Which is your favourite poem and why?

Sodapop

Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Thank you Barkingmad it's a lovely poem isn't it.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
Very long, but I can recite parts of it.

We are seven , by William Wordsworth.

I had forgotten about The Ancient Mariner. Again very atmospheric.

Yes! One of my favourites too. Hardy was a renowned as a great novelist but he was great poet as well.

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee - my father was an RAF pilot and this poem beautifully expresses his feelings and love of flying. It was read at his funeral service.

Night Mail by WH Auden .

A couple,
The Soldier..by Rupert Brooke
When I am an Old Woman...by Jenny Joseph

For beauty of language, it has to be 'Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold:

The sea is calm tonight.
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...

I'm also a big fan of 'The Listeners' by Walter de la Mare:

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

The Widower and his Clothes by Margaret Livingston

The winter after
the weather organised his clothes.
He took to moors and beaches
and tentative horizons
that juggled sun and blizzards
on the ocean’s edge.
He took to rocks,
and sturdier boots,
and ditches where the rain
lay muttering with the moss
and dark newts lived a definite life
that made him feel unformed.
He looked to trees
their roots, like talons, holding on,
and found a heavier coat
that made his back seem real
and his arms more able
to push him through the day.
He wrapped a scarf
around his mouth to keep
his language warm, his words
in hibernation, while he
lingered on the hillside
where the frost was yet to melt.
The weather chose his clothes
that careful chrysalis, in which his heart
adjusted to the qualities of snow,
until the winter nuzzles into spring
and his fingers, in their gloves,
begin to think of touch.

Agree about Sea Fever. Fabulous.

And if course, who could forget A Visit From St Nicholas?
My Granny had a hardback copy of this poem which she kept in a cupboard, and brought out every Christmas for us to read. It had beautiful illustrations. I loved it, and the poem.

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."

This poem was written by Leo Marks when he worked for the secret service and used as a poem code by Violet Szabo (Carve her Name with Pride). Marks ran the bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road made famous by Helene Hanff. I think it is probably the most romantic piece of poetry I have ever read.

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.[1]

W B Yeates The Lake of Innisfree and When you are Old

Just two of many favourites, a lot of which have already been mentioned.

I can see me spending our second lockdown day reading poetry!

I heard Felix Dennis read his poem Never Go Back on the radio, it has stuck with me for years.

Parky
Me too! So many recommendations that I hadn’t heard of and which I now love. I watched ‘Only be True’ last night on Netflix suggested by * Easybeez* Fantastic!

Sorry - the film is called ‘ All is True’ and the person recommending it is eazibee

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

Sundays, too, my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

And this, from Carol Ann Duffy

Last Post

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud…
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.
You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too –
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –
and light a cigarette.
There’s coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.

A couple of lines at the end of the first poem should have been at the beginning of the last!!

I love Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray, my Dad used to recite it often, he knew every word and whenever I hear it I think of being at his side by a roaring fire, helping weed the veg patch or even on a sandy beach. I can sit at my window and see the graveyard surrounded by fields of cows.
I love Abdul the Bulbul Emir by William Percy French. This is the one that I know off by heart and my grandchildren often ask me to recite it when we sit in the ‘reading’ tent in the garden in summer. An old wigwam which we fill with books and cushions.

Laura that was my dad's favourite poem too. I like it but my mum thought it was too sombre.

So many lovely poems.
My contribution is by David Sobieralski. It seems quite apt at present

We Are but a Grain of Sand

We are but a grain of sand in the desert of life.
And the Earth a grain of sand in the desert of the Galaxy,
That too is a grain of sand in the desert of the universe.
We are everything and nothing, if not equally shared
Micronism set in the waste of time.

All that has happened, is happening And is to happen,
Has already passed into history
Projected into life at the time of the singularity
That one great pulse of life that flashed then retracted.
Leaving us as the silhouette against the light of time,
Playing roles in the fates of man.

There is no purpose but perpetuity ,
There is no truth that hides in realms unknown.
We are just balances of energy,
boundless in capabilities
set somewhere on the equilibria between dark and light
And at either end or anywhere in between, just as relevant.
And as valuable to it it also.

Wordsworth’s daffodils for me too.Last year was the first year of my life I haven’t visited the Lake District.So many wonderful memories of childhood,when our girls were young and since.

William Wordsworth’s Ode to Intimations of Immortality is the classic example of Mindfullness

It inspired the movie Splendor in the Grass with Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood.

“What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.” – William Wordsworth

I have many favourites and always prefer narrative poems such as Tennyson's Lady of Shalott but I think if I had to choose it would be The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. It brings tears to my eyes every time. Good old fashioned sentimental romantic tragedy.