Poetry

[Trystan]

Post some. Go on.

Can you guess who wrote the following?


Feelings

Never can I do in peace
That with which my Soul’s obsessed,
Never take things at my ease;
I must press on without rest.

Others only know elation
When things go their peaceful way,
Free with self-congratulation,
Giving thanks each time they pray.

I am caught in endless strife,
Endless ferment, endless dream;
I cannot conform to Life,
Will not travel with the stream.

Heaven I would comprehend,
I would draw the world to me;
Loving, hating, I intend
That my star shine brilliantly.

All things I would strive to win,
All the blessings Gods impart,
Grasp all knowledge deep within,
Plumb the depths of Song and Art.

Worlds I would destroy for ever,
Since I can create no world,
Since my call they notice never,
Coursing dumb in magic whirl.

Dead and dumb, they stare away
At our deeds with scorn up yonder;
We and all our works decay --
Heedless on their ways they wander.

Yet their lot I would share never --
Swept on by the flooding tide,
On through nothing rushing ever,
Fretful in their Pomp and Pride.

Swiftly fall and are destroyed
Halls and bastions in their turn;
As they fly into the Void,
Yet another Empire’s born.

So it rolls from year to year,
From the Nothing to the All,
From the Cradle to the Bier,
Endless Rise and endless Fall.

So the spirits go their way
Till they are consumed outright,
Till their Lords and Masters they
Totally annihilate.

Then let us traverse with daring
That predestined God-drawn ring,
Joy and Sorrow fully sharing
As the scales of Fortune swing.

Therefore let us risk our all,
Never resting, never tiring;
Not in silence dismal, dull,
Without action or desiring;

Not in brooding introspection
Bowed beneath a yoke of pain,
So that yearning, dream and action
Unfulfilled to us remain.

[RedAnarchist]

It was written by Marx. He was a pretty good poet, looking at that.

[Trystan]

He wasn't bad. Not great, but not bad either.

[Brother No. 1]

its Strange that mostly all Communist Revolutionaries were at one time or another Poets.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Marx a poet? Nice! I can't write poetry...

[Random Precision]

Ugh. Let me just say that I'm quite glad the young Marx decided not to further pursue his literary ambitions. For the record, I think he laughed at his poetry later in life as well.

[JohannGE]

The Socialist A.B.C.

When that I was a little tiny boy,
Me daddy said to me,
’The time has come, me bonny bonny bairn
To learn your ABC’.

Now daddy was a Lodge Chairman
In the coalfields of the Tyne,
And that ABC was different
From the Enid Blyton kind.

He sang;

A is for Alienation that made me the man that I am
and B’s for the Boss, who’s a bastard, a bourgeois who don’t give a damn.

C is for Capitalism, the boss’s reactionary creed,
and D’s for Dictatorship, laddie, but the best proletarian breed.

E is for Exploitation, that the workers have suffered so long;
and F is for old Ludwig Feuerbach, the first one to see it was wrong.

G is for all Gerrymanderers, like Lord Muck and Sir Whatsisname,
and H is the Hell that they’ll go to, when the workers have kindled the flame.

I is for Imperialism, and America’s kind is the worst,
and J is for sweet Jingoism, that the Tories all think of first.

K is for good old Keir Hardie, who fought out the working class fight
and L is for Vladimir Lenin, who showed him the Left was all right.

M is of course for Karl Marx, the daddy and the mammy of them all,
and N is for Nationalisation, without it we’d crumble and fall.

O is for Overproduction that capitalist economy brings,
and P is for Private Property, the greatest of all of the sins.

Q is for the Quid pro quo, that we’ll deal out so well and so soon,
when R for Revolution is shouted and the Red Flag becomes the top tune.

S is for sad Stalinism, that gave us all such a bad name,
and T is for Trotsky the hero, who had to take all of the blame.

U’s for the Union of workers, the Union will stand to the end,
and V is for Vodka, yes, Vodka, the one drink that don’t bring the bends.

W is for all Willing workers, and that’s where the memory fades,
for X, Y and Z, me dear daddy said, will be written on the street barricades.

But now that I’m not a little tiny boy,
Me daddy says to me,
’Please try to forget the things I said,
Especially the ABC.’

For daddy’s no longer a Union man,
And he’s had to change his plea.
His alphabet is different now,
Since they made him a Labour MP.

Alex Glasgow (1935 - 2001)

[Angry Young Man]

When I look at your hair and see raindrops fall off it,
I'm reminded that x/v=profit.