Do you feel like sharing lines of poetry that remain in memory?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Trishie
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Trishie

Guest
While having lunch just now, my husband and I were sharing a few remembered lines of poetry.
There are those fragments that always remain part of one.
My husband couldn’t endure “disssecting” poetry however he is not immune to its innate haunting quality.

We had noticed that the first to open on the spray of the flowers on our indoor orchid plant was folding in upon itself, its stem turning white, heralding its death, while its sisters still bloom gloriously. We mused that our appreciation and enjoyment has not been lacking, unlike, we agreed, in the remembered lines from “Elegy written in a Country Churchyard” by the English poet, Thomas Gray:

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen.
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

My husband was the inspired to quore from Act 1 scene 2 of “The Tempest” by Shakespeare, of a father dead beneath the waves, yet beautiful in a different physical way:

“Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange”

I’ve always felt fascinated by a line of Wordsworth … I used to have a thick volume of his poems, but I dont recal which poem
“…like bubbles gliding under ice.”

And some of Wiliam Blake’s poems, frequently social justice poems of the era.
I’ve always loved his apprecation of God’s creation in the first lines of hi " Auguries of Innocence"

“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.”

and from Shakespeare, “Hamlet” Act 1, scene 3,

“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
 
Last edited:
Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone
all her lovely companions are faded and gone.
No flower of her kindred or rosebud is nigh
to reflect back to sorrow, to give sigh for sigh

Oh I will not leave thee, thou lone one
to pine on the stem.
Since the lovely are sleeping, go sleep thou with them.
 
Thank you Dlee. Those words are hauntingly beautiful, made more so by the tender human response.

I have a flower one, but a little violet.
This has always been my poem. Since schooldays.
I discovered and contacted a classmate who had been in my class decades ago and who had been a Brigidine since we all graduated. She said that she remembered me, and she mentioned the poem, the Voilet.
“I remembered you reading it out in school”, she emailed, “and I always felt the poem s you”.
I need people like her to speak for me when I finally face God.

“The Violet” by Jane Taylor

Down in a green and shady bed,
A modest violet grew,
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head,
As if to hide from view.

And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its colours bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there,

Yet there it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there diffused its sweet perfume,
Within the silent shade.

Then let me to the valley go,
This pretty flower to see;
That I may also learn to grow
In sweet humility.

It’s just simple, but it has a kind of gentle inspiration.
 
I’ve always love " The Listeners" by Walter de La Mare

My mother used to read poetry to us after prayers, in her silver-voiced musical way. I just love the music of well-written poetry.
I used to read poems to my sons …and they loved it. PLease read the one about the tree, they’d always ask, one of the poems from World Books

‘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.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
 
Last edited:
The poem my boys most loved me to read to them at night:

#Trees - Poem by Harry Behn

Trees are the kindest things I know,
They do no harm, they simply grow
And spread a shade for sleepy cows,
And gather birds among their bows.

They give us fruit in leaves above,
And wood to make our houses of,
And leaves to burn on Halloween
And in the Spring new buds of green.

They are first when day’s begun
To tough the beams of morning sun,
They are the last to hold the light
When evening changes into night.

And when a moon floats on the sky
They hum a drowsy lullaby
Of sleepy children long ago…
Trees are the kindest things I know.
 
I would recite this to make my sister cry -

Nancy Hanks
by Rosemary Benét

If Nancy Hanks
Came back as a ghost,
Seeking news
Of what she loved most,
She’d ask first
“Where’s my son?
What’s happened to Abe?
What’s he done?”

“Poor little Abe,
Left all alone
Except for Tom,
Who’s a rolling stone;
He was only nine
The year I died.
I remember still
How hard he cried.”

“Scraping along
In a little shack,
With hardly a shirt
To cover his back,
And a prairie wind
To blow him down,
Or pinching times
If he went to town.”

“You wouldn’t know
About my son?
Did he grow tall?
Did he have fun?
Did he learn to read?
Did he get to town?
Do you know his name?
Did he get on?”

I went to a debate with an Abraham Lincoln professional impersonator and we talked about this poem after.
 
I love the peaceful, calming beauty of the poems you recited. So lovely.
 
I love poetry. It is not taught nor revered nearly enough any more. Throughout my engineering career, I have periodically created (let’s face it, lousy) poems to dedicate some project, event or personage. I’ll offer a variant of one of my “engineering” poems. Interesting enough, every one of them had a double meaning.

Here’s one writen perhaps 50 years ago…

Fresh the water flows,
Into silent trees,
Clear the water sweeps,
Knowing it’s always free.

Younger days are gone,
Only these remain,
Until the setting sun,
Drives on spreading eve

Recall those days of yore,
Try to memorize,
Each and every pore,
Diminutive in size.

This variant I had to change a couple words to obscure the second meaning, just in case.

My boss pulled this poem out at a meeting of a bunch of sales reps, maybe 50 or so, read it, and brought down the house. Most of them got the meaning.
 
A lot is asked of a lowly seed aspiring to be a tree
Will you give up all that you are for what you may someday be?
This is the part I forget and dig into the dark earth…something like that 😶
 
@Divine3, I’ve done searches on those two lines without success thus far, as I wanted to find the poem for you.
Have you any recollection of the writer”s name?
 
Thank you. :blossom:I know the poet. Haven’t unearthed the poem yet, but will try later, as my husband has just woken.
I did find, amongst others, these inspiring lines … so true:

“What is uttered from the heart alone,
Will win the hearts of others to your own.”

[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]
 
Last edited:
Casey at the Bat

The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;

The score stood 4 to 2 with but one inning more to play.

And so when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,

A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest

Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;

They thought if only Casey could but get a whack at that—

They’d put up even money now with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,

And the former was a pudding and the latter was a fake;

So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,

For there seemed but little chance of Casey’s getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,

And Blake, the much despised, tore the cover off the ball;

And when the dust had lifted, and men saw what had occurred,

There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from a thousand throats and more there rose a lusty yell;

It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;

It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,

For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey’s manner as he stepped into his place;

There was pride in Casey’s bearing and a smile on Casey’s face.

And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,

No stranger in the crowd could doubt ’twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;

Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.

Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,

Defiance gleamed in Casey’s eye, a sneer curled Casey’s lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,

And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.

Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped—

“That ain’t my style,” said Casey. “Strike one,” the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,

Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.

“Kill him! Kill the umpire!” shouted some one on the stand;

And it’s likely they’d have killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey’s visage shone;

He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;

He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;

But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, “Strike two.”

“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;

But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.

They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,

And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey’s lip, his teeth are clinched in hate;

He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,

And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey’s blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,

And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville—mighty Casey has struck out.
 
Great rhythm in your ballad, “Casey at the bat”’
That style is fun to read, tells the story with vivid imagery and a level of quirkiness.
It reminds me of ballads I enjoy by early Austrain writers like Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, and John O’Brian.

That got me thinkng about my great Uncle Wiliam’s poems as a soldier in world war 1.
He never came home. He died over there in Cairo after surgery following combat injury. The Padre had stopped by and asked how he was. “All right, Father”, he replied, but the Padre nevertheless gave him the last rites. He died before dawn, never having returned home. Yet one of his verses speaks of his longing for home and his clan, our family
.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Lord have mercy on the soul of William, and upon all those servicemen-and-women who never came home
 
Last edited:
O God,
the time is utterly beset.
The cause of Christ lies as in agony.
And yet—never did Christ stride more powerfully through the age,
never was his advent starker,
never his nearness more sensible,
never his duty dearer than now.
So in these flashes of eternity,
between storm and storm,
let us here below pray you:
O God,
You can relume the dark,
You and you alone.*

Translator’s note: Though this poem borrows lines from Cardinal John H Newman, it is not his. It derives rather from Johannes Dierkes’s Gedanken und Gebete im Christuslicht (Paderborn: Junfermann, 1935), but quickly became misattributed to Newman himself.
 
Last edited:
How profound, and timely,
a promise of hope in what seems to be ever-growing darkness
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top