When I'm calling Yoooouuuouuouuuouooouuuuoouuu!

[rabidsamfan]

I'm bored, frustrated and lonely.


*dramatic sigh*

So, in the endless search for amusements, I offer a challenge. Quote me a line or two of one of your favorite poems, and I'll either try to identify the poem/poet, or offer a poem back on along similar lines that I like too.

Comments

[trilliah.livejournal.com]

T'was brillig, and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe,
all mimsy were the borogroves;
and the mome raths outgabe.


Up the airy mountain
down the rushing glen
We dare not go a-hunting
For fear of little men

Ah, distinctly, I remember it was in the bleak December
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly had I sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow, sorrow for the lost Lenore
For the rare and radient maiden whom the angels name "Lenore"
Nameless here forevermore

[grapeofdeath.livejournal.com]

Love all of those. :)

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Ah, but these are easy. "Jabberwocky," of course, and "The Fairies", and "The Raven"...

Isn't it nice to know some things by heart?

"The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all..."

[kelllie.livejournal.com]

How fun... try this:

rain or hail
sam done
the best he kin
till they digged his hole

:sam was a man

stout as a bridge
rugged as a bear
slickern a weazel
how be you

(sun or snow)

gone into what
like all them kings
you read about
and on him sings

a whippoorwill;

heart was big
as the world aint square
with room for the devil
and his angels too

yes, sir

what may be better
or what may be worse
and what may be clover
clover clover

(nobody'll know)

sam was a man
grinned his grin
done his chores
laid him down.

Sleep well

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

..... hmmm... is that e.e. cummings?

I offer Don Marquis:

listen to me there have
been some doings here since last
i wrote there has been a battle
behind that rusty typewriter cover
in the corner
you remember freddy the rat well
freddy is no more but
he died game the other
day a stranger with a lot of
legs came into our
little circle a tough looking kid
he was with a bad eye

...

[melandry.livejournal.com]

Hello! A chance to quote poetry will always drag me out fo 'lurk' mode.

I think I am in love with A.E. Housman,
Which puts me in a worse-than-usual fix;
No woman ever stood a chance with Housman,
And he's been dead since 1936.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

LoL! I have no idea who this is, but I'm madly in love with it and will go searching.

In return I offer

The bride, white of hair, is stooped over her cane
Her faltering footsteps need guiding.
While down the church aisle, with wan toothless smile,
The groom in a wheelchair comes riding.
And who is this elderly couple you ask?
You’ll find, when you’ve closely explored it,
That here is that rare, most conservative pair,
Who waited ‘til they could afford it.


Which is probably Richard Armour, but may be Ogden Nash... I shall have to search out the reference again.

[grapeofdeath.livejournal.com]

Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Found it! W. H. Auden, "The Unknown Citizen".

I offer back:

And he was rich -- yes richer than a king --
And admirably schooled in every kind of grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

[grapeofdeath.livejournal.com]

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,
They have to take you in.”

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Death of the Hired Hand... At least I think that's the title...

[grapeofdeath.livejournal.com]

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I think it's just called Birches... I recall a line about being a "Swinger of Birches" but whether it's Frost or Whitman I can't remember. Walt, I think.

How about one more...

[grapeofdeath.livejournal.com]

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

Re: How about one more...

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

T.S. Eliot. "The Hollow Men".

I had a teacher who quite loved Eliot. I remember him mooning over "In the room the women come and go, speaking of Michelangelo" and the rest of the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I forgave him that, because he also taught me to love Tristram Shandy.

[pipspebble.livejournal.com]

You're on. In keeping with your mood:

I see the lights of the village gleam through the rain and the mist, and a feeling of sadness comes o'er me that my soul cannot resist.

;-)

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Had to go hunting, but I found it. I like the last stanzas.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.


Longfellow, "The Day is Done."


Did you know that if you get your hands on the actual "Hiawatha" that "By the shores of Gitchee Gumee" doesn't show up till something like page forty?

[lame-pegasus.livejournal.com]

This one (very fitting or a hopeless romantic like me):

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Ah, Byron. It wasn't just the shirts that were romantic.

But of all the romantic poems in the English language, my favorite is very old and very short.

O Western Wind, when wilt thou blow
That the small rain down can rain?
Christ, that my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

[unhobbityhobbit.livejournal.com]

A nice gloomy one to start with:

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est,
Pro patria mori.

Then a slightly cheerier one:

The insignificant twit bird,
Is very seldom seen or heard.

I would quote more of the second one, but I'd end up quoting the whole thing.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

The first is Wilfred Owen. I have no clue as to the second, as google has failed me -- I only find the quatrain as someone's sig.

In return I offer:

There walk, as yet, no ghosts of lovers in Canadian lanes. This is the essence of the grey freshness and brisk melancholy of this land. And for all the charm of those qualities, it is also the secret of a European's discontent. For it is possible, at a pinch, to do without gods. But one misses the dead.

Not poetry, although there may be a version that is. I read it first in a book called "To Serve Them All My Days" and was reminded of it by "Jane of Lantern Hill" recently.

War poetry...

[oliviaramirez]

Trois mille six cents fois par heure, la Seconde
Chuchote : Souviens-toi ! - Rapide, avec sa voix
D'insecte , Maintenant dit : je suis Autrefois,
Et j'ai pompé ta vie avec ma trompe immonde !

Devourer of thy parent, now thy unutterable torment renews.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Going back to tag things and I realize that I never did identify this poem. Will you enlighten me at this late date?

[elendiari22.livejournal.com]

"She walks in beauty, like the night/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies".

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

*grin* That's twice for that poem!

But it is lovely. Byron's best, if you ask me.

[dreamflower]

Here are a few of my own faves:

I trow they did not part in scorn:
Lovers long betrothed were they;
They two will wed the morrow morn;
God's blessing on the day!
"He does not love me for my birth
Nor for my lands so broad and fair;
He loves me for my own true worth,

Her name was Dilliki Dolliki Dinah;
Neice she was to the Empress of China
Fair she was as a morning in May
When Hy Kokolorum stole her away

I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

And this one should be easy:

Year still after year flows
Down the Seven Rivers;
Cloud passes, sunlight glows,
Reed and willow quivers...

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

The purple cow is Burgess, I think. And the last sounds like Tom Bombadil, although I won't cheat and go looking.

The first is faintly familiar, the second reminds me of the story of "Master of all Masters."

I offer in return:

So she went into the garden
to cut a cabbage-leaf
to make an apple-pie;
and at the same time
a great she-bear, coming down the street,
pops its head into the shop.
What! no soap?
So he died,
and she very imprudently married the Barber: ....

[mariole.livejournal.com]

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone

and


It is very far north, we admit, to have brought the peach.
What comes over a man, is it soul or mind---
That to no limits and bounds he can stay confined?
You would say his ambition was to extend the reach
Clear to the Artic of every living kind.
Why is his nature forever so hard to teach
That though there is no fixed line between wrong and right,
There are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed?
There is nothing much we can do for the tree tonight,
But we can’t help feeling more than a little betrayed
That the northwest wind should rise to such a height
Just when the cold went down so many below.
The tree has no leaves and may never have them again.
We must wait till some months hence in the spring to know.
But if it is destined never again to grow,
It can blame this limitless trait in the hearts of men.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I'm growing tired now, but I'll look at these in the morning -- or the middle of the night when I wake up from the nap that's growing on me! But they're lovely.

[belleferret.livejournal.com]

This is an easy one, but very Frodo/Sammish nonetheless

A woman's face with Nature's own hand painted
Hast thou, the master-mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue, all 'hues' in his controlling,
Much steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love and thy love's use their treasure.

[angharad001.livejournal.com]

"I met a traveller from an antique land"

might be misquoted - from memory . . . tis one of my best favourite things in the world

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Yay, poetry. :) Three bits off the top of my head, and I'm trying to restrain myself to poets who haven't been quoted yet.

She is neither pink nor pale, and she will never all be mine,

But Himalaya heav'nward rising, sheer and vast, sheer and vast,
In a million summits bedded on the last world's past,

and Spread thy close curtain, Love-performing Night which is not strictly from a poem.

[kimbys-place.livejournal.com]

they'll banish us, you know!

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

ribbit ribbit

Hooray for Emily Dickinson!

Some are Boojums--

[gayalondiel.livejournal.com]

*wants to play*

And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!"

There are other eyes watching her coming,and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Way way way late I am going through old journals and realize I never looked for this. I have now, and Henry Van Dyke has been added to my "read this person" list.