Joker Obama Girl's Favorite Poetry Thread

Hey, I thought I would post a thread of my favorite poets and Poetry. My favorite poets are John Donne and Henry Lawson. Here I have a poem from each:

Cherry- Tree Inn

The rafters are open to sun, moon, and star,
Thistles and nettles grow high in the bar --
The chimneys are crumbling, the log fires are dead,
And green mosses spring from the hearthstone instead.
The voices are silent, the bustle and din,
For the railroad hath ruined the Cherry-tree Inn.

Save the glimmer of stars, or the moon's pallid streams,
And the sounds of the 'possums that camp on the beams,
The bar-room is dark and the stable is still,
For the coach comes no more over Cherry-tree Hill.
No riders push on through the darkness to win
The rest and the comfort of Cherry-tree Inn.

I drift from my theme, for my memory strays
To the carrying, digging, and bushranging days --
Far back to the seasons that I love the best,
When a stream of wild diggers rushed into the west,
But the `rushes' grew feeble, and sluggish, and thin,
Till scarcely a swagman passed Cherry-tree Inn.

Do you think, my old mate (if it's thinking you be),
Of the days when you tramped to the goldfields with me?
Do you think of the day of our thirty-mile tramp,
When never a fire could we light on the camp,
And, weary and footsore and drenched to the skin,
We tramped through the darkness to Cherry-tree Inn?

Then I had a sweetheart and you had a wife,
And Johnny was more to his mother than life;
But we solemnly swore, ere that evening was done,
That we'd never return till our fortunes were won.
Next morning to harvests of folly and sin
We tramped o'er the ranges from Cherry-tree Inn.

. . . . .

The years have gone over with many a change,
And there comes an old swagman from over the range,
And faint 'neath the weight of his rain-sodden load,
He suddenly thinks of the inn by the road.
He tramps through the darkness the shelter to win,
And reaches the ruins of Cherry-tree Inn.

Henry Lawson



A VALEDICTION:FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne


AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.




What do you think of these pieces?

Good idea for a thread, Joker! Why do you happen to find those writers appealing, any reason in particular?

Would you mind if other members posted their favorites here as well? We could make it an (un)official thread. :yes:

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Originally Posted by Monk

Good idea for a thread, Joker! Why do you happen to find those writers appealing, any reason in particular?

Would you mind if other members posted their favorites here as well? We could make it an (un)official thread. :yes:

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Sure, that would be great! I like John Donne's poetry because he doesn't just use nearly perfect form or have very profound material, he does them both at the same time. I also love his extended metaphors (like the compass). Lawson's poetry is usually about his own experiences and he writes from the heart. I also love his use of couplets. It is not so much from the technical stand point that I like his work, it is just what I feel reading it.

The imagery of the first is nice. The second, I'm not sure. It has it's moments, a few lines here and there that caught my eye.

Here's two I like:

The Dying Swan
Alfred Lord Tennyson

The plain was grassy, wild and bare,
Wide, wild, and open to the air,
Which had built up everywhere
An under-roof of doleful gray.
With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
And loudly did lament.
It was the middle of the day.
Ever the weary wind went on,
And took the reed-tops as it went.

Some blue peaks in the distance rose,
And white against the cold-white sky,
Shone out their crowning snows.
One willow over the river wept,
And shook the wave as the wind did sigh;
Above in the wind was the swallow,
Chasing itself at its own wild will,
And far thro' the marish green and still
The tangled water-courses slept,
Shot over with purple, and green, and yellow.

The wild swan's death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first to the ear
The warble was low, and full and clear;
And floating about the under-sky,
Prevailing in weakness, the coronach stole
Sometimes afar, and sometimes anear;
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,
Flow'd forth on a carol free and bold;
As when a mighty people rejoice
With shawms, and with cymbals, and harps of gold,
And the tumult of their acclaim is roll'd
Thro' the open gates of the city afar,
To the shepherd who watcheth the evening star.
And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
The desolate creeks and pools among,
Were flooded over with eddying song.

Brown Star
Don Van Vliet

I know of a Brown Star
That only certain people have found
For years they been lookin' around
A lot of people lookin' up
But very few of them looking down
Well they searched high and low for that little glow
That'll make them happy
Some searched fast and they went on past
Some went slow but couldn't let it go
I know of a Brown Star
That only very certain people have found
You can ask a dog why he's so happy
Just waggin' his tail around
Or a frog what makes him jump around
Follow a sailin' cloud until it dumps
The rain right down
But ask a man and woman if they've seen
A Brown Star around
Some will say yes and some will say no
Some will just laugh and some will just glow
Some will say why do you ask
Some will say well don't you know
Then there'll be the one that says
It's already been found
But you ask a child and they'll just jump up and down
Sayin' we found a Brown Star
Right on the ground.

I like both Ungaretti and Rimbaud alot... however the english translations are real bad... ill post 2 here though... I also like Bob Dylan, he was a very great poet, perhaps the best of 20th century, definitly of the post war era generation (ungaretti being best of prewar generation.

Rivers (by Ungaretti)

This mutilated tree gives
Me support, left in this pot-hole
It has the bitterness of a circus
Before or after the show.
I watch
The quiet passage of
Clouds over the moon.

This morning I stretched
Myself in an urn of water,
Like a relic, and rested.

The Isonzo scoured
Me like
One of its stones.

I pulled my four
limbs together,
And went, like an acrobat,
Over the water.

Crouched by my clothes
Fouled with war, I inclined
My head, like a Bedouin,
To receive the sun.

This is the Isonzo.
And it is there I
Most see myself
In the universe
A compliant
Thread.

My pain is
When I do not believe
Myself in harmony.

But those hidden
Hands give as they knead me
A rare joy.

I have relived
The stages of my life.

The Serchio: from
Which have drawn, perhaps
For two thousand years
My country people, my father,
My mother.

This is the Nile
That has seen me be born,
And grow
And burn in ignorance on
Extending plains.

This is the Seine; and I mingled
In that muddiness learning each
Part of all myself.

These are my rivers confluent
In the Isonzo.

This is my nostalgia
That in each
One shines through me, now
It is night, and my life seems
A budding
Off of shades.


Aube/Dawn (by Rimbaud)

I embraced the summer dawn.

Nothing yet stirred on the face of the palaces. The water is dead. The shadows still camped in the woodland road. I walked, waking quick warm breaths, and gems looked on, and wings rose without a sound.

The first venture was, in a path already filled with fresh, pale gleams, a flower who told me her name.

I laughed at the blond wasserfall that tousled through the pines: on the silver summit I recognized the goddess.

Then, one by one, I lifted up her veils. In the lane, waving my arms. Across the plain, where I notified the cock. In the city, she fled among the steeples and the domes, and running like a beggar on the marble quays, I chased her.

Above the road near a laurel wood, I wrapped her up in gathered veils, and I felt a little her immense body. Dawn and the child fell down at the edge of the wood.

Waking, it was noon.




Nesting (The Stranger)

I wake with the herons

dawn lies still
wet in their eyes
silence has nested itself
in the trees

I entangle them

a traveller
who after years
silently rests
in his lonelyness

like the wind
which - after shreds
of coast - searches
for a shelter
in the mountains

The Wild Swans At Coole, by William Yeats

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

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Originally Posted by Rythmic

It has it's moments, a few lines here and there that caught my eye.

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The beauty of John Donne's poems is in the metaphors he uses, and in the substance of what he says. I really like this one in particular because of the way that he lays his case out so to speak. :P Whenever I think of Donne, I think of that metaphor with the compass. That is what makes Donne so good. It is kinda dry though, I certainly see what you mean. You really do need a taste for it. He does not have the vivid imagery of Lawson for sure. Lawson is one of my favorite poets because I can see his poems, hear his poems, and feel his poems. Donne is more abstract and deeper. If you really want to appreciate a John Donne poem, read it 5 times.

I really liked the Tennyson poem. It had beautiful imagery. Tennyson is a great poet for sure.

@Stranger: Is that your poem?

yeah it is... you can find more atthe Andalusian Memory thread

its a translation so it may be somewhat stiff... poems are barely translatable, look atthe very very bad translation of Rivers... god it is aweful :P but still a very good poem.

one of my friends is an awesome poet, i'll put some of her poems on here when i can be bothered :clown:

show it

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Originally Posted by Joker Obama Girl

The beauty of John Donne's poems is in the metaphors he uses, and in the substance of what he says. I really like this one in particular because of the way that he lays his case out so to speak. :P Whenever I think of Donne, I think of that metaphor with the compass. That is what makes Donne so good. It is kinda dry though, I certainly see what you mean. You really do need a taste for it. [...] Donne is more abstract and deeper. If you really want to appreciate a John Donne poem, read it 5 times.

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Sorry, I just don't feel it. To me, it just comes across as pretentious, almost as if he's trying too hard. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Joker Obama Girl

@Stranger: Is that your poem?

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There's quite a bit of poetry in the Mead Hall, but it's probably floated back a few pages.

yup, i recall rythmic having a few good ones too

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rythmic

Sorry, I just don't feel it. To me, it just comes across as pretentious, almost as if he's trying too hard. :shrug:

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He is speaking of something far removed of earth and earthly thoughts, so the diction is appropriate. It's ok if you do not like it, to each his own. I do not like all of his stuff to be honest. This is the gem, lol.

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There's quite a bit of poetry in the Mead Hall, but it's probably floated back a few pages.

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Hmmm...maybe I will post some of my own sometime... (course that is if I can find any of it. :P If not I could just write some up I guess...)

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Originally Posted by Joker Obama Girl

He is speaking of something far removed of earth and earthly thoughts, so the diction is appropriate. It's ok if you do not like it, to each his own. I do not like all of his stuff to be honest. This is the gem, lol.



Hmmm...maybe I will post some of my own sometime... (course that is if I can find any of it. :P If not I could just write some up I guess...)

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what did you think of mine?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The Stranger

what did you think of mine?

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I liked it quite a bit. I liked the new stuff you posted on the other thread even better though.

hmm thanx :) the reason you like the other better might be because this is a translation and the other 2 are originally written in english. or maybe you just like them better :P