       In the sun that is young once only,
         Time let me play and be
       Golden in the mercy of his means,
    And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
    Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
         And the sabbath rang slowly
       In the pebbles of the holy streams.

    All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
    Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
       And playing, lovely and watery
         And fire green as grass.
       And nightly under the simple stars
    As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
    All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
       Flying with the ricks, and the horses
         Flashing into the dark.


    And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
    With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
       Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
         The sky gathered again
       And the sun grew round that very day.
    So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
    In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
       Out of the whinnying green stable
         On to the fields of praise.

    And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
    Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
       In the sun born over and over,
         I ran my heedless ways,
       My wishes raced through the house high hay
    And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
    In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
       Before the children green and golden
         Follow him out of grace.

    Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
    Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
       In the moon that is always rising,
         Nor that riding to sleep
       I should hear him fly with the high fields
    And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
    Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
         Time held me green and dying
       Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

    Dylan Thomas

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Sorcha
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 08:49 AM

Oh yes, Emma.....

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 09:27 AM

From 'Namby Pamby' - Henry Carey, which ridicules the lisping, would-be pastoral style of Ambrose Phillips.

Phillips wrote about the Duke of Summatorother's daughter :

'Dimply damsel, sweetly smiling . . . '

Tartaretta Tartaree
From the navel tothe knee
That her father's Gracy-grace
Might give him a placy-place . . .

Now the venal poet sings
Little clouts and little things.
Little houses, little toys-
Little girls - and little boys . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: Mr Fox
Date: 10 Mar 08 - 12:26 PM

The Two

You are the town and we are the clock.
We are the guardians of the gate in the rock
The Two
On your left and on your right
In the day and in the night,
We are watching you.

Wiser not to ask just what has occurred
To them who disobeyed our word;
To those
We were the whirlpool, we were the reef,
We were the formal nightmare, grief
And the unlucky rose.

Climb up the crane, learn the sailor's words
When the ships from the islands laden with birds
Come in
Tell your stories of fishing and other men's wives:
The expansive moments of constricted lives
In the lighted inn.

But do not imagine we do not know
Nor that what you hide with such care won't show
At a glance
Nothing is done, nothing is said,
But don't make the mistake of believing us dead:
I shouldn't dance.

We're afraid in that case you'll have a fall.
We've been watching you over the garden wall
For hours.
The sky is darkening like a stain
Something is going to fall like rain
And it won't be flowers.

When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
Unpleasant.
And look, behind you without a sound
The woods have come and are standing round
In deadly crescent.

The bolt is sliding in its groove,
Outside the window is the black remov-
ers van.
And now with sudden swift emergence
Comes the women in dark glasses and the humpbacked surgeons
And the scissor man.

This might happen any day
So be careful what you say
Or do.
Be clean, be tidy, oil the lock,
Trim the garden, wind the clock,
Remember the Two.

        -- W. H. Auden

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: The PA
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 09:50 AM

W H Auden, Stop all the Clocks
A bit sad but I love it.

Subject: RE: BS: Favorite Poem?
From: topical tom
Date: 11 Mar 08 - 10:28 AM

There are so many but here is one