Favorite Poems

[BohPian]

I love poems and thought of starting a thread to share our favorite lines.

Auguries Of Innocence - William Blake

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

Wish I could like a poem like that! :)

[daLady]

My favourite happy poem is "Daffodils". Boss likes the poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling...he has posted it in another thread.

[BohPian]

How Do I Love Thee? - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

If you need to win the heart of someone, recite this. Worked for me. :)

[athena]

yea boh pian, that is one killer poem...if anyone use that on me...i will simply melt away.....

[jeongyik]

This one I got from an old book :

Oh, my old man'a a dustman
He wears a dustman's hat,
he bought two thousand tickets,
To see a fottball match/

Oh Fatty passed to Skinny,
and skinny passed it back,
fatty took a rotten shot
and knocked the goalie flat,ohh
where was the goalie
when the ball was in the net? (wonder whether stephen chow got this idea for his shaolin soccer)

Halfway up the goalpost
with his trousers round his neck. Singing:
Oompa oompa
Stick it up your jumper
Rule Britannia, marmalade and jam
We threw sausages at our old man.

They put him on stretcher
The out him on the bed
They rubbed his belly with a five pound jelly
but the poor soul was dead

[noname]

This one I got from an old book :

Oh, my old man'a a dustman
He wears a dustman's hat,
he bought two thousand tickets,
To see a fottball match/

Oh Fatty passed to Skinny,
and skinny passed it back,
fatty took a rotten shot
and knocked the goalie flat,ohh
where was the goalie
when the ball was in the net? (wonder whether stephen chow got this idea for his shaolin soccer)

Halfway up the goalpost
with his trousers round his neck. Singing:
Oompa oompa
Stick it up your jumper
Rule Britannia, marmalade and jam
We threw sausages at our old man.

They put him on stretcher
The out him on the bed
They rubbed his belly with a five pound jelly
but the poor soul was dead

aiyah, all merely say it out on mouth but didnt really put it on practise. so cakap besar nia...

[LiLiaN]

learned this in english literature when i first came to ireland...
studying the words and the emotions behind them was very moving...
by william wordsworth, written after the death of his daughter...

"SURPRISED BY JOY--IMPATIENT AS THE WIND"

I turned to share the transport--Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind--
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss?--That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

[daLady]

Another one of my favourite is "The Road Not Taken"

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[LiLiaN]

this is another favourite from classes of english literature...
shakespeare's sonnet number 130... my mistress' eyes...

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

[Alkapocino]

Append is the poem written and recited by Lilianmiles of Class '85 to her true love. It goes like this:

Oh Su Tiong, I am but a fool
Darling I love you
Tho you treat me cruel
You hurt me
And you make me cry
But if you leave me
I will surely die.

p/s: For the original poem please refer to Class of '85 in "The Epic of a Donkey & Clown" thread.

I can even sing it in a Oh Carol tune!

[BohPian]

To Chloe
William Cartwright

THERE are two births; the one when light
First strikes the new awaken'd sense;
The other when two souls unite,
And we must count our life from thence:
When you loved me and I loved you
Then both of us were born anew.

Love then to us new souls did give
And in those souls did plant new powers;
Since when another life we live,
The breath we breathe is his, not ours:
Love makes those young whom age doth chill,
And whom he finds young keeps young still