great poems
- Thread starter Firky
- Start date
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Two more by Rainer Maria Rilke, wot I read this morning:
Eros
Masks! masks! Blind Eros. No one can endure
The flaming splendor of his equipage;
Before his summer solstice immature
Light-hearted Springs induction leaves the state.
How imperceptibly the conversation
Takes a new turn, grave, earnest ... Something cries ...
And he casts the fearful fascination
Like the inside of a temple round their eyes.
Divine, into each others arms they fling.
Life is ending, Destinys beginning.
And within there weeps a spring.
Untitled
World was in the face of the beloved, -
But was poured out all of a sudden:
World is outside, can't be comprehended.
Why did I not drink then, when I raised it,
From the full, from the beloved features
World, so near, in my mouth its perfume?
Oh, I drank. Insatiably I drank then.
Only I myself was full already
With world, and drinking I myself ran over.
Eros
Masks! masks! Blind Eros. No one can endure
The flaming splendor of his equipage;
Before his summer solstice immature
Light-hearted Springs induction leaves the state.
How imperceptibly the conversation
Takes a new turn, grave, earnest ... Something cries ...
And he casts the fearful fascination
Like the inside of a temple round their eyes.
Divine, into each others arms they fling.
Life is ending, Destinys beginning.
And within there weeps a spring.
Untitled
World was in the face of the beloved, -
But was poured out all of a sudden:
World is outside, can't be comprehended.
Why did I not drink then, when I raised it,
From the full, from the beloved features
World, so near, in my mouth its perfume?
Oh, I drank. Insatiably I drank then.
Only I myself was full already
With world, and drinking I myself ran over.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
Despite being an atheist, I've always loved this one.
Dover Beach
Mathew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Dover Beach
Mathew Arnold
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
SpookyFrank
Don't swallow the cap
Dillinger4 said:I remember doing 'To His Coy Mistress' in school.
We all loved it.
Yeah, my class loved it too. Possbly just because it had the word 'breast' in it mind
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
SpookyFrank said:Yeah, my class loved it too. Possbly just because it had the word 'breast' in it mind
What else is going to capture the interests of a 14 year old?
lontok2005
New Member
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder
And went with half my life about my ways.
A. E. Housman
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand and tore my heart in sunder
And went with half my life about my ways.
A. E. Housman
lontok2005
New Member
Sonnet
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till midnight; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight that tap and sigh
Upon the glass, and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before.
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
Edna St. Vincent Millay.
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till midnight; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight that tap and sigh
Upon the glass, and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before.
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
Edna St. Vincent Millay.
lontok2005
New Member
Sorry, one more then I'll shut up!
When you see millions of the mouthless dead.
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go
Say not soft things as other men have said
That you’ll remember, for you need not so.
Give them not praise – for deaf, how should they know
It is not curses poured on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this: ‘They are dead.’ Then add thereto,
‘Yet many a better one has died before.’
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
Charles Hamilton Sorley
(PS - can we post our own somewhere?)
When you see millions of the mouthless dead.
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go
Say not soft things as other men have said
That you’ll remember, for you need not so.
Give them not praise – for deaf, how should they know
It is not curses poured on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this: ‘They are dead.’ Then add thereto,
‘Yet many a better one has died before.’
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
Charles Hamilton Sorley
(PS - can we post our own somewhere?)
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
lontok2005 said:
I like this one. It has a nice flow to it.
lontok2005
New Member
Dillinger4 said:I like this one. It has a nice flow to it.
He wrote it about his best friend, with whom he was in love his whole life. It was a love unrequited, and knowing that really makes the poem ache.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
lontok2005 said:
I got that sort of feeling from it. I love poetry.
blinky_bill
Well-Known Member
I don't often read poetry but I love that one. I first discovered it after reading the response by Anthony Hecht - The Dover Bitch.goldenecitrone said:
So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl
With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them,
And he said to her, 'Try to be true to me,
And I'll do the same for you, for things are bad
All over, etc., etc.'
Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read
Sophocles in a fairly good translation
And caught that bitter allusion to the sea,
But all the time he was talking she had in mind
The notion of what his whiskers would feel like
On the back of her neck. She told me later on
That after a while she got to looking out
At the lights across the channel, and really felt sad,
Thinking of all the wine and enormous beds
And blandishments in French and the perfumes.
And then she got really angry. To have been brought
All the way down from London, and then be addressed
As a sort of mournful cosmic last resort
Is really tough on a girl, and she was pretty.
Anyway, she watched him pace the room
And finger his watch-chain and seem to sweat a bit,
And then she said one or two unprintable things.
But you mustn't judge her by that. What I mean to say is,
She's really all right. I still see her once in a while
And she always treats me right. We have a drink
And I give her a good time, and perhaps it's a year
Before I see her again, but there she is,
Running to fat, but dependable as they come.
And sometimes I bring her a bottle of Nuit d' Amour.
lontok2005
New Member
I love poetry, too.
Language is the most tremendous gift we have. The ability to convey meaning - any meaning, from the emotional nuance of a haiku to the crisp exactness of an instruction manual - is what stands us apart, much more so than the opposable thumb. Science may have come up with automatic translation technology, such as Babelfish online, but it's a world away from coming up with something that can lie, or flatter, or exaggerate, or pun, or seduce, or obfuscate, or do all those other wonderfully human things we do with a few breaths of air and the shaping of our lips and tongues.
That's why poetry is so fantastic. It's a condensed, distilled vehicle of meaning, the highest form of articulation. It has no immediate practical purpose, but it conveys so much.
It's not as good as music, though. One day English will have changed into a completely different language, as languages are wont to do, and nobody will be able to read Shakespeare or Keats or Dickens, or even Urban, in the original. When that happens, a great deal of meaning will be lost. It will be like reading Latin today. Recognisably human, but distant and other-worldly. But Mozart will always be Mozart, and drums will always drum. Great music never loses its full meaning. Great literature does. It only survives in the shadows of translation. Even when we listen to a play by Shakespeare, with our modern English so close to his that we largely understand what he is saying, we still probably miss a whole host of meanings that a contemporary audience would have been attuned to.
But music coupled with language is a very good mix. That's why everyone loves song, and why the best songs are both musically and lyrically satisfying.
In my opinion, if you love good lyrics, then you probably love poetry, too.
Language is the most tremendous gift we have. The ability to convey meaning - any meaning, from the emotional nuance of a haiku to the crisp exactness of an instruction manual - is what stands us apart, much more so than the opposable thumb. Science may have come up with automatic translation technology, such as Babelfish online, but it's a world away from coming up with something that can lie, or flatter, or exaggerate, or pun, or seduce, or obfuscate, or do all those other wonderfully human things we do with a few breaths of air and the shaping of our lips and tongues.
That's why poetry is so fantastic. It's a condensed, distilled vehicle of meaning, the highest form of articulation. It has no immediate practical purpose, but it conveys so much.
It's not as good as music, though. One day English will have changed into a completely different language, as languages are wont to do, and nobody will be able to read Shakespeare or Keats or Dickens, or even Urban, in the original. When that happens, a great deal of meaning will be lost. It will be like reading Latin today. Recognisably human, but distant and other-worldly. But Mozart will always be Mozart, and drums will always drum. Great music never loses its full meaning. Great literature does. It only survives in the shadows of translation. Even when we listen to a play by Shakespeare, with our modern English so close to his that we largely understand what he is saying, we still probably miss a whole host of meanings that a contemporary audience would have been attuned to.
But music coupled with language is a very good mix. That's why everyone loves song, and why the best songs are both musically and lyrically satisfying.
In my opinion, if you love good lyrics, then you probably love poetry, too.
blinky_bill
Well-Known Member
I can see why people like poetry, but I find it difficult. I like poetic prose. I'll read stuff like Faulkner and Melville endlessly, but unless it has some sort of narrative structure it doesn't mean anything. It goes in my eyes and out the back of my head.lontok2005 said:
It's like the difference between a continetal baguette and a cheesy wotsit.
This is true and very sad aswell. The loss of a language is a tragedy.lontok2005 said:
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
lontok2005 said:
Are you serious?
Tell me a piece of music that has outlived the Epic of Gilgamesh. Or The Illiad. Or the Odyssey.
These are still great having been translated from languages that do not even exist.
lontok2005
New Member
There might not be a piece of written music as old as the Epic of Gilgamesh, or as old as one of Homer's works, but my point is that we can never, ever appreciate those works of literature in the original in the same way a native speaker would have appreciated them. The actual sound of the language will never have to us the same resonance, to use a musical term, as it had to an original audience (it being debatable exactly what constitutes an original audience of such works). Take a simple example from Shakespeare. In his famous Sonnet 18, he rhymes 'temperate' with 'date', because at the time he wrote the poem those two words were perfect rhymes:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's love hath all too short a date.
It's gone. It sounds forced if we read it with the original pronunciation, but it loses something if we don't. Then there's the subtlety of meaning between the two different second person pronouns. In the time that Shakespeare wrote, the pronouns 'thou' and 'thee' were familiar, used to address friends, relatives, lovers and children, and 'you' was more formal and deferential, a distinction preserved in modern Spanish in 'with tu' and 'Usted' and in French 'with tu' and 'vous'. That distinction has been more or less eradicated in modern English, to the extent, in fact, that 'thou' and 'thee' can now often sound rather over-formal, quite in contrast to the original meaning. Where we hear the 'thee' of the first line as quaintly, and beautifully, poetic, the original reader, or listener, would have heard a touching familiarity. It's impossible for us to hear the poem exactly as it was intended to be heard, because language has changed. That doesn't diminish it's strength or resonance, because we bring our own interpretations to it, but it's not the same. By contrast, my gut instinct on hearing 'Eine Kleine Nacht Musk', is, I feel, much the same as someone who first sat in the room where it was first played, and - more importantly - it matters not a zilch that I don't speak German to appreciate it.
Puns and wordplay are particularly apt to get lost in translation. That's why comedy often doesn't age well. There are jokes in Shakespeare that we can appreciate, academically, but we'll never really get. There are probably places even in Homer that had his listeners splitting their sides, but which have now become footnotes in some dusty tome. You had to be there, really.
I wouldn't say that music is without cultural reference or that it isn't rooted in the era of the person who writes it, but I would say that it has more staying power.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's love hath all too short a date.
It's gone. It sounds forced if we read it with the original pronunciation, but it loses something if we don't. Then there's the subtlety of meaning between the two different second person pronouns. In the time that Shakespeare wrote, the pronouns 'thou' and 'thee' were familiar, used to address friends, relatives, lovers and children, and 'you' was more formal and deferential, a distinction preserved in modern Spanish in 'with tu' and 'Usted' and in French 'with tu' and 'vous'. That distinction has been more or less eradicated in modern English, to the extent, in fact, that 'thou' and 'thee' can now often sound rather over-formal, quite in contrast to the original meaning. Where we hear the 'thee' of the first line as quaintly, and beautifully, poetic, the original reader, or listener, would have heard a touching familiarity. It's impossible for us to hear the poem exactly as it was intended to be heard, because language has changed. That doesn't diminish it's strength or resonance, because we bring our own interpretations to it, but it's not the same. By contrast, my gut instinct on hearing 'Eine Kleine Nacht Musk', is, I feel, much the same as someone who first sat in the room where it was first played, and - more importantly - it matters not a zilch that I don't speak German to appreciate it.
Puns and wordplay are particularly apt to get lost in translation. That's why comedy often doesn't age well. There are jokes in Shakespeare that we can appreciate, academically, but we'll never really get. There are probably places even in Homer that had his listeners splitting their sides, but which have now become footnotes in some dusty tome. You had to be there, really.
I wouldn't say that music is without cultural reference or that it isn't rooted in the era of the person who writes it, but I would say that it has more staying power.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Why do you think music is any different?
For what reason do you think you appreciate Mozart in the same way as the people to first listen to him?
I don't agree with what you are saying the slightest.
For what reason do you think you appreciate Mozart in the same way as the people to first listen to him?
I don't agree with what you are saying the slightest.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
Oh its just your 'gut instinct'. Ok. That is sorted now.
lontok2005
New Member
Music doesn't go through the medium of language. It's direct.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
lontok2005 said:
I don't agree at all, but I cant be bothered arguing it.
lontok2005
New Member
No, neither can I. I reckon so long as we both like poetry and music it's a silly thing to argue about. Better to enjoy the same things than to argue the toss as to which is better 
Similar threads
