I love the brief, controlled poems that make simple, delightful statements - that is why this one appeals, after all, 'brevity is the soul of wit'.

This is a poem by a Kiwi poet, Bub Bridger. I found it in my 'Essential New Zealand Poems' book that I got for my birthday a few years back.

Wild Daisies

If you love me
Bring me flowers
Wild daisies
Clutched in your fist
Like a torch
No orchids or roses
Or carnations
No florist's bow
Just daisies
Steal them
Risk your life for them
Up the sharp hills
In the teeth of the wind
If you love me
Bring me daisies
Wild daisies
That I will cram
In a bright vase
And marvel at

Up Here on the Hill (Mallinson Rendel, 1989)

"You never know when someone is thinking of you with a sponge in their hand."
-~hope~

I have always liked this one:

Birds Of Passage
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Black shadows fall
From the lindens tall,
That lift aloft their massive wall
Against the southern sky;

And from the realms
Of the shadowy elms
A tide-like darkness overwhelm
The fields that round us lie.

But the night is fair,
And everywhere
A warm, soft vapor fills the air,
And distant sounds seem near;

And above, in the light
Of the star-lit night,
Swift birds of passage wing their flight
Through the dewy atmosphere.

I hear the beat
Of their pinions feet,
As from the land of snow and sleet
They seek a southern lea.

I hear the cry
Of their voices high
Falling dreamily through the sky,
But their forms I cannot see.

Oh, say not so!
Those sounds that flow
In murmurs of delight and woe
Come not from wings of birds.

They are the throngs
Of the poet's songs,
Murmurs of pleasures, and pains, and wrongs,
The sound of winged words.

This is the cry
Of souls, that high
On toiling, beating pinions, fly,
Seeking a warmer clime.

From their distant flight
Through realms of light
It falls into our world of night,
With the murmuring sound of rhyme.

"Do all things with love." Og Mandino

This is one of my own favourites - I believe I have said so elsewhere on Quoteland in the past.

Annabel Lee
by Edgar Allan Poe, 1849

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

~~~~Littera scripta manet~~~ the written word remains. (the saying continues; The weak word perishes)

Mrs. M...Annabel Lee has always been a favorite of mine, too. In high school I did a very emotional recitation of it.

Another of my favorites:

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer,
To stop without a farmhouse near,
Between the woods and frozen lake,
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake,
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep,
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

-- Robert Frost

PS Fuzzies, I LOVED the poem about the daisies! Boy, could I relate to that as my signature shows! Thanks for sharing that one!

"If a man should pick me wildflowers, he would hold my heart forever" J.

"I set out on a journey to find me, myself, and I, through the state of confusion to the land of wonder why." J.

[This message was edited by lost butterfly on 05-21-04 at 11:48 PM.]

THE FIRE OF DRIFTWOOD
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1848)

We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.

We spake of many a vanished scene,
Of what we once had thought and said,
Of what had been, and might have been,
And who was changed, and who was dead;

And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;

The first slight swerving of the heart,
That words are powerless to express,
And leave it still unsaid in part,
Or say it in too great excess.

The very tones in which we spake
Had something strange, I could but mark;
The leaves of memory seemed to make
A mournful rustling in the dark.

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.

And, as their splendor flashed and failed,
We thought of wrecks upon the main,
Of ships dismasted, that were hailed
And sent no answer back again.

The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;

Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,
The long-lost ventures of the heart,
That send no answers back again.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

I have read this poem so often that I could nearly recite it by heart. The themes and flavours are one's I identify with closely. That is, the ocean, and especially appreciated by one perceiving it's splendour from just beyond the shores. It's mysterious tales and secrets become part of ALL the senses equally, when I am once or twice removed from the shifting sands and the intense breakers.

The windows, rattling in their frames,
The ocean, roaring up the beach,
The gusty blast, the bickering flames,
All mingled vaguely in our speech;

Until they made themselves a part
Of fancies floating through the brain,

Longfellow weaves the depths of his soul into the experiences of the senses in a way that makes me gasp at the closeness it seems to allow, to lifes very mystery.

We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.

Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.

If you read the words aloud, it is not unlike the sea shanties you would read as a child in books about pirates and their adventures on the high seas. These first two verses immediately bring me into the poem. Cold damp sea breezes envelope my skin. I hear the constant rattle of poorly sealed wooden framed windows. I see a 19th century view of the port town from my distant vantage.

He then goes on the introduced an old and familiar companion. The conversation that he writes, has the feel of two hearts lovingly tying loose ends of what has been a wondeful phase of each's life and their relationship.

We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.


The transition flows as naturally as the day becomes the night. That moment when dark descends and the senses are gradually heightened to all other experiences in the world immediately surrounding them.

And all that fills the hearts of friends,
When first they feel, with secret pain,
Their lives thenceforth have separate ends,
And never can be one again;

How poignant and vivid the portrayal of this moment of 'letting go'. This paragraph throws into my mind a moment when I was 17, when I knew in my heart that I would leave my hometown and would go to live in the city. It was such a painful moment to acknowledge...., knowing that we had outgrown each others companionship.

Oft died the words upon our lips,
As suddenly, from out the fire
Built of the wreck of stranded ships,
The flames would leap and then expire.

The lovely reminiscenses that briefly kindle the passion, and entrust it's memory to an even deeper and untouchable place in the heart. The analogy here is incredibly moving. That the momentry leaping and dying passions, come from the blazing driftwood of stranded ships. It honours the cycles of life in a profound way and in it's way also, assures the soul that endings are merely transitions from an outer experience to a lovingly guarded inner experience that is eternal.

O flames that glowed! O hearts that yearned!
They were indeed too much akin,
The drift-wood fire without that burned,
The thoughts that burned and glowed within.

I am so moved by this poem. It is deeply embedded with the tools of courage and honesty.... and intense reassurance.

Some have called him the father of psychological profiling, because he was one of the first poets to get right inside the mind of evil. I'm not even going to mention the awesome fantasticness of his structure, rhythm and rhyme (whoops, I think I just did ). What gets me is that this poem gets better every time I read it: there's always some new detail which adds a whole new layer of meaning and effect, but I won't rabbit on about them because that'll just kill the poem. Look out for subtle metaphors (esp. how the speaker projects his emotions onto external objects), and the way that the imagery in the first half is flipped on its head in the second half.

The rain set early in to-night,
    The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
    And did its worst to vex the lake:
    I listen'd with heart fit to break.       5
When glided in Porphyria; straight
    She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneel'd and made the cheerless grate
    Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
    Which done, she rose, and from her form   10
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
    And laid her soil'd gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
    And, last, she sat down by my side
    And call'd me. When no voice replied,     15
She put my arm about her waist,
    And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
    And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
    And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,    20
Murmuring how she loved me—she
    Too weak, for all her heart's endeavour,
To set its struggling passion free
    From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
    And give herself to me for ever.          25
But passion sometimes would prevail,
    Nor could to-night's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
    For love of her, and all in vain:
    So, she was come through wind and rain.   30
Be sure I look'd up at her eyes
    Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshipp'd me; surprise
    Made my heart swell, and still it grew
    While I debated what to do.               35
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
    Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
    In one long yellow string I wound
    Three times her little throat around,     40
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
    I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
    I warily oped her lids: again
    Laugh'd the blue eyes without a stain.    45
And I untighten'd next the tress
    About her neck; her cheek once more
Blush'd bright beneath my burning kiss:
    I propp'd her head up as before,
    Only, this time my shoulder bore          50
Her head, which droops upon it still:
    The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
    That all it scorn'd at once is fled,
    And I, its love, am gain'd instead!       55
Porphyria's love: she guess'd not how
    Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
    And all night long we have not stirr'd,
    And yet God has not said a word!          60

Full citation:
Browning, R. ([1836] 1981). "Porphyria's Lover", in John Pettigrew & Thomas J. Collins (eds.), The Poems (2 vols.). Harmondsworth: Penguin. pp. 380-381.

Peace and peas, Mo

Gulta cavat lapidem non vi sed saepe cadendo.
~ Ovid (43 BC - c. 17 AD), Epistoloe Ex Ponto.

This is another poem that resonates at some level for everyone 'across the board' since the metaphore.... laundry ...... is a common issue for all people. (I have a near obsession with it.)

The theme is almost light and whimsical and humourous. By the same token, it speaks to profound experience, the likes of which all aching desires spring.

Richard Wilbur (1921- ) entitles the poem directly from a comment made by St Augustine in his famous 'Confessions'.

LOVE CALLS US TO THE THINGS OF THE WORLD
by Richard Wilbur

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and simple
As false dawn.

Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;

Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessed day,
And cries,

“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven."

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,

"Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance.'

I love all his poetry, but this is one of my favorites.
---

Song
- Seamus Heaney

A rowan like a lipsticked girl.
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.


--------Sanya--------
Stella Splendens
December 22, 1985-March 27, 2003
Rest In Peace
..lost time is gone forever

This is not exactly my favorite but I found it on this website dedicated to this girl who was kidnapped and murdered. I thought it was beautiful and interesting so I am going to post it. Don't know where else to post.

Laura Kate Smither, April 23 (died 1997)

The Smither's priest read this poem at the graveside when Laura was buried Laura on May 10, 1997.


Do not stand by my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am a diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft starshine at night
Do not stand by my grave and cry
I am not there......I did not die.

- Anonymous


My stupid sign-off

quote:

---

[Posted by knockOut]

Do not stand by my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am a diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight
I am the soft starshine at night
Do not stand by my grave and cry
I am not there......I did not die.

---

knockout, thanks for posting the nice poem, a correction however; the Author of your poem is NOT "Anynomyous", the author of your poem "Do not Stand at my Grave and Weep" is Mary Elizabeth Frye (1904-)... here the poem and another of its versions can be found: http://eir.library.utoronto.ca/rpo/display/poem2670.html
KO, I don't mean to be mean or rude -- I just thought I'd provide the correct source, b/c it may help if someone wants to quote it.

I'd quote some fave poems later... I don't think I have many in particular... nice poems above, guys!

----
"The statue of a naked woman. (…)you understand what the figure must be. The human spirit. The heroic in man. The aspiration and the fulfillment, both. Uplifted in its quest – and uplifting by its own essence. Seeking God – and finding itself. Showing that there is no higher reach beyond its own form. …" ~ Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

Thank you my love.


My stupid sign-off

Wrist-wrestling father

for my father

On the maple wood we placed our elbows
and gripped hands, the object to bend
the other's arm to the kitchen table.
We flexed our arms and waited for the sign.

I once shot a wild goose.
I once stood not twenty feet from a buck deer unnoticed.
I've seen a woods full of pink lady slippers.
I once caught a 19-inch trout on a tiny fly.
I've seen the Pacific, I've seen the Atlantic,
I've watched whales in each.

I once heard Lenny Bruce tell jokes.
I've seen Sandy Koufax pitch a baseball.
I've heard Paul Desmond play the saxophone.
I've been to London to see the Queen.
I've had dinner with a Nobel Prize poet.

I wrote a poem once with every word but one just right.
I've fathered two fine sons
and loved the same woman for twenty-five years.

But I've never been more amazed
than when I snapped my father's arm down to the table.

Orval Lund



I read this a while back in a collection of poems. I envy the relationship(father and child) that inspired the awe of the win. What a gift.

The optimist calling on a great pessimist "I believe that when death closes our eyes we shall awaken to a light, of which our sunlight is but the shadow." - Arthur Schopenhauer

O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman.

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is
won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and

daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! My Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up-for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths-for you the shores


a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces

turning:

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse or will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and


done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

________________

i believe that harmonies are colours
every time i paint it sharpens my harmony.
yesterday i tried to paint you,
but the colours weren’t beautiful enough.
~Beyonce Knowles.

________________
-LaLi

Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.


I love this poem because it makes me proud to be a woman! There's so much feeling in it. It just touched me the first time I read it.

Thanks to Ananya for pointing me in the direction of this poem by Rashani.

There is a broken-ness
Out of which comes the unbroken
A shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
And a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
Through which we pass with each loss
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open
to the place inside us
which is unbreakable and whole.
All the while learning to sing.

—Rashani

As to why I love it, really speaks for itself. It speaks of a philosophy of living that takes more courage than could be imagined when life is ok.

Devastation, especially the scale of devastation that our world is currently experiencing, has a way of rooting out our 'bottom line' beliefs about who we are and why we are here.

The first tendency of fear, is to explain away death in a way that brings personal relief and lets us pick up quickly and move on.

The courage is in letting the agony of life have its miserable way with your heart and soul, until it becomes part of the beautiful song that you are.

I love this poem.

Now you see, Annabel Lee has always been my favorite, and now i am going to have to come back at a later time with a 'new' favorite for that once has already been chosen, and more than once...lol The way the world works i tell ya, i find it amusing...lol I shall be back..lmao

~*GurlGoneWrong*~

Robert Frost has to be one of my all time favorites.

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; 5

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.

I feel as if I have always taken the road less traveled. I march to the tune of that different drummer.

Steve
-----


Who would know the carnal mistress?
That has burned her brand into my soul.

Poetry
- Pablo Neruda

And it was at that age ... Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names,
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire,
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating plantations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesimal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke loose on the wind.


--------Sanya--------
Stella Splendens
December 22, 1985-March 27, 2003
Rest In Peace
..lost time is gone forever

It isn't really a poem, it's a Gaelic prayer.
In the wild scottish highlands, people got lost often, so they would recite this prayer to ask for protection from the faes and also to comfort them. Not sure who the author was, centuries old this one.

I am weary, and I a stranger,
Lead me to the land of angels,
Be my eyes in time of darkness,
Be my shield against hosts of faery,
Be my wings till I find my home.


It's one of my favourites because it soothes me emotionally.

If only I knew this prayer when I was young and prone to wandering away from Mom in shopping malls.



"The tough thing about following your heart is what people forget to mention. That sometimes your heart takes you to places that you shouldn't be, places that are as scary as they are exciting and as dangerous as they are alluring. And sometimes your heart takes you to places that can never lead to a happy ending. And that's not even the difficult part. The difficult part is when you follow your heart, you leave normal, you go into the unknown. And once you do, you can never go back."

-Liz Parker

I saw the translation of Nerudas sonnet, and I think that there were some misplaced alterations in the form of the poem itself. Here is my translation:


I don’t love you as if you were a salted rose, topaz
Or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you like certain dark things love each other,
Secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you like the plant that never blooms and
Carries hidden within it, the light of those flowers,
And thanks to your love the tight fragrance
that rose from the earth lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you this way because I know no other,

Than this way where I does not exist, nor you,
So closely that your hand on my chest is mine,
So closely that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

"I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas" -Eliot