That poetry meme:

[mary_j_59]

I doubt I can limit it to one. Here are three poems that I love:


Spring and Fall
(to a young child)

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older,
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie.
And yet you will weep, and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no, nor mind expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed.
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Death

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision on
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone -
Man has created death.

(W.B Yeats)

Song for Nobody

A yellow flower
(light and spirit)
Sings by itself
For nobody.

A golden spirit
(Light and emptiness)
Sings without a word
By itself.

Let no one touch this gentle sun
In whose dark eye
Someone is awake.

(No light, no name, no gold, no color
and no thought:
O, wide awake!)

A golden heaven
sings by itself
A song to nobody.

(Thomas Merton.)

Comments

[litlover12.livejournal.com]

So the idea is just that you reprint a poem you love?

(That last one is so beautiful!)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes - and you only need to post one, though it seems a lot of us are posting three. ) I'm so glad you like the Merton! My favorite of his, "In Silence", is further down on my blog, with a link to a discussion of it.

[exhpfan.livejournal.com]

I hope it is OK to just post my favorite poem here. At my father's funeral the bells of the church started to toll. My mother walked to the microphone and quoted this poem by memory. Since then it has been my favorite poem and comes to mind everytime the bells toll:

JOY IN DEATH
BY
Emily Dickinson



If tolling bell I ask the cause.
'A soul has gone to God,'
I'm answered in a lonesome tone;
Is heaven then so sad?

That bells should joyful ring to tell
A soul had gone to heaven,
Would seem to me the proper way
A good news should be given.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Sure you can! I like this very much, and didn't know it. Thanks. )