Favourite lines of poetry/verse?

[Hamish McBagpipe]

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

-- Randall Jarrell

Almost too obvious, but good imagery, I memorized this one for some grade 6 or 7 thing.

[imported_anacardo]

Damn you for getting to Ball Turret Gunner first.

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd Heaven with their tears,
Did He smile, His work to see?
Did He who made the Lamb make thee?

[Voltron87]

Can I hit in the morning
without givin you half of my dough
and even worse if I was broke would you want me?
if i couldn't get you finer things
like all of them diamond rings bitches kill for
would you still roll?
if we couldn't see the sun risin off the shore of thailand
would you ride then, if I wasn't droppin?
if I wasn't ah, eight figure nigga by the name of Jigga
would you come around me or would you clown me?
if i couldn't flow futuristic would ya
put your two lips on my wood and kiss it - could ya
see yourself with a nigga workin harder than 9 to 5
contend with six, two jobs to survive, or
do you need a balla, so you can shop and tear the mall up?
brag, tell your friends what i bought ya
if you couldn't see yourself with a nigga when his dough is low
baby girl, if this is so, yo..


can I get a [censored] you
to these bitches from all of my niggaz
who don't love hoes, they get no dough

[peachy]

POE

All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream...


will forever and always be my favorite...but right behind it is....

CARROLL

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”


i love so many poems...but im also soooo picky wish i had room to list them all without boring everyone [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

POE is by far one of my favorite writers by far though

[imported_anacardo]

SNICKER-SNACK, BITCHES

[peachy]

[ QUOTE ]
SNICKER-SNACK, BITCHES

[/ QUOTE ]

hahah i had this poem memorized when i was a child...my mom would always say it to me from memory and when i learn it we would take turns saying it and leave off and the other would pick up etc etc

[Blarg]

Forgive the weirdnesses with punctuation I put in to keep the poems as they are.

High Windows
Philip Larkin

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fu*cking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

by Philip Larkin

"The sun-comprehending glass" is one of my favorite things I've ever read in the English Language.

This Be The Verse

They fu_ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fu_cked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

(1971), Philip Larkin

I'm also a big fan of Wallace Stevens and T.S. Elliot.

"It is part of his poems' strength to speak directly to most people who come across them. He makes each of us feel that he is 'our' poet, in a way that Eliot, for instance, does not - and each of us creates a highly personal version of his character to accompany his work. Pointing out that he was contradictory doesn't pose much of a threat to these versions. It's more disturbing, however, to say that many of Larkin's inner conflicts evolved in ways his work can only hint at. When he found his authentic voice in the late 1940s, the beautiful flowers of his poetry were already growing on long stalks out of pretty dismal ground.... He understood that the relationship he had created between 'high' art and 'ordinary' existence was a remarkable one, which deserved to be made public."

(Andrew Motion)

[orange]

The Destruction of Sennacherib- Lord Byron

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"

[diebitter]

Kay, this thread is a good un, lacking the usual witnit comments etc, and some admirable work been sited. Poe and Kipling are wonderful, and all the quotes of real poetry so far have been spot on.

So here's my very favourite as mentioned in the OP, by Byron:

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.