Thought I'd share my favorite poem and ask others what theirs are! I'm not a big poetry fan (mostly because I can't write them - I hate what I don't understand), but I love this poem by Stephen Crane. (Here's a link to it on the
Poetry Foundation site and a link to it on
Wikipedia)
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
I really find this poem beautiful. It's so simple.
A second favorite is this poem by W.B. Yeats. It's one of his most famous. (Here's a link to it on the
Poetry Foundation site and a link to it on
Wikipedia)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
I love the imagery here. "That twenty centuries of stony sleep/Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,/And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?" is possibly the most chilling line I've ever read.
What are your favorite poems? I think mine say a lot about me and am interested to hear yours!
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